News & Updates

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan army’s jets and ground forces killed 24 militants as part of ongoing operations in the country’s troubled tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, the military and a government official said Tuesday. Seventeen local and foreign “terrorists” were killed in airstrikes on Tuesday in the North Waziristan tribal region, where the military has been carrying out a major operation since June, a military statement said. It provided no details and the identity of the slain militants was not known. The airstrikes were launched hours after more than 50 militants attacked a military checkpoint in the Khyber tribal region, triggering a shootout late Monday in which seven militants were killed, said Iqbal Khan, a government official. The assailants fled when the troops returned fire, he said, adding that security forces were searching the area to trace and arrest the attackers. North Waziristan and Khyber tribal regions are closed to journalists and there is no way to indep...

Pakistan and its Democracy:  The annual meeting of All India Muslim League for the year 1930 was organized at a big Haveli in Allahabad. When the official proceedings of the meeting began, there were less than 75 people in the enclosure, causing panic among the ranks of party officials. According to the party laws, the minimum requirement for meeting quorum at an annual meeting had to be at least 75 people. As a last resort, a famous Urdu poet was tasked with reciting one of his long poems until new members could be recruited by the officials—a process that took two hours. Finally, the official meeting commenced and the Presidential address was read by a Punjabi poet and politicians. The presidential address contained six references to democracy and all of those arguments were against the democratic system of governance. That particular address has been quoted ad nauseum by right-wing commentators and writers of Pakistan’s textbooks—very often the same people—as the first t...

ISLAMABAD: Dr Vaqar Ahmed, the Deputy Executive Director, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, has stressed the need for normalizing trade relations between Pakistan and India to benefit both the local manufacturers and consumers besides technology transfer and greater export surplus. He was speaking at a two-day regional consultation on `Deepening Economic Cooperation in South Asia: Expectations from the 18th SAARC Summit' organized by South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) in cooperation with SDPI in Kathmandu. The programme was organized as a side-event to the 18th SAARC Summit to provide useful recommendations to deepen economic cooperation in South Asia. "The Government of Pakistan must take a lead in expediting SAARC-level pending agreements on transport, energy, connectivity and dispute resolution," Dr Vaqar said, adding that the current free trade agreements in the region should be revised to include invest...

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz blamed on Saturday India for wanting to resolve the Kashmir dispute in its own way, which he said Pakistan would not allow. “India wants to resolve the Kashmir dispute in its own way and Pakistan will not allow this Indian attempt to succeed,” he said while speaking to reporters in Islamabad. The adviser added that Pakistan is responding to Indian firing along the Line of Control (LoC) and working boundary in a befitting manner, adding that the Pakistan’s desire for peace should not be mistaken as its weakness. The adviser on foreign affairs said Pakistan has been highlighting human rights violations by the Indian forces in Indian Kashmir where India has deployed 700,000 troops to suppress Kashmiris. Referring to India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s statement disapproving of Pakistan’s recent move of approaching the UN to ‘internationalise the Kashmir issue’ and seeking the world ...

3. 10 pm: J&K chief minister called UNMOGIP a 'toothless organisation' Voicing out his opinion on the LoC ceasefire violations, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister  Omar Abdullah  said that stopping talks with Pakistan is not the solution. "Govt has said shelling will be answered by shelling. But I think nothing can be solved without talks," he said. The J&K chief minister called UNMOGIP a 'toothless organisation', and said that it has never been able to stop any violence. "If Pakistan wants a suitable situation then it can only happen if the guns go silent," he added, 3.00 pm: No flag meeting till Pak stops firing, says Amit Shah Addressing a rally in Wardha, BJP leader Amit Shah said that government won't stand Pakistan's treachery. "When there was Congress government, Pakistan used to start and end firing. But now though Pakistan begins the firing, India finishes it," he said. The BJP leader said that Pakis...