Comment by Riaz Haq on March 20, 2019 at 8:36am

A Confident #Pakistan Army Recalibrates the Country’s Regional Policies. #ImranKhanPrimeMinister and #PakistanArmy on the same page on policies toward #India , #Afghanistan, #Iran, #China, #UnitedStates and #SaudiArabia | RUSI

https://rusi.org/commentary/confident-pakistan-army-recalibrates-co...

Pakistan and India have just stepped back from the brink of an all-out war; Prime Minister Imran Khan has passed his first big foreign policy test after six months in office. Behind the scenes, however, he was helped by Pakistan’s military, who had set the scene for the country’s regional diplomacy, and the efforts go back almost two years, as indicated by Pakistan Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s speech at RUSI in 2017.

Bajwa made overtures to India well before Imran Khan’s election, and set about fixing what was seen as a ‘black hole’ in Pakistan’s foreign diplomacy, given the absence of a foreign minister for four years in the previous government. Prior to Khan coming into power in August 2018, Bajwa had also set things right with key allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). And, most significantly, Bajwa moved quickly to reassure China of Islamabad’s unwavering commitment to the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) relationship after a less than certain start by the Khan government’s commitment to Beijing. This includes the potentially contentious involvement of Saudi Arabia given tensions with Iran on the border as well as remarks by Khan’s ministers about renegotiating certain CPEC projects.

That the Beijing–Islamabad axis would ever be in doubt was itself remarkable given its importance to Pakistan. Still, that danger existed, and the uncertainty was removed: during General Bajwa’s September three-day China visit, Zhang Youxia, the deputy chairman of China’s powerful Central Military Commission, said that ‘military ties are an important backbone of relations between the two countries’.


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Similarly on the Middle Eastern front, Bajwa made the rounds throughout 2018 to further bolster ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. While previously it could be argued that Pakistan could take sides in the Middle East, under Bajwa’s leadership the Pakistan Army steered clear of the current political crisis which divides the Gulf. While giving full support to safeguard Saudi sovereignty, Pakistan also committed to helping Qatar by providing the all-important security for the 2022 football World Cup, which Qatar will be hosting. The Qataris and Pakistanis also stepped up support for the Afghan regional dialogue. And while strengthening ties with all the Gulf countries, Bajwa also became the first Pakistan Army chief to make an official trip to Tehran in two decades, laying the groundwork for better relations with Iran.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 20, 2019 at 9:56am

#Pakistan (rank 67) much happier country than India (rank 140) in 2019, says UN report. Pakistan climbs 8 places while India drops 7 places from last year | World | http://thenews.com.pk | #worldhappinessreport

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/446526-pakistan-happier-country-t...

Highlights
Pakistan has once again left behind India and other South Asian nations on the list of the world’s happiest countries Pakistan has showed much improvement, going up to 67th from the 75th rank last year the report warned that world happiness has declined in recent years driven by a sustained fall in India, which this year ranked in 140th place


Pakistan has once again left behind India and other South Asian nations on the list of the world’s happiest countries, according to the United Nations report released here on Wednesday.

The United Nations published the report on the happiest countries on the eve of the International Happiness Day which is celebrated on March 20 every year.


Pakistan has showed much improvement, going up to 67th from the 75th rank last year while the report warned that world happiness has declined in recent years, driven by a sustained fall in India, which this year ranked in 140th place.


Finland ranked as the world´s happiest country for the second year running while war-torn South Sudan sank to the least contented in The Nordic nation of 5.5 million people, known for their love of forests, lakes and saunas, topped the study which used survey data asking citizens in 156 countries how happy they perceive themselves to be, as well as measures such as life expectancy, income and social support.

The other Nordic countries, as well as the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand and Austria also made the top ten.


As well as performing well on all the indicators, the most content countries all tended to have very stable societies, with happiness levels changing comparatively little since 2005.

Despite the political turmoil brought by Brexit, Britain rose four places in the rankings to 15th.

The United States, meanwhile, continued its slide of recent years, dropping one spot to 19th place.

"This year´s report provides sobering evidence of how addictions are causing considerable unhappiness and depression in the US," said professor Jeffrey Sachs, one of the report´s authors.

The unhappiest nation was South Sudan, where the UN recently said 60 percent of people face food insecurity following a bloody civil war which has claimed the lives of an estimated 400,000 people.

Other conflict-ridden countries, such as Yemen, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic, also featured at the bottom of the table.

This has coincided with a rise in negative feelings, "comprising worry, sadness and anger, especially marked in Asia and Africa, and more recently elsewhere," it said.

This year´s publication also looked at how countries have performed in the happiness rankings since 2005.

Of the 20 largest gainers, half are in Central and Eastern Europe, five are in sub-Saharan Africa, and three in Latin America.

The five largest declines since 2005 were in Yemen, India, Syria, Botswana and Venezuela.


http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 30, 2019 at 9:04am

51pc of Pakistanis hold favourable opinion of PM Khan's overall performance: poll

https://www.dawn.com/news/1459915

More than half of Pakistan has a favourable opinion of Prime Minister Imran Khan's overall performance after his first five months in power, a new poll conducted by Gallup Pakistan and the Gilani Foundation suggests.

As part of the survey, a representative sample of 1,141 people was asked, “What is your opinion on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s overall performance up until now, i.e., since his winning the 2018 elections?”

According to the survey's findings, 38 per cent of Pakistanis rated the premier's performance as "good", whereas another 13pc had a "very good" opinion of whatever he's been up to.

In total, 51pc of the sampled people held a favourable opinion of the prime minister's performance, who assumed the top office on August 18 last year following his party's triumph in the general elections the previous month.

Meanwhile, 26pc people had a "bad" opinion of the PM's performance, whereas 20pc had a "very bad" view. Three per cent did not know or did not wish to respond.

Urban respondents, according to the survey's results, were found to be significantly more upbeat about PM Khan's tenure.

From among urban respondents, 15 per cent were of the view that the prime minister's performance has been very good up until now, while 44pc said that it had been good. Twenty-three per cent termed it 'bad', 16pc termed it 'very bad', and 2pc did not know or did not wish to respond.

Meanwhile, from among rural respondents, only 12pc said that the prime minister's performance had been very good, 35pc said that it had been good, 27pc opined that it had been bad, 22pc said that it had been very bad, while 4pc did not know or did not wish to respond.

The age-wise breakdown found that PM Khan enjoys a better approval rating among millennials, with 65 per cent of the respondents under the age of 30 holding a favourable opinion of him.

However, the prime minister's popularity takes a massive hit in the 50-plus age bracket, with a combined 51 per cent of them believing that his performance has been either "bad" or "very bad".

The prime minister's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had received 16.85 million (almost 32 per cent) of the total 53m votes cast in the 2018 general elections.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 6, 2019 at 6:35pm

Unlike the Pakistani political class, the Pakistani military is much more representative of the average people in the country. Here are a couple of excerpts of Anatol Lieven's book "Pakistan: A Hard Country" on this subject:

"The middle class composition of the officer corps increases contempt for the "feudal" political class. The army sees itself as superior to this class and far more modern, progressive and better educated."

"According to Shuja Nawaz, who obtained internal army documents, 65 percent of the military by 1990 was made up of people from Punjab, 14 percent of people from NWFP and FATA, 15 per cent from Sindh and Balochistan, and 6 per cent from Kashmir (reflecting large number of paramilitary units along the Line of Control." 

https://books.google.com/books?id=exBKSo-Pf6cC&dq=pakistan+hard...

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