Op-Ed

Pakistan's industrial decline did not happen by accident. It was a choice, made incrementally over decades, and the country is still paying for it. The most consequential moment came in 1972. When Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto launched…

Let's be clear: the Economic Survey is not a lie. But it is not the truth most Pakistanis live. The numbers are methodologically defensible. The poverty line is official. The unemployment rate follows global definitions. The growth figures…

For more than seven decades, Pakistan and China have shared one of the most enduring and trusted bilateral relationships in modern international relations. From diplomatic cooperation and strategic coordination to economic collaboration and…

Pakistan’s emerging partnership with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait over strategic petroleum storage at Gwadar Port represents far more than an energy infrastructure project. It reflects a broader geopolitical shift in how regional powers are…

As Pakistan approaches another federal budget, the familiar debate has once again begun. Political parties are preparing their talking points, economists are debating fiscal targets, businesses are anxiously watching taxation measures and…

Pakistan’s working-age population grows by roughly 4 million people every year. The formal economy creates, in a good year, fewer than a million jobs. Half the country’s adults never enter the labour force at all. Barely a quarter of its…

Pakistan has 46,605 MW of installed power generation capacity. Peak demand rarely touches 30,000 MW. Consumers are paying roughly Rs 2.5 to 2.8 trillion a year for plants that sit idle. And the solution that policymakers keep returning to,…

For nearly two decades, Pakistan has relied on the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) as its flagship poverty alleviation scheme. Launched in 2008 under the government of Benazir Bhutto’s political legacy, the program was designed to…

The 18th Amendment was sold to Pakistan as the great democratic correction. A constitutional settlement, we were told, that would tame the overbearing centre, empower the provinces and bring government closer to the people. Sixteen years…

For 65 years, the Indus Waters Treaty was the one thing that worked between Pakistan and India. Last April, India suspended it. One year on, the treaty is gone. The Court of Arbitration has ruled the suspension illegal. India has called the…