Thursday, November 5, 2026
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Thursday, November 5, 2026

Riaz Missen

Right to dissent

  THE declaration of emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, suspending the PTI-led provincial government amid a deteriorating security situation, raises a fundamental question about Pakistan’s democratic…

Adaptive failure

  PAKISTAN rarely suffers from a failure to recognise its crises. Whether the problem lies in water, provincial administration, resource distribution, urban services or the…

Reimagining the federation

  When Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal proposed dividing Pakistan into 12 to 15 smaller administrative units—or, alternatively, setting up 160 empowered district governments—he reignited a…

Inclusive governance

  MILLIONS across Pakistan struggle with hunger, malnutrition, and disease. Nearly 26 million people face food insecurity, with 2.14 million children suffering from acute malnutrition.…

Ghost in the machine

  WHEN Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi declared that Pakistan’s system has collapsed, he offered more than a diagnosis. A senior official responsible for the state’s…

Cracks in the hegemony

  IN the sweltering heat of July 2026, as baton-wielding police clash with determined students at Jantar Mantar, India confronts a reckoning. What began as…

From flood to fortune

  DURING the 2025 monsoon, surplus Sutlej floodwaters were diverted from Islam Headworks into the abandoned Old Mailsi Canal—not to irrigate fields, but to recharge…

Indus paradox

  INDIA’S suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty has reignited debate over one of South Asia’s most important river systems. Much of the discussion has…

Cartography of fear

  SOUTH Asia is a cradle of ancient civilizations, a land where cultures, languages and histories have interwoven for millennia. Yet beneath this richness lies…

Quest for strategic autonomy

PAKISTAN’S water story has long been written on the surface—on rivers that rise beyond its borders, on flows shaped by distant mountains and on treaties…

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