The Londoner

The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) (Urdu: śimāl maġribī sarhadī sūba شمال مغربی سرحدی صوبہ) is the smallest of the four main provinces of Pakistan. The NWFP is home to the majority Pashtuns (locally referred to as Pukhtuns) as well as other smaller ethnic groups. The province borders Afghanistan to the northwest, the Northern Areas to the northeast, Azad Kashmir to the east, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to the west and south, and Pakistani Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory to the southeast. The principal language is Pashto and the provincial capital is Peshawar. In addition to its official name, the province is variously referred to as Afghania, Khyber, Pakhtunkhwa (پښتونخواه), which means "Pashtun Area" in Pashto and Sarhad, meaning "Frontier", (سرحد) in Urdu. Mountains in Northern Pakistan View of Siran Valley in Mansehra District (2006)The NWFP is largely located on the Iranian plateau and Eurasian landplate, while peripheral eastern regio...

Balochistan, or Baluchistan, (Balochi, Sindhi, Pashto, Urdu: بلوچستان) is a province in Pakistan, the largest in the country by geographical area. It contains most of the historical region of Balochistan and is named after the Baloch. Its neighbouring regions are Iranian Balochistan to the west, Afghanistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the north and Punjab and Sindh to the east. To the south is the Arabian Sea. The principal languages in the province are Baluchi, Sindhi, Pashto, Brahui, and Persian. The capital and largest city is Quetta. Balochistan is believed to be rich in mineral resources. It is the second major, after Sindh, supplier of natural gas to the country. Balochistan is located at the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau and in the border region between Southwest, Central, and South Asia. It is geographically the largest of the four provinces at 347,190 km² or (134,051 square miles) of Pakistani territory; and composes 48% of the total land area of Pakis...

By Sikander Hayat After one unit was broken, Punjab was gifted with the Sate of Bahawalpur. Khairour was awarded to Sindh, A completely new province of Balochistan was created which comprised of Ketch, Lasbella, Kharan, Mekran and Qalat. NWFP had its influence in Swat, Chitral & Dir. The federation can grant provincial autonomy to its units in exchange for their willingness to divide themselves a new to make available basic amenities to their populations. One way of achieving this is by granting provincial status to each of the divisions. This is a very sensible idea as the boundaries are already present. It was the federation that created the provinces out of one unit. It has every right to restructuring itself so that after giving provincial autonomy it can work on water conservation schemes, attain organizational efficiency, and improve its image abroad

By Sikander Hayat Devolution of power is the single most important issue facing Pakistan at the moment after terrorism and some might say that later is the product of the former not being implemented. Before devolution happens, there is a need for creation of further provincial units as the present units are too big to have any impact on governance at the local level. At least 15 Provincial units should be created in addition to the State of Azad Kasmir ; as the country should rather have 15 autonomous provinces than four which do not have the powers to govern their affairs. Strategic assets like Karachi, Gwadar and Islamabad should be under federal jurisdiction . Northern Areas should be divided into two provinces. One centred on former princely states of Baltistan (Swat, Kaghan etc.) and other around Skardu & Gilgit. Azad Kashmir should be left as it is because of it having a lot of autonomy already with its own Prime Minister, President and directly elected assembl...

Friday February 15, 2008 (1711 PST) Anwaar Hussain The killing frenzy in Pakistan has reached a feverish pitch. In a rapidly darkening scarlet hue, the extremists are marching on suicide-bombing, beheading and maiming innocent citizens on their bloody path to their murky goal. The naive victims, out of their love for their religion and lack of knowledge of the same, not only cannot tell the difference between the killers and the messiahs, sometimes they indeed sympathize with their executioners. It is a battle for God and the battleground is Pakistan. Perhaps a time has finally come to call a spade a spade. By their terror strikes the extremists aim to inspire horror in Pakistan so that she bows her head meekly beneath the brutal yoke of the radicals. It is high time to take cognizance of the fearsome conditions upon which their tyrannical power wants to raise and maintain itself. It is time to see that it is in the name of religion that all oppressors act, only in name. They ...

By Raja Asghar ISLAMABAD, Feb 24: Buoyed by likely support from newly elected independents, the Pakistan People’s Party on Sunday seemed eyeing both power and peace in the troubled province of Balochistan, where it did not emerge as the largest party in the Feb 18 election. The party is already sure of leading the next federal government with the Pakistan Muslim League-N and the Sindh provincial government, and sharing a PML-N -led government in Punjab and an ANP-led coalition in the NWFP. A lead role in Balochistan —which a key party leader from the province called a “100 per cent possibility” — will give the PPP a rare position of controlling not only the centre but also sharing power in all the four provinces. As some party circles predicted this possibility, the would-be national ruling party showed an olive branch to nationalists and dissidents in Balochistan by offering an apology for “the atrocities and injustices committed” in the province in the past and calling fo...

Feb 21st 2008 From The Economist print edition They have spoken clearly. Politicians should listen TO CALL it a massive upset is to ignore the opinion polls, which for months had been recording the growing unpopularity of Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf. Yet it is still a surprise—and a credit to both the army and its former chief, Mr Musharraf—that the opposition has been allowed so thoroughly to trounce his supporters in the election held on February 18th (see article). A rigged outcome would have led to months of street protest, instability and perhaps another army coup. So might the unrigged one. But at least Pakistan's politicians have a chance to break the cycle in which corrupt, incompetent civilian governments are usurped every few years by corrupt, incompetent military governments. And Mr Musharraf has the chance to be remembered as the man who restored Pakistani democracy, not the man who doomed it. There is of course every likelihood that all involved will...

William Dalrymple Published 21 February 2008 Confounding all predictions, the Pakistani people have clearly demonstrated that they want to choose their own rulers and decide their own future. There is a consensus from Lahore to Karachi It has not been a good year for Pakistan. President Musharraf's sacking of the chief justice last spring, the lawyers' protests that rumbled on throughout the summer and the bloody storming of the Red Mosque in June, followed by a wave of hideous suicide bombings, all gave the impression of a country stumbling from bloody crisis to bloody crisis. By the autumn it had grown even worse. The military defeats suffered by the Pakistani army at the hands of pro-Taliban rebels in Waziristan, the declaration of a state of emergency and, finally, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto led many to predict that Pakistan was stumbling towards full-scale civil war and possibly even disintegration. All this has of course been grist for the mill for the Pak...