There is a sentence every Pakistani knows too well: “System down hai.” It echoes from Karachi to Khyber with the same resigned shrug, the same helpless tone, and the same acceptance that the country’s most essential state institution is, once again, not functioning. What should have been Pakistan’s most reliable digital backbone has instead become […]
Suthra Punjab: Clean Promises, Dirty Deals
Chief Minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, launched the Suthra Punjab Programme in December 2024, calling it a “revolution in cleanliness” that would rid the province of garbage and inefficiency. Inspired by Turkey’s waste-management model, the initiative was meant to cover all 36 districts, employ over 100,000 sanitation workers, and handle more than 57,000 tonnes […]
One Nation, One Command, One Constitution
For too long, Pakistan has functioned like a confederation pretending to be a federation. Each province works as a power enclave, collecting, spending, and legislating with little regard for national coherence. From education curricula to revenue collection, and from resource management to identity politics, every provincial government has become a self-contained kingdom whose first loyalty […]
Foreign Passports, Local Power
They live in Dubai, vacation in London and rule in Islamabad, a class that has mastered the art of being Pakistani only when it pays. These are the men and women who hold foreign passports or non-resident status yet enjoy every privilege of Pakistani citizenship, political power, state protection, and untaxed profit. They earn here, […]
He (PBUH) Forgave His Enemies, We Kill in His (PBUH) Name
Islam was sent as a mercy to mankind, a message of peace, humility and restraint. Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) embodied that mercy in every word and deed. Yet, in a land that claims his legacy, we have turned his message into something it was never meant to be: a banner for anger, a […]
The Shifting Axis of Power
For centuries, the Western world stood as the unchallenged epicentre of global power. The British Empire once boasted that the sun never set on its dominions, a poetic reminder of how far its reach extended from the Indian subcontinent to the Caribbean, from Africa to the Pacific. The United States later inherited this mantle, rising […]
Pakistan: The Rise of a Hard State
For decades, Pakistan’s resilience has been tested by war, terrorism, internal divisions, and the weight of regional rivalries. Yet what defines Pakistan today is not its fragility, but its reawakening as a hard state, a nation prepared to defend its sovereignty with clarity and consequence. It is a resolve grounded in the principle that sovereignty […]
From Cold War Pawns to Domestic Fire
History has a way of circling back to those who refuse to learn from it. In the late 1970s, Pakistan stood at the crossroads of global power politics, America’s frontline ally against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. What began as a calculated geopolitical move soon became one of the most disastrous social experiments of modern […]
Pakistan Cricket’s Biggest Wicket: The PCB Itself
Cricket is more than just a sport in Pakistan; it is a passion, a unifier, and in many ways, a national identity. From the streets to the stadiums, cricket has always been the heartbeat of the nation. However, while the game enjoys unmatched popularity, the institution responsible for safeguarding and nurturing it, the Pakistan Cricket […]
Beyond Privatization
For decades, Pakistan has struggled under the weight of inefficient state-owned enterprises and overstretched public services. Schools with missing teachers, hospitals short of medicines, airports that barely function, and a railway system running perpetual losses. It does not have to be this way. Around the world, governments have discovered a middle path between full privatisation […]