China’s stance on Kashmir
India and China share a 3,500 kilometre border (called Line of Actual Control), over which they fought a war in 1962. Its course remains unresolved as of now. Though the border has been largely peaceful, yet there have been occasional stand-offs between soldiers from the two Asian giants. In 2017 (June), Indian troops crossed the Sikkim border into Doklam to stop the Chinese troops from constructing a road. However, the face-off was eased, thanks to the wise counsel which prevailed at the time. Again in 2017 (September) Indian and Chinese troops were reportedly involved in a heated exchange in eastern Ladakh near the Pangong Tso Lake. Again the face-off could not flare into a full-fledged war.
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently visited India to meet the country’s Prime Minister (Narendra Modi). The visit took place close on the heels of Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s visit to China. The informal summit between Xi and Modi in Mamallapuram – an ancient port town in Tamil Nadu State – came amid strained relations following China’s strong reaction to New Delhi’s decision to revoke the special status of India-occupied Jammu & Kashmir.
Previously, the two leaders had a meeting in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2018. Although Beijing is not directly involved in the Kashmir conflict, rather it supports Pakistan on the issue, yet India is trying its utmost to keep China out of this dispute. China and India both are larger economies of the region. They share 17.6% of the global economy. Both countries have 84 billion dollars as bilateral trade. Despite all this, China’s unconditional support to Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir is manifestation that they will remain all-weather friends, come what may.
MAEMUNA SADAF
Rawalpindi
Trump insults Gandhi
Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, was totally wrong in declaring India’s Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi a few months back, as the Father of India’s Nation.
Donald Trump does not know Indian history and the role Mahatma Gandhi has played in the Indian freedom struggle. India cannot have two fathers — Mahatma Gandhi and Narendra Modi. Mahatma Gandhi is the actual Father of India’s nation, not Narendra Modi. By calling Narendra Modi the Father of India’s nation, the American President has insulted Mahatma Gandhi, the real father of India’s nation. Moreover, there was no way of Narendra Modi going all the way to America to meet the American President. He could easily have spoken to him on telephone. By going all the way to America, Modi has wasted crores of rupees of the Indian taxpayer’s money.
JUBEL D’CRUZ
Mumbai, India
PCB’s unnecessary decision
The Pakistan Cricket Board has made an unnecessary decision by removing most successful T-20 captain Sarfraz Ahmed from the T-20 and Test captaincy. The PCB has appointed Babar Azam and Azhar Ali as new T-20 and Test captains respectively. In fact, the PCB has made this decision in the backdrop of Sarfraz’s overall performance and Pakistan team’s recent home defeat in T-20 series against Srilanka in Lahore.
While winning or losing is part of the game, the PCB must have seen some wonderful records achieved by our team under his captaincy particularly in the short formats. Pakistan became the world No.1 T-20 side under Sarfraz’s captaincy. The Greenshirts won 29 of it played 37 T-20 international games under his captaincy which is almost 80 percent of winning.
Despite playing away from home, thanks to Sarfraz that Pakistan is still No.1 T-20 team in the world. Moreover under Sarfraz’s captaincy Pakistan won 11 consecutive T-20 series and also whitewashed its opponent sides on five occasions include Australia, England, New Zealand, West Indies and Zimbabwe in a bilateral series.
Being a cricket fan, I believe that the records made by our team under former T-20 skipper Sarfraz cannot be underestimated. Although, his performance as an individual player in T-20 format has not been an impressive so far but the PCB should have not removed him while he should have been appointed as T-20 captain till the next year’s ICC World T-20 in Australia.
IMTIAZ JUNEJO
Hyderabad
CPEC the foremost priority
CPEC is the foremost priority of the government. The government decision about the CPEC that there will be one Authority which will resolve all the problems and queries relating to CPEC. The decision came a day after the visit of PM Khan to China, during which he met the Chinese President, Prime Minister and business community. Among the subjects discussed during the trip, CPEC figured out prominently. CPEC, costing around $64B, is a development project which aims to connect Gwadar port in south-western Pakistan to China’s Xinjiang region. The project is widely perceived as game changer not only for Pakistan’s economy, but also to the Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East regions and beyond.
Due to the significance of the project and the challenges to this project PM Khan decided to frame a single Authority, to be headquartered at the PMO, to look after the mega project. This shows the seriousness of the government and the guarantee to the investors for their investment in this project. It’s a good sign of developing the trust as well as interest of the investors. PM Khan’s decision was warmly welcomed by the business community and Pakistani society and was highly appreciated by the social media.
SAJID HUSSAIN
Via email
Pakistan citizen portal
Pakistan Citizen Portal (PCP) was launched by Prime Minister on Oct 28 last year with an aim to solve public grievances. Within 11 months of its existence, the portal received 1.23 million complaints from 1.173million registered users.
Released data by the Prime Minister Office (PMO) said that most of the complaints received by the portal were related to municipal services (256,867) complaints), followed by the energy and power sector (210,259), education (124,362), health (71,562), law & order (70,066) and land and revenue departments (47,435). It is good that Pakistan Citizen Portal (PCP) was formed but the important thing is solving the complaints accurately. I hope that government will solve public complaints in order to bring change in the society.
WAQAR MOOSA
Kech
