The Makkah Defence Pact and the Making of a New Re…

The subject idea of “Road To The East” is conceived by me by a textbook when the store Marco polo was described a story with a title of road to the east. The fascination of culture is everywhere especially, within the walled city of Kashi which is located comparatively on a high altitude like a natural fort. As this area from central east was under the invasion of different ethnic communities in the past. I got a chance to walk through the downtown streets which are relatively wider than the downtown streets of Lahore. The construction of the houses is also showing its beauty and culture with their traditions. Now the walled city have totally been preserved by the Chinese government and as I mentioned the tourism have become one of the most important growing industry in the region. The most famous place historically in this region is called Eig Gah. That is this famous mosque was built during the fifteenth century with the capacity of 20,000 people, can offer a prayer within the, inside of compound. While there is a huge yard outside of this compound which is the center of an attraction for all the tourists. Vice President Pakistan-China Joint Chamber There was a camel ride for the tourist attraction and these camels are special, only found in the Gobie desert, with two humps. These kind of camels are also an iconic symbol of China same as panda. It was also arranged a horse ride for the tourist who love to have a picture by riding at the back of the horse. At one time, in this area, the horses were used to have mainly without saddles. The local people are very fond of music, almost every coffee house have the people to play the traditional music, as their tradition music is with the history of hundreds of years. Duff is one of a very important part of their music playing with one instrument called Algoza. Always with the musicians, there is a singer playing the ancient music even though I did not understand the meaning but I got to know that this was mainly related with the stories of their local warriors. The conventional tea houses normally have their dance performance showing heir culture and dance skill. That all is very amazing. I love to watch that performance in different tea shops. Now, the culture have expended in different restaurants where not only girls but also men perform their traditional dance. I hope we can be able to arrange a cultural linkage between the cities of Lahore and Kashgar. All that modern restaurants are very beautiful, a clean and rich with their construction style. The waiters always dressed up like a female servant serving in the royale courts. Most of them are very beautiful to pass an impression of a royale age. Food of Kashgar (Kashi) is very traditional and tasty. The local people are really lamb lovers. You can find halal food in every corner of Kashi. Where you never need to ask the food quality is halal or not. Despite that, I have experienced the most lamb served in all over China is mostly done by the Muslims. The horse meat is one of the traditional delicacy of this region. But normally in our society we refrain to eat it. Camel milk is served as a soveigner to all the visitors. It was my first time to experience the camel milk. Most of the Xinjiang due the weather is dry and the rainfall is very limited. Despite of this all, Xinjiang is very rich for its fruit production in recent years. Chinese government have paid a lot of attention to improve the agriculture and food industry. This have helped a lot for the locals to improve their life standard. The government have paid a special attention to develop an agricultural farming industry in this region.   Walnut once it was used to exported from Pakistan to China but the border trade now have become an iconic product of Yecheng, is normally called as the capital of walnuts. They have also developed a technology to cultivate pomegranate in a sandy surface. I really hope under the BRI agriculture, is one of the major subject in Pakistan. Can we be able to get an experience from China that how they converted their barren lands into green fields. This is my proposal to the green initiative Pakistan, is that they are willing to improve their yield capability by the technology that have already been successful in the similar environment. Pakistan with its huge barren land along with the Gilgit city which can be experienced by using the technology already existing in this region. Mines and minerals is one of biggest subject that we need to pay attention. Till today, we are not been able to address our natural resources in to a successive model. I have observed to Pakistan side is full of natural resources with mines and minerals while the other sider of the border have already established the biggest units of processing. My advice to our provincial government of Gilgit Baltistan that why they don’t take an opportunity as China is already a friendly country with Pakistan, with a will of the transfer of technology. That means this can change the entire financial position of this region. We feel there is a lack with the technology of preservation of food and fruits. GB as a basket of the fruits, is not able to perform its strength where there are a lot of chances to earn a technology or going for a joint venture to improve the life standard of locals.

In both Pakistan and India, what citizens are resisting is no longer standard party politics, it is the structural weaponization of the state. In India, political movements that emerged from populist or anti-corruption roots, like the Cockroach Party,  Aam Aadmi Party, along with regional dissenters, activists, and journalists, have faced arbitrary arrests, custodial pressures, and continuous raids by central agencies. In Pakistan, the state’s military-civilian establishment has used mass roundups, military trials for civilians, social media blackouts, and political bans to strip away electoral mandates and crush dissent. The torture, surveillance, and intimidation targeted at ordinary organizers and political workers across both borders mirror each other. The state’s goal in both contexts is identical, to make the cost of resistance so high that the public submits out of sheer exhaustion. Is It Time to Change? The short answer is, It is long overdue, but swapping rulers will change nothing. For decades, the public in both nations has been trapped in a cyclical trap. In Pakistan, people rally behind one party to remove the military-backed regime, only for the new government to use the exact same military apparatus to crush the next opposition. In India, hyper nationalism and state control have been normalized to the point where institutional checks, courts, enforcement agencies, and investigative bodies have lost their neutrality. If “change” simply means voting in a different political party while leaving the underlying security state and unchecked executive powers intact, the fascism simply changes its coat. True change requires dismantling the tools of authoritarianism, not just replacing the hands holding them. To actually break this cycle of state suppression in South Asia, three fundamental shifts must take place from the ground . As long as investigative agencies, financial crime bureaus, and intelligence services answer directly to political  bosses, they will be used as weapons of torture and political elimination. The primary demand of any genuine popular movement must be strict, legally enforced operational independence for courts, election commissions, and law enforcement.Parties, whether AAP, Cockroach Party, PTI, Congress, or regional blocs, are vehicles, not saviors. Authoritarian regimes thrive on divide-and-rule tactics, convincing one group to applaud when their political rival is jailed. The public must build non-partisan civil fronts where an attack on any citizen’s fundamental right, journalist’s freedom, or political worker’s safety is met with collective public outrage, regardless of party allegiance.Fascist narratives in South Asia rely heavily on manufactured enemies, hyper nationalist rhetoric, and national security panics to justify state overreach. Resistance movements break this spell when they relentlessly ground the conversation in tangible economic survival,inflation, labor rights, land grabs, and local self-governance. When the public realizes that state coercion is being used to mask economic failure, the moral authority of the regime collapses. The resilience of the people in both countries is undeniable, they continue to take to the streets despite jail, violence, and state power. But for that resilience to yield real liberation, the focus must shift from merely fighting for individual leaders to systematically dismantling the legal and institutional machinery that makes fascism possible in the first place.

When rain descends from the folds of clouds, it assumes the form of divine mercy for the earth—reviving parched soil and spreading smiles across the weary faces of farmers. Yet, when this very rain turns unbridled and the administrative apparatus built to welcome it pulls a heavy shroud of negligence over its eyes, this descent of mercy transforms into a harrowing shape of torment and sudden calamity. Gujrat, a historic and industrial city of Punjab that holds a unique global identity through its civilizational expanse, skilled artisans, and proximity to the Chenab River, presents the terrifying spectacle of a pond and a swamp every monsoon season. Here, urban flooding is no longer merely a climatic accident; rather, it has become a chilling confession of administrative apathy, unscientific planning, and a criminal denial of historical geographical realities. When the hydrological management of cities is evaluated on a global scale, the concepts of “Sponge Cities” are put into practice, but our reality stands in stark opposition. When the state of urban drainage in Gujrat is objectively reviewed through the corridors of history, one’s eyes are opened to the bitter truth that the rulers and elements who dominated this city consciously hollowed out its roots at every level for the gratification of greed. The city’s drainage and sewerage system, in particular, fell prey to the plunder of commission agents belonging to the corruption mafia. It is an immensely agonizing chapter of history that two decades ago, when a renowned international Japanese company completed a detailed survey of Gujrat, officially announced its complete reconstruction on modern lines, and promised a world-class drainage system, the hungry brokers sitting in the echelons of power burnt this magnificent project in the fire of personal lust. The people of Gujrat can never forget the actors who sacrificed the Japanese company’s dream at the altar of kickbacks. Later, when times changed and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi assumed the helm of this region as Chief Minister, he released heavy, voluminous funds amounting to billions of rupees to radically improve and modernize Gujrat’s decrepit and worn-out drainage system. Yet the tragedy was that these billions of rupees in Gujrat’s history remained restricted to a few specific and powerful pockets, and to openly divide these funds, the entire system was mortgaged to a fostered contractor mafia. With an exceptionally substandard, superficial, and unprofessional approach, this mafia played a game of window-dressing that instead of fixing Gujrat’s sewerage system, ruined it permanently and turned the entire city into an artificial swamp. Today, the agony of drainage dancing through the city’s streets and roads offers no hope of deliverance from this terrifying urban flood unless a severe accountability of these true, deceitful culprits is carried out. The political leadership that followed also made efforts suited to their respective statures for the betterment of the city; and although their own technical errors consistently hampered this improvement, every resident of Gujrat continues to carry the heavy burden of those primary sinners who devastated Gujrat’s history, civilization, and urbanity. Last year, when urban flooding once again descended upon the city as a mortal torment, uproar echoed everywhere, the wheel of life halted, and the situation reached a point where the Chief Minister of Punjab had to personally make an emergency visit to Gujrat to rescue the district administration from this storm of incompetence. During this visit, a heavy downpour of announcements and promises took place, accompanied by the release of special funds worth billions for complete and sustainable improvement next year. Despite the sincere efforts and financial provisions of Honorable Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the district administration—entrenched in a colonial mindset—spent all its energies throughout the year on personal image-building and photo sessions rather than the timely completion of this vital sewerage project. As ill luck would have it, as soon as the monsoon season arrived once again this year, the colorful balloon of good governance and claims deflated entirely, exposing the bitter reality that this malaise of flawed planning persists and rainwater continues to rain down as a torment upon citizens’ lives. And when this rainwater has already devastated citizens’ lives, wounding their homes and businesses, only then do the traditional efforts of WASA and district institutions begin to bear fruit, with water finally receding from the streets after prolonged suffering. Success drums are then beaten over this very temporary performance, adding salt to the injuries of the citizens. A profound study of Gujrat’s urban geography reveals that its foundations and topography are deeply embedded in its centuries-old historical backdrop. Built during the Mughal era, the Akbari Fort serves as the greatest metaphor for the region’s military, political, and administrative history. Viewed from a geographical and topographical standpoint, the Akbari Fort is situated on a relatively high mound or plateau, and the city’s older structural layout spreads outward from this height in gradual slopes in all directions. Principally and naturally, this elevation of the fort and the surrounding natural slopes should have stood as an exceptional geographical blessing for a drainage system—provided the natural pathways of water flow had been preserved and left unmolested by grotesque tampering. The tragedy, however, is that over time, unbridled urban expansion and a flood of encroachments mutilated this natural sloping system so ruthlessly that today, that very height and slope have turned into a bane for the city. Unchecked commercialization and illegal constructions in and around the Akbari Fort and its adjoining low-lying areas have blocked all traditional water routes in such a manner that water finds no outlet. The consequence is that when rainwater flows down from the elevated parts of the fort, instead of finding an open path or paved drain ahead, it encounters dead alleys, narrow sewage pipelines, and an endless siege of encroachments. Consequently, this water accumulates in lower regions to form a permanent lake, leaving city residents weeping over their helplessness. Gujrat’s tragedy is not merely the accumulation of rainwater; it is a reflection of that collective apathy and corruption which wakes up with the arrival

   For as long as the world can recall, the United States have controllably preserved their seat as the strongest one in the council of global superpowers- defeating the Nazis, USSR and setting their currency as the medium of trade and exchange. However, in recent events this strong hold seems to have become weakened as on the other side of the world a new power emerges, a power that the United States considers the biggest threat to their existence- the new super power China.   Ironically, China was still developing and submerged in poverty a few decades ago holding up its communist views and rejecting the new capitalist western world. Though they were not completely cut off on giving this new ideology a try, opening their first economic zone in Shenzhen in 1980 to pursue foreign investments and market based economic trade. Soon enough they realized the potential it had and once they started, they were quite impossible to stop.   It was in the 2010s that China had found numerous ways to include itself in the exporting and manufacturing industry. Every household was filled with items labeled “made in China”, however they were referred to as a low quality item hence cheaper. China nevertheless learnt, and they were fast learners. They knew that in a world dominated and feared by the United States they would have to have a friendlier approach. They started helping countries including Pakistan and many African nations with infrastructure projects in exchange for leverage and usage of their resources.   On the outside it seemed like a friendly deal, a helpful one even, but China knew that this was their way into achieving ultimate domination. The US was watching this very closely knowing very well what kind of abomination was taking place in front of their eyes, yet they could only spread propaganda about it, calling it “Debt trap Diplomacy” and “Predatory Lending”. The world did not give much thought since theyfinally had someone helping them without any threats and sanctions which they had experienced harshly in the past with the United States .   Uptil now, the USA still had the upper hand on oil and currency domination which was soon to get shaken up as well. Bill Clinton had put a ban on trading Iranian oil in his regime and so was done to Russia after they invaded Ukraine, meaning almost the whole world trading in US dollars could not buy Russian and Iranian oil.  Few of the other powerful currencies that could trade without the US dollar are euro, Japanese yen and Chinese yuan. Thus only China had the willingness to buy the sanctioned oil in their currency under different company names, trade routes which the US would find it difficult to identify and stop.   The United States has had  a history of having these geographical threats against major countries in order to secure their position. The same goes with China, with them using the strait of Malacca in southeast Asia as a passage they could close which would disrupt 80% of China’s oil trade. Chinese leaders have called this the “Malacca Dilemma” in the past.   Since the Iran war, it has come to light that China has once again found a path out of this misery and showed the world silently that this dilemma is far gone. When the whole world was panicking due to the Strait of Harmoz shutting down, China with no hurdles dropped their oil imports by 50% and started using their oil reserves which were more than double than usa. This was a direct showcase to the USA that even if they block straight out of Malacca- China will survive and wont go into an economic shutdown.   Now it is very evident that China has secured its position as an export leader, having significant oil reserves, defenses as well as the support of major countries through mutual diplomacy, and the US is forced down on its knees- especially after the Trump and Biden administration. The US has no options but to comply with China which was seen when Trump and his billionaire delegation visited China- which they were deemed to be intimidated by.

By Mehak Ali Pakistan is a country united by diverse cultures, languages, and provinces. Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir together form a nation blessed with breathtaking mountains, mighty rivers, vast deserts, fertile plains, and a strategically significant location. These natural blessings make Pakistan one of the most important countries in South Asia. ‎Yet, despite these advantages, millions of citizens continue to struggle with basic issues. Every day, news headlines report murders, sexual violence, malnutrition, unemployment, floods, illiteracy, inflation, gas shortages, electricity outages, and rising fuel prices. These are not isolated incidents; they are challenges that affect the daily lives of ordinary Pakistanis. ‎Citizens pay taxes with the expectation that the government will provide quality education, healthcare, infrastructure, security, and economic opportunities. When these expectations remain unfulfilled, frustration naturally grows. Good governance is not measured by speeches or publicity but by improvements in the lives of the people. ‎The condition of Sindh, particularly in many rural areas, reflects these concerns. Damaged roads, overflowing garbage, poor sanitation, and inadequate public services make everyday life difficult. Similar concerns are voiced by people in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and other regions, where many continue to demand better facilities, development, and equal opportunities. ‎Farmers work tirelessly under the scorching sun to feed the nation. Employees spend long hours in offices to support their families. Students invest years in education, yet many remain unemployed even highly qualified graduates and researchers struggle to find suitable jobs. Meanwhile, poverty, heat-related illnesses, and malnutrition continue to claim innocent lives. ‎In a democratic society, peaceful protest is a constitutional right. When citizens raise their voices for justice, development, or equal treatment, they deserve to be heard with dialogue rather than confrontation. The unrest in Azad Jammu and Kashmir reminds us that citizens’ grievances whether related to economic hardships, political representation, or governance must be addressed through dialogue, accountability, and peaceful solutions rather than allowing frustration to turn into violence. Listening to the concerns of the people strengthens democracy and builds trust between the government and its citizens. ‎Despite these challenges, Pakistan remains our home, and we are proud to be Pakistanis. Criticizing shortcomings does not mean we love our country any less. On the contrary, it reflects our hope for a better future. We dream of a Pakistan where every citizen enjoys equal rights, where public resources are used responsibly, where justice prevails, and where no one is left behind because of their province, ethnicity, or economic status. ‎Pakistan has immense potential. What it needs is sincere leadership, transparent governance, and policies that place the welfare of the people above all else. Only then will every citizen be able to say with confidence and pride: Yes, we are Pakistanis, and we are truly united.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that sets in when a war refuses to end on schedule. Five months into the conflict between the United States and Iran, we are living through it. Ceasefires are announced and collapse within weeks. Strikes are billed as decisive and are followed, days later, by more strikes. Each side insists the other will soon come to its senses, and each side is wrong. What we are watching is not a war moving toward resolution. It is a war that has become self-sustaining, and the longer it runs, the more countries get pulled into its logic whether they wanted a role in it or not. Saudi Arabia is the clearest example. For nearly four years, Riyadh had quietly extracted itself from the Yemen war, treating the 2022 ceasefire with the Houthis as one of the few unambiguous foreign policy wins of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s tenure. That restraint is now gone. When the Houthis resumed missile fire at Israel in solidarity with Tehran, and then began striking Saudi oil infrastructure directly, Riyadh had no real choice but to respond. It bombed Hodeidah. The Houthis retaliated against Aramco facilities in Yanbu and Jizan. A conflict Saudi Arabia spent years trying to bury is now, again, live on its border, not because Riyadh chose it but because a war between Washington and Tehran left no room for neutrality. This is the pattern worth naming plainly: nobody in this conflict is fighting the war they intended to fight. Washington launched its campaign framed around Iran’s nuclear program, wagering that decisive strikes would force capitulation or collapse. Instead it has strikes running past the two-week mark with no clear terminus, American service members killed in Jordan and Iraq, and a president publicly conceding that the exit could be “diplomatic or military” — which is another way of saying nobody currently knows how this ends. Iran, for its part, has responded to devastating strikes on its cities not with capitulation but with exactly the kind of asymmetric, proxy-driven defiance its doctrine was built for, activating fronts in Iraq, the Gulf, and now Yemen that cost it little and cost everyone else a great deal. The Strait of Hormuz tells the same story in economic terms. Daily vessel traffic through one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints has fallen to a small fraction of its prewar level. That is not an abstraction. It shows up in tanker insurance premiums in Piraeus and London, in fuel costs in Mumbai and Rotterdam, in the balance sheets of countries that have precisely nothing to do with this fight. War aims that once seemed narrowly bilateral — Washington versus Tehran, over centrifuges and missile stockpiles — have metastasized into a tax on global trade that nobody voted for and nobody can opt out of. It is tempting, watching this unfold, to look for a single culprit. Commentators sympathetic to Washington will point to Iran’s decades of proxy warfare, its nuclear ambiguity, its crackdown on its own protesters, and argue the current campaign is simply overdue accountability. Commentators sympathetic to Tehran will point to a US-Israeli strike that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader and ask what state, faced with the assassination of its head of state, would not treat that as an act of war demanding a response. Both arguments contain real grievances. Neither survives contact with what has actually happened since: a conflict that both sides insist is about narrow, defensible aims but that neither side has been able to keep narrow. Wars rarely stay the size their architects intend. What should worry observers most is not any single strike or retaliation but the absence of an exit ramp anyone believes in. Ceasefires here have not functioned as steps toward peace; they have functioned as pauses for rearmament, evidenced by how quickly each one has collapsed back into nightly bombing. That is the signature of a conflict without a theory of victory — one where both governments can inflict real pain on the other indefinitely, but where neither can convert that pain into a settlement it can sell to its own public. In that kind of war, the fighting does not stop because someone wins. It stops, if it stops, because the costs finally exceed what either government’s domestic politics can absorb — and on the evidence of the past five months, that threshold keeps receding rather than approaching. Saudi Arabia’s reluctant return to the Yemen battlefield should be read as an early warning rather than a footnote. It shows how a conflict that both Washington and Tehran describe as fundamentally about themselves keeps finding new participants who never agreed to join. If this war continues on its current trajectory, the question worth asking is not which superpower prevails, but how many other countries, currencies, and shipping lanes get quietly conscripted before it does.