There was a time when human beings built civilizations without ever hearing the word school. Babylon rose from the deserts of Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley designed sophisticated urban drainage systems. Gandhara became a beacon of art and philosophy. Ancient Greeks laid the foundations of logic and ethics. Scholars from the Islamic Golden Age transformed mathematics, […]
Op-Ed
What’s in a Name? Rivers, Nations and the Indus Civilisation (Part I)
A country does not usually discover a new name on social media. Yet for the last few days, a suggestion by Pakistani history communicator Faisal Warraich turned into something larger than a branding exercise. Warraich proposed that Pakistan consider “Indus” as an alternative civilisational name – not necessarily a replacement for Pakistan, but a way […]
Gangs of India!
On July 7, 2026, the US Department of Justice unveiled Operation Hard Ball, a massive multinational initiative that marks far more than a typical local gang bust. Instead, authorities characterised it as a sweeping global crackdown against powerful, India-based transnational organised crime groups operating across the United States, Canada, and Europe. A total of 37 […]
When Even the Dead Cannot Find a Place to Rest
A society’s commitment to human dignity is measured not only by how it treats its citizens during their lifetime, but also by how it honours them after death. In Pakistan’s rapidly expanding metropolitan centres, however, a disturbing reality is emerging: finding a burial place for a deceased loved one has become an exhausting and deeply […]
The Generation That Will Inherit Degrees, Not Assets
For decades, Pakistani parents believed in a simple promise: educate your children and their future will be better than yours. It was the foundation of the middle-class dream. Parents sacrificed their comfort, delayed their own wishes, sold assets, worked extra hours and spent a major part of their earnings because education was considered the safest […]
Weaponising the Indus!
Undoubtedly, the strategic landscape of South Asian hydro-politics is undergoing a dangerous transformation. I visited the Jinnah Convention Center in Islamabad to attend an international seminar on the Indus Waters Treaty on 30th June. The event brought together global thinkers, international legal experts, and state practitioners to dissect a shared crisis: India’s unilateral decision to […]
Terrorist Propaganda Strategy Unmasked!
The Afghan Taliban’s intelligence-linked outlet, Al-Mirsad, and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) Umar Media operate in tandem to drive a sophisticated digital propaganda war. Together, they weaponise religion, leverage digital platforms, and exploit ethnic fault lines to target the Pakistani state. Concurrently, the banned TTP has revamped its official communications branch, Umar Media, transforming it from […]
Indus Waters: Pakistan’s Quiet Diplomatic Strike
There are moments in diplomacy when the real success is not in the speech delivered, the resolution passed or the photograph released. It is in the discomfort created on the other side. By that measure, the international seminar on the Indus Waters Treaty held in Islamabad was not a routine policy event. It was a […]
Prof Waris Mir: The Champion of Free Expression
In Pakistan’s political history, some thinkers and writers are remembered not for the age in which they lived, but for the enduring relevance of their ideas. While time consigns most men of letters to history, a rare few transcend it, becoming lasting points of reference. Their thoughts outlive their era, continuing to illuminate the path […]
Pakistan’s Greatest Challenge: Not Population, but Unplanned Population Growth
Every nation, at some point in its history, is confronted by a question it can no longer afford to postpone. For Pakistan, the question is not how many citizens it has, but what kind of citizens it produces. We have spent decades diagnosing our afflictions as inflation, unemployment, debt, and political instability, when in truth […]