ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will be hosting the much-delayed 14th South Asian Games from Jan. 23-31 next year in the cities of Lahore, Faisalabad and Islamabad, the South Asian Olympic Council (SAOC) said this week.
The quadrennial multi-sport event has been held among South Asian countries since 1984 under the SOAC. Participating nations include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, competing in various sports such as athletics, swimming and football among others.
India emerged as the top performer in the last games held in Nepal in 2019. The 14th edition, originally scheduled for 2021, was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The executive committee of the SAOC concluded a highly productive meeting today in Lahore, marking significant progress in preparations for the 14th South Asian Games which will be held from Jan. 26-31, 2026 in Lahore, Faisalabad and Islamabad,” the SAOC said in a press release this week.
The meeting chaired by SAOC and National Olympic Committee President Arif Saeed called for collective efforts to promote sports in the region and enhance cooperation through sports.
Discussions also highlighted the achievements of Pakistani javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem, who won an Olympic gold medal at the Paris Games last year, as well as India’s Neeraj Chopra, and the rivalry and friendship between the two athletes, which had put a spotlight on “the power of sports in promoting peace, unity and shared aspirations across borders,” the press release added.
According to Pakistani newspaper Dawn, swimming, archery, athletics, badminton, billiards and snooker, boxing, fencing, golf, judo, karate, shooting, squash, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, weightlifting, wrestling, wushu, basketball, cricket, football, handball, beach handball, hockey, mat kabaddi, rugby, volleyball, beach volleyball and rowing have been approved for the 2026 games.
ISLAMABAD: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced a higher education scholarship program for students from Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported on Wednesday.
Balochistan has a low literacy rate compared to the rest of Pakistan. The gender gap in education is also significant.
In 2022–2023, Balochistan’s literacy rate was 54.5 percent, the lowest in Pakistan. The literacy rate for women in Balochistan is lower than the national average. In some districts, like Washuk and Kharan, female literacy is less than 10 percent, according to official data. Across the province, only 34 percent of girls attend school, compared to 52 percent of boys. More than 60 percent of government schools in Balochistan lack electricity and 45 percent operate without clean water. Classrooms are overcrowded, with a pupil-teacher ratio of 50:1.
“The UAE has announced a scholarship program for students of Balochistan to promote higher education in the province,” Radio Pakistan reported. “Under the scholarship, 25 candidates including five girls have been selected from different districts of the province after conducting written tests.”
Students selected for the scholarship thanked the Pakistan and UAE governments for the “educational journey milestone.”
One of the girls selected for the scholarship, Husun Bano, a resident of Turbat district, said in a video message the scholarship offered her a way to fulfill her childhood dreams.
Another student identified as Malik Lehri, a resident of the provincial capital of Quetta, said he would be completing his civil engineering bachelor’s degree from Abu Dhabi University.
Earlier this month, the Balochistan government had announced fully funded scholarships for talented students from the province.
In 2018, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Pakistan Nawaf Al-Maliki announced 50 scholarships for Balochistan students to allow them to study in Saudi universities.
ISLAMABAD: A leading Chinese automotive company signed an agreement with a Pakistani firm this week to introduce advanced electric vehicle (EV) technology in Pakistan and scale up domestic production, state media reported on Tuesday.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on February 22 in Beijing between Shanghai Launch Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. (LAUNCH) and Yousuf Dewan Companies (YDC), a pioneer in EV assembly in Pakistan.
The deal is part of broader cooperation between Pakistan and China in technology and industrial development, following recent efforts to enhance investment and collaboration in the automotive sector.
YDC, which has been active in Pakistan’s automobile industry, will work with LAUNCH, a Chinese firm specializing in EV technology, to develop vehicles for Pakistan using LAUNCH’s expertise in design and innovation.
The agreement also includes setting up a completely knocked-down (CKD) assembly operation for battery electric vehicles (BEVs), producing both right-hand drive and left-hand drive models for domestic sales and exports.
“This agreement marks a significant step toward bringing advanced electric vehicle (EV) technology to Pakistan and promoting sustainable mobility solutions in the region,” the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency reported.
“The cooperation includes the creation of a technology partnership focused on EV innovation, battery life cycle management and recycling solutions, as well as exploring a joint venture for manufacturing and scaling BEV production in Pakistan,” it added.
The partnership is expected to drive EV adoption in Pakistan and contribute to the country’s sustainable energy and mobility goals, aligning with broader government efforts to promote clean transportation.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Uzbekistan on Wednesday signed a joint declaration to establish a High-Level Strategic Council aimed at strengthening economic, diplomatic and security cooperation, as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev during a state visit to Tashkent.
Sharif landed in Tashkent late Tuesday following a visit to Baku, during which multiple agreements were signed to enhance cooperation in trade, energy, tourism and education, among other sectors.
Pakistan is seeking to leverage its strategic position as a key trade and transit hub to connect the landlocked Central Asian republics to the global market. Since last year, there has been a flurry of high-level visits, investment discussions and other economic engagements between Pakistan and the Central Asian states.
On Wednesday, Sharif arrived at the Congress Center in Tashkent, where he was received by the Uzbek president. The two leaders jointly oversaw the signing of multiple memoranda of understanding (MoUs) covering trade, technology, security, youth affairs and media cooperation.
A photo of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev during the Pakistani prime minister's visit to Tashkent on February 26, 2025. (Photo courtesy: PMO)
“This historic visit is an important event that will open a new chapter in the expansion of our strategic partnership,” Mirziyoyev said after the signing of the agreements.
“We have also decided to establish a High-Level Strategic Council ... Once in two months we will have calls by mobile phones. Once a month, all the ministries and relative bodies will report to us in the online format on the implementations of the instructions and measures.”
He said the council would evaluate any challenges to bilateral cooperation and work to address them.
Mirziyoyev said he had held detailed discussions with Sharif on regional connectivity with a focus on the trans-Afghan rail service aimed at linking the three countries. While air travel had already been launched between Tashkent and Lahore, the number of flights would be increased and new routes introduced connecting Samarkand and Bukhara to Karachi.
The Uzbek president said bilateral trade between the two countries, which currently exceeded $400 million, would be increased to $2 billion.
Speaking at the occasion, Sharif said the two leaders had discussed and decided to cooperate in the field of mines and minerals and would explore investing in each other’s economic zones.
Sharif and Mirziyoyev are also scheduled to participate in a Pakistan-Uzbekistan Joint Business Forum, while the Pakistani prime minister will visit the Tashkent-based Technopark, where he will tour Uzbekistan’s industrial manufacturing units.
Among the MoUs signed was one for cooperation between news agencies, and others on youth affairs, science and visa-free travel.
Uzbekistan is the largest consumer market and the second-biggest economy in Central Asia. It is central to Pakistan’s regional connectivity plans and was the first Central Asian nation with which Pakistani officials signed a bilateral Transit Trade Agreement (UPTTA) and a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) covering 17 items.
A landmark moment in the relationship was the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership during a high-level Pakistani visit to Uzbekistan on July 15-16, 2021. This was followed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s visit to Pakistan on March 3-4, 2022, which resulted in the signing of another Joint Declaration on Further Steps to Enhance the Strategic Partnership and multiple agreements covering trade, investment, and economic cooperation.
In February 2023, Pakistan and Uzbekistan signed a $1 billion trade deal to enhance bilateral commerce, facilitating the exchange of goods and services.
Last month, Uzbekistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Alisher Tukhtaev, announced plans to launch direct flights between Uzbekistan and Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi. Uzbekistan and Pakistan are also working toward optimizing cargo flows, green corridors at border customs points, and digitalization of customs clearance processes to facilitate smoother trade operations.
KARACHI: A prominent Baloch activist has said her ethnic rights group was open to engaging in direct talks with “those who have the power” to end enforced disappearances and other human rights violations in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan, referring to the all-powerful army which has long held sway in the security and politics of the province.
Pakistan’s military has a huge presence in the rugged, impoverished region bordering Afghanistan and Iran, where insurgent groups have been fighting for a separate homeland for decades to win a larger share of benefits for the resource-rich province. The military has long run intelligence-based operations against insurgent groups, who have escalated attacks in recent months on the military and nationals from longtime ally China, which is building key projects in the region, including a port at Gwadar.
Balochistan has also been plagued by enforced disappearances for decades. Families say men are picked up by security forces, disappear often for years, and are sometimes found dead, with no official explanation. Government and security officials deny involvement and say they are working for the uplift of the province through development projects.
International rights bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as opposition political parties have also long highlighted enforced disappearances targeting students, activists, journalists and human rights defenders in Balochistan. The army says many of Balochistan’s so-called disappeared have links to separatists. Military spokespersons have also variously accused rights movements like the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) of being “terrorist proxies.”
“Those who have the authority to resolve our issues, whose voices are heard, they can be any person, any institution or any representative … we say that that empowered person should come forward,” BYC leader Sammi Deen Baloch told Arab News in an interview when asked if her group was open to talks with the army.
The BYC, founded in 2020, has organized several large protests in Balochistan and led marches to, and sit-ins in, the Pakistani federal capital, Islamabad, mainly against what it describes as a surge in enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan that it blames on the army and other security forces operating in the province. Officials deny the accusations.
“We have approached government officials not just once but multiple times, we have visited them with our pain and suffering several times but each time either they made false promises with us or said, ‘We are helpless in this regard’,” Baloch said.
“So, the individuals who are directly involved in this issue, the individuals who can resolve this issue, who have the authority, should come and talk to us. We are ready to sit down with anyone.”
“NO ONE CAME TO HEAR US”
Baloch, one of the leading voices against enforced disappearances in Balochistan, said she turned to activism as a nine-year-old after her father, Dr. Deen Muhammad Baloch, was allegedly abducted by security personnel in 2009.
While she had taken to the streets to demand her father’s release, she soon realized that so many in Balochistan had similar grievances.
“There were thousands of such mothers, sisters and daughters whose brothers, fathers and sons had been disappeared, so why not turn this fight into a collective struggle and take it forward,” Baloch said.
“From that day onward, I decided that I will be part of a collective struggle against enforced disappearances and human rights violations.”
Today, the BYC was not just active in Balochistan, the activist said, but working with various human rights organizations that focused on enforced disappearances in the Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces also.
Life’s circumstances had forced her to take this difficult path, said Baloch, describing a life spent since she was a child at hunger strike camps or standing outside government offices and press clubs holding up her father’s picture.
A truly testing moment came in 2013 when she was part of a “long march” on foot from Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta to the southern port city of Karachi and then onwards to Islamabad, a 2,200 km journey.
“It was not just mentally exhausting but physically painful, our feet developed blisters, our toenails came off, and we walked for eight to ten hours a day ... We covered more than thirty kilometers in a single day,” Baloch said.
“We embarked on this protest with the intent of putting ourselves through suffering, to endure pain and hardship as a way of showing these state institutions the agony we were in. By subjecting ourselves to this torment, we wanted them to see our pain, to hear our cries.
“But after three months and eighteen days, when we finally reached Islamabad, no one listened. No one came to hear us.”
Baloch lamented that various governments in Pakistan had been open to negotiating with “terrorists” but not with the disenfranchised people of Balochistan, fighting for basic human rights.
“Those who do not recognize the country’s constitution and laws are invited for negotiations,” the activist said. “But when people try to peacefully highlight their issues, when they speak about their rights, efforts are made to suppress their voices. They are harassed in different ways, intimidated, and threatened.”
“I WISHED FOR A NORMAL LIFE”
Baloch described her own ordeal: of not being able to return to her village in the remote Awaran region, which she described as being “under the control of state forces,” of being harassed and intimidated by state authorities, going to jail multiple times and now being put on a no-fly list that had blocked her from traveling to lobby for Baloch rights at international forums.
But the fight would go on, Baloch said, taking pride in the fact that so many women from the conservative Balochistan region were involved in and leading the movement for rights. The BYC itself was founded by Dr. Mahrang Baloch, who became an activist after her father’s abduction and eventual death at the hands of what she says were state authorities, who deny the allegations.
“We see that our men, our brothers and sons, were systematically taken from their homes, from educational institutions, dragged away while they slept at night,” Baloch said. “In such circumstances, the only option left for Baloch women was to take this fight into their own hands, to step forward and lead the battle for justice themselves.”
In the process, she lamented that she had to eschew living a normal life:
“A life like the girls of my age, who press rose petals between the pages of their books, who write little poems in their diaries, who post short reels and pictures on their phones, whose world revolves around simple and innocent things. Indeed, I, too, wished for a life that was normal. I wished for a home where my father was present, where my family was whole, where there was laughter and warmth. But, with great sorrow, that is not the life I have.”
Asked if she condemned the recent killings of Punjabi civilians by Baloch separatist militants who view them as outsiders and symbols of state oppression in Balochistan, Baloch said the BYC had spoken out against such incidents multiple times.
“As human rights activists and political workers, we have condemned such incidents,” she said.
However, she insisted that the “root cause” of Balochistan’s problems must be acknowledged.
“Whether it is a resident of Balochistan or someone from outside, they are now equally vulnerable,” Baloch added.
“Their lives, property and safety are at risk solely due to the lawlessness … Where there is no rule of law, there will be lawlessness and insecurity. The current state of Balochistan is a direct result of this reality.”
KARACHI: A leading digital rights organization has called for the establishment of an independent oversight body comprising civil society activists and government functionaries to monitor Internet censorship decisions, highlighting concerns over the impact of Pakistan’s cyber laws on press freedom.
In a report analyzing the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) and related legislation, the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) warned this week the law had been used to target journalists and suppress dissenting voices across the country.
Enacted in 2016, PECA was introduced to combat cybercrime but has been widely criticized by activists who see it as a tool for curbing free speech and stifling political opposition. Over the years, several journalists have faced legal action under the law, with cases registered against them in different parts of the country.
The Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), a non-profit established in 2013 to promote free speech, noted in its report that PECA was passed after more than a year of closed-door consultations between the government and lawmakers, despite objections raised by civil society and international human rights organizations.
The lack of transparency in the legislative process, it said, had created an uncertain digital environment, allowing law enforcement agencies to target individuals who question state policies and actions.
“Journalists remain particularly precarious in this increasingly restrictive online environment given their outsized visibility and centrality to freedom of expression,” the report said, adding media workers were “under attack from the state’s lawfare.”
The DRF stressed the need for revising existing laws, including the wholesale repeal of certain sections and enacting reforms to prevent law enforcement agencies from misusing legislation against journalists and dissenting voices in digital spaces.
It recommended the formation of “an independent oversight body, comprising a majority of civil society experts and a minority of government officials, to review and monitor Internet censorship and throttling decisions, ensuring transparency, accountability and adherence to international human rights standards.”
One of the most significant consequences of aggressive digital regulation, the report noted, had been the “chilling effect” phenomenon, where self-censorship becomes a preemptive protective mechanism in response to state surveillance and regulatory crackdowns.
The DRF further emphasized the importance of ensuring that future legislation on digital governance and technological regulation is developed through inclusive consultations with all stakeholders, including civil society organizations, journalists, media professionals and the technical community.
