The Baloch House

Pervez HoodbhoyUpdated June 15, 2019

The writer teaches physics and math in Lahore and IslamabadNOW that the hype and hysteria he helped create is fading, recently retired chief justice Saqib Nisar deserves to wear a pointed dunce cap on his head as he, with the most powerful men in Pakistan today behind him, walks slowly through the Hall of Shame. Had they understood from schooldays the importance of a few innocent-looking zeros to the left of a decimal point, they’d recognise a million from a billion. We might have then been spared the deep national embarrassment everyone now wants to forget — the Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams.From yesterday (Friday) morning here’s the math: The Supreme Court websiteshows Rs10,669,728,001 in the dam fund with inflows starting July 6, 2018. Looks huge, eh? In US dollars that’s just $0.07bn. Worse, since February the graph is flat because salaried people are fighting against more forced deductions. Still worse: the un-invested fund has lost Rs10m a da…

15'June 2019(Current Balochistan)From last three days continuously Pakistani security forces are operating their coercion in Bolan, today a fresh Military operations have been started in various places of Kech. Mostly from Tump a person abducted after that no whereabouts of him. Furthermore, between dasth and Mand brutual operation is being conducted by Pakistani security forces.According to the sources, last night Pakistani Army and intelligence agencies raided a house in Kohad, Tump and whisked away a youngstar namely Sanna Ullah S/o Dad Allah R/o Kohad.According to the reporter, Women and children were harrassed during the raid.A fresh Ground operation has been started in Bansar, Kal'Kor, Charpan & Nagaru mountainous areas between Mand and Dasht district Kech.All surrounded areas have been sieged by Security Forces & have completely disrupted the areas due to which there is a difficulty to bring out the latest information about financial losses in this operation ye…

Pakistan's Triangle of Ties: Islamabad's relations with both China and the US are increasing misgivings on all sidesChina is clearly using Pakistan as a pawn to further its own dreams of dominance. The US is far from pleased at this. How can India manage a situation that is both delicate, and volatile?POLITICS |  7-minute read |   15-06-2019GURMEET KANWAL@gurmeetkanwalThe vision of a ‘naya’ (new) Pakistan, enunciated by Prime Minister Imran Khan, chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, faces seemingly insurmountable challenges. The PTI government inherited poor relations with India, continuing conflict along the Af-Pak border, intractable internal security challenges, a failing economy with a huge external debt and a steady souring of relations with the US.It also faces the possibility of a dent in its relations with China.By accommodating and promoting the geostrategic interests of China and the United States in Southern Asia over several decades, Pakistan made …

Multiple frontsIrfan HusainJune 15, 2019ONE of the fundamentals of strategy, as taught in military academies around the world, is that a successful commander avoids fighting on multiple fronts.But here we are, facing many political, economic, military and ideological problems internally. Externally, we are virtually isolated, relying on Saudi Arabia and China to bail us out. To make things worse, most of these problems are of our own making. Instead of blaming outsiders for creating them, we need to confront our own demons.However, before a problem can be solved, we first need to acknowledge that it exists. The next step is to evolve a consensus, and forge the political will to take the tough measures needed. But in a security state like ours, it is not always national interest, based on logic and reason, that dictates decision-making. Instead, we have permitted a warped ideology, developed and pushed by the establishment, to take over the public discourse.In this brief overview of th…