Tag Archives: Pakistan

Tom Price's resignation may mean an end to his political career, but it reinforces the trust of millions of voters in the American democracy. What can quasi democracies like Pakistan learn from this episode?

India is trying to pin Pakistan down in domestic conflicts, as it expands its influence through trade with Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world.

Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification has a much larger impact beyond him and his family, a challenge not only to the judges but to all people of Pakistan about how they want to live their lives and to run their state.

Islamabad is extremely suspicious of Donald Trump’s South Asia policy because it gives an open cheque to India for mounting a double front against Pakistan.

President Trump has embraced deeper US involvement in Afghanistan in a military campaign he once slammed as futile. Though touted as a conditions-based regional move towards a political solution, the new plan indicates little innovation.

When legislators, bureaucracy businessmen, etc are prosecuted, they do not try to disprove their guilt, their only defense is to direct public opinion by pointing fingers towards the two indispensable pillars of the State, the Judiciary and the Armed Forces.  A workable legal framework must be formulated by Parliament to remove the ambiguities and bring these into the ambit to give accountability credibility and true meaning.

In Pakistan judicial accountability has largely been limited to the subordinate judiciary. An independent and incorruptible judiciary can convincingly dispense justice and hold persons accountable only if it carries out self-accountability.

Beijing has literally pulled Pakistan out of a generally hostile international environment through the CPEC.

Pakistan’s powerful power brokers in Islamabad and province of Sindh, sensing threat of fair accountability, have declared war on state institutions and the law.

Following into China’s footsteps, Pakistan too can chart a new path that keeps it connected with all the countries of the region, including Afghanistan even in worst political times. Kabul’s ruling elites, too, have to carefully weigh as to what security costs their narrative on Pakistan will entail in a situation marked by huge shades of grays of geo-politics.