From Typewriters to Synthetic Intelligence: Why Hu…

Every 14th of August we hear the same national narrative. Speeches recall 1947, flags are hoisted, and anthems are played at midnight. The symbolism matters. It reminds us of the cost of independence and the idea of Pakistan. Yet symbolism without substance risks becoming ritual. If we are to understand what independence means in 2026, we must look beyond the ceremony and toward the quiet, persistent work that sustains the nation through every crisis. That work is rarely televised. It is carried out by teachers in under-resourced schools, by health workers walking door to door, by engineers keeping the grid alive during heatwaves, by farmers adapting to erratic weather, and by young people building livelihoods from laptops in small towns. These are the stories of resilience that deserve a central place in our understanding of Pakistan, 79 years after its founding. Resilience is not an abstract virtue. It is a measurable response to constraint. Pakistan has faced recurring fiscal stress, energy shortfalls, climate shocks, and security challenges. In each case, state capacity alone has been insufficient. What has prevented collapse is a dense network of civic and professional effort that fills gaps, innovates under pressure, and restores basic function. Consider education. Official data continues to show millions of children out of school and low learning outcomes. At the same time, thousands of low-fee private schools, community learning centers, and volunteer tutoring initiatives operate in the same neighborhoods. They do not appear in headlines, but they keep children literate, prepare them for exams, and create a pathway, however narrow, to higher education. The same pattern appears in health. Lady Health Workers and polio teams travel on foot in heat and in risk, maintaining immunization coverage and maternal counseling in areas where clinics are distant or overburdened. Their work is repetitive, underpaid, and essential. Without it, disease surveillance and primary care would deteriorate far more rapidly. Economic resilience is visible in the informal sector and in the emerging digital economy. Pakistan’s labor market has never been able to absorb all new entrants through formal jobs alone. In response, millions have created their own employment: workshops, transport, retail, agriculture processing, and services. In the last decade, a new layer has appeared. Freelancers in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan, and Faisalabad now earn foreign exchange by writing, designing, coding, and providing remote services. They pay no rent for office space, require little imported capital, and learn through online courses. This is not a substitute for industrial policy, but it is a real expansion of opportunity. It represents a form of independence: the ability of an individual to earn without waiting for a large institution to hire them. The state’s role here should be to reduce friction, ensure reliable electricity and internet, and simplify taxation and payment systems, so that this energy is not wasted. Climate resilience is now inseparable from national security. Floods in 2010, 2014, and 2022 displaced millions and damaged infrastructure worth billions. Drought and heatwaves threaten wheat and water. The response has included both engineering and community adaptation. Farmers are experimenting with drought-tolerant varieties and more efficient irrigation. Urban volunteers organize tree planting and waste management in their streets. Provincial and federal programs have attempted large-scale afforestation and watershed management. Progress is uneven and often underfunded, but the impulse is clear: adapt or lose. The most effective adaptations are local, because they are designed around specific soil, rainfall, and social networks. National policy can support them by providing data, credit, and technical extension, but it cannot replace the judgment of people who live on the land. What ties these examples together is a refusal to wait for perfect conditions. Resilience in Pakistan is not optimism. It is a practical calculation that problems will persist, and that action must proceed anyway. This attitude is visible in small businesses that maintain generators and solar panels to cope with load-shedding, in parents who pool money to hire a tutor, and in journalists and lawyers who document cases despite pressure. It is not heroic in the cinematic sense. It is tedious, repetitive, and often thankless. That is precisely why it matters. Nations are built not only in founding moments but in the accumulation of ordinary competence over decades. As we mark 79 years, the task is to recognize this resilience and to institutionalize it. Recognition means collecting data that captures informal work, community schools, and local adaptation, and then designing policy around them. Institutionalization means protecting merit in recruitment, ensuring predictable funding for primary services, and removing regulatory obstacles for small enterprises and freelancers. It also means telling a different story about Pakistan. The dominant story is one of crisis and rescue. The more accurate story is one of persistence and incremental gain. Both are true. But a country that only narrates its crises will train its citizens to expect failure. A country that also narrates its resilience will train its citizens to contribute. Independence, therefore, is not a date. It is a practice. It is the practice of showing up to teach, to heal, to build, to adapt, and to hold institutions accountable when they fall short. The midnight speech reminds us why we began. The morning work determines whether we continue. If we wish to honor 1947, we should honor those who, without fanfare, keep Pakistan functioning every day between 15th August and the next 14th. Their work is not perfect, and it is not sufficient on its own. But it is the foundation on which any serious reform must rest. To see it, to name it, and to support it is the most patriotic act available to us now.

(When the water rises, who shows up and who is left waiting?) ‎I live in Sabzazar, a neighborhood in Lahore, Pakistan, but part of my heart is always sitting along the banks of the Moxahala Creek back home in Southeast Ohio. When the water rises in Muskingum County or the Punjab plains, who shows up, and who is left waiting? I live in Sabzazar, a neighborhood in Lahore, Pakistan, but part of my heart is always sitting along the banks of the Moxahala Creek back home in Southeast Ohio. ‎ ‎My mother and brother still live right near South Zanesville, just a stone’s throw from Crooksville. When heavy rains hit Perry and Muskingum counties, I don’t need to be there to know what it looks like. I can picture the heavy, chocolate-brown water backing up into the low spots, the damp chill that settles into a basement, the fears of what if the waters reach a house trailer, and that specific, exhausting smell of river mud that takes weeks to scrub out of porch boards and carpet. The worries of if the home has structural damage.. Halfway across the world in Pakistan, the landscape couldn’t look more different. But when monsoon season swells the rivers across the Punjab, the view from the ground is hauntingly identical. ‎ ‎Standing in a flooded doorway feels the same whether you are in Ohio or Lahore. The quiet shock is the same. The ruin of things you worked years to buy is the same. And the very first instinct is to grab your coat, shovel, a chainsaw and a pair of boots and go check on the elderly woman next door.. Start hauling wet furniture, debris to the curb and giving comfort, food and basics to those in need is entirely universal. Watching both worlds at once makes you look at governance differently. It strips away abstract political jargon and leaves you asking one fundamental question: When a community is hit with a crisis, does its system build capable people who can act, or does it leave them sitting on their hands, waiting for permission to survive? ‎ ‎What a Small Ohio Village Taught Me About Governance ‎ ‎Growing up around South Zanesville and Crooksville, you learn pretty early that small-town life relies on a very specific kind of quiet, distributed agency. ‎Crooksville isn’t a rich town. It’s a hard-working Appalachian village of under 1,500 people. But when the creek overflows, nobody sits around waiting for a press conference out of Washington, D.C., or a mandate from the state capital in Columbus. ‎ ‎The response moves in waves because the connections are already wired: ‎On the local levels we see neighbor checks on neighbor. The volunteer fire department turns on the sirens, pulls out the high-water gear, and starts the door to door knocks. At the County level we have the Perry County 911 dispatch and Emergency Management Agency (EMA) start tracking water levels and routing equipment where it’s needed most. At the State level, If the county gets overwhelmed, pre set legal triggers immediately call in the Ohio EMA or the National Guard. ‎ ‎Government here doesn’t replace the community’s instinct to help itself; it validates it, organizes it, and backs it up with real resources. The system trusts the people on the ground to know their own roads. Here in Pakistan, the human spirit is just as generous, if not more so. The impulse toward hospitality, neighborly charity, and mutual support runs incredibly deep. When disaster strikes, ordinary citizens open their wallets and their homes without a second thought. It’s just what they do… ‎ ‎And Pakistan’s has one of the world’s top class military engineering, a massive national disaster agency (the NDMA), and incredible private charities. The raw capacity is immense. Yet, too often, there is a however a very heartbreaking disconnect between that high-level power and the family standing in ankle deep water in a local neighborhood. An ordinary citizen here once described the country to me using a metaphor I’ve never forgotten: a child that was never allowed to stand on its own feet. An infant isn’t helpless because it lacks potential. It’s helpless because it hasn’t been given the space to build muscle, fall over, adjust its balance, and try again. If an authority figure picks the child up every single time it tries to pull itself up, the child never learns to walk—not from a lack of ability, but because the environment denied it the chance to build strength. ‎ ‎That is how systemic learned dependency takes root: Central authorities assume total control, bypassing local municipal councils. Neighborhoods are given no real budget or authority to fix their own drainage or organize local response teams. And when a flood comes, citizens have no choice but to wait for distant, top-down relief. The authorities look at the waiting crowd and say, “See? The people can’t manage without us.” ‎We witness power centralized even further, deepening the exact helplessness it claims to fix. Over generations, people adapt to the system they are given. If a system rewards waiting for a political patron, people learn to wait for patrons. If it rewards local initiative, communities build habits of self-reliance. It is very easy to blame culture or public apathy for civic passivity, but that misses the point entirely. Culture simply reflects the structural incentives people are given to survive and adapt. It is nature vs nurture and we have a break down when these two things fail to promote a cohesiveness and inclusion of what is a community and what that actually means. ‎ ‎Across the globe, the relationship between state control and citizen participation varies wildly, proving that central authority does not have to mean public powerlessness. In China, a deeply centralized state framework actively structures and expects local neighborhood committees and civil volunteer groups to manage community-level crises. Across much of Europe, comprehensive state safety nets exist alongside highly empowered municipal councils and professionalized local volunteer forces.

I have stood on the dry floor of the Aral Sea, and I can tell you that no photograph prepares you for it. It is not a desert in the way the Sahara is a desert, ancient and self-consistent. It is a wound — a seabed still faintly shaped like the water that used to cover it, salt crusted white across the sand, rusting fishing trawlers stranded kilometres from any shore, and children playing in the hulls of boats their grandfathers once sailed to catch sturgeon. It is, without exaggeration, the worst environmental tragedy I have ever witnessed with my own eyes. And I have spent thirty years of my life witnessing tragedies of water, in one direction or the other. The Aral Sea was once the fourth-largest inland body of water on Earth, spread across more than 68,000 square kilometres between what is now Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, fed for centuries by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. Soviet planners diverted those rivers at massive scale to irrigate cotton fields, and the sea began to die — slowly at first, then catastrophically. More than ninety percent of it is gone. What remains has splintered into four smaller lakes covering barely 3,500 square kilometres. The fishing economy that once fed the region collapsed entirely. The exposed seabed, laced with agricultural pesticide residue and salt, now rises on the wind as toxic dust that settles on crops and in human lungs hundreds of kilometres away. Villages that once sat on the water’s edge now sit stranded in a dead landscape, and the world, for the most part, has forgotten this happened at all. That forgetting is its own quiet tragedy. I did not come to this subject as a tourist of disaster. I have spent three decades campaigning for the preservation of the Himalayan glacier system, including a sustained, and ultimately unsuccessful, effort to see the Siachen Glacier converted into a demilitarised peace park — a proposal grounded in a simple technical fact: Siachen is melting faster than almost any glacier on Earth, in significant part because of the sustained military presence stationed on its ice. I made the case, repeatedly, that removing that military footprint would slow a specific, measurable source of glacial loss, feeding directly into the Indus watershed that sustains hundreds of millions of people downstream. I did not succeed. The glacier continues to melt. The troops remain. I say this not as a complaint but as an honest accounting: I have given a large share of my working life to glacier preservation, and by the plainest measure — ice mass — I have not stopped the loss. That failure has not left me cynical. It has left me convinced that the scale of the response has to match the scale of the crisis, and that we have consistently chosen the smaller response. I think about this every time I look at the Maldives. It is a nation of low coral islands, its highest natural point barely more than two metres above sea level, and it is not speaking in metaphor when its own government has warned that the country could become uninhabitable, and eventually vanish beneath the waves, within this century if sea-level rise is not slowed. I do not think most people outside the region understand how literally existential that threat is. This is not a country that will lose some coastline. This is a country that could, within the lifetime of children alive today, cease to have any land at all. That is the other half of the water crisis I have spent my life watching, and it is the mirror image of the Aral. Where the Aral Sea disappeared because rivers were mismanaged and diverted without thought for the consequences, the oceans are rising because the atmosphere has absorbed decades of greenhouse gas emissions, and the ice sheets and glaciers that once held the planet’s frozen water in reserve are releasing it. Through most of the twentieth century, global sea levels rose at roughly 1.4 millimetres a year — barely perceptible within a human lifetime. Between 2006 and 2015, that rate had already accelerated to roughly 3.6 millimetres a year, and it continues to climb. A rise measured in inches sounds trivial until you understand what it does: it turns rare storm surges into routine flooding, drowns wetlands that once buffered coastal cities, backs up drainage systems and rivers, and makes what used to be called a hundred-year flood into a fixture of ordinary life. New York and Miami already experience “sunny-day flooding,” where nothing more than an unusually high tide sends seawater into city streets with no storm at all. Shanghai, Bangkok, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Dhaka — cities holding tens of millions of people and trillions of dollars of infrastructure — face the same mechanism at a scale that could displace populations larger than most countries. And the danger does not arrive gently. In July 2025, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula — among the ten strongest ever recorded — sent tsunami warnings racing across the Pacific, triggering evacuations from Russia to Japan to Hawaii to the western coast of the United States. It was, by fortune more than design, a disaster the world mostly escaped. Scientists have been explicit that higher baseline sea levels make the next such event, and the next cyclone, more destructive than the last one would have been at a lower starting point. We are not simply facing more disasters. We are facing the same disasters arriving on a stage that has been quietly raised beneath them. I do not believe these two crises — a vanished inland sea and a rising global ocean — are separate stories. I believe they are the same failure, viewed from opposite ends of the same hydrological system: a civilisation that has never learned to treat the planet’s water as a single, finite, interconnected balance, to be managed with foresight rather than reordered by short-term convenience and corrected only after

A country’s economy is the foundation of its development, sovereignty and national security. A strong economy not only improves the quality of life of its citizens but also strengthens a nation’s standing in the international community. Pakistan’s economy today stands at a critical juncture. While there are encouraging signs of stability, many structural challenges continue to hold back sustainable growth. As a result, the economy has become a central concern for citizens, businesses, investors and policymakers alike. Over the past few years, Pakistan has endured one of its most difficult economic periods. High inflation significantly reduced people’s purchasing power, while repeated increases in electricity and gas tariffs drove up production costs for industries. At the same time, the depreciation of the Pakistani rupee made imports more expensive, placing additional pressure on businesses and households. The burden fell most heavily on middle and low-income families, many of whom struggled to meet even their basic daily needs. Despite these hardships, recent economic indicators offer cautious optimism. Inflation has eased compared to previous highs, foreign exchange reserves have shown improvement, remittances have remained resilient, and efforts to increase exports are beginning to produce positive results. However, stronger macroeconomic indicators alone do not automatically translate into better living standards. Sustainable progress can only be achieved when economic growth creates employment opportunities, revitalises industries and leads to meaningful increases in household incomes. One of Pakistan’s most persistent economic challenges is the lack of policy continuity. Successive governments often replace or abandon the initiatives of their predecessors in favour of new priorities. This inconsistency weakens investor confidence and undermines long-term economic planning. Many successful economies have demonstrated that sustained growth depends on stable national policies that remain consistent regardless of political transitions. Tax reform is another area that demands urgent attention. The country’s tax base remains disproportionately small compared to its population, placing an unfair burden on compliant taxpayers while a significant portion of the economy continues to operate outside the formal tax system. Broadening the tax net, simplifying tax procedures, enhancing transparency and effectively addressing tax evasion would provide the government with greater fiscal space to invest in infrastructure, education and public services. Agriculture continues to be the backbone of Pakistan’s economy, yet the sector faces numerous challenges. Water scarcity, limited adoption of modern farming techniques, rising input costs and the growing impact of climate change have reduced agricultural productivity and increased the hardships faced by farmers. Investing in modern agricultural technologies, improving water management and providing farmers with better financial and technical support could substantially enhance production and boost agricultural exports. Pakistan’s information technology sector also presents remarkable opportunities. With a large and increasingly skilled young population, expanding freelance services and growing participation in the digital economy, the country has significant potential to earn valuable foreign exchange. Realising this potential requires greater investment in digital education, reliable internet infrastructure, research, innovation and an environment that supports entrepreneurship. The energy sector remains equally important to economic growth. High electricity and gas prices continue to increase industrial production costs, reducing the competitiveness of Pakistani products in international markets. Greater investment in renewable energy, reducing transmission losses and improving energy management could help lower costs and strengthen industrial productivity. Foreign direct investment is another key driver of sustainable economic development. Investors are naturally attracted to countries that offer political stability, transparent regulations, an efficient judicial system and a business-friendly environment. Pakistan can significantly improve its investment climate by reducing bureaucratic hurdles, strengthening institutions and implementing investor-friendly policies that encourage long-term confidence. Economic progress, however, is not solely the responsibility of governments. Citizens also have an essential role to play by paying taxes honestly, using energy responsibly, supporting local industries and respecting the rule of law. A resilient economy is built through shared responsibility between the state, businesses and the public. Pakistan is not short of resources or potential. What it needs is better governance, prudent management of available resources, policy consistency and broad national consensus on economic priorities. Continued investment in education, industry, agriculture, exports and human capital can enable the country not only to overcome its economic challenges but also to emerge as a stronger and more competitive economy in the region. The need of the hour is to place long-term economic interests above short-term political considerations. A strong economy is the cornerstone of a strong state. By making informed and consistent policy choices today, Pakistan can lay the foundations for lasting prosperity, economic resilience and a better future for generations to come.

Donald John Trump entered the White House as the 45th President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy in January 2017. As incumbent he lost the election at the end of his four-year term. He took oath of office as the 47th head of state in January 2025. As there is a two-term constitutional restriction most Presidents falter in the later years of power. It was George Washington, the founding father and the first President who set this tradition of going home after eight years at the helm. Franklin Delano Roosevelt ( FDR ) the 32nd President served from 1933 to 1945 until his death in office. He is the longest serving US President. As his rule stretched over four terms, a constitutional amendment was made to restrict the term in office to two. Since then, craziness of the final term has increased manifold as humans are fond of building their legacy to be remembered for all times to come. Richard Nixon had to resign in his second term on charges of break-in and lying. President Ronald Reagen got involved in the Iran Contra Affair that seriously dented his popularity. Jimmy Carter was a great President who never got a second term. Bill Clinton did well in his first term but then had to face impeachment because of the Monica Lewinsky affair in the second. Bush Sr had single term while Bush Jr started the Afghanistan war which proved to be disastrous. Barrick Hussain Obama promised to end wars but badly failed. In fact, the inferno spread in the entire Middle East. Joe Biden did not run for office for the second term as the first was not very glorious and he was out of steam so he nominated his Vice President for the top slot. Legacy is earned not forced. There are no short cuts to lasting glory. Craziness does not help it only complicates. Capturing and killing head of states in the 21st century indicates brutalized narrow thinking and over simplification of the long-term complexities. Such an approach may have worked in the 18th of 19th century but not anymore. Trump wanted to control oil. He first took control of Venezuela by abducting its President through palace intrigue. Most countries in the Middle East ( ME ) were already subservient. He decided to take control of Iran as was done in the decade of the fifties when Shah was reinstated through CIA action. Mohammaed Mussadiq the elected President was captured and imprisoned. The Pahlavi Dynasty ruled Iran till 1979 when it was over thrown by the Islamic Revolution led by Imam Khomeni. Since then, the country has been struggling for its sovereignty At the behest of the rogue Israeli Prime Minister Benjimin Nathenyau, Trump decided to attack Iran and kill its top leadership through clandestine on the ground information sharing and intrigue. Imam Khamenei, the successor to Imam Khomeni, was assassinated but the regime survived. Iran decided to retaliate. The US bases were the closet targets. Israel looked the other way for self-preservation leaving USA to face the wrath. The vulnerability of the oil rich states was exposed. Reality set-in. Yankees have to go home was the clear verdict. Power structure in the entire ME is gearing for change. Mecca Joint Defense Agreement ( MJDA ) has been signed by Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, others may join soon. A reasonable peace agreement can provide the much-needed face saving for Pakistan is on the forefront. The Abraham Accord to legitimize the illegitimate state of Israel has been thrown in the cold storage. After Iran, Trump also sought regime change in Afghanistan which has not happened so far. His heroics have failed to produce results. Losers are rejected by the American public. Congressional elections are scheduled for Nov. The polls are not favorable for the Republicans. If Democrats gain control of the house, Trump may have to face impeachment. It will then be the end of his political ambitions, leaving behind a legacy of ill-planned misadventures for personal glorification. Fall of the most powerful leader of the only super power of the world will certainly have ripple effects. First, it will be the totally dependent and subservient leadership in the ME followed by other friendly regimes. The countdown has started for Trump. Collateral damage has to be understood and contained. I remember the words of the legendary Cricket Captain Hafiz Kardar when Pakistan was at the verge of victory in the Oval cricket test in the decade of the fifties; ” Only rain can save England from defeat “. Pakistan prevailed, Fazal Mahmood emerged as a hero. Since then, there has been no looking back. Pakistan emerged as a major player in the cricketing world. Trump should pray for divine intervention otherwise it is all over for him and his cronies.

A rise of anti immigration policies have been emerging rapidly across North America and Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and USA. The blue collar politicians and white people living there have expressed their concerns over these often labeled “illegal” immigrants causing crime and stealing the jobs of the “rightful” citizens. If looked closely upon, this is not about illegal immigration, rather it is a form of racism against the blacks, the Indians and rather anyone who is not white.   The United Kingdom had colonized a great part of the world which included the Indian subcontinent and a vast part of Africa along with other European colonizers whom they wanted to “civilize” as for them they were a “savage” race. This colonization resulted in thousands of black and Indian families migrating to Europe, especially the upper class who ought to receive English education and work in the British government.   This seems like a normal history dilemma where colonization led to great migrations and mixing, which the Europeans have now mayhaps forgotten. All over the UK, many rallies of white people have emerged in which they protested against immigration- however they in reality spread their similar racist views. These citizens may not realize the extent to which immigrants aided in growing the economy. If kicked out, the economy will collapse and suffer tremendously.   In recent years these anti immigration policies have caused major hurdles for students all over Asia, South America and Africa who are ambitious enough to study in the ivy leagues and settle abroad- however their visas being rejected have deteriorated their ambitions otherwise. This is being seen as a great disadvantage all over the world especially for the students who are forced into putting a hold on their education.   No more than the student, this poses a great threat to the Western countries themselves. Without the hands and minds of these students who are the future workforce who help stabilize and grow the economy, the countries will often suffer. Unlike most nations, Germany is seen as offering free education to these immigrants which has definitely bore the result making Germany one of the most powerful economies despite the restrictions imposed on them (after world war II).   The other side of this argument initiates from the government of respective countries like Pakistan whom the students and workers emigrate from- their government stating that they are much needed to support their own respective economies. Nevertheless, the great amount of corruption, instability and discrimination are the reasons in the first place for workers to emigrate seeking better secure jobs abroad. It is hard to revive the patriotic heart of civilians when the governments do not work in favour of them.   “France for the French” was said by Jean-Marie Le Pen since the immigrants are apparently threatening the French identity. The same french is spoken in 20 African countries who were forcefully colonized and turned into slaves, the countries who had their own languages (hundreds of them), cultures and identities. So it often seems extremely hypocritical to hear statements such as these.   Consequently, the immigrants framed as criminals are the result of centuries old racist ideologies. They pose no threat but the threat of looking different, which is again ironically hypocritical since white race is a minority in the world. Hence, even in the ripe year of 2026 racism thrives and the rest of the world suffers. Comments like “Immigration is not an opportunity. It is a tragedy.” ( by Marine Le Pen) are made openly without facing any backlash- instead receive grave support. Mayhaps immigration can stop once the British return the koh-e-noor, jewels and trillions of dollars worth of resources stolen from the sub continent.