A scrimmage in a border town A canter down some dark defile Two thousand pounds of education Drops to a ten Rupee Jezail (Rudyard Kipling) Afghans have done what Afghans do best - fight to the bitter end and celebrate it as…

A few questions first about the current Afghan situation, in order of their importance. Is Afghan peace hostage to big power rivalry? What policy should Pakistan adopt vis-a-vis various warring Afghan factions? Why have the Americans left without a viable power structure…

The United States is leaving Afghanistan in turmoil after two decades of occupation. The Doha Agreement with the Taliban, bypassing the Ashraf Ghani government, had pulled the carpet from under the feet of the Afghan government – leaving the last rites to…

The Afghan scenario is getting darkened by the violence levitating ominously over the horizon yet again. A conservative assessment of the peace prospects by old analysts as well by current observers of the Afghan scene paints a sombre outlook. These assessments blame…

Let us face the facts; the Taliban want a military solution for the simple reason that the US-led coalition has recognized the locus of the Taliban without conditions. Now, those insisting that the Taliban may agree to come to terms with the…

A scrimmage in a border station, A canter down some dark defile, Two thousand pounds of education, Drops to a ten rupee Jezail…. Strike hard who cares, The odds are on the cheaper man. (Rudyard Kipling) Afghanistan is a place where the…

There is a strong feeling of deja vu about Afghanistan in the air. The environment, despite the passage of two decades, is eerily reminiscent of the disorder of the early nineties when a power vacuum led to a civil war in all…

The East and West apparently can for once meet in a symbiosis of values and material rewards. The idea is embodied in the East West Economic Corridor (EWEC), an eponymous complement to CPEC, a small component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative…