Saba Chaudhry

Pakistan’s agriculture faces threats of 30–40 per cent crop yield losses.

Experts warn drought and reduced river flow are already impacting irrigation, groundwater recharge, and food security.

Indigenous peoples make up 6.2 per cent of the world population, represent 5,000 different cultures and have 4,000 surviving indigenous languages.
Despite facing various problems and challenges, their voices are often missing from mainstream media. Journalists and outlets ignore or misrepresent their voices in stereotypical or discriminatory ways. This is also seen in movies, where Indigenous communities are often shown negatively. or are portrayed as weak. This marginalisation can dismiss th...

Solar technology could be a game-changer, helping farmers cut fuel costs and secure a more stable water supply; but the path to solar irrigation remains inaccessible for many

Nadeem, 27, a small-scale farmer from South Punjab, never imagined that farming – the only profession he has ever known – would one day feel near impossible.

But with water levels sinking and fuel prices soaring, keeping crops alive has become a battle against costs he cannot control, and a system that offers little supp...

After Rain Come Mosquitoes | Dengue, Chickungunya Cases Soar #Pakistan #health #environment

J
ournalist Bilal Habib still covers crime and does investigative reports in rural Punjab in eastern Pakistan, but he says he is far more careful these days once he starts writing. And while he used to be very active in social media, he says that he no longer shares online what he has found out or wrote about.
“When such kinds of laws in the name of fake news are introduced,” Habib says, “they are more harmful for people doing journalism and political activism in rural areas rather than major...

he strange weather was making Haleema worried and tense, but she continued nonetheless to work on the fields in southern Punjab, tending to her crops of wheat. This was in 2022 — and for all her toil, Haleema would end up with no harvest. In August that year, Pakistan came under extreme volumes of monsoon rain that caused sections of the country to remain under water for months. Thousands of people were killed, millions more displaced, and hectares upon hectares of crops were destroyed, inclu...

2024 is a tense election year for many of the biggest democratic countries around the globe, with democracy itself at stake. Billions of people will exercise their right to vote, however, this time the fate of democracy in many countries is not only in the hands of voters but also in the hands of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI generated images, videos, and audio files are dominating online political campaigns. The evolving technology possesses the potential to skew political discourse and t...

In July, an FIR was registered at the City Police Station in Narowal, in which a woman alleged that when she went to the NADRA office in the city to get an identity card, two officials making an excuse, sent her outside the office and subjected her twenty years old daughter to sexual assault.
In her complaint, the woman had requested the police to take legal action against the perpetrators of this crime and ensure justice. However, after two months, she withdrew her complaint. Some local indi...

By Saba Chaudhary
Biased media, disinformation and fake news fueled hate and ethnic clashes between Hindu Meitie and Christian Kuki in a remote area of India. Manipur, a state in northeast India with a population of about three million, has been the scene of ethnic violence and clashes for years due to issues over land rights and job quotas. However, in May, violence escalated, wreaking havoc when a court ruledthe state government should consider granting scheduled tribal status to the majori...

ournalist Naeem Ahmed lodged a request for information under the Right To Information law with the Faisalabad police on July 22, seeking data on armed encounters with criminals and subsequent judicial inquiries. Instead of providing the requested information, the police summoned him. Following intervention by Mehboob Shah Qadir of the Punjab Information Commission the police later retracted the summons and issued an apology. Journalists, not to talk of ordinary citizens, still struggle to exe...

n November 2019, rights advocate Idris Khattak was abducted while he was traveling from Islamabad to his hometown in Pakistan’s northeastern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There would be no information about what happened to the single father of two girls until eight months later, when it was revealed he had been charged with espionage and was being tried in a military court. Appeals to have his case tried in a civilian court went for naught; he is now serving a 14-year jail sentence.
Khatta...

aiba Zainab, a journalist based in Lahore, works for an online news platform. She has been repeatedly subjected to harassment and online trolling leading her to adopt a form of self-censorship when expressing herself on social media.
Reflecting on her experience, Laiba says, “I have maintained a Facebook page for several years. However, when I posted a video about Aurat March in 2020, I was met with an onslaught of serious online threats including death and rape threats. Then there was charac...

Saba Chaudhary
Narowal: Numerous challenges impede the representation of religious minorities in the election process in Pakistan, said Samar Naz, a 40-year-old rights activist from Narowal.
Drawing on years of advocacy, Samar emphasizes the need to address these obstacles to ensure fair and inclusive participation of minorities in the electoral system.
Naz further says the biggest problem for Christians in Narowal is that despite having a bigger Christian vote bank, the community is deprived...

Muhammad Inayat, from Shakargarh, has been running a scrap business for the past five years. He opened a shop where he purchases used paper, plastic, and iron/copper items. People who sell him these goods gather or buy them from various neighbourhoods.
Inayat mentions that plastic waste comprises many empty bottles and hospital infusion sets. The hospital staff sells these medical wastes to him for Rs100 per kilogramme (kg).
According to Inayat, he sells paper, iron, copper, and other items a...