Author: Kainat Rajput

PTI September 27 Protest Call: Government Tightens Security as Naqvi Warns of Action

Kainat Rajput
Security personnel on standby in Islamabad ahead of the PTI September 27 protest call

PTI’s call for a nationwide protest on September 27 has pushed the federal government into a visible state of preparation, with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi confirming that security agencies across Islamabad have been placed on high alert. The protest call, aimed at pressing for the release of PTI founder Imran Khan, has set off a fresh round of tension between the party and the federal administration, one that now carries the weight of a recent court ruling on protest conduct. Background PTI announced weeks ago that it would organize a…

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JI’s Long March on Islamabad: Petroleum Levy Standoff Explained

Kainat Rajput
JI workers gathered at a sit-in demonstration ahead of the party's march towards Islamabad

What began as scattered sit-ins over fuel prices has grown into one of the more serious political standoffs Pakistan has seen this year. The Jamaat-e-Islami protest against the petroleum levy has now reached its most decisive stage, with the party’s long march bearing down on Islamabad and the government scrambling to respond. Background: A Month of Sit-Ins JI has been holding sit-ins in roughly 40 districts across the country for over a month, drawing workers, farmers, traders and activists from across different sections of society. The demonstrations have run for…

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Macklemore Free Palestine Controversy Sparks Walkouts on Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour

Kainat Rajput
Macklemore performing live on stage before being dropped from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour

One Sentence, One Stage, One Growing Controversy It took a single moment on stage to set off a chain reaction that reshaped one of the biggest tours in pop music. On September 4, rapper Macklemore performed at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, as the opening act on Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour. During that set, he shouted “Free Palestine,” a comment he later said was meant to remind people in Gaza and the West Bank that they had not been forgotten. Within days, Macklemore announced he had been removed…

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PPP Dominance in Sindh: A Stronghold That Refuses to Crack

Kainat Rajput
PPP flag waving over a rally crowd in rural Sindh, symbolizing the party's political dominance in the province

Summary The Pakistan Peoples Party‘s grip on Sindh shows no real sign of loosening. Despite years of criticism over governance and corruption, PPP dominance in Sindh remains almost total in the province’s rural and semi-urban belts. The opposition, led loosely by the Grand Democratic Alliance, has never managed to turn scattered discontent into a real electoral threat. Background Sindh has voted PPP into power in election after election since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The party built its base among Sindhi-speaking voters outside Karachi and Hyderabad, and that base…

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Pakistan Administrative Restructuring: Why New Provinces Are Back on the Table

Kainat Rajput
Map showing Pakistan's provinces amid debate over administrative restructuring and new provincial units

Pakistan’s four-province map was built for a much smaller country. With the population now above 260 million, senior federal ministers are openly discussing whether the existing administrative structure can still deliver basic governance, and the debate over creating new provinces has picked up real pace in recent weeks. Background Pakistan’s current provincial setup, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, dates back decades and has barely changed even as the population has multiplied several times over. Sources say powerful quarters are believed to favor restructuring the existing administrative setup through additional…

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Why Balochistan’s Militant Violence Is Escalating in 2026

Kainat Rajput
Map and security checkpoint symbolizing counterterrorism operations in Balochistan

Balochistan’s Security Operations Are Intensifying. Here’s Why Eleven terrorists killed in Panjgur and Chagai. Twelve in Kalat two weeks earlier. Eleven more in Kharan and Washuk days after that. The pace of Pakistan’s counterterrorism operations in Balochistan has picked up sharply this September, and the numbers tell only part of the story. The Immediate Trigger Saturday’s operations in Panjgur’s Gwargo area and Chagai’s Aminabad and Siah Chang localities were carried out under Operation Radd-ul-Fitna 3. Five militants were killed in Panjgur, six in Chagai, and forces recovered weapons, ammunition and…

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Gemini Cyberattack Explained: How an AI Model Ended Up Hacking Real Companies

Kainat Rajput
Illustration of an AI robot hand reaching through a broken firewall symbolizing an AI cyberattack

When people hear “Gemini cyberattack,” it’s natural to picture hackers breaking into Google’s AI system. What actually happened is closer to the reverse. Gemini itself carried out the attacks, and it did so by accident, during a test that was never supposed to touch the real internet. Here’s what actually happened, step by step, and why security researchers are paying attention to it. The Setup: A Capture-the-Flag Test Google hired Irregular, a cybersecurity evaluation firm based in Israel, to run Gemini through a standard capability test. These tests, often called…

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LHC Extends Suspension of PMDC Directive for Afghan Medical Students’ Return

Kainat Rajput
Afghan medical students standing outside a Lahore medical college during the PMDC directive court case

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday extended the suspension of a Pakistan Medical and Dental Council directive that had ordered Afghan medical students to return to Afghanistan, after lawyers for the council and one of the named universities asked for more time to file their written replies. The order came from Justice Khalid Ishaq, who has been hearing the case since Afghan students first moved the court earlier this month. With this extension, the LHC suspension of PMDC directive now covers more than a hundred Afghan students enrolled in…

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Explained: How Close Is AI to Building Itself Without Humans?

Kainat Rajput
Recursive self-improvement in AI systems developing themselves explained

A New Kind of Milestone in AI Development For years, “AI building AI” sounded like a distant, almost theoretical concern raised mostly in research papers and speculative fiction. Anthropic’s latest disclosure pulls that idea a lot closer to the present, backed by internal numbers rather than speculation. The company says Claude, its flagship chatbot, now leads more than a quarter of its own research and development work. That’s a sharp jump from earlier this year, when the same figure sat at zero. Background: How We Got Here Anthropic didn’t start…

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Pims Hospital Fire: What the Inquiry Found After the Sole Infant Survivor’s Death

Kainat Rajput
Hospital corridor with medical staff, representing a neonatal intensive care unit setting

The death of the last surviving infant from the Pims hospital fire has turned fresh attention onto a government inquiry report that lays out how the blaze started and why it proved so deadly. The newborn, the only baby pulled alive from the nursery fire, died this week after weeks of treatment. Her death raised the overall toll from the August 26 disaster to fifteen infants. Background: The Night of the Fire The fire tore through the neonatal nursery at Pims’ Mother and Child Hospital in Islamabad in the early…

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