International Alliances has been fundamental in Pakistan’s international interaction. Yet, this significant event has persisted understudied. Pakistan’s need for external alliances is promoted by the increased security threat and difficulties in relationship mainly with India. The political survival and difficulty in maintaining political independence made it necessary for the Islamabad security elites to seek alliances with major powers that enable them to deal with India and to a lesser extent Afghanistan. Using Balance of Threat Theory for explaining international alliances as a theoretical basis, this research examines a very fundamental question why does Islamabad need an external alliance? And how Pakistan seeks alliance with China. The relationship between external threats and Pakistan’s alliance making behaviour is studied using mainly primary and secondary literature. The primary resources are secured through qualitative interview conducted between 2014 and 2016 with current and former Pakistani security elites as part of PhD project.

The paper deals with Islamic Socialism and the rise of Pakistan People’s Party. This research gives better understanding for the rise of PPP on the basis of its slogan “Islamic Socialism” and tries to explain that how the regime of Bhutto manipulated Islam in order to rule for as long as he can. PPP tried to amalgamate Islam with western philosophy of Socialism which was only cosmetic as it was in theory but not in practice. Islam is the only shadow and umbrella of politics in Pakistan and it harmed the political culture in Pakistan. The wrong implementation of that philosophy led the country towards many crises after 1977 and the slogan of Islamic socialism by Bhutto was one of the major causes of his downfall. The manipulation of religion in Pakistani politics for the purpose of gaining popularity has discussed in this research, especially with reference to PPP.

The present paper is an attempt to evaluate consociational political strategies, grand coalition and segmental autonomy, in the political and democratic history of Pakistan from 1947 to Signing of Charter of Democracy in 2006. We challenge conventional wisdom and argue that it was not only centralized nature of Pakistani state which created hurdles for flourishing democracy and politics of accommodation, adjustment and respect. Rather, lack of consociational political strategies on the part of political elites also contributed to developing politics of contention. Through investigation of political history of Pakistan, the paper argues that failure of political elites to develop consociational political strategies had negative impacts on issues related to segmental autonomy, proportional representation and supremacy of parliament which are the core principles of Arend Lijphart’s consociational theory. While investigating role of Judiciary, the paper argues that as per consociational theory, superior judiciary has failed to play a-political and constitutional role.

This research has been integrated to check the affiliation between gender equality, employment trends, and sustainable economic growth of low income countries. Furthermore, this research validates a classical theory that argued that factoring or adding more variables in a gender specified model will reduce the only portion of residuals but does not rule out the gap. It also considers the impact of gender inequality and employment trends on sustainable economic growth separately and combines. Panel data estimation by using secondary data sources from recognized international organizations such as the United Nations Development Program, World Economic Outlook, and World Economic Situation Perspectives over time. Gender inequality, unemployment, and some other macro-economic, social, demographic, and financial factors are incorporated over 2011 to 2020. This research considers three different statistical models. For statistical estimation of long run affiliation granger causality and Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) is utilized by the researcher. Gender inequality negatively influences sustainable economic growth. Employment trends also contribute to influencing economic growth. Moreover, there is a statistically significant association amid gender inequality, employment trends, and sustainable economic growth. Furthermore, factoring more variables in gender specified models does not rule out gender inequality. There is long term association between gender equality, employment trends, and sustainable economic growth of low income countries. Therefore, when governments or policymakers construct policies about reducing or eliminating gender inequality, they must consider employment trends prevailing in that economy.

COVID-19 pandemic still lurks among us for nearly a year now. Many countries have announced lockdowns and encouraged to maintain the social distancing to cease the spread of the disease. Announcements and speeches by the heads and representatives of governments are key to persuade people to obey the rules through minimizing travels, interactions and staying at home. However, some announcements have caused confusion and distress to people at the same time. Past studies related to political speeches have mainly focused on inauguration, presidential campaign, and legislative debates. Therefore, current study at hand aims to investigate the persuasive strategies employed by Imran Khan as Pakistan’s prime minister in his COVID-19 speeches. It further explores that what types of persuasive strategies used, how these were used and whether the COVID-19 speeches were successful in achieving the required control over spread of virus among the people in the country. It is qualitative study which further focuses on descriptive and thematically analyses based on Wodak (2005) discursive strategies and Aristotle’s three forms of rhetoric. Speeches and statements of Imran Khan were taken from two national newspapers of Pakistan; Dawn and The News, YouTube and Official Twitter account at the first and second stage of COVID-19. The findings encourage to contribute in the field of national political discourse in social practices and persuasive discourse in leadership specially during a pandemic of an infectious disease.

Trainee lady health visitors in Pakistan have extensive problems in their daily fieldwork: sexual harassment, character calling, rude behavior of people, irregular wages and life-threatening situations (Diwan, 2013). TLHVs experience vulnerability and harassment by religious fundamentalists (Naqvi & Khan, 2005). Their gender, age, socioeconomic background and unhealthy patterns of Pakistan’s patriarchal society add more stress (Tabassum, 2016). Stress may cause depression therefore this study is conducted to explore the prevalence of depression in TLHVs of Karachi, Pakistan and to find the correlation of depression with somatic/affective factor and cognitive factor of depression by using Beck Depression Inventory-II based on descriptive and correlational design. The results indicate the prevalence of moderate depression among TLHVs, further it indicates stronger positive correlation between depression and somatic/affective factors of depression than cognitive factors of depression.

Effective implementation of Social Policy is the main function of every government whether it belongs to developed nation or underdeveloped. Developed nations are those which have the highest ratio of Gross Domestic Production (GDP), spent on the social policy while the under-developed have least ratio of GDP spent on public and social policies. Notwithstanding that much resources are spent on social services the developed nation have effective delivery mechanism as well, and social policy is implemented through various organizational structures such as public, private, Non – Governmental Organizations (NGOs). This research paper aims to highlight health sector in the province of Sindh - a southern province of Pakistan, with application of new public policy paradigm in order to highlight loop holes of the administrative environment. and its impact on Public Service Motivation.

Irrigation reforms in Pakistan focused on participatory irrigation management (PIM) to include stakeholders in decision-making to effectively manage the system. Currently, two governance systems are in place in Pakistan. The irrigation department controls one and the other by PIM after adapting the irrigation reforms around twenty years back. This study has focused on comparative analysis of the users’ experiences in both systems about governance in Sindh province of Pakistan by using good governance principles. The study used multistage cluster sampling technique and quota-based technique to select sample size for primary data collection. Four distributaries with location and PIM and non-PIM attributes were selected. A 5-scale Likert survey questionnaire was designed to find user experiences. To analyze the data and compare the performance of different systems, Kruskal-Wallis-H-Test and Post-Hoc-Mann-Whitney-U-Test were employed. Results show that both irrigation systems are not ideally working according to principles of good governance. PIM needs to abide and follow the established principles and practices to reap the benefits of the participatory system to contribute in the better governance and management of irrigation system.

It is an ultimate reality that the emergence of globalization and future challenges of this competitive world provokes the Think-Tankers to lay the foundations of education on its actual axis (i.e. Qur’an). Human history has proved that prosperity of Human being was the prime goal of Islamic System of Education. This evaluation research study is an extended research work of my Ph.D thesis aims to analyze the need of integrated curriculum for Islamic Elementary School System in the light of Islamic imperatives scientifically. Proportional Stratified Sampling provides the data, collected through ten (10) Open-cum-Close-Ended Questionnaires. The conclusion was drawn by Quantitative and Qualitative assessment which revealed that Integrated Curriculum fulfills the need of Islamic Elementary School System.

Parentage is the most sacred relation in Islam. The religion Islam assigns various duties to parents to be fulfilled, which are the due rights of their children. Like other duties, a most important duty is educating children. When a child reaches to the age of understanding and learning, then parents need to provide education and knowledge to grow his/her intellectual abilities that empower the child to identify and learn about how to deal with the different aspects of life. Education elucidates to children the purpose of Divine plan of creation. The Islamic Sharia offers equal opportunities of education to both male and female. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: “seeking of knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim male and female”. As acquiring knowledge is an essential religious duty in Islam therefore any carelessness in fulfilling this duty means compromising their responsibility. Many parents in Pakistan are failed to fulfill this duty therefore a huge number of students remained uneducated. This paper is an attempt to know about the duties of parents regarding educating their children, and critically analyze the present scenario in Pakistan.

English is amongst the most commonly articulated languages ??on the Earth. It led to a significant effect on its growth. In Pakistan, English is utilized at all educational levels. Therefore, its development is unaffected rather natural. The phrases and words of other languages can be easily combined with English language, hence it is spread widely. In Sindh province of Pakistan, the English words and phrases are recurrently mixed and borrowed with the Sindhi language. They are used in the news items of Sindhi print media frequently. The technique of code-mixing and loan words is noticed in both, written (in newspapers) and spoken (on news channels) form of the language. The research works on the degree of occurrence of code-mixing and loanwords in Sindhi print media in Pakistan. The fundamental parts of multilingualism and bilingualism changes and mixes both languages that have been shown in this article. This propensity to exchange and mix codes caused a notable change in the minds of Sindhi newspaper readers of the Sindh province and Sindhi culture is passed through many parts of Sindh. The impact to mix Sindhi and English words in the culture of Pakistan has also been shown in this research. Investigations have been conducted by the utilization of subjective strategies. Patterns of code blending in Pakistan have been partitioned into three main categories: They are level of sentence, grammatical form and level of word’s classification. In Sindh, the highest number of code-mixing is shown at the word level. The readers of the Sindhi tabloids are progressively keen on English learning. The level of English code-mixing has been shown by the results of this research.

During the reign of Turkhan ruler Mirza Jani Beg, Mughal emperor Akbar sent troops and annexed Sindh to his empire. Mughals governed Sindh through appointing Subedars (Governors) who did their worst to plunder Sindh as much as they could. Consequently, Socio-political and economic conditions of Sindh markedly deteriorated to such an extent that people turned against Mughal government. Various up-risings began. Mianwal Movement was one of such resistance movement led by a spiritual and religious leader Mian Adam Shah Kalhoro against Mughal rule of Sindh. It was known as Mianwal Movement that established from his village Hatri of Taluka Bakrani District Larkana. He formed Daira (a place for social interaction) where many indigent people were served with food and shelter and in return, they became staunch workers of his movement. Thus, an organized militant force emerged which fought various battles against emerging powers of the time in which three leaders along with many soldiers laid their lives. Subsequently, they movement succeeded to establish Kalhora government over Sindh which lasted from 1701 to 1783 AD. The aim of this research paper is to analyze Mughal government and give detailed accounts of oppressions of Mughal Subedars of Sindh. This study also analyses the contribution of leaders and workers of Mianwal Movement who fought countless battles with Mughal forces.

The Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of carefully chosen editorial cartoons have been critically analyzed to expose the hidden ,estimated and intended meaning ,which are veiled in the discourse used in editorial cartoons. Its analysis clarifies the ideology and its social relevance to its people. The interpretation, tool, text analysis and social analysis are enough to expose the inequality as in the language among the highly placed over the lowly placed. Thus, the use of language reflects injustice, dominance, power, and inequality. Critical Discourse Analysis has been an extensive discipline from the last few decades to analyze diverse sides of the various current discourses in the society through newspapers, media and movies and so forth. The editorial cartoons in “The times of India” have been analysed to depict the elements of framing and multi-modality in the cartoons in which the relationship of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with terrorists has been established to foreground the strings among these power sectors in Pakistan.

History of Kashmir is full of tales of terror and oppression. For centuries, despite change of rulers and reigns, sufferings of Kashmiris have continued unabated. Sikh rule under Maharaja Ranjit Singh is particularly, accused of persecution of Kashmiris. This persistent privation forced many Kashmiris to leave their homeland and settle in other areas of the Punjab during Sikh rule. Maharaja Ranjit Singh replaced eight governors one after the other, mainly on account of charges of persecuting Kashmiris however; neither miseries of Kashmiris halted nor their migration to other parts of Punjab. In addition to this ‘push’, establishment of factory of Kashmiri shawls and several residential colonies in Lahore and other parts of Punjab, also attracted lots of Kashmiris to Punjab where better prospects of employment, habitation and self-esteem existed. The current study therefore, would mainly focus on various ‘push and pull’ factors that forced Kashmiris to abandon their homes and settle in various parts of the Punjab during the Sikh rule. Additionally, the study will also explore, in the light of primary and secondary sources, the existing narrative against Maharaja Ranjit Singh for persecuting and forcing relocation of Kashmiris, and see if these allegations hold some ground or these are mere stereotypes and part of some larger conspiracy theory to divide the Muslims and the Sikh communities.

The aim of the research was to analyse the relationship between stock returns (KSE-100 index) and USDPKR exchange rate. Additionally, the analysis was conducted separately for Khan’s and Sharif’s era. In order to attain this aim, VAR and SVAR models were used. The sample was considered from June 2010 to June 2019 of monthly frequency related to stock returns and exchange rates. The results inferred that there was no relationship found between FX returns and stock returns in the case of Pakistan. However, a minor unidirectional relationship was found which implied that the stock returns were Granger-caused by exchange rate returns at 10% significance level. Besides, analysing Khan’s and Sharif’s regime separately, no significant association was found between exchange rate returns and stock returns. This research is the first one where Khan and Sharif’s have been analysed separately in the context of FX returns and stock returns. The results implied that the theories related to no relationship between exchange rates and stock returns are sustained but a minor association was found. The underlying reason for such behaviour can be regarded as a result of psychological influence on the investors of the deteriorating value of PKR affecting their investments in the stock market.