Illustration by Samiah Bilal
Most conversations about exports from Pakistan focus on one industry alone: textiles. This is perhaps only natural. After all, textiles make up around 60 percent of the country’s overall exports.
The (relative) good news is that the sector is currently running at its optimum level. But, unfortunately, the reason behind this upsurge is the havoc wreaked by the coronavirus. Global suppliers have diverted orders to Pakistan, in large part because of the pandemic’s devastating impact on India and Bangladesh.
The further bad news is that the upsurge may be temporary. And once things normalise, Pakistan’s economy, which continues to rely heavily on the textile sector, may feel the impact.
Lahore has a history spread over thousands of years, but very few narrations dwell on the people themselves, on their ethnicity, their linguistic trends and their various sociological structures. If history is about people then we must look at the essentials.
Let us look at the numbers over the last half a century. In 1950 the Survey of Pakistan tells us that Lahore had a population of 835,769 persons. In 2021 the ‘World Population Review’ says the number has risen to a projected 13,095,166 persons. This means a staggering annual average increase of 14.66 per cent a year. This is also the speed of urbanisation. Based on an area of 6,300 square kilometres in 2019, this makes the average density of over 16,000 persons per square mile.
MILKING PAKISTAN FOR WHAT IT S WORTH - Newspaper dawn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dawn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
BoR issues plan for recruitment of patwaries
Lahore
March 3, 2021
LAHORE:The Board of Revenue has issued a comprehensive plan for the recruitment of new patwaries in the province.
The authority to make appointments has been given to the divisional commissioners instead of the Punjab Public Service Commission while the assistant commissioners concerned have been appointed as the heads of the appointment committee formed at the tehsil level. Sources in Board of Revenue told this scribe that the parliamentarians would be obliged and their blue-eyed would be recruited on the posts of patwaries across the Punjab. There was no need to recruit patwaries as Punjab Land Record Authority is working very well, said an official on the condition of anonymity. Additionally, the PLRA field staff also expressed grave concern over the resumption of the role of patwaries in the revenue estate level. PLRA was issuing fard without taking any kind of bribe while patwari had promoted culture of brib
Destitute woman sorting plastic waste on a Karachi street.
Laws to control pollution in Pakistan exist, but are hardly enforced. Chemical health hazards abound.
The South Asian country faces numerous adverse impacts of chemical pollution as its industrial activity and consumer market surge. Negative impacts affect air, water and soil. Especially the localities where poor people live are exposed.
Sometimes the impacts are in plain sight. An accident killed at least 14 people in Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city, in February 2020. Dozens who survived were admitted to local hospitals. Because of the chemically polluted air, they suffered chest pain, burning eyes and breathing difficulties. The neighbourhood concerned was Keamari, which is close to the South Asian nation’s major commercial port.