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Thursday April 18, 2024
Beelam Ramzan
Beelam Ramzan

  • March 20, 2024

    Unsung heroes

    Syeda Shehrbano Naqvi, an assistant superintendent with Punjab police speaks during an interview with at her office in Lahore on February 27, 2024....

  • October 03, 2023

    Power relations

    Whenever American policymakers talk about India, they sing praises of its cultural diversity, hailing it as the world’s oldest and largest...

  • September 13, 2023

    Will a bigger BRICS be a bigger challenge?

    The expansion of BRICS has been hailed as “historic” by the bloc’s most stalwart proponent of enlargement, China. The five-member bloc...

  • August 21, 2023

    Trade beyond barriers

    US-China relations have soured over the past few years mostly due to the accusatory tone adopted by successive US presidents. Previously it was...

  • July 27, 2023

    Trips for cooperation

    In the midst of deteriorating relations and bitter friction, a flurry of high-profile American officials’ visits to China has been significant....

  • June 13, 2023

    Where is Pakistan’s soft power?

    At a time when Pakistan is in the grip of civil unrest and the political and economic crisis, its soft power image for which the country struggled...

  • February 27, 2023

    Mystery in the sky

    There is something comic, something mysterious about the Chinese balloon the crossed the US territory. American citizens might have been amused at...

  • January 18, 2023

    The road to competition

    With nearly two years in power, the Biden Administration shows no sign of changing America’s confrontational posture towards China. Even though...

  • January 02, 2023

    Soft power

    Power in international terms has traditionally been defined in ‘hard’ terms in the context of military and economic strength. In the post-cold...

  • September 10, 2022

    Depoliticizing the economy

    Extraordinary situations warrant extraordinary actions. Sometimes opening borders with hostile neighbours for trade and humanitarian assistance...

  • September 02, 2021

    Biden’s China doctrine

    As Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the US on Jan 20, 2021, he took over a cataclysmic course of events – from the devastating surge of...

  • June 01, 2021

    Lessons from Covid

    It is the worst of times, the season of darkness and the winter of despair. It is the ghastly world of disease and death. A time when an unknown...

  • December 14, 2020

    America’s trade wars

    Tariffs were used as a tool in these trade wars to reduce the deficit, boost local manufacturing and encourage consumers to buy American products by...

  • August 25, 2020

    The Cambridge crisis

    The Covid-19 pandemic has upended the fragile health and education system in Pakistan. The brewing crisis has put tremendous pressure on archaic...

  • May 22, 2020

    Covid casualties

    When the entire world is in the precarious grip of Covid-19, the two big economic powers US and China have hit the headlines, making an interesting...

  • May 04, 2020

    The US-China row

    It seemed that tempers were cooling down when the US and China agreed to suspend their trade war in early January 2020. Suddenly the world scenario...

  • February 24, 2020

    Humanitarian crisis

    Pakistan’s government response towards the stranded Pakistani students in Wuhan, the epicentre of deadly Coronavirus, known as Covid-19, has been...

  • December 05, 2019

    Not easy to win

    The US and China are struggling to strike an interim deal in a protracted trade conflict that has begun to weigh down on global markets, hammered...

  • September 12, 2019

    China’s tech resilience

    The US gave Huawei, the privately-owned Chinese telecom giant, a 90-day reprieve on the ban against buying US technology; simultaneously allowing US...

  • July 09, 2019

    Tech wars

    When US President Trump and Chinese President Jinping met in Argentina last November at the G-20 summit, and agreed to a truce in their trade war,...

  • May 23, 2019

    What ails the bureaucracy?

    The task force of Dr Ishrat Hussain has recently proposed to wrap up the central superior services and replace it with specialized civil service...

  • March 17, 2019

    Trump’s trade war

    The US-China trade war may be defusing but it is nowhere near an end. US President Donald Trump lifted a deadline of March 1 for China to agree to...

  • March 04, 2019

    Pulwama and trade war

    A climate of hate is emerging in India after the Pulwama attack. The targets are varied and apparently unconnected. One of the things that has...

  • February 19, 2019

    Slim chances of a truce

    On Dec 1 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump agreed to a 90-day trade truce at the G-20 Summit in Argentina in which...

  • January 21, 2019

    Indo-Pak trade: potential vs reality

    What if trade between India and Pakistan was valued at $37 billion instead of $2 billion? This is not a guess but a prediction made in the World...

  • December 10, 2018

    A moment of reflection

    The Governor House Punjab in Lahore has been in the spotlight since the PTI government assumed power. Soon after it was opened to the public, which...

  • December 05, 2018

    The future of Trump’s trade war

    Since the end of the cold war, the US has relied more on aggressive economic statecraft to advance its foreign policy goals. Under the Trump...

  • November 07, 2018

    A tale of transfers

    As the much-trumpeted first 100 days of the PTI’s government are drawing to a close, the politicisation of the bureaucracy still remains a highly...

  • March 29, 2018

    A fine balance

    The two recent judicial interventions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan are significant with regard to the questions of urban development and their...

  • January 23, 2018

    Justice denied

    Zainab’s tragic murder has jolted the conscience of every citizen of the country. The incident has caused shock and concern owing to the...

  • January 03, 2018

    Heritage and development

    If there was any ‘award’ gained in 2017 – in addition to the benefit reaped in the case of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills – it would undoubtedly...

  • June 04, 2017

    The dilemma of CSS

    Not long ago, a civil servant was considered in “possession of good fortune” – much like Mr Bingley in Pride and Prejudice –...

  • July 09, 2016

    Towards better borders

    Unregulated border management appears to be one of the emerging challenges threatening relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In an environment...

  • March 27, 2015

    Crisis of corruption

    A footage released by the Sunday Mirror divulged shocking details of a Pakistan Customs official for seeking a 10 British pound bribe for not...

  • March 12, 2015

    Mending walls

    The uneasy relations between Pakistan India often remind me of the poem ‘Mending Walls’ by Robert Frost in which the poet describes going out...