TODAY'S DICTIONARY
singeing = burning
unconscionable = not right or reasonable
sanguine= hopeful, optimistic
ghettos = a part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a poor strata of society
emblematic = serving as a symbol, symbolic = علامتی
covet = yearn to possess a thing that belongs to others = کسی دوسرے کی کوئی چیز پانے کی خواہش کرنا
botched = (of a task) carried out badly or carelessly
mayhem = violent or extreme disorder; chaos: تباہی و بربادی
disconsolate = very unhappy and unable to be comforted: اتنا ناخوش کہ اسے دلاسہ بھی نہ لگے
waylay= کسی کو بات کرنے سے روک دینا یا کسی اور طریقے سے تنگ کرنا
dispensation = a political, religious, or social system prevailing at a particular time [there are also other meanings]
complicit = involved with others in an activity that is unlawful or morally wrong : کسی جرم وغیرہ میں ساتھی بننا
insolent ;showing a rude and arrogant lack of respect: بدتمیز اور ترش لہجے میں بات کرنے والا
swathe = a large area, something in a large quantity
reprieve = cancel or postpone the punishment of (someone, especially someone condemned to death)
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Jawed Naqvi // DAWN: 14 January, 2025
LOS Angeles is burning, singeing the rich and the homeless in its wake. Gaza is in cinders, leaving an unconscionable toll of a perpetually violated people, but not without wounding and unnerving the tormentors. The fire and the slaughter are both manmade tragedies and are linked, though difficult to accept as such.
As the stag is caught in the headlights of the approaching milk van, which crushes the animal in the end to leave it crippled or dead while keeping the delivery deadline before daybreak, the world is standing frozen on the crossroads of a hurtling catastrophe. It doesn’t see nature’s wrath it has invoked with at least a century-old abuse of the planet.
Worse, it remains sanguine about the supremacy of nuclear fission and gunpowder as protection against the oncoming calamity. Israel is emblematic of the tragedy. Created as a home for survivors from Nazi ghettos, it is today a replica of Nazi Germany. As the Nazis rationalised their thirst for blood and land with European race theories, the Jewish elite embraced Zionism and took a leaf from their torturers to covet Palestinian land with claims of divine exclusivism.
Imperialism, which transformed Israel into its unsinkable ship, doesn’t always see the need for divine excuses. It has set its eyes, for example, on its own allies in Greenland and Canada. Its entrenched interest lies crucially in denial of climate change although the hunt for critical resources is on in case someone read it wrong.
On a different scale, in India, corporates close to the government are being facilitated by the state to stake a claim on the nation’s natural resources. They are cornering forests and water resources and displacing the indigenous inhabitants. They care little that the Himalayan ice is melting, rivers are running dry and a water-sharing treaty between India and Pakistan is being weaponised. There seems no room to sidestep the milk van, which is speeding like China’s bullet train to Tibet but with no guardrails to deter the stag’s botched fate. The global stage has ingredients of Greek tragedies that lay low the protagonists with speeding inevitability. Occasionally, it’s luck that runs out on the hero. Among the least concerned by the mayhem is Donald Trump.
It would, of course, have been better for the world if its joys and sorrows were not determined by America’s four-yearly mood swings and its pursuit of perennially shifting ‘core interests’. But that’s not the way the world is structured. Trump’s second coming starting next week brings with it a more extreme variant of the worry. The core interests have suddenly shifted to terrifying claims on allies, making them palpably nervous. Or to be clearer, Trump brings worry for some and hope for others. The variation is evident.
While the Chinese president expectedly turned down the invitation to Trump’s Jan 20 swearing-in, the Indian prime minister is reportedly disconsolate at not being invited, that too after exerting efforts including his foreign minister’s alleged stakeout in Washington, D.C. Trump has raised close to $200 million from the coming inaugural, says the Fortunemagazine.
According to Indian reports, the foreign minister and not Narendra Modi has been invited to represent India. The grovelling is made worse by an absurd fact of history whereby Prime Minister Modi had publicly canvassed — to the world’s astonishment and to many an Indians’ embarrassment — for Trump’s re-election, which he lost. During Modi’s recent visit to the US, however, reports said Trump was expecting to see him, presumably to raise handy electoral support from the mostly Democratic Indian diaspora. Modi apparently miscalculated the election outcome and didn’t meet Trump.
There are greater worries stemming from and hopes hinging on Trump’s second presidency including in South Asia. Trump’s overriding interest in the Global South is, of course, his fear of BRICS. It’s difficult to see any South Asian country ditching the most promising alternative that BRICS has become to gun-toting US imperialism. At an individual level, there have been write-ups about Trump’s soft corner for Imran Khan who, reports say, he could help get back his job. The story is more complex given the quid pro quo Trump would demand from those he favours: betraying BRICS.
There are accusations, and there are reasons to believe them, that the Biden administration waylaid Imran after he met Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Richard Grenell, a close associate of Trump, did, however, publicly demand the release of Imran Khan.
Bangladesh would be on edge too, given the fact that the current dispensation in Dhaka is seen as being close to Hillary Clinton. Her India connection is remembered for the bhangra she danced at an Ambani wedding in 2018. That the tycoon shores up Modi is no secret. For the other regional countries, their ties with the US for the next four years would be measured through the prism of Sino-US relations, Trump’s top priority.
The larger world, meanwhile, remains sandwiched between two bad choices. The outgoing Democratic administration has been neck-deep complicit in the horrific genocide in Gaza. It’s equally responsible for setting off the slaughter underway in Ukraine by insulting and provoking Russia.
Many American opponents, including a friend who has applied to give up her US nationality, see Trump as an insolent real estate shark who became America’s most divisive politician since the Civil War. They say he wants to make his country great again in its most dire sense. Therefore, he must first negotiate the charged-up opposition from the vast swathe of Americans suspicious of his toxic worldview. Trump’s US is expected to be vertically divided over gender rights, climate change and race relations besides a host of tricky hairpin bends on domestic and global policies. Should the milk van keel over on a sharp bend, it would be the best reprieve the stranded stag could possibly hope for.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2025
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[Just for the pleasure of reading]
Jamil Ahmad // DAWN: 14 January 2025
ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is one of the most consequential technologies today. It is dramatically changing the world, altering business models and ushering in transformational development in education, healthcare, communication, and agriculture, to name a few. It has introduced efficiencies to our workplaces, improved industrial productivity, optimised resource use and reduced waste. AI’s rapid rise is attributed to availability of data and a phenomenal growth in computational power.
AI has also furnished new tools to address environmental issues and climate change. From spotting smog in the sky and detecting deforestation on the land to minding microplastics in the ocean, AI’s potential is tremendous. AI-based early warning systems predict cyclones, or rains and minimise the extent of damage. Forecasts about droughts and heatwaves provide timely information to vulnerable communities. AI-generated techniques in smart agriculture help farmers cope with water stress, prevent waste, optimise crop yield and ensure food security.
But AI can also harm our fragile planet.
AI is power hungry. Data collection, storage and application require an elaborate system of energy-intense data centres. A rise in AI deployment means a rise in the number of data centres with a commensurate demand for power. A recent International Energy Agency meeting noted that the “electricity demand for data centres and digital services would likely rise substantially in the next few years, despite continued improvements in the efficiency of hardware and software”. To operate under controlled temperatures, data centres need air-conditioning consuming more energy. The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) recent ‘Issues Note’ on AI points out that the number of data centres worldwide has grown from 500,000 in 2012 to over eight million, with energy consumption doubling every four years.
With the current global energy mix still dominated by dirty fuels, this trend can translate into a spike in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the process, our planet will be the unintended victim. Until a just energy transition is expedited, AI’s carbon footprint is set to increase.
AI’s appetite for power is matched by its thirst for water. To cool the heat generated by energy-intensive servers, large quantities of water are needed. Global demand for water for AI needs is estimated to reach four to six billion cubic metres by 2027.
AI’s potential negative impact on environment goes further. Critical minerals are an essential part of hardware for digital technologies. Found mostly in high-water-stress areas of developing countries, such mining, without efficient mitigation measures, puts more pressure on natural resources, damaging biodiversity, polluting air and spewing GHG. Waste and e-waste produced during the life cycle of digital technologies is another emerging problem.
Fortunately, these problems can be solved through a strategy that incorporates AI’s pros and cons. The Summit of the Future last September acknowledged AI’s promise to accelerate progress across the SDGs and address its possible negative impacts on the environment and other areas. But how can this promise be realised urgently? The missing link between AI’s potential and a strategy to extract its full advantage is a regulatory regime.
International discourse on the issue has generally revolved around matters of privacy, and disinformation, etc, but environmental costs are now part of it. Governments and tech companies — leaders in deploying AI at scale — concede that environmental impacts will need to be included in any discussion and tackled urgently. An interna-tional governance system is needed for the gamut of subjects in the AI realm.
The first steps were taken in this direction at the UN last year. A global dialogue on AI governance has been initiated and an independent international scientific panel established to produce evidence-based impact, risk and opportunity assessments. To aid these efforts, UNEP’s ‘Issues Note’, contains several commendations, including establishing standardised methods and metrics for measuring AI’s environmental impact, and developing a mechanism for mandatory reporting and disclosure of AI’s direct environmental impacts by tech companies, focusing on consumption of energy, water, mineral resources, carbon emissions and e-waste.
The environment became a victim of the consequential technology of the previous age — the Industrial Revolution, that is wreaking havoc to this day. If it becomes a victim of the runaway impacts of the consequential technology of this age, it can knock down the planet. For harnessing AI’s full potential, it is imperative to assess and manage its associated risks and mould it into a shield for the planet.
The writer is director of intergovernmental affairs, United Nations Environment Programme.
Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2025
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DAWN Editorial: 14 January 2025
FOR a country that produced the world’s youngest Nobel laureate for championing girls’ education, Pakistan’s statistics make for tragic reading.
Some 22.8m children are out of school — roughly equal to the entire population of Sri Lanka — and the female literacy rate languishes at 49pc. Last week’s International Conference on Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities in Islamabad laid bare these truths, though solutions remained elusive. The gathering had a notable absentee. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, where girls are banned from secondary education, declined to attend. This was not surprising: its interpretation of religion appears mediaeval; even Muslim societies of yore valued learning more highly than today’s Taliban do.
Pakistan’s own educational woes, while not so extreme, are scarcely less worrying. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s declaration of an “education emergency” joins a long list of similar pronouncements that have produced more hot air than actual learning. We spend a paltry 2.5pc of GDP on education, well below the Unesco-recommended 4pc. In contrast, Malaysia and Turkey, fellow Muslim-majority nations, boast female literacy rates of above 90pc. Bangladesh has surged ahead with over 70pc of its women able to read and write. The economics of ignorance are stark.
In an era where AI and quantum computing dominate conversations about the future, Pakistan’s tech sector remains stunted thanks to its educational shortcomings. The World Economic Forum ranks the country near the bottom in educational attainment and economic participation — a double whammy that threatens to leave us behind in the global knowledge economy.
Some bright spots exist. The Danish schools initiative in Punjab, which provides quality education in underdeveloped rural areas, shows what targeted intervention can achieve. The newly established Pakistan Education Endowment Fund aims to support children from low-income families in higher education. But such initiatives are few. The conference concluded with the signing of the Islamabad Declaration, a 17-point document that recognises girls’ education as both a “religious obligation” and a social necessity. The declaration will be presented to the UN Security Council, though cynics might wonder whether it will join the growing pile of well-intentioned but ineffective international commitments.
Malala Yousafzai, who attended the conference, put it bluntly: 12.5m Pakistani girls remain out of school. Ms Yousafzai, who survived a TTP assassination attempt in 2012 for advocating girls’ education, is a powerful symbol of both Pakistan’s educational challenges and its potential. But symbols alone cannot teach children to read.
The path forward is clear: substantially increase education spending, dismantle cultural barriers to girls’ education, and transform declarations into concrete action. Until then, Pakistan risks condemning another generation to ignorance — and itself to economic irrelevance in an increasingly knowledge-based world.
Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2025
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