Forex Futures

What Does Forex Futures Mean?
An exchange-traded contract to buy or sell a specified amount of a given currency at a predetermined price on a set date in the future. All forex futures are written with a specific termination date, at which point delivery of the currency must occur unless an offsetting trade is made on the initial position.
Investopedia explains Forex Futures
Forex futures serve two primary purposes as financial instruments. First, they can be used by companies or sole proprietors to remove the exchange-rate risk inherent in cross-border transactions. Second, they can be used by investors to speculate and profit from currency exchange-rate fluctuations.

Forex Market Hours

What Does Forex Market Hours Mean?
The hours during which forex market participants are able to buy, sell, exchange and speculate on currencies. The forex market is open 24 hours a day, five days a week. International currency markets are made up of banks, commercial companies, central banks, investment management firms, hedge funds, and retail forex brokers and investors around the world. Because this Market operates in multiple time zones, it can be accessed at almost any time.
Investopedia explains Forex Market Hours
The international currency market isn't dominated by a single market exchange but involves a global network of exchanges and brokers around the world. Forex trading hours are based on when trading is open in each participating country:

New York 8am to 5pm EST
Tokyo 7pm to 4am EST
Sydney 5pm to 2am EST
London 3am to 12 noon EST

How Long Does the Effect Last?

According to a study by Martin D. D. Evans and Richard K. Lyons published in the Journal of International Money and Finance (2004), the market could still be absorbing or reacting to news releases hours, if not days, after they are released. The study found that the effect on returns generally occurs in the first or second day, but the impact does seem to linger until the fourth day. The impact on order flow, on the other hand, is still very pronounced on the third day and is still observable on the fourth day.

What Are the Key Releases?

When trading news, you first have to know which releases are actually expected that week. There are many ways to do this, but Daily FX provides a very comprehensive calendar. Second, it is key for you to know which data is important. The Daily FX calendar bolds the important releases and also lists the "consensus" figures. Generally speaking, these are the most important economic releases for any country:
1. Interest rate decision
2. Retail sales
3. Inflation (consumer price or producer price)
4. Unemployment
5. Industrial production
6. Business sentiment surveys
7. Consumer confidence surveys
8. Trade balance
9. Manufacturing sector surveys
Depending on the current state of the economy, the relative importance of these releases may change. For example, unemployment may be more important this month than trade or interest rate decisions. Therefore, it is important to keep on top of what the market is focusing on at the moment.
The list in Figure 2 ranks the most market-moving data for the U.S. in 2007, on both a 20-minute and a daily basis. The difference in reaction is generally attributed to the depth of the data. Some releases provide barely more information than the headline number, while others provide extensive tables that can be subject to different interpretations. Keep in mind that U.S. dollar data tends to be the most important in the FX market because the dollar is involved in 90% of all currency trades

Great Advantages

One of the great advantages of trading currencies is that the forex market is open 24 hours a day (from 5pm EST on Sunday until 4pm EST Friday). Economic data tends to be one of the most important catalysts for short-term movements in any market, but this is particularly true in the currency market, which responds not only to U.S. economic news, but also to news from around the world. With at least eight major currencies available for trading at most currency brokers and more than 17 derivatives of them, there is always some piece of economic data slated for release that traders can use to inform the positions they take. Generally, no less than seven pieces of data are released daily from the eight major currencies or countries that are most closely followed. So for those who choose to trade news, there are plenty of opportunities. Here we look at which economic news releases are released when, which are most relevant to forex (FX) traders, and how traders can act on this market-moving data.

Forex Basics

The following is an introduction to some of the basic terms and concepts used in forex trading.
Foreign Exchange : The simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another.
Foreign Exchange Market : An informal network of trading relationships between the world's major banks and other market participants, sometimes referred to as the 'interbank' market. The foreign exchange market has no central clearinghouse or exchange, and is considered an over-the-counter (OTC) market.
Spot Market : Market for buying and selling currencies for settlement within two business days (the value date). USD/CAD = 1 day. Most dealers will automatically roll over your open positions, allowing you to hold a position for an indefinite period of time.
Rollover : The process whereby the settlement of a transaction is rolled forward to the next value date. The cost of this process is based on the interest rate differential between two currencies.
Exchange Rate : The value of one currency expressed in terms of another. For example, if the exchange rate for EUR/USD is 1.3200, 1 Euro is worth US$1.3200.
Currency Pair : The two currencies that make up an exchange rate. When one is bought, the other is sold, and vice versa.
Base Currency : The first currency in the pair.
Counter Currency : The second currency in the pair. Also known as the terms currency.
ISO Currency Codes :
USD = US Dollar
EUR = Euro
JPY = Japanese Yen
GBP = British Pound
CHF = Swiss Franc
CAD = Canadian Dollar
AUD = Australian Dollar
NZD = New Zealand Dollar
Currency Pair Terminology
EUR/USD = "Euro"
USD/JPY = "Dollar Yen"
GBP/USD = "Cable" or "Sterling"
USD/CHF = "Swissy"
USD/CAD = "Dollar Canada" (CAD referred to as the "Loonie")
AUD/USD = "Aussie Dollar"
NZD/USD = "Kiwi"
The following pairs might also be referred to by the following nicknames:
EUR/USD = "Fiber"
USD/JPY = "Gopher"
EUR/GBP = "Chunnel"
GBP/CHF = "Geppy"
Market Maker :A market maker makes a market for a particular financial instrument, providing liquidity and a two-way price quote. A market maker takes the opposite side of your trade.
Broker : A firm that matches buyers and sellers for a fee or a commission.
Counterparty : One of the participants in a transaction.
Sell Quote : The quote on the left is the price at which you can sell currency. (Also known as the bid price). e.g. For EUR/USD 1.3200/03, you can sell 1 Euro for US$1.3200.
Buy Quote : The quote on the right is the price at which you can buy currency. (Also known as the ask or offer price). e.g. For EUR/USD 1.3200/03, you can buy 1 Euro for US$1.3203.
Spread : The difference between the sell quote and the buy quote. If the quote for EUR/USD reads 1.3200/03, the spread is 3 pips. In order to break even, the currency must shift in your direction by an amount equal to the spread.
Pip : Price Interest Point. The smallest price increment a currency can make. Also known as points. e.g. 1 pip = 0.0001 for EUR/USD, or 0.01 for USD/JPY.
Pip Value : The value of a pip. 1 pip = $10 for EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD & NZD/USD with 100k lots, or $1 per pip with 10k lots. To calculate the pip value of other currency pairs, use a pip value calculator .
Tick : Minimum change in price
Lot : The standard unit size of a transaction. Typically, one standard lot is equal to 100,000 units of the base currency, or 10,000 units for a mini.
Standard Account : Trading with standard lot sizes
Mini Account : Trading with mini lot sizes
Margin : The deposit required to open a position. A 1% margin requirement allows you to open a $100,000 position with a $1,000 deposit.
Leverage : The amount of times the value of your transaction exceeds your margin. e.g. 100:1 leverage implies a 1% margin.
Long Position : A position whereby the trader profits from an increase in price. (Buy low, sell high)
Short Position : A position whereby the trader profits from a decrease in price. (Sell high, buy low)
Market Order : An order at the current market price
Entry Order : An order that is executed when the price touches a pre-specified level
Limit Entry Order : An order to buy below the market or sell above the market at a pre-specified level, believing that the price will reverse direction from that point.
Stop-Entry Order : An order to buy above the market or sell below the market at a pre-specified level, believing that the price will continue in the same direction from that point.
Limit Order :An order to take profits at a pre-specified level
Stop-Loss Order : An order to limit losses at a pre-specified level
OCO Order : One Cancels Other. Two orders whereby if one is executed, the other is cancelled.
Manual Execution : The order is executed with human intervention.
Automatic Execution : The order is executed automatically by computer without human intervention or involvement.
Slippage : The difference in pips between the order price and the price the order is filled at.
Example Transaction : Assume you have a trading account of $20,000 and you have chosen to use 100:1 leverage on your account. The current quote for EUR/USD is 1.3225/28. You place a market order to buy 1 lot of 100,000 Euros at 1.3228, expecting the euro to strengthen against the dollar. At the same time you place a stop-loss order at 1.3203, and a limit order at 1.3328.The value of this trade is $132,280 (100,000 * 1.3228) but because you are using 100:1 leverage, you only need to deposit 1% of the total, which is $1322.80 ($132,280 * 0.01).The Euro strengthens against the dollar as expected, rising to 1.3328 where your limit order is reached. Your position is closed. You have made 100 pips.Your total profit for this trade is $1,000 (100,000 * (1.3328 - 1.3228)), and the return on your investment is 75.6% ($1000/$1322.80).

Forex stock global market

Stock market - stock market is the market, where buyer and seller of any company assemble stocks from the market and they trade their stocks in the premises of company. It means, exchanging the securities among the seller or buyer. AMEX (American Stock Exchange) is the place where sellers or buyers do stock trading

Forex advice and advisory services

Forex market trading is a difficult task and therefore, the beginners need proper advice and helps for reliable sources. The Forex advice and the advisory services are the basic advice providers who help the beginners in the forex field. The forex advisory services are also referred as the signal providers as they offer valuable data to the trader consumers

Interbank forex

Interbank forex - Forex is one of the largest markets for trading, where interbank forex is decentralized market. In decentralized market, no records are kept like centralized market. An individual and company keep their privacy with them self. Broker and dealer are the pillars of market; they do their trading like buying and selling securities and currency with privacy.

Forex factory

Forex Factory is used to prepare your trading session. An individual or organization can do preparation of next day for trading. It provides the message board and news release for other members. You can also get technical analysis of the market from forex factory. There are three major services are provided by forex factory.
1. Calander,
2. News,
3. Forum.

Forex made easy

FOREX MADE EASY- is a simple trading mechanism that anyone can implement. Available in the form of books and software, it is a trend recognition method for the (spot) Forex market helping everyone from seasoned traders to amateurs in spotting the everyday buying and selling pressure. The software uses the red light/green light trend to analyze the market drifts and helps in finding the entry and exit points for the currency pairs.

Forex interest

Forex interest - crediting and debiting is done on a daily basis at 4 pm EST with interest being paid on the account balance held at that time. If the countries currency that a trader buys has a greater interest than that of the pair then Forex rollover interest is credited to the traders account, and vice versa. Rollover fee is deducted from the traders account, if the trader sells the currency having a higher interest rate and vice versa. The effect of rollover interest is magnified with marginal trading since the ineterst is calculated with respect to the trader's full position, not to his traded amount.

Timeline of Foreign Exchange

In recent years, as commercial companies have been faced with a currency environment that has been more volatile, financial institutions and investors have found a new area to focus on. The foreign exchange markets have become much larger than any other market for investment that exists. Every day, it is estimated that over 1,200 billion USD is traded. A total that exceeds the world wide total of the bond market and the stock market combined
1) 1944 - Bretton Woods Accord is established after World War II to help stabilize the global economy.
2) 1971 - Smithsonian Agreement is established which provided greater fluctuation bands for currencies.
3) 1972 - In an effort to move away from the dependency the European community had acquired on the U.S. dollar, the European Joint Float was established.
4) 1973 - The official switch to a free floating currency system was made after both the European Joint Float and the Smithsonian Agreement failed.
5) 1978 - In a joint effort to help other countries gain independence from the U.S. dollar, the European Monetary System was introduced to other countries.
6) 1978 -The IMF officially mandated the free-floating currency system.
7) 1993 -A world wide free-floating currency system is established when the European Monetary System failed.

Free-floating currencies and fixed exchange rates

When major global currencies such as the U.S. dollar are referred to as free floating, it means that their values are independent of the values of other currencies. Value is determined by the supply and demand of the currency and there are no set standards regarding intervention that need to be observed. Free-floating currencies can be traded by any one and are the most popular choice of trading.Along with computers and technology, capital movements across borders accelerated in the 1980's. This advent extended the market though the United States, Asian and European time zones. New technology made it possible for private investors to enter into a market that had once been dominated by larger institutions and banks. During the 1980's, foreign exchange transactions were around $70 million per day, within just two decades; they had soared to over $1.5 trillion each day and had a speculative volume of almost 95 percent.Throughout the preceding decades, foreign exchange trading continued to develop into the largest global market in the world. Most countries have removed all restriction on capital flows and have left the market forces free to adjust the foreign exchange rates based up their individual perceived values. But, the practice of using a system of fixed rate exchanges has by no means been completely done away with.A brand new system of fixed exchange rates was introduced by the EEC in 1979, the European Monetary System. But, this attempt to fix the monetary exchange rates was almost done away with through 1992 and 1993, when economic pressures resulted in devaluations of several weak European currencies. Europe continued to work toward a stable currency by not only fixing them, but by replacing many of their currencies with the Euro beginning in 2001.The project had become fairly advanced by 1998 and fixed levels of exchange and the final structure were decided. However, a three year period followed in which devaluation candidates could literally be attacked with little risk before the final introduction of the Euro came in this millennium.The events that occurred in South East Asia toward the end of 1997 increased the relevance of the lack of sustainability that comes with fixed foreign exchange rates. One currency after another became devalued again the U.S. dollar, which left other fixed exchange rates appearing to be very vulnerable, particularly in South America

The Bretton Woods Accord

The Bretton Woods Accord was a major transformation in the way money was exchanged around the world. It began near the end of World War II and was the result of an agreement between France, Great Britain and the United States. The meeting was held at the United Nations' Monetary and Financial Conference with the goal of designing a new economic order.This location was designated as the meeting place because at the time, the U.S. was the only country in which a war wasn't being fought. And, many European countries had been nearly destroyed by war. Before World War II, the major currency by which most of the world's currencies were compared was Great Britain's British Pound.When the Nazi's started their campaign against Britain, this practice changed due to their major effort in counterfeiting the currency. The stock market crash in 1929 had resulted in the U.S. dollar having very little value. However, World War II stabilized its value and helped it become the monetary standard. The main purpose of the Bretton Woods Accord was to establish a stable economic environment around the globe so countries could re-establish themselves.The world's major currencies became pegged by the U.S. dollar and could only fluctuate as much as one percent in value either lower or higher. Anytime that the exchange rate of a particular currency would approach the allowed fluctuation, intervention from the countries central bank would bring the rate back into the standard range. By associating the U.S. dollar with gold, which at the time was $35 per ounce, the Forex situation was also stabilized.At the Bretton Woods conference, John Maynard Keynes had suggested a new world reserve currency would be much better than a system that was built upon the U.S. dollar. But, this suggestion was quickly rejected. The exchange rates finally settled upon helped to reinstate the standard of gold by setting the dollar at the current per ounce price and then setting the other major currencies to the dollar. This system was meant to be a permanent standard for exchanging currencies.National economies began to move in different directions during the 1960's, placing and increasing amount of pressure on the Bretton Woods system. Through a series of adjustments to the system, it remained in effect for some time. However, in August 1971 U.S. President Nixon suspended the conversion of gold and the system collapsed. At a time when pressure was also increasing on trade deficits and the U.S. budget, the dollar became unsuitable as the only international currency.

Trending nature of currencies.

Major currencies are still dominated by central banks, national financial policies and macro trends. This means that currency traders enjoy markets that have a greater tendency to trend than most markets. I have seen some compelling data on this trending characteristic of the currency markets. (Special note – if anyone has seen recent data on the trending nature of currencies, please let me know at drbarton@iitm.com. Most of the research I have is a few years old.

Most brokers have very good trade execution software.

There are only a handful of stock brokers that have execution platforms that offer order-cancels-order type controls and other contingent orders. I’ve looked at several forex-based platforms, and forex brokers place a premium on putting high levels of functionality into traders’ hands. This makes business sense – if you find it easier to execute your strategy, you’re likely to trade more often. This is one area where the equities world could learn a thing or two from their forex counterparts.

Profit potential in both rising and falling markets

In every open FX position, an investor is long in one currency and short the other. A short position is one in which the trader sells a currency in anticipation that it will depreciate. This means that potential exists in a rising as well as a falling FX market. The ability to sell currencies without any limitations is one distinct advantage over equity trading. It is much more difficult to establish a short position in the US equity markets, where the Uptick rule prevents investors from shorting stock unless the immediately preceding trade was equal to or lower than the price of the short sale.

Equal access to market information

Professional traders and analysts in the equity market have a definitive competitive advantage by virtue of that fact that they have first access to important corporate information, such as earning estimates and press releases, before it is released to the general public. In contrast, in the Forex market, pertinent information is equally accessible, ensuring that all market participants can take advantage of market-moving news as soon as it becomes available

Unregulated.

The FOREX market is generally regarded as an unregulated market although the operations of major dealers, such as commercial banks in money centers, are regulated under the banking laws. The conduct and operation of retail FOREX brokerages are not regulated under any laws or regulations specific to the FOREX market, and in fact many of such establishments in the United States do not even report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The currency futures and options that are traded on exchanges such as Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) are regulated in the way other exchange-traded derivatives are regulated

No one can corner the market.

The FOREX market is so vast and has so many participants that no single entity, even a central bank, can control the market price for an extended period of time. Even interventions by mighty central banks are becoming increasingly ineffectual and short-lived, and thus central banks are becoming less and less inclined to intervene to manipulate market prices.

Inter-bank market.

The backbone of the FOREX market consists of a global network of dealers (mainly major commercial banks) that communicate and trade with one another and with their clients through electronic networks and telephones. There are no organized exchanges to serve as a central location to facilitate transactions the way the New York Stock Exchange serves the equity markets. The FOREX market operates in a manner similar to the way the NASDAQ market in the United States operates, and thus it is also referred to as an 'over the counter' or OTC market.

Always a bull market.

A trade in the FOREX market involves selling or buying one currency against another. Thus, a bull market or a bear market for a currency is defined in terms of the outlook for its relative value against other currencies. If the outlook is positive, we have a bull market in which a trader profits by buying the currency against other currencies. Conversely, if the outlook is pessimistic, we have a bull market for other currencies and a trader profits by selling the currency against other currencies. In either case, there is always a bull market trading opportunity for a trader

The margin size.

The size of credit "shoulder" (margin) in Forex market is defined only by the agreement between the client and that bank or broker firm which provides to him an output on the market, and makes 1:33, 1:50 or 1:100, for example. On Forex market the traditional size of "shoulder" 1:100, i.e., having brought the mortgage in 1000 dollars, the client can make transactions for the sum, equivalent 100 thousand dollars. Use of an opportunity of crediting, together with strong variability of quotations of currencies, also does this market highly remunerative and highly risky. A leverage ratio of up to 400 is typical compared to a leverage ratio of 2 (50% margin requirement) in equity markets. Of course, this makes trading in the cash/spot forex market a double-edged sword the high leverage makes the risk of the down side loss much greater in the same way that it makes the profit potential on the upside much more attractive.

Quotations unambiguity

Because of high liquidity of the market the sale of practically unlimited lot can be executed on a uniform market price. It allows to avoid a problem of the instability, existing in futures and other share investments where during one time and for a determined price can be sold only the limited quantity of contracts

Cost. Forex market

Traditionally has no commission charges, except for a natural market difference (spread) between the prices of a supply and demand. The retail transaction cost (the bid/ask spread) is typically less than 0.1% (10 pips or points) under normal market conditions. At larger dealers, the spread could be less than 5 pips, and may widen considerably in fast moving markets

Efficiency (a 24-hour market).

The main advantage of the Forex market over the stock market and other exchange-traded instruments is that the Forex market is a true 24-hour market. Whether it's 6pm or 6am, somewhere in the world there are always buyers and sellers actively trading Forex so that investors can respond to breaking news immediately. In the currency markets, your portfolio won't be affected by after hours earning reports or analyst conference calls. Recently, after hours trading has become available for U.S. stocks - with several limitations. These ECNs (Electronic Communication Networks) exist to bring together buyers and sellers when possible. However, there is no guarantee that every trade will be executed, nor at a fair market price. Quite frequently, stock traders must wait until the market opens the following day in order to receive a tighter spread. A trader may take advantage of all profitable market conditions at any time; no waiting for the 'opening bell'

Forex advantages

There are some Forex market advantages: liquidity, efficiency, cost, quotations unambiguity, the margin size.
High liquidity. (i.e. an opportunity of reception under the transaction of money, instead of the goods). The market on which money are assets, have highest of all possible liquidities. This circumstance is powerful attractive force for any investor since it provides to him freedom to open and close a position of any volume. The FOREX market with an average trading volume of over $1.5 trillion per day is the most liquid market in the world. That means that a trader can enter or exit the market at will in almost any market condition minimal execution barriers or risk and no daily trading limit.

Use the strategies of money management.

Money management strategies let you win or lose. You should use them to be in a profit. Many traders make too vast investments in every trade and this is not always rational and reminds of a saying: "Expect to make too much and you will make too little, expect to make little and you will make a lot." It means that even if you invest much trying to get a lot on every trade you can lose all and even if you make small investments looking for a small reward you can make a lot in some period.1% of the total sum of your account is the maximum sum of the potential risk. This is the first rule of the money management. Stop loss and limit orders may help you to follow this rule. This may be the reason of the small profit, especially if you have small initial investments, but by compounding a part of you profit or the whole one you can get an exponentially growing income.This strategy of compound profits is the one that helped to make millions on financial market instead of gambling that results in losing all investments quickly.Here is the example of the opposite tactics that many traders follow. Imagine that you have an initial investment of $5,000. You're lucky to possess the trading account and you enter a $1,000 trade. In case the markets trends down and you lose your $1,000 your assets become $4,000. You keep following your strategy and enter a $1,500 trade being sure that the market is at its low and hoping to get back your $1,000 plus earn $500 more. Then the market keeps moving against you leaving you with $2,500 on your account which is only one half of your starting capital. This is a very difficult situation to recover from.

Apply fundamental and technical analysis

At the beginning of my trading I relied only on the money management on which I wanted to base my strategy and saw no sense of these analyses. But money management which is still very important doesn't worth omitting them. You can forecast the direction of the market basing on your technical and fundamental strategies to see their effectiveness.You'll be able to make forecasts of price movements by applying the past data of the prices and graphs to the technical analysis methods. You can predict future prices with the level of accuracy dependent on your technical analysis skills using the graphs of the rates you observe.Trading with some brokers you can see technical indicators along with the graphs. You can apply it to your demo account and estimate your prediction skills necessary for planning trading decisions.It is impossible to choose the most effective indicator among lots of various ones. Each trader has to decide for himself which indicator is best for him. You can't find any magic formula; you just see the graphs, make your forecasts and find out whether they come true seeing the values in the news later.Your decisions form this formula along with your knowledge that occurs out of the practical experience. Starting trading with an online broker it's best for you to trade with yourself on the sheet of paper rather than invest real money at once.There are a lot of technical analysis indicators available but here are the ones which are the most wide-spread: the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), the Bollinger Bands, Pivot Points, RSI, Stochastic, Fibonacci, EMA, Elliot Waves.The broker's software will automatically make all the necessary calculations when you add the technical analysis indicator to the graph so that you'll see some facts which are unavailable without using these indicators. It is even possible for you to build your own technical systems basing on these indicators.Fundamental analysis is another tool that maximizes your profit and minimizes your losses on the trades. There are some traders who prefer only one kind but the majority prefers both.Fundamental analysis means trading following the news, e.g. telling about the economies or unemployment rate in the countries of the currencies you trade. They can also tell about the events that can have a strong influence on the currencies' exchange rate.

What is FOREX (Foreign Exchange)?

The simple sense of Forex (Forex currency exchange, Foreign Exchange) is simultaneous purchase and sale of the currency or the exchange of one country's currency for the one of another country. The world currencies do not have a fixed exchange rate and are always fluctuating being traded in the currency pairs like Euro/Dollar, Dollar/Yen an others. 85% of daily trades are taken by major currencies trading.Investments usually deal with 4 major pairs: Euro against US dollar, US dollar against Japanese yen, British pound against US dollar, and US dollar against Swiss franc or EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, and USD/CHF used to sign these pairs accordingly. These major pairs are considered as Forex market's "blue chips". You will not receive any dividends on the currencies. Well known "buy low - sell high" gives the profit for currency trades.In case you have a forecast that one currency would get higher to another you can exchange the second one for the first one and wait for the profit. If you are lucky to see the trades following your forecast you can make an opposite transaction and to exchange currencies back gaining the profit.
Forex transactions are carried out by Forex brokerage companies, also known as major banks dealers. Forex market is worldwide and your European colleagues may make a transaction with Japanese traders when it's time for you to sleep in the North America. There are 3 shifts for the major institutions to work in due to 24-hours a day activity of the Forex market. It's possible to ask for overnight execution for take-profit and stop-loss orders of the client.
Prices in the Forex market fluctuate without any dramatic changes unlike stock market where considerable gaps are likely to be seen. There isn't any problems entering and exit the market due to its daily turnover of about $1.2 trillion. Forex market can not ever be forced to stop. The transactions were carried out even in 2001, on September, 11th.
Foreign exchange market (also called Forex of FX to shorten the name) is the oldest market in the world. It is also seen to be the largest one. Being currencies' primary market working 24-hours a day, Forex is also the largest market with highest liquidity. This is an interbank market carrying out spot (or cash) transactions. The currency futures market, to be compared with Forex is traded only 1% as much.
Forex market doesn't have any exchange center unlike the stock market. Forex trading seem to go after the sun around the world, from banks of the United States to other parts of the world like Australia, New Zealand, the Far East or Europe and back to the US some time later.High minimum amount of transaction and strict financial requirements used to make this interbank market unavailable for small speculators. The only dealers of currency markets were banks, huge-amount speculators and largest currency dealers. They had an ultimate access to this market dealing with lots of primary exchange rates of the world currencies, the market with an extremely high liquidity along with an unusually strong nature of trends.Nowadays small traders have an opportunity to purchase the small lots (units), as a result of the large inter-bank units being split by market maker brokers like FX Solutions, at the amount they like.The traders of any size like small companies and individual speculators have an access to the market at the same price fluctuations and exchange rates which only large players used to enjoy recently. Market makers monitor the rates so that produce their profit on the difference of rates at which the currency was bought and sold.Foreign Exchange Market has an acronymic name Forex. It has the largest size and the liquidity throughout the world nowadays. Forex daily transactions are carried out at the common amount from 1 to 3 trillion dollars. There is no stock market that is able to deal with a comparable amount of money.This enormous market is like the dangerous sea where you can meet lots of sharks and dangerous waters but at the same time it is the only one where two weeks of trading can hypothetically bring you $1,000,000 out of $1,000 of initial investment.This is certainly hypothetically because a lot of newbie traders deal with their trades as gambling, that surely bring them to having nothing in the end. You should always keep the phrase "be careful!" in your mind. This market would give you its profit possibilities only if you learn the basic things hard and make lots of demo trading.The statistics is that as much as 95% of traders come to losing their money at Forex, 5% have profit and less than 1% of traders make large fortune at Forex. You shouldn't produce, sell or advertise anything trading at Forex. Your assets are your knowledge, experience and a small amount of cash.This market is a platform for banks, transnational corporations and individual traders to change the currencies they possess into other ones. This is the spot Forex market. At this market you can trade with up to 1:400 leverage which means that you'll get $400 on your account for each dollar invested. So, you can trade with the $400,000 sum having invested $1,000 onto your account.Still, lots of experienced traders consider such leverage dangerous and won't get started with it. Though, if you know how ho use such high leverage it will do you only good. But this is the place to stop speaking about the basic things. Keep reading these articles if you want to be aware of how this market has occurred and some of its historical matters.Now it is time to speak about the strategies and the way of making money at Forex some traders use. First we should say that the things that work in one case do not certainly work in another. The fact is that currency trading surely means risk. Still, there are a number of strategies for the newbie to use to be the winner.Forex trading may seem very easy but it is not. Your high today earnings may turn into considerable losses even of your starting capital tomorrow. Newbie traders are likely to make the same mistakes several times. Here is a list of such typical mistakes.

Forex history

Long ago, the world's economy was based on the bartering method. The value of a particular item, was measured by it's worth in exchange for other items. But, this system had it's obvious limitations. If you had nothing of value to exchange, you had no way of obtaining items you needed. This created the need to establish a more acceptable way of buying and selling early in history.In various cultures and economies, anything could be considered valuable as long as there was a need for it. In some cases items such as animal pelts, corn, wheat and even hand made items were exchanged to obtain other much needed items. Eventually, the monetary standard became precious metals such as gold and silver. These metals not only served as a widely accepted method of payment, they've also became one of the most popular methods of investment.Coins were originally simply minted from the metal that was preferred at the time. But, during the Middle Ages, the introduction of paper forms of money gained wide acceptance. Although, paper forms of currency were more successfully introduced by force that by choice, they still served as the basis of modern day currencies.Before the beginning of World War I, many of the major banks allowed their currencies to be converted to gold. But, while paper currency could be converted to gold at any time, very few people took advantage of this practice. For this reason, many often felt it was unnecessary for the government to stock a full reserve of gold in their central banks.However, with an ever increasing supply of paper currency entering circulation and not enough gold to cover it, inflation occurred which resulted in an instable government. More and more foreign exchange controls were instated to protect the national interests and prevent the market from plunging. In July of 1944 during the latter stages of World War II, the Bretton Woods agreement was signed that established a fixed rate for the exchange of currency that was linked to the U.S. dollar.

This Article Is About The South Asian Mountain.

K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth (after Mount Everest). With a peak elevation of 8,611 metres (28,251 ft), K2 is part of the Karakoram range, and is located on the border[1] between the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang, China and the Northern Areas, the portion of the disputed Kashmir region under the administration of Pakistan.[2] K2 is known as the Savage Mountain due to the difficulty of ascent and the 2nd highest fatality rate among the 'eight thousanders' for those who climb it. For every four people who have reached the summit, one has died trying.[3] Unlike Annapurna, the mountain with highest fatality rate, K2 has never been climbed in winter.

PAKISTAN AND NORTHWEST INDIA

Since the majority of the Pakistanis are descendents of the four racial stocks of Sakas (Scythians), Pallavas (Parthians), Kushanas (Kushans), Hunas (Hephthalites/White Huns), and Gujjars (Khazars). One may, with reasonable plausibility ask that since Hindu counterparts of these same races are spread eastward as far as western UP and Rajputana, do they also form part of Pakistani nation?The answer is a definite no. Here comes in religion or ideology which sharply and distinctly separates a Hindu Rajput from a Muslim Rajput, a Hindu Jat from a Muslim Jat, a Hindu Gujjar from a Muslim Gujjar and so on and so forth. This demarcation carries a world of difference within its bosom---a different thought-orientation, a different culture-pattern, a different outlook both physical and metaphysical; an attitude to life and hereafter diametrically opposed to each other.

The two streams have refused to merge, mix blend and combine. All conscious efforts to fuse them have failed and all unconscious and unseen forces working towards their synthesis have disappeared in the dark recesses of history. The excertions of such intellectual giants as Kabir, Akbar, Abul Fazl, Faizi, Dara Sikoh and a host of lesser luminaries failed to create even the faintest impression on Muslim mind. Hussain Shah, ruler of Gauda who originated the cult of Satya Pir---common god of Hindus and Muslims---could hardly produce any results.

Hinduism has been noted for and praised by many a western writer for its sponge- like quality of absorbing foreign races and religions which invaded this sub- continent and settled down in its alluring environment and enervating climate. They are said to have been overwhelmed by the all-pervading spirit of Hindu Dharma and were never able to free themselves from its warm and winning embrace.But Islam disproved this theory to the hilt. instead of yielding any ground (except on some minor cultural points) it made Hinduism yield, bend and break. Millions left that so-called all-embracing fold of social order and that all- pervading force of Hindu Dharma and swelled the ranks of Islam....... It was indeed a great success for Islam to have snatched away such a large segment of population from the Hindu fold and moulded it into a separate nation. Those very elements who were expected to absorb Islam and change its norm and form are today its most faithful adherents. Islam has done the impossible in this sub-continent----it has triumphed over forces which had trounced others.Geo-political compulsions did the rest. The Indus Valley and the Padma-Meghna Delta which have invariably remained independent of the Hindu-dominated Gangetic Valley, provided homelands to these new Muslims. These converted Muslims of Pakistan and Bangladesh stand as symbols of Islam's defiance of Hindu chauvinism; a colossal proof of Hindu failure to absorb and subdue Islam.But the encounter is only half way through; the bout is still unfinished. Both the brotherly states in the eastern and western wings of the sub-continent are still menaced by Indian expansionist designs. They need perpetual vigilance and perpetual preparedness to preserve their independence

Pakistan and Bangladesh

In the context of Islam's journey in the sub-continent a few words about the common factors etween Pakistan and Bangladesh would not be out of place here. We cannot overlook the fact that it were the people of Pakistan and Bangladesh that welcomed the preachers of Islam and embraced its teachings spontaneously and earnestly in overwhelming numbers, while its success in other parts of the sub-continent was limited.The same phenomena was witnessed earlier when Buddhism, which had mbraced a major portion of the sub-continent was suppressed and driven ut by resurgent Hinduism under the Guptas. But large number of people in Pakistan and Bangladesh remained firm adherents of Buddhism which, almost extinct in other parts of India, continued to persist and prevail in the two wings till the arrival of Islam. Militant Hinduism succeeded in reconquering the rest of India in the 4th century AD during the Gupta period but it could not re- establish itself firmly and regain its hold to the same extent in Pakistan and Bangladesh which continued to remain largely Buddhist. "While Buddhism in the rest of South Asia declined before the rejuvenation of Hinduism.......it remained strong in Bengal until the 12th century AD." (Pakistan---Birth and Growth of a Nation, by Richard Weeks). According to Huen Tsang who visited this sub-continent in the middle of the 7th century AD, Buddhism of the Mahayana creed was still dominant in the western/NW region i.e., Pakistan. Chach Nama also mentions that

Buddhists were in large numbers in Pakistan at the time of Muslim advent in Sindh in the 8th century AD and were hostile towards their Brahmin rulersWhether it was a religious issue, such as the spread of Buddhism or Islam, both Pakistan and Bangladesh accepted them simultaneously

shedding Hindu yoke at the earliest opportunity. Again, whether it was a political issue, both the countries asserted their freedom again and again and mostly remained independent of Central Indian Government. The people of Pakistan and Bangladesh have availed of every opportunity

to work unitedly against Hindu imperialism and, what is most significant, Hindu religion was never able to take deep roots in their soil. This view is forcefully proved by the fact that no single sacred

city or holy temple of any importance for Hindus exists in the lands that constitute Pakistan and Bangladesh. Of the seven sacred Hindu cities of 1.Banaras, 2.Hardwar, 3.Ayodhya, 4.Ujjain, 5.Dwarka, 6.Conjeevaram, and 7.Mathura none is either in Pakistan or Bangladesh. The entire Hindu religious literature insists on branding the two wings of this sub-continent now known as Pakistan and Bangladesh as impure lands inhabited by 'rakhashas' i.e., devils. Pakistan and Bangladesh were never regarded as part of the 'holy' land of Bharatvarta. These developments and aspects speak eloquently of the underlying historical reality:That Pakistan and Bangladesh have a common enemy; that they survive or perish together; that the hearts of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis invariably beat in unison and their feelings flow in a rhythm; that their thinking has been harmonious, their outlook compatible, their response to changes uniform, their approach to problems similar. They accepted Buddhism in overwhelming numbers and adhered to it to the last

when the rest of India had exterminated that religion; they accepted Islam and have adhered to it when the rest of the sub- continent remained largely Hindu. This phenomena of similarity of stance between Pakistan and Bangladesh has persisted all through history, but divided by a thousand miles of Hindu territory and Brahmin intrigues they could not unite. Due to this unfortunate aspect the 20th century experiment of a single state of Pakistan embracing both the wings could not last even a quarter of a century. Politically, Pakistan and Bangladesh may have fallen apart for the time being but in due course they are bound to adopt a common posture against Indian expansionist efforts. The history of this sub-continent is a history of perpetual struggle of the peripheral areas of the Indus Valley (Pakistan) and Padma-Meghna Delta (Bangladesh) against the Gangetic Valley governments

Hindu Dharma and Pakistan

Almost all the religious books of the Hindus, particularly the Dharma Shastras regarded Sakas and Yavanas, the inhabitants of Pakistan in those days, as M'leechas (impure). The Atharva-veda regarded Pakistan as outlandish. Similarly they were unanimous in considering Vangals i.e., Bengalees, as barbarous, outside the pale of Aryans--outscastes, outsiders. Further, they were all termed dasyus (slaves) and rakashas (devils). According to a passage in the Mahabharata, Yavanas and Gandharas (people of Pakistan), and Vangals (Bangladeshis) are sinful creatures in earth. They did not respect the Brahmins and their religion; did not follow their laws, spoke different language and were therefore detested and despised by the Aryan high castes. Inter-mixture with them was prohibited. Patanjali speaks of Yavanas and Sakas as sudras and relegates them outside Aryavarta (A History of Indian Culture, by Radhakumad Mukherjee).







The strange fact is that the basin of the Indus and the Punjab West of Sutlej came to be regarded as impure land by the Brahmins of interior India at quite an early date. Orthodox Hindus are still unwilling to cross the Indus, and the whole of West Punjab between that river and the Sutlej is condemned as unholy ground, unfit for the residence of strict votaries of Dharma (Oxford History of India, by VA Smith, 3rd edition, edited by Percival Spear).






The Jat's spirit of freedom and equality refused to submit to Brahminical Hinduism and in its turn drew the censure of the privileged Brahmins of the Gangetic plain who pronounced that 'No Aryan should stay in the Punjab for even two days because the Punjabis refused to obey the priests (A History of Sikhs, by Kushwant Singh).






The inroads of those foreigners blotted out the memory of the memory of the Aryan immigration from the North-West (i.e. Pakistan) which is not traceable either in the popular puranic literature or in the oral traditions of the people. To the east of Sutlej (i.e. India) the Aryans were usually safe from foreign invasions and free to work out their own way of life undisturbed. They proceeded to do so and thus to create Hinduism with its inseparable institution of caste (Oxford History of India, by VA Smith, 3rd edition, edited by Percival Spear).






It is noteworthy that according to the Bandayana Dharma Shastra the Indus Valley was considered impure and outside the limits of Aryandom proper. Any one who went there had to perform sacrifices of purification on return. (Tribes in Ancient India, by BC Law)






The Brhat-Samhita mentions Vokkana country as situated in the western region of Indian subcontinent (Pakistan). In chapter XVI, V.35, Varaha Mihira includes the Vokkana among those belonging to Rahu, together with barbarians, evil-doers and the like (Roruka: was it Moenjodaro? by Pranavitana, Studies in asian History: Proceedings of the Asian History Congress held at New Delhi in 1961).






In later vedic literature there are references to confederation of un-Aryan tribes living in the north-east and north-west of the sub-continent in the first half of the 1st millennium B.C. Pundra and Vanga in Bengal, Madra in the Ravi-Chenab Doab (The Peoples of Pakistan, by Yu Gankovsky).






While the Aryans by now expanded far into India their old home in the Punjab and the north-west was practically forgotten. Later Vedic literature mentions it rarely and then usually with disparagement and contempt, as an impure land where the Vedic sacrifices are not performed (The Wonder that was India, by AL Basham).






Both Buddhism and Jainism flourished in Sind and it had revolted against the superiority of Brahmins. They ignored their Gods and denied the Vedas (Sindhi Culture, by UT Thakur).






It might have been noticed that by the beginning of the Christian era, the racial and ethnic character of Pakistan had undergone complete transformation. Whatever Aryan elements were left had almost disappeared in the avalanche of Central Asian Saka and Kushan tribes whose disregard of strict Hindu principles antagonised the high caste Hindus, ultimately leading to mass conversion of Pakistan to Buddhism during Kanishka's time. With this development, the differences in ethnic and racial composition between Pakistanis and Indians also assumed religious colour. It was because of the hatred for the people of Pakistan that, as already stated, the Hindus never built any holy city or temple or regarded any river in Pakistan sacred. The Punjab Gaztteer Vol. XX says that "the Punjab can show but few Hindu antiquities." It may be noted that the remains of pre-Vedic (Indus Valley Civilization) and Buddhist periods are found in Pakistan but not of the Hindu period which came between the two and again appeared to a limited extent after the fall of Buddhism.






The Aryans who settled down in the Gangetic Valley had come to their journey's end after a very long and arduous march. The rich fertile doab of the Ganges was the baikuntha, according to their heart's desire. To entrench themselves in this paradise they took two measures:






(i) they adopted the policy of apartheid (the caste system); and


(ii) they made earnest efforts to turn the marginal lands into a buffer zone and to seal their nearer borders (i.e., the eastern border of the western wing and vice versa) against foreign intrusions.






For their further expansion and colonisation they took north-south bearings. This vertical lay-out of this Hindu (Neo-Aryan) map of the subcontinent is the key to the understanding of geo-history of this part of the world. Vishnu Purana (II, 3.1) thus delineates the land of Bharata:






The country that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bharata; there dwell the descendants of Bharata;






Kautilya, the Hindu Machiavelli, spoke of the "thousand Yojanas (leagues) of land that stretch from the Himalayas to the sea" as "the proper domain of chakravartia patha (a single universal emperor)". This north-south (vertical) lay-out of the land of Bharata has been well summed up in the famous aphorism: Himalachala stu paryantum, i.e. from Himalayas to the end of land (Rameswaram). Vishnu Purana (11. 127-9) gives the geo-political reason for the vertical lay-out of Bharat; it states:






On the east of Bharata dwell the Kiratas (the barbarians); on the west, the Yavanas (the outlandish Greeks/ Bactrians); in the centre reside Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishayas and Sudras.






To protect the blue-blooded Aryans from the contamination of the 'demonaic' (Ashuras), 'wild' and 'carrion-eating' (Paisachas) and outlandish (Yavana)--people of the western wing and the 'barbaric' and 'boorish' Kirates, Pundras and Vangas of the eastern marginal land, the Hindu shastras laid down strict rules. The Dharma Sutra (II, 1.2.2) of Baudhayana states:






Who visits the country of the Arattas (the Punjab), or of the Pundras and Vangas (Northern and Eastern Bengal) must perform a purificatory sacrifice.






The Sutras and the Puranas are relatively late compositions. We find that the Aryan aversion for the people of the rimland had developed quite early during their migration from the land of the seven rivers. The Satapatha Brahmanas of the "White" Yajur-Veda (OX.31 18) show that the emigrant Aryans regarded those Aryan tribes, that were still in the basin of the Indus, with mistrust. The Aitareya Brahmana of the Rigveda states that beyond Magadha lived the Pundras of North Bengal and the Vangas of Central and Eastern Bengal who were outside the pale of Aryandom. The Mahabharata speaks of the Bahikas of the Punjab "who are outcasts from righteousness, who are shut out from the Himavat, the Ganga, the Saravati, the Yamuna, and Kurukshetra, and who dwell between the Five Rivers" (VIII 202, 9) It further lays down:






In the region where the Five Rivers flow let no Aryan dwell there even for two days. There they have no Vedic ceremony nor any sacrifice (V, 20, 63).






The imperialistic Hindu chakravartins did not always follow these rules of their Shatras. Whenever they found themselves powerful enough they invaded, pillaged and annexed as much of the portions of the marginal lands as they could. This expansionist hunger of the Hindus has not been satiated to this day. However, though they protested vehemently against "the vivisection of Bharat Mata" yet they never ceased to regard the marginal lands as impure. A remarkable evidence of their constancy in this respect is the fact that while the length and breadth of Bharat is studded with their tirathas, --- holy towns, e.g. Kurkshetra in Hariana, Kashi (Benaras), Mathura, Haridwar (Hardwar), Prayaga (Allahabad) and Ayodha (Faizabad) in UP; Gaya in Bihar; Navadvipa (Nadiya) in W. Bengal; Cuttack Puri in Orissa; Avantika (Ujjain) in central India; Dvaraka in Gujrat; Kanchi and Ramesvram in the south; holy rivers all over Bharat and their holier confluences,--- not a single notable tiratha ever existed in what is now Pakistan (Islam in the Geo-historical Perspective of Pakistan, by Qudratullah Fatimi).






The cleavage, as such, is not new as Indians try to make out; and what is more, the cleavage is not due to Islam only as they further try to stress. It is age-old, has its roots deep in history and is not only temperamental and spiritual but racial as well as geo-political.






It is indeed strange for the Hindus to claim Pakistan as part of Akhand Bharat on the basis of history when the entire history not only thoroughly disproves this claim but, on the contrary, amply bears out that Hindus themselves have regarded it as outside Aryavarta, as an impure land, not fit for their holy places; a land inhabited by sinners outside their fold.

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN

Mohammed Ali Jinnah died in September 1948, within 13 months of independence. The leaders of the new Pakistan were mainly lawyers with a strong commitment to parliamentary government. They had supported Jinnah in his struggle against the Congress not so much because they desired an Islamic state but because they had come to regard the Congress as synonymous with Hindu domination. They had various degrees of personal commitment to Islam. To some it represented an ethic that might (or might not) be the basis of personal behaviour within a modern, democratic state. To others it represented a tradition, the framework within which their forefathers had ruled India. But there were also groups that subscribed to Islam as a total way of life, and these people were said to wish to establish Pakistan as a theocracy (a term they repudiated). The members of the old Constituent Assembly, elected at the end of 1945, assembled at Karachi, the new capital.



Jinnah's lieutenant, Liaquat Ali Khan, inherited the task of drafting a constitution. Himself a moderate (he had entered politics via a landlord party), he subscribed to the parliamentary, democratic, secular state. But he was conscious that he possessed no local or regional power base. He was a muhajir ("refugee") from the United Provinces, the Indian heartland, whereas most of his colleagues and potential rivals drew support from their own people in Punjab or Bengal. Liaquat Ali Khan therefore deemed it necessary to gain the support of the religious spokesmen (the mullahs or, more properly, the ulama). He issued a resolution on the aims and objectives of the constitution, which began, "Sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone" and went on to emphasize Islamic values. Hindu members of the old Constituent Assembly protested; Islamic states had traditionally distinguished between the Muslims, as full citizens, and dhimmis, nonbelievers who were denied certain rights and saddled with certain additional obligations.

THE TRANSFER OF POWER AND THE BIRTH OF TWO NATIONS

British India in 1947, showing major administrative divisions, the distribution of the principal.

Elections held in the winter of 1945-46 proved how effective Jinnah's single-plank strategy for his Muslim League had been, as the league won all 30 seats reserved for Muslims in the Central Legislative Assembly and most of the reserved provincial seats as well. The Congress was successful in gathering most of the general electorate seats, but it could no longer effectively insist that it spoke for the entire population of British India.


In 1946, Secretary of State Pethick-Lawrence personally led a three-man Cabinet deputation to New Delhi with the hope of resolving the Congress-Muslim League deadlock and, thus, of transferring British power to a single Indian administration. Cripps was responsible primarily for drafting the ingenious Cabinet Mission Plan, which proposed a three-tier federation for India, integrated by a minimal central-union government in Delhi, which would be limited to handling foreign affairs, communications, defense, and only those finances required to care for such unionwide matters. The subcontinent was to be divided into three major groups of provinces: Group A, to include the Hindu-majority provinces of the Bombay Presidency, Madras, the United Provinces, Bihar, Orissa, and the Central Provinces (virtually all of what became independent India a year later); Group B, to contain the Muslim-majority provinces of the Punjab, Sind, the North-West Frontier, and Baluchistan (the areas out of which the western part of Pakistan was created); and Group C, to include the Muslim-majority Bengal (a portion of which became the eastern part of Pakistan and in 1971 the country of Bangladesh) and the Hindu-majority Assam. The group governments were to be virtually autonomous in everything but matters reserved to the union centre, and within each group the princely states were to be integrated into their neighbouring provinces. Local provincial governments were to have the choice of opting out of the group in which they found themselves should a majority of their populace vote to do so.


Punjab's large and powerful Sikh population would have been placed in a particularly difficult and anomalous position, for Punjab as a whole would have belonged to Group B, and much of the Sikh community had become anti-Muslim since the start of the Mughal emperors' persecution of their gurus in the 17th century. Sikhs played so important a role in the British Indian Army that many of their leaders hoped that the British would reward them at the war's end with special assistance in carving out their own nation from the rich heart of Punjab's fertile canal-colony lands, where, in the "kingdom" once ruled by Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), most Sikhs lived. Since World War I, Sikhs had been equally fierce in opposing the British raj, and, though never more than 2 percent of India's population, they had as highly disproportionate a number of nationalist "martyrs" as of army officers. A Sikh Akali Dal ("Party of Immortals"), which was started in 1920, led militant marches to liberate gurdwaras ("doorways to the Guru"; the Sikh places of worship) from corrupt Hindu managers. Tara Singh (1885-1967), the most important leader of this vigorous Sikh political movement, first raised the demand for a separate Azad ("Free") Punjab in 1942. By March 1946, Singh demanded a Sikh nation-state, alternately called "Sikhistan" or "Khalistan" ("Land of the Sikhs" or "Land of the Pure"). The Cabinet Mission, however, had no time or energy to focus on Sikh separatist demands and found the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan equally impossible to accept.


As a pragmatist, Jinnah, himself mortally afflicted with tuberculosis and lung cancer, accepted the Cabinet Mission's proposal, as did Congress leaders. The early summer of 1946, therefore, saw a dawn of hope for India's future prospects, but that soon proved false when Nehru announced at his first press conference as the reelected president of the Congress that no constituent assembly could be "bound" by any prearranged constitutional formula. Jinnah read Nehru's remarks as a "complete repudiation" of the plan, which had to be accepted in its entirety in order to work. Jinnah then convened the league's Working Committee, which withdrew its previous agreement to the federation scheme and instead called upon the "Muslim Nation" to launch "direct action" in mid-August 1946. Thus began India's bloodiest year of civil war since the mutiny nearly a century earlier. The Hindu-Muslim rioting and killing that started in Calcutta sent deadly sparks of fury, frenzy, and fear to every corner of the subcontinent, as all civilized restraint seemed to disappear.


Lord Mountbatten (1900-79) was sent to replace Wavell as viceroy in March 1947, as Britain prepared to transfer its power over India to some "responsible" hands by no later than June 1948. Shortly after reaching Delhi, where he conferred with the leaders of all parties and with his own officials, Mountbatten decided that the situation was too dangerous to wait even that brief period. Fearing a forced evacuation of British troops still stationed in India, Lord Mountbatten resolved to opt for partition, one that would divide Punjab and Bengal virtually in half, rather than risk further political negotiations while civil war raged and a new mutiny of Indian troops seemed imminent. Among the major Indian leaders, Gandhi alone refused to reconcile himself to partition and urged Mountbatten to offer Jinnah the premiership of a united India rather than a separate Muslim nation. Nehru, however, would not agree to that, nor would his most powerful Congress deputy, Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950), as both had become tired of arguing with Jinnah and were eager to get on with the job of running an independent government of India.


Britain's Parliament passed in July 1947 the Indian Independence Act, ordering the demarcation of the dominions of India and Pakistan by midnight of Aug. 14-15, 1947, and dividing within a single month the assets of the world's largest empire, which had been integrated in countless ways for more than a century. Racing the deadline, two boundary commissions worked desperately to partition Punjab and Bengal in such a way as to leave a majority of Muslims to the west of the former's new boundary and to the east of the latter's, but as soon as the new borders were known, no fewer than 10 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs fled from their homes on one side of the newly demarcated borders to what they thought would be "shelter" on the other. In the course of that tragic exodus of innocents, some 1 million people were slaughtered in communal massacres that made all previous conflicts of the sort known to recent history pale by comparison. Sikhs, caught in the middle of Punjab's new "line," suffered the highest percentage of casualties. Most Sikhs finally settled in India's much-diminished border state of Punjab. Tara Singh later asked, "The Muslims got their Pakistan, and the Hindus got their Hindustan, but what did the Sikhs get?"


(The following section discusses the history since 1947 of those areas of the subcontinent that became the Republic of India. For historical coverage since 1947 of the partitioned areas in the northwest and the northeast, see the articles PAKISTAN and BANGLADESH.)

Birth of the new state.

Pakistan came into existence as a dominion within the Commonwealth in August 1947, with Jinnah as governor-general and



Liaquat Ali Khan as prime minister. With West and East Pakistan separated by more than 1,000 miles of Indian territory and with the major portion of the wealth and resources of the British heritage passing to India, Pakistan's survival seemed to hang in the balance. Of all the well-organized provinces of British India, only the comparatively backward areas of Sindh, Balochistan, and the North-West Frontier came to Pakistan intact. The Punjab and Bengal were divided, and Kashmir became disputed territory. Economically, the situation seemed almost hopeless; the new frontier cut off Pakistani raw materials from the Indian factories, disrupting industry, commerce, and agriculture. The partition and the movement of refugees were accompanied by terrible massacres for which both communities were responsible. India remained openly unfriendly; its economic superiority expressed itself in a virtual blockade. The dispute over Kashmir brought the two countries to the verge of war; and India's command of the headworks controlling the water supplies to Pakistan's eastern canal colonies gave it an additional economic weapon. The resulting friction, by obstructing the process of sharing the assets inherited from the British raj (according to plans previously agreed), further handicapped Pakistan. (L.F.R.W.)

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Early Life Political Career Demand for Pakistan

Leader of a Free Nation

Father of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's achievement as the founder of Pakistan, dominates everything else he did in his long and crowded public life spanning some 42 years. Yet, by any standard, his was an eventful life, his personality multidimensional and his achievements in other fields were many, if not equally great. Indeed, several were the roles he had played with distinction: at one time or another, he was one of the greatest legal luminaries India had produced during the first half of the century, an `ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, a great constitutionalist, a distinguished parliamentarian, a top-notch politician, an indefatigable freedom-fighter, a dynamic Muslim leader a political strategist, and, above all one of the great nation-builders of modern times. What, however, makes him so remarkable is the fact that while similar other leaders assumed the leadership of traditionally well-defined nations and espoused their cause, or led them to freedom, he created a nation out of an inchoate and down-trodeen minority and established a cultural and national home for it. And all that within a decase. For over three decades before the successful culmination in 1947, of the Muslim struggle for freedom in the South-Asian subcontinent, Jinnah had provided political leadership to the Indian Muslims: initially as one of the leaders, but later, since 1947, as the only prominent leader- the Quaid-i-Azam. For over thirty years, he had guided their affairs; he had given expression, coherence and direction to their ligitimate aspirations and cherished dreams; he had formulated these into concerete demands; and, above all, he had striven all the while to get them conceded by both the ruling British and the numerous Hindus the dominant segment of India's population. And for over thirty years he had fought, relentlessly and inexorably, for the inherent rights of the Muslims for an honourable existence in the subcontinent. Indeed, his life story constitutes, as it were, the story of the rebirth of the Muslims of the subcontinent and their spectacular rise to nationhood, phoenixlike.

Early Life

Born on December 25, 1876, in a prominent mercantile family in Karachi and educated at the Sindh Madrassat-ul-Islam and the Christian Mission School at his birth place,Jinnah joined the Lincoln's Inn in 1893 to become the youngest Indian to be called to the Bar, three years later. Starting out in the legal profession withknothing to fall back upon except his native ability and determination, young Jinnah rose to prominence and became Bombay's most successful lawyer, as few did, within a few years. Once he was firmly established in the legal profession, Jinnah formally entered politics in 1905 from the platform of the Indian National Congress. He went to England in that year alongwith Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), as a member of a Congress delegation to plead the cause of Indian self-governemnt during the British elections. A year later, he served as Secretary to Dadabhai Noaroji(1825-1917), the then Indian National Congress President, which was considered a great honour for a budding politician. Here, at the Calcutta Congress session (December 1906), he also made his first political speech in support of the resolution on self-government.

Political Career

Three years later, in January 1910, Jinnah was elected to the newly-constituted Imperial Legislative Council. All through his parliamentary career, which spanned some four decades, he was probably the most powerful voice in the cause of Indian freedom and Indian rights. Jinnah, who was also the first Indian to pilot a private member's Bill through the Council, soon became a leader of a group inside the legislature. Mr. Montagu (1879-1924), Secretary of State for India, at the close of the First World War, considered Jinnah "perfect mannered, impressive-looking, armed to the teeth with dialecties..."Jinnah, he felt, "is a very clever man, and it is, of course, an outrage that such a man should have no chance of running the affairs of his own country."

For about three decades since his entry into politics in 1906, Jinnah passionately believed in and assiduously worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. Gokhale, the foremost Hindu leader before Gandhi, had once said of him, "He has the true stuff in him and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity: And, to be sure, he did become the architect of Hindu-Muslim Unity: he was responsible for the Congress-League Pact of 1916, known popularly as Lucknow Pact- the only pact ever signed between the two political organisations, the Congress and the All-India Muslim League, representing, as they did, the two major communities in the subcontinent.

The Congress-League scheme embodied in this pact was to become the basis for the Montagu-Chemlsford Reforms, also known as the Act of 1919. In retrospect, the Lucknow Pact represented a milestone in the evolution of Indian politics. For one thing, it conceded Muslims the right to separate electorate, reservation of seats in the legislatures and weightage in representation both at the Centre and the minority provinces. Thus, their retention was ensured in the next phase of reforms. For another, it represented a tacit recognition of the All-India Muslim League as the representative organisation of the Muslims, thus strengthening the trend towards Muslim individuality in Indian politics. And to Jinnah goes the credit for all this. Thus, by 1917, Jinnah came to be recognised among both Hindus and Muslims as one of India's most outstanding political leaders. Not only was he prominent in the Congress and the Imperial Legislative Council, he was also the President of the All-India Muslim and that of lthe Bombay Branch of the Home Rule League. More important, because of his key-role in the Congress-League entente at Lucknow, he was hailed as the ambassador, as well as the embodiment, of Hindu-Muslim unity.

Constitutional Struggle

In subsequent years, however, he felt dismayed at the injection of violence into politics. Since Jinnah stood for "ordered progress", moderation, gradualism and constitutionalism, he felt that political terrorism was not the pathway to national liberation but, the dark alley to disaster and destruction. Hence, the constitutionalist Jinnah could not possibly, countenance Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's novel methods of Satyagrah (civil disobedience) and the triple boycott of government-aided schools and colleges, courts and councils and British textiles. Earlier, in October 1920, when Gandhi, having been elected President of the Home Rule League, sought to change its constitution as well as its nomenclature, Jinnah had resigned from the Home Rule League, saying: "Your extreme programme has for the moment struck the imagination mostly of the inexperienced youth and the ignorant and the illiterate. All this means disorganisation and choas". Jinnah did not believe that ends justified the means.

In the ever-growing frustration among the masses caused by colonial rule, there was ample cause for extremism. But, Gandhi's doctrine of non-cooperation, Jinnah felt, even as Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941) did also feel, was at best one of negation and despair: it might lead to the building up of resentment, but nothing constructive. Hence, he opposed tooth and nail the tactics adopted by Gandhi to exploit the Khilafat and wrongful tactics in the Punjab in the early twenties. On the eve of its adoption of the Gandhian programme, Jinnah warned the Nagpur Congress Session (1920): "you are making a declaration (of Swaraj within a year) and committing the Indian National Congress to a programme, which you will not be able to carry out". He felt that there was no short-cut to independence and that Gandhi's extra-constitutional methods could only lead to political terrorism, lawlessness and chaos, without bringing India nearer to the threshold of freedom.

The future course of events was not only to confirm Jinnah's worst fears, but also to prove him right. Although Jinnah left the Congress soon thereafter, he continued his efforts towards bringing about a Hindu-Muslim entente, which he rightly considered "the most vital condition of Swaraj". However, because of the deep distrust between the two communities as evidenced by the country-wide communal riots, and because the Hindus failed to meet the genuine demands of the Muslims, his efforts came to naught. One such effort was the formulation of the Delhi Muslim Proposals in March, 1927. In order to bridge Hindu-Muslim differences on the constitutional plan, these proposals even waived the Muslim right to separate electorate, the most basic Muslim demand since 1906, which though recognised by the congress in the Lucknow Pact, had again become a source of friction between the two communities. surprisingly though, the Nehru Report (1928), which represented the Congress-sponsored proposals for the future constitution of India, negated the minimum Muslim demands embodied in the Delhi Muslim Proposals.

In vain did Jinnah argue at the National convention (1928): "What we want is that Hindus and Mussalmans should march together until our object is achieved...These two communities have got to be reconciled and united and made to feel that their interests are common". The Convention's blank refusal to accept Muslim demands represented the most devastating setback to Jinnah's life-long efforts to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity, it meant "the last straw" for the Muslims, and "the parting of the ways" for him, as he confessed to a Parsee friend at that time. Jinnah's disillusionment at the course of politics in the subcontinent prompted him to migrate and settle down in London in the early thirties. He was, however, to return to India in 1934, at the pleadings of his co-religionists, and assume their leadership. But, the Muslims presented a sad spectacle at that time. They were a mass of disgruntled and demoralised men and women, politically disorganised and destitute of a clear-cut political programme.

Muslim League Reorganised

Thus, the task that awaited Jinnah was anything but easy. The Muslim League was dormant: primary branches it had none; even its provincial organisations were, for the most part, ineffective and only nominally under the control of the central organisation. Nor did the central body have any coherent policy of its own till the Bombay session (1936), which Jinnah organised. To make matters worse, the provincial scene presented a sort of a jigsaw puzzle: in the Punjab, Bengal, Sindh, the North West Frontier, Assam, Bihar and the United Provinces, various Muslim leaders had set up their own provincial parties to serve their personal ends. Extremely frustrating as the situation was, the only consulation Jinnah had at this juncture was in Allama Iqbal(1877-1938), the poet-philosopher, who stood steadfast by him and helped to charter the course of Indian politics from behind the scene.

Undismayed by this bleak situation, Jinnah devoted himself with singleness of purpose to organising the Muslims on one platform. He embarked upon country-wide tours. He pleaded with provincial Muslim leaders to sink their differences and make common cause with the League. He exhorted the Muslim masses to organise themselves and join the League. He gave coherence and direction to Muslim sentiments on the Government of India Act, 1935. He advocated that the Federal Scheme should be scrapped as it was subversive of India's cherished goal of complete responsible Government, while the provincial scheme, which conceded provincial autonomy for the first time, should be worked for what it was worth, despite its certain objectionable features. He also formulated a viable League manifesto for the election scheduled for early 1937. He was, it seemed, struggling against time to make Muslim India a power to be reckoned with.

Despite all the manifold odds stacked against it, the Muslim Leauge won some 108 (about 23 per cent) seats out of a total of 485 Muslim seats in the various legislature. Though not very impressive in itself, the League's partial success assumed added significance in view of the fact that the League won the largest number of Muslim seats and that it was the only all-India party of the Muslims in the country. Thus, the elections represented the first milestone on the long road to putting Muslim India on the map of the subcontinent. Congress in Power With the year 1937 opened the most mementous decade in modern Indian history. In that year came into force the provincial part of the Government of India Act, 1935, granting autonomy to Indians for the first time, in the provinces.

The Congress, having become the dominant party in Indian politics, came to power in seven provinces exclusively, spurning the League's offer of cooperation, turning its back finally on the coalition idea and excluding Muslims as a kpolitical entity from the portals of power. In that year, also, the Muslim League, under Jinnah's dynamic leadership, was reorganised de novo, transformed into a mass organisation, and made the spokesman of Indian Muslims as never before. Above all, in that momentous lyear were initiated certain trends in Indian politics, lthe crystallisation of which in subsequent years made the partition of the subcontinent inevitable. The practical manifestation of the policy of the Congress which took office in July, 1937, in seven out of eleven provinces, convinced Muslims that, in the Congress scheme of things, they could live only on sufferance of Hindus and as "second class" citizens. The Congress provincial governments, it may be remembered, had embarked upon a policy and launched a programme in which Muslims felt that their religion, language and culture were not safe. This blatantly aggressive Congress policy was seized upon by Jinnah to awaken the Muslims to a new consciousness, organize them on all-India platoform, and make them a power to be reckoned with. He also gave coherence, direction and articulation to their innermost, lyet vague, urges and aspirations. Above all, the filled them with his indomitable will, his own unflinching faith in their destiny.

The New Awakening

As a result of Jinnah's ceaseless efforts, the Muslims awakened from what Professor Baker calls(their) "unreflective silence" (in which they had so complacently basked for long decades), and to "the spiritual essence of nationality" that had existed among them for a pretty long time. Roused by the imapct of successive Congress hammerings, the Muslims, as Ambedkar (principal author of independent India's Constitution) says, "searched their social consciousness in a desperate attempt to find coherent and meaningful articulation to their cherished yearnings. To their great relief, they discovered that their sentiments of nationality had flamed into nationalism". In addition, not only lhad they developed" the will to live as a "nation", had also endwoed them with a territory which they could occupy and make a State as well as a cultural home for the newly discovered nation. These two pre-requisites, as laid down by Renan, provided the Muslims with the intellectual justification for claiming a distinct nationalism (apart from Indian or Hindu nationalism) for themselves. So that when, after their long pause, the Muslims gave expression to their innermost yearnings, these turned out to be in favour of a separate Muslim nationhood and of a separate Muslim state.

We are a nation", they claimed in the ever eloquent words of the Quaid-i-Azam- "We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral code, customs and calandar, history and tradition, aptitudes and ambitions; in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law, we are a nation".

Demand for Pakistan

The formulation of the Musim demand for Pakistan in 1940 had a tremendous impact on the nature and course of Indian politics. On the one hand, it shattered for ever the Hindu dreams of a pseudo-Indian, in fact, Hindu empire on British exit from India: on the other, it heralded an era of Islamic renaissance and creativity in which the Indian Muslims were to be active participants. The Hindu reaction was quick, bitter, malicious.Equally hostile were the British to the Muslim demand, their hostility having stemmed from their belief that the unity of India was their main achievement and their foremost contribution. The irony was that both the Hindus and the British had not anticipated the astonishingly tremendous response that the Pakistan demand had elicited from the Muslim masses. Above all, they faild to realize how a hundred million people had suddenly become supremely conscious of their distinct nationhood and their high destiny. In channelling the course of Muslim politics towards Pakistan, no less than in directing it towards its consummation in the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, non played a more decisive role than did Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It was his powerful advocacy of the case of Pakistan and his remarkable strategy in the delicate negotiations, that followed the formulation of the Pakistan demand, particularly in the post-war period, that made Pakistan inevitable.

Cripps Scheme

While the British reaction to the Pakistan demand came in the form of the Cripps offer of April, 1942, which conceded the principle of self-determination to provinces on a territorial basis, the Rajaji Formula (called after the eminent Congress leader C.Rajagopalacharia, which became the basis of prolonged Jinnah-Gandhi talks in September, 1944), represented the Congress alternative to Pakistan. The Cripps offer was rejected because it did not concede the Muslim demand the whole way, while the Rajaji Formula was found unacceptable since it offered a "moth-eaten, mutilated" Pakistan and the too appended with a plethora of pre-conditions which made its emergence in any shape remote, if not altogether impossible. Cabinet Mission The most delicate as well as the most tortuous negotiations, however, took place during 1946-47, after the elections which showed that the country was sharply and somewhat evenly divided between two parties- the Congress and the League- and that the central issue in Indian politics was Pakistan.

These negotiations began with the arrival, in March 1946, of a three-member British Cabinet Mission. The crucial task with which the Cabinet Mission was entrusted was that of devising in consultation with the various political parties, a constitution-making machinery, and of setting up a popular interim government. But, because the Congress-League gulf could not be bridged, despite the Mission's (and the Viceroy's) prolonged efforts, the Mission had to make its own proposals in May, 1946. Known as the Cabinet Mission Plan, these proposals stipulated a limited centre, supreme only in foreign affairs, defence and communications and three autonomous groups of provinces. Two of these groups were to have Muslim majorities in the north-west and the north-east of the subcontinent, while the third one, comprising the Indian mainland, was to have a Hindu majority. A consummate statesman that he was, Jinnah saw his chance. He interpreted the clauses relating to a limited centre and the grouping as "the foundation of Pakistan", and induced the Muslim League Council to accept the Plan in June 1946; and this he did much against the calculations of the Congress and to its utter dismay.

Tragically though, the League's acceptance was put down to its supposed weakness and the Congress put up a posture of defiance, designed to swamp the Leauge into submitting to its dictates and its interpretations of the plan. Faced thus, what alternative had Jinnah and the League but to rescind their earlier acceptance, reiterate and reaffirm their original stance, and decide to launch direct action (if need be) to wrest Pakistan. The way Jinnah manoeuvred to turn the tide of events at a time when all seemed lost indicated, above all, his masterly grasp of the situation and his adeptness at making strategic and tactical moves. Partition Plan By the close of 1946, the communal riots had flared up to murderous heights, engulfing almost the entire subcontinent. The two peoples, it seemed, were engaged in a fight to the finish. The time for a peaceful transfer of power was fast running out. Realising the gravity of the situation. His Majesty's Government sent down to India a new Viceroy- Lord Mountbatten. His protracted negotiations with the various political leaders resulted in 3 June.(1947) Plan by which the British decided to partition the subcontinent, and hand over power to two successor States on 15 August, 1947. The plan was duly accepted by the three Indian parties to the dispute- the Congress the League and the Akali Dal(representing the Sikhs).

Leader of a Free Nation

The treasury was empty, India having denied Pakistan the major share of its cash balances.On top of all this, the still unorganized nation was called upon to feed some eight million refugees who had fled the insecurities and barbarities of the north Indian plains that long, hot summer. If all this was symptomatic of Pakistan's administrative and economic weakness, the Indian annexation, through military action in November 1947, of Junagadh (which had originally acceded to Pakistan) and the Kashmir war over the State's accession (October 1947-December 1948) exposed her military weakness. In the circumsances, therefore, it was nothing short of a miracle that Pakistan survived at all. That it survived and forged ahead was mainly due to one man-Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The nation desperately needed in the person of a charismatic leader at that critical juncture in the nation's history, and he fulfilled that need profoundly. After all, he was more than a mere Governor-General: he was the Quaid-i-Azam who had brought the State into being.

In the ultimate analysis, his very presence at the helm of affairs was responsible for enabling the newly born nation to overcome the terrible crisis on the morrow of its cataclysmic birth. He mustered up the immense prestige and the unquestioning loyalty he commanded among the people to energize them, to raise their morale, land directed the profound feelings of patriotism that the freedom had generated, along constructive channels. Though tired and in poor health, Jinnah yet carried the heaviest part of the burden in that first crucial year. He laid down the policies of the new state, called attention to the immediate problems confronting the nation and told the members of the Constituent Assembly, the civil servants and the Armed Forces what to do and what the nation expected of them. He saw to it that law and order was maintained at all costs, despite the provocation that the large-scale riots in north India had provided. He moved from Karachi to Lahore for a while and supervised the immediate refugee problem in the Punjab. In a time of fierce excitement, he remained sober, cool and steady. He advised his excited audence in Lahore to concentrate on helping the refugees,to avoaid retaliation, exercise restraint and protect the minorities. He assured the minorities of a fair deal, assuaged their inured sentiments, and gave them hope and comfort. He toured the various provinces, attended to their particular problems and instilled in the people a sense ofbelonging. He reversed the British policy in the North-West Frontier and ordered the withdrawal of the troops from the tribal territory of Waziristan, thereby making the Pathans feel themselves an integral part of Pakistan's body-politics. He created a new Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, and assumed responsibility for ushering in a new era in Balochistan. He settled the controversial question of the states of Karachi, secured the accession of States, especially of Kalat which seemed problematical and carried on negotiations with Lord Mountbatten for the settlement of the Kashmir Issue.

The Quaid's last Message

It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfilment of his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 14 August, 1948: "The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can". In accomplishing the task he had taken upon himself on the morrow of Pakistan's birth, Jinnah had worked himself to death, but he had, to quote richard Symons, "contributed more than any other man to Pakistan's survivial". He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord Pethick Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when he said, "Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan".

A man such as Jinnah, who had fought for the inherent rights of his people all through his life and who had taken up the somewhat unconventional and the largely mininterpreted cause of Pakistan, was bound to generate violent opposition and excite implacable hostility and was likely to be largely misunderstood. But what is most remarkable about Jinnah is that he was the recepient of some of the greatest tributes paid to any one in modern times, some of them even from those who held a diametrically opposed viewpoint.

The Aga Khan considered him "the greatest man he ever met", Beverley Nichols, the author of `Verdict on India', called him "the most important man in Asia", and Dr. Kailashnath Katju, the West Bengal Governor in 1948, thought of him as "an outstanding figure of this century not only in India, but in the whole world". While Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, called him "one of the greatest leaders in the Muslim world", the Grand Mufti of Palestine considered his death as a "great loss" to the entire world of Islam. It was, however, given to Surat Chandra Bose, leader of the Forward Bloc wing of the Indian National Congress, to sum up succinctly his personal and political achievements. "Mr Jinnah",he said on his death in 1948, "was great as a lawyer, once great as a Congressman, great as a leader of Muslims, great as a world politician and diplomat, and greatestof all as a man of action, By Mr. Jinnah's passing away, the world has lost one of the greatst statesmen and Pakistan its life-giver, philosopher and guide". Such was Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the man and his mission, such the range of his accomplishments and achievements.