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By Nazia Sher Pakistan’s fisheries sector has crossed the USD 500 million export threshold, marking steady progress in the blue economy. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (2025) and the ITC Trade Map, seafood exports reached approximately 216,350 metric tons worth USD 465 million in FY2024–25, reflecting growth of around 8–13 percent in both value and volume. Despite this progress, structural governance weaknesses continue to constrain long-term transformation. Fisheries governance in Pakistan remains fragmented across institutions. Provincial governments are responsible for production, licensing, and inland fisheries, while federal institutions manage maritime security, trade facilitation, and international reporting obligations. The…
The strength of a democracy is not measured by the popularity of its leaders, the scale of its elections or the size of its economy. It is measured by its ability to tolerate criticism, protect dissent and uphold the rights of all citizens, especially those who disagree with the government of the day. Recent developments in India have once again brought these principles into sharp focus, raising important questions about the direction of democratic governance, political tolerance and minority rights under the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Reports from the city of Meerut, where a 70-year-old Muslim man was…
By Professor Dr. Sheikh Akram Ali Losing anything causes distress to human beings and affects everyone; ultimately, it affects the entire society. Someone might recover from that loss and stand up again, while another might be so severely affected by it that they can never stand up again. If a society loses a precious thing like moral values, it has to suffer until it is recovered through social reconstruction and reform. It is an extremely difficult task, but it needs to be addressed before the society faces total destruction. There is an old proverb in our society— “If wealth is…
By Amir Muhammad Khan Pakistan is often described, almost casually, as a poor country. Yet this description, repeated so frequently in public discourse, sits uneasily alongside the scale of religious spending, charitable outlays and seasonal consumption patterns that define much of its social life. The reality is more complex than a simple label of poverty allows. It is a country where deprivation exists alongside significant religious expenditure, where hardship coexists with large scale collective spending during major religious occasions, and where questions about priorities are becoming harder to avoid. Islamic teaching is clear that the obligation of Hajj is tied…
By Sudhir Ahmad Afridi The record arrival of more than 1.267 million tourists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during Eid al Adha has once again highlighted how quickly domestic tourism is expanding in Pakistan and how unevenly its benefits are being distributed. The surge was not confined to the well known northern corridors alone. It also included nearly 394,682 visitors to the newly merged tribal districts, a figure that quietly but firmly challenges older assumptions that these regions remain cut off from mainstream travel patterns. What this actually reflects is not a lack of interest, but a long standing lack of sustained…
The latest exchange between Washington and Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz has exposed how quickly the language of diplomacy can shift into the language of pressure, leaving even cautious hopes of de-escalation hanging in uncertainty. What had appeared in recent weeks as a slow, uneven opening towards understanding now looks far less stable, shaped instead by competing claims, mixed signals and political messaging that often moves faster than negotiations on the ground. At the centre of the latest dispute are remarks from the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, who suggested that any agreement with Iran would result in greater…
By Dr Zawwar Hussain In the modern world, technology has quietly become the backbone of almost every system that keeps societies running. It guides transport, secures financial networks, supports hospitals, enables global trade and underpins military operations. Among all these technologies, satellite based navigation has become one of the most critical. Global Positioning System is now embedded in everyday life in ways most people rarely notice. From smartphones to aircraft, from shipping routes to emergency services, almost every movement on land, sea and air depends on signals beamed from space. The scale of this dependence is immense. Entire economies now…
By Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal In the quiet geography of childhood, time does not behave as it later will. It moves slowly, almost generously, stretching each day into something that feels spacious and complete. Sundays, in particular, carried a special kind of gravity. They were not just days off from school, but small celebrations in themselves, anticipated with a restlessness that began long before they arrived. Even on Saturdays, sleep often refused to come easily. The mind would drift between possibilities, weighing plans as if each one held equal importance and promise. A cricket match on an open field with friends…