Quote:
Originally Posted by hamzabutt
All the seniors and fellow aspirants,
Pak Affairs is a subject that haunts me more than anything else. It appears to me as a sisyphean task to study pre-partition, post-partition as well as contemporary topics of the subject.
The syllabus is too vast and extensive and I want targeted approach to study it.
The questions are: Should I cover complete Pre-partition history?
Should I study each and every topic that has been given by fpsc?
Or can it be covered by studying past papers?
Also, can somebody share a good study plan for it as I have to cover it in one month.
Thanks. |
A lot of people don't do the pre-partition part because they say that there is only one question about it, which is a risk. The number of questions about historical events have reduced, and more questions are coming about structural issues like the population. To nail Pak affairs, and any other css subject, you must read dawn news paper daily and watch zara hat key (something that I have said again and again).
How to crack it: Almost all the topper interviews that I have read or seen, they all talk about referencing books and doing a lot of reading for this course. In fact, CSS is a ton of reading (if you have no background and have never read before). DW a lot of engineering students do that as well. The only solution is reading, reading and reading
Now the question is:
what to read?
History Books
A lot of people suggest reading Akram Rabbani, and I would not recommend doing this book alone. This book has also copied a lot from the A levels book of
Pakistan History and Culture by Nigel Kelly. Kelly is comparatively briefer and fewer candidates use it, so there is the advantage of uniqueness. Post partition stuff in Rabbani is very unorganized and one dimensional, so it will be better to read
Ian Talbot's Pakistan a Modern History.
If you have time then it will be good to read Pakistan Paradox (you must read intro in any case)
For Structural Current issues Part
Dawn
Maleeha Lodhi'd book's selected chapters (Why Jinnah matters / Akbar Ahmed - Beyond the crisis state / Maleeha Lodhi -- Army and politics / Shuja Nawaz -- Ideologically adrift / Ziad Haider -- Battling militancy / Zahid Hussain -- Retooling institutions / Ishrat Husain -- An economic crisis state? / Meekal Ahmed -- Boosting competitiveness / Muddassar Mazhar Malik -- Turning energy around / Ziad Alahdad -- Education as a strategic imperative / Shanza Khan and Moeed Yusuf -- Pakistan as a nuclear state / Feroz Hassan Khan -- Reversing strategic "shrinkage" / Munir Akram -- The Afghan conundrum / Ahmed Rashid)
Selected Chapters from Pakistan At The Crossroads Domestic Dynamics And External Pressures By : Christophe Jaffrelot (introduction, the military and democracy, judiciary as a political actor, turmoil in the frontier, internal security issues, all chapters of relations chapter) this is one of the latest books in the market and it has very unique analysis. this book is not used by many aspirants, so it will give you an advantage. It can be found on ebookhunter.ch
Pakistan a Hard Country (intro, chapter 2 is history so it can be skipped, military chapter, provinces chapter)
(Lodhi and Jefferlott's books will help in current affairs, IR (nuclear and relations chapter) english essay)
You can get the O level Geography Book and the latest Economic Survey of Pakistan for the policy questions. Geography book is called: Environment of Pakistan and there are two books by the same name, one is by a Gori author, and other is Fazal Karim. Karim's book is comprehensive, so it depends on you personal preference.
If you have time then do read the following books
1 Foreign Policy of Pakistan by Abdul Sattar
2 China-Pakistan Axis (this is a very good book)
3 Governing the ungovernable (a lot of facts)
You can use Rabbani when you feel lost because it is according to the syllabus, but it is very biased
- Hope this helps