Combatting Religious Extremism in Pakistan from the Youth Perspective

The rise of Islam, which emerged as a panacea for the world problems is seen as a problem itself by the west today. The reason for this blame is the rise of extremism and Islam phobia in the western societies. This has serious implicat-ions for personal, communal, national and international security. The involve-ment of youth in extremist exertions is very high. They are being more action-oriented, easy to be influenced by radical ideologies and as an agent for thrus-ting social change.  Keeping in consideration the role of youth in adopting to or combatting extremism, it is imperative to find the perception of this important population about the problem under investigation. The research study was conducted in six universities in the federal capital Islamabad to reach to the youth’s population. The research was guided by research questions that aimed at exploring students’ perception about extremism and its various dimensions. The researcher collected data through an open-ended questionnaire from 1840 students to seek an in-depth understanding of the problem. In order to increase credibility in the findings, the researcher conducted focused group interview with 12 young faculty members. The data from the questionnaires were conver-ted into percentages based on common themes. The interview data set were thematically analyzed to understand the causes of extremism and its suggested solutions. Recommendations were suggested to tackle the menace of extremism in Pakistan.  

The Impact of Audit Committee Attributes on Audit Report Lag and Financial Performance: Evidence from Pakistan Stock Exchange

During the last couple of decades, some serious scandals like Waste Management, Enron, WorldCom, Satyam, Swissair etc. were observed in corporate sector around the World. This loses confidence of stakeholders and due returns on their investment.The research proves that directors? standards, audit quality and audit report lag (ARL) play significant role in controlling corporate mishaps and consequently ensure due returns to firms and investors. In order to address this issue, the US Senate approved a framework on its Code of Corporate Governance (CCG) by the name of Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 which was amended in 2012. A lot of countries of the world also adopted this Act in year 2002. In order to be at par with international community, Pakistan introduced its own CCG in 2002 which was also amended in 2012. As per CCG, board of directors has to constitute various sub-committees to provide safeguards to the stakeholders? interest. One of the boards? subcommittees is an audit committee (AC) which is constituted to perform number of functions to ensure timely release of truly audited corporate financial statements, protect assets and monitor various accounts of company. The research has proved that mere existence of AC in a company is not much fruitful rather it has number of distinctive attributes that affect its working with respect to ARL and firms? financial performance. The most common attributes of an AC includes AC size, proportion of non-executive directors in AC, number of AC meetings per year, AC gender, AC members skill and experience and AC chair independence etc. This study is conducted to observe the impact of AC attributes on ARL and firms? financial performance as evidence from Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). A sample of 137 companies from 28 diversified non-financial sectors for years 2013, 2014 and 2015 is taken from PSX to observe the phenomenon. STATA software is used to measure descriptive and regression results of panel data based on fixed effect model. The results show that all sample firms used to comply CCG in respect of AC size and frequency of AC meetings while compliance in respect of non-executive directors in AC and independent AC chair in some companies has not been found.The overall ARL in non-financial sector firms has been found almost 83 days. AC meetings, AC gender diversity and AC chair independence have negative and significant impact on ARL while, AC size and existence of non-executive members in AC have insignificant impact on ARL. Financial performance of firms is measured via Tobin?s Q and return on equity (ROE). Tobin?s Q has been gradually increasing in this period. Positive and significant impact of AC size and AC meetings while insignificant impact of non-executive members in AC, AC diversity and independent AC chair has been found on Tobin?s Q. ROE has also increased over the period of three years. Negative and significant impact of non-executive directors in AC and AC meetings, while insignificant impact of AC size, AC chair independence and AC diversity has been found on ROE.