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The Friday Times |
On 31 August 2026, a five-member Court of Arbitration sitting at The Hague delivered a unanimous ruling in the long-running transboundary water...
There are two ways Pakistan's economic press keeps failing itself, and honestly they come from the same place. One is stenography just typing up...
While Pakistan has a legally valid right to defend Balochistan as its own territory, international law also has its limitations, and these limitations...
The government has denied that Diamer-Bhasha’s 4,500MW power component is being abandoned. But if the rumour proves true, the project’s economics...
Fourteen newborns died in a maternity ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) fire. Like every disaster before it, we will mourn...
Acemoglu’s working-class liberalism explains why mature democracies are losing legitimacy. Pakistan presents a harder problem: constitutional...
There are accidents, and then there are disasters that are allowed to happen. The fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in...
Pakistan is passing through a difficult phase. The country is facing serious economic challenges, security threats are visible in different parts of...
For a brief moment after the collapse of the Soviet Union, liberal democracy appeared to have won the argument. Competitive elections, individual...
Pakistan’s blue-passport controversy should be read through a short chronology of expanding privileges on the part of militro-judicial-civil complex...
“All persons possessing a portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust”—Edmund Burke Fifteen...
Pakistan today stands at the frontline of climate vulnerability. The heavy monsoon floods of 2025, which drowned millions of acres of farmland,...
For decades, Pakistan's Barelvis had a fairly predictable set of religious rivals: Deobandis, Ahl-e-Hadith and, at times, Shias. Their sermons,...
For decades, Pakistan's Barelvis had a fairly predictable set of religious rivals: Deobandis, Ahl-e-Hadith and, at times, Shias. Their sermons,...
Pakistan throws away two fortunes every day: the food scraps and dung that could cook its dinners, and the crop stubble and city garbage that could...
In 2008, I authored a report titled Pakistan Power Sector Outlook: Appraisal of KESC in Post-Privatisation Period. The inquiry hinged on one...
Never in the history of Pakistan, barring martial law regimes, there has been steep erosion of rule of law and the marginalization of constitutional...
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will travel to Bishkek on Monday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Council of Heads of State Summit...
The debate over Pakistan’s spatial priorities was laid bare when the Sindh government formally registered its objection during an Executive...
A province can be administratively justified and still be fiscally unsustainable. That distinction is largely missing from Pakistan’s debate over...
Over the past 15 months, Pakistan has impressed the world with its military response to India and subsequent diplomatic gains, especially since...
Karachi is not merely a city in crisis. It is a warning about the consequences of a governance structure that has become too centralised, too...
Pakistan has been independent for nearly eight decades. The Union Jack came down, the British went home, and we acquired our own flag, parliament,...
During the presidency of Donald Trump, the tensions and contradictions inherent in American democracy have emerged in sharp relief. After Abdul...
Pakistan is debating a new constitutional order as if water will adjust afterwards. It will not. In 1947, the Radcliffe Line was drawn across Punjab...
The Islamabad MoU signed on 17 June between Pakistan, Iran and USA to pause the war for 60 days, and allow the resumption of the negotiations in...
Pakistan does not suffer from a shortage of development spending. It suffers from a shortage of development discipline. For decades, successive...
On August 19, 2026, Pakistan's Economic Coordination Committee sat in Islamabad and approved something so absurd it could only make sense in a...
The Saudi Arabia-Türkiye-Pakistan agreement should not be confused with a “Muslim NATO”. Its deeper significance lies in the search for a...
“They will kill me like Morsi”. This is not merely a political statement. It is a sentence loaded with fear; fear of death, fear of deteriorating...
In my last piece https://www.thefridaytimes.com/08-Aug-2026/iran-war-ending-anytime-soon I argued why it is unlikely that the Iran war is going to end...
Former prime minister Imran Khan’s transfer from Adiala Jail to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad may, on the face of it, be no more than...
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” Voltaire Few would dispute that the contemporary world enjoys...
Pakistan’s Prime Minister has announced a USD 1 billion investment in Artificial Intelligence by 2030, aiming to build a national AI ecosystem where...
The economic history of nations demonstrates that long-term prosperity is shaped less by natural endowments than by the consistency of policies, the...
In an age defined by migration, urbanization, economic interdependence and increasingly fluid social identities, the relationship between ethnicity...
Every few years, Pakistan’s political class rediscovers the same diagnosis: the system is broken, so the system must be changed. The proposed...
Two Saudi oil tankers bound for Asia reversed course in mid-July in mid-ocean right before they approached Bab el-Mandeb. Tracking data showed them...
Wars, floods, earthquakes, famines, epidemics and forced displacement have always tested humanity. Yet amid every scene of devastation, there are...
A recurring pattern in Pakistani politics is the periodic recycling of failed propositions disguised under fresh bureaucratic terminology. The demand...
Congratulations are owed first, and they should be said plainly. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed on August 7 between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,...
We are neither economists nor diplomats; one of us is a soldier, the other a mechanic. What follows is not a technical trade analysis but a raw,...
The extraordinary migration crisis that overwhelmed Ceuta in late July 2026 should not be viewed merely as another episode of irregular migration at...
An interesting week for journalism as newspapers collectively revealed an important shift in the way the economy is being discussed. As I have noted...
The government’s proposal to establish a Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) is a welcome move. Pakistan’s construction sector is too...
"Nations rise not by the abundance of their resources, but by the strength of the institutions that govern them." Governance: The...
Pakistan has become remarkably adept at explaining away the things that should never have happened in the first place. The latest example is the...
The courtroom was already full before the judge took the bench. An elderly farmer sat quietly with a faded cloth bag containing documents from a land...
It was 5th June, 1967. Isreal launched a surprise preemptive air strike on Egyptian airfields. In the ensuing six days war, the Arab world suffered a...
Pakistan’s foreign direct investment debate has largely focused on one question: how can the government attract more foreign investors? Investment...
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