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In federal systems, upper chamber of the legislature is considered as a representative institution of the smaller units but the evidences suggest that the parliamentary features of federations limit the territorial role of the upper/federal chamber. This is because the relative party discipline in parliamentary democracies and the supremacy of popular house on the second chamber in such federations. Building on this proposition, the paper attempts to determine the territorial character of Pakistani Senate through evaluating its role for pro-autonomy legislation during the debates over 18th constitutional amendment in Pakistan. The evidence demonstrates congruence of opinion between the Senators and the members of National Assembly over certain autonomy issues. Hence, it seems to suggest that the parliamentary nature of the institutions limits the territorial of the Senate of Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the interplay between corruption and governance in post 9/11 Pakistan. Post 9/11 Pakistan is characterized by a protracted conflict that has affected daily lives of people as well as governance trends. Primary data in the form of Key Informant Interviews with government officials, journalists and public representatives is used for this paper. Secondary data sources included research papers, newspaper articles and data pertaining to corruption, governance and conflict have been utilized. Evidence from post 9/11 Pakistan indicates that weak governance is related with corruption and is dependent on the state of the institutions and conflict induced instabilities. The paper outlines how different Governments in the post 9/11 period, instead of improving social services delivery for the populace, indulged in mismatched priorities, leading to a lack of accountability and transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's political participation is sine qua non of women's empowerment movement. Pakistan is a developing democracy where citizens are given equal political rights without any gender discrimination. The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa elected a female as Deputy Speaker for the first time. Report of various organizations on 2013 general elections declared that women's participation in politics have strengthened its roots in Pakistan. Mardan is the 19th largest city of Pakistan and 2nd most populous district of KP Province. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the most affected province of Pakistan in the war against global terrorism nevertheless in the 2013 general elections, the province generally and district Mardan especially witnessed increase in women's political participation. An encouraging number of women casted their votes, contested election, and launched elections campaigns. The research is qualitative and is based on primary and secondary sources. The study explores the changing trends of women's politics in Mardan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempts to look into the temporal and spatial variations in human development across the districts of Punjab. The spatial variations in human development have been shown by calculating a district level Human Development Index (HDI) in Punjab for the year 2014. The temporal variation in human development for the districts of Punjab has been shown by comparing the HDI calculated in this paper with the HDI calculated for the same districts by Jamal and Khan (2007). However, the present work tries to correct some of the methodological issues in the work done by UNDP (2003) and Jamal and Khan (2007). Due to data constraints at the district level, UNDP (2003) and Jamal and Khan (2007) used health outcomes at the provincial level to calculate district health index in Pakistan. Similarly, they constructed income and education index by using some weak proxies. Income index was calculated by assuming equal share of services in gross domestic product (GDP) for all districts. For education index they considered adult literacy rate. Present study has used district level child survival rate for health index. Per capita income and mean years of schooling have been used for calculating for income and education index. The availability of data on child survival rate, income and mean years of schooling has been made possible by the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS, 2014) conducted by the Punjab Bureau of Statistics with the collaboration of UNDP and UNICEF. The results confirm the common perception of regional disparities in Punjab. Moreover, the temporal comparison of HDI points towards the widening of development gap between the regions of Punjab. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern times national flag is one of the basic requirements for a nation state. It symbolizes the state and is consider as a matter of honor, respect and pride for the entire nation. Pakistan's national flag, comprised of green and white with a crescent and star, was designed by AmiruddinKidwai, approved by the Muslim League leadership and finally adopted by the Constituent Assembly of the country. Jinnah showed personal interest in making of the flag. He wanted to make it reflect the feelings of the people of Pakistan and thus annoyed Mountbatten by not accepting his design. There are some controversies regarding the flag including the debate that whether the crescent is in right direction or not, but ever since the birth of Pakistan, there is a national consensus about this flag and not even a slight modification has been made in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]