OPINion_7


Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-urReahman
Editor Bahzad Alam Khan
Vol 96 No 145.
E-wall: thenewskhi@thenewscompk
Phones: 3260061115 ~

PO Box 52, Karachi
Friday, July 10,2026

The Balochistan
imperative

alochistan is not doing OK There has been an alarming

surge in terrorist violence over the past several days. The

government is not oblivious to this either: chainng the
Provincial Apex Committee on the National Action Plan in
Quetta on Thursday, Prine Minister Shehbaz Sharif reaffirmed
the Joint resolve of the civil and military leadership to eliminate
what he described as India-backed terrorism in Balochistan.
The premict’s remarks followed asobering briefing on Wednes-
day by ISPR Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry.
According to tie military spokesperson, security forces Killed
5f India-backed terrorists during three major terrorist incidents
in Balochistan, while 42 Pakistanis, including soldiers and civil
inns, embraced martyrdom in defence of the country. He ako
reiterated Pakistan's long-standing concem that Afghan teri-
tory under the Taliban administration continues to be used for
launching attacks against Pakistan. The figures alone underline
the gravity of the situation. More worrying, however, is what
they reveal about the changing nature of the insurgency. The
frequency of attacks has increased, but so has their sophistica-
ton and scale. This suggests that terrorist organisations such
2s the Balochistan Liberation Amy (BLA) and the TTP have de-
veloped an operational nexus pit access to substantial re-
sources and enhanced ca,

The escalation also appears to to coincide with a broader re
gional context. Pakistan's recent diplomatic role in mediating
the Iran-US peace deal and its miliary success against India
during last May's conflict may not have created these threats,
but they appear to have intensified the determination of hostile
actors seeking to destabilise the country. It is therefore unsur-
prising that         rvers describe the mood in Islamabad as
creasingly sombre, with expectations of significant announce
ments on the security front. Such a reassessment Is urgently
needed. Today's Balochistan requires a comprehensive te.
sponse that combines a robust kinetic                 with greater
use of modem technology, Intelligence-driven operations and
sustained will Military action remains indispensable. There can
be no compromise on dismantling terror networks and elimi-
nating their operational capabilities. And yet force alone will
hot secure lasting peace. One of the reasons organisations such
as the BLA have expanded their influence Is their ability to ex-
ploit genuine grievances among sections of the local popula
tion, Which is why the state needs to address jongstanding con-
cems that many Baloch citizens have repeatedly raised, Above
all, the state must show through both policy and practice that
Balochistan 8 nota distant periphery! but an eat and integral
peut of Pakistan.

Political leadership also has an indispensable role to phy.
Experienced leaders such as Mian Nawaz Sharif and President
Asif Ali Zardari should actively contribute to building political
consensus and restoring trust. The 18th Amendment marked

those who participate in constitutional politics and those who
wage armed insurgency. Mainstream Baloch nationalist leaders
should be engaged through dislogue, not conflated with terror-
ist organisations. At the same time, responsibility does not rest
solely with the state, even if it bears the greatest burden Those
who use their platforms to justify, glorify or act as apologists
for terrorist organisations such as die BLA must abo

the damage they inflict. By legidmising violence, they under-
mine the very rights and legitimate grievances they claim to
champion and ultimately harm the people of Balochistan then
selves. Balochistan needs to be more than OK.

Food inflation

hile most of the attention since the US-Israel war on
Iran Kicked off back in February Ins focused on fuel
prices, one coukl argue that food inflation is even more

painful for the vast majority of Pakistanis, There are ways to] ;

blung the impact of fuel inflation. The most straightf

simply travel less or use less power when a home, Itis rather
harder to curb one’s food consumption, especially in a country
‘where malnutrition is already widespread and an estimated 40
per cent of children under five years are stunted or too short
fortheirage. As such, the spike in the country’s food inflation is
one of its most worrying economic trends. Short-4em inflation,
as measured by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistic’s Sensitive
Price Index, rose 13.52 per cent year-on-year (YoY) inthe mock
ended July 2. The data showed a trouble increase in the

of food items compared to last year, with tomatoes rising oy
238.72 per cent, wheat flour by 68.47 per cent and onions by
$0.96 per cent. Thisis a country where most cannot afford meat
every day of even every week, but even mutton is around 16.0

ight now reverse given that the US has
tumed to strikes again. Sharp increases compared to last year
are perhaps inevitable, given that rising fuet costs have a nulti-
plier effect that generally makes everthing else more expen-
sive, However, the data shows that food prices are actually
golng up on even a weekly basis. While inflation data for the
monthof June showed a calmer picture, with food inflation re-
maining below the overall inflation rate, it still came in at 8.2
per cent in urban areas and 9.4 percent in rural areas, whichis
Still pretty steep, Have lower fuel prices simply not had an im-
pact? If so, why? Undemeath the fuel problem, however, lie
even deeper crises, Pakistan is one of the countries most vul-
nerable to climate change, and both extreme heat and floods
havealready done considerable harm to the agricukural sector

report issued by Ampic Strategies titled ‘Sustainable agriculture
in Pakistan: can Pakistan meet its future food requirements?”
has reportedly said that decades of weak governance and pol-

icy faihures play a significant role in Pakistan's agricultural eri-
sis, It points to problems Bike inefficient irrigation, doubly im-
portant in the context of declining per-capita water availability,
overuse of pesticides and declining soil fertility...

These are issues that will stay with the country long after
the fuel crisis is over and they will likely drive up food prices
over the long-run, if not dealt with A country that already has a
severe malnutrition crisis simply cannot have food prices trend
in the wrong direction. Policymakers have to seriously look in

longer term problems ailing the agricultural sector. It is one
ing to be priced out of a car, an AC or even running your fan
all day, It is quite another to be priced out of roti,


India’s hydro war on

Pakistan

fails a second intemational legal

       ndia’s conduct on water sharing
test. Irrespective of any treaty,

customary international law bars ©
states from causing transboundary -
harm through the use of their own ,
territory, a duty traced to the Trail

Smelter arbitration and applied to

Shared rivers through the rule of eq
uitable and reasonable utilisation, «

which requires timely notice of any
measure likely to significantly affect
acoriparianstate. .

| When India released water from :

dams in Indian-administered Kashmir
into the Jhelum and Chenab in April
and May 2025 without waming Pak-

istan, causing Nooding on the Pak- -
istant side, it breached that duty re- .

gardless of what label it had attached

to the treaty days earlier. The stan:
, cannot forecast seasonal availabil-

dard justifications for unilateral sus-
pension fare no better. A state may
suspend a treaty only where the other

party has materially breached it or _
where circumstances have funda ”
mentally changed, and Pakistan's ab /
leged connection to the Pahalgam at: -
tack, unprown and unrelated to’
water-sharing, satisfies neither test. :

Even the law of countermeasures, in-
voked by India in defence, requires
prior notification and continued use
of existing dispute settlement ma-
chinery before any unilateral step,
and India did nether.

| Most recently, India has sought to .

rewrite the core bargain of the treaty,
taking water that was allocated to
Pakistan and treating it as India’s to

reroute, Public tenders for the con- -

troversial Chenab-Beas Link Tunnel

shoot a missile straight af its heart. .

This is a $23.52 billion project de-
signed to move an estimated 1.9 mi+

Bon acre-feet of water annually from |

the Chenab basin into the Beas.

| Pakistan's legal objection restson |

Articte III, which recognises no cate
ory of surplus western river water

available for India to divert into an
eastern basin. No declaration of

abeyance changes that allocation,
however often it is repeated, The
treaty remains valid and binding, and
no party may unilaterally suspend ob-
ligations under an agreement that

provides no mechanism for doing so, :
1, Strip away the legal architecture ~

and what is left is this: 240 million

people whose bread, cotton, wheat, *
fields and cities depend on rivers an |
upstream neighbour has chosen to

treat as a political lever, Pakistan
draws 95 per cent of its renewable
water from the Indus

supply. The system inrigates roughly
$0 per cent of the country's arable
land and underwrites nearly a quarter
of GDP and almost a third of emptoy-
ment. Eleven million Pakistanis faced
acute food insecurity in 2025, with 9.3
million in crisis conditions and 1.7
million In emergency conditions. -

1 Per capita water availability, al-
ready at 1,100 cubic metres annually,
is projected to fall to 900 by 2050,

well under the global scarcity -

threshold of 1,000, Pakistan can cur

rently store only 30 days of water, ©

compared with a global benchmark
of 120, India’s planned expansion of
‘upstream storage, from roughly 15
days to nearly 60, would give it an
unprecedented ability to engineer
scarcity during w