menu_open Columnists
Umair Javed

Umair Javed

Dawn

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Geography or ethnicity

If ethnic identities were perennial status groups, such assimilation would be considerably harder.

02.03.2026 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Land of the unclear

The government’s fixation on net-metering is a red herring.

16.02.2026 150

Dawn

Umair Javed

Conflicts of the future

Curious about what the adoption of AI will herald, many students are concerned with their own personal futures.

02.02.2026 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Shortcuts to growth

There is no straightforward path to growth that doesn’t see us back to square one in a year or so.

19.01.2026 60

Dawn

Umair Javed

A lost decade

Inflation may have subsided since 2024 but dynamism in the economy is still missing.

05.01.2026 80

Dawn

Umair Javed

Recovering history

Ilyas Chattha’s new book shows how formal ideals of citizenship run afoul of political exigencies and nationalist ideologies

22.12.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Reviving Basant

A public festival such as Basant remains an important corrective, even if it only lasts a weekend.

08.12.2025 60

Dawn

Umair Javed

Going back in time

The current configuration of governance is not too dissimilar to what the British envisioned in the early 20th century.

24.11.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Preserving the past

There has been a mild rethink of the us­­ual religion-inflected, homogenising idea of what this country really is and what constitutes its past.

10.11.2025 50

Dawn

Umair Javed

A false binary

The debate on what to do with the TLP and TTP is currently caught in a bizarre binary.

27.10.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

A faltering trajectory

Food insecurity remains rampant, with up to 30pc of households reporting an inability to afford three meals a day.

13.10.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

AI and human learning

Merely proclaiming that devoting more time to the process of learning because of its abstract benefits isn’t necessarily a

29.09.2025 150

Dawn

Umair Javed

Regional political upheavals

To see conspiracy at play in every episode of mass political rebellion is poor analysis.

15.09.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Mass ecocide

The key debate is on the extent of middle-class complicity in encouraging destructive patterns of real estate development

01.09.2025 150

Dawn

Umair Javed

A higher ideal

SEVENTY-EIGHT years of statehood and the prospect of regional peace in the subcontinent remains as distant as ever. After a brief passage of...

18.08.2025 80

Dawn

Umair Javed

Party politics and the NFC

The NFC award is not some great heist that the provinces performed on an unsuspecting centre.

04.08.2025 250

Dawn

Umair Javed

Commodified nature

It is during the monsoon months that the existential impact of real estate fever becomes truly apparent.

21.07.2025 80

Dawn

Umair Javed

Why and for whom?

Society shows no broad-based winners in the status quo. Instead, any winners here are selective.

05.07.2025 70

Dawn

Umair Javed

Scant relief, mounting burdens

Salaried earners are treated as a captive source of additional revenue by the government.

16.06.2025 70

Dawn

Umair Javed

Security and insecurity

The bonanza of security for some, opens up a world of insecurity for most others.

26.05.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Online foot soldiers

Political legitimacy in India is generated not through tangible material gain but through right-wing communalism, nationalism,

12.05.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Zakat as non-state social welfare

The profile most likely to receive zakat according to the conjoint experiment embedded in the survey was widowed women.

28.04.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Trump’s tantrum

The simple fact is that the rhetoric of bringing back good jobs for American workers is eyewash.

14.04.2025 90

Dawn

Umair Javed

The roots of crisis

This youth bulge is frequently talked about, but its scale and possible impact remains under-analysed.

31.03.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Two decades of failure

The conversation on Balochistan would be better served by a frank discussion of what is likely to work.

17.03.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Both welfare and growth

The absence of an economic vision linked to the people is a real gap in public discourse.

03.03.2025 40

Dawn

Umair Javed

Three paths to power

What makes the third pathway successful is the striking of deals.

17.02.2025 90

Dawn

Umair Javed

On the wounds of Partition

Seven decades and three generations removed, what good does it do to unearth the wounds of Partition on YouTube?

03.02.2025 150

Dawn

Umair Javed

Middle class in crisis

There is no dollar bonanza forthcoming that can cheapen imports and sustain middle class consumption.

20.01.2025 100

Dawn

Umair Javed

Diluted opposition

IT is worth understanding why despite large-scale and detrimental changes to judicial independence, widespread electoral manipulation last...

06.01.2025 80

Dawn

Umair Javed