As a result of the liberation movement of the peoples of India, the Muslim population of the former colony under the leadership of M.A. Jinnah achieved the creation in August 1947 of the independent state of Pakistan. Until 1971, Pakistan consisted of two parts – western and eastern, the distance between which in a straight… Read More »
Forged in the midst of the bipolar opposition, the relationship between Pakistan and the US has always been characterized by phases of rapprochement and as many distances, often coinciding with the changing of US interests in the South Asian chessboard. The first alliance treaty between Pakistan and the USA was signed in 1954: it was… Read More »
Relations between India and Pakistan have been conflicting since August 1947, when Islamabad was established in the Indian territories which became independent, with the aim of creating a nation for all Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. The partition process was painful and cost about half a million deaths, triggering the mass displacement of millions of… Read More »
In 1990, President Ghulām Isḥaq Khān resigned the Bhutto government and declared a state of emergency; the subsequent elections were won by the conservative Islamic Democratic Alliance (AID) and the prime minister became M. Nawāz Sharīf. The continuation of the inter-ethnic unrest which was superimposed on the popular protests for the participation of the Pakistan… Read More »
Population According to some estimates, in 1998 the population amounted to almost 148.2 million residents (to which we must add at least one million Afghan refugees, mostly hospitalized in special camps). It includes a great variety of ethnic groups, evidenced by the number of languages spoken: even if the official ones are Urdū and English,… Read More »
Population. – The 1951 census estimated the population of Pakistan (excluding the territories of Āzād Kashmir, Gilgit, Baltistān, Janagadh and Manavadar) at 75,842,135 residents, with a density of 80 residents per km 2. The percentage of males (just over 40 million) appeared to be somewhat higher than that of women. Regarding religion, 85% of the… Read More »
Area and population. – Territorially shrunk following the split (1971) of the eastern province (today Bangla Desh), the Pakistan currently occupies the north-west area. of the Indian peninsula, surrounded by Afghānistān, Iran, the Soviet Union, China, the Indian Union and the Arabian Sea on an area of 803,940 km 2. The population, estimated in 1974,… Read More »
Pakistan. – Divided by religious contrasts, ethnic clashes and profound social inequalities, Fr., on the threshold of the new century, was still poised between backwardness and modernization, struggling to find a political structure capable of guaranteeing the consolidation of democratic institutions with difficulty established in the mid-eighties of the 20th century. The government headed by… Read More »
The ISI: a state within a state ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) was founded in 1948 to coordinate d’ functions intelligence of the army, navy and air. It is the most powerful and best known of the three Pakistani services, which also include the Intelligence Bureau (Ib) and Military Intelligence (Mi). The agency has experienced mixed fortunes… Read More »
Divided by religious contrasts, ethnic clashes and profound social inequalities, Fr., on the threshold of the year 2000, was still poised between backwardness and modernization and was struggling to find a political structure capable of guaranteeing the consolidation of the democratic institutions that had laboriously established themselves in mid-eighties. This internal instability was matched, on… Read More »
Country in the balance between authoritarianism and democracy, Pakistan started at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. a process of consolidation of democratic institutions, albeit in a still highly critical context. In fact, the main problems of the country remained unsolved: the weight of the military, the rampant corruption, the fragmentation… Read More »
The transition phase from the military regime to a complete parliamentary democracy, which began in 1985 with the restoration of the Constitution, proved to be extremely complex and contradictory. In fact, it was heavily conditioned in its stability and credibility by the lack of renewal of the elites executives, who have in fact maintained consolidated… Read More »
The new constitution, on which a specially elected commission had worked since February 1960, was promulgated on March 1, 1962. In accordance with the theory of basic democracy, it was strongly centralizing; every executive power belonged to the president; the single chamber of Parliament comprised 150 members from each of the two halves of the… Read More »
Dying on 11 September 1948 in Karachi, the qā’id-i a‛ẓam (supreme head) Moḥammed ‛Alī Jinnāḥ (see App. II, 11, pp. 6-7), main architect of the Pakistan and his first governor general, he left behind a country that seemed to have little chance of surviving him. Divided into two sections hundreds of kilometers away from each… Read More »
South Asian state. According to the census data, in 1998 the Pakistan counted 132,352,279 residents, while in 2005 the population was estimated at about 157,935,000 residents; to this figure must be added a number of Afghan refugees difficult to specify: according to the estimates of humanitarian organizations there are between 2 and 3 million individuals,… Read More »
South Asian state. According to an estimate by UNDESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs), in 2014 the Pakistan counted 185,132,926 residents, With a growth rate of 1.5% compared to the previous year. The average density is 226 residents / km 2, with notable differences within the country; as well as in urban… Read More »
Economy The precarious security conditions that characterize the country represent a structural factor that negatively affects the possibilities for economic growth, especially as regards the ability to attract investments for infrastructure projects. An exception in this field is China, which has allocated 46 billion dollars for the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (Cecp). The… Read More »
With the division of the Anglo-Indian empire, 20% of the population fell into Pakistan, just 10% of the industrial establishments and minimal shares of mineral resources and transport infrastructures. The prospects for agriculture were more favorable, given that Pakistan had inherited most of the irrigation systems; these, however, depended on the Indus waters, in turn… Read More »
In January 1993 B. Bhutto assumed the post of secretary of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, and shortly thereafter her husband was released from prison. Meanwhile, the historical conflicts between the two roles undermined relations between President Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Sharif Khan, producing deployments and resignations in the group of ministers that… Read More »
On December 1, 1988, B. Bhutto was appointed prime minister and the state of emergency was lifted. With the support of the PPP and IDA, Ishaq Khan was appointed president. B. Bhutto immediately announced the implementation of democratic reforms, and strove, without however obtaining the required qualified majority, to repeal the amendments to the Constitution… Read More »
In the decade 1978-1988 there were no substantial changes in political life (led continuously by Gen. Zia-ul-Haq), also due to the poor cohesion capacity of the opposition. In August 1983, Zia announced provincial and national elections for 1985, without however succeeding in appeasing the dissent of the MRD (Movement for the Restoration of Democracy), founded… Read More »
Pakistan. A South Asian state, which arose in 1947 from the dissolution of British rule in the Indian subcontinent. The reasons that led to its birth have ancient roots. Before the British conquest in the 19th century, India had long been dominated by powerful Muslim dynasties (➔ Mughal, empire) who had consolidated a strong Islamic… Read More »
About 40% of the territory consists of the plain drained by the Indus and its tributaries; this plain is closed by mountains both to the north and to the west, and by a plateau to the south-west, the Balūčistān. The northern mountain barrier is part of the complex system of the Himalayan range; the relevance… Read More »
Pakistan The Islamic component of the Indian subcontinent Among the most populous countries in the world, with a number of problems that slow down its development, Pakistan has very modern and very advanced aspects alongside others that are completely opposite: the distance between incompatible models of life – such as those of shepherds or peasants.… Read More »
Architecture. – Following the creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan (1947), many projects were put in place to ensure that Karāchī passed from the role of regional capital to that of capital of the new republic. Despite this, when Ayub Khan took power (1958), the idea of a new and more beautiful Karāchī was… Read More »
The plan also responds to those principles of regularity typical of the urban planning of the Hellenic world. This plant remains as a constant trellis through the subsequent remakes of the Indo-Parta and kuṣāṇa age. Of the kuṣāṇa period it is properly the third city which is known by the name of the modern locality… Read More »
Among the finds, apart from the interest in the urban layout and in the organizations that testify to a high standard of living, the ceramics, seals and sculptures are particularly significant. The bright red ceramic features a black decoration of textile inspiration, with stylized and modified naturalistic motifs, outside of rigid geometric recurrences. The seals… Read More »
After the division between India and Pakistan, the latter are left with the vast and complex series of archaeological documents of the Indian subcontinent, especially those referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric age and to that which elapses between the expansion of the Indian kingdoms and the end of the kuṣāṇa empire in which the… Read More »
The most ancient events relating to human settlement have been illustrated by the findings of Paleolithic materials in the Soan and Jhelum valleys, in the northern part of Pakistan, which seem to date back to at least 400,000 years ago. But it was the French excavations at the Mehrgarh site, in Balūčistān, that provided the… Read More »
PAKISTAN. – Muslim state of India, whose constitution, in relation to the Indian Independance Act of July 18, 1947, dates from August 15, 1947; it is part of the British Commonwealth as a domain. The proposal to give this name to the Muslim state to be founded in India was born in 1933 among Indian… Read More »