S M Hali

June 9, 2017 will be marked as a red letter day for both Pakistan and India as they assumed the mantle of full membership of the powerful Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana. This is the first time that the SCO has expanded its tight knit organization, a decade and half after its […]

Since the drawdown of its forces from Afghanistan in December 2015, US policy on the war ravaged country appears unclear. In his final months in office, Obama had left it to Trump and his administration to find a method in the madness and redraw an Afghan policy. US state and defence secretaries have said that […]

Indian secret service Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)’s senior operative Commander Kulbhoshan Jadhav has been sentenced to death by a Field General Court Martial of Pakistan Army on charges of spying for India and running a terror network. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has stayed the sentence till its hearing is completed. Indian media […]

Nearly two decades after Pakistan crossed the nuclear threshold on a day that has since been commemorated as Yaum-e-Takbir, it may be appropriate to ask whether Pakistan is more secure today than it was in the past. India had embarked upon its military nuclear programme in 1974 with its first nuclear test at Pokhran. Pakistan […]

  In this scribe’s formative years, Kremlin, Red Square and Leningrad were shrouded in mystery. Owing to the Iron Curtain, visiting these places was out of question.  Finally, an invitation to attend the VI Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS) provided the perfect opportunity to visit these places. MCIS addresses the most pressing problems of […]

During a recent visit to Xinjiang, it was learnt that the Chinese government had taken a number of concrete steps to provide mental peace to its residents. It has been reported that some members of the ethnic community felt deprived and had resorted to violence bordering on insurgency. Whereas the administration has not denied the […]

  The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, commonly known as Xinjiang, is China’s largest province and is located in the northwest. With an area of 1.66 million square kilometers bordering eight countries – Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India – the province is indeed a bridgehead in Eurasia. With thousands of years of […]

The recent spate of events between Pakistan and India of verbally assaulting each other and levying preposterous charges, i.e. the terror boat drama, a spy pigeon and shooting down a surveillance drone, is reminiscent of the Cold War era between the US and erstwhile USSR. A famous, amusing metaphor for that era is the cartoon […]

July 10, 2015 will be marked as a red-letter day for both Pakistan and India because their submission for full membership into the powerful Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was approved by the Council of Heads of State at the SCO’s 15th summit, in the Russian town of Ufa. This is the first time that the […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s April 2015 visit to Pakistan elevated Sino-Pak ties from ‘all-weather friendship’ to ‘all-weather strategic cooperative partnership to last from generation to generation’. This major progression was manifested in the signing of multi-billion dollars’ development projects in Pakistan including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) during the presidential visit. The government of Pakistan, […]