Umair Javed

Articles by Umair Javed

Rents and state authority

Business August 17, 2026

ZULFIKAR Ali Bhutto’s nationalisation programme is frequently brought up during arguments about Pakistan’s economic trajectory. A supportive minority cites it as the only real example of a state-l...

A hard state?

News August 3, 2026

THESE days we are repeatedly told that the Pakistani state has been soft on anarchy for far too long. This is the considered and stated position of many state officials as well as of many supporters o...

Poverty and inequality

News July 20, 2026

The release of the Household Integrated Economic Survey and Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement data presents a clearer picture of poverty and economic distress in Pakistan. This data has...

Bureaucratic control

Health July 6, 2026

A RECENTLY proposed bill around β€˜anti-social’ behaviour in Punjab has received extensive scrutiny both within opposition political circles and media outlets. An excellent primer by lawyer Ali Jave...

Respite needed

News June 8, 2026

THE federal budget is rightly bemoaned as a futile exercise. The space available for anything particularly creative β€” meaningfully redistributive or growth-enabling β€” is extremely limited. Instead...

5,000 years of Pakistan?

News May 25, 2026

TOXIC debates around cultural identity are a frequent occurrence in online spaces, both between people from Pakistan and among those here and across the border in India. In recent months, intense disc...

Returns on multipolarity

News May 11, 2026

GLOBAL politics is hurtling towards a multipolar system the likes of which we haven’t seen since the late 20th century. Several indicators bear this out: the global hegemon for the past four decades...

Conflicts of the future

Business February 2, 2026

SEVERAL people (myself included) have written about the harmful impact of LLM (large language model) chatbots on basic learning processes in educational institutions. Learning is not merely accessing ...

Shortcuts to growth

News January 19, 2026

RECENT chatter suggests there is significant pressure on the government to move beyond macroeconomic stabilisation. With economic activity languishing, rumours of ministerial changes have popped up as...

A lost decade

News January 5, 2026

STUDENTS of late-20th-century politics and history might recall that the term β€˜Lost Decade’ is used to describe the 1980s in both Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Though of qualitatively diff...