Opinion

What happens when the misogynistic cultural mindset of men forces them to lock the women in  their community inside four brick walls and suddenly there are no women to harass and assault on the streets? Some may assume that now they may only assault their wives, sisters and daughters inside their homes, unfortunately that is far from the truth. This in contrast induces them to prey on adolescent boys who are young enough to have a feminine innocence installed in them.   In Afghanistan and many parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, there is a horrendously horrific custom known as Bacha Bazi in which old men scout, groom and buy young boys from their families, or forcefully take the ones who are orphans on the run trying to survive. The literal meaning of Bacha Bazi translates into ‘Boy Play’ which is an illegal abuse normalized by the majority.   These underage boys possess soft features, hairless bodies and no voice. They are forced to wear clothes of women, often dresses and skirts. They are taught to dance, sing and to be painfully silent. This can be located and traced back to the poverty in these provinces where selling daughters and sons can be the only possible course of action to avoid starvation. Many documentaries have been filmed as well as the interviews of the culprits who are asked the possible reason of their disgusting misdoings to which they have only one answer – ‘it is our need’.   Another terrifying leisure activity is quite common among the truck drivers, however not much of the population possess any knowledge of it. The overwhelming majority of these drivers on the road for hours each day have an underage boy with them to use in ways not comprehensible to most. The district police, politicians and those in charge are extremely aware of this filth- yet they choose to blind themselves and no just action is ever taken. These men pollute this world with their abusive methods and turn the abused into the next abuser. It can be said that many of these rapists were in fact themselves hunted upon from a very young age.   People yearn for women rights every hour of the day- yet they somehow forget to raise their voices for these young boys who do not know what family, protection or a warm bed is. We point out the West of having billionaires who rape little children but we forget that our own country allows the same violations to be performed by ordinary low income men.   Imagine being born in this world, your mother died in childbirth and if alive is covered with bruises, your sisters were sold at the age of six so you could eat and now the money is running out and the only way to survive is for you to dance for older men in skirts so your younger siblings can go without starving. This is the reality of millions of young boys untold and unheard of.   Thousands of gatherings take place everyday where these young boys perform for their ‘owners’ no matter how tired, exhausted or embarrassed they may feel. Once they turn 18 and are no longer young enough to satisfy the technical needs of pedophiles, they are often employed with sustainable enough wages to teach the younger recruits on the tricks and methods of performing and satisfying. Hence the cycle repeats and a chain is formed.

The assault on the Khazina Banda police post in Hangu was not another entry in Pakistan’s grim terrorism ledger. Attackers first struck with explosive-laden quadcopters and then ambushed the post and its reinforcements. Al Jazeera’s initial report put the police death toll at 11, including Deputy Superintendent Diyar Khan, with 28 personnel injured; subsequent local reporting revised the fatalities to nine. Fifteen attackers were reportedly killed. No organisation immediately claimed responsibility. The disputed count does not alter the horror. Men defending the State confronted a privately financed force equipped with drones, explosives and heavy weapons. Hangu should destroy the fiction that terrorism, narcotics and illicit arms are separate problems assigned to separate departments. They form one war economy. Narcotics generate cash; illicit finance launders it; weapons protect routes; militants supply coercion; political and official patronage obstructs investigation. The system survives governments and military operations because Pakistan attacks gunmen without dismantling the business that replenishes them. This was the warning in Pakistan: From Hash to Heroin and, more systematically, in its sequel Pakistan: From Drug-trap to Debt-trap. The Afghan war did not merely push refugees across the border. It created an enduring logistics chain in which weapons travelled one way and opium, heroin and dirty money travelled the other. The jihad (holy war) against the erstwhile Soviet Union was presented as strategic necessity. Its unrecorded balance sheet included extremism, heroin, the Kalashnikov culture, protected smugglers, corrupted institutions and a drug elite wealthy enough to enter respectable business and influence politics. The term “narcoterrorism” is often used carelessly, as if every attack can be attributed to a particular consignment. That is not the proposition. The connection is systemic, not necessarily transactional in every case. Armed groups and criminal syndicates occupy the same spaces, use overlapping routes, brokers, hawala channels and protection arrangements, and profit from weak border governance. Money is fungible. Revenue from smuggling, extortion, narcotics or lawful-looking businesses can buy the same rifle, drone component or safe house. Pakistan helped manufacture this economy through choices made during the General Zia-ul-Haq era and then preserved it through denial. The State celebrated the fighters, tolerated the gun markets and allowed traffickers to convert illicit fortunes into property, commerce and political access. Periodic seizures created the appearance of enforcement, while financiers, facilitators, beneficial owners and patrons largely remained beyond reach. The poor courier was arrested; the network endured. A poppy field was destroyed; no viable crop or market was supplied to the farmer. An addict was criminalised; treatment remained scarce. The spectacle of control substituted for control. Afghanistan’s changed opium economy does not justify complacency. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that cultivation fell by 20 percent in 2025 to 10,200 hectares and production dropped by 32 percent to 296 tonnes, far below pre-ban levels. This is important, but it is not the burial of the drug economy. Stocks, established trafficking routes and accumulated capital, survive a harvest decline. UNODC also warned that synthetic drugs, particularly methamphetamine, were becoming organised crime’s new business model because production is easier to conceal and less dependent on climate. The market adapts faster than bureaucracies. The same adaptation is visible in the air above Hangu. Reuters reported in July 2025 that militants had used commercially acquired quadcopters in at least eight attacks in Bannu and adjoining areas within two and a half months. The provincial police chief acknowledged that the police had no equipment to meet the threat and that militants were better equipped. One year later, weaponised quadcopters helped open a lethal assault on a police post. This was not an unforeseeable innovation. It was an institutional warning ignored until officers paid with their lives. The immediate response followed the familiar script: condemnation, funerals, retaliatory operations and claims that the mastermind had been killed. Removing operational commanders is necessary, but body counts do not measure the destruction of a war economy. If the financier remains solvent, the trafficker keeps his route, the arms supplier retains access, the hawala operator moves the proceeds and the protector remains influential, another commander will emerge. Tactical success without financial and institutional disruption merely changes the names of the dead. Islamabad is entitled to demand that Kabul prevent Afghan territory from being used for attacks. The Taliban government’s denials cannot answer evidence of militant mobility and sanctuary. Pakistan, however, cannot outsource security or erase its history by pointing across the Durand Line. Routes, facilitators, arms stocks, laundering channels and political shields also exist inside Pakistan. A foreign-policy accusation is not a domestic counterterrorism strategy. The starting point must be a permanent national narcoterrorism and illicit-arms fusion centre, not another ornamental committee. It should bring the provincial counterterrorism departments, police, Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Customs, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) and intelligence agencies onto a common operational platform. Every major terrorist investigation should generate a parallel financial, narcotics, communications and weapons inquiry. Investigators must follow beneficial ownership through real estate, trade misinvoicing, shell companies, cash couriers, hawala networks and virtual assets, freezing and confiscating criminal proceeds through courts and due process. Weapons require the same discipline. Pakistan needs a national register of recovered arms and ammunition, forensic and ballistic databases accessible to provincial police, mandatory tracing of serial numbers and ammunition lots, and public reporting of leakages from official stocks. Border terminals and maritime routes need risk-based scanning rather than theatrical checking. Most urgently, exposed police posts require layered counter-drone protection: detection, electronic countermeasures, hardened positions, trained response teams and protected communications. Sending under-equipped policemen against weaponised drones is not bravery by policy; it is abandonment by the State. Supply-side enforcement must be joined to rural development and public health. Farmers require credible alternative livelihoods, irrigation, credit, storage and assured markets; addicts require treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, China and Central Asian states need verifiable cooperation on routes, precursor chemicals, laboratories, wanted financiers and arms flows under UN facilitation. Diplomatic declarations should be tested against shared data, inspections, arrests, convictions,

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.

The boundless and dynamic history of Seerah—the prophetic biography—bears witness to how every era’s intellectual currents, scholarly demands, and civilizational pressures have played a pivotal role in shaping the style of this sacred literary genre. In the earliest biographical periods, the primary objective was the preservation of prophetic traces and historical continuity, which later evolved during the medieval age into polemical, defensive, and theological debates. Up until the mid-twentieth century, the major goal of Seerah writing remained a reasoned defense against Western Orientalist objections alongside historical verification. However, in this fast-paced, technology-driven, and metaphysics-averse scientific age of the twenty-first century—where the prevailing trend is to test every narrative against data, logic, and objective criteria—there has been an intense, growing need to present the Seerah of the Prophet (PBUH) with an intellectual cadence that steps outside traditional rhetoric to directly appeal to the modern scientific mind and international academic paradigms. To bridge this intellectual gap, Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed—a distinguished professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and director of the Center for Advanced Computing Systems—authored a valuable English work titled The Perfect Human, Muhammad (PBUH). To bring this book into the broader Urdu sphere and facilitate access for intellectual and academic circles, Saqlain Shaukat translated it into Urdu under the title Bashar-e-Kamil: Muhammad ﷺ, an endeavor that undeniably holds a prominent and esteemed place in our intellectual world. The most distinctive quality of this book is that its author is not a traditional graduate of a religious seminary or a conventional orator, but rather a scientist accustomed to weighing every phenomenon through algorithmic precision, systematic models, and multi-level bibliographies. The undertaking of Seerah by a computer science professor with such meticulousness—weaving historical events into a fact-based narrative—bestows upon the account a rare academic and objective validity. Abandoning traditional emotional hyperbole, the author adopts a methodology of historical and documentary evidence that convinces the reader the life of the Prophet (PBUH) is not merely a scattered collection of emotional episodes, but rather the most authentic and actionable code for human evolution and global civilizational formation. The first part of the book comprises fifty-three detailed chapters, presenting a continuous historical narrative of the Prophet’s (PBUH) life. The true uniqueness of this section lies in how the author intertwines nearly fifteen hundred Quranic verses and authentic references from other heavenly scriptures into the text with such skill that the Quran itself becomes the speaker of the Seerah. In particular, the critical analysis applied to the Constitution of Medina (Mithaq-e-Madinah), the documentary treaties of the Medinan state, and other political and social conditions offers rich intellectual nourishment for students of international law, modern political science, and sociology. The second part of this scholarly masterpiece represents an entirely novel and unique chapter in the history of Seerah writing. This section encompasses comprehensive research statements based on one hundred distinct human attributes extracted from the individual, collective, and moral life of the Prophet (PBUH). Each attribute is connected to the historical and Quranic evidence of the first part in such a way that it ceases to be mere verbal advice and instead becomes a living, dynamic model of action. For today’s globalized world—which suffers from materialism, moral decline, and severe intellectual chaos—these one hundred attributes serve as a Magna Carta fully capable of restoring the fractured equilibrium of modern man. The most significant aspect distinguishing this work from traditional Seerah books is its systematic model and algorithmic framework. As an engineering professor, Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed has transitioned the study of Islamic history and the Seerah away from traditional narrative and into a structured system and source code. The one hundred attributes listed at the end of the book are essentially a reverse engineering of the Seerah, providing modern humanity, the corporate world, and academic institutions with a moral source code that any organization in the world can implement to achieve professional success—provided it is applied independently of its colonial and unjust frameworks. Furthermore, the balanced academic perspective that Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed establishes to foster interfaith harmony and intellectual tolerance acts as a robust intellectual bridge for the new generation living in the West and for non-Muslim academies. However, when this book is examined critically through the lens of objective, deep Islamic thought and history, certain fundamental contradictions become apparent in its methodology and narrative, limiting its universal utility to a degree. It is most important to clarify here that Islam is by no means opposed to science or objective research. Throughout Islamic history, illustrious Muslim scientists such as Ibn al-Haytham, al-Khwarizmi, and al-Biruni enlightened humanity precisely by integrating faith with scientific reasoning. Therefore, Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed’s methodology is not an inherent intellectual deviation; rather, its true tragedy lies in the fact that, in its scramble to satisfy the modern scientific mind, it sidelines Islam’s divine and metaphysical essence. The understanding of the prophetic Seerah in Islam is not merely a dry collection of historical events, political treaties, or social algorithms. It is built upon a spiritual equilibrium of divine revelation from heavenly sources, miracles that transcend intellect, and a profound love for the Divine—elements that cannot be entirely imprisoned within the mold of computer science source codes. When an author begins to present the Seerah as a corporate model, they inadvertently weaken the metaphysical beauty of the religion, which offers humanity deep spiritual fulfillment alongside intellectual satisfaction. The second critical observation regarding this assessment is that, in attempting to satisfy the modern scientific mind, the author occasionally reduces historical events to material causes, effectively rendering the original element of miraculous and divine succor either entirely absent or marginalized. An authentic Muslim intellectual perspective maintains that while the material causes of Islamic history hold their proper place, the operational force behind them is divine will and unseen support—the fundamental catalyst without which the entire narrative of the Seerah feels incomplete and lifeless. The book’s assertion that the Magna Carta of the Prophet’s (PBUH) attributes serves as a source code for the

Pakistan does not have a shortage of governments. It has a shortage of governance. The Constitution promises power to the people, but the money and the decisions stay in provincial capitals. A mother in Khuzdar waits for a hospital that Quetta forgot to fund. A father in Sahiwal sends his child to a school that Lahore never inspects. The distance between the citizen and the state is not measured in miles. It is measured in signatures, files, and political mood. The Constitution already knows this is wrong. Article 140A says every province must devolve power to elected local representatives. But that is all it says, a skeletal clause with no fixed tenure, no election deadline, and no guaranteed funding. It is a promise written in smoke. A single signature can dissolve a local government, elections can be postponed indefinitely, and local budgets can be reduced to zero overnight. When the rules are this fragile, governance becomes impossible. A mayor who can be fired by ordinance cannot sign a contract to build a road. A council that may not exist next year cannot hire a professional to run a hospital. A budget that arrives only if the provincial finance minister is in a good mood cannot pay for textbooks or vaccines. The fix is not complicated. Article 140A must be strengthened to include three guarantees. Every elected local government must serve a full five-year term, synchronized with the provincial assembly. It cannot be dissolved by ordinance or executive order. The only way to remove it is a two-thirds vote of the provincial assembly, a high threshold that ensures broad consensus. When tenure is secure, local leaders can plan beyond the next political season. Local elections must happen on the same day as provincial assembly polls. When you vote for your MPA, you vote for your local councilor on the same ballot. The mayor is then elected by those councilors. The only difference is that the election actually happens, on time, every five years, without delay or discretion. And a fixed percentage of provincial development funds must flow to districts through a transparent formula, population plus backwardness plus performance. The money moves automatically to the local government account. No approval required. No delay permitted. With these three guarantees in place, the district becomes what it was meant to be: the place where governance actually happens. A mayor with a real budget and real time can fix the sewer on your street because he needs your vote in five years. A council with secure tenure can hire an engineer to repair the school roof instead of waiting for a file to move through a provincial secretariat. A health budget that arrives automatically can keep a doctor at the rural clinic six days a week. This matters across thousands of union councils and hundreds of tehsil and municipal bodies that already exist under provincial local government acts, from the largest metropolitan corporations to the smallest town committees. Each one represents citizens who currently have a vote but no voice, a representative but no revenue. In districts where this works, where roads get built, schools get roofs, clinics get medicine, and the accounts are published, citizens will see something they have never seen before: a government that delivers because it is close enough to hear them and accountable enough to fear them. In districts where it fails, where the money disappears, the projects stall, and the accounts are blank, citizens will know exactly who failed, because the mayor’s name is on the ballot and the audit is on the website. This is how governance evolves in stable democracies. You empower the unit that already exists, let it prove its competence, and let the people decide what follows. If a district can educate its children, heal its sick, and pave its roads better than a distant capital can, the argument makes itself. Pakistan has spent decades concentrating power in a few hands and complaining about the results. Whether or not new provinces are created, the answer begins in the same place: with the districts that already exist. Let them prove what better governance looks like. Amend Article 140A. Give the district its money, its term, and its election. The people deserve better than promises that dissolve with a signature. They deserve a government that earns its authority by delivering results, starting where they live.

Since 1949, China has been developing a model of the Socialist Market Economy with Chinese Characteristics (SMECC). These efforts accelerated after the introduction of the 1978 reforms. President Xi’s rise to leadership of the CPC has added new dimensions and dynamics to the process of creating the SMECC model. President Xi believes that the Socialist Market Economy with Chinese Characteristics (SMECC) is an integral part of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and a Community with a Shared Future. The SMECC model promotes the market by acknowledging its role in allocating resources and driving market volatility. At the same time, the SMECC model gives due weight to the state’s role. Rather than placing the leading role on the market, it places it on the state and institutions to ensure fair markets, equal opportunities, and fair competition among market participants, so the market functions smoothly. In a nutshell, market forces drive volatility to unlock the full potential of resources and markets; the state protects people’s interests, especially those of marginalized segments of society, the state, and the private sector. However, China believes it cannot build an SMECC model without establishing mutually beneficial economic linkages with other countries. To achieve this goal, China adopted opening up as a core objective of its reforms and has pursued it with sincere dedication since 1978. President Xi refined the concept and introduced the slogan of high-quality opening up, meaning that opening up must benefit people, not only businessmen or the state. He has made high-quality opening up an integral part of the Chinese economy in the New Era. Moreover, President Xi Jinping envisioned that China must open up to play a positive and leading role on the global stage. China adopted a comprehensive policy and plan to ensure high-quality opening up. First, to strengthen opening up, China deemed it necessary to invite the global business community to invest in the Chinese market. Thus, China began engaging foreign investors by expanding the catalog of encouraged industries for foreign investment, including new areas. Over the last decade, the catalog has changed significantly. In 2017, the catalog had 987 items. Of those, 348 were national, and 639 were regional and area-specific. The list has seen a major turnaround since then, and the 2025 catalog has 1678 items. It includes 619 national-level items, and 1060 are region-specific. The major objectives of expanding the catalog are 1) to encourage investment in manufacturing and supply chains, 2) to encourage investment in the Western region, and 3) to integrate the development of services, manufacturing sectors, and investment in the untapped Northern region. In the 2025 catalog, China focuses on: 10) Development and production of nucleic acid pharmaceuticals; 2) R&D and manufacturing of zero‑magnetic medical devices; 3)Smart testing and inspection instruments; 4) High-speed cameras and precision imaging equipment; 5) Intelligent energy management systems and related monitoring devices; 6) Design and production of deep-sea robots and specialized marine equipment; 7) Key technologies for gas-fired power equipment; and 8) R&D and production of core components for industrial robots. Simultaneously, China offers incentives such as tax exemptions on imported equipment, preferential land access, and lower corporate income tax. For example, China has introduced special incentives for investment in the Western region, including a 15% corporate income tax rate if the investor meets certain criteria. The government will also offer a special tax exemption for reinvestment in the country. Industrial land will be provided on a priority basis, and the base price for land transfer has been reduced by up to 70% to support industry setup. Moreover, equipment for self-use will receive a customs duty exemption. Second, President Xi has taken many innovative steps to accelerate and deepen opening up, with the China International Import Expo (CIIE) standing out above all. CIIE is a unique initiative in human history, as no other country has ever launched an import expo. This demonstrates the Chinese leadership’s determination to foster mutually beneficial economic linkages. It counters the liberal economic philosophy, which focuses on maximizing profit without giving due regard to others’ interests. CIIE is changing this traditional concept and trying to present a mutually beneficial model for global trade. Third, the launch of island-wide independent customs operations in the Hainan Free Port is another initiative that demonstrates China’s willingness to create more opportunities for the world. It is a step ahead of previous initiatives and aligns with President Xi’s vision. President Xi believes that amid a wave of protectionism, restrictions, anti-globalization movements, trade wars, and a my-country-first mentality, China must act as a beacon of hope for global economic development and globalization. To do so, China must deepen reforms and create concrete opportunities, not just talk. Therefore, the initiative is not only facilitating trade but also providing space for the global community to explore a new world of opportunities. How? It brings global businesses to Hainan FTP, where they interact to find opportunities not only in China but also in other countries. Data show that 9,600 foreign enterprises operate in Hainan, and investors from 170 countries and regions have invested. Fourth, China is not only inviting investment but also working to bridge the global investment gap. This is another way to create linkages and further open the Chinese market and economy to build the SMECC model. Therefore, China launched the Belt and Road Initiative to create economic opportunities. China has invested almost US$ 1.5 trillion and mobilized more than US$ 3 trillion from other countries and sources. China has also enhanced trade with BRI countries. China also launched the Global Development Initiative to help the world pursue sustainable development. According to data, China has invested more than US$ 23 billion under GDI. Moreover, China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to meet countries’ investment needs and bridge the investment gap. In 2025, total investment disbursements exceeded US$ 38 billion. China is also deepening economic openness through its modernization drive. President Xi believes that to achieve modernization objectives, China must be deeply engaged with other economies worldwide. The 15th Five-Year Plan further

A rare photograph can sometimes preserve more history than an official archive. The one below brings together six extraordinary men. In the front row, from left to right, stand Zafar Iqbal Mirza—our beloved ZIM—Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, Dada Ameer Hyder and I.A. Rehman. Behind them are Major Ishaq Muhammad, remembered for the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, and Professor Amin Mughal. None sought celebrity. Together, they represent a moral and intellectual republic that Pakistan never formally acknowledged. An extraordinary assembly of Pakistan’s progressive tradition. Front row, from left: Zafar Iqbal Mirza (ZIM), Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, Dada Ameer Hyder and I.A. Rehman. Second row: Major Ishaq Muhammad and Professor Amin Mughal The photograph is remarkable not because all six belonged to a single organisation or followed an identical political line. They did not. Its power lies in the coexistence of different traditions of resistance: the revolutionary organiser, the dissident soldier, the journalist, the editor, the defender of human rights, the custodian of Punjabi language and the teacher who connected all these worlds through conversation. Amin Mughal, standing quietly in the second row, provides the key to reading the photograph. His position is almost symbolic. He does not occupy the centre, although he belonged at the centre of the intellectual relationships represented in it. He appears as he lived: present, observant and connected to everyone, without needing to establish precedence over anyone. Much has already been written after his passing in London on August 12, 2026. A chronological retelling of his life—his teaching, political activity, imprisonment, journalism and exile—cannot explain what made him exceptional. His real contribution lay in creating intellectual continuities. He connected the organised Left of Dada Ameer Hyder and Major Ishaq with the democratic journalism of ZIM and I.A. Rehman, the linguistic and cultural resistance of Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, and younger people like me who entered journalism without fully comprehending the inheritance placed before them. I worked with Amin Sahib at the weekly Viewpoint between 1979 and 1984. Its modest premises at 4-Lawrence Road, Lahore, were my real university. As recalled in “Remembering Viewpoint & its stalwarts” [Minute Mirror, March 23-24, 2026], Mazhar Ali Khan had gathered people for whom journalism was an ethical commitment rather than a route to influence, wealth or political patronage. Amin Mughal belonged naturally to that environment. He did not separate editing from teaching, political analysis from literature, or intellectual disagreement from personal affection. The men in this photograph remind us that the Left was once far more than an electoral label. Dada Ameer Hyder had travelled the world as a worker and revolutionary before most Pakistanis had encountered the language of globalisation. Beginning as a coal-boy on a ship, Dada experienced labour, empire and racial hierarchy directly. His memoirs, Chains to Lose, reveal a world stretching from Bombay and Moscow to New York, Shanghai and Buenos Aires. He organised workers across borders long before international solidarity became the vocabulary of funded conferences. I had the rare honour of meeting Dada at Viewpoint. He carried no theatrical aura of revolutionary greatness. His authority arose from struggle endured, not status claimed. Official histories largely excluded him because he challenged both colonial power and the class order that succeeded it. The state could accommodate elite leaders of independence; a worker who asked what independence had delivered to other workers remained dangerous. Major Ishaq represented another uncomfortable history. A soldier capable of thinking beyond military obedience, he was implicated in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case and repeatedly imprisoned. After Hasan Nasir’s death in custody, he pursued the matter when silence would have been safer. Major Ishaq later organised peasants and workers, treating revolution neither as romance nor slogan but as the slow construction of collective capacity. Even paralysis could not end his political work. His life contradicted the convenient division between soldier and dissident, patriot and critic. Shafqat Tanvir Mirza—STM—resisted through language. Journalist, trade unionist, historian and scholar, he understood that the marginalisation of Punjabi was not a literary accident. It reflected the estrangement of a people from their own cultural memory. STM’s  scholarship on Punjabi literature, history and the Sufi poets restored dignity to a language spoken by millions but frequently denied serious institutional space. His commitment earned imprisonment and professional hardship, but never displaced his willingness to engage in dialogue. ZIM embodied another form of courage: fidelity to professional standards when both censorship and commercialisation encouraged surrender. In my tribute to him, I recalled him as my teacher and mentor. He was a master sub-editor, stylist and conversationalist. When Mazhar Ali Khan, I.A. Rehman and Amin Mughal were arrested in 1981, ZIM helped ensure that Viewpoint appeared without interruption. His authority came from mastery of craft joined with an unshakable belief in free expression, equality and human dignity. I.A. Rehman carried those commitments into the organised defence of human rights. His life demonstrated that opposition to injustice need not produce bitterness. He spoke softly, listened patiently and remained firm. At a PIDE memorial, I recalled that he spoke the truth although it sent him to prison twice. Rehman sahib, as we all call him with respect and affection, suffered without complaint because, for him, sacrifice was the natural cost of professed principles. His advice that the struggle for human rights was “a marathon, not a sprint” remains essential in an age addicted to instant victories and equally instant despair. What, then, distinguished Amin Mughal among these giants? He was the interpreter between their worlds. From Dada and Major Ishaq came the imperative of structural change; from STM, the inseparability of culture and emancipation; from ZIM, professional integrity; from I.A. Rehman, the defence of every person’s dignity. Amin Sahib absorbed these traditions without turning any of them into dogma. Amin Mughal possessed a rare capacity to disagree without diminishing another person. His questions could dismantle a weak argument, but never the dignity of the person making it. For younger colleagues, this was an education in democratic conduct. He taught us that progressive politics without intellectual honesty becomes another orthodoxy,

The development of decentralized finance represents a material reconfiguration of financial intermediation rather than a peripheral experiment in virtual assets. DeFi enables trading, lending, borrowing, liquidity provision and asset management through blockchain based smart contracts, with continuous availability, programmable execution, global accessibility and reduced dependence on conventional intermediaries. The FATF records total value locked at USD 86.644 billion in 2026, approximately 85 percent above the 2023 level, while institutional investors, virtual asset service providers and regulated entities are increasingly committing capital to DeFi arrangements. This track suggests that DeFi will not simply compete with traditional finance, but will progressively intersect with it through tokenized assets, settlement, payments, liquidity and market infrastructure. The policy significance of that convergence lies in the need to preserve innovation without permitting functional substitutes for regulated finance to escape equivalent safeguards. Traditional finance provides legal accountability, prudential discipline, customer identification and institutional channels for enforcement, while DeFi contributes automation, composability, transparency of public ledger transactions, broader access and rapid settlement. The future architecture is therefore likely to be hybrid: regulated institutions will use decentralized infrastructure where it produces efficiency, whereas supervisors will require comparable financial integrity outcomes whenever equivalent financial functions are performed. FATF, the Financial Stability Board, IOSCO and the IMF converge on a technology neutral and function oriented conception under which substance, activity, control and risk prevail over labels or technological form. The July 2026 FATF Targeted Report is consequently best understood as an implementation instrument that updates the 2021 Guidance in light of DeFi’s expansion. Its scope is to identify emerging money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing risks, clarify when the FATF Standards apply. It also provide practical tools for identification, regulation, supervision and investigation, develop criteria for identifying controllers or persons exercising sufficient influence, and recommend measures for public and private actors. The report is expressly non-binding, but its analytical significance is substantial because it translates Recommendation 15 into a functional supervisory methodology for a market whose legal form, governance and territorial nexus are frequently indeterminate. The defining characteristics of DeFi create both utility and vulnerability. Similarly, smart contract automation removes many conventional execution functions, open source and composable architecture permit rapid replication and interaction among protocols, algorithmic market mechanisms automate liquidity, pricing and liquidation, pseudonymous liquidity provision permits participation without conventional identification, permissionless access may eliminate customer due diligence, and reliance on oracles imports external data into automated decisions. These characteristics permit rapid and complex movement of value but also allow illicit proceeds to be layered through liquidity pools, decentralized exchanges, bridges, swaps and multiple chains before supervisory or enforcement systems can react. The regulatory fragmentation, weak compliance, cyber vulnerabilities and diminishing dependence upon regulated entry and exit points further aggravate supervisory difficulty. The applicable legal framework begins with technological neutrality. The recommendation 15 applies where a natural or legal person, as a business, conducts or actively facilitates activities falling within the VASP definition. The software itself is not regulated merely because it executes a financial function, but persons exercising control or sufficient influence over a DeFi arrangement may fall within the regulatory perimeter. FATF differentiates centralized arrangements with identifiable controllers, centralized arrangements in which control exists but controllers are difficult to identify, and truly decentralized arrangements in which no person maintains control or sufficient influence. The first two categories fall within the Standards, the third falls outside direct application, although it remains subject to alternative risk mitigation through adjacent regulated actors. The principal implementation deficit is therefore institutional rather than conceptual. FATF’s 2026 survey found that only 26 of 142 responding jurisdictions had assessed DeFi risks, 132 had not identified qualifying DeFi arrangements operating in their territory, only four had implemented licensing or registration requirements, and only two had licensed or registered such arrangements. The resulting supervisory gap facilitates regulatory arbitrage and demonstrates why national authorities must integrate DeFi into national, sectoral or virtual asset risk assessments, calibrated to materiality, domestic exposure, cross border activity, governance structures and actual financial crime threats. The financial crime typologies identified by FATF demonstrate that DeFi risk is not confined to speculative misconduct. The fraudsters have used purported DeFi structures to misrepresent liquidity and divert investor assets, professional money laundering networks fragment funds across wallets and then use decentralized exchanges, bridges, mixers, swaps and chain hopping to obscure provenance, ransomware groups and hackers use DeFi immediately after compromise to convert and disperse proceeds, and proliferation financing actors have exploited governance weaknesses, oracles, bridges and limited compliance environments. The policy concern is intensified by speed: automated movement can complete layering before authorities, intermediaries or analytics providers can identify the event, establish attribution and initiate restraint. The decisive supervisory question is the identification of control or sufficient influence. FATF treats control as the practical ability to determine or materially influence key operations, service delivery or economic benefits. The relevant indicators include authority to modify or pause smart contracts, alter protocol parameters, control oracles, administer treasury assets, determine participation, appoint key actors, receive material fee flows, control governance votes, operate public interfaces, manage corporate entities, determine development priorities, control essential infrastructure, or direct branding and communications. No single indicator is conclusive. Additionally, authorities should combine public blockchain evidence, governance records, audits, service provider information, financial intelligence and investigative material, and should assess economic reality rather than formal claims of decentralization. The assessment of control must remain continuous because governance can migrate from a company or foundation to a decentralized autonomous organization without relinquishing substantive authority. The concentrated governance tokens, delegated voting blocs, special proposal rights, veto powers, administrative keys, clustered wallets and continuing receipt of protocol revenues may disclose retained control. On the contrary, a genuinely decentralized arrangement, after independent assessment, falls outside direct FATF obligations because no accountable person can be identified. That conclusion does not equate to absence of risk. The authorities should instead influence stablecoin issuers, regulated VASPs, financial institutions and controlled application interfaces, whereas encouraging digital identity, embedded customer due diligence and blockchain analytics within genuinely decentralized environments. The licensing and

By General Ghulam Mustafa (Served in different staff and command assignments, commanded a Corps, raised and commanded Army Strategic Force Command) & Engineer Arshad H Abbasi, Co-founder, Energy Excellence Centres at NUST and Engineering University Peshawar, International Transboundary Water Expert We are not screenwriters, and this is not the plot of some Hollywood picture about killer robots. We write this together as two men who came to the same conclusion from two different directions — one of us a soldier who has stood post and commanded troops, the other a mechanic and engineer who has spent his life with his hands inside machines, the kind who can tell you what’s wrong with an engine by the sound it makes before it ever fails. Between us, we have spent the last two years doing the same thing every serious military professional on earth has been doing: watching. Watching Russia and Ukraine grind through the third year of a war that has quietly buried the twentieth century. Watching the United States and Israel fight Iran through the spring and summer of 2026 in a conflict that opened with a strike on a supreme leader and closed, for now, with tankers stacked outside a blockaded Strait of Hormuz. We have not been watching for drama. We have been watching for the future, because the future is what these two wars have been showing us, in plain daylight, for anyone willing to look. In these two wars, our role has not been that of commentators cheering for one flag or another. It has been closer to that of historians standing over wreckage — the unglamorous, unsleeping work of the crash investigator rather than the war correspondent. Every video of an intercepted missile over the Gulf, every geolocated frame of a naval drone striking a Russian hull, every leaked spec sheet of a downed quadcopter over the Black Sea or a jammed loitering munition over the Iranian coast, has to be logged, timestamped, and cross-checked against the next one. That is what wreckage analysis actually is: not excitement, but discipline — recording what a piece of equipment was asked to do, and what it actually did, until the pattern becomes undeniable. Two years of that discipline, applied to two very different wars fought six thousand kilometres apart, keeps returning the same verdict. Here is what we have seen. The age of the tank column, the massed infantry advance, the fighter squadron duel, and even the aircraft carrier as the ultimate expression of national power — that age is closing. Not because these machines have become useless overnight, but because a battlefield now watched by satellites, saturated with cheap sensors, and swarmed by thousands of low-cost drones has no room left for anything large, slow, or expensive to hide in. Ukraine, a country with no serious blue-water navy, used naval drones costing a fraction of a warship to cripple roughly 40 percent of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and force the rest to retreat from Crimea’s shores. In the Iran war, American carrier strike groups sat further offshore than doctrine once assumed necessary, and the campaign’s real damage was done by long-range strike, electronic warfare, and a naval blockade — not by tank divisions crossing a border, because there was no border to cross. The lesson repeats itself in both theatres: mass a large, valuable, human-crewed asset in the open, and you have built an expensive target. The war has moved to the phone in a soldier’s hand and the joystick on a folding table a hundred kilometres from the front. That is the second thing the two of us keep coming back to, and we believe it is right: future wars will be fought on mobile phones, controlling drones and robots. A robotic aircraft or ground vehicle can turn harder, dive faster, and sit still for longer than any pilot or driver, because it carries no pulse, no fear, no fatigue, and no family waiting at home. It needs no food. It needs no rest. It bleeds nothing when it dies except budget. Robots are already taking on the jobs that used to cost human lives — clearing minefields, hauling ammunition across exposed ground, flying reconnaissance into airspace too dangerous for a manned cockpit, making split-second targeting decisions with artificial intelligence faster than any human crew ever could. Armed drones and robotic ground vehicles now engage targets without risking a single pilot or driver. And because production, not stockpiling, decides who wins a prolonged war, the country that can build the most machines the fastest — not the country with the largest inherited arsenal — will hold the advantage. That is why the truest weapon in this new age is not a missile or a jet. It is the strength of a nation’s economy: its factories, its chip supply, its ability to iterate a drone design in weeks instead of years. Nowhere is this arithmetic more urgent than on the roof of the world, along the disputed frontier between India and China. China is not merely testing drones there; it is one of the most important production engines in the world for both, and it has been pouring resources into robotic ground systems, sensors, and autonomous platforms specifically postured along the Line of Actual Control, at altitudes where a human soldier struggles simply to breathe, let alone fight. Every one of those machines can be commanded from a warm room in Beijing, thousands of kilometres from the mountain. It needs no oxygen tent, no field ration, no medical evacuation. It can occupy a ridge and simply wait there, indefinitely, with a precision no human sentry can match, and it costs Beijing nothing but electricity and silicon when it is destroyed. Against that, India fields one of the largest land armies on the planet — an active strength of roughly 1.25 million soldiers, organized into seven operational commands and fourteen corps of holding and strike formations, built on a tradition of sacrifice, discipline, and sheer human

Vietnam and Pakistan are often viewed as very different economies, yet they share several important characteristics: large populations, substantial labor forces, strategic geographic locations, sizeable domestic markets and considerable potential in agriculture, manufacturing and services. The more important difference, however, is not simply what the two countries possess, but how effectively they have leveraged those assets into production, exports, investment, foreign exchange and sustained economic growth. The contrast is increasingly visible in the numbers. In 2025, Vietnam’s economy reached approximately $514.7 billion, compared with $407.3 billion for Pakistan, despite Pakistan having more than twice Vietnam’s population. GDP per capita was about $5,066 in Vietnam against $1,596 in Pakistan, while economic growth was 8.0 percent compared with 3.7 percent. Vietnam also attracted FDI equivalent to 4.2 percent of GDP, compared with only 0.5 percent in Pakistan. These figures do not mean that the two countries started from identical circumstances. They do, however, demonstrate the consequences of different approaches to leveraging economic potential.   Vietnam’s transformation began with the Doi Moi reforms in 1986, which gradually moved the economy towards market oriented production and greater integration with international markets. Over the following decades, Vietnam built a growth model around manufacturing, exports, foreign direct investment, infrastructure and participation in global value chains. Trade became one of their principal engine of growth. The scale of this transformation is striking. Vietnam’s merchandise exports reached about $475 billion in 2025, while imports were around $455 billion, producing a trade surplus of approximately $20 billion. Total merchandise trade was therefore close to $930 billion, almost twice the country’s GDP. Manufacturing accounted for nearly 89 percent of exports. This demonstrates the power of economic leverage: labour, infrastructure, foreign investment and imported technology have been combined to produce goods for global markets and generate foreign exchange. The access to US provides a particularly revealing comparison. Vietnam exported approximately $153 billion of goods to the U.S. market in 2025. China, meanwhile, remained its largest source of imports. This reflects Vietnam’s position within regional production networks, where it imports machinery, components and intermediate goods and transforms them into products for export. Vietnam’s experience shows that imports are not necessarily a weakness when they support productive investment and future export capacity. Pakistan’s trade structure remains considerably different. According to the State Bank of Pakistan, goods exports were $32.3 billion in FY2025, while goods imports reached $59.1 billion, resulting in a merchandise trade deficit of $26.8 billion. Services exports were $8.4 billion, including ICT exports of $3.8 billion. The difference becomes even more significant when viewed through the balance of payments. Pakistan recorded a current account surplus of $2.1 billion in FY2025, but workers’ remittances contributed $38.3 billion to the external account. The goods and services trade balance remained in deficit by approximately $29.4 billion. This highlights a fundamental difference between the two economies. Pakistan has been able to stabilize its external account partly through remittances, whereas Vietnam has built a much larger export generating productive base. Remittances are vital for Pakistan, but they cannot substitute for an economy capable of generating foreign exchange through competitive production and exports. The U.S. market further illustrates the gap. The United States is Pakistan’s largest export destination, yet Pakistan’s goods exports to the U.S. are only a small fraction of Vietnam’s. The opportunity therefore exists, but Pakistan has not yet developed the scale, diversification and industrial capacity required to capture a much larger share of the market. The lesson is not simply to increase exports to the United States, but to develop the productive ecosystem that makes sustained export growth possible. Vietnam’s experience also contains an important warning. Its impressive export performance has been driven heavily by foreign invested companies. This has helped Vietnam integrate into global value chains, but it has also created concerns about domestic value addition and linkages between multinational corporations and local firms. The lesson for Pakistan is clear: attracting FDI should not be the final objective. FDI should contribute to technology transfer, supplier development, skills, local procurement and domestic value addition. Pakistan therefore needs to rethink the relationship between imports, investment and exports. Restricting imports may temporarily reduce pressure on the balance of payments, but it does not create competitiveness. Machinery, technology, industrial equipment and productive intermediate goods can expand future production and exports. The objective should be to reduce consumption driven imports while facilitating investment driven imports that strengthen domestic productive capacity. Pakistan’s strategic location linking South Asia with China, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East offers major economic opportunities, but infrastructure alone cannot deliver transformation. CPEC, Gwadar, economic corridors, industrial zones and digital connectivity must be linked with productive clusters, reliable energy, logistics, skills and international markets. Pakistan should leverage its existing strengths by moving agriculture towards processing and higher value exports, textiles towards design and technical products, minerals towards processing and value addition, and IT, engineering, pharmaceuticals, tourism and business services towards stronger export performance. Pakistan also needs to make exports a central objective of economic policy. Balance of payments stability cannot depend indefinitely on remittances, external borrowing and periodic financial assistance. FDI policy should focus on quality rather than simply quantity, with incentives linked to technology transfer, local supplier development, skills, domestic value addition and exports. Special economic zones should be developed around clearly identified industries and markets, supported by reliable infrastructure and efficient regulation. CPEC, ports, industrial zones, roads and digital infrastructure should function as integrated production and trade systems rather than isolated projects. Public private partnerships can help mobilize investment where projects are economically and financially viable. The central lesson from Vietnam is that economic success depends on leveraging existing advantages through strong institutions, policy continuity and effective coordination. Pakistan has a large market, substantial workforce, strategic geography, natural resources and access to major markets. The priority should be to convert these assets into productivity, exports, investment and sustainable foreign exchange earnings. Pakistan must turn geography into connectivity, population into productive human capital, resources into value added exports, infrastructure into industrial capacity