Express Tribune Editorials 25th Feb 2025
Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2025 4:28 am
Ramazan and price hike
As Ramazan approaches, profiteering has once again tightened its grip on markets across Punjab. The price of essential items - fruits, sugar and staple goods - has surged, making it increasingly difficult for consumers to afford basic necessities. Lahore, a major urban centre, is witnessing particularly steep hikes, with no effective intervention in sight. Unlike previous years, the Punjab government has yet to announce Ramazan Bazaars or fair-price shops, leaving citizens to fend for themselves in an already fragile economy.
This inflationary cycle plays out every year, yet authorities remain unprepared. Demand spikes ahead of Ramazan are no surprise, nor are the exploitative prices that follow. Hoarders and profiteers, emboldened by weak enforcement, continue to manipulate markets, while official price control mechanisms exist only on paper. The government's token response - selling sugar at Rs130 per kilogram at a few designated points - does little to impact open market rates. Without broader intervention, prices will keep rising, pushing more households into financial distress. In order to address this year on year crisis, the government must move past routine price monitoring. Strict action against market manipulators and proactive regulation of supply chains can prevent unnecessary inflation. The absence of Ramazan Bazaars this year is inexcusable. These markets have historically provided relief to consumers, and their discontinuation signals a lack of urgency from policymakers.
Religious scholars have also urged traders to offer discounts in the spirit of Ramazan, but morality cannot be left to voluntary goodwill alone. Without state intervention, calls for fairness will remain just calls. Businesses must be held accountable for exploitative pricing, ensuring that profiteering does not overshadow the principles of generosity and community that define this holy month. The rising cost of living has already stretched household budgets to the limit. If the state cannot ensure price stability during Ramazan, it will be a damning indictment of poor governance.
Torkham trouble
An estranged attitude from the Afghan Taliban is obstructing conventional congeniality on both sides of the western frontier. This unfriendly behaviour from the dispensation in Kabul is quite perplexing given that it comes despite the selfless cooperation from Islamabad. It is agreed that there are multiple problems between the two countries like cross-border incursions, terror remnants, including the repulsive TTP, as well as geopolitical intrigues. But that should not act as a spanner in the works in terms of buoying neighbourly cooperation. Afghanistan must also take cognisance of the fact that Pakistan has been on the receiving end as terror has risen its ugly head, and Taliban 2.0 have not been able to keep their word of ensuring sanctity by checking rogue elements on their soil.
The recent fissures in terms of the closure of Torkham border is a case in point. It is a given that Pakistan had initiated the idea of fencing the porous 2,600km long border with Afghanistan to check the free flow of undesired elements across the frontiers. Thus, the unilateral construction of a check-post inside Afghanistan's Torkham zone by Kabul is a deviation from agreed norms of informing each other, and speaks of the mistrust or contempt that the Taliban leadership nurses for Pakistan. The discord led to suspension of activity across the border for the second consecutive day on Monday, from where an average of 600 trucks and thousands of pedestrians cross over into either side every day.
While this region has witnessed clashes last year, leading to loss of lives of security personnel and civilians, it comes as a grave risk altogether to see it going over this brink once again. Both the countries are in need of entering a composite dialogue to iron out differences, as most of them are borne out of misunderstanding through the media. Moreover, Kabul has a piece of responsibility to shoulder and that is to ensure that non-state actors do not hold sway over diplomacy, and their meddling is checked earnestly.
Demolition at Dubai
Embarrassment is one thing humiliation another. The defeat handed down to Pakistan by archrival India in a crunch ICC Champions Trophy encounter is literally disgraceful - more so because it happened for the umpteenth time, and very nearly pulled curtains down on Pakistan's quest to defend the coveted title they earned back in 2017. The Green Shirts were undone in all departments of the game - outbatted, outbowled and outfielded. They were pounded into near submission. They were wrecked. Tarnished. In fact, sullied.
It was a total surrender. Let's start with batting. Just 52 runs in the first 10 overs of power play, 27 runs in the next 10 as well as 147 dot balls speak of our struggling batting line-up, boasting the likes of Babar and Rizwan. Our much-vaunted bowling line, studded with express pacers like Shaheen, Harris and Naseem, was equally dismissive - toyed with from the word go. There was no stopping Kohli who blasted an unbeaten hundred. And in fielding, the two dropped catches - both sitters - took away if there were any chances of a comeback.
Every match we play against India turns out to be a replay of the previous one. We refuse to change, and are thus inflicted with the same outcome. We stubbornly stick to the archaic playing style of the 90s. We appear clumsily ignorant that modern-day cricket is no more about traditional book approach, especially in batting; but about aggressive, fast-paced action, marked by improvisation and inventiveness as well as stats-based game plan. It's more of a science rather than just the art.
While there is need for a total overhaul in the approach to the game as well as the team composition, such reforms must not spare the PCB's top hierarchy itself. The long-persisting ad-hocism in the board's administrative set-up should be done away with, and an elected chairman - rather than a political appointee - handed the helm. The incumbent cricket czar - while already a non-cricketer - has got a lot more important on his plate, and is in no position to offer the amount of time, energy and expertise that is required in the cut-throat world of cricket.
As Ramazan approaches, profiteering has once again tightened its grip on markets across Punjab. The price of essential items - fruits, sugar and staple goods - has surged, making it increasingly difficult for consumers to afford basic necessities. Lahore, a major urban centre, is witnessing particularly steep hikes, with no effective intervention in sight. Unlike previous years, the Punjab government has yet to announce Ramazan Bazaars or fair-price shops, leaving citizens to fend for themselves in an already fragile economy.
This inflationary cycle plays out every year, yet authorities remain unprepared. Demand spikes ahead of Ramazan are no surprise, nor are the exploitative prices that follow. Hoarders and profiteers, emboldened by weak enforcement, continue to manipulate markets, while official price control mechanisms exist only on paper. The government's token response - selling sugar at Rs130 per kilogram at a few designated points - does little to impact open market rates. Without broader intervention, prices will keep rising, pushing more households into financial distress. In order to address this year on year crisis, the government must move past routine price monitoring. Strict action against market manipulators and proactive regulation of supply chains can prevent unnecessary inflation. The absence of Ramazan Bazaars this year is inexcusable. These markets have historically provided relief to consumers, and their discontinuation signals a lack of urgency from policymakers.
Religious scholars have also urged traders to offer discounts in the spirit of Ramazan, but morality cannot be left to voluntary goodwill alone. Without state intervention, calls for fairness will remain just calls. Businesses must be held accountable for exploitative pricing, ensuring that profiteering does not overshadow the principles of generosity and community that define this holy month. The rising cost of living has already stretched household budgets to the limit. If the state cannot ensure price stability during Ramazan, it will be a damning indictment of poor governance.
Torkham trouble
An estranged attitude from the Afghan Taliban is obstructing conventional congeniality on both sides of the western frontier. This unfriendly behaviour from the dispensation in Kabul is quite perplexing given that it comes despite the selfless cooperation from Islamabad. It is agreed that there are multiple problems between the two countries like cross-border incursions, terror remnants, including the repulsive TTP, as well as geopolitical intrigues. But that should not act as a spanner in the works in terms of buoying neighbourly cooperation. Afghanistan must also take cognisance of the fact that Pakistan has been on the receiving end as terror has risen its ugly head, and Taliban 2.0 have not been able to keep their word of ensuring sanctity by checking rogue elements on their soil.
The recent fissures in terms of the closure of Torkham border is a case in point. It is a given that Pakistan had initiated the idea of fencing the porous 2,600km long border with Afghanistan to check the free flow of undesired elements across the frontiers. Thus, the unilateral construction of a check-post inside Afghanistan's Torkham zone by Kabul is a deviation from agreed norms of informing each other, and speaks of the mistrust or contempt that the Taliban leadership nurses for Pakistan. The discord led to suspension of activity across the border for the second consecutive day on Monday, from where an average of 600 trucks and thousands of pedestrians cross over into either side every day.
While this region has witnessed clashes last year, leading to loss of lives of security personnel and civilians, it comes as a grave risk altogether to see it going over this brink once again. Both the countries are in need of entering a composite dialogue to iron out differences, as most of them are borne out of misunderstanding through the media. Moreover, Kabul has a piece of responsibility to shoulder and that is to ensure that non-state actors do not hold sway over diplomacy, and their meddling is checked earnestly.
Demolition at Dubai
Embarrassment is one thing humiliation another. The defeat handed down to Pakistan by archrival India in a crunch ICC Champions Trophy encounter is literally disgraceful - more so because it happened for the umpteenth time, and very nearly pulled curtains down on Pakistan's quest to defend the coveted title they earned back in 2017. The Green Shirts were undone in all departments of the game - outbatted, outbowled and outfielded. They were pounded into near submission. They were wrecked. Tarnished. In fact, sullied.
It was a total surrender. Let's start with batting. Just 52 runs in the first 10 overs of power play, 27 runs in the next 10 as well as 147 dot balls speak of our struggling batting line-up, boasting the likes of Babar and Rizwan. Our much-vaunted bowling line, studded with express pacers like Shaheen, Harris and Naseem, was equally dismissive - toyed with from the word go. There was no stopping Kohli who blasted an unbeaten hundred. And in fielding, the two dropped catches - both sitters - took away if there were any chances of a comeback.
Every match we play against India turns out to be a replay of the previous one. We refuse to change, and are thus inflicted with the same outcome. We stubbornly stick to the archaic playing style of the 90s. We appear clumsily ignorant that modern-day cricket is no more about traditional book approach, especially in batting; but about aggressive, fast-paced action, marked by improvisation and inventiveness as well as stats-based game plan. It's more of a science rather than just the art.
While there is need for a total overhaul in the approach to the game as well as the team composition, such reforms must not spare the PCB's top hierarchy itself. The long-persisting ad-hocism in the board's administrative set-up should be done away with, and an elected chairman - rather than a political appointee - handed the helm. The incumbent cricket czar - while already a non-cricketer - has got a lot more important on his plate, and is in no position to offer the amount of time, energy and expertise that is required in the cut-throat world of cricket.