A Season of Accusations and Our International Moment
This July added another entry to a growing list of uncomfortable international assessments about Pakistan. The European Commission’s GSP+ monitoring report, covering 2023 to 2025, flagged concerns ranging from forced labour risks to weaknesses in Pakistan’s legal environment. Days later, a UK-based labour rights group released its own account of factory conditions, echoing allegations of […]
Unpacking Interior Minister’s Call for Administrative Reforms
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s press conference this week touched on a set of issues that Pakistan’s political class has circled around for decades without resolving. And the frankness with which he raised them deserves attention, even if the solutions he floated remain contested. The starting point, population as a tool of provincial leverage, is a […]
Al-Mirsad Cannot Whitewash Taliban’s Terror Record
Al-Mirsad has once again turned its pen against Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of sponsoring terrorism. The claim arrives without evidence, without documentation, and without the credibility that comes from independent scrutiny. That is because Al-Mirsad is not an independent outlet. It functions as the Taliban’s propaganda arm, tasked with directing global attention away from what Afghanistan […]
UNAMA’s Distorted Narrative of Pakistan’s Counterterrorism Effort
When a state loses over 900 of its citizens to cross border terrorism in a matter of months, the conversation cannot begin with semantics. It has to begin with the dead, the wounded, and the families left behind in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. This is the backdrop against which Pakistan has firmly pushed back on […]
Taliban Rule Deepens Afghanistan’s Human Rights Crisis: UNAMA
The latest UNAMA update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, covering April to June 2026 and released on 28 July, reads less like an incremental progress report and more like a catalogue of a system tightening its grip. Four and a half years after seizing power, the Taliban have moved well past the early […]
The Baloch Question
It is a moot point now whether it is the unameliorated socio-economic conditions or the unassuaged psycho-social grievances that are the cause of the present unrest in Balochistan. The aetiology of the sixth uprising in Balochistan features longstanding grievance narrative and a persistent governance deficit in the restive province. The diurnal attacks by the BLA […]
Taliban 2.0: Governance, Legitimacy, and the Question of International Recognition
Nearly five years since the Taliban retook Kabul in August 2021, the question of what, if anything, has changed under the movement’s rule remains unresolved. In July 2025, Russia became the first country to formally recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as its legitimate government, breaking the informal international consensus against recognition and reopening a […]
Another Evidence Emerges of Afghan Soil Being Used for Terrorism against Pakistan
A recent incident in which an Afghan national was killed during a clash between militants of Fitna al-Khawarij and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar in Pakistan’s Orakzai district serves as another reminder of the regional security challenges posed by the continued use of Afghan soil for launching terrorist attacks against Pakistan. As reports continue to emerge about Afghan nationals […]
The Future of Pakistan’s Textile Industry Lies Beyond Cost Competitiveness
Pakistan’s textile industry remains the backbone of the national economy, contributing around 60 per cent of the country’s exports while providing direct and indirect employment to millions of people. For decades, its competitiveness has been built on abundant cotton production, an integrated value chain, and relatively low manufacturing costs. However, the global textile industry is […]