They say the shortage is over, but for people like him, the suffering continues. He’s among many others who are forced to compromise their health due to financial constraints. In Rawalpindi’s busy markets, pharmacy shelves that once stood bare now brim with medicines. From insulin to psychiatric drugs and even cancer treatments, supplies are no longer scarce, thanks to the government that deregulated prices of non-essential medicines.

But for patients, availability means little when the price tags remain out of reach. This paradox stems from a major policy decision taken in February 2024, when the government deregulated prices of non-essential medicines. For decades, pharmaceutical companies were bound by state-imposed price caps, which tied increases to inflation but often kept retail prices below production costs. Industry leaders repeatedly warned that it was impossible to continue manufacturing under those restrictions.

The result was devastating, with widespread shortages, patients turned away from pharmacies and a booming black market filled with counterfeit or smuggled drugs. Even basic painkillers like Panadol became scarce, while patients with chronic illnesses were left vulnerable. To address this, the government gave pharmaceutical companies the power to independently set prices of non-essential drugs.

More than 460 essential medicines such as insulin, tuberculosis treatments, and vaccines remain under government control, but the rest of the market has been opened up. Manufacturers argue the change has stabilised the pharmaceutical sector and restored availability. Industry data also supports this claim. Provincial drug regulators also confirm that shortages have almost vanished, counterfeit drugs have declined, and patients have greater access to quality medicines.

But for the average household, the relief is bittersweet due to this price surge. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics also reports that medicine prices have increased. The increases may be lower than inflation in food, fuel, or utilities, but because healthcare expenses are out-of-pocket in Pakistan, even modest hikes hit hard.

Every month, Fatima Javed, a homemaker, tightens her household budget and sets aside Rs8,000 for her father’s insulin and her daughter’s asthma inhalers. She calls it an impossible balancing act in this time of inflation. “We are middle-class, yet we struggle to pay for the medicines needed on a monthly basis due to fluctuating prices”.

“These medicines are not luxuries but essential for us”, she added. However, for daily wage earners, medicines are slipping further out of reach. With incomes consumed almost entirely by food and transport, even a modest increase in drug prices places an unbearable burden.

Behind pharmacy counters, the struggle is clear. “Many customers return medicines once they see the price tags,” shares Muhamad Ramzan, a pharmacist in Rawalpindi.

“Some take only part of their prescription, others stretch out their doses. What they don’t realise is that these sacrifices, made out of necessity, actually make recovery slower, harder, and ultimately costlier”, he added.

Experts point out that the policy’s distinction between “essential” and “non-essential” drugs is deeply flawed. While insulin and TB drugs are controlled, medications for epilepsy, depression, or hypertension fall into the deregulated category.

Civil society groups argue that subsidies or targeted support are urgently needed. Without them, deregulation risks will continue deepening health inequality. “We are witnessing a two-tier system,” says Maham, a pharmacist “The wealthy can now buy any medicine they want due to easy availability, but the poor are forced to choose between food and treatment. This is not healthcare, it is survival of the fittest.”

The debate over deregulation reflects Pakistan’s broader healthcare crisis. With no universal health coverage and only a patchwork of provincial insurance schemes, most families rely on their own income to pay for treatment. Out-of-pocket expenditure accounts for major health spending in the country. Inflation, job insecurity, and stagnant wages compound the issue. A rickshaw driver who earns Rs1,500 a day cannot afford Rs200 worth of daily medicine without sacrificing food for his family.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies insist they too are struggling with rising global raw material costs, energy shortages, and currency devaluation. For them, deregulation is not greed but survive.

For patients like Abdul Rauf, this debate feels detached from reality. He no longer faces the frustration of empty shelves, but the full prescription still remains out of reach. His story echoes across Pakistan: the crisis of scarcity may be over, but a new crisis that of affordability has taken its place.

As the government and industry congratulate themselves for restoring availability, countless households silently cut back on treatment. Some halve doses to stretch out prescriptions. Others return to home remedies or prayers. For the poorest, illness is endured untreated. The shelves are full, but the wallets are empty. And in this cruel equation, patients are paying the highest price. — The writer is a freelance journalist

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2026

The arguments were concluded before Additional District Judge (West) Amir Zia, who is hearing the CDA’s appeal against an earlier judgement.

The matter has now been adjourned until Sept 19.

Appearing for the CDA, Advocate Kashif Ali Malik argued that the case illustrated how “the victim has been turned into the accused”, with a public authority allegedly being directed to compensate a contractor whose project, according to the CDA, still stands incomplete years after its contractual completion date.

The dispute concerns construction of 104 family suites for members of the parliament and 500 servant quarters at Parliament Lodges.

The contract, worth approximately Rs2.73 billion, was awarded in 2011 with a scheduled completion date of November 2013.

According to the counsel, despite extensions of time and repeated opportunities, the project has yet to be completed.

Mr Malik argued that the arbitration itself originated from a settlement between the parties under which only eight specifically identified disputes were referred to the sole arbitrator.

Instead of confining himself to those disputes, the arbitrator entertained a massive financial claim which neither formed part of the original statement of claim nor fell within the agreed terms of reference.

He maintained that while its own counter-claim, involving recovery of advances, consultant charges, market rent and declarations regarding the contractor’s alleged defaults, was rejected without adjudication on merits, the arbitrator granted the contractor nearly Rs640 million on a claim allegedly introduced only during the recording of evidence.

The counsel added that the most striking feature of the award was the manner in which the amount was determined.

According to him, the arbitrator awarded exactly half of the amount claimed without appointing an auditor, engaging a chartered accountancy firm, obtaining an independent financial assessment or applying any recognised accounting or contractual methodology.

He argued that the contractor had itself furnished a written undertaking in 2014 while seeking extension of time, acknowledging continuation of the project.

Yet, according to the counsel, it subsequently sought financial compensation for the very period covered by that extension, a contradiction which, he argued, went unnoticed by the arbitrator.

Mr Malik pointed out that the arbitration award had initially been filed before the trial court by counsel for the contractor rather than by the arbitrator himself, prompting objections from the CDA on the ground that such filing was contrary to the Arbitration Act.

The trial court had initially accepted those objections and remitted the award for filing in accordance with law.

However, the ensuing litigation took an unusual course.

According to the counsel, although the contractor’s appeal was announced as dismissed by the Islamabad High Court, the subsequently issued written judgement allowed the appeal – a circumstance which the counsel pointed out was itself noted in the judgement.

The matter ultimately reached the Supreme Court before returning to the trial court.

The litigation did not end there. After the trial court eventually made the award rule of the court, the Islamabad High Court, in a judgement authored by Justice Inaam Ameen Minhas, and approved for reporting, set aside that decision and held that a civil court was under a legal obligation to independently examine whether an arbitral award suffered from patent illegality,

misconduct or jurisdictional defects before converting it into a decree.

Despite those observations, the trial court again dismissed the CDA’s objections, reaffirmed the award and additionally granted interest under Section 29 of the Arbitration Act, leading to the present appeal.

The contractor’s primary argument was that the trial court lacked the legal jurisdiction to order the return of the arbitration “Award.”

They contended that the Arbitration Act of 1940 does not prescribe a specific time limit for the filing of an award in court. Therefore, the trial court’s decision to return the award and direct its resubmission within thirty days was made without any lawful authority.

Furthermore, the contractor argued that the initial filing of the “Award” on 11.09.2018 already met all the statutory requirements. If the court had any doubts or queries regarding the filing, the correct procedural course would have been to seek clarification from the parties involved, rather than returning the award.

On this basis, they maintained that the trial court’s initial order was invalid and that the subsequent order dismissing the Authority’s objections was sound and did not require any interference from the higher court.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2026

The deceased were identified as Aleena and her children Rehan (16), Aresha (11) and Arsal (6).

According to investigators, the family had recently returned to Pakistan from the United States and had been living in a rented house.

Police had taken Aleena’s husband Nasir Dogar into custody for questioning before releasing him after recording his statement on Saturday.

Police quoted Dogar as saying that he had gone to the market and found his wife and children lying unconscious when he returned home. They were later pronounced dead.

He told the investigators that his wife had been suffering from mental health issues for the past three to four years and she was receiving treatment for the last six months.

He claimed that his wife was still conscious when he reached home and she told him that the children had gone to watch a movie with a relative before her condition deteriorated. He said she later lost consciousness and died, while bodies of the three children were found in another room of the house.

A senior investigation official told Dawn that preliminary inquiries suggested the possibility that the woman had administered poison to the children before consuming it herself. However, he stressed that investigators were examining the case from multiple angles and had not reached a final conclusion.

“The exact cause and circumstances of the deaths will only be established after the post-mortem and forensic reports are received,” the official said.

Police said further legal action would be decided in light of the medical and forensic evidence.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2026

Meta and Google argued that her difficulties had other causes, including bullying and a troubled home life. Her lawyers instead focused on platform design: autoplay, infinite feeds and notifications intended to keep users engaged. After more than 40 hours of deliberations, the jury found both companies negligent.

What made the verdict historic was that it emerged from the first US jury trial of its kind, holding the companies responsible not for material posted by users, but for the design and operation of the platforms themselves.

Kaley’s case was not an isolated tragedy. In 2024, Mark Zuckerberg was confronted in the US Senate by parents holding photographs of children who had died after being exploited or harmed online. Turning towards them, he apologised.

The harms extend far beyond addiction. Social media gives predators direct access to children, allowing grooming, sexual exploitation and sextortion to begin through a message, a compliment or a fake friendship. Children are also exposed to cyberbullying, self-harm content, violent material and impossible standards of beauty. Sleep, education and real relationships are displaced by endless scrolling.

The danger is not simply that children see harmful content. It is that the platforms are built to keep them there.

The danger is not simply that children see harmful content. It is that the platforms are built to keep them there.

Yet the platforms have known about these dangers for years. Their response has been moderation, reporting tools, parental controls and age limits. It has failed. Harmful material continues to slip through, predators return under new accounts, and children routinely bypass age restrictions.

The failure is increasingly difficult to disguise.

In 2024, the US Federal Trade Commission found that major platforms had failed to provide adequate safeguards for children and teenagers.

In 2026, European regulators preliminarily found that Meta had failed to stop children under 13 from using Instagram and Facebook, while Ofcom reported that 73 per cent of UK children aged 11 to 17 had encountered at least one form of harmful content online in the preceding four weeks. Platform accountability has delivered promises after scandal, rather than protection before harm.

This record has pushed governments towards prohibition. Australia became the first country to require platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent children under 16 from holding accounts. The rules took effect in December 2025. Britain has since announced plans for a similar measure, expected to come into force in spring 2027, alongside restrictions on livestreaming and contact between children and strangers.

Pakistan is moving in the same direction. A resolution submitted to the Punjab Assembly seeks a nationwide restriction on social media accounts for children under 16 without verified parental consent. It asks the federal government to legislate, the PTA to enforce age checks and platforms to remove harmful content more quickly.

A ban offers a simple answer to a frightening problem. Its political value, however, may be greater than its protective value. It allows governments to appear decisive while avoiding the harder work of enforcement, platform accountability and sustained child protection.

Pakistan’s economic, linguistic and administrative inequalities make it difficult to enforce any uniform age-verification system fairly. Identity checks, facial-age estimation and parental verification could create new privacy and exclusion risks. Children may still bypass the system by entering a false date of birth or using an adult’s account.

Even stronger regulatory systems are struggling. In July 2026, researchers created 50 Australian accounts declaring their users to be exactly 16. None was asked to verify that claim. The test did not prove that openly underage users could register, but showed how heavily enforcement depends on platforms identifying false ages and deciding when verification is necessary.

A blanket restriction may also give parents a false sense of security. Once assured that children cannot use Instagram or TikTok, families may assume that the danger has disappeared. In reality, children may simply move into less visible spaces, including WhatsApp and Telegram groups, Discord servers, gaming communities and platforms such as Roblox. The risk does not disappear. It becomes harder to see.

Education must therefore be part of the response. The government should invest in sustained digital-safety programmes for parents, teachers and children, helping families recognise grooming, sextortion, cyberbullying and compulsive use, and understand where to seek help. Parents cannot protect children from risks they have never been taught to identify.

Pakistan therefore needs something more demanding than a ban. Platforms should be req­u­ired to make children’s accounts private by def­ault, limit contact from strangers, prohibit behavioural advertising to minors, redesign recommendation systems and respond rapidly to grooming and sexual exploitation. Reporting and parental-control tools must work in Urdu and regional languages, while independent audits should test whether these protections actually work.

Pakistan can build on its contribution to global cyber governance. It supported a legally binding UN Convention against Cybercrime and participated actively in negotiations on capacity building, technology transfer and international cooperation. The convention is not a platform-accountability framework, but Pakistan’s involvement shows that it can help shape global digital rules rather than merely receive them.

The more relevant opportunity lies in the Global Digital Compact. It calls for a safer digital environment for children and for platform policies on online child sexual exploitation and abuse to be monitored and reviewed. Pakistan should use this forum, together with other developing countries, to demand common safety standards, greater transparency and meaningful consequences for companies that repeatedly fail children.

The goal should not be to pretend that children can be removed from the digital world. It should be to make the digital world answerable for what it does to them.

The writer is the founder of Media Matters for Democracy.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2026

What remains constant is not the source of hope, but the elite’s persistent unwillingness to reconcile it with Pakistan’s actual sociological, political and economic indicators, which tell a far less reassuring story.

The power elite might not have been surprised by the European Commission’s latest report on the implementation of the GSP-Plus, which flagged certain compliance issues. This latest assessment comes at a time when Pakistani exporters enjoy preferential access to the European market in return for implementing 27 international conventions covering human rights, labour rights, environmental protection, climate action and good governance.

The European Union, which counts Pakistan among the top beneficiaries of its Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus, emphasised that the country would have to overcome certain shortcomings to qualify under the revised framework.

The EU report will hardly impact the power elite’s attitude towards its record on human rights, the rule of law, justice, freedom of the press, and democracy, as it appears to neither believe in these values nor see democracy as a system that best suits the country. Its sources of inspiration lie elsewhere: China and the Gulf monarchies fascinate Pakistan’s elites far more, and their authoritarian developmentalism seems more viable to them. Against this backdrop, they keep treating the population as subjects rather than citizens with constitutional rights.

For the power elite, compliance with Western frameworks, including GSP-Plus, regimes like FATF, and conditions imposed by the IMF is merely a tool. They believe that through such mechanisms, the West seeks to manoeuvre developing countries and keep them subservient. Consequently, they half-heartedly try to fulfil the minimum compliance requirements to keep the West engaged and to secure their economic, and more importantly, geopolitical and strategic relevance in Western capitals.

Perhaps this arrangement suits the Western nations as well, allowing them to satisfy their own constituencies that, at the very least, the country is trying to adhere to international human rights norms.

The EU report will hardly impact the power elite’s approach to rights and the rule of law.

The power elite’s optimism is the real obstacle to building a functional democracy in Pakistan. They believe the country can score exceptionally well on economic and social indicators while following authoritarian models, and that electoral cycles every four to five years break the momentum of progress. What they fail to realise is that most autocracies fail, succumbing to severe corruption, economic collapse and human flight.

Stable authoritarian states, such as China and Singapore, have built highly professional, well-compensated, and competitive civil services, where public policy is executed by skilled technocrats rather than political appointees, a feature that Pakistan’s own model completely misses.

The power elite does not care about the political, social or security-related apprehensions the international community holds regarding Pakistan, not even those of the autocracies and monarchies it admires most.

Pakistan continues to struggle on the global stage, ranking 91st on the Fragile States Index. Categorised under the ‘Alert’ bracket, the country is wedged between Eritrea and Uganda.

Across major global governance, stability, and human rights indices, Pakistan’s performance reflects a challenging environment marked by heightened security vulnerabilities and political volatility.

The Global Terrorism Index paints an even grimmer picture, placing Pakistan at the very top as the nation most impacted by terrorism globally, followed by Burkina Faso at number two.

Pakistan has been combating terrorism and political violence for the last two and a half decades. This prolonged struggle makes it a unique case; other nations that were once heavily ravaged by similar forms of violence, such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have long since seen relative improvements in their indicators.

Similarly, Pakistan’s standing on the Freedom in the World index is unsurprising, with a low score of 32 out of 100 and further decline expected. In this landscape, civil liberties remain an alien concept. Pakistan ranks worse than Guinea-Bissau (which is also rated ‘Partly Free’ but scores one point higher). Meanwhile, Angola is struggling just to catch up with Pakistan’s failing metrics. Naturally, a country struggling across all major social and political indicators cannot perform well on the rule of law. On the WJP Rule of Law Index, Pakistan ranks a dismal 130th out of 143 nations globally.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, Pakistan recently underwent a significant downgrade, dropping out of the ‘Hybrid Regime’ category to be explicitly classified as an ‘Authoritarian Regime’. While the country has ideologically converged with the authoritarian models its elites idealise, it continues to fail at improving its basic economic and social indicators.

Ultimately, across all major global evaluations, Pakistan shares statistical boundaries with nations undergoing severe structural crises, military-backed administrations, or acute civil conflicts. While its legal, constitutional framework technically grants it slightly better civic space scores, such as a ‘Partly Free’ status in Freedom in the World data, which places it above authoritarian Algeria, the practical realities of high terrorism rates, state fragility and restricted democratic participation place it on par with heavily securitised states.

However, statistics, indicators and warnings by the EU are not going to change the minds of the power elite, as they still live under the illusion that the harder and more authoritarian the state becomes, the more resilient and strong the nation will grow. But what is a nation for them? Should a select segment of the elites or a common citizen too reserve the right to be part of the nation?

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2026

Pakistan and the United States will resume negotiations on Monday on a broader bilateral economic partnership, diplomatic sources told Dawn.

During his visit, Aurangzeb is scheduled to meet officials from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the US Export-Import Bank, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), sources said.

A key focus of the visit will be discussions on the framework for a potential bilateral trade agreement aimed at expanding trade and investment between the two countries. The talks are expected to cover tariffs, market access, investment opportunities and broader economic cooperation.

Meetings with the Exim Bank and the DFC are also expected to explore avenues for financing infrastructure, energy and private-sector investment projects in Pakistan.

Aurangzeb’s visit comes as Pakistani and US officials continue negotiations over the global tariff regime announced by US President Donald Trump on April 2, 2025, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which initially imposed a 29 per cent tariff on Pakistani exports.

A Pakistani delegation that visited Washington in July 2025 succeeded in persuading US officials to reduce the proposed tariff from 29 per cent to 19pc.

The tariff landscape has since changed following a US Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that invalidated the IEEPA-based tariffs. In response, the Trump administration invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act to impose a temporary global tariff of 10pc, which is due to expire on July 24 after the statutory 150-day period.

Pakistan is also among nearly 60 countries facing USTR investigations under Section 301 over alleged forced labour and related trade practices. Islamabad has submitted detailed responses to the USTR, including an additional submission this week ahead of the latest negotiations.

Under the ongoing Section 301 process, Pakistan faces a proposed additional tariff of 10pc, while India and 53 other countries are subject to proposed tariffs of 12.5pc. Public hearings before the USTR are continuing.

Beyond tariffs, both sides are also expected to discuss measures to expand bilateral trade and investment.

Aurangzeb last visited Washington in April to attend the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, where he held more than 50 meetings with international financial institutions, investors and rating agencies to present Pakistan’s economic reform programme and efforts to restore macroeconomic stability.

During that visit, he briefed investors on Pakistan’s plans to return to international capital markets through Panda Bonds and Eurobonds after several years. He also met US Treasury officials and representatives of multilateral institutions to discuss Pakistan’s response to the economic impact of regional tensions and volatility in global energy markets caused by the conflict involving Iran.