Syeda Abida Hussain's book, Power Failure: The Political Odyssey of a Pakistani Woman, was launched at CAIS on 20 October 2016. The launch was jointly hosted by the ANU Coral Bell School and the ANU Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies.
Minister in the Nawaz Sharif government in the 1990s, and Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States from 1991-1994, Syeda Hussain has detailed 40 years of experience in the book.

Guests at the launch included HE Mrs Naela Chohan, High Commissioner for Pakistan (pictured above with the author).

The book was launched by Professor Michael Wesley, Dean, ANU College of Asia & the Pacific. In launching the book, Professor Wesley remarked on the importance of Pakistan in regional and global politics, due to both its population size and strategic positions. He went on to give an erudite account of Hussain's experience as a Shia, a woman, and a politician in a country with the most tumultuous of histories. He also observed how obvious it was that Hussain held both a great love for Pakistan and was greatly disappointed by it.

In Power Failure: The Political Odyssey of a Pakistani Woman, published by Oxford University Press in 2015, Syeda Abida Hussain outlines the impacts that key political events in Pakistan have had on her personal life — and on the destiny of the nation.  It is a political autobiography which gives an insider view into the tumultuous political events in Pakistan from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s rule from the early 1970s to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007.

Syeda Abida Hussain is a politician, agriculturist, and diplomat. She belongs to Jhang, situated in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Abida Hussain has the distinction of being the first woman to chair the District Council of Jhang; and the first woman to be popularly elected as Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan. She served as Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States from 1991 to 1994. She has also served as Minister for Education, Science and Technology (1996), Minister for Food and Agriculture (1997), Minister for Population Welfare, and as Minister for Environment and Urban Affairs (1999). Abida Hussain is an active proponent of 'Education for All', gender equality, and sectarian harmony.