By Admiral Afzal Tahir I claim political neutrality and ask you to consider this. The political developments in Pakistan over the last two years cast a profound impact on the recent developments in our region. Change of political government post 2018 elections must be considered a godsend. Pakistan had been continuously losing diplomatic ground over the ten-year period of PPP and PMLN governments. All the c ...

Rejoinder to Praveen Swami by Asif Haroon Raja Praveen Swami in his apparently innocent and well-meaning article titled ‘The Time might have come for India and Pakistan to talk’ has made designed distortions in the recent past history of the two archrivals. Messages have been conveyed in a subtle way under the guise of revival of talks and friendship. The motivation behind writing this article is the floati ...

By Asif Haroon Raja The year 2020 upon which we had pinned high hopes for better days ahead is proving to be another difficult year. The whole world is in a flux and hardly any corner is safe from troubles. End of super power rivalry and the 45 years Cold War should have made the unipolar world under the USA peaceful. Instead, initiation of destructive global war on terror by the crusaders after 9/11 to mak ...

By Sajjad Shaukat The term of terrorism has been so confused that there is no exact definition of terrorism. The problem is confined to political terrorism which occurs when a group, whether holding governmental office or outside government, resolves to pursue a set of ideological objectives by methods which not only subvert or ignore the requirements of domestic and international law, but also rely for the ...

By Sajjad Shaukat The former Soviet Union which had subjugated the minorities and ethnic groups in various provinces and regions through its military, disintegrated in 1991. Even its nuclear weapons could not save its collapse. One of the important causes of the disintegration of the former Russian Empire was that its greater defence expenditure exceeded to the maximum, resulting into economic crises inside ...

Asif Haroon Raja Plethora of problems loaded by India India reluctantly accepted the Partition plan as a stopgap arrangement under the fond hope that it will not survive beyond six months. To make it happen, Bengal and Punjab were bifurcated, Pakistan’s share of finances and other assets withheld, nine million of destitute refugees forced to migrate from East Punjab and Central India. Soon after the creatio ...

By Sajjad Shaukat Every year, Kashmiris living on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) and Pakistan, including rest of the world celebrate July 19 as the Day of Kashmir’s Accession to Pakistan, as on this very day in 1947, the historical resolution was adopted by the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference in Abi Guzar, Srinagar during an emergency convention at the residence of Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim K ...

By Sajjad Shaukat Every year, Kashmir Martyrs’ Day (Youme Shudaha-e-Kashmir) is commemorated on July 13 in the memory of 21 Kashmiris who were martyred outside Srinagar Central Jail by the troops of Dogra Maharaja on July 13, 1931. This very day is observed on both sides of the Line of Control and all over the world by the Kashmiris to pay homage to these Kashmiris. However, the history of Dogra rule (1846- ...