Current Affairs
Current Affairs
This paper checks whether you follow national and world events and know the basic shape of the organisations Pakistan deals with. Questions usually ask headquarters, founding years, capitals, currencies and the status of a running issue, not the wording of a treaty.
The stable skeleton
- United Nations: founded 1945, headquarters New York; the Security Council has five permanent members - China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
- IMF and World Bank: both founded in 1945, both headquartered in Washington DC.
- WHO and ILO sit in Geneva; UNESCO in Paris; FAO in Rome; the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
- OIC: founded 1969, headquarters Jeddah; the first summit was held in Rabat.
- SAARC: 1985, secretariat in Kathmandu, eight members. SCO: founded 2001, secretariat in Beijing; Pakistan became a member in 2017.
- FATF: founded 1989, based in Paris; Pakistan's grey-list status was a long-running story.
- CPEC is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, with Gwadar port as its deep-sea anchor in Balochistan.
Worked example
The OIC was founded in reaction to which event? The 1969 arson attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem; the first summit followed in Rabat the same year. The exam wants the trigger event, so read the last word of the question before choosing.
How to stay current without drowning
Track three things weekly: Pakistan's IMF programme and the rupee, the situation along the Line of Control and the Pakistan–Afghanistan border, and Pakistan's position in the OIC and SCO. Add one major world item and you cover most question types.
Traps
Mixing headquarters between Geneva, Paris, Rome and New York; confusing an organisation's founding year with the year a country joined it; answering from a half-remembered headline instead of eliminating options by organisation.