Progressive Literature in the Age of Algorithms: A…

By Aleena Saif Ullah The writer is an MPhil Scholar in International Relations, specializing in global defence and security, University of the Punjab, Lahore. On February 28, the first day of Operation Epic Fury, a strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, in Iran’s Hormozgan province. Iranian state media reported that 168 children and 14 adults were killed. Anadolu reported two strikes roughly forty minutes apart. President Trump said on March 7 that in his opinion Iran had done it, citing Iranian inaccuracy with munitions. Bellingcat had already established otherwise. Its researchers identified a Tomahawk cruise missile — a munition no other belligerent in the conflict fields — in footage released by Iran’s Mehr agency, and geolocated the strike sequence. The New York Times, the Associated Press and CNN reached compatible conclusions through independent satellite and video analysis. By March 11, NPR reported that a preliminary Pentagon assessment had determined the United States was at fault. Five months later, the accountability failure is not the one I described when I first wrote about this case, and the actual failure is more instructive. A process was initiated. On March 13, Secretary Hegseth announced a formal command investigation, with CENTCOM appointing a senior officer from outside the command to lead it — the correct procedural choice. Lawmakers have said that officer submitted an initial report in April. CENTCOM has held it since. On May 19, Admiral Brad Cooper told lawmakers under oath that the investigation was complex, near completion, and that “I’m fully committed to transparency” once it concluded. No findings have been published. Then in July, CNN reported the detail that reframes the case. Within a week of the strike, the first two stages of the battle damage assessment were complete, establishing that American forces had hit the location. The third stage — the standard review in which Defense Intelligence Agency analysts examine the full body of satellite imagery and intelligence to determine holistically what occurred — had not been ordered as of early July. One source familiar with the matter told CNN there had been no detailed analysis and that CENTCOM had locked down the investigation. NBC reported that preliminary findings pointed to outdated intelligence as the likely cause. This is a different kind of institutional failure from the one international lawyers usually describe, and it is worse. An absent process can be demanded. A process that ran, produced a document, and stopped is much harder to move, because officials can accurately say an investigation took place. The context makes it harder still. On May 13 the Pentagon’s own Inspector General found that the Department had systematically failed to implement its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan, with all eleven objectives reclassified as at risk and the legally mandated Civilian Protection Center of Excellence lacking key staff and leadership. The architecture built specifically to prevent and account for incidents like Minab had been allowed to decay before the war that tested it. Congress has asked the right questions and been ignored. A letter led by Senator Chris Van Hollen and signed by more than forty senators asked Secretary Hegseth directly whether American forces conducted the strikes, what the intended target was, whether AI tools were used in targeting, and whether a no-strike list was established before operations began. Answers were requested by March 18. More than 150 House members signed a parallel letter on the broader civilian toll. The comparison the Pentagon itself invites is unflattering. As NBC noted, the Department has publicly disclosed its role in comparable incidents before: a special forces raid in Yemen, a bombing in Iraq that killed more than a hundred civilians, the strike on an Afghan hospital that killed at least forty-two, a drone attack in Afghanistan that killed ten. Disclosure in those cases was not generous, but it happened. What Minab demonstrates is that the binding constraint on accountability is not evidence. Volunteer open-source investigators, working entirely from public material, established the essential facts within nine days. The state that conducted the strike established them internally within seven. The constraint is that no mechanism exists to compel publication of a report a government has decided not to publish — not the Rome Statute, to which the United States is not a party; not the Security Council, where it holds a veto; and not the Inspector General, who can find institutional failure but cannot release another command’s findings. One lever remains, and it is domestic rather than international. Congress can require declassified release of the findings through the National Defense Authorization Act. Whether it does will indicate more about the state of accountability for civilian harm than any further open-source analysis. The evidence is not missing. The report is not missing. Both exist. Neither can be read.    

I have a confession to make before I make an argument: I am not a neutral observer of Uzbekistan, and I have never pretended to be. My grandmother was born in Bukhara, and something of that inheritance has stayed with me my whole life, quietly, the way a language half-learned in childhood never fully leaves you. When I finally visited Uzbekistan as an adult, I did not feel like a foreign visitor taking in unfamiliar streets. I felt something closer to what my grandmother must have felt looking at me — an unearned, uncomplicated warmth that asked nothing in return. I have come to understand that feeling as the quiet, private secret of belonging to a place through blood rather than through a passport. Tashkent is, in every way that matters to me, my second home. It was in that spirit, long before he held the office he holds today, that I once had the chance to meet and listen to Shavkat Mirziyoyev. He was not yet President of Uzbekistan when I encountered him, and I remember being struck less by any title he carried than by the scale of what he was already thinking about out loud: an economic vision that did not stop at Uzbekistan’s borders, a water and energy strategy built for the whole of Central Asia, and a sense — unusual in a region that had spent decades looking inward — that Uzbekistan’s future was inseparable from the future of its neighbors, and ultimately from the future of Asia itself. I did not know, at the time, that I was listening to a future head of state. I knew only that I was listening to someone thinking at a scale most officials never attempt. That background should not surprise anyone who looks closely at his biography. Mirziyoyev is, by training, an irrigation engineer. He graduated in 1981 from the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Melioration with a degree in mechanical engineering, and went on to earn a doctorate in technical sciences — a foundation in water management and applied engineering, not in the abstractions of political theory. I find something quietly reassuring in that. A leader who has spent his formative years thinking about the physical realities of water — how it moves, where it is wasted, how a system either functions or fails on the ground — tends to bring a different discipline to the running of a country than one who has only ever studied power itself. When he took the presidential oath on 14 December 2016, he inherited a country that had spent decades in careful, deliberate isolation under his predecessor, Islam Karimov. What he has built since is, by any honest measure, one of the most consequential transformations Central Asia has seen in a generation. Mirziyoyev dismantled that isolation almost immediately. Borders that had been tense and heavily restricted with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were resolved through negotiation rather than standoff. Trade and cross-border travel, once treated with suspicion, were opened. And rather than settling for improved bilateral relations, he proposed something more ambitious still: formalizing the informal annual summits among Central Asian leaders into a standing “Community of Central Asia,” with a rotating presidency and a permanent secretariat, built around shared trade, water management, transport infrastructure, and coordinated engagement with Afghanistan. It is the kind of regional architecture Central Asia lacked for the entire post-Soviet period, and it is very hard to picture it emerging under any of his predecessors. The economic numbers now validate what, in that early conversation, still sounded like ambition rather than achievement. Uzbekistan implemented $43.1 billion in foreign investment in its most recent reporting period, of which $38.2 billion arrived as foreign direct investment — a 24 % surge over the prior year, and enough to make Uzbekistan the largest recipient of accumulated FDI stock in Central Asia, ahead of Kazakhstan. FDI absorption climbed from $19.5 billion in 2023 to $31.9 billion in 2024 before reaching this year’s historic peak, with a single record quarter bringing in $1.7 billion in net balance-of-payments inflows. China remains the leading investor at $17.1 billion, followed by Russia at $4.8 billion, with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Germany, the UAE, and the United Kingdom all expanding their footprints. The capital is not concentrated in one sector either: energy and renewables lead at $7.1 billion, including ACWA Power’s $2.4 billion wind installation in Karakalpakstan, alongside major investment in agriculture, construction, and mining. The country’s foreign reserves stood at roughly $63.75 billion as of June 2026, after peaking above $77 billion earlier in the year, while real GDP grew 7.7 % in 2025 and is projected to hold near 6.8 % through 2026. None of this happened by accident. Uzbekistan built nearly a thousand Free Economic Zones offering genuine tax relief and simplified customs. It collapsed business registration into a single electronic government portal, cutting the cost of starting a company to roughly $27. It fully liberalized its currency and removed the foreign exchange barriers that once made profit repatriation a genuine deterrent to investors. This is not a country hoping investors will come. It is a country that examined, line by line, every friction that had historically kept them away, and removed it. But the achievement I find most remarkable is geographic, because geography is the one obstacle policy alone usually cannot solve. Uzbekistan is one of only two doubly landlocked countries on Earth — a nation whose neighbors are themselves landlocked, placing it about as far from open water as any country can be. For most of its history, that was treated as a permanent constraint. Mirziyoyev has instead treated it as an engineering problem to be solved, which is precisely how an irrigation engineer would see it. The Trans-Afghan Railway, first proposed by Uzbekistan in 2018 and finally formalized in a trilateral framework agreement signed with Afghanistan and Pakistan in July 2025, will run roughly 650 kilometres from Termez on the Uzbek border through Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul, and Logar, crossing into Pakistan

By Mudassar Javed Baryar Avni Doshi, the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Burnt Sugar, returns with her second novel, The First House, a work that solidifies her reputation as one of the most compelling literary voices of her generation. Doshi, born in New Jersey in 1982, has established herself as a writer who fearlessly dissects the complexities of human relationships, particularly those between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives. Her debut was lauded for its unflinching honesty and lyrical prose, and The First House continues this tradition, offering readers a psychologically penetrating exploration of marriage, identity, and the slow, agonizing process of self-reclamation. The novel centres on an unnamed narrator whose thirteen-year marriage unexpectedly collapses, forcing her to confront not only the immediate devastation of her husband’s departure but also the deeper, more unsettling questions about her past, her family, and the very nature of love and sacrifice. It is a story that is as mythologically rich as it is emotionally devastating, weaving together ancient goddesses, astrological charts, and the relentless cycle of nature to create a profound meditation on what it means to lose everything and find oneself in the process. The First House is a domestic drama steeped in psychological intensity and mythological symbolism, unfolding through the intimate, raw perspective of its unnamed narrator. The story begins with a moment of shattering clarity: her husband enters their bedroom and calmly announces he no longer wishes to be married. From this single, devastating event, the narrative spirals outward, exploring the aftermath of abandonment and the slow, painful process of learning to exist without the structures that once defined her. The plot is not driven by a series of dramatic external events but rather by the protagonist’s internal journey as she grapples with her grief, anger, and profound disorientation. As the narrator struggles to maintain her composure for the sake of her two young daughters, she retreats into the world of astrology, studying birth charts in search of answers or perhaps just patterns that might explain the chaos of her life. She becomes fixated on the figure of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, whose statue stands in her neighbour’s yard—a constant, silent observer of her unravelling. The statue, originally commissioned as a weathervane, becomes a powerful symbol of her own perceived powerlessness and the indignity of being turned by forces beyond one’s control. The novel also weaves in the emergence of periodical cicadas, whose seventeen-year life cycles of subterranean dormancy and explosive, noisy mating serve as a metaphor for hidden growth, suppressed desire, and the inevitable transformations that drive all living things. The setting, a seemingly placid suburban landscape, contrasts sharply with the internal turmoil of the protagonist. Her world shrinks to the confines of her home, her fraught relationships with her parents, and her complicated, long-estranged relationship with her sister, Didi. The central conflict is her struggle to maintain a sense of self—to keep her head, as it were, while her life is dismantled piece by piece. As she navigates financial instability, the practical challenges of single parenthood, and the humiliation of being left, she is forced to confront uncomfortable truths about her marriage and herself. The novel is ultimately a story about the stories we tell ourselves to survive, and what happens when those narratives collapse. Doshi uses the themes of loss, betrayal, and self-reclamation to explore how we construct our identities through relationships and what remains when those structures are removed. The true power of The First House lies in Doshi’s extraordinary prose and the depth of her protagonist’s consciousness. The author crafts a narrative that is brutally honest, often uncomfortable, and deeply insightful into the psychology of a woman in crisis. The writing itself is a masterclass in showing, not telling; the reader feels the protagonist’s disorientation, her rising panic, and her eventual, hard-won clarity through the rhythm of the language and the accumulation of powerful, visceral details. Doshi has a remarkable ability to render complex emotional states with precision and economy, making the reader feel as though they are living inside the narrator’s mind. The novel’s structure, which moves between present-day events and memories of the past, creates a rich, layered portrait of a life that feels both specific and universal. One of the most compelling characters is the narrator herself. Her voice is raw, intelligent, and often unflattering, yet it is this very honesty that makes her so resonant. She is not a passive victim; she is a woman capable of sharp observation and deep self-criticism, which makes her journey of self-discovery all the more moving. For instance, her admission that she sometimes resented the intrusion of her family on her writing time, or her complex feelings of love and resentment towards her children, are depicted with a startling authenticity that challenges romanticized notions of motherhood. A specific example of her compelling development is her relationship with the act of writing itself. Initially a source of guilt and a symbol of what she has lost, writing gradually becomes a tool for her reclamation, a way for her to”re-collect”herself and her story. Her growing awareness of her own complicity in the failure of her marriage, and her willingness to examine her own flaws, makes her a deeply sympathetic and profoundly human character. Another exceptionally compelling aspect of the novel is the storyline involving the Diana statue and the cicadas. Doshi masterfully uses these elements not as mere decorative motifs, but as integral parts of the narrative’s thematic architecture. The statue of Diana, a representation of a powerful, self-possessed female deity, becomes a haunting presence throughout the novel, a mirror for the narrator’s own lost power and a link to her past self. The story of Diana’s commissioning as a weathervane, a great goddess forced to turn at the whim of the wind, becomes a potent symbol for the diminishment the protagonist feels in her marriage and society at large. The revelation of the architect’s violent death at the foot of the statue adds

Distrust in Azad Jammu and Kashmir is linked to a small but organized group that allegedly used social media manipulation, propaganda, and genuine public grievances to create an impression of widespread support disconnected from reality, deepening divisions within society and straining relations between the state and its citizens. The Rawalakot protests are said to have involved only a small fraction of AJK’s population of about four million, with fewer than 40,000 participants at peak attendance and likely around 10,000–15,000 overall, while more than five times that number reportedly traveled from Rawalakot to Rawalpindi on June 6 and 7. Many families moved weddings to Rawalpindi and Islamabad, sick people and schoolchildren left the town, and hundreds of families delayed school and college admissions until August because of the disruption. Most residents remained away from the protests to protect their families, forming a “silent majority,” while around 90 percent of people in other districts are said not to support the protesters’ agenda. Large political rallies in Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Dhirkot, and Bhimbar are taken as evidence of stronger support for the constitutional political process than for the Rawalakot sit-in. Around 10,000–15,000 protesters are held responsible for disrupting daily life, damaging the economy, creating fear and uncertainty, and causing disorder over an issue that could have been resolved through legislation, dialogue, and democratic institutions rather than confrontation and violence. Aided by a few journalists acting as propagandists, the movement is accused of using manipulated images, fake news, and emotional appeals to create the impression that the whole of Azad Kashmir supports it, even though the participants are said to constitute less than 10 percent of Rawalakot’s own population.   The government has addressed many demands by reducing electricity and flour prices, abolishing refugee ministries, reducing the number of ministers, halving the property transfer tax, completing the Rathwa Hariyam Bridge, withdrawing FIRs and legal cases, compensating the families of those killed and 56 injured people, providing a government job to Azhar’s brother, approving a Rs. 5.5 billion PC-1 for MRI facilities, and approving a Rs. 9 billion PC-1 to improve the power transmission system.   The application to make Azad Kashmir Bank a scheduled bank has been submitted to the State Bank of Pakistan, a move that will strengthen the financial sector and provide greater access to banking services for the people. The health card has been restored, a vital social safety net program that provides access to medical care for those who cannot afford it, and its restoration was a major victory for the people. Two new boards of education have been established, decentralizing the education system and allowing for more focused and effective administration of schools. The Mansehra, Muzaffarabad and Mangla expressways are included in the CPEC project, a game-changing development that will bring massive investment, improve connectivity, and create economic opportunities for the region. The establishment of Mirpur Airport was announced by the Prime Minister of Pakistan on live television, a major milestone that will open up the region to the world and facilitate trade and tourism, and work on the feasibility has started, with the project now moving from the planning stage to reality. The quota system has ended, a long-standing demand that was seen as discriminatory and unjust, and its abolition was a major step towards equality and fairness. Additional departments were abolished and merged with existing departments, a move that reduced bureaucracy and made the government more efficient. The e-tendering of electricity meters was approved, a reform that will ensure transparency and fairness in the procurement process. The demand for 30 KVA for schools and colleges was approved, and the notification has been issued, ensuring that educational institutions will have access to a reliable power supply. Now, among the remaining demands, there is a demand for 4 tunnels and bridges, infrastructure projects that are undeniably needed and would greatly benefit the people, but in reality one single tunnel is estimated to be completed in 10 billion rupees, and the total development budget of Azad Kashmir is less than 40 billion rupees, meaning that these projects cannot be built overnight. The government or no one has any magical capabilities, and no airport, bridges, and tunnels can be built overnight, as they require years of planning, feasibility studies, environmental assessments, and massive financial outlays that must be spread over many years.   In fact, after approving so many demands, after demonstrating such a clear willingness to address the grievances of the people, to insist on only one remaining demand and to lay siege to the entire region and paralyze the lives of millions, one must ask a crucial question: is it the stubborn government or the action committee that is being unreasonable?   The so-called peaceful revolutionary sit-in of the banned Joint Action Committee has been completely exposed for what it really is, and the mask of peaceful protest has slipped to reveal the ugly face of violent insurgency. Their so-called rational teams, which were presented as peaceful negotiators and organizers, are in fact positioned on rooftops with state-of-the-art SMG guns and ultra-expensive military binoculars, and their purpose is not to maintain order but to monitor the security forces on the ground, tracking their movements and planning for a confrontation. This is not a political sit-in, which is a legitimate form of protest in a democracy, but a planned military confrontation against the security forces of the state, a deliberate strategy to provoke a reaction and to create martyrs. Recently a banned Action Committee’s leader made a revealing statement, admitting to the supply of modern US-made M4 rifles to troublemakers, a serious accusation that confirms the armed nature of the group and its intent to use violence against the state. The banned JAAC is using fake and AI generated videos and posts to get the support of the people, manufacturing evidence and creating a false reality to manipulate public opinion, and these fabricated materials are spread widely on social media to create a sense of crisis and to incite hatred.

In August 2022, satellite images showed the Indus River in Pakistan swelling to more than ten times its normal width, submerging a third of the country. Less than two years later, in early 2024, the same river system was running far below its seasonal average in its upper reaches, triggering emergency irrigation cuts in Punjab. Flood and drought extremes that once defined different eras are now defining the same decade. For the nearly 40 percent of humanity that lives in river basins shared by two or more countries, this volatility is turning a development issue into a security issue.   Water has always been political, but climate change is making it less predictable and less abundant at the moments when it is most needed. Three basins the Indus, the Nile, and the Mekong illustrate how historical treaties, new infrastructure, and a warming climate are converging to test whether water can be managed as a shared resource or will become a source of sustained confrontation.   The Indus: A Treaty Under Strain   The Indus Waters Treaty, signed in 1960 and brokered by the World Bank, is often cited as one of the most durable water-sharing agreements in the world. It survived two wars and multiple crises between India and Pakistan. Under its terms, the three eastern rivers Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej were allocated to India, and the three western rivers Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab to Pakistan, with limited rights for India to develop run-of-the-river hydropower upstream.   The treaty was designed for a different hydrological and political reality. It divides water volumes based on historical flows, with no explicit mechanism for climate adaptation. It also established a complex dispute resolution process involving a Neutral Expert and a Court of Arbitration.   Tensions have centered on India’s hydropower projects in Jammu and Kashmir, such as Kishenganga and Ratle. Pakistan argues that the design of these projects particularly pondage capacity and spillway gates violates treaty restrictions and could give India control over the timing of flows that are critical for Pakistani agriculture, which supports more than 80 percent of the country’s irrigated agriculture and employs a large portion of its workforce. India argues that the projects are within treaty allowances, are necessary for its own energy security and development, and that it has never interfered with Pakistan’s share.   Both governments have sought recourse through the treaty’s mechanisms simultaneously in recent years, leading to parallel proceedings that have raised questions about the treaty’s procedural resilience. Experts note that the underlying driver is not just engineering, but scarcity: glacier retreat in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya, altered monsoon patterns, and rising demand from growing populations on both sides are reducing the margin for error that allowed the treaty to function for six decades.   The Nile: Sovereignty Versus Survival   No river illustrates the clash between national development and downstream vulnerability more starkly than the Nile.   Ethiopia, where about 85 percent of the Nile’s water reaching Egypt originates from the Blue Nile, began construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, GERD, in 2011. With a capacity of over 5,000 megawatts, the dam is central to Ethiopia’s plan to expand electricity access still below 50 percent in rural areas at the start of construction and to become a regional power exporter. For Addis Ababa, the dam is a matter of sovereignty and economic transformation, financed domestically and built without external funding.   For Egypt, which depends on the Nile for approximately 90 percent of its freshwater, the dam is viewed as an existential risk. A reduction in flow during the multi-year filling period, or during future droughts if filling and operating rules are not agreed, could directly affect agriculture in the Nile Delta and drinking water for over 100 million people. Egypt has therefore insisted on a legally binding agreement on filling and long-term operation, including drought mitigation mechanisms.   Sudan sits between the two, potentially benefiting from regulated flows and cheap electricity, but also concerned about dam safety and its own water needs.   More than a decade of negotiations mediated by the African Union, the United States, and others have failed to produce a binding deal. Ethiopia has proceeded with filling the reservoir, arguing that this is a natural consequence of exercising its right to develop resources within its borders under the principle of equitable and reasonable utilization. Egypt has argued for the principle of no significant harm and historical rights. International water law, primarily the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention, contains both principles, but leaves their balancing to negotiation.   The dispute has remained diplomatic rather than military, despite inflammatory rhetoric at times, and has spurred renewed discussion about benefit-sharing for example, linking power trade to water security rather than zero-sum volume allocation.   The Mekong: Upstream Control   In Southeast Asia, the Mekong River supports the food security of more than 60 million people. Its annual flood pulse drives one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries in the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia and sustains rice cultivation in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, which produces roughly half of Vietnam’s rice.   The construction of eleven large hydropower dams on the mainstream of the upper Mekong in China where the river is called Lancang and more than 100 tributary dams downstream, principally in Laos, has fundamentally altered that pulse. Data from the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental body of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, shows changes in seasonal water levels, sediment transport, and fisheries.   China, which is not a full member of the Commission but a dialogue partner, argues that its dams provide flood control and dry-season flow augmentation, and are essential for its clean energy transition. Data sharing has improved in recent years, with Beijing providing year-round water level and rainfall data.   Downstream countries offer a different perspective. Thailand and Cambodia have raised concerns about unpredictable releases affecting navigation and farming. Vietnam is particularly vulnerable: reduced sediment flow scientists estimate that dams have trapped more than half of the sediment

A few years back, the 18th Amendment was introduced with the promise that devolution of power is necessary to solve the people’s problems. It was necessary to empower people and bring resources to the ground level to positively impact their lives. The devolution of power was promised through the establishment of strong local governments.    However, devolution stalled at the provincial level.  Provincial governments refused to grant the promised autonomy to local governments. Moreover, local governments do not have financial autonomy at all, which is a prerequisite to empower them. For example, political parties at the provincial level use it to get maximum financial resources and autonomy, but refuse to devolve it to local governments.  Therefore, instead of benefiting people and the country, it has added to problems. Now, it is on the verge of collapse. Many voices ask to roll back the 18th Amendment, and they are justified.     Now the debate has started about creating new provinces, and the size of provinces is portrayed as a problem, as devolution of power and local governments were portrayed before the 18th Amendment. However, before creating new provinces, there is a need to learn from the failure of the 18th Amendment. It is necessary to analyze the reasons for the failure of the 18th Amendment. There can be many reasons, but the most prominent ones were governance and political culture. Thus, there is a need to first understand these before venturing into creating new provinces.    What is governance? There are different ways to define governance, but for me, “governance is an art and a science for satisfying people’s needs, building institutions to protect their interests and life, and keeping people’s aspirations or dreams alive. Governance is a basic ingredient of state-building and sustaining it; rather, it shoulders the existence of the state. Why? Because it ensures justice and social justice, provides security, and protects people from injustice and security threats. It holds true from ancient times to modern statehood. Hence, it is used to measure a country’s success and failure.    Over time, humans have developed different models of governance. In modern history, there are three prominent models: Western, socialist, and empathy-based (Islamic) models. The Western model, based on Liberal democracy, prefers democratic governance, which hinges on elections and accountability. It works through the slogan “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Unfortunately, over time, this slogan and accountability began to weaken, and elections alone remain the main component. Moreover, manipulation of the election process and the use of money further weaken the system, as marginalized people get pushed out of the system. Popular slogans, identity, ethnicity, and hate become the driving force.      The socialist model is based on the slogan of people-centric governance and the whole-process people’s democracy. People-centric governance means all policies and actions must be people-oriented, and outcomes must serve the people and bring positive change in their lives. The whole process of people’s democracy means that the interaction between the state and the people is continuous, not just at election time. Moreover, the merit and character of governance actors are determining factors to ensure people-centric governance. This model was invented in China and is practiced there, where it has achieved remarkable success.     The Islamic model hinges on three fundamental pillars: empathy, people, and accountability, in accordance with Sharia law. Empathy and people must be the focus of all policies and actions at all levels. People’s say must matter at all levels. Accountability must be ensured at all levels, without any discrimination. Famous incidents of Hazarat Umer (RA) and Hazarat Ali provide the true essence of accountability and governance. Lastly, the actors of governance must have the highest virtuous character and should not engage in any form of prejudiced behavior. Unfortunately, it is not practiced anywhere in the contemporary world.       From the above comparison, it can be inferred that despite differences in philosophy and actions, the goal of each model remains the same: to serve the people. Serving the people is the key to sustaining power and the state.    Unfortunately, Pakistan does not follow any of these models. Pakistan has its own style of governance, which is a mix of everything, and we cannot say exactly what it is. However, the most prominent features of our governance are relationship-based networks, misuse of power, and a money- and power-driven system. The system is devised through complicated webs of laws, rules, and requirements. It makes the system prone to corruption and rent-seeking behavior, exclusiveness, and clubs of interest groups, which have become common elements. The system operates through money in exchange for favors, business deals, or power and influence, and is facilitated by relationship-based networks.    It has given rise to a new type of governance model: elusive governance. There is no systematic way to plan and execute the plans. Plans are being made for short-term gains, not with proper planning or a futuristic approach. Haphazardness has become the most prominent feature of governance. People and people’s interests are largely missing. Let’s try to understand it with an example from Islamabad, the seat of government.    A few years ago, the Pakistani government initiated the Safe City program. The government spent billions of rupees to complete the Safe City program. It was sold as a program to secure the people. After that, a new government came to power and initiated the construction of signal-free corridors by building underpasses and flyovers. The government again spent billions of rupees to build the signal-free corridors. People were told it was being done to serve them by facilitating mobility. The process is still going on.     After spending hundreds of billions on the Safe City program and signal-free corridors, the government one day decided to install check posts at major points. The installation of check posts severely disrupts traffic flow and puts the lives of hundreds of people at risk across the city every day. Now, a common-sense question is: why do governments spend