Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan On the directions of government, the Armed Forces of Pakistan launched a comprehensive operation against foreign and local terrorists who are hiding in sanctuaries in North Waziristan (NW). The operation has been named Zarb-e-Azb”. Azb was the name of the sword of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). According to Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), more than 400 militants have been killed. Many factories of IEDs have also been demolished during the ongoing full-fledged operation. Troops have recovered many underground tunnels and IED preparation factories inside the area that has been cleared so far.Pakistan’s warplanes and helicopter gunships have targeted militant hideouts in North Waziristan as...
July 13, 2014 at 12:49 am | News Desk
Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), UAE organized its 19th Annual Conference titled Technology: Impacts, Challenges and the Future on March 18-19 2014. It was staged under the patronage of His Highness, General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and President of ECSSR. Dr “Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi’s Welcome Address Dr “Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi”, Director General of the (ECSSR) presented welcome address in the opening session of the conference. He said that technological progress has led to qualitative leaps forward in all areas of life, accompanied by radical changes in thinking and it is the mai...
April 4, 2014 at 2:08 am | News Desk
Sajid Gondal Pakistan, being the sixth largest army of the world and sole nuclear Muslim state, will assist the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) consisting of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in setting up of a formal ‘ joint security bloc’ to combat any external or internal security threats. According to reliable military sources, the policy initiative also stressed for a strategic partnership which would also ensure food safety and economic integration. Under this strategy, Pakistan will assist the GCC to further strengthen its existing Peninsula Shield and to raise a force of 100,000 guards that will operate under Joint Defense Council, having its headquarters in Bahrain. Most of the ret...
April 3, 2014 at 5:32 pm | News Desk
Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan Energy is life to economic development and Pakistan’s energy sector is at cross-roads. Energy sparks the socio-economic prospects of the country where its shortage has already spoiled our GDP (4 %) tremendously. It has also forced the closure of hundreds of factories (including more than five hundred alone in the industrial hub city of Faisalabad), paralyzing production and exacerbating unemployment. Although government of Pakistan announced new national energy policy 2013-2018 along with so many incentives and priorities but its overall energy economics and geo-politics is a complicated and complex phenomenon. It has internal dynamics, regional spillovers and international repercussions too. Pakistan’s m...
March 10, 2014 at 8:00 pm | News Desk
Tausif-ur-Rehman Pakistan is facing an unprecedented energy crisis due to surging demand and supply gap. Its current energy needs are heavily dependent on oil and gas and the demand far exceeds its indigenous supplies. The present energy scenario suggests that an affordable and sustainable energy road map for the country is essential to capitalize the use of indigenous resources in country’s energy mix. Development of indigenous energy resources such as coal, oil, gas, hydro and alternative sources are critical for Pakistan’s economic growth. Power sector The share of hydro power was 30% of total generation in 2012-13 as compared to nearly 70% in the 1980s. Hydro power development suffered a slowdown due to lingering con...
March 10, 2014 at 7:23 pm | News Desk
Shiraz Nizami The courts have yet to decide the fate of huge and allegedly corrupt investment in the real estate by the bigwigs of state-managed Employees Old-age Benefit Institution (EOBI), while the Auditor General of Pakistan surfaced another corruption case in the same institution. The fresh revelations are about shady deals of lands in Karachi, Lahore and Sukkur. The EOBI officials made these purchases at higher prices as compared to market rates and caused loss to national exchequer to the tune of Rs388.83 million. EOBI is an organization meant to manage worker’s funds and has a vital role in providing social security to poverty stricken factory labors. The institution does not receive any financial assistance from the governm...
February 8, 2014 at 11:27 pm | News Desk
HAFIZ MUHAMMAD IRFAN The United States and Iran enjoyed cordial relations from the signing of Treaty of Commerce and Navigations in 1856 till 1979 with some downs in the 1950s. But these relations between both the countries reached all time worst condition in 1979 when Iranians, who were frustrated due to corrupt practices of the then powerful monarch Mohammed Reza Shah Pahalvi, overthrew him. As a result of revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came into power. Khomeini declared U.S. as “Great Satan”, his followers attacked American Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. From Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) till the end of Ahmadinejad’s period in (2013) Iran and U.S.-fought proxy wars, relations saw so...
February 8, 2014 at 10:49 pm | News Desk
Dr. Muhammad Rasheed Pakistan, especially Punjab, is an agro-livestock based economy. Livestock & dairy sector is the main segment of agro-economy playing a key role in providing major source of animal protein in the shape of milk, meat and eggs to the consumers. In 2010-11, livestock constituted 11.5 % of the total GDP and accounted for about 55.1% of agricultural value added at the micro level. Punjab province of Pakistan possesses tremendous resources of agriculture & livestock, capable of meeting local and export demand of livestock products. The livestock-based surpluses can be exported with adaptation and implementation of international food safety standards & certification having efficient product traceability system...
February 8, 2014 at 7:34 pm | News Desk
Dr. Moin Uddin I have been fortunate or geographically advantaged of belonging to GilgitBaltistan. As part of every year summer journey I and my family make our annual pilgrimage to the area of our ancestors. It gives a nice feeling of being home and sharing your memories of growing up in small towns with your metropolitan English speaking children. An annual opportunity of familiarizing your generation Z kids with mountains and drinking water from natural springs away from iPods and iPads and of course the wifi. Karakoram Highway known as KKH has been our main route. Every year we try our luck through the longer route of KKH Abbotabad, Mansehra , Besham and Chilas. Chilas was not a well-known town sometimes before. It has recently g...
December 16, 2013 at 10:24 pm | News Desk
By Shiraz Nizami There is hardly a day when Pakistanis do not live and mourn 9/11, an incident that dragged Pakistan to tow the US led war on terror as an ally. In its role as non NATO ally, the country has become vulnerable to terrorism and faced not dozens but hundreds of devastating incidents of terror, and many were worse than that of 9/11. According to official data of the government of Pakistan, this bond so far, has cost the country lives of more than 35,000 citizens, 3500 security personnel. The unending war has caused destruction of infrastructure, displacement of millions of people, erosions of investment climate, nose diving production, unemployment and a direct loss of $100 billion to national economy. It brought econom...
October 13, 2013 at 11:42 am | News Desk
Amir Rizvi Pakistan is prey to a range of natural disasters that can inflict dreadful wounds and do so with an almost predictable regularity. Whilst the disasters associated with weather — flooding and wind damage — are in large part predictable and annually cyclic, earthquakes are not. The surface of the earth is made up of tectonic plates that are dynamic, in motion, and it is their movements that cause the kind of devastation that has been wrought in Balochistan and so nearly brought catastrophe to our major cities. The only thing that can with certainty be predicted about earthquakes is that they will happen, but no earthquake-prone nation on Earth has yet successfully been able to devise a system that tells us the ‘when...
October 3, 2013 at 9:14 pm | News Desk
Dr Fawad Kaiser U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry sought Pakistan's help to press the Taliban into opening peace negotiations with Karzai's representatives. The Taliban's leadership is believed to be living in Pakistan. One of the Taliban negotiators Mullah Abbas Stanikzai met last month with a senior member of the High Peace Council in Dubai and tried to jump start a peace process. He declared that the two tried to reconcile differences and paved the way for an official meeting. While Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan's prime minister on national security and foreign affairs, told "It is at a very fragile place right now." The Taliban marked opening of their political office in Qatar by f...
October 3, 2013 at 11:04 am | News Desk
Post-flood relief operation hits snags amid aid dearth Trail of destruction escalates as deluge moves southward Saleem Shaikh Saleema Bibi died at the age of just 29 when the roof of her house in Talwandi village in northeast Pakistan’s Sialkot district collapsed under heavy monsoon rains. Her husband and three children were badly injured. “The roof of our house, where we all were sitting on a cot-bed, caved in after failing to withstand torrential rain that lasted for five hours,” sobbed Bibi’s husband, Muzzamil Raza, describing the tragedy that hit his family on Aug. 14. As the monsoon brings seasonal downpours and floods across Pakistan, Sialkot - 192 km (122 miles) from Islamabad – is the worst-hit district in Pun...
September 12, 2013 at 12:43 pm | News Desk
Pakistan Rupee Exchange Rate