THIS is not an obituary. Far from it. It is a tribute to someone who is completing the first 100 years of a crowded, productive life. Syed Babar Ali was born on June 30, 1926. For the past few weeks, numerous relatives, friends, business associates and educationists have joined in celebrating his centenary. Eleven years ago, in 2015, he recounted his life in a published memoir Learning from Others . He compressed 89 years of his life into 237 succinct pages. How does one compact 100 years of his life into 800 words? Yet, perhaps that is what he would wish — to have his life set down on a single sheet of paper. Every Pakistani — the living and the yet unborn — should read this memoir, if they wish to understand who was who, who did what and when, and how a single person has beneficially affected the lives of millions of us Pakistanis. Syed Babar Ali was born into money. His father Syed Maratib Ali had a flourishing business in Ferozepur and post-1947 in Lahore. That enabled Babar to ...
Pakistan’s prominence in global diplomacy has risen in recent months as a result of the role the country has played in brokering negotiations between the USA, Iran and the Gulf countries. Inevitably, however, this will lead to questions about the ways in which its leaders are seeking to translate this recognition in a manner that supports people in the country as well as the wider region. A clear area in which Pakistan can leverage its current global standing is the higher education sector. The stakes are considerable. Pakistan has one of the world’s largest youth populations, and demand for higher education is rising. Recent analysis by QAA (2025) notes that Pakistan has over 250 million people, around a third of whom are under 14, with university enrolment growing by more than 50 per cent over a decade. UK transnational higher education provision in Pakistan also grew from around 7,985 students in 2019–20 to 13,575 in 2022–23. Transnational higher education refers to the arrang...