After months of to-ing and fro-ing on a clear, cogent and coherent policy and strategy to combat the ‘Mother of all Problems” in Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pulled yet another surprise on his countrymen by announcing a last ditch attemp
During a visit to Afghanistan a couple of months ago, many top Afghan officials and politicians insisted that while the security situation was precarious and the political situation was fragile, the real cause for alarm was not so much the danger of
With the US drawdown (perhaps even complete withdrawal) from Afghanistan looming large over the horizon, there is growing pessimism (a lot of it unwarranted) over the prospect of the Afghan state’s ability to survive without the crutches of foreign
The events in Afghanistan seem to be turning a full circle. ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ that commenced in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is drawing to a close and plans are afoot to hand over Afghanistan to the very forces
A police escort was killed and another wounded when militants attacked a team of polio vaccinators on the outskirts of Peshawar on 30 November.1 Earlier on 23 November, militants in Pakistan kidnapped eleven teachers involved in a polio va
Out of all the names being tossed around as the possible replacement for Gen Ashfaq Kayani, it is the dark horse – Gen Raheel Sharif – who has finally been appointed as the Pakistan Army’s 15th chief. Apparently, Gen Sharif’s name
It certainly cannot be the cooler days in Delhi that has attracted, in recent weeks, so many concerned western ‘experts’ to the capital, to discuss the abstruse-to the Indian public-subject of “strategic stability” in Asia/ in the sub-contine
The political controversy generated over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s participation in the Commonwealth Summit (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka on November 15 deepens mounting concerns about our foreign policy being increasingly determined not by our overal
What is to be made of a society, people and country whose political leadership erupts in anger and weaves bizarre conspiracy theories because its self-declared ‘enemy no. 1’ is eliminated in a drone attack by a country which has not only accorded
On 25 October 2013, the Iranian State News Agency reported that fourteen Iranian border guards were killed and five wounded in clashes with “armed bandits” near Saravan on Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan. There were also reports of thr