India hosted, with gaudy fanfare, the 18th meeting of the G20.
Fiscal deficit of around 7pc of GDP for the last many years
1965 war lasted only 17 days, and peace was restored by the Tashkent Agreement
of 1966
General elections will be held within 90 days as mandated by Article 224(2) of the
Constitution.
The Red Cross says 28.8m Afghans are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance,
while the UN has observed that 15.3m people in the country face acute food
insecurity.
Mr Kakar will, therefore, serve as the eighth caretaker PM of Pakistan
MINORITY DAY, 11TH August
Hamza’s splendid 3-1 win over Egyptian Mohammed Zakaria saw the 17-year-old
become the first Pakistan squash player to win the World Junior Championship
since the legendary Jansher Khan in 1986
Having a record 23 IMF programs is reflection of poor, not good economic
management.
Decline in FDI Even the modest level of $2 billion in FY 2022 (0.4 per cent of
GDP) declined by 25pc in FY 2023
Special Investment Facilitation Council to promote “fast track” investment by
friendly GCC countries in ailing state-owned enterprises.
UNEMPLOYMENT
2m young people, who enter the job market every year
According to the Asian Development Bank, given Pakistan’s employment
elasticity at 0.5pc, it would take economic growth of at least 7pc to create enough
jobs. The IMF says the unemployment rate will rise from 6.2pc to 7pc due to the
downturn.
NAILA Kiani continues to go from summit to summit; her latest ascent — of
Broad Peak — the worlds 12th-highest peak 8,051m above sea level in the heart of
the Karakoram range, making her the first woman from Pakistan to climb all eight
thousanders in the country.
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, the undisputed winner of the 1970 poll, with 53
per cent of the National Assembly seats won by his party
Benazir Bhutto, who was elected prime minister in 1988
NS 1990,1997
Benazir Bhutto was able to win the 1993 election but was sacked in 1996.
Sardar Masood Khan, the country`s new envoy for the US.
Several major countries pledge to phase out coal use at UN climate summit in
Glasgow, Scotland (head Alok Sharma)
Pakistan ranks 123rd on the global Democracy Matrix, just two points better than
Afghanistan
World’s Press Freedom Day 3rd MAY. As per the RSF’s 2023 World Press
Freedom Index, India stood at 161 out of 180 countries, while Pakistan came in at
150 (an improvement over last year’s ranking)
Growth rate of 2.59pc Karachi
Pakistan’s total external debt and liabilities have already surged to 39.7pc of the
GDP or $130.2bn
According to Federal Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman, there has been at
least a 50pc increase in the incidence of dengue across the country.
Pakistan’s level of effectiveness is “low” on 10 of 11 anti-money laundering and
combating the financing of terror goals, even though the country is compliant with
38 out of 40 technical recommendations.
Human development index
The report shows Pakistan has already dropped seven places to 161 out of 192
countries according to UNESCO. It now joins the world’s 32 low human
development countries. The WB report places Pakistan in the company of sub-
Saharan African countries in the Human Capital Index, which at 0.41, is the
lowest in South Asia.
HDI is a measure that evaluates long-term progress in three aspects of human
development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a reasonable
standard of living.
Education
Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of children, over 20 million (aged
five to 16) out of school. Half of all kids in Pakistan are out of school. 37 per cent
of school-age children in Pakistan are unable to attend schoolThis violates the
constitutional obligation set out in Article 25A.
Of those who do go to school dropout rates are high. All this is the result of
decades of neglect and chronic underspending on education. Just 2.4pc of GDP
makes it among the lowest in South Asia. Given Pakistan’s youthful demographic
profile and education poverty, young people face a jobless and hopeless future
unless the scale and quality of education is expanded.
literacy at 59pc. According to the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-
18, almost half of women in the age group 15-25 are uneducated. 61pc of rural
women are illiterate. According to the WB, poverty is estimated to have risen by
five percentage points to 39.4pc in FY23, with 12.5m more people pushed into
poverty as compared to the previous year.
POVERTY
With anaemic growth, soaring inflation (especially food inflation) and limited
job creation, poverty has risen and become more severe. According to the WB,
poverty is estimated to have risen by five percentage points to 39.4pc in FY23,
with 12.5m more people pushed into poverty as compared to the previous
year.
STUNTING
According to UNICEF, 40pc of Pakistani children under the age of five are stunted
Child stunting, which the Human Capital Review calls a “public health crisis.
This condemns these children to a life of physical disability, poverty and
deprivation and exposes them to premature mortality. This is mostly the result
of malnutrition primarily associated with poverty
the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023, where it is 142
out of 146 countries — among the bottom five countries. In educational
attainment it is ranked 138 and at 132 for health and survival. Female labour
force participation remains low — among the lowest in Muslim countries —
22pc compared to over 80pc for males.
Global Soft Power Index 2023 has ranked Pakistan at number 84 out of 121
countries.
Stream gas pipeline project: Offer by Russia to Pakistan in SCO summit in
Samarkand
Malnutrition leaves 38pc of under-fives in the country stunted.
Remittances received from migrant workers living abroad make up almost 8.5pc of
Pakistan’s GDP.
Climate change
Last summer floods washed away homes, crops, livestock, roads and bridges worth
more than $30bn. The world promised to provide Pakistan has suffered economic
losses of $29bn in the last three decades due to climate-related disasters.
One third of the country was under water, 33 million people affected, over 1,700
lives lost.
According to the UN, “when disaster strikes, women and children are 14 times
more likely than men to die”
According to UNICEF, an estimated 16m children are among the flood-affected
population.
G20 emits 80 per cent of all carbon emissions.
But less than 30pc of lead negotiators are women, and at last year’s Glasgow
COP, men took up 74pc of the speaking time. This balance must improve
(thankfully, Pakistan’s delegation under Sherry Rehman this year is primarily
comprised of women).
Montreal-Kunming Global Biodiversity Framework . A World Bank assessment
following the floods said the need for resilient rehabilitation and reconstruction
would require $16.3bn.
UN agency has also observed that more than one in nine children in Sindh and
Baluchistan’s flood-affected areas is suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
National Adaptation Plan from the Ministry of Climate Change, if put into practice
with sincerity, can provide some respite from the elements. The document states:
“Effective DRM [disaster risk management] requires enhancing the stability,
adaptability, recovery capacity, and sustainability of all relevant sectors. This
entails a meticulous process of identifying vulnerabilities…
Flooding dangers can be cut down with reforestation and preservation of green
cover, including mangroves.
Criminology and Fundamental Rights
British colonisers recognised early on in their rule that a population can be
subjugated more effectively through tribes rather than the rule of law. The (former)
Federally Administered Tribal Areas are a grim example of this, where colonisers
institutionalised tribal authority, legitimised jirga justice, denied due process to
inhabitants and appointed political agents through which they asserted their
extractive rule. Far from being lawless, the tribal areas were ruled by a law of the
most draconian kind.he Khudai Khidmatgar Movement from the early 20th century
led by Abdul Ghaffar Khan and other enlightened Pakhtuns aimed to eliminate
tribalism through progressive education that instils values of equality among social
groups and genders.
Government intends to develop a database of sex offenders, which can be a useful
tool to keep criminals away from places where they can easily prey on children,
such as schools, hospitals and madressahs. The Punjab home department’s
recommendation for setting up special courts for child abuse cases also has merit,
so that these cases do not get lost in the massive judicial backlog.
Officials of Baluchistan’s Counter-Terrorism Department told the commission that
some of the people reported missing had apparently been killed in operations.
The practice of picking up people suspected of involvement in terrorism or
separatist activity, without recourse to due process, is a vile one, and has no place
in a society that claims to respect the constitutional order. Commissions are
important, as families need to know where their loved ones are. But ultimately, the
buck stops with the security establishment. The latter needs to end extra-legal
practices and bring suspects to the courts if it believes there is a strong case against
them. Enforced disappearance by agents of state involves arrest, detention,
abduction, or any other form of deprivation of liberty.
In the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, Pakistan’s overall ranking is 129
out of 140 countries. In the fundamental rights category, it is 123/140 while in civil
justice it is 125/140.
National sex offenders’ registry, while a commendable idea in theory, is largely
dependent on the criminal justice system being able to apprehend such individuals
in the first place.
That crime became the catalyst for the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act,
which enhances the punishment for offenders and aims to coordinate efforts to
trace the victims. It also made it mandatory for the police to register an FIR for
such a crime within two hours of it being brought to their notice.
Anti-Narcotics Force has to match trafficking inventions with a new drone
policy that cuts in on narco-submersibles, already detected in Spain, so that illegal,
unmanned flyers are proscribed and their operators punished.DRUG DRONES
FIA, the main law-enforcement agency mandated to address the issue, has
cybercrime wings in only 15 cities. Almost 2,700 people, mostly women,
approached the Digital Rights Foundation in 2022 to lodge complaints of
harassment, financial fraud and blackmail.
Pakistan dropped 16 places in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for
2021 compared to the previous year, ranking 140 out of 180 countries.
According to Transparency International, the country's corruption score has now
deteriorated to 28.
Population Growth:
ON Nov 15, the human family welcomed its eight billionth member
Each year, Pakistani women go through 9m pregnancies, half of which are
unwanted or mistimed
.The Law and Judicial Commission held a meeting on ‘Calibrating Population and
Resources’ last month. The discussion centred on the rights of women and girls
and families to have the number of children they want and,
4m unwanted pregnancies
Revamp; renovate
Envisage;forecast, predict dystopian; terrifying
33m at Independence.
The numbers of the recently concluded census suggest nearly 250m people live in
the country; the 2017 head count showed a population of around 208m.
“The question is not about population, but rather about consumption patterns,”
climate scientist Bill Hare. The average Canadian, Saudi, and Australian put out
more than 10 times the carbon dioxide into the air though their daily living than the
average Pakistani, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Iran and Bangladesh tackled their population growth using birth control programs.
The UNFPA says half of all global pregnancies are unplanned.
India needed to improve the protection of freedom of expression and assembly, and
that New Delhi was using counterterrorism laws against activists and journalists.
NOMURA, a top financial services company based in Japan, has included Pakistan
among seven countries threatened by a currency crisis.
UN shows Pakistan ranked third among the top 10 nations with the highest rate of
maternal and neonatal mortality and stillbirths in 2020.
ELECTIONS
As mandated under Article 224 of the Constitution, these elections must be held
within 90 days of the dissolution of the two provincial assemblies
Provincial government that has financial and administrative control of the Karachi
Water & Sewerage Board. If governance and serving the people of this huge city
were of any importance to the authorities, the alarming levels of corruption and
malpractice that the investigative report revealed is festering in the workings of the
KWSB. The supply of water through tankers was originally meant for the purpose
of providing water to areas that did not have water pipelines or which were
particularly affected in times of drought.
BABAR Azam ICC Cricketer of the Year
Babar also named ODI Cricketer of the Year for the second time in two years
and the captain of the ODI Team of the Year
According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, there were nearly 6,000 fatalities in
road accidentsin 2020-21; WHO estimates of fatalities are far higher
The Pak-US Green Alliance could potentially revolutionize Pakistan’s farm sector
with the help of US expertise in hybrid and weather-resistant seeds, biotechnology,
and synthetic engineering.
Blue Pakistan:
Over three billion people across the world rely on marine resources for their
livelihoods. Pakistan’s current blue landscape is limited to generating an estimated
$1bn. Blue economy emphasizes sustainable development while preserving
biomass like marine life and coastal resources. This could help solve the country’s
protein shortage by increasing seafood consumption.
It also offers transportation, tourism and ecological services like storm protection
and carbon storage, which can boost local economies.
Pakistan has been unable to realize its potential as a marine hub. Reports on the
subject have cited the reasons as: poor port access, limited finances for
infrastructure renovations and modernization, outdated policies discouraging
foreign investment, fragmented governance, marine pollution, degradation of the
mangrove forests, a lack of local technical and professional skills and an
incompetent managerial and bureaucratic set-up.
Under CPEC, Gwadar Port when fully functional offers great potential to aid in
revitalizing Pakistan’s blue assets.
Francis Fukuyama, in his famous 1989 article ‘End of History’, asserted that the
evolution of political science had culminated in the triumph of liberal democracy
and market economies over competing political system.
With China leading the rise of Asian economies, it became evident that global
power was now shifting to Asia. Kishore Mahboobani, in his 2008 book The New
Asian Hemisphere: The irresistible shift of global power to the East, argued that
the 21st century would witness a serious challenge to Western commerce, thought
and power.
Inflation is projected at 33 per cent through the first half of the fiscal year.
CDM ENVIRON
For instance, buyers of Pakistan’s carbon credits from its Delta Blue Carbon
Project that covers 350,000 hectares of degraded mangroves in Sindh included
Trafigura, Climate Impact X.
Of the over 13,000 projects that were approved by the CDM Board, Pakistan
secured less than one per cent of the total, compared to almost 70pc by India and
China who developed dozens of projects dealing with forestry, renewable energy,
urban transportation, waste-to-energy, solid waste management, methane gas
capture in landfills, energy-efficient stoves, and other such activities that reduce
GHG emissions. Pakistan undertook such projects mostly under loans, while China
and India utilized the CDM financing window.
Three steps are essential if we want to take advantage of the evolving carbon
markets: a) draw lessons from the failure to benefit from CDM, b) encourage the
private sector that is already in pursuit of carbon credits, and c) minimize the role
of the bureaucracy by establishing policy and legislative cover.
The net-zero emissions debate has thus far been limited to the largest polluters, ie,
the US, China, EU and India and some secondary polluters. It seems to have now
reached the world’s largest oil producers and exporters in the Middle East who are
committing themselves to achieving carbon.
The UAE is forging long-term partnerships with several developing countries to
help them trade their brown (pollution), green (forestry) and blue (mangroves)
resources.
The GIS-based initiative aims at enhancing modern agro-farming and utilizing
22m acres of uncultivated state land. The government is expecting huge
investments in agriculture from the Gulf and China under LIMS (Land Information
and Management System–Centre of Excellence)
SOLAR ENERGY AND WIND WNERGY
Pakistan has tremendous potential to generate solar and wind power, according to a
World Bank study. For example, the utilization of just 0.071pc of the country’s
area for solar power generation would meet our current electricity demand. But
investment in solar, wind and other renewable energy sources can help us achieve
energy security and make power affordable for consumers.
Wind power from 36 projects in Jhimpir and Gharo in Sindh
A German study says Pakistan has the potential to generate at least 33,000MW of
solar and wind power in the next 10 years. That will result in generation cost
savings of 15pc and emission savings of almost 50pc.
It was this incident that led to the observance of the International Day to
Combat Islamophobia every March 15.
Blasphemy charges
in Pakistan in 2022, at least 52 people “were accused of blasphemy or related
religious-based criminal charges”
According to a study, 84 people were extrajudicially killed on allegations of
blasphemy by March 2021 and around 1,450 people accused of the crime.
POVERTY
Poverty is rising in this current period of stagflation, with inflation over 30 per
cent. (Dawn News)
The level of the misery index (the sum of the rates of inflation and unemployment)
has risen from 15.2 to 36.8, the highest ever in Pakistan’s history.
Pakistan is close to the bottom of world philanthropy with a ranking of 107 out of
119 countries covered in the World Giving Index 2022 prepared by the Charity Aid
Foundation UK. According to this index, Indonesia is the most philanthropic
country in the world.
Pakistan was ranked 99th out of 121 countries on the 2022 Global Hunger Index.
SCO
Saudi Arabia’s cabinet has approved a memorandum awarding Riyadh the status of
dialogue partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. This is a major
development, as the SCO is a political, security and trade alliance that lists China,
Russia, India, Pakistan and four Central Asian nations as full members.
Pakistan seeks IMF bailouts, making it the world record holder in the number of
Fund programmes it has had — 23.
Over 44 per cent of the electorate, around 55 million are young voters between 18
and 35 years of age
PSX upheld its unenviable position as one of the worst performing stock
markets in the world during the first quarter of the present year to March.
Heavy hailstorm destroyed wheat worth 23 billion
5-6 pc damage to crops
Over 1 billion spent on by-polls says Senate
Political and economic crisis
In parliamentary systems, there is an expectation that the speaker will rise above
partisan affiliation in order to conduct the business of the house in an impartial
manner. However, events from last year show the need for neutrality for the
speaker’s office for all legislatures so that other branches of government do not
feel the need to intervene in order to remove the gridlock.
Perhaps, an innovative way to provide credible neutrality for the speaker is to
require mutual consultation between the treasury and opposition just as it is
required for the selection of the caretaker prime minister.
In the medium term, Pakistani politicians can also look at the example of Nepal
that decided to introduce proportional representation in its electoral system in order
to improve democratic representation. DAWN WRITER
What happened in Indonesia and Chile should serve as a warning to Pakistan as
both countries ended up with brutal dictatorships after hounding out a single —
arguably the most popular — political party.Jared Diamond’s chosen cases include
Indonesia and Chile in his latest book Upheaval.
In Chile, political polarization and economic crisis in the wake of Salvador
Allende’s socialist policies provided an opportunity for Gen Pinochet to stage a
violent military coup. The much-touted economic stabilization under the Pinochet
regime came at the expense of massive human rights violations.
The current situation in PAKISTAN is similar to that of CHILE.Pakistan must
come to grips with the present polycrisis as the upheaval now seems to be entering
a violent phase. But, to turn back from this road to perdition, the political
leadership will have to sit across the table from each other and agree on the future
rules of engagement.
Without a credible commitment to play by the rules, elections will only generate
more chaos.
Second, the ability of some elements to manufacture chaos also highlights the
crucial role that technology, especially social media, played in the recent crisis.
Niloufer Siddiqui, a political science professor, argues that the traditional Pakistani
politics of electables and patronage is changing and that political parties are
increasingly wooing young voters through new narratives on social media.
Some of these manufactured narratives, sadly, are beyond the pale, as vitriol has
ended up damaging the national spirit. Young people, in particular, are losing faith
in the political leadership’s ability to steer Pakistan out of its present set of
difficulties.
Pol science
As a society, our propensity to be offended by others’ lifestyle choices and beliefs
is a threat to the fundamental rights of many fellow citizens. Indeed, encouraged by
dubious guardians of morality, this self-righteousness has sometimes led to terrible
acts of violence. It has also been an obstacle to the creative arts as a means of
spreading awareness of various social ills, and in squarely addressing urgent
national issues such as family planning. In a judgement all the more remarkable
against this backdrop, the Supreme Court points out that tolerance “does not
necessarily imply agreement with or endorsement of the opinions or beliefs of
others; rather, it is about respecting their right to hold those beliefs and coexist
peacefully”. Freedom of expression is the vehicle whereby tolerance is instilled in
society; in fact, says the verdict, it “helps actualise other fundamental rights”.
Restrictions on the freedom of expression must therefore be “interpreted strictly
and narrowly”; decency is a standard of tolerance, not taste.
STUDENT UNIONS
The Zia regime banned student unions in 1984. Before that, student unions were
the nursery that produced future political leaders, who had learned from the
unions’ peaceful resistance against authoritarian rule. When unions were banned,
the student wings of religious parties filled the vacuum, mainstreaming sectarian
and religiously inspired politics, which resulted in the radicalisation of students on
campus. Instead, rigid thinking promoted polarisation, gender segregation and
discrimination.
Due to the ban, a systematic process of depoliticisation of students set in, resulting
in shrinking spaces for study circles and debates on progressive literature, political
philosophies and ideologies.
first census in 1951
Sudanese capital of Khartoum.
1. Urbanized youth are big players: The establishment’s patronage of
Imran was based on its calculation that a younger generation of
mainland Pakistanis bred on insular Pakistani nationalism would
actively support a ‘third force’ beyond the usual political suspects.
Our strategic masterminds empowered newly politicised young people
to shape political discourse in digital spaces by propagating ridiculous
ideas like ‘fifth generation war’.
$70 million — the loss to Pakistan’s economy from internet shutdowns
Economic growth during this fiscal year — a meagre 0.29 per cent. Alarmingly,
last year’s super floods in the country and the highest-ever inflation — a whopping
38pc — have pushed an estimated 20 million additional people below the poverty
line.
Each year, the deadly habit lops off about 1.6pc of the national GDP smoking
70pc of households in this country may be drinking contaminated water
Financing requirements to meet external debt obligations are an estimated $25
billion this fiscal year.
The 2023 census shows greater urbanisation, with almost 40 per cent of the
population now living in urban areas
Share of agriculture in national output has fallen to around 22pc at present.
Turning to IT, while we are grounding PIA planes, India has landed a rover on
the south pole of the moon. This is a reflection of India’s science and
technology ecosystem — the country accounts for 32pc of the world’s STEM
graduates (43pc of them women). It is currently adding over 2.5m software
developers to its workforce each year, and will next year overtake the US in
terms of its developer population. Not surprisingly, technology exports make
up more than half of India’s total services exports.
By contrast, a State Bank report published in May estimated that Pakistan
adds 20,000 to 25,000 engineering and IT graduates to the workforce
annually, but only 10pc are employable due to their lack of technical and soft
skills such as critical thinking and English-language proficiency. These are
hardly the indicators of a competitive IT-driven economy.
