Neglected region
AFTER weeks of peaceful protests and sit-ins across Gilgit-Baltistan, two major demands of the demonstrators were finally accepted. The Pakistan government reluctantly restored the wheat subsidy and suspended the infamous…
State meltdown?
AS high inflation and job losses ravage the masses, our uncaring elites hogging key state institutions are fighting feuds so intense that one fears a state meltdown. These ugly feuds…
Defusing the census controversy
UNLESS extended again, the first-ever digital census of Pakistan will be concluding at the end of the month, with the results expected soon after. The census has been a chronic…
Myth of population control
It is the dawn of 2023. Ahead of us are several national problems that continue to be overlooked. The solutions are obvious, but the intent to act is missing. Critical…
The conundrum
A SERIOUS conundrum has arisen for the economy. It cannot afford to grow, and at the same time, it cannot lie in the doldrums for very long either. There is…
Idle & unemployed
OUR chief census commissioner Naeemuz Zafar’s words failed to cause a stir when he said recently that there were 249,566,743 of us in the country. That we are too many…
Quotidian quotas
‘WE’ were fewer in number, yet a large swathe of the subcontinent came under us. Then came the British, yet fewer in number, to rule over both ‘us’ and ‘them’.…
Collapse of civilisations
FLOODS are perhaps as old as time. They have always figured very largely in the human imagination primarily because of the sheer magnitude of the death and destruction they visit…
The Egypt model
IN his book, Ruling Oneself Out, sociologist Ivan Ermakoff makes an important distinction between ‘surrender’ and ‘abdication’. Surrender refers to an unwilling decision imposed because of external constraints, such as a…
Population, gender & austerity
LEADING economists of Pakistan say that ‘population explosion’ is one of the biggest — if not the biggest — economic challenges facing the country. Pakistan has the fastest-growing population in…
