Research Work & Projects

Considered the father of trophy hunting in Pakistan, Sardar Naseer Tareen passed away on June 24th in Quetta at the age of 81. I first got to know him years ago when I travelled with him to the Toba Kakar Range on the border of Afghanistan to take a look at the Suleiman Markhor (straight horned species of wild goat). On the long jeep ride from Quetta to Kila Saifullah and then onwards to the border, Sardar Naseer joked with me that we would be staying at the local “Holiday Inn” only to arrive at a cluster of mud ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2VfPfNB

An algorithm generated by Imperial College London shows that Pakistan will reach its coronavirus peak on August 10, 2020 and record more than 78,500 deaths. According to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent updates, Pakistan has 748 active cases with 15 deaths per one million people. Within the last few weeks, the situation has gained an alarming momentum in Pakistan, and currently only patients who are sick with pneumonia are being admitted while many Covid-19 patients are sent home to be treated by their general practitioners. Hospitals are almost entirely filled, even though the number of patients is 50% more than the maximum ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3i0pA54

Since the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, the use of antibiotics has increased exponentially across the word. Health experts have been warning that the use of antibiotics to treat Covid-19 patients without advice and prescriptions from healthcare professionals can do more harm than good. Tedros Adhanom, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), stated earlier this month, “The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increased use of antibiotics, which ultimately will lead to higher bacterial resistance rates that will impact the burden of disease and deaths during the pandemic and beyond.” Hence, the WHO has released updated guidelines regarding the appropriate use of ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3duG5mo

Coronavirus has drastically changed the world we live in. With more than 8.3 million cases reported worldwide, this contagion continues to spread across 188 countries. In Pakistan, the number of confirmed cases has surpassed 165, 000 with more than 3, 000 deaths being reported officially. To contain the spread of this contagion, specific quarantine and social distancing measures have been undertaken, resulting in the world being put in a “Great Lockdown.” The subsequent impact this will have on global economic activity will be unprecedented, which means that reverting to a life of normalcy will ‘take’ a substantial amount of time. According ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3efFIO7

The surest sign of an incompetent government is its tendency to blame its own citizens for its management failures. It was almost inevitable, therefore, for Yasmin Rashid – PTI’s Provincial Minister of Punjab for Primary and Secondary Healthcare – to launch a tirade against the “ajeeb” (weird) and “jahil” (foolish) people of Lahore on national television, for our apparent carelessness during the pandemic. It would be a shame to lose sight of the irony here. You, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, brought into power by the largess of the Pakistani voters, now smirking down at them from your high ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2YCGKgo

With the globally raging pandemic showing no signs of slowing down, one of the most pressing yet neglected concerns amid this scenario is that of maternal and child healthcare. While the world fights the pandemic, diverting manpower and resources in an attempt to win the battle against it, maternal and child healthcare has taken a hit. The gravity of the issue can be assessed from the following statement by the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom, “The indirect effects of Covid-19 on these groups (women and children) may be greater than the number of deaths due to the ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3hyMm3O

A new realisation It would be fair to say that we do not need to look too far to understand that the story of Pakistan has been one of self-inflicted double mindedness that has swung from one extreme ideology to the next. Our leadership has looked externally for solutions resulting in a nation that lags in all aspects of our life – from science to economics to governance. This is understandable because a nation that follows others can only always play catch up. Adding further schizophrenic misery to our situation is the fact that a majority of the populace looks ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3feROai

A hotel is essentially a micro-city. With an average ratio of two and a half to three staff members per hotel room, a 200 room hotel has around 500 employees who directly depend on it for their salaries, along with a minimum of 3000 additional co-dependent individuals if we also take into account their family members. Now, add into this mix the food contractors who supply raw materials to the hospitality industry; those who are responsible for maintaining general order like housekeeping and engineering suppliers; add all the paper and ancillary suppliers; and also include all the linen, chinaware, glassware, carpet and terry suppliers. ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2XB0cuK

Crawling across thousands of kilometres (km) and flying through the air, millions of locusts have swarmed large swathes of agricultural land in Pakistan and India, devouring any vegetation in their path. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that Pakistan will lose more than USD four billion worth of rabi and kharif crops. According to the FAO, 38% of the land area of Pakistan (60% in Balochistan, 25% in Sindh and 15% in Punjab) is a breeding ground for desert locusts. They move in swarms of up to 50 million locusts, and each swarm can travel up ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2Y1382Q

Our healthcare system is currently on the verge of a crisis, the future of which is marred by uncertainty. The capricious trajectory of Covid-19, Pakistan’s flailing healthcare system, and the exponential rise in the coronavirus cases are just a few of the concerns. Amid these issues, many medical personnel have become the victims of public aggression themselves. With the onset of Covid-19 there has been a concurrent spike in the cases of violence and aggression against healthcare workers. On Friday, a mob stormed Civil Hospital Karachi and not only resorted to violence and vandalism but also took away the body ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3drLPhR

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory located in Manhattan New York, was the scene of one of the most horrific tragedies of the early twentieth century. That fateful afternoon, there were nearly 600 workers in the factory – most of them young immigrant women – when a fire started in a rag bin on the eighth floor of the building. Within minutes eyewitnesses saw harrowing scenes of dense clouds of black smoke billowing over the building as young women jumped out of the windows in desperation. Inside the building, workers were trapped by immovable machinery, doors that ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3eB8Xun

To gradually revert to a life of normalcy, Pakistan is easing its social distancing restrictions and has lifted its lockdown. With respect to the aviation industry, the country is set to loosen its air travel restrictions and resume passenger airline operations. According to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Pakistan resumed international flight operations from Friday, May 30th. With the exception of Gwadar and Turbat airports, both national and international airlines will resume regular operations from all international airports of the country. This decision was taken a week after Islamabad lifted its ban on domestic flights. Back in March when ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2XjfFPY

Virtual education degree programmes and e-learning universities tend to be perceived of lesser quality and validity as compared to classroom-taught programmes. However with the pandemic, both public and private universities have been mandated to move their courses/classes online as per the directive of the Higher Education Commission (HEC). Over the last month, there have been a number of articles in newspapers concerning the shift to online teaching. Advocates of the online shift (mostly private institutions) have been congratulating themselves on the quick and smooth transition they have made. Others, including many student groups, have been resistant to the idea ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/36CKO3U

I’ve never liked going up to the touristy Monal restaurant up in the Margalla Hills National Park adjacent to Islamabad. Why would anyone allow a large concrete monstrosity to be constructed inside a national park, which is supposed to have reserved flora and fauna with no human intervention? We would hear the usual stories about the “influential people involved” and despite sporadic protests in the media and occasional rulings by the Islamabad High Court and even the National Assembly, no action was ever taken. In fact, Monal became even bigger, adding more patios to its spacious outdoor seating area. The ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2ZlZhzy

With the recent signing of the accord between Pakistan’s Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and Chinese state-run China Power to build the Diamer-Bhasha dam, the debate around its impact on the decrepit Indus Delta has been renewed. It is argued that the dam will further damage the delta and its ecology, harming the lives of those who live there. The rationale for building the dam is that it will add 4500 MW of electricity to the National Grid and its 6.4 MAF usable water storage capacity will alleviate the irrigation shortage in the Indus Basin arising from siltation in the existing ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2Zi2Uq7

What was the global and national scientific response? Scientists and countless labs across the globe have been working day and night to explore preventive and therapeutic options to combat coronavirus, and its genome was sequenced in a matter of days. Epidemiologists, microbiologists, clinicians, and experts from many other fields were brought together to work out the mode of transmission and to provide public-safety guidelines. With regards to Pakistan, universities tasked their faculties and students with designing innovative solutions to help the government tackle Covid-19. We have witnessed success in the development of testing kits from a couple of universities, and some smart alternatives were presented in the ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3fNzB4z

With the promulgation of the Punjab Prevention of Hoarding Ordinance, 2020, the Government of Punjab has undertaken a crucial step towards ensuring the necessary supply of essential commodities during the emergent situation as a result of Covid-19. The purpose of the 2020 ordinance is to halt the hoarding of goods, especially essential food and sanitary items, by means of making the same an offence under the law and devising a mechanism for reporting of hoarding, schemes of adjudication, and penalty thereof. The ordinance aims at preventing speculative dealings, market manipulation, or other forms of artificially manipulated high pricing. The law ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2LoOnAQ

The novel coronavirus has crippled governments all over the world, due to which states and leaders are struggling to deal with rising unemployment, burgeoning debt and broken economies. However, what begs consideration is the court system and the access to justice in wake of these uncertain times. In March 2020, orders were passed by the High Courts in Pakistan to grant bail to prisoners undergoing trial or those who were sick or infirm. This order was subsequently overturned on March 30th by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Gulzar Ahmed. In its judgment, the Supreme Court issued orders for the ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3dDMUmj

On May 7th, the government of Pakistan decided not to revise its earlier decision from April 18th, whereby the government allowed the re-opening of mosques after thorough negotiations between the state and the country’s top clerics. With a lengthy 20-point standard operating procedure (SOP) agreed upon by the government and Pakistan’s clerics, the latter seem to have got their way, again. This is a concerning development given the rampant spread of Covid-19 across Pakistan. While the SOPs agreed upon require mosques to follow 20 procedures (including maintaining a six-feet distance between worshippers, barring the entry of the ill and the ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/2xUPZPK

Due to Covid-19, economic output is contracting across the world by trillions of dollars, and governments are printing more money while increasing government loans to provide relief to their countrymen. Pakistan too has announced a stimulus package worth $8 billion, but of this amount around $6 billion was already supposed to be provided in the shape of tax refunds, declining oil prices, and wheat procurement. To combat the impending economic fallout, Pakistan needs to open up its spending taps and scramble all its resources in an attempt to fix the economy.  However, even if the government cannot increase its revenue, can it at ... Read Full Post from Welcome to Pakistan – The Express Tribune Blog https://ift.tt/3dsfKpE