Saad Masood<\/p>\n
As we welcome 2025 and start the New Year with a bang \u2013 there is hope that this year Pakistan will outshine the previous year, this year missing will be the ones who passed away and not the ones who are still alive, this year the naysayers will be proven wrong and the soothsayers will be proven right, this year worry beads will be few and worries even fewer, this year fat cats will be less fat and poor mice will be less poor!
\nOne might expect Pakistan to be a land transformed by new technologies, modern policies, and a growing sense of national unity. But despair not dear reader, as we are about to discover, the trajectory of the country seems destined to stay remarkably similar to a hen trying to launch itself into flight! The hen and the country both will keep crawling on ground \u2013 at least, according to the nauseating wisdom of those who have been predicting change for decades. Buckle up, because in 2025, it\u2019s business as usual in Pakistan.
\nIslamabad will remain the palace of intrigues and deadpan expressions \u201cWhat, is the country burning?\u201d As cold hearted as the chills of the Margallas and as devoid of logic as in rebranding Twitter to X. Lahore will rise to the occasion to become the beacon of light in these trying conditions, if its light could shine through the smog and the myriad levels of political banners adorned by its main highways.
\nKarachi will continue to swelter under a relentless sun, the air thick with the scent of exhaust fumes, biryani and despair. The city\u2019s infamous traffic jams will achieve a new level of superiority, capable of instinctively creating their own gravitational fields to put a black hole to shame and trap unsuspecting motorists in a vortex of gridlock. In 2025 \u2013 Pakistan will remain a land full of contradictions where the new will keep on clashing with the old, the digital will collide with the ancient and Wi-Fi will clash with Why-Me?
\nDevelopment will remain perpetually around the corner, much like the elusive arrival of residential gas when it is time to prepare a meal. Progress will remain absent just as the obscure availability of electricity during load-shedding hours.
\nIn the New Year \u2013 the political landscape will continue to be a bewildering episode of \u201cSquid Game\u201d with politicians of all sizes and ages vying to grab power by climbing over as many dead bodies as needed. In this pursuit, they will use a bewildering array of tactics, from obtuse social media posts to outright bribery and backstabbing. It will continue to be a spectacle of dramatic re-runs and u-turns.
\nRe-runs: love them or hate them, the political dynasties will reign supreme, ensuring that mere lip-service is provided to the notion of \u201cfresh blood\u201d. U-turns: same trusted family names will remain at the helm of party affairs and hold press conferences to announce their undying commitment to change but of course back tracking it with such guile later that it would put a champion twirling gymnast to shame. The rulers, having perfected the art of \u201cgaslighting the nation\u201d will convince the public that everything is actually going great, while the country teeters on the cusp of financial ruin.
\nThe country\u2019s many opposition parties will hone the art of turning every single government initiative into a national scandal. Instead of aligning to the adage \u201cwe\u2019re not in power, but we\u2019re always in the media\u201d they will transform their slogan to \u201cwe\u2019re not in power, but we\u2019ll make sure no one forgets it.\u201d The silent \u201cguardians of the galaxy\u201d will continue to run the policy of a need-to-know basis \u2013 the less you need to know, the better for you! The circus that is the economy will keep providing international economists a perennial sense of amusement. Inflation may rise to such proportions where a cup of chai can only be bought with a small loan and a life insurance policy. The rupee may devalue to such an extent where it may be considered a realistic alternative to toilet paper \u2013 if ever toilet paper was in vogue in Pakistan!
\nThe stock market will continue to play out the game of \u201csnakes and ladders\u201d with no one knowing how it works and everyone and his uncle claiming that they have the inside track (andar ki baat). Skyrocketing prices would mean that the most expensive commodity will be honesty, followed closely by hard work and then an apology from the finance department for getting all of us in this mess!
\nThis year, the state of Pakistan\u2019s infrastructure will be as stateless as it gets! It will be as half-baked as an uncooked apple crumble at a bake-off contest. Roads will be started but never finished, flyovers will be initiated but will \u201cfly-over\u201d nowhere, dams will again be damned! Along with Shalimar Gardens and other Mughal relics, the legendary potholes of Lahore will be a tourist attraction in their own right.
\nPakistan\u2019s health system in 2025 will be a medical miracle, except when you actually need it! It will be a blend of luck and chaos \u2013 both available in equal measure. The healing will be done more on a wing and a prayer and less on cutting-edge technologies and skilful expertise. The education sector, not to be left behind, will be the saga of the blind leading the blind or in this case, the unread leading the unread.
\nIn schools, textbooks will be updated only when the printers run out of stock and have to print new ones, making history lessons about the Mughals feel like a very live conversation. Pakistan\u2019s universities will be hotbeds of debate \u2013 but mostly about politics and whose uncle is in charge of the university. When students finally graduate, they\u2019ll face a job market so saturated with degree-holders that it\u2019ll make the search for a needle in a haystack seem like a pleasant diversion.<\/p>\n
The writer is Director Programmes for an international ICT organization based in the UK and writes on corporate strategy, socio-economic and geopolitical issues.<\/p>\n
Courtesy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saad Masood As we welcome 2025 and start the New Year with a bang \u2013 there is hope that this year Pakistan will outshine the previous year, this year missing will be the ones who passed away and not the ones who are still alive, this year the naysayers will be proven wrong and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[407],"class_list":{"0":"post-456325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"tag-saad-masood"},"yoast_head":"\n