Are India and Pakistan Equally to Blame for Their Bad Relations?

Dr. Zafar Mirza is an eminent Pakistani public health professional who served as health adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan from April 2019 to July 2020. He is a founding member of the Awaam Pakistan Party, a political party established in 2024 by former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and former Finance Minister Miftah Ismail. He previously worked with the World Health Organization in Geneva and Cairo, including as Director for Health System Development at the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean and earlier as Regional Adviser for Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies. Before joining WHO, he was the founding executive director of The Network for Consumer Protection in Pakistan for 12 years. A medical graduate of Rawalpindi Medical University, he earned a Master’s in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has taught at leading institutions, including the Boston School of Public Health and co-developed WHO courses on Universal Health Coverage and health systems at Harvard Medical School. He is currently Professor of Health System and Population Health at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University. His distinctions include being a Brittania Scholar and an Eisenhower Fellow. He has published extensively on health systems, access to medicines, and public health policy, including articles in The Lancet, BMJ Global Health and the International Journal for Quality in Health Care. He also writes op-eds for Dawn and translated Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People into Urdu. ************************************ Shakil Chaudhary is a journalist, author, and researcher. He is an alumnus of Government College, Lahore. He later studied International Relations at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. Over the years, he has worked for several leading English-language newspapers and a few other organizations. He is the author of the critically acclaimed bilingual book Handbook of Functional English (Ferozsons), designed to help South Asians improve their English language skills. Prof. Tariq Rahman, one of South Asia’s most distinguished linguistic scholars, has praised the book, calling it “an excellent guide for the South Asian user of the English language.” Shakil has twice spoken at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., and has conducted numerous workshops on communication, writing, and critical thinking. He is a founding member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and served as President of the Progressive Writers' Association, Islamabad, from 2021 to 2022. He has attended Rotary’s annual conventions in Toronto and Hamburg. These are some of his notable interviews: 👉 Sardar Masood Khan, former president, AJK, Part 1: https://youtu.be/h0jFAudsDuM 👉 Sardar Masood Khan, former president, AJK, Part 2: https://youtu.be/0esgmmI8XGE 👉 Ambassador Abdul Basit: https://youtu.be/qxWeiIzwskI 👉 Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani: https://youtu.be/x3mdfAklix0 👉 Shahid Siddiqui, a former member of India’s parliament: https://youtu.be/hRDiEe90z6Y You’re welcome to follow him on Facebook and Twitter. 👉 https://www.facebook.com/shakil.chaudary 👉 https://twitter.com/ShakChaudhary