Indo-Afghan Relations: Challenges and Options for Pakistan in Post 9/11 Era

The Indian soft power image in Afghanistan and strategic partnership between the two countries has become a great challenge for Pakistan political and security forces. India wants to prevent Pakistan from regaining “preponderant” influence in present day Afghanistan, and in this context, the paper discusses the history of troubled Pakistan-Afghanistan and Pakistan-India relations. The paper will present a comprehensive analysis on why Afghanistan is strategically important for Pakistan, how it affects Pak-Afghan relations, and how it provided India an opportunity to limit Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan? India’s idea of encircling Pakistan from east and west is a factor the importance of which India understood and used to her gain in 1971 East Pakistani crisis. Pakistan’s idea of ‘strategic depth’ can be understood as a lesson learnt from India’s two-frontier strategy against Pakistan. The paper suggests that Pakistan does not need strategic depth any more. On the contrary, it needs stable, mature and good neighbors so that both countries can come out of standoff. In this way Pakistan could become a partner in a wide range of areas from security to economic and social sectors.

Role of Alpha Tocopherol Application in Drought Stress Tolerance of Mungbean Vigna Radiata L.

Considering the significant role of alpha tocopherol (α-Toc) under different environmental cues, experiments were conducted on mungbean plants under varying water regimes. First experiment was planted in plastic pots in order to check the influence of foliage spray of α-Tocopherol in terms of growth, gas exchange and different physio-biochemical characteristics in mungbean plants under water deficit stress. After three weeks of seed germination, both mungbean cultivars (Cyclone 7008 and Cyclone 8009) were subjected to drought treatment (60% and 100% field capacity). The 0, 100, 200 and 300 mg L-1 were the alpha tocopherol levels treated as foliage spray after 30 days of water stress treatment. Water deficit conditions retard morphological parameters, photosynthetic pigments such as chlorophyll a and b levels, relative water contents (RWC), gas exchange characteristics and total soluble proteins (TSP), yield per plant, while an increase was observed in the relative membrane permeability (RMP), glycinebetaine (GB), proline, sugars, H2O2, AsA, phenolics, MDA, TFAA and the actions of antioxidants in both mungbean lines. Foliarly appliedα-Toc significantly improved plant growth, plant height, chlorophyll b, RWC, GB, non-reducing sugars, E, gs, Ci, Ci/Ca, AsA, TSP, TFAA and catalytic actions of peroxides and catalase enzymes. The inconsistent behavior was depicted by both mungbean cultivars to externally used tocopherol and drought stress to relative water contents and different gas exchange characteristics. The cv. Cyclone 7008 was significantly showed improved reducing, non-reducing sugars, Hydrogen peroxide and total soluble protein while cv. Cyclone 8009 in leaf proline and total phenolics. Overall, externally applied Toc particularly 300 mg L-1 was effective in developing plant growth of both mungbean cultivars. In case of green pods different biochemical analyses, as a whole, the external application of 200 and 300 mg L-1 of α-Toc significantly increased the chlorophyll a & b, proline and total phenolics concentrations and actions of SOD, POD and CAT enzymes in used mungbean varieties. In field experiment, under normal and withheld irrigations, the exogenous treatment of α-Toc effectively increased growth parameters, chlorophylls, total soluble phenolics, free proline, glycine betaine, TSG, sugars, TSP, TFAA, antioxidants and invivo Toc and harvest attributes but significantly decreased MDA and H2O2 levels. In short, of various used different concentrations of α-Toc levels, last two concentrations were better convenient for both mungbean cultivars under applied field conditions.