Pakistan sacks 18% railways employees in bid to implement IMF reforms in state entities
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chairs review meeting on Pakistan Railways performance
IMF has pressed Pakistan to improve governance in state-owned assets for financial bailouts
Updated 27 January 2025
SAIMA SHABBIR
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways has sacked 18% of its “unnecessary staff” in a bid to improve the state-owned asset’s performance, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was briefed on Monday according to a statement from his office, as Islamabad moves to implement ambitious reforms mandated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for a financial bailout.
Improving governance in loss-making state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has long been on the IMF’s list of recommendations for Pakistan, which has turned to the international lender for frequent financial bailouts, the latest of which was a $7 billion loan last year. Pakistan’s prolonged economic crisis has forced the country to implement an ambitious reforms program designed by the IMF, which includes privatizing public sector organizations and laying off unnecessary staff to enhance their revenue.
Pakistan’s SOEs have accumulated losses in the billions over the years due to mismanagement, operational challenges, high debt loads, inefficiencies and alleged corruption. Pakistan’s railways sector has also been poorly managed over the years, with the country witnessing several train accidents over the past few years due to decades-old signal systems and tracks.
Sharif chaired a meeting to review the railway sector’s performance on Monday which was attended by senior cabinet ministers and officials, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a statement.
“As part of the Pakistan Railways rightsizing process, 18% of unnecessary staff has been laid off,” Sharif was briefed during the meeting, according to the PMO.
Sharif issued instructions to Pakistan Railways to attract passengers in a competitive manner, calling on the organization to provide better travel services to passengers through public-private partnerships.
He also instructed railways to hire professional and capable manpower, and replace its old system with modern technology that is more in line with today’s age, the PMO said.
Sharif was briefed that the railways suffered losses of Rs10 billion during the devastating floods of 2022, during which most of its tracks remained underwater for 35 days.
“Pakistan Railways improved its performance through various measures after the 2022 floods and has so far earned a profit equal to the initial cost of its freight operations,” the PM was told.
The Pakistani premier urged railways to use its land for business activities in collaboration with the private sector, directing it to formulate a strategy to increase trade in the region, especially with Central Asian countries.
ISLAMABAD: A Lebanese hairstylist known for bringing international styling techniques to Pakistan has opened a new salon in the eastern city of Lahore, expanding his presence in the country’s high-end grooming market.
Michael Kanaan, who began his career as a teenage apprentice in Mount Lebanon, has worked in Beirut, Cairo, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. He moved to Pakistan more than two decades ago and launched his first salon in Islamabad in 2009 with his wife and business partner, Elizabeth Whitney Kanaan.
Known for his distinctive personal style and precision-based technique, Kanaan has built a reputation among diplomats, socialites and professionals in the Pakistani capital. His salons now employ more than 30 staff, including four international stylists.
“Expanding into Lahore is a big step for us,” Kanaan was quoted in a statement circulated after the launch of the Lahore branch last week.
“It’s fresh energy and a new audience. We’re quite excited about bringing what we do to a whole new community while growing the brand in a way that still feels personal and true to our roots.”
With rising demand for luxury grooming services in Pakistan’s urban centers, salons offering international standards are carving out space in a market still dominated by informal setups.
Kanaan said a key focus remains on consistent training and long-term client relationships.
“The beauty industry has evolved in so many ways,” he said, “but at its heart, it’s always been about making people feel beautiful, confident and empowered.”
ISLAMABAD: Religious Minister Sardar Muhammad Yousaf has instructed the Pakistan Hajj Mission to promptly distribute Nusuk identification cards to pilgrims arriving in Saudi Arabia, state media reported this week.
Over the last few years, Saudi Arabia has launched mobile apps like Nusuk, Hajj Navigator, Tawakkalna and Asefny to streamline services, offer real-time guidance and ensure pilgrim safety.
Nusuk cards are an essential Hajj permit for pilgrims traveling to Makkah and the holy sites. It facilitates movement and ensures the well-being of Hajj pilgrims by managing logistics and administration. The card also allows pilgrims to access information about their Hajj mission, schedules, and allows for communication with their mission. Additionally, it enables receiving alerts, evaluating services, and filing observations.
The Nusuk app offers permit issuance, booking services, interactive maps, real-time updates and health facility access in multiple languages.
“Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Sardar Muhammad Yousaf on Tuesday directed the Pakistan Hajj Mission to ensure the immediate delivery of Nusuk Cards to incoming pilgrims upon their arrival in Saudi Arabia,” the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said on Tuesday.
So far, 2,800 pilgrims traveling from Madinah to Makkah had received their Nusuk cards, the minister added.
This year’s annual pilgrimage is expected to take place between June 4-9, with nearly 89,000 Pakistanis expected to travel to Saudi Arabia under the government scheme and 23,620 Pakistanis through private tour operators.
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) on Wednesday warned of a heatwave in the country from May 15 to 20, urging citizens to take precautionary measures to protect themselves.
The warning comes amid increasingly erratic climate patterns across South Asia, with cities in Pakistan experiencing more frequent and intense heat waves in recent years, a trend climate experts link to global warming.
In June 2024, almost 700 people died in a heat wave in less than a week, with most deaths recorded in the port city of Karachi and other cities of the southern province of Sindh, according to the Edhi Foundation charity.
“The Met Office predicted that a high pressure is likely to grip most parts of the country on May 15,” the PMD said in a statement. “Day temperatures are likely to remain 4°C to 6°C above normal in southern half (Sindh, southern Punjab, and Balochistan) from May 15-20.”
Day temperatures in the central and upper Punjab province, the federal capital Islamabad, and northern areas like Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan would rise 5°C to 7°C above normal from May 15-19, the Met Office added.
Normal temperatures in the southern parts of Pakistan during May typically range between 40°C and 45°C, while they are between 36°C and 41°C in central and upper Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In Islamabad, average temperatures range from 34°C to 37°C.
Pakistan ranks among the top ten countries most vulnerable to climate change and has grappled in recent years with increasingly frequent extreme weather events, including deadly heat waves and floods.
A 2015 heatwave claimed over 2,000 lives in Karachi alone, while floods in 2022 left more than 1,700 dead and over 33 million displaced nationwide.
ISLAMABAD: A four-day military standoff between arch foes Pakistan and India last week cost both nations an estimated $1 billion an hour combined, a leading economist said this week, as a finance adviser to the government argued the conflict would have “minimal fiscal impact” for Islamabad.
Tensions between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan escalated after a deadly April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that India blamed on Pakistan, which denied involvement. On the night of May 6/7, India struck multiple sites in Pakistan that it said was “terrorist infrastructure” and Pakistan retaliated, downing five Indian fighter jets.
Over the next four days, the two nuclear-armed rivals engaged in the worst fighting between them since 1999, pounding each other with fighter aircraft, missiles, drones and artillery fire, until a ceasefire was brokered by the US and other nations on Saturday.
The military confrontation had in the meantime disrupted stock markets, led to airspace closures, escalated defense spending and caused economic losses amounting to billions of dollars.
Asked about the economic cost of the conflict, Farrukh Saleem, a prominent Pakistani political scientist and economist, said he estimated the 87-hour confrontation cost “about a billion dollars an hour for both countries put together,” breaking it down into estimated costs borne by either of the neighbors.
“India has a much larger army, much larger air force. Once it starts moving, once it starts mobilizing its troops, it costs about, let’s say, 12 to 20 times more for the Indian army to mobilize itself as compared to the Pakistani army,” Saleem said.
“So, when I say a billion dollars an hour, you’re probably looking at 20 percent of that being incurred by Pakistan and a good 80-85 percent by India.”
Farrukh Saleem, a Pakistani political scientist and economist, talks to Arab News in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 13, 2025. (AN photo)
The investment in war was also different, Saleem said, comparing India’s French Rafale fighter jets to Pakistan’s Chinese J-17 Thunders and J-10cs.
“You look at Rafale, for instance, which is the French aircraft, with its paraphernalia, it’s about $240 million apiece. India has a $16 billion investment into Rafales,” Saleem explained.
“On the other hand, Pakistan Air Force has gone for cheaper platforms. They are either JF-17 Thunders or J-10Cs and they’re like $20-25 million.”
In terms of missiles, the Indian ballistic missile BrahMos is $3 million apiece.
“If you’re firing, let’s say, 8 to 10 [missiles] a day, that’s 10 times $3 million, that’s $30 million in one day,” the economist said.
Arab News reached out to the defense ministry and Pakistan’s military media wing for official estimates of the latest conflict’s cost but did not receive a response.
But Khurram Schehzad, an adviser to the Pakistani finance minister, said the fiscal impact on Pakistan would not be large.
“The current standoff with India won’t have a large fiscal impact on Pakistan,” he told Arab News. “It can be managed within the current fiscal space, with no need for a new economic assessment.”
Schehzad said Pakistan’s economic resilience was evident from a new record at the Pakistan Stock Exchange, which on Monday posted the highest single-day gain in over 26 years, surging by 10,123 points or 9.45 percent, significantly surpassing the losses recorded last week following the Indian strikes.
“Pakistan’s measured and responsible response, in both its narrative and actions on the ground, has caught investors’ eye, alongside the potential positive spillover effect of a possible settlement in the US-China tariff issue,” he added.
But economists say the recent military standoff has already inflicted heavy financial losses on both countries.
Saleem said daily economic losses from the conflict, including stock market declines and other impacts, amounted to around $20 billion per day, with Pakistan losing up to $4 billion and India as much as $16 billion a day.
“I have tried to put things together. If this conflict had continued for 30 days, my estimate is that both countries would have lost a good $500 billion, with over a $400 billion loss for the Indian economy,” he said.
Dr. Ali Salman, Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute of Market Economy (PRIME), an Islamabad-based independent economic policy think tank, said the conflict had disrupted economic sentiment and affected investor confidence.
“Certainly, investors would not like to come into countries, whether India or Pakistan, if they are in a constant war-like situation,” he told Arab News.
He also warned that a prolonged conflict would push people in both countries deeper into poverty, noting that one in four poor people in the world lived in India or Pakistan.
“We have 27 percent of the world’s poor in just these two countries, and I believe that we need to come out of the military contest and go into an economic contest,” he added.
Another economist, Shakeel Ramay, said every war had an economic dimension and this conflict too had imposed a heavy financial burden on both economies.
“Pakistan’s military expenditure over the four-day conflict, including jets, artillery and missiles, amounted to around $1.5 billion from the national budget, by my estimate,” he said, a significant cost as the country walked a tricky path to economic recovery bolstered by an $7 billion IMF bailout.
“The good thing is our economic activities continued without interruption, retail markets operated smoothly with no shortages and trade routes remained open, all indicating that the direct economic cost was minimal,” Ramay added.
Pakistan military gets social media boost after India flare-up
Social media has been flooded with images of romanticized soldiers and pilots surrounded by hearts
One high-ranking officer in particular seems to have won hearts in Pakistan: Air Vice Marshal Aurangzeb Ahmed
Updated 14 May 2025
AFP
ISLAMABAD: The brief conflict between India and Pakistan last week may have left no clear victor, but Islamabad’s generals are taking a win, riding a wave of approval on social media to burnish their recently tarnished image.
Much of the praise for the military, which had faced increasing criticism over its involvement in politics, has been driven by young people online, with nearly two-thirds of Pakistan’s 240 million people younger than 30.
The last major conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals was in 1999 and confined to the disputed region of Kashmir, so young Pakistanis have been more accustomed to seeing the neighboring countries clash on the cricket pitch, said digital rights activist Nighat Dad.
But from the start of Indian strikes on Wednesday, “for the first time, they were able to listen to the shots, the blasts, the drone strikes and they witnessed drones flying over their very own houses” in major cities, including the capital, she told AFP.
She said it sparked “an emotionally charged sentiment that someone who is our neighbor, who has been blaming us for terrorist attacks in their country for decades attacks us.”
New Delhi launched strikes after accusing Pakistan of backing a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April, a charge repeatedly denied by Islamabad
By retaliating, Pakistan’s “army cooked Bollywood in front of the whole world,” joked one social media user, claiming the military exploits outshone Indian blockbusters.
“Even Indians would fall for (our) generals,” another said, as social media has been flooded with images of romanticized soldiers and pilots surrounded by hearts.
A man uses his mobile phone while standing in front of banners supporting country's soldiers in Rawalpindi on May 9, 2025. (AFP)
The social network X had been blocked in Pakistan for over a year before coming back online just as hostilities flared, with the army praising the efforts of young “cyber and information warriors.”
The platform went down in Pakistan during the 2024 general elections as anti-military sentiment had begun to spread in the country where analysts say the armed forces have long been considered untouchable and the institution pulling the strings.
Former prime minister Imran Khan and hundreds of his supporters were jailed after riots against the army on May 9, 2023.
This year, on May 10, India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire, and it will now be commemorated in Pakistan as the day of “the battle for justice.”
“We are all behind our army,” proclaim posters put up on streets across the country by both the state and private citizens.
But the honeymoon with the army may not last.
Already, Khan’s party, which, along with all the others, has voted for anti-India resolutions in the Senate, is calling for a return to “the real fight.”
That battle is for the release of their champion, who sees the criminal accusations against him as a means by those in power to sideline him.
For more than half of its 78-year history, Pakistan has been directly ruled by the military.
Today, the army is still seen as a kingmaker, even though it claims to have stepped away from politics.
Army chief General Asim Munir, who had long drawn criticism from the opposition, stayed out of the spotlight during the conflict with India, with only the army and government spokespeople speaking publicly.
One high-ranking officer in particular seems to have won the hearts of Pakistanis online: Air Vice Marshal Aurangzeb Ahmed, spokesperson for the Air Force, who revelled in the victories of his pilots, with Pakistan having claimed to have downed three French Rafale jets belonging to India.
A European military source considered it “highly unlikely” that three Rafales were destroyed, but said it is “credible” that one may have been.
The “Rafale is a very potent aircraft... if employed well,” quipped Ahmed during a press conference.
The clip quickly spread on social media, with users hailing a “David versus Goliath victory” of their military, which has far less funding, manpower and equipment than the armed forces of India.
“Young Pakistanis used the memes culture, using Indian misinformation as a joke and humor,” with India in response blocking dozens of accounts belonging to Pakistani public figures on X and YouTube, said Dad.
Under the guise of humor, these memes became a way to spread opinions, information and support, she added.
These same people might have reacted strongly online to a Supreme Court decision to allow Pakistani military courts to try civilians — but announced the same day as the start of the confrontation between Islamabad and New Delhi, it went relatively unnoticed.
“The crisis bolstered the army,” said researcher Michael Kugelman.
“It was able to rally the country around it in the face of Indian attacks and to play the role of protector that is such an important part of the military’s identity and legitimacy.”
