The Indo-US strategic bonding is shifting the security dynamics of the South Asian balance-of-power in Indian favour. From the signing of 123 US-India Nuclear Deal to the facilitation in becoming a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the US has clearly designated India as an instrumental element in the American grand strategy of devising a ‘new world order’. As a result, India has grabbed the opportunity of alleviating its status as a credible regional and global power. In this regard, the US tilt towards India is significantly paving grounds for a strategic imbalance in the South Asian region, thus creating challenges for Pakistan. Therefore, this paper argues that the growing bonhomie between the US and India is a destabilizing factor in the region which reinforces Pakistan’s fast falling into the Chinese orbit; thereby cementing the old friendship into a new strategic partnership. This dynamic certainly gives China and Pakistan an incentive to work together so as to keep the value of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence alive. In an effort to expand the horizon on the subject, the paper is dedicated to critically examine the existing cooperation between India and the US while equally foreseeing the possible implications for the region in the face of such destabilizing cooperation. More importantly, based on qualitative data, this paper explores how Indo-US strategic partnership is directly impacting Pakistan and its strategic partnership with China; thereby explaining how the growing relationship between the US and India has undermined the traditional balance-of-power in the South Asian region?

The objective of this study was to identify the relationship between effective management and the organizational performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It is a fact that in modern times, the performance of SMEs is critical to improving because these entities have a great contribution to the economy of Pakistan. The earlier studies have highlighted the management crisis in organizational performance. In this regard, the study is based on the cross-sectional data collection on the Likert scale questionnaire. The study highlights that there is a critical role for goal setting, a sense of ownership, and teamwork in effective management to improve the performance of SMEs. This study is significant because it provides both theoretical and practical implications that are important to consider when it comes to the performance of SMEs. The implications of this study would be useful for management to ensure effective practices to improve the performance of the organization.

In the business sector of Pakistan, social equity is still an unaddressed and conflicting issue. The objective of this study is to highlight the factors playing a key role in maintaining social equity and to develop a sense of satisfaction among consumers of Pakistani market segments to provide them with a way to best business practices and importantly, for emerging businesses. This study was conducted with the help of a questionnaire, and the responses were collected from 700 respondents. The hypotheses were developed with careful evaluation of existing literature, and data was collected from diverse respondents in the Pakistani business and market sectors. This study concludes that to develop social equity for a community, the role of digitalization, a sense of security, and information communication technology are important. The significance of this study is to develop sustainable business activities and ensure the concept of social equity in the Pakistani environment by addressing the theoretical gap and providing recommendations based on responses taken from the diverse consumers.

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Human security is an essential component of the contemporary intra-state conflicts; promulgating renewed understanding of the perpetuating nature of the Afghan problem. Afghanistan, from the Soviet invasion to the US’ long war, faces continued Human Security challenges, especially lack of education in around 80 percent of school-aged children of Afghan refugees. Pakistan, which itself has the second largest number of school-aged children out of school, faces illiteracy in children of Afghan refugees as the surmountable challenge that links down to the seven broader components of human security identified by Mahbub-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s former finance minister and economist, in the 1994 Human Development Report. The growing illiteracy in second and third-generation Afghan refugees is the product of poverty, socio-economic disparities, and socio-cultural restrictions, especially in regards to the relative discouragement of female education. In order to offset the gravity of challenges to the educational aspect of human security, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is continuously cooperating with the Pakistani government in enhancing educational infrastructure in terms of community and home-based schooling, vocational and technical training, and capacity building of Pakistan’s schooling system to accommodate Afghan refugee children. Therefore, the paper takes qualitative checks of the primary sources from the government of Pakistan and UNHCR and secondary sources to find the answers to three following questions in different four parts of the paper. The result of this study is that the main challenge for Afghan refugee child education in Pakistan is the poor quality of education. Therefore, UNHCR should work with the Pakistani government to develop investment programs and put in place solid surveillance and oversight of schools to improve their quality to an acceptable standard.