In the sweeping and storm-laden saga of Pakistan's economic journey, the curtain has risen upon a harrowing truth, the chasm between the affluent and the forsaken has widened to grotesque proportions. This is no happenstance of fate, but the malignant fruit of decades-long policy rot, where the republic's promise of justice has been quietly auctioned to privilege.

Today, the richest 1% command more wealth than the bottom 70% combined, while the top 10% hoard over 40% of income, leaving the bottom forty to survive on a meagre 10%. Beneath glittering towers and fortified mansions lie the shadows of despair, millions condemned to lives of scarcity and indignity, with nearly 40% of the population now plunged beneath the poverty line.

In these forsaken quarters, millions forage not for prosperity, but for survival. Nearly two out of every five Pakistanis now languish beneath the poverty line, a staggering indictment of a state that has........

© The Express Tribune