radiofree.asia

Category: pakistan

  • ‘Extraordinarily destabilising decision’ – Trump denounced over call to immediately resume nuclear tests

    Democracy Now!

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s Democracy Now! show looking at US-China relations and President Trump’s threat to resume nuclear weapons testing.

    President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a one-year trade truce, but the trade deal was overshadowed by Trump’s announcement that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.

    Just before his meeting with Xi, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Because of other countries testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”

    AMY GOODMAN: It’s unclear what President Trump was referring to. Russia and China have not tested a nuclear weapon in decades; North Korea last tested one in 2017. Trump spoke briefly with reporters after his meeting with Xi, flying back to the United States.

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing.

    REPORTER 1: Russia?

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don’t do testing, and we’ve halted it years — many years ago.

    But with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.

    REPORTER 1: Did Israel — did Israel —

    REPORTER 2: Any details around the testing, sir? Like where, when?

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will be — it’ll be announced. You know, we have test sites. It’ll be announced.

    AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s threat to resume nuclear tests comes just months before the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia expires. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, expires February of next year.

    We go right now to Dr Ira Helfand. He’s an expert on the medical consequences of nuclear war, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He also serves on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. He’s today joining us from Winnipeg, Canada, where he’s speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.

    Dr Helfand, welcome back to Democracy Now! You must have been shocked last night when, just before the certainly globally touted meeting between Trump and Xi, Trump sent out on social media that he’s going to begin testing nuclear weapons, comparing it, saying that we have to test them on an equal basis, referring to countries like Russia and China.

    Can you explain what he is talking about? They, like the United States, haven’t tested nuclear weapons in decades.

    DR IRA HELFAND: Good morning, Amy.

    Actually, I can’t explain what he’s talking about, because it doesn’t make any sense. As you pointed out, Russia and China have not tested nuclear weapons for decades. And I think the most important thing right now is that the White House has got to clarify what President Trump is talking about.

    If we really are going to resume explosive nuclear testing, this is an extraordinarily destabilising decision, and one which will increase even more the already great danger that we have of stumbling into a nuclear conflict. But they need to clarify this, because, as you pointed out, the statement doesn’t make sense in terms of what’s actually happening in the world.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr Helfand, what would these tests entail, were this to actually occur the way that Trump has said?

    DR IRA HELFAND: Well, again, it’s not clear what he’s talking about. If he’s — if he is speaking about resuming explosive nuclear testing, presumably this would not be in the atmosphere, which is prohibited by a treaty which the United States did sign and ratify in 1963, but it would be underground nuclear explosions. And the principal danger there, I think, is political.

    This will undoubtedly trigger response by other countries that have nuclear weapons, and dramatically accelerate the already very dangerous arms race that the world finds itself in today.

    The one, perhaps, value of this statement is that it helps to draw attention to the fact that the nuclear problem has not gone away, as so many of us would like to believe. We are facing the gravest danger of nuclear war that has existed on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and possibly worse than it was during the Cold War.

    And this comes at a time when the best science we have shows that even a very limited nuclear war, one that might take place between India and Pakistan, has the potential to trigger a global famine that could kill a quarter of the human race in two years.

    We have to recognise that reality, and we need to change our nuclear policy so that it is no longer based on the idea that nuclear weapons make us safe, but that it recognises the fact that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to our safety.

    And for citizens in the United States in particular, I think this means doing things like are advocated by the Back from the Brink campaign, calling on the United States to stop this tit-for-tat exchange of threats with our nuclear adversaries and to enter into negotiations with all eight of the nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, enforceable agreement that will allow them to eliminate their nuclear arsenals according to an agreed-upon timetable, and so they can all join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at some point when they have completed this task.

    This idea is dismissed sometimes as being unrealistic. I think what’s unrealistic is the belief that we can continue to maintain these enormous nuclear arsenals and expect that nothing is going to go wrong.

    We’ve been lucky over and over again. This year alone, five of the nine countries which have nuclear weapons have been engaged in active military conflict. India and Pakistan were fighting each other. That could easily have escalated into a nuclear war between them, which could have had devastating consequences for the entire planet.

    And we keep dodging bullets, and we keep acting as though that’s going to keep happening. It isn’t. Our luck is going to run out at some point, and we have to recognise that. We have to recognise the only way to guarantee our safety is to get rid of these weapons once and for all.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr Helfand, before we conclude, just about the timing of Trump’s comment, which came just days after Russia said it had successfully tested a nuclear-armed missile, which it said could penetrate US defences.

    Do you think Trump was responding to that, without perhaps understanding that there was a difference between that and carrying out explosive nuclear tests?

    DR IRA HELFAND: It’s certainly possible, and the timing suggests that may be what’s happening. But again, the White House needs to clarify this statement, because, as it stands, it was an explicit instruction to begin testing at the test sites, which suggests nuclear explosive testing.

    I suspect that is not what the president meant, but at this point, who knows?

    AMY GOODMAN: Right. It was nuclear-capable, not nuclear-armed. And finally, I mean, he’s talking about doing this immediately, instructing what he called the War Department, the Department of War.

    Isn’t the Energy Department in charge of the nuclear stockpile? And aren’t scores of nuclear scientists now furloughed during the government shutdown? Who is maintaining this very dangerous stockpile?

    DR IRA HELFAND: That was another striking inconsistency in that statement. It is not the Pentagon, which he referred to as the Department of War, that would be conducting nuclear testing if it recurs. It is, Amy, as you suggested, it’s the Department of Energy that is responsible for this activity.

    So, again, another area in which the statement is just confusing, puzzling and needs clarification. And I think, you know, this is a really urgent matter, because, as it stands, the statement itself is destabilising.

    It raises tension. It creates further problems. And we don’t need that anymore. We need to —

    AMY GOODMAN: And opens the door for other countries, is that right, to test nuclear weapons?

    DR IRA HELFAND: Well, absolutely. And that would be — you know, there would be absolutely nothing the US could do that would more undermine our security at this point with regards to nuclear weapons than to resume testing. It would give a green light to many other countries to resume testing, as well, and lead to markedly increased instability in the global situation.

    AMY GOODMAN: Dr Ira Helfand, we thank you so much for being with us, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, won the Nobel Peace Prize, PSR, in 1985, serving on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign, joining us, interestingly, from Winnipeg, Canada, where he is speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.

    The original content of this programme on 30 October 2025 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Extraordinarily destabilising decision’ – Trump denounced over call to immediately resume nuclear tests

    Democracy Now!

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s Democracy Now! show looking at US-China relations and President Trump’s threat to resume nuclear weapons testing.

    President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a one-year trade truce, but the trade deal was overshadowed by Trump’s announcement that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.

    Just before his meeting with Xi, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Because of other countries testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”

    AMY GOODMAN: It’s unclear what President Trump was referring to. Russia and China have not tested a nuclear weapon in decades; North Korea last tested one in 2017. Trump spoke briefly with reporters after his meeting with Xi, flying back to the United States.

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing.

    REPORTER 1: Russia?

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don’t do testing, and we’ve halted it years — many years ago.

    But with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.

    REPORTER 1: Did Israel — did Israel —

    REPORTER 2: Any details around the testing, sir? Like where, when?

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will be — it’ll be announced. You know, we have test sites. It’ll be announced.

    AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s threat to resume nuclear tests comes just months before the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia expires. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, expires February of next year.

    We go right now to Dr Ira Helfand. He’s an expert on the medical consequences of nuclear war, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He also serves on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. He’s today joining us from Winnipeg, Canada, where he’s speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.

    Dr Helfand, welcome back to Democracy Now! You must have been shocked last night when, just before the certainly globally touted meeting between Trump and Xi, Trump sent out on social media that he’s going to begin testing nuclear weapons, comparing it, saying that we have to test them on an equal basis, referring to countries like Russia and China.

    Can you explain what he is talking about? They, like the United States, haven’t tested nuclear weapons in decades.

    DR IRA HELFAND: Good morning, Amy.

    Actually, I can’t explain what he’s talking about, because it doesn’t make any sense. As you pointed out, Russia and China have not tested nuclear weapons for decades. And I think the most important thing right now is that the White House has got to clarify what President Trump is talking about.

    If we really are going to resume explosive nuclear testing, this is an extraordinarily destabilising decision, and one which will increase even more the already great danger that we have of stumbling into a nuclear conflict. But they need to clarify this, because, as you pointed out, the statement doesn’t make sense in terms of what’s actually happening in the world.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr Helfand, what would these tests entail, were this to actually occur the way that Trump has said?

    DR IRA HELFAND: Well, again, it’s not clear what he’s talking about. If he’s — if he is speaking about resuming explosive nuclear testing, presumably this would not be in the atmosphere, which is prohibited by a treaty which the United States did sign and ratify in 1963, but it would be underground nuclear explosions. And the principal danger there, I think, is political.

    This will undoubtedly trigger response by other countries that have nuclear weapons, and dramatically accelerate the already very dangerous arms race that the world finds itself in today.

    The one, perhaps, value of this statement is that it helps to draw attention to the fact that the nuclear problem has not gone away, as so many of us would like to believe. We are facing the gravest danger of nuclear war that has existed on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and possibly worse than it was during the Cold War.

    And this comes at a time when the best science we have shows that even a very limited nuclear war, one that might take place between India and Pakistan, has the potential to trigger a global famine that could kill a quarter of the human race in two years.

    We have to recognise that reality, and we need to change our nuclear policy so that it is no longer based on the idea that nuclear weapons make us safe, but that it recognises the fact that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to our safety.

    And for citizens in the United States in particular, I think this means doing things like are advocated by the Back from the Brink campaign, calling on the United States to stop this tit-for-tat exchange of threats with our nuclear adversaries and to enter into negotiations with all eight of the nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, enforceable agreement that will allow them to eliminate their nuclear arsenals according to an agreed-upon timetable, and so they can all join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at some point when they have completed this task.

    This idea is dismissed sometimes as being unrealistic. I think what’s unrealistic is the belief that we can continue to maintain these enormous nuclear arsenals and expect that nothing is going to go wrong.

    We’ve been lucky over and over again. This year alone, five of the nine countries which have nuclear weapons have been engaged in active military conflict. India and Pakistan were fighting each other. That could easily have escalated into a nuclear war between them, which could have had devastating consequences for the entire planet.

    And we keep dodging bullets, and we keep acting as though that’s going to keep happening. It isn’t. Our luck is going to run out at some point, and we have to recognise that. We have to recognise the only way to guarantee our safety is to get rid of these weapons once and for all.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr Helfand, before we conclude, just about the timing of Trump’s comment, which came just days after Russia said it had successfully tested a nuclear-armed missile, which it said could penetrate US defences.

    Do you think Trump was responding to that, without perhaps understanding that there was a difference between that and carrying out explosive nuclear tests?

    DR IRA HELFAND: It’s certainly possible, and the timing suggests that may be what’s happening. But again, the White House needs to clarify this statement, because, as it stands, it was an explicit instruction to begin testing at the test sites, which suggests nuclear explosive testing.

    I suspect that is not what the president meant, but at this point, who knows?

    AMY GOODMAN: Right. It was nuclear-capable, not nuclear-armed. And finally, I mean, he’s talking about doing this immediately, instructing what he called the War Department, the Department of War.

    Isn’t the Energy Department in charge of the nuclear stockpile? And aren’t scores of nuclear scientists now furloughed during the government shutdown? Who is maintaining this very dangerous stockpile?

    DR IRA HELFAND: That was another striking inconsistency in that statement. It is not the Pentagon, which he referred to as the Department of War, that would be conducting nuclear testing if it recurs. It is, Amy, as you suggested, it’s the Department of Energy that is responsible for this activity.

    So, again, another area in which the statement is just confusing, puzzling and needs clarification. And I think, you know, this is a really urgent matter, because, as it stands, the statement itself is destabilising.

    It raises tension. It creates further problems. And we don’t need that anymore. We need to —

    AMY GOODMAN: And opens the door for other countries, is that right, to test nuclear weapons?

    DR IRA HELFAND: Well, absolutely. And that would be — you know, there would be absolutely nothing the US could do that would more undermine our security at this point with regards to nuclear weapons than to resume testing. It would give a green light to many other countries to resume testing, as well, and lead to markedly increased instability in the global situation.

    AMY GOODMAN: Dr Ira Helfand, we thank you so much for being with us, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, won the Nobel Peace Prize, PSR, in 1985, serving on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign, joining us, interestingly, from Winnipeg, Canada, where he is speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.

    The original content of this programme on 30 October 2025 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Mirage of Development: Gwadar’s Water Wars

    A view of the Gwadar port of Pakistan Photo: VCG

    While the rest of Pakistan’s major cities were drenched in monsoon rains, a group of children stood hand in hand and chorused this in unison in Gwadar’s New Tobagh Ward near Koh-a-Bun Ward:

    “Pani Dho, bijli dho, warna Kursi Chor Dho.” ( Give us water, give us electricity, or vacate the chair).

    As Gwadar and its surrounding villages and towns are confronting an escalated water crisis, protests — and this slogan to ask for water — have become common across the city. Just a day later, another group of women and children from the Assa Ward and Lal Baksh Ward blocked the iconic Marine Drive demanding for water. A similar protest was held at shaheed Lala Hameed chowk, a symbolic site for past mass demonstrations and mobilisations under Maulana Hidayatur Rehman.

    The irony of Gwadar’s situation especially pertaining to its water crisis cannot be overstated. The port city is often showcased as the linchpin of the China’s Belt and Road Initiative. A future city akin to Dubai where boulevards would be wide, sprawling ferries and yachts would dot the Padi Zir (East Bay) and towering cranes would cast the silhouette of a rising metropolis but beneath all this facade unfolds a harsh truth: the children of this city still carry Jerry cans in search for water.

    With a population of 0.2 million, Gwadar city currently needs over 5 million gallons of water daily, however, the municipal pipeline network supplies only a meagre 2 million gallons per day, according to the Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department. Assuming that if a single person needs 30 to 50 gallons per day for domestic need, the demand for residential water is still unmet — excluding factors like industrial, commercial, CPEC-oriented infrastructure and future growth which could push the demand over 10-20 MGD.

    “The Ankara Kaur Dam — built in 1995 to provide 1.62 MGD has silted up significantly and is completely dead now,” says Javed MB, journalist and founder of Gwadar-a-Tawar, a local news outlet.

    Given that Ankar Kaur Dam is completely non-functional, the city is solely reliant on the tankers from the Mirani Dam from the nearby Kech district. The cost? Over 20 million per month, much of which lacks transparency in public audits. Two recently connected dams; Sawar and Shadi Kaur dams are vulnerable to seasonal rainfall, with their long distances causing delays in peak demand and transmission loses.

    City dwellers need to stand on public standpipes or buy water from private tankers, priced Rs. 3000 to 5000 per 100 gallon load. For low income families whose income is less than 20,000 monthly, it is untenable.

    “On normal days, a tanker costs 21 to 25 thousands, however, with most of the dams dried up, the tankers are selling water in black at a rate of thirty thousands,” says Javed. “The official rate, as set by the district administration and Deputy commissioner of Gwadar recently, is 20 thousands per tanker, but it is rarely enforced.”

    The network of pipelines laid by the government are grossly adequate while many of the laid pipes are poorly maintained. Some are clogged and others contain contaminated water. In 2025, the completion of an overarching network of 158 km of pipelines linking the Ankara, Sawar and Shadi Kaur Dam and four underground reservoirs have helped some communities receive water, such as Faqeer colony and Dhoor, according to GDA, chief Engineer, Syed Mohammad Baloch. Howbeit, official data shows that almost 50 per cent of homes in the district receive pipelined water — with 44 per cent through direct connections and 56 per cent via stand posts or public tanks — while the rest rely on tanker mafia, wells and pond water which is often unhealthy and contaminated.

    Desalination plants and the impacts

    The much touted desalination plants have not also receded the crisis. The district has three plants which either never worked or were inconsistent at best due to bureaucratic hurdles, mass corruption and chronic power outages.

    “These desalination plants are like museum exhibits,” Javed laments. “They are there. You can look at it. But they don’t feed the thirsty.”

    The biggest one located in Karwat, which remains non-functional even it has been officially inaugurated thrice — by the Nawaz Sharif, PTI and PPP governments. The other two are located in Sur Bandar and on Koh-a-Batil respectively. In response to the growing water crisis in the city, another seawater desalination plant was inaugurated in 2023 with the help of the Chinese government under the funding of CPEC. The new plant was aimed to produce 1.2 million gallons per day — producing a small fraction of the city’s estimated demand of 16 to 22 MGD.

    For many people living in and around Gwadar, water is not just a problem — it defines their daily life. Girls drop out of schools to stand in community posts or fetch water many kilometres away every day. There has been a rise in diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, dehydration, back pain and constant depression on women owing to the constant stress of water shortage.

    The economic impact of water shortage has also affected the fishermen of Gwadar. Fishing, which is the sole income of the coastal towns, needs water in ice making, preserving catch and washing their nets. Therefore, they spend their money in buying water than they earn from selling fish. “What they earn from catching fish in one trip, the money is spent on purchasing water and fuel. This becomes impossible for these hand to mouth fishermen,” says Javed.

    Thirst in the Hinterlands

    In the vast coastal belt of Balochistan, just behind the shimmering billboards and free-trade zones of Gwadar city, the far-flung villages of Jiwani, Pasni, Kulanch, Sur bandar, Ormara and Pishukaan are parched. Unlike the port city of Gwadar , these villages seldom make headlines — yet the shortage of water has also steadily worsened there over the years.

    “We don’t have any water to drink, let alone for bathing,” Dur Muhammad laments as he leans to scoop water out from a shallow and brackish well that he needs to re-dig everyday. “We come here with motorcycles. Some come with their donkeys and a few even walk the distance on foot. All we ask for is water. But nothing changes and no one listens.”

    Dur Muhammad, 30, lives in Dasht Kurmi, a village located in Suntsar, Tehsil Jiwani, just four kilometers before the BP-250 checkpoint — or commonly known as the Gabd Rimdan-250 border. This village lies between two great ports — approximately 120km east of Iran’s Chabahar port and 70km west of the Gwadar port, yet the people feel a world apart.

    Having a population of around 400 and inaccessible by road, requiring travel by sea on boats due to the lack of road infrastructure, Dasht Kurmi is divided into four local settlements: Faqeer Muhammad Bazaar, Hammal Bazaar, Kalar Bazaar and Kahuda Sadiq Bazaar. In these dusty settlements, water has also become a defining clock of life.

    “The acutest water shortage in the Gwadar district is being experienced in Jiwani Tehsil,” Javed adds. “The locals in this area have turned to natural ways of water conservation.”

    When it rains, which is very rare, the villagers dig wide and narrow trench-shaped earthen ponds to collect water during or before the rainy seasons to collect the runoff of the nearby streams. These makeshift catchment basins temporarily become lifelines which the people of Dasht Kurmi depend on for weeks.

    Once they dry, the locals resort to digging small hand-dug wells –locally known as Khaneegs — to collect the little water that remains three meters beneath the cracked soil. This technique, like in Dasht Kurmi has passed through generations throughout the peripheral areas of water-scarce Gwadar where government-funded pipelines, including those under the CPEC umbrella, rarely reach.

    For the people of Jiwani, a tehsil just 70 kilometers from the Gwadar city, water also came via a network of pipelines from the — now dead — Ankra Kaur Dam. But the locals have also been left at the mercy of the tanker mafia.

    Protests in Jiwani have been very deadly since the inception. Three people including a child named Yasmeen, were reportedly killed on 21 February in 1987 by the firing of the security forces when the protesters were rallying for water. Despite an allocation of Rs 937 million rupees in 2021 for building dams and pipelines, little progress has been seen in Jiwani as of 2025.

    According to an estimate from the provincial government, the Gwadar city and its adjoining Town of Jiwani which accounted for nearly 200,000 people as of 2012, needed 3.5 million gallons of water daily, however, the normal daily delivery was 2 million gallons, leaving an enormous shortfall of 1.5 million gallons every day.

    Towns of Empty cans

    “The people living close to the Pasni city spend more time looking for water than at the sea,” says Waqar Ghafoor, a resident of Reek-a-Pusht, Pasni. “ Every morning, the locals here take their containers and wait by the side of the roads, hoping that a private tanker may pass by. The water from the tankers is often brackish and unfit to drink and some time there is no tankers at all. They wait under the sun for hours. This is not living, we are only surviving.”

    Pasni, a fishing town of 100,000 residents, is supplied by the Shadi Kaur Dam, built in 2004 — also supplying to the nearby town of Ormara. By now, the dam has gradually silted and damaged, providing only little water. The daily requirement of Pasni in 2011, with a population of 50,000 back then, stood at 1.5 million gallons per day while the actual supply was less than 1.0 million gallons per day — fulfilling barely 6 per cent of the total need.

    “We receive water from the Shadi Kaur Dam via pipelines which are poured into big tanks built in the city and from these tanks is a network of other pipes distributing water to the households,” explains Waqar Ghafoor. “Though the residents of Reek a Pusht, where I live, receive some amount of water but the people living in the city confront a dire water shortage. The pipelines are broken or stolen there and pumping stations are shut down or remain without fuel for days due to administrative issues.”

    Following the collapse of the Shadi Kaur Dam which killed as many as 70 people and devastated homes, lives and agricultural land in the town in 2005, the dam was rebuilt in 2010 by the help of the Federal Public Sector Development Programme. Being built at a cost of Rs 7.9 billion rupees and with a storage capacity of 37,000 acre‑feet (45,600,000 cubic metres), the dam was expected to supply 70 cusecs (cubic feet per second). But it now supplies just 12 cusecs to the towns of Pasni and Ormara — 8 cusecs to the agriculture sector and 4 to the tanker trucks.

    While there is hardly any rain observed in the area, the dam’s storage capacity has dropped down to less than 30 per cent, according to local officials.

    Kulaanch, another town, some few kilometers from the Gwadar port is also dependent on the Sawar Dam, the same dam that also supplies to the Gwadar city.

    “Some villages of Kulaanch are connected to the pipeline network while others aren’t,” says Ishaque Ibrahim, a resident of Beelaar, Kulanch, whose family has now relocated to the nearby Kech district due to water shortage.

    Ishaque tells that though Sawar Dam technically serves the area, but the distribution of water isn’t equal. “You can get water from the reservoir only if you have recommendations. Therefore, only the affluent and the well-connected to the district’s Irrigation Department get the supply while the poor are left at the mercy of the private tanker mafia, which charge 21 to 25 thousands — a sum only a few can afford.”

    The water crisis in the district is both manmade and natural. The geography of the Makran Coast compounds this issue — hot and dry terrain with a thin freshwater lens means that freshwater is not merely limited in the division but also risks sea water intrusion. Rising sea levels keep destroying homes built on the brink of the sea by one wave and the other especially in Pishukan and Ganz and salt water intrusion into inland aquifers have rendered many community wells useless. For many villages, hand pumps churn out saline water which damages the skin.

    Dams and Desalination: The peripheral Paradox

    Establishing desalination plants in the peripheral areas dates back to 2008. Four desalination plants were decided to be deployed in the district in 2017. One for the Gwadar city at a cost of Rs 1 billion and three others in Jiwani, Pasni and Singhar — each with a cost of Rs 20 million. By 2017, only the one in Gwadar was functional and the others remained non-operational owing to bureaucratic delays and lack of staff. The Gwadar Seawater Desalination plant that opened in 2023 supplies to the city only, while the areas in the periphery remain out its direct service.

    In April 2023, two reverse osmosis (RO) plants were inaugurated for Sur bandar and Chabarkani —  hometown of MPA Mulana Hidayat-ur-Rehman — but they don’t reach the remote towns of Pasni, Pishukaan, Ormara or Jiwani.

    Fixing the flow

    The Solution to the Water crisis is neither prohibitively expensive nor complex.

    Abdullah Rahim, who runs a page — Makran Weather Forecast — says that building small and medium sized dams around the district to trap seasonal or monsoon rains could drastically reduce the dependency on the faraway sources like Mirani Dam and reviving and desiltation of Ankra Kaur and Shadi Kaur Dam could bring back millions of gallons of water into circulation.

    “ Local hydrologists believe that building small dams on the hilly catchment areas of Nigwar and Kulaanch can help reduce the dependency,” says Abdullah Rahim. He also adds that this neglect was absorbed in February 2024, when an unseasonal shower struck Gwadar district, dropping 183 millimetres of rain in just 30 hours — more than it’s normal average rainfall.

    “All the streets were under water and people were stranded. And when the rain receded, there was not a single reservoir or water body to show for it,” regrets Abdullah. “There were no check dams. No retention ponds. This precious rainwater simply ran into the Arabian Sea.” Officials believe that if 30 per cent of that water was stored, Gwadar’s water demand could have been fulfilled for months.

    Javed MB, on the other hand believes that Gwadar or the Makran division doesn’t come under the jurisdiction of the traditional path of Pakistan’s Monsoon belt. Therefore, though dams can also help when its rains, but what about years when it doesn’t? Ostensibly, Pakistan Meteorological Department has also warned earlier that the Makran Coast is becoming drier and hotter over the years, with longer dry spells and shorter monsoon periods.

    “We need to operationalize the existing desalination plants in Gwadar and the nearby towns. While solar-powered small filtration units could serve off-grid villages,” Javed says.

    Water in Gwadar has no longer a resource, it is a commodity of inclusion or exclusion and a test of loyalty to the land or just a departure, provoking one to question: Is Gwadar being built for its current poor residents or for an envisioned future of investors or gated economic zones?

    And yet, in every evening as the cranes of the port continue their slow rotation, with ships being unloaded and their horns echoing in the dusk, somewhere in the hills or a river, a girl returns to her home with a jerry-can, half full. Her back aches, with the water tasting metallic. But she and the others don’t have another choice, since for the world, Gwadar may be a port of luxury and opportunity but for the locals, it is a port of thirst.

    The post The Mirage of Development: Gwadar’s Water Wars first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Battery Belt: When the Sun Touches the Silk

    Nako Dost Muhammad (image on left) had never heard the hum of a fan. Living in a village named Kolahu in Tump, a tehsil in district Kech tucked between dusty hills and near the edge of the Iranian border, Nako’s life has been cloaked in darkness.

    Since 2016, the electricity connections in their village had been completely cut off, making them rely on the dim, choking flame of a kerosene lamp. He remembers a night when his grandson was bitten by a scorpion. There was no proper light to see where the creepy creature had gone, no decent transport to take the boy to a dispensary or a fan to stop them from sleeping on the floor. From the school in the village to the dispensary nearby, none had power.

    Until last month, Nako recalls, when a solar-panel-laden Zamyad vehicle from Turbat arrived. A local contractor and three other people came with unfamiliar tools: a metal pole, a solar panel, a fan, wires and, intriguingly, a battery that had neither sulphuric acid nor distilled water in it, he says. He was told by the contractor that he was among the 40 recipients from the village to receive “a home solar solution” under a new provincial scheme from the Energy Department of Balochistan.

    Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province in terms of area, remains the most energy deprived region. Almost 36 per cent of Balochistan is connected to the national grid and the connected ones receive erratic supply, according to a report presented in the National Assembly of Pakistan. Therefore, in this void, solar technology has been a boon. The Energy Department of Balochistan in collaboration with the People’s Republic of China is now providing home solar systems through a 15,000 solar home system grant aid by the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) and the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund (SSCACF). These include 250 Watts panels, wiring kits, charge controllers and critically lithium-ion batteries to store power to be utilised during night.

    Lithium Solar Charge Controller

    Nako didn’t know what a “lithium-ion battery” was, nor had he heard of  Guangdong, a Chinese province, stamped on the battery casing. What he knew about was a solar panel that caught sunlight, a battery that stored something invisible and that by the evening, his home — one mud house — would have two working lights and a fan to sleep just like in the city.

    These lithium-ion batteries that are used to power electric scooters in Karachi or power up laptops and mobile phones in Lahore, are now providing electricity to the far away hamlets of Balochistan, often forgotten by the National power grid. From the fertile lands of Pishin district in the North to the draught-hit district of Gwadar in the South, these Chinese-made lithium-ion batteries, compact yet powerful, are converting sunlight into steady electricity in the night.

    A Tale of two chemistries

    “Lead acid batteries are the grandfather of energy storage invented in 1859,” Says Abdul Saboor, a chemistry professor in Atta Shad Degree college, Turbat. “They are cheap, recyclable and are locally manufactured by firms like Exide, Osaka and AGS. But they are heavy, require maintenance and give away 50 per cent of the charge stored in them. Unluckily, depending upon usage, their life span varies from 2 to five years.”

    By contrast, he explains, lithium-ion batteries especially the Lithium-iron Phosphate variants are now the heart of solar systems, electric scooters, and backup power. They last longer, are lighter and discharge up to 90 to 95 per cent.

    So what is the fine print?

    “The cost”, says a consumer from Tump. “A 100Ah battery in the market costs Rs. 28,000 while a lithium-ion battery in that range would cost you Rs. 80,000.”

    This expensive cost puts the lithium-ion batteries out of the reach of the middle class people. Another resident from Turbat confided in me that he purchased a lithium-ion battery in Gwadar — similar to the ones distributed under the provincial scheme — for Rs. 60,000, giving birth to a black market driven by high demand of the lithium-ion batteries and their quality.

    Made in China: A Double-Edged Sword

    Almost all, 90%, of the lithium-ion batteries in Pakistani markets are imported from China, with the remaining 10 per cent from United States and Bahrain. Brands like Dynavolt, CATL and BYD arrive through CPEC-linked logistics chains or local distributors from Karachi’s Saddar or Lahore’s Hall Road.

    Between August 2023 to July 2024, Pakistan’s lithium-ion battery import from China stood at a staggering 710 shipments, according to Volza Pakistan’s Import data. Reports from the Pakistan’s Customs and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics show that from the fiscal years of 2019 to 2024, the import money for lithium-ion batteries increased from $12 million to a jaw-dropping $49 million.

    Another report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), shows the lithium-ion batteries import in 2024 in the country was totalled around 1.25 GWh and additionally 400 megawatt-hour( MWh) in the months of January and February of 2025 alone. This report also reiterates that if this current trend to solarize the country with solar-plus-battery installation continues, luckily, Pakistan’s 26 per cent of peak electricity demand would be met by 2030. For now, importing batteries from China is a blessing, but there is a cost to this convenience.

    Pakistan currently lacks local manufacturing capacity for lithium-ion batteries. We have no lithium mining, no cell production capabilities and no infrastructure to recycle e-waste. Given that the world lithium supply chain is tense due to geopolitical rivalries, Pakistan’s entire dependency on a single supplier could cause trade shocks.

    “Probably, there would be a continued import of lithium-ion batteries from China or passive assembly units in the days to come.” Expresses, Asumi Heibitan, an Electric Engineer graduate from Bahaudin Zakriya University, Multan. “ If there is a shift in export policy by Beijing, a shipping issue or a geopolitical service cut-off, Pakistan won’t have any alternative supplier.”

    There would also be an issue of equity just beyond trade risks, Asumi warns. A 5kWh lithium-ion battery with solar panel and inverter would cost more than two lakh__ an unaffordable price for most of the low-income families. Though schemes like the Energy Department of Balochistan would make a dent, but many marginalised communities remain excluded to-date.

    On a different aspect, The Electric Vehicles Policy 2020-2025 of Pakistan has also envisaged to turn 30 per cent of all the vehicles into EVs by 2030. BYD alone envisions to assemble EVs in Pakistan by mid-2026, but with a single lithium -ion battery ally and sky-rocketing prices of such batteries in the global market, Pakistan’s nascent dream of Electric Vehicles could collapse overnight.

    Environmental Hazards

    Pakistan also doesn’t have any formal lithium-ion recycling capacity, which means the end-of-life batteries — typically containing poisonous metals like cobalt, manganese, nickel and lithium salts — would end up in waste sites, weakening soil health and water contamination. Resultantly, Pakistan is going to be a dumping ground for e-waste, without policies on lithium waste management.

    “We are sleepwalking to an e-waste crisis.” says Bahram Baloch, a student from BUITEMS, Quetta. “ It is like buying thousands of ships with no ship-breaking yards in sight.”

    Unfortunately, none of the technical universities of the country, be it UET Lahore, BUITEMS in Quetta or NED University offer specialized courses on battery assembly, recycling and management. This educational gap would definitely force reliance on foreign Chinese or German consultants for large-scale energy projects.

    Though geological surveys by the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC) also suggest the possible availability of lithium in the Chagai district in Balochistan and the Gilgit-Baltistan region, this would, definitely change Pakistan from a consumer to contributor but Chinese extraction models, local rights and environmental safety factors also remain fragile.

    The way ahead and the continued import

    While the world advances to a more sophisticated green energy future, the continued import of Chinese-made lithium-ion batteries not merely becomes a trade practice but raises broader national policy questions: Should the country rely on this traditional imported green tech or start developing its own local manufacturing capacity? What if the these tens of thousands of installed lithium-ion batteries pile up on garbage heaps with no future disposal plans? Is it wise to build a green energy future with products that Pakistan doesn’t control?

    Our neighbours and others have answers to offer. India, one of the importers of lithium-ion batteries is now heavily investing on its production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) battery storage. It has also enacted the Battery Waste Management Rule of 2022 to manufacture and recycle lithium-ion batteries locally and to manage e-waste. Bangladesh is working with private companies to make lithium-iron phosphate batteries and even small African countries, for example, Rwanda is investing on such pilot projects while we are left behind a import-only paradigm, in spite of investing on incentives to localise, assemble and innovate.

    A way for a safe and greener future requires coordinated developments on multiple fronts. First, the government ought to encourage local battery assembly units by offering tax incentives, cheap loans and technical trainings. This will not only create jobs for the locals but also reduce the dependency on imports. Simultaneously, bilateral agreement with China should go beyond trade, like joint technology developments on battery maintenance and assembly units in SEZs (Special Economic Zones) in Gwadar under CPEC. On the other hand, the Pakistan Council of Renewable Energy Technologies in collaboration with NADRA and provincial Energy Departments should start mapping lithium-ion battery installations nationwide so that they could forecast future replacement and predict as well as manage waste volumes.

    While Public education on battery safety standards, life span and quality should be prioritize. We also need to diversify our import sources from South Korea, UAE and Japan to avoid any jerk from global lithium-ion battery supply.

    Back in Tump, the days are getting hotter. Nako Dost Muhammad tells the visitors proudly that he doesn’t fear the nights. His grandson can now study at the ungodly hours of the night without a kerosene lamp and that his wife doesn’t need to cook before dusk.

    But his fear about the battery started after a teacher in the village told him that these batteries catch fire in temperatures above 60 centigrade. He wonders how long that box with Chinese letters would last, since he has received no receipt, no warranty cards and no ways to replace it.

    For now, the lithium in his battery has travelled a long way — perhaps from a mining site in Chile to a factory in Guangdong in China, to the Karachi port, and then to a village with bumpy roads long forgotten by the National grid.

    Lithium-ion batteries are a good fit for a country which aspires for a green energy future and with unreliable electricity but the way Pakistan is using them now — only importing with no local assembly units is a real risk. We need to decide whether we only want to be consumers of foreign technology or a country that localises, manages and innovates their own green energy solutions. Only the future will tell.

    The post The Battery Belt: When the Sun Touches the Silk first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Faith, Fear, and Fire: The Muridke Massacre and the Struggle with Non-State Actors

    The October 13 Muridke incident has left Pakistan shaken once again. The violent clashes between security forces and supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) turned a planned religious procession into one of the deadliest confrontations since the Faizabad sit-in.

    What unfolded in the small Punjab town was more than a law-and-order breakdown;  it revealed Pakistan’s deepening struggle with non-state actors, political repression, and the dangerous overlap of religion and power.

    Social media platforms flooded with graphic videos and sharply divided opinions. In response to the escalating online unrest, the government temporarily blocked access to Twitter (X), citing national security and “digital incitement.”

    A panic-like atmosphere soon engulfed the social media platforms with videos of graphic nature, sharply dividing opinions among subscribers. With the online unrest growing to alarming proportions, the government temporarily suspended the operations of Twitter (technically known as X) for purposes of “national security and digital incitement.”

    Background

    Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) is rooted in Pakistan’s Barelvi movement, representing a large segment of the country’s Sunni Muslim population. Its rise began after the execution of Mumtaz Qadri in 2016   an event that transformed Khadim Hussain Rizvi from a fiery cleric into a national figurehead for religious activism.

    Under his son, Saad Rizvi, the group evolved into a structured political force capable of mobilizing thousands across Punjab and Karachi.

    The group has faced repeated bans for violent protests but continues to command substantial street power. Its followers consider themselves defenders of faith, while the state views them as a recurring security challenge.

    Political Context

    The Punjab government, led by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, now faces sharp criticism over its handling of non-state actors.

    Observers argue that her administration’s approach has been increasingly uncompromising, with some analysts drawing comparisons between her leadership and India’s Indira Gandhi   both known for using heavy-handed tactics against domestic dissent.

    Maryam’s critics recall that the execution of Mumtaz Qadri took place under her father, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, while her uncle Shehbaz Sharif’s government oversaw the Model Town tragedy, where police opened fire on supporters of Tahir-ul-Qadri’s movement in 2014.

    There are some unpleasant questions raised by these historical parallels about how the Sharif political dynasty deals with public agitation.

    Under Imran Khan, similar standoffs with the TLP were settled in talks. His administration opted for negotiations instead of confrontation. In contrast, the Muridke episode reflects the return of state coercion over political accommodation.

    The Muridke Clashes

    According to early reports, Saad Rizvi had submitted a written request to organize a peaceful march in solidarity with Palestine. The Punjab government denied permission, citing security threats and regional instability. On October 13, the group proceeded with its plan, resulting in clashes that quickly spiraled out of control.

    The FIR registered by police alleged that Saad Rizvi opened fire on the Factory Area Station House Officer (SHO), injuring him.

    Figure 1: Screenshot of BBC Urdu’s tweet about the FIR report against Saad Rizvi (October 13, 2025).

    Source: BBC Urdu on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “According to the FIR text, Saad Rizvi, present on the stage, picked up a pistol lying nearby and fired directly at the Factory Area SHO with the intent to kill. The SHO was hit and fell injured.“

    The Punjab Police, through their official account, honored the slain officers, calling them martyrs who “sacrificed their lives to protect peace.

    Figure 2: Screenshot of Punjab Police Official’s tribute tweet on Martyrs Day (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Punjab Police Official on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “Heartfelt salute to the great martyrs who embraced martyrdom on this day.”
    (Hashtags: #PunjabPolice #Martyrs)

    Witness videos circulating online, however, showed men in plain clothes firing at demonstrators, sparking accusations of extrajudicial violence.

    Social media erupted with polarized reactions   some defending law enforcement, others accusing the state of using “Israel-style” force against its citizens.

    Figure 3: Screenshot of Asim Riaz’s video tweet questioning the identity of a person firing during the Mureedkay protests (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Asim Riaz on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “Who is firing now? In the video, a person dressed in civilian clothes is seen firing. Who is this?”
    #Mureedkay #WhyWasTheBulletFired

    Figure 4: Screenshot of Sayed Ajmal Khan Bj’s tweet condemning government actions in Mureedkay (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Sayed Ajmal Khan Bj on X (Twitter)

    Translation from Urdu: “Even Israel and India do not commit the kind of oppression that the Punjab government has carried out.
    Tehreek-e-Labbaik #SaadRizvi #Mureedkay #ShutDownTheWholeCountry”

    Figure 5: Screenshot of Emaan ⁱᴾⁱᵃⁿ’s tweet criticizing government actions in Mureedkay (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Emaan ⁱᴾⁱᵃⁿ on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “Following in Israel’s footsteps…
    So much slavery??
    So much hatred towards your own people??
    #Mureedkay #TLPProtest”

    Amid this, a viral video showed Saad Rizvi pleading with police and Rangers to step back, saying, “I beg you in the name of your mothers’ honor, please return.”

    Figure 6: Imran ka Simba’s video tweet about Saad Rizvi’s plea during Mureedkay protests (October 13, 2025).

    Source: Watch full video on X (Twitter)

    These conflicting visuals deepened the uncertainty about who fired first and how a religious procession became a battlefield.

    Public Reaction and Media Divide

    The Twitter (X) ban manifests how volatile the digital narrative has become. TLP supporters termed it as a “massacre,” while government spokespersons emphasized “terrorist provocation.” Strong clerics and journalists further circulated unverified videos, intensifying one’s vent.

    Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai’s sharing of “Muslims killed by Muslims” became the most popular among the public, reflecting the exhaustion of the public from the never-ending cycle of violence.

    Figure 7: Screenshot of Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai’s tweet expressing anger and grief over events in Mureedkay (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “We used to weep for a Gaza; you have made a Gaza right here.
    Words of condemnation are far too small — there is nothing left to say.
    ‘To Allah is the complaint, and He is Mighty, Owner of Retribution.’
    Now wait for the judgment of the One on the Throne!!!”

    Others, such as journalist Shafeeq Khan, accused state institutions of tampering with evidence, a claim that reignited memories of the unresolved Model Town and Liaquat Bagh incidents.

    Figure 8: Screenshot of Shafeeq Khan’s video tweet highlighting institutional presence at protests in Mureedkay, Lahore, and D-Chowk (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Shafeeq Khan on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “Our institutions are number one when it comes to gathering evidence. Whether it is Liaqat Bagh, D-Chowk, or Mureedkay.”
    #Mureedkay #Lahore #DChowk

    The polarized media response once again highlighted Pakistan’s fragile trust in its own institutions.

    The Role of Non-State Actors

    The Muridke incident also underscores the persistent challenge of non-state actors in Pakistan’s internal landscape. TLP, while registered as a political party, operates through street power, symbolism, and emotional mobilization   blurring the line between activism and militancy.

    Security analysts argue that while the state fights armed groups in Balochistan, Bajaur, and along the Afghan border, it faces a different kind of challenge in Punjab, one born from within the religious mainstream, not the periphery.

    The government’s dilemma is complex to tolerate these groups and risk radicalization, or suppress them and invite further martyrdom narratives. Neither path has yet worked.

    Broader Implications

    The Muridke tragedy shows how Pakistan’s struggle with non-state actors continues to destabilize its politics and society. The repeated use of force   whether in Model Town, Faizabad, or now Muridke has eroded public confidence in democratic conflict resolution.

    With both police officers and TLP supporters killed, Pakistanis once again face the moral paradox of defining “martyrdom” within internal conflict. For many, it is no longer about ideology or allegiance   it is about the cost of being trapped between two powers that claim to act for the nation’s survival.

    The post Faith, Fear, and Fire: The Muridke Massacre and the Struggle with Non-State Actors first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Faith, Fear, and Fire: The Muridke Massacre and the Struggle with Non-State Actors

    The October 13 Muridke incident has left Pakistan shaken once again. The violent clashes between security forces and supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) turned a planned religious procession into one of the deadliest confrontations since the Faizabad sit-in.

    What unfolded in the small Punjab town was more than a law-and-order breakdown;  it revealed Pakistan’s deepening struggle with non-state actors, political repression, and the dangerous overlap of religion and power.

    Social media platforms flooded with graphic videos and sharply divided opinions. In response to the escalating online unrest, the government temporarily blocked access to Twitter (X), citing national security and “digital incitement.”

    A panic-like atmosphere soon engulfed the social media platforms with videos of graphic nature, sharply dividing opinions among subscribers. With the online unrest growing to alarming proportions, the government temporarily suspended the operations of Twitter (technically known as X) for purposes of “national security and digital incitement.”

    Background

    Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) is rooted in Pakistan’s Barelvi movement, representing a large segment of the country’s Sunni Muslim population. Its rise began after the execution of Mumtaz Qadri in 2016   an event that transformed Khadim Hussain Rizvi from a fiery cleric into a national figurehead for religious activism.

    Under his son, Saad Rizvi, the group evolved into a structured political force capable of mobilizing thousands across Punjab and Karachi.

    The group has faced repeated bans for violent protests but continues to command substantial street power. Its followers consider themselves defenders of faith, while the state views them as a recurring security challenge.

    Political Context

    The Punjab government, led by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, now faces sharp criticism over its handling of non-state actors.

    Observers argue that her administration’s approach has been increasingly uncompromising, with some analysts drawing comparisons between her leadership and India’s Indira Gandhi   both known for using heavy-handed tactics against domestic dissent.

    Maryam’s critics recall that the execution of Mumtaz Qadri took place under her father, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, while her uncle Shehbaz Sharif’s government oversaw the Model Town tragedy, where police opened fire on supporters of Tahir-ul-Qadri’s movement in 2014.

    There are some unpleasant questions raised by these historical parallels about how the Sharif political dynasty deals with public agitation.

    Under Imran Khan, similar standoffs with the TLP were settled in talks. His administration opted for negotiations instead of confrontation. In contrast, the Muridke episode reflects the return of state coercion over political accommodation.

    The Muridke Clashes

    According to early reports, Saad Rizvi had submitted a written request to organize a peaceful march in solidarity with Palestine. The Punjab government denied permission, citing security threats and regional instability. On October 13, the group proceeded with its plan, resulting in clashes that quickly spiraled out of control.

    The FIR registered by police alleged that Saad Rizvi opened fire on the Factory Area Station House Officer (SHO), injuring him.

    Figure 1: Screenshot of BBC Urdu’s tweet about the FIR report against Saad Rizvi (October 13, 2025).

    Source: BBC Urdu on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “According to the FIR text, Saad Rizvi, present on the stage, picked up a pistol lying nearby and fired directly at the Factory Area SHO with the intent to kill. The SHO was hit and fell injured.“

    The Punjab Police, through their official account, honored the slain officers, calling them martyrs who “sacrificed their lives to protect peace.

    Figure 2: Screenshot of Punjab Police Official’s tribute tweet on Martyrs Day (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Punjab Police Official on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “Heartfelt salute to the great martyrs who embraced martyrdom on this day.”
    (Hashtags: #PunjabPolice #Martyrs)

    Witness videos circulating online, however, showed men in plain clothes firing at demonstrators, sparking accusations of extrajudicial violence.

    Social media erupted with polarized reactions   some defending law enforcement, others accusing the state of using “Israel-style” force against its citizens.

    Figure 3: Screenshot of Asim Riaz’s video tweet questioning the identity of a person firing during the Mureedkay protests (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Asim Riaz on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “Who is firing now? In the video, a person dressed in civilian clothes is seen firing. Who is this?”
    #Mureedkay #WhyWasTheBulletFired

    Figure 4: Screenshot of Sayed Ajmal Khan Bj’s tweet condemning government actions in Mureedkay (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Sayed Ajmal Khan Bj on X (Twitter)

    Translation from Urdu: “Even Israel and India do not commit the kind of oppression that the Punjab government has carried out.
    Tehreek-e-Labbaik #SaadRizvi #Mureedkay #ShutDownTheWholeCountry”

    Figure 5: Screenshot of Emaan ⁱᴾⁱᵃⁿ’s tweet criticizing government actions in Mureedkay (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Emaan ⁱᴾⁱᵃⁿ on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “Following in Israel’s footsteps…
    So much slavery??
    So much hatred towards your own people??
    #Mureedkay #TLPProtest”

    Amid this, a viral video showed Saad Rizvi pleading with police and Rangers to step back, saying, “I beg you in the name of your mothers’ honor, please return.”

    Figure 6: Imran ka Simba’s video tweet about Saad Rizvi’s plea during Mureedkay protests (October 13, 2025).

    Source: Watch full video on X (Twitter)

    These conflicting visuals deepened the uncertainty about who fired first and how a religious procession became a battlefield.

    Public Reaction and Media Divide

    The Twitter (X) ban manifests how volatile the digital narrative has become. TLP supporters termed it as a “massacre,” while government spokespersons emphasized “terrorist provocation.” Strong clerics and journalists further circulated unverified videos, intensifying one’s vent.

    Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai’s sharing of “Muslims killed by Muslims” became the most popular among the public, reflecting the exhaustion of the public from the never-ending cycle of violence.

    Figure 7: Screenshot of Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai’s tweet expressing anger and grief over events in Mureedkay (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “We used to weep for a Gaza; you have made a Gaza right here.
    Words of condemnation are far too small — there is nothing left to say.
    ‘To Allah is the complaint, and He is Mighty, Owner of Retribution.’
    Now wait for the judgment of the One on the Throne!!!”

    Others, such as journalist Shafeeq Khan, accused state institutions of tampering with evidence, a claim that reignited memories of the unresolved Model Town and Liaquat Bagh incidents.

    Figure 8: Screenshot of Shafeeq Khan’s video tweet highlighting institutional presence at protests in Mureedkay, Lahore, and D-Chowk (October 13, 2025).
    Source: Shafeeq Khan on X (Twitter)

    Translation of Urdu: “Our institutions are number one when it comes to gathering evidence. Whether it is Liaqat Bagh, D-Chowk, or Mureedkay.”
    #Mureedkay #Lahore #DChowk

    The polarized media response once again highlighted Pakistan’s fragile trust in its own institutions.

    The Role of Non-State Actors

    The Muridke incident also underscores the persistent challenge of non-state actors in Pakistan’s internal landscape. TLP, while registered as a political party, operates through street power, symbolism, and emotional mobilization   blurring the line between activism and militancy.

    Security analysts argue that while the state fights armed groups in Balochistan, Bajaur, and along the Afghan border, it faces a different kind of challenge in Punjab, one born from within the religious mainstream, not the periphery.

    The government’s dilemma is complex to tolerate these groups and risk radicalization, or suppress them and invite further martyrdom narratives. Neither path has yet worked.

    Broader Implications

    The Muridke tragedy shows how Pakistan’s struggle with non-state actors continues to destabilize its politics and society. The repeated use of force   whether in Model Town, Faizabad, or now Muridke has eroded public confidence in democratic conflict resolution.

    With both police officers and TLP supporters killed, Pakistanis once again face the moral paradox of defining “martyrdom” within internal conflict. For many, it is no longer about ideology or allegiance   it is about the cost of being trapped between two powers that claim to act for the nation’s survival.

    The post Faith, Fear, and Fire: The Muridke Massacre and the Struggle with Non-State Actors first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Pakistan’s military crushes pro-Palestine protest while PM calls Trump “man of peace”

    Pakistan’s military has violently suppressed a large pro-Palestine protest marching from Lahore to the US embassy in Islamabad. The protest, which was led by the religiously conservative party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). Demonstrators marched in solidarity with Palestinians and in opposition to the normalising of relations with the Israeli occupation. Earlier in the week the Pakistani military was engaged in a full-blown skirmish with Afghanistan after it targeted TLP leaders in Kabul before a ceasefire that came to effect yesterday.

    This protest and its violent suppression took place as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was attending the Gaza ‘Peace Summit’ in Egypt, where he nominated Trump – a war criminal who is complicit in the Gaza genocide – for the Nobel Peace Prize for a second time. Sharif praised Trump, calling him a ‘man of peace’.

    Pakistan’s bloody pro-Palestine march

    While official accounts claimed at least five deaths, including a police officer, according to witnesses and activists the number of fatalities was much more. A number of people were also wounded by live ammunition, tear gas, and batons deployed by security forces against the protesters, while the government enforced road closures, internet blackouts, and mass arrests in affected cities such as Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Lahore.​​

    The protesters’ route began in Lahore at the headquarters of TLP, and proceeded along the road towards Islamabad. Eventually, protestors were directed toward a location where they were trapped by barriers, forcing them to stage a sit-in. Although TLP leader Saad Rizvi requested negotiations to de-escalate tensions, these were rejected. Those sent to negotiate were arrested, and following authorisation to use lethal force, Pakistan’s military carried out a violent crackdown on protesters, resulting in many deaths and injuries. Videos circulated showing police vehicles attempting to run over demonstrators and shoot unarmed protesters while chasing after them. Rizvi was also shot and detained. The whereabouts of Rizvi and his brother Anas are currently unknown.

    Is this a new chapter in Pakistan’s uneasy relationship with Israel?

    Officially, Pakistan has refused to recognise the Israeli regime without a just resolution to the Palestinian issue based on pre-1967 borders and East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. But, the ongoing Abraham Accords – normalisation agreements – between the Israeli regime and several Muslim-majority countries since 2020 have reignited debate inside Pakistan. This attempt at normalisation follows a similar pattern where certain Gulf states have deepened ties with Israel. Given the fact that Pakistan depends economically and strategically on those Gulf states, the geopolitical pressure to align with Israel is severe.

    The Pakistani military’s closer alignment with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, including a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement signed in September 2025, adds pressure to engage with Israel, though formal recognition remains unlikely anytime in the near future.​

    The violent crackdown on TLP was intended to serve as a warning not to oppose these foreign policy shifts. Restrictions on funerals of the dead and raids on families’ homes also show that Pakistani authorities are attempting to suppress dissent. The government has also frozen TLP’s assets and sealed their offices and mosques to dismantle the group.

    The Pakistani government is moving towards normalisation with the Israeli occupation despite the widespread public and Islamist opposition, and this will only lead to a further increase in tensions and violence.  Authorities say they have detained more than 2,700 people as a result of this latest protest.

    Featured image via The Canary

    By Charlie Jaay

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • How a Climate Doomsayer Became an Unexpected Optimist

    More To The Story: Bill McKibben isn’t known for his rosy outlook on climate change. Back in 1989, the environmentalist wrote The End of Nature, which is considered the first mainstream book warning of global warming’s potential effects on the planet. His writing on climate change has been described as “dark realism.” But McKibben has recently let a little light shine through thanks to the dramatic growth of renewable energy, particularly solar power. 

    In his new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, McKibben argues that the planet is experiencing the fastest energy transition in history from fossil fuels to solar and wind—and that transition could be the start of something big. On this week’s More To The Story, McKibben sits down with host Al Letson to examine the rise of solar power, how China is leapfrogging the United States in renewable energy use, and the real reason the Trump administration is trying to kill solar and wind projects around the country.

    Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick with help from Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson

    Listen: Will the National Parks Survive Trump? (Reveal)

    Read: Rooftop Solar Is a Miracle. Why Are We Killing It With Red Tape? (Mother Jones)

    Read: Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization (W.W. Norton & Company)

    Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • People Across Asia And Latin America Mobilize In Support Of Gaza Flotilla

    Protests broke out in various countries in Asia on Thursday, October 2, following the Israeli attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) on Wednesday and the abduction of hundreds of activists.

    The GSF, consisting of over 40 ships with hundreds of activists onboard, was heading towards the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza in order to break the Israeli siege and deliver crucial humanitarian aid to its people forced to starve by Israel.

    The ships were attacked by the Israeli forces on the night of October 1, an attack which continued until October 3, when they were scores of miles away from the Gaza coast. Israeli forces abducted the activists and seized the aid the ships were carrying for the people of Gaza.

    The post People Across Asia And Latin America Mobilize In Support Of Gaza Flotilla appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • As Nuclear Tensions Reach New Heights, How Can We Win Global Disarmament?

    We are living through the most dangerous time in over a half-century when it comes to nuclear weapons and the prospect of them being used during an armed conflict. Nuclear treaties are unravelling. Rulers like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, who lead the two nations with around 87 percent of the world’s nuclear inventory, are ratcheting up global tensions. The U.S. is set to spend $1.7…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Pakistan’s Blasphemous Politics

    Pakistan: TLP blockade causes disruptions. Image credit: ANI.

    The assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer by his own bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, in January 2011, marked a turning point in Pakistan’s politics. This act of violence opened up a new chapter in Pakistan’s politics, wherein blasphemy laws and religious emotions serve as the foundation of a fully organised political movement, which terrorises the state.

    Qadri, a supposed member of the elite police, shot Taseer for having publicly mocked Section 295-C of the Penal Code, a notorious provision that calls for the death penalty for blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H, and for going to the defence of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman charged under the same law. While the state executed Qadri in 2016, his funeral was attended by tens of thousands of people, turning him into a martyr in the eyes of religious hardliners. His tomb in Rawalpindi has since become a pilgrimage site for those who judge him to be justified for “defending the honour of the Prophet”.

    From this explosive background, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a preacher in a wheelchair and known for his fiery sermons, went on to found Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) in 2015. He set his movement on the pedestal of the Qadri legacy, committing to resist any alteration to the law of blasphemy. Under Rizvi, TLP perfected mass street protests, paralyzing sit-ins, and ceaseless campaigns that branded any call for reform as betrayal of Islam.

    The leadership moved onto his son Saad Hussain Rizvi after Rizvi passed away in 2020. Younger Rizvi was proclaimed unable by many to recreate his father’s magic, but the TLP entered into unprecedented strength. In the 2024 general elections, TLP won nearly 2.9 million votes, rising to the fourth-largest party nationally and the third in Punjab.A remarkable leap for a party born no more than a decade earlier.

    The blasphemy law as a political weapon

    Section 295-C was included in the penal code of Pakistan during the Islamisation drive imposed by General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. Advocates of this blasphemy law consider it a need for the protection of the religious sentiments of a deeply religious society. This, however, has been the theory. The law is vague, easily manipulated, brutally effective in its enforcement, and catastrophic in its consequences.

    Many have been attacked or lynched by mobs even before their case reached the courts. Human rights activists long had been demanding reform, noting that the law places entire communities of Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis, and even moderate Muslims under constant threat. But the political cost of reforming it has always been too intolerable for any government.

    TLP’s politics of coercion

    This has created a fierce atmosphere which TLP organised into a political movement. Thousands of its party members have shut down streets  whenever the government hinted at reforms or an incident arose that was perceived as offensive. Their sit-ins brought cities to a standstill, economies to their knees, and turned the government into a beggar in negotiations.

    The dynamics created by such events have formed a really dangerous precedent. Rather than strengthening institutions, governments have given credence to street power in their dealings with the TLP. The TLP has thus benefited twofold from each of its street movements: it gets its demands addressed and has ever-increasing strength underwritten. The message is loud and clear: in Pakistan, blasphemy politics can kneel down the state.

    As an answer this is very little.

    • The political normalisation of extremism: The rise of TLP has mainstreamed religious populism from a fringe to the major political space.
    • Rule of Law Erosion: Blasphemy allegations have an otherwise potent capability in politics as instruments passing over judicial tribunals.
    • Stifling of Dissent: Reformers and critics from the political parties like Taseer to lawyers and journalists are bombarded with threats, exile or worse.
    • Growing Intolerance: Minorities and vulnerable groups live under constant threat, while Pakistan’s international reputation suffers.

    This is a reality that was made stark in December 2021 when a mob in Sialkot lynched the Sri Lankan factory manager Priyantha Kumara over blasphemy allegations. His body was set ablaze in broad daylight, while hundreds filmed the brutality on their phones. The lynching sparked global outrage, including in Sri Lanka, one of Pakistan’s allies. It exposed the lethal mix of religious zeal, mob vigilantism, and state weakness. Arrests ran into the dozens, but the event portrayed the ease with which accusation replaces evidence, making visible how mob violence looms over the justice system.

    A shadow over Pakistan’s future

    The legacies of Salman Taseer’s murder, glorifying Mumtaz Qadri, the rise of TLP with Khadim and Saad Rizvi, and the horrors of incidents like that of the Sialkot lynching tell a hard truth: blasphemy laws have ceased to be just provisions in the law. They have morphed into political instruments, mobilisation tools, and symbols of power.

    Ending this cycle will not be easy. Reform of 295-C is politically dangerous, but without reform, Pakistan risks deeper polarisation and approaches closer toward mob justice and increasingly fragile democracy.

    Pakistan faces a stark choice: continue down a path where outrage and coercion dictate policy, or reclaim the republic by restoring the courts and parliament as the only arbiters of law. The shadow of Taseer’s murder and tragedies like Sialkot linger on, and whether the country will face or yield to them in the end will define the future of its democracy.

    The post Pakistan’s Blasphemous Politics first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Pakistan accelerates deportation of Afghans who worked for the British military

    Thirteen Afghans who worked for the British military have been deported back to the country, according to reports. The I Paper said the individuals had been living in Pakistan. Pakistan’s government has recently accelerated efforts to deport Afghan refugees.

    The paper reported:

    In April this year the Pakistani government accelerated its drive to expel undocumented Afghans and those who had temporary permission to stay, hundreds of thousands have been forced out of the country according to the UN refugee agency.

    Pakistan’s government claims it is “struggling to cope” with a total population of more than 3.5 million Afghans, many of whom had fled previous conflicts.

    A UK government spokesman claimed that an effort was being made to dissuade Pakistan from carrying out such deportations. Meanwhile, a UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) Spokesman said the ministry remained “fully committed” to “honouring our commitments”.

    Afghan war to deportations

    The UK and US pulled out of Afghanistan in defeat in 2021. Thousands of Afghans who had worked with occupation forces during the two decade war also fled.

    The war won’t stay buried. There is currently an inquiry into UK war crimes in the country underway. And in 2025 it was revealed that three years earlier the Tory government had leaked important details about thousands of Afghans who’d been resettled to the UK

    In July 2025, a UN report made it clear Afghanistan is not a safe haven for returnees.

    The report also said:

    International law prohibits refoulement – defined as return to a country where an individual would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or other irreparable harm.

    However, The I Paper report notes that Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.

    Damning inquiry

    A 2023 inquiry into the withdrawal heard from many senior political and military figures. Some argued that while the withdrawal was not on terms ideal for the UK, it had not been a “military defeat”. Others disagreed.

    For example, Brigadier Ben Barry told the panel:

    We should be quite clear that the Taliban won and that the US, UK and NATO were defeated.

    He added that it was a:

    wider defeat for the values of the West.

    The final report found:

    The UK contribution to the war in Afghanistan took the lives of 457 UK armed forces personnel and injured thousands more, and cost more than £27 billion.

    Afghanistan remains under the full control of the Taliban. Though during his recent state visit to the UK, US president Donald Trump somewhat bizarrely stated an intention to recover the former US airbase at Bagram.

    A group of UN experts explained the danger facing Afghans being deported:

    We urge the Government of Pakistan to immediately halt the planned deportations and respect the principle of non-refoulement. Afghan refugees and others in exile need sustainable, humane, and rights- respecting support and protection.

    Featured image via Unsplash/Annie Spratt

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Three Precepts Muslims Should Remember

    Priyantha Kumara was a Sri Lankan export manager in a factory in Sialkot, Pakistan who was falsely accused of insulting Islam. He was beaten to death and his body was set on fire on December 3, 2021. IMAGE/Lankan

    Muslims should remember three precepts:

    •     Allah is a concept – it cannot be destroyed.
    •     Muhammad is with his Allah*, so is beyond any harm.
    •     Quran is reprintable and can be replaced when haters burn Quran.

    *A Quranic scripture with consoling words for bereaving believers at time of death is:

             “Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed, to Him we will return.”

    • The post Three Precepts Muslims Should Remember first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Bajaur’s Unfinished War: From Operation Sherdil to Operation Sarbakaf

    Bajaur is among Pakistan’s tribal districts that witnessed the greatest battle in the war on terror. In the days of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Al-Qaeda strongholds, it has seen military operations time and again over almost two decades. The campaigns like Operation Sherdil during 2008–2009 showed some fierce counterinsurgency fighting; Operation Sarbakaf in 2025 highlighted how militancy stayed but in a different form ever since it was nearly defeated. The occurrence of various successful and funded coercive instruments, however, did not automatically dissolve the insurgency in Pajaur, reflecting the difficult situation for the extremist institutions. The unfinished war develops the argument that counterterrorism in the region is not only a military challenge but also a struggle counted in politics and society.

    Operation Sherdil: Breaking the TTP Stronghold

    Operation Sherdil was launched in August 2008, illustrating one of Pakistan’s largest counterinsurgencies in FATA. About 8,000 plus troops of the Pakistan Army and Frontier Corps, supported by air power, marched into Bajaur Agency as an anticipating preemptive force to dislodge the established TTP. They had fortified the district as a headquarters from which to influence northeastern Afghanistan. By February 2009, the operation was declared a success, with approximately 1,800 estimated militants killed and some hundreds captured. Yet the cost was high in terms of lives of coalition forces, the lacerated civilian displacement, and infrastructure of the military bases. Still, the TTP retaliated with strikes, indicating the limitations of Sherdil to provide Bajaur long-term peace.

    The TTP’s Enduring Threat

    The TTP group was founded in 2007 under Baitullah Mehsud, quickly becoming among the most deadly militant groups in Pakistan. Unlike the Afghan Taliban, whose interest is in national control, the TTP is more inclined towards sectarian violence and used to stage regular bombings with frequent suicide bombings, particularly carried out against Shia Muslims and state institutions. For them, Al-Qaeda was a source of financial, logistical, and ideological sustenance. Over time, the group found its links to various cross-border sanctuaries between Afghanistan and Pakistan, being based in an underground shelter and sheltered in caves. In 2025, TTP had lost quite a bit but retained fighters, mostly resorting to having bases inside of Afghanistan. Pakistan formally blamed some Afghan intelligence elements and forces shaped by Afghanism [Urdu term افغانیت (Afghanīyat), which reflects the ideological mindset among certain Pashtun groups that only their interpretation of Islam and law should prevail — an outlook carried by both the Afghan Taliban and later the TTP] for the incursion and for not providing real assistance against TTP militancy. All the foregoing compels us to see why militant violence in Bajaur has resisted almost everything.

    U.S. Military Assistance and Its Controversies

    Fighting against terrorism in Bajaur has been broadened to get financial support for Throne of Dollars from the USA. The American government started granting millions of dollars for Pak Army equipment endowing the F-16, MI-17, night vision devices, and secure communication infrastructures. All of these things were like shooting adrenaline to Pak war machinery and let campaigns like Sherdil dominate the battlefield. This aid was highly controversial in its own way as critics raised questions on the effective use of this assistance and warned of weapons leakage to militant groups. After a consequence of the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2021, a public shift is seen from NATO-grade arms to TTP arsenals; this incident added fuel to suspicions concerning diversion and battlefield capture. This $7-billion figure, almost as commonplace in the media debates as is the perception that a good chunk of the money spent continued to indirectly aid insurgents, goes a long way to underline that support can equip the state but also foster political mistrust.

    Civilian Toll of Bajaur

    The tribal communities of Bajaur are among those that have suffered unimaginably over the years due to repeated military operations. Operation Sherdil left thousands of families homeless and destroyed the infrastructure: schools, bazaars, and clinics were destroyed. Operation Sarbakaf was supposed to somewhat rectify this situation by evacuating people into relief camps and providing medical services, but civilian casualties were still left to bear the brunt of displacement and trauma. The unending cycle of violence has eroded the trust of the masses in the state, which militants capitalise on. Local elders lament that development and governance promises are often abandoned once operations are declared over. This social aspect shows that military success alone cannot bring peace to Bajaur. Without education, jobs, and credible governance, the space for militant groups to recruit and regroup will remain. Thus, the war in Bajaur is as much about rebuilding lives as it is about annihilating the insurgents.

    Evolution of Militancy 2009–2025

    Militancy in Bajaur has changed so much with the passing of years. In 2009 TTP, foreign Uzbeks and Arab jihadists were controlling areas like Damdola and Khazai Ghar under commanders like Maulvi Faqir Mohammad), sitting pretty and openly boasting of their power. The victories of the Pakistani Army pulled them out of territories, but the fighters withdrew into the mountains where they regrouped under new banners. TTP, while internally fighting, allied with other factions like Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi; some factions tilted toward ISIS-K. By 2025, the insurgency had become less about holding territories and more about sporadic ambushes, assassinations, and recruitment drives. This evolution is a clear demonstration of the flexibility and adaptability of the militants, as they changed their mode of action from open warfare to clandestine insurgency. This explains why even after so many “victories”, Bajaur remains an unresolved security concern two decades onwards.

    Conclusions

    The trajectory of Bajaur has transformed from Operation Sherdil to Operation Sarbakaf, revealing transformations of Pakistan’s counterinsurgency strategies and an evolving resilience of militant networks. Sherdil’s heavy fighting in 2008-2009 reclaimed territory at a terrible cost to civilians, while Sarbakaf in 2025 sought to combine targeted strikes with humanitarian safeguards. Sustained by regional safe havens, ideological networks, and alleged external sponsorship, however, TTP’s persistence shows that this war is far from over. While U.S. massive military aid has given Pakistan leverage, it has opened the Pandora’s box of fears of leakage to insurgents and another complication to counterterrorism discourse. The Bajaur conflict ultimately points out that victory over militancy requires more than force; it requires prolonged governance, social rehab, and regional cooperation. Until these dimensions are aligned, Bajaur’s war remains unfinished, a reminder of how insurgencies live where politics and development cease.

    The post Bajaur’s Unfinished War: From Operation Sherdil to Operation Sarbakaf first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Stolen Democracy: Why Imran Khan Was Jailed


    The imprisonment of Imran Khan is now a subject occupying the ground and shifting the mood of Pakistan in reaction. With his party symbol taken away and being surrounded by hundreds of other lawsuits, Khan continues to dominate conversations at the market stalls, tea stalls, and social media feeds. For many, he is an icon of resistance against a system long branded as one that silences popular leaders—a picture that awakens echoes of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s fate. His supporters see him as a victim of political engineering and these very political constraints. An outright ban on visits to his family, detention of his allies, and exile of sympathetic journalists have only strengthened the very allegiance among his supporters. Far beneath the floods, economic hardships, and day-to-day life lingering in their heads is the name of Imran Khan, both as a grievance against the ruling elite and a rallying cry for hope. Hence, his incarceration metamorphosed into a reflection of Pakistan’s truncated democracy, where public sympathy came into conflict with establishment revenge.

    Stolen Verdict

    The general elections exposed deep cracks in the democracy of Pakistan on February 8, 2024. Independent candidates joined Imran Khan’s PTI who won the most seats, leaving PML-N and PPP behind. However, not a single party managed to carry the clear majority, further escalating political uncertainty. Allegations regarding the vote rigging and other irregularities occupied the whole post-election scenario. PTI leaders accused the Election Commission of manipulating the result by delaying the announcement while reports of interference in vote counting identified the denial of PTI’s election symbol and thus painted in a picture of pre-election suppression.

    This controversy deepened when a divisional commissioner came up and confessed to fraud under duress from superiors before walking it back. These forces have manipulated the results of the elections but the findings have largely shown that the public is up against rejection of Pakistan’s dynastic parties, coupled with the public’s resentment of military interference in politics.

    Trials of Power

    The demise of Imran Khan is linked to a series of prominent cases. The leaked “cipher” which was published by The Intercept, suggested that there was pressure from the U.S. for his ouster over his Russia-Ukraine policy, which subsequently landed him a 10-year sentence under the Official Secrets Act. Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi were also sentenced to seven years in the controversial Iddat case, which questioned the validity of their 2018 marriage, before they were acquitted on appeal in July 2024. He was also given a 14-year sentence on the Toshakhana wristwatch case involving gifts from foreign states. In a related inquiry, £190 million was allegedly diverted from property tycoon Malik Riaz to the Al-Qadir Trust linked to Khan and his wife, resulting in corruption charges. Such politically engineered cases, in the eyes of his supporters, have further exacerbated public grievances and reaffirmed his image as a persecuted leader.

    Pakistan’s Hybrid Power Structure

    Pakistan manifests a hybrid power system of political order where a military establishment converges with dynastic families, capitalist elites, and technocrats, who would all be working together to keep control. The ex-army officers occupy such lofty positions in civilian offices and institutions like NADRA, PTA, and WAPDA. This certainly indicates that there is a lot of military penetration in civilian governance and policy-making.

    Major parties being politically dominated by families like the Sharifs and Bhuttos who together exert family connections to establish the political monopoly and hinder political competition in an ongoing rivalry. Meanwhile, bureaucrats and business elites align with military and political families, thus fortifying a resistant-to-change ecosystem. Such commodification of power produces civilian-military brackets, institutionalises elite capture, and perpetuates the fragile democratic order in Pakistan.

    Exodus of Talent and Capital

    Emigration from Pakistan continues at a very brisk rate till now after regime change involving Imran Khan. For instance, in 2023, 862,625 people migrated, a slight improvement over the figure of 832,339 in 2022; hence, a gradual outflow instead of a sudden spike (PIDE BEOE). The net migration figure is clearly negative, at -1.6 million for 2023 and -1.3 million for 2022; thus, it is more people going out than coming in Macrotrends.

    While remittances have continued to show resilience, even during the pandemic period, future growth remains uncertain because of a possible slowdown in migration or diversion away from conventional labour destinations GIDS Report. This consistent outflow of professionals, labour, and capital represents one of the most grievous long-term losses for Pakistan and represents a debilitating drain on both talent and economic potential.

    Deep State: Old Patterns, New Confrontations

    Imran Khan’s four-year tenure indeed signified a drastic shift away from decades-old deep state patterns in Pakistan, especially when it came to an absolute rejection of U.S. drone strikes. For two reasons: One, in Khan’s government, there was no use of a drone on Pakistani soil, the first time since 2004. Unprecedented in its overt rejection of sovereignty, this act was Khan’s attempt to often evidently show that he rejected any imposition on sovereignty. For years, Khan had been mobilising protests against drones, condemning civilian deaths and secret pacts by past governments.

    Khan condemned Pakistan’s military as having aided U.S. operations in Afghanistan, calling it a “slave war” that cost Pakistan 70,000 lives and billions of dollars in damages, openly shunning military establishment strategy to pursue Washington’s objectives.

    In the past, however, accusations on Pakistan’s deep state have been persistent, accusing it of using non-state actors as instruments of proxy warfare in Afghanistan and Kashmir IDSA. It also facilitated the proliferation of Saudi-funded madrassas, from the 1970s onward, embedding puritanical ideologies which have altered Pakistan’s educational system and sectarian landscape.

    Another dark shadow hung over the drug trade. The heroin trafficking routes during the Afghan jihad in the 1980s were reportedly protected by intelligence networks to finance their covert wars, as claimed by GISF. Reportedly, these networks then became modern-day militancy financed by narcotics connected to groups like the Taliban and the Haqqani’s Global Initiative.

    Perhaps this level of opacity still exists today. During $364 million worth of defence contracts between the U.S. firms and Pakistan, it was suggested that arms be redirected to Ukraine alone. At the same time, claims by President Zelensky in 2025 that mercenaries from Pakistan had fought in favour of Russia were firmly rejected by Islamabad as false and politically motivated.

    For Khan supporters, this entire proxy warfare, ideological manipulation, illicit trades, and foreign appeasement went soberly against Khan’s policy that placed sovereignty first. His open defiance of deep state’s traditional alliances, coupled with his own zero-drone-strike record, is understood as an immediate trigger for his downfall, that is, being punished in prison for going against deep-rooted interests.

    Conclusion

    The jailing of Imran Khan is all about much more than one man; it is the ultimate proof that the politics of Pakistan are hostages to a hybrid deep state—military overlords, dynastic families, capitalist cronies, and generals turned bureaucrats. For this reason, Khan was punished for refusing to bow down to the system: ending military drone strikes, opposing proxy wars, and exposing elite corruption. An insatiable addiction to foreign dictates, drug money, and Saudi influence has sustained a system whose output is a broken democracy, mass exodus of youth and captivity of the nation between sovereignty and servitude. Until this nexus is broken, every elected leader will remain disposable, and every citizen will remain expendable.

    The post Stolen Democracy: Why Imran Khan Was Jailed first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Left Movements In South Asia Call For Increased Mobilizations

    Hundreds of people have lost their lives and millions their livelihoods and homes due to persistent flooding in India and Pakistan. The unprecedented rains in the last month have caused the rivers in the northern parts of both countries to flood most of the province of Punjab on either side of the border.

    Several other areas in both countries have been badly affected by the floods, such as Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in Pakistan and Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Haryana in India.

    Both countries have deployed their armed forces to evacuate thousands of people trapped in areas submerged in water and to run other forms of relief work, due to ineffective disaster management bodies.

    The post Left Movements In South Asia Call For Increased Mobilizations appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Clean Solar Outshines Filthy Oil

    We can have a world that runs on a resource that’s available to everyone everywhere.

    — Bill McKibben

    There’s a renaissance of nature powering the world, and it’s happening throughout the planet hidden from public view because it’s everywhere all at once and not in one isolated location easily identified. It’s solar panel installations experiencing smashing success everywhere throughout the world. Solar panels are consuming the world faster than public media has caught up with the trend to broadcast the good news. People simply aren’t aware of this ongoing miracle.

    Nobody knows this better than Bill McKibben, author, activist, educator, and leader of 350.org. He’s a brilliant environmental activist who has dedicated his life to a better world. His newest book Here Comes the Sun (W.W. Norton & Company) is all about a better world.

    McKibben was recently interviewed by Chris Hayes of MSNBC fame: The Chris Hayes Podcast – Why is This Happening? McKibben’s new book and much more was discussed on Chri Hayes’ podcast on YouTube. The interview is an optimistic take on the future of planet Earth because of rapid advancement of renewable energy.

    This article is based upon the McKibben interview.

    Accordingly, “It’s the rest of the world outside of America that’s really catching on.” Even though the climate situation is in dire straits today, there is a ray of hope in the midst of our troubled planet, an explosion of renewable energy the past 36 months that’s truly amazing, an eyeopener, happening fast!

    Renewable energy has been labeled “alternative energy” for 40 years, and as such, pigeonholed as an alternative or second fiddle. For decades now this frame of mind has downplayed its importance. That stigma is about to be lifted in the face of a big bright new world lighted and powered by the Sun. “It’s the largest nuclear reactor in the solar system, and we have immediate access to it.”

    For example, amazing things are happening: This Spring 2025 China was putting up three (3) gigawatts of solar power every day. One gigawatt is equivalent to one coal-powered plant. So, they were essentially installing three coal-powered plants per day.

    Equally impressive, over the past 15 months California produced renewable energy for long stretches every day and at times producing more than 100% of the power it needs with renewables. At night, California switches to batteries that spent the day soaking up sunshine. That all-important battery auxiliary power source did not exist three years ago. Overall, as of 2025 California has cut the state’s natural gas bill by 40% from two years ago.

    And Texas, the headquarters for the oil and gas industry, is challenging California. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), as of early 2025, Texas has over 22 gigawatts (GW) of installed solar capacity. That’s enough to power more than 3.5 million homes with clean energy. It is now second in national solar rankings. EVs have increased by 3900% since 2014. Wind energy is up three-fold since 2014. Renewables are hot items in Texas, displacing oil and gas like hot cakes. Do Texas Republicans agree with Trump that climate change is a hoax? Ask them!

    Elsewhere in the sane world, in Pakistan ordinary people have taken matters into their own hands, putting up rooftop solar power on individual homes now equal to one-half of the country’s electric grid. The biggest solar adopters are farmers, using solar to replace diesel fuel to power field generators for water irrigation. As a result, Pakistan used 35% less diesel fuel last year than the year before.

    In Africa mini grids powered by solar are popping up all over the continent.

    A couple of weeks ago Indonesia, the fourth most populated country, committed to build 100 gigawatts of solar power over the next decade.

    In part, all of this is happening because five years ago an invisible line was passed when it became cheaper to produce energy from the Sun and wind rather than burning fossil fuels that emit CO2 by the bucketful. Still, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, for the year 2024, fossil fuels still supply about 80% of the world’s energy as renewable installations simply meet additional demand.

    According to McKibben, “All of this is happening at exactly the same time as the climate is spiraling out of control.” June 2023 is the key month, almost every month since has set a new record for heat. Coincidentally June 2023 is also when humans started installing one gigawatt of solar per day around the planet. Now, we are in a race against time to see who wins because major systems of the planet are just beginning to unravel, e.g., the jet stream has become so skewed that it’s like spaghetti. It has profound influence on weather patterns for the entire hemisphere, and it’s one reason for whacky weather that’s literally destroying property.

    According to McKibben, solar is a mighty force not to be reckoned with. For example, imagine for a moment there’s a ship carrying solar panels across the ocean. Compare that ship full of solar panels to a ship carrying coal across the ocean. Over a lifetime the solar panels will produce 500 times more energy than the same ship containing coal.

    Here’s another example by McKibben, regarding the muscle of solar: He met a farmer in Illinois who grows corn for ethanol. He said one acre worth of corn would power his Ford F150 for 25,000 miles for one year. But if he covers the same one acre with solar panels it’ll produce enough electrons to run his Ford F150 Lightening EV 700,000 miles.

    EVs and auxiliary batteries for power grids are about to get better, more powerful, and safer. Sodium ion batteries for EVs are the new trend in China. This is one more major advancement. Sodium-ion batteries charge faster than lithium-ion and have a three times higher lifecycle

    Meanwhile, archaic America is focusing on old-fashioned, awkward oil and gas drilling while denigrating and dissembling modern renewable policies as quickly as possible and literally decimating science and destroying important science data as well as key data sources. This is truly a tragedy. America is a prime example of the doing the opposite of China’s modernization campaign that embraces science along with renewables.

    In July Al Gore gave a TED speech wherein he mentioned the solar miracle taking place in China: He noted positives in the alternatives space. For example, the costs for renewables have plummeted to levels making fossil fuels unproductive in comparison. Exxon’s own prediction that solar capacity would only achieve 850GW by 2040 was dead wrong; as of year-end 2024, it is already at 2,280 GW, nearly triple the Exxon projection for 2040. Solar is now the least expensive source of electricity in human history. Since the Paris Agreement, solar electricity generation has soared by 732%. And electric vehicle sales have increased 34x since 2015.

    According to Gore, in April 2025 China installed 45 gigawatts of new solar capacity. This is equivalent to 45 brand new giant nuclear reactors installed in one month.

    An accelerating renewables revolution is underway throughout the world. Still, both McKibben and Gore mention the sorrowful fact that Earth’s systems are stressed like never before, and it’ll take a herculean effort to steady-the-ship-of-state. Too much time has passed with too little work to get off fossil fuels. Thank goodness solar is on the march in a very big way. But will it be fast enough, soon enough?

    The post Clean Solar Outshines Filthy Oil first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Digital Siege of Balochistan

    To the people of Balochistan, connectivity is not meant by scrolling through their social media or by undertaking a light entertainment. Internet access is tenuous at best, which – in one of the most poorly dealt with provinces in Pakistan – serves both as a lifeline to education, economic opportunity, and communication with the rest of the world. However, on 6 August 2025, that lifeline was immediately severed as the provincial government ordered a blanket block on mobile internet access in all of its 36 districts, saying that it would remain blocked until 31 August.

    This was not an extraordinary incident. Pakistan has developed an ominous reputation of normalising digital repression. In 2024 alone, internet access was terminated 18 times with a total of more than 9,700 hours of shutdowns, costing the national economies an estimated USD 1.62 billion. Pakistan has become one of the worst culprits in the world next to India and Ethiopia.

    A Manufactured Silence

    Supporters of these shutdowns argue that blocking internet access is necessary to protect national security and to prevent militant coordination. Contrary to what might be true, some of the deadliest attacks have been in the places already bereft of internet access.

    A question, then: assuming that militants can operate offline, what exactly does cutting the internet off to the rest of the population accomplish?

    Are these actions maintained in the interest of security or are they in the interest of power centers?

    Think of the timing. The inordinate closure of the government is also done around times of political sensitivities. There was a deliberate cell shutdown during the days of Muharram in July of 2024 in a number of districts. In July 2025, following a coordinated effort of insurgent groups to organize Operation Baam, the state reacted not by acting in transparent way, but with another communications blackout.

    Everyday Lives, Interrupted

    On the human side, the cost is high. Students have missed online classes, exams, and the status of online submission of online applications are uncertain. To the proprietors of businesses, electronic banking and consumer interactions go down in one night. Journalists are not able to verify events, or report on time; hence, it has been termed by many as an intentional information blackout.

    In Panjgur, a young student of journalism recalled his 4 years of life without mobile internet, but this was only possible through an expensive landline PTCL connection. In Gwadar, Nafeesa Baloch, a climate activist, complained that she had missed important deadlines to fill out grants and had lost international partners due to the August blackout: “This did not merely happen inconveniently; it silenced us on our work.” It is a bitter irony. While the leaders of Pakistan are so proud to talk about digital innovations, whole communities have to live as if they had never seen the modern internet.

    Defying Courts, Defying Citizens

    Considerations of executive competence dominate even where the courts intervene. In July, the Balochistan High Court ordered a partial restoring of internet service, but the government has continued the blackout irrespective of the order of the court. When a high court judgment can be blatantly disregarded, does a constitutional assurance of communication and expression have a quality anymore?

    Local coalitions, including the All Parties Kech grouping, have criticised curfews and internet cut-offs as an antipathetic step toward the people, an impediment to the supply of basic commodities and a gag order to representatives of people expressing differences with the state apparatus and its controlling corporations .

    A Historical Continuum of Control

    This is not a recent. On Pakistan Day in 2012, the mobile services were blocked throughout Balochistan. In 2017, Dalbandin had six months of no mobile data). In more recent times, in 2024 during the general elections, they went again to silence a platform, X like they did to YouTube in 2010. The tendency is another pattern that can only be described as the reaching of the off switch by the state on the part of insecurity.

    International Alarm, National Denial

    Watchdogs of freedom of expression, including the UN Special Rapporteur himself, have criticised the repeated use of blackouts not only as an attack on liberties but also for their effect on the credibility of Pakistan in the international arena. Nevertheless, the authorities perpetuate it, despite realising the damage to Pakistan’s reputation. Pakistan is in need of foreign investment, yet its digital ecosystem is driven to its knees.

    What tone relay to investors about the stability of Pakistan’s institutions?

    How can one present the country as a tech hub of the future when connectivity is not a right, but a privilege?

    The Questions That Remain

    • If security is truly the objective, then why do militant attacks continue even in areas that are already disconnected from the internet?
    • What happens to democratic checks and balances, if court orders are not enforced?
    • When education, healthcare, journalism, and livelihoods are being disrupted, whose security is being given first priority?
    • Above all: when a government opposes and muzzles its citizens far more than it protects them, who is the government actually serving–the populace, itself, or other interest groups?

    In Balochistan, every outage is not merely a time out in communication–it is another brick in the wall of isolation under duress. There is a danger that these emergency regulations would become a never ending reality of digital instability.

    When the only infrastructure between a people and the rest of the world is a susceptible bridge of connectivity, how long before such a bridge falls entirely?

    The post Digital Siege of Balochistan first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Shanti Maheshwari: Brutally Silenced Forever

    Shanti Maheshwari in a bridal dress; her husband Ashok Kumar is behind the bars IMAGE/voicepk.net VIDEO/voicepk.net/Youtube
    From beautiful bride, to victim of marital rape, this is the story of Shanti, a 19-year-old whose husband has been charged under the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2013. IMAGE/Inter Press Service (IPS)

    Shanti Maheshwari was a 19-year-old woman living in Karachi’s working class neighborhood of Lyari who got married to Ashok Kumar Mohan on June 16, 2025, after a two-year engagement. But for two days after her wedding, she was brutally, repeatedly, and unnaturally raped by her husband. Shanti was gruesomely wounded, and started to bleed internally.

    Her in-laws took Shanti to a health clinic but the doctor released her, and so they brought her home.

    On June 30, witnessing Shanti’s seriously deteriorating health, her family brought her back from her in-law’s house. Her parents came to know from Shanti that on June 17 and 18, she was a victim of “unnatural sexual acts,” i.e., sodomy.

    The assault complaint filed by Shanti’s brother Sayon with police stated that her husband “inserted a metal pipe” and then his “hand and arm” in her anus, and bit her breasts and neck. Her husband threatened Shanti with death if she revealed to anyone what he did to her.

    Najma Maheshwari, a social activist from Shanti’s locality, described the violence to which she was subjected to Zofeen Ebrahim of IPS (Inter Press Service):

    “Her insides were torn, she was bleeding profusely from her anus and writhing in pain. Hospital visitors urged us to move the gurney outside, complaining the stench was unbearable.

    “While cleaning her, medics removed worms from her gut—her injuries were that severe. I’ve seen much in my work, but never such horror or pain,”

    Najma (center), Sonya (head covered), and their brother (Najma’s right) were sitting on the pavement outside the trauma center where Shanti was fighting for her life. IMAGE/Seema Maheshwari

    (The violence done to Shanti brings to mind a similar case in 2012, a gruesome gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student in Delhi, often known as the “rape capital” of India. Amid huge protests, she was flown to Singapore for treatment, but could not be saved. As is customary for these type of victims, she was not identified by her own name but by courageous and noble names as: “Nirbhaya,” “Amanat,” “Damini,” and so on.)

    Shanti’s relative Sonia, who had arranged Shanti’s marriage, was surprised that despite her bleeding, the doctors released her from Anklesaria hospital where she had been taken.

    In South Asia, doctors are usually treated like God by most people. Why didn’t Dr. Rauf, Shanti’s doctor, care for the patient’s failing health? It’s not difficult to guess. The answer lies in three obvious reasons: Shanti was poor, Shanti was a woman, Shanti belonged to a minority — her Hindu name gave away her religion. These three factors might have caused the doctor to ignore Shanti’s critical condition. Of course, not wanting to get entangled in a medico-legal case could have been a factor, too, as there was clear evidence of anal trauma caused by sexual violence.

    Sayon and Najma took Shanti to the government-run Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Trauma Centre.

    Shanti was brought to the trauma center in “comatose” state, and placed on a ventilator. Her continual passing of stool worsened her wounds. The extreme violence inflicted on Shanti was verified by Karachi’s chief police surgeon Dr Summaiya Sayed who concurred that there was clear evidence of anal trauma caused by sexual violence.

    Mournfully, Najma remembers, “the last thing she asked for was a sip of water. Then she closed her eyes and never opened them again.” That was on 23 July.

    A Pakistani group Aurat March (Women’s March) issued a statement in the wake of Shanti’s painful and tragic death:

    “Shanti, a 20-year-old woman, has passed away today after 20 days of being in coma, and after 36 days of being brutally raped by her husband, Ashok Kumar.” “We had earlier posted about this case — about the horrible ordeal that Shanti went through, and the complicity of Ashok’s family, Anklesaria Hospital and Dr. Rauf, that has now resulted in her death.”

    In the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan tops the list with 85% of married women undergoing sexual or physical violence by their husbands, compared to India’s 29% and Bangladesh’s 53%.

    Globally renowned social activist and classical dancer Sheema Kermani of Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) Cultural Action Group joined with other women’s groups and civil society in protest. She said possibly Shanti would have survived if the doctor had treated her properly.

    In these kinds of horrible cases, celebrities come forward to express shock and show sympathy to the victims and her family or to condole the death. Some are genuine and others do it to enhance their fame. This time, actress singer Ayesha Omar was the only celebrity who mourned Shanti:

    “I’m sorry we failed you, Shanti. May justice be served.”

    “Praying that this misogynistic society can heal and transform for the better one day.”

    The Section 376-B of the Pakistan Penal Code considers rape a crime but it is not very clear on marital rape. Advocate of the High Court Mehwish Muhib Kakakhel points out: “A dedicated clause was proposed for inclusion in the Anti-Rape Act but was ultimately dropped due to complications around the issue.”

    She further noted: “Marital rape is usually not even considered rape because most people believe it is a woman’s obligation not to say ‘no’ to her husband,” she explained. “This mindset results in most cases going unreported.”

    To stop cases of marital rape, Muhib suggested: “Legal recognition would be a vital step in changing social norms and ensuring accountability.”

    However, laws are often made in social vacuum, and remain ineffective and even with strong laws on file protecting women, do not really protect women, because enforcement of these laws remains weak.

    Sexual and Reproductive Health education, along with mental health and emotional wellness programs are critical to change the fate of the Shantis of Pakistan.

    “Too many young people carry the trauma of childhood sexual abuse,” she said. “As they grow, that buried pain can manifest in troubling ways—some develop sadistic or masochistic behaviors, especially when exposed to unchecked pornography. It doesn’t heal them; it deepens the harm.”

    To fill this gap, she and a group of like-minded doctors at the Association for Mothers and Newborns (AMAN)*—the implementation arm of Pakistan’s National Committee for Maternal and Neonatal Health—developed Bakhabar Noujawan (Informed Youth), an online SRH program endorsed by the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, launched in 2023.

    “We’re trying to introduce it in colleges, but convincing faculty is an uphill battle—they first need to grasp the course’s importance,” she said.

    Covering over two dozen culturally sensitive topics—from premarital counselling, child and cousin marriage, domestic violence, STIs, to teenage pregnancy—the programme doesn’t shy away from tough conversations. “We’re now developing a module on marital rape,” says Ahsan, head of AMAN. “The first draft is nearly complete.”

    Alongside SRH education, Sayed emphasized the need for mental health and emotional wellness programs.

    “Too many young people carry the trauma of childhood sexual abuse,” she said. “As they grow, that buried pain can manifest in troubling ways—some develop sadistic or masochistic behaviors, especially when exposed to unchecked pornography. It doesn’t heal them; it deepens the harm.”

    IPSNews

    Why did Ashok Kumar committed such heinous acts? Only a thorough psychological evaluation could throw some light on this terrible act. Delving into his motivations and intentions, could present a case history, when communicated to a wider audience, may prevent this somewhat in the future. Everyone knows, no such thing is going to happen, sadly.

    Shanti

    shanti, a word of Sanskrit origin, means silence, peace, …
    Shanti wasn’t at peace; her anatomy was torn due to sexual violence
    Shanti didn’t remain silent; she told her personal trauma to her parents
    Shanti’s milieu was poor; so the doctor’s conscience remained silent
    Shanti’s gender was female; so the patriarchy remained at peace
    Shanti, a teenager, was forced to lethal silence and finally … achieved shanti… deadly peace…

    The post Shanti Maheshwari: Brutally Silenced Forever first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Pakistan inducts first Chinese-built Z-10ME attack helicopters

    Pakistan has formally introduced Chinese-manufactured Z-10ME attack helicopters into service. Field Marshal Asim Munir, the Chief of Army Staff, presided over an induction ceremony for the new attack helicopters at Multan Garrison on 2 August. Afterwards, Munir witnessed a firepower demonstration by new Z-10MEs at the Muzaffargarh Field Firing Ranges. As per an announcement from […]

    The post Pakistan inducts first Chinese-built Z-10ME attack helicopters appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Indo-Pak Leaders Should “Have a Nice Dinner Together”

    Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (left) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi IMAGE/PPI/AFP/The News

    Troublemakers

    Many leaders1 are averse to running their countries in a peaceful and progressive manner. Instead of concentrating on the problems the majority of their people face, they create trouble by introducing or undoing things, in order to gain political mileage and divert the public’s attention from important issues requiring government focus. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one such leader.

    In the Indian Lok Sabha, on August 5, 2019, Modi’s Home Minister Amit Shah announced revocation of Article 370 which had granted limited autonomy to the Indian occupied Kashmir.

    Constitutional expert and eminent scholar A. G. Noorani told Akshay Deshmane what that revocation meant:

    It is utterly and palpably unconstitutional. An unconstitutional deed has been accomplished by deceitful means. For a fortnight, the Governor and other people told a whole load of lies. And I am sorry that the Army Core Commander (Chief) was also enlisted to spread this false thing of inputs from Pakistan. It was all a falsehood. They have undermined the Army’s non-political character. This is patently unconstitutional. Thing is that I had always predicted that they are out to fulfill their Saffron agenda: Uniform Civil Code, Ayodhya and Abrogation of Article 370. It remains to be seen how they accomplish the Ayodhya agenda.

    The Revocation of Article 370 was in complete violation of the 2018 Indian Supreme Court ruling which stated that Article 370 was a permanent part of the Indian Constitution and the only way it could be revoked was through the legislative body that had drafted the Article originally- only they could rescind it. That body, however, stopped functioning in 1957.

    India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said in the Lok Sabha on June 26 and August 7, 1952.

    “I say with all respect to our Constitution that it just does not matter what your Constitution says; if the people of Kashmir do not want it, it will not go there. Because what is the alternative? The alternative is compulsion and coercion…” “We have fought the good fight about Kashmir on the field of battle… (and) …in many a chancellery of the world and in the United Nations, but, above all, we have fought this fight in the hearts and minds of men and women of that State of Jammu and Kashmir. Because, ultimately – I say this with all deference to this Parliament – the decision will be made in the hearts and minds of the men and women of Kashmir; neither in this Parliament, nor in the United Nations nor by anybody else,”

    — Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 18, p. 418 and vol. 19 pp. 295-6, respectively in A. G. Noorani, “Article 370: Law and politics,” Frontline, September 6, 2000.

    That has never happened. The Kashmiri people have never been given a choice to decide their own destiny. Immediately after revoking Article 370, political leaders and thousands of Kashmiri civilians, including those who want Kashmir to be a part of India, were arrested. Kashmir and Jammu was locked down and all communication was blocked for eighteen months. Kashmir was cut off from the rest of the world.

    Pahalgam

    In September 2024, Kashmir Times’ editor Anuradha Bhasin told Al Jazeera:

    “For the last five years, all Kashmiris have seen is an arrogant bureaucracy and the important missing layers of a local government.”

    Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in parliament, addressing a rally in the Jammu region said:

    “Non-locals are running Jammu and Kashmir.” “Your democratic right was snatched. We have given priority to the demand for restoration of statehood.” “If [Modi’s party BJP] fails to restore statehood after the elections, we will put pressure on them to ensure it.”

    Bhasin painted a gloomy picture:

    “The hands of the clock have never moved back. Whatever has been taken from the people, in terms of their autonomy or democratic rights, has never been given back. I doubt that would change in the near future.”

    In May 2024, Omar Abdullah, prior and the current Chief Minister since October 2024, had warned about presenting a rosy picture:

    “The situation [in Kashmir] is not normal and talk less about tourism being an indicator of normalcy; when they link normalcy with tourism, they put tourists in danger.” “You are making the tourists a target.”

    Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group:

    “New Delhi and its security agencies started buying their own assessment of peace and stability, and they became complacent, assuming that the militants will never attack tourists.” “But if pushed to the wall, all it takes is two men with guns to prove that Kashmir is not normal.”

    While Modi was in Saudi Arabia, on April 22, 2025, terrorists associated with The Resistance Front killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam, a beautiful hill station and a favorite destination for visitors. The victims were asked about their religion and were killed on communal basis.

    Modi cut short his Saudi Arabia visit and flew back to India’s capital city, Delhi where he didn’t mention Pahalgam at all.

    However, Modi’s divisive inflammatory rhetoric and strategy is well known to the Bihar-based Rashtriya Janata Dal who predicted Modi’s politics:

    “The pyres of the victims of the Pahalgam terrorist attack have not yet been lit, but the country’s Prime Minister will come to Bihar tomorrow to campaign and deliver speeches because Bihar is holding elections this year.”

    Modi, as if on an election campaign in Bihar, the second most populous state (with a large Dalit and Muslim population), gave a fiery speech:

    “Today from the soil of Bihar I say to the whole world. India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth.”

    Veteran journalist Jawed Naqvi points out that in foreign countries Modi typically gives his speeches in Hindi but he gave this address using English to Bihar’s Hindi speakers (perhaps, to fully capitalize from the foreign press present.)

    The accusing finger immediately implied Pakistan, rather than question the security lapse of the Indian security forces or trying to determine the perpetrators. Pakistan has been involved in the past but, this time no proof exists of its involvement. The rhetoric reached fever pitch and culminated in India’s attack on its neighbor, and when Pakistan asked for evidence of the accusation, India didn’t provide it.

    Pakistan also offered to join a “neutral and transparent” investigation but India refused the offer.

    India blamed Pakistan’s military chief Asim Munir’s speech of April 15, 2025 for the Pahalgam tragedy.

    It’s a well known fact that Kashmir is the world’s most militarized zone with very numerous Indian check points all over the state. The question: where was Indian security? was not addressed by the government. Two months later, on June 22, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested two persons who provided shelter to three persons involved in the act, according to NIA allegations.

    Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced 5 major decisions taken by the Indian Government in April, 2025:

    1. Suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (1960) with Pakistan.

    2. Immediate closure of the Atari Integrated Checkpost.

    3. Cancellation of all SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme visas for Pakistani nationals.

    4. Expulsion of defense, naval, and air advisors from the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi.

    5. Reduction of staff in both High Commissions from 55 to 30.

    The CCS reaffirmed India’s resolve to bring perpetrators to justice and hold their sponsors accountable.

    These are extreme measures that, if implemented, especially the water treaty suspension, will undoubtedly create more trouble and could result in a bigger war in the future.

    On July 28, Indian government said its security forces killed three persons responsible for the April 22 killing.

    Asim Munir

    On April 15, while addressing the Overseas Pakistanis (OPs), Munir came out as Indian Hindu Modi’s2 Pakistani version: full of hate, divisiveness, and communalism.

    “Our forefathers thought that we are different from the Hindus in every possible aspect of life. Our religion is different. Our customs are different. Our traditions are different. Our thoughts are different. Our ambitions are different.”

    “… we are two nations, we are not one nation.”

    The army, not popular in Pakistan for its constant interference in politics and disappearing critics and people as Balochis, seemingly, feels driven to frequently do something to make itself relevant. Munir’s speech to OPs was one such attempt.

    India blaming Munir for Pahalgam attack does not seem very credible. The oppressed people, Kashmiris in India or Balochis in Pakistan, don’t need any inciting speech to fight back; they’re just waiting for the right time because they don’t have the luxury of attacking at will, like the governments do, in the name of “national security.” The oppressed can’t reach the state so they attack innocent people to communicate their plight.

    In Pakistan, Baloch separatists have stopped buses and killed Punjabis after checking their IDs, perhaps in revenge as Punjab is Pakistan’s most populous and dominant province, and has a strong hold over the central government.

    The attacks are cruel, but these kind of ugly incidents may continually occur if governments involved refuse to negotiate and reach amicable solutions.

    War

    On 29 April, Indian government sources quoted Modi: “They [the Indian army] have complete operational freedom to decide on the mode, targets, and timing of our response,”

    On May 7, India struck some sites in Pakistan, that then counter-struck.

    India’s Israeli Ambassador Reuven Azar posted on X: “Israel supports India’s right for self-defense. Terrorists should know there’s no place to hide from their heinous crimes against the innocent.”

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Modi: “Israel stands with India in its fight against terrorism.”

    There can be no better person than Netanyahu, the great terrorist and genocider, to advice another terrorist.

    Trump’s ceasefire

    The four-day-war ended when US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire on his Truth Social media site:

    “I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.”

    Propaganda

    In 2014, when Modi was to become Prime Minister for the first time, Amit Shah had bragged about BJP having 3.2 million WhatsApp groups who could instantly turn anything into believable stuff. In May 2024, BJP had at least 5 million WhatsApp groups and its infrastructure is so strong that any message relayed from Delhi could circulate all over India within 12 minutes.

    Kiran Garimella of Rutgers University who researches WhatsApp in India, warned that WhatsApp is not an open social media like X or Facebook which is worrying and a cause for concern for many people.

    “It is concerning that such a huge ‘hidden’ infrastructure plays a huge role in how the public consumes information.” “Only the creators of these groups know the extent to which the tentacles of this WhatsApp infrastructure are spread.”

    What is the result?

    War is like a game to the war inciters, war lovers, war media, and common people under the spell of the media frenzy and are most interested in the one question, who won and who lost?

    The winners

    There were two clear winners: Indian news media and the Pakistan army and its Chief of Army Staff: Asim Munir.

    False news stories and AI generated images came from both sides but India was way ahead in fake news:

    • Indian Navy destroyed sea port Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and financial center, with “over ten blasts.”
    • The city of Peshawar was turned to “dust.”
    • Pakistani soldiers were “deserting” and generals were “fleeing” the country,
    • Some channels announced destruction of 5 cities where as another settled for 26 cities
    • India’s fake news-master Arnab Goswami also declared a huge blast was heard outside Pakistan PM’s house and he was taken away to a place “20.5” kilometers (12.74 miles) away. Goswami also said it’s not clear whether it was for a safety reason or was it a coup.
    • Zee News declared a coup happened resulting in the arrest of General Asim Munir.
    • and so on…

    For a very long time now, most Indian media has turned into “Godi Media,” a term used by Ravish Kumar, the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award winner. (Kumar was NDTV India’s Managing Editor but left when it was bought by billionaire Gautam Adani, a Modi supporter and fellow Gujarati.)

    Kumar queried as to who should get an award for riveting fake news?

    • News Nation who gave news of Sharif on the run or,
    • Zee News who located Sharif, who was never missing?

    Sumitra Badrinathan, an assistant professor at the American University, observed in an interview with the New York Times that in India “previously credible journalists and major media news outlets ran straight-up fabricated stories [on the 4 day war].”

    The losers

    The victims of the bombings, dead or wounded, are always the first ones to endure the horrors of war. They are the losers.

    Pakistan said 40 civilians and 13 military personnel were killed. India’s figure was 21 civilians and 8 military and paramilitary personnel died. Hundreds of people on both sides got injured.

    The politicians and generals on both sides claimed victory. The war was of a very short duration, thus politicians and generals didn’t feel populace hostility or face dire consequences like resignations.

    Winner and loser honor

    That honor goes to Modi. He was a winner and also a loser.

    • Modi the winner. To his followers, Modi’s heroism enhanced when the Indian news media falsely started giving way too inflated stories of India beating Pakistan.
    • Modi also succeeded in cutting off whatever little cooperation existed between Indians and Pakistanis through arts and sports. The Indian government ordered all Pakistani songs removed from Spotify. All media streaming services, digital intermediaries, and OTT platforms were ordered to discontinue Pakistani films, web series, songs, etc. Pakistani TV channels and dramas, very popular in India, were banned and still are. Pakistani artists and sportspersons social media accounts were blocked and still are.
    • The extent of Modi’s hatred can be gauged from the following film posters: before and after.

    Indian actor Harshvardhan Rane and Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane in Indian film poster of Sanam Teri Kasam IMAGE/BrandSynario/Duck Duck Go

    In an Orwellian move, Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane was removed from the film poster of Sanam Teri Kasam IMAGE/Hindustan Times/Duck Duck Go

    The original film poster had Mawra Hocane but in the revised one, Hocane disappeared in an Orwellian manner. Shah Rukh Khan‘s movie posters of Raees with Pakistani actress Mahira Khan have faced the same fate.

    • Indian singer, actor, producer Diljit Dosanjh film Sardaar Ji 33 with the Pakistani actress Hania Aamir got banned in India. The Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar and Minister of Information & Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw to revoke passports of Daljit Dosanjh, Gunbir Singh Sidhu, Manmord Sidhu and Director Amar Hundal. Just for working with a Pakistani artist, thus displaying the toxic mixture of hate, idiocy, and faulty logic.
    • FWICE’s letter contained many lies about Hania Aamir who had lamented the loss of life: “I don’t have fancy words right now. I just have anger, pain, and a heavy heart. A child is gone. Families are shattered. And for what? This is not how you protect anyone. This is cruelty – plain and simple.

    Mind you, Modi personally may not be giving orders, but, people get emboldened to inflict damage as they know they won’t be stopped.

    Many fields of life, from economics to education and from culture to cricket, have suffered due to rigidity, egotism, and ideology of politicians on both sides. Pakistani military’s control over politicians has never let both countries cooperate and utilize fully the trade, talents, and technology. Hardly a 100 or so Pakistani artists and playback singers have ever worked in Indian films.

    Official trade between both countries has dropped and is routed through Singapore, Colombo (Sri Lanka), and Dubai (UAE), costing more money. Even in peace times, these routes are used for trade due to some or other reason. It’s foolish, but than you can’t make people with power to understand, because the powerful don’t allow discussions or arguments.

    Modi the loser. On May 10, 2025, at 6:55 A.M. Eastern Time (that is 4:55 P.M. Pakistan time and 5:25 P.M. Indian time) on his Truth Social site, Trump announced:

    “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

    It was sobering news for Modi. Modi has created an image of himself as Indian superman with broad 56-inch chest who is globally famous giving hugs to presidents, prime ministers, billionaires, whether they want it or not. He has made 91 foreign trips till July 2025. He has made India a superpower not in reality but by creating such perception. Modi who likes to control the narrative and who desperately wanted to announce victory had to get a ceasefire order from Trump. Trump is such a character that you can’t argue with him because then you face more humiliation — not because Trump is more vitriolic than Modi but because US is economically much more stronger than India, who is economically heavily interconnected with the US.

    Imbecile

    Then there is Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. He got so carried away by Pakistan army’s downing of less than half a dozen Indian fighter planes that he equated it as a victory compensating for the loss of half the country (55% of its population in 1971) when East Pakistan seceded with Indian help to become independent Bangladesh.

    That is clearly just a fictional ego boosting comparison.

    Unpredictable Outcome

    Who could have predicted that Modi’s war would give Pakistan army and Munir a new lease on popularity?

    Avoid war

    Poet Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem O Decent People has a quatrain:

    whether the blood spilled is ours or theirs

    it is the blood of Adam’s progeny, after all

    whether the war is in the east or west

    it is the murder of world peace, after all

    War should be avoided at all cost. All wars between Pakistan and India inflict tremendous cost in lives and finances, and, affect the entire South Asian region.

    Both possess nuclear weapons which if, by mistake or bravado, get deployed in the war, would end in great disaster for the entire world. According to climatologist Alan Robock, 1,000,000,000 to 2 billion people would face starvation worldwide, in such case, there would be immediate climate changes, leading to much colder weather than the Little Ice Age and many other disasters, including destruction of ozone layer.

    Dinner date

    Trump advised Indian and Pakistani leaders to go for a dinner date.

    “Maybe we can even get them together a little bit, Marco [Rubio, the US Secretary of State], where they go out and have a nice dinner together. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

    Improve relations

    The population of South Asia, including Afghanistan, comprises 25% of global population. With China’s 17% added, the percentage shoots up to 42%.

    The World Inequality Lab study observed that income and wealth contrast in Modi’s India is worse, more than it was during the British colonial rule. Other countries in the region are not any better.

    Suggestions:

    • If 42% of people increase trade in way that exchange of dollars is minimized, either through barter trade or using own currencies, this would save them hustle for dollars and foreign exchange.
    • Increased trade also brings people closer and aids in creating more understanding and tolerance.
    • In the best interest of both countries and the entire South Asian region, it would be better if SAARC (South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation) is revived.
    • Visas should be issued to enjoy tourism and appreciate each other’s natural beauty of land, flora and fauna and cultures
    • Exchange student programs should be initiated
    • Joint cultural, artistic, sports, entertainment, and other such events should be organized and promoted.
    • India and Pakistan should avoid competing to get in the good books of US administration and try to sort out their problems themselves.
    • Pakistan feels insecure when Trump is close to Modi and vice versa.
    • India is the most populous country and Pakistan is the fifth most populated nation, both are made of many nations held together with very weak ties. They should concentrate on making that connection stronger by addressing the problems of various ethnic, caste, gender, and religious groups and by improving relations between the countries of SAARC.

    Gur Mehar Kaur, whose father died during one of the Indo-Pak wars when she was 2 year old, wishes peace:

    “… Only mutual cooperation can drive South Asia ahead. A peaceful subcontinent is the greatest gift we can give our families, our soldiers and ourselves.”

    “Hate is the most anti-national force that we face. The worst thing the BJP under Modi did was nurture a mob that can only be satisfied with blood, killings and hate. For 10 years, this mob has been empowered.”

    Notes:

    The post Indo-Pak Leaders Should “Have a Nice Dinner Together” first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    In the Shanghai Communique, 1972, the US declared:

    The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position.

    For almost five decades, peace prevailed between China and the United States on the issue of Taiwan. The above policy was maintained without any serious incident. It could have gone on for decades but for some US generals and others who visited Taiwan in March 2022. Author Eve Ottenberg surmised, “to beat the war drums and provoke China.” Same year in August, Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan too, to incite China.

    The “world’s greatest democracy” seems devoid of a peace gene; it follows it’s own motto: “I war, therefore I am.”
    2    In 1924, 1,165 in-person hate speech events took place in India; 259 were openly calling for violence. Many important BJP leaders, including Modi, his Home Minister Amit Shah, and Yogi Adityanath, the rogue governor of largest state Uttar Pradesh, were involved in these events.
    3    The 2016, the Indian film Sanam Teri Kasam had a Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane as the female protagonist. The film was re-released in February and became highest-grossing re-released Indian film. They are making a sequel but now without Hocane because of the war. (VIDEO/Soham Rockstar Entertainment/Youtube)Dosanjh made a great move. He didn’t implore authorities for the film to be released in India but instead had it released worldwide, including Pakistan, where it became the second highest-grossing film in Pakistan’s history. It is also the highest-grossing Punjabi language film internationally. The film has made almost double the money it cost to make the movie. (VIDEO/White Hill Music/Youtube) Dosanjh’s actions will encourage those Indian and Pakistani artists who wants to collaborate to release their work worldwide to cover the cost and make profit internationally, rather than be at the mercy of local politicians’ whims. Indian film Abir Gulaal with Indian actress Vaani Kapoor and Pakistani actor Fawad Khan was to release on May 9 but was postponed indefinitely. The makers should think of forgoing the Indian market and releasing it worldwide if possible and if it won’t hurt them financially.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Repressive Laws Are Increasingly Being Used to Silence Activists Across Asia

    Josef Benedict and Rajavelu Karunanithi published a piece in the Diplomat of 18 July 2025 describing how from Hong Kong to India, governments are passing and weaponizing new laws to pursue and jail whoever speaks up for human rights.

    Four years ago, on the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, plain clothes police arrested human rights lawyer and pro-democracy activist Chow Hang-tung outside her office in Hong Kong. Her alleged crime? Publishing two social media posts advertising a public vigil to remember the notorious crackdown in Tiananmen Square. At the time, Chow was the vice-chair of the now defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement of China, the main organizer of annual Tiananmen vigils…

    Sadly, such repression is not unique to Hong Kong. Across Asia, authoritarian and democratic governments alike are passing and weaponizing new laws – in clear violation of international law and standards – to pursue and jail whoever speaks up for human rights. Today, on Nelson Mandela International Day, we call for the release of Chow Hang-tang, who is part of CIVICUS’ Stand As My Witness campaign, as well as other human rights defenders unjustly locked up in Asia around the world.

    The CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks civic space conditions across the world, now rates Hong Kong’s civic space as “closed,” the worst possible ranking. Hundreds remain behind bars as police systematically use the new laws to arrest and prosecute people on trumped-up charges. Often, the process itself becomes the punishment as activists spend years in detention before they are even tried…

    Meanwhile, Hong Kong authorities are trying to take their repression international, by offering bounties for activists-in-exile charged under the National Security Law and by arresting the father of a prominent U.S.-based activist, Anna Kwok.

    ..Hong Kong’s National Security Laws have become something of a model for other Asian governments looking to stifle dissent.

    Look no further than India, often called the world’s largest democracy, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government resorts to similar laws to consolidate power and silence his critics. Dozens of activists have been jailed under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a draconian anti-terror law. Under the UAPA’s provisions, activists remain in pre-trial detention for long periods and are denied bail, including human rights defender Khurram Parvez, who was arrested in November 2021. His trial has yet to start, four years on. [see also: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/81468931-79AA-24FF-58F7-10351638AFE3]

    In neighboring Pakistan, the government also weaponizes anti-terror legislation against activists like Mahrang Baloch, who languishes in prison on terror charges for speaking out against ongoing violations of ethnic minority rights by the Pakistan security forces in Balochistan. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2025/05/28/un-experts-alarmed-by-arbitrary-detention-of-azerbaijani-human-rights-defender-mammadli/]

    In Thailand, more than 270 individuals have been arrested or prosecuted under lese-majeste or royal defamation laws since early 2020, many of whom have received long consecutive sentences from the courts. Human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa, for instance, received multiple convictions and 26 years in jail for calling for democratic reforms and reforms of the Thai monarchy. [see also: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/1e7ce01b-7927-41f1-b7d4-2c563ee235cc]

    Meanwhile, Cambodia’s Han Manet regime has used “incitement” laws as their weapon of choice to silence activists, journalists, and members of the opposition.

    With legal repression spreading across Asia, the international community must do more to push back and stand with these brave activists. Foreign governments must not only speak out when activists are convicted, but step in much earlier when these human rights defenders are arrested. Diplomats should visit wrongly arrested activists in detention, monitor their trials, and engage with their families. Foreign governments must also use international platforms like the United Nations Human Rights Council and bilateral meetings to highlight their cases and call for their release. 

    Activists-in-exile also need support and assistance, especially when they face transnational repression. The recent G-7 Leaders’ Statement on Transnational Repression was a good start, but strong rhetoric must now turn into serious action. Failure to undertake such actions will see a further regression of democracy and repression of civic freedoms in Asia and elsewhere.

    https://thediplomat.com/2025/07/repressive-laws-are-increasingly-being-used-to-silence-activists-across-asia/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Humaira Asghar Ali in the Womb of Death

    Model, theatre artist, media influencer, and actress Humaira Asghar Ali IMAGE/24 News IMAGE/Humaira Asghar Ali Twitter/Duck Duck Go IMAGE/The Nation IMAGE/Humaira Asghar Ali Twitter/Duck Duck Go

    Humaira Asghar Ali Chaudhry (1992 – 2025) was a Pakistani social media influencer, actress, model, reality TV star, and theatre artist who was linked with socially conscious theater groups. She was also into sculpting and painting. She was a graduate of the prestigious National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore with degrees in Fine Arts, TV, and Film. She earned her Masters in Philosophy from Punjab University.

    Humaira last accessed her Facebook account on September 11, 2024  and her Instagram account on September 30. The last time she used her phone was on October 7 when she called 14 people but, none of them picked up her call. She left messages. One of them was an Islamabad-based famous director.

    That was the last time she used her phone.

    Humaira had been living alone in an apartment in Karachi’s Ittehad Commercial area of DHA Phase VI since 2018. According to Humaira’s landlord, the last rent she paid was in May 2024. The landlord complained to the courts of not receiving rent since then, a court-appointed bailiff with police joined him to visit the flat on July 8, 2025. When no one opened the door, it was broken into, and they found Humaira’s decomposed body lying on the floor. Electricity to her apartment had been cut-off since October 2024, for non-payment of bill. Humaira’s greatly decayed unrecognizable body was transported to Lahore to her family. She was buried on July 11. Her funeral was attended by only a few people.

    Without being judgemental, actress Durefishan Saleem had a simple heartfelt message:

    “Been thinking about life a lot lately. Not in terms of big dreams or loud success, but in the small, quiet moments.”

    “I pray, with all my heart, that whenever [death] comes, for me or anyone, it doesn’t come in silence. Not in loneliness. Not in an empty room. But with love in the air. With familiar hands nearby. With someone who truly knew your heart.”

    The police report was released on July 18, said chemical examination of her remains found no psychotropic drugs, intoxicants, tranquilizers, or any poisonous substances in her system.

    She had three cellphones with over 2,000 saved contacts. With at least 75 people, she was in frequent contact and had had long conversations.

    Stylist Danish Maqsood worked with Humaira on two photo-shoots, one in 2023 and the other on October 2, 2024. Maqsood’s request to Humaira for releasing images on social media didn’t receive an approval from her:

    “When the request wasn’t approved, we tried calling her several times. After receiving no response, we messaged her on WhatsApp, but there was still no reply.”

    He informed some digital publications about Humaira’s disappearance. After great efforts, he succeeded in a couple of them reporting her missing but, Maqsood regrets: it failed to garner attention of most people in the industry.

    Humaira had not been in touch with her family for a long time. We don’t know if there were any family problems; speculation would probably be out of line.

    But there remain several questions:

    • In the nine months of her absence, why did none of the 75 people she often talked to become worried about her whereabouts?
    • Did any of the last 14 people she contacted try to call her back? If they did, why didn’t they follow-up?
    • In the world of celebrities, parties are as common as regular people going to the dollar store, why did no one notice her disappearance?
    • In one of her last calls, she called a director which may have been work related, did that director think about what state she was in, and did he follow up on her missed call?

    Entertainment industries worldwide do not have good reputation. Many people attracted to the glamor get exploited. The phrase rising Sun gets worshiped is very applicable to this industry. Once your star is down, you’re not allowed within the vicinity of the movie moguls’ sight; and you’re out of their mind. Then there are those who never find work which could lead to frustration, depression, and rejection that can lead to suicidal tendencies.

    On 19 June, the dead body of another actress Ayesha Khan (1941 – 2025) was found as result of the neighbors complaint of a strong odor emanating from her place. She had been dead for a week! It’s tragic that people are lying dead for days and months without anyone knowing about it.

    Most people working in the industry, including directors, actors, spot boys, lighting technicians, etc. don’t get paid on time.

    Film and TV serial director Mehreen Jabbar:

    “In the US, even with all their issues, there’s a fixed schedule for payments. People know when they’ll get paid. Here, you have to chase payments like beggars. Ask anyone and they’ll have horror stories. This is across every channel and production house. They [the crew members] do the hardest labour. But with no union, no rights, and no fair pay, they remain trapped. Working in Pakistan has become more disheartening. Compared to other places, the difference in professionalism and organization is stark.”

    Many artists have the same complain including, senior artists who have now started voicing their grievances in the media.

    (Renowned Indian singers Sunidhi Chauhan and Sonu Nigam said there are instances where they don’t get paid because Bollywood mafia controls things.)

    There is no doubt Humaira was desperately looking for work. One of her two bank accounts had only Rs390,000 or about $1,375. The call to her close friend Dureshehwar revealed she was looking for work:

    “I’m so sorry, I was traveling, caught up here and there. I’m so happy you’re in Makkah [on a pilgrimage]. Please pray a lot for me… Pray a lot from your heart for your cute friend/sister. For my career, please remember me in your prayers. You have to pray a lot for me.”

    Pakistani society is very conservative and is rough on women, particularly on single women. The Global Gender Gap Index 2025 lists 148 countries of which Pakistan is ranked 148. Only 24% women are part of the labor force.

    Sociologist Nida Kirmani gives an example of a woman named Saima who lived in a poor conservative neighborhood but found work in a very posh locality with a multinational department store where she made four times more money than most women, and even many men. She would put on an abaya (a loose overgarment) to cover her uniform but remove it once she reached her work because at work she would have seemed out of place in an abaya. Fortunately, her work company provided pick-and-drop service for their employees, otherwise, she would have faced verbal and or sexual harassment during her commute to work. Nevertheless, she still faced contempt from her neighbors and extended family members.

    Coming back to Humaira, the cultural critic Aimun Faisal points out:

    “It appears, at least to our moral gatekeepers, that there are no good women left in Pakistan.

    “And so, perhaps understandably, people celebrate their deaths, leave their decaying bodies unclaimed, and repurpose their broken corpses as stark reminders — cautionary examples used to sermonize virtue. They preach goodness from behind their monetized YouTube accounts, from behind verified Twitter accounts, from the benches of the superior courts, from their pulpits, and from their news channels, and drawing rooms. And for their guidance, we are eternally grateful.”

    Actor Osman Khalid Butt went after morality brigade and money makers:

    “Stop turning people’s real trauma into content. Stop projecting your morality onto someone who’s not here to defend herself. Stop the speculation and the judgment, and the deflection. For God’s sake, just stop.”

    Actress Mawra Hocane extended a helping hand:

    “If you’re in trouble or caught in spiraling thoughts, if I have known you briefly or extensively, if you’re a friend or an acquaintance, if you’re from my fraternity and you feel I will understand your pressures, please reach out!”

    Suggestion

    What Mawra should do is get some of her fraternity on board to form a hotline service that artists in crisis, depression, and other problems are able to access. Also the service should try to reach artists who have been active but have suddenly vanished, like Humaira.

    Humaira in the womb of death

    for nine months,
    life grows in the womb of a living being
    it grows into a fetus
    then turns into a human being
    where as lifeless Humaira resided
    nine months in the womb of death
    when she was found,
    one could say she was reborn but in a dead state
    she was dead …
    but became live fodder for news & social medias
    many …
    gossip-mongers, influencers, reporters, & others, cashed in
    voyeuristic vloggers and commercial cameras not far behind
    commercialism neither respects life, nor has regard for death
    and custodians of morality too …
    especially for a single woman from showbiz
    why did it happen –
    how can we stop more Humairas from happening?
    for such questions,
    the state has no interest,
    nor any intention to pursue
    the state resources are for
    the ruling class’ families, friends, and donors …

    VIDEO: Ahmad Ali Butt/ Youtube

    The post Humaira Asghar Ali in the Womb of Death first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • No, Pakistan Zindabad slogans were not raised at Muharram rally in Deoria, Uttar Pradesh

    Social media users recently shared a video claiming that slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ were raised by Muslims participating in a Muharram procession in Uttar Pradesh. The viral posts also contain derogatory words against the Muslim community.

    X user Deepak Sharma, who regularly shares disinformation and promotes communal propaganda, shared the video tagging the Deoria Police and wrote, “Do you hear what I am hearing? This crowd raising slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ is not in Pakistan but in India, that too in India’s Uttar Pradesh. Betrayal is in their blood.”

    Right-wing X user Sandeep Mishra and several others on other platforms like Instagram and Facebook shared the same footage with claims that ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans had been raised during a Muharram procession.

    Click to view slideshow.

    Fact Check

    Alt News found that the official X handle of the Deoria Police had tweeted about this and refuted the claim about ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans being raised. According to police, in the video recorded during a Muharram procession by the Five Star Club, slogans of ‘Five Star Zindabad’, and not ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ could be heard. 

    The police also mentioned that the procession was carried out peacefully in police presence.

    Alt News examined the video by playing it in slow motion. On listening carefully to the slogans being raised in the procession, it became clear that the chants were not that of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’, but ‘Five Star Zindabad’. However, due to the background noise, the slogans are not that clear.

    Apart from this, we noticed that many people participating in the procession wore green T-shirts with ‘5 STAR CLUB’ and ‘5 star’ printed on them.

    Upon further investigation, we also came across the Instagram page of 5 star club. Many videos taken during Muharram can be found on this page. Apart from these, in a post by Instagram user Israfil Ansari, too, members of the 5 Star Club can be seen participating in Muharram observation wearing the same green T-shirts in the presence of police personnel.

    To sum it up, slogans of “Five Star Zindabad” were raised in the video in question. However, some users falsely claimed that Muslims were raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans during Muharram.

    The post No, Pakistan Zindabad slogans were not raised at Muharram rally in Deoria, Uttar Pradesh appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Indonesia keeps options open with bewildering fighter smorgasbord

    If the Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU) could have its way, it would be operating fighters galore from aerospace companies emanating from Asia, across Europe and all the way to the USA. However, fiscal realities mean such ambitions remain a pipe dream. In recent times, Indonesia has been linked to the following proposed purchases: American F-15EXs, […]

    The post Indonesia keeps options open with bewildering fighter smorgasbord appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • KPK’s Monsoon Myopia: What KPK hasn’t learnt from Monsoon

    On June 27 and 28, 2025, tragedy struck the Swat Valley again. The once tranquil and verdant slopes of the Fizagat and Khwaza Khela have seen catastrophic devastation as a massive flash-flood, triggered by torrential monsoon shower and cloudburst, washed away tourists, families and livestock along the Swat River.

    Videos circulating on the social media showed over a dozen of people including children clinging on a piece of land surrounded by water on four sides, as the water started to surge. By the time the rescue operations could be initiated, which are frequently delayed in Pakistan, eleven people lost their lives.

    According to the initial reports of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, dated 28th, there were four children, three women and several men among the eleven killed. The reports also reiterated that three individuals are still missing, with 59 rescued in frantic operations carried out by KP Rescue 1122. Local sources also confirmed the damage of 56 houses, of which 6 were completely destroyed. The flash-flood also killed 13 in the Punjab province, bringing the total to 32 killed in the entire country.

    Given that the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) had issued warnings days earlier, with many areas being demarcated as red-flagged, riverbanks remained opened for the tourists. Hotels, restaurants and homes that stood tall in illegal proximity to the riverbank operated despite learning from the disasters of 2010, 2020 and 2022 that wrecked havoc to the area. In 2022, the valley witnessed destruction due to massive flooding on the same Swat River, with officials marking ‘red Zones ‘ and promised enforcement. However, this year those red zones became death zones.

    The tragedy of the valley due to massive flash-floods is emblematic of a larger crises that unfolds every monsoon in the country. Every year, whether they are agricultural crops of Sindh engulfed by floodwater to the port city of Gwadar submerged underwater in Balochistan, Pakistan continues to respond to monsoons as if each flood were a surprise. The rescue operations are always late. While some officials are suspended and promises of Inquiries are made to cover up the failure of governance, the absence of planning, and a dangerous cultural tendency to forget.

    The Unready North: When the Rains return

    Every year, the plains, hills and valleys of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa witness widespread devastation as floodwaters sweep away everything in their path: schools, homes, roads and even people. These cataclysmic events repeat every year with tragic predictability provoking one to question: What has KP learnt from its long-history of monsoon devastations? The answer, backed by field observations and available data is that while some slight steps had been taken for reactive systems, proactive measures to mitigate monsoon risks are largely absent.

    The most recent devastating floods hatched in our minds is that of 2022. According to the reports of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, over 100,000 homes were completely destroyed and more than 289 people died in that very year, including several children and women. With thousands of acres of farmlands wiped out in districts like Swat, Tank, Charsadda and Dera Ismail Khan, the NDMA’s national damage assessment marked 2022 as one of the most catastrophic years in KPK’s recent history. However, much of the promised reconstruction, reforms and regulations remained unfinished after the floods — existing only on paper.

    Rescue 1122’s capacity has improved in parts of Swat and Peshawar. Public awareness campaigns, specifically through local mosques and radios have educated most of the local people in evacuation procedures. However, such campaigns aren’t successful long-term because they are dependent on donor funding which limits their reach and sustainability.

    While the Planning Commission recommended relocating communities living within 100 meters of active riverbanks of Swat and Kohistan after 2010 floods, yet many of the same villages were washed away in 2022. Despite warnings issued in the aftermath of the 2010 and 2022 floods, no systematic and concrete steps were taken for anti-encroachment drives. Satellite-based floodplain assessments by the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit (SHA/SDC) in 2022 depicted that many of the destroyed commercial buildings and homes built in river buffer zones were in violation to environmental safety measures. This violation continued in 2024 and again in 2025. While the local authorities often blame local landowners and absence of adequate political support. The reasons are painfully evident: the residents are often poor farmers and laborers who build their houses on the same shaky spots due to the unavailability of alternative lands for houses and security. To date, no meaningful relocation policy has been implemented nor have any meaningful compensations been provided to help flood-affected families rebuild their lives on safer ground.

    Warnings Sound, but Prevention Falls Silent

    One of the few areas KP has shown progress is the early warning system. With collaboration between NDMA, PDMA and the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), a robust flood alert system was streamlined. In 2023, text message alerts were sent to the people living in flood-prone districts of Swat and Kohistan. Provincial Disaster Response Forces were on high alert and boats and tents were pre-positioned in seven districts.However, prevention rather than response exposed vulnerabilities.

    The rivers in KPK lack monitoring systems and they rely on basic rainfall forecasts. Punjab ,however, has real-time telemetry on several Indus tributaries. KPK’s most flash-prone rivers like Panjkora and Swat lack advanced river gauges. As a result, when the mudslides of the mid-July, 2023 washed away 30 houses, the NDMA repeatedly warned of hydrological sensors in these areas.

    A significant challenge is the ongoing encroachment of lands on riverbanks and floodplains. National Disaster Management Authority’s (NDMA) Monsoon Contingency Plan 2023 had termed the the northern districts of KPK — Swat, Kohistan, Mansehra and Dir — as flood-prone zones owing to their topography, deforestation and glacial melts. Despite court orders and government regulations, the construction on the bank of the Swat River continues. This has narrowed the river channel, magnifying the force and destructiveness of the floodwater. In 2022 deluge, the homes and hotels located in Bahrain and Kalam were completely washed away by the high-speed floodwater. As per the post-disasters reports of the Urban Unit, about 40 per cent of the homes that were destroyed in upper Swat were built within 50 meters of the river, directly violating the environmental safety guidelines.

    Infrastructure weaknesses continue to plague. The bridges built after the 2022 floods were damaged again in 2023 in Swat and Dir, revealing poor engineering. Temporary embankments constructed in 2023 were washed away by flash floods in 2024. Locals often blame the contractors for using substandard materials and leaving projects incomplete ahead of the monsoon season while contractors complain of lack of funds.

    Urban Drainage is also another glaring issue. Even moderate monsoon rains often leave parts of Peshawar submerged for days. The city’s storm-water drains (nullahs) are frequently choked with plastic waste. Despite allocations of budget for urban waste, many storm-water drainage projects in places like Faqirabad, Tehkal, Hayatabad remain uncompleted.

    The long road to recovery: education, health and policy gaps

    Community-based flood preparedness, which became successful in Nepal and Bangladesh are nearly absent. In many remote districts like Up Dir, elders rely on traditional knowledge and signs like river noise, animal behavior and sudden shifts in temperature to detect floods prior any text message alert are received in their phones. Such indigenous expertise are often side-lined in favour of advance models that fail to account for the on-the-ground rural realities.

    Notwithstanding that the mountainous districts of the province are inclined to GLOFs (glacial lake outburst floods), the mountainous districts lack a full-fledged and dedicated GLOF alert system in Kohistan and Upper Chitral. While federal government’s GLOF-II project, which primarily focuses on Gilgit-Baltistan, has some parts of KPK, but the reach is minimal.

    Warnings haven’t remained short in KPK. In 2018, NDMA and SUPARCO joined and warned of glacial melt and intensified GLOFs in the northern areas of the province. Local universities like the University of Peshawar’s Disaster Risk Management Centre have published researches urging the policymakers for greater investment in afforestation and slope stabilization, however, bureaucratic will to divert sources towards long-term progress seems lacking.

    The lack of climate adaptation Planning further aggravates the problems. Unlike Punjab and Sindh, where climate adaptation planning have been at least drafted, the province hasn’t formulated a climate adaptation roadmap, making the region inclined to excessive rainfall, landslides and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). A recent research by the Climate Analytics and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) keeps districts like Upper Dir and Chitral amongst the most vulnerable in the Hindu Kush Himalayan belt. With flash floods and GLOFs becoming common in future years, without proper planning and investment in infrastructure, entire communities remain at risk.

    The KPK Education Department’s report submitted to the National Assembly in 2023 pointed out that a staggering number of 1,180 schools were completely damaged in the 2022 floods. However as of 2024, only 430 of these have been reconstructed or repaired. According to Alif Ailaan’s Education Infrastructure Audit, Swat and Dera Ismail Khan have one of the highest proportions of children attending flood-affected schools.

    Figures from an another report, compiled by the KPK Education Department state that 142 schools were damaged in 2024, mainly in Upper Dir, Battagram and Swat while many of the schools that were already destroyed due to the tragic and devastating floods of 2022 awaited repairs. In many parts of the province, children continue to study in tents and open-air spaces. Temporary learning centres set-up by UNICEF and local NGOs have filled the gap, but the unavailability of proper infrastructure affects education quality and safety of the children.

    Medical preparedness is also deplorable in KPK during floods. In 2024, people in the villages of kohistan and Swat reported of skin infections, diarrhoea and snake bites after the floods. Mobile health teams arrive very late and Basic Health Units (BHUs) lack essential medicines. NDMA’s 2024 directives advised the pre-positioning of the medical supplies but district health officers often complain of funds arriving very late.

    A Cycle of Inaction with Deadly Costs

    Another joint report by the Asian Development Bank and UNDP in 2023, pointed out that budget for flood resilience in KPK stands at 0.5 per cent of the Annual Development Plan (ADP) which is insufficient to meet basic infrastructural upgrades. Despite the availability of donor funds, international technical support, implementation in the region remains abysmal. A monitoring report from the Asian Development Bank in 2024, says that KPK has the second-lowest fund utilization rate among the provinces for flood-related projects. Prolonged bureaucratic delays, and lack of interdepartmental coordination between PDMA, local government department, irrigation and communication departments further exacerbates the progress.

    Pakistan’s federal agencies have continuously warned that climate change will increase in intensity and monsoon rains would be more extreme in the years ahead, making Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the midst of both glacial melt and torrential monsoon showers threatening its southern and northern districts. Unfortunately, the province is yet to learn lessons.

    The cost of this inaction becomes very disturbing in the long-run. Economically, trillions of rupees are lost annually in precious lives, homes, livestock, and crops. Psychologically, the trust towards the state fades away. Socially, several generations of children lose out on education and environmentally, every flood gradually erodes the soil, depletes forest cover, making the future disasters more extreme.

    By far, flood mitigation policies in KP remain largely unimplemented. Residents speak of repeated promises, with rescue helicopters arriving when people had already been washed away and officials showing up more for photo opportunities than for decent solutions. Until the policymakers in Peshawar prioritize the development of proper drainage networks, resilient schools, urban planning policies and flood-proof infrastructure, tragedies like that of the Swat River will continue to repeat with deadliest consequences.

    The post KPK’s Monsoon Myopia: What KPK hasn’t learnt from Monsoon first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Asim and Shehbaz in the Same Row but …


    Pakistan’s COAS Field Marshal General Asim Munir (second from right) and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (far right) offering prayers at Kaaba in Saudi Arabia during their reent visit IMAGE/Dawn

    In 1909, the renowned poet Muhammad Iqbal wrote Shikwa or Complaint to Allah.1

    The poem is a lament that Allah has neglected his followers, Muslims, the very people who spread Islam and gave Him global exposure.

    A couplet refers to Mahmud Ghazni,2 an eleventh century ruler, and his “slave” Ayaz:

    ek hee saf meiN khaDe ho gaye mahmud o ayAz
    na koi bandA rahA aur na koi bandA-nawAz

    — Muhmmad Iqbal, Shikwa or The Complaint to Allah in Bang-e-Dara, Rekhta

    they stood in the same row: Mahmud (the lord) and Ayaz (the slave)
    (praying to Allah), no more was there distinction of master and slave

    Malik Ayaz, according to Majid Sheikh, was not a slave but was a white European from Gerogia who was Mahmud’s “‘lakhtay’, a Pushtun polite word for ‘boy partner’.” According to S. Jabir Raza, there have been many other nobles with the name Ayaz. Many poets and authors, including Jalaluddin Rumi, have written about Ayaz.

    Anyways, proceeding forward to this 21st century, Asim Munir and Shehbaz Sharif also rule the area which was once under Mahmud’s rule. Sharif is neither “lakhtay” nor a “slave” of Munir. But nonetheless, the reltionship between COAS (Chief of Army Staff) General Munir and Prime Minister Sharif is not even that of equals.

    The parliamentary system of government in Pakistan officially endows the most power in the prime minister’s office and all others, including Chief of the Army Staff, work under the premier. However, since the 1950s, military has usurped the power and so the civilian governments rule at the mercy of the army — which gets a significant portion of the country’s budget, but also runs several businesse, and has overthrown and installed governments.

    Between May 7 and 10, 2025, India and Pakistan went to war. Both claimed victory. Munir and Sharif thanked Allah for the “victory,” by going to Saudi Arabia in the first week of June to perform Umrah, and to pay homage to the Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or MbS.

    Like in Iqbal’s couplet, Munir and Sharif in the picture above, are standing as equal in front of their Allah. But a quick analysis clearly shows the contentment and happiness on them is not equal — more correctly, it is totally missing on Sharif’s face, who seems worried and frustrated. On the other hand, Munir seems very satisfied and delighted.

    What was Munir praying to Allah:

    “Ya Allah, I am going to thank you but first let me thank my enemy Narendra Damodardas Modi. I am here in Saudi Arabia, at this time, because of him. It’s due to him that my reputation, that was on a downward trajectory, suddenly picked up and went so high that I have now become a hero in Pakistan. Allah, you won’t believe but I feel like a superman, I have so much power. Please Allah, don’t be scared of me — I am not like Ayub Khan.3.

    “Allah, one more thing I have to tell you. Recently, I was made field marshal and was granted the baton of field marshal by President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. I am the second field marshal, Ayub Khan was the first one. Allah, isn’t it strange that both Sharif’s and Zardari’s parties [Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Pakistan People’s Party] have suffered at the hands of the army and yet they’re givng me more prestige. I tell you, now any if these two guys try to be clever with me, I’m going to use this very baton to spank their rears. By the way, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader, Imran Khan, is already rotting in prison.

    “Now Allah, before I part, I should thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

    President Asif Ali Zardari (centre) and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (right) jointly confer baton of field marshal upon Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir on May 22, 2025. IMAGE/Radio Pakistan/The News International

    (Munir received an invitation to attend the US army’s 250th anniversary on June 14, 2025. He is going to attend King Trump’s extravaganza. He must be feeling very happy but will also be very worried because commercial-animal that Trump is, will push him to be on the US side instead on China’s side.)

    What was Shehbaz praying to Allah:

    “Ya Allah, what is happening in your world? Why is it that I can’t exercise my due power as a prime minister? You can see the worry on my face, I can’t even close my eyes or at least pretend to close while offering prayers. Allah, look at this guy standing next to me — he seems to be in a post orgasmic state — calm, relaxed, and satiated.

    In 1959, Ayub Khan became Pakistan’s first field marshal and now Munir has become one. Everyone knows, the minute my government will try to carve our own policy, he’ll shove the baton we awarded him, up my you know what.

    Allah, please guide me as to how can we get rid of him. Should we put a case of mangoes in his plane or find some other way?” Please!

    ENDNOTES:

    1 Several poems of Iqbal in Urdu with English translation are at Dr. Allama Muhmaad Iqbal. Khushwant Singh, journalist and author, translated both “Complaint” and “Answer” in a book form with introduction and can be found here. See also Frances W. Pritchett critiquing Singh’s couple of stanzas.

    2 Extremist Hindus use many excuses to disriminate against Muslims. One of those excuses is Muslim invader Mehmud Ghazni’s raid of temple of Somnatha and destrution of an idol in 1026 CE But that lacks historical truth. See eminent historian Romila Thapar’s “Somanatha and Mahmud,” in Frontline magazine.

    3 In the 1960s, during military dictator Field Marshal General Ayub Khan’s rule, a joke circulated about Ayub’s love for power. On the Day of Judgement, Pakistan’s leaders lined up to see Allah. Allah would rise from his throne and pat Pakistani leaders but would not arise when Ayub Khan came. A question was raised as to why? Allah’s reply: “He would have grabbed my throne.”

    The post Asim and Shehbaz in the Same Row but … first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Times Now, Republic, others published reports based on fake ‘confidential’ letter that Pakistan PM was hospitalised

    A “confidential” hospital document dated April 27, 2025, with the emblem of the Pakistan prime minister’s office saying that the PM has been hospitalised in Rawalpindi, made it to several news reports and was widely shared on social media. According to this ‘letter’, the Pakistan PM was admitted to the Combined Military Hospital for medical evaluation of haemorrhoids (piles). 

    On May 1, Times Now World published a report titled, “Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif hospitalized with piles? ‘Confidential’ hospital note surfaces.” In the report, they claim that the alleged was “leaked” but, later, also mention that there was no official confirmation from PM Sharif’s office. However, despite this, the outlet went on to speculate whether “rising stress levels” were to blame in the aftermath of diplomatic unrest between India and Pakistan after the terror attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, 2025.

    Republic also published a detailed article on the purported letter, even though they refer to it as a “rumour”. While the report mentions that the rumour has not received official confirmation, ut gives reactions of social media users.

    Several other news outlets, such as NewsX, News24 Hindi, and News18 Bangla, also published reportson Sharif’s health citing this letter.

     

    On April 28, 2025, social media users Shuvankar Biswas (@manamuntu), Jamin (@JaminrpP), (@SinghPramod2784) and @Amolk1985 also shared the alleged letter.

    Click to view slideshow.

    Similar claims were made by users across social media platforms.

    Click to view slideshow.

     

    Fact Check

    First, we tried several keyword searches but found no credible reportage from Pakistan-based news outlets that reported on PM Shehbaz Sharif being hospitalised in April 2025. 

    Instead, we found several updates that indicate he was fairly active and meeting delegations throughout the last week of April. For instance, on April 26, Sharif presented awards at a ceremony in PMA, Kakul, Abbottabad.

    On April 27, Sharif along with other Pakistani government officials, met a delegation of the American World Liberty Financial in Islamabad.

    On April 28, he attended a ceremony acknowledging the success of the PM Ramzan relief package.

    On April 29, the Pakistan leader addressed an investment forum in Islamabad and the following day, he chaired a meeting with investors in Islamabad.

    On May 1, Chinese ambassador Jiang Zaidong met Sharif and exchanged views on the current India-Pakistan situation. This was also reported on CNN News18 bulletin. 

    Thus it was clear that he was not in the hospital.

    We then found that Asad Rehman Gilani, the alleged principal secretary to the prime minister (PSPM), whose signature is visible on the letter, was removed from his position on March 17, 2025, and transferred to the National Heritage and culture divison as secretary, according to a report by Pakistan-based outlet, Dawn. 

    Dawn’s report also said that the position of PSPM has been abolished and a Dr Tauqir Shah would serve the PM as an adviser in place of PSPM.

    An official at the Pakistan PMO also told Dawn that the viral “confidential” letter and claims that Sharif was getting medical treatment were fake. 

    To sum up, the Pakistan Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, was not hospitalised during the last week of April 2025. The alleged “confidential” letter bearing the stamp of the Pakistan PMO is fake. Despite disclaimers, news outlets reported on this based on social media posts and reactions, resulting in unverified information being amplified

    The post Times Now, Republic, others published reports based on fake ‘confidential’ letter that Pakistan PM was hospitalised appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kangana Ranaut was not shown the middle finger at a performance; viral video is from an event in Pakistan

    A video, seemingly taken by someone in the audience during a public performance, in which event attendees are showing the middle finger to someone on stage has gone viral. Those sharing the video on social media claim that these gestures were made at Bollywood actor and filmmaker Kangana Ranaut during a concert. Ranaut is affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party and represents Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district in the lower house of the Parliament.

    On June 3, X user Amit Yadav (@Amityad6389) shared the viral video and claimed that members affiliated with Hindu organisations, upset with her over something, showed her the middle finger in public. (Archive)

    On June 4, media outlet LocalTak (@localtak) also shared the purported video alleging that members of a Hindu organisation protested against Ranaut during a show by showing her the middle finger. (Archive)

    Another X user, Amock (@amock2029), also shared the clip, claiming that the actor-turned-politician was disrespected. (Archive)

    Several other social media users have shared the same video with similar claims. 

    Click to view slideshow.

     

    Fact Check

    We watched the video closely several times and noticed the words ‘Q High Street’ displayed on the stage in the video. Q High Street is a commercial property in Lahore, Pakistan.

    During our investigation, we also found that Q High Street had organised an automotive event, Pak Wheels Auto Show, on May 25. The event featured a performance by Young Stunners, a popular hip-hop duo in Pakistan. 

    We found several posts on Q High Street’s Instagram page, featuring Young Stunner’s performance. Noticeably, the backdrop of the videos here was identical to the one that went viral.

    Click to view slideshow.

     

    Taking cue from this, we looked for full videos of the performance and found one on YouTube uploaded on May 29, 2025. At the 3:15-minute mark of the video, the same woman who is seen in the viral clip appears as the event’s emcee. It’s fairly clear that she is not Kangana Ranaut.

    Here’s the video:

    To sum up, the viral video is from an event in Lahore, Pakistan. It does not depict members of a Hindu organisation showing the middle finger to Kangana Ranaut. The woman appearing in the video is not the Bollywood actor. 

    (With inputs from Diti Pujara)

    The post Kangana Ranaut was not shown the middle finger at a performance; viral video is from an event in Pakistan appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kangana Ranaut was not shown the middle finger at a performance; viral video is from an event in Pakistan

    A video, seemingly taken by someone in the audience during a public performance, in which event attendees are showing the middle finger to someone on stage has gone viral. Those sharing the video on social media claim that these gestures were made at Bollywood actor and filmmaker Kangana Ranaut during a concert. Ranaut is affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party and represents Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district in the lower house of the Parliament.

    On June 3, X user Amit Yadav (@Amityad6389) shared the viral video and claimed that members affiliated with Hindu organisations, upset with her over something, showed her the middle finger in public. (Archive)

    On June 4, media outlet LocalTak (@localtak) also shared the purported video alleging that members of a Hindu organisation protested against Ranaut during a show by showing her the middle finger. (Archive)

    Another X user, Amock (@amock2029), also shared the clip, claiming that the actor-turned-politician was disrespected. (Archive)

    Several other social media users have shared the same video with similar claims. 

    Click to view slideshow.

     

    Fact Check

    We watched the video closely several times and noticed the words ‘Q High Street’ displayed on the stage in the video. Q High Street is a commercial property in Lahore, Pakistan.

    During our investigation, we also found that Q High Street had organised an automotive event, Pak Wheels Auto Show, on May 25. The event featured a performance by Young Stunners, a popular hip-hop duo in Pakistan. 

    We found several posts on Q High Street’s Instagram page, featuring Young Stunner’s performance. Noticeably, the backdrop of the videos here was identical to the one that went viral.

    Click to view slideshow.

     

    Taking cue from this, we looked for full videos of the performance and found one on YouTube uploaded on May 29, 2025. At the 3:15-minute mark of the video, the same woman who is seen in the viral clip appears as the event’s emcee. It’s fairly clear that she is not Kangana Ranaut.

    Here’s the video:

    To sum up, the viral video is from an event in Lahore, Pakistan. It does not depict members of a Hindu organisation showing the middle finger to Kangana Ranaut. The woman appearing in the video is not the Bollywood actor. 

    (With inputs from Diti Pujara)

    The post Kangana Ranaut was not shown the middle finger at a performance; viral video is from an event in Pakistan appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.