by Imtiaz Gul In recent public appearances, including in an article, the Minister for Planning, Ahsan Iqbal, has likened Pakistan to an aircraft and spelt out the basic conditions for a successful take-off: “An aircraft can land with one of its engines shut down, but it can never take off without all engines working together. If all these conditions are not met, the plane can’t take off successfully.” While underscoring the criticality of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Iqbal says that in order to realise the “dream (of development) we need to follow the rules of a successful take-off — maintaining favourable political weather, ensuring a smooth platform of consistent policies, and working together as a united, determined and focused nation”. Iqbal’s noble intentions, focus and hard work on the CPEC notwithstanding, his recipe for the take-off itself contains a caveat for important stakeholders in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Balochistan — a smooth platform, consistent policies and unity. Is the government really focused, united and transparent and does it have all stakeholders on board? Is it riding on a sense of shared responsibility, nationhood and identity? The K-P government, for instance, complains that out of the Rs359 billion allocated to the CPEC projects so far, not a single penny is meant for the western route. Out of this, some Rs10 billion has been “fraudulently” earmarked for “acquisition of land between Mianwali and Islamabad”. The factual position is that Islamabad is not part of the western route. Similarly, Rs265 billion have been earmarked for LNG pipelines to be built from Gwadar to Nawabshah and onwards to Havaili Bahadur Shah Jang to Baloki on GT Road near Lahore — at best, a Punjab-based project. Most energy projects, argue the critics, are located on the eastern route. Were investors from other provinces encouraged to get involved in these projects, even if they were meant for the eastern route? Were environment impact studies...

by Imtiaz Gul Executive Director CRSS Imtiaz Gul takes a look at the dilemmas faced by Pakistan in counter radical ideology and violent extremism, labels five reasons for why there is such clamor over the implementation of NAP, and suggests possible ways forward. The public outrage over yet another “security lapse” (Bacha Khan University terror attack[1]) made complete sense. It marked the fourth consecutive terror strike within a week (Khyber Agency, Quetta, Charsadda) leaving over four dozen innocents killed. These incidents of violence justifiably shocked everyone because of the considerable decline in acts of terror in 2015. Much of the fury from politicians and intellectuals was directed against the 20-point National Action Plan (NAP)[2]. Most critics equated the attack to a sheer failure of NAP. Frankly, the NAP essentially is a reiteration to strictly enforce existing laws, to work on improving security conditions and to address major drivers of religious extremism. At no point did this framework promise total elimination of terrorism per say. Nor did it rule out future terror strikes. Why then the fuss and frustration over “napping” NAP then? Gains since December 2014 On the face of it, Pakistan can claim considerable successes in its anti-terror campaign since the adoption of NAP in December 2014 after a terrorist assault on the Army Public School in Peshawar. As many as 144 children and their teachers were killed and the incident literally galvanized the entire nation, resulting in the unanimous adoption of NAP. It followed on the heels of the Operation Zarb-e-Azb, launched in June 2014 in North Waziristan after a brazen terrorist assault on the Karachi airport. This operation dislodged the Taliban and their allies from North Waziristan. A good number of them succeeded in slipping out to Afghanistan, other tribal areas and mainland Pakistan.[3] The government claims to have arrested over 11,700 terrorists, handlers and facilitators, and killed thousands...

Down the Rabbit Hole In December 2006, the then military dictator General Pervez Musharraf convened a major gathering to discuss Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The attendees included officials from the FATA Secretariat ,  Political Agents (PAs), representatives of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) , the Governor of Khyber  Pukhtunkhwa, notable elders and politicians from the region, along with representatives of the military establishment. The President's intent was to put all FATA stakeholders in one room, and determine the future of FATA. For nearly three days, fiery speeches, ambitious plans and reform proposals bounced back and forth between the political and military elite, whereas the only common thread by sycophantic bureaucrats and Maliks was unanimous and unconditional praise for General Musharraf for taking the initiative. However, the enthusiasm gave way to caution on the third day, when participants warned against tinkering with the system currently governing FATA. Despite days of deliberation, the gathering failed to agree upon possible reforms for FATA. One of the conference attendees, a PA, while recalling his experience, did not express even a shred of optimism regarding reforms in FATA, citing the military's hesitation for change in wake of the ongoing insurgency in the region. The military's “interest” in FATA was also evident when a 27-member Committee on Constitutional Reforms, in 2009, deliberated extensively and climaxed with amendments to 101 articles of the federal constitution. However, none of these applied to Part XII: Miscellaneous – Chapter III: Tribal Areas, especially Article 246 - which geographically defines “Tribal Areas”, “Provincially Administered Tribal Areas” and “Federally Administered Tribal Areas” - and article 247 - which gives the President sweeping powers, and excludes these areas from any parliamentary legislation, or legal jurisdiction from the Supreme Court or any High Court...

by Zeeshan Salahuddin On Tuesday, January 19, a private research institute in Islamabad released their second report on minorities titled “State of Religious Freedoms in Pakistan”. The publication documents and maps incidents of violence and atrocities against minorities since 2012, and the findings are shocking. With the advent of the National Action Plan (NAP), other institutions such as the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) have determined that the incidents of violence overall (and thus violence against minorities) have gone down in the last calendar year, this publication reports at least 351 incidents of violence against minorities since 2012. Minorities in Pakistan have always been presented as soft targets, easy picking for sectarian groups, and in recent years, even non-sectarian elements. The primary groups that suffer as a result of the state’s weak response are Shias (including Hazaras and sub-sects), Christians, Ahmedis and Hindus. Since 2012, 40 attacks of varying scale and intensity were carried out against the Christian community, the most significant ones being a massive arson attack on Joseph Colony in Lahore, and a church bombing in Peshawar. Christians account for 2.5 million individuals in Pakistan. During this period seven churches were damaged, and 14 Christians were charged with blasphemy. As stated before, the amount of violence in the country has declined overall, which also lowers the incidents of violence against minorities overall. However, through interviews, it is evident that the Christian community feels marginalized, a second class of citizen, unprotected practically despite being protected constitutionally, and a non-priority for the state. There has been an increase in violence against Shias Nearly 1 million Hindus reside in Pakistan, with 80% of them hailing from Sindh. Hindus bear the additional issue of being discriminated against institutionally, as they are labelled as untrustworthy, vile, and evil traitors,...