By Sajjad Shaukat In the past, the US-led Western countries which spent billions of dollars in Afghanistan held a series of international conferences in order to bring stability and peace in that war-torn country with the aim of starting withdrawal of NATO forces in 2013, which had to be completed in 2014. They had agreed that without Islamabad’s help, stability cannot be achieved there. Hence, these countr ...

By Sajjad Shaukat Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan on April 23, this year led a long telethon, televised live on TV channels, to mobilise funds from the people at large to help the deserving persons affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaking on the event, the Premier Imran appealed to the people to give maximum funds for the “Ehsaas Programme.” The transmission was joined by news anchors representing p ...

By Asif Haroon Raja Indo-Pakistan unabated antagonism Kashmir is the unfinished agenda of the Partition in 1947 which was left behind by the British and it has bedeviled Indo-Pakistan relations. The two arch rivals went to war thrice over Kashmir and reached the brink of war several times even when both acquired nuclear capabilities. Armed Kashmiri uprising erupted in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) in summer ...

By Sajjad Shaukat It is misfortune that as part of the Indian venomous propaganda campaign, in his article, published in Japan Times on April 14, 2020 under the caption “The other contagion: Political and religious fanaticism”, Indian writer Brahma Chellaney has shown misconceptions about the Muslims, some Islamic countries, including Pakistan and China in relation to the Coronavirus outbreak. Brahma Chella ...

By Sajjad Shaukat The entire world is facing the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) which has taken the life of more than 195,000 persons and infected 2.8 million people (Up to April 26, 2020) A majority of the deaths and affected cases have been recorded in the USA and Europe where this deadly virus has, rapidly, been spreading. Having best medical equipments and facilities, these countries do not blame each ...

REVIEW BY PROF. DR. MAQSOOD JAFRI A Lone Long walk is a collection of the tales told by a creative and fertile mind Tahir Mehmood. He is the Chief Editor monthly Hilal. He has kindly presented this rare literary gift to me. I feel honoured and humbled. These twenty eight tales are the saga of life, love, and patriotism. The book is so interesting, inspiring, and insightful that I intuitively felt to extensi ...

By Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal Living without a strategy No faith sustains with its conceptual originality, vision and mission in absence of its core institutions. In such deprivation, not only the faith but also those who are adherents to the faith face an existential threat. Communism ceased to survive as a significant ideology after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The collapse of Asoka’s rule brought an en ...

By Asif Haroon Raja The Cold War era During the Cold War, the two antagonists – USA and former Soviet Union - in their bid to safeguard the vital western and eastern hemispheres and to increase respective spheres of influence within the crush zone residing in the 3rd world, made use of 12-memer NATO and 23-member Warsaw Pact countries. The US remained involved in containing communism by establishing a defen ...