The sick loan portfolio in the banks started to swell as early as the mid-eighties, the same was not publicly acknowledged in the banks’ books. Throughout the nineties, huge lending decisions were taken in Islamabad instead of being analysed threadbare in the banks’ boardrooms by professional bankers. Handpicked persons having no professional background were placed…
The landmark Supreme Court (SC) judgment validating Parliament’s enactment of laws authorizing trials of terrorists by military courts was widely hailed throughout the country. Greeted with a sigh of relief, public opinion registered a massive surge of hope and aspiration. The SC ordered that the military courts adopt the basic principles and procedures of a…
The communication gap between the British officers and native Indian troops was blamed by the British for the mutiny in the Army of the British East India Company leading to the 1857 War of Independence. To propagate British imperial rule after 1857, an Indian Viceroy Commissioned Officer (VCO) rank was instituted to facilitate effective liaison….
Dear Readers, Having just celebrated the 68th anniversary of its independence in grand style, some soul searching is still in order to evaluate where Pakistan stands today. Successive governments failed to establish or implant the concept of ‘unity in diversity’ among Pakistanis by failing to develop pragmatic policies whether educational, related to economic development, preservation…
When NAB was established in 1999 the initial target was to go after those who had done bank fraud and/or did not return the loans taken on flimsy pretexts. The first monies recovered was from bank defaulters, over Rs 50 billion in the first two years. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) then stepped in…
Pakistan and China have been enjoying extremely close and mutually beneficial relations since 1951 when diplomatic ties were established between the two. During Beijing’s period of international isolation in the 1960s and early 1970s, Pakistan, that was one of the first countries, and the first Islamic state, to recognize the People’s Republic of China in…
Under treatment presently in a UK hospital, PTI’s Chief Counsel, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada tried his best to prove before the Judicial Commission (JC) that elections were selectively rigged by the ruling PML(N) in dozens of seats in the Punjab during the 2013 elections. Having sufficient reason to feel cheated, PPP’s legal counsel Sen Aitzaz Ahsan…
Having raised the hopes of the country by apprehending a large number of target killers and subsequently going after those in the bureaucracy whose corruption and connections to organised crime fuels terrorism, the Rangers in Sindh have become prey to politics, a victim of their own success. One had hoped otherwise but this was to…
The National Accountability Bureau Ordinance (NABO) under Section 5 describes a “public office holder’ as an individual holding, or have held, an office or post in the service of Pakistan or in connection with the affairs of the Federation, or of a Province, or of a local council constituted under any Federal or Provincial law,…
Brimming with excitement bordering on the histrionics that one normally associates with political rallies, trusted Mian Nawaz Sharif kinsman, Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, presented what he insists is a “poor-friendly” Federal budget in the National Assembly (NA) on June 5. Detractors do not share the palpable enthusiasm of our “man for all seasons”, they…
