Governance Reforms in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan: The Past and Present
FATA of Pakistan: A Brief IntroductionFederally Administered Tribal Areas extending over 27220 sq. km along Pak-Afghan border covers 3.4 per cent of Pakistan's land area. This mountainous land is inhabited by a majority of pakhtun population. It is surrounded by the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the north and east, the province of Balochistan in the south, the province of Punjab in the south-east and in the west by the state of Afghanistan (IPRI Factfile, 2008, p. 15). It is thus connected in the north with the district of Lower Dir of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, whereas in the east with the districts of Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Karak, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Malakand, Nowshera, Charsadda and Peshawar. In the southeast, FATA is physically linked with the district of Dera Ghazi Khan in the Punjab province, while in the south it joins the districts of Zhob and Musa Khel of Balochistan province (Ibid, p. 21). Pak-Afghan border also known as Durand Line lies to the west of FATA.FATA is consisted of seven political agencies and six tribal pockets called 'Frontier Regions'. The political agencies are, Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, North Waziristan, Orakzai and South Waziristan agency. Whereas Frontier Regions are in the district of Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Peshawar and Tank. With a minor exception of Orakzai agency, the rest the political agencies have common border with the state of Afghanistan (GOP, 2006, p. 3). To the north and west, FATA and the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa collectively join a chain of nine provinces in Afghanistan from north to south i.e. Nuristan, Kunar, Nangarhar, Khost, Paktika, Zabol, Kandahar, Helmand and Nimruz, which are predominantly inhabited by pakhtun ethnic group (Shuja, 2009, p. 2). The census report of Pakistan 1998 demonstrates 3.138 million population of these areas which makes 2.4 per cent of the total population of the country. But the current estimate shows its population almost 3.5 million. FATA is inhabited by majority of pakhtun tribes with a limited number of other religious groups such as Sikhs and Hindus (Sarfraz: 2008, pp. 8-9).Origin of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR)The British government strengthened their basis of power by establishing a strategic and effective judicial system and an archive of legal record of the necessary documents which ultimately assisted them in tax collection and maintaining public order during the mid of 19th century in British India. The government was mostly cautious against collective criminal activities and considered it as a direct menace to the empire rather than individual crimes (Nichols, 2013, p. x). The colonial authorities after thorough visualization drafted and executed a comprehensive system of legal and formal codes in the form of Indian Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure in order to rule British India effectively. In the like manner, Criminal Tribes Act was also designed from 1871 through which the government watched, registered and controlled certain tribes. However, the British official authorities realized within a short span of time that these formal codes, laws, rules of evidence and fact-finding potentials were insufficient to control lofty velocity of crimes in Peshawar valley in general and in the Afghan border regions set a part as tribal agencies in particular. The colonial authorities quickly differentiated between the peaceful agriculturists residing in the valleys and wild tribesmen of the frontier border. The only distinction of the settled district was that surveys of formal tax revenue and settlement had been completed while the rest of the situation and general environ of settled district and tribal belt was almost alike. When the government observed high rate of killings, robberies and violence across Peshawar valley, the government eventually developed the Punjab Frontier Crimes Regulation and implemented it in early 1872 (Ibid, pp. x-xi). After the establishment of North West Frontier Province, the government executed the same Regulation with some minor modifications which was called Frontier Crimes Regulation 1901 (Ibid, p. …
Issues of Good Governance in South Asia
AbstractIn the contemporary era, the significance of governance has elevated as far as he developmental discourse is concerned. Good Governance is regarded as pre-requisite for a peaceful open world. The political regime, systems and procedures for exercising authority; and capacity of governments are the key dimensions of governance. Thus it is also considered as a crucial element in formulating any development strategy. The article will carry an indepth study of what the term 'Good Governance' really means and its key dimensions viz-a-viz the developmental course. This article is a study on the governance issues which South Asian region faces. It seeks out to classify the key problems that are widespread to the region and concludes with a common agenda for good governance (without going into the detail of each country separately but the governance indicators of each South Asian Countries are provided at the end). The constarints and problems of poor governace will be studied in detail. On the basis of various strands of issues, the article winds up that the spirit of governance lies in delivering to the citizens of South Asia, the civil liberties, the rights, the provisions, preserved in the constitution of each of these countries as regards to the political, economic and social life and identifies major problems in the accomplishment of those aspirations.Key Words: Goveranace, South Asia, Trans-national, Weak States, Rule-Structure, Gross Domestic Product, Purchasing Power Parity, Floor-Crossing, Politicization of JusticeIntroductionEtymologically, "governance can be traced back to the Greek verb kubernan (to pilot or steer) and was used by Plato with regard to the designing of a system of rule" (Kjaer, 2004: 3). In simple word, Governance is the preservation of prescribed and unofficial political set of laws of the game. It refers to those actions that engross setting the rules for the implemenatation of power and resolving differences over such rules (Hyden, 1999: 185). But the new use of governance does not highlight state actors and institutions as the single applicable institutions and actors in the authoritative share of ideals (Easten, 1965). "Every part of them, to some level, emphasize on the role of networks in the quest of universal aspirations; these networks could be inter-governmental or inter-organizational (Rhodes, 1997a: 15)1; they could be trans-national (Rosenau, 1995: 13)2 or they may perhaps be networks of conviction and reciprocity crossing the state-society divide" (Hyden, 1999: 185)3.Governance theory is largely accompained by institutional transformation and it occupies human group. This presumption therefore establishes a component of change which is often missing in institutionalism. Ideally, governance merges rule-structures with agency. From an institutional standpoint, governance is about touching 'the frameworks within which citizens and officials proceeds and politics transpire, and which contour the distinctiveness and institutions of civil society (March & Olsen, 1995: 6). A wide-ranging institutional classification would hence denote governance as "the setting of rules, the appliance of rules and the enforcement of rules" (Feeny, 1993: 172). Dwivedi (2007: 170) states that "Good" is a value-laden expression which entails a contrast between two things or methods by using some standard of measure. A government or a system of governance is thought to be good if it reveals certain basic characteristics recommended by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which puts forward the most comprehensive definition and an idealistic model of good governance and i-e; Good governance is, among other things, participatory, transparent and accountable.Good governance was launched on the agenda by the World Bank (1989) since it necessitated to explicate why a number of countries remained unsuccessful to build up, regardless of the reality that they had adopted the Neo-Liberal Adjustment policies imposed on them by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. …
AMERICAN WESTS: PREFACE TO A GEOGRAPHICAL INTERPRETATION
ABSTRACT Geographers might make a very significant contribution to the interpretation of the American West and of the American nation by a systematic investigation of the West as a set of dynamic regions. The outline offered suggests a focus upon four categories of regional features (population, circulation, political areas, and culture) to be examined as complexes changing through four recognizable stages (nuclear, regional, regional-national, metropolitan-national) from initial European colonization to the present with projections into the future.