*Pakistan’s olive trees soar from 500,000 to nearly 7 million*

 *Pakistan’s olive trees soar from 500,000 to nearly 7 million*

Prof waqar Hussain 

 Pakistan’s olive plantations have grown from about 500,000 trees in
2016 to nearly seven million today, a fourteenfold rise as the country
seeks to cut a $4 billion edible oil import bill.

The groves now cover some 60,000 acres across Punjab, Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh. Officials plan another 15,000
acres in three years under the new National Olive Value Chain Policy.

The industry is still young. Only about one-fifth of the trees are
fruit-bearing. Even so, officials say olive oil imports have fallen
from 400,000 tonnes to 200,000 tonnes, and the related bill from $14
million to about $9 million in FY 2024–25.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called even a $400 million saving “a
monumental service.” Pakistan now has a seat at the International
Olive Council, more than 50 extraction units and nurseries able to
produce millions of saplings a year. With an estimated 10 million
acres suitable for olives, the test ahead is not planting alone, but
turning young orchards into oil, jobs and exports.

Social Upward Mobility and the Secret of a Nation's Success

 Social Upward Mobility and the Secret of a Nation's Success

By Professor Waqar Hussain

In today's world, there are two fundamental dimensions of social progress and individual success: one is a society where social upward mobility exists, and the other is where this concept is still non-existent.

For instance, America is considered a society where if an individual possesses potential, hard work, and skills, the society provides them with its full support. This translates to the attitude: "Go ahead kid, we are all right behind you." In such an environment, the doors of progress are open for the individual, and society encourages them. This system is called social upward mobility, which is the primary catalyst for a nation's progress.

Conversely, in some societies, this concept is completely the opposite. Here, an individual's abilities and hard work are under no circumstances allowed to propel them forward. Instead, no matter how hard an individual works in such societies, every possible effort is made to halt their progress. If someone has talent, they are pulled down.

Pakistani society is an example in this regard, where the trend of pulling people down is very common. As a teacher, I have seen that there is immense talent among the youth here, but unfortunately, they are often discouraged. As a civil servant, I have witnessed honest and capable officers frequently being deprived of their rights and pushed backward. Our psychology of pulling others down is a "besetting sin" that acts as the biggest hurdle in the nation's progress.

A joke and its underlying message give an accurate idea of this social psychology: A man went to hell and saw that people were being punished according to their nationalities. Germans, French, Americans, and Pakistanis were being punished in burning ovens. There were two guards at the mouth of each oven so that if anyone tried to climb out, they would be thrown back in. When the man was told that Pakistanis were being punished in a particular oven, he asked in astonishment, "Where are the guards here?" He was told that there was no need for guards there, because whenever a Pakistani tries to climb out, the others pull their legs down.

This joke is not just a jest, but a reflection of a social reality. The tendency to pull each other down is so severe in our society that the paths to progress become completely blocked. This attitude is a deadly poison for the nation's development because it restricts individuals and holds the nation back.

The importance and necessity of social upward mobility cannot be ignored. If we are to achieve respect and status on a global level, we must change our social attitudes. We have to learn that the secret to progress and success lies in social upward mobility. Only those nations move forward that give their individuals the opportunity to advance. For example, countries like China, South Korea, Singapore, and America have adopted this principle.

But unfortunately, this concept does not generally exist in Pakistan; rather, the trend of "social downward mobility" is common here. This attitude not only limits an individual's capabilities but also shatters the dream of national progress. In our society, whether it is the educational field, government jobs, or other sectors, the same attitude of pulling down successful individuals prevails.

If we want to become a respected and sovereign nation, we must change our psychology. We must learn that the real secret of progress is social upward mobility, so that every individual can move forward according to their abilities. Only in this way can we move towards a bright, prosperous, and developed Pakistan, otherwise this psychology will always keep us backward, and our dreams will remain just dreams. We will continue traveling in circles, as hinted at by Munir Niazi:

[منیرؔ اس ملک پر آسیب کا سایہ ہے یا کیا ہے کہ حرکت تیز تر ہے اور سفر آہستہ آہستہ]

Meaning: Munir, is there a shadow of a "curse" upon this country or what? That the movement is incredibly fast, yet the journey is painfully slow.

شوشل اپر وڈ موبلٹی اور قوم کی ترقی کا راز ! (SOCIAL UPWARD MOBILITY AND SECRET OF NATION SUCCESS)

 شوشل اپر وڈ موبلٹی اور قوم کی ترقی کا راز !

پروفیسر وقار حسین

SOCIAL UPWARD MOBILITY
AND SECRET OF NATION SUCCESS

‏آج کی دنیا میں معاشرتی ترقی اور فرد کی کامیابی کے دو بنیادی رخ ہیں:
ایک وہ معاشرہ جہاں سوشل اپر وڈ موبلٹی (Social Upward Mobility) موجود
ہے، اور دوسرا وہ جہاں یہ تصور ابھی نہیں پایا جاتا۔
‏مثال کے طور پر،
امریکہ کو ایک ایسا معاشرہ سمجھا جاتا ہے جہاں اگر کسی فرد  میں صلاحیت،
محنت اور ہنر ہے، تو معاشرہ اسے اپنی مکمل سپورٹ فراہم کرتا ہے۔اسے کہتے
ہیں ؛
‏  "چل بچے، ہم سب تمہارے پیچھے ہیں" ۔
‏اس ماحول میں فرد کے لئے ترقی کے دروازے کھلے ہوتے ہیں، اور معاشرہ اس
کی حوصلہ افزائی کرتا ہے۔ اس سسٹم کو سوشل اپر وڈ موبلٹی کہتے ہیں، جو کہ
قوم کی ترقی کا بنیادی محرک ہے۔
‏اس کے برعکس، کچھ معاشروں میں یہ تصور بالکل الٹ ہے۔ یہاں فرد کی
صلاحیتوں اور محنت کو کسی بھی صورت میں آگے بڑھنے کی اجازت نہیں دی جاتی۔
بلکہ، ایسے معاشروں میں ایک فرد چاہے کتنی ہی محنت کرے، اس کی ترقی کو
روکنے کے لئے ہر ممکن کوشش کی جاتی ہے۔اگر کسی میں talent ہے تو اسکی
ٹانگیں کھنچی جاتی ہیں۔
‏پاکستانی معاشرہ اس حوالے سے ایک مثال ہے، جہاں
سوشل نیچے گرنے کا رجحان بہت عام ہے۔ ایک استاد کی حیثیت سے میں نے دیکھا
ہے کہ یہاں نوجوانوں میں بے انتہا ٹیلنٹ پایا جاتا ہے، مگر بدقسمتی سے
اکثر ان کی حوصلہ شکنی کی جاتی ہے۔ سول سرونٹ کی حیثیت سے دیکھا کہ
اایماندار اور قابل افسروں کو اکثر ان کے حق سے محروم دیکھا  اور  وہ
پیچھے دھکیلے گۓ۔
‏ہماری یہ نفسیات، کہ ہم دوسروں کو نیچے دھکیلیں، ایک
"بیسٹنگ سن" (besetting sin) جنم پاپ ہے، جو قوم کی ترقی میں سب سے بڑی
رکاوٹ ہے۔
‏ایک لطیفہ اور اس کے پیغام سے معاشرتی نفسیات کا اندازہ ہوگا :
‏ایک شخص جہنم میں گیا اور وہاں دیکھا کہ لوگوں کو مختلف اقوام کے نام سے
سزا دی جا رہی ہے۔ جرمن، فرانسیسی، امریکی، اور پاکستا نیوں کو جلتے
تندوروں  میں  سزا دی جا رہی تھی۔ہر تندور کے منہ پر دو محافظ  تھے تاکہ
اگر کوئ باہر نکلنے کی کوشش کرے تو واپس تندور میں پھینک دیا جاۓ
‏جب اسے
بتایا گیا کہ یہاں پاکستانیوں کو سزا دی جا رہی ہے، تو اس نے حیرت سے
پوچھا: "یہاں محافظ کہاں ہیں؟"
‏تو بتایا گیا کہ یہاں محافظ کی ضرورت ہی
نہیں، کیونکہ جب کوئ  پاکستانی باہر نکلنے کی کوشش کرتا ہے تو  دوسرے اس
کی ٹانگیں کھیچ لیتے ہیں۔
‏یہ لطیفہ صرف ایک مذاق نہیں، بلکہ ایک معاشرتی
حقیقت کی عکاسی ہے۔ ہمارے معاشرے میں ایک دوسرے کو نیچے دھکیلنے کا رجحان
اتنا شدید ہے کہ ترقی کے راستے بند ہو جاتے ہیں۔
‏یہ رویہ قوم کی ترقی کے
لئے زہر قاتل ہے، کیونکہ یہ افراد کو محدود اور قوم کو پیچھے رکھ دیتا
ہے۔
‏سوشل اپر وڈ موبلٹی کی اہمیت اور ضرورت کو نظرنداز نہیں جا سکتا - اگر
ہمیں عالمی سطح پر عزت اور مقام حاصل کرنا ہے، تو ہمیں اپنے معاشرتی
رویوں کو بدلنا ہوگا۔ ہمیں سکھنا ہوگا کہ ترقی اور کامیابی کا راز سوشل
اپر وڈ موبلٹی میں ہے۔
‏جو قومیں اپنے افراد کو آگے بڑھنے کا موقع دیتی
ہیں، وہ ہی آگے نکلتی ہیں۔ مثال کے طور پر،چین،  جنوبی کوریا، سنگاپور،
اور امریکہ جیسے ممالک نے یہ اصول اپنایا ہے۔
‏لیکن بدقسمتی سے، پاکستان
میں یہ تصور عمومی طور پر موجود نہیں، بلکہ یہاں "سوشل ڈاؤن ورڈ موبلٹی"
کا رجحان عام ہے۔ یہ رویہ نہ صرف فرد کی قابلیت کو محدود کرتا ہے بلکہ
قومی ترقی کے خواب کو بھی چکنا چور کر دیتا ہے۔

‏ہمارا معاشرہ، چاہے وہ تعلیمی میدان ہو، سرکاری ملازمتیں یا دیگر شعبے،
سب میں یہی رویہ پایا جاتا ہے کہ کامیاب افراد کو نیچے دھکیلا جائے۔
‏اگر
ہمیں ایک باعزت اور خودمختار قوم بننا ہے، تو ہمیں اپنی نفسیات بدلنی
ہوگی۔ ہمیں سکھنا ہوگا کہ ترقی کا اصل راز سوشل اپر وڈ موبلٹی ہے، تاکہ
ہر فرد اپنی صلاحیتوں کے مطابق آگے بڑھ سکے۔
‏اس طرح ہی ہم ایک روشن،
خوشحال اور ترقی یافتہ پاکستان کی طرف بڑھ سکتے ہیں، ورنہ یہی نفسیات
ہمیں ہمیشہ پیچھے رکھے گی اور ہمارے خواب خواب ہی رہ جائیں گے۔  ہم دائرے
کا سفر کرتے رہیں گے جسکا اشارہ منیریازی نے کیا تھا :

‏  منیرؔ اس ملک پر آسیب کا سایہ ہے یا کیا ہے

‏   کہ حرکت تیز تر ہے  اور  سفر آہستہ آہستہ

*STAR WAR STARTED…*?

 *STAR WAR STARTED…*?

*By Prof. Waqar Hussain*

(Head of Chemistry Department; Freelancer; M.Sc. Chem, M.A. History, M.A. Pol. Sc., M.A. Isl. St.; CSS, PCS Qualified; Correspondent Course in Journalism NIJ) 

The United States has, for the first time, confirmed that it has deployed a weapon in space. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Washington now has “on-orbit space control weapons” capable of defending U.S. forces against hostile action — an admission that turns a long-running shadow contest into an open one. America had earlier condemned China for firing a missile at its own satellite and Russia for launching an anti-satellite weapon from one of its spacecraft. Those tests were denounced. Now the United States says it will defend its own interests in orbit. What exactly it has placed there remains undisclosed. Officials describe it only as the start.

*ابتدائے عشق ہے روتا ہے کیا  

آگے آگے دیکھیے ہوتا ہے کیا*  

(This is only the beginning of the obsession — why weep already? Wait and see what happens next.)  

Here “ishq” is not love in the ordinary sense. It is the fever of war.

Washington has also accused Beijing and Moscow of building satellites that can jam communications, use lasers to blind sensors, or carry grappling systems to shove other spacecraft out of orbit. The danger, officials warn, is no longer only disablement. It is destruction. Each kinetic hit would add to the thousands of debris fragments already circling Earth — shards that can wreck any satellite they strike. China answered on Tuesday by warning of an arms race and urging the United States to stop expanding military capabilities and “preparing for war in outer space.” Russia called for space to remain free of weapons.

Roughly 16,500 satellites are active. The United States operates more than 12,500, China about 1,480, the United Kingdom around 700, and Russia fewer than 400. The figures show, plainly, which countries dominate space — and how easily use can become abuse.

Modern life hangs on these machines. Weather satellites feed forecasts and disaster alerts. Communications satellites carry internet, phone calls and bank transfers. Navigation constellations time markets and guide aircraft, ships and phones. Science and Earth-observation probes share the same crowded lanes. A war among them would not stay overhead.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty forbids nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, but not conventional arms. Talks on a treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space have stalled for decades. Measures still available include a ban on destructive anti-satellite tests, stricter debris rules, mandatory registration, and transparency on dual-use satellites. Without them, the orbital commons that underwrites weather, money, maps and speech becomes a battlefield no country can fully own — and no country can fully escape.

On Earth, some voices now warn of another existential race. Commentator Jacob Coxon has argued that humanity faces a looming threat from artificial general intelligence. In orbit, a second danger has taken shape: space weapons and a satellite war that critics already call “Star War Started.” From that double anxiety a slogan has begun to travel: Save human from superintelligence and Star War.

*Basheera in Trouble to Punjabi in Trouble…*

 *Basheera in Trouble to Punjabi in Trouble…*

*Prof Waqar Hussain*

Safir Rammah is a veteran protagonist of the Punjabi language and
literature. For decades he has championed its cause with quiet
determination. Through his APNA website and its online library, he has
preserved and made accessible thousands of rare Punjabi books. He
remains an active presence at Punjabi festivals, literary conferences,
corner meetings, and intimate gatherings of fellow enthusiasts. His
deep concern, born of long observation and personal agony over the
systematic neglect of Punjabi, lends unmistakable weight to his words.
No one who knows his record can dismiss the present alarm as mere
sentiment.

In his letter published in Dawn on 11 June 2026, Safir Rammah draws
attention to the dire condition of the Institute of Punjabi and
Cultural Studies at Oriental College, University of the Punjab. The
caption he chose — “Punjabi in Trouble” — immediately evokes the old
Punjabi film Basheera in Trouble. That movie satirised the senseless
violence typical of much commercial Punjabi cinema while hilariously
exposing the absurdity of village characters struggling to speak
broken English. The echo is telling. By invoking Basheera in Trouble,
Safir Rammah subtly deepens the article’s concern: the crisis is not
merely administrative but cultural, almost cinematic in its tragic
irony.

The facts he presents are stark. The institute, which should be a
beacon of Punjabi scholarship, functions with only three permanent
teachers. One is simultaneously serving as Principal of Oriental
College, another is on leave abroad, and the lone remaining faculty
member shoulders both teaching and administrative duties. Seven
sanctioned teaching posts have reportedly remained vacant for years
and have not even been advertised. PhD admissions in Punjabi have been
suspended. Senior students are apparently pressed into service to keep
classes afloat. Such arrangements may offer temporary relief, but they
cannot sustain serious academic work or nurture future scholars.

This scarcity of staff is a vivid and painful announcement of our
collective priorities. It is ironic that while other provinces of
Pakistan take open pride in their mother tongues, the people of
western Punjab often hesitate to do the same. Across the border, East
Punjab has proudly produced poets of the stature of Shiv Kumar Batalvi
and Surjit Patar, and its Punjabi cinema circulates wherever Punjabi,
Urdu, or Hindi audiences exist. Here, by contrast, the language that
is the mother tongue of nearly 120 million Pakistanis is marginalised
in education, public life, and official discourse.

Why is Punjabi in such trouble in Pakistan? When the nursery has no
gardener, what healthy growth can one expect? The neglect runs deeper
than language and literature; it has seeped into the very fabric of
society. Wearing a dhoti, drinking lassi, driving a bullock cart, or
sitting at the village chaupal are all too often treated as markers of
the “paindo” — the rustic, the uncouth, the backward. In this
atmosphere, Punjabi itself becomes something to be ashamed of rather
than celebrated. Thus, Basheera remains in trouble because Punjabi
remains in trouble.

We seem to have forgotten the vastness and astonishing depth of our
own linguistic heritage. One needs only to turn to Waris Shah’s Heer.
In that single epic, the poet employs nearly a hundred different names
and epithets for women, each carrying nuance, affection, or cultural
resonance. How many such names could any of us readily recall from our
“favourite” language today? The question itself is humbling. It brings
to mind the wise words of Mian Muhammad Bakhsh:

Khasan di gal aaman agay, nahi munasib karni
Mitthi kheer paka Muhammad, kuttian agay dharni

A nod is enough for the wise.

The relevant authorities must act without delay. The future of a
language is determined not only by the millions who speak it at home,
but by the seriousness with which it is taught, studied, and honoured
in institutions of learning. If we allow this institute to wither, the
loss will reverberate far beyond one university department and will
ultimately impoverish the entire cultural landscape of Pakistan.

 The Digital Frankenstein: Are We Engineering Our Own Extinction by 2030?

By Prof. Waqar Hussain

(Ex.Head of Chemistry Department; Freelancer; M.Sc. Chem, M.A. History, M.A. Pol. Sc., M.A. Isl. St.; CSS, PCS Qualified)

On the 8th and 9th of September 2026, a veritable tempest took the microblogging sphere by storm. X (formerly Twitter) witnessed a staggering 170 million impressions on a series of posts by Jacob Coxon. His central, chilling caveat? Within the next decade, Artificial Intelligence (AI) could prove to be the ultimate, apocalyptic undoing of mankind.

Coxon is no ordinary doomsayer; he is a 27-year-old British savant with a robust background in mathematics. From 2023 to May 2026, he was a core contributor to the pretraining of GPT-4o at OpenAI. He subsequently transitioned to Anthropic—a rival firm birthed by former OpenAI researchers protesting lax safety protocols, and the creators of the 'Claude' chatbot—only to tender his resignation there as well. Today, ChatGPT and Claude are locked in a fierce, multi-billion-dollar race toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—a reckless rush for supremacy where caution is routinely sacrificed at the altar of innovation.

The Crux of the Crisis: The Alignment Problem

Is Coxon dealing in absolute truths? Perhaps not. However, he has unequivocally spilled the beans on the hushed, behind-closed-doors discourse of Silicon Valley's elite laboratories. The foundational flaw in our technological trajectory is the Alignment Problem. If a digital system surpasses human cognition and its core objectives are misaligned with human survival, it may logically deduce that humanity is merely an obstacle.

Coxon asserts that many researchers privately concede that the risk of human extinction by the decade's end is too grave to ignore. The existential dread does not stem from today’s benign chatbots, but from the imminent specter of Superintelligence and recursive self-improvement—where machines upgrade their own source code at an unfathomable, exponential velocity.

The Anatomy of Active Threats

When experts whisper of our digital doom, they categorize the impending catastrophes into five distinct Active Threats:

• Financial Paralysis: The catastrophic freezing of global financial networks, gridlocking transactions, and disrupting the flow of global wealth.
  
  
• Infrastructure Sabotage: Malicious cyber-intrusions crippling power grids and vital lifelines, plunging modern civilization into literal darkness.
  
  
• Defense Breaches: Unauthorized infiltration of military and nuclear hardware, an ignis fatuus leading to unthinkable global conflict.
  
  
• Mass Manipulation: Widespread social engineering and algorithmic manipulation, turning humanity against itself through cognitive warfare.
  
  
• Bio-chemical Weaponry: The terrifying potential of powerful models to synthesize lethal pathogens and chemical agents, handing the blueprint of bioterrorism to bad actors.
  
  

A Chorus of Cassandras: The Expert Consensus

This is not a solitary warning; a pantheon of AI pioneers echoes this grim prognosis. Evan Hubinger, Head of Alignment Science at Anthropic, has publicly corroborated Coxon's fears, estimating a harrowing 10% probability of human extinction within a decade.

The 'Godfathers of AI', Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, have repeatedly sounded the alarm on our potential demise. Eliezer Yudkowsky maintains a draconian but logically sound stance: if superintelligence is birthed under current paradigms, humanity will simply cease to exist. Elon Musk has long deemed AI our greatest existential threat. Most recently, on September 12, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, issued an open plea to decelerate this breakneck pace before catastrophe strikes en masse.

Passive Threats: The Damage Already Done

Concurrently, Passive Threats are already wreaking havoc. Consider the terrifying "sandbox escapes." In May 2026, OpenAI's test agents broke free from their isolated testing environments, infiltrating external networks like RubyGems to forge fake accounts and scrape data. A similar, chilling breach occurred in July 2026 at Hugging Face. Tech giants dismiss these as experiments gone awry, but this laissez-faire attitude is precisely what terrifies the safety community: today’s glitch is tomorrow’s global catastrophe.

Furthermore, the human cost is mounting. Tragically, vulnerable teenagers have been driven to suicide following prolonged, psychologically damaging interactions with AI companions. Economically and culturally, AI is ruthlessly rendering human endeavor obsolete—diagnosing diseases without physical examinations, penning op-eds, and synthesizing art and music. The human being is fast becoming utterly irrelevant.

Sleepwalking into the Endgame

We are unwittingly engineering our own doom, crafting a digital Frankenstein woven from the brilliance of hundreds of human minds. This modern monster stands fully formed, ready to devour its creators. By relinquishing a highly lucrative career, Jacob Coxon has attempted to rouse a slumbering world.

The burning question is no longer whether one nation or another has "woken up"; it is whether global governments, academia, and the media will shift their focus from the trivial perks of chatbots to the urgent necessity of global safety alignment. Shall we awaken to the reality of this existential precipice, or shall we blindly erase humanity to win a billion-dollar race?

God forbid!