This scribe’s earliest memories of Yahya Khan are from the early 1960s when he arrived in Dacca as GOC 14th Division. Our dwelling then was close to the Flagstaff House with a clear view of its porch. Overview of Yahya’s early military career Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan Qizilbash was born in 1917 (Chakwal, West Punjab)….
Bismillah Ar Rahman Ar Rahim. I can deliver this talk in Urdu language as the people here understand this but the target of my talk is also Bangladesh who will not fully understand, “Aami Bangla bolte pari, but aami chesta korbo k English bolbo” so that everyone can understand. I want my words to reach…
Pakistan-Iran relations have remained mired in half-hearted initiatives, coupled with misgivings and suspicions. Notwithstanding the fact that they share more than a 1000-kilometre border, common denominator of religion and an irritant-free geostrategic commonality, they have been poles apart. Joint economic ventures as well as trade and travel format are Greek at large. Big-ticket projects were…
Mark Twain, the greatest American humorist, said, “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.” Though he lived and died before World War-I, he was prophetic in essence. The post-exit scenario of the United States from Afghanistan is a perfect case study as to how a theatre of civilization, and subsequently a superpower, doomed…
The revulsion-cum-revolution, though peaceful in essence, on Pakistan’s western frontiers and the Taliban set-up has pitched Pakistan in a leadership role in the region and beyond. For the first time in four decades, it is hoped peace will return to Southwest Asia. The landlocked state which sits on the crossroads of geo-economics, inevitably controlling more…
The least that Ebrahim Raisi should do is to curtail the powers of the unelected strata, reform the financial sector, and open up the great Persian civilisation to the outside world. Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raisi has a much tougher task than his predecessors as he has assumed office at a crisscrossed time of regional…
Pakistan is once again seized with the Afghan fall-out equation as the United States exited the war-devastated country in a nightmarish mode. Washington has left behind dozens of unanswered questions in the geo-strategic and political milieu and its so-called peace plan negotiated with the Afghan establishment and the Taliban is in limbo. This impacts Pakistan…
It sounds paranoid to expect miracles in this age of 5G. At a time when the global economy is nosedived and even developed countries are in a fix, owing to a relentless pandemic, Pakistan has swung a surprise out of the blue. Its economy is talking. It is in a takeoff mode and to the…
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan can never afford to be at odds with each other. This is the balance-sheet of their geo-economics and fraternity. Irrespective of the fact that they differ on numerous policy wavelengths in the regional and international context, what glues them is an ‘undeclared and less-said’ strategic understanding of indispensability. Likewise, it is…
Half-way down the lane, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government has reoriented the country’s foreign policy into a new paradigm. It has taken a sharp departure from its conventional posture, and a host of developments suggest that ‘out of box’ thinking has, at least, set in to harness new opportunities and confront challenges. The good point…
