Judicial competence on February 1, 2018On 20 April 2017, when the Panama case judgement was issued with one of the two dissenting remarks written by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, who borrowed a quote from The Godfather, ‘Behind every great fortune, there is a crime,’ the supporters of the judgment cited the remarks-making practice prevalent in the Supreme Court (SC) of […]
Judicial activism on January 25, 2018Judicial activism is back with a vengeance, and this time it is being spearheaded by Justice Saqib Nisar, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP). Certain questions pique one’s mind about this scenario. For instance, Justice Saqib Nisar assumed the charge of the Supreme Court on December 31, 2016, but he has been found active for the […]
Lahore’s Wednesday show on January 21, 2018The frequent but furtive Toronto meetings reified into the London plan have come a long way since August 2014.The plan was made with the aim of bringing the incumbent government under pressure to spare General Pervez Musharraf the clutches of Article 6. The recourse adopted was to undermine the legitimacy of the incumbent government – […]
Pakistan’s foreign policy orientation — VII on January 17, 2018The day Pakistan allowed the US to fly its missions from its territory to spy on the former Soviet Union, Pakistan actually decided to tolerate the breach of its own sovereignty. Sometime after July 1956, Pakistan allowed its territory to be used to violate the sovereignty of the Soviet Union, till May 1, 1960, when […]
Pakistan’s foreign policy orientation — VI on January 8, 2018The bee-in-the-bonnet tyranny spares none. One word Pakistan has always cherished is ‘parity’ or equality used in the context of parity with India. While the partition bequeathed this word to Pakistan, the Cold War (1947-1991) congealed it. Like Indian Muslims demanding parity with Hindu majority in politics, Pakistan claimed and demanded parity with India in […]
Pakistan’s foreign policy orientation — V on January 1, 2018It was mother nature against which a state was formed to protect its citizens. Another state replacing nature led to the emergence of an interstate prototype — friendly or unfriendly — in the world. This is the point where Niccolo Machiavelli made his mark by describing interstate relations driven by national interest. Every state was […]
Pakistan’s foreign policy orientation — IV on December 26, 2017Aristotle defined man as a rational animal using the conscious mind. Sigmund Freud however, redefined man as a product of the subconscious mind: man behaves and acts as per the dictates of the apprehensions and assumptions imbibed through his subconscious mind. The subconscious explains the reason for rational people living irrational lives. The same is […]
Pakistan’s foreign policy orientation — III on December 19, 2017An Austrian-born American diplomat, Robert Strausz-Hupe (1903-2002) coined the term ‘geo-politics’ (or, Wehrgeopolitik, in German) as mentioned in his book, “Geo-politics: the struggle for peace and power” published in 1942. An American political scientist, Frederick L. Schuman, used the term ‘geo-strategy’ in his article “Let us learn our Geopolitics” also published in 1942. Later on, […]
Pakistan’s foreign policy orientation — II on December 11, 2017Pakistan remains unable to adjust itself to post-Cold War (1947-1991) realities. One of the impediments is the Cold War machinery laden with Cold War terminologies, thoughts and tactics in both diplomatic and defence spheres. One of the fixations of Pakistan is with the Cold War term ‘containment.’ The Cold War brought along the policy of […]
Pakistan’s foreign policy orientation on December 4, 2017 In 1991, Pakistan emerged successful from the Cold War (1947-1991) but with an over-sized and over-trained Cold-War machinery in both diplomatic and defence realms. Pakistan is still struggling with the apt utility of this machinery loaded with Cold War terminologies, thoughts and tactics. Perhaps, Pakistan thinks that the Cold War era is continuing and […]