Can Lifestyle Changes Slow Muscle Loss as We Age? What the Evidence Says About Sarcopenia

Age-related muscle loss is not inevitable at a fixed rate. Current evidence shows how resistance training, adequate nutrition and earlier attention to muscle health can help preserve strength and function as we age.

I notice muscle loss most clearly in ordinary movements. A staircase feels steeper. Rising from a low chair takes a little more effort. A shopping bag that once seemed light suddenly asks more from the arms. None of these changes proves that a person has sarcopenia, but they point toward something we often underestimate: ageing is not only about wrinkles or grey hair. It also changes the machinery that keeps us independent.

The encouraging part is that the decline is not completely fixed. Lifestyle cannot stop biological ageing, and it cannot guarantee that sarcopenia will never develop. Yet exercise and adequate nutrition can materially influence muscle strength and function. The strongest evidence points to resistance training, supported by sufficient food and protein.

Muscle loss is not simply a number on the scale

Sarcopenia is a progressive disorder involving skeletal muscle. Older explanations often treated it mainly as a loss of muscle mass. Clinical thinking has changed. The European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People placed particular emphasis on low muscle strength, using low muscle quantity or quality to confirm the diagnosis and poor physical performance to indicate severe disease.

That distinction matters. A bathroom scale cannot tell us whether an older person can rise safely from a chair or recover balance after a stumble. Two people of similar weight may have very different levels of muscle strength. Muscle health is about what the body can do, not simply how much it weighs.

The Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia 2025 consensus update pushes the argument further. It adopts a life-course approach to muscle health and extends diagnostic consideration into middle age, including adults aged 50 to 64. Its framework requires concurrent low muscle mass and low muscle strength for sarcopenia, while physical performance is treated as an outcome measure. For Asian readers, this is an important shift. Muscle health deserves attention before someone reaches old age.

Why I would remove the old percentage rules

Older health articles often say that people lose a fixed percentage of muscle or strength every year after middle age. Such figures are attractive because they are easy to remember. They are also easy to misuse.

Age-related decline varies considerably. Physical activity matters. Illness, periods of bed rest and nutritional status can alter the trajectory. The method used to measure muscle also changes the result. A universal annual percentage can therefore make normal ageing sound like a timetable.

Modern diagnostic frameworks do not decide that a person has sarcopenia because he or she has reached a certain birthday or supposedly lost a predetermined percentage of muscle. Clinicians use measures such as grip strength, chair-stand performance and assessments of muscle quantity according to the relevant framework. The important question becomes more practical: is muscle strength or mass low enough to affect health and function?

Resistance training has the strongest case

If I had to identify the central correction to the old article, it would be this: general advice to “stay active” is not specific enough. Walking is valuable. It supports cardiovascular health and mobility. But walking and resistance training do not place the same demand on muscle.

The International Clinical Practice Guidelines for Sarcopenia strongly recommend resistance-based physical activity for treatment. A later review of resistance-exercise prescription explains the importance of progressive overload: muscle must face an appropriate resistance and, as capacity improves, the challenge must progress. Resistance can come from weights, machines, elastic bands or body weight.

This does not mean an older beginner should walk into a gym and immediately lift heavy weights. Technique matters. So does progression. A person who has been inactive, has significant joint problems or lives with cardiovascular or other chronic disease may need professional advice before increasing exercise intensity.

Simple movements can still be meaningful. Repeated chair stands train muscles used every time we get up. Resistance-band exercises can provide load without a large home gym. The objective is not bodybuilding. It is preserving enough strength to continue doing ordinary things without unnecessary dependence.

Walking still matters, but it does a different job

I would not tell an older reader to abandon walking. That would miss the wider health picture. Regular walking supports endurance and daily mobility, while physical activity helps counter the inactivity that often accelerates functional decline.

But a daily walk should not automatically be treated as a complete muscle-preservation programme. If the goal includes maintaining strength, some form of progressive resistance exercise deserves a place alongside aerobic activity. The distinction is especially important for people who assume that being generally busy around the house provides all the muscular stimulus they need.

Protein helps, but more is not automatically better

Muscle also needs nutritional support. Protein provides amino acids used in muscle protein synthesis, and inadequate food intake can become a serious problem in older age. Appetite may fall. Dental problems or illness can reduce intake. Someone may therefore be losing weight and muscle without deliberately dieting.

The Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia’s nutrition consensus emphasizes adequate nutrition as part of muscle-health management. Evidence also suggests that combining resistance exercise with protein support can improve muscle outcomes in people with sarcopenia. A systematic review and meta-analysis of community-dwelling older adults found improvements in muscle mass and strength when protein supplementation was combined with resistance exercise, although the authors noted the limited number of trials.

Protein advice still needs context. Requirements vary with body size, total diet and medical circumstances. Kidney disease is one reason not to turn a population recommendation into a personal high-protein prescription without medical advice. Supplements can be useful in selected cases, but ordinary protein-rich foods may already provide what many people need.

The real danger may be the inactivity cycle

Muscle loss can become self-reinforcing. A person feels weaker, so movement becomes uncomfortable. Activity then falls. Lower activity gives the muscles less reason to remain strong, and daily tasks can become harder still.

Illness can accelerate the problem. A hospital admission or a prolonged period in bed can remove much of the normal loading that muscles receive during daily life. Recovery should therefore concern function as well as the disease that caused the admission. Being medically stable is not always the same as having regained previous physical capacity.

The latest 2026 rehabilitation guideline for older adults with sarcopenia reflects this broader approach. It covers assessment and prevention as well as exercise and nutrition, underlining that sarcopenia management is not a single-food or single-exercise problem.

Middle age is a better time to think about muscle

I find the 2025 Asian consensus particularly useful because it changes the timing of the conversation. We should not wait until an older person is visibly frail before discussing muscle health. The inclusion of ages 50 to 64 in the updated framework recognizes that the foundations of later-life function are built earlier.

For someone in middle age, the practical lesson is not to become anxious about every change in strength. It is to treat muscle as an organ worth maintaining. Regular resistance exercise becomes part of preventive health rather than a cosmetic project.

When weakness deserves medical attention

Not every case of weakness is sarcopenia. Sudden or marked weakness can have other causes, and unexplained weight loss deserves assessment. Repeated falls, increasing difficulty rising from a chair or a clear decline in walking ability should not simply be dismissed as “getting old.”

A clinician can look for contributing illness and review nutrition, medications and physical function. Formal sarcopenia assessment may include strength testing and measurement of muscle mass. The purpose is not to attach a frightening label. It is to identify a potentially modifiable problem before loss of function becomes harder to recover.

Age changes muscle, but age does not write the whole story

The old way of describing sarcopenia made ageing sound almost mechanical: reach a certain age, lose a predictable percentage of muscle, then accept the decline. The evidence now gives us a more useful picture.

Age matters, but so does the stimulus we give our muscles. Resistance training can improve strength and physical function, while adequate nutrition supports the biological work behind those adaptations. Neither is a guarantee against sarcopenia. Both give people something practical to act on.

I return to the staircase. The aim is not to make a 70-year-old body behave as if it were 30. It is to preserve enough strength for that staircase, that chair and the ordinary movements that keep life independent. Muscle health is built quietly, long before we notice how much we need it.

Medical note: This article provides general health information and is not a substitute for individual medical advice. People with chronic disease, significant mobility limitations or unexplained weakness should discuss major changes in exercise or diet with an appropriate healthcare professional.

Your Karachi Flight May Leave on Time. Your Gulf Connection Is Now the Risk.

Middle East airspace tensions are changing the risks for Pakistani travellers connecting through Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi. The airports remain open, but delays, rerouting and sudden cancellations mean passengers should pay closer attention to connections, ticket protection and travel insurance.

A traveller can stand at Karachi airport, look at the departure board and see exactly what he wants to see: On Time.

His flight to Dubai is operating. His passport is ready. His luggage has been checked in. Somewhere in his hand luggage sits the boarding pass for the second flight to Europe.

I used to think that once the first flight left Karachi, most of the uncertainty was over.

In the Middle East of September 2026, I would no longer make that assumption.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports remain operational. Gulf airlines continue to fly large networks. Yet cancellations, lengthy delays and route changes have appeared across the region as airlines respond to security developments, airspace risks and regulatory restrictions.

For Pakistani passengers, the important question is therefore changing.

It is no longer simply: Is my flight from Karachi operating?

It is also: What happens to my journey after I reach the Gulf?

The Gulf Hub Made International Travel Easier for Pakistan

For decades, geography has worked in Pakistan’s favour.

Karachi sits only a relatively short flight from the Gulf. Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi turned that proximity into an enormous international transport advantage. A passenger from Pakistan could reach a Gulf hub and connect onwards to Europe, North America or Africa without relying on a Pakistani airline to operate the entire journey.

The model works because the hub behaves almost like a giant railway interchange in the sky.

Aircraft arrive from dozens of cities. Passengers change planes. The airline then redistributes them across its global network.

That system depends on something travellers rarely think about when everything works normally: predictable airspace.

The assumption has weakened in 2026.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency, or EASA, currently maintains a conflict-zone information bulletin covering the airspace of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. Its bulletin includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The current revision was issued on 31 August and is valid through 30 September unless reviewed earlier.

EASA says the regional security situation remains volatile and identifies risks associated with military activity around the Gulf.

That does not mean Gulf airports are closed. Nor does it mean a passenger should assume his flight will be cancelled.

It means airlines are operating inside a more complicated risk environment than the familiar Karachi-Dubai-Frankfurt itinerary on a booking screen suggests.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi Are Still Operating

This distinction matters.

Reports of Middle East aviation disruption can easily create the impression that Dubai or Abu Dhabi has effectively stopped functioning. That is not what the evidence shows.

On 25 September, Gulf News reported that Dubai International and Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport remained operational while airlines continued to adjust schedules. Some services were delayed or cancelled, and passengers were being advised to check their flight status before travelling to the airport.

The pattern is uneven.

One flight operates normally. Another leaves late. A third disappears from the schedule.

That unevenness creates a particular problem for connecting passengers.

A traveller whose Karachi-Dubai flight operates may still encounter trouble if the Dubai-Europe sector changes. A delay on the first sector can also destroy what looked like a comfortable connection when the ticket was purchased.

The airport can remain open while an individual journey falls apart.

A New UAE Decision Shows How Quickly Conditions Can Change

On 24 September, the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority announced that flights operated by Iranian airlines to and from the UAE had been suspended until further notice.

For most Pakistanis travelling through Dubai, this does not directly cancel an Emirates flight from Karachi.

Its importance lies elsewhere.

A regulatory decision can alter part of the regional aviation network almost immediately.

Airlines do not operate only according to passenger demand and published timetables. They must also respond to airspace restrictions, government decisions and security assessments.

A route printed on a ticket weeks earlier is therefore a plan, not a guarantee.

Why Airspace Matters Even When Your Destination Is Peaceful

I find this part easy to underestimate.

A Pakistani traveller may be flying from Karachi to Munich. Neither city is part of the Gulf conflict zone. He may reasonably wonder why developments elsewhere in the Middle East should concern him.

Look at the route rather than the destination.

An aircraft does not move between two airport codes in a straight line without constraints. Airlines must select safe and legally available airspace. When particular corridors become risky or unavailable, aircraft may have to take longer routes.

That can increase flying time.

It can also disturb aircraft rotations. A plane arriving late in Dubai may operate another service later that day. Crew-duty limits matter as well. Disruption can therefore travel through an airline’s network even when the passenger’s own destination is far from the original problem.

flydubai’s operational guidance illustrates the mechanism. The airline has warned that flight durations and Dubai transit times may become longer when flight paths have to be temporarily rerouted. It advises passengers to keep checking flight status and operational updates.

The British government’s current travel advice for Pakistan also warns that regional tensions can cause travel disruption and advises passengers to check with airlines before travelling.

The disruption does not need to reach Karachi physically to affect someone leaving Karachi.

The Connection Is Where the Financial Risk Appears

Now imagine two travellers.

Both are flying Karachi-Dubai-Munich.

One has bought the entire journey on a single through-ticket. The other has found a cheaper combination online: Karachi-Dubai on one booking and Dubai-Munich on another.

The itineraries may look almost identical on a screen.

Their risk is not necessarily identical.

When flights are booked under one protected itinerary, the operating airline normally has established procedures for dealing with a disrupted connection, subject to its conditions of carriage and the circumstances involved.

Separate tickets can create a harder problem.

If the first flight arrives late and the passenger misses the independently booked second flight, the second carrier may treat him as a no-show. Whether he receives assistance, rebooking or reimbursement will depend on the ticket conditions, applicable passenger-rights rules and any insurance he bought.

This is why I would be cautious about constructing a tight Gulf connection from separate tickets merely to save money.

The cheapest itinerary can become expensive very quickly.

Do Not Treat Every Cancellation as Evidence of War

There is another trap.

Not every delay at Dubai or Abu Dhabi is caused by geopolitical tension.

Airlines experience technical problems. Weather interferes with operations. Air-traffic-control failures occur. Aircraft arrive late from previous sectors.

A useful travel guide must preserve this distinction. Otherwise every delayed flight becomes evidence for a dramatic geopolitical narrative.

The relevant development in September 2026 is narrower.

Regional security conditions have added another source of uncertainty to an aviation system that already deals with ordinary operational disruption.

For the passenger, the cause matters because it may affect rebooking rights and insurance coverage.

Travel Insurance Deserves Another Look

Many Pakistanis still treat travel insurance as a visa document.

Buy the policy. Print the certificate. Put it in the Schengen file.

Finished.

That approach makes less sense when a journey passes through an aviation region exposed to sudden disruption.

A traveller should read what the policy actually covers.

Does it cover a missed connection? What happens after a lengthy delay? Does cancellation caused by armed conflict fall within coverage, or does the policy exclude war and related events?

There is no universal answer.

Policies differ.

What I Would Check Before Leaving Karachi

The old routine was simple. Confirm the ticket, reach Jinnah International Airport early and fly.

I would add another layer now.

First, I would check the individual flight number, not merely whether the airline is operating.

Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad and flydubai maintain flight-status or operational-update services. A headline saying an airline is “operating normally” cannot tell you whether your particular service has been delayed.

I would check again before leaving home.

For a connecting journey, I would then check the second sector separately. If the connection has become very tight, I would contact the airline before reaching the transit airport rather than discover the problem at the gate.

I would also make sure the airline has my current mobile number and email address.

There is another precaution I increasingly favour: keep essential medication, documents and a basic change of clothing in cabin baggage within the airline’s allowance.

A six-hour delay is irritating.

An unexpected overnight transit without your checked suitcase is something else.

Pakistani Travellers Should Also Watch the Transit Country

We naturally concentrate on the country printed beside “Destination.”

A Karachi passenger flying to Germany thinks about German immigration. Someone going to Britain checks UK visa rules.

The transit state deserves attention too.

A passenger travelling Karachi-Dubai-London has exposure to conditions in Pakistan, the UAE and Britain during the same journey.

Karachi-Doha-Paris creates another chain.

The ticket may be one document. Operationally, the journey crosses several regulatory and aviation environments.

Should Pakistanis Avoid Gulf Airlines?

The evidence does not support such a sweeping conclusion.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi remain major operating hubs. Gulf carriers continue carrying passengers through their networks despite reduced or adjusted schedules on some routes.

The more useful lesson is about resilience.

A traveller should favour a through-ticket when practical. Extremely tight connections deserve more scrutiny than before. Separate-ticket itineraries require particular caution.

And a passenger should stop treating a confirmed booking as the final word on whether a flight will operate exactly as scheduled.

In calmer times, I might have checked my ticket a day before departure and thought little more about it.

In September 2026, I would check again.

The Departure Board Does Not Tell the Whole Story

Back at Karachi airport, the board can still say On Time.

That remains good news.

But it tells me only that the first piece of my journey is working.

Somewhere beyond Karachi, an airline operations team may be examining airspace. Another government may issue a restriction. An incoming aircraft may already be late because it flew around an unavailable corridor.

None of this means Pakistani travellers should stop travelling.

It means the habits that worked in a predictable aviation system need adjustment.

Check the flight number. Check the connection. Understand what your ticket protects.

Then look at the departure board.

It is still useful.

It just no longer tells the whole story.

Exercise Cannot Stop Aging. But It Can Change How You Age

Exercise cannot stop the clock, but strong evidence shows that regular physical activity can reduce the risk of premature death and chronic disease while preserving strength, brain health and independence. New research on biological aging is promising, but the real prize may be healthspan rather than eternal youth.

I have become less interested in the question of how long a person can live.

A more practical question bothers me now: what will those extra years look like?

There is a large difference between reaching old age and reaching it with enough strength to climb stairs, carry groceries, remember appointments and get out of a chair without assistance. Medicine has become quite good at keeping people alive. The harder problem is preserving the body that has to live through those additional years.

Exercise sits right in the middle of that problem.

For years, we have been told that exercise “slows aging.” The phrase appears everywhere. It is attractive, but it can also mislead. Exercise does not freeze the biological clock. It does something more measurable and perhaps more valuable: it can reduce the risk of several diseases associated with aging and help preserve physical function. It is also associated with a lower risk of premature death.

The real story, then, is not eternal youth. It is healthspan.

Living Longer Is Not Quite the Same as Aging Better

I think this distinction gets lost whenever we discuss longevity.

Lifespan is simply how long we live. Healthspan refers more broadly to the years we spend in reasonably good health and functional independence. Exercise matters because its effects appear across many of the systems that determine whether later life remains active or becomes progressively restricted.

The evidence on mortality is substantial.

A major dose-response meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine examined 196 articles covering 94 prospective cohorts and more than 30 million participants. Researchers found that higher levels of non-occupational physical activity were associated with lower risks of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease and several cancers. Read the study.

One finding deserves more attention than it usually receives. People did not have to become athletes to benefit.

The relationship was nonlinear, which means some of the largest relative gains occurred when people moved from very little activity to modest amounts. The researchers estimated that appreciable population-level benefits could occur even at activity levels below the full recommended amount.

That changes the conversation. For a sedentary 60-year-old, the relevant question may not be whether he can run five kilometres. It may be whether he can start walking regularly and keep doing it.

Muscle May Be One of Our Most Important Retirement Assets

When people talk about aging, they usually notice grey hair and wrinkles first. Muscle is quieter.

We can lose muscle strength and physical capacity with age, and the consequences eventually appear in ordinary movements: getting out of a low chair, lifting something from the floor or recovering balance after a stumble.

This is why resistance training deserves a much larger place in discussions about healthy aging.

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials involving older adults with sarcopenia found that resistance training improved measures of strength and physical performance. The effects on muscle-mass measurements were less consistent, an important correction to the popular idea that resistance exercise matters only because it makes muscles larger. See the PubMed record.

Function matters. A stronger older person may find it easier to rise from a chair, walk confidently and perform ordinary household tasks. Those abilities rarely appear in glamorous anti-aging advertisements, but they are central to independence.

The World Health Organization’s guidance reflects this. Older adults should combine aerobic activity and muscle strengthening with multicomponent activity that emphasizes functional balance and strength.

Aging well is not simply a cardiovascular project. It is also a strength and balance project.

The Heart Responds Too

The cardiovascular benefits are easier to measure.

Exercise training can lower resting blood pressure. A large network meta-analysis of 270 randomized controlled trials involving 15,827 participants found reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure across several forms of exercise, including aerobic and dynamic resistance training. See the analysis.

The exact response varies between people. Exercise does not replace prescribed treatment for hypertension or cardiovascular disease. But movement is not merely a tool for burning calories.

The CDC’s physical-activity guidance states that regular physical activity lowers the risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. For older adults, activity also supports bone health and physical function while reducing fall risk.

This is where the old obsession with body weight can distract us. A person can become fitter without producing a dramatic transformation on the bathroom scale. Exercise can still improve cardiovascular fitness, strength and metabolic health. The scale tells only part of the story.

What Happens to the Brain?

This part requires more caution.

It is common to read that exercise “grows new brain cells.” The claim comes partly from compelling experimental research, particularly animal studies, but directly demonstrating exercise-induced neurogenesis in living humans is much harder.

We do not need that claim to make a strong case for exercise.

A major 2025 umbrella review and meta-meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine examined 133 systematic reviews covering 2,724 randomized controlled trials and more than 258,000 participants. It found that exercise improved general cognition, memory and executive function across the populations studied. Read the review.

Interestingly, the review did not conclude that harder exercise was necessarily better for cognition. Benefits were also found with light and moderate-intensity interventions.

So I would avoid promising that a daily walk will manufacture new neurons. There is already enough evidence to say something useful: regular movement supports brain health.

Can Exercise Really Make You Biologically Younger?

Now we reach the most intriguing part of the story.

Scientists increasingly distinguish chronological age from various measures of biological aging. Chronological age is simple. If you were born 65 years ago, you are 65.

Biological aging is harder to define. Researchers have developed biomarkers intended to capture aspects of the aging process. Among them are DNA-methylation or “epigenetic” clocks, which examine chemical modifications associated with patterns of aging.

A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity examined research on physical activity and biological age measured using DNA-methylation clocks. It found evidence linking physical activity with more favourable results on some measures of epigenetic aging. Read the review.

Exciting? Certainly. Proof that exercise makes you biologically younger? Not yet.

Different epigenetic clocks do not measure precisely the same thing. Much of the evidence in this field is observational, which creates another problem: people who exercise regularly may differ from inactive people in diet, smoking, income, underlying health and other characteristics.

Researchers try to adjust for such factors, but statistical adjustment cannot eliminate every source of confounding. Science has not established a reliable conversion in which a certain amount of exercise makes someone a specific number of years “younger.”

What we can say is more restrained and more interesting: physical activity may influence some biological processes associated with aging, and researchers are beginning to detect those relationships with molecular tools. The biological clock story is still being written.

You Do Not Need HIIT to Earn the Benefits

The fitness industry sometimes makes exercise unnecessarily intimidating.

HIIT has benefits. Running has benefits. Hard resistance training can have benefits. None of them is a compulsory entrance fee to healthy aging.

The WHO physical-activity guidelines recommend that adults accumulate 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity each week, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, or an equivalent combination. Adults should also perform muscle-strengthening activities involving the major muscle groups on at least two days each week.

For people aged 65 and above, WHO adds multicomponent activity emphasizing functional balance and strength on three or more days a week.

But targets should not become excuses.

Someone doing almost no exercise should not look at “300 minutes” and decide that anything less is pointless. The CDC makes the principle explicit: adults who sit less and perform any amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity gain some health benefits.

Start somewhere. Ten minutes can become twenty. A short walk can become a routine. Resistance training can begin with manageable movements rather than a gym full of intimidating equipment.

Consistency changes the equation.

Aging Well Requires More Than Cardio

If I were rewriting the usual anti-aging exercise formula, I would stop looking for one perfect workout.

Walking or another aerobic activity develops cardiorespiratory fitness. Resistance exercise protects strength and function. Balance work becomes increasingly important because a fall in later life can have consequences far beyond the initial injury.

The combination matters more than the fashionable label attached to a particular workout.

Older adults with medical conditions may need additional care. Someone with cardiovascular disease, significant mobility limitations, concerning symptoms or a long period of inactivity should discuss substantial increases in exercise intensity with an appropriate healthcare professional.

For most people, however, ordinary movement should not be treated as a dangerous medical procedure. Physical activity belongs in ordinary life.

The Anti-Aging Industry Sells the Wrong Dream

I understand why the phrase “reverse aging” attracts attention.

We can see aging in a mirror. We cannot see improved insulin sensitivity or better cardiorespiratory fitness so easily. Nobody wakes up excited because his gait speed has improved.

Yet those quieter changes may determine what old age actually feels like.

Can I walk through an airport without becoming exhausted?

Can I climb a flight of stairs? Can I carry my own shopping? If I lose my balance, do I have enough strength and coordination to recover?

These questions are less glamorous than asking for one’s “biological age.” They are also more useful.

Exercise cannot promise immortality. It cannot guarantee freedom from dementia, heart disease or disability. Genetics, disease, environment and chance do not disappear because someone takes a daily walk.

But the evidence now gives us something much firmer than the promise of eternal youth.

Regular physical activity is associated with a lower risk of premature death and major chronic diseases. Exercise training can improve cardiovascular health and cognition. Resistance training can help preserve strength and physical function as we grow older.

Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.

The goal is not to make a 65-year-old body pretend that it is 35.

The more useful goal is to help that 65-year-old body keep walking, thinking and functioning for as long as possible.

That is not reversing age. It is aging better.

Flying from Karachi With a Power Bank? Check the Airline Rule Before You Pack

At Karachi airport, a power bank looks like one of the least important things in a passenger’s bag. Passport, visa, medicines and boarding pass demand more attention. The small battery that keeps a phone alive during a long connection usually goes into a backpack almost without thought. Yet I would now put the power bank on the pre-flight checklist, especially when travelling from Karachi through Dubai or Doha.

The reason is simple. Airlines have tightened their treatment of portable lithium batteries, and the rules are not identical. A power bank acceptable on one airline may create a problem on another.

For a Pakistani traveller, particularly an older passenger making a long international journey, knowing the rule before reaching Jinnah International Airport can prevent an unnecessary argument at security or the boarding gate.

Why Airlines Worry About Power Banks

A power bank contains lithium-ion cells. Under certain conditions, a damaged or defective cell can overheat and enter what battery specialists call thermal runaway.

The location of the battery then becomes important.

If a power bank starts overheating inside the passenger cabin, cabin crew can identify the problem and respond. If the same battery is buried inside checked baggage in the aircraft’s cargo hold, detection and intervention become much more difficult.

For this reason, international aviation rules treat power banks as spare lithium batteries. They belong in cabin baggage, not checked baggage.

I think this distinction is easy to overlook at Karachi airport. Many passengers understand that laptops and phones contain batteries, but a power bank often gets treated like an ordinary charger. It is not. A charger contains electronics; a power bank stores electrical energy in lithium cells.

Qatar Airways Passengers From Karachi

A passenger flying Karachi → Doha → Europe, North America or another destination needs to follow Qatar Airways’ current power-bank restrictions.

Qatar Airways allows a maximum of two power banks per passenger, with each power bank limited to 100 watt-hours (Wh).

They must travel in the cabin.

The airline also prohibits passengers from using power banks during the flight or charging them from the aircraft’s electrical supply. Their terminals should remain protected against accidental short circuits.

Accessibility has also become important. Do not bury the batteries somewhere that makes them difficult to reach.

For a Karachi passenger, I would use a small pouch inside the personal bag kept under the seat. That makes the batteries easy to identify and remove if airline staff ask to inspect them.

Emirates Passengers Face a Stricter Rule

The situation changes if the journey is Karachi → Dubai → onward destination on Emirates.

Emirates introduced tighter power-bank restrictions from 1 October 2025. The airline permits only one power bank per passenger, with a capacity below 100 Wh.

It must remain in the cabin.

More importantly, Emirates does not allow passengers to store the power bank in the overhead locker. It should remain in the seat pocket or inside a bag placed beneath the seat in front.

Passengers also cannot use the power bank to charge another device during the flight. Nor can they recharge the power bank using the aircraft’s electrical supply.

That creates an important practical difference.

A passenger may own two perfectly legal 20,000 mAh power banks. Qatar Airways may permit both within its numerical limit, but an Emirates journey restricts the passenger to one.

The safest habit is therefore not to ask, “Are power banks allowed on international flights?”

Ask instead: What does my operating airline allow?

Is Your 20,000 mAh Power Bank Under 100 Wh?

Here another problem appears.

Most power banks sold in Karachi display their capacity prominently in mAh, or milliamp-hours. Airlines commonly express their limit in Wh, or watt-hours.

Those measurements are related, but they are not identical.

The calculation is:

Wh = (mAh × battery voltage) ÷ 1,000

A typical lithium-ion power bank uses cells with a nominal voltage around 3.7 volts. Using that figure gives a useful approximation.

A 10,000 mAh power bank works out at roughly 37 Wh.

A 20,000 mAh model comes to about 74 Wh.

At 25,000 mAh, the figure is approximately 92.5 Wh. A 27,000 mAh battery sits very close to the 100 Wh boundary.

A 30,000 mAh power bank, however, may exceed 100 Wh.

This is why I would not buy a large power bank for international travel merely because its online description says “travel friendly.” Check the manufacturer’s actual Wh specification first.

Do Not Travel With a Power Bank Whose Label Has Disappeared

There is another small detail that can become a large airport problem.

Look at your power bank before leaving home.

Can you still read its capacity?

Older power banks often have specifications printed in small lettering on the casing. After years inside pockets and travel bags, that printing can fade.

I would retire such a power bank from international travel even if it still works perfectly.

Emirates requires capacity information to be available and clearly visible. More broadly, airport and airline staff need some reliable way of establishing whether a battery falls within the permitted limit.

A passenger standing at a security checkpoint cannot easily prove that an unmarked black box contains a 74 Wh battery rather than one exceeding 100 Wh.

Showing a calculation on your phone may not solve the problem. Nor would I depend on a homemade sticker saying “74 Wh.”

For travel, buy a reputable power bank with permanent, legible manufacturer markings showing its electrical specifications.

The Gate-Check Trap at Karachi Airport

One situation deserves special attention because even an experienced traveller can make this mistake.

You correctly place the power bank inside your cabin trolley.

Everything seems fine.

At the boarding gate, however, airline staff announce that overhead storage is limited. They tag your cabin trolley and tell you that it will travel in the aircraft hold.

Your power bank is now inside baggage that is about to become checked baggage.

Take it out before handing over the trolley.

The same principle applies during an onward connection in Dubai or Doha. A bag accepted as cabin baggage in Karachi might later have to be checked because of aircraft configuration, space restrictions or another operational reason.

This is why I prefer keeping a power bank in a smaller personal bag rather than inside the main cabin suitcase.

The passport and phone are already there. The power bank can stay there too, provided the operating airline’s storage rules are followed.

A Simple Karachi Airport Power-Bank Check

Before leaving home for Jinnah International Airport, I would make four checks.

First, check the airline.
Do not assume Emirates, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and other carriers follow exactly the same operational rule.

Second, check the capacity.
Look for the manufacturer’s Wh marking. Staying comfortably below 100 Wh removes much of the uncertainty.

Third, check the label.
Make sure the capacity and other specifications remain readable.

Fourth, check the bag.
Never put the power bank into checked luggage. If airline staff take your cabin bag at the gate, remove the power bank first.

There is also a sensible physical precaution. Keep the battery away from loose metal objects that might contact its terminals, and do not travel with a swollen, damaged or unusually hot power bank.

The Rule I Would Remember

Long international journeys from Karachi increasingly depend on the smartphone. Boarding passes sit there. Airline messages arrive there, and the same phone may provide maps or contact with family during a long connection.

So carrying a power bank makes sense.

But I no longer regard it as just another electronic accessory.

For my own packing, I would use a simple rule: a clearly marked power bank below 100 Wh stays with me in the cabin, never inside checked baggage.

Then I would check the operating airline’s latest restriction before leaving for Karachi airport.

The difference between Qatar Airways allowing up to two qualifying power banks and Emirates limiting passengers to one shows why the final check matters. Aviation rules continue to change as airlines respond to lithium-battery incidents.

A small battery can therefore create an unexpectedly large problem at the beginning of a journey.

Better to discover the rule at home than at the security counter.

UBL Led HBL in Deposits. Is Pakistan Measuring the Wrong Banking Champion?

UBL led HBL in deposits at 30 June 2026, but the balance sheets raise a harder question: how do Pakistan’s banks fund their assets and extend credit?

A banking league table stopped me while I was scrolling in Karachi. UBL appeared ahead of HBL on deposits. I have worked around banking and cross-border payments long enough to pause at a balance-sheet headline: what does first place actually measure?

At 30 June 2026, UBL’s unconsolidated financial statement reported Rs 6.119 trillion in deposits and other accounts. HBL reported total deposits of about Rs 5.9 trillion in its half-year results. On that reported measure and date, UBL led by roughly Rs 200 billion. The margin was about 3.4 percent of HBL’s deposit base, close enough to make the date and accounting basis essential to the claim.

The number on the league table

UBL’s deposits rose from Rs 5.168 trillion at December 2025 to Rs 6.119 trillion six months later. That is an increase of about Rs 950 billion, or 18.4 percent. The change in a reported balance does not mean that Rs 950 billion of entirely new household savings arrived at its counters. Corporate balances, public-sector funds and ordinary account flows can all affect a closing-day figure.

The Silkbank merger also needs a proper place in this account. The State Bank sanctioned Silkbank’s amalgamation into UBL on 10 March 2025. It expanded UBL’s franchise, but its assets and liabilities were already within the bank before the December 2025 comparison date. We cannot explain the first half of 2026 increase as a fresh merger entry.

A deposit is a bank’s liability to its customer. The bank holds assets against the funding it gathers, alongside funding from other sources. Calling the biggest deposit collector the best bank therefore asks a narrow question and supplies an even narrower answer.

Follow the balance sheet

UBL’s June statement places its advances at Rs 1.534 trillion and investments at Rs 11.915 trillion. Dividing the reported advances by deposits gives roughly 25 percent. That is a simple calculation from two line items, not an official regulatory advances-to-deposits ratio. It says nothing on its own about the type, quality or economic value of individual loans.

The same statement records borrowings of Rs 7.999 trillion. That figure matters. It would be wrong to set UBL’s investments beside its deposits and announce that depositors’ money went straight into government securities. A bank funds its assets across the whole liability side of its balance sheet. Secured money-market borrowing can support a securities book as part of treasury operations.

Nor does the word “investments” mean only government lending. Securities portfolios can include different instruments, and a government’s paper serves liquidity and risk-management purposes. The useful question is how much exposure each bank carries, how it funds that exposure and how it balances it against private credit. A large investment book invites scrutiny; its size alone is no verdict of wrongdoing.

HBL’s reported deposit total leaves it behind UBL on this particular June measure. Its lending book may tell a different story about business mix, but a fair numerical comparison needs the same reporting basis and a clear choice between gross and net advances. A single ratio cannot turn either bank into an economic champion. Rapid loan growth can also create bad loans.

The state inside the banking story

The SBP’s weekly statement for 26 June 2026 shows domestic operations of all scheduled banks. It records Rs 39.638 trillion in deposits, Rs 14.780 trillion in gross advances and Rs 42.751 trillion in investments. Those are domestic system totals on 26 June. They are not the same scope or date as UBL’s 30 June unconsolidated accounts, so they should illuminate the system rather than be added to a bank-by-bank calculation.

The contrast is striking, though it cannot establish cause by itself. Pakistan’s state needs a domestic market for its debt; banks also need assets they can trade or pledge for liquidity. Manufacturers in SITE and Korangi meet another set of questions: what will a credit line cost, and how will a lender assess the risk? I cannot infer from a national balance sheet that a particular factory lost a loan because a bank bought Treasury bills. I can ask whether persistent public financing needs shape the terms on which private borrowers compete for bank capacity.

From a payments desk, money has a sender, a beneficiary and a settlement path. In treasury, the same institution sees funding costs and liquid assets. A business owner sees the cost and availability of working capital. Those views belong in the same banking story, even when a ranking graphic has room for only one column.

A better scoreboard

I would start with deposits, then put comparable gross advances and their quality beside them. I would examine the composition of investments and the sources of wholesale funding. The questions become sharper when we distinguish lending to a large, established borrower from credit that reaches smaller firms on workable terms.

UBL led HBL in reported deposits at 30 June 2026. That is a meaningful change to the ranking, and it deserves an accurate headline. It does not settle which institution contributes more to productive activity, manages risk better or serves customers more effectively. The answer needs more than a closing-day total.

The league table told me who held the larger deposit balance. I still want to know where credit went.

When a Campus Event Becomes a Battle Over Pakistan’s Identity

Why do some cultural events at Pakistani universities become battles over Islam, identity and national values while others pass peacefully? Punjab University and Quaid-i-Azam University show that the deeper problem lies in institutional authority, inconsistent rules and the struggle over who gets to define acceptable campus life.

A university lawn can change character very quickly in Pakistan.

One moment, students are setting up stalls. Music is playing somewhere. A group rehearses a dance, another hangs a banner, and most students walk past because they have classes, assignments or tea waiting for them. Then a video reaches social media.

The event is no longer just an event.

Within hours, people who were never on the campus may be debating Islam, Pakistani culture and the ideological purpose of the state. Students become representatives of competing identities. A university administrator who thought he was approving an extracurricular activity suddenly finds himself managing a national controversy.

I have watched this pattern often enough to think we ask the wrong question about it.

The question is not whether Pakistani universities should become secular spaces detached from religion. Nor is it whether religiously conservative students should remain silent when something genuinely troubles them.

The harder question is institutional: who decides what is acceptable on a Pakistani university campus, under which published rules, and what happens when ideological pressure becomes more powerful than those rules?

A Cultural Festival That Ended With Tear Gas

Consider what happened at Punjab University in March 2017.

Students were holding a Pakhtun cultural festival. According to contemporary reporting by Dawn, a confrontation broke out between students associated with the cultural event and activists of Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba, or IJT. At least 10 students were injured. Police eventually used tear gas.

Even the basic story was contested. Punjab’s then law minister blamed IJT for trying to stop the cultural show. The Punjab University vice chancellor also said IJT students had attacked first. IJT disputed that account and accused the other students of attacking its activities.

That distinction matters. I do not want to turn a disputed campus clash into a morality tale in which one group represents intolerance and another represents freedom.

Something more important happened afterwards. Punjab University restricted the activities of student organisations. Students wishing to organise programmes would have to submit proposals to the administration, which could approve them and arrange security.

There, almost hidden beneath the ideological argument, sits the real institutional problem. A university should know who may organise an event. It should know where it can be held. The same rules should apply when the organisers are religious, ethnic, cultural or political groups.

Then Came Holi

Quaid-i-Azam University provides an even clearer example of how quickly campus administration can become a national argument about identity.

Students celebrated Holi there in 2023. Videos circulated widely. The Higher Education Commission then sent universities a letter advising higher education institutions to distance themselves from activities it described as incompatible with Pakistan’s identity and societal values. The letter referred to the country’s Islamic identity.

The reaction was immediate. HEC subsequently withdrew the communication. The federal education minister told the National Assembly that HEC should not have issued it. HEC, for its part, said it respected religions, faiths and their associated festivals and that its earlier communication had been misinterpreted.

Yet the story did not end with HEC’s retreat. QAU later issued show-cause notices to students. The university’s stated issue was more specific: students had allegedly organised the celebration without prior approval and continued playing loud music despite instructions from security personnel.

Those are two quite different questions: should Hindu students be able to celebrate Holi, and can students hold an event without following university procedures?

Pakistan gets into trouble when it mixes the two. A university can reasonably regulate time, location, sound, security and prior approval. Such regulations can apply to a Holi celebration as they apply to a concert, an Islamic conference or a cultural night. Once administrators instead start deciding whether a particular culture is sufficiently Pakistani, the argument moves from administration into ideology.

What the Constitution Actually Says

Pakistan’s Constitution does not settle every campus dispute. It does, however, establish boundaries that are often simplified in public debate.

Article 19 protects freedom of speech and expression. The protection is not absolute. The Constitution expressly allows reasonable restrictions imposed by law on specified grounds, including the glory of Islam, public order, decency and morality.

That qualification matters. People who argue for unrestricted expression cannot simply quote the first half of Article 19 and ignore the rest.

But the Constitution contains other protections too. Article 20 protects citizens’ right to profess, practise and propagate their religion, subject to law, public order and morality. Article 22 contains protections concerning religious instruction and participation in religious ceremonies in educational institutions.

Pakistan therefore does not have to choose between being an Islamic republic and recognising religious diversity. The constitutional structure contains both elements. The difficult work lies in administering them.

What About Islam?

This is where I would revise an argument I have sometimes seen made too casually.

It is tempting to respond to every controversy by saying Islam has nothing to fear from music, dance or cultural festivals. That sounds confident. It solves very little.

Muslims themselves disagree over some forms of music, dancing, gender interaction and public celebration. Those disagreements have long histories in Islamic jurisprudence and social practice. A university administration is hardly the institution that should settle centuries of fiqh before approving a student programme.

Religious students should therefore be able to argue that an activity conflicts with their understanding of Islam. They should be heard. But being heard is different from possessing a veto.

A university cannot function if whichever group can mobilise the strongest pressure acquires the power to decide what everyone else may do. The same principle must work in the other direction. Administrators should not dismiss religious students as backward merely because they object to an event. Their beliefs are part of the university community too.

Pluralism is not agreement. It is the institutional management of disagreement.

The Abdus Salam Case Shows How Far the Problem Can Travel

The controversy becomes more uncomfortable when the event is not primarily cultural.

In May 2024, QAU postponed an Abdus Salam Science Festival that had been planned by the university’s science society in collaboration with the Pakistan Academy of Sciences and the National Centre for Physics.

The proposed programme concerned science and education. Reporting at the time said a religious group had expressed objections connected with Abdus Salam’s faith.

The vice chancellor rejected the claim that the university had cancelled the festival under pressure. He cited the academic calendar and approaching examinations as the reason for postponement, although he acknowledged that people and groups had expressed reservations. That qualification must remain in any fair account.

Still, the episode illustrates the institutional dilemma. If a science festival honouring Pakistan’s first Nobel laureate becomes entangled in a dispute about religious identity, university administrators need transparent rules more than ever. Otherwise nobody outside the administration can distinguish an academic scheduling decision from capitulation to pressure.

Yet Not Every Cultural Event Causes a Crisis

There is another fact that complicates my original argument.

In January 2026, QAU hosted what organisers called a Grand Night and Peace Mela. It included traditional Attan, music, food stalls and cultural displays. A Pashto singer performed. The event was presented as a celebration of cultural diversity and social harmony.

No comparable national ideological crisis followed. That matters because it destroys the lazy claim that every Pakistani university cultural event becomes a religious battle.

It does not.

So we should ask a better question. Why do some events become symbolic confrontations while others remain ordinary campus life?

The answer appears to depend partly on what an event comes to represent. Religion may be involved. Ethnic politics can matter. Rival student organisations and administrative weakness can turn relatively small disputes into larger confrontations.

Social media adds another layer. A short video removes an event from its institutional setting. Thousands of viewers then judge it without knowing whether permission was granted, what happened before filming began or what university regulations actually say.

The physical event ends. The symbolic event begins.

HEC Itself Recognises Campus Life Beyond the Classroom

There is also a misconception that universities exist only for lectures and examinations. HEC’s own programmes recognise a broader institutional role.

Its Youth Development Centers initiative discusses student clubs, societies, sports and extracurricular activities. This does not mean every proposed event must receive approval. It means extracurricular life is not an accidental corruption of higher education. Properly governed student activity is part of university life.

The key phrase is properly governed.

Universities need published event rules. Approval procedures should be predictable. Security assessments should address actual risks rather than ideological popularity. Decisions should state reasons.

If loud music violates a rule, enforce that rule consistently. If an event creates a genuine security problem, document it. If students organise something without required permission, use the disciplinary procedure already available.

But do not transform an administrative disagreement into a referendum on who is a proper Muslim or a proper Pakistani.

Universities Cannot Escape Pakistan’s Arguments

I do not expect Pakistani campuses to become ideologically neutral islands. They cannot.

Students arrive carrying the arguments of their families, mosques, neighbourhoods and political histories. Pakistan itself continues to debate the relationship between religion and citizenship. Universities inevitably inherit those tensions.

Perhaps they should.

A university that contains no disagreement is not necessarily peaceful. It may simply have taught one side to remain silent.

The test is what happens after disagreement begins. Does the university apply a rule? Does it explain the decision? Can students object without intimidation?

Those questions sound bureaucratic beside the grand language of Islam, ideology and national identity. Yet bureaucracy, when it works properly, protects people from having every disagreement decided by whoever can generate the most pressure.

I keep returning to that university lawn.

The music is not really the most important part of the scene. Neither is the dance, the banner or the angry social-media post that may appear later.

The important thing is the institution standing around them.

If its rules are clear and consistently enforced, students can disagree sharply and still share a campus.

When those rules collapse, almost anything can become an ideological threat.

Sometimes even a festival.

HBL Cash Transfer Facility: The Risks and Traps You Should Know Before Taking the Money

HBL Cash Transfer Facility offers cash against your credit limit. Learn about markup, fees, early settlement charges and key risks before you borrow.

The money lands in your bank account.

The balance has changed. Nothing on the screen looks like a loan document anymore. That is the moment when borrowed money can begin to feel like your own money.

HBL offers a Cash Transfer Facility that lets credit-card holders convert part of their available card limit into funds. The money can go directly into an HBL account, or the customer can request a pay order.

It looks convenient. It may sometimes be useful.

But I would not accept this facility after looking only at the monthly installment. The real decision sits deeper in the terms: how much the borrowing will ultimately cost and what happens if you want to get out early.

What Exactly Is HBL Offering You?

HBL’s Cash Transfer Facility draws from your existing available HBL CreditCard limit. HBL does not describe it as a separate additional credit line.

The bank currently states that customers can book a minimum of Rs 10,000. The maximum can reach Rs 3 million, subject to the available credit limit. Repayment options run from three months to 60 months.

Once HBL books the plan, the monthly installment starts appearing from the next credit-card statement. You may receive cash in your bank account, but the debt remains connected to your credit card.

The First Trap: Do Not Stop at “2% Per Month”

HBL advertises a standard rate of 24% per annum, or 2% monthly. Its published Schedule of Bank Charges describes the HBL Installment Plan service charge as 24% per annum of the outstanding installment-plan amount.

I would still ask for an actual repayment schedule before accepting the facility. Suppose I wanted Rs 300,000 for 24 months. I would ask HBL to tell me the monthly installment and the total markup I would pay over those 24 months. Then I would ask for the total amount payable.

That number matters more to me than “2% monthly.”

A Small Monthly Installment Can Hide a Long Commitment

A customer looks at the monthly installment and thinks: “I can manage that.” Perhaps he can.

But extending repayment reduces the monthly pressure while keeping the debt alive for longer. HBL offers tenures extending to 60 months. Five years is a long time to remain connected to money that may have been spent within a few days.

The better comparison is not simply how much will I pay each month? It is how much will I have paid by the time this debt disappears?

Illustration of a PKR 300,000 cash transfer over 24 months with repayment, fee and early-settlement symbols.
Illustrative example: a Rs 300,000 cash transfer over 24 months. Actual installments, taxes and charges should be confirmed with HBL before booking.

The Advertised Rate Is Not Your Only Cost

HBL currently lists a Rs 1,200 installment-plan processing fee. Customers requesting a physical pay order or demand draft face a Rs 500 charge. HBL states that FED applies to these charges.

Fixed charges deserve particular attention when the amount borrowed is small. A Rs 1,200 processing fee feels very different on Rs 500,000 than it does on Rs 20,000.

The 6% Early-Payment Charge Can Change Your Calculation

HBL states that early payment attracts a charge equal to 6% of the remaining principal amount.

Consider a customer who still owes Rs 200,000 in principal but now has enough money to clear the debt. Six percent of Rs 200,000 is Rs 12,000.

The customer needs to put that Rs 12,000 charge into the settlement calculation before deciding whether early repayment produces the saving expected. Choosing a long tenure because you expect to clear it early may still work, but calculate it first.

Closing Your Credit Card Can Trigger Another Problem

HBL’s terms state that if the credit card is cancelled or terminated, the installment plan terminates automatically. The cardholder then becomes liable for the remaining installment amount, together with the applicable prepayment charges.

I would therefore never cancel the card first and investigate the installment later. Ask HBL for the settlement amount before requesting card closure.

Your Cash Transfer Uses Your Existing Credit Limit

Suppose your HBL CreditCard limit is Rs 500,000 and you take Rs 300,000 through the Cash Transfer Facility. You have not received Rs 300,000 while preserving the original Rs 500,000 borrowing capacity. The facility uses your available credit limit.

For someone who keeps a credit card partly for emergencies, that deserves careful thought. I would also ask HBL: As I repay the principal every month, how much of my credit limit becomes available again, and when?

The Installment Becomes Part of Your Credit-Card Bill

HBL states that the monthly installment becomes part of the Minimum Payment Amount shown on the statement. If the cardholder pays less than the required minimum by the due date, charges can apply under the broader HBL CreditCard Terms and Conditions.

The cash-transfer installment arrives on the same financial landscape as ordinary card spending. Look at both together.

You Cannot Simply Change the Tenure Later

Suppose you choose 36 months. Six months later, your financial position improves and you decide that a 12-month arrangement would have suited you better.

HBL’s terms state that once the installment plan has been booked, its amount and tenure cannot be changed. Ending the arrangement is a different matter, and early-payment charges may then become relevant.

HBL Allows Five Plans, but Look at the Combined Burden

HBL allows a cardmember to hold as many as five installment plans at a time, subject to the credit limit and the bank’s approval. I would treat five as a facility limit, not a financial target.

Three small installments can look harmless when considered separately. On one statement, they arrive together. Then normal card purchases are added. The combined figure is the one your income must support.

Keep Evidence of What HBL Offered You

HBL says customers can obtain the facility through PhoneBanking. If I booked by telephone, I would note the date and approximate time of the call. I would retain the applicable terms and Schedule of Bank Charges.

When the first installment appeared, I would save that statement too. If a later disagreement develops about the markup, fee or settlement amount, those records give you something concrete to compare with what you were originally offered.

Read More Than the Promotional Page

The Cash Transfer Facility remains subject to its specific terms as well as the broader HBL CreditCard Terms and Conditions. HBL also refers customers to its Schedule of Bank Charges for applicable charges.

Do not rely on a promotional screenshot alone. Read the applicable terms. Save a copy.

Ask HBL These Questions Before You Accept

If I were considering Rs 300,000 for 24 months, I would ask: What will my exact monthly installment be?

Then: How much markup will I pay over the full 24 months, and what will my total repayment be?

I would confirm the processing fee and applicable FED. I would also ask how HBL will calculate the settlement amount if I repay early, and when repaid principal becomes available again as part of my credit limit.

If HBL can provide a detailed repayment schedule, I would request it before making the decision.

So, When Can HBL Cash Transfer Make Sense?

The facility is not automatically a bad financial product. Someone may need liquidity for an unavoidable expense and prefer predictable installments. A customer may compare the facility with another legitimate borrowing option and find HBL’s offer suitable.

The danger appears when the decision rests almost entirely on the monthly installment. Borrowing Rs 300,000 does not become cheap merely because repayment stretches far enough to produce a comfortable monthly figure.

HBL can decide whether it is willing to extend the facility. Only you can decide whether taking it makes financial sense.

My Test Before Turning a Credit Limit Into Cash

I would put five figures on paper before accepting the offer: cash I will actually receive, monthly installment, total markup, fees and applicable taxes, and total amount paid by the final installment.

Then I would add one more: What will it cost me to get out early?

If I cannot obtain those figures, I do not understand the borrowing well enough to accept it.

The most dangerous moment may not be when HBL approves the Cash Transfer Facility. It may come a few minutes later.

The balance on your bank screen may say Rs 300,000.

It is still borrowed money.

Falling Birth Rates: What Happens When We Ask Women to Fix a Country’s Future?

Falling birth rates prompt governments to ask women for more children. The harder question is whether people can have the families they actually want, in Pakistan and beyond.

By Muhammad Munaeem Jamal

In Karachi, a conversation about children rarely begins with a population chart. It begins with a rent payment, a school bill, or a relative asking a newly married couple when they will have their first baby. Notice who usually has to answer that last question. The woman does.

Across the world, officials look at falling birth rates and ask a larger version of the same question. Who will work when the present workforce retires? Who will support older people? The worry is real, but the question can quietly turn a woman's private decision into a public obligation.

A 2021 television commentary presented falling fertility as an era in which women were “opting out.” It cited South Korea, China, India and the United States, then asked whether governments could expect women to replace their populations. Its final question was sharper than much of its evidence. The issue deserves another look in 2026, because a falling birth rate cannot tell us whether someone freely chose a smaller family or could not have the family they wanted.

What the number actually measures

The United Nations' 2024 population projections put the global total fertility rate at 2.25 births per woman, down from 3.31 in 1990. Total fertility rate is an estimate based on the birth rates observed at different ages in a given period. It does not count what each individual woman has had, or what she must have.

The familiar replacement level of roughly 2.1 is also a population measure. In a low-mortality society without migration, a rate around that level would, over time, allow one generation to replace another. It is no instruction to every household. Nor does a country immediately lose population the day its fertility rate slips below 2.1. Age structure, life expectancy and migration still matter.

The UN estimates that more than half of countries and areas were already below 2.1 in 2024. Yet its central projection still has the world's population rising from 8.2 billion in 2024 to a peak around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. A global average conceals very different national paths. It also cannot explain why people have fewer children.

Consider South Korea. The UN placed fertility there and in Hong Kong below 0.75 in 2024. A figure that low raises hard questions about future schools, pensions and care for older people. Still, calling it evidence that women have rejected motherhood would read a motive into a statistic. We need to ask what people wanted, what they could afford and who would do the unpaid work once a child arrived.

A decision and an obstacle are different things

The United Nations Population Fund's 2025 report asked people in 14 countries about their family aspirations. Nearly one in five reproductive-age respondents believed they would be unable to have the number of children they desired. Thirty-nine percent said financial limits had affected, or would affect, their ability to reach their desired family size. The survey covers countries that together account for more than a third of the world's population; its results should not be treated as a precise census of every person on earth.

Those findings complicate the phrase “opting out.” Someone may want no children and have the means to follow that wish. Another may want two but stop at one after losing a job. A third may face infertility, poor access to care or no suitable partner. They may all appear in a fertility chart as fewer births. Their experiences call for different responses.

The United States offers a useful check against an equally simple claim that nobody wants children anymore. In a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, 57% of adults under 50 without children who said they were unlikely ever to have them named “just don't want to” as a major reason. Thirty-six percent named the cost of raising a child. Respondents could give more than one reason, and the sample was a specific group of Americans, not all young adults or all women worldwide.

Both answers matter. Respecting someone who does not want a child need not mean ignoring someone who cannot afford one. A good policy must leave room for each. If officials announce a cash payment and births still fall, the result does not prove young people are selfish. The payment may be too small, or the problem may lie elsewhere. If births rise, that alone does not prove parents gained more freedom.

I think of the ordinary arithmetic behind a family decision. A couple may be able to pay for a baby's first year while fearing the next eighteen. Housing, reliable income and the ability to take time away from work change the calculation. So does the expectation that one parent will abandon a career or absorb most of the care at home. In many places that parent is still the mother. The balance is an argument about institutions, not women's character.

Pakistan asks the question from another direction

Pakistan makes an essential contrast. Its 2023 census counted about 241.5 million people. Public debate here often worries about rapid growth and the pressure it puts on schools, housing and health services. Elsewhere, governments worry about too few births. The slogans point in opposite directions, but either can override a person's wishes if the state treats women as instruments of a population target.

At the launch of its 2025 report in Pakistan, UNFPA said only one in three women could make decisions about their reproductive health. It reported that 32% of married women aged 15–49 used modern contraception and that more than 16% had an unmet need for family planning. These are measures of access and autonomy, not a call to impose a particular family size.

That distinction matters in a city like Karachi. A woman who wants to delay a pregnancy needs trustworthy information and services she can reach without pressure. A woman who wants a child needs safe maternal care. If a family wants fewer children, its decision deserves respect; if it wants more, that decision deserves respect too. Neither a national growth target nor a lecture from a relative should make the choice for them.

The debate also places too much responsibility on women while giving men too little to do. A father's share of daily care, an employer's treatment of parents and the quality of public services can alter the real cost of raising a child. Those are practical conditions. They will not change because a politician calls motherhood patriotic or a commentator calls childlessness selfish.

What a serious response would test

Governments should start by listening to people whose plans and outcomes differ. How many wanted children but could not have them? How many had a pregnancy earlier than they intended? How many freely prefer no children? A fertility rate by itself answers none of these questions. Surveys also need careful wording, because a wish expressed today may change with age, income or a relationship.

Next comes the work of removing obstacles people actually identify. UNFPA recommends affordable housing, decent work, parental leave and access to reproductive health services. The details must fit each country. A childcare service that exists on paper but closes before parents finish work will solve little. Leave that employees fear taking may be just as ineffective. In Pakistan, access to contraception and respectful maternity care belongs in the same discussion as household income.

Low-fertility countries also need plans for ageing that do not depend entirely on a sudden baby boom. Children born today will not join the workforce tomorrow. Governments can examine productivity, employment, migration and the design of pensions and care. Each choice has costs and political limits. Pretending that a higher birth rate alone will repair every institution delays those decisions.

There is a test I would put to any proposal: does it help a person follow a considered choice, or does it push that person toward the number the government wants? Subsidised childcare can help parents who want children. Reliable contraception can help people avoid a pregnancy they do not want. Better medical care can serve both goals. Their common measure is agency, even if they move a national fertility rate in different directions.

Back in Karachi, the question at the family table can sound affectionate. It can also carry a heavy expectation. A statistic cannot hear the difference. Public policy should try harder than the statistic: ask people what kind of family they want, notice what stands in their way, and leave the final answer with them.

Your Pakistani Card Can Be Charged Without an OTP. Who Protects You When It Happens?

Can a Pakistani card be charged without an OTP? Learn how 3-D Secure works, why some international payments need no OTP, and how to reduce fraud risk.

I was scrolling through LinkedIn when a UBL advertisement stopped me.

“Don’t Let a Search Lead to a Scam,” it warned. UBL was telling customers not to trust telephone numbers found casually through an internet search. A fraudster can publish a fake number, answer the call and pretend to represent the bank.

Sensible advice.

But I looked at the advertisement and thought about something banks discuss far less often.

What happens when I protect my OTP and nobody asks me for one?

I have used Pakistani cards on international websites where the payment process felt reassuring. I entered my card details, received an OTP and completed the transaction. But international online payments do not always work that way. Sometimes there is no OTP.

That raises a question every Pakistani debit and credit card user should understand: if my bank approves an international online transaction without asking me to confirm it, what exactly protected that decision? And if the protection fails, who bears the loss?

What an OTP Actually Protects

First, we need to clear up one common misunderstanding.

When you shop online, a legitimate merchant normally asks for your card number and expiry date, together with the CVV or CVC printed on the card. It should not ask for the PIN you use at an ATM.

Never enter your ATM PIN on an ordinary shopping website.

An online purchase is generally a card-not-present transaction, often called CNP. You are not physically presenting your card to the merchant. This creates a different fraud risk from paying at a shop.

Many Pakistani consumers have therefore learned a simple security rule: No OTP, no payment. Unfortunately, it is not that simple.

An OTP is one way of confirming the cardholder’s identity. It is not the entire security system. The more important technology is 3-D Secure, or 3DS.

Visa calls its EMV 3-D Secure programme Visa Secure. Under 3DS, information can pass between the merchant and the bank that issued your card before authorization. The issuer then assesses whether the person attempting the purchase is likely to be the genuine cardholder.

Sometimes the bank challenges the customer. You may receive an OTP. The bank could instead use another approved authentication method.

Modern 3DS can also operate through a frictionless flow. The issuing bank assesses transaction data and authenticates a low-risk transaction in the background without requiring the customer to do anything.

No OTP does not automatically mean no 3-D Secure.

But a customer should not assume that every transaction completed without an OTP received the same level of protection.

Pakistan Already Has Rules for Online Card Security

I initially wondered whether the State Bank of Pakistan should simply require Pakistani banks to introduce 3-D Secure for international transactions. Then I checked the regulations. SBP has already acted.

In its 2018 security instructions for digital payments, SBP told banks and microfinance banks to enable the EMVCo 3-D Secure protocol to prevent fraud in online transactions. It required them to prepare implementation plans for all applicable card payments.

By February 2021, SBP said 15 banks had adopted 3-D Secure. It also allowed banks that had implemented the technology to activate customers’ cards for online e-commerce without requiring customers to request activation first.

Pakistan therefore does have a regulatory foundation for safer e-commerce. The problem is not simply, “Why hasn’t SBP introduced 3-D Secure?” It has.

The more useful consumer question is: What protection applies when an international card-not-present transaction reaches my Pakistani bank and I am not actively asked to authenticate it?

Why Some International Payments Don’t Ask for an OTP

Suppose I buy software from an overseas company. I enter my card number and expiry date, followed by the CVV. I click Pay. The payment succeeds. My phone never receives an OTP.

Was the transaction insecure? Not necessarily.

Visa explains that modern 3DS uses risk-based authentication. The issuer can evaluate information associated with the transaction and decide that the risk is low enough to authenticate it without further customer involvement. Visa calls this the frictionless flow. If the transaction appears riskier, the issuer can require a challenge such as an OTP or another authentication method.

This distinction matters because consumers see only the checkout screen. The bank sees much more.

Payment systems must also handle stored credentials and subsequent payments. Other payment arrangements can affect how authentication occurs. A customer therefore cannot look at the absence of an OTP and determine exactly what happened behind the scenes.

That is part of the consumer-protection problem.

Imagine Someone Gets Your Card Details

Consider Ahmed, a Pakistani credit-card customer. Ahmed sometimes uses his card for international software subscriptions. One day, criminals obtain his card number and expiry date, along with the CVV.

They do not have his ATM PIN. They do not control his banking app.

Now they attempt a $150 purchase at an overseas merchant.

When Ahmed is challenged

The merchant sends the payment through its payment infrastructure. Authentication takes place through 3DS, and Ahmed’s issuing bank decides that additional verification is required.

Ahmed receives a challenge. He did not initiate the transaction, so he does not approve it. The criminal possesses the card information but cannot complete the required authentication.

The security control has intervened before authorization.

When Ahmed receives no challenge

Now imagine another transaction. Depending on how the transaction has been submitted and authenticated, Ahmed may not receive an OTP or app challenge.

The authorization request eventually reaches Ahmed’s Pakistani issuing bank. The issuer’s systems assess the transaction and decide whether to approve or decline it. The bank approves it.

Ahmed’s first visible sign may be an SMS or app notification: USD 150 charged to your card.

At this point, the notification has not prevented fraud. It has told Ahmed that a transaction has occurred.

I would much rather have my bank stop a questionable $150 payment than send me an excellent SMS two seconds after approving it.

3-D Secure Versus a Transaction Without an Active Challenge

What happens3DS with customer challengeFrictionless 3DSNo active customer challenge
Customer enters card detailsYesYesUsually
Customer must actively authenticateYes, when challengedNoNo active challenge
Issuer can assess transaction riskYesYesAuthorization and fraud controls may still apply
Customer actively confirms purchaseYesNoNo
Customer may first notice through an alertLess likelyPossiblePossible
Main protectionActive authentication plus issuer controlsRisk-based authenticationDepends on transaction type and issuer/network controls

The better question is not merely, “Did you receive an OTP?” It is: How was this particular transaction authenticated and authorized?

Why I Would Not Make SMS OTP Mandatory for Every Transaction

My first instinct was straightforward. Why doesn’t SBP simply require an OTP for every international online transaction?

After examining how modern card authentication works, I think the regulatory question needs to be framed differently. OTP itself has weaknesses.

A fraudster can telephone a customer while pretending to represent the bank and ask him to read out a verification code. The customer complies. The security control has now become part of the social-engineering attack.

A banking-app approval can communicate far more useful information. It can show the amount and merchant, then ask the customer to approve or decline the purchase.

Modern 3DS also deliberately supports frictionless authentication for transactions that an issuer assesses as low risk. So I would not ask SBP to mandate SMS OTP for every international transaction. I would ask for something more useful.

Give Pakistani Customers Control Over International Card Exposure

SBP cannot tell every American or European website how to design its checkout page. It can regulate Pakistani banks.

Pakistani issuers should give cardholders clear control over international card-not-present exposure. Customers should be able to disable international e-commerce when they do not need it.

They should also be able to impose a separate, deliberately low online limit without reducing the entire credit limit on the card.

Most importantly, banks should explain what happens to international transactions that proceed without active customer authentication.

One regulatory option deserves serious examination: international CNP transactions that do not meet a prescribed authentication standard could be disabled by default, while customers who need broader international acceptance could explicitly enable them within defined limits.

That proposal would require careful technical work. Recurring payments and other legitimate payment arrangements cannot simply be treated as fraud.

The customer should know how much international online exposure his card carries.

Digital Security Cannot Assume Every Customer Understands 3DS

The UBL advertisement that started this article illustrates another problem. It tells customers to verify branch telephone numbers through UBL’s official website. That is sound advice.

But consider what the customer needs to know before he can follow it safely. He must distinguish an official bank website from an imitation. He may need to recognize a misleading search result. Then he must understand that the person answering a telephone number found online may not represent the bank.

Pakistan’s digital-payment system serves people with very different levels of digital literacy. A security model cannot assume that every cardholder understands the difference between an internet search result and an official bank page. Nor can it assume that everyone understands the difference between a CVV and an OTP.

The banking system therefore needs controls that protect people before education fails.

Warnings matter. System design matters more.

Before You Use Your Pakistani Card Online

  • Keep international e-commerce disabled when you do not need it, if your bank provides that control.
  • Set a deliberately low online or international transaction limit where your bank allows separate limits.
  • Prefer merchants using 3-D Secure or another recognized authentication mechanism.
  • Turn on immediate transaction notifications.
  • Never disclose an OTP or ATM PIN. Treat an unexpected authentication request as a warning.
  • Consider a virtual card with a controlled limit where your bank offers one.

Your total credit limit and the amount you expose to the internet do not need to be the same.

If You See a Transaction You Did Not Make

Speed matters.

Freeze or block the card immediately through your banking app if that facility exists. Otherwise, contact the bank using the telephone number printed on your card or published through the bank’s official channel.

Do not search casually for a customer-service number. That brings us straight back to UBL’s warning.

Report the transaction as unauthorized and obtain a complaint or dispute reference number.

Then ask a more specific question than “Why didn’t I receive an OTP?” Ask: “Was this transaction authenticated through 3-D Secure? If it was, what authentication method or transaction flow was recorded?”

Also ask whether the payment was processed as a recurring or merchant-initiated transaction, if relevant. Keep the transaction notification. Preserve your correspondence with the bank and record when you reported the fraud.

An Unauthorized Transaction Does Not Automatically Mean an Automatic Refund

An unauthorized transaction does not automatically produce a refund. The circumstances matter.

The bank will examine whether the customer authorized the transaction. Authentication records may matter, as can the circumstances surrounding the payment. Applicable card-network procedures and the bank’s dispute process can also affect what happens next.

Pakistani law nevertheless contains an important consumer safeguard.

Section 41 of the Payment Systems and Electronic Fund Transfers Act, 2007 places the burden of proof on the financial institution or authorized party in an action involving consumer liability for an unauthorized electronic fund transfer. The institution must show that the transfer was authorized or establish the statutory conditions relevant to liability.

That does not mean every disputed card transaction must automatically be refunded. It does mean consumers should not assume that a debit appearing on their statement ends the argument.

Dispute it. Ask how it was authenticated. Ask why it was approved. And keep the evidence.

Prevention, Detection and Reimbursement Are Not the Same Thing

Banks often present digital security as one package. From the consumer’s side, it looks very different.

Prevention tries to stop the fraudulent transaction before the money moves.

Detection identifies suspicious activity or tells the customer what has happened.

Then comes another question: who bears responsibility for the disputed transaction? Only after that do we reach reimbursement, when the customer discovers whether and when the money will actually return.

An SMS alert can provide excellent detection while providing no prevention at all. That distinction should appear in every serious consumer guide to digital banking.

The Question Pakistani Banks Need to Answer

The UBL advertisement is the starting point of this article, not its target. The underlying issue affects the wider banking and card-payment ecosystem.

UBL is right to tell customers to verify telephone numbers. Banks are right to tell us never to disclose our OTPs. Customers also have responsibilities. We need to protect our credentials and report suspicious transactions quickly.

But digital security cannot depend mainly on the assumption that every customer will recognize every scam.

SBP has already required important card-security measures. Pakistan’s banks use 3-D Secure, fraud-monitoring systems and other controls. Consumers now need greater visibility into what happens when those systems make decisions for us.

The next time my phone receives an OTP, I know what to do. I read it. I check the transaction. If it is not mine, I approve nothing.

The transaction that worries me is the one for which my phone never asks.

If my Pakistani bank can approve an international online payment without asking me to confirm it, I want to know what protected that decision. And if that protection fails, I want to know who bears the loss.

Those are questions a digital-payment system should answer before fraud occurs, not after the customer starts filling out a dispute form.

Perween Rahman Lost Her Home in 1971. Then She Mapped the Homes Karachi Could Not See

Perween Rahman’s family was displaced after 1971. She later mapped Karachi’s overlooked communities, turning invisible homes into documented evidence.

The architect who documented Karachi’s forgotten settlements understood displacement from her own childhood. More than five decades after 1971, her story feels personal to me.

I Recognise Something in Her Story

When I read about Perween Rahman, I do not begin with Orangi.

I begin with 1971.

I am Bihari too. My family’s journey after 1971 was our own, but the larger history of displacement is familiar to me. Perween came from that history as well.

She was born in Dhaka in 1957. After the breakup of Pakistan in 1971, her family was displaced and eventually made its home in Karachi.

For families caught in that upheaval, 1971 was more than a date in a history book. A familiar street could suddenly lie in another country. Home could become something that depended on politics far beyond the control of the people living inside it.

Years later, Perween’s elder sister, Aquila Ismail, connected that experience with the woman her sister became. She recalled how deeply Perween reacted to people being evicted from their homes. Aquila believed their family’s own experience of dispossession had influenced her. Perween knew what losing a home meant.

That testimony changes how I look at her later work. Her maps were not simply drawings of Karachi. They were evidence that somebody belonged somewhere.

She Chose a Different Karachi

Perween studied architecture at Dawood College of Engineering and Technology and entered conventional architectural practice. She could have remained there.

Instead, she joined Akhtar Hameed Khan’s Orangi Pilot Project in 1982 and became closely involved with communities that conventional urban planning had often failed to serve.

Karachi was growing rapidly. Formal development could not keep pace with the settlements spreading across the city’s edges. Families often built their homes first and waited years for basic infrastructure.

The Orangi Pilot Project approached the problem from another direction. Instead of treating poorer communities simply as recipients of government development, OPP helped residents organise and finance low-cost sanitation within their neighbourhoods. Government agencies remained responsible for the larger external infrastructure.

Perween worked where those two Karachis met. An official plan might show a line. A family beside an open drain experienced something else entirely. She went to that Karachi.

The 334 Settlements Became Evidence

In 2004, OPP-RTI published Perween Rahman’s Katchi Abadis of Karachi: A Survey of 334 Katchi Abadis. The title sounds almost bureaucratic. The work was anything but trivial.

OPP had been documenting sewerage and water-supply lines in Karachi’s informal settlements for years. Its own publication record shows that the first volume covering 100 surveyed katchi abadis appeared in 2002. Perween’s survey of 334 settlements followed in 2004.

A settlement changes when someone documents it properly. Residents already know where their houses stand. Their neighbours know too. The problem begins when the official record tells a weaker story, or says almost nothing at all.

Mapping converts local knowledge into evidence. A drain can be located. Existing water infrastructure becomes visible on paper. The physical shape of a community can be compared with what government records claim is there.

Perween’s work later extended beyond the 334 katchi abadis. OPP documented Karachi’s goths as the expanding metropolis swallowed old villages and pushed up the value of their land. Documentation mattered because recognition could strengthen communities seeking regularisation or protection from displacement.

Here 1971 returns to my mind. Someone who has experienced displacement may understand particularly well the distance between saying this is my home and possessing evidence that institutions are forced to recognise.

Perween’s own sister saw a connection between the two experiences. For someone from the same wider history of displacement, that connection is difficult to ignore.

A Map Can Alter the Balance of Power

Maps look harmless. In Karachi, they can carry consequences.

Consider a settlement that has existed for decades while its legal status remains uncertain. The people living there know every lane. Government records may tell a different story.

Documentation narrows that gap. It establishes where people live and what already exists around them. Once that information enters the public record, competing claims can be tested against evidence rather than memory alone.

Perween’s work therefore went beyond architecture. It reduced invisibility. That matters in a city where land can become enormously valuable simply because Karachi has expanded around it.

The same principle applied to another resource that Karachi residents understand painfully well: water.

She Followed Karachi’s Water

I have lived in Karachi long enough to know the peculiar frustration of a city where a water pipeline can pass through an area without guaranteeing water to the people who live there.

Perween wanted to understand the system on the ground. Her research examined Karachi’s water supply and the illegal hydrants operating within it. OPP documentation from this period also dealt with the tanker economy and the diversion of water from the formal network.

The work matters because water scarcity in Karachi cannot always be understood by looking only at how much water enters the system. Distribution matters. So does control.

Mapping allows a researcher to ask a simple question that can become politically uncomfortable: if water enters this network but does not reach these households, where does it go?

Perween also worked on Karachi’s drainage system. OPP documented natural nalas and drainage channels while developing proposals for the city’s sewerage system.

The city began to look different on paper. Informal settlements could be located rather than dismissed as vague patches of urban poverty. Drainage routes became part of a larger system. Water infrastructure could be examined against what residents actually received.

Urban disorder started revealing an underlying structure. That structure inevitably raised questions about power.

When Mapping Collided With Powerful Interests

This part of Perween Rahman’s story requires care.

Her work touched land disputes and illegal water infrastructure. She also spoke publicly about land grabbing. OPP reported that she had received threats.

Investigators later examined different possible motives for her murder. A joint investigation team looked at possible connections involving militant actors and illegal water interests. Investigators also examined land-grabbing networks because OPP had been helping residents document settlements and establish claims over land.

One investigation ultimately advanced a land-related theory. But an investigative theory is not the same thing as a final judicial finding. That distinction matters.

On 13 March 2013, Perween was travelling home from the OPP office when gunmen attacked her vehicle on Manghopir Road. She was 56.

A woman who had spent decades documenting where other Karachi residents lived was killed on a road in her own city. The search for her killers then moved from Karachi’s streets into police files and courtrooms.

The Courts Did Not Give Karachi a Final Answer

The investigation lasted years. In December 2021, a Karachi anti-terrorism court convicted five men. Four received life sentences. The fifth was sentenced to seven years.

It appeared that the criminal case had finally produced an answer. It had not.

On 21 November 2022, the Sindh High Court overturned the convictions and acquitted all five men.

The legal distinction is important. The High Court observed that the accused had not been charged with personally carrying out Perween’s shooting. The prosecution case concerned planning and abetment.

The court concluded that the prosecution had failed to establish their involvement beyond reasonable doubt. It identified problems with important evidence and found that the defendants were entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

An acquittal has consequences for how this story should now be written. I cannot responsibly state that those five men murdered Perween Rahman.

Her family challenged the outcome. In December 2022, Aquila Ismail approached the Supreme Court against the acquittal of principal accused Abdul Raheem Swati. Her petition argued that the Sindh High Court had misread or failed to consider important evidence.

The legal aftermath became complicated. The Sindh government subsequently attempted to detain the five acquitted men under the Maintenance of Public Order framework. The Sindh High Court struck down that detention order as unlawful and directed police to continue providing protection to Aquila Ismail and OPP staff.

I have found reliable reporting confirming the Supreme Court appeal. I have not found an authoritative public record establishing a final Supreme Court judgment that resolves the central question.

For that reason, I will not fill the gap with an allegation. It remains a gap.

I Keep Coming Back to 1971

Perhaps this is why Perween’s story affects me differently.

I am Bihari.

I know 1971 through the history carried by families who had to begin again somewhere else. I do not claim that my family’s experience was identical to Perween’s. Displacement produces different stories even among people who come from the same historical rupture.

But one part of her story feels familiar: the uncertainty of home.

Perween’s sister remembered how strongly she reacted when other people faced eviction. That family testimony matters because it prevents me from imposing a convenient interpretation on her life decades later.

Her history gives her professional choices a different meaning. Perween did not give Karachi’s poor their homes. They had already built them. She helped produce evidence that those homes existed.

There is power in that distinction.

Karachi Still Has Her Maps

Karachi changes quickly. Buildings disappear. Settlements acquire different names. A neighbourhood that once stood at the city’s edge can find itself sitting on extremely valuable urban land a generation later.

Records matter in such a city. Perween understood this.

Her survey of 334 katchi abadis remains part of that documentary record. OPP continued documenting informal settlements beyond that original survey and developed maps of infrastructure that allowed conditions on the ground to be compared with official planning.

Perween spent years putting communities onto maps because documentation could turn existence into evidence.

For someone whose family had once experienced dispossession, that work carries a meaning I recognise.

Her maps remain.

Karachi can still see the lines she helped draw. What it cannot yet show with the same certainty is the final name of the person, or persons, legally responsible for killing her.