‘We squandered a decade’ says UN’s outgoing special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Goal to eradicate poverty by 2030 ‘completely off track’,  with Covid-19 likely to impoverish millions more, Australian academic Philip Alston says in his report published in the Guardians International institutions are losing the fight against global poverty despite “self-congratulatory” messages to the contrary, according to the UN’s …

A conversation with Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, a Professor of Political Economy at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Juvaria Jafri, a Lecturer in International Political Economy at City University on the impact of coronavirus pandemic on Pakistan’s middle classes, rescue packages and government’s response.  by Farwa Sial The full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on developing countries is still unfolding. While …

A comparative study of farming sectors of China and Pakistan   By Samiullah Najeeb   Agriculture is the most sensitive sector to climate change. The impacts of climate change and abnormal events such as rise in temperatures, extreme weather, drought, levels of carbon dioxide and sea result in a decrease in the quantity and the quality of food supplies. Climate …

By S. Akbar Zaidi The trade-off being presented of saving lives through a lockdown to eliminate the coronavirus and killing the poor on account of the closure of economic activity is a false one. There is no denying the fact that the spread of the virus and the action taken to protect the lives of people have had severe economic consequences …

In this essay, Amir Hussain critiques the so-called Green Revolution, its myths of rural transformation in the Global South with Pakistan as a case study. This is the first piece of a series of essays, summarising literature survey that he did for the forthcoming book on rural transformation published in The News today.   Amir Hussain   Rural transformation can …

‘Politics is the art of broadening possibilities and choices,’ writes Amir Hussain in his latest column in the News on Friday. He, however, questions the PTI-led government’s stance of mistaking politics for economics and diminishing returns on its political investments. If there is any law of diminishing returns in politics (as in economics), none other than our sitting government should deserve the …

By Raheem Sherazi   The whole world from South of North is under the grip of great fear of the coronavirus pandemic. It has not only generated panic all around but also resulted in an unprecedented impact in almost all spheres of life. International bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) have recommended the simplest ways to deal with the …

The social solidarity across the globe is the main measure to stop the episode of COVID-19 By Zahra Arshad Before the emergence of the pandemic as a global challenge, an unknown sickness was first recognized in Wuhan, China in December 2019.  It was called a Chinese novel virus. Across the globe, it was considered that this virus is a confined …

Herald Report   The worldwide spread of coronavirus that has devastated the global economy has also hit hard the tourism and hospitality industry with major tourist destinations seeing limited visitors while several airlines have suspended or limited their operations. The World Tourism Organisation of the United Nations, (UNWTO) in response to the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak, has cancelled immediately, all its …

Pakistan’s lowest spending in the social sector will create an incompetent generation, writes Amir Hussain in his lastest column published in The News today. He suggests that if PTI government wants to translate its rhetoric of building 5m houses and create 10m jobs, it must double its GDP and ensure growth at a rate of 8% for next 10  years …