Pakistan’s Silent Hepatitis C Epidemic

I first learned to think of rivers as questions of survival, not just geography, from the late Dr. Mohammad Moniruzzaman Miah, the visionary Dhaka University vice-chancellor and geographer whose work shaped a generation of Bangladeshi thinking on transboundary water. In the years when Khaleda Zia’s government stood firm in defending Bangladesh’s water rights, I was part of the technical effort that helped galvanize opposition to India’s proposed 1,500 MW Tipaimukh Dam on the Barak River in Manipur — a fight documented in the broader scholarly record of that transnational resistance movement. That episode taught a lesson Bangladesh cannot afford to forget as it approaches the next deadline in its water diplomacy: December 2026, when the landmark 1996 Ganges Water Treaty expires. The Ganges Treaty, signed in December 1996, was hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough — the first long-term water-sharing arrangement between India and Bangladesh. But thirty years on, its formula looks less like fairness and more like a structural handicap for the downstream nation. Under the treaty, dry-season flow at the Farakka Barrage (January 1 to May 31) is divided in alternating ten-day blocks. When total flow is 70,000 cusecs or less, the two countries split it 50-50. But when flow reaches 75,000 cusecs or more — precisely the scenario Bangladesh needs most, during peak dry-season stress — India takes a fixed 40,000 cusecs off the top, and Bangladesh gets only the remainder. In practice, the treaty guarantees India a floor while leaving Bangladesh’s share to fluctuate with whatever is left. For a delta nation of 175 million people, dependent on the Ganges-Padma system for irrigation, drinking water, fisheries, and salinity control, that asymmetry has never been sustainable. It is even less so now, as climate change intensifies dry-season scarcity and accelerates saline intrusion along the coast. Bangladesh is not asking for charity. It is asking for a renewed, predictable framework that reflects present-day hydrological and demographic realities — not the assumptions of three decades ago. That renewal must also confront a public health emergency that the original treaty never anticipated: the mobilization of naturally occurring arsenic into the very groundwater tens of millions of Bangladeshis depend on for drinking water. The mechanism is worth explaining plainly. Reduced dry-season flow in the Ganges limits natural flushing and recharge of shallow aquifers. Farmers and municipalities, deprived of adequate surface water, turn increasingly to groundwater pumping for irrigation and drinking supply. That heavy extraction alters subsurface flow and oxygen conditions, encouraging microbial processes that break down buried organic carbon and release arsenic bound in iron-rich sediments — arsenic that occurs naturally in the geology of the Bengal delta. It’s important to be precise here: most researchers attribute the origin of this arsenic primarily to natural, geogenic sources within the delta’s Holocene sediments, not to the Farakka Barrage itself. But many Bangladeshi hydrologists and public health researchers argue, credibly, that reduced Ganges flow and the resulting over-reliance on groundwater pumping act as an accelerant — turning a latent geological hazard into an active public health catastrophe. Whatever the precise weighting of causes, the outcome is not in dispute: Bangladesh is living through what the World Health Organization has called the largest mass poisoning of a population in history. The economic toll is staggering and measurable. Studies estimate that arsenic contamination has reduced Bangladesh’s effective rural labor supply by roughly 8 percent — a contraction larger than the labor-market shock the United States experienced during the Great Recession. Projections suggest arsenic-related mortality and morbidity could cost the economy up to $13 billion over twenty years in lost productivity alone. Millions of person-days are lost annually to arsenicosis, and the neurotoxic effects on children threaten the cognitive development of the next generation — a bottleneck on Bangladesh’s long-term growth prospects. Contaminated irrigation water enters the food chain, straining agricultural yields and export credibility. At the household level, families spend hundreds of millions of taka annually on treatment, exhausting savings and pushing the rural poor deeper into poverty. Visible skin lesions bring social stigma, job loss, and marginalization, particularly for women. This is not an abstract environmental dispute; it is a slow-moving national emergency with a very real balance sheet. This debate does not exist in isolation. It sits alongside Bangladesh’s long-stalled push for a Teesta River sharing agreement, another dispute where upstream control and India’s domestic politics — particularly in West Bengal — have repeatedly delayed progress. Dhaka has made clear that a fair, long-term renewal of the Ganges pact is now central to the broader trajectory of India-Bangladesh relations. The two issues are linked in substance as much as in diplomacy: both test whether the region can move from a “mercantile” approach to shared rivers, in which every cusec is treated as a zero-sum resource to be captured upstream, toward an approach that treats water as a shared trust with obligations that flow downstream as well as up. Given this, the renewal of the Ganges Treaty must do more than reallocate cusecs. It must treat adequate, dependable freshwater flow as a public health intervention, not merely an irrigation input. Diluting arsenic concentrations in shallow aquifers, sustaining natural flushing, and reducing pressure to over-pump groundwater all depend on Bangladesh receiving a demonstrably larger and more reliable share of dry-season Ganges flow than the 1996 formula allows. Given the scale of what’s at stake — public health, food security, and the credibility of a 175-million-person delta nation’s future — this renewal should not be negotiated behind closed doors on India’s terms alone. Bangladesh should press for the process to include independent, internationally recognized water and public health experts, convened under UN auspices, to assess minimum flow requirements against verifiable arsenic, salinity, and agricultural data. This is not a call to internationalize a bilateral treaty in perpetuity; it is a call for technical objectivity in setting the numbers that will govern Bangladesh’s water security for the next generation. India, for its part, has its own legitimate claims — competing agricultural demand in West Bengal, and domestic

Federal Minister for Petroleum Ali Pervaiz Malik has made an unusually candid assessment of Pakistan’s energy sector. Speaking at the Energy Conference 2026, he conceded that inconsistent policies discourage exploration, petroleum has been subjected to “exorbitant taxation”, domestic refineries remain in a dilapidated condition, gas-sector liquidity is impaired, circular debt remains a central concern, and structural reform requires competition, unbundling and private participation. These admissions deserve attention because they come from inside the government. They also raise an unavoidable question: if the government understands the structural weaknesses so clearly, why does its own fiscal and administrative policy continue to aggravate them? The minister’s strongest observation was that the Petroleum Division cannot remain the instrument upon which excessive taxation and financial interventions are loaded merely to meet budgetary requirements. The diagnosis is correct; the choice of victim is not. A government division does not bear taxation. Consumers, farmers, transporters, manufacturers and exporters do. Pakistan collected a record Rs. 1.567 trillion through petroleum levy during the fiscal year (FY) 2025-26, exceeding the budgeted target by about Rs. 99 billion. Petroleum products are nominally exempt from general sales tax, but motorists should not confuse exemption with relief. The levy, customs duty and the new climate support levy together impose an enormous burden at the pump.  An analysis of notified prices and consumption estimated that these petroleum charges generated around Rs. 166 billion in July 2026 alone—equivalent to roughly one-fifth of that month’s collection of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). On petrol, government imposts exceeded Rs. 100 per litre during parts of August. [Ministry of Finance fiscal operations; OGRA notified prices] This is not energy policy. It is fiscal opportunism. Petroleum levy is especially attractive to Islamabad because, unlike federal taxes included in the divisible pool, its proceeds are retained by the federal government. Replacing sales tax with levy does not broaden the tax base or improve its progressivity [Bankruptcy of ideas—VII: The Petroleum (Levy) State, June 18, Minute Mirror, 2026].  It merely enables the federation to collect revenue without sharing it under the National Finance Commission mechanism. Provinces lose their constitutional share while the entire economy absorbs higher transport, agricultural and production costs. The levy is also excessively regressive. A litre consumed by a motorcyclist, rickshaw driver or small farmer attracts the same fixed charge as one consumed by the owner of a luxury vehicle. Diesel taxation travels through freight into the price of flour, vegetables, medicines and construction materials. The poorest household may not own a vehicle, but it still pays petroleum levy indirectly on almost everything it buys. The minister should have said plainly that Pakistan’s narrow and inequitable tax system is being sustained by taxing mobility and production. Powerful retailers, speculative real-estate interests, large landowners and beneficiaries of untaxed or lightly taxed wealth remain inadequately documented. The salaried class, formal businesses and petroleum consumers are repeatedly squeezed because they are visible and collection is easy. The minister also called for consistent and predictable policies to attract investment in high-risk onshore and offshore exploration. No serious investor can disagree. Exploration requires large sunk expenditure, long lead times and the possibility of complete failure. Pakistan cannot invite investors with one policy, reinterpret its terms through another notification, delay payments, restrict remittances and then wonder why exploration interest remains weak. The Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26 acknowledges constrained domestic petroleum production, continued import dependence, suboptimal refinery utilisation and the effect of international instability on the import bill. These are not new discoveries. Governments have been promising energy security, refinery upgrading and accelerated exploration for decades. The institutional cycle remains familiar: announce a policy, delay agreements, accumulate liabilities, offer concessions, change fiscal terms and launch another policy. Offshore exploration is important, but it must not become another slogan. A dry well is a commercial risk; unstable contracts, delayed decisions and politicised administration are sovereign risks created by the state. Pakistan cannot remove geological uncertainty, but it can remove bureaucratic caprice. That requires published contractual frameworks, credible dispute resolution, transparent bidding, assured repatriation rules and protection against retrospective fiscal changes. The minister’s claim that the flow of circular debt has been maintained near zero without increasing consumer prices also needs closer examination. Circular debt is not eliminated merely because its current flow is temporarily contained. Arrears can be shifted through subsidies, delayed payments, financing arrangements, tariff adjustments, accounting recognition or government guarantees. The stock remains a claim on citizens even when it disappears from a ministry’s preferred flow indicator. Gas-sector circular debt reflects delayed tariff adjustments, expensive imported LNG, diversion of gas between consumer categories, distribution losses, theft, weak recoveries, unpaid subsidies and government-directed supplies without timely budgetary compensation. It impairs the liquidity of exploration and production companies, which then lack funds for new exploration. The state taxes petroleum to repair its budget while withholding or delaying money owed within the energy chain. This is fiscal cannibalism: one part of the sector is consumed to keep another functioning. The condition of local refineries provides another indictment. The minister rightly asked why they remain “dilapidated” and have not become deep-conversion facilities. Old hydro skimming refineries produce an output mix increasingly misaligned with domestic demand, including excess furnace oil and insufficient quantities of cleaner, higher-value fuels. Modernisation requires billions of dollars, technological planning and certainty over tariffs, duties, pricing and product specifications. Refineries, however, have enjoyed various forms of protection and deemed-duty support in the past. Any new incentive must be conditional. Public support cannot become a permanent reward for postponing investment.  Each refinery agreement should disclose the investment commitment, financing plan, completion milestones, product-quality improvements, environmental obligations and consequences of default. Consumers should not finance refinery upgrades through protected margins without enforceable delivery. The proposed unbundling of the gas sector—separating infrastructure from commodity trading—can improve transparency. An independent network operator, regulated access charges and genuine third-party access could allow producers and large consumers to contract without forcing every transaction through an opaque state monopoly. But changing organisational boxes will not cure political pricing, excessive losses, poor

July 26th marks the birthday of an political prisoner who spend 1.5 decade in prison without conviction meaning he was innocent but was kept in prison unlawfully. But from prison torture cell he stood by the state. He is son of soil. His non-violent legacy is worth following by all political prisoners of world. This is the beauty of the modern world era that you can not hide anything from anyone. Welcome to present world best known as modern world era. This s all about technology and methods of gathering information compiling it and ultimately relaying it in more authenticated way. It took decades to evolve technology from computing, internet, gadgets and mobile revolution to the present world modern world era of artificial intelligence. Gen Z and Gen Alpha highly rely on AI tools. If you go through Google and AI tools and start searching term ‘political prisoners’ then you will find incumbent President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari as the one and only political prisoner in the history of world, who spent fourteen years and eight months in prison without any conviction. His tongue was cut and botched attempt was made to cut his neck and throat to kill him. He faced worst third degree torture in prison. He never gave a single call to his party workers to protest or attack the institutes. In 1990s and onwards United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) and Tokyo declaration were in place for necessary remedial but kudos to Asif Ali Zardari, he never opt for agitation. Asif Ali Zardari faced all kinds of tortures with patience and bravery and stood by the state of Pakistan under any circumstances, even when his wife two-times prime minister of Pakistan was assassinated in broad daylight in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007, he gave he hope to nation ‘Pakistan Khappay’ Pakistan Zindabad Pakistan long live. He pledged that He with help of people of Pakistan and state institutions will make greater and stronger Pakistan. In 2008, when Asif Ali Zardari, assumed the charge of Presidency, he forgave all of his enemies and he announced general amnesty for all, in fact he also took initiatives to stop unfair and degrading treatment and third degree torture with others which he faced during his imprisonment. In year 2010, The President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, ratified the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and later it was his political party Pakistan Peoples Party which brought legislation Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Act, 2022 to prohibit torture and other acts of cruel, Inhumane and degrading treatment. In year, 2023, It was also Sindh assembly/government to bring the legislation of the medico legal Act 2023. In his previous tenure of Presidency (2008-2013). He saved world from nuclear war in the wake of Mumbai attacks, strengthened ties with china and ensured revival of ties with Russia and Iran and started new era of relations with US and west on the grounds of equality as good friends. And his current tenure of Presidency is more vibrant and productive for people of Pakistan coupled with iron first lady Aseefa Bhutto Zardari’s input. Under his visionary leadership Pakistan is heading towards his dream of Greater Pakistan. May his 71st birthday bring Pakistan prosperity, peace and hub of global economy. Happy birthday Asian Nelson Mandela!

In the winter of 1979, a neighbour’s house caught fire. The Soviet Union had marched into Afghanistan, and the flames of war were licking at the walls of Kabul. From across the ocean, a distant power arrived at Pakistan’s door. It did not come with soldiers. It came with money, guns, and a promise: *”Let us fight this fire together. Use your roof. Use your roads. We will stand with you. We will not let the fire reach your house.”* Pakistan opened its door. What else could it do? The Soviet army sat on its western border. The world was divided into two camps, and neutrality was a luxury no frontline state could afford. For ten years, Pakistan became the staging ground for a war that was not its own. It hosted three million refugees. Its cities swelled. Its tribal areas became training grounds for fighters armed and funded by outside money. Weapons arrived by the shipload through Karachi. Pakistani officers coordinated strategy. Every bullet fired at a Soviet convoy in the Hindu Kush passed through Pakistani hands. The distant power paid the bills. It sent the Stinger missiles. It called the resistance fighters “freedom fighters” and Pakistan a “frontline state.” But the war was never truly about Pakistan’s safety. It was about bleeding the Soviet Union in a distant mountainside, using Pakistani soil as the operating theatre and Afghan bodies as the currency. Then, in 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew. The fire in the neighbour’s house went out. And the distant power that had promised eternal friendship turned its attention elsewhere. The billions dried up. The diplomatic interest evaporated. Afghanistan, the battlefield, was left to warlords who turned the weapons on each other. Pakistan was left with three million refugees who would not go home, a Kalashnikov culture that would not disappear, and a border that would never again be quiet. The weapons that had been given to fight the Soviets did not rust. They remained. They moved into streets, into disputes, into corners of the country where the state had never fully reached. The guest who had brought the fire extinguisher had started a blaze that spread to the host’s own house — and then moved to a new neighbourhood. The distant power won its strategic objective at the cost of Afghan and Pakistani soil, then walked away. Its own cities were never bombed. Its own children never became refugees. Its economy never staggered under the weight of someone else’s war. Pakistan, which had signed no formal treaty of alliance but had acted as an ally in every meaningful sense, was left holding the pieces. This is what happens when alliances are forged in the middle of a fire. The stronger partner does not need your victory. He needs your usefulness. He needs you to hold the front, to absorb the blow, to stand in a place where he does not wish to stand. And when the war ends, he will shake your hand and go home — while you remain amid the embers, wondering why the fire you helped extinguish has reignited in your own courtyard. History records a curious pattern. The alliances that have endured — the ones that outlasted their founders and shaped the world for generations — were almost never built while the house was burning. NATO was forged in 1949, not because the bombs were falling on Paris, but because the memory of war was still fresh and the desire to prevent it was shared. The parties had time to read the text, to negotiate the terms, to build institutions that could survive a change of government on either side. An alliance born in the middle of a fire is a different creature entirely. It is an emergency measure. And emergency measures have a way of becoming permanent arrangements that no one planned and no one fully controls. When you sign while the heat is at your back and the smoke is in your eyes, you do not have time to ask who owns the hose, who pays for the water, and who walks away when the flames are out. The Afghan episode is not ancient history. It is in our own lifetime. It is written in the smoke that still rises from our western border. And it is written in the simple fact that the weapons once aimed at a northern invader eventually turned inward, because no one had written a clause for what happens after the guest leaves. Pakistan has every right to defend itself. Pakistan has every right to seek friends in a dangerous world. But history offers a quiet observation for those who are listening: **the strongest alliances are built in peacetime, not borrowed in panic.** The fire is real. The neighbour’s house is burning. Yet the hand that offers protection in the middle of a war is holding a different ledger than the hand that offers partnership in the middle of calm. That is not a warning against friendship. It is simply what the record shows.

Vice President Pakistan-China Joint Chamber In the early 1990, when Chinese Government planned to develop the most modern city of the world at the south eat coast of China, named Shenzhen, the Government named it as the window of the world. In the modern history it is the most advanced, beautiful and well-planned city in the world with its population reaching almost 18 million. Along, Shenzhen GDP is bigger than the GDPs of many countries. Similarly, after the Chairman Xhi announced his initiative to develop for a global trade in the name of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which is considered to be the biggest financial project globally. In respect to active this project the initiative of CPEC as a flagship project of BRI was taken. Pakistan with its most sage borders with its neighboring countries China is also the key part of this initiative. Considering my experience to travel to China using a road link was started from the small city of Pakistan name coast. Which is even more than like 200 km from the border of the Khunjarab which leads you to enter to the new window of the world which is starting from the south west of China. Directly you pass the immigration process at Tashgorqan, you will feel the things have been entirely changed. My first inspiration was this city for its cultural background buildings, music, food, that totally fascinated me. I was just in the middle ages where there was a very beautiful city to welcome me with all its cultural strength. The city is even smaller like a country of Kashgar but still you can see the international food chains along with a lot of local delicacies. The ethnic people are mainly Chinese and Tajik origin. This city is similarly famous for the yolk beef. And that was my first feast tried at this city. The visitors of the city were even more than the locals who came from all over China to observe the rich culture of this city. Even I spent there few hours but the fascination, beauty and culture of this city will definitely attract me to visit it again. The roads were wide, clean, infrastructure was excellent, like a combination of an old civilization with modern infrastructure. If a got a chance in the future I would love to stay in this city significantly marking the importance of this city even in the ancient time till today. This was the first settlement as a city I found on my way to the Khunjarab border to tashgorqan. The people were very friendly, beautiful and they showed a lot of love not only fore me but for the all visitors. Such a small city with a rich culture for their dressing, music and traditional dance can fascinate anyone. Kashgar is about 5 hours drive from Tashgorqan. Being the second largest city of Xinjian, this city is I may call a new window of the world. Kashgar city which is normally a called as Kashi by Chinese is an inspiration. This city which was formally very undeveloped like a couple of decades before now have become a center of financial activities under the BRI. With its specific location along with the silk route the locals of Kashi claims that this city have a history to 2000 to 5000 years old. I have never observed a city like Xinjiang with such a remote area and having the ethnic communities for more than 13 including Yugur, dominating Han, Tatar, Tajik, Karghaiz, Mangol and many other are among the most prominent ethnic nationalities living in this city. This diversified this city as a multicultural hub.   China Government is very concerned and they are really developing this area with all the available resources they can inject. Within a decade of time Kashi is now one of the modern cities developing with the gigantic speed and its bordering with the countries like Kirghizstan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. With its population increasing ofr more than 6 million people is one of the biggest city in all this region. Yecheng as a county of Xinjiang, is considered to be a window to Tibet all that, who want to start their expedition to Tibet, they have to start from this city name , Yecheng. I got an opportunity to visit his small city which is similarly fascinating, I should appreciate this all areas are culturally being so rich that every building and every road is telling a new story about this city. What attracted me the most that was the food and the dancing culture of this city with some fascinating music. This area is rich for its dry fruits where you can see the most variety of dry fruits in the world. Yecheng is considered to be a capital city of walnuts. Coming back of Kashi which is my topic of the day, everybody can spend hours and hours to have a look at the rich culture. The Government have preserved the buildings and most of them have been converted into historical places mostly are called in the name of Mehman Khana (Hotel). The walled city of Kashgar is one of the top most attraction for any foreigners and mainland Chinese. Now the Kashi economy is mainly based on tourism as the Chairman Xhi announced in his last speech as tourism and health sector would be the main focus of Chinese Government. The streets of Kashi were swarming with the Chinese from all provinces who were eager to learn more about the history and culture of this region.   To be continued..