 Today we are discussing the situation in Pakistan today. There have been several reports from Pakistan indicating that Pakistan is in a very serious situation at the moment. This is not the first time that Pakistan has been designated as a failed state. For various reasons there have been occasions when Pakistan was on the verge of collapse. But one way or the other the country was kept floating. First by the Americans, now by the Chinese. And there has been a continuous state of instability in that country. Although Pakistan became independent deep before India, it took them nine years to frame a constitution. Like that they have always been behind India in its development of the nation. And also it was never a democracy. Even when there were democratic leaders in power, the army was in control. So the joke about Pakistan was that while other nations have an army in Pakistan, the army has a nation in the sense that whoever was in power in Pakistan. It was the army which controlled everything. And in that way people were denied democracy. There have been changes in government by peaceful means by elections. But these were not very frequent. So one complete situation has never been free of military power. Whether military openly ruled the country or otherwise. So as a result there have been many occasions when Pakistan has been written off as a state. It used to be designated as a failed state. But it continued basically because people at large felt that Pakistan and India were alike in many ways. And that is because of the continuing conflicts and differences of situation between the two countries. And therefore there was a tendency in the world to consider India and Pakistan as some kind of equals. But in terms of power, in terms of population, in terms of any other factor if you take into account, India and Pakistan were very very very different. There have been wars between India and Pakistan. And every time India was able to win the war, then when both India and Pakistan became nuclear weapon states by various means, we, our own indigenous technology and Pakistan by using Chinese technology became nuclear weapon states. And that also created further stability in the situation. So now there is a complex situation in Pakistan where it is not only a matter of no democracy, but also a complete collapse of the administration on the one hand and also economically big serious troubles. More than that, also there have been several terrorist and extremist groups operating in Pakistan. Sometimes they were used by the government, but then sometimes the terrorists and others are confronting the government itself. There has been, there have been multiple sources of internal and external conflict in Pakistan. And extremism and the intolerance of diversity and dissent were very common in Pakistan. A narrow vision of Pakistan's identity was part of the, part of the problem. So it is threatening the country's prospects of social cohesion and stability. And part of the reason why this became rampant recently because of the inability of the state institutions to resolve grievances of the people. And this has led to violence as an alternative to negotiations. So peaceful political transition has taken place in 2013 and 2018. But as it reaches most towards election in 2023, there is a fragile economy and a deepening domestic polarization. On top of all that, Pakistan also had devastating floods. And it caused a lot of damage. Agriculture and health sector were more or less destroyed. And the governance and economic stability are in danger. So China's presence, of course, has been either positive for Pakistan or negative depending on China's own interest in the region. China openly supported Pakistan against India. It supported Pakistan's stance on Kashmir. But at the same time Pakistan, China had a very firm grip on Pakistan as a country. Then extremist groups along its border with Afghanistan. And there has been tension between the Pakistani forces and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Whom they themselves have installed. So with all this, the situation became worse and worse. And of course, Prime Minister Shahab Sharif came to power and Imran Khan was ousted. So internal stability was also a victim of all the situations. And recently, Jan Lassim Munir, a former head of the Pakistani intelligence, was appointed as the chief of army staff, which also created instability. And so the Pakistan's deepening political and economic crisis has fueled the instability in the country. As foreign exchange reserves have tumbled and they have to take out a bailout package from the international monetary firm to sustain itself. So there is internal conflict and it's suspected that one way or the other Pakistan might try and to distract attention point to an external enemy and it would be India. So short-term political pain with political fallout made Pakistan in a very difficult situation. The inflation has gone up to 24%, wheat and oil imports have suffered. And the economic corridor where China was supposed to build cooperation with Pakistan has also not been functioning because of terrorist attacks. High oil energy, high energy power, energy prices and fuel prices and rising unemployment and flight of investment. All these have contributed to the present pathetic situation in the country. So they are leveraging political positions to extract support from parties. And the army itself is a problem because army keeps its very tight control on the government and no reforms are working. So this is not a new situation. Earlier whenever Pakistan was in trouble, United States used to support it. And that is why people used to say there are three A's in Pakistan, the army, the Americans and Allah. So since Americans and the army have failed, now they have only resort to Allah they say. It is still continuing. It could have had a huge market in India. It could have made profits. If only they were willing to have trade with India, the situation would have improved. But all this was a result there is a 28% increase in terror attacks in 2022 alone. And so the situation is very grave in Pakistan. And now there are also several groups in Pakistan who are trying to create a breakup in the country. There are several groups. One of course is in the area of occupied Kashmir, which is under control of Pakistan. There have been a lot of unrest. And there are other groups, values groups and others are also trying to break up Pakistan. So on the one hand they have political instability. They have terrorism. They have economic instability, prices going up, inflation is high. And on top of all that, there are various groups within Pakistan trying to break it up. So we do not know where Pakistan is going. There is considerable concern that instability in Pakistan will also create instability in India. And India has always favored a strong and united Pakistan. Because whenever Pakistan fails or breaks up, it will not be favorable for India. Because you know that there was in 1971 Bangladesh was separated. That was the first time that Pakistan was broken up into two pieces. And now we do not know how many pieces Pakistan will become in the near future. So recently there was a power outage. Pakistan was completely in the dark. 220 million people were in the dark because of the failure of the grid. And also food and cash were not available. And a very big grave situation has developed. So it is difficult to predict what may happen to Pakistan. Pakistan is a Pakistani Taliban or Teri K Pakistan which was part of a spy agency. And Taliban terrorists are haunting Pakistan territory. So it may manage to get support from IMF. But at the same time that may mean that they have to reform the economy. And reforming the economy and bringing about peace is not easy when the political and economic situation is in such dire straits. India is watching, the whole world is watching to see what happens in Pakistan. But certainly it doesn't work well for Asia or South Asia. And everybody is waiting to see that somehow Pakistan is skewed by IMF or any other agency or China. Without which Pakistan cannot survive as a country for long. It is a nuclear power because the capacity for nuclear attacks. So if it becomes desperate, that will also add to the confusion in the situation. So there's a matter of concern. We do not know how it will go, but external assistance alone can support it. But external assistance can be utilized only if Pakistan is able to stabilize. So everybody is watching and we hope Pakistan remains peaceful, united and stable so that there is stability in the entire subcontinent. Well, that is the problem. If you look at this region after Japan towards the South Asia, you will find that there is not a single country which is democratic. India is the only democratic country which has continued to be a democracy all through its independence. So there is something fundamental about Pakistan. The army has always exercised power and therefore they did not allow any democratic government function. And therefore these continuous military dictatorships have changed Pakistan into a different country than India. So the reason is that the military is political and the constitution is not respected. And whoever comes to power falls into the hands of the army. Like Imran Khan had come to power through a democratic process, but when he contested on his own, he only got one seat. But it was when he worked with the Taliban and the military and other powerful agencies that Imran Khan would come to power. But they themselves abandoned him and therefore democracy failed again. So this is a situation which is very peculiar to Pakistan. And unless there is a fundamental change and new constitution may be difficult for Pakistan to return to the numbers. Yes, they are virtually begging for support. IMF will not deny money, but the point is IMF will have its own conditionalities, which will be difficult for an ineffective government in Pakistan to respect. So it is similar to Sri Lanka, but Sri Lanka it was more of a debt crisis. Here it is more than that because instability has been rampant for a long time. Political parties are not able to meet the grievances of the people and therefore violence and terrorism are taking over. And the foreign minister, of course, the son of Mrs. Bhutto is now the foreign minister. And even though he is looking for help outside, he has been using very harsh language against India even at the United Nations. Sometimes they talk about peace with India, sometimes they talk with war with India. So there is really no clarity as to what they want. And since India and Pakistan are nuclear powers, that also adds to the concern in the rest of the world. Recently the former Secretary of State in his book reported that India and Pakistan had come very close to a nuclear war at some stage during the Trump administration. This has happened in the past also of near crisis, but what is holding it is the threat of annihilation because nuclear war nobody can win. And that is why there is no war at the moment, there is some kind of balance of terror there. But how Pakistan will come out of this, it is far from clear. Thank you.