Not a people’s budget!
Ishaq Dar Federal Finance Minister has left me completely baffled. Not because of the out-of-the-box solutions that he should but did not include in the budget, not because he failed…
Zarb-e-Azb, smoking and lung cancer
Zarb-e-Azb has begun. The stern military action that various circles in and outside Pakistan have demanded for years is now finally taking place. Some Pakistanis have expressed their support for…
Engaging Modi
THE invitation to Nawaz Sharif and other Saarc leaders from Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi to attend his inauguration was even more surprising than his landslide electoral victory. To put it…
A self-defeating advice
PTI chairman Imran Khan has again advised the military leadership to review its decision of an operation against Al-Qaeda-linked foreign and local militants in the troubled tribal areas. Ironically, his…
Delayed reckoning
Since Musharraf’s ouster from power six years ago, the Pakistan Army has come a long way in accepting the supremacy of the constitution and submitting to the authority of the…
Musharraf and the military
Part - I When the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill was finally submitted in the US Congress in 2009 for approval, it contained two clauses that especially irked the Pakistani military. One dealt…
Principles of treaty interpretation in WTO law – II
Non-retroactivity principle: The WTO agreements 1994 (GATT 1994) resulted in the replacement of the GATT 1947. The relationship between the old and new agreements inevitably became an issue between the…
Energy sector taxes
Dedicated funds are a means to collect money for a specific purpose employed by governments and on occasion by the private sector. The government, however, is required to enact legislation…
Pak-Saudi ties
There have been some significant exchange of visits between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan post-election 2013 - an exchange that was lacking during the five year-rule of the PPP-led coalition government.…
——The case for a transparent pharma pricing policy
There is a long-held belief among the general public that the prices of essential medicines in Pakistan are higher than other countries in the region, including India and Bangladesh. There…
