Ikram Sehgal

The official World Economic Forum (WEF) handout confirmed that over 2,000 leaders, including the heads of 1,000 of the world’s largest and most successful businesses, heads of state or government, heads of the world’s foremost international organisations alongside leaders from civil society, labour unions, the world’s major religions, civil society, labour unions, media and the […]

The easy availability of soft targets for terrorists to commit atrocities is the result of mere lip service being paid to reorganising and conditioning the civilian law enforcement agencies (LEAs) for conducting asymmetric warfare. In the immediate aftermath of a deadly event, our immediate response is quite good. As time passes, however, this translates into […]

Buttressed by the deep rooted anger of the people of Pakistan and the seething fury of the Pakistan army, visibly on display after the attack on Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar by the body language of General Raheel Sharif, Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif moved quickly to harness mass popular will by taking concerted […]

An old adage says that you can hope for the best but plan for the worst. With the PML-N not budging on their demands, the PTI’s ongoing saga is following that script. Having proved his party’s resilience by the long-drawn dharna (sit-in) at Islamabad’s D-Chowk, Imran Khan set out to prove that the PTI’s protest […]

To his credit, Mian Nawaz Sharif opened up the economy during his first stint as Prime Minister (PM). He has exceptional ability as an entrepreneur to do much more for the country. Many, including myself for a number of years, had vested very high hopes in him. Unfortunately, instead of opposing Zardari tooth and nail, […]

Set to annunciate a revised National Aviation Policy (NAP, 2014) through the ministry of aviation, the vision of the government is to ensure “a safe, secure, dynamic, fair, innovative and customer-centric approach to transform the aviation industry into a potent catalyst for the socio-economic well-being of the nation.” The objectives are: (1) comply with the […]

History was in the making on the afternoon of Friday, November 14, 2014. Throwing aside diplomatic norms, Ashraf Ghani, on his first state visit to Pakistan after being sworn in as Afghanistan’s president, visited the GHQ immediately after landing in Islamabad. Former Pakistani Ambassador to Kabul Rustam Shah Mohmand commented that a foreign head of […]

Success creates its own problems. A gross misperception created by the outstanding Operation Zarb-e-Azb is that terrorism has been dealt a decisive blow and we have little to worry about. Nothing can be further from the truth! The loss of training camps, hideouts, military dumps, ammunition and bomb manufacturing factories, medical centres, etc, has been […]

The first day of a recent meeting of the Partnership Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) of the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) discussed, among other subjects, ‘Communicating the anti-corruption message’, ‘High priority compliance challenges’ and ‘Collective action’, and, on the next day, ‘Global threats and trends’ and ‘National and regional perspectives on anti-corruption’ (my contribution as […]

Most politicians can be economical with the truth even at the best times. With Khursheed Shah critiquing in the joint session of parliament the prime minister buckling under pressure from the army and the resultant threat to democracy, Mian sahib crossed the failsafe line that an awakened public is now increasingly not likely to tolerate […]