Coronavirus: the need to be proactive on January 26, 2020Diseases have had an incredibly significant role in shaping our history. When Europeans invaded the Incas and Aztecs in sixteenth century smallpox, measles were as much a potent weapon (in some cases even more) as their horses and relatively advanced technology against the settlers of the New World. Yersina Pestis, the Plague (the name Black […]
World in 2020 on January 1, 2020We enter 2020 with both the global diplomatic and economic fronts dangerously engaged and completely charged. Megalomaniacs stoking fears of a military confrontation by tweaking geopolitics, protectionists bent on raising a tariff wall and drawing us near to a recession, and technology ever dynamic with its uncanny ascendancy creepingin every facet of life. The Middle […]
Clearing misconceptions regarding Chinese economy on November 20, 2019Cheaters, copycats, and now thieves-that of intellectual property-and spies, these are a few key words that a normal person would conjure up in order to describe China and its economy. The current economic scrum between the US and China, however, has highlighted the resilience of companies like Huawei that have withstood the bans and blacklisting […]
Kashmir, war and diplomacy — India will concede on August 18, 2019It has been termed as one of the worst blackouts with even one way communication such as TVs being blocked. India’s action has drawn calumny from The Guardian, The Economist, Washington Post, New York Times and all other mainstream media outlets. Reporters from international media agencies have witnessed the sorry state of affairs and human […]
Youth, awareness and SDG’s on July 10, 2019Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs hereinafter), a list of 17 overarching sub-goals that ensure “call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.” It provides a generic guideline for countries across the world in order to render the globe more inclusive, equal and sustainable. In this regard […]
Shifting sands of new Silk Roads on May 22, 2019Eurasia has always been a dynamic polity characterised by complex alliances, multiple religions and many identities enclosed in a mesh of mountains and rivers surrounded by seas leading into the oceans. In his new book, The New Silk Roads, Peter Frankopan provides an engaging, sweeping and profound overview of how the countries of the West […]
An East Asian development model for Pakistan on April 21, 2019Pakistan is finally close to an agreement with the International Monetory Fund. The writing had been on the wall for long as interest rates climbed, utilities became expensive and inflation soared. The voices of the people have been shifting and growing disgruntled. There is an argument, however, for giving the incumbents some latitude given the […]
China: Preparing for the Future on March 29, 2019The times are changing fast and countries need to change faster for their survival. The future battlegrounds would be fields like Artificial Intelligence and other branches of Science that’d be deciding, more than ever, a countries’ political future and economic prowess. China, realizing this has already started to act: increasing the size of spending on […]
Idea of a woman on March 11, 2019The idea of a woman, particularly here in Pakistan, is a product of misplaced religious notions cemented by self-concocted social and cultural norms. Albeit, I am a man myself, I feel no shame in saying that a dominant percentage of my kind is deluded in regards to their concept of what a woman is, what […]
China — why and how it is different on February 23, 2019China, Zhongguo (Central States or Middle Kingdom), was and remain one of the oldest civilization of the world. A country that has performed many miracles, one of them lifting 800 million people out of poverty (almost 4 times the total population of Pakistan), is now en-route to achieving breakthroughs in the field of Artificial Intelligence, […]