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The erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), recently merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), are one of the less developed areas of Pakistan. The erstwhile FATA included seven agencies and six frontier regions. Under the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), popularly known as a black law, the legal and administrative structure of these tribal areas was formulated by the British colonial power. These regulations were the cornerstone of FATA's administration after 1947. These areas remained semi-governed under the executive and did not fall under the sphere of influence of the national and provincial legislatures. Due to the region's internal and external dynamics, Pakistan's governments failed to introduce reforms or merge the FATA with their adjoining districts or the province. The regulations empowered the political administration to adjudicate civil and criminal cases through Jirgas and take measures for peace and security. The head of the state constitutionally governed these areas through the governor of KP. The study focuses on the historical evolution of the reforms in erstwhile FATA. The findings show that after the May 2018 merger of erstwhile FATA, it is essential to change the system to integrate these merged districts into the country's mainstream politics and governance structure.

The ex-FATA reform processes have been comprehensive since the establishment of Pakistan in 1947 and have short, medium, and long-term dimensions. It was not an easy task that could be completed with certain simple legislative and administrative actions. The government of PML-N (2013-2018) formed an eleven-member task force to accelerate the implementation process, with a focus on suggested law reforms, FATA's development, and FATA's mainstreaming. In 2017 a high-powered National Implementation Committee was established to monitor this process and to review the implementation of the said reform based on monthly Task Force reports. Apart from envisaging reforms in several domains, the suggested reform packages also aim to improve the tribal areas' socio-economic prospects. It may be stated that the reforms also aim to improve the tribal people's socio-economic situation. This study critically analyses the merger and examines the reforms' consequences for FATA.

North Korea is an important figure in Northeast Asian politics due to its growing nuclear program which she claims to have initiated for defence. However, it has disturbed the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula at large. The tense relations over the years between U.S., its regional allies particularly South Korea and North Korea have affected world politics. Breakdown of the Agreed Framework Agreement of 1994, signed between U.S. and North Korea in 2002, caused a damage to their relationship. Six Party Talks were started to bring stability to region and political certainty among the relations of the stakeholders. However, SPT failed to achieve the desired objectives due to the ambitious interests of the member states. This research paper focuses those obstacles that led to breakdown of the six-party talks. Furthermore, the study addresses the question that how U.S., China and other regional states are handling and exploiting the North Korean nuclear issue for the vested interests. This qualitative study has used secondary sources for data collection and for the analysis it used descriptive-analytical and narrative analysis technique. The study shows that failure and suspension of the SPT have some serious implications on the security of Northeast Asia.

This article debates democracy and the key elements of a democratic system. For this purpose, some of the internationally reputed authors and experts have been quoted. There is no universally accepted definition of democracy but most of the intellectuals and scholars are agreed that in democracy the supreme authority is vested in the hands of the people who exercise it through their elected representatives. The paper adopted qualitative, historical, and analytical method. The scholar has undergone an extensive study of available literature such as books, journals articles, newspapers and internet sources to make this study more commendable and get it become visible for the future scholars. The paper is based on qualitative study as it discusses facts for finding the truth. Democracy cannot flourish without certain necessary conditions. The focus of the paper is on the fundamental’s elements of democracy each of which is a basic condition for the success of democratic type of government everywhere.

Democracy, transition to democracy and democratic consolidation have widely been debated across the world and have prominent position in third world countries. Democracy in developing countries particularly in Pakistan is confronting long standing problem of consolidation of power by civilians. In democracy the strength of the state institutions depends on the relationship among central government with opposition and with provincial governments. Pakistan consists of a centre and four federating units having mix nationalities. This paper investigates the factors which have provoked confrontational politics both within the parliament between ruling and opposition parties and with provincial governments especially Punjab during Benazir Bhutto’s rule. The paper focuses on the question whether it was the same follies which Benazir Bhutto played with during her second term with opposition in the centre and their governments in provinces. To find answers to these questions, secondary data has been used and to supplement newspapers have been consulted for obtaining first-hand information of public officials. The relationship among the ruling party in the centre with opposition and the provincial governments often remained unpleasant and unfriendly. It is argued that personal the national considerations augmented the confrontation and conflicts among national and regional level political parties.

The paper presents partial overview of the mathematical synthesis and the physical realization of metasurfaces, and related illustrative examples. The synthesis consists in determining the exact tensorial surface susceptibility functions of the metasurface, based on generalized sheet transition conditions, while the realization deals with both metallic and dielectric scattering particle structures. The examples demonstrate the capabilities of the synthesis and realization techniques, thereby showing the plethora of possible metasurface field transmission and subsequent applications. The first example is the design of two diffraction engineering birefringent metasurfaces performing polarization beam splitting and orbital angular momentum multiplexing, respectively. Next, we discuss the concept of the electromagnetic remotely controlled metasurface spatial processor, which is an electromagnetic linear switch based on destructive interferences. Then, we introduce a non-reciprocal non-gyrotropic metasurface using a pick-up circuit radiator (PCR) architecture. Finally, the implementation of all-dielectric metasurfaces for frequency dispersion engineering is discussed.

The study focused on the growth of Islamic banking in Pakistan in terms of its Deposits, Investments, Assets and Owners Equity for the period from 2004 to 2009. The horizontal analysis technique was used to determine the growth rates of Islamic and conventional banks while t-test was used for statistical significance. The growth rate of Islamic banking was higher than its traditional counterpart in Deposits, Investments, Assets and Owners Equity. The growth rates of deposits and Assets of Islamic bank were statistically significant, whereas growth rates in investments and Owners equity were found statistically insignificant. Keywords: Islamic Banking; Growth Rates; Deposits, Investments; Assets; Owners Equity