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Green plants have now made their way to the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Jessica Meir who is commanding Expedition 75 aboard the International Space Station has shared pictures of the plants on social media platform X. Jessica Meir said that the Expedition 75 crew has welcomed some new members and they are none other than Russian plants. She explained that the plants include Red Russian kale and wasabi mustard. The crew members are taking care of the plants during their free time. The astronaut explained that the purpose of the experiment is to understand how plants grow in the open cabin environment of the International Space Station compared with their natural environment. The research also aims to examine how storing seeds in orbit affects their viability or ability to successfully grow. Jessica Meir added that having plants aboard the spacecraft feels like a form of “nature therapy.”

New research suggests that some memories that seem to be forgotten may not completely disappear from the brain.  Instead they may remain stored in a quiet state and can sometimes return when a person receives the right reminder or is placed in a familiar environment. Scientists studied fruit flies and found that memories could become active again when the flies were placed in an environment similar to the one where the memory was first formed. This suggests that some memories may not be erased with time. They may simply become harder for the brain to access. Human memory is a very complex system. Some memories become weaker over time while others may suddenly return after seeing a familiar place, smelling a certain scent or noticing another related signal. However researchers still do not fully understand why the brain sometimes creates false memories along with real ones.  Understanding how the brain brings back true memories and creates inaccurate ones remains an important question for scientists. The findings could  help researchers better understand how memories are stored in the brain and how different surroundings or reminders can help bring forgotten memories back.

By Areeba Younis The first rays of sunlight spread across the campus of Yanshan University as students quietly begin another day. Some walk purposefully toward classrooms with books in hand, while others pause beneath tree-lined pathways to enjoy the calm before lectures begin. In the distance, the modern skyline of Qinhuangdao reflects the morning light, while the quiet rhythm of campus life unfolds with remarkable order. For an international student, these seemingly ordinary moments reveal something extraordinary: a place where centuries of cultural heritage and the ambitions of a modern nation exist in harmony. When I first arrived in China from Pakistan, I expected to encounter advanced technology, modern cities, and world-class universities. Those expectations were quickly fulfilled. What I did not anticipate was how naturally tradition and innovation would coexist in everyday life. At Yanshan University, I discovered that China’s progress is not defined by replacing its past but by building upon it. Every day offers new evidence that preserving cultural identity and embracing innovation are not opposing goals—they are complementary forces shaping the country’s future. Walking across campus, I often see students reading beneath ancient-style pavilions before entering laboratories equipped with cutting-edge technology. Traditional Chinese architecture blends seamlessly with modern academic buildings, creating an environment that respects history while encouraging discovery. This balance extends beyond the university itself. Whether observing cultural festivals enthusiastically celebrated by both Chinese and international students or attending lectures on artificial intelligence, engineering, and sustainable development, I have witnessed how the values of the past continue to guide the innovations of tomorrow. The experience extends beyond the classroom. Nearby streets reflect the same remarkable balance. Local restaurants continue to prepare recipes passed down through generations, while customers pay using digital platforms within seconds. Morning markets preserve customs that have connected communities for decades, yet efficient transportation systems, smart city infrastructure, and digital services demonstrate how technological advancement has become part of everyday life. Rather than replacing tradition, innovation appears to strengthen it by making daily life more connected, accessible, and efficient. Yanshan University itself represents this philosophy. Its reputation for excellence in engineering and scientific research reflects China’s commitment to technological advancement, yet the university also places great importance on cultural exchange, community, and mutual respect. As international students, we are encouraged not only to pursue academic success but also to understand Chinese culture through festivals, volunteer activities, language learning, and interactions with local communities. These experiences transform education into something far greater than earning a degree—they become lessons in understanding different perspectives and appreciating shared human values. Living in Qinhuangdao has further deepened this understanding. The city’s coastal beauty, green parks, and historic landmarks exist alongside expanding infrastructure, modern industries, and sustainable urban development. The coexistence of natural landscapes and economic progress reflects a broader vision of development that values both environmental stewardship and long-term prosperity. As someone studying economics and business, I find this balance particularly meaningful because it demonstrates that development can be measured not only by growth but also by the quality of life it creates. Perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned is that China’s future is being built without losing sight of its cultural foundations. Respect for education, family, community, and tradition continues to shape daily life even as technology transforms industries and society. This combination has challenged many of my previous assumptions about modernization. Rather than viewing tradition and innovation as competing forces, I have come to see them as partners in creating resilient and sustainable progress. As the evening lights illuminate the campus and students gather to discuss assignments, share meals, or simply enjoy a walk with friends, Yanshan University becomes more than a place of higher learning. It becomes a meeting point where cultures, ideas, and aspirations come together. Every conversation, every shared experience, and every lesson contributes to a broader understanding that education is not confined to classrooms—it is found in the relationships we build and the perspectives we gain. For me, studying at Yanshan University has been more than an academic journey. It has been an opportunity to witness how a nation can confidently embrace the future while honoring its past. In an increasingly interconnected world, this balance offers an important lesson: true progress is achieved not by abandoning tradition, but by allowing it to inspire innovation. Here, where tradition meets tomorrow, I have found not only a university but also a deeper appreciation of China’s enduring spirit and its vision for the future.

The introduction of FRAMES marks an important milestone in Sindh’s journey towards digital governance. Rather than relying on conventional attendance registers that have long served as the primary means of recording staff attendance, the School Education & Literacy Department (SE&LD) has embraced facial recognition technology to create a more transparent, secure and efficient monitoring system. The initiative reflects a broader vision of leveraging technology to improve governance, enhance institutional performance and ultimately create a better learning environment for students. For decades, education departments across Pakistan have struggled with administrative challenges that extend beyond teaching and learning. Manual attendance systems, paper-based reporting, delayed verification processes and fragmented administrative records have often limited the ability of education authorities to monitor schools effectively. In a province with thousands of public schools and a large teaching workforce, ensuring regular attendance and maintaining accurate records through traditional methods has remained a formidable challenge. Recognising these issues, the Government of Sindh has sought to replace outdated administrative practices with a technology-driven solution. FRAMES enables teaching and non-teaching staff to verify their attendance using facial recognition technology. Once authenticated, attendance records are securely captured and transmitted to a central monitoring platform, allowing authorised education officials to access real-time information regarding staff attendance across schools. Unlike conventional attendance registers that require manual compilation and verification, FRAMES introduces automation into one of the most fundamental administrative functions within the education sector. The result is not merely a change in attendance recording but a transformation in how educational institutions are monitored and managed. One of the distinguishing features of FRAMES is its ability to function both online and offline. This capability addresses one of the most practical challenges facing digital governance in developing regions. Internet connectivity remains inconsistent in several rural and remote areas of Sindh, making continuous online operation difficult for many schools. Recognising this reality, FRAMES has been designed using an offline-first architecture. Even when internet connectivity is unavailable, teachers and school staff can authenticate their attendance through facial recognition. The application securely stores attendance records on the device and automatically synchronises the data with the central server as soon as internet connectivity is restored. This intelligent synchronisation mechanism ensures that schools continue to operate without disruption while maintaining the integrity and reliability of attendance records. By eliminating dependence on uninterrupted internet access, FRAMES becomes a practical solution for schools across diverse geographical regions of the province. The importance of this feature cannot be overstated. Many digital initiatives fail because they assume ideal technological conditions that do not always exist in the field. By accommodating connectivity limitations, FRAMES demonstrates a realistic understanding of the operational environment within Sindh’s public education system. Beyond attendance verification, FRAMES represents a broader shift towards data-driven governance. Modern public administration increasingly depends on accurate, timely and reliable data to formulate effective policies. Every authenticated attendance record contributes to a growing repository of administrative information that can assist education managers in analysing attendance trends, identifying operational challenges and making informed policy decisions. Real-time monitoring significantly enhances administrative responsiveness. Instead of waiting for monthly reports or manual inspections, district and provincial authorities can obtain immediate insights into attendance patterns. Persistent absenteeism, staffing shortages or unusual attendance trends can be identified promptly, enabling faster interventions and more efficient resource allocation. The implementation of FRAMES also strengthens institutional accountability. Public institutions derive credibility from transparency, consistency and fairness. Digital attendance verification substantially reduces opportunities for manipulation associated with manual record keeping while creating an auditable electronic record of attendance. Such transparency not only improves administrative efficiency but also reinforces public confidence in government institutions. Across the world, education systems are increasingly adopting digital governance solutions to improve institutional performance. Countries in Asia, Europe and Africa have introduced biometric attendance systems, electronic education management platforms and digital monitoring tools to strengthen accountability within public education. International organisations, including UNESCO and the World Bank, have repeatedly emphasised that effective education governance depends upon reliable information systems capable of supporting evidence-based policymaking. Sindh’s adoption of FRAMES therefore aligns with broader international trends in educational management. While technology alone cannot resolve every challenge confronting the education sector, it provides administrators with the tools necessary to monitor institutional performance more effectively and allocate resources more strategically. The implementation of FRAMES also complements the Sindh Government’s wider digital transformation agenda within the School Education & Literacy Department. In recent years, the department has introduced several technology-based initiatives aimed at improving governance, financial transparency, administrative efficiency and public service delivery. Collectively, these reforms signal a transition from conventional bureaucratic practices towards modern digital administration. However, technological innovation alone is not sufficient to guarantee institutional success. The effectiveness of FRAMES will depend upon careful implementation, continuous evaluation and sustained capacity building. Teachers, head teachers and district administrators must receive comprehensive training to ensure that the system is used correctly and consistently. Technical support mechanisms must remain readily available to resolve operational issues quickly and minimise disruptions. Equally important is the need to strengthen digital infrastructure. Reliable electricity, functional devices and stable internet connectivity remain essential components of successful digital governance. Although the application’s offline functionality addresses connectivity constraints, long-term sustainability will require continued investment in technological infrastructure across public schools. Another important consideration relates to data privacy and cybersecurity. Because FRAMES utilises facial recognition technology, the protection of biometric information must remain a top priority. Clear policies governing data collection, storage, encryption and authorised access will be essential to maintaining public trust. International experience demonstrates that digital governance initiatives are most successful when supported by robust legal safeguards and transparent data protection frameworks. Some observers have expressed concerns regarding the growing use of artificial intelligence and biometric technologies within public institutions. These concerns deserve thoughtful consideration. Technology should always serve the interests of citizens rather than replace human judgement. Accordingly, FRAMES should be viewed as an administrative support system that strengthens institutional accountability without diminishing the role of educational leadership or professional responsibility. Indeed, educational quality ultimately depends upon far more than attendance alone.

By Syed Tahir Rashdi  The writer is a Shahdadpur-based contributing columnist, book reviewer, and climate change activist. He holds a BS degree in Pakistan Studies from University of Sindh Pakistan’s debate over new provinces has returned with familiar demands: South Punjab, Bahawalpur, Hazara, Karachi and, periodically, proposals for a more extensive reorganisation of the federation. There are credible arguments behind some of these demands. Population growth, administrative distance, uneven development and the persistence of regional identities have altered the circumstances in which Pakistan’s present provincial arrangement was conceived. Yet the debate tends to proceed from an assumption that deserves greater scrutiny: that creating smaller provinces will, in itself, improve governance. It may. But it may also not. The distinction is important because Pakistan’s principal difficulty has never been simply the size of its administrative units. It has been the weakness, discontinuity and politicisation of the institutions through which those units are governed. This does not make the case for new provinces illegitimate. It does, however, suggest that provincial restructuring should be considered as one component of administrative reform rather than as a substitute for it. Pakistan’s provincial boundaries have never been immutable. The One Unit scheme of 1955 consolidated the western wing into a single province, partly to establish parity between the two wings of the country. It was abolished in 1970, restoring the provinces. The episode remains relevant because it demonstrated the limits of administrative engineering. A territorial arrangement can be imposed constitutionally, but its durability ultimately depends upon political legitimacy. The present debate is considerably more complex. The demand for a South Punjab province contains at least three distinct strands: the historical claim associated with Bahawalpur, the linguistic and cultural politics of Saraiki identity, and the administrative argument that the southern districts have remained distant from the provincial centre in Lahore. There is also the persistent claim of regional economic neglect. These strands should not be conflated. Similarly, the Hazara demand has a strong identity component, while the Karachi question is inseparable from the city’s unusual demographic, economic and political history and the longstanding contest over authority between urban local institutions and the provincial government. The differences matter because different problems require different institutional responses. The Constitution does not make the creation of a new province a matter of political declaration. Article 239 provides a demanding procedure for constitutional amendment, including the approval of the concerned provincial assembly where provincial boundaries are affected. That requirement is not an accidental obstacle. It reflects the logic of federalism: a federation cannot permit the territorial boundaries of one constituent unit to be altered without giving that unit a decisive constitutional voice. The experience of the parliamentary commission on new provinces in 2012 illustrated the complexity of the exercise. Questions of boundaries, resources, representation, administrative structures and constitutional amendments quickly became inseparable from the political question of who would gain or lose influence. That is why the debate deserves to be insulated, as far as possible, from electoral expediency. There is, however, a more fundamental issue that receives considerably less attention. Article 140-A of the Constitution requires provincial governments to establish local government systems and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to elected local representatives. This provision goes to the heart of the governance question. A citizen’s encounter with government is rarely with the federal government or even with a provincial assembly. It is with the school, hospital, police station, municipal authority, land office, sanitation service or local administration. Yet local governments in Pakistan have rarely acquired the institutional continuity, fiscal autonomy and political authority envisaged by the Constitution. The result is an unusual form of devolution. The 18th Amendment substantially strengthened the provinces by transferring functions and resources from the federation, but the transfer of authority has often stopped at the provincial level. Islamabad became less dominant. The provinces became stronger. The citizen did not necessarily become more powerful. This is perhaps the most important issue in the new-provinces debate. If a region is suffering because decisions are too distant from its population, the first question should be whether existing institutions can be decentralised before an entirely new tier of government is created. Comparative experience does not provide a universal answer, but it does offer useful cautions. Indonesia’s post-Suharto decentralisation transferred extensive responsibilities to subnational governments. The reform was necessary after decades of centralised rule, but decentralisation itself did not guarantee effective or accountable government. Subsequent reforms had to focus on institutional capacity, fiscal management and local accountability. Nigeria provides another caution. The creation of additional states was partly intended to improve political representation and accommodate regional interests. Yet the country continues to face substantial governance and institutional-capacity problems across its states. The lesson from both cases is not that administrative restructuring is futile. It is that territorial fragmentation and institutional development are different processes. South Africa offers a somewhat different model. Its Constitution explicitly recognises local government as a sphere of government and assigns municipalities constitutional responsibilities relating to democratic participation and service delivery. The significance lies less in the number of provinces than in the distribution of authority among the different levels of government. Switzerland’s federal tradition similarly rests on substantial cantonal and communal autonomy. Its relevance to Pakistan is not institutional imitation but a principle: government functions should be located at the level at which they can be performed most effectively, while higher levels retain responsibilities that require wider coordination. There is therefore no universally correct number of provinces. The appropriate administrative scale depends upon geography, population, fiscal capacity, the nature of the public service and, above all, institutional competence. Pakistan’s governance difficulties are familiar enough to require little elaboration: weak rule of law, politicisation of public institutions, patronage, corruption, uneven accountability, administrative discontinuity and the recurrent weakening of local government. None of these problems disappears when a provincial boundary is moved. A new province may shorten the administrative distance between a region and its provincial capital. It does not automatically make the police independent,

By Amar Qawi If, someday, the entire sky were covered in darkness—without a moon, without stars, without even the faintest sparkle—would a lover whose heart glows like moonlight still be able to live beneath such a sky? That day, I sat on the rooftop of my house searching for the moon. But fate had something else in store. Instead of appearing in the heavens, the moon descended into the street below to grant me a glimpse after twenty-one long days. I did not dwell much on that radiance because something similar had happened to me earlier, on the fifteenth of July. Therefore, I took it as nothing more than an unfulfilled dream rather than believing that the moon belonged to me. In truth, even considering someone as one’s possession is itself a form of poverty. Since childhood, society has taught us that air, fire, and water are the necessities of life. Yet I feel sorry for those teachers who remain unaware of a deeper truth: human beings do not survive by air, fire, and water alone. Love, inspiration, and moonlight are equally essential for the soul to remain alive. A person may survive in this highly technical age amidst bombs and weapons, but without the sight of the beloved, the soul can never truly live. Just as air, fire, and water are essential to human existence, so too is the vision of the beloved. The truth is, I was not sitting on the rooftop in search of the moon in the sky. I was waiting for that moon from whom my moonbird-like heart had been separated for what felt like centuries. And yet, even when I found that moon, it was only within my dreams. Twenty-one days after the fifteenth of July, as I walked through that familiar street, she passed by me just as a shadow silently slips along a wall in the darkness. She is my shadow, and I am her reflection. She is my reflection, and I am her moonbird. She is the full moon to me. Whenever she shines like the full moon, my heart, like a restless chakor bird, longs to fly toward her and kiss her beauty. But alas, those delicate butterfly-like wings eventually grow weary from endless flights inspired by love. When I saw her in that street after twenty-one days, the fallen Taj Mahal of my imagination began to rebuild itself. The shy poet hidden within me blossomed with the spirit of Sheikh Ayaz’s immortal lines: “O moon! Who has stolen your sleep? Surely the chakor birds have enchanted you.” Just as Sheikh Ayaz expressed, something similar happened to me. When I first met her, I had no intention of falling in love. Yet I vividly remember that when we parted, dryness had settled upon our lips while tears embraced our eyes. It was as though the Urdu poet had written about our separation: “When we parted, my poem remained within her eyes— A poem that had never yet been recited to anyone.” When she passed beside me after twenty-one days, my eyes swore by the little golden nose ornament she wore and silently recalled the beautiful verse of Shah Abdul Latif: “Who says, my beloved, that you should walk gently? Place your feet upon my eyelashes without hesitation. Leave behind all fear of causing pain, For your passage itself is my greatest joy.” When even her tongue could not gather the courage to speak to me, my own eyes, too, denied themselves the permission of truly beholding her after those twenty-one days. Love is not dependent upon union; it longs for the meeting of souls. Therefore, for a lover like me, a glimpse after twenty-one days carries no real meaning if the beloved merely passes by like a silent shadow in the darkness. In the end, I wish to encourage the young people of our society who lose their dreams and their future while chasing someone who does not value their love. As an Urdu poet beautifully said: “If you have changed, then so be it. If not you, then someone else. And if not someone else, then another.” Thus, that glimpse after twenty-one days holds no value for me if it is wrapped in deception, falsehood, and unfaithfulness. To me, that meeting means nothing if pride and arrogance overshadow love. She merely appeared in the street and passed by like a shadow. Yet even today, I continue to wait for her, because my heart still loves that moon-like beloved with the devotion of a chakor bird. Even after twenty-one days, she remains steadfast in her pride. Still, the beloved’s pride is a matter of honor for the lover, for the beloved herself is both the lover’s pride and the most precious treasure he possesses. He can be reached at alikareemshaikh123@gmail.com