How to stay cool and avoid heat stroke

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

By Syed Tahir Rashdi A long time ago, before the first computer, the first library or even the first book, people thought memory was the most important thing for knowledge. Whole societies relied on it. People remembered laws and stories by heart. Passed them down to their children. To remember something was not just to recall facts it was to keep your identity, culture and history alive. A long time ago in ancient Greece, people started to worry about memory. In a book called *Phaedrus* a man named Socrates tells a story about a god named Theuth. Theuth invented writing. Thought it would make people wiser and help them remember more.. The king of Egypt, Thamus did not agree. He said that writing would actually make peoples memories weaker. People would start to rely on written words of trying to remember things themselves. They would think they know something just because they can read it. They would not really understand it. Course that is not what happened. Writing did not hurt society it changed it. Books became a way to store knowledge and share ideas with people all over the world. Socrates was worried about something that is still important today. The question now is not whether we remember things because of books. It is whether we remember anything all. Today we have information stored somewhere than ever before. Our phones remember our conversations. Computers store our photos forever. We can find answers to questions in seconds. Machines can summarise books. Help us find information fast. Never before has much information existed outside of our own minds. This is a change in how people relate to knowledge. A man named Marshall McLuhan said that every new technology is like an extension of our abilities. The wheel is like an extension of our feet. The telescope is like an extension of our eyes. By that logic our phones are like an extension of our memories. They help us remember things. The problem is obvious. As we get better at storing information outside of our minds we get worse at remembering things ourselves. We do not remember phone numbers because our phones do. We do not remember birthdays because our computers do. We do not remember how to get places because our phones tell us. We are not trying to remember things much as we used to. We are just looking them up. That small change might be one of the most important things that has happened to our minds in the past century. It is easy to see why we like to store information outside of our minds. Who would want to go to using paper maps or big books to find answers? Digital technology has made it easy for everyone to get information. We can find things out in seconds that used to take days. The question is not whether this is useful. It is whether it is changing our minds in some way. Some psychologists did a study in 2011. Found out something interesting. They found out that when people know they can find information easily they do not try to remember it much. They just remember where to find it. This is a deal. Our minds are changing from storing information to finding it. We are getting better at finding the path. Not the destination. This is not a habit it is how we think. Remembering things is not about storing facts it is about using them to make decisions to imagine things and to be creative. When we remember things we can connect them in ways and have new ideas. When we store information outside of our minds that changes. A man named Nicholas Carr said that digital technology is not just changing how we get information it is changing how we think. The internet is great at giving us answers. It is not so good at helping us really understand things. If we get used to getting answers we might not be as good at thinking deeply about things. This does not mean that technology is making us less smart. It means that our intelligence is changing. The problem is not that we do not know things. It is that we are too dependent on technology to remember them for us. A student might think that they can just look up answers and not really learn anything. A professional might rely much on reminders that they do not even try to remember things. Machines are getting better at remembering things for us. That might mean we do not have to try as hard. Slowly remembering things is becoming more like looking them up. Knowledge is becoming about getting access to information. Thinking is becoming more about getting things done. Technology has definitely helped us store information than ever before. The question is whether it is also making us less likely to try to remember things ourselves. Memory is not just about storing information. It is about how we experience life. A computer can store every document ever written. A machine can look up every photo ever taken.. They cannot turn experience into wisdom. Our memories are not just storage they are how we interpret things. We forget some things we remember others. We use them to understand ourselves. A writer named Jorge Luis Borges wrote a story about a man who could remember everything.. This gift was actually a curse. The man could not forget anything so he could not think about things in a way. He was trapped by his memory. Borges was saying that forgetting is not a thing it is actually necessary for thought. This is not about how we think as individuals. It is about how we learn and how we understand ourselves as a society. Education used to be about more than learning facts. It was about learning how to think. If we just store information outside of our minds education might just become about looking things up. The same

By Engr. Saqlain Abid Political Commentator and NFPA-Certified Electrical Engineer   Elections are the vital organ of a living democracy. If they are conducted according to the people’s choice, without interference, on equal grounds, and with the consensus of all democratic participants, then the state not only remains in good health but also flourishes with the hope and commitment promised before the elections.   For the first time in the history of Pakistan, the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) elections are not being held on a single polling day. Instead, the electoral process has been divided into three different phases—27 July, 8 August, and 20 August 2026. This unusual arrangement raises several important questions. Why is the state preparing this electoral model? What are the conditions on the ground that necessitated such a strategy? More importantly, how could this experiment influence Pakistan’s national elections next year?   The political environment surrounding these elections has already become highly contested. The major political force JAAC has been banned by the government, and several of its leaders have been detained. The party has consequently boycotted the elections. PTI, another major opposition force, has also chosen to boycott the electoral process. According to its leadership, the party has been forced to contest only through independent candidates rather than under its official party platform. PTI argues that the government has failed to provide the safety, guarantees, and political environment necessary for free and fair elections. Under such circumstances, the party believes participation would merely legitimize a process it does not trust.   On the other hand, the ruling coalition, led by PML-N and PPP, has entered the campaign with promises of development projects, including new motorways and business initiatives aimed at attracting voters. While development remains an important component of any election campaign, questions regarding electoral credibility continue to overshadow these promises.   In principle, elections should be transparent, efficient, and completed within the shortest possible time. If technological solutions such as secure online systems become feasible in the future, they may further reduce the chances of manipulation. However, extending the polling process over three different days also creates a debate. While supporters argue that it makes election management easier, critics believe that a prolonged process increases opportunities for allegations of interference and weakens public confidence.   The government should have taken all political parties on board before announcing such an unprecedented electoral model. A genuinely inclusive process requires the participation of every major democratic stakeholder. JAAC, which commands significant public support in parts of Azad Kashmir, should have been engaged through political dialogue rather than exclusion. The credibility of elections depends not only on voting day but also on the perception that every political voice has been given an equal opportunity to participate.   Pakistan has previously criticized India for conducting elections in Jammu and Kashmir while sections of the local political leadership remained outside the process. At the time, Islamabad argued that elections held without broad political participation reflected only a procedural exercise rather than the genuine will of the people. The obvious question now is what circumstances have led Pakistan toward a model that some critics argue resembles the same approach.   Some political analysts believe that the AJK elections may serve as a pilot project to test a phased electoral model before its possible application across Pakistan during future general elections. Whether this perception is accurate or not, the debate itself demonstrates the level of public skepticism surrounding the process.   Another factor attracting attention is the role of the Chief Election Commissioner, whose tenure continues to face criticism following the February 2024 general elections. Allegations raised by former Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chattha regarding manipulation of election results remain part of Pakistan’s political discourse, despite subsequent developments in the case. These controversies have inevitably shaped public perceptions regarding electoral transparency.   If voter turnout remains significantly low because of political boycotts and public distrust, the legitimacy of the exercise may come under further scrutiny. It is therefore the moral responsibility of the government and the Election Commission to create an environment where every democratic force feels secure enough to participate and where no stakeholder can reasonably question the fairness of the process.   The electoral process ultimately determines the political shelf life of a state. When governments emerge through elections widely accepted by the public, trust between the people and the state grows stronger. When that trust weakens, political polarization deepens, frustration increases, and hostile external actors find greater opportunities to exploit internal divisions. With Balochistan already facing serious security challenges and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa confronting persistent instability, any controversy surrounding the AJK electoral process may further strengthen perceptions that democratic space is shrinking rather than expanding.   Ultimately, the success of these elections will not be measured solely by administrative efficiency but by whether the people of Azad Kashmir believe that their voices were freely heard and genuinely counted. A credible electoral process strengthens democracy; a disputed one risks weakening the very foundations upon which democratic legitimacy depends.