VOL 9 NO 1

By Shamshad Ahmad[1] Preface by the Author: The book ‘Pakistan and World Affairs’  is meant to facilitate the Pakistani mind not only to comprehend the historic evolution of political, economic and governmental processes in our own country but also to understand the course of “world affairs” through a practitioner’s prism. Academic inquiry has to be […]

By A. G. NOORANI Demystifying the Caliphate! Historical  Memory and contemporary Contexts” by Madawi Al-Rasheed, Carool Kerston and Marot Shterin (Editors); Hurst & Company, London; 307 pages. In the eyes of the unwary the mirage of the Islamic State has as its companion nearby the mirage of the Caliphate (Khilafat). This subcontinent was rocked, nearly

By Irsa Bilal[1] Pakistan is locked in a long war with Al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – a multifarious body comprising of an assortment of Jihadist groups harking back to the Afghan adventure of the eighties, and later sporing out as a consequence of incoherent foreign vs.domestic policy matrices. In December 2007, shortly after the Lal

By A. G. NOORANI[1] An entry of 30 April 1967 in the diary of President Mohammed Ayub Khan reads: “Dr. Fazlur Rahman of the Islamic Research Institute came to see me. He was engaged in writing a book on the ideology of Islam. I read his first chapter. It is fascinating, but the language he

By Asad Durrani and A.S. Dulat[1] In search of an inventive approach to untangle the Kashmir knot, the ‘merit of the case’ was not a good starting point. Firstly, we might not agree on the merit we did not for over six decades. Secondly, and more importantly: complex issues are not resolved by proving one

By Mushfiq Murshed[1] Inept policies, procrastination, confusion and prioritization of personal agendas rather than the wellbeing of the nation by the political leadership of Pakistan has resulted in a vacuum and further fueled an insurgency of a “jihad-pumped underclass.” The doctrine that the army came out with more than a year ago that pronounced “home-grown

By Yasser Latif Hamdani[1] In this essay I attempt to show how PTI, a charismatic party under Imran Khan, has institutionalized itself. The rise of PTI has been remarkable but not unexpected. It is a party of the right which has deployed ultra-nationalism and politics of protest to gain national prominence.  This was not possible

This piece is not about any particular government, be it civilian or military. Nor is the intention of this article to discount the success of the last elections and the emergence of a government that is clearly more purposeful, By Touqir Hussain[1] Abstract  focused and serious about addressing Pakistan’s problems. The article is about democracy

By Air Commodore (R) Khalid Iqbal[1] Abstract (9/11 came as a surprise to Pakistan. Within the international community, there was a perception that Pakistan should play a constructive role to convince the Afghan government to meet the American demand of handing over the nominated fugitives. Pakistan made hectic efforts but the Afghan government chose the