Daily Current Affairs

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s water crisis has become increasingly visible in recent months: levels in the largest dams are low; parched irrigation canals mean farmers in the south planted less cotton; and the commercial capital Karachi has long queues at hydrants. So there was little surprise when, on June 6, during a spell of unseasonably high temperatures, the Pakistan Meteorological Department issued …

It is estimated that Pakistan will start facing water scarcity within the next five years, and a large number of deaths due to food shortage caused by non-availability of water will become a norm within a decade. By 2025, the country will face tens of thousands of deaths annually due to food shortage caused by country-wide failure to grow crops, …

It was four years ago that Narendra Modi rose to power on the bandwagon of Hindutva and populist slogans like ‘development for all’. While the BJP government under Modi has failed to deliver on the lofty promises of economic betterment, they have succeeded in dividing the world’s second most populous nation along communal lines. Many believe that the party will …

Politics is not only driven by regional and international outreach but also by economics The world is moving away from a system of hegemony (with one state influencing the international landscape) and a bipolar world. We saw this for decades during the era of Cold War where nations preferred to operate through negotiations than fight major wars. The Warsaw Pact …

LAHORE: Every year, especially during the month of Ramzan, Muslims in large numbers all over the world pay an obligatory charity called Zakat, the root of which in Arabic means, “purity”. Hence,  Zakat is seen as a way of cleansing and purifying one’s income and wealth from what may be at times worldly and impure ways of acquisition, in order …

A day before the passing of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) Bill in the National Assembly, which proposed the merger of Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi at an event in Jamrud, Khyber Agency, rightly stressed that more important than the merger was the urgent reconstruction and development of Fata. It was ironic than that the …

STRANGE are the ways of the crude world. Looking for a cue, the crude oil markets are currently focused on a football match and indeed for a reason. On the day Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) are scheduled to watch the inaugural World Cup soccer match between their two countries at Luzhniki …

KARACHI: The world has got engaged in a trade war with major economies imposing tariffs and duties, a move which can have far-reaching implications for global trade. With countries like the US, China, the EU and Canada all taking retaliatory measures, which may lead to tariff aggravation, the impact on Pakistan is likely to be benign due to limited integration …

QUEBEC CITY: For decades, multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization and Group of Seven were widely accepted by Western governments as the best way to shore up world order. Now, with Donald Trump in the White House and his “America First” foreign policy echoed in rise of nationalist and populist movements in Europe, the cracks in …

Pakistan’s urgent problems and challenges are all governance related. Dr Husain’s builds a strong case for understanding and confronting the crisis of governance in Pakistan in his new book Pakistan’s main issue has been its crisis of governance as manifested by a weak institutional framework. In nearly seventy one years of existence, Pakistan has been ruled by four governor generals, …