But there is a greater tragedy. And that is the inability of those in power to approach the crisis in Balochistan with any empathy and political will to heal. The causes of the ailment have been discussed at length — the alienation of the people; the rise of the middle class youth and the roots of its anger; the absence of a genuine political process. It is a political problem that needs a political solution, along with counter-insurgency operations.

The people need healing and for that there has to be a dialogue with those in the political mainstream and also those who have been imprisoned. Instead, there are unrepresentative governments, harsh language, jail sentences, enforced disappearances and sheer use of violence. And it hasn’t worked. Last week’s events illustrated as much.

This is not just anecdotal information. Research reports show the increasing number of attacks in Balochistan. A recent report — Cognitive Warfare and Insurgent Legitimacy by the Institute of Regional Studies — details the TTP’s communication strategy, pointing out that while attacks in KP fell by 57 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, they increased by 84pc in Balochistan. But it is not just about the attention-drawing attacks; even otherwise, there is hardly any state writ in the province outside of a few areas. By all accounts, it is next to impossible to drive around the province, despite the chief minister’s claims that he drove to Ziarat in a non-bullet proof car. But then, he and other government officials are unwilling to acknowledge the crisis there, let alone addressing it.

Those in power are unable to approach the crisis in Balochistan with the political will to heal.

This time, as previously, they spared little effort to demonstrate that there is going to be no change in strategy. From the prime minister to provincial officials to those who manage security, each tragedy provides an opportunity to express grief, condemnation and announce a resolve to go after each and every terrorist. There is no debate on the failures and the need for a change in tactics or strategy. The state reaction is now a formality bereft of any meaning. Despite this, the recent attacks have not only highlighted familiar issues but have also brought into focus some new aspects.

The presence of organisations such as the TTP or other similar terrorists in parts of Balochistan is now confirmed. If earlier this was whispered, it is now being publicly acknowledged by the government and the military whose media talk after the three recent attacks made this clear, as did other statements. It appears that the events near Quetta and in Ziarat are being linked to them rather than Baloch militants. And the presence of the Taliban appears to be in the Pakhtun parts of Balochistan. People familiar with the province say that their presence dates back to the fall of Kabul but that their ‘activity’ is more recent.

Second, the anger of the people on the appearance of the terrorists and what they see as the ‘betrayal’ or apathy of the government officials is more than obvious. From the protest sit-ins to their statements on social media, the anger is palpable. Their anger is not just about attacks and the loss of life but also the manner in which the ill-equipped policemen were left to defend themselves. Questions were also raised about why the men were sent there, why there was no back-up and why did requests for help go unanswered. The protesters are alleging that relatives had to arrange for bringing the bodies of some of the martyred men themselves with little official help.

It is hard to know how correct all of this is because official circles keep ignoring these social media conversations. It may be far better to address the allegations head on, as well as address the feelings of alienation among some of the protesters. This would go a long way in addressing some other reports about police resignations. The morale of those supposed to lead the operations should be critical at such moments.

A linked point here is that in the absence of a clear ‘narrative’ (a popular word these days) from the government, the vacuum will be filled by problematic stories and accounts. This is already obvious because it seems some of the local residents are now convinced of some deeper conspiracy behind the rising terrorist attacks; some of them have voiced the idea that a security situation is being created to take over land.

This is rather reminiscent of the later years of Musharraf and afterwards, when the people of the afflicted districts in then Fata and KP questioned the state’s actual intentions towards the Taliban. As the attacks grew, it was a commonly held perception that the government was reluctant to fight. This simply allowed the Taliban to gain strength and wreak havoc. And once the military operations began in earnest, there was a concerted effort to convince the people and those fighting that the threat was real and existential. In fact, in some ways, the effort to change public perceptions began before the fighting.

In other words, to some of us it seems the failure of those in power to address the public perception is an admission that there is little will to address the crisis in Balochistan. Not so far.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2026

Pinpointed precision with which the well-planned genocide is being executed in Gaza borrows inevitably from ancient myths. The Egyptian pharaoh ordered all newborn babies to be killed to reverse his oracle’s prediction that one Moses among the children would bring his doom. The CIA reportedly used the legend of the pharaoh’s cruelties as depicted in the Cecil B. DeMille movie to superimpose it on its bête noire, one Joseph Stalin. The precision targeting of the infant’s head in Gaza is documented with invaluable detail by Justice S. Muralidhar, chairperson of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The report was released late last month, and it observes among other atrocities the fact that Palestinian children were being strategically killed and maimed to fulfil the mythical promise of a Greater Israel. One Zionist officer who ordered the hail of bullets to mow down the little Hind Rajab in her mangled car, however, was blown up recently by a Hezbollah guerrilla. But that act of retribution hasn’t deterred the continued killing of Palestinians, overwhelmingly the children. Of the six million Jews that Adolf Hitler murdered, over a quarter were children. The Nazi rationale for the inhumanity lay in their penchant for a combination of logistics and racism. There just was no need, the tyrants concluded, to arrange for food for the unemployable children. The driving factor tipping the balance against the victims was their condemnation by the Nazis of being an inferior race. Like we hear ‘termite’ for Indian Muslims of late.

The slaughter in Gaza is a one-way street but the planned elimination of a people in their occupied lands to fulfil some oracle’s command has crucially not left a few young Israeli soldiers unsinged. In fact, some of the more horrific details of the ongoing bloodletting and torture has come from those who carried out their orders but were unprepared for the toll it would take on their conscience. Brutality and remorse are both human traits but in a perpetually adverse ratio. Shakespeare had observed them both.

A report released last month observes how Palestinian children were being strategically killed and maimed to fulfil the mythical promise of a Greater Israel.

“I have given suck and know/ How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me./ I would, while it was smiling in my face,/ Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,/ And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you/ Have done to this.” Lady Macbeth’s cold-hearted rebuke to her unhelpful husband was telling him she would kill her own infant if its life posed an obstruction to the throne she sought for Macbeth. The latent violence sprang from a macabre human trait and its equally gory lore. She wanted the king, her trusting guest for the night, to be killed in cold blood to usurp his throne. Shakespeare didn’t conjure the plot. He shared what he knew as a common lore or a slice of history.

That Macbeth was getting cold feet betrayed a human element in the once valiant general. The chilling soliloquy in the dagger scene captures the would-be killer’s inner turmoil and guilt as he hallucinates a bloody weapon floating in the air, drawing him towards the murder of King Duncan. ‘Banquo’s ghost’, after Macbeth kills another friend, is an oft-used phrase to describe the re-enactment of the crime in the killer’s nightmares. Take Lady Macbeth’s trauma, which surfaces in her relentless washing of her hands to remove invisible bloodstains she didn’t expect.

Killing of fathers or brothers or one’s entire family has been lore and history in the path of gaining power, or, in some cases, in finding salvation. But none has been as powerless before the timeless threat as infants and children. Too readily they fall victim to the mysterious voice cited in pseudo-religious texts that seals their fate. At times, there are different precepts at play in choosing a male or a female victim. For the Jewish extremists killing both, regardless of the gender, has been kosher since they were both deemed to be the Amalek. While the Amalek were cousins of ancient Israelites, according to Jewish belief, they turned upon each other as sworn enemies. The current definition conjured by Benjamin Netanyahu damns the Palestinians as the Amalek. For other Zionists, Iranians can’t be far behind. Ignore the fact that their hatred is malleable and opportunistic. Until 1979, Iran and Israel were thick as thieves in a pact against Arab nationalism. In any case, is it possible that an Amalek ceases to be an Amalek if they sign the Abraham Accords?

The male child has featured in political challenges, and the female child is mostly targeted as a socially defined burden in its patriarchal milieu. The stories of Krishna and Moses, from the Hindu and Abrahamic lore target boys. Both were marked to be murdered in their infancy after the oracles of their respective rulers saw them as bringing doom to them as adults. The pharaoh’s mass murder of male babies sought to vacate the threat of a Moses. In the Indian tradition, King Kansa, the uncle of Krishna, his would-be killer throws a similar dragnet to eliminate male babies. Both were rescued from the river in reed baskets. A YouTube clip of a convicted killer in the Gujarat pogroms shows him gloating about putting a foetus to sword after ripping it from the mother’s womb. Similar exultations were heard in Iraq when IS was on the rampage to placate its own oracle.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2026

In Pakistan, English-medium schools come with the promise of equipping students with future skills. Reading and comprehension lie at the core of success in all subjects, critical thinking, problem-solving and digital capability. Yet, we are not able to develop these skills in any language. In theory, English-medium schools are expected to immerse students in English to build proficiency across subjects. In practice, however, many teachers revert to code-switching or full reliance on first languages due to their own limited command of English.

For example, in a Class 5 science class in an urban public school, a teacher may read a textbook paragraph in English but immediately translate it into Urdu, explaining concepts entirely in the local language. While this makes the lesson temporarily accessible, it prevents students from developing the academic English vocabulary necessary for communication.

In many schools, first language intervention dilutes English learning. First languages, often used in classroom instruction, result in increasing learning gaps, especially as the students answer exam questions in English but do not have the power of self-expression in English. Students fall into the habit of copying answers and learning them up. In formal assessments, cookie-cut answers are common. Tutors are paid to help students prepare answers that can be regurgitated in exams. The disconnect between classroom practice and assessments pushes students towards taking shortcuts.

Policy measures fail to resolve the learning gaps.

The language conundrum persists as policy measures fail to resolve the learning gaps. Schools are left to navigate conflicting expectations: teach in English for examination success, use Urdu for accessibility, and respect regional languages for cultural legitimacy. The result is a fragmented and confusing linguistic environment.

Traditionally, provincial governments and language activists have advocated for mother tongue education, while parents want English-medium instruction. In Sindh, debates around introducing Sindhi as a medium of instruction in early grades sparked strong reactions from urban families who believed their children would be disadvantaged in competitive exams dominated by English.

Shortcuts such as learning prepared answers throw students into disadvantage for life. The learning gaps worsen over time, confidence and motivation take a hit and academics become more challenging. This ongoing struggle can be addressed through innovation and commitment.

Blended learning strategies can bring students up to speed with audio and visual support, with content that can be revisited repeatedly, with digital worksheets that provide an opportunity for trial and error. If exams are in English, classroom instruction must prepare students accordingly, rather than relying on rote memorisation in another language. In fact, blended content can support teachers as much as it supports students’ learning. Teachers get a chance to improve their language and subject expertise, practise on their own and equip themselves with new classroom strategies. Gradually, the focus will begin to shift from a scramble to cover the syllabus to active engagement with content.

Children engage with content when they are motivated with colourful layouts, picture pro­mpts, videos and expe­r­iments they can explore on their own. Coupled with the teacher’s expertise in structured and immersive instruction, students can begin to develop the skills to learn independently. Over­reliance on teachers leads to dejection and loss of hope in one’s own ability to read, understand and analyse.

Students with weak English-language proficiency struggle on multiple levels. English proficiency becomes a gatekeeper to higher education and employment, while inconsistent language practices in schools perpetuate disadvantage for already marginalised students. The good news though is that technology and particularly AI offers access and opportunity.

As technology evolves, there’s immense opportunity to leverage digital learning tools to support teachers and students alike. But at the heart of the effort is the need for motivation and commitment. The barriers are not permanent and can be overcome with access to digital tools and professional development of teachers.

The writer is an author, teacher educator and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK. The views expressed are her own and do not reflect the views of her employer.

neda.mulji@gmail.com

X: @nedamulji

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2026

Muhammad Iqbal was arrested at 17. He spent 21 years in prison before the courts realised that he had been a child at the time of the offence and released him. While Iqbal waited in jail, Pakistan saw six prime ministers come and go, Facebook was invented. Smartphones changed the world. An entire generation of Pakistanis was born, grew up and became adults. When justice arrives after 21 years, can we still call it justice?

Mazhar Hussain and Muhammad Iqbal are not isolated cases. Countless prisoners throughout the country face delayed justice — often when it is too late. The reason is simple. Pakistan’s prisons system is overburdened and overpopulated. Our prisons house more than 113,000 people against a capacity for fewer than 69,000. New punitive laws passed regularly further fuel the rate of incarceration in the country.

Most importantly, approximately three out of every four prisoners has not been convicted for any crime. They are waiting for justice: for an investigation to finish, or bail, or to be produced before a court. Pretrial detention should be the exception — but in Pakistan, it is the default response. Pakistan’s prison debate treats overcrowding as an engineering problem. The fixes follow this logic: more barracks, digitised records, trained staff, repaired hospitals. Much of this is needed but it misses where the crowding comes from. A prison population is built by decisions made long before anyone reaches a cell; for starters, new punitive laws that widen what counts as an offence and how harshly it is punished — from narcotics to public order. And with too many arrests that could have been mere warnings, and remands and further remands, which are now routine procedure. Bail is granted on paper but denied in practice simply because the accused can’t arrange surety.

When justice arrives after 21 years, can we still call it justice?

Drug cases show this acutely. Many prisoners held under the narcotics law are there for possession or low-level possession. Conviction rates remain dismally low — around three per cent to 5pc. Yet the 2022 amendments to the Control of Narcotic Substances Act restricts parole, probation and remission for drug offences, closing off tools that might have kept people with addiction out of prison. A person struggling with addiction is jailed, not treated.

The criminalisation of poverty impacts overcrowding just as reliably. Bail exists on paper but liberty depends on cash, paperwork and a bank balance. A person accused of a minor offence can stay in jail simply because he can’t afford to leave.

Children make this most visible. The Juvenile Justice System Act guarantees legal representation and diversion, but children still enter jails without a lawyer. In practice, hardly a single case of diversion has actually gone through. At Adiala, we found that of 82 juvenile prisoners, 79 were under trial and 29 had no legal representation.

Delay lies underneath all of this. Each adjournment looks routine in a case file. For someone inside, it is another day added to a sentence that hasn’t been handed down. None of this gets fixed by better prison management alone. We need bail reform, scrutiny of remand decisions, legal aid that reaches people early. Courts could review long-pending under-trial cases from inside prisons, prioritising children, women and persons with disabilities.

All this is not to say that conditions inside prisons do not need attention. Overcrowding worsens heat, disease, sanitation and violence and makes abuse easier to hide. The National Commission on Human Rights’ work on torture shows the need for complaint mechanisms that are independent and capable of producing consequences. Pakistan’s prison rules should also match the Mandela Rules and Bangkok Rules: healthcare, sanitation, legal access, family contact and protection from violence are the baseline of lawful custody.

There is a genuine opening now. The Law and Justice Commission has brought the judiciary, provincial governments, prison departments and human rights institutions into one conversation on prison reform. That is only useful if it changes what the system does; not just what it says. Reform will only ring true when no Pakistani has to wait 17 years to be declared innocent and no child becomes a middle-aged man before the justice system recognises his rights.

We cannot give back to Mazhar Hussain the life he lost during 17 years in custody. We cannot return Muhammad Iqbal the youth that was taken from him. But if we can ensure that their stories are not repeated, that would be reform indeed.

The writer is the chairperson of the National Commission for Human Rights.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2026

None of this bodes well for peace in the Gulf, and if the brinksmanship continues, a return to full-scale war is inevitable. There can be little doubt that the roots of this crisis lie in the unprovoked US-Israeli aggression against Iran. Both these states thought they had played a masterstroke by eliminating Iran’s top civilian leaders, such as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani. Perhaps they thought these assassinations would cause the Islamic Republic to implode. However, in their hubris, Washington and Tel Aviv may have actually killed any chance of compromise with Tehran, clearing the way for hard-line factions within Iran, led by the Pasdaran, to get in the driver’s seat. Though the late Khamenei was a top cleric, ideologue and dyed-in-the-wool revolutionary, he maintained a cautious balance in foreign policy. Similarly, Ali Larijani was a pragmatic, seasoned player who could have steered his country towards a dignified exit from the war. But today, many of those around the new supreme leader, particularly IRGC commanders, apparently believe in an ‘eye for an eye’ when it comes to the US and Israel, and do not appear to favour the diplomatic process. The counterattacks on US allies in the region support this observation.

In order to save the peace process, Iran’s political class need to take control of the narrative. Moreover, there must be flexibility within the Iranian establishment towards the Hormuz question, where national interests are balanced by the rights of fellow littoral states and the international community. For its part, the US should halt all attacks on Iran if the MoU is to be saved. It is incumbent on regional countries to clearly inform the US that further escalation will lead the entire Middle East towards a destructive new phase of the war.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2026

The targeted killing of workers from Punjab is not a new development. Over the years, workers and travellers hailing from Punjab have been singled out after identity checks on highways or at their places of work. Such attacks deepen ethnic divisions and spread fear among ethnic minorities. Those who incite hatred or seek to justify such crimes do no service to Balochistan or to the legitimate aspirations of its people. Instead, they perpetuate instability, discourage investment and development, and inflict suffering on the very communities whose cause they claim to champion. Preventing such attacks needs far more than periodic crackdowns, warnings of stern action or ritual condemnations. It demands better intelligence, more effective policing and stronger coordination among security agencies. Breaking the cycle of violence requires dismantling the networks, support structures and conditions that enable such acts, while those responsible must be identified, prosecuted and punished in accordance with the law. However, experience has repeatedly shown that security operations alone cannot deliver enduring stability. The deeper roots of Balochistan’s insecurity cannot be ignored. Achieving long-term peace would mean addressing the province’s long-standing political, economic and governance deficits that have fuelled alienation among the people. That said, it is important to note that violence, particularly against ordinary people, can never be tolerated or rationalised. Balochistan deserves peace, development and the rule of law. So do workers from Punjab or any other place. Until the cycle of ethnic killings is broken and the underlying drivers of conflict are addressed, the claims of durable stability in Balochistan will remain difficult to sustain.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2026

People who brave treacherous waters in rickety boats in their pursuit of a better life abroad are not criminals but victims of dire socioeconomic conditions. Treating the indigent harshly is not effective. It is, in fact, a distraction from the absence of social welfare policies. The state must guarantee the rights of victims of human trafficking and smuggling so that they choose to stay. It must counter corruption, powerful patronage, legal loopholes and the culture of criminal impunity. Without an institutional overhaul, databanks, training, funds and incentives for law-enforcement, toxic transnational cartels will expand. The West, responsible for most conflicts, can fork out a fraction of its expenditure on wars to secure sufferers, while those escaping our moribund economy should be facilitated — for instance, by raising their outrageously low wages. The traps oftrafficking rings widen as poverty and turmoil grow as revealed in the 2025 IOM report: at least 2,722 illegal migrants from the Asia-Pacific region died or went missing, with Pakistan’s score standing at a disturbing 109. When rulers undercut citizens’ living standards, and allow predators to get away with fines, the blame cannot be pinned on the victims.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2026

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is still catastrophic. Even as Israeli strikes continue in violation of the ceasefire, the world has moved on — its focus fixed instead on the US-Iran conflict and talks for a negotiated deal. Regional powers too have pulled away. Gaza has been relegated to the sidelines. This has left the peace plan in limbo and disarray.

Now Hamas is trying to change that and seize the attention of the international community. Last week, it announced it would transfer power in Gaza, where it was a de facto government for two decades, to a committee of technocrats. Called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), this transitional body of Palestinian technocrats was established in January under President Donald Trump’s peace plan. It was meant to assume governance in the Strip and work under the supervision of the Board of Peace (BoP). This, along with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops, Hamas’s disarmament and the Strip’s demilitarisation was to take place in the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan. The first phase involved the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

None of this happened. The NCAG was given no resources and remains stuck in Cairo in the face of Israeli opposition to its entry into Gaza. The international stabilisation force has yet to be deployed. The BoP has remained mostly inert and advanced little on any front. It has been mired in legal and political problems with the official fund for the Board having no cash. In an appalling move, the BoP announced last week that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, “has no place in the new Gaza”. The Palestinian leadership condemned this as elimination of the refugee question. The Board also plans a ‘closed’ pilot ‘humanitarian zone’ in southern Gaza ostensibly to accommodate thousands of ‘vetted’ Palestinians. This controversial move is widely seen as incompatible with international humanitarian law and amounting to forced displacement of the population.

With the US-Iran confrontation dragging on prospects are dim for progress on the Gaza plan.

Hamas says it will relinquish governance “to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination”. With this, the Palestinian resistance group disbanded its governing body. The aim is to mount pressure on Israel, expose the impediments it has placed in the path of any forward movement and kick-start the stalled peace process by pushing the BoP to move. Israel has dismissed Hamas’s announcement. Its foreign minister dubbed it “a trick” to avoid disarming.

The Board has taken note of it but said its assessment “will be guided by actions, not promises”. It added that all weapons in Gaza should be under the control of the NCAG. Hamas didn’t say anything about giving up weapons. It had made it clear from the very start it would only do that when Israel delivers on its commitment to withdraw from Gaza and end its occupation. Hamas also insists a Palestinian administration must be in place before it considers disarming. Disarmament cannot happen unless a civilian Palestinian authority is up and running in Gaza because otherwise who does Hamas hand over weapons to?

Israel now occupies around 60pc of Gaza. Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his military to seize 70pc of the Strip. Meanwhile, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz declared Israeli forces would remain in what he described as “security zones” in Gaza for an indefinite period, with no timetable for withdrawal.

The move by Hamas may be symbolic but it can easily be tested by allowing the transitional 13-member Palestinian technocratic committee, headed by Ali Shaath, to enter Gaza and take over the enclave’s day-to-day governance. It is Israel that is blocking that. Talks in Cairo have taken place between Palestinian factions including Hamas and BoP representatives, as well as mediators Qatar and Turkiye. But the Hamas-Israel deadlock continues over implementation of the second phase of the peace plan.

What happens next depends on several factors. The most important is how engaged and interested the Trump administration is in pushing the Gaza plan forward. For now, it is entirely preoccupied with the latest flare-up of tensions with Iran. The US and Iran traded military strikes last week and Washington rescinded the licence allowing sales of Iranian oil. Trump declared the ceasefire with Iran is over. But he also said talks will continue. Nevertheless, the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding hangs in the balance. Trump’s impatience, Iran’s hardened position after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral and the clash over control of the Strait of Hormuz are contributing to the escalation of tensions. This won’t revive Washington’s focus on Gaza. The longer the US-Iran confrontation drags on, attention will be diverted from Gaza.

There is also the question of how much the US is prepared to press Israel to comply with its commitments under the plan. So far it has turned a blind eye to Israeli expansion of areas in its control and its continuing destruction of Gaza. Statements from Washington demand Hamas should disarm but say nothing about the almost daily Israeli strikes on Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian assistance or the gradual Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. The US also said nothing as Israel carried out de facto annexation of the West Bank, conducted deadly raids and engaged in ethnic cleansing of the Bedouin and herding communities. With Netanyahu facing re-election in fall amid dwindling public support, this makes him even less willing to push ahead with the peace plan.

These developments are undermining the prospects for advancement on the Gaza plan. Once again, Palestinians were promised peace, but instead got death, destruction and endless suffering.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2026

In fact, the report comes across as an overwhelmingly technocratic exercise. It catalogues institutional weaknesses, distils lessons from selected federations and decentralised systems, and recommends clearer expenditure assignments, stronger provincial revenue mobilisation, NFC Award reforms, more transparent fiscal transfers, effective intergovernmental coordination and empowered local governments (LG). In principle, few would disagree. The problem is that the report treats the recommendations as technical solutions to what are essentially political problems, thus displaying only a superficial appreciation of Pakistan’s political economy, the constitutional agreement underpinning federal-provincial ties and the political bargaining that has shaped the country’s fiscal architecture. Its framework assumes that improved technical arrangements can create the political conditions necessary for their success. In reality, these conditions are prerequisites, not outcomes, of institutional reform. Political incentives shape institutions, not vice-versa.

The report rightly criticises Islamabad’s lavish spending on devolved subjects, resulting in wasteful duplication, blurred accountability and widening fiscal imbalances. Yet it hardly examines the incentives that extend this encroachment into provincial domains. The answer lies not in administrative confusion but in the political economy: preserving patronage networks, protecting bureaucratic empires and career paths, federal accommodation of donor-funded projects to support the balance of payments, and keeping influence over sectors assigned to other tiers of government.

The provinces aren’t blameless either. They have shown little enthusiasm for empowering LGs and are unwilling to undertake politically costly taxation of their own bases because their annual fiscal surpluses have to be transferred to finance federal deficits. These are deliberate political incentives and not technical oversights. Yet incentives receive only passing attention because they do not easily fit into the technocratic narrative.

For decades, the World Bank championed decentralisation. Now that narrative has changed.

The World Bank’s own intellectual journey is revealing. For decades, it championed decentralisation as the pathway to greater accountability, stronger provincial ownership and better public services. It welcomed the 18th Amendment and made available resources to assist the provinces to manage their expanded mandate. Now that Pakistan faces acute fiscal stress, the narrative has changed; decentralisation is being portrayed as a source of fragmentation, duplication and macroeconomic instability. Both propositions contain some elements of truth. What the report never explains is how an arrangement once celebrated as a democratic and developmental breakthrough has become a principal source of fiscal dysfunction. Nor does it ask the uncomfortable question: whether the bank’s own advice had underestimated the institutional and political prerequisites necessary for successful decentralisation.

For decades, the World Bank has been among the most active actors in Pakistan’s development landscape. It has poured billions of dollars through structural adjustment programmes, the Social Action Programme, governance reforms, public expenditure reviews, tax administration projects, institutional strengthening initiatives and countless technical assistance missions, advising, financing, monitoring and evaluating virtually every major sector of the economy. Few institutions can claim to have exercised comparable influence over Pakistan’s public policy. Yet throughout this prolonged engagement the bank rarely confronted the constitutional contradictions and structural flaws in Pakistan’s fiscal architecture as binding constraints on the effectiveness of the very programmes it financed — the success of which depended upon institutional arrangements whose weaknesses it now presents as startling discoveries.

It appears to have stumbled on to the weaknesses in expenditure assignments, revenue authority and intergovernmental fiscal transfers, presenting them as though they were newly emerging threats. But these weaknesses were never consistently elevated as central policy concerns during decades of intensive engagement. They did not emerge overnight. They were embedded in the system all along.

So, when the report cites poor learning outcomes, weak health indicators, inefficient public spending and deteriorating service delivery as evidence that fiscal federalism requires urgent correction, it is inadvertently delivering an indictment of a development model in which the World Bank itself was a central participant. Nor are these revelations path-breaking to anyone familiar with Pakistan’s policy debates. Domestic economists, constitutional experts, numerous policy commissions and successive NFC deliberations have highlighted the tension between expenditure decentralisation and revenue centralisation. None of this was hidden. None of it emerged suddenly.

Development is undeniably difficult. External institutions cannot engineer political settlements or constitutional consensus. A federation is not a corporation whose success can be measured solely through efficiency indicators and fiscal ratios. Pakistan’s federal structure emerged from a political compact intended to address long-standing provincial grievances and perceptions of excessive centralisation. Any assessment that emphasises administrative and fiscal efficiency while relegating political considerations to the margins will produce an incomplete diagnosis.

To be fair, the report occasionally acknowledges these political dimensions. Yet they remain peripheral. The implicit message remains that better formulas, stronger coordination bodies and mechanisms, and improved fiscal rules will somehow overcome problems rooted in political power, constitutional history and distrust between governments. The report’s technical observations are generally sound. Pakistan does need clearer expenditure responsibilities, stronger provincial revenue effort, transparent fiscal transfers, effective LGs and more coherent intergovernmental coordination. But none of these reforms will survive unless they alter the incentives that have frustrated every previous reform attempt.

This is where the report falls short. It implicitly presents its diagnosis as a novel discovery while avoiding any serious self-reflection. A credible assessment would have included a chapter titled, ‘What we got wrong’. After decades of advising governments, financing reforms, evaluating institutions and shaping public policy, the World Bank should ask itself how an institution so deeply involved in the country’s development arrived so late to a conclusion that Pakistanis had identified all along.

The writer is a former governor of the State Bank.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2026

The latest Labour Force Survey 2024-25 shows that nearly three-fourths of the population aged 15-29 is not enrolled in any formal educational programme. Predictably, literacy levels remain low, with nearly a quarter of the segment unable to read or write simple statements with understanding. This educational exclusion poses serious long-term implications for their overall productivity and employability.

Beyond ‘aura farming’, these young Pakistanis have few productive endeavours to engage in. Access to skills development opportunities remains particularly weak with nearly nine out of 10 young individuals reporting having never received any form of vocational, technical or professional training. Due to the lack of structured programmes, many resort to unpaid and informal apprenticeships with limited prospects of progression.

In the absence of effective transitions from learning to work, large segments of the youth population are absorbed into informal, low-productivity activities that offer neither stability nor upward mobility. According to data, only about one-fifth of the young population is engaged in paid work. The nature of jobs available is also highly concerning as most of the work does not qualify as decent employment. A large share of this population is engaged in informal agricultural work, or employed in small, unregistered private enterprises.

Policymakers must give serious consideration to youth pathways.

More than 80 per cent of these young workers are employed without any written contract, and nearly a quarter work on a daily-wage basis. According to data, more than three-fourths work beyond the 48-hour workweek, with some even working up to 98 hours. This translates into an average of 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Despite such long working hours, returns remain low, with nearly 94pc earning less than the minimum wage of Rs37,000 per month. In many cases, workers are exposed to hazardous conditions, and routinely endure physical and verbal abuse, while wage payments are often delayed.

Among the working youth, the benefits of economic participation are unevenly distributed in favour of males. Females account for only about 13pc of the employed youth population, highlighting the persistence of social and cultural norms that constrain women’s access to economic opportunities. Despite the perception of this cohort as the most ‘woke’ generation to date, data shows that many of the barriers faced by women in previous generations remain firmly embedded today, highlighting the urgency for targeted policy action.

The role of social and cultural norms in defining gender roles is further reflected in labour market participation, where the proportion of females seeking paid work is roughly half that of males.

With a NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) rate of 54pc, policymakers must give serious consideration to youth pathw­ays beyond token schemes and rhe­toric. Rather than reflecting a lack of willingness am­­­ong young pe­­ople to engage productively, this figure points to­­wards the abs­e­nce of viable cha­nnels for quality training, and a smooth transition into decent employment.

Ultimately, this is not merely a youth issue, but a structural one rooted in a persistent lack of prioritisation, underinvestment in human capital, and weak alignment across relevant government departments, particularly provincial education, skills development, labour and youth departments. While many provincial policies and schemes are designed in the name of youth development, they are backed neither by budgets, nor political will. An effective response would require centring youth development across public policy design and implementation, with particular focus on decent employment generation.

Briefly, as long as marginal returns to public expenditure are measured in votes and political popularity, social sectors will remain underfunded and fragmented, risking the loss of an entire generation.

The writer is a development economist and policy consultant.

X: @AroojWDar

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2026

While mainly intended for the navy, it applies to all services more or less because such loose lips can also get planes shot down and annihilate infantry, armour and artillery divisions. Nowadays, it’s not just loose lips you have to worry about because loose fingers and thumbs and, in fact, loose apps, photos and browsers can easily do the job as well. And in this, the job of spies has, in many senses, become much easier. Instead of buying you drinks, they can now just buy your data.

In fact, you don’t even need spies as such because we’re constantly carrying around a rectangular spy in our pockets. Take a picture with your mobile phone right now and then open it in your gallery and you’ll see — in the details section — that the time the picture was taken is recorded and if location and app permissions are enabled, the exact longitude and latitude at which the picture was taken is also visible. If you were to upload such a picture, you may have revealed your location. Even if you were to scrub this metadata, geolocation is still possible, and there are countless ‘geoguessers’ online who do this as a hobby or a challenge; some can even locate a picture accurately with a minimum of visual clues and sometimes just by analysing the way the shadows are falling, all with easily available open-source tools. And if that’s what ‘ordinary’ people can do, imagine the resources state actors have.

During the US-led war on Iran, Centcom claimed to have received multiple threat reports about hostile actors exploiting commercial location data obtained from phone apps to target or surveil US personnel in the Gulf. This was no elaborate hacking scheme but the simple obtaining of the data that commercial apps — such as food delivery, ride-sharing or even weather apps — and ad tracking services collect on all users, all the time. The apps are used because they’re free and convenient, but the price we pay is our data and in a theatre of war, convenience can kill.

The job of spies has become much easier.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise; in 2017 the popular fitness app Strava — used by over 200 million people in 185 countries — released a heat map showing every single activity users had ever uploaded to Strava. Popular jogging and hiking tracks lit up on the map; the goal was to allow fitness fans to find popular routes and tracks and possibly meet other users.

However, it also inadvertently revealed military secrets as US soldiers using Strava clocked in on the app while deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. So, not only were the locations and perimeters of such bases now openly displayed — including some bases that were not officially supposed to exist — you could also determine which perimeters were patrolled when and what supply routes were used. Essentially, the soldiers’ pattern of life was available to all. No lessons were learned, and the location of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was inadvertently exposed when a French sailor decided to log his Strava run while on the deck of the carrier as it sailed the Mediterranean.

Then there are thr­eats that come wearing disguises; remember Pokemon Go!? This augmented reality game was laun­ch­­ed in 2016 and promptly swept the world, being hailed as a breakthrough that would finally get gamers off their chairs and into the real world where they would wander streets and parks looking for virtual pokemons to capture on their phone cameras. They would then congregate in locations designated as Pokemon gyms to ‘train’ their Pokemon and, in the process, hopefully meet actual people.

Pokemon also started appearing in military bases, prompting puzzled militaries to issue advisories warning people not to intrude into secure locations. But now we have learned that, while the game was free, Niantic, the company behind it, was actually using the real-world location images and videos to train AI for spatial recognition and navigation.

The devices thus trained range from delivery robots to military drones which would now have the capability to operate in areas where GPS signals were weak or else blocked, all thanks to the efforts of players who were unaware that they were, in fact, being played.

The writer is a journalist.

X: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2026

No doubt, raising SME lending’s share of private sector credit from 7pc to 10pc within two years and increasing the number of SME borrowers from 310,000 to 750,000 under the new Access to Finance Plan initiative are worthwhile aims. But are the banks incentivised enough to make these goals a reality?

That question lies at the centre of the chronic financing gap for SMEs. Together, Pakistan’s estimated 5m SMEs contribute nearly 40pc of GDP, a quarter of exports and around 80pc of non-agricultural employment. But barely 300,000 businesses have access to formal bank credit.

Banks often explain this failure in terms of risk. Their arguments are not without merit. Most SMEs lack audited financial statements and reliable cash-flow records. Weak legal enforcement, lengthy recovery procedures and information asymmetry further increase the cost of lending. Cash-flow-based lending requires better data, specialised underwriting, digital monitoring and relationship banking. From a commercial perspective, these concerns are legitimate.

But risk alone does not explain their exceptionally poor performance. Banks also operate in an environment where lending to the government offers attractive, virtually risk-free returns. Investing deposits in government securities requires far less effort, incurs lower operational costs and generates predictable profits without the complexities linked to financing thousands of small borrowers. When institutions earn comfortably by financing the sovereign, the motivation to develop expertise in SME or agricultural lending vanishes.

This leads to a banking culture that is comfortable with easy profits and reluctant to undertake the painstaking work of expanding financial inclusion. Recent experience reinforces that concern. Despite subsidised federal and provincial lending schemes and State Bank first-loss guarantees that reduce default risks, most commercial banks have avoided financing SMEs and agriculture. This is true even though the few participating banks have shown that technology, alternative data and cash-flow-based lending can manage risks. Banks that still stay away appear driven by inertia and easy government profits.

The issue was discussed at the Pakistan Banks’ Association’s second Banking Summit recently, where policymakers, regulators and bankers conceded that the current pattern of credit allocation was unsustainable. The finance minister urged banks to direct more financing towards sectors that generate employment, exports and productivity. Without the growth of SMEs and other priority sectors, the economy cannot sustain expansion in the long term. In that case, banks will have fewer viable borrowers. A banking system will not indefinitely prosper by recycling deposits into government securities while neglecting productive enterprise.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2026

The report’s most important message is that corruption in the justice system is about far more than bribes. It affects whether people receive a fair hearing and whether they believe the courts will treat everyone equally. When cases are delayed, influenced or appear to favour the well-connected, public confidence suffers, and those with the least money and influence pay the highest price. The report also finds that existing systems for investigating misconduct have done little to prevent wrongdoing or win public trust. It further warns that the lack of legal protection for whistleblowers discourages people from exposing corruption. Some of its recommendations, especially its call to repeal the 26th and 27th constitutional amendments, will divide opinion. But many others should attract broader support. Assigning cases through transparent rules, publishing court fees and hearing schedules online, requiring judges to declare their assets, investigating complaints promptly and protecting whistleblowers would all make the courts more open and accountable. Public confidence cannot be restored through promises alone. It will return when Pakistanis are convinced that justice depends on the law rather than on money, influence or political pressure.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2026

The problem is so severe that some brands reportedly sell chilli products with the ‘only for consumption in Pakistan’ label on them. The fact that they can do so is a cause for alarm. For a known cancer-causing agent to be present in high concentrations in a product used by almost everyone on a daily basis speaks to the lack of concern and understanding of regulators tasked with ensuring consumer safety. Though various bodies exist to regulate food safety, it seems the job is not approached with the scientific vigour it requires. Poor nutrition or unregulated food quality is not just a health risk; it is an economic one. Comprehensive standards must be drawn up to regulate the quality of, at the very least, the ingredients used regularly in local cuisine to prevent a future healthcare crisis. Farmers must not be left to fend for themselves, but coached on better food safety standards. It is imperative that action is taken soon.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2026

The finance minister had said ‘sanitary pads’ on the floor of the National Assembly, on live television, with the ease of a man reading out grain prices. The information minister then hailed the decision.

I thought immediately of my late editor, Tahir Mirza. In 2024, I wrote in this space about the complaints we received when a sanitary pad advertisement ran on the back page of a mid-week magazine I edited at this paper. Readers had written in. Colleagues had raised eyebrows. Mirza sahib took the calls in his stride. People need time to accept change, he said.

The noise in the Assembly hasn’t changed. The comfort with which those two words were said has.

The change did not come from government enlightenment. It was dragged in. In February, a colleague interviewed Mahnoor Omer, the young lawyer who took the government to court over the tax in September last year. She called Omer inspiring. Time Magazine thought so too when they named her one of their women of the year. She led an incredible awareness campaign.

Two decades ago, the fight was an advertisement on the back page of a magazine. Now it is a petition in the Lahore High Court. The battlefield moved from the newsroom to the courtroom, and it won. Mirza sahib had said people need time to accept change. The time, it turns out, was two decades.

The tax is gone but the shame at the counter remains.

But watch what happens at the counter. The tax is gone, and still the shopkeeper reaches for the brown paper bag the moment a woman picks up a packet of pads. Some stores keep the bags stacked beside the shelf, ready, so the wrapping can be done quickly. As if the transaction itself must be shortened. As if shame has a duration, and the kindest thing anyone can do is reduce it.

The finance minister can say the word in parliament. The object still cannot be seen crossing a counter. That is the distance between a word winning and a woman winning. And even this is the story of the woman who reached the counter at all.

So, what did the victory buy?

Here the numbers turn cold. A 2024 study by Unicef and WaterAid found that only 12 per cent of women and girls in Pakistan use commercially produced pads. The rest manage with cloth and improvised materials, many without clean water or a private toilet.

For the woman who was never at the counter, the tax cut changes nothing. You cannot discount your way to a customer who could not enter the shop.

Even for the women who can, the arithmetic is unfinished. The 18pc sales tax was removed, and the government also announced the removal of customs duty on imported sanitary pads. However, concerns remain about duties on some imported raw materials used by local manufacturers, which could continue to affect prices. Campaigners call the exemption a drop in the ocean.

And there is a warning from elsewhere: when Malawi scrapped its taxes on menstrual products, shelf prices did not move. The saving vanished somewhere between the treasury and the counter.

It has been a week since our exemption took effect. I’ll be checking whether the price of a packet has dropped by 18pc. Because, to reiterate: the brown paper bag is still at the checkout. The shopkeeper still reaches for it unasked. The shame still has its little rituals, and no budget line abolishes those.

And something else has not changed: the silence. The same speech that removed the tax on sanitary pads removed it on contraceptives. Almost no one has mentioned it. There were no celebrations, no headlines, no interviews. Perhaps because contraception has not yet found its Mahnoor Omer.

Consider what the airwaves tell us. Pemra allows ads confined to hours when few are watching, in language so carefully policed it can barely say what it is selling. No brand wants to build a campaign that can be taken off air by a complaint.

So, the provinces run their gentle messages about family planning and child spacing, and the products themselves go unnamed. This is how silence works in Pakistan. The word is allowed, technically, somewhere, after hours, in terms vague enough to offend no one and inform no one.

Sanitary pads escaped that fate because someone said the word plainly, again and again, until a finance minister could say it too. Contraception is still waiting for someone to say it against the noise.

The writer runs writing workshops in Karachi.

X: @LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026

Before me on my breakfast table is Dawn’s issue of the day. One heading that dominates the back page screams, ‘At least 20 killed as Israel continues attacks on Lebanon’. A few inches down is another headline: ‘Journalist among 11 killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza.’

I turn the page and the headline that gives bad news runs across six columns on top. It is about Lebanese environmentalist Mona Khalil. Born in Nigeria to Lebanese parents, she chose to live in Lebanon, where she dedicated her life to protecting sea turtles. She was murdered by Israel in the village of Mandouri. Another headline draws my attention. It is a four-line affair in a bigger font. Another two-line heading informs us of the pleasure the Israeli leadership draws from shedding non-Zionist blood.

While we quote such blood-curdling headlines ad infinitum, the worrying issue is the gradual hardening of the Israeli political and intellectual leadership’s war philosophy. Initially, men like Theodor Herzl (1860 –1904), who believed there should be a Jewish state, didn’t base their ‘ideology’ on anti-Palestinianism. In fact, Herzl, a Hungarian who moved freely in Ottoman lands, never specified any land which could become a home to European Jewry.

We are seeing a move towards the Nazification of Israeli thinking.

The phenomenon we are seeing today is a gradual but definite move towards the Nazification of Israeli thinking. This not only implies mass murders; it also encourages sadism among Israeli soldiers. Notice, for instance, the Israeli defence minister’s orders to his jackboots in Lebanon that there were no restrictions on them in “eliminating threats”. Mind you, these evil instructions concern a foreign country and not Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed his defence minister, saying: “We will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary to protect the cherished residents of the north and all the citizens of Israel … Nothing will alter that commitment.”

The point to note is the brazen-faced declaration to “remain” in the “security zone” for a period that has not been specified. In this land thievery, Western powers encouraged the Zionists’ land-grab policy by handing over to them territories — such as Palestine — which had become available to them after World War I. Let us avoid wasting time and space by referring to a British masterpiece of diplomatic jugglery called the Balfour Declaration — “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of ... .” Thus Arab-majority Palestine was handed over to a minority that one day would turn it into a racist state inhabited by people imported from Lithuania, Ukraine and the Caucasus.

Some actions taken by Western powers can be similarly interpreted, for they reflect a desire to find sanctuaries for Jews, while at the same time feeling uncomfortable about it for reasons that go deep into their theological foundations. For instance, in 1903, Britain offered to Herzl 13,000 square kilometres of land in what is now Kenya, but the Jewish leadership rejected it, feeling unhappy over settlements away from Europe.

A shameless ex­­ample of Israel’s admission of what can be called an act of mass infanticide was revea­led by the UN, which said Israeli forces continued to deliberately ta­­rget children in the Gaza Strip. The declaration was made by the UN Commission of Inquiry, an independent agency. In a statement published in June, the commission found that Israeli military operations had continued to cause “unprecedented death, injury and trauma” to Palestinian children.

The commission said the deliberate targeting of children was “a key indicator of Israeli authorities’ genocidal intent to destroy the Palestinian people”, even after a ceasefire had gone into effect in Gaza. As commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said: “Children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”

The Israeli government’s denial of this crime pales into insignificance because the UN commission used the words “genocidal intent” for Israel’s behaviour.

The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026

While the apex committee was meeting in Quetta to discuss the implementation of the National Action Plan, another, less visible process involving the local community was unfolding only a short distance away. In the Hanna Urak area, a jirga of local elders was engaged in direct negotiations with an armed group that had abducted several citizens. Apparently, the elders secured the hostages’ release without any visible involvement of the district administration or provincial government. The abductors reportedly claimed affiliation with the banned TTP, although their identity and motivations could not be conclusively established.

One is uncertain about what impact the resolve shown by the civil and military leadership vis-à-vis the volatile security situation will have in the province. However, it is clear that the growing gap between the state and the civilians is making Balochistan’s security landscape more complicated. Not only have a variety of Baloch insurgent groups become hyperactive, but the TTP and even the IS have found space and have started terrorist activities, as seen in the assassination of two Christian cricketers in Mastung. The criminal threat has become particularly critical, especially in the province’s urban areas.

However, no substantial change has been witnessed in the state’s policy in the last few years. Whenever the level of violence decreases, the government claims victory over terrorism. But when violence increases, it puts all the blame on external factors.

It does not require a special lens to see how violent actors are surviving and thriving. Baloch insurgent groups have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to adjust their operational tempo to strategic requirements, temporarily reducing activity before resuming attacks with greater intensity. Consequently, a single month of lower incident numbers should not be interpreted as evidence that the conflict is diminishing. Instead, it may reflect a period of tactical recalibration on the part of these groups.

The state must revisit its security policies in the volatile province.

The data from the last few weeks suggests that the insurgency remains geographically dispersed, operationally flexible, and strategically deliberate. Although the total number of attacks declined, 17 incidents across 13 districts indicate that insurgent groups retain the capacity to operate simultaneously across a wide and challenging geographical area. In June, the banned Balochistan Liberation Army alone conducted attacks in nine districts, demonstrating sustained operational reach rather than a contraction of its activities. This month, the BLA launched an assault on Chagai district and destroyed public as well as several private properties.

The group is increasingly focusing on launching assault operations, but it also continues to carry out operations that can be classified as revenge attacks, especially on the anniversaries of Baloch nationalist and insurgent leaders. The recent attack in Khuzdar, particularly targeting Shafiq Mengal, currently affiliated with the PPP and previously accused of heading a militia operating against the insurgents, is a case in point. The Majeed Brigade’s attack on his residence was said to be an act of revenge.

One of the most notable developments witnessed during the last few weeks is the BLA’s activity in Qilla Abdullah and Pishin — border districts with predominantly Pakhtun populations that have historically experienced violence associated with the TTP rather than Baloch nationalist insurgents. The group’s attacks on police posts, the seizure of weapons and destruction of security infrastructure represent a significant expansion beyond its traditional areas of operation. While it remains unclear whether this reflects opportunistic exploitation of security forces already strained by the TTP threat or a deliberate effort to broaden its operational presence, insurgent movements that successfully expand into new geographic areas generally demonstrate growing confidence and organisational capability rather than decline.

The selection of targets also reflects a consistent strategic logic. Attacks against commercial and industrial assets, including the destruction of gas tankers on the Pakistan-Iran highway, the killing of a water tanker driver supplying the state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company, the abduction of another driver, and the assassination of a construction contractor, appear intended to increase the economic costs of operating in Balochistan. Such actions reinforce insurgent narratives portraying economic activity as the exploitation of Baloch resources, while discouraging external investment.

Similarly, the bombing of two bridges on national highways disrupted transportation infrastructure and imposed additional economic and logistical costs. The attack on a 220-kV electricity transmission line in Dera Murad Jamali further expanded this pattern by targeting critical energy infrastructure. Beyond the immediate disruption to electricity supply, such attacks also undermine public confidence in the state’s ability to provide essential services and maintain security.

Afghanistan holds a central role in the ongoing wave of violence in Balochistan and KP. Afghanistan provoked tensions in June by carrying out drone attacks inside Balochistan, forcing Pakistan to retaliate with strikes against TTP hideouts and safe havens along the Pak-Afghan border, killing several terrorists and destroying key infrastructure, including training facilities, command centres, and ammunition depots.

Pakistan also issued demarches to Afghanistan after investigators concluded that Afghan nationals were involved in the terrorist attack on a Pakistan Rangers camp in Karachi on June 27. However, Afghanistan should not be used as an excuse for the failure of security policies, which are not working well in either Balochistan or KP. There may be a need to look deeper into these policies.

The writer is a security expert.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026

Few figures in modern medicine command as much reverence and respect as Sir William Osler. Canadian by birth, he was one of the founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US and later Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, England. Described as the ‘father of modern medicine’, Osler combined scientific rigour with deep humanism in medicine. More than a century after his death, his teachings remain highly relevant for physicians navigating the technological complexities of contemporary medicine.

Osler believed that medicine was not merely a technical profession but a calling — a lifelong moral commitment to humanity rather than a simple business or trade. He emphasised compassion, humility, lifelong learning, bedside teaching and the importance of treating the patient rather than merely the disease. His famous aphorism, “The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease”, captures his philosophy of medicine, at the heart of which was the doctor-patient relationship. He viewed medicine as profoundly personal, ancho­red in empathy, listening and human connection. Clinical competence alone was insufficient; the physician also needed character, compassion and integrity. He believed medicine was fundamentally a service profession, not merely a business, and the physician’s primary duty, above all else, was the patient’s welfare, not financial gain.

Osler, of course, practised in a very different era, but his ethical philosophy challenges the commercialisation of medicine we see today. This does not mean physicians should not be fairly compensated. Rather, it raises deeper questions about healthcare that today is governed primarily by market forces. Hospitals function like corporations and efficiency, profitability, and competition have overshadowed empathy, equity and ethical responsibility. Terms such as ‘volumes’, ‘targets’, ‘packages’, ‘profits’ and ‘discounts’ have found their way into the healthcare lexicon, replacing ‘ethics’, ‘morality’, ‘dignity’, ‘compassion’, ‘empathy’, ‘trust’ — terms once associated with the medical profession.

What would Osler say about medical practice in Pakistan today, where a flourishing private me­­dical sector coexists with a chronically underfunded and poorly organised public health system? In overcrowded government hospitals, ac­­cessed by the poorest of society, physicians face huge patient volumes, limited resources and systemic corruption. Consultations may last only a few minutes and staff struggle to provide individualised care.

At the other end of the spectrum, private healthcare in Pakistan increasingly reflects market-driven models of care, unaffordable to the vast majority. Quality care depends on one’s ability to pay. For millions of Pakistanis, catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditures push families into debt or force them to forgo treatment altogether. In the absence of an effective universal public health system, private healthcare has become a billion-dollar industry and the major provider of care, particularly in cities. Osler’s philosophy would urge us to ask not only how healthcare is delivered, but for whom?

Pakistan’s health challenges today remain dee­ply connected to social determinants: poverty, ma­­lnutrition, poor sanitation, environmental de­­gradation, low literacy and gender inequality. Hea­lth problems such as tuberculosis, dengue fever, diarrhoeal illnesses, infant and maternal mortality cannot be addressed through clinical medicine alone. Preventive medicine and health promotion are non-existent. The country’s public health infrastructure remains fragmented and underfunded. Osler understood the importance of broader social conditions in shaping health, as he worked in a period when infectious diseases, poverty, sanitation and public health reforms were central concerns — ironically, conditions that were not very different from what we find in Pakistan today!

Osler reminds us that medicine cannot be separated from social responsibility. He believed physicians should engage not only with individual patients but with the broader conditions affecting community well-being. They should not confine themselves to narrow technical roles but actively engage with questions of equity, access and public welfare. Physicians occupy positions of significant social trust and influence, and they must use their influence to advocate for fair health policies and social justice. They must advocate for stronger public health systems, equitable healthcare financing, preventive care and universal access to healthcare. Few physicians in Pakistan commit themselves to these roles.

Osler also exemplified a model of ethical leadership based on professionalism, integrity and service above status, prestige or financial gain. In Pakistan, where healthcare governance is often affected by political instability, resource disparities, institutional weaknesses and endemic corruption, ethical medical leadership is critically important.

William Osler transformed medicine by insisting that scientific excellence and human compassion were inseparable. He revolutionised medical education by shifting it out of the traditional lecture hall and into the hospital wards, pioneering the bedside clerkship model and the residency training system, requiring students and young doctors to learn through direct, hands-on patient care and observation, which is practised today. He said, “Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom.”

His teachings continue to resonate because they directly address conflicts at the very heart of the medical profession — the importance of scientific progress versus medicine as an art, grounded in human understanding. He reminds us that medicine cannot simply be a marketplace commodity or a technical enterprise disconnected from social realities.

Ultimately, Osler believed that medicine was about caring for human beings, in all their vulnerability and dignity. In today’s age of blatant commercialisation and commodification, rising costs of healthcare, social injustice, inequality, and technological complexity, that vision is not nostalgic but urgently necessary.

The writer is professor emeritus, psychiatry, Aga Khan University.

mmkarticle@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026

The SC’s 2018 –2019 orders resulted in a massive demolition drive across Karachi, with many slums, luxury residences and commercial enterprises all razed to the ground. Thousands were either made homeless or lost their livelihoods. While illegal encroachments are indefensible, as the FCC has noted, it is the provincial government that has a constitutional duty to regulate matters such as building codes. Arguably, when builders and encroachers break the law, they must be made accountable — as must the corrupt officials who allowed them to do so. However, ordinary citizens should not be made homeless or have their livelihoods snatched from them. In the case of Nasla Tower, the building possessed a no-objection certificate. Therefore, it remains to be answered why the building’s residents were punished for the sins of others. It is hoped that the FCC ruling closes the door on sweeping decisions that hurt the common citizen and serves as a warning to corrupt elements within the state who play a key role in regularising illegality.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026

Again, while all of this is sensible, it matters naught if the PTI and Mr Khan do not see eye to eye with those trying to be ‘helpful’. And it matters naught if the ruling parties and decision-makers see no benefit in political reconciliation either. The fact is that intransigence on both sides has led the nation up this blind alley, where state institutions are now unable to fulfil their obligations to the people. The economy has been lifeless for years, and the people’s misery, once promised to be temporary and only for the period of stabilisation, is gradually becoming more permanent. The state, which has resolved to be a ‘hard’ one for all intents and purposes, seems far less wary than it should be of the resentment brewing in people’s hearts as the world moves forward and Pakistanis get left further behind. Poverty has risen sharply and the middle class continues to shrink, creating a vast chasm between the masses and the power elite. The country’s options will be reduced further if no action is taken to leave this path of instability. The sooner the authorities correct course, the greater the chances of averting a disaster.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026

The American leader earlier said that the ceasefire was over, but that negotiations would continue. In a post on Saturday, he said “1,000 missiles” were locked, loaded and aimed at Iran; he alleged the Iranians were trying to kill him.

Mr Trump’s warning appears to have been triggered by mourners at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral processions who raised slogans and held up banners calling for his death. More importantly, Mr Trump’s Israeli friends have warned him about an “Iranian plot” to assassinate him.

In such a febrile atmosphere, how can the peace process be taken forward? In case the parleys fail, a return to full-scale war would be the likely outcome. That is why regional states are scrambling to save the ceasefire from collapsing, as both Washington and Tehran harden their respective stances.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urged the Iranian president to uphold the Islamabad MoU, while a Qatari delegation was in Tehran on Friday to help find a diplomatic off-ramp. Regional states know that a return to hostilities will deliver a strong blow to the global economy and threaten their own security, and that of the larger Middle East.

However, one habitual spoiler seems desperate for a return to violence: Israel. Media reports indicate that the Israelis have told the Americans that they are ready to conduct more attacks on Iran. Moreover, Tel Aviv’s feeding of intelligence — real or imagined — to the Trump administration is also designed to encourage the US leader to abandon peace talks. The continuing Israeli attacks on Lebanon have strained the Iran-US MoU as well.

At such a delicate moment in the negotiation process — when the region stands between war and peace — both the US and Iran need to exercise greater restraint. The Iranians must ensure there are no attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and that vessels can transit it freely. Meanwhile, the US, particularly its leader, should stop threatening Iranians, as bombast can attract a strong response from Tehran.

Pakistan and the other regional states are continuing their commendable efforts to prevent a slide back towards hostilities. These efforts must be supported and the international community should isolate any bad-faith actors, particularly Israel, that are trying to torpedo the peace process.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026

Everyone in Karachi knows that the ranking is the most honest thing to be said about the city every year. If the city could speak, its screams of desperation would be heard across several galaxies. The messy mix of intense heat, power outages, water shortages and corruption means that every step Karachi dwellers take is fraught with danger and uncertainty. To wake up in Karachi in the summer of 2026 is to prepare oneself to battle a city that has been so abused and neglected that it abuses those who dare to leave their homes and enter its dug-up, garbage-rutted roads. To sleep in this city is to lie on sweat-soiled sheets under unmoving fans in airless rooms — the fresh wounds of the day stinging, the old ones barely scabbed over.

Around the time of the release of the EIU’s latest Global Liveability Index, a pipeline burst for the umpteenth time on University Road. Construction continues on this arterial road, and the digging always does more damage than good. This time, too, the road was flooded; people were stuck — in cars, on motorcycles and in buses — in the sweltering heat. Being stuck is a constant condition in Karachi. Everyone who is in Karachi at a particular time is stuck there. An unliveable city is endured, and not enjoyed — but now even those with the most endurance cry out for relief.

The wealthy have created their own enclave by the ocean, where they try their best to deny the rest of the city’s existence. In that lucky place, flooded roads actually drain into sewers and manholes quite often have covers. Public service provision failures, the lack of electricity and water and all such issues can be solved with private capital. These basic services that the rest of the city imagines it would receive because it pays taxes are procured here via hired tankers that deliver water. Electrical outages are avoided by large generators housed in their own buildings.

Karachi belongs to everyone and, therefore, to no one at all.

Before I sat down to write this column, a friend asked whether I thought writing a never-ending lament about Karachi’s condition would change the city’s situation. The question was serious, but came across as a joke — because of the idea that words could spur change or inspire the sort of transformation that has, for instance, taken place in Lahore or Islamabad. It is no small irony that the snippet about Karachi being five spots away from being the least liveable city in the world (and those other spots were largely taken by war-torn cities like Damascus), came alongside an announcement of several hundred million rupees being allocated for a high-speed train in Lahore and — wait for it — a Rawalpindi-Murree glass train.

Surely the progress in urban development in these other cities shows that there is nothing particular about the Pakistani psyche that prevents the authorities from planning and running a city. The trouble, as innumerable others have pointed out, is not a matter of not knowing how but being stymied by structural factors. The biggest of these is the reality that Pakistan is a country where, by and large, lawmakers still fight for funds for their constituencies, often dictated by the politics of ethnicity.

Karachi’s biggest tragedy then is that it is a multiethnic city. It belongs to everyone and, therefore, it belongs to no one at all. The problem that this poses is that everyone exp­ects someone else to be fighting for Karachi, for gett­i­ng funds allocated that would solve simple problems, for sorting out the corruption that keeps lar­ge portions of main roads dug up for years, for untangling the challenges that keep companies like K-Electric in such a mess that foreign investors express interest and then shy away.

Some would argue that this city, which belongs to everyone, is too big to fail. A city of 22 million can never be erased; its magnetic pull is a force of its own. But this is small solace for those suffering within its environs.

A city as big as Karachi cannot cease to exist, but it can be starved and throttled. That is the condition of the place today: a city of migrants, a city of hope, a city of survivors, limited in every way possible — its people deemed unworthy of glass trains and high-speed rails bestowed on luckier Pakistanis. And so it is that every morning, there are 22m people in Karachi wondering what it must be like to wake up in a city that does not fight them every hour of every day.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026

Sustained economic growth is a multi-year, multifaceted process. It does not emerge from an annual budget, which is a short-term statement of revenues and expenditures, nor is it the sole responsibility of the finance ministry. Perhaps the most absurd aspect of our economic management is the practice of setting a real GDP growth target every year and then comparing actual growth against it. If, in a lucky year, actual growth exceeds the target, the federal finance minister claims credit; if it falls short, they bear the blame. We ignore the fact that Pakistan is no longer a closed, planned economy wherein the state directly controls a large share of productive activity. Like other economies, it is globally connected, and its economic performance is shaped increasingly by technological changes, private investment, business confidence and international conditions. While government still matters for growth, its role is no longer traditional.

Modern growth theories suggest that sustained economic growth depends on a broad set of drivers. First and foremost is high-quality human capital — education, skills and health that enable people to participate productively in the economy. This is complemented by technology and innovation, supported by linkages between academia and industry. Sustaining this ecosystem requires robust institutions that safeguard property rights, enforce contracts, promote fair competition, ensure regulatory efficiency and maintain political stability. Finally, macroeconomic stability, marked by low inflation, a predictable exchange rate, and prudent fiscal policy, underpins all these drivers. The primary role of government, therefore, is to create an enabling environment in which these drivers can flourish.

The next question is which level of government is better placed to promote economic growth. Under the current constitutional structure, almost all the key elements required to run the engine of economic growth (education, skill development, law and order, contract enforcement, a conducive business environment, etc.) rest with the provinces. While the federal government’s primary responsibility is to ensure macroeconomic stability, the growth mandate now lies substantially with the provinces.

Pakistan needs a new growth paradigm.

The provinces receive substantial resources through the NFC Award, yet much of their spending goes to low-yielding projects that contribute little to the economy’s productive capacity. For example, using public money for distributing free scooters may generate quick headlines and create captive markets for selected suppliers, but scooters are no substitute for well-designed mass transit systems that reduce commuting times, lower the cost of mobility, and generate lasting productivity gains. Such suboptimal allocation of resources persists partly because provincial spending faces relatively little public scrutiny. While the federal budget is extensively debated for its growth orientation, provincial fiscal plans largely escape similar scrutiny. Even the IMF, despite urging provinces to generate budget surpluses, gives limited attention to the productivity impact of their resource allocations. As a result, provincial spending choices often remain misaligned with long-term gro­wth objectives.

While fiscal federalism and the constitutionally mandated distribution of resources should be preserved, provinces need to redesign their spending priorities. There should be growth competition among provinces, where citizens can compare their performance in terms of economic growth, productivity, infrastructure, investment and the ease of doing business. Such comparison requires credible provincial income accounts and GDP estimates.

Ironically, Pakistan still has no official estimates of provincial GDP. While we expect the federal government to explain every decimal point of national GDP growth, provincial governments are rarely held accountable for growth due to the absence of provincial GDP measurement. What is not measured is not questioned. And what is not questioned is unlikely to improve.

Pakistan then needs a new growth paradigm. The centre must ensure macroeconomic stability, while the provinces must take responsibility for the growth functions that now fall within their jurisdiction. Every provincial finance minister should be asked how their province is contributing to economic growth and productivity.

The writer is an economist.

m.farooqarby@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026

The tragic Pahalgam incident occurred on April 22, 2025. FIR No. 25/2025 was registered within 10 minutes of the incident. No Pakistani national was named in it. Without proper investigation, without the apprehension of any suspect, without a confessional statement, and without seeking cross-border cooperation through any mutual legal assistance, India assumed that it was Pakistan that caused the terrorist incident.

Let us now turn to a letter by India’s water and power ministry addressed to Pakistan and dated April 24, 2025, just two days after the Pahalgam attack. In the said letter, India takes a strong position that “sustained cross-border terrorism by Pakistan targeting the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir” is a fact tantamount to not honouring the good faith that is ‘fundamental’ to a treaty.

Pakistan categorically denies this ‘fact’ of sustained cross-border terrorism in occupied Jam­mu and Kashmir, including Pahalgam. Its Forei­­gn Office, prime minister and ministers have all denied involvement. The very existence of the ‘fact’ has thus fallen into dispute; a disputed fact is an allegation, nothing more. India has only put a baseless assertion in place of proof.

A state that suspends performance on its own assessment of another’s breach acts at its own peril.

The facts India relies upon are what we in le­­gal practice call ‘issues’; they are: whether Pak­i­stan was involved in the Pahalgam attack; whe­ther Pakistan is providing sustained cross-border terrorism targeting Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir; whether Pakistan has refused to enter into negotiations as envisaged under the IWT and is thus in breach of the treaty.

The first two issues do not belong to the Indus waters machinery at all. Article XI expressly confines the treaty to the use of the waters of the rivers and associated matters. Terrorism, however grave, is extraneous to a treaty dealing with water and hydro works. Even if ‘proved’, it could not constitute a breach of this treaty and no unilateral letter can extend the ambit of a treaty’s subject matter which was never agreed to nor envisioned by the parties. Such allegations have their own forums: the UN Security Council and its counterterrorism committee, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the FATF where financing is alleged, and existing mutual legal assistance regimes for bilateral cooperation in criminal cross-border matters. India approached none of them.

The third issue fails in law and in fact. In law, Article XII(3) is permissive: the treaty “may from time to time be modified by a duly ratified treaty”. It confers a jointly exercised option, not an obligation, and a state that declines to renegotiate is not in any breach whatsoever. In fact, Pakistan never declined. Its reply of April 26, recorded: “At no point has Pakistan refused to engage. On the contrary, Pakistan has consistently conveyed its openness to hear and discuss India’s concerns.” A refusal that never occurred, to negotiate what was never obligatory, cannot constitute a breach, let alone a material one.

If India nonetheless believed that some conduct of Pakistan affected the application of the IWT, the route lay in the treaty itself. Pakistan’s letter said precisely this: “… If India considers that there is a conduct by Pakistan that either affects the application of the treaty or constitutes a breach, it is open to India to pursue these claims under the mechanisms established by Article IX of the treaty.

Were India to do so, Pakistan would engage fully and without hesitation, including as appropriate by agreeing to the urgent empanelment of a court of arbitration to address such matters without delay.” India, instead, chose not to join the proceedings before the court or to present its case before any international forum.

A state that suspends performance on its own assessment of another’s breach acts at its own peril; the International Court of Justice said as much in the Gabíkovo-Nagymaros case (Hungary/Slovakia, ICJ Reports, 1997). When India’s stance was tested, the Court of Arbitration in its supplemental award of June 27, 2025, held that India’s ‘abeyance’ has no effect on the court’s competence, irrespective of the justification offered. The court did not find it necessary to examine the terrorism allegations at all. The award speaks for itself.

Intended to be purely an engineering treaty, the IWT has been transformed by India’s letter of April 24, 2025, into a political document, linked to allegations extraneous to its subject, thereby creating a dangerous uncertainty for a lower riparian.

Years ago, I wrote in these very pages that we need to object to the justification of all hydro projects bilaterally at the governmental level and not at the commissioners’ level, because, under the garb of engineering clearance of drawings, India is building its capacity to delay water flows or considerably divert water from the lower riparian. It is seeking a go-ahead on projects under the annexes of the treaty, but the object seems to be, at some stage, to threaten the lower riparian with starvation. I was then relying on statements of out-of-power BJP and RSS extremist elements which, years later, unfortunately for Indian democracy, have been mainstreamed and are now an official narrative of the Indian government.

What the world is noticing is that India, an aspirant for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, has held a 65-year-old water treaty in abeyance on the strength of facts it has neither proved nor permitted any forum to examine.

The writer is a former caretaker federal law minister.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026

Much can be learned from other countries in the region and most parts of the world about how to accelerate and support fertility decline, mainly through investments and priority given to education — especially female education — women’s empowerment — especially through paid work — and above all, voluntary high-quality family planning services integrated with other aspects of healthcare. Pakistan’s peers — Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, and India — embarked on this agenda of slowing down rapid growth over two decades ago. They have halved their fertility levels and increased per capita incomes, which were once lower than Pakistan’s. Above all, these countries have prioritised investments in improving human development at home.

Pakistan, on the other hand, is now among a handful of countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, still grappling with large gaps in meeting the basic human needs of millions of people. Pakistan’s human development rankings continue to fall. This has been a two-way relationship: underinvestment in human development and stagnating rates of female enrolment and high infant mortality rates are also associated with high fertility. The NPC must pursue the immediate broader goal of rapidly uplifting/improving Pakistan’s sagging human development indicators.

It is important to begin with the realisation that people are not resisting change; rather, the state has failed in its responsibility to provide them with the means to fulfil their desires. The NPC has a golden opportunity to achieve its objectives of reducing fertility through voluntary behaviour and uplifting the currently lagging human development. Population management must be seen as good governance that responds to people’s needs, not a top-down policy.

Population management must be seen as good governance.

NPC members must be briefed from the outset that there is abundant evidence to verify a significant disconnect between families’ expressed unmet needs and the health and education services they receive from the public sector. Millions of women and men have totally different aspirations for themselves and their children but cannot access healthcare, information, education and jobs even to come close to fulfilling those aspirations.

Research by the Population Council and Guttmacher Institute has found that out of 12 million yearly pregnancies in the country, less than half are unplanned, and more than 3m result in induced abortions, with the rest being unplanned births. The 2023 census confirms that 25m children are out of school despite their constitutional right to primary education. Most of these children are unplanned, belong to poorer families, and live in remote areas where schooling is either unaffordable or simply unavailable.

Managing or steering population issues must ensure that the gap between the rights and needs of the most vulnerable and poorest families is bridged. The NPC must ensure that public funds reach this segment by ensuring equal access to education, health services and employment opportunities for both women and men. It must hold itself accountable to the people, address their needs and plug the gaps in opportunity.

The NPC must begin with important announcements regarding the provision of free and accessible public primary healthcare and family planning, targeting poorer families as identified in the active registries of social protection programmes. Quotas for women’s employment in the public sector and the protection of women and girls will signal directions for broader population concerns.

A major challenge for the NPC is to ensure the closest coordination of efforts across the provinces. After reaching consensus on broader aims, each province can set its own goals, provided it allocates priority and financial resources to population needs. The focus of the relationship between the federal and provincial governments is stewardship and support, with an emphasis on providing additional financing to the provinces to reward their investment in the people. A ‘Population Stabilisation Fund’ must be created, enabling payment for performance to provinces on key indicators: reducing infant mortality, reducing unplanned pregnancies and fertility, and increasing primary school enrolments, especially for girls. The senior minister of Punjab, representing the province’s CM, recently emphasised population as a development imperative. She strongly endorsed the Punjab government’s membership in the NPC. Other CMs will most definitely agree to an arrangement that prioritises what is increasingly being voiced as a national challenge.

Other powerful state actors can and must play a substantial role in supporting the NPC. With high-level government commitment, the private sector must join hands to address a national challenge that affects all Pakistanis. The judiciary can contribute significantly to women’s empowerment by ensuring that the laws protecting their rights are enforced. It has been lauded for recent legislation upholding women’s right to asset ownership and family laws and publicly punishing misogynistic behaviour related to gender relations. The media, too, if given a freer hand, can be more hard-hitting in its creative messaging to change values related to the powerlessness of women and girls in the decisions that affect them and their children.

It is time for all influential stakeholders to play their role in empowering women and men to embrace the population challenge. The government’s responsibility is foremost. It must begin to unlock demographic change by investing in human development through urgent, robust measures in education, women’s empowerment, and family planning and health services. This is an opportunity to break past trends and undo the human and financial costs of inaction. If we fail, we will be throwing away any chance of economic growth, political stability, and, above all, of doing right by the people of Pakistan.

The writer is country adviser to the Population Council.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026

The nature of these privileges speaks volumes about the mentality of our ruling elite, who seem determined to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the common man. While ordinary citizens struggle for visas and can be denied boarding at the whim of an immigration official, official passports guarantee fast-track processing at airports and visa-free or on-arrival entry to a host of countries. The VIP lounges insulate the privileged further from the hoi polloi, and the clubs remain closed to all but a tiny elite. That such perks are a priority for our rulers even as the state preaches ‘austerity’ tells us everything about the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots of this country. The very notion of a ‘lifetime’ of anything should be repugnant to the moral mind. The wild grab for national resources, it seems, continues unabated. The institutional checks on power are falling away fast, and if this continues, the line between right and wrong may soon blur beyond recognition.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026

The manner in which remittances are utilised compounds the problem. Most of these inflows finance household consumption or end up in speculative real estate rather than productive investment. Consumption has remained close to 90pc of GDP for several years, while investment languishes at around 13pc. That ratio must rise to at least 25-30pc and remain there in order to build the productive capacity needed for sustained export growth. There is an inevitable lag between rising imports and expanding exports because factories, technology and skilled labour cannot be created overnight. Until investment in export-oriented industries accelerates, any liberalisation that boosts domestic demand will simply widen the trade deficit, leaving remittances to finance an ever-growing external gap. Remittances offer Pakistan some breathing space; they are not a permanent solution. That opportunity should be used to undertake reforms that expand export-oriented capacity, attract investment and raise productivity. Otherwise, remittances will continue to finance consumption while the productive economy falls further behind. An economy sustained by money earned abroad but unable to generate wealth at home is living beyond its means. The real measure of success will not be how much the diaspora sends back, but how little Pakistan ultimately relies on those transfers for its economic survival.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026

The aim is not simply to influence how many children are born, but to ensure that every young person has the opportunity to make informed choices about education, employment, marriage and parenthood. Experience shows that these choices are closely linked to access to healthcare, quality education, economic security and gender equality. When such conditions improve, demographic outcomes improve as well.

Population policy, therefore, is ultimately about expanding people’s choices rather than merely managing population trends. That shift in perspective is particularly relevant for Pakistan. Public debate often revolves around census figures, fertility rates and warnings about a rapidly expanding population. While these are valid concerns, they risk obscuring a basic question: are Pakistan’s young people able to realise their aspirations? For millions, the answer remains no.

The barriers begin early and reinforce one another. Children who leave school prematurely face diminished prospects, while young adults enter a labour market that cannot offer enough stable, productive employment. Many women continue to encounter obstacles to education, healthcare and participation in decisions that shape their own futures. Reproductive healthcare and family planning services remain unevenly available, especially in underserved communities, limiting informed choice rather than expanding it. Aspirations are constrained long before adulthood by poverty, unequal opportunity and weak public services.

These shortcomings represent failures of governance whose effects extend beyond individuals to families, communities and the country’s long-term development. The resulting costs lie in not just lost economic potential, but also in diminished public trust, widening inequality and the sense among many young Pakistanis that opportunity lies elsewhere.

There is also a danger in viewing population solely through the lens of numbers. Governments become preoccupied with fertility targets, growth rates and census projections, while losing sight of the lives behind the statistics. Young people do not aspire to improve demographic indicators; they aspire to complete their education, secure work, choose when to marry, decide freely whether and when to have children, and build a stable future. Their hopes should be seen as practical benchmarks against which public policy itself is measured.

Population policy should be judged by the extent to which it enlarges those freedoms. If Pakistan succeeds in doing so, healthier demographic trends are likely to follow. If it does not succeed, no amount of concern over rising numbers will compensate for opportunities never created.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2026

It is true that there are no taxes on salaried employees with an annual income of less than Rs600,000, which roughly translates to Rs50,000 a month. The majority live in rural areas where one-third of the country’s workers earn their living from farming. The agricultural income tax laws passed across Pakistan last year also peg the minimum annual taxable income at the same level. According to the calculations of the Pakistan Agricultural Coalition, 95pc of farmers earn less than this threshold.

So what is in this budget for the vast majority of Pakistanis? Starting at the bottom, the Benazir Income Support Programme allocation is proposed at Rs838 billion, which increases the payout to Rs18,000 per quarter for each of about 10 million families scoring less than 16 on the BISP scorecard. This is three times the BISP payout before Covid; it keeps pace with the devastating inflation numbers of the post-Covid years. But these are the bottom 25pc of Pakistani families. BISP would enhance their monthly expenditure by around 10pc.

The only allocation among the federal budget’s grants and subsidies comparable to the size of the BISP is Rs830bn for the power sector. This budget item has received enormous amounts putatively in the name of poor electricity consumers. But with the fixed cost of electricity as high as it has become in Pakistan, it is less a means of support for poor consumers and more a way of keeping the power sector’s businesses running.

What is in this budget for the vast majority of Pakistanis?

For education and health, the IMF report from May 2026 lists next year’s spending target at 3pc of GDP. Punjab has allocated Rs750bn, Sindh Rs551bn and KP Rs398bn for education. Typically, more than two-thirds of the education budget is spent on salaries — which are essential — but a good portion of the allocations for rehabilitating schools will also create construction activity, which benefits low-skill workers. About a quarter of public schools in Punjab have been outsourced, with the government providing a fixed monthly amount per child. Sindh is outsourcing schools too. Outsourcing of health centres has been gathering pace in Punjab. Meanwhile, the latter province has allocated Rs500bn for health, Sindh Rs354bn and KP Rs335bn.

These allocations are sizable proportions of each provincial budget but the total education budget comes to less than 1.5pc of GDP — far low­er than the 4pc recommended for developing cou­ntries. The low education and health target also begs the question: if Pakistan is collecting about 11pc of GDP in revenue (including collection by provincial governments) and giving away over 5pc to debt servicing, how can it spend 4pc on education? Well, to grow adequately, a developing country needs to collect about 20pc of its GDP in reven­ues. That is when investment to build sch­o­ols, tr­­a­in teachers and provide school meals is possible.

Teacher training and pedagogical improvement are critical. According to the Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi’s Annual Status of Education Report 2025, half of Class 5 students in Pakistan cannot comprehend written text and math intended for students of Class 2. For FY27, Punjab does have a school meals programme for a million early childhood and primary-level students. Where else would we provide good nutrition to children of poor families if not in schools? But the allocation for the provision of nutrition-dense milks — not full meals — is only Rs7bn. There are allocations for wheat purchases by the provinces, but these expenditures are not linked to school meal programmes as they are in many countries which support both farmers and schoolchildren through them.

Pakistan’s beleaguered farmers need protection: from lopsided government policies on wheat and from the impact of climate change. But the federal budget for covering crop insurance premiums for small farmers is only Rs1bn — sufficient only for a tiny fraction of farmers. Schemes to facilitate bank credit for small farmers have been included by Punjab and the federal government. But while Punjab will pick up the mark-up for small farmer loans, the federal government will not.

Nearly 40pc of the national labour force is illiterate. So is a good portion of the youth entering the workforce. And more than 80pc of Pakistan’s employed workers earn from five sectors where low-skill or no-skill jobs dominate: construction, transport, wholesale and retail trade, community and personal services, and manufacturing. For them, the minimum wage has been increased in line with post-Covid inflation. But few employers actually pay it.

The petroleum levy collection target is maintained around the same level as the outgoing year, with a similar consumption of transport fuels assumed. But motorcycles account for some 40pc of Pakistan’s transport fuel consumption. Therefore, a similar proportion of this levy will come from the pockets of the lower middle class: clerks, farmers, labourers, etc.

This budget is a direct win for Pakistan’s women and girls — the removal of 18pc sales tax on sanitary pads. The majority of Pakistanis can expect to be secondary beneficiaries of the budget’s facilitation of the manufacturing and construction sectors. Direct beneficiaries of major budget outlays would be the families at the bottom receiving BISP payouts, those near the top receiving tax relief on their salaries, and those who get subsidised housing loans under the Prime Minister’s Apna Ghar programme. Most Pakistanis can expect to be secondary beneficiaries of the budget’s facilitation of the manufacturing and construction sectors. So it’s a trickle-down, ‘wait for it’ budget.

The writer is CEO of the Pakistan Agricultural Coalition, chairman of Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi, and an adviser on energy policy. He is the author of Dou Pakistan: Har Pakistani Gharanay Tak Khushhaali.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2026

For decades, Islamabad has been at the receiving end of international opprobrium and has complained that its opinion carries little weight. Recently, Pakistan’s role in helping defuse tensions between the US and Iran has changed perceptions in global capitals. As a result, Pakistan’s diplomatic stature has risen significantly.

The more important question is what comes next. Diplomatic goodwill has a short shelf life. The time has arrived to think differently about Kashmir. Pakistan has not pursued a sustained lawfare strategy through international institutions with sufficient seriousness.

Put simply, lawfare is the deliberate use of legal institutions to achieve political objectives. For example, legal proceedings pursued as part of a lawfare strategy can shape international opinion, affect international talks, and provide states with opportunities to strengthen their political position. In some cases, lawfare enables smaller states to exert influence beyond their material power.

A sustained lawfare strategy must be pursued through international institutions with sufficient seriousness.

International law provides useful examples. In the Chagos Archipelago case, Mauritius lacked the political influence to persuade the British government to change its position. Instead, it built support from other countries over time. This eventually led the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice in 2019. Although the opinion was not legally binding (note that ICJ advisory opinions are non-binding), it shifted the discussion and exerted significant international pressure on Britain to defend its position. Another example is the ICJ’s 2004 advisory opinion concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Much to Israel’s chagrin, it haunts it to this day.

Kashmir now needs to be viewed through the same lens. For too long, Pakistan has operated within a framework largely imposed by India. On Aug 5, 2019, India revoked the special status of Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, catching Pakistan’s strategic community off-guard. Pakistan still lacks a consistent international legal strategy capable of changing the contours of the debate. What is needed is a carefully planned lawfare initiative that refocuses attention on Kashmir’s unresolved status and the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination.

This option is provided for in Article 96 of the UN Charter. This article of the Charter allows the UNGA to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ. Unlike other UN procedures, it does not req­uire Security Council approval, and no veto can block it. As a result, it affords a practical legal ave­nue that has received relatively little attention.

Thus, Pakistan’s first objective should be securing a UNGA resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ. All it needs is a simple maj­ority of countries present and voting. This is fundamentally a diplomatic challenge before a legal one. Success will depend on Islamabad’s ability to assemble a broad coalition capable of persuading the UNGA that the legal questions surrounding Kashmir warrant clarification by the world’s highest judicial body. The OIC countries can play an important role, but the Global South’s role will be decisive. Pakistan should engage them well before any resolution reaches the UNGA floor.

How the questions are framed will be especially important. Rather than asking the ICJ to rule on sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan should focus on the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination and the legal consequences of its continued denial.

The UNGA would debate whether the people of Kashmir possess an internationally recognised right to self-determination, what legal consequences arise from the continued failure to implement that right, and what legal consequences follow from measures altering the demographic or constitutional character of a disputed territory.

Although India will no doubt vehemently oppose such an initiative, arguing that Kashmir is still a bilateral matter, Pakistan has clear UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir that strongly support its stand. Will an ICJ advisory opinion solve Kashmir overnight? No. The purpose of such a strategy would be to alter the diplomatic environment and legal terrain in which the dispute is discussed and to introduce pressure on India, where little presently exists.

In my view, a favourable ICJ advisory opinion would internationalise Kashmir in a manner that would be difficult for India to reverse. Other governments would be compelled to revisit long-held positions and increase scrutiny of India. Above all, the opinion would provide authoritative legal language that negotiators and decision-makers could invoke while imposing high reputational costs on India.

For years, New Delhi has successfully narrowed the space for international discussion on Jammu and Kashmir. An advisory opinion would reopen that space, forcing India to repeatedly defend its position. The burden of explanation would begin to tilt towards India, and that should be the purpose of this proposed lawfare exercise.

Due to Pakistan’s recent role in the rapprochement between the US and Iran, it has accumulated substantial goodwill and diplomatic capital and regained a stature previously absent. Pakistan has ICJ precedents on its side and a pathway that bypasses the Security Council veto. Pakistan’s first real battle lies in New York, where it must persuade a majority of states that Kashmir’s unresolved status warrants intervention. All roads can then lead to The Hague.

I must admit that the possibility that this effort may fall short cannot be ruled out. But diplomatic opportunities rarely arrive under perfect conditions. Countries must combine legal strategy with sound political judgement. The time has come for Pakistan to decide whether it wants to convert its current diplomatic advantage into a sustained Kashmir lawfare campaign. Diplomatic opportunities are like perishable commodities. And if this strategy is not tested, the price of inaction may prove to be higher than the cost of trying.

The writer is an international law practitioner and a graduate of Harvard Law School.

veritas@post.harvard.edu

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2026