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The price of on-line validation
S omewhere between taking selfies and trusting filters that promise to fix our faces, we seem to have reached a collective decision that artificial intelligence deserves everything we own: our photos, our data, perhaps even our dignity. We present it on a silver platter. We surrender it...
Published on: November 16, 2025
The history and relevance of oath-taking
O ath-taking signifies a solemn pledge or appeal to divinity. It has long been a familiar expression of truth, loyalty and moral obligation. Traditionally, an oath was a sacred promise made before God or the gods, invoking divine punishment for falsehood. In ancient societies, to break...
Published on: November 16, 2025
27th Amendment from CPE lens
T he Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan , under Part XI, Article 239, grants Parliament authority to amend any of its provisions. The constitutional amendment may originate in either House of Parliament, but it requires a two-thirds majority of the total members for passage. The...
Published on: November 16, 2025
Patterns in tobacco industry practices
F or decades, the tobacco industry’s playbook in Pakistan has been one of masterful illusion, a relentless cycle of deceptive narratives designed to addict new generations and paralyse public policy. A new monitoring study by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, which tracked...
Published on: November 16, 2025
Invisible education system
N early half of school-aged children in Pakistan attend private schools that the government cannot monitor. Some are in large urban institutions, while others are in small, rented schools, but the majority are officially unregistered. Their records are absent from national databases, and...
Published on: November 16, 2025
Harassment law and its missed promise
I n 2010, Pakistan passed a landmark law to protect women from harassment at work. The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act was celebrated as a major step toward equality and dignity. For the first time, women were told they had a legal right to safety at work....
Published on: November 16, 2025
Power of the people
T he 8.5 million people of New York—a dazzling mosaic of diversity and dynamism; a city where humanity converges—went to the polls on November 4 to elect their mayor for the next four years. In this mega-metropolis, where over 500 languages echo through the streets, unity...
Published on: November 16, 2025
The name's Perkins, Frances Perkins
O n a spring afternoon in New York City, March 25, 1911, black smoke began to rise from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory near Washington Square. Within minutes, the ten-storey building was engulfed in flames. Inside, 146 young women—immigrants, mostly—were trapped behind locked...
Published on: November 16, 2025
A looming crisis in cotton research
T he iconic green fields of the Punjab, once the heartland of Pakistan’s cotton economy, face a silent crisis. While official narratives may not acknowledge a decline in cotton research, a closer look reveals dangerous stagnation. The conventional breeding methods are underperforming....
Published on: November 9, 2025
Performance politics â II
Donald Trump’s rise to political power and his presidency represent a profound disruption of traditional models of leadership. His campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, encapsulated a lifelong warrior narrative grounded in dominance, conflict and conquest. As he asserted in Crippled...
Published on: November 9, 2025
Punjab's development priorities
T he Punjab budget for the fiscal year 2025-26 has a total outlay of Rs 5,335 billion. This includes a development allocation of Rs 1,240 billion, larger than the federal government’s development budget. This reflects a provincial commitment to driving its own development agenda. The...
Published on: November 9, 2025
Unequal development
P akistan’s power sector is full of contradictions and dilemmas. Nowhere is this more visible than in Jhimpir. Some 120 kilometres northeast of Karachi lies this windswept corridor, capable on paper of generating 43,000 megawatts of electricity across nearly 10,000 square kilometres....
Published on: November 9, 2025
Prepared at last?
I n April this year, member states of the World Health Organisation concluded a historic pandemic preparedness treaty after painstaking, marathon negotiations spanning the previous three years. This is one of the shortest time spans during which a global treaty has been agreed upon between...
Published on: November 9, 2025
Pakistan's vaping crisis
T he rise of vaping in Pakistan shows a concerning pattern. What began as a social media trend among teenagers posting pictures with colourful devices has evolved into what medical experts are calling a full-blown epidemic among Pakistani youth. Recent studies show that 68.4 per cent of...
Published on: November 9, 2025
Service over spectacle
H e belonged to a generation of politicians that has almost vanished — one that practised loyalty without theatrics, authority without noise and public service without spectacle. With the passing of Aftab Sha’ban Mirani in Karachi on November 1, Pakistan has lost not only a...
Published on: November 9, 2025
Thirty years of WPAY
T hirty years ago, the United Nations adopted the World Programme of Action for Youth marking the first global policy framework to guide national and international action on youth development. Framed as a blueprint for empowering young people, the WPAY placed youth squarely on the global...
Published on: November 9, 2025
The need for fair and equitable taxes
P akistan’s taxation framework has long faced widespread criticism for falling short of global standards and underperforming in revenue collection. The narrow tax base, reliance on a segment of taxpayers primarily comprising salaried individuals and large corporations and weak...
Published on: November 2, 2025
Performance politics
“His behavior… is completely solipsistic. He sees the world through his own sense of self… and he couldn’t be more erratic or scattered or dangerous.” — Robert Jay LiftonDonald Trump’s first term as president of the United State disrupted some long-held...
Published on: November 2, 2025
The fastest route to a knowledge economy
I f Pakistan is to escape the trap of low productivity and weak innovation, its universities must evolve into AI-powered ecosystems that link learning directly to economic transformation.In Pakistan, our greatest untapped resource is not land or minerals, it is human potential. Our higher...
Published on: November 2, 2025
Pakistan is gasping for breath, again
“S moke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.” This haunting image from Charles Dickens’s Bleak House described London...
Published on: November 2, 2025
The sea has grown closer
I n the early morning light, the sky feels close above the coast of Thatta. Some of the old folks say the sea, once remote and gentle, feels a lot closer. There is growing awareness in Thatta, Banbhore, Keti Bunder and Kharo Chan of climate change and its consequences. Some of the mangrove...
Published on: November 2, 2025
Rethinking our water use
W ater shortage is one of the most pressing environmental issues Pakistan faces. According to International Institute for Sustainable Development, Pakistan is already a water-stressed country. Its population has increased fourfold since 1947. Meanwhile, the country’s water storage...
Published on: November 2, 2025
Beyond the blank slate
P ublic debate about Pakistan’s schools predictably circles around the same list: the millions of out-of-school children, low enrolment and retention, poor teacher-student ratios, underqualified staff and a centralised, dated curriculum. Then there is the widening gap between formal...
Published on: November 2, 2025
Another path to prosperity
J ust as oil shaped the geopolitics in the 20th Century, critical minerals have come to define the new frontier of economic value, determining which nations lead the clean energy transition. The history of human development has always been closely associated with the quest for gold, oil and...
Published on: October 26, 2025
Problematic obedience
Hannah Arendt’s insight into the psychology of obedience finds deep resonance—and some challenge—in the work of social psychologists who have explored how ordinary people become complicit in harm. The classic experiments of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo are especially...
Published on: October 26, 2025
Tolerated inequality
I n June this year, the World Economic Forum released the 19th edition of its Global Gender Gap Report, ranking Pakistan at the bottom . The report measures countries’ progress towards gender parity on four key dimensions: economic participation and opportunity; educational...
Published on: October 26, 2025
Commuting challenges for students
A student died in a road accident in Karachi on October 10. Protests erupted soon after. The protesting students demanded justice for the deceased and better transport facilities for all students. This was not an isolated tragedy. Many university, school and college students have died in...
Published on: October 26, 2025
Scars that do not fade
W hen I first saw Aami Shoro in Thatta, she was sitting in a wheelchair under a makeshift shelter, working on an appliqué artwork. The colours of her embroidery stood out against the dullness of her surroundings and shone in the afternoon sun. At first, she looked like any other lady...
Published on: October 26, 2025
The disasters are here
P akistan is learning the hard way that you cannot cut down your natural defences and expect to survive the storms. The landslides that bury villages in the north, the floods that submerge farmlands in the Punjab and Sindh and the deadly smog that poisons entire cities in winter are not...
Published on: October 26, 2025
A master architect
I n a world increasingly defined by rapid industrial expansion, concrete blocks and consumerist patterns, meeting architect Kamil Khan Mumtaz is like finding an oasis of genuine thought amid the desert of recycled ideas.Over a cup of tea in a peaceful corner of his workplace, his profound...
Published on: October 26, 2025
The weight of moral power
S ince the 1970s, feminist thinkers on non-violence have been trying to redefine what power means. Their call was to move away from the traditional notions of domination and control to authenticity and integrity, aligning self with one’s deepest values. Reconnecting inner belief with...
Published on: October 26, 2025
Development through creative destruction
T he 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for their pioneering work explaining how innovation fuels long-term economic growth. Their research helps us understand why, for the first time in human history, the world has seen...
Published on: October 19, 2025
The fragile architecture of human progress
T he measure of a civilisation is not the expanse of its empires, the height of its monuments or the sophistication of its technology. Rather, it is its ability to nurture peace — within its own society and with its neighbours. The civilising process, as Norbert Elias theorised,...
Published on: October 19, 2025
Impersonation scams
“I couldn’t believe it. My WhatsApp account had been hacked. For 24 hours, I fought to regain access with the help of a tech-savvy friend,” recalled Muhammad Hussain , a professor at a leading university in Karachi. “During that time, my contacts began receiving...
Published on: October 19, 2025
Custodial standards for crypto assets
T he federal government’s announcement about the Pakistan Crypto Council marks a significant step in the country’s regulation of digital assets. Formally established under the directives of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, the council has been tasked with developing a regulatory...
Published on: October 19, 2025
October and beyond
C ancer remains one of the leading causes of death across the world. It was responsible for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020 - about one in six, globally. The most common cancers include breast, lung, colorectal and prostate cancers. In 2022, breast cancer caused an estimated 670,000 deaths...
Published on: October 19, 2025
Invest in literacy, not privatisation
E ducation in Pakistan faces a crossroads, especially in the Punjab, where policies increasingly favour privatisation rather than direct investment in public schools. In the recent decade, many schools have been transferred to private operators via public-private partnerships to enhance...
Published on: October 19, 2025
A surgeon's journey
W hen Jindan Mai fell and fractured her hip, her husband, Bashir Ahmad Chadoha, thought the challenge would be getting her back on her feet. But the ordeal began when he tried to find her a doctor. From their village in Yazman, Bahawalpur, he went looking far and wide for a female...
Published on: October 19, 2025
A committed parliamentarian
A gha Siraj Khan Durrani, Pakistan Peoples Party stalwart and three-time speaker of the Sindh Assembly, leaves behind a towering political legacy. His political career spanned four decades. His name was once synonymous with the speaker’s chair — a position his father and an...
Published on: October 19, 2025
Empowering the youth through skills
A s Pakistan navigates a rapidly changing economic landscape, the importance of technical and vocational education and training has never been more evident. I recently had the privilege to attend a two-day international dialogue on TVET in the Shifting Socio-Economic Paradigm. The dynamic...
Published on: October 12, 2025
Exceptions as the rule
Human history is full of formal pledges to equality, rights and rule of law. However, the lived reality has typically been the opposite: exceptions, privileges and uneven application of rules are the persistent pattern. Constitutions, codes and liberal ideals have repeatedly co-existed with...
Published on: October 12, 2025
Repositioning for dispute resolution
T he third Pakistan International Disputes Weekend is on October 11-12. More than ceremonial optimism, the moment demands institutional introspection. The PIDW is not merely a legal congregation; it is a reformist intervention aimed at recalibrating Pakistan’s global posture in...
Published on: October 12, 2025
Forgotten talent
T he High-Level General Debate of the 80th United Nations General Assembly was held in New York. National leaders spoke under the theme Better Together to address overlapping crises, shrinking aid budgets, climate urgency and economic fragility.The numbers are sobering. Global defence...
Published on: October 12, 2025
Empowering girls through policy
P icture a 12-year-old girl in Pakistan who dreams of building bridges to connect her community to the world — but whose village has no secondary school for girls. Too often, such dreams are extinguished long before they can ignite. Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number...
Published on: October 12, 2025
Alliances beyond boundaries
Group photo from the Learning Fiesta – Parhay Pakistan. F or Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, 2025 is not just another year, it is an institutional milestone. The ITA proudly marks 25 years of a mission-driven journey to understand and address the barriers children face in accessing...
Published on: October 12, 2025
Urban growth and rising waters
W hen heavy monsoon rains lashed Mingora in August this year, the city’s main bazaar once again turned into a shallow river. Water rushed down from the hills and found no outlet. Instead, it surged through streets, flooded homes and stranded commuters. For thousands of residents, the...
Published on: October 12, 2025
When the levee breaks
P akistan’s recurring floods are too often portrayed as unavoidable acts of nature. Yet the devastation unfolding this year underscores a different reality, that these are not purely natural disasters but the product of extractive development and ecological neglect. The River Indus...
Published on: October 12, 2025
Past Recast: Israel's last laugh
Recent maneuvers in New York and Washington have rekindled hopes for the endurance of the Abraham Accords, a framework that had appeared to falter under the weight of unrelenting Israeli intransigence. President Donald Trump, its self-styled architect-in-chief, seems to have breathed new life into...
Published on: October 4, 2025
Economic impact of flood devastation
F loods in recent years, especially since 2022, have caused losses measured in tens of billions of dollars, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes and wiped out large tracts of farmland and livestock.These floods have also severely damaged transport, water, education and health...
Published on: October 5, 2025
Ageing as opportunity
O n October 1, the world marked the UN International Day of Older Persons. For many in Pakistan, this may seem like a distant issue, since our public discourse is still dominated by the celebrated “youth bulge.” Yet the numbers tell a different story. More than 13 million...
Published on: October 5, 2025