ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will lay three new submarine Internet cables this year in a bid to transform digital connectivity, expand bandwidth capacity and support the rollout of 5G services, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported this week.
Officials say the addition of new submarine cables will expand bandwidth, improve reliability and strengthen Pakistan’s ability to integrate with global data flows. The government also hopes the upgrade will accelerate the rollout of 5G services and attract investment in digital industries ranging from e-commerce to financial technology.
“This initiative will not only boost Internet speed but also ensure reliability, reduce service outages, and unlock broader economic potential,” Federal Minister for Information Technology Shaza Fatima Khawaja was quoted by Radio Pakistan as saying.
The new cables are expected to reduce dependence on older, outage-prone systems such as AAE-1 and SMW-4 and position Pakistan more strongly in global digital networks, according to the broadcaster.
Pakistan has over 150 million Internet subscribers, most of them mobile broadband users, making it one of the largest online markets in the world.
But connectivity remains inconsistent. The country has faced repeated cable faults that disrupt bandwidth nationwide, while limited fiber penetration slows the growth of digital services.
Civil society groups also point out that frequent government-ordered Internet shutdowns, often imposed during protests or security operations, have undermined confidence in the digital economy. Rights activists say such disruptions cost billions of rupees in lost productivity and erode freedom of expression online.
The government denies it uses Internet shutdowns as a tool or censorship.
ISLAMABAD: Twenty people have died in Pakistan’s Punjab this week and more than 435,000 residents have been evacuated as record monsoon floods continue to sweep across the country’s most populous province, a top disaster agency official said on Friday.
The flood emergency comes at the height of the monsoon season, when rivers in South Asia routinely swell but in recent years have become more destructive due to climate change. Punjab, which accounts for more than half of Pakistan’s 240 million people and is considered the country’s breadbasket, has been among the worst hit this week. Officials said the floods were worsened by both torrential rains and excess water released from upstream dams in India.
According to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), at least 1,769 villages are inundated, affecting some 1.45 million people. Nationwide, Pakistan’s monsoon death toll since June has climbed past 820.
Speaking to reporters on Friday morning, PDMA Director General Irfan Ali Kathia said water levels in Lahore, the provincial capital, had steadied and begun to recede after reaching levels unseen since 1988.
“By the grace of Allah, all destruction was avoided due to timely response and public cooperation,” he said, adding that rescue calls in the city had now tapered off.
Kathia said a powerful surge of around 217,000 cusecs — cubic feet per second, the standard unit used to measure river discharge — was moving downstream on the Ravi River. At Balloki Barrage, flows have already reached close to 147,000 cusecs and are still rising, with the tributary Nala Deg expected to add another 10,000–20,000 cusecs.
To protect populations, authorities have prepared a controlled breach at Rewas Bridge near Jhang, which would divert water away from the city at the cost of inundating farmland and smaller settlements. At Chiniot Bridge, flows have reached around 830,000 cusecs, with further increases possible.
It is also the first time in nearly four decades that the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers have all been in simultaneous high flood, forcing rescue workers to intensify operations across multiple districts. The combined population of Jhang and Chiniot, now under direct threat, is about 4.6 million people.
Kathia said 365 relief camps have been established in public buildings, though only 4,000–4,500 people had moved in so far. Authorities have also evacuated 301,174 animals and ordered uninterrupted fodder and wheat supplies. Families of those killed are being compensated with Rs1 million ($3,570) each.
Punjab Chief Secretary Zahid Akhtar Zaman said tent villages had been established, mobile “Clinics on Wheels” dispatched, and medical camps stocked with essential drugs, including anti-snakebite vaccines. Schools in flood-hit districts may be closed for a week, while the livestock department has been tasked with supplying feed and vaccines for animals.
“All relief and rescue demands are being met on the instructions of the chief minister,” Zaman said.
Flows on the Sutlej River remain elevated, with 261,000 cusecs at Ganda Singh Wala for the fourth straight day, raising levels downstream in Okara, Pakpattan and Bahawalnagar to between 100,000–150,000 cusecs.
Kathia said the surges are expected to enter Sindh’s river system in the coming days and authorities there have been placed on alert.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has already warned that rising water levels in Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers were carrying exceptionally high flows and likely to course downstream into Sindh.
The Indus River passes through most of Sindh’s districts, leaving them vulnerable to floods when upstream rivers swell.
Pakistan’s 2022 monsoon floods, the worst in its history, submerged a third of the country, killed more than 1,700 people and displaced 33 million. Sindh bore the brunt of the calamity with 1,093 deaths, 1.8 million homes destroyed and the loss of 4.4 million acres of crops.
Over a decade earlier in 2011, more than 430 people were killed as over 17 districts were flooded with water. A year before that in 2010, large areas of Pakistan and Sindh were inundated by “super-floods,” resulting in the displacement of millions.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates will participate in a tri-series of Twenty20 international matches, starting today, Friday, to tune up for next month’s Asia Cup followed by the World Cup next year.
The T20I tournament will serve as a launching pad for the teams to prepare for the Asian Cricket Council’s T20 Asia Cup, scheduled to take place in the UAE from September 9 to 28, it added.
India and Sri Lanka will co-host the Twenty20 World Cup in February-March next year.
“The tri-series will feature teams from Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UAE from 29 August to 7 September at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium,” the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said.
The opening match of the tri-series tournament will be played between Afghanistan and Pakistan on August 29.
Each team will play the others twice, giving all sides at least four matches before the top two teams qualify for the final, scheduled on September 7.
Tournament schedule (all matches at Sharjah Cricket Stadium):
29 August — Afghanistan v Pakistan
30 August — UAE v Pakistan
1 September — UAE v Afghanistan
2 September — Pakistan v Afghanistan
4 September — Pakistan v UAE
5 September — Afghanistan v UAE
7 September — Final
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is finalizing a five-year Textiles and Apparel Policy as well as a National Industrial Policy aimed at making industry regionally competitive, removing trade barriers and ensuring long-term export growth, Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan said on Friday.
The textile and apparel sector is Pakistan’s largest export earner, accounting for more than half of the country’s total exports, contributing around 8.5 percent of GDP and employing nearly 40 percent of the industrial labor force. But high energy costs, outdated infrastructure and policy uncertainty have slowed growth and left the country trailing regional peers such as Bangladesh.
“Pakistan must rely on export growth,” Khan said in remarks released by the commerce ministry after a meeting with industry representatives, including the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), where he discussed the new textile policy.
“The government is committed to ensure all decisions are taken in consultation with stakeholders. For the first time, the government and industry are aligned in their determination to revive and enhance momentum of increasing exports.”
He added: “We will announce permanent and predictable policies to promote exports.”
Khan said the government would also analyze regional competitors’ policies, citing his recent visit to Dhaka where he observed Bangladesh’s “remarkable success in industrial development and exports of ready-made garments.”
Bangladesh’s ready-made garment sector now generates about $50 billion annually and accounts for nearly 80 percent of its total exports, a scale Pakistan has struggled to match.
Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Industries and Production Haroon Akhtar Khan said the new industrial policy would extend beyond a few sectors to cover the broader industrial landscape, including energy, tariffs and taxation, financing and economic zones.
“The policy will also include facilitation for Greenfield projects, land-lease models under Public-Private Partnership, and a one-window facility for investor facilitation,” he said, adding that the initiative would “inject new vigor into industrial development” under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s vision.
APTMA representatives urged the government to remove structural inefficiencies and provide a more enabling environment to improve competitiveness in global markets.
Separately this week, the Pakistan Textile Council (PTC) raised concerns over recent amendments to the Export Facilitation Scheme that removed essential raw materials such as cotton, cotton yarn and grey cloth without specifying tariff codes.
PTC Chairman Fawad Anwar said the ambiguity was causing delays and inconsistent implementation, risking disruption to supply chains.
“This ambiguity is already causing delays, inconsistent implementation, and risks of disruption in the supply chain, which could harm Pakistan’s largest foreign exchange–earning sector, the textile industry,” he warned.
KHAPLU, Pakistan: Gunmen attacked a security check post in Pakistan’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan region overnight, killing two paramilitary officials and injuring two others, police said on Friday.
The violence is the latest in an area where Chinese workers are helping to build a multibillion-dollar dam.
The attackers struck between midnight and 1 a.m. in the Hudor area of Chilas, targeting personnel of the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Scouts, a paramilitary force that also provides protection to Chinese engineers and officials at the nearby Diamer-Bhasha Dam site.
“Miscreant elements attacked a security check post of GB Scouts in Hudor area of Chilas. Two security officials were killed and one was injured in the attack,” Abdul Hameed, the district police officer (DPO), told Arab News.
“The attack was carried out between 12 to 1 am. No organization has claimed responsibility so far.”
The GB Scouts shifted the bodies and wounded to a local hospital, Hameed said, adding that a search operation was underway to track the perpetrators.
The Hudor area has witnessed repeated violence. In December 2023, gunmen opened fire on a passenger bus traveling through the Diamer district, killing at least nine people.
Authorities at the time blamed militant elements operating in the mountainous region, which borders Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Militant groups have sporadically targeted security forces, infrastructure projects, and civilians in Gilgit-Baltistan, though attacks remain less frequent than in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt or southwestern Balochistan.
The GB region is home to the strategic China-backed Diamer-Bhasha Dam, part of Pakistan’s efforts to expand hydropower and water storage capacity.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for Friday’s assault.
ISLAMABAD: As record monsoon floods batter Pakistan’s Punjab province, officials are calling for urgent investment in dams and water infrastructure, arguing that India’s stronger flood defenses have limited damage on its side while Pakistan reels from rising death tolls and mass displacement.
This week, swollen rivers in Pakistan’s Punjab have submerged more than 1,600 villages, displaced over 1.1 million people and pushed nationwide fatalities since June, when the monsoon season began, past 820. The mass evacuations began after heavier-than-usual monsoon rains and the release of water from overflowing dams in India triggered flash floods in low-lying border regions in Pakistan.
Experts say Pakistan’s meager storage capacity leaves it acutely vulnerable to both floods and droughts, a risk compounded by climate change, which is making the monsoons more erratic and intense each year.
By contrast, India has invested far more heavily in dams and reservoirs, giving it a significantly larger buffer against floods and droughts, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said on Thursday during a briefing to the prime minister in flood-hit Narowal district.
“We must identify those gaps in our infrastructure,” He said. “If you look at the River Ravi, India has made very strong spurs, embankments and dams on its side that they throw all the water at us as per their will.”
PM Shehbaz Sharif also called for urgent construction of reservoirs and dams as swollen rivers devastated the breadbasket province of Punjab.
“We have to build the capacity for water storage. If there is storage, there will be a shortage of flash floods. Cascading will also be controlled,” the premier said in televised comments.
“This is the work that we must start today.”
According to the Indian Central Water Commission, India has a live water storage capacity of about 257.8 billion cubic meters (BCM), or around 209 million acre-feet, enough to hold water for 124 days. Pakistan’s total storage capacity is just 14 million acre-feet, which experts say is sufficient for only 30 days.
While rains and floods have killed nearly 820 people in Pakistan since June, over 1,200 have died in India nationwide, which has a population over five times larger than Pakistan.
Iqbal said climate change was the “new normal” but not unmanageable if systemic weaknesses were addressed, arguing that India suffered less damage from this season’s floods while Pakistan was overwhelmed.
India, as the upstream country in the Indus Basin — a river system governed by a 1960 treaty between the two nations — can regulate flows to Pakistan through infrastructure such as the Ranjit Sagar (Thein) Dam on the Ravi, the Ferozepur Headworks barrage on the Sutlej, the Baglihar and Salal dams on the Chenab, and the Kishanganga Hydroelectric Project on the Jhelum.
These projects — located in Indian Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir — are used to store water, generate electricity, and control seasonal river flows, giving India leverage over the timing and volume of water entering Pakistan.
But experts note that India’s water storage picture is not without its own challenges.
Despite ranking third globally in the number of large dams built, India’s combined live storage capacity is considered inadequate to fully meet its water security needs. Insufficient infrastructure limits its ability to hold back and store water under the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, constraining both domestic use and strategic flexibility.
Indeed, as Pakistan’s Punjab reeled under a flood emergency, in neighboring Indian-administered Kashmir’s Jammu region too, some of the heaviest rains in decades for the month of August have also wrought havoc, triggering flash floods and landslides.
Homes have been submerged and roads and bridges damaged, forcing Indian authorities to evacuate thousands of people living in flooded areas. At least 115 people have been killed in Jammu and scores injured just in August.
In Pakistan, it is also the first time in 38 years that the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers have been in high flood simultaneously, forcing rescue workers to intensify operations across multiple districts, according to the provincial irrigation department.
POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL BURDENS
Experts say Pakistan’s weak infrastructure is less about technical capacity and more about political and financial constraints.
“Pakistan has lagged behind India in building dams and water infrastructure largely due to fragmented governance, insufficient and inconsistent funding, political opposition and over-reliance on international financing,” Ahmed Kamal, former chief engineering adviser and chairman of the Federal Flood Commission, told Arab News.
He said such factors undermined “cohesive long-term planning and execution,” with inter-provincial disputes stalling major projects.
For example, the long-proposed Kalabagh Dam on the Indus River has faced decades of opposition from Sindh province, where politicians and farmers fear it would give Punjab greater control over water flows and reduce supplies to downstream communities. The controversy has made Kalabagh one of Pakistan’s most divisive infrastructure projects, effectively blocking progress on what engineers argue could have added badly needed storage capacity.
“After Mangla and Tarbela [dams], Pakistan paused dam building for 40 years before starting the Mohmand and Diamer-Bhasha projects,” Kamal said.
The Mangla Dam, built in the 1960s, and Tarbela, completed in the 1970s, remain Pakistan’s largest reservoirs and hydroelectric projects, critical to irrigation and power generation. By contrast, Mohmand is a smaller dam now under construction in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while Diamer-Bhasha, planned in Gilgit-Baltistan, is a vast project envisioned as one of the world’s tallest concrete dams but repeatedly delayed by financing and political disputes.
Many experts suggest building smaller water-retention structures — such as check dams and delay-action dams, which slow down floodwaters to recharge groundwater — along with rainwater harvesting and conservation practices.
A deeper challenge also lies in governance, with political instability and frequent leadership changes undermining consistent long-term planning.
Dr. Rashid Aftab, director at Islamabad’s Riphah Institute of Public Policy, said India’s relative political stability had allowed consistent long-term planning, while Pakistan’s frequent leadership changes had produced short-term approaches.
“On one hand, they [India] naturally enjoy the advantage of being upstream in the Indus Basin, and on the other, they pursue policies with strong political will and greater fiscal space to invest in water infrastructure,” Aftab said.
Because India sits upstream of Pakistan on the Indus river system, it can regulate water flows before they cross the border — an asymmetry that has shaped decades of tensions between the two countries.
Aftab noted that India had invested not only in large dams but also in groundwater recharge through rainwater harvesting and extensive canal networks.
Pakistan, by contrast, has relied on external loans and has limited fiscal space to fund its own projects.
“Currently, Pakistan’s total water storage capacity is only around 14 million acre-feet, enough to last just 30 days,” Aftab said, urging Islamabad to accelerate large dam construction while also expanding small and medium reservoirs, check dams, and water conservation projects.
