Category: Articles

Powerful El Niño 2026: A Climate Shock to the World, 50 Million People at Risk of Food Crisis Mian Iftikhar Ahmad The world is entering a critical climatic phase whose consequences may extend far beyond temperature, rainfall and drought, affecting food supplies, agriculture, water resources, energy, global trade, inflation, public health and the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. The 2026 El Niño is no longer merely a potential climate event; it has established itself in the equatorial Pacific and, according to major global climate institutions, is continuing to…

The Makkah Defense Pact: Pakistan’s New Strategic Test in a Changing World Mian Iftikhar Ahmad The joint defense agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye in Makkah represents an important development in the changing strategic environment of the Muslim world, the Middle East and South Asia. The agreement is not merely a formal military understanding between three countries; rather, its wider political, economic, military and diplomatic implications make it a potential indicator of a broader geopolitical transformation. The central concept of the agreement is that an armed attack against any…

Reforming the Security Council Without Entrenching Privilege by Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal The United Nations was founded in 1945 after the League of Nations had failed to preserve peace. Its Security Council was designed for the world that emerged from the Second World War, with five permanent members holding the veto and a small number of elected seats. That basic architecture has scarcely changed since 1965, when the non-permanent membership rose from six to ten. The veto was meant to keep the great powers inside the system and to prevent open…

What Have We Returned?  by Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal Pakistan was achieved on the fourteenth of August in the year nineteen hundred and forty-seven, after sacrifices of a magnitude that still stir the soul and a struggle whose tirelessness remains an enduring lesson. Millions crossed borders in those turbulent months, leaving behind ancestral homes, familial graves, and the familiar soil of generations, so that a new homeland might rise where Muslims could live according to their faith and their free will. We stand now upon the threshold of the eighth decade…

Pakistan, Partners and Perception by Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal Time is a stern teacher of nations. It changes the character of alliances, reshapes national priorities and repeatedly reminds states that geography is destiny only when political wisdom knows how to use it. Countries may differ in ideology, resources and ambitions, yet history repeatedly brings them to the same conclusion; in an uncertain world, security and prosperity are rarely achieved in isolation. Sixty-two years ago, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey confronted a similar question. In July 1964, the three regional members of the…

The Meal He Never Rushed Prepared by Kainat Rajput  |  10 August 2026 An Ordinary Evening It was an unremarkable evening at a busy city restaurant. Every table held its own small world — friends laughing over dinner, a family taking photographs, someone quietly scrolling on their phone. Then the door opened, and a young man walked in, gently guiding his seventy-five-year-old father by the arm. The old man’s steps were unsteady. His hands trembled. Thick glasses sat on a face carrying the particular tiredness that only time leaves behind.…