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The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement is difficult for India to support because the movement owes its success to the absence of foreign funding or support.
New Delhi's focus in the talks with Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik is on the bilateral agenda- especially justice for the plotters of the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai. But it is in India's interest to widen the conversation to include the latest developments in Afghanistan where Islamabad has begun to make some big moves.
On November 2, the Wagah border which collects curious crowds on either side of the border gate to witness the interesting manoeuvres of border guards on either side were witness to a gory incident of a terrific explosion on the Pakistani side,
Instead of conjuring up bizarre conspiracy theories and nurturing a victim complex, Pakistanis need to see the reality.
Some years ago when Karan Thapar interviewed Pervez Musharraf, the general was self-assured and voluble. That was before 9/11 but after Kargil. Last fortnight, he was once again voluble, and when not talking about himself, he was talking about Kashmir. But his body language showed nervousness, impatience, an edginess and even tiredness. And Thapar drove a hard bargain.
Khan’s possible ouster is unlikely to bring any radical change in India-Pakistan relations. The bilateral relationship has plateaued since PTI came to power.
All is not lost for Pakistan's Imran Khan. He may not have succeeded in "sweeping the elections" but his performance was a significant improvement from his previous outings. From having secured only one seat in 2002, his party emerged with a plurality in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Pakistan's rational options now are severely limited. However, expecting the rational from Pakistan might be expecting too much. Here's what India needs to be prepared for.
In the Afghanistan peace process, Pakistan's significance lies more in its capability to play a destructive role than a constructive one. It is capable of scuttling the peace process and can stoke violence by supporting groups like the Haqqani network and engineer attacks against the government or foreign troops in Afghanistan.
The outcome of the February 18 elections was predetermined and the situation would only get worse as a consequence, said well-known media personality and commentator Saeed Naqvi at a talk organised by Observer Research Foundation on the Situation in Pakistan on the eve of elections on Saturday (Feb. 16).
Pakistan would continue to grapple with political instability, economic crisis and resurgence in radicalism even after the exit of former President Pervez Musharraf, leaving Pakistan Army in a jockeying position.
Since 1991, India has pursued a policy of engaging Pakistan, regardless of what the latter has thrown at us - bombs, terror assaults, fedayeen. Maybe the time has come to change course ? not by reaching out to the military or taking recourse to tit-for-tat covert war. But by encouraging the peaceful breakup of Pakistan.
Pakistan is likely to see a stable but fragile government, and the opposition will try its best to render it dysfunctional.
Dominance in the Baloch region could be passing on to China. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the newest instrument.
Ethnic divisions will deepen in Pakistan along with popular sentiments against the military in the near future, says renowned area specialist Dr Selig Harrison. "In 10 years, there will be a different landscape in Pakistan," he said addressing the faculty members of Observer Research Foundation here on February 6.
The Pakistani Army is keen to repair its image after the battering it has taken following the discovery that Osama bin Laden was ensconced in a mansion in Abbotabad. And while US criticism has made international headlines,
Saudi Arabia's recent $1.5 billion grant to Pakistan re-affirms the depth of the relationship that the two countries share. It has also brought into focus their expanding defence ties and raised concerns about Pakistan's possible role in the Syrian civil war.
Just as Lebanon's capital Beirut was under the thumb of an unbridled reign of crime, terrorism, sectarian and religious fundamentalism in the 1980s, Pakistan's port city of Karachi has hit headlines for all the wrong reasons during the decade of the 1990s.
It would not be fair to term Syed Salahuddin's statements on Kashmir as the official Pakistan policy. But the fact that Salahuddin has been making, rather freely, statements on Kashmir, which seem to be contrary to the stance taken by Islamabad-at least for the time being-is a clear pointer to Pakistan's strategy on Kashmir.
It is possible that, unable to control the various jihadis in their country or control events in Afghanistan, Pakistan's military rulers will first try to blame India for all its troubles and then launch a diversionary jihadi attack to provoke a reaction from the Indians and bring the whole world into play.
The combination of dangerous delusions, soaring ambitions and a fatal nuclear obsession could spark another round of strategic brinkmanship in South Asia, with disastrous consequences for regional security. Navy is supposed to be the new domain for another round of brinkmanship
What magnifies Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif's dilemma in picking up a successor to Gen Kayani is his own experience of picking Pervez Musharraf way down the seniority line to lead the army and regretting it forever. He will not like to repeat his past folly.
Kashmir is in trouble. Several incidents in quick succession that shattered peace in the State over the past few weeks are ominous. Trouble brewing in the Middle East, the regrouping of the Al Qaeda and various elements of terror groups, their re-emergence from the badlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the rising crescendo of bickering within Pakistan-all of this poses a serious threat to peace and stability in the region and elsewhere.
When the world attention was riveted by the US-choreographed peace moves between New Delhi and Islamabad early this month, a South African Jewish businessman, Asher Karni, 50, was being trapped in a sting operation launched by the US Commerce Department and other federal investigating agencies. On January 2,
After more than two years of lull in the political arena, Pakistan is witnessing some visible and dramatic changes which can influence the political scenario in the next few months.
As tensions between Kabul and Islamabad threaten the fragile peace process in Afghanistan, the Taliban's role as a proxy for Pakistan's interests has come back into sharp focus again.
A reasonably objective assessment of Pakistan's War on Terror can only begin with acknowledging two facts. First, there has been an unprecedented level of terrorist violence in Pakistan for the past three years.
The way it is currently configured, Pakistan is unlikely to to mend itself any time in the foreseeable future.
India cannot ignore what is happening in its North-West. It is not clear what is going to be Indian policy to protect its political, strategic and economic interests in Afghanistan. May be the Indian policy-makers will have to sit back and think of ways to ensure that India's role in Af-Pak region doesn't become minimal.
If the reports that Narendra Modi has sent emissaries to Pakistan are true, they indicate a recognition of the need to reassure leaders across the border that, were he to become prime minister, he would not be throwing a grenade at the bilateral relationship.
After the horrific attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar in December last year by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, Pakistan is trying to crack down on militancy in the country.
Although concrete evidence about Saudi intentions to acquire nuclear weapons' capabilities is not there the story continues to attract international commentary
That is, in short, the general Israeli reaction to the initiative recently taken by General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to bring into the open Pakistan's hitherto clandestine relations with Israel. Nobody denies the previous existence of clandestine contacts between the two countries, which recently culminated in an open,
In September 2025, Saudi Arabia signed a comprehensive defence pact with Pakistan not long after an Israeli missile attack on Qatar. While driven by broader geopolitical shifts, this was not an isolated gesture of goodwill. Since 2024, Saudi Arabia has concluded 34 bilateral agreements with Pakistan, amounting to over US$2.8 billion in commitments across various sectors. This renewed financial engagement marks a steady recovery from the setback i
Pakistan is facing an acute energy crisis. In times such as these, when energy resources are an important marker of future prosperity of a nation, Pakistan's grip over its energy resources is loosening day by day. The country has been facing major deficit in power supply over the last two years, forcing citizens to resort to violent protests on the streets.
It may not have been pretty, but the finish-line is within sight for the Zardari-led coalition government in Pakistan. And the first democratic transfer of power is a significant milestone in the growth of democracy in the country.
Facts on the ground suggest that Army Chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa, and his army are interested only in the formal trappings of democracy.
The continuing ceasefire violations on the India-Pakistan border could become a stumbling block in the renewed attempts by the leadership of the two neighbours to improve their relationship.
For Pakistan and its army, the year 2014 is crucial as the NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan. There are fears in Pakistan of an Afghan civil war. There is also the long pursued Pakistani strategy of supporting the Afghan Taliban which may backfire.
India's interest lies in peace, not in coddling Pakistan, not necessarily in pursuing "most favoured nation" status, trade and visa issues with that country, but in ensuring it remains irrelevant in Kashmir and realises it is irrelevant. This will not happen by our mere say-so.
The enthusiasm bordering on euphoria generated by the talks of Ms.Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State, with Indian leaders during her recent visit to New Delhi has been somewhat dissipated by the announcement of the decision of President George Bush to clear the sale of the latest version of the F-16 aircraft to Pakistan.
On June 2, 2012, The News International reported, that in the Dera Ismail Khan district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistan the 11-year-old Niazmina and her two-year-old sister Bakhtawar were given as compensation to the house of Juma Khan for the crime that their uncle, Muhammad Ikram, had committed.