Ikram Sehgal

Going into battle without adequate training or being properly equipped is bad enough but not having sufficient force, without proper motivation and/or not having battle-tested senior commanders and down the line, is asking for trouble. Not surprising that the unmitigated military disasters, the 2004 operations in FATA and the subsequent 2007 one in Swat, were […]

Anywhere in the world, both tactical and strategic nuclear forces need to have a central command channel to ensure that nuclear forces that necessarily remain on a knife’s edge do not inadvertently cause a catastrophe triggered by an accident. In order to have absolute control over our nuclear deterrent, an Air Force Strategic Command was […]

The fifth Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process Summit jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on December 9, 2015 in Islamabad counts as a major foreign policy success. Given the present situation in the Middle East and the connected problems in adjoining regions this timely initiative to bring focus firmly […]

Falsely accusing an employee of burning pages of the holy Quran, a violent mob consisting of people from adjoining villages attacked the Pakistan Chipboard Factory in Jhelum on November 20, 2015. Sent by Chief Minister (CM) Shahbaz Sharif when the riots broke out, MPA Mehar Muhammad Fiaz claims most men in the mob were drunk […]

Among the myriad number of major problems facing the coalition in Afghanistan (and in Iraq) is infidelity: soldiers and policemen trained by US and NATO forces more often than not turning their guns many times on their own instructors and/or fellow soldiers. While some of the time it has been a spur of the moment […]

The National Action Plan (NAP) was crafted on an emergency basis by a panel of experts after the December 2014 terrorist attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar. NAP’s working mechanism comprises a three-tier structure consisting of a federal apex committee chaired by the Prime Minister (PM), the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) […]

The majority of the corruption cases the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) tackled when it first came into being in October 1999 pertained to a misdemeanour in the nationalised financial institutions. About 80 percent of the cases involved loans and/or advances on flimsy grounds and against very little (or mostly fake) collateral. NAB’s first major successes […]

For those graduating from the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), the country’s primary military institution is “hallowed ground”. I entered its steel gates on May 14, 1964 as one of the 110 Gentlemen Cadets (GCs) selected for the 34th PMA Long Course. As an army aviation helicopter pilot I flew to the PMA several times in […]

Kunduz has starkly shown that Afghanistan may be in the process of a meltdown, the virtual dissolution of which has been achieved at great cost and effort by a US-led coalition over a dozen years. This disintegration would be a dangerous threat to the stability of the region and its security. Therefore, US President Obama’s […]

Despite their incumbency and having overspent multiple times over for many flagship projects in the city (the Metro bus), the PML-N managed a Houdini act in Lahore’s NA-122 constituency with Ayaz Sadiq prevailing over Aleem Khan by only about 4,000 votes in the over 150,000 cast. The PML-N threw their entire incumbent might behind Ayaz […]