DAWN Editorials 24th August 2026

‘Grand dialogue’

THE country’s top civil and military leaders are absolutely right when they say that dialogue and development are needed to address Balochistan’s crises.

But perhaps one should recall that many earlier attempts by the state to bring peace to the province were stalled or remain unimplemented. In order to truly stabilise Balochistan and bring lasting peace to this troubled province, a credible political process must begin, with the state guaranteeing that it will fully implement previous promises, as well as new agreements.

While speaking at the Balochistan National Workshop in Islamabad recently, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called for a “grand, frank and meaningful dialogue” to address the province’s issues. He added that the province’s people had first right over its resources. In a similar vein the chief of defence forces stressed the need for empowering Balochistan’s youth.

It is certainly welcome that the rulers see the need to tackle Balochistan’s political problems through dialogue. While kinetic measures are needed to deal with immediate terrorist threats, the underlying factors fuelling discontent can only be handled through a political process. The state must keep in mind previous attempts to address the province’s problems.

For example, the PPP government had in 2009 launched the Aghaz-i-Huqooq-i-Balochistan package. Despite the passage of 17 years, many of the package’s key points remain unimplemented. For example, it had proposed releasing political workers, except those involved in heinous crimes. However, over the past few months, we have seen peaceful activists rounded up and thrown in jail. Similarly, the 2009 package had sought to address the province’s socioeconomic woes; suffice it to say, social indicators in Balochistan remain miserable. The PML-N had launched a package of its own in 2015. Much of that scheme also remains unfulfilled. CPEC was similarly supposed to transform the province’s fortunes. It has not.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, the state must implement what it had promised in these packages. Many of these schemes’ salient points reflect the demands of the province’s nationalist politicians. Therefore, to implement these promises in full, a grand dialogue should bring on board the province’s genuine political leadership, as well as peaceful activists, while a verifiable and transparent mechanism needs to be worked out to help implement previous and new promises.

The past few months have seen a sharp spike in terrorist activity in Balochistan. The only sustainable way of addressing the insurgency is to supplement kinetic actions with a genuine political process that can, in the long-term, eliminate the underlying factors that are fuelling discontent.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2026

Privatisation push

THE privatisation programme seems to be moving forward — finally. Eleven prospective investors have now submitted expressions of interest for Gepco following a similarly strong response for Fesco earlier this month, with Iesco’s deadline still to come in September. The PIA sale appears to have supplied the push this programme needed — proof that the government is ready to wash its hands of businesses it should not have involved itself in. What makes the Discos’ response more encouraging than PIA’s is who is showing up. Turkish and Saudi investors are in the mix for both Gepco and Fesco, and Fesco separately drew Chinese interest — a foreign presence PIA’s privatisation could not attract. Add a list of big domestic companies and the field looks genuinely competitive rather than a formality staged for the government’s benefit.

None of that guarantees that interest will convert into bids the government is hoping for. The investor feedback report the Privatisation Commission compiled after its roadshows in Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and China reads more like a conditions list. Investors want the multi-year tariff control period stretched from five years to seven to 10, arguing that distribution assets with decades-long lives cannot be financed against a five-year regulatory horizon. They want tariffs tied to individual Disco performance rather than the current uniform structure, which effectively taxes efficient operators to subsidise inefficient ones. They want binding protection against tariffs or contracts being reopened later by a government or a court, a fear rooted in our history of renegotiating deals after the fact. And they want a regulator that can actually make faster decisions, have clearer enforcement powers but enjoy less discretion to intervene unpredictably. These are not cosmetic asks. They go to the heart of whether Pakistan’s regulatory institutions can credibly commit to arrangements that outlast the political cycle in which they are signed. If the government treats these concerns as bargaining noise to be managed rather than structural gaps to be fixed, the interest recorded this month may thin out by the time actual bids are due. But if it uses this feedback to extend the tariff regime, build real regulatory independence and put contractual guarantees beyond the reach of future reversal, the payoff will extend well past the power sector.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2026

The missing millions

SINDH’S five-year pledge with the UN to bring children into school is welcome, but the province never had any shortage of plans. What it lacks is progress. Unicef estimates that 7.4m children aged five to 16 in Sindh — 44pc of the age group — are out of school. The 2023 census found that 6.6m children in this bracket had never attended school at all, showing that the problem is not one of retention. This is damning because the Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2013, guarantees free schooling to every child aged five to 16 and obliges the government to ensure admission and attendance. There has been movement: girls’ stipends, school-meal schemes, teacher-led school budgets and non-formal education programmes address barriers. Yet the scale is inadequate. In 2024-25, Sindh had 1,152 non-formal centres serving 58,411 learners, while 14,343 schools damaged in the 2022 floods were still awaiting restoration in March.

The new plan must be judged by children reached, not programmes announced. Sindh needs a district-by-district register of out-of-school children, with local authorities responsible for finding them, identifying why they are excluded and getting them into an appropriate learning pathway. Poverty, child labour, distance, unsafe travel for girls, disability and missing middle and secondary schools require different responses. Stipends and meals should be expanded to improve attendance; reliable transport is needed for communities without nearby schools; and accelerated learning must be scaled for older children who cannot simply enter age-inappropriate classes. Flood reconstruction needs firmer deadlines and public progress reporting. Teacher deployment should follow enrolment needs, while schools must be evaluated for learning, not just attendance. Above all, annual district targets should be published and independently verified. Thirteen years after Sindh legislated a right to education, millions of children are still out of school. Another five-year plan deserves support only if it converts that right into a classroom seat.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2026