LAHORE: Several candidates were caught using unfair means during the ongoing Class-IX annual examination at centres by inspection teams across Punjab on May 4. Punjab Minister for School Education Rana Sikandar Hayat formed 10 special monitoring squads to conduct surprise visits to examination centres across the province to detect cheating. During a raid in Bahawalnagar, the squad recovered cheating material from 42 students. The situation prompted authorities to summon the district’s chief executive officer
Child Rights in Focus
RAWALPINDI: A teenage housemaid was allegedly tortured by her employer’s wife using electrical devices in Bahria Town’s phase VIII, police said. Police raids were underway to arrest the accused, a police spokesman said. Mohammad Adeel Riaz, a foot constable lodged an FIR with the Rawat Police saying that he was on night duty in Bahria Town’s phase VIII when he heard screams of a young girl who was rushing out of a house in
PAKISTAN’S HIV surge is no longer a slow-burning public health concern. It is now a system failure unfolding in real time. What makes the crisis particularly alarming is not just the rising numbers — estimated at over 350,000 people living with the disease — but the profile of those newly infected. Increasingly, they are children and low-risk individuals, infected not through behaviour but through the healthcare system meant to protect them. Two converging failures
GUJRAT: The Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) rescued 24 children during an anti-beggary drive in parts of the city on May 4, 2026. The CPWB officials were also accompanied by the teams of social welfare and labour departments, police and Rescue 1122. The team carried out the operation in the Circular Road, Court Road, Servis Mor and Machili Chowk areas and rescued 24 children. They were shifted to the Gujranwala for their welfare
In this episode of DigiPod on Dawn News English, Usama Khilji speaks to technology policy lawyer Hassan Niazi about a major US case involving Meta and Google, where social media companies faced liability over allegedly addictive platform design and harm to young users.
AS policymakers gather for the Breathe Pakistan conference this week, the urgency is hard to miss. Each year, such forums bring new ideas. Yet the country’s climate risks keep growing. The question is no longer what we know, but what we are willing to do. The latest Jinnah Institute report on climate resilience offers a clear answer. Pakistan remains stuck in a cycle of reacting to disasters instead of preparing for them. The 2025
KARACHI: A fresh study has shown that roughly half of the children coming from textile supply chain workers of Karachi cannot afford to go to school despite two to three people in the family working full-time. The study conducted by the National Organisation for Working Communities (NOWCommunities) has shown that more than 80 per cent of such workers themselves have some experience of formal education themselves but now their next generation may not have
PESHAWAR: Lawmakers and civil society representatives at a provincial consultation expressed concern over delay in enactment of a law restraining child marriages in the province and called upon the government to push forward the draft bill for cabinet approval and subsequent tabling in the provincial assembly. The high-level provincial consultation was convened to deliberate on the passage of long pending Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2019. The consultation was jointly organised by Blue
PESHAWAR: Twelve-year-old Aalyan, a sixth-grade student from Peshawar, is suffering from severe psychological trauma after losing his mother in a house fire, a tragedy that has left deep emotional scars. What began as shock and silence has now developed into clinical depression, worsening his mental and physical health. Aalyan has lost his appetite and has become visibly weak. His family has taken him to a private hospital in Peshawar, where he is receiving treatment.
KARACHI: Raising an alarm over the recurring human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) outbreaks at healthcare facilities in the country, experts at a press conference held on May 2 demanded that the government declare a national health emergency over the “dangerous spread” of the disease, now affecting children in large numbers. They also called for the strict implementation of basic infection control measures and the law on single-use syringes. They further pressed for setting up a
LAHORE: The Punjab Education Curriculum, Training and Assessment Authority (Pectaa) has introduced curricula changes in grades I to V aiming to replace rote memorisation with concept-based learning. The authority convened the inaugural meeting of its Curriculum Advisory Committee here on Saturday regarding reforming the primary education system in Punjab. The meeting was chaired by Nausheen Adnan, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Pectaa Vice Chairperson Musa Ali Bukhari. A keynote presentation outlining the current
KHYBER: Dozens of school buildings, destroyed in acts of terrorism, in Khyber tribal district have been reconstructed with modern facilities under a China-aided project. Maqbool Azam, the executive engineer of communication and works department, told this scribe that with the cooperation of China Assistance Programme, 50 educational institutions, which were completely destroyed by terrorists between 2006 and 2014, were reconstructed in Bara tehsil. “These include 35 primary schools, seven middle schools, seven high schools