Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Taj M Khattak
The recent border stand-off between India and China was over after India acceded to China’s demand of dismantling its outpost in Chumar, and only then the 50-odd Chinese soldiers moved back about 19 kilometres to their original ...

Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Taj M Khattak
The contents of General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s recent speech on the occasion of Youm-e-Shuhada (Martyrs’ Day) aside, it was a sad reminder that this is now a regular event on the military calendar. We should be prepared to mourn more ...

Friday, May 03, 2013
Taj M Khattak
The reports about Jordan’s secret agreement with Israel to open its airspace to Israeli drones en route to Syria are the latest twist in this unfortunate conflict that has entered its third year and has all the potential to further ...

Thursday, April 25, 2013
Taj M Khattak
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan had once remarked that Pakhtun women were more intelligent than their husbands. He had of course meant no offence to the men but only expected them to be generous in conceding cerebral superiority to their ...

Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Taj M Khattak
One fine morning in the early days of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s rule, I found myself in the company of family elders where, Nizam Din, tenant of our small land-holding, had been summoned for the usual seasonal cropping ...

Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Taj M Khattak
The North Korean soldiers shown parading on TV recently mercifully didn’t have the gusto of German troops goose-stepping in 1914, which amply demonstrated their over enthusiasm for war nearly a century ago, the sad consequences of ...

Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Taj M Khattak
It is perhaps a less known fact that when President Richard Nixon visited Pakistan in 1973, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sought US help to construct a new port at Gwadar, and reportedly offered the US Navy use of the facility. ...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Taj M Khattak
“What are you looking for, young man?”, someone asked over my shoulder in a soft voice as I stood in front of a bookshelf in the library at the old PAF Staff College at Shahrah-e-Faisal in Karachi in 1980 where I was attending a ...

Thursday, March 07, 2013
Taj M Khattak
The recent book by a former chief of the general staff of the Pakistan Army has only added to what was generally known in informed circles, and once again there are calls for a commission on Kargil. This, however, is unlikely even if ...

Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Taj M Khattak
Tragic as the recent loss of soldiers on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) is, the other significant casualty has been plummeting public confidence in the ability of both India and Pakistan to adequately handle border incidents ...