Dear Readers, Among the many factors that allowed the Pakistan Army gain ascendancy shortly after independence was the degeneration of the political process, helped along by incompetent political leadership, this provided space and opportunity for the Army to become an important decision maker. In time this led to the assumption of power by the then…
The PAKISTAN BREAKFAST in Davos during the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meetings since 2002 is now known as the traditional PAKISTAN BREAKFAST. The President of Pakistan, the Prime Minister or a prominent Pakistani personality is usually the Chief Guest. Graced by PM Mian Nawaz Sharif in 2016, Arif Naqvi of Abraaj, hosted a well-attended…
The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Annual Meeting in the third week of January every year in the remote alpine village of Davos in Switzerland is a major creative force for engaging top leaders from across the world to undertake joint action relating to events for shaping the global, regional and industry agendas. Six to eight…
Intellectual honesty is seeking truth regardless of whether the truth agrees with one’s own personal feelings and/ or beliefs or not. This means not lying to oneself or to others on what is clearly self-evident. Closely related to what one calls “old-fashioned values” such as propriety, integrity and sincerity, this is force-multiplied for those in…
Dear Readers, The entire nation mourned the crash of a PIA ATR-42 (Flight PK- 661) on a domestic flight from Chitral to Islamabad on Dec 7 last year. All 47 people on board were killed including the crew, among the dead was Aly Akram, the co-pilot of the ill-fated flight. Aly was the son of…
With the Supreme Court (SC) holding almost daily hearings pertaining to the “Panama Leaks” beginning Nov 1, aspirations were high among all Pakistanis that a closure for the festering sore affecting the country’s well-being for nearly 8 months was imminent. Suddenly out of the blue the case was surprisingly adjourned till next year, a good…
With many internal and external challenges confronting the nation, the new COAS was plunged into a testing situation right from the word “go”. Stepping up his drive to isolate Pakistan diplomatically during the recent “Heart of Asia” Conference in Amritsar, Indian PM Modi’s venom for Pakistan was seen at its worst, he and Ashraf Ghani…
A new Army Chief would normally not warrant special media or public attention in most countries but in Pakistan the situation is a vastly different. The Washington Post says, “for the first time in 20 years, the most powerful official in Pakistan — a U.S. Cold War and anti-terrorism ally in which generals have often…
When Pakistan was rated the second most corrupt country in 1996 by Transparency International (TI), a joke started that Pakistan was actually placed on the first position but the govt persuaded Tl to place Nigeria ahead of Pakistan. We may have had a good laugh then but almost twenty years (and many govts) later, Pakistan…
Noting that Pakistan’s public debt remained very high, the interest bill being higher at current debt level than the country’s entire development budget, IMF President Christine Lagarde pointedly said that the perception of corruption in Pakistan was hurting its prospects to grow. Addressing our immediate political crisis inadvertently (or was it deliberate?), the IMF President…
