The two commissions began as near-twins. India’s was founded in 1950, Pakistan’s in 1953, both modelled on Soviet-style central planning and staffed by trained economists. Both were extra-constitutional bodies, created by executive order. Both were nominally chaired by the head of government and run day to day by a deputy chairman. Both produced Five-Year Plans as their central output and controlled how resources moved from the centre to the provinces or states. For roughly three decades, they were the same institution representing two flags.

The split started in the late 1980s with a fork in the road that both countries reached and only one of them took. India hit its own balance-of-payments crisis in 1991. It liberalised, and it grew out of the crisis rather than falling into a cycle of dependency. Pakistan entered IMF structural adjustment in 1988 and never left. It is now on its 25th programme. That single divergence did more to determine the two institutions’ fates than anything that followed. Since 1988, IMF adjustment programmes have taken precedence over what became, in Pakistan, the largely academic exercise of five-year planning. The Commission became just another ministry, concerned mainly with approving projects, and constrained even there by a development budget whose size the finance ministry set. India’s Commission kept setting the fiscal and growth framework that the finance ministry worked within. Pakistan’s relationship has flipped: the framework now comes from Washington, and the Commission works around it.

For a while, India’s Commission adapted. It absorbed the human development agenda from Mahbub ul Haq’s 1990 Human Development Report and embedded the eight National Missions of the 2008 National Action Plan on Climate Change into successive Five-Year Plans. It completed 12 plans across 65 years. But incremental change has a shelf life. By the early 2010s, India’s economy had become too large, too market-driven and too federally assertive for a centralised allocator to keep dictating terms to states that no longer needed its money. In 2014, the Modi government dissolved the Commission and replaced it with NITI Aayog, a leaner think tank with no power to allocate funds, built around advisory strategy, SDG tracking and competition between states. The point is not that India dissolved a failing institution. It dissolved a working one, because a model built for 1950 was not fit for 2015.

The civil service reform committee has left out crucial reform for planning institutions.

Pakistan never reached that fork, because it never adapted enough to outgrow the old model in the first place. Where India’s Commission built capacity and then had to be redesigned, Pakistan’s mostly stood still. The 18th Amendment in 2010 devolved 17 ministries to the provinces. But nobody redesigned what the federal Planning Commission should do once the subjects it used to plan for no longer belonged to it. It was recast into a full ministry in 2013-14, gaining nominal breadth, Vision documents, SDG coordination, CPEC planning, and losing whatever independence it once had. Four provincial planning and development departments expanded around it, each building its own project pipeline — and national development spending across federal and provincial channels now exceeds Rs3.5 trillion. The PSDP, the Commission’s one remaining function, amounts to just seven per cent of the federal budget, its ceiling fixed by the Finance Division, the IMF interlocutor.

This is where the comparison stops. NITI Aayog, for all its own gaps, has a claim: a 165pc increase in renewable capacity in a decade, an NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) process it coordinated across ministries and industry, and the world’s first government-led subnational SDG index, lifting India’s national SDG score from 58 to 71 between 2018 and 2024 by making states compete on published rankings. It has real failures too. But it measures them. It tracks 113 indicators across every state and publishes the results. Pakistan has no institution that does either job for its own provinces. Nobody ranks them on outcomes. Nobody has evaluated whether the PSDP, after decades and trillions of rupees, has achieved what it was funded to achieve.

If we count what’s missing, nine separate failures emerge: a macro framework that has surrendered to the IMF since 1988; a series of launched and abandoned Vision documents; a collapse in human development that has left Pakistan’s HDI ranking 20 places behind India’s, with Bangladesh ahead of both; a PSDP process captured by political patronage rather than sustainable development logic; a think-tank function that atrophied while Mahbub ul Haq’s own institutional descendants scattered abroad; a climate and environmental blindspot in a country that ranks among the 10 most climate-vulnerable states; a federal role left undefined after the 18th Amendment; no subnational monitoring or evaluation framework; and, binding all of it together, an institution that has expanded in size while abandoning its function, producing the appearance of planning where substance no longer exists.

Put together, this is not one failure of implementation. It is three failures of obsolescence, layered on top of each other: 1) globally, the development agenda moved from GDP and infrastructure towards human capabilities, the SDGs and climate finance, and the Commission never followed, 2) domestically, four periods of military rule and an un-redesigned federal mandate after 2010 did separate, serious damage, and 3) functionally, what remains is a gatekeeping exercise inside a PSDP ceiling set in Washington, approving a backlog of projects, the so-called throwforward, worth several trillion rupees more than can ever be funded.

Pakistan does not lack planning institutions. It lacks a plan for its planning institutions. That is the reform the PM’s committee left out, and the one that was never optional.

The writer is a climate expert.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2026

The actions have resulted in exchanges of fire with the Afghan Taliban regime. Pakistan seems to be trapped in a cycle of escalation for the simple reason that Kabul is unwilling to act against terrorist groups active on its soil, such as the banned TTP, that seek to harm this country.

Until this fundamental issue is addressed, bilateral ties will not improve. It was reported on Wednesday that the military had shot down drones apparently originating from Afghanistan as they attempted to violate Pakistani airspace. Earlier, Pakistan had launched air strikes in the border area, which killed a number of terrorists, after a spate of violent attacks, including the assault targeting the old Police Lines in Kohat last week. Pakistani forces also thwarted infiltration attempts in the Kurram area, which resulted in an exchange of fire with the Afghan Taliban.

Along with taking kinetic action, Pakistan has highlighted this grim situation on the world stage. The UN Security Council has condemned the Kohat terrorist attack, calling for the “perpetrators … and sponsors” of the atrocity to be brought to justice. Pakistan had earlier told the UNSC that it would respond to threats originating from Afghanistan in self-defence. Moreover, the deputy prime minister, while speaking at a meeting of the OIC contact group on Afghanistan on the sidelines of the ongoing UN General Assembly session, reiterated the need for a verifiable mechanism to prevent the use of Afghan soil for terrorism. China, as well as Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has backed diplomatic efforts to resolve the differences between Kabul and Islamabad.

While hostilities are undesirable, if the Afghan Taliban take no action against those who spill innocent blood in this country, Pakistan will have no option but to take action to defend itself against terrorism.

Yet while immediate threats must be confronted, long-term peace can only come through dialogue, and a commitment by the Taliban to curb cross-border terrorism. As has been highlighted in these columns previously, a bevy of terrorist groups call Afghanistan home, and pose a threat to the whole region, not just Pakistan — although this country, owing to its physical proximity, has been hit the hardest.

Therefore, only a sustained and coordinated regional effort can succeed in eliminating the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan. It is clear that, ultimately, the Taliban must decide whether they want to integrate with the rest of the region, or remain a pariah regime because of their stubborn ideological attachment to their violent comrades.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2026

Let me qualify what I said. When I say these have ‘not worked’ I mean something specific: they have not worked to break the barrier that keeps our tax-to-GDP ratio so dismally low that the structural fiscal deficit becomes the biggest ball and chain that holds the rest of the economy back. There is only one way to end this vicious cycle, and that is to come up with a tax reform programme that unlocks the significant tax potential locked up in those areas of the economy that see large-scale turnovers but contribute little to nothing by way of taxes. Not surprisingly, most of these areas are found inside the services sector, which accounts for more than 50 per cent of our GDP (in constant 2015 prices).

And within services one constant headache has been wholesalers and retailers, second only in size to communications, whose size and weight are inflated due to the sheer scale of mobile communications in Pakistan. Mobile communications are reasonably easy for the tax machinery to reach.

In his first year of power, Gen Pervez Musharraf targeted the retailers in a documentation drive, and the combined efforts of the FBR and the interior ministry, then headed by retired Gen Moinuddin Haider, were brought to bear on the problem. They used a raw power approach, demanding traders register themselves or face forcible closure of their business. And this ‘documentation drive’ faced its first big test in the sprawling Bara market of Peshawar, which was a major hub for undocumented frontier trade in those days.

Yet again, the authorities are trying to incentivise retailers to self-register using yet another fixed tax scheme.

It was the most dramatic showdown between the state and the retailers that we have probably ever seen. But eventually, the drive failed, and it turned out to be the last time the state ever used head-on collision as its strategy for bringing retailers into the net and documenting the economy.

The priority lay dormant after that. Once the 9/11 bonanza got going, nobody was too pushed with the documentation drive or widening the tax net. The next time the matter was taken up was as part of the 2008 IMF programme, which had only one structural reform criterion: implement the value added tax. They called it Reformed GST, or RGST, at the time, to underline the fact that this was not a new tax but simply an upgraded version of something that had already been under implementation since 1991. The idea under this strategy was to incentivise traders, suppliers and vendors and distributors and wholesalers and all parties that were part of the supply chains connected with manufacturing in this country to help document each other. Every party would only pay tax on the portion of value that they added to a good. So they had to declare how much they bought an item for and from whom, and how much they sold it for and to whom, and pay tax only on the difference between these two prices.

This also failed because the traders mounted enough of a protest against the tax for it to be defeated in parliament, mainly because the government’s own coalition partners opposed it. And after this defeat came a series of ad hoc attempts, organic, home-grown attempts, to try and net the retailers. The first of these was a combination of a set of penalties for the remaining non-compliant, coupled with an incentive to comply by declaring one’s assets and incomes via an amnesty scheme. This was in 2015. This was the first carrot-and-stick approach to this problem of rising undocumented incomes in the services sector. It sounded good at the time, especially since it was also coupled with large withholding taxes on bank transactions of non-filers of income tax returns.

But these measures also failed. And then came yet more subtle measures. In 2017, they created a category called Tier 1 retailers, covering chain-store outlets, shops in air-conditioned malls, retailers with an annual electricity bill over Rs600,000, and wholesaler-cum-retailers. A little earlier, they had started using information from electricity bills to assess tax liability and make the collection.

Much of the tax effort then focused on these Tier 1 retailers, expanding and contracting their definition over the years, adding and removing penalties, bringing in technology like point of sale (POS) machine integration, and running lottery schemes against the receipts issued through these machines. In 2022, they brought in a fixed tax of Rs3,000, 5,000 or 10,000, depending on the bill size, for non-Tier 1 retailers, to be collected through electricity bills.

None of it worked. And now they tried, one more time, in the latest finance act, to incentivise retailers once again to self-register using yet another fixed tax scheme. According to a news report by Shahbaz Rana, “[o]nly two new traders have so far opted for the 1pc fixed tax scheme while another 315 shopkeepers who have filed returns are already part of the tax regime”. This strongly suggests that the latest version of the same scheme is now headed towards failure. It was easy to see this coming, given how all previous incentives and fixed tax schemes have fared in the past one decade.

As the curtain prepares to drop on tax-filing season, it has become another ritual to observe the long and rather discouraging track record of the state’s failure to keep its fiscal effort up to date with the changes its economy has undergone over the years. And the innocent ones, like you and me, who file our taxes dutifully every year, pay the price.

The writer is a business and economy journalist.

khurram.husain@gmail.com

X: @khurramhusain

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2026

But what do we do when the worst of the worst happens? It did to Zara*, and she couldn’t do anything. She was born in Pakistan but has been living in Dubai with her husband for several years. The couple are UAE residents on paper and fit the profile of ‘legitimate’ tourists.

This year, they booked a seven-night trip to Georgia. All their documents were complete, the tickets were booked, and the hotel was reserved. For green passport holders, Georgia offers visa on arrival.

Zara and her husband decided to carry $1,000 in cash each. They had heard stories of people deported from Georgia or refused entry over insufficient funds. The couple did not want to take any chances.

At Tbilisi International Airport, they waited in a long immigration queue. But as soon as their turn came, the couple was sent to another counter. After more waiting, an official announced: “The State of Georgia has decided not to grant you entry. You will be sent back on the next flight.”

No explanations given, no documents checked—only a rejection.

They were subsequently taken to a small room with an uncanny resemblance to a detention area. Zara and her husband’s passports were taken while they were told to wait for the next flight. Their mobile phones were confiscated, too.

They were lucky to catch the next flight to Dubai within five hours. At the Sharjah Airport’s arrivals section, the couple found out that what happened to them had become common over the past few years. According to authorities, about 10-12 people, particularly Pakistani and Indian passport holders, were sent back on every flight. The Pakistani passport remains among the lowest-ranked travel documents worldwide, ranked 95th on the World Passport Index.

But to Zara, what happened felt random, unexplained, and honestly discriminatory.

I can relate to her story, having undergone part of the ordeal myself.

After landing at the Tbilisi airport, I was pulled aside at immigration, sent to a secondary counter, and told to wait. The officer examined my Pakistani passport, made a phone call, and said nothing more. I stood there for over an hour, helplessly watching other travellers pass through smoothly.

I had prepared every document needed, but none of it seemed to matter.

After what felt like an eternity, the officer stamped my passport and waved me through. I felt relief, not triumph.

The only thing that set me and Zara apart was luck, which was on my side on that trip.

The verdict delivered to Zara came without a reason, and that absence is the point. Her documents were never checked. Her passport was the only evidence anyone needed.

This is the stark reality of global mobility injustice, a system in which movement is unequally distributed not by merit or preparation, but by geopolitical positioning. When mobility rights are consistently denied to specific groups based on nationality and origin, sovereignty becomes a cover for structural discrimination.

Zara prepared thoroughly. But she was refused before a single document was checked. Under unequal mobility regimes, legitimacy does not guarantee access, and preparation does not protect against refusal.

I was allowed to enter Georgia; Zara was sent home. We had arrived with the same kind of preparation and carried passports from the same country. Standing on opposite sides of that decision, I could not stop wondering what separates a traveller who is allowed entry from a traveller who is turned away. Sometimes, the answer is not what we carry in our hands, but what our passports carry before we even arrive.

*Name changed to protect privacy

Header image: Photo taken by author at Georgia’s Tbilisi airport while waiting for the immigration official.

The views expressed in Prism Reflections are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Dawn.

Prism Reflections is a space for voices and experiences that shape, and are shaped by, Pakistan’s defining news stories. Do you have a personal story that intersects with the news? Send it to prism@dawn.com.

ISLAMABAD: With 2027 likely to become the hottest year due to the cumulative effects of global warming and El Nino, Pakistan is in uncharted waters, as this weather pattern could push the country toward food insecurity and extreme temperatures.

According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and climate scientists, a very strong El Nino increases the likelihood of significant shifts in temperature and rainfall patterns across the globe, including Pakistan, whose southern provinces can experience drought-like conditions.

The global mean surface temperature has already increased by 1.4°C since the pre-industrial era, but this “super El Nino”, with its natural warming, could add 0.3°C to this number, pushing surface temperatures to 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels.

The World Food Programme noted El Nino is set to sharply increase hunger, with 274 million people in 45 countries forecast to be acutely food insecure by 2027-end — 49 million more than today.

World Health Organisation’s Teresa Zak­aria also branded it “a significant public health threat” and a “risk multiplier”. “The most severe impacts will be experienced while climate shocks intersect with weak hea­l­th systems, limited access to healthcare, food insecurity, displacement and humanitarian crisis,” she warned, urging immediate action.

‘Gigantic El Nino’

Dr Fahad Saeed, a leading climate scientist at Berlin-based Climate Analytics, compared the current ‘gigantic El Nino’ to the one in 1877-78, the “most severe on record”, that caused millions of deaths.

“Such an intense event may impact the monsoon patterns and bring droughts, particularly in southern provinces,” said Dr Saeed. “But it is not clearly written on the horizon,” he said, pointing to multiple factors that can influence rainfall.

The WMO said it may peak towards the end of the year, with scientists suggesting that its impact will last well into 2027.

Dr Regina Rodrigues, professor of physical oceanography and climate at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, said not every event is the same — they start, peak, and end at different times.

She said they usually start around June-July and peak around December-February, but the current event is unusually strong, so it is difficult to pinpoint its peak or strength. “…What I expect for 2027 is that it will be the warmest year on record if El Nino continues as it generally does. The impact on several places is also harder in the second half — a lot of extreme events happen in the second half of El Nino,” she said.

Pakistan has already received below-normal monsoon rainfall in June (19 per cent deficit), July (11pc), and August (23pc), according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department. This outlook was not surprising, because multiple studies point to increased monsoon rainfall variability and extremes. How El Nino will impact next year’s rainfall is uncertain at this point, but historical trends suggest South Asia experiences dry spells during such periods.

Heat and droughts

Dr Ali Mirchi and Dr Arfan Arshad, who authored an important study on 2022 floods, said rainfall during El Nino has not followed a “completely consistent pattern” in Pakistan.

“Historically, El Nino has generally been associated with weaker summer monsoon rainfall, but it does not mean that every El Nino year is dry. A Pakistan Meteorological Department study examining rainfall from 1951 to 2012 found that eight out of 11 El Nino events were associated with below-normal monsoon rainfall. However, three El Nino years — 1977, 1994 and 1997 — experienced above-normal rainfall,” they said, adding that the data shows that El Nino increases the likelihood of a weaker monsoon, but it is “not a guarantee of drought”.

For Dr Saeed, one of the major consequences of warmer temperatures driven by El Nino could be deadly heat waves in the southern districts of Pakistan. He referred to the deadly heat waves of 2015, 2016 and 2024 (all El Nino years), saying that most of the deaths due to heat in Pakistan were not counted. Over 1,000 people reportedly died in the 2015 heatwave.

If heat conditions persisted, it could impact agriculture, said Dr Saeed. For instance, the country’s worst modern drought ran from 1999 to 2002, with agricultural output hit hardest in 2000-01 and significant migration out of Sindh and Balochistan. It followed the 1997-98 El Nino but coincided largely with La Nina conditions, which shows how indirectly ENSO (El Nino–Southern Oscillation) can translate into drought on the ground.

Becoming frequent

Dr Rodrigues noted that climate models show that strong El Nino events were becoming frequent. The period between two strong El Nino events used to be around 15 years (1982-83, 1997-98, 2015-16 events), but it was then reduced to nine years when we had the 2023-24 El Nino. “And now we are having another really strong El Nino, and it’s been only three years since. This is exactly what climate models forecast: increased frequency and stronger events,” she added.

As scientists point to a possibility of an increase in such events, experts urged the government to take a proactive approach to deal with any eventuality arising out of these natural climate variations that can adversely imp­act agriculture through droughts and floods.

451,000 deaths

This year’s El Nino weather pattern could lead to 451,000 additional heat-related deaths worldwide through February as it turbocharges global temperatures, according to projections published on Wednesday, according to AFP.

The Sahel region in Africa could have an additional 66,800 heat deaths compared to a normal year, with nearly half of that number in Nigeria alone. An additional 19,300 are projected in Indonesia and 19,400 in the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia. The toll could reach 15,800 in India and 13,300 in Brazil.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2026