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Helsinki Summit – a Diplomatic Fiasco for Trump (Dr. Imran Khalid)

Helsinki Summit – a Diplomatic Fiasco for Trump (Dr. Imran Khalid)

In one sentence, the just-concluded Helsinki summit can best be described as “Russia first”. This is all what Donald did in those five hours of discussions and one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin. In the post-summit press conference, both failed to tell the world about a single concrete point that would have a positive impact on global peace and stability. This agenda-less meeting was destined to be a diplomatic fiasco for Trump – but it is a success for Putin who has been able to weaken Trump in his home ground. Prior to the meeting, during the session and after the summit, President Donald Trump did nothing but defending the Russians and Putin and blaming his predecessors and the American establishment for all the troubles between Moscow and Washington.

“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity, and now the Rigged Witch Hunt!!” is how Donald Trump tweeted just a couple of hours before the start of his much-touted summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.  But Vladimir Putin “reciprocated” this welcome tweet by arriving at the meeting room 35 minutes late, while maintaining his long tradition of arriving late at international summits and keeping his counterparts to wait for him. But interestingly, contrary to his extremely egoistic nature, President Donald Trump completely ignored this and remained silent on this deliberate delay. Just imagine, if any of the European leaders had kept Donald Trump waiting like this, then Trump would have made a big issue out of it and walked out of the meeting in rage. But Donald Trump devoured this “mild diplomatic offence” without any hitch and did his best to maintain a jolly mode throughout the marathon sessions with Putin and his team.

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Pakistani Newspapers

Imran Khan and His Victory Speech (By: Asma Shahbaz)

Imran and his victory speech

26th of July transpired Imran khan party head of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and his victory speech. According to the analysts, speech was the most sensible victory speech ever made. Before anything else, he was not found dependent on any piece of paper to convey his thoughts properly.

Substantial importance is granted to the friendly neighborhood in the address; however, Pakistan is not so successful in experiencing this comfort. India has an enduring rivalry with Pakistan. And Afghanistan, despite being provided with much leverage, in particular offered shelter to refugees (a reason of instability) encounters Pakistan in many fields. China in the northern side is the only one that has always backed Pakistan in difficult times, starting from the wars of 1965 and 1971, silk route, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, support in FATF’s decision etc. Imran khan, the to-be prime minister of Pakistan, not only shed light on the importance of smooth relationships with neighboring countries but promised to improve them as well.

His victory speech although in Urdu (national language) was given the most coverage from all big media houses that have ever been experienced in the history of Pakistan.

He also talked about uplifting the proletariat class of the society and providing them with their basic needs, jobs and appointments on merit. He termed all these policies as human development and said state’s progress is analyzed by the standard of living of the poor class of the society. Moreover, state cannot progress with a small portion of rich and an ocean of poor class.

He in descending order, offered accountability which means he and his party will be held accountable for their deeds first and then others. He postulated elections were out of rigging and election commission was appointed by PML-N and PPP themselves and without any involvement of PTI. But even then if there is uncertainty he is ready to open any polling area held suspicious by any political party.

He spent a valuable time talking about India and its disputes with the state. He started with the conviction that India labeled him as a villain from outer world. Moreover, he talked about disputed territory Kashmir and said that both states should sit on tables peacefully and find out a solution.

A fact of paramount importance is that India always gives a reference to the Tashkent agreement 1966 and its clause that any disputed matter would be discussed between them only and no third party’s involvement would be bared. While Pakistan gives a reference to Karachi agreement 1949 which was supervised by a supranational body UN, hence all disputed matters should also be solved under UN.

He said that money of people in form of taxes will not be wasted but will be spared on them only. And he and his government will reduce expenditures and adopt simplicity. He has refused to live in PM residence and proposed the establishment of either educational or public institution over there. All governor houses will also be treated in the same way.

He also humbly talked about personal attacks made on him during the previous government tenures and ensured that he will not do the same and will not take any sort of revenge from anyone.

There was a huge response from the general public after his victory speech mainly expressed on social media. Even those who were not the supporters of him wished him good luck and betterment of the state. Labeled as mature, concise and highlighting almost all major points that needed attention, his speech is plausible.

Courtesy: Daily The Nation Lahore

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FPSC’s blame on failed educated youth (Part III)

FPSC CSS Exams

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Michael Axworthy in the “The Sword of Persia” wrote that 30, 000 camels and 24, 000 mules were carrying the Mughal treasure to Iran via Afghanistan, the present value of which was 90 billion British pounds equivalent to Pak rupees 12690 billion. When assured that the King of the Kings Nadir Shah had finally left Delhi, the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah held the meeting of his surviving courtiers who were quite happy being alive after Delhi massacre and in authority, too. Axworthy referring to contemporary historical account of this meeting says that the king and the courtiers were in the deep buzz of joyfulness as they had been before the arrival of the Iranian cataclysmic disaster, restoring the same routine of idiosyncrasy, foolishness, stupidity and ruthlessness as if nothing had happened. However, there was one legendary singer Nur Bai, sick and tarnished in perpetual agony, who blamed her enchanting beauty and mesmerizing voice as guilty for the Delhi massacre.

Another catastrophe became due as 1857’s disaster visited Delhi, only 118 years after 1739. Timeless, tragic and innate lesson of history is that the mother of aggression is a weakness which is a wanton child of follies and imprudence coming out of the belly of favoritism and protectionism. Every challenge is always resolved successfully by the natives, for native talent is bestowed a quality by Mother Nature to respond it. Through the works of great thinkers, from Plato’s “The Republic” to Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, we notice a compelling necessity to give due share in the structure of power to all, even at the farthest corner of a state. Similarly, the Chinese state constructed the institution of state servants strictly on the principle of equal share to all stakeholders. The ancient kings of China made frequent visits to far-flung areas in order to find young talent for future bureaucracy, maintaining equilibrium between the developed and underdeveloped areas. Ruin comes when a state itself promotes rulers from peculiar areas, depriving the vast but voiceless majority having no status beyond servile.

In this regard, Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC)’s entire system of recruitment rotates all around the “particularism” by which “inclusiveness” is strangulated, sowing the seeds of hatred, disregard and irrelevance among the oppressed multitudes who promote allegiance against love and admiration for state. With the passage of time, it grows as a vital blow to national solidarity, cohesion, stability and fairness, finally resulting in collapse of the system of state wherein treasures full of gold, coins and precious items look meaningless. During the brutal time of transition, nothing has any value. All of it loses credibility and continuity.

However, there looks one and only social institution in the world of politics enjoying permanence: the national bureaucracy. In stately history of China, we see uncountable occasions where the national institution of bureaucracy rescues the state from violent storm of destructive moves. The state functionaries at the time of deep crisis bravely came forward to protect it from assault by unwise and emotional forces even at the cost of their lives. Basic charisma behind the elevated spirit of nationhood in China was the judicious and fair formulation of the institution of bureaucracy. Its broad-based, inclusive and hydrogenous recruitments converted the state organization into a true national body being well conversant of indigenously complex social norms, taboos, trends and customs.

The cardinal problem of modern man is psychological in nature. He knows all about the world but does not know the nearest neighbor. The biggest challenge for the local administration is not a naked use of force in order to keep the disgruntled mob under peace but a prudent strategy to prepare it to obey the law which essential for social harmony and fairness. The method vogue in FPSC, the so-called cream of the nation, by taking exams, marking papers, taking interviews, assessment of the psychology and natural potential of the candidates and the structure of the training after appointment, has lost its utility and requires thorough reformation.

A large number of the students with excellent academic records utilizing all three chances of CSS Exams failed last year, authenticating glaring flaws in the system of recruitments in FPSC. In my personal experience, most of the educated youth rejected by FPSC are the most successful men and women in the foreign land or leading enviable lives in journalism, business and NGOs on basis of their writing and knowledge of history, global affairs and national politics. The majority complained that unexplainable variations in the marks of each exam embarrassed them a lot, with disproportional marks allocated to writing and essay sections.

These are the self-negating barriers put in place for hunt for the young men and women of talent, educative excellence, professional craft and depth in creative thinking. If FPSC’s claim is accepted that the successful educated youth is available only in privileged metropolises, then the question is: Why has the national bureaucracy as whole failed to deter continual deterioration in the structure of governance? Are the bureaucrats at present better than that of their predecessors in 1970s? The answer to it is hopelessly in the negative.

Rising trend of choosiness, discrimination, favoritism and nepotism continues to be unchanged in FPSC, only for the reason it enjoys sublime sovereignty almost near to the pharaonic stature. One of my readers, a senior teacher by profession, wrote that he appeared many times in the written exams held for various posts from grade-17 and 18. He attempted the papers excellently, but all the time he was declared failed. When he demanded “merit list”, FPSC denied his request, saying that the merit list was a sensitive matter. Given the situation, we are heading toward total dissatisfaction of the people who do not trust any state department providing employment.

Against the constitutional framework for judicious distribution of national income, transfer of power at the gross root level and equal share in opportunities and freedom of conscientious, the land of fifth largest democracy in the world has developed a self-destructive structure of power. For the first time, the young people form 64% of the total population in Pakistan, and they are sadly unhappy with this decadent system of fairness and justice. Since its creation, such a precarious situation arose in the Eastern Wing of Pakistan in 1971 that was tackled unwisely the result of which was a national tragedy. The precarious condition of today is not different, but the level of apathy dominating both the scenarios——1971 and 2018——-is the same. A time has come not only to change the conventional political class and power groups but also to repeal the rotten structure of power, state legacy, socio-economic perceptions and realities. Otherwise, unmanageable challenges in the national horizon will devastate whatever was ill-constructed in our seven decades old national history.

The writer is Ex-Director General Senate of Pakistan.

Courtesy: Daily Nation Lahore

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Articles International Relations Pakistani Newspapers

Is Trump at war with the West? (By Ishaan Tharoor)

JUST one day after his stunning comments in Helsinki, President Donald Trump attempted to backtrack. In the Finnish capital, standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a news conference, he had cast doubt on the conclusions of US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Back in the White House on Tuesday, however, Trump argued that he had simply misspoken; he read out a statement saying that he did, in fact, accept that Moscow attempted to sway the vote. At least for a moment.

`Could be other people also,` he added in the very next sentence. `A lot of people out there.

Not many people in Washington were convinced by Trump`s about-face. Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly called into question his own government`s investigations into Kremlin interference and dismissed the growing body of evidence linking that intrusion to his election win including a comment from Putin himself . Since the remarks in Helsinki, moreover, he had been interviewed by Fox News and made no mention of misspeaking. Even his attempted clarification on Tuesday was apparently self-edited into something more defiant.

Nor did Trump say anything about Russia`s 2014 annexation of Crimea or its role in buttressing the violent excesses of the Syrian regime.

That timidity stood in contrast to his sweeping criticism of America`s Nato allies in Brussels last week. To many Trump critics, his performances in both cities capped a year and a half of both tacit and overt attacks on the transatlantic alliance.

Trump`s behaviour was that `of a man who wants the alliance to fail`, wrote New York Times columnist David Brooks.

`His embrace of Putin was a victory dance on the Euro-American tomb.

`The Russian President was effectively given a free pass by a sitting US President to continue his hybrid war against the West,`wrote Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister. He called on European liberals to rally against Trumpism and its proxies, pointing to a former Trump adviser`s efforts to boost far-right populists on the continent. `The battle is now on to defeat Steve Bannon`s sick dream of a right wing populist revolution in Europe and a retreat to the murderous nationalism of Europe`s past,` he wrote.

It`s worth asking, even now, whom Trump sees as his enemy. His political campaign was couched in nativist rhetoric against `globalism`, a euphemism for a world of multicultural liberals and business and political elites who he claimed did not have America`s interests at heart.

Since taking power, he has focused such attacks on real institutions the Democratic Party and civil servants he dubs `the deep state` at home, and multilateral blocs such as Nato and the European Union overseas.

More broadly, he has shown consistent apathy for the American-built world order that guaranteed US supremacy for decades.

`In the post-war world, US policy had four attractive features: it had appealing core values; it was loyal to allies who shared those values; it believed in open and competitive markets; and it underpinned those markets with institutionalised rules,` wrote Martin Wolf of Financial Times. `This system was always incomplete and imperfect. But it was a highly original and attractive approach to the business of running the world.

Wolf suggests Trump is bent on rejecting that system, which is often what weare invoking when we refer now to the `West`: `For those who believe humanity must transcend its petty differences, these principles were a start. Yet today the US president appears hostile to core American values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law; he feels no loyalty to allies; he rejects open markets; and he despises international institutions. He believes that might makes right.

Trump may have diminished US leadership in the world,` Russian analyst Maxim Suchkov said to Today`s World View in Moscow last week, `but he still wants domination.

This worldview leads many analysts to suggest that Trump has more in common with autocrats like Putin than with the elected leaders of Europe`s major democracies. For critics of American hegemony, who have long argued that its stated values have little to do with its geopolitical actions, Trump has confirmed their beliefs.

`That reduces the US from being the leader of the free world to being just another grasping great power,` Daniel Fried, a former US diplomat and fellow at the Atlantic Council, said to my Washington Post colleagues David Nakamura and Carol Morello. It `undoes 100 years of America`s grand strategy, he added, `which worked out well for us.

It won the Cold War, because people behind the Iron Curtain were inspired by our ideas and ideals.

Instead, Trump champions another vision. Trump`s conception of the West is cultural, not political. It`s anchored in blood-and-soil rhetoric and anger against immigration. Just last week, he argued in Brussels that new migrant arrivals are `very bad for Europe` because they are `changing the culture`.

A host of mainstream European politicians would disagree, as would the majority of their populations. A new Pew survey of eight Western European countries, published this month, found that 66 per cent of those polled believe immigrants make their societies stronger.

But Trump sees this openness as a weakness. Here again, he makes himself a kindred spirit with Putin, another outsider standing sceptically at the door of the liberal West.

`Until 2014, Russia used to see itself as the easternmost bus stop of the Western world,` Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said to The Wall Street Journal. `Since then, there has been a fundamental shift and Russia has turned inward. The Russian elite and its leader, Putin, have come to the conclusion that attempting to become part of the West won`t lead to desired results.

This involves an attempt to turn east and cultivate deeper ties with Asia. But it has also seen the Kremlin build links with the same European far-right populists that Trump has celebrated.

Matteo Salvini, Italy`s interior minister and far-right leader, is pushing for the end of EU sanctions on Russia. Putin, meanwhile,has cultivated a global image as a preeminent Christian nationalist leader and is cheered by white supremacists in the United States.

The governments Putin and Trump lead may be at odds, but the two men themselves, argued journalist Leonid Ragozin, are on `the same side of the divide`. They represent `the same strain of a rising global culture: that of viciously xenophobic tabloids, politically biased infotainment TV, tacky showbiz, irresponsible populism, rabid nativism, and oligarchic kleptocracy,` he wrote for BuzzFeed News.

And their bewildered adversaries, now led by a hobbled Europe, are struggling to cope.

-By arrangement with The Washington Post

Courtesy: Daily Dawn

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Articles Pakistani Newspapers

Need for education emergency (By: Nishat Shuja)

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The Constitution of Pakistan guarantees the right to education for all aged 5 to 16. Unfortunately, this is not what is happening. The number of children getting education is in decline. This has emerged as one of the issues in this general election.

According to a UNICEF report of 2015, there are 6.5 million children who are not in primary schools and another 2.7 million are not in lower secondary schools. According to a UNESCO report, Pakistan is ranked second in the world based on the number of out-of-school children. Females are more uneducated. There are many reasons that the next elected government should give priority to education. In fact, there is a need to enforce education emergency in Pakistan.

The education system has various issues. “The problems include inappropriate curriculum, inefficient teaching staff and a gender gap, which limits education opportunities for women. Major chunks of budget are used for short-term projects, which can be marketed politically,” said Usman Ali, co-founder of Ghani Foundation, which works on providing education to children across the board.

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Kashmir Martyr’s Day – July 13th (By: Ghulam Nabi Fai)

Kashmir Martyrs Day

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“It was on July 13, 1931, that the foreign occupying Dogra troops shot dead 22 Kashmiris in cold blood in front of Srinagar Central Jail. Since that ominous day, Kashmiris have organized peaceful protests, seminars and conferences throughout the world. The people of Kashmir observe Martyrs Day to reaffirm their resolve to continue the struggle for self-determination and pay homage to the 100,000 innocent men, women and children killed brutally within the past 29 years. In Srinagar, a massive march will take place towards the martyrs’ graveyard at Naqashband Sahib. This march has been approved by Joint Resistance Leadership – Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik. We clearly and unequivocally call for all Kashmiris to continue to increase their solidarity at this critical juncture. As we know that Indian impotence, wilful ignorance and desperation to avoid a meaningful peace process and initiate wimpy attempts to pacify Kashmiri passion will fail miserably,” stated Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General, Washington-based World Kashmir Awareness Forum (WKAF).

The Kashmiri people’s resolve and continued commitment to peaceful protest is principled on the ongoing massive violations of their human rights, and the Indian Government’s atrocious dismissal of their aspirations for self-determination. Amnesty International (AI) report, for India (2017-2018) says, “Impunity for human rights abuses (in Jammu and Kashmir) persisted. Security forces continued to use inherently inaccurate pellet-firing shotguns during protests, blinding and injuring several people. Authorities frequently shut down internet services, citing public order concerns.”

In that regard, the recent report issued by the United Nations on June 14, 2018 on the situation in Kashmir, is congratulatory. The report underscored that “Impunity for human rights violations and lack of access to justice are key human rights challenges in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.” And that “Impunity for enforced or involuntary disappearances in Kashmir continues as there has been little movement towards credibly investigating complaints including into alleged sites of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region.”

The people of Kashmir clearly have little faith in or respect for the so-called Indian democracy, and India hasn’t the slightest idea how to earn it. Its solution to the anger of people crying for freedom and a respite from the terror of 700,000 troops is to clamp down even harder, adding to the death toll of such a policy that now approaches the six-figure range.

The desire for self-determination is the one very big “element” India should be concerned about, yet continues to pretend to the world that it does not exist. However long India refuses to acknowledge it, the decades-old movement in Kashmir will not simply die out. Even the latest United Nations report recommends the Government of India to “fully respect the right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir as protected under international law.”

The hopes of the United Nations that the Kashmir dispute could be settled through bilateral talks between India and Pakistan are misguided. The litany of failed bilateral efforts proves this erroneous theory of bilateral peace, and this has been supported by the people of Kashmir, who have steadfastly maintained that tripartite talks between the Governments of India & Pakistan and the legitimate leadership of the people of Kashmir are the only way to resolve the Kashmir issue.

We appeal to the world powers to recognize the long-standing wishes and aspirations of the Kashmiri people as they observe Martyrs Day, July 13th. And we hope that the world powers will realize that what is at stake in the dispute is not only the survival of the people of Kashmir but also the peace and stability in the region of South Asia.

The writer is the Secretary General of World Kashmir Awareness Forum.

Published in: Daily The Nation Lahore

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FPSC’s blame on failed educated youth (By: Mushtaq Ahmed)

FPSC Exams Building

The tens of thousands of the highly educated but jobless youth are in desperate search of a job while hundreds of vacancies are laying vacant in FPSC for the reason that educated youth cannot qualify the exams held for the appointments. In support of the self-projected claim, FPSC told the nation that the 9,010 candidates appeared in the CSS examination-2017 have failed to reach the multilayers criterion laid down to judge the talent of the prospect ruling elite. On one hand, the number of disgruntled young people rapidly ascend the top of Himalaya and on the other hand the powerful state institutions under the complete control of the privileged minority in the structure of power, have failed to responds the challenge. Historically, whenever young population outnumbers the middle and old population, disastrous revolution becomes due. The recent population consensus shows that the young population forms more than 50% of total population for the first time in the 70 years history of Pakistan. This proposition is sufficient cause to collapse the system of the state. Radically charged revolution always plays destructive role in the nation facing long series of challenges, resulting in civil war in which fellowmen fight with fellowmen. The furious storm beneath the bottom of the Pakistani state and society gets momentum in every successive time because of the fact that important state institutions continue to enjoy a great inertia, lacking ability to perceive the fast reaching disaster. Everything is rotten in the state of Denmark, as Shakespeare explored the reason in the age of decadency and fall in 16th and 17th century Europe. Hence, our so-called prestigious institution FPSC itself has failed to give genius, prudent, honest and competent bureaucracy to the nation facing serious challenges since the day first it establish its state. This is the gloomy tale of the mother land FPSC diligently refuses to be the main character in this sad episode.

Like all national institutions of pivotal role in construction and reconstruction of a nation state, the Federal Public Service Commission of Pakistan has sunk in the deep and violent ocean of decline ever growing furious. For, recent announcement of the CSS Exam-2017 has sent a wave of anguish and resentment to the overwhelming majority of the youth taking part in the aforesaid exam, making thin minority of only 3.33 % to celebrate the victory in the competition for making of future ruling elite. Eulogizing its magnificent stature, the FPSC blatantly shifted the responsibility of the total scarcity of the talent in the fifth large democracy in the world, on others, laying the blame on the quota system and illiterate educated youth due to extremely low standard of higher education. Overtly, this over-emphasized claim may look genuine to some beneficiary of the situation but in reality the FPSC enjoys no exception as is equally blamed. As our national history tells, it has become an easy and fashionable trend to blame the politicians, military or to the judiciary for collective failure, leaving real culprits unaccounted for the collapse of the system of the state apparatus, forgetting the historic truth that the mechanism of decline is all ways collective and inclusive.

The philosophy of history we have come to know through greatest minds not in farthest time like Hegel and Toynbee conveys categorical message and innate lesson that a decline that reaches the final stage encompasses all the stakeholders including the state and social institutions. In this perspective, the bureaucracy’s failure to deter the total collapse of governance will be the failure of the prime hatchery——FPSC—-hatching the eggs of the peculiar specie destined to rule the multitudes. Thus, not only the HEC and Universities but also the FPSC is primarily responsible for allowing 95% of the vacancies unfilled. The plea that the quota system appears the cardinal cause for not filling all the vacancies, is unmaintainable being illogical; rather it looks insulter to the talented but voiceless youth seeking knowledge at farthest corner of the country in alien language without having least facilities necessary for acquiring knowledge. So, such kind of approach indicates political prejudice of the urbanized minds declaring the only genius and competent who can speak English fluently and write it with thorough dexterity. If essentially true, then we should call back our old masters, the English people to reign us, once more, being prime experts in their mother language, English. If the dominant language is honoured with the false shower of award of the only remedy of all the challenges, then how did the European communities break the shackles of the monarchic Latin in the Christendom? The FPSC must know the historic truth that the marvellous book on celestial world demolishing the false world of Aristotle and Ptolemy was not in Latin but in native language. For, the cardinal reason hidden in the hurdle in the way to finding geniuses in the country of 223 million people, is the decadent system of competition the FPSC evolved over the period of 35 years of indoctrination and a single dimensional theory injected in the minds of the youth subsequently given the task to response the age of uncertainty brewing the crafty challenges.

The test litmus the FPSC has fixed shows glaring deficiencies, inbuilt-flaws and self-negating contradictions. For example, on one hand, a simple graduate routinely defeat the contestants having successfully qualified for PhD degrees and on the other the highest scorer of 800 marks is failed and as the lowest scorers having just 650 marks are passed to get lucrative posts. Failure of the highest qualified candidates having more marks and the victory of lowest scorers with the lowest degrees form integral part of the long history of FPSC. In 2014, the question about the result of CSS Exam-2013 was raised at the floor of the Senate of Pakistan. Divulging the details, the relevant federal minister told the House 90% of successful candidates belonged to Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Karachi and Peshawar, leaving only 10% for the entire country. The legislators in the Upper House, irrespective of their political affiliations, agitated the vital discrepancy, for the assurance came from the minister to probe into grave matter. As Senate Secretariat itself gives no importance to a fair share of all stakeholders in the federation, the issue was thrown in the dustbin of history, though I compiled multiple stories for the English daily which were published, explicitly. One reason to raise this issue at the highest forum was that substantial number of the candidates having excellent academic career in high class English medium institutions including publication of research articles in the leading newspapers were among the failed candidates, as they could not pass either the Essay or Precise Writing.

A large number of the young candidates with brilliant degrees of M. Phil Economic or Development Economics from worldly recognized universities could not compete with the simple graduates because they expressed independent concept of national ideology. Even the highly qualified and talented candidates were wilfully debarred from the success only on the pretext that they refused to eulogize the national heroes in the conventional frame of reference. When these discouraged candidates got admission in the famous academies whose brilliant students had already succeeded in CSS Exams getting top positions, the first lesson they were given was that they should never criticize the Muslim Sultans, Shahs, Mughals and Turks of Ottoman Empire, if they wanted to become the part of the imperial system of royal service. As a result, most of disgruntled talented youth killed the idea to become a part of the future bureaucracy in Pakistan while remaining left the country in order to serve the foreign nations where they are now working on prestigious posts. This is the cardinal cause generating cyclical brain drain in Pakistan which continues unnoticed purely on the reason that talent carries no significance, at all. Only mediocre or fools in some cases, incompetent and dishonest are declared successful in CSS Exams due to their institutional-politico linkages. For the reason, we have the parasitic army of the state functionaries the FPSC have been selecting for the last 3.5 decades that have failed to offer a creative response to the challenge, as they first lack the geniuses and then natural capacity to mitigate the emerging disaster.

The writer is Ex-Director General Senate of Pakistan.

Published in: Daily Nation Lahore

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Articles International Relations Pakistani Newspapers

What will Trump and Putin agree on at Helsinki summit?

What will Trump and Putin agree on at Helsinki summit

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On July 16, US President Donald Trump will meet in the Finnish capital Helsinki a triumphant Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has just secured another victory in the Syrian war and obtained the international recognition he wanted from hosting the World Cup.

The Russian president will seek to exploit the growing rift between the United States and the European Union and the intensifying Iranian-Israeli rivalry to achieve his two main goals: Break Russia out of international isolation and become the sole kingmaker in Syria.

But in pursuing a deal with Trump, Putin poses the biggest threat to the legitimacy of his US counterpart domestically and internationally. The US establishment and intelligence community largely believe that the Kremlin favoured him in the 2016 US presidential race and an investigation into alleged Russian interference is still ongoing.

At the same time, Trump is confronted with an increasingly disgruntled group of allies who are wary of Russia’s aggressive posturing. That he will be meeting Putin right after attending the NATO summit in Brussels and visiting the UK (which has just had a major diplomatic crisis with Moscow), will not please any of them.

A history of Helsinki summits

The choice of Helsinki as the venue of the summit is not coincidental. The Finnish capital has hosted leaders of the two superpowers for important talks on two other major occasions.

In September 1990, a month after Iraq invaded Kuwait, US President George H W Bush met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Helsinki to discuss the crisis in the Gulf.

Preoccupied with the dissolution of the Eastern bloc after the fall of the Berlin Wall and with a Soviet Union on the verge of collapse, Gorbachev was negotiating from a position of weakness. Bush wanted his commitment to implementing sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s regime and he got it, in exchange for support for his counterpart’s reform plans. In March 1997, US President Bill Clinton met Russian President Boris Yeltsin to discuss a range of security and economic issues, including nuclear disarmament. At that summit, the Russian president had no trump cards to play.

The economic situation in Russia had been persistently deteriorating while the government was waging a highly unpopular war in Chechnya. Badly needing US financial support and backing, Yeltsin decided to concede to the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe in return for Russia’s integration in the global economy with US help. For that disastrous decision, he was labelled a “US puppet” by his opponents.

On July 16, President Trump will meet President Putin, but this time around, it seems, the roles have been reversed. The US president is facing a growing legitimacy crisis at home, where he is perceived as “a Russian puppet”, while his Russian counterpart has been dealt a powerful hand.

The Trump-Putin deal

This will be the fourth meeting between the two leaders since Trump took office in January 2017. They met twice during the July 2017 G20 summit in Germany and once on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) summit in Vietnam last November.

Since they last met, Trump succumbed to domestic pressure and took a number of anti-Russian measures, including approving lethal weapons sales to Ukraine in December, expelling Russian diplomats from the US in March, striking the Syrian regime and imposing additional sanctions on Russian officials in April.

Putin, too, upped the ante by giving a provocative speech on March 1, issuing unveiled threats of an arms race with the US. Then, after his re-election, he took advantage of the simmering US-EU trade war and the Iran nuclear deal crisis to re-engage with France and Germany, while also negotiating with Israel on key points of concern regarding the Syrian war.

Trump will give up Syria to Putin the way Gorbachev left Iraq to Bush in 1990.

Putin’s actions left Trump with no choice but to move up the meeting and send his national security adviser John Bolton to Moscow to set it up.

The US president plans to meet alone with his Russian counterpart and his translator, triggering concerns in the US and Europe regarding what he might concede if left alone in the room.

But despite these fears, no real breakthrough in US-Russian relations should be expected until Special Counsel Robert Mueller finalises his investigation. Lifting US sanctions on Russia, recognising its annexation of Crimea, and pulling US troops out of Eastern Europe are all off the table for the Helsinki summit; Trump’s hands are tied by US domestic politics. The only issue on which he can concede to lure in the Russian president is the Syrian war. Trump will give up Syria to Putin the way Gorbachev left Iraq to Bush in 1990.

The prerequisites for this deal are already in place. Trump’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is scheduled to meet Putin on July 11, just five days before the Helsinki summit; this will be their third meeting this year.

Russia is engaging the Israeli prime minister, aiming to repeat the Deraa scenario in Quneitra province near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Trump seems fine with the idea of ultimately removing US troops from the al-Tanf area on the Jordanian-Iraqi-Syrian border in return for keeping Iranian forces and their proxies away from southwest Syria. Trump’s endgame is not Syria. What he ultimately wants is for Putin to remain neutral in the US diplomatic offensive on Iran. The White House hopes Russia will follow through on the initial agreement with Saudi Arabia and OPEC and increase its oil output to compensate for the drop in Iranian oil exports caused by the reimposition of US sanctions. This move would diminish the effect of the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal on international markets and minimise a potential negative impact on the US economy ahead of mid-term elections in November. Moreover, Trump is also attempting to outmanoeuvre the Europeans in their rapprochement with Moscow by offering Putin to rejoin the G7.

And it already seems that the agreement between the two leaders is solidified even before they met. Russia is passively watching as the EU states scramble to save the nuclear deal with Iran, while the US has done nothing to help the Syrian opposition factions it once supported against the Russian and Syrian regime operation in Deraa. Apart from that, the aftermath of the summit will also give an indication of how relations between Washington and Moscow will develop in the near future. Will a direct line of communication be re-established, most notably on arms control negotiations? Will the Russian ambassador in Washington have more access to US officials moving forward? Will the US establishment become more receptive to engaging Moscow without tangible shift in Russian policy post-Helsinky summit? If there is a change on one or more of these fronts, it could bring more dynamism into US-Russian relations.–AL JAZEERA

Printed in: Daily The Nation  

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Articles Current Affairs Pakistani Newspapers

12 Afghan dams a new threat to Pakistan (By: Muhammad Nadeem Bhatti)

12 New Afghan Dams

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World moves on energy and the main source of it is water. In previous days what India had done to us is passed over, do we realise what Afghanistan is going to do with us now? Have we decided that after destroying our fields and villages, we all have to die with thirst. The first time we came to know in summer of 2010 that Afghanistan is not making one or two but the entire twelve dams at Kabul river and it has India’s full support. Not only the support, India actually convinced that the river would become a part of the aggression against Pakistan by creating dozens of dams on the river. India is not limited to technical support only, it is ready to invest. India has also developed Afghanistan’s feasibility report. Remember that before the announcement of the project, Afghanistan already had made few dams on Kabul based on American support. Now in this regard the World Bank is also ready to provide $8 billion for these dams to Afghanistan.

It is important to imagine the importance of the Kabul River for Pakistan. The river water is available nine months from February to October. 80 percent of the total agricultural cultivation of KP is irrigated from the same river. It is watering 60 percent of the land of Noshera, And, 85% fertile land of Charsadda is dependent on this river. Pakistan has made the Warsaw Dam over the river. Now, if Afghanistan builds twelve dams on this river and stores large quantities of water, then what kind of mess Pakistan will be facing.

It’s been years we know about Afgan dams. But in these years, this matter has never been discussed in our parliament. Unfortunately our leaders have rarely talked about how dramatic water crisis is going to get? Has any ministry prepared any report on it and has Parliament ever organised special session on that?

Allah has given a natural dam to Pakistan. This is the Kala Bagh Dam. Unfortunately when there is talk on this dam, some leaders begin jumping on the ground and say that this dam can only be built on their dead bodies. After India, Afghanistan too is making dams. But Pakistan is not doing much despite a crisis.

Pakistan is going to be suffering from a terrible crisis of water. What Afghanistan is going to do with us is very dangerous. We have a contract with India, but there is no agreement with Afghanistan regarding water. We burnt ourselves in Taliban fight but we could not have any agreement on water from Afghanistan. We delayed the Nailam Jhelum project and the case of India’s Kishan Ganga was strengthened; we could not even make the Munda Dam and now the number of proposed sub-dams of Afghanistan are powerful. Is it only our laziness or ineffectiveness?

It is not that we are completely dependent on India and Afghanistan for water and besides this we have no means. Pakistan is the reward of Allah. We also have snow curtains that make the water source of water. We also have monsoon showers and it is rainy in the winter too. Pakistan is wasting 90 percent of its water in the sea because it does not have the dam to store this water .This wasted water is worth $21 billion annually. First of all, we will have to make Kala Bagh Dam.

Water crisis is not limited to agricultural use only. The crisis of drinking water is also there. Only 12 percent of the water supply system is clean and 88% of people connected to it are drinking dirty and hazardous water. According to the report of the administration of planning and development, arsenic, fluoride and nitrate is being found in drinking water and according to the report of the Pakistan Council of Water Resources, 200,000 children are dying every year due to hazardous health water. According to an independent report, 300,000 children are dying every year due to hazardous water.

There is no doubt Pakistan is an agriculture country and depends upon 75% agriculture cultivation and the major crops are fully valuable even exportable by modern changes, especially cotton, cane and rice which need water on time to enhance the value of cultivation. Our leaders need to take immediate decisions of build dams for the survival of the country and if is not done one can say that we have made the final decision of collective suicide?

Courtesy: Daily The Nation

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Articles Pakistani Newspapers

FATF grey-listing? Shocking (By: KK Shahid)

FATF and Pakistan

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Pakistan has been put on the grey-list by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), following last week’s meeting in Paris, despite what are being touted as ‘best diplomatic efforts’.

This development is particularly shocking considering that this is precisely the watch-list that Pakistan spent the years 2012-2015 in, and also the fact that not much has changed since then. What makes the verdict even more jolting is the fact that the grey-list was the bare minimum that the FATF was going to give Pakistan, as it had announced in the February meeting.

Hence, one wonders what those ‘best diplomatic efforts’ were to prevent Pakistan from being grey-listed. Were they intended to perhaps ensure that Pakistan goes one better and hogs the black list, alongside Iran and North Korea? For, expecting Pakistan to be in the white one is to kid, among the rest of the world, ourselves.

Maybe it’s the last-ditch facades that are being touted as actual efforts. President issuing Anti-Terrorism Ordinance 2018 on the brink of the February meeting – or the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s (SECP) Anti Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Regulations, 2018 – or the National Security Committee’s (NSC) meeting before this month’s meet isn’t even worth calling a face-saving effort.

So maybe the ‘best efforts’, again, have been dedicated to get Pakistan on another list. Evidence for this could be that even though the Anti-Terrorism Ordinance 2018 slashed a ban on UN listed terror groups in Pakistan, many of them are directly or indirectly contesting the elections this month.

For instance, Hafiz Saeed – the man who was the topic of discussion last week, and in February, as he often is at such meetings – still has a functioning gamut of organisations in Pakistan, with next to nothing being done to monitor the transactions of the ‘charities’ and other groups that function under his banner, or as affiliates.

And while he might have dropped the idea of contesting the elections himself, and the Milli Muslim League mightn’t have received the election symbol, that isn’t stopping the affiliated independent candidates from contesting the elections, using Hafiz Saeed’s image on the banner – the man that as per Anti-Terrorism Ordinance 2018 is a terrorist in Pakistan, for being listed by the UN as such.

Hafiz Saeed’s family members are contesting the elections as well, and while one wouldn’t be judged for association, it is of course exceedingly unlikely for them to not be using the man’s name to muster votes, let alone distance themselves from the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief.

While Hafiz Saeed’s hogs many a poster, an entire party founded upon allegiance to Mumtaz Qadri – a man declared and executed as a terrorist by the state of Pakistan – is contesting elections via the Election Commission of Pakistan’s approval.

The Tehrik-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLY) has not only called for genocide of an entire community – the Ahmadis – it has plans to go on a killing spree against anyone not agreeing with their understanding of Islam, or those exercising the freedom of conscience and religion that the Constitution of Pakistan grants them.

While we’re on proponents of genocide, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) Chief Ahmed Ludhianvi will be contesting from NA-115 from the platform of the Rah-i-Haq Party, with Masroor Jhangvi and Muawia Azam having filed their nomination papers from PP-126.

All these banned groups calling for mass murder of sects being allowed to contest elections – let alone being put under a watch and their financial activities curbed – and all Pakistan could get was the grey-list? That’s pretty unfair, one would have to say.

Maybe it’s because the caretaker delegate managed to sell the idea that all this was the mainstreaming of terrorists that Pakistan was orchestrating.

Perhaps there is a Parliamentary order with regards to the process lost somewhere amidst all the election paperwork for the outfits that are undergoing the process.

The writer is a Lahore-based journalist.

Courtesy: Daily The Nation Lahore