
Friday, June 29, 2012
Spearhead Research Analysis: Playing with Fire

Thursday, June 28, 2012
ADB warns Pakistan of a low maintenance budget that will cause $268m to go to waste

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has forewarned the federal government that the $268 million investment for making roads in Balochistan may go to waste, as the sustainability of the scheme is at risk, due to inadequate budget for maintenance.
Chinese Nationalism and Its Future Prospects

Thursday, June 21, 2012
Ali Riaz s/o Malik Riaz accused of illegal land transfer

Tuesday, June 19, 2012
SC declares Gilani ineligible to be PM

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday declared Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani ineligible to hold office, Express News reported. The court said that he had been ineligible since April 26.
Spearhead Analysis: Mainstreaming FATA

Pakistan’s troubled western border region – the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) has been the focus of much attention for the last several years. Historically it has been a sort of badlands always just marginally under control with fiercely independent tribesmen living under their own customs and laws. When the former USSR carried out a disastrous intervention in Afghanistan the cold war rivalry made FATA the home base for the US funded jihad against the USSR and their Afghan supporters. Fighters from all over the Muslim world arrived in FATA to join the struggle against the invader under the banner of a seven party alliance headquartered in Pakistan’s FATA. Afghan refugees fleeing the war were welcomed as guests. After the USSR withdrew and the warlords started a civil war the Taliban emerged from the Pashtun south as saviors of the oppressed. Aided and abetted by the Pakistani Pashtuns and the jihadists in FATA as well as Pakistani intelligence agencies they struggled against the Northern Alliance for supremacy. Sensing a favorable environment the Arab leadership of Al Qaeda came as guests of the Taliban ostensibly to support their struggle but actually for a wider world wide struggle. 9/11 brought the US decisively against terrorism with Iraq as a temporary distraction. In this maelstrom FATA based militants came out against the Pakistani state with an agenda that at first was limited to FATA but later, after linkages with radical Islamists within Pakistan, extended their ambition to the whole country. As recently stated by Pakistan’s Army Chief the Pakistan military had no option but to confront them after all peace accords failed.
Excessive use of smartphones are bad for health

Friday, June 15, 2012
Tycoon in a Typhoon

There is that story about a bull frog that wanted to be the biggest and kept puffing himself up till he burst. Now everyone knows, of course, that a bubble if it continues to expand must at some point burst and splatter everybody around it. So it is with an empire, real estate or some other kind, that crashes when it has overextended itself or made so many enemies that it cannot handle them. This is what the real estate tycoon Malik Riaz has discovered when for reasons best known to him he decided to go public with information damaging for a particular individual and a specific institution. Inevitably the focus has shifted to him and his activities and the spectrum is widening by the day---in fact by the minute.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Blame the name

The Perpetual Conflict between Centre and Periphery: Pakistan’s separatist tendencies in light of pre-partition politics

Crab Olympics

Sunday, June 10, 2012
Remember the perils of Dialectical Materialism?

Friday, June 8, 2012
Spearhead Analysis: Ally or Adversary?

The top US defense official has said that the US is at war in Pakistan – an obvious reference to the continuing Drone attacks and covert operations by the US in FATA. He has also said that the US is losing patience with Pakistan because of the sanctuaries given in FATA to groups like the Haqqani Network that attack NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan. Earlier he was in India shoring up and strengthening the US-India strategic alliance by holding out the prospect of an Indian role in the US power shift to the Asia-Pacific region and a greater Indian presence in Afghanistan – a prospect that will find favor with the pro-India government of Afghanistan. The Indians will play hardball just as they did to get the US-India Civilian Nuclear Technology Agreement in spite of its implications for nuclear proliferation and trade. This time the Indians are likely to hold out for major defense related technology having signalled their capacity and willingness for Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) and Multiple Independently Targetted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) as well as a shift to maritime strategy with interest in the Asia-Pacific region.
Monday, June 4, 2012
The four year run in the long run

The summers of London and the summers of Lyari
