By Zaheerul Hassan The 23rd Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) has been held in the capital city of Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 15th – 17th November 2013. The last CHOGM was held in 2011 in Perth, Australia and the first ever CHOGM was held in 1971 in Singapore. The Commonwealth is an organisation consisting of former colonies of the British Empire with the Queen as the head. It is the biennial s ...

 By Sajjad Shaukat Having pro-Indian tilt, since Bangladesh’s Awami League came into power, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid has started a deliberate propaganda campaign against Pakistan, its army and especially Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In this context, on the direction of India, unlike the past years, a ceremony was held in Dhaka on March 24, 2013, with full pump and show to honour ‘Foreign Fri ...

By Sajjad Shaukat After the killing of the Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Chief Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone attack on November 1, this year, Taliban Shura decided to appoint the most ferocious and notorious militant Maulana Fazlullah as chief of the TTP. In this regard, a controversy arose for the selection of new leader, as many TTP insurgents had been intensely whispering against Fazllulah by arguin ...

 By Sajjad Shaukat While, the country by and large witness Ashura peacefully, but on November 15, this year, sectarian violence between Shia mourners and Sunnis in Rawalpindi has left 10 dead and more than 65 injured. Angry protesters targeted the mosque and the seminary, torching its building including an adjacent cloth market where incidents of looting and arson occurred. Very soon, the incident enveloped ...

 By Sajjad Shaukat                                              In the recent months, Pakistan made strenuous efforts to advance peace talks with India in order to resolve all issues, especially Kashmir dispute, while it took several positive steps to improve relations with Afghanistan. Similarly, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ahmad Khan decided to begin negotiatio ...

Abu Ezaan The prevailing stalemate in Afghan war amply validates the futility of military option in defeating insurgency. Erroneously, the political alternative has also been used to supplement the military option and weaken the insurgency to make it more amenable to reconciliation.  It is now imperative that political negotiations in Afghanistan are pursued with sole objective of peace and stability in the ...

 By Sajjad Shaukat People from different walks of life including politicians, religious scholars (Ulemas) and media persons have expressed their feelings of grief on the recent comments of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and especially of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Syed Munawar Hassan who evolved new theory on Shahadat (Martyrdom). Maulana Fazlur Rehman in an interview with senior j ...

 By Sajjad Shaukat US-led some western countries includaing India and Israel have accelerated their deliberate campaign against the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. It can be judged by the new mischief of the BBC about Pak nukes. In this regard, in its programme Newsnight, BBC reported on November 7, this year, “Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could ob ...