Act now to stop medicine price hikes

Rising oil prices are becoming a global emergency, and the blame lies squarely on the actions of the United States, Israel, and their Gulf allies for initiating this ugly war. Crude oil prices are rising fast, and ordinary people everywhere will pay the price. This week, global oil benchmarks jumped to their highest levels in nearly two months. Some cargoes are now trading close to one hundred ten dollars a barrel. Dated Brent, the price used for most of the world’s oil, touched one hundred five dollars and seventy cents on Thursday. This is not a small change. When oil becomes expensive, everything else becomes expensive too. Transport costs rise. Food prices rise. Electricity bills rise. Factories pay more to run machines. Poor countries suffer the most because they cannot absorb these shocks. Rich countries feel the pain too, but developing nations face hunger, inflation, and unemployment on a much larger scale. The real question people should ask is simple. Why is this happening now. The answer points directly at the ongoing confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran. Tensions between these sides have pushed the region toward war. Gulf partners aligned with Washington have allowed this dangerous situation to continue instead of pushing for peace. Their silence and their support for aggressive policies have made the crisis worse. The world cannot afford this. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the most important routes for oil shipments. Roughly one fifth of the world’s oil passes through this narrow waterway. Threats to this route create fear across markets, and fear pushes prices higher even before real disruption happens. Kazakhstan’s export terminal on the Black Sea was also hit by drone attacks, cutting the country’s oil output nearly in half. This shows how connected today’s conflicts have become. War in one region shakes markets everywhere. The solution is not complicated. The fighting must stop. The Strait of Hormuz must remain open and safe for all shipping. Iran has suffered heavy losses from sanctions and military pressure, and fair compensation should be part of any lasting settlement. World leaders often speak about protecting the global economy. Now is the time to prove it. The United States, Israel, and their Gulf partners hold real power to de-escalate this crisis. They must choose diplomacy over confrontation, before ordinary families across the world are forced to pay for a war they did not start.

Rivers across the country are rising fast. Heavy monsoon rain, combined with water released from Indian dams upstream, has pushed combined river flows to 454,000 cusecs. The Indus is swelling at Tarbela, Kalabagh and Chashma. The Chenab is already at medium flood level at its main headworks. Officials warn that high flooding may hit the Chenab within hours, and the Jhelum is also expected to rise. Melting glaciers in the north, driven by unusually high temperatures in Skardu, add another layer of danger. The human cost is already visible. At least six people have died in Khyber district and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, including a mother and her two children buried under a landslide in Kotli. In Landi Kotal, floodwaters swept away vehicles and killed three people. Across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, at least 12 people have died and 14 have been injured in the last 24 hours alone, five of them children. These numbers should alarm the nation, but they should not surprise it. Pakistan faces this same tragedy almost every monsoon season. Rivers swell, hillsides collapse, and families in low-lying villages pay the price. The problem is not only the rain. It is the gap between the warnings issued by the Flood Forecasting Division and the action taken on the ground before disaster strikes. Pre-flood safety measures save more lives than any rescue operation after the fact. Families living near rivers and in flood-prone valleys must be relocated before water levels reach danger marks, not after. Local administrations should identify vulnerable settlements in advance and prepare clear evacuation routes. Simple steps such as keeping emergency contact numbers visible in villages, stocking basic supplies, and avoiding travel through known landslide zones during heavy rain can prevent needless deaths. Public awareness campaigns deserve far more attention than they currently receive. Many rural families do not know how to interpret a flood warning or what to do when one is issued. Radio, mobile alerts and community announcements in local languages can close this gap quickly and cheaply. Authorities should not wait for rivers to reach danger levels before informing residents. Warnings must go out the moment forecasts show risk, giving people time to move to safety. The government has shown it can respond once a disaster hits, with rescue teams and heavy machinery deployed to clear roads and relocate residents. But response is not prevention. Pakistan must invest in early warning systems, train local volunteers, and build a culture where communities know exactly what to do before the water arrives.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has launched Vision Pakistan 2047, a long-term plan to boost jobs, education, technology and growth for young Pakistanis. On paper, the plan looks promising. It talks about giving women a bigger share in jobs, helping startups grow, building new schools, sending students abroad for training, and handing out laptops to deserving students. These are all good ideas that any nation would welcome. But here lies the real problem. Pakistan has never struggled to write good plans. Our history is full of grand visions, five-year plans, and national frameworks that were launched with big promises and bigger ceremonies. Vision 2025, Vision 2030, and several other such documents came before this one. Where are they now? Most were quietly shelved and replaced by the next government’s own vision, often with a new name and the same old promises. This is the real dilemma facing Vision Pakistan 2047. A plan is only as good as the system that carries it forward. Pakistan’s problem has never been a shortage of ideas. It has been a shortage of follow-through. Policies get written, launched, and celebrated, but rarely do they survive a change in government or bureaucracy long enough to show results. Even more troubling is who ends up designing these plans. Often, the same officials and institutions responsible for the failure of earlier visions are handed the task of drafting the next one. If the people who could not deliver Vision 2025 are now writing Vision 2047, what guarantee do citizens have that this one will be different? Reserving 35 per cent jobs for women and 10 per cent funding for startups sounds encouraging. Expanding Danish Schools and distributing laptops are steps in the right direction. But none of this matters unless there is honest accountability, consistent funding, and political will that outlasts one government’s term. Pakistan does not need another beautifully worded vision document. It needs a system that actually delivers on what it promises. Only then will 2047 look different from 1947.

The government has decided to open all border crossings and transit routes with Afghanistan. This decision came after a meeting led by Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi. Senior officials and business leaders attended the meeting. They discussed ways to remove obstacles in bilateral trade. This is a wise and welcome step. Trade between neighbours brings benefits to both sides. Pakistani and Afghan traders have suffered due to closed borders. Goods get stuck. Businesses lose money. Ordinary families bear the cost. Reopening these routes will help traders move goods with ease. It will also support economic activity on both sides of the border. The meeting also focused on legal travel between the two countries. Citizens should be able to cross borders through proper channels. Legal procedures must remain in place. This keeps movement safe and orderly. It also protects both nations from misuse of open borders. Pakistan has shown patience and goodwill in this decision. Afghanistan must now respond as a good neighbour. Trade brings prosperity. It creates jobs. It builds markets. It gives ordinary Afghans a better life. Afghanistan can gain much more through honest trade than through any other path. Sadly, some elements continue to use Afghan soil to plan violence against Pakistan. This must stop. Harbouring terrorists brings only destruction. It hurts Afghanistan’s own image in the world. It scares away investors. It keeps the region trapped in conflict instead of growth. Afghanistan holds a choice between two futures. One path leads to markets, jobs and shared prosperity. The other leads to isolation and more suffering for its own people. The fresh step by the government also has a message for those who still carry arms. Violence has brought nothing but loss to this region for decades. Homes are destroyed. Children grow up without safety. Futures are cut short. There is still time to choose peace. Laying down arms and returning to normal life is a far better path than continued bloodshed. Reopening the border is a chance for both nations. Pakistan has extended its hand. Afghanistan must now choose trade and peace over hostility and terror.

Pakistan and China marked the 99th founding anniversary of China’s People’s Liberation Army at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir praised the Chinese military and called the friendship between the two nations a bond built on trust. Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong thanked Pakistan for hosting the event and promised continued support under the All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership. The words on both sides were warm, and the friendship is real. It has lasted through decades of change. But warmth alone does not build an economy. Pakistan needs more than ceremonies and speeches. It needs results. China has shown the world what discipline and planning can achieve. In a few decades, it moved millions of people out of poverty. It built factories, highways, ports and technology companies that now compete with the best in the world. Pakistan should study this record closely and ask what lessons apply at home. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was meant to be a turning point. It has delivered roads and power plants, but progress on trade, industry and jobs has been slow. Pakistan’s leaders talk often about brotherhood with China. They talk far less about learning from China’s work ethic, its focus on exports, and its long-term planning. Friendship between nations should serve the people of both countries. For Pakistan, that means turning diplomatic goodwill into factories that run, exports that grow, and jobs that last. It means learning how China trains its workers, manages its cities, and plans decades ahead instead of just one budget cycle. Pakistan and China have a friendship worth celebrating. But the next chapter of this relationship must move beyond guards of honour and official statements. It must bring real economic change to ordinary Pakistanis.

The Punjab Revenue Authority has taken a step that deserves praise. It has banned handwritten and manual receipts for hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and marriage halls. These businesses must now use the Electronic Invoice Management System, known as EIMS, to issue receipts. This is a small change on paper, but it can bring a big shift in how Punjab collects tax. For years, many businesses in Punjab have used handwritten slips or given no receipt at all. This made it easy to hide real sales. A shop could tell the tax authority one number and keep the true earnings elsewhere. Customers rarely questioned this, since a handwritten slip looked normal. This habit cost the province huge amounts of tax revenue every year. The new rule closes this gap. Every sale through EIMS gets recorded electronically. This makes it much harder for a business to underreport what it earns. The PRA has also set firm penalties. Businesses that ignore the rule can face fines between four hundred thousand and one million rupees. Repeat offenders risk having their premises sealed for up to a month. These penalties send a clear message that documentation is no longer optional. This move fits into a wider global pattern. Countries that have moved to digital invoicing have generally seen tax collection improve. Pakistan has struggled for decades with a low tax to GDP ratio, and informal cash transactions are one major reason. Punjab’s decision to enforce digital receipts is a practical, low cost way to fix part of this problem. However, this step should be the beginning, not the end. Digital receipts alone do not close every loophole. A business can still issue a proper digital receipt while asking the customer to pay in cash outside the system. The real solution is to make digital payments themselves mandatory alongside digital receipts. If customers are required to pay through cards, mobile wallets or bank transfers, then every transaction leaves a financial trail that is far harder to manipulate. This is simply how modern economies function. From small cafes to large retail chains, digital payments have become the norm across much of the world. Pakistan is lagging behind, and Punjab has an opportunity to lead the way. Encouraging or eventually requiring digital transactions would also benefit ordinary consumers, who would gain better protection through verified records of what they paid and for what. The Punjab government has taken a sensible first step. The next step should be mandatory digital transactions, not just mandatory digital receipts.