Pakistan’s formal position is unambiguous: the Indus Waters Treaty remains legally binding, its obligations are not subject to unilateral modification, and India’s 2023 notice of intent to renegotiate has no standing under international law. That position has substantial legal backing. IWT contains no provision permitting unilateral withdrawal or modification. Article XII of the treaty specifies […]
Water as a Weapon: Unravelling of a Treaty the World Once Called a Miracle (Part I)
There is a river that has flowed through the heart of Pakistani Punjab for centuries. Farmers along its banks have measured their seasons by it, calibrated their sowing to it, and built civilisations around the certainty of its arrival. The Chenab is not merely a river to Pakistan. It is a lifeline. And for the […]
Strike Call Despite Progress on Development Projects
In Azad Jammu and Kashmir, public concerns over inflation, electricity bills, administrative reforms and basic civic facilities led to an agreement between the government and the Joint Awami Action Committee. The purpose of that agreement was to resolve public issues in a phased, constitutional and lawful manner. Following the agreement, the government has made practical […]
Playing with Fire
In the spring of 2025, India placed the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) – one of the most successful and enduring water-sharing agreements in the history of international diplomacy – in abeyance. The announcement, delivered without arbitration, without consultation, and without recourse to the treaty’s own dispute-resolution mechanisms, sent a chill through the capitals of every […]
Pakistan Proved Its Critics Wrong: How Islamabad Stopped a War
At approximately 8:00 pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, 7 April 2026, the guns paused. After forty days of US and Israeli strikes on Iranian territory – targeting military infrastructure, energy networks and command systems – a two-week ceasefire came into effect, brokered not by Washington’s traditional allies in the Gulf, not by Europe’s multilateral institutions, […]
Questions Around the Aurat March
Islamabad once again witnessed controversy on International Women’s Day as activists associated with the Aurat March attempted to gather in the federal capital despite the imposition of Section 144. The Islamabad Police detained several participants for unlawful assembly, sparking criticism from certain quarters that framed the action as a suppression of dissent. Yet the episode […]
If Losses Justify Privatisation, What About the Government Itself?
The federal government’s push to privatise state-owned enterprises is being sold as an exercise in realism. Chronic losses, bloated payrolls, weak governance, political interference, and years of inefficiency, we are told, have left these entities beyond repair. The solution, therefore, is to transfer them to private hands, where incentives are clearer, accountability is sharper, and […]
Independence Cannot Be Subsidised: Why Government Advertising Is Not a Press Freedom Issue
APNEC’s characterisation of the government’s decision to withhold advertisements from a specific newspaper as an “attack on livelihoods” and “freedom of expression” rests on a deeply flawed premise: that government advertising is an entitlement essential for the survival of media. This assumption is neither economically sound nor consistent with the principles of media independence that […]
Context Missing
The HRCP press release on “Judicial independence, freedoms and safety under siege” once again highlights a familiar issue: the organisation continues to interpret Pakistan’s security and governance challenges through a narrow, theoretical lens that does not match the reality on the ground. Its commentary is framed as if the country is functioning under stable, predictable […]
Indus Disputes Demand a Treaty-First Reset
Fresh global evidence from the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) strengthens the case for resolving Indus basin issues strictly under the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), calling for a reversion to the treaty’s mechanisms and a refrain from unilateral actions that undermine international water agreements. IEP’s 2025 Ecological Threat Report describes the IWT as a […]