Author: Uzma Ehtasham

By Uzma Ehtasham Britain was once regarded as one of the world’s most stable parliamentary democracies, a political system admired for its continuity, predictability and strong institutions. Governments changed through elections, prime ministers often served for years, and leadership transitions were generally orderly affairs. Yet the past decade has presented a strikingly different picture. With the resignation of Keir Starmer after less than two years in office, Britain is set to witness its seventh prime minister in just ten years, a turnover that would once have seemed unimaginable in modern British politics. The departure of Starmer is more than the…

By Uzma Ehtasham The stalled diplomatic process at the Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland has become a focal point for competing interpretations of what is, in essence, a fragile and still-forming attempt at strategic engagement between the United States and Iran, with Pakistan acting as an intermediary facilitator. Around this narrow diplomatic channel, however, a far wider and more combustible narrative has taken shape in sections of Pakistani political commentary, where claims of external obstruction involving Israel and India have circulated in strongly charged terms. These assertions speak less to verifiable diplomatic developments than to a broader habit of reading international…

By Uzma Ehtasham In a development presented as a significant diplomatic breakthrough, the so-called Islamabad Memorandum between the United States and Iran has reportedly been formalised with electronic signatures from US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also signing in a mediating capacity. According to official messaging from Islamabad, the agreement was confirmed late on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif publicly endorsing the development in a social media statement on Thursday. He described the understanding as a step towards peace and expressed the expectation that its benefits would extend beyond the…

By Uzma Ehtasham The claim that Pakistan’s civil and military leadership played a decisive role in facilitating a diplomatic understanding between the United States and Iran has been received in Islamabad through a distinctly celebratory lens, reflecting both the political mood of the moment and the wider desire to project influence on the global stage. In official and semi-official narratives, this development has been framed not merely as a routine diplomatic episode but as a rare strategic achievement, one that allegedly places Pakistan at the centre of a delicate and high-stakes international negotiation. At the heart of this account is…

By Uzma Ehtasham The reported ceasefire understanding between the United States and Iran, and Pakistan’s asserted role in helping facilitate it, has been greeted in Islamabad with understandable enthusiasm. Government ministers have portrayed the development as evidence of Pakistan’s growing diplomatic relevance and its ability to act as a bridge between countries whose relations have long been characterised by hostility, mistrust and confrontation. While the precise extent of Pakistan’s involvement may continue to be debated, the broader principle remains beyond dispute: any effort that helps prevent war in one of the world’s most volatile regions is worthy of recognition. At…

By Uzma Ehtasham At last, news has emerged that much of the world had been awaiting with growing anticipation. Reports of an agreement between the United States and Iran have offered a rare glimpse of diplomatic progress in a region that has spent decades trapped between confrontation and uneasy stalemate. Since the conflict that erupted earlier this year and continued for forty days before military operations were suspended, uncertainty has hung heavily over international politics and the global economy. Although representatives of Washington and Tehran met in Islamabad to discuss a formal end to hostilities, the absence of a final…

By Uzma Ehtasham The violence reported from Uttarakhand’s Dehradun district is not an isolated episode of local disorder but part of a wider and more troubling pattern in contemporary India, where small disputes increasingly acquire a communal edge with alarming speed. What is especially unsettling in this case is not only the loss of life and the serious injuries sustained, but the manner in which an everyday disagreement over something as routine as irrigation water appears to have escalated into confrontation framed through identity. When social relations become so brittle that a neighbourhood dispute can so easily slip into communal…

By Uzma Ehtasham Pakistan’s newly unveiled federal budget arrives at a moment of considerable economic and political strain. Presented by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb in the National Assembly, the Rs18.77 trillion spending plan seeks to balance competing pressures: fiscal discipline, economic recovery, social protection, development needs and rising security concerns. Yet beyond the headline figures and political claims, the central question remains whether this budget can meaningfully improve the lives of ordinary Pakistanis who continue to struggle with inflation, stagnant incomes and economic uncertainty. The circumstances surrounding the budget presentation reflected the increasingly polarised nature of Pakistan’s politics. Scenes of…

By Uzma Ehtasham The meeting of the National Economic Council, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has set the framework for Pakistan’s fiscal direction in the coming year, offering a familiar blend of ambition, constraint and careful arithmetic. At its centre lies a decision that appears, at first glance, to preserve continuity: the federal development budget remains fixed at Rs1,000 billion. Yet beneath that stability sits a sharper recalibration of priorities, most visibly in the provinces, where development spending has been cut by Rs920 billion, reducing the combined provincial allocation to Rs3,669 billion. On paper, the approach signals discipline. In…

By Uzma Ehtasham The latest escalation between the United States and Iran has once again demonstrated how quickly the Middle East can be pushed towards a dangerous and unpredictable confrontation. At a time when the region desperately needs stability, economic recovery and diplomatic engagement, renewed military exchanges have instead reinforced fears that a wider conflict may be emerging. The developments of recent days have not only heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran but have also raised broader questions about the effectiveness of international diplomacy and the willingness of major powers to prioritise restraint over force. For decades, relations between the…