As my six year old nephew in New York logged onto the tablet set up by his parents for his online school classes, I wondered at the pre-emptive measures that had been taken for the sake of education and certainly for the sake of normalcy during the onset of the pandemic. A beautiful example of…
Produced from sugarcane sugar constitutes Pakistan’s second largest agro-based industry after textiles ranking fifth in the world in cane acreage and ninth in sugar production. An important cash crop in our country. Sugarcane is an important source of income for the farming community employing over 1.5 million people. This includes management, technology experts, skilled and unskilled…
Extreme flooding and drought in recent years has sparked repeated national emergencies in Pakistan, which depends on the Indus for 90% of its food production. In 2010 and 2013 heavy flooding destroyed the harvest and the homes of millions of people while displacing them for months. From February to April 2019, widespread flash flooding affected…
Things that have always held true on the advent of the holy month of Ramazan are the joyful messages and the flood of greetings and peace in your inbox from around the world. This year was under a different scenario as things were completely different and so was the form of expression. This time around…
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has submitted an investigation report into the crisis, this was ordered by Prime Minister Imran Khan in February this year. When the two preliminary inquiry reports were presented to him last Saturday, he ordered them to be made public. The reports pointing to sudden price hikes of sugar and wheat were…
“However tall the mountain is, there is a road to the top of it”. Afghan Proverb The United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 which was to pave the way for withdrawal of US troops and integration of Taliban in Afghan political system. The next step was exchange of 5000 Taliban…
The most unprecedented unfavorable business environment ever encountered because of the coronavirus crisis has hit the economy very hard. The economic meltdown thereof has made mandatory layoffs as the only option because many of our good clients have had to reduce their guards on their contract. Only a handful of Embassies have graciously volunteered to reduce “posts”…
Faced with an unprecedented situation from the moment Chinese authorities began fighting the outbreak of Coronavirus in Wuhan city a high measure of organization, flexibility and imaginative implementation was the need of the hour. What has unfolded has challenged even the most advanced countries that have well organized state institutions and health care systems have…
After more than a quarter of a year, the global pandemic continues with little indication that the threat from the very efficient and deadly virus is diminishing. To a large extent, the novel virus remains a mystery with increasing hope being placed on deployment of a vaccine, which according to the most optimistic estimates is…
IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva recently stated that the world is entering a recession that will be worse than that following the global financial crisis in 2009. US President Trump is already talking about a “task force” to revive the US economy. Potentially among the countries likely to be hit hardest in the aftermath of COVID-19,…
