The author is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassador of Pakistan
I must admit I am not too fond of the bureaucracy. I do not know who is. Do not get me wrong, I am frequently impressed with their intellect, grooming, promise and potential; it is in their very distant and deliberately cultivated perch that they exhibit on matters all important that a cold remoteness and insufficient empathy may begin to become obvious. You see, I was exposed to this bureaucratic trait quite intimately and did not come out singing praises. They remain the all important cog, though, that keeps the machine of governance going — no doubt about that — but then that is all there is to their role. Take the cog out and the machine stops, put it back in and it is running again. The more crucial refrain though is, what is the machine producing? On that, the bureaucrats want to have no truck with. Someone else must push in material and get a product that they need. Else, the ....... Read More

The author is a  a lawyer based in Islamabad.
One of our most persistent national myths — put forward by both the state and its detractors — is that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam.
It is said that Pakistan was created with the use of the slogans “Islam in danger” and “Pakistan ka matlab kya, La illaha ilallah”, both slogans which — ironically — were never used by Quaid-e-Azam himself. Indeed Jinnah ruled out “Pakistan ka matlab kiya, La illaha illallah” when he censured a Leaguer at the last session of the All India Muslim League after partition in these words: “Neither I nor the Muslim League Working Committee ever passed a resolution — Pakistan ka matlab kiya — you may have used it to catch a few votes.”

Nevertheless, the fact that Pakistan was created as a result of a group’s nationalism, which was based — in whatever watered down form — on common religious beliefs, has damned Pakistan to a perpetual i....... Read More

The writer is regional coordinator of ICIMOD, Islamabad.
A study conducted by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) revealed that there are some 5,218 glaciers (15,040 km/sq area) and around 2,420 glacial lakes in Pakistan. Of these, 52 lakes are dangerous with a potential to outburst thus causing flash floods. According to the ICIMOD report: “These lakes are potentially unstable because their end moraines are composed of unsorted and unconsolidated boulders, gravels, sands and clays. Furthermore, they are frequently reinforced by frozen cores (permafrost) that, like the glaciers themselves, are now beginning to melt. As the volume of a lake accumulating behind an end moraine increases, the hydrostatic pressure builds up to put additional stress on the moraine dam causing it to become more unstable. Eventually it may fail and release much or all of the lake water.”

The report goes on to say: “Depending on t....... Read More

The Nation, May 20
PERHAPS nothing more shows the present government’s detachment from its basic duties as much as the existence of a Geological Survey of Pakistan Report predicting not just the avalanche due to rock sliding, but also that it would lead to flooding. The Report was submitted to the government in September 2009, and included a number of recommendations on what needed to be done to contain the damage, but they were not followed, and the Kashmir Affairs Minister has only now announced relief measures.
The Minister, at a press conference in Islamabad on Tuesday, disclosed that 13,000 people would be displaced, and arrangements for their rehabilitation were being made. He also said that there would be seven helicopters on standby. The neglect of the Report is particularly incomprehensible when it is kept in mind that the affected area, Gilgit-Baltistan, formerly the Northern Areas, has always elected PPP governments, one of which is presently i....... Read More

The Dawn, May 20
ALPURI, May 19: The district administration has chalked out an evacuation plan by dividing Shangla into three zones to cope with any situation in the wake of possible breach in the Hunza artificial lake.
The decision was taken at a meeting held here on Wednesday under DCO Syed Altaf Hussain. District planning officer Nasir Ahmed, who was appointed as focal person, briefed the meeting about the possible damages if the lake developed breach.
Talking to journalists after the meeting, Mr Ahmed said a comprehensive plan had been prepared to meet the challenges.
He said each zone would be supervised by a special committee, which would comprise tehsildar, SHO, DSP and ADO (education) concerned.
He said it was estimated that 3,230 families comprising 24,146 individuals would be affected in the district by the lake breach, adding 57 government buildings, 45 seminaries and mosques, 2,460 shops, seven hotels, one bank and three poult....... Read More

By Josy Joseph in The Times of India

New Delhi: Kashmiri terrorists and refugees from Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have both received a pay hike. According to latest inputs from various intelligence agencies, Pakistani authorities are now offering terrorists coming to fight in J&K a monthly salary in the range of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000. This is a huge jump from the average pay of Rs 5,000 they were getting earlier.
The reason for this benevolence is obvious. There has been a drastic drop in violence levels in J&K and militancy needs a revival if the separatist agenda has to continue to grab global attention. The number of terrorists in J&K is now hovering around 700, an all-time low since militancy erupted in the state in the late 1980s.
The desperation among terror groups is also visible in the return of Furqan, one of the senior most Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives who had been the group’s launch commander based in PoK for some years now....... Read More

The writer is a graduate of Boston University.
Pakistan-India relations since independence have revolved around mutual distrust, uncertainty, disappointments, tensions and fear of conflict.

We should seriously think as to why it`s so, especially when both countries gained independence from a single colonial power through a political process, negotiated between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. While we often hear people from both sides say, had the two countries been one, we would have been a force to reckon with, both in might and economy, I wonder why India and Pakistan can`t draw strength from each other as friendly and stable neighbours, sharing a common past, heritage and civilisation.

Bilateral disputes between them remain unresolved, their cooperation bounded by severe limitations. India thinks Pakistan is an irritant impeding India`s emergence as a key player in the world economy and Pakistan feels that India has been trying to destabilise ....... Read More

FOREIGN Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi finally seemed to be making the right noises on Kashmir when he informed the National Assembly that Kashmir was the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy and Pakistan desired a peaceful solution to the dispute in keeping with UN Resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. If this means a reversal of the confused Musharraf policy on Kashmir and its attempt to delink from the UN Resolutions, then the present policy is to be welcomed. Presumably the government has once again understood that Pakistan’s principled position on Kashmir stems and acquires legitimacy from the UN Security Council Resolutions.
Unfortunately, there are some serious misgivings that also arise in the context of the present government’s policies in relation to Kashmir and India. To begin with, the Foreign Minister’s reference to the “changed ground realities” of Kashmir is the same ominous phrase so often used in the past by leaders determined to ....... Read More

ISLAMABAD (Online) – Backdoor diplomacy between India and Pakistan has been restored and in this regard a 10-member delegation headed by former army chief General Jahangir Karamat left for India on Wednesday.
The delegation includes Sherry Rehman, Ahsan Iqbal, Jahangir Badr, Najamuddin, Humayun Khan, Shafqat Mehmood and Aziz Ahmed Khan.
According to a private TV channel, Track-II diplomacy between both the countries has been restored after the deadlock that ensued following Mumbai attacks. The governments of US and UK have played a key role in this regard, as per sources.
Sources further reported that the delegation was divided in three groups: one group, headed by the former army chief, would deal with Kashmir issue; the second was on the issue of trade; and the third group would deal with terrorism.
Diplomatic circles are giving much importance to these initiatives because the process of backdoor diplomacy had started in the second term of Shaheed Mohtarma B....... Read More

(The author, a Swedish citizen, is currently a professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi)

Does the decision taken by prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani to resume dialogue to settle differences between India and Pakistan offer a chance to open the door to greater regional and international security? If so, the latest summit of the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Thimpu, the capital of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan – which served as the occasion for the Singh-Gilani meeting – could turn out to be most memorable since its creation in 1985.

Dominated by South Asia’s two arch-rivals, India and Pakistan, SAARC is, in the words of India’s Singh, a glass half-empty.

The Indo-Pakistani schism over Kashmir is the main reason why SAARC has yet to craft the norms of co-operation that could improve the management of natural resources, prevent land and water....... Read More