Maham Khan

ISLAMABAD: While 235 million Indians struggle in multidimensional poverty, their government has locked in weapons contracts worth over $23 billion in 2025 alone, a military spending spree that analysts warn is accelerating a dangerous arms race across one of the world&#39;s most densely populated and nuclear-armed regions.&nbsp;The scale of the buildup is staggering. The defense ministry in New Delhi signed 193 contracts totaling 2.09 trillion Indian rupees ($23.28 billion) in the 2024-25 cycle, according to India&#39;s Press Information Bureau. Domestic manufacturers secured 92% of orders under the &quot;Atmanirbhar Bharat&quot; self-reliance initiative, marking India&#39;s most aggressive military expansion in decades.&nbsp;The timing is stark. India ranks 130th on the UN Human Development Index, with 235 million people facing multidimensional poverty and 269 million vulnerable to falling into poverty, according to the 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index published by the UN Development Programme and Oxford University. Yet the Indian Union Budget for Financial Year 2025-26 allocates 13.45% of total federal expenditure to defense and just 2.54% to education.&nbsp;An examination of India&#39;s weapons contracts reveals a coordinated strategy to achieve military dominance across South Asia while forcing regional neighbors into reactive militarization that diverts resources from development priorities and increases the risk of catastrophic miscalculation.&nbsp;Arsenal from three continents The acquisition spree draws from an unlikely coalition of suppliers. India and the US renewed their 10-year Defense Framework Agreement on Oct. 31 during meetings between Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in Kuala Lumpur, according to statements from both defense ministries.&nbsp;Under the renewed framework, Washington approved $45.7 million in Javelin anti-tank guided missiles and $47.1 million in Excalibur precision-guided artillery shells capable of two-meter accuracy at 70-kilometer range, according to US Defense Security Cooperation Agency notifications. The US also approved 113 additional GE-F404 engines for India&#39;s Tejas fighters.&nbsp;The centerpiece of American military sales remains a $3.9 billion procurement of 31 MQ-9B Predator armed drones with 1,000-kilometer operational range, scheduled for 2029 delivery. Negotiations have advanced for six additional P-8I Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and co-production of Stryker infantry combat vehicles, according to Indian defense sources.&nbsp;France and India signed a $7.6 billion Inter-Governmental Agreement in April for 26 Rafale Marine fighters equipped with SCALP cruise missiles offering 300-kilometer standoff range and HAMMER precision munitions, according to the French Defense Ministry. The aircraft will deploy aboard carriers INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya.&nbsp;Russia has continued deliveries of the S-400 Triumf air defense system despite Western sanctions, with three regiments now operational, according to Indian media reports. Indian media reported the systems were utilized during border incidents in May and December. Moscow and New Delhi signed a $248 million contract in March for engines to upgrade India&#39;s T-72 tank fleet, including technology transfer for licensed domestic production, according to Russia&#39;s state-owned Rostec Corporation.&nbsp;Indigenous push Domestic production has accelerated dramatically under the &quot;Atmanirbhar Bharat&quot; initiative. State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited received $6.98 billion for 156 Prachand light combat helicopters, according to company statements. The Defense Acquisition Council approved $28 billion in procurements covering the Nag Missile System Mk-II, BrahMos fire control systems, indigenous medium-altitude long-endurance drones, ground-based electronic intelligence systems and naval surface guns, according to India&#39;s Press Information Bureau.&nbsp;Additional contracts finalized 307 Advanced Towed Artillery Gun Systems valued at $768.5 million, 425,000 close-quarter battle carbines for $308.5 million, and various ammunition types for Pinaka Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers totaling $1.13 billion, according to Ministry of Defense procurement data. The Cabinet Committee on Security approved development of the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft fifth-generation fighter program in May, according to government statements.&nbsp;&quot;The next warfare frontier is swarm drone attacks,&quot; said Dr. Masood ur Rehman Khattak, assistant professor of international relations at International Islamic University Islamabad, whose doctoral research examined Indian military strategic thinking and its implications for South Asian deterrence stability. &quot;We saw this in the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel-Iran confrontations and the Pakistan-India standoff in May. India is heavily investing in this domain.&quot;&nbsp;Cost of guns over development The opportunity cost becomes clear in comparative terms. The $3.9 billion allocated for armed drones alone could fund approximately 15,000 schools or 500 hospitals based on Indian government construction estimates obtained through Right to Information requests.&nbsp;Trilateral arms race The spending surge extends beyond South Asia&#39;s bilateral dynamics. India faces strategic challenges with China along the disputed Line of Actual Control, where persistent infrastructure buildup by the People&#39;s Liberation Army necessitates &quot;modernization and operational preparedness&quot; to maintain the status quo, according to the Ministry of Defence Annual Report 2024-25.&nbsp; In the Indian Ocean Region, the Indian Maritime Doctrine 2025 formally recognizes the threat of &quot;military encirclement&quot; due to China&#39;s expanding naval presence and dual-use base network including facilities at Djibouti, Gwadar and Hambantota. The competition between India-Pakistan and India-China creates interlocking security dilemmas that ripple through global great power relations. The US has positioned India as a counterweight to Chinese influence through weapons sales and strategic partnerships, while Russia maintains defense cooperation with New Delhi despite Western pressure over Ukraine.&nbsp;&quot;Countries involved in strategic competition do not compromise on defense expenditure,&quot; said Dr. Attiq ur Rehman, a defense analyst specializing in South Asian security, nuclear politics and defense studies. &quot;India has adopted a balanced policy with all great powers &mdash; receiving S-400 systems from Russia while maintaining US strategic partnership &mdash; positioning itself as an essential customer for nations seeking to constrain Chinese influence regionally.&quot;&nbsp;Regional reckoning The arms buildup forces reactive militarization across the region. Pakistan has relied primarily on Chinese military assistance, including JF-17 Thunder fighters jointly produced with China and Type 054A frigates, according to Pakistani military sources. Regional states will be forced to divert scarce resources from development priorities into military modernization, perpetuating cycles of competition that benefit no population.&nbsp;The pattern mirrors historical precedents. Arms buildups preceded the wars of 1965, 1971 and 1999, each time undermining diplomatic efforts and confidence-building measures that had sought to reduce tensions. India launched a massive modernization program following the 1962 Sino-Indian War while Pakistan received substantial American military aid through the 1954 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute military expenditure data.&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;The conventional imbalance automatically creates dangerous dynamics,&quot; Khattak said. &quot;This dynamic is extremely dangerous for the region. India is now focusing heavily on artillery with extended ranges &mdash; systems like Dhanush, ATAGS and Vajra K9 that far exceed the range of older systems. They&#39;re adding capabilities systematically, and this creates pressures that make the entire regional security environment more volatile.&quot;&nbsp;Advanced weapons systems lower crisis thresholds and compress decision-making timelines during confrontations, reducing space for diplomatic resolution, according to conflict studies research from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.&nbsp;Dr Rehman noted that the great power competition adds another layer of complexity. &quot;India has positioned itself as essential to constraining Chinese influence, which ensures continued weapons flows from both Western and Russian suppliers despite geopolitical tensions,&quot; he said.&nbsp;Guns-and-butter equation The 2025 acquisitions fundamentally alter South Asia&#39;s military equilibrium. The trajectory threatens to transform one of the world&#39;s most densely populated regions into an arena of intensifying military competition, where advanced weapons systems and compressed crisis timelines increase the risks of miscalculation and escalation.&nbsp;In a region where nuclear-armed neighbors have fought four wars since 1947, where over 500 million people live within potential strike range of the weapons systems India is now deploying (as per UN and SIPRI), and where a single miscalculation could trigger catastrophe on a scale the world has never seen, the $23 billion question is not what India can buy with its defense budget. It is what the entire subcontinent will pay for it.&nbsp;The Rafale fighters, the Predator drones, the S-400 systems &mdash; each represents a choice. Not just between guns and butter, but between a future where South Asia&#39;s 2.096 billion&nbsp;people can pursue development and prosperity, or one where they remain hostage to an arms race that enriches defense contractors in Washington, Paris and Moscow while schools go unbuilt, hospitals remain understaffed and hundreds of millions stay trapped in poverty that military spending helps perpetuate.&nbsp;India&#39;s defense ministry calls it strategic autonomy. History may record it as a collective suicide note, written in weapons contracts and signed by governments that chose military dominance over human development in one of the world&#39;s most vulnerable regions.

India

New Delhi chooses guns over development, signing $23 billion in weapons contracts that threaten regional catastrophe and perpetuate poverty.

Guns over schools: How India's military buildup is bankrupting South Asia's future

The phone call comes at 9pm, after a long day at work. The man on the other end, introduced through her mother&#39;s WhatsApp network, is pleasant enough. 20 minutes in, he mentions that he can&#39;t cook. Or clean. His mother does everything, he explains, but of course after marriage, that would be his wife&#39;s responsibility. &quot;You&#39;ll still work, naturally,&quot; he adds. &quot;We want a modern woman.&quot; The woman, in her mid-20s, sits in her room and feels a familiar exhaustion. This is the third such call this week. Different men, same script: they want a working woman who will also shoulder all domestic responsibilities. &quot;This is not feminism,&quot; she says, recounting the experience weeks later. She requested anonymity to speak freely about family matters. &quot;Feminism was meant to make our life easier, not harder.&quot; 250 years ago, Jane Austen was born in Hampshire, England. The novelist would create some of English literature&#39;s most beloved characters: Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, Anne Elliot; women navigating the constraints of Regency-era marriage markets with wit and intelligence. Austen&#39;s genius lay not in imagining escape from the system, but in documenting how intelligent women operated within it. Her heroines couldn&#39;t opt out of marriage, economic survival depended on it, but they could resist, delay and ultimately choose partners who offered genuine respect alongside financial security. That tension between autonomy and constraint, individual preference and family pressure, remains startlingly alive in modern Pakistan. Here, the marriage market Austen satirized has evolved but not disappeared, migrating from drawing rooms to WhatsApp groups, from calling cards to biodata profiles. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/8ba2624f-2eee-4643-b7e6-aa6e455d2db1-drawing boards to whatsdapp.jpeg" alt="drawing boards to whatsdapp.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">The marriage market Austen satirized has evolved but not disappeared, migrating from drawing rooms to WhatsApp groups. (Illustration from Pride and Prejudice/Jane Austen&#39;s House)</figcaption></figure> Pakistan TV Digital spoke with four women who recently navigated or are currently navigating Pakistan&#39;s rishta system, the network of family connections and matchmakers through which most marriages are still arranged. Their experiences, shared on condition of anonymity, reveal how Austen&#39;s observations about marriage as transaction rather than romance remain uncomfortably relevant. Economics of eligibility The woman, living in Islamabad, describes how proposals arrive: Her mother has joined numerous WhatsApp groups dedicated to matchmaking. When a man&rsquo;s profile appears, it gets forwarded to daughters deemed age-appropriate. &quot;You don&#39;t even want to talk to them,&quot; her mother said after weeks of resistance. She finally relented. What followed were conversations lasting one to two hours, mandatory auditions with prescribed questions. Do you pray five times daily? Can you cook? In &quot;Pride and Prejudice,&quot; accomplished women needed music, drawing, languages. Today&#39;s requirements are different but identical in spirit. Several families specified height requirements: between 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 6 inches. &quot;My son is so tall, we want a girl that looks great next to him,&quot; mothers explained. &quot;Even if the guy had no prospects himself, he wanted a perfect wife: has to be religious and &#39;homely,&#39;&quot; she says. The word &quot;homely&quot; in Pakistani usage means domestically skilled, but the expectation is clear. The cruelest irony, she notes, is that families explicitly want working women, dual incomes are increasingly necessary, but refuse to adjust expectations around domestic labor. Unspoken rules A Pakistani woman in her early 30s who holds a foreign passport but lives in Pakistan remembers when the pressure began. &quot;From an early age, since the teens, they were telling us to mentally prepare for marriage,&quot; she says. &quot;Mind you, I was just 24 when the pressure intensified.&quot; She resisted. Proposals came and were rejected. She became engaged once, then broke it off. Her parents, she says, &quot;almost gave up on me.&quot; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/c621a95d-c5a6-4daf-ab0f-79224ad9e023-AustenIllustrations3.webp" alt="AustenIllustrations3.webp" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Two centuries after the novelist skewered Regency-era matchmaking, her observations about family pressure and women&#39;s constrained choices remain startlingly relevant. (Illustration from Pride and Prejudice/The Mary Sue)</figcaption></figure> In Austen&#39;s &quot;Persuasion,&quot; Anne Elliot is persuaded at 19 to reject Captain Wentworth because he lacks fortune and connections. The novel&#39;s tragedy isn&#39;t that Anne made the wrong choice; it&#39;s that the choice was never truly hers to make. Family pressure overrode her own judgment. Rare success A 28-year-old woman based in Karachi describes a smoother experience, though one that still operated through the rishta infrastructure. &quot;My parents joined every WhatsApp rishta group on the planet,&quot; she says. She&#39;s currently working in the corporate sector and married two years ago. The proposal came through a family friend. When asked how she knew he was right, her answer is simple: &quot;I felt calm and comfortable with him.&quot; &quot;Marriage is not constant happiness, but long-term emotional safety and partnership,&quot; she says. &quot;I believe the strongest marriages operate with a mindset of &#39;us versus the problem.&#39;&quot; Darker edge For a woman based in Peshawar who married in her early 20s, the process became traumatizing. A proposal came through family friends. The prospective in-laws made their expectations clear: She would not be allowed to study further or work. &quot;They earn enough to feed me,&quot; she recalls them saying. They openly discussed their wealth while explaining her economic contribution would be unnecessary. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/277410c8-7eff-4bca-a973-45f50fbbc660-AFP__20061030__Del69818__v2__HighRes__PakistanSocialMarriageMass.jpg" alt="AFP__20061030__Del69818__v2__HighRes__PakistanSocialMarriageMass.jpg" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">A Pakistani Christian bride shows off her jewellery during a mass wedding ceremony of about 55 couples in Lahore. (AFP)</figcaption></figure> Her family immediately rejected the proposal. Instead of ending there, it became a pressure campaign. &quot;They started insisting and started pressurizing my parents through our mutual friends to say yes,&quot; she says. The mutual friends became intermediaries, delivering messages about what a good match it was, how turning them down was insulting. Persistent question None of the women interviewed have given up on marriage. Like Austen&#39;s heroines, they&#39;re not revolutionaries attempting to dismantle the system. They&#39;re pragmatists trying to find decent outcomes within constraints they didn&#39;t choose. &quot;I&#39;m not against arranged marriages,&quot; one told me. &quot;I&#39;m against the hypocrisy. Say you want a housewife, fine. Say you want a working woman who will also be your mother&#39;s replacement, that&#39;s honest at least. But don&#39;t dress up exploitation as feminism.&quot; What strikes me most is how little has fundamentally changed since Austen&#39;s era. The mechanisms are more efficient, WhatsApp can connect families across continents instantly, but the underlying calculation remains: women as assets to be acquired, their worth determined by attributes that serve family interests. The question Austen asked repeatedly was: Given that you must operate within this system, how do you preserve your dignity and autonomy? How do you find genuine partnership in a transactional market? <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/bab8a1d3-b617-4a41-965a-589303f1c123-P-CE-Brock.jpg" alt="P-CE-Brock.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Anne Elliot talking to Captain Wentworth &quot;in spite of the formidable father and sister in the background&quot;. (Illustration from Jane Austen&#39;s novel Persuasion/Jane Austen Society of Australia)</figcaption></figure> Elizabeth Bennet rejects Mr Darcy&#39;s first proposal and only accepts his second when he&#39;s demonstrated genuine respect. Anne Elliot spends years alone rather than settle. The women navigating Pakistan&#39;s rishta market are making similar calculations: seeking the same elusive balance between practical necessity and personal fulfillment.

Blogs

Two centuries after the novelist skewered Regency-era matchmaking, Austen's observations about family pressure and women's constrained choices remain startlingly relevant.

Marriage market: How Jane Austen's England lives on in Pakistan's rishta culture 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will officially revive one of South Asia&rsquo;s most vibrant spring festivals next month, as the Punjab government lifts a ban of more than a decade on Basant, the centuries-old kite-flying celebration once halted after deadly incidents caused by razor-sharp kite strings.&nbsp;Punjab&rsquo;s Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb announced the decision on X, declaring: &ldquo;Spring returns to the city of heritage and festivals. Lahore&rsquo;s skies will speak in color again, reclaiming our glory for the world.&rdquo;&nbsp;She said Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif &ldquo;has approved&rdquo; the return of Basant from February 6 to 8 in Lahore, the first officially sanctioned celebration since 2007. <div class="fr-embed"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; line-height: 2;"><iframe id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 672px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1998711272876159402&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmain.d1wrm1qseko1cp.amplifyapp.com%2Farticles%2Fnew%2F&sessionId=333af8a47caec9ae1a27b53b80cbf02f1fc98b03&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</iframe></div>The festival historically transformed Lahore into a citywide spectacle, with entire neighborhoods turning into open-air gatherings and thousands of participants flying brightly colored kites in rooftop competitions. At its peak in the early 2000s, Basant drew international tourists and Pakistani expatriates who traveled home specifically for the event.&nbsp;Aurangzeb noted the festival would be celebrated &ldquo;across Lahore after 25 years,&rdquo; emphasizing that although small-scale celebrations persisted despite the ban, authorities had long blocked any formal or citywide events.&nbsp;A major safety operation is already underway. Lahore has begun installing protective antennas on motorcycles to prevent injuries caused by stray kite strings.&nbsp;&ldquo;Safety is CM Punjab priority,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Let every kite soar and every ride be safe, together we&rsquo;ll make Lahore happy, historic and secure.&rdquo;&nbsp;Why Basant turned deadlyOver the years, competitive kite-flying pushed enthusiasts to coat their strings, known locally as &ldquo;dor,&rdquo; with ground glass, metal or chemicals to gain an advantage.&nbsp;These sharpened strings could slice through rivals&rsquo; kites but also caused widespread harm, cutting electrical lines, triggering blackouts and, most tragically, injuring or killing motorcyclists who collided with the nearly invisible strings.&nbsp;By 2007, authorities attributed dozens of deaths to Basant-related incidents, including falls from rooftops and motorcycle accidents. The Punjab government banned the festival that year, and any attempts at revival in subsequent years were halted following new casualties.&nbsp;The ban hit Lahore&rsquo;s traditional kite-making families particularly hard, forcing many artisans to abandon their craft.&nbsp;New law sets strict controlsBasant&rsquo;s revival follows the introduction of the Basant Ordinance 2025, which sets strict safety rules aimed at preventing the tragedies that once made the festival deadly.&nbsp;Metallic and chemical-coated strings remain banned; only approved cotton strings may be used. Manufacturers and sellers must register with authorities and label each product with a QR code for tracking. &ldquo;Every kite string and seller registered, QR coded and monitored,&rdquo; Aurangzeb said, stressing rigorous enforcement.&nbsp;Penalties for violations include fines of up to Rs100,000 ($353.7) and possible imprisonment of up to three years.&nbsp;Motorcycles are being equipped with vertical antennas designed to deflect or break dangerous strings. &ldquo;On CM Punjab&rsquo;s direction a city-wide campaign to install safety antennas on all motorbikes starts tomorrow,&rdquo; she said, adding: &ldquo;Every motorbike in Lahore will have Antenna for safety before and during Basant.&rdquo;&nbsp;Aurangzeb said the festival belongs to the people but requires collective responsibility. &ldquo;Basant belongs to the people, its success is our collective responsibility. The Basant Ordinance 2025 will be fully enforced and implemented.&rdquo;</div>

Culture

It will be the first officially sanctioned celebration since 2007, when the a centuries-old kite-flying festival was prohibited after metal-coated strings killed dozens of people.

Punjab revives Basant festival after long ban with new safety rules

For decades, Pakistan has hosted one of the world&#39;s largest refugee populations, providing sanctuary to millions of Afghans fleeing conflict. But by October 2025, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared that Pakistan could no longer sustain this burden, citing security threats and socio-economic challenges. The result: over 1.47 million Afghan nationals repatriated in what Islamabad said is an orderly but necessary response to an escalating crisis.&nbsp; The numbers tell a grim story. Between 2023 and 2025, Pakistan experienced a devastating wave of terrorist attacks with alleged or confirmed links to Afghanistan. In January 2023, a suicide bomber killed 95 people at a Peshawar mosque. In July 2023, an attack on a political rally in Bajaur claimed over 50 lives. By December, 23 soldiers died in a military post attack in Dera Ismail Khan.&nbsp; In 2023, Pakistan&#39;s former Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti stated that 14 of 24 suicide bombings in that year alone&nbsp;involved Afghan nationals. The pattern continued into 2024 and 2025. After seven soldiers were killed in North Waziristan in March 2024, Pakistan&#39;s defense minister declared that terrorism against Pakistan was &quot;mostly being conducted from Afghanistan.&quot; Most recently, in November 2025, a suicide bombing at an Islamabad district court killed 12 people. Pakistani officials stated that the bomber was an Afghan national and the attack was orchestrated from Afghanistan. For Pakistan, these aren&#39;t isolated incidents but evidence of a systemic problem: militant groups, particularly Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), operating from Afghan territory to launch cross-border attacks. Pakistani officials have repeatedly asked the Afghan Taliban of preventing its soil from being used by these militant groups. Despite diplomatic assurances to the contrary, the Taliban regime has done little. The diplomatic efforts were genuine but ultimately futile. Throughout 2025, Pakistan engaged in multiple rounds of high-level talks with Afghanistan&#39;s Taliban government, mediated by Qatar and Turkey. In April, Pakistan&#39;s Foreign Minister visited Kabul. In May, trilateral talks were held in Beijing. When deadly border clashes erupted in October, three separate negotiation rounds were convened in Doha and Istanbul. All failed. Pakistan demanded verifiable action against militant groups; Afghanistan either could not or would not deliver. The humanitarian dimension of this crisis cannot be ignored. According to an International Organization for Migration report in late November,&nbsp;435,279 Afghan nationals returned to Afghanistan between July and September alone. 93% left through self-organized returns, driven overwhelmingly by fear of arrest. The deportees came from areas that had suffered terrorist attacks: 28% from Quetta, 11% from Pishin. In September 2025, a suicide bombing at a political rally in Quetta, near Pishin, was claimed by the ISIS-K. This is the tragic calculus of national security meeting humanitarian obligation. Pakistan has legitimate security concerns. When diplomatic channels fail and attacks continue, a government faces pressure to act decisively. The international community has largely remained silent, treating this as a bilateral issue rather than a regional crisis requiring multilateral solutions. Afghanistan&#39;s Taliban regime has proven unable or unwilling to control militant groups within its borders, leaving Pakistan with few options. Meanwhile, Afghan refugees become pawns in a security crisis not of their making. There are no easy answers here. Pakistan&#39;s security concerns are real and documented. The failure of diplomatic engagement left Islamabad feeling it had exhausted peaceful options. But the mass repatriation of over a million people, many of whom have known only Pakistan as home, raises profound questions about refuge and the limits of hospitality when national security appears threatened. What remains clear is that this crisis demands more than bilateral negotiations that end in deadlock. It requires sustained international engagement, pressure on the Afghan&nbsp;Taliban to deny sanctuary to militant groups, and genuine support for both Pakistan&#39;s security needs and the humanitarian needs of displaced Afghans. Without it, we&#39;re left with what we have now: a tragic situation where everyone loses, and the most vulnerable pay the highest price.

When diplomatic channels fail and attacks continue, a government faces pressure to act decisively.

Pakistan's refugee crisis: When security concerns force difficult choices

24 years ago, the twin towers fell in Lower Manhattan, reshaping not just the skyline but the lived reality of every Muslim in America. This January, Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in as New York City&#39;s 111th mayor&mdash;its first Muslim, first South Asian, and first African-born leader.&nbsp; The geographic irony is almost too perfect: a Muslim mayor taking office in the very city whose police department once mapped every mosque within 100 miles, where &quot;wearing traditional Islamic clothing&quot; was listed as a radicalization indicator, where informants infiltrated wedding parties and college rafting trips in the name of counterterrorism. The distance between those two moments&mdash;between surveillance subject and City Hall&mdash;tells a story not just of individual achievement but of collective survival, political awakening, and the hard-won transformation of a community that refused to disappear. Since at least 2002, the NYPD&#39;s Intelligence Division engaged in what can only be described as systematic religious profiling. The Demographics Unit mapped 28 &quot;ancestries of interest&quot; associated with Muslim populations while explicitly excluding non-Muslims like Coptic Christian Egyptians or Iranian Jews. Undercover officers embedded themselves in mosques, bodegas, coffee shops, and barber shops. Their job, according to civil liberties groups, was to &quot;live the life of a fake Muslim&quot; inside these communities. The statistics are staggering: anti-Muslim hate crimes jumped from 28 incidents in 2000 to 481 in 2001 alone. But numbers can&#39;t capture what surveillance does to a community&#39;s soul. As Dr. Debbie Almontaser, a longtime Muslim advocate, testified: &quot;The community was traumatized because of how invasive the surveillance was.&quot; Trust evaporated&mdash;not just between Muslims and law enforcement, but among Muslims themselves. You couldn&#39;t be certain your neighbor wasn&#39;t an informant. Abdullah Ahmad, a Pakistani-American Brooklynite, who grew up in the 2000s, remembers this atmosphere vividly. &quot;Growing up in New York, it was a lot of Islamophobia,&quot; he recalls. &quot;That smear campaign mentality, the stigmatism that came from the Bush administration and everything after, it shaped how we moved through the world.&quot; Yet this is also where the story turns. Because surveillance, for all its trauma, had an unintended consequence: it politicized a generation. When your community is under siege, you have two choices:&nbsp;retreat or organize. New York&#39;s Muslims chose organization. Mamdani&#39;s victory carries symbolic weight that no single person should have to bear. A 2017 Pew Research survey found that 75% of US&nbsp;Muslims agreed there is &quot;a lot of discrimination&quot; against their community. The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion noted that &quot;widespread negative representations of Islam, fear of Muslims generally, and counterterrorism policies have served to perpetuate, validate and normalize discrimination.&quot; Into this climate steps a 34-year-old who spent his early years in Uganda and Cape Town, a &quot;third culture kid&quot; who once worked as a foreclosure prevention counselor in Queens. He&#39;s being asked to represent not just eight million New Yorkers but, symbolically, 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide. Yeliz Coban, a Turkish-American Brooklynite,&nbsp;understands this weight differently. &quot;It feels like being heard,&quot; she says simply. &quot;Not just being spoken at or spoken about, but truly listened to. It feels like someone who understands both the quiet resilience and the heavier burdens that Muslim communities have carried. His win isn&#39;t just symbolic&mdash;it&#39;s emotional. It feels like the city finally made space for us at the table.&quot; But the political opposition Mamdani faces reveals how precarious this moment remains. President Trump branded him a &quot;communist&quot; and vowed &quot;political retribution.&quot; Sitting members of Congress used fear-mongering, warning that his election would cause &quot;another 9/11.&quot; Trump even endorsed independent Andrew Cuomo&mdash;his political opponent&mdash;to prevent a Muslim from leading America&#39;s largest city. Masroor Jehangiri, a Pakistani-American living and studying in Staten Island, a predominantly Republican-leaning borough of NYC, feels both pride and anxiety. &quot;As a Muslim, I certainly feel proud and enabled that a person from our background can now become mayor of one of the greatest cities in the world,&quot; he says. &quot;This also comes with worry about how much Mamdani can actually deliver seeing how bad the political opposition has gotten. But I&#39;m glad his campaign revealed the mindsets of the politicians that lead us.&quot; Here&#39;s what makes Mamdani&#39;s victory genuinely transformative rather than merely symbolic: he didn&#39;t win by running away from controversy or making himself palatable to power. He won by building the largest grassroots campaign in New York history&mdash;100,000 volunteers knocking on three million doors. He won by centering economic justice: freezing rents for two million New Yorkers, making buses free, creating universal childcare, building 200,000 affordable housing units. &quot;A year ago, almost nobody had heard of Zohran Mamdani,&quot; Masroor notes. &quot;He used social media and multiple mediums to connect with younger generations, but he was also out on the streets doing ground work, genuinely connecting with everyday New Yorkers. For the first time, we witnessed a politician being genuine and honest,&nbsp;who doesn&#39;t seem trained to say certain answers but rather knows what answers people want.&quot; Abdullah saw this authenticity firsthand. &quot;Zohran has been a person of the community since the very beginning. He can speak to folks in Harlem because of his Ugandan background, or with all the desis [South Asians] in Jackson Heights.&nbsp;I recently had friends who went out for Halloween, and he was at the clubs speaking. No other politician would do that. I went to Yemeni delis, and they still have his posters up.&quot; This matters because it reframes the narrative. Mamdani isn&#39;t asking Muslims to be grateful for a seat at the table&mdash;he&#39;s reorganizing the entire table around working people&#39;s needs. South Asian voter turnout in the 2025 NYC primary increased by 40% compared to 2021, not because of identity politics but because a candidate finally spoke to their lived economic reality. The path from surveillance to City Hall wasn&#39;t inevitable, it was built. Built by Muslims who refused to self-censor out of existence, who organized despite fear, who raised their children to claim space rather than apologize for occupying it. Abdullah captures this generational shift perfectly: &quot;This 9/11 rhetoric is sort of ending. Yeah, you can instill fear from the Trump administration or Cuomo or whatever. But I think love and hope trumps all of that.&quot; Yeliz&#39;s hopes are more personal but no less powerful: &quot;My prayer is that Mamdani leads with integrity, keeps his promises, and shows this city that representation isn&#39;t something to fear but something that can expand our collective sense of belonging. If he does that, even those hesitant now will see that this moment isn&#39;t a threat, it&#39;s an opportunity.&quot; 24&nbsp;years ago, Muslim New Yorkers became surveillance subjects in their own city. Today, one of their own will lead it. That transformation didn&#39;t erase Islamophobia or solve systemic discrimination. But it proved something more important: that communities under siege can organize their way to power, that the children of immigrants can reshape the cities that once profiled them, that the distance between &quot;suspect community&quot; and City Hall is shorter than it looks&mdash;if you&#39;re willing to knock on three million doors. The future isn&#39;t certain, but it&#39;s no longer being written about Muslims. It&#39;s being written by them.

Articles

The geographic irony is almost too perfect: a Muslim mayor taking office in the very city whose police department once mapped every mosque within 100 miles.

New York once surveilled its Muslims, now Zohran Mamdani leads it

In late October 2025, Indian audiences watched a Bollywood hero demand a DNA test of the Taj Mahal. In &ldquo;The Taj Story&rdquo;, the protagonist claims the 17th-century mausoleum was originally a Hindu temple &lsquo;stolen&rsquo; by Muslim rulers. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has repeatedly rejected this theory, and centuries of historical and architectural records credit Mughal emperor Shah Jahan with commissioning the monument for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Yet in Narendra Modi&rsquo;s India, history is increasingly subject to reinterpretation. When cinema becomes a vehicle for myth presented as fact, and when millions absorb propaganda as entertainment, it amounts to a systematic reframing of Muslim contributions to the subcontinent, and of the identities of the 200 million Muslims who live in India today. India&rsquo;s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have refined a strategy of cultural revision: rewrite textbooks, challenge monument origins, recast Mughal history as occupation, demolish mosques and build temples in their place, and enlist Bollywood as a mass-scale amplifier. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/6cb9827c-b2ee-4b47-837d-1d998cce1d25-2.png" alt="2.png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Paresh Rawal promoting his movie The Taj Story on X.</figcaption></figure> The temple that never was The claim that the Taj Mahal was once a Shiva temple, &ldquo;Tejo Mahalaya,&rdquo; originated with P.N. Oak&rsquo;s 1965 book. Historians and the ASI have long dismissed the idea. In 2022, India&rsquo;s Supreme Court rejected a petition to open 22 sealed Taj Mahal rooms to search for Hindu idols, calling the request &ldquo;publicity interest litigation.&rdquo; The ASI has stated that the rooms are simple maintenance spaces. Even within India, voices are raising eyebrows over this narrative. Before the film premiered, many were quick to label it as propaganda.&nbsp; &quot;I think this story is pure propaganda,&rdquo; one Indian X user bluntly put it. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/bd64d234-dec7-4248-a489-c62aad1266b5-3.png" alt="3.png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">An Indian X user stated that the entire story was &quot;pure propaganda&quot;. (X)</figcaption></figure> Some went further, openly hoping for the movie to flop &quot;badly&rdquo;. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/e36968de-f78d-4d9a-838b-627efa0fb68d-7.png" alt="7.png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">(X)</figcaption></figure> One particularly sharp-witted user quipped, &ldquo;Nothing says trusted research like watching a movie [and] rewriting history! 22 mystery chambers, divine murtis, courtroom &lsquo;eyewitnesses&rsquo;&mdash;all checked. &quot;Next up: history books sold at the popcorn stand. Taj Mahal facts brought to you by Bollywood, not archaeologists.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/4d663e50-9c31-4bc8-ab9e-45ee20c20879-9 (this).png" alt="9 (this).png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">(X)</figcaption></figure> And it wasn&rsquo;t just the narrative itself that irked people. The main actor&#39;s shifting stance didn&rsquo;t go unnoticed. A user unearthed an&nbsp;October 2017 post&nbsp;from Paresh Rawal, where he had stated, &ldquo;Taj Mahal&mdash;Symbol of Love becomes the symbol of Hate!!!(sic)&nbsp;Stupid [and] unnecessary [and] sad [and] pathetic controversy.&rdquo; As the&nbsp;user wryly noted, it looks like Mr. Rawal may have had a &quot;change of heart&quot;&hellip; or perhaps a change of narrative. <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/0db6e1bb-c756-4612-a431-f3ae9829f95f-6.png" alt="6.png" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">(X)</figcaption></figure> When myth shapes law The Taj Mahal&nbsp;debate evokes an earlier, far more consequential case: the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. Hindu nationalist groups spent decades claiming the 16th-century mosque stood atop the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram. In December 1992, tens of thousands demolished the mosque. The violence and riots killed thousands. After a 17-year inquiry, the Liberhan Commission named BJP and RSS leaders &ldquo;responsible&rdquo; for the demolition. But in 2019, the Supreme Court, while declaring the mosque&rsquo;s destruction illegal, awarded the land to a Hindu trust. In January 2024, Modi inaugurated a new temple on the site in a nationally televised ceremony. The message many took from the sequence was clear: demolish first, wait, then receive recognition. Rewriting identity in classrooms The historical revision extends to classrooms. School textbooks have been reworked to minimize the cultural, architectural, and scientific contributions of Muslim dynasties, particularly the Mughals, who shaped Indian identity for centuries. Mughal emperors are increasingly framed as &ldquo;foreign occupiers&rdquo; rather than rulers whose legacy is interwoven with Indian music, language, art, and city-building. Curriculum is not neutral. What children learn determines who they believe belongs. The politics behind the rewrite Proponents of these changes argue they are restoring &ldquo;authentic Hindu history&rdquo; suppressed by earlier scholars and Muslim rule. But the effect is to cast Indian Muslims as historical outsiders in their own country. If the Taj Mahal, a globally recognized symbol of India, is reframed as &ldquo;originally Hindu,&rdquo; then Muslim claims to Indian cultural heritage are weakened. If mosques are reclassified as former temples, then every mosque becomes contested. Pluralism erodes quietly, long before violence erupts, through shifts in who is considered rightful. What is at stake The Taj Mahal itself will not change. Marble does not respond to political pressure. But the idea of India that built the Taj, a state where Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and other communities participated together in shared cultural production, may not survive if historical narrative becomes a tool of exclusion. The transformation unfolding is not simply about monuments or textbooks. It is about defining who belongs in the world&rsquo;s largest &#39;democracy&#39;. When a nation with 1.4 billion people and one of the world&rsquo;s largest Muslim populations reorders its history around a singular religious identity, the implications are global. Cinema scenes can become political reality. A fictional demand for a monument&rsquo;s DNA test reflects a deeper shift: the attempt to rewrite not just history, but citizenship itself.

India’s ruling BJP have refined a strategy of cultural revision: challenge monument origins, recast Mughal history as occupation, demolish mosques and build temples in their place, and enlist Bollywood as a mass-scale amplifier.

Taj Mahal: Hindu nationalist revisionism reshapes India’s monuments and memory

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is advancing a strategy to expand its meat and agricultural exports, aiming to position itself as a major player in the global halal market through regulatory reforms, infrastructure upgrades, and international partnerships, officials and industry experts said. The country aims to capture a larger share of the global halal market, valued at about $407.8 billion in 2023, according to a report by ICRIC, an affiliate of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Success could generate billions in foreign exchange and create jobs for millions, though infrastructure deficits and regional competition pose significant challenges. Untapped export potential Pakistan has 251.3 million livestock, with a growth rate of 3.18% annually since 2006, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics&rsquo; 7th Agricultural Census released in August 2024. The sector accounts for 63.6% of agricultural GDP and 14.97% of the total GDP, as per the Economic Survey 2024-25 released in June 2025. The Ministry of National Food Security and Research reported in June this year&nbsp;that over eight million rural families rely on livestock as their main livelihood. Despite this massive base, meat exports reached just $512 million with 123,515 tons in fiscal 2024 &mdash; a 20% increase from $426 million but under 3% of total exports, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data reported in July 2024. Over 97% of Pakistan&#39;s approximately 2.2 million tons of meat production is consumed domestically, according to the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan&#39;s Meat Export Strategy 2023-2027. The government aims to address&nbsp;barriers through infrastructure investment, skills training and technology upgrades to modernize processing facilities, improve cold storage networks and strengthen disease control systems. Infrastructure challenges Infrastructure deficits remain the primary obstacle. In September 2025, the government announced plans to establish modern abattoirs and processing facilities nationwide to meet international halal standards. Outdated cold chains limit capacity. Production costs reach $5 per kilogram compared with India&#39;s $3.5 per kilogram, as revealed during a meeting with PM&rsquo;s&nbsp;Special Assistant Haroon Akhtar Khan with industry stakeholders on October 20, 2025. Foot and Mouth Disease restricts access to premium markets. October 2025 discussions with Malaysia and Qatar addressed these challenges while opening cooperation channels. Pakistan also vowed to improve disease control, breeding programs and traceability systems. Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Rana Tanveer Hussain said at an October 19, 2025, meeting that Pakistan would overcome production costs and cold chain deficiencies through targeted interventions and public-private partnerships. International cooperation International partnerships provide access to expertise, technology and markets. October 2025 meetings with Australia, Malaysia, Qatar and the United States secured technical support. The Samsons Group is partnering with the Ministry of National Food Security and Pakistan Agricultural Research Council to improve livestock breeds, feed quality and disease control.&nbsp; The partnership aims to position Pakistan in, while promoting value-added products and agro-tourism in areas including Malam Jabba Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Australia, which exported 1.69 million metric tons of beef in 2024, according to Meat and Livestock Australia, will provide technology transfer.&nbsp; Discussions with Qatar and US focused on improving livestock genetics, disease management and research to enhance compliance and market access in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and beyond. Private sector role Private sector engagement drives the strategy. Government partnerships with private companies aim to modernize processing and boost export potential through capital investment. Their focus on value-added halal products aligns with growing global demand for certified, sustainable food. Government-backed initiatives, including Samsons Group&rsquo;s Malam Jabba Valley project, combine mountain agriculture and livestock development to create rural income and enhance sustainability. Economic visionPakistan&rsquo;s livestock population grew from 143 million in 2006 to 251.3 million in 2024, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Dr. Ikramul Haq, a leading Pakistani economist, says this growth presents a major opportunity for the country. &ldquo;Pakistan has huge potential in this sector, thanks to its rapidly growing livestock population. With one of the largest livestock populations in the world, this subsector is vital, accounting for more than 60% of the country&rsquo;s total agricultural economy,&rdquo; he said. He noted that boosting productivity, quality and compliance could drive significant growth in domestic and international markets. Pakistan aims to increase competitiveness in key markets. The United Arab Emirates accounted for 39% ($200 million) and Saudi Arabia 28% ($142 million) of meat exports in fiscal 2024, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data. Expansion targets include Europe and Southeast Asia. The strategy positions Pakistan as a major player in the halal market, leveraging its large livestock population, established halal practices, strategic location between Middle Eastern and Asian markets, and a young workforce.

Economy

Pakistan is pursuing reforms, infrastructure upgrades, and international partnerships to expand its halal meat exports, though outdated facilities, disease control gaps, and logistics challenges continue to limit competitiveness.

Pakistan targets global halal market with reforms to boost meat exports

ISLAMABAD: At the recent Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Geneva, an Indian representative from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Aparajita Sarangi, claimed that &ldquo;Kashmir is an integral part of India&rdquo; and that &ldquo;the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was completely legal and irrevocable.&rdquo;&nbsp;However, a fact-based review of international documents and ground realities shows that this claim does not align with historical, legal, or international facts.&nbsp;1. Kashmir&rsquo;s status is defined by the UN as disputedThe United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed resolutions in 1948 and 1949, specifically Resolutions 47 and 51, that recognized Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory. These resolutions called for a free and impartial plebiscite to determine whether the region&rsquo;s people wished to join India or Pakistan.&nbsp;That plebiscite has never been held, and the region&rsquo;s status therefore remains undecided under international law.&nbsp;&ldquo;Kashmir&rsquo;s future must be determined by its people, not by unilateral declarations,&rdquo; Pakistan maintains in its consistent position before international forums.&nbsp;2. World&rsquo;s most militarized regionIf Kashmir were truly an &ldquo;integral part&rdquo; of India, it would not require the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops. Independent global assessments describe Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir as one of the most militarized zones in the world, with a long history of armed resistance and civilian unrest dating back to 1947.&nbsp;3. India&rsquo;s 2019 actions contradict international commitmentsIn August 2019, India revoked Article 370 of its constitution, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special autonomous status. Pakistan and international observers have called this action a violation of UN resolutions and an attempt to alter the region&rsquo;s demographic and political identity.&nbsp;Since then, Pakistan has marked August 5 as &ldquo;Youm-e-Istehsal,&rdquo; or Day of Exploitation, observing it as a reminder of what it calls India&rsquo;s &ldquo;unilateral and illegal actions&rdquo; in the occupied territory.&nbsp;4. Human rights concerns remain documented&nbsp;International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have reported arbitrary detentions, restrictions on free speech, and limitations on movement in Indian-occupied Kashmir since the revocation of Article 370.&nbsp;Reports by Reuters and AFP indicate ongoing fears of demographic changes and suppression of dissent in the region.&nbsp;5. Global and Kashmiri voices call for self-determinationThe All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and other Kashmiri political groups continue to demand implementation of the UN-mandated plebiscite. In 2025, APHC spokesperson Abdul Rashid Minhas reaffirmed the group&rsquo;s commitment to peaceful self-determination, despite restrictions and detentions.&nbsp;&ldquo;Kashmiris remain steadfast in their demand for the right to decide their own future,&rdquo; Minhas said earlier this year.&nbsp;Prominent Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik, currently imprisoned, has also consistently called for self-determination and an internationally supervised plebiscite.&nbsp;6. International concern over India&rsquo;s stanceDebate over India&rsquo;s 2019 actions has extended to foreign parliaments and academic circles. A 2020 US Congressional discussion raised concerns that India&rsquo;s decision could destabilize South Asia and escalate tensions with Pakistan.&nbsp;The Harvard Law Review (2021) described India&rsquo;s Kashmir policy as resembling &ldquo;settler colonialism,&rdquo; referring to demographic engineering through new domicile laws.&nbsp;Dispute recognized by the worldWhile India insists that Kashmir is an &ldquo;internal matter,&rdquo; the United Nations, international law, and decades of unresolved conflict demonstrate otherwise.&nbsp;Until the promised plebiscite is held and the will of the Kashmiri people is respected, the status of Jammu and Kashmir will remain disputed, not integral to India.&nbsp;As Pakistan consistently asserts: &ldquo;Kashmir&rsquo;s future lies in the right of its people to self-determination, not in unilateral claims.&rdquo;

Indian army soldiers light earthen lamp on a fence to celebrate Diwali, near the Line of Control in Akhnoor sector, Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. October 16, 2025. (AP)

Fact Check

Kashmir remains a UN-recognized disputed territory despite Indian claims. International law and UN resolutions call for a plebiscite to determine the region’s final status through the will of its people.

Fact Check: Why Kashmir can never be an integral part of India

ISLAMABAD:&nbsp;At first glance, it feels almost anachronistic&mdash;two countries announcing a barter agreement in the third decade of the 21st century, in a world hurtling towards a cashless economy. Yet, this is precisely the economic route countries like Pakistan, Iran, and Russia seem to be charting in 2025. On Sunday, Pakistan and Iran formally signed an amended Business-to-Business (B2B) Barter Trade Mechanism, first introduced in 2023, aimed at boosting bilateral trade between the two sanction-hit economies. The news was confirmed by Pakistan&#39;s Ambassador in Tehran, Muhammad Mudassir Tipu. According to Tipu, the revised statutory regulatory order (SRO) followed &ldquo;an exhaustive process of deliberations,&rdquo; and addressed longstanding concerns of the business communities in both countries. He expressed optimism that the framework would &quot;substantially elevate Pakistan-Iran trade and diversify its base.&quot; Business bodies and chambers of commerce were encouraged to circulate the SRO among their members to enable them to capitalize on what he termed &ldquo;mutually-beneficial trade dividends.&rdquo; This development follows another high-profile barter deals. In October 2024, Pakistan signed a barter deal with Russia in Moscow. According to Pakistan&rsquo;s Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), the agreement involved Russian firms and Pakistani companies exchanging agricultural commodities such as chickpeas, rice, mandarins, potatoes, and lentils. The deals were sealed during the first-ever Pakistan-Russia Trade and Investment Forum, with over 60 Pakistani firms showcasing goods and services with a combined export value exceeding $500 million. The forum also featured high-ranking Russian officials and banks, who expressed an interest in alternative payment mechanisms given the continuing SWIFT sanctions on Russia. Why barter? Why now? The resurrection of barter as a tool of statecraft and economic survival has not gone unnoticed. Once relegated to history books, barter has made a curious comeback. To be clear: this isn&rsquo;t romantic nostalgia for ancient trade routes or a step toward alternative economic utopias. Rather, it is a direct response to modern geopolitical and financial constraints, especially in economies heavily burdened by sanctions, currency volatility, and restricted access to global banking infrastructure. According to economist Dr Ikramul Haq, barter offers developing countries like Pakistan a strategic lifeline in a world where Western-dominated financial institutions and reserve currencies&mdash;primarily the US dollar&mdash;remain gatekeepers of international trade. For nations under sanctions such as Iran and Russia, barter becomes less of an option and more of a necessity. &ldquo;The bartering system helps to end dependence on keeping foreign exchange reserves and mitigate fluctuations,&rdquo; Dr Haq explained. &ldquo;In case of Iran and Russia, the additional reason is sanctions on banks imposed by the US and other states.&rdquo; This also explains why Dr Haq advocates for Pakistan to expand such mechanisms to all &quot;Golden Ring&quot; countries&mdash;a term sometimes used to refer to the emerging bloc of Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan. Iran: A crisis economy Iran&rsquo;s embrace of barter is less a strategic pivot than an act of economic survival. Its 2025 macroeconomic outlook is, by most accounts, grim. According to the World Bank, Iran is projected to experience a 1.7% contraction in GDP this year, with the Iranian Parliament&#39;s own research center forecasting -0.3% growth in the first half alone. This is compounded by inflation, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projecting a 43.3% inflation rate for 2025, up from 32.6% in 2024. Sanctions are at the heart of Iran&rsquo;s economic woes.&nbsp;Renewed UN sanctions, reinstated in September 2025, have severely impacted the country&rsquo;s oil revenue and foreign exchange reserves. The 12-day war with Israel only accelerated inflationary expectations and currency depreciation. Meanwhile, Iran&rsquo;s currency&nbsp;is in free fall. While officially pegged at 42,000 IRR per USD, the free-market rate is substantially worse. In the most pessimistic&mdash;but widely accepted&mdash;scenario outlined by the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, inflation could hit 90% and the exchange rate could reach 165,000 tomans (equivalent to 1.65 million rials) per dollar by the end of the year. Poverty is escalating just as quickly. The World Bank estimates that 32.7 million Iranians, out of a population of 86 million, now live on less than $8.30/day, the international poverty threshold. Despite a life expectancy of 77.7 years, Iran&rsquo;s per capita GDP stands at $5,528.9, with total GDP at $475.3 billion (in 2024). Against this backdrop, barter offers Tehran a path&mdash;however limited&mdash;to bypass the dollarized international system and maintain trade flows without exhausting its dwindling reserves and navigating sanctioned banking channels. Russia: Sanctioned but still trading The Russian economy, though more resilient than Iran&rsquo;s, is also being dragged toward alternative trade arrangements by necessity. Following years of Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, Russia&#39;s access to the global banking system remains severely constrained. The IMF&rsquo;s 2025 report revised Russia&rsquo;s GDP growth forecast to 0.6%, down sharply from 4.3% in 2024. While not collapsing, the Russian economy is clearly losing steam. Several factors are contributing to this slowdown: 1. &nbsp; &nbsp;High interest rates imposed by the Central Bank to curb inflation 2. &nbsp; &nbsp;Reduced oil revenues due to global price volatility and export limits 3. &nbsp; &nbsp;Dwindling fiscal reserves, which had previously cushioned the impact of sanctions Inflation remains persistent, projected at 9% in 2025&mdash;more than double the global average. Meanwhile, the ruble, which has seen periods of extreme volatility, is currently trading at around 81 per USD. Some analysts predict a gradual devaluation, with one Central Bank survey expecting it to average 102 per USD before year&rsquo;s end. Still, Russia has adapted in typical Kremlin fashion&mdash;by building elaborate sanctions evasion networks and deepening ties with countries willing to trade outside the dollar-based system. India, the UAE, and China continue to do business with Moscow, albeit with their own forms of risk mitigation. For Pakistan, therefore, entering a barter arrangement with Russia isn&#39;t just symbolic&mdash;it&rsquo;s practical. It offers access to agricultural exports, manufacturing goods, and even energy commodities, without dealing with SWIFT-related complications. Is barter a long-term economic model? Barter is not without its critics. Most mainstream economists and leading financial institutes&mdash;including Merwan Engineer, Shouyong Shi and even David Graeber&mdash;consider it inefficient or inherently limited. Without a standard medium of exchange, trade requires perfect bilateral balance&mdash;something rare in complex global supply chains. There are also logistical challenges: matching needs, coordinating delivery timelines, and ensuring equivalency in value. However, in sanction-heavy geo-economic environments, these inefficiencies are often deemed a worthwhile price to pay for strategic autonomy. As Dr Haq noted, barter arrangements allow developing economies to maintain trade relationships, conserve foreign reserves, and resist dependency on Western financial systems. That said, barter alone is not a remedy. For it to function as a sustainable supplement&mdash;not just a sanction workaround&mdash;countries must build legal frameworks, logistics networks, and valuation protocols. The involvement of chambers of commerce, as seen in the Pakistan-Iran SRO, is a step in that direction. But the elephant in the room remains: is this a temporary adaptation, or a signal of a deeper shift in the global economic order? Beyond barter Some experts see the return of barter not as nostalgia, but as a prelude to a new parallel financial system&mdash;a multipolar world where dollar hegemony is diluted by yuan, and local currencies backed by commodity exchange or digital tokens. Efforts like Russia&rsquo;s Mir payment system, China&rsquo;s digital yuan, and bilateral clearing mechanisms between BRICS nations indicate that barter may be a stepping stone toward broader de-dollarization efforts. If so, Pakistan, Iran, and Russia are early adopters of a model born not of economic idealism but of necessity&mdash;required due to sanctions, resource constraints, and diplomatic isolation. Final thoughts Barter, once dismissed as archaic, now occupies an unlikely position in the toolbox of 21st-century economic diplomacy. While unlikely to replace modern financial systems, it offers a stopgap&mdash;and in some cases, a strategy&mdash;for nations navigating a world of geopolitical fragmentation and asymmetric economic power.

People barter goods in San Miguel market, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. (REUTERS)

Banking

Business

Developing nations like Pakistan, Iran, and Russia are reviving barter trade as a strategic workaround to bypass dollar dependence, financial sanctions, and restricted global banking access.


In the age of digital trade, why are developing countries turning to barter?

It&rsquo;s happened. Again. Predictably. Inevitable.&nbsp;Perhaps it was bound to happen. In an era of unverified media and echo chambers amplifying right-wing Indian nationalist narratives, another seemingly innocent historical site has become collateral damage. This time, the 14th-century architectural marvel Adina Mosque in West Bengal has become the latest casualty of this aggressive Hindu nationalist revisionism. An innocuous post by Yusuf Pathan, brother of famed cricketer Irfan Pathan, documenting his visit to the historic Adina Mosque, was all it took.&nbsp; Pathan wrote on X (formerly Twitter): &quot;The Adina Mosque in Malda, West Bengal, is a historic mosque built in the 14th century by Sultan Sikandar Shah, the second ruler of the Ilyas Shahi dynasty. Constructed in 1373&ndash;1375 CE, it was the largest mosque in the Indian subcontinent during its time, showcasing the region&#39;s architectural grandeur.&quot; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/206772c2-98f7-433f-8c89-d7d47dbc6c7e-1.png" alt="Yusuf Pathan's post on X (Twitter) regarding Adina Mosque" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Yusuf Pathan&#39;s post on X (Twitter) regarding Adina Mosque</figcaption></figure> Historical fact, you might think. Not in today&rsquo;s India. No sooner had the post gone live than a digital avalanche of faux outrage, conspiracy theories, and archaeological fiction followed&mdash;largely driven by Hindu nationalist accounts hell-bent on turning every brick and dome into a misplaced remnant of a Hindu temple. Enter Grok&mdash;Elon Musk&rsquo;s latest toy and a large language model (LLM). For context, an LLM is a sophisticated system that processes and generates text by analyzing massive datasets, unlike a sentient intelligence But that didn&rsquo;t stop users from weaponizing it. An Indian X user, 𝐕𝐑 (@0xVeepul), asked Grok under Yusuf&rsquo;s post: &ldquo;Is the above information correct?&rdquo; To which Grok replied&mdash;calmly and factually: &ldquo;Yes, the information about the Adina Mosque is accurate based on historical records. It was built by Sultan Sikandar Shah in 1373&ndash;1375 CE and was the largest in the subcontinent at the time.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/7f765913-3caf-42fa-b5e2-cb16e2482cd1-2.png" alt="Screengrab from X" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Screengrab from X</figcaption></figure> Cue outrage. Unwilling to let facts spoil a good myth, other users doubled down. PlanH (@planH_In) declared with full nationalist indignation: &ldquo;Dear Yusuf Pathan, you are standing in the campus of one of the largest Hindu Temples, Adinath Temple, which was desecrated and occupied by Islamic invaders [&hellip;] It is time to undo the injustice and barbarity, and reestablish the temple.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/c63e9860-5048-49b7-958d-c0d2a1ba844c-4.png" alt="An Indian X user argues that the historic 14th-century Adina Mosque in West Bengal, India was originally a Hindu temple. (X)" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">An Indian X user argues that the historic 14th-century Adina Mosque in West Bengal, India was originally a Hindu temple. (X)</figcaption></figure> Once that claim didn&rsquo;t quite hold up to scrutiny&mdash;or reality&mdash;goalposts were shifted. Another user, now armed with poorly cropped images of carvings, asked Grok: &ldquo;@grok Can you verify this image belongs to the same place?&rdquo; Again, Grok tried to inject sanity: &ldquo;The images you shared appear to be close-ups of carvings at the Adina Mosque in Malda, West Bengal. Sources like OpIndia, and India Today indicate the mosque incorporates Hindu and Jain motifs from reused temple materials, matching the terracotta figures and designs shown. They align with the site&#39;s documented architecture.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/ddc6e295-1651-47d7-8ff0-b9aa103f10fd-6.png" alt="Grok fact-checks an Indian X user's claim that images from inside the Adina Mosque prove it was once a Hindu temple. (X)" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Grok fact-checks an Indian X user&#39;s claim that images from inside the Adina Mosque prove it was once a Hindu temple. (X)</figcaption></figure> In other words: yes, some recycled materials were used. That&rsquo;s not the same as &ldquo;Hindu temple desecrated by Islamic invaders.&rdquo; But nuance, it seems, is not welcome in this arena. The storm continues, echoing the now infamous Babri Masjid debacle&mdash;and, more ludicrously, the attempts to &quot;reclaim&quot; even the Taj Mahal as a Hindu site. Babri Masjid: The blueprint of manufactured outrage The Babri Masjid dispute remains the cautionary tale that refuses to fade. Constructed in the 16th century by Mir Baqi, a general under Mughal emperor Babur, the mosque stood in Ayodhya until it was demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992. The justification? The belief that it was built atop the birthplace of Lord Ram&mdash;a claim without conclusive historical proof. As Reuters have reported, the mosque&rsquo;s destruction triggered nationwide communal riots, leaving over 2,000 dead. The Supreme Court of India later ruled in 2019 that the demolition was unlawful&mdash;while paradoxically awarding the land for a Hindu temple, citing archaeological surveys. These very Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) surveys, ordered in 2003, claimed the presence of a pre-existing structure with &quot;non-Islamic&quot; architectural features. Yet these findings were hotly contested. Archaeologists Supriya Varma and Jaya Menon, court-appointed observers of the dig, later accused the ASI of methodological flaws and ideological bias (Huffington Post, December 2018). In their 2010 article in the Economic and Political Weekly, they argued the excavation &quot;did not find anything that supported ASI&rsquo;s conclusion.&quot; Historian and professor Arshad Islam, in his academic paper Babri Mosque: A Historic Bone of Contention (International Islamic University Malaysia), went further&mdash;arguing that the narrative of Ram&rsquo;s birthplace was a colonial invention.&nbsp; According to Islam, the British used such stories to divide Hindus and Muslims and consolidate imperial control&mdash;a legacy still haunting the subcontinent today. The Taj Mahal: From mausoleum to mythical mandir Not even India&rsquo;s most iconic monument is safe. In 2018, BJP Member of Parliament Vinay Katiyar claimed the Taj Mahal was originally a Hindu temple, named &ldquo;Tejo Mahalaya,&rdquo; and suggested it would be &ldquo;converted&rdquo; into a temple soon (Al Jazeera, Feb 6, 2018). This was not satire&mdash;it was a genuine policy statement. Let&rsquo;s be clear, historical records, including the Padshahnama from the Mughal period, confirm the land for the Taj was legally purchased from Raja Jai Singh. Archaeological evidence, according to the ASI, has found no indication of a temple beneath the structure. And the locked rooms, long a source of conspiracy theories, have been periodically opened for maintenance, and photos are public. Still, the myth persists&mdash;thanks largely to one man: P.N. Oak. A self-styled revisionist, Oak founded the &ldquo;Institute for Rewriting Indian History&rdquo; in 1964 and proposed, among other things, that virtually every major monument in India&mdash;Muslim, Christian, or otherwise&mdash;was originally a Hindu temple. His claims were so fantastical that India&rsquo;s Supreme Court dismissed a case based on his theories as &quot;frivolous&quot; and labeled it a &quot;publicity interest litigation.&quot; His &lsquo;ideas&rsquo; still inspire popular media. In October 2025, The Taj Story&mdash;a film starring Paresh Rawal&mdash;reignited this theory with a tour guide character demanding a &quot;DNA test&quot; for the Taj Mahal. According to The Print&mdash;an Indian digital platform&mdash;the film resurrects long-debunked conspiracy theories under the guise of entertainment. A pattern of appropriation This is no longer about academic disagreement. This is ideological repurposing masquerading as historical correction. From the Babri Masjid to the Adina Mosque, and even the Taj Mahal, the pattern is clear: 1. &nbsp; &nbsp;Identify an Islamic monument. 2. &nbsp; &nbsp;Launch a campaign of pseudohistorical claims. 3. &nbsp; &nbsp;Demand &ldquo;reclamation.&rdquo; 4. &nbsp; &nbsp;Ignore evidence, facts, and historians. 5. &nbsp; &nbsp;Repeat. This systematic targeting of Muslim heritage is not accidental&mdash;it&rsquo;s a calculated cultural war waged via hashtags, LLM prompts, and WhatsApp forwards.

Hindu devotees wait to enter the Hindu god Lord Ram temple after its inauguration in Ayodhya, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters)

This systematic targeting of Muslim heritage is not accidental—it’s a calculated cultural war.

Another historic mosque dragged into Hindu temple narrative storm

STOCKHOLM: Sweden will invest 15 billion kronor ($1.6 billion) on bolstering its air defenses, notably potential civilian targets, the government said Sunday, the latest European country to beef up military spending since Russia&#39;s invasion of Ukraine.&nbsp;The money will go to ground-based aerial defense systems, the government said, as Russia&#39;s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the United States&#39; increasingly strained ties with NATO allies under US President Donald Trump prompt a European rush to rearm.&nbsp;&quot;Experience from Ukraine demonstrates the importance of a robust air defence,&quot; the Swedish government said.&nbsp;The announcement follows similar moves by countries, including Germany, where parliament approved $59 billion in new defence spending in December.&nbsp;The initial purchases under Sweden&#39;s new plan will be made in the first quarter of 2026, the government said.&nbsp;&quot;With this broad investment in air defence, we are protecting the whole of society, from our military units to urban areas and critical infrastructure,&quot; Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in a statement.&nbsp;&quot;It is a matter of people&#39;s lives, our freedom, and our ability to withstand attacks in all parts of the country.&quot;&nbsp;Sweden had announced in November it was spending around $366 million on IRIS-T surface-to-air short-range missiles to protect itself against missiles, drones, and combat aircraft.

Europe

Sweden will spend 15 billion kronor to strengthen its air defences, focusing on protecting civilians, cities, and critical infrastructure, with ground-based systems to be bought starting in early 2026.

Sweden to spend $1.6B to bolster air defenses

Web Desk

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar held a series of bilateral meetings with counterparts from Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and other member states on the sidelines of the 22nd Extraordinary Session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah, reaffirming Islamabad&rsquo;s commitment to regional cooperation and strengthened bilateral relations, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Sunday.&nbsp;The 22nd extraordinary session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers was convened in Jeddah to address developments concerning Israel&rsquo;s recognition of the Somaliland region and the situation in Palestine.&nbsp;The meeting adopted resolutions underscoring the importance of state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and international law.&nbsp;Dar attended the session, condemning Israel&rsquo;s recognition of Somaliland as &ldquo;illegal and unlawful,&rdquo; reaffirming Pakistan&rsquo;s support for Somalia&rsquo;s sovereignty and for an independent Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders, while also engaging counterparts from several OIC member states on the sidelines.&nbsp;According to an FO statement, Dar met Bangladesh&rsquo;s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Touhid Hossain, with both sides expressing satisfaction over the &ldquo;robustness of Pakistan&ndash;Bangladesh relations.&rdquo;&nbsp;The leaders discussed cooperation across a range of areas, including high-level exchanges, trade, and educational collaboration, and also exchanged views on regional and global developments.&nbsp;On the sidelines of the Jeddah moot, Dar separately met Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed bin Abdulkarim Al-Khereiji.&nbsp;The discussions focused on further strengthening the Pakistan&ndash;Saudi strategic partnership and reaffirmed close coordination within the OIC framework, with both sides emphasizing the importance of continued cooperation to promote &ldquo;peace, stability, and security in the region.&rdquo;&nbsp;With Azerbaijan, FM Dar met Deputy FM Yalchin Rafiyev, where both sides appreciated the frequent high-level exchanges, underscoring the commitment of the leadership of both countries to strengthening bilateral ties.&nbsp;&ldquo;Deputy Prime Minister / Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, met with Dr. Abdulla Khaleel, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Maldives, on the sidelines of the 22nd OIC Extraordinary CFM in Jeddah,&rdquo; the FO said.&nbsp;Pakistan and the Maldives underscored their shared commitment to further strengthen bilateral ties, expressing satisfaction with the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries.&nbsp;In another engagement, Dar met his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty.&nbsp;&ldquo;On the sidelines of the 22nd Extraordinary OIC CFM in Jeddah, DPM/FM Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar met Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty,&rdquo; the FO statement said.&nbsp;During the meeting, Pakistan and Egypt reaffirmed their commitment to expanding cooperation across multiple domains and exchanged views on the situation in Gaza and broader regional developments, underscoring support for international law and the just cause of the Palestinian people, the FO added.

Foreign Affairs

On the sidelines of the 22nd OIC Extraordinary Session in Jeddah, Dar holds bilateral talks with Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Maldives, and Egypt, promoting regional cooperation.

Dar pushes ‘regional cooperation’ in talks with Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and others

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia suspended access to Elon Musk&#39;s chatbot Grok over AI-generated pornographic content, the country&#39;s tech regulator said on Sunday.&nbsp;The decision follows global backlash after it emerged that Grok&#39;s image creation feature allowed users to sexualize pictures of women and children using simple text prompts.&nbsp;On Saturday, Indonesia became the first country to deny all access to the tool, which has been restricted to paying subscribers elsewhere.&nbsp;The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said in a statement it had &quot;directed a temporary restriction on access to the Grok artificial intelligence for users in Malaysia&quot; with immediate effect.&nbsp;When an AFP reporter in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur fed Grok prompts on Sunday, there was no response.&nbsp;&quot;This action follows repeated misuse of Grok to generate obscene, sexually explicit, indecent, grossly offensive and non-consensual manipulated images,&quot; the regulator said.&nbsp;The statement cited &quot;content involving women and minors, despite prior regulatory engagement and formal notices&quot; issued to Musk&#39;s X Corp. and xAI startup which developed Grok.&nbsp;The AI tool is integrated into social media platform X.&nbsp;The Malaysian regulator said it deemed the platform&#39;s safeguards inadequate, adding that access would resume only after the required changes are verified.&nbsp;X Corp. had &quot;failed to address the inherent risks posed by the design and operation of the AI tool&quot;, relying &quot;primarily on user-initiated reporting mechanisms&quot;, the regulator said.&nbsp;European officials and tech campaigners on Friday slammed Grok after its controversial image creation feature was restricted to paying subscribers, saying the change failed to address concerns about sexualized deep fakes.&nbsp;Grok had appeared to deflect the criticism with a new monetization policy, posting on X on Thursday that image generation and editing were now &quot;limited to paying subscribers&quot;, alongside a link to a premium subscription.

Artificial Intelligence

Malaysia suspended access to Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok after it was misused to generate pornographic and sexualized images, including of women and minors, citing inadequate safeguards. The ban follows similar global backlash and Indonesia’s earlier move.

Malaysia suspends access to Musk's Grok AI: regulator

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump urged Cuba on Sunday to &quot;make a deal&quot; or face unspecified consequences, warning that the flow of Venezuelan oil and money to Havana would now stop.&nbsp;&quot;There will be no more oil or money going to cuba - zero!&quot; Trump said on his Truth Social channel. &quot;I strongly suggest they make a deal, before it is too late.&quot;&nbsp;His remarks come a week after US forces seized Venezuela&#39;s authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro in a nighttime operation in Caracas that killed dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban security forces.&nbsp;Earlier on Sunday, Trump reposted a message suggesting that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio could become the president of now communist-ruled Cuba.&nbsp;Trump shared that post with the comment: &quot;Sounds good to me!&quot;&nbsp;In his own post soon afterwards, Trump said that &quot;Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of oil and money from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided &#39;Security Services&#39; for the last two Venezuelan dictators, but not anymore!&quot;&nbsp;&quot;Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last week&#39;s U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn&#39;t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years.&quot;&nbsp;Under a US trade embargo, Havana since 2000 has increasingly relied on Venezuelan oil provided as part of a deal struck with Maduro&#39;s predecessor Hugo Chavez.

Americas

US President Donald Trump warned Cuba to “make a deal” or face consequences, saying Venezuelan oil and money to Havana would stop following US actions against Venezuela’s leadership.

Trump tells Cuba to 'make a deal, before it is too late'

JERUSALEM: Israeli police said Sunday they detained a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspected of obstructing an investigation, with local media reporting that it was tied to leaks of military information during the Gaza war.&nbsp;Police did not name the individual, but Israeli media reported it was Tzachi Braverman, Netanyahu&#39;s current chief of staff, who is designated to be Israel&#39;s next ambassador to the UK.&nbsp;&quot;This morning, a senior official in the prime minister&#39;s office was detained for questioning... on suspicion of obstructing an investigation,&quot; the police said.&nbsp;&quot;The suspect... is currently being questioned under caution.&quot;&nbsp;Former Netanyahu aide Eli Feldstein recently alleged that Braverman tried to obstruct an investigation into a leak of sensitive military information to the foreign press during the war against Hamas in Gaza.&nbsp;In September 2024, Feldstein leaked a classified document from the Israeli military to the German tabloid Bild, for which he was later arrested and indicted.&nbsp;The document aimed to prove that Hamas was not interested in a ceasefire deal, and to support Netanyahu&#39;s claim that the hostages captured by Palestinian militants in their October 7, 2023 assault on Israel could only be released through military pressure instead of negotiations.&nbsp;In an interview with Israel&#39;s public broadcaster KAN, Feldstein said Braverman asked to meet with him soon after the leak.&nbsp;Braverman informed him that the army had launched a probe into the affair, and said he could &quot;shut down&quot; the investigation, according to Feldstein.&nbsp;In the same interview, Feldstein said Netanyahu was aware of the leak and was in favour of using the document to drum up public support for the war.&nbsp;Israeli media reported that police also searched Braverman&#39;s home on Sunday, and that Feldstein was expected to speak with police later in the day regarding Braverman&#39;s suspected involvement in the affair.&nbsp;Feldstein is also a suspect in the so-called &quot;Qatargate&quot; scandal, in which he and other close associates of Netanyahu are suspected of having been recruited by Qatar to promote the Gulf monarchy&#39;s image in Israel.&nbsp;Qatar hosts senior Hamas leaders and has played a mediating role between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement during the war in Gaza.&nbsp;An investigation is under way, and Feldstein, together with another Netanyahu aide, was taken into custody in late March.&nbsp;In response to Braverman&#39;s questioning by the police on Sunday, opposition leader Yair Lapid called to suspend his appointment as ambassador to the UK.&nbsp;&quot;In light of the new developments in the Qatargate affair, the appointment of Tzachi Braverman as ambassador to Britain must be immediately suspended,&quot; Lapid wrote on X.&nbsp;&quot;It is unacceptable that someone suspected of involvement in obstructing a serious security investigation should be the face of Israel in one of the most important countries in Europe.&quot;&nbsp;Braverman is not suspected of direct involvement in the Qatargate affair, according to Israeli media.

Middle East

Israeli police detained Netanyahu aide Tzachi Braverman over alleged obstruction linked to Gaza war leaks. Opposition demands suspending his UK ambassador appointment as investigations continue.

Israeli police detain aide to Netanyahu

ISLAMABAD: The Taliban authorities arrested a woman journalist in northern Kunduz province on Tuesday and transferred her to an unknown location, the Afghan Media Support Organization said in a statement. According to a statement posted on the organization&rsquo;s Facebook page, Nazera Rashidi has been detained for four days without disclosed charges. <div class="fr-embed" style="line-height: 2;"><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FAfghanistanMSO%2Fposts%2Fpfbid04oKVLy9c2LmT5oG1TTyWJ5CziDA9qDqmDeVCfY3BBshUtEiCyPMFjF56vxB1HCcnl&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="687" style="border:none;overflow:hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</iframe></div> She is the sole guardian for her younger siblings in a household without an adult male, the organization said. The family told the Afghan Media Support Organization that Rashidi &quot;has not engaged in any illegal activities,&quot; according to the statement. The organization called for her immediate release and urged Taliban authorities to &quot;clearly state the legal reasons for her detention.&quot; The arrest adds to documented cases of journalist detentions since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. Press freedom decline Afghanistan ranked 175th out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, scoring 17.88 out of 100. Within months of the Taliban takeover, 43% of media outlets disappeared, according to Reporters Without Borders. By late 2024, more than two-thirds of Afghanistan&#39;s 12,000 journalists had left the profession, the United Nations documented. Between August 2021 and September 2024, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 336 cases of human rights violations against media professionals, including 256 arbitrary arrests and 130 instances of torture or ill-treatment. Impact on women journalists More than 80% of women journalists have stopped working since 2021, according to a survey by Reporters Without Borders in collaboration with the Afghan Independent Journalists Association. In some provinces, women&#39;s voices are banned from broadcasts, according to Human Rights Watch. Those still working face workplace segregation requirements and must cover their faces on camera. Afghan officials refuse interviews with women journalists or exclude them from press events, Human Rights Watch reported. Recent restrictions The Taliban banned broadcasting images of living beings in several provinces, including Takhar, in 2024 and 2025, and restricted social media access on smartphones. As of late 2025, the Taliban began broadcasting forced &quot;confessions&quot; of journalists online after arrests for alleged &quot;anti-Taliban propaganda,&quot; Reporters Without Borders reported. The General Directorate of Intelligence conducts most arbitrary detentions, while the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice provides oversight, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The Committee to Protect Journalists and the #KeepItOn coalition condemned nationwide internet shutdowns in late 2025 that Taliban authorities ordered to curb &quot;immorality.&quot; The Afghan Media Support Organization called on international institutions and human rights organizations to &quot;take practical measures to prevent the continued arrests and harassment of female journalists.&quot;

Afghanistan

The Afghan Media Support Organization called on international institutions and human rights organizations to "take practical measures to prevent the continued arrests and harassment of female journalists."

Taliban detain woman journalist in northern Afghanistan

Faraz Saeed

LAHORE: The year 2026 has barely begun, yet the early signals for India&rsquo;s economy are already deeply unsettling.&nbsp; In the first week of January alone, India&rsquo;s foreign exchange reserves suffered their sharpest weekly fall in 14 months, dropping by nearly 10 billion dollars to around $552 billion.&nbsp; The decline was not the result of a sudden external shock but of a conscious policy response: the Reserve Bank of India stepped in to sell dollars to defend a weakening rupee.&nbsp; That intervention itself is telling.&nbsp; It signals that currency pressures have intensified to the point that market forces alone are no longer trusted to maintain stability. The rupee&rsquo;s weakness is not new, but its persistence is increasingly problematic.&nbsp; Over the course of 2025, the currency depreciated by nearly 6%, making it Asia&rsquo;s worst-performing unit, according to Bloomberg and Reuters.&nbsp; The slide has continued into the opening days of 2026, with further losses driven by foreign capital outflows and uncertainty surrounding India&rsquo;s external economic relationships. Eroding external confidenceForecasts from major financial institutions suggest the Indian rupee could approach 92 to the dollar by March from the current value of 90.25, a level that would deepen imported inflation, strain corporate balance sheets, and tighten domestic financial conditions.&nbsp; In effect, currency weakness is becoming a mirror of eroding external confidence. Equity markets are reflecting the same anxiety.&nbsp; The new year opened with a sharp selloff that pushed both the Sensex and the Nifty lower, erasing between $140 billion and $166 billion in investor wealth in a matter of days.&nbsp; The immediate trigger was political, renewed warnings from Washington of higher tariffs on Indian goods, but the reaction revealed something more fundamental.&nbsp; Investors are increasingly uneasy about India&rsquo;s exposure to a world in which trade is becoming more politicized, alliances more conditional, and economic relationships more vulnerable to geopolitical shifts. Foreign investors, in particular, are voting with their feet.&nbsp; Largest annual outflow&nbsp;In 2025, foreign portfolio investors sold roughly $18 billion worth of Indian equities, the largest annual outflow on record.&nbsp; The trend has not reversed with the calendar.&nbsp; In the first nine days of 2026 alone, another $1.3 billion has already been pulled out of Indian markets.&nbsp; Capital that once flowed steadily into India&rsquo;s growth story is now retreating, not because growth has vanished, but because the risks surrounding that growth have become harder to price and harder to ignore. Trade tensions with the United States have emerged as one of the most destabilizing forces. Washington has already imposed tariffs of up to 50% on Indian goods, partly linked to India&rsquo;s continued purchases of Russian oil.&nbsp; The situation has escalated further with political support in the US for even harsher measures, including proposals for tariffs of up to 500% on imports from countries doing business with Russia.&nbsp; As the world&rsquo;s second-largest buyer of Russian crude after China, India finds itself uncomfortably exposed.&nbsp; Even if such extreme tariffs are never fully implemented, their mere possibility is enough to chill investment, disrupt planning, and inject uncertainty into trade and financial markets. What makes this moment particularly troubling is not any single indicator, but the convergence of pressures.&nbsp; Weakening currency&nbsp;A weakening currency is forcing the central bank to intervene. Falling reserves are signaling external vulnerability.&nbsp; Trade tensions are undermining investor confidence. Capital is flowing out, not in.&nbsp; Together, these forces form a feedback loop in which uncertainty feeds financial stress, and financial stress reinforces uncertainty. India is not facing a crisis in the classic sense.&nbsp; Growth has not collapsed, and the economy retains significant underlying strengths. But the narrative has shifted.&nbsp; For years, India was presented as the world&rsquo;s next great growth engine, stable, predictable, and increasingly central to global supply chains.&nbsp; In 2025, that narrative was replaced by a quieter, more cautious one: the economy is under strain. In 2026, it is only getting worse.

In 2025, foreign portfolio investors sold roughly $18 billion worth of Indian equities, the largest annual outflow on record; the trend has not reversed with the calendar. 

2026 starts rough for India: FX reserves drop, stocks lose over $140B

PARIS: Iran would strike US military and shipping targets in the event of a new attack by the United States during an ongoing wave of protests, the parliament speaker said on Sunday. &quot;In the event of a military attack by the United States, both the occupied territory and centers of the US military and shipping will be our legitimate targets,&quot; Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told parliament in comments broadcast by state TV, apparently also referring to Israel, which the Islamic Republic does not recognize and considers occupied Palestinian territory. &#39;Significant&#39; arrestsMeanwhile, Iran has made significant arrests of key figures in the protest movement that has swept the Islamic Republic over the last two weeks, the national police chief said Sunday. &quot;Last night (Saturday evening), significant arrests were made of the main elements in the riots, who, God willing, will be punished after going through legal procedures,&quot; Ahmad-Reza Radan told state TV, without giving details on the number or identities of those arrested. Iran&#39;s president to address nationMeanwhile, IRIB, Iran&#39;s state TV, said&nbsp;President Masoud Pezeshkian will address economic plans and &quot;people&#39;s demands&quot; in an interview on Sunday. It comes after two weeks of protests sparked by anger over the rising cost of living. &quot;In a conversation with the national media, the president laid out the status of the government&#39;s major economic plan to reform the subsidy system, and also discussed recent events and the government&#39;s approach to responding to the people&#39;s demands,&quot; IRIB state TV said, noting the interview would be broadcast later Sunday.

Iran has made significant arrests of key figures in the protest movement that has swept the Islamic Republic over the last two weeks, the national police chief said Sunday.

Iran to target US military, shipping if attacked: Parliament speaker

KHAN YOUNIS: At a hospital in Gaza, wards are filled with patients fearing they will be left without care if Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is forced out under an Israeli ban due to take effect in March. Last month, Israel announced it would prevent 37 aid organizations, including MSF, from operating in Gaza from March 1 for failing to provide detailed information on their Palestinian staff. &quot;They stood by us throughout the war,&quot; said 10-year-old Adam Asfour, his left arm pinned with metal rods after he was wounded by shrapnel in a bombing in September. &quot;When I heard it was possible they would stop providing services, it made me very sad,&quot; he added from his bed at Gaza&#39;s Nasser Hospital. Israel&#39;s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, which oversees NGO registrations, has accused two MSF employees of links to Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, allegations MSF vehemently denies. The ministry&#39;s decision triggered international condemnation, with aid groups warning it would severely disrupt food and medical supplies to Gaza, where relief items are already scarce after more than two years of war. Inside the packed Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the territory, MSF staff were still tending to children with burns, shrapnel wounds and chronic illnesses, an AFP journalist reported. But their presence may end soon. The prospect was unthinkable for Fayrouz Barhoum, whose grandson is being treated at the facility. &quot;Say bye to the lady, blow her a kiss,&quot; she told her 18-month-old grandson, Joud, as MSF official Claire Nicolet left the room. Joud&#39;s head was wrapped in bandages covering burns on his cheek after boiling water spilled on him when strong winds battered the family&#39;s makeshift shelter. &quot;At first his condition was very serious, but then it improved considerably,&quot; Barhoum said. &quot;The scarring on his face has largely diminished. We need continuity of care,&quot; she said. &#39;We will continue working&#39;&nbsp;AFP spoke with patients and relatives at Nasser Hospital, all of whom expressed the same fear: that without MSF, there would be nowhere left to turn. MSF says it currently provides at least 20 percent of hospital beds in Gaza and operates around 20 health centres. In 2025 alone, it carried out more than 800,000 medical consultations and over 10,000 deliveries. &quot;It&#39;s almost impossible to find an organisation that will come here and be able to replace all that we are doing currently in Gaza,&quot; Nicolet told AFP, noting that MSF not only provides medical care but also distributes drinking water to a population worn down by a prolonged war. &quot;So this is not really realistic.&quot; Since the start of the war in October 2023, triggered by Hamas&#39;s deadly attack on southern Israel, Israeli officials and the military have repeatedly accused Hamas of using Gaza&#39;s medical facilities as command centres. Many have been damaged by two years of bombardments or overcrowded by casualties, while electricity, water and fuel supplies remain unreliable. Aid groups warn that without international support, critical services such as emergency care, maternal health, and paediatric treatment could collapse entirely, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without basic medical care. Humanitarian sources say at least three international NGO employees whose files were rejected by Israeli authorities have already been prevented from entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing. &quot;For now, we will continue working as long as we can,&quot; said Kelsie Meaden, an MSF logistics manager at Nasser Hospital, adding that constraints were already mounting. &quot;We can&#39;t have any more international staff enter into Gaza, as well as supplies... we will run into shortages.&quot;

A Palestinian man walks on his crutches to the Doctors Without Borders or Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) clinic, in the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on new year's Eve, December 31, 2025. (AFP)

Wards are filled with patients fearing they will be left without care if Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is forced out under an Israeli ban due to take effect in March.

Patients cling to medical organization in Gaza hospital as Israel orders it out

ISLAMABAD: Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairman Tarique Rahman said differences of opinion should not escalate into conflict, stressing that dialogue and democratic practice are the only sustainable paths forward for the nation, state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) reported on Saturday.&nbsp;Speaking at an exchange of views with editors and journalists from national-level media outlets in Dhaka, the son of former Bangladeshi prime minister late Khaleda Zia said, &ldquo;Even if there are differences of opinion, they must be reduced through discussion. Differences should not escalate to the level of conflict.&rdquo;&nbsp;Referring to recent history, Rahman said, &ldquo;The nation has seen the consequences of vengeance or retaliation on August 5, 2024,&rdquo; adding that violence, revenge, and division have brought despair but also lessons for the future.&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;We saw on August 5 what the consequences of violence, revenge, and vengeance can be &mdash; whether for an individual, a party, or the nation,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;Emphasizing unity, Rahman urged people of all political affiliations to resolve disagreements through discussion rather than confrontation.&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;If we try, perhaps we can resolve many problems by keeping those differences as differences and solving them through discussions,&rdquo; he said. &#39;Must maintain the democratic process&#39;Highlighting the importance of democracy, the BNP chairman said, &ldquo;At any cost, we must maintain the democratic process,&rdquo; noting that elections must be held at all levels.&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;If the democratic process continues uninterrupted, solving the country&rsquo;s problems is possible,&rdquo; he added, expressing hope that the process would begin on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/bangladesh-prepares-for-february-12-elections-with-postal-voting-security-measures" style="color:#0073e6;">February 12</a>.&nbsp;Rahman said reforms must address constitutional and legal issues as well as people&rsquo;s daily lives.&nbsp;&ldquo;There have been some fundamental issues like people&rsquo;s daily lives, security, healthcare, employment, and children&rsquo;s education,&rdquo; he said, pledging that politics should not remain limited to seminars and symposiums. Women empowermentOutlining BNP&rsquo;s future plans, Rahman discussed initiatives including women&rsquo;s economic empowerment, a universal Family Card, a Krishak Card for farmers, grassroots healthcare workers, expatriate skill development, youth employment, and IT sector expansion.&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Half of the country&rsquo;s populations are women; development is impossible, leaving them behind,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;The BNP chairman said, &quot;If we can form a government with the people&#39;s mandate in the upcoming elections, initiatives will be taken to make women economically self-reliant.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Bangladesh

Speaking at an exchange of views with editors and journalists from national-level media outlets in Dhaka, the son of former Bangladeshi prime minister late Khaleda Zia said, 'Even if there are differences of opinion, they must be reduced through discussion. Differences should not escalate to the level of conflict.'

Articles by Maham Khan