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I’m on an admissions committee and universities need to talk about this

I have worked on my university’s Admission Committee for 16 years, long enough to have watched several cycles of both growth and contraction. But nothing in those years prepared me for what the last three or four have looked like, and nothing about the current decline is evenly spread. It is concentrated, sharply, among girls applying to evening programmes. When I began speaking directly with hesitant applicants and their parents to understand why confirmed seats were being given up, the reasoning was strikingly consistent, and stated without much hesitation. “In this inflation, why should I spend such a heavy amount on my daughter’s education when there is no job security for her in the future?” one mother asked me plainly. With no guaranteed job waiting at the end of an evening degree, she said, that money was better saved for her daughter’s dowry and wedding than spent on tuition. She was not the only parent to put it like that. These were not abstractions to me. They were mothers,...
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Australian politician fails to overturn racial vilification ruling over telling Muslim senator to go back to Pakistan

A popular far-right Australian politician failed on Monday to overturn a racial vilification finding that was handed down after she told a Muslim senator to go back to Pakistan. Senator Pauline Hanson has emerged as one of Australia’s most popular politicians, wooing voters with calls for strict immigration curbs, mass deportations of “illegal migrants” and enhanced free speech protections. Hanson took aim at Pakistan-born Australian lawmaker Mehreen Faruqi in 2022 over comments made in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death . Faruqi, a left-leaning Greens senator, said she could not mourn the “leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised people”. Hanson replied on social media: “When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country. You took citizenship, bought multiple homes, and a job in a parliament. It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.” ...
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Situationer: Resorting to ‘encounters’: are Sindh police losing faith in legal system?

WHILE the killing of suspected criminals in alleged encounters is not a new phenomenon, it is rare in Karachi for arrested suspects to be brought to raids to arrest their accomplices and for them to end up dead “by firing from their own accomplices”. Thursday’s killing of three suspects, who were arrested recently for murdering a doctor during a robbery in Clifton, in a “shoot-out” between police and their alleged accomplices gives rise to the impression that Sindh police are now gradually moving towards the Punjab Crime Control Department’s (CCD) style of “dispensing justice”, which has been quite infamous for such encounters. Dawn reached out to several top officials for comments, but they declined to go on record. However, in background conversations, they said this was partly due to “frustration with the criminal justice system” and partly to prevent “the entry of criminals from Punjab” into Sindh, particularly Karachi. They said several suspects had fled the CCD operations in L...
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'Betrayal' after years of sacrifice: The young victims of India's exam leak scandal

Growing up with a chronically ill mother in a remote village in India, Rema Begum aspired to become a doctor until her dream was cut short by her own tragic death. After years of studying and costly coaching classes, the 20-year-old believed she had finally done enough to win a coveted seat at a government medical school. Then came news that the question paper of the medical entrance examination she sat for had been leaked, and a retest was ordered. Days later, Begum was dead. She was among at least 20 students who reportedly took their own lives after the incident, according to local media and activists. The exam paper leak, alongside a string of other irregularities, has fuelled nationwide protests and public anger over an education system many students say is stacked against them. A month after her death, Begum’s father Rajaul Islam is still struggling to understand how his “gem” of a daughter lost hope. But he believes the retest announcement changed everything. “After th...
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Can Kabul hold?

The deceptive veneer of a monolithic and unyielding Taliban regime is rapidly giving way to profound structural decay, demonstrating that authoritarian societal suppression should not be conflated with institutional permanence or state capacity. Nearly five years after the fall of Kabul, the Taliban administration has reached a strategic impasse, balancing precariously on the precipice of a localised, multi-factional civil conflict. This impending instability is not merely a function of diplomatic isolation or international sanctions. Instead, it is being accelerated by an unsustainable internal economy of power, a volatile relationship with regional neighbours, and the emergence of decentralised, non-state resistance movements. Fissures within Domestically, the regime is fracturing along factional lines as the illusion of a unified command is replaced by a zero-sum power struggle between two competing power centres. On one side stands the radical Kandahar faction, a hyper-conserva...
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Peace, stability only possible by eliminating terrorism emanating from Afghanistan, Dar says at SCO meeting

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday that durable peace and stability in the region can only be achieved by eliminating the threat of terrorism emanating from neighbouring Afghanistan. “Durable peace, stability and economic development can only be achieved with the eradication of the menace of terrorism emanating from Afghan soil,” he said while speaking at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting. He said that Pakistan desired to see a “peaceful, stable, regionally integrated and prosperous Afghanistan which is at peace with itself and its neighbours”, adding that this would be in the best interest of all SCO member states and beyond. He said that currently, the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan was one of the most serious security challenges for Pakistan. He said that terrorist organisations continued to recruit, train and operate from Afghan soil “under the watch and facilitation of the Afghan Ta...
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Man arrested after two men stabbed in New York; police suspect hate crime

Two people were stabbed in New York on Thursday, with police saying that they had arrested a suspect and were evaluating the incident as a possible hate crime. The two victims, who were targeted in separate attacks near Manhattan’s Central Park, were “an Asian male and a Jewish male,” New York City police commissioner Jessica Tisch said on X, adding that they were both hospitalised and “expected to survive”. The New York Police Department (NYPD) arrested the suspect, identified as 51-year-old Raul Morales. “Detectives are continuing to work the case and determine motive, but according to victim and witness statements, Morales yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ during both attacks,” Tisch said. “The NYPD is currently evaluating whether this is a potential hate crime.” She further said that “at this time, there is no known link between Morales and either of the victims, nor between the victims and each other”. Tisch added that the suspect has no r...
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