President Donald Trump is desperate for inking an early agreement with the Afghan Taliban, on the edge are his Nobel Peace Prize and second Presidential term. Taliban are in no hurry, in their calculus, a decade or two here and there do not matter. The stakes of Afghanistan’s peace talks are extremely high. Failure, said…
Pakistan has been plagued with child abuse, rape and sexual assault cases for years and yet nothing much of substance has been done to curtail this social degeneration! The recent episode being the rape of a woman driving late at night with her three children from Lahore to Gujranwala. Her car ran out of fuel…
PROLOGUE Climate change has become a global phenomenon. The United Nations (UN) has constituted Inter Governmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) and 155 countries have signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). Climate change is mainly manifested by global warming, an issue about which the UN is extremely conscious about and is actively engaged…
Quite clearly, the inadequacy of IAF’s Su-30MKI and MiG-29 twin-engine fighters in the air superiority role led to the decision to acquire the Rafale, ostensibly a more modern and capable multi-role fighter. While both Russian fighters are highly maneuverable in a visual dogfight, as evidenced in several IAF exercises with RAF Typhoons and USAF F-15s,…
OBITUARY Defence Journal’s Graphic Designer Rizwan Alam Khan was born on March 14, 1973 in Karachi and joined the Pathfinder Group in September 1995. Having given 25 years of his life toour service, this fine individual is no more in this world. He passed away due to an apparent heart attack on the morning of September…
The erstwhile “Lion of Kashmir” Shaikh Abdullah dynasty is not well reputed amongst the Kashmiri people. As long as Chief Minster ship of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) is within the family, they lick the boots of whosoever rules New Delhi. The moment the mantle passes on to someone outside their family, they…
The recent news of the country officially opening up has brought up some rather interesting viewpoints. all seemingly fair given the fact the world is passing through the stages or going to be living with COVID-19, the global pandemic. That, or until a cure or a vaccine is discovered. The decision could not have been…
Recently, I was turned away nicely but firmly from the entrance of a shopping mall/ supermarket as the person with me could not be let in due to SOPs; him being a senior citizen. I didn’t mind as those were the rules, so we went elsewhere. In another part of the city, a pack of…
Context After numerous promising starts and hard stops, the Afghan peace process is once again making progress. The initiation of intra-Afghan peace process is now almost certain despite the hick-ups related to the release of last tranche of Taliban prisoners held by the Ashraf Ghani’s government. While many challenges have been overcome, several intricate obstacles…
A webinar was held on 20th august 2020 under the auspices of the Karachi council on foreign relations (KCFR). Ikram Sehgal, chairman KCFR chaired the Webinar. Moin Fudda, Senior Member KCFR moderated the webinar. The moderator welcomed all the participants and the chief Guest, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, advisor to the Prime Minister on finance…
