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Purpose of the study: The purpose of the study is to underscore the changing discourse of Washington's approach towards global arms control and disarmament regime. United States in October 2018 announced its willingness to come out of 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty (INF). This not only invoked a new debate on the future of arms control treaties but also sent waves of insecurity in the global order that had been observing a positive discourse of disarmament between the two Cold War arch rivals. With ups and downs in the subsequent ultimatums at-last the fate of the treaty faced termination from the US in February 2019 just like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) that was ended in 2002 by the then US President George W. Bush. The key question confronted in the study is about, why subsequent U.S. administrations are deviating from international commitments that the Washington made to ensure international peace and security? Methodology: The study is descriptive in nature and follows deductive method with that of mixed method approach to highlight the challenges surrounding regime failure of global security system. Main Findings: This study makes the point that the result of US withdrawals from her international arms control commitments would accelerate development and deployment elements of its Global ABM system in South Korea, Japan and number of European countries. That is why Washington's decision to abandon INF treaty can be openly considered as a multistep strategy for denial of global security system. At the same time the final goal of this strategy is clearly visible, which is to weaken the reciprocal abilities of presumed rogue and revisionist enemy-countries. Additionally, the White House is interested in strengthening ties with allies such as India to contain Chinese rise. Applications of the study: In this study an attempt has been made to underscore the US security anxiety which revolves around the pretext of Russian and Chinese evolving missile modernization. Washington believes that to ensure her national security it has to neutralize both the Chinese and Russian factor in an adequate manner. This aspires and requires US missile deployments in Asia Pacific Region with that of additional air and sea delivery means in allies territories. In fact, the INF treaty was putting bar on the US options to mitigate the evolving security theatre. Somehow, Washington's viewpoint to walk away from the INF treaty is the same as of ABM treaty. Novelty/Originality of this study: The study has looked into the new but rapidly increasing securitization of strategic stability with that of confronting the very notion of global security order. The study has generated the information about the impact of United States trend of deviating from arms control treaties and its impact on global security system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child marriage is a human rights violation that jeopardizes health and growth, limits opportunities for empowerment, disrupts education and social development, and increases the chances of exposure to abuse and violence. This study was designed to know about the challenges and issues in policy making and the implementation process regarding child marriages in Pakistan. The study was purely qualitative in nature and the data was obtained through in-depth interviews from 14 respondents selected through purposive sampling technique. The findings of the research study demonstrate that regardless of being signatory to the international convention, the rate of child marriages in Pakistan is still high and prevalent factors relate to religion, traditional customs, gender norms, family practices, level of education, poverty, local laws, and patriarchy. Sometimes interfamily and tribe conflicts are resolved on mutual agreement and this agreement involves payment of money, debt settlement or transfer of daughters which might be child at the time of resolution of conflict. The policy makers and implementers face these factors as the main hurdles in implantation of laws regarding child marriage. Besides legislation, this practice can be protected by strong awareness campaign which includes educating the people specially Nikah-khuwan, communicating people about its health hazards, and psychological issues. Further by ensuring that state laws should not be over ruled against local custom or tribal laws. The study also suggests that awareness and monitoring about child marriages is the need of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research study on Indian demographic engineering traces specific administrative and legal measures that successive Indian governments initiated for demographic engineering in Jammu and Kashmir while the current BJP government crossed all limits and made unilateral moves to annex Kashmir in complete disregard to United Nations Security Council Resolutions and bilateral agreements between India and Pakistan. As a theoretical framework, the study used the Theory of Political Demography developed by Jack A. Goldstone, Eric P. Kaufmann and Monica D. Toft that explains how international security as well as national politics is being shaped by changes in population. Indian administrative measures for demographic engineering among others include grab of land and setting up of colonies for Sainik and KashmiriPanditswhile on the legal front, India eroded special status of the state by changing Article 370 and carving out two union territories to be governed directly from the centre. The study concludes that Indian unilateral moves in Kashmir not only created serious problems for final settlement of dispute but also spurred tensions between two nuclear states putting at risk the regional peace and security. The study provides pertinent recommendations to deal with the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After spending trillions of dollars, making Afghan war the U.S longest combat, and jeopardizing the future of Afghan generations; ‘Not War But Peace’ became the reality on February 29, 2020 when Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan (TTA) deputy leader Mullah Abdul-Ghani Bradar and American peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad signed the Peace Agreement in Doha, Qatar. The foundation of peace that Pakistan once wanted to build in Kabul by recognizing the Taliban regime became truth after 18 years of U.S. combat in Afghanistan that witnessed continuous chaos, instability, civil war, and turmoil beyond borders. Presence of Pakistan at the time of Doha ceremony is adamant to 1996 decision of Islamabad when the then Taliban Regime was recognized to avoid instability and install regional peace. This article makes the point that the farsightedness of Pakistan rightly realized the strength and resilience of Taliban and therefore took the right decision to bring them into mainstream diplomatic exposure in 1996. This fact was also recognized by Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) who stood by with the reality of Afghanistan and too accepted Taliban as the legitimate political authority in 1996. A notion which was true in 1996 became reality of the day that “peace in Afghanistan is peace in Pakistan”. By incorporating deductive approach, this paper is descriptive in analysis and uses historical method of inquiry to establish facts and infer conclusions. Regional Complex Security Theory has been contextualized to refer to intelligence havoc that allowed regional states to sustain the chaos, instability, and turmoil in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world politics has been dominated by the US-led West since the Second World War and particularly after the demise of the Soviet Union at the end of a protracted Cold War. However, the balance of power seems to be shifting from the West to the East led by rising China. This geopolitical shift has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Pandemics have been known to affect great powers and global politics in the past. The “Black death’, the ‘Plague of Athens’ and ‘Antonine plague’ are some of the examples from history, which resulted in the decline of great empires. Although Corona virus reportedly originated in Wuhan and later spread to the entire world, China was able to mobilize its resources in time and managed to control the disease in a very short time. On the other hand, the West and particularly the US was slow in taking appropriate measures resulting in death and misery to the people. US like many other countries, is still struggling with the pandemic that has caused a severe blow to not only its economy but also its standing as a world leader. While China has emerged as a more suitable candidate for the world’s leadership and steadily on the path of economic and technological primacy. The paper studies in detail how the virus has affected the global politics, particularly comparing the performance of the two rivals during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper discusses working-class students' experiences in the elite universities of Pakistan. The main objective of the research was to examine the inclusion and exclusion strategies of elite universities for working-class students. The research was guided by a qualitative research design. The locale of the study consisted of four elite universities (two from Islamabad-the federal capital of Pakistanand two from Lahore-the provincial capital of Punjab province of Pakistan). Sixty-four respondents (working-class students) were included in the study through a consecutive sampling technique. The data for the study come from in-depth qualitative interviews using a semi-structured interview guide. Theoretically, the study is informed by Pierre Bourdieu's, Basil Bernstein's, and Jerome Karabel's work. The results of the study showed that working-class students had relatively diverse kinds of experiences in the elite universities of Pakistan. It was found that working-class students were facing symbolic violence in the universities through various explicit and implicit ways. They were segregated through different structural procedures of the elite universities such as fees and other related expenses. The study concludes that working-class students were experiencing inside and outside classroom differential treatment. The social class background was an important factor that was playing a key role for some to be considered as special and others as non-special individuals in educational institutions where the respondents were studying. The study suggests that elitism in the education system of Pakistan must be discouraged to have assimilated kind of environment in the Pakistani education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nigeria, diarrhoea has emerged as one of the common causes of gastroenteritis in children and adult population. Generally speaking, it is a condition in which three or more liquid or loose bowel movement per day happen. Basically, prevalence of diarrhoea as a disease is highly caused due to poor sewerage disposal, hygiene conditions and contaminated water at the household level. This study sought to investigate the prevalence and prevention of diarrhoea among infants in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The survey research design was used to accomplish this study. Among the rural population of the area, a sample of one hundred (N=100) mothers were selected randomly to gather information for the study. The primary data was collected by using the questionnaire and secondary data was collected from textbooks, research journals/articles published on the subject in the past. The findings shown, that the potential causes and prevention mechanisms of diarrhoea among children (less than 5 years) in the study area are not known to most of the nursing mothers. Therefore, it is imperative to engage community and women in particular aimed to ensure the success of educational interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]