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Changing environment and Pakistan’s crises

Haroon Baloch January 07, 2011 The pace of development in South Asia has always remained questionable, mainly attributed to outsized populations. China, the world’s largest population, neighbors the second largest India, as well as the seventh largest population Pakistan. Environmental concerns of the region are reciprocal to their populations. Developed industrial countries are considered responsible for the international environmental crises, while developing countries bear the brunt of negative consequences as they lack resources and capabilities to control this grave problem.  In Pakistan, pity natural resource management over years and high population growth exacerbated environmental menace. Yet having strategically important location in the region, the country faces serious threats in terms of food security and energy crises mainly due to shortage of water, an issue which is drastically ambiguous. Sufficiency in agriculture production highly depends on the...
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UPR review — keeping fingers crossed

November 17, 2017 By Haroon Baloch Pakistan submitted national report for its human rights review under a unique and important UN mechanism, the Universal Periodic Review. It presents a flowery picture of everything good in the country from civil and political rights to economic and cultural rights, gender rights and the rights of minorities. Then why do Pakistanis make such a hue and cry? Why televisions and newspapers are thronged with rights violations? And who brought them to the lime light? Definitely these liars have nothing to do with patriotism and the country — are they traitors? Attacks on journalists, kidnappings, torture and threats to them and their families are common in Pakistan, and these are done with absolute impunity The review is taking place in Geneva today, and Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif is leading a large Pakistani delegation at the Human Rights Council. Last time, former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar presented this report and made sev...
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Before the Afghan Peace Process: The Need for Islamabad to Combat Internal Challenges

By: Haroon Baloch Good governance has been receding in Pakistan and tensions are mounting. The public has cherished its civilian rule during the past three and a half years, and has seen a debilitating yet resilient economy, maintaining a 2.5 percent growth rate. Still, external debts have crossed $64 billion, unemployment hovers over 6.2 percent, and the poverty rate, at 37.5 percent, is increasing with double figure inflation. Once thought to be the next Asian tiger, as was former Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif’s dream for Pakistan, the country is now considered a struggling economy in South Asia. During the 1990s, Sharif vowed to reduce corruption, improve infrastructure, and encourage growth in modern technologies. He privatized banks and industries, suspending the policies of nationalization promoted by former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s. However, even with these changes, institutions in the country were never strengthened. In the 90s, the co...
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