The Nation Editorials 2nd September 2026

Our Lifeblood

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s warning at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that water is the “lifeblood” of the region and must never be weaponised is exactly the message Pakistan’s leadership should be delivering, and at precisely the right forum.

The gravest future danger between India and Pakistan may not emerge from ideology or religion, but from water. The Indus river system sustains millions of lives and underpins Pakistan’s agriculture, food security and economy. Any attempt to manipulate those flows therefore carries consequences far beyond an ordinary bilateral dispute.

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That is why the SCO matters. China, Russia, Iran and the Central Asian states all have a direct interest in regional stability, and they must understand the risks created by India’s attempts to place the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance. That Indian representatives were present to hear Pakistan’s position directly was itself consequential.

The recent ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, reaffirming that the treaty remains in force and ordering India to suspend work on a hydro project in occupied Kashmir, is important. Pakistan, however, cannot regard it as the end of the matter.

Future of Makran
India will continue developing hydropower infrastructure and looking for ways to expand its control over western river flows. Pakistan has already complained of erratic releases that can aggravate flooding and place downstream communities under pressure. New Delhi may also search for legal or technical avenues to dilute adverse rulings.

Pakistan therefore needs persistence, not complacency. It must keep raising the issue internationally, defend the treaty through every diplomatic and legal mechanism available, and strengthen its own water storage, monitoring and flood-management capacity.

Gap Year Myth
Water cannot be allowed to become a weapon. Pakistan must keep speaking, keep working and keep preparing for the worst-case scenario.

Performative Action

Just as many feared, here we have it again: a classic case of reactionary, performative and ultimately ineffective “action” following a tragedy. Given the scale of the loss at Pims, the response is deeply disappointing.

The Capital Development Authority has challaned 48 hospitals, clinics and healthcare facilities for failing to comply with fire and life safety requirements, imposing fines worth Rs14 million. On the surface, this appears decisive. In reality, it raises serious questions about the CDA itself.

Raiding medical centres and handing out heavy fines may deter facilities that possess fire-safety infrastructure but fail to maintain or use it properly. It will do little for buildings where adequate fire exits, alarms, evacuation routes and other safeguards were never incorporated in the first place.

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Who is responsible for those failures? The CDA cannot escape that question. It oversees building plans, construction standards and compliance. Where were its officials when these buildings were approved and constructed? Where were the inspectors before tragedy forced the issue into the headlines?

Even where hospitals are clearly violating existing rules, enforcement should not begin only after people have died. Inspections, maintenance checks and corrective orders are meant to prevent disasters, not follow them.

The reaction in Rawalpindi, where police establishments have suddenly been ordered to review firefighting equipment and submit photographic evidence, reflects the same troubling pattern: institutions stir only after tragedy exposes neglect.

Future of Makran
Pakistan has seen this choreography too often: tragedy, inspections, fines, public statements, and then silence. The bereaved families at Pims deserve more. They deserve accountability for regulatory failures, stronger fire-safety enforcement, routine inspections and consequences for officials who failed to act before lives were lost.

The spotlight should not merely be turned on hospitals. It must remain firmly on the regulators as well.

Just Another Day

Another attack, another tragedy, another day of bloodshed in Balochistan. Soldiers, officers, government officials and civilians continue to find themselves in the crosshairs as militants repeatedly strike at the machinery of the state and those who serve it.

The latest coordinated attacks in Chagai and Pishin left six personnel, including two officers and a Customs official, martyred. Security forces responded by killing 21 terrorists, while further operations continued in the area.

But for the public, casualty figures among militants have begun to lose meaning. Numbers announced after every attack are increasingly disconnected from lived reality. They do not make a family in Quetta, Chagai or Pishin feel safer. They do not reassure commuters on vulnerable highways or officials serving in exposed installations.

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The metric that matters is not simply how many terrorists are killed after an attack. It is whether attacks themselves are declining, whether fewer soldiers and civilians are dying, and whether the state is steadily reclaiming space from militant networks.

That is what distinguished Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Its success was not measured only through militant casualties or areas cleared, but through the measurable and sustained reduction in terrorist violence that followed. Security gains became visible in ordinary life.

Azm-i-Istehkam must ultimately be judged by the same standard. Tactical victories matter, but they must accumulate into strategic results that citizens can see and feel.

Future of Makran
Pakistan must also do more to secure the borders and routes through which militants, weapons and financing move. Intelligence, policing, border management and counter-terror operations must work as a single system.

The objective cannot be retaliation alone; it must be prevention, disruption and restoration of security.

Otherwise, each successful reprisal will merely follow another successful attack. Pakistan cannot afford to continue bleeding from a thousand cuts.