Too many planners
RECENTLY, the commissioner Karachi issued a notification dividing the city into three zones: downtown, uptown and old town. Prima facie, it appears to be an attempt to redefine the city’s…
Lahore’s forgotten villages
EARLY reports from the 2023 census suggest that Lahore’s population may have crossed the 12 million mark, ie, an addition of nearly a million more residents since 2017. In the…
Community mapping
WHENEVER Karachi floods, the government announces the widening of its nullahs that carry the floodwater to the sea. The decision of the extent of widening is taken in an ad…
The ‘Tariff Man’ dislodges global trade
Donald Trump has made ‘economic nationalism’ a centerpiece of his agenda in office. And the world-wide repercussions of this agenda have thrown international trading system into total disarray causing hardship…
Learning from the Zapatistas
Twenty years ago, protesters forced the cancellation of parts of the third ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. A combination of internal advocacy within the ministerial and…
The dream house
AFTER Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Naya Pakistan Housing Programme had received considerable publicity, I asked Sakina Bibi if she would apply for it. Sakina is a housemaid, and her family…
The truth about corridor
Public debate on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has once again surfaced drawing widespread coverage by the media. This invited the unprecedented intervention of China which has urged Pakistan's political parties…
Wag the dog?
We seem to have become a nation obsessed with a single villain. Pakistan today is gripped by a kind of Orwellian imagination – a fascination with the idea of an…
Prevention was possible
Twenty-years ago in Athara Hazari (Jhang district), a few months after the birth of her daughter, Khadija Bibi began saving for her daughter’s wedding. Rupee by rupee, she filled steel…
A new urban agenda for Pakistan
As World Habitat Day 2025, which falls on October 6, calls for ‘Urban Solutions to Crisis’, Pakistan faces a stark choice. The day could not be more timely for us,…
