1st November 2021: Demonstrators gather by the River Clyde holding placards with the phrase “No More Blah Blah” and indigenous leaders march the centre of Glasgow in traditional garb. 6th November 2021: Activists on the King George V bridge block the main route connecting Glasgow city centre to the south side of the city. Using […]
Avoiding a state of surrender
Baton wielding protesters, emotionally charged crowds, struggling law enforcement agencies, scared and inconvenienced normal-day individuals, impending signs of causalities, welcome to another saga of the surrender of the state to the group it had recently declared a terrorist outfit! Lest we forget, this is not the first time. Numerous governments in the past have faced […]
The Afghanistan Debacle: Marco Rubio vs Reality
To say that America’s Afghanistan debacle has put the cat amongst the pigeons would be a grave understatement! For now, the area has become a hotbed of more uncertainty and instability. An abrupt and poorly planned end to more than 20 years of occupation will do that to a region. On cue, recriminations have started […]
AUKUS: Foretelling of a New Global Order?
AUKUS seems like a name of a secret organisation from a Robert Ludlum or an Ian Fleming novel. Cold War parallels notwithstanding, it does seem to hark back to an era of intrigue and espionage. This is of course the new working group recently announced by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, UK Prime Minister Boris […]
Policy of Intervention: COVID-19, Central Banks and Asset Bubbles
Using the US and UK as reference points, consider the numbers after the financial crisis 2007 – 2008. US: a loss of $8 trillion, borne by the stock market and a 10 per cent peak of unemployment in 2009. $9.8 trillion were lost by Americans because of plummeting house values and a decrease in the […]
Policy of Intervention: COVID-19, Central Banks and Asset Bubbles
No one could imagine the past four weeks to have happened in Afghanistan. The revival of the Taliban; the US and NATO scrambling for an exit; the Kabul Government in mental paralysis; the Afghan National Army in total disarray and the poor common Afghan in utter shock; unable to grasp what is to unfold. This […]
Security Briefings That Could Have Been
Briefings by the military high command to parliamentarians have become a regular feature in Pakistan. So, the recently-concluded national security meeting on July 1, 2021, shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. If media reports are to be believed, the topics under discussion were Kashmir, Afghanistan and internal security. Going by the recent chain […]
Who will protect our children?
Even by Pakistan’s highly desensitised standards, the recent case of underage sexual abuse takes the sorry tale of sordid events to a new low. The impact may not be profound – even though it ought to be — when you hear or read about such incidents. However, the existence of a sickening video makes it […]
Doctrine, policy and strategy
The aftermath of the 200-08 financial crisis saw the word “leverage” become a popular addition to commonly-used English words. Referring to the use of debt or borrowed funds to amplify returns on investment, leverage, simply put, makes a sweet deal sweeter. Soon, it became one of the prime catalysts of the impending turmoil that engulfed […]
Economic policy — now and in the near future
Rapid technological advancements, incessant globalisation and ceaseless market forces had already made economic policy making a difficult task and then along came COVID-19 to put a further spanner in the works. Generally economic policy is an overarching vision for two underlying and crucial policies; i.e. monetary policy and fiscal policy. While both have different activities […]