Pakistan’s current fiscal space is limiting its capacity to finance climate action. A big burden of debt servicing, social protection needs, energy sector pressures, especially under a recent war-like situation, and demands for economic recovery compete for scarce fiscal resources.

Climate-related investments usually need extensive upfront expenditures, while their benefits, which come in the form of improved ecosystems, avoided disaster losses, and collective resilience, may materialise over longer periods.

Another big challenge is that Pakistan has not yet estimated its financing needs for comprehensive climate action. According to our latest Nationally Determined Contributions 3.0, Pakistan must reduce 50 per cent of its projected emissions by 2035, which requires $565.7 billion. This estimate has been made by the World Bank.

One of the challenges is that Pakistan has not yet estimated its financing needs for comprehensive climate action

So far, Pakistan has accessed less than half a billion from all available international sources: the Global Environment Facility, Green Climate Fund, Adaptation Fund, and related forums. Imagine the needs and the amount, as this is not simply a small amount; rather, it indicates that Pakistan’s capacity to mobilise resources is constrained.

Financing within the system comes from public spending through annual budget allocations. Budget FY27 confirmed a significant reduction from Rs716.7bn in FY26 to Rs214bn. Consequently, the adaptation budget has been reduced to Rs70.4bn from Rs85.4bn, while the mitigation budget has been reduced to Rs124bn from Rs603bn.

So, on one side, hazards are intensifying: more heat waves, more droughts, a rise in temperature, especially nighttime temperature, irregular precipitation with more and violent floods, while on the other side, fiscal space is limited, and access to international resources is narrow.

Given this context, each rupee redirected toward climate action is a rupee not available for debt servicing, health, education, or immediate disaster response. Moreover, every additional dollar of climate-related borrowing adds to a debt burden; this is itself becoming a constraint on future climate investment.

According to the latest NDCs, Pakistan must reduce 50pc of its projected emissions by 2035, which requires $565.7 billion, but so far, we have accessed less than $500m from all available international sources

This is the trap Pakistan’s climate finance strategy must now steer: climate risk is rising, and fiscal space is dipping. The strategic way forward is to channel climate finance from where it can realistically come from, and how efficiently Pakistan can channel what already exists.

There are multiple structural barriers limiting available financial opportunities. Firstly, climate responsibility has been devolved to provincial governments, while international commitments and carbon market coordination remain with the federal government. This devolution has resulted in overlapping mandates and insufficient coordination, with gaps in governance both vertically and horizontally.

Secondly, our technical capacity to prepare bankable climate projects is inadequate. That’s why we often fail to present fundable proposals, which is a primary requirement, even when funding windows are open.

Thirdly, there is almost no consolidated system that can track non-budgetary flows such as international, private, or blended finance. This undermines Pakistan’s ability to quantify its own needs and credibly negotiate internationally.

The fourth constraint is about the limited fiscal space. Low savings and investment ratios, high public debt, and currency risk on foreign-denominated finance constrain both domestic mobilisation and the terms on which international finance can be absorbed.

The fifth constraint is about private-sector capital. As public funds still account for the overwhelming share of adaptation finance, private investors lack the tools to price climate risk and adaptation projects and, unlike renewable energy, often lack a clear, commercial return. This limits the private sector appetite precisely where public finance is rarest.

Pakistan has established its climate finance strategy around establishing a climate finance taxonomy and expanding budget tagging to non-budgetary flows, screening public investment for climate risk and prioritising resilient infrastructure, building a bankable projects pipeline through an integrated climate action platform and an operational Pakistan Climate Change Fund, which will help mobilise domestic capital through carbon markets, green and sustainability-linked bonds, blended finance, and climate-aligned public-private partnerships, and developing green skills and innovation capacity through a proposed green university and startup ecosystem.

Pakistan is also deepening its existing channels at the international level, including the World Bank’s $40bn country partnership framework for 2026-35, the Asian Development Bank’s climate commitment of around $2.43bn for 2022-24, the International Monetary Fund’s $1.3bn Resilience and Sustainability Facility tied to climate-informed public financial management reforms, and a better-prepared pipeline of proposals.

However, none of these instruments, alone, will close the gap. What is required at the top is credible coordination, a single national system to track needs and allocations, project screening, and directing both domestic revenue and international finance toward the same prioritised pipeline.

Pakistan’s climate future requires a strategic, predictable, and development-oriented financing framework: no aid, no loans, but grants and concessional loans, so that we can protect vulnerable populations while supporting economic transformation.

The writer is an assistant professor at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 28th, 2026

A provocative new book joins this debate. In Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings: (When) do Leaders Make a Difference Jared Diamondexamines whether individual leadersalter the course of their societies. The study marks a break from the American author’s earlier books which earned the Pulitzer Prize winner much fame. But his bestselling 1997 book Guns, Germs, and Steel and other works also attracted criticism for geographic determinism and playing down human agency. His latest book reverses the lens. Across politics, business and sports, it examines whether individual leaders play a decisive role in shaping the world around them, and under what conditions if they do. He considers how the interplay between an exceptional individual and historical circumstances determines success or failure.

At the book’s outset, Diamond narrates the incident of March 1930 when Adolf Hitler’s car was hit by a huge trailer truck in which he survived. Three years later, Hitler became chancellor of Germany and unleashed the Holocaust and World War II, in which millions of people were killed. He asks whether these horrific events would have happened if Hitler had died in the car crash. Some will argue things would have turned out differently. Others would point to the humiliation inflicted on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, by the hyperinflation it suffered and the fact that antisemitism was deeply embedded in the country well before Hitler’s rise. That makes it hard to decide whether Hitler made a difference. This, Diamond says, exemplifies the question of whether leaders determine outcomes, for better or for worse.

The role individuals play in shaping history has always been a contested issue in an age-old debate.

He mentions three competing schools of thought in this debate. One sees exceptional and heroic leaders determining history. The opposite view is that leaders are constrained by circumstances and have little influence on events. An in-between view holds that individual leaders sometimes do and sometimes don’t make a difference. His book takes a middle ground in this debate. For the author, the key question is under what conditions can leaders make a difference.

In his discussion of leaders’ impact on history, Diamond sets what he calls the Hamlet test. This refers to whether any contemporary person had comparable qualities to achieve a similar outcome as the individual being assessed. In Shakespeare’s case, his unique talent meant no other Elizabethan could have written Hamlet if Shakespeare hadn’t done so. He cites the example of independent Botswana’s first president as a political figure who passes the Hamlet test. Seretse Khama’s policies made his country well-governed and not consumed by civil wars or diamond revenues being wasted on ostentatious projects. Although he leveraged Botswana’s inherent advantages and his position as a tribal leader, his contributions to his country would not have happened under another founding president. No other figure had comparable skills. He was an effective leader at a particular place and time, and therefore made a difference.

Leaders however gifted, Diamond says, can be effective only in certain circumstances. For example, Genghis Khan, who established the largest land empire in history, had exceptional qualities but was lucky enough to be born “at the start of the wettest decade in the last 2,000 years on the steppes of Central Asia”. In other words, a military and administrative genius was helped crucially by climatic factors which had favourable economic, social and demographic consequences. Therefore, much turns on enabling conditions.

Diamond draws up a list of 22 modern leaders — familiar names — and asserts that historical figures may be forces for either good or bad. Some leaders led their countries to independence and left lasting legacies. Others established dictatorships and systems that did not outlive them. Some leaders had enough power to execute their policies and make an impact. Being at the right place and at the right time, their context aided them to make a difference.

One conclusion he draws is that those who made a difference rarely left office voluntarily — the two notable exceptions being Nelson Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew. He regards education as an important variable in a leader’s effectiveness. He cites the cases of Lee Kuan Yew and South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki, trained in economics, whose countries’ economies grew spectacularly under their leadership. His account of leaders who contributed positively — and negatively — to national economic growth is particularly insightful.

In discussing business leaders, Diamond notes that many famous names notably Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are credited with changing the world. But were they uniquely qualified to accomplish what they did? He concludes that none of them pass the Hamlet test. They are important and successful risk-takers in modern business but they were all replaceable. If Bezos hadn’t built an online ‘everything store’, someone else would have, as its time had come thanks to the explosion of the internet. These business leaders made a difference but not the kind that shapes a society’s trajectory.

Diamond concludes that context, timing and a leader’s abilities determine impactful leadership. Some situations offer an opportunity for leaders to make impactful decisions while other situations severely constrain a leader. “A leader’s lowest potential for impact is under circumstances making it improbable that a single person could have changed the outcome,” he writes.

There is much in the book to criticise. In places, Diamond’s what-if counterfactuals confuse rather than clarify. His “natural experiment” methodology of comparing similar societies or business firms facing similar crises but led by different individuals, in order to isolate the leader’s impact, also raises questions. History rarely provides comparable cases. Although he acknowledges the importance of charisma, he says too little about the distinctive qualities that leaders need to be effective. Still, it is an engaging book that makes an important contribution to a debate that will undoubtedly continue for years to come.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

The challenge is no longer simply access to information, but knowing what deserves belief. This year’s message, ‘Choose trusted journalism’, is therefore particularly apt. Yet trust cannot be demanded by news organisations as a birthright. It must be earned through the daily, often invisible work of checking claims, verifying evidence, consulting multiple sources, separating fact from opinion and correcting mistakes openly. In a media environment that rewards speed, outrage and certainty, such principles may appear old-fashioned. They are, in fact, journalism’s strongest defence. They also remain essential because false information can inflame tensions and erode confidence in institutions.

Newsrooms must look inward. Every sensational headline, careless error or blurring of reporting and commentary weakens public confidence and makes serious journalism harder to distinguish from the flood of material surrounding it. But responsibility does not rest with journalists alone. In Pakistan, the work of verification is made more difficult by pressures on reporters and news organisations, restricted access, interruptions to communications and the use of legal and administrative measures that inhibit independent reporting. When journalists cannot investigate freely, citizens know less about the exercise of power. When communications are blocked during moments of crisis or political tension, rumour gains ground. This is why press freedom and public access to credible information are inseparable. A society cannot demand trustworthy journalism while simultaneously making the practice of it more precarious.

That is why World News Day should be less a celebration of the press than a reminder of mutual obligations. Journalists owe the public accuracy, fairness, independence and the humility to correct themselves. Governments owe journalists the freedom to ask difficult questions, pursue uncomfortable facts and publish without intimidation. Readers, too, must learn to recognise the difference between reporting built on evidence and content engineered for reaction. News organisations can help by being more transparent about how stories are sourced, verified and corrected, and by resisting pressures that reward sensationalism over substance. The problem of misinformation will not be solved by adding yet more information to an already crowded stream. What matters is whether information has been questioned, corroborated and placed in context. In an age when technology can create convincing falsehoods in seconds, scrutiny is not an optional extra. It is the value journalism must continue to provide — and the reason it must continue to be protected.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

The scale of Pakistan’s crypto economy makes the question particularly important.

The Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), Bilal Bin Saqib, recently told a Senate committee that approximately 40 million Pakistanis have crypto-linked accounts. He estimated Pakistanis hold between $10 billion and $20bn in crypto assets outside Pakistan. Chainalysis ranked Pakistan third globally in its 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, behind India and the United States. Pakistan ranked second for retail activity through centralised crypto services.

What is remarkable is that much of this ecosystem developed outside Pakistan’s traditional financial system and clearly violates current State Bank of Pakistan regulations. However, Pakistanis can download an app like Binance, open a USDT account, and then make a rupee transfer via Raast or inter-bank fund transfer to local facilitators listed on the app, getting USDT credited to their offshore account through ‘institutional’ hawala.

Controlling access to a global digital financial network is considerably more difficult than regulating local institutions

They can acquire USDT, hold digital assets in offshore or self-custodied wallets, transfer them internationally and increasingly use those assets for payments. The arrival of stablecoin-funded international cards makes the regulatory challenge even more interesting. Companies such as RedotPay and Fasset illustrate how quickly the distinction between cryptocurrency and conventional payments is disappearing. A consumer can hold USDT and use a card linked to those digital assets to make purchases through the international payments infrastructure in Pakistan.

The number of Pakistani customers using these services is not publicly disclosed. It would therefore be misleading to claim a specific figure. Nevertheless, if Pakistan really has tens of millions of crypto-linked accounts and $10–20bn of Pakistani capital invested in virtual assets, the potential market for offshore crypto-linked financial services is clearly substantial.

A Pakistani consumer can acquire USDT from another individual, transfer it to a wallet operated by an international company and use a foreign-issued virtual card to purchase goods or services. The customer may be in Pakistan, but the crypto platform could be licensed in another jurisdiction. The digital asset exists on a global blockchain. The card programme could operate from another country, while the merchant could be somewhere else entirely or in Pakistan.

That raises the question: Which regulator controls that transaction? No single regulator completely does.

If Pakistan really has tens of millions of crypto-linked accounts and $10–20bn of capital invested in virtual assets, the potential market for offshore crypto-linked financial services is clearly substantial

This does not mean governments are powerless. They can regulate domestic banks, payment companies, exchanges, fiat on-ramps and off-ramps. They can require locally operating businesses to identify customers, monitor transactions, maintain records and report suspicious activity. But controlling access to a global digital financial network is considerably more difficult.

Pakistan has responded by creating PVARA and establishing a formal licensing framework for Virtual Asset Service Providers. Companies wishing to offer virtual-asset services in Pakistan are required to enter the regulatory framework, establish the appropriate local presence and comply with requirements including know-your-customer (KYC), anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism, transaction monitoring and record-keeping.

This is an important development since it creates an opportunity for reputable international crypto companies to regularise their operations and participate legitimately in one of the world’s largest crypto markets.

The more difficult question is why Pakistan’s existing crypto users would move from offshore platforms into the regulated domestic ecosystem. For regulators, greater KYC, transaction monitoring and tax transparency are essential characteristics of a legitimate financial system.

For some existing crypto users, however, those same requirements may represent additional friction. This does not mean offshore crypto lacks KYC. However, they do not verify the primary document. This, plus the fact that their assets, accounts and transaction records sit outside Pakistan’s immediate financial and tax-reporting infrastructure, is a key consideration.

That creates the central challenge for PVARA. Pakistan can require a company seeking to operate formally in the country to obtain regulatory approval. But preventing an individual from accessing an offshore wallet, exchange or blockchain application through the internet is much harder. And this phenomenon is not unique to Pakistan. It is inherent in the architecture of digital assets. The solution therefore cannot depend solely on enforcement.

Pakistan’s regulated crypto ecosystem must become more attractive than the offshore alternative. That means easy conversion between rupees and digital assets, integration with banks and payment systems, competitive transaction costs, consumer protection, efficient dispute resolution and legitimate everyday applications. Most importantly, users need to see a benefit from becoming part of the regulated system.

PVARA has an opportunity to bring a huge existing digital-asset economy into Pakistan’s formal financial architecture. But issuing licences may prove to be the easier part. The real test will be persuading millions of existing crypto users that moving into the regulated ecosystem is actually in their interest. That is perhaps the larger lesson for regulators everywhere.

In a borderless financial system, regulation cannot rely solely on control. It must also compete.

The writer is the chairman of the Pakistan Fintech Network

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 28th, 2026

The September State Bank of Pakistan (SBP)–Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Confidence Index stood at 49.1 compared with just 33.6 on the Q3 Ipsos Consumer Confidence Index. This striking gap could reflect differences in how businesses and households interpret headline economic indicators, varying level of trust in government, or, more fundamentally, their contrasting economic realities: a financially stronger minority with greater resources, choices and capacity to absorb shocks versus a much larger population struggling individually with weaker purchasing power and greater vulnerability.

Dr Durre Nayab, Director, Socioeconomic Insights and Analytics, and former joint director at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), offered a different explanation, attributing the apparent divergence largely to measurement methodology and sampling.

“To me, the gap is a measurement artefact. First, the two numbers aren’t on the same scale. The SBP-IBA index is a diffusion index, where 50 signals neutrality, zero indicates no confidence and 100 extreme confidence. The Ipsos index is constructed differently and has historically hovered in the 30s. So, 33.6 cannot be read as ‘16 points below neutral’ in the same way that 49.1 can be described as ‘near neutral’.”

Survey results indicate that consumers are less optimistic about Pakistan’s economy than businesses

She noted that the direction of the Ipsos index was, in fact, slightly positive: it rose 0.4 points to 33.6, while and 24 per cent of the respondents said the country is heading the right direction, up from 11pc in August 2024.

“Second, who gets surveyed matters most,” Ms Nayab said. “The business survey draws from about 2,000 large, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan-registered firms, with about 500 surveyed each month, selected on the basis of the highest paid-up capital. It, therefore, captures the corporate top tier, not the kiryana store, the mohalla khokha or the small and medium enterprises.”

Large firms, she argued, are better positioned to pass higher costs on through prices, benefit from interest rate cuts, and hedge against risks. “Households, meanwhile, absorb those passed-on costs, often on fixed or informal incomes. The two groups are living different economic realities.”

Nasim Beg, CEO, Arif Habib Consultancy, believes the contrast stems partly from their different perspectives: businesses tend to be forward-looking, basing decisions on assessment of future economic conditions, while consumers respond more directly to their lived experience.

“The average consumer’s behaviour is influenced by lived reality. Over the last five years, Pakistani consumers have suffered a sharp erosion of purchasing power alongside income compression. Even if the economic outlook is improving, households continue to feel the cumulative impact of that squeeze.”

Ehsan Malik, former CEO, Pakistan Business Council, also blamed the divergence more to contrasting economic realities than differences in understanding. “Businesses are not truly optimistic: at 49.1, confidence remains below neutral, though expectations are improving. Larger firms can raise prices, alter products, defer investment, hedge risks and lobby for subsidies, guaranteed returns and protection.

“Consumers have no such options. They must absorb higher food, electricity, rent and tax costs, while slower inflation does not restore lost purchasing power.

“Trust further widens the divide when the burden of adjustment appears unfairly distributed. Consumers understand their vulnerability well. Pakistan has achieved some macroeconomic stabilisation, but confidence will converge only when it translates into secure jobs, recovering real incomes and affordable essentials.

“The divergence should therefore be seen as a policy warning, not a survey anomaly or evidence that consumers poorly understand an economy in which spending power has eroded”.

Industrialist Majyd Aziz attributed consumers’ pessimism primarily to small paychecks failing to keep pace with rising living costs. Pakistan’s import-dependent economy remains vulnerable to global supply and demand shocks, while deindustrialisation, galloping inflation, and depleting household savings have intensified the squeeze. “Unlike businesses, consumers buy daily and have their feet firmly on the ground,” he said.

Mr Aziz also questioned whether the Ipsos Consumer Confidence Index fully captures ground realities, noting that it surveyed 1,000 people by telephone rather than through face-to-face interviews. He found the provincial variations striking: 31pc of respondents in Balochistan believed the country was on the right track, compared to only 14pc in KP.

More tellingly, he said, only 10pc of consumers felt comfortable making household purchases, underscoring weak purchasing power and explaining difficulties facing domestic businesses. High electricity, gas, and fuel costs continue to strain household budgets despite the survey showing greater optimism about personal finances.

Mr Aziz argued that rising stock prices, property investment, automobile purchases and improving industrial indicators largely reflect the choices available to the affluent and should not automatically be equated with broad-based economic recovery. The survey’s optimism, he said, must, therefore, be weighed against the frustration, uncertainty and vulnerability confronting ordinary consumers.

Members of the government’s economic team and the State Bank were approached for comment, but no response had been received by the time this report was filed.

The writer is a former Dawn staffer.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 28th, 2026

The first concern, around broad-based risks, has gained quite a bit of attention with a spate of resignations from top AI companies, with departing individuals claiming that AI poses a serious risk to society and carries a non-zero chance of triggering human extinction.

What is the pathway of such a catastrophe? The most common position at this point is that, in the absence of clear ethical guardrails, AI tools can be used to create biological weapons of the sort that could trigger large-scale human loss. Others think that, in the wrong/rival hands, AI could be used to trigger weapons of mass destruction.

These fears appear to be fairly fantastical, and the timing with which they’re being made public — just when the frontier models are poised for initial public offerings — suggests they’re part of a Silicon Valley hype cycle.

However, if these claims about capabilities and the risks they could carry are even remotely true, they pose a much simpler question. If a technology is truly this capable, then what is it even doing in private hands? Historian and economic commentator, Adam Tooze, made an insightful analogy that if we take the claims of societal risk at face value, we’re essentially developing a technology that is similar to the nuclear bomb in the type of catastrophe it can pose, and that too at a much greater scale.

The impact of AI on labour markets is something that many workers will face in a variety of ways in the coming years.

But the key difference is that the development of the bomb took place through the Manhattan Project, which was entirely governed and steered by the state, with private enterprise playing a junior and often strictly compartmentalised role. AI, on the other hand, is being developed by private enterprise, with private investment steering its priorities, and commercial viability shaping the discourse around it. At any other point in human history, has anything posing purported risks of this nature been allowed to emerge via a process of borderline anarchic market-led competition?

The logical corollary of this parallel is that anything that poses large-scale existential risk is too important to be left in private hands. Public regulation determining its development, use, sale/purchase, and evolution becomes a necessity. And that this regulation cannot emerge from the ind­us­­try itself, which is subsumed under intense com­peti­tion and has a vested interest in skirting around various legalities, but rather from the state.

Beyond pushback against the fearmongering, there is also some scepticism around AI’s potential to generate astronomic growth in capitalist societies. In particular, Ben Moll and Alex Imas argue in a recent Substack piece that predictions of double-digit AI-driven growth, the kind floated by Dario Amodei, Leopold Aschenbrenner, and various technologists, are unlikely to materialise within the next decade or so, even though making a textbook case for it is relatively simple.

Moll and Imas argue that explosive growth is easy to generate in a standard textbook growth model. If automation steadily raises the share of tasks that machines can perform, diminishing returns to capital weaken and eventually disappear once machines can do everything.

The core of their position, however, argues that this outcome depends on several assumptions that are unlikely to hold in practice. Automation would need to spread across the whole economy very quickly, not just in cognitive or remote tasks but across physical, messy, and relational work that resists mechanisation. Spending patterns would need to stay proportional even as automated goods become cheap, rather than shifting towards whatever remains scarce, which is the usual pattern of structural change.

But a central facet, which these authors don’t give much attention to but others have honed in on, is that in a society where the cost of production approaches zero, there would need to be enough demand to absorb all that cheap, expanded output. Where would such demand come from once automation shifts jobs and income away from wor­kers who spend a large share of what they earn?

This brings us back to perhaps the key issue of AI capability that has been drowned out by fears of biological weapons and global catastrophe. The technology’s impact on labour markets is something that many workers will face in a variety of ways in the coming years. It’s not just about a machine replacing a human, though that is the most commonly held view. It’s also about how the threat of a machine replacing humans changes working conditions and the kind of income one can expect to receive.

The history of technology adoption in labour processes is often told in large sweeps of history. Technologists tend to use common examples, such as how the arrival of machines after the late 19th century unlocked rapid growth and raised prosperity or how the creation of the ATM didn’t lead to a mass exodus of banking sector jobs. The implication is that society adapts and the outcome is usually positive.

What this cheerful story misses out is that adaptation processes produce winners and losers, with the latter taking years to adjust. In a world already characterised by the deskilling of labour, people rendered jobless by a machine (or the threat of a machine) won’t suddenly find alternative employment. Those two or three decades in which the labour market sorts itself out will seem minuscule in a broad sweep of history, but for those living through this period, it will be a particularly bleak eternity.

The writer teaches sociology at Lums.

X: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

The government, however, remains wary. Last year, exporting 750,000 tonnes triggered a sharp price hike. A few months later, it had to import 300,000 tonnes to stabilise the domestic market. Understandably, policymakers are reluctant to repeat this costly cycle of exports followed by panic imports.

Surprisingly, the Pakistan Kissan Ittehad has also entered the fray, demanding sugar exports. With a bumper crop expected, it warns that millers could use liquidity and warehousing constraints to delay crushing and depress sugarcane prices. Already, the sugarcane minimum support price regime is no longer in effect under the conditions agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

In reality, without a coherent policy or long-term strategy for the sugar sector, the government repeatedly ends up making hurried import or export decisions. Over time, this pattern has reinforced a widely held perception: among the sector’s three main stakeholders — millers, farmers, and consumers — millers have often emerged as the principal beneficiaries of government decisions.

The elite capture and institutional inertia have made the sector notoriously difficult to regulate

The core question is whether the government will keep managing the sugar sector on an ad hoc basis, resorting to temporary fixes only after public outcry, or finally address the concerns that various quarters have been raising for years — concerns that fall into three broad categories.

First, the area under water-intensive sugarcane continues to expand. Between FY16 and FY26, sugarcane production rose 37 per cent, outpacing population growth. In contrast, per capita sugar consumption fell by 4pc, from 1.28kg to 1.23kg (per month) between FY19 and FY25. These trends collectively indicate a potential surplus in the coming years — a red flag for the government, particularly if the cost of sugar production exceeds global sugar prices.

Meanwhile, dwindling water resources raise a more fundamental question: how sustainable is the continued expansion of sugarcane acreage? From the farmers’ perspective, this shift toward sugarcane — particularly at cotton’s expense — reflects a rational economic decision based on better returns, not a planning failure on their part.

Second, the sugar sector has faced persistent allegations of cartelisation for decades, with most mills owned by a handful of politically influential families. This political clout reportedly allows millers — working in tandem with brokers, stockists and other intermediaries — to push up market prices. Unsurprisingly, the government’s price-control system for this essential commodity has proven futile, while the Competition Commission of Pakistan has remained largely ineffective.

Compounding the problem, Punjab — which accounts for around 70pc of the country’s sugarcane production — has maintained a ban on the establishment of new sugar mills since December 2006. The ban has reduced competition, strengthened the market power of the 79 (operational) mills and potentially facilitated price-fixing. The elite capture and institutional inertia have made the sugar sector notoriously difficult to regulate.

Third, the government has repeatedly provided subsidies to the sugar sector to export surplus sugar, citing the price differential between local and international markets. This year, the situation is fortunately in Pakistan’s favour. Yet the deeper question remains: does the government have a long-term policy to align the sugar sector with international markets without providing subsidies to millers, while ensuring a fair return to farmers?

To address these concerns and curb market volatility, the government must abandon its reliance on ad hoc interventions and reactive regulatory steps. What the sector needs is a long-term policy that protects the interests of both growers and consumers, built around the following priorities.

Water is a pressing concern behind sugarcane’s expansion. Many advocate restricting sugarcane cultivation through crop zoning or acreage caps. However, without a dedicated crop diversification fund to support farmers, policy must focus on improving water-use efficiency rather than further restricting their crop choices.

The sugar industry should channel its corporate social responsibility funds towards promoting drip irrigation, trench planting, wider row spacing, and other water-saving practices, while also supporting groundwater recharge through rainwater harvesting.

Before the Supreme Court in 2016, the Punjab government defended its ban on new sugar mills, arguing that new capacity would drive further expansion of water-intensive sugarcane, particularly in cotton-growing areas.

Sugar beet offers a compelling alternative — maturing in just six months and requiring far less water than sugarcane’s 12-15-month cycle. Worldwide, beet accounts for 20–22pc of total sugar production, and a few Pakistani mills also process it. Pakistan produced 92,786 tonnes of beet sugar in FY25. Moving forward, the government should permit the setting up of new mills that predominantly process beet. This would encourage a more sustainable and water-efficient sugar industry.

With rising surpluses of sugarcane, maize, and coarse rice, Pakistan must seriously evaluate the viability of ethanol production for fuel blending. Several countries including India have already taken this path. Expanding ethanol output through multi-feedstock — sugarcane juice, maize, rice and other grains — plants would offer farmers a strategic alternative market while reducing oil imports, lowering carbon emissions, and strengthening national energy security.

Pakistan must align its agriculture sector — particularly sugar — more closely with global markets. This requires trade deregulation and unrestricted import-export flows. These, however, should be governed by a dynamic formula-based tariff that adjusts to global price swings, balancing the interests of consumers and millers. To protect farmers and prevent disputes with millers, sugarcane procurement prices should be indexed to the average prices of sugar and its by-products over the preceding two years.

However, deregulation cannot succeed unless the federal and provincial governments establish a strategic reserve of around half a million tonnes of sugar. This cushion would help absorb price spikes caused by import delays or market manipulation by millers.

In sum, Pakistan’s recurring sugar crisis is fundamentally not a supply-and-demand failure, but the result of policy vacuums, institutional weakness, lax enforcement, and poor regulatory oversight. Until the government replaces quick fixes with lasting reforms, consumers and farmers will continue to pay the price.

Khalid Wattoo is a development professional and a farmer. Dr Waqar Ahmad is a former Associate Professor at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 28th, 2026

President Xi Jinping has proposed that China lead the creation of a BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa] AI open-source community. It would promote cooperation in developing and applying large language models, organise specialised AI training and build an open ecosystem for participating countries.

For the Global South, this could lower one of the biggest barriers to entering the AI economy.

Building frontier models from scratch requires enormous computing capacity, expensive data centres, vast datasets and specialised talent. Most developing countries cannot match the investments being made by the world’s largest technology companies.

The strategic objective is to become a builder, adapter and exporter of tech solutions

Open-weight models offer another route. Developers can download, adapt and build on them for particular languages, industries and public services. This can reduce the cost of experimentation and allow countries to develop applications suited to their own needs. China has emerged as a major player in this space. Models such as Qwen, DeepSeek, Kimi and GLM have expanded the range of capable systems available outside the leading Western technology companies.

However, open-weight does not necessarily mean fully open-source. Model weights may be available while training data, development code, or other components remain closed. The larger opportunity lies beyond models.

President Xi has also proposed a BRICS digital ecosystem cloud platform, digital-skills training, cooperation in smart manufacturing and an engineer-training alliance. These proposals recognise a basic fact: AI adoption depends on infrastructure and people as much as software.

This is where Pakistan should take a serious interest. Pakistan has a large population, a young workforce and an established IT and IT-enabled services sector. The next step is to move towards higher-value AI development, integration and specialised services. Open models could help the country make that transition without trying to reproduce the enormous costs of frontier AI development. Language is one obvious opportunity.

Urdu and Pakistan’s regional languages remain poorly served compared with English and several other major languages. A Pakistani AI ecosystem could adapt existing models to local languages and build tools for translation, document processing, education and public information.

Agriculture provides another practical use. AI systems could combine weather information, crop data, satellite imagery and local knowledge to provide farmers with timely advice. Such tools would not replace agricultural experts. They could extend their reach to communities that have limited access to them.

Healthcare and education also offer large potential gains. AI-assisted systems could help process medical records, support clinical workflows and expand access to basic information. In education, affordable AI tutors could provide personalised assistance to students while teachers could use the technology to prepare lessons and identify learning gaps.

The public sector should not be overlooked. Pakistan’s government generates enormous volumes of regulations, statistics, court documents, administrative records and public information. AI systems could make these materials easier to search and analyse. They could also reduce routine administrative work. Tax administration, for example, could use AI to identify anomalies and improve communication with taxpayers.

The economic case may be even stronger. Pakistan has struggled to raise productivity and expand exports fast enough to support sustained growth. AI offers a chance to sell higher-value digital services to international markets. Instead of competing mainly on labour costs, Pakistani firms could develop specialised solutions for finance, logistics, agriculture, education, manufacturing and other sectors. That requires investment.

Pakistan needs reliable electricity, better connectivity, cloud infrastructure, data centres and affordable access to computing. Universities need stronger links with industry. Engineering and computer-science programmes must give greater weight to machine learning, data engineering, AI systems and related fields.

This is an area where cooperation with China and BRICS countries could be useful. Pakistan could seek joint computing facilities, technical training, research partnerships and AI applications for local industries. It could also use BRICS platforms to secure access to infrastructure and expertise that would otherwise be expensive. Chinese technology can give Pakistan an alternative to systems dominated by Western companies. Data governance will be central to that effort.

Pakistan needs clear rules on where sensitive data is stored, who can access it and how AI systems can use it. Critical government and infrastructure data should receive particular protection. At the same time, regulation should not become so restrictive that it prevents researchers and businesses from building useful applications.

India has invested heavily in AI capacity while remaining attentive to questions of data security, strategic autonomy and technological dependence. Pakistan faces a similar policy challenge. This is also why AI governance matters.

For Pakistan, the test should be practical. Can a university train and fine-tune a model without prohibitive computing costs? Can a Pakistani company build an AI product for global customers? Can a student use an effective tutor, and a farmer receive useful information, in a local language? Can a government department process thousands of documents without exposing citizens’ private data?

Pakistan should engage with the BRICS initiative, but it should do so with a clear national strategy. It should seek access to models and computing, demand skills transfer, support local developers and establish rules that protect data without strangling innovation.

Most importantly, Pakistan should stop viewing AI simply as another imported technology. The strategic objective is to become a builder, adapter and exporter of AI solutions. China’s proposal may open the door. Pakistan’s task is to walk through it with its own engineers, its own companies, its own languages and its own priorities.

The writer is a Dawn staffer

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 28th, 2026

The Baghdadi police put the body down as Unidentified Drug Addict in the roznamcha and dispatched it to a morgue. On May 9, they registered a murder case and nominated the name on the tin: Pinky. A forensic toxicology report confirmed their suspicion a few days later that it had traces of the A-class Schedule I narcotic cocaine.

On May 12, Pinky was declared arrested.

In the official telling, Pinky was taken into custody from a flat in Karachi’s Garden on May 12 by the Sindh Police and a federal intelligence agency. Her arrest, it emerged, according to one version of events, was based on a tip-off. Pinky’s ex-husband had snitched on her to a sub-inspector in Karachi to tell him where she was hiding. The policeman, who cannot be named due to his current deputation, was ecstatic—he had been on Pinky’s case since 2019 and had once even come close. She had been dodging arrest for eight years and was thus well known to the Lahore and Karachi police, Counter-Terrorism Department and Anti-Narcotics Force as a most-wanted criminal in 28 cases involving narcotics, illegal arms and violent crimes.

The joint operation team said it found in her flat boxes of packaging material, sealed tins like the one found on the Unidentified Drug Addict, other drugs, and a 9mm pistol with ten rounds. But most importantly, it had about 1.5kg of cocaine, which is worth as much as Rs30 million—a single seizure that equaled what the police intercepted from the entire City district in the first eight months of the year.

When Medam Pinky was presented at the Judicial Complex inside Central Prison Karachi on May 17, she challenged this version of the arrest loud and clear. As she was dragged into a police van—restrained by a clutch of women police officers who struggled to cover her face with a white chador—she shouted. “These people picked me up from Lahore and brought me here 22 days ago!”

The reporters latched onto this but she theatrically parried their questions: “Hum to doobay hain sanam, in sab ko lai doobay gain.”

I may be drowning, my love, but I will take all of them down with me too.

At one point in the ensuing media circus, a PDF list of 326 Karachi-based telephone numbers, supposedly from her smartphone, was reported as leaked. This news sent shivers down the city’s most expensive spines. The personal information doxxing was devastating for businessmen, journalists, bankers, and industrialists, whose CNICs and home and work addresses were spilled all over the internet. Frantic calls were made and eventually word had to be put out that the list was fake.

By this time, Pinky had captured the nation’s imagination. Television news channels were tickled pink that they could safely use the title “Queenpin” to salt the storytelling. TikTok—unencumbered by journalistic decorum—hashtagged her as #CocaineQueen. Indeed, the entire country had something to say about her brazen appearances. Look at the way she saunters in. Imagine coming to court in pajamas and a T-shirt! What’s with the vintage sunglasses? Shouldn’t she be in handcuffs?

Bulk supply

The officer who had received the tip-off accompanied the intelligence agency to the centre of Pinky’s web, Lahore. This is where over half of her contacts, 785 out of 1,286, resided. The Punjab capital, along with Islamabad and Rawalpindi, is a hot market for cocaine. A former investigation officer at the Anti-Narcotics Force explained that most of it is snuck in by air, usually as capsules swallowed by mules, a majority of whom travel from Africa. Others arrive from Europe carrying smaller quantities concealed among ordinary belongings such as infant formula.

Large consignments arrive by sea. Commercial vessels are used as unwitting vehicles. The packages of narcotics are concealed either inside a container in its cargo or within the structure of the container itself, hidden in the walls or below the floor. Reefer containers are used for their refrigeration units.

Pinky’s supplier was a Nigerian, identified as Chike Ochuba Chinwuba, according to her case file available with Dawn. The cocaine first came to Sialkot and then made its way to Lahore.

Once it arrived, it had to be bulked up. Pinky could turn 1.5kg from abroad into 5kg by adding impurities. She told the police that “Google Uncle” taught her how to mix with ketamine, methamphetamine, ephedrine, and lidocaine as they mimic cocaine’s sensory effects, or alter the perceived potency.

“Pure cocaine is rare here,” said the former ANF official. That is why most of what you get in Karachi is synthetically created in homes and labs. “And [the mixing] has resulted in deaths.”

Smooth operator

Selling the cocaine was fairly straightforward after Pinky’s brother Nasir helped her mix and package it.

All orders were placed directly with medam who would only entertain customers with a reference. Communication took place entirely over WhatsApp messages and voice notes. Pinky would share the bank account of an “accountant” and after a screenshot confirmed the payment, she shared the customer’s location with the rider and dispatched the delivery.

Deliveries to Karachi were organised through people she hired, mostly women, who travelled there by bus, with the cocaine concealed in small packages in their clothes and luggage. Bus staff helped couriers conceal the drugs under the seats or inside luggage compartments. Altogether, one kilogramme was dispatched a week.

Pinky’s other brother Shaukat would be waiting in Karachi to receive the packages, which he would measure off, put into the tins, brand and distribute among three handlers, who delivered them by riders. Everyone reported to Shaukat.

None of the payments was made directly to Pinky as she had two finance handlers, Sohail and Zeeshan, whose bank accounts were used. Muhammad Sameer managed ATM and other online transactions through four different banks. In one account, transactions over a year and a half amounted to Rs29.46 million. Across the four accounts—under the names of Sohail, Zeeshan and Sameer—she had Rs32.7 million.

Customer satisfaction

Cocaine is an elite drug because of who can afford to keep using it. It’s the people with the house with a garage and an eight-million-rupee car parked in the driveway. That is the point, said Ustad, a user-turned-police informer. Age isn’t a consideration. Customers range from 14 to 65 years.

At a party, the customer reviews are glowing.

“Her stuff is good, not gonna lie,” said Inaya*. The first time she had tried the white stuff, she felt like she was “on top of the world”.

Another client, Hadi*, a 32-year-old introvert, experienced a personality transplant—the shyness that had plagued him his whole life simply switched off. “He was flirting left, right, and centre. He was unstoppable, man,” said his best friend, as they described the experience snorting cocaine.

They had come to know Pinky on a desperate night. “I was wasted…but had to walk back home,” said Hadi, who lived two streets from the house where they had been partying. “A friend suggested cocaine. A line.”

At 4am, the tin, bearing Pinky’s tagline, was delivered to their doorstep.

The effect doesn’t last, though. Fifteen minutes, stretch it to 20, and the floor drops out from under the high as fast as it had arrived. You chase that first quarter of an hour for the rest of the night and pay for it in thousand-rupee increments, said Hadi*.

“There goes your money,” added Inaya*.

Package deal

Pinky’s delivery network may have been pulling in the clients, but it was also putting her on the police radar. The sub-inspector who would go on to arrest her seven years later, first came across her name in 2019, while he was posted to DHA, Karachi and told to look into the area’s drug problem.

All he had back then was the nickname and a number. So they pulled the call detail record and ran the most frequent numbers through TrueCaller. Then they picked one number that barely showed up. “Sab se gareeb admi,” the SI told Dawn. That would have been the poorest customer. They called him and said a complaint had been filed. In exchange for immunity, he agreed to score 2g of cocaine for the cops.

After two days of dillydallying, the delivery was finally made. A man and woman showed up on a motorcycle, both of whom were pulled in. But their lips were sealed and eventually they had to be released. It was the second time round that the rider sang. His shift ran from 8pm to 2am for Rs70,000 a month. A single packet weighed 12g, worth about Rs300,000. At the time he was caught, he had already sold four.

The police told him to keep working and shadowed him on their motorcycles. The next pickup point was Gulshan-e-Iqbal, but 15 minutes later, it was changed to a french fries kiosk in Landhi. A man and woman came on a motorcycle again. This time, though, the man was none other than Shaukat.

That’s when Pinky entered the picture. “She tried to negotiate her brother’s release,” the sub-inspector said. “Her final offer was Rs900,000 with the condition: brother first, then the money.” The police declined and locked Shaukat up, but he would be out soon enough.

After that, “Pinky had figured out the tricks of the trade,” said the sub-inspector. Her riders multiplied and the drop points evolved. The tins were no longer handed over in person but tucked under a dustbin inside an ATM.

While the chase for Pinky finally ended this year, her name had already acquired a life of its own. Despite the media blitz, and the effort it took to nab her the police official insisted Pinky was not the drug tycoon she had been made out to be. “She was a mid-level player, no kingpin,” he said. “She was living normally, like you and me…she didn’t have a big house or scary dogs.”

He believed her reputation had grown faster than her operation. The business was not unlike any other: word spread about the quality of the product, customers returned, and the brand name acquired a currency of its own. But where was that name from?

Claim to fame

Pinky was born Anmol in Gwadar in 1995 and was raised in Karachi. She dropped out of school in the eighth grade and set off to Lahore with dreams of becoming an actress. Several failed auditions later, she met Rana Nasir and eventually married him. Soon, she began transporting drugs for him, and ultimately climbed the ladder to become his manager. They divorced 10 years later.

For Anmol, a decade was all she needed to reroute Nasir’s clients. All of them knew one name: Pinky.

It was a name she had chosen as a teenager, one for the world of modelling and elite parties. “The name has glamour,” the police officer said. “If it was Gulbano, Nuzhat or Fatima, people would not be as interested. [Pinky] is not easily forgettable.” Even after she moved to Lahore, her customers continued to find her.

The truth is that there are players far grander than Pinky, who operate quietly, produce more but rarely become the story themselves. Pinky did the opposite. Her name did the rest.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

The 20-year-old victim had traveled to Pakistan for business purposes and was allegedly gang-raped by three men in a rented flat of a private housing society located near Raiwind on the night between Friday and Saturday. It was the second such case in which a foreign woman was reportedly gang-raped in the Defence C police station area during the last four months.

Talking about the recent incident, a police official said that the suspects had escaped from Lahore soon after the sexual assault and the police had traced one of the suspect’s location in Sialkot city.

He said the police also took two close relatives and one domestic servant of one of the prime suspects into custody.

DIG Operations Faisal Kamran said that all the three suspects had been identified and police teams were working to track them down and arrest them. He said the case was being investigated jointly by the Crime Control Department (CCD), operations and investigation wings. The police had taken the vehicle allegedly used in the incident into custody, he added.

Another police official said that the Cantt Division SP Investigation Asim Iftikhar was heading the joint police teams working on the case.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR: Amid rising demand in the Centre for the imposition of governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, senior PTI leader Naeem Haider Panjutha has challenged the federal government to go ahead with the move, warning that it would further deteriorate the situation in the province.

“You have already stolen the people’s mandate, stripped them of their two-thirds majority and reserved seats, filed thousands of politically motivated cases, imprisoned tens of thousands, including Imran Khan, raided homes, violated the sanctity of chadar and chardiwari, and imprisoned women, including Bushra Bibi and Imran Khan’s sisters,” Advocate Naeem Haider Panjutha said while talking to Dawn.

He said the government should try imposing governor’s rule. “You have no idea what the people of KP are capable of. They will rise up and sweep your governor’s rule away,” he added.

Replying to a question, Mr Panjutha said PTI would never retreat from its struggle for Haqeeqi Azadi (true freedom). “Our movement will continue until constitutional supremacy and the rule of law are restored, all political prisoners, including Imran Khan, are released, and the people’s mandate is respected,” he said.

“Our struggle will not end until Pakistan stands upon the principles of justice, equality and accountability embodied in the vision of Riyasat-i-Madina,” he added.

He claimed that no threats, emergency, governor’s rule or political repression could break PTI’s resolve, and that its struggle for freedom could not be silenced.

“Haqeeqi Azadi is our destination, constitutional supremacy is our demand, and our struggle will continue until justice prevails,” Mr Panjutha said.

PTI’s parliamentary leader, Shahid Khattak, has also questioned the purpose of remaining in a parliament that, he said, could not even protect the dignity and security of its own MNAs.

“What is the point of sitting in a parliament that cannot even protect the dignity and security of its own MNAs?” he said.

“My proposal is that we resign from the assemblies and take our struggle to the streets. We are not afraid of arrest. We are not afraid of bullets, guns or any form of pressure. We are soldiers of Imran Khan. A public rally will take place under all circumstances, and we will not turn back until Imran Khan is released, political prisoners are freed, this failed system is replaced, and the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law are restored,” he stated.

KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi while talking to the media in Peshawar on September 25 disclosed that consultations were held over the possibility of governor’s rule in the province ahead of PTI’s protest march, which was scheduled for September 27 but was later postponed to October 4.

Details of arrested MPAs

Meanwhile, KP Speaker Babar Saleem Swati on Sunday sought details from the provincial police chief about lawmakers who had been arrested or detained.

The details were sought in a letter addressed to KP Inspector General of Police Zulfiqar Hameed, a copy of which is available with Dawn.

The speaker sought the information under Articles 66 and 67, read with Article 127, of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Procedure and Conduct of Business Rules, 2025, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Assembly (Powers, Immunities and Privileges) Act, 2026.

Mr Swati informed the police chief that, being the custodian of the House, he had directed the assembly secretariat to obtain information about any member of the KP Assembly, minister, adviser, special assistant to the chief minister or parliamentary secretary who had been arrested or detained.

He also sought details of the residences of lawmakers that had been raided, attacked, searched or subjected to similar action by any law enforcement agency.

Mr Swati sought a complete report and copies of FIRs concerning such incidents, including those listed in the enclosed list, that had occurred during the last two weeks. According to the letter, the report should be submitted to the assembly secretariat along with records of complaints lodged regarding such incidents at the relevant police stations.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

GBS is a federal paramilitary force responsible for security, border protection and supporting civil administration across the region.

According to a statement issued by the chief minister secretariat, a patrol vehicle of the 116 GBS wing came under fire from the mountain side near Sher Nallah. A GBS soldier and two SSU policemen, who sustained injuries in the attack, were rushed to the Bashidas FWO Hospital where they were given medical treatment before being referred to the RHQ Hospital in Chilas.

CM orders investigation, arrest

Seeking investigation report of the shooting, Chief Minister Amjad Hussain directed the police and other law enforcement agencies to immediately track down and arrest attackers, planners, and facilitators using all available resources.

Stating that attacks on security personnel challenge state authority and would not be tolerated, he ordered strengthened security, surveillance, and search operations in Bashidas, Sher Nallah, and surrounding areas.

He also instructed the Diamer authorities to ensure provision of the best medical care to them.

No group or individual claimed responsibility for the attack.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

IN my life I have watched communities, organisations, and entire countries lose their grip on truth.

I was just starting my book publishing career in Yugoslavia in the mid-80s when the shared facts that held our society together for 40 years came apart, piece by piece, until people could no longer agree on what our country stood for, on its basic values and, finally, what was actually happening.

Hundreds of thousands event­ually died. Millions were displaced. Individual lives were ruined. Commu­nities were left devastated, with shards of inhumanity and hurt that were bound to self-regenerate for generations.

Decades later, in South Africa, I was part of the opposite movement: a group of dogged journalists digging through the wreckage of state capture, one document at a time, until the theft could no longer be denied. That fundamental work was the very spark that helped pull the country back into hope and, ever so briefly, even optimism.

Those two experiences taught me the same lesson from opposite directions. A society that loses its grip on facts loses its grip on itself. A society that fights for truth can still find its way back.

That is what World News Day stands for, and why on Sept 28 more than a thousand newsrooms from over a hundred countries will mark it together.

World News Day exists so we can strongly express our belief that reliable information is the infrastructure of our modern, information-based society. Like water or electricity, it is fundamental to our existence and yet nobody thinks about it until it isn’t there, or it’s been replaced by something that looks like news but isn’t.

Sharing the medium with propaganda outfits and disinformation trolls is one of the great structural weak poi­nts of our entire edifice. Our reports, analyses and investigations travel along the same distribution channels as some of the worst perpetrators of hatred and madness ever to see the face of the Earth.

And yet, and yet, we persist. We are still here, because it is our mission, our motivating force, to be on your side no matter what.

We will always help you know the facts.

They don’t arrive on their own. We have to go and get the facts: read the document, find the witness, check the claims twice, protect sources (who are the ones taking a real risk), ask the questions the powerful people don’t want asked, and then ask them again when they dodge them. We are here to put our name on what we publish and correct it in public if we get it wrong. Algorithmic speed is not the same as truth, and neither is confidence.

We will make sure you understand what matters.

A data point on its own only tells you that something happened. A flood level, a budget line, a vote count. Journalism’s job is to explain why something happened, who benefited, who paid, and what is likely to come next. The context is often the difference between information and journalism. Information can fill any number of feeds at blinding speed. Journalism has to make sense of the world.

It is crucial to choose trusted journalism.

This is not a request to trust every newsroom, or to stop asking hard questions of us. Trust is earned over a lifetime, and it has to be re-energised with every new story.

I told my guys at Daily Maverick way too many times that we’re only as good as our latest story. But we invite you, the reader, to look out for reporting that shows where its information came from, that separates news from opinion, that admits when it doesn’t know something yet, and that corrects itself when it’s wrong. A trustworthy newsroom isn’t one that never makes mistakes. It’s one you can watch making them right.

We owe you the same standard we’re asking you to apply. So on this 2026 World News Day, we’re not just going to tell you that our journalism matters. We’re going to show you and tell you about the work: the months behind an investigation, the checking behind a breaking story, the correction that made the record more accurate, the local report that actually changed the lived reality of a community.

Alone, any one of us can be dismissed. In many countries we’re being sued into silence, driven into penury or simply ignored. Still, together, in dozens of languages and more than a hundred countries, we’re harder to ignore. That’s the whole point of doing this on the same day. This is not a fundraiser. This is a rallying point.

And here is the fourth thing, the one that drives it all: it’s your right to know.

Not a favour handed down by a government or a company that decides what you’re allowed to see. It is your true birth right.

World News Day falls on September 28 for a reason: it’s also the UN’s International Day for Universal Access to Information. That’s not a coincidence we’re borrowing for effect. It’s the same idea, seen from two end points.

Your right to know is only real if someone is doing the work of making information easy to find, check and, above all, true. That’s the job.

So before you share something juicy, pause. Before you believe something, ask how the person telling you knows it. Support the reporting that does this work in the open, and push back on the kind that doesn’t.

These have never mattered more: Know the facts. Understand what matters. Choose trusted journalism. Because it’s your right to know.

And because a world that stops knowing will never be free — just easier to fool. See you in the trenches.

The writer is the founder of Project Kontinuum, an alliance of people working to return journalism to its role as an essential service. This opinion piece was commissioned as part of the World News Day campaign highlighting the essential role of journalism in providing facts and clarity.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

TV channels 12 and KAN as well as the newspapers Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post said that Netanyahu undertook a one-day visit to the UAE to meet President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The premier’s office did not immediately comment.

While Israel and the UAE formally established diplomatic relations in 2020 as part of the US-negotiated Abraham Accords, the reported visit comes with the Middle East still gripped by the Israel-US war launched against Iran in February this year.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi on Sunday called for better cooperation between the provincial and federal governments on security matters, saying the counterterrorism policy should reflect ground realities.

The chief minister made these comments during his visit to Dera Ismail Khan to visit the wounded, a day after a deadly bombing targeting a police and customs check-post killed more than 12 people, including rescue officials, in Darazinda.

He was received by his predecessor Ali Amin Gandapur, and the two subsequently visited the hospital where the injured were being treated.

Addressing the media, Chief Minister Afridi said his government had warned about the deteriorating security situation in the province and added that people, police personnel and soldiers were bearing the brunt of violence.

Afridi visits victims of Dera Ismail Khan attack alongside predecessor Ali Amin Gandapur; urges Centre to involve the province in decision-making, provide resources

He said his government provided an additional Rs35 billion to the KP police in the previous financial year for maintaining peace and security. He claimed the province also made payments to federal agencies for the provision of modern weapons, equipment and armoured personnel carriers (APCs), but the required equipment had yet to be delivered.

He demanded that the federal government provide APCs to the province without further delay and said the people of KP should be taken into confidence before making decisions about peace and security. “We are picking up coffins on a daily basis,” the CM said, calling for greater cooperation between the federal and provincial governments on security matters.

“Peace cannot be established without taking the people of KP into confidence,” he said, adding that his government did not accept policies formulated behind ‘closed doors’.

CM Afridi said that anyone taking up arms against Pakistan was a terrorist and expressed concern over the security situation in KP and Balochistan. He said families of those killed in acts of terrorism would be provided with a martyr package.

The chief minister also launched a diatribe against ‘some elements’ in the federal government, accusing them of polarising the country. He said those threatening to impose governor’s rule in KP should go ahead and do it instead of issuing threats.

Officials laid to rest

Meanwhile, Customs official Farman Khan, who embraced martyrdom in the D.I. Khan suicide bombing, was laid to rest in Ghazni Khel in Lakki Marwat district on Sunday. His body was brought to his hometown from D.I. Khan early in the morning. The martyred official was known in the area for patronising and promoting sports and engaging in social and welfare work.

The funeral prayers of the slain personnel were offered at the Ejaz Shaheed police lines on Saturday night. Besides Customs Havaldar Farman, Sepoy Osama and Rescue 1122 officials Imtiaz and Sharifullah were among the deceased. Police personnel presented a guard of honour, while officials laid floral wreaths.

Our correspondent in Lakki Marwat also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

Mr Channar had secured 62,713 votes against Mr Cheema’s 31,293, suggesting that the ruling party was set to retain the National Assembly seat that fell vacant following the death of MNA Malik Muhammad Iqbal Channar.

The PML-N had fielded the deceased MNA’s son to contest the by-election.

The polling process was largely peaceful across the constituency, although there were reports of isolated incidents of violence, mismanagement, confusion and complaints about the unavailability of women’s voter lists at some polling stations.

Unofficial tally suggests Channar has secured nearly double the votes of his main rival, Cheema

In a statement, the provincial election commissioner said balloting was briefly disrupted at a polling station in Akhtarabad, considered a PML-N stronghold, following a brawl between voters after political workers allegedly harassed election staff. Immediate action was taken, and the relevant district returning officer and returning officer brought the situation under control with police help.

Polling remained slow during the early hours, with limited voter participation. Although polling began on time at all stations on Sunday morning, staff remained idle for several hours as only a few voters turned up till noon. However, voter turnout, including among women, increased after midday.

Rural polling stations, particularly those around Jhnagiwali and Abbasnagar, which are considered strongholds of the Channar family, witnessed a large number of voters.

When asked about the incident, Mr Channar alleged that some people had disrupted polling and were found stamping ballot papers in favour of his rival. He claimed that the individuals were expelled following the scuffle and that polling resumed after remaining suspended for several hours.

Meanwhile, some voters at the Bahawalpur 3-Marla Housing Scheme polling station alleged police officials deployed there had not allowed voters whose CNICs carried addresses from the Yazman area, which is considered a stronghold of Mr Cheema, to cast their ballots.

PM congratulates party candidate

Later, a statement issued by PM Office said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulated Malik Munir Iqbal Channar as well as his brother Malik Zaheer Iqbal Channar, who is incumbent Punjab Assembly deputy speaker, on the victory in the by-election. The PM lauded the people of Bahawalpur for electing their representative, stating that the victory showed public confidence in the PML-N.

Imran Gabol in Lahore also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

WASHINGTON/TEHRAN: The Uni­ted States and Iran are expected to hold talks this week, said President Donald Trump after he rejected a proposal by Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for cessation of all hostilities in the Middle East and a return to the conditions in the ceasefire deal that fell apart a few months ago.

President Trump told Axios that his negotiators would engage their Iranian counterpart over the next few days apparently to break the stalemate over Hormuz.

Iran announced a peace proposal last week at the UN General Assembly in New York, saying it had been transmitted to the Americans via Qatari mediators. It called for a cessation of all hostilities in the Middle East, including in Lebanon, and a return to the conditions in the ceasefire deal that fell apart a few months ago. That agreement called for the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and an end to the US naval blockade.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran has never closed the door to diplomacy but it would not capitulate. “Our conditions are clear, and any move toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz is contingent on these conditions being met,” Mr Araghchi posted on social media.

“Only a negotiated solution can get them out of this deadlock.”

‘Demanding too much’

President Trump, however, said Iranians were losing badly, which was the reason they wanted to make a deal to open the strait. “They want to make a deal and I think that’s fine. I like making a deal too.”

His ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, accused Tehran of demanding too much in exchange for a return to the negotiating table.

“This was, I think, a pretty cynical attempt to put something on the table that they knew was unacceptable. To ask for the release of the blockade, the sanctions, international sanctions and access to billions in assets, just to talk,” he told NBC News in an interview broadcast Sunday.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump had rejected the Iranian proposal, citing unnamed US officials. It said Trump was privately sceptical that Iran would meet his demands and had told his staff that he sees a renewed bombing campaign as likely after the November US midterm elections.

Despite Trump’s public statements, mediators facilitating Tehran’s talks with Washington have not officially relayed a US rejection of the plan, the Iranian top diplomat said. “We are waiting for the mediators to convey the definitive views to us, and we will make a decision based on them,” Mr Araghchi noted.

‘Critical, decisive stage’

At the same time, Iran’s armed forces said they were prepared for any renewed US attacks. Army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia warned that the US would suffer greater damage if it launched another attack on his country.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed on Sunday to have seized an American submarine drone on Sunday in the strategic Strait of Hormuz. They said that the drone was “operating in the Strait of Hormuz for espionage purposes”, identifying the model as a Remus 600 autonomous underwater vehicle that was “now in the hands of the force’s specialists for data recovery”.

Separately, Iranian Army Commander-in-Chief Amir Hatami said the war was at a critical and decisive stage, adding that Tehran would not accept a situation in which it was unable to trade while foreign powers used the region’s strategic waterways. “If Iran cannot trade, if Iran cannot live, no one will be able to trade or live,” he added.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

ISLAMABAD: After many years, Pakistan is bracing for a water shortage of around 25 per cent during the Rabi season starting this week, raising concerns about food security next year as wheat is the season’s main crop.

The last Rabi season faced no water shortage, yet the country is estimated to have suffered a wheat shortfall of more than two million tonnes. This forced the government to order imports of one million tonnes, including 750,000 tonnes in the first phase for delivery in November.

Against a production target of 29.7m tonnes and consumption req­uirements of 31.9m tonnes, the country is estimated to have produced around 27.5m tonnes as far­mers faced challenging conditions following changes in wheat policy.

Part of the estimated Rabi water shortage is man-made, owing to the political needs of the coalition government, informed sources told Dawn, adding that more than one million acre feet (MAF) of avoidable water releases were made from reservoirs during the outgoing Kharif season.

The sources said parliamentary interventions had allowed higher discharges to Sindh with commitments for subsequent adjustments in provincial shares, which could not be materialised within the Kharif season.

Total storage in the two major reservoirs peaked at 11.6MAF on Sept 9, when Tarbela remained full at its 5.8MAF capacity bet­ween Aug 9 and Sept 9 while Mangla touched 5.733MAF on Sept 9.

Both reservoirs started depleting since then, with total storage falling below 9.5MAF ahead of the Rabi season — the lowest carryover since 2021.

Rabi begins on Oct 1 and generally ends on March 31. Last year, the season started with a healthy carryover of 13MAF in the reservoirs, almost 27pc higher than this year.

Wheat is the largest Rabi crop, while gram, lentil, tobacco, rapeseed, barley and mustard are among the other crops grown during the season.

The sources said Rabi 2024 had started with carryover storage of 10.5MAF and the country faced a water shortage of 15-18pc, while Rabi 2023 began with 11.6MAF. Rabi 2022 started with 9.5MAF, when the country faced a 20-22pc shortage.

Rabi 2021 was the worst among recent years, beginning with 7.42MAF in reservoir storage and resulting in a 28pc shortage.

Against this backdrop, the technical committee of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) will meet on Monday (today) to finalise water availability estimates and recommend criteria for distribution among the provinces for the Rabi cropping season.

The Irsa Advisory Committee (IAC) has also been tentatively called to meet on Oct 5 to approve provincial water shares on the recommendations of the technical committee.

The anticipated shortages are likely to revive provincial acrimony, particularly between Sindh and Punjab, as Irsa seeks to allocate water under the three-tier formula it uses to manage shortages.

Tarbela Dam reached its maximum conservation level of 1,550 feet on Aug 9 and remained there until Sept 9. Mangla Dam peaked at 1,222 feet on Aug 9 against its maximum conservation level of 1,242 feet.

Flows in the Jhelum River remained weak throughout the Kharif season, while subsequent rel­e­a­ses further reduced Man­gla’s conservation level.

As a result, Mangla’s storage stood at 5.12MAF on Sunday night against its maximum storage capacity of 7.277MAF. Mangla had reached 1,233.25 feet at the end of Kharif 2023 and 1,224 feet in 2025.

Around 10.33MAF of water has flowed into the sea since the Kharif season began on April 1 against an annual environmental requirement of about 8.2MAF.

Total water requirements for Rabi crops under the Water Apportionment Accord of 1991 are about 37-38MAF. With limited carryover storage from Kharif, water availability is expected to be around 21-22MAF, along with river flows over the next six months.

The accord empowers Irsa to determine the country’s water availability and provincial shares twice a year.

The 1991 water accord works well in rare cases of sufficient annual water availability of 114MAF. However, with shortages exceeding 10pc becoming increasingly common, Irsa has been using a de facto three-tier formula for distributing provincial shares — a mechanism opposed by Sindh, which has been pushing for implementation of Para 2 of the accord.

Irsa has maintained for several years that it cannot change the existing distribution mechanism used to absorb shortages.

Under Para 2 of the 1991 accord, provincial water shares were fixed. However, amid persistent shortages, Irsa, with the involvement of the federal and provincial governments, introduced a cascading distribution mechanism in 2002.

The three-tier formula now combines Para 2, Para 14(a) and historical water use from 1977 to 1982.

Para 14(b) requires that 10 daily uses be adjusted pro rata to correspond with seasonal allocations of different canal systems and form the basis for sharing shortages and surpluses across the country.

Under the three-tier formula, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are exempt from shortages, leaving the shortfall to be shared by Sindh and Punjab.

However, Sindh maintains that it bears a disproportionately larger shortage under this mechanism. The province has argued that Irsa exceeded its mandate by introducing the three-tier formula and devised its own formulas despite Sindh’s objection through a meeting of the provincial committee of ministers.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026