Sohaib Saeed 

I rent at One Constitution Avenue. At 1 AM last night, I was jolted awake by heavy banging on the door. My first panicked thought: thieves. Instead, I was greeted by 50 heavily armored police officers — rude, aggressive, and clearly ready to beat us into submission if we resisted. They gave us no reason. Pretended it was for security as in recent times when peace negotiations were being held. No court order shown. No documents. No explanation. Just “vacate by 12 noon today.” Only later did I learn this midnight raid had a court’s blessing. Why am I not surprised? This is Pakistan’s “protocol court” justice at its finest. The building has been in dispute for 20 years. During that entire farce, the CDA — the regulator that slept for years while the building was constructed and apartments sold There’s even suspicion it was complicit. Any reasonable judge would have treated the CDA as guilty if at a minimum negligence. A regulator that was asleep (or worse) should not now be allowed to benefit. Apartment sales were formally recognized by the CDA and previous judges — so why suddenly reverse everything in CDA’s favor? The building ownership I am told is being transferred to CDA What court in the world authorises 50 armed goons to storm a residential building at 1 AM, trampling individual property and tenancy rights with zero notice? As I wrote in my latest Substack on judicial/bureaucratic over-reach: courts should appoint professional receivership instead of handing assets back to the same failed bureaucracy. “Development rights can be re-auctioned” in an open market — not gifted to the CDA. The building could easily have been placed in receivership, demising rights sold via transparent auction, value preserved, and residents protected. But obviously our judges don’t know enough economics or real law. This is what serious law — what I call ELEVATE justice — would require. I called journalists. No TV, no radio. Who needs this judiciary? Uneducated protocol seekers in robes, quick to destroy value after it’s created, while shielding the real culprits. Is this judgment even lawful? And even if eviction were technically possible, does it have to be this thuggish and inhumane? This isn’t justice. It’s asset assassination by judicial decree. @nadeemhaque/note/p-187622798?r=6t51ge&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@nadeemhaque/n…

@AhmadJalal_1 @CareemPAK @gojekindonesia You have hit the nail on the head. Purchasing Power is the key indicator to watch. A stronger purchasing power would retain & invite businesses from around the world for this size of population and low PP would make many business not viable.

WHY INDONESIA GOT GOJEK — AND PAKISTAN LOST CAREEM The @CareemPAK vs. @gojekindonesia story is really a Pakistan vs. Indonesia growth story. A market needs two things to sustain a $10B company like Gojek: volume and pricing power. Pakistan has the people. It does not have the purchasing power. Beyond the top slice of society, affordability falls sharply. Most consumers are forced to choose cheap over better. That makes it difficult for global companies to hold prices, recover subsidies, and earn the returns they can get in other markets. That is why names such as Pfizer, Dell, and IBM have scaled down, exited, or shifted to partner-led models. When I met former Careem executives in Dubai, they confirmed what many had suspected: Careem spent heavily in Pakistan because the bet was that incomes would rise, the market would deepen, and consumers would eventually accept real, unsubsidized pricing. That bet did not materialize. The same problem shows up in telecoms: Pakistan’s ARPU is abysmally low at around $1, versus $2 in India and $3 in Indonesia, and so Telenor has exited and there is under-investment in mobile infrastructure. That is why Careem’s exit was sad — but ultimately inevitable. And yet there is a positive side. Careem helped improve Pakistan’s image, trained talent, and created a kind of “Careem Mafia” — people who may go on to build the next generation of companies, much like the PayPal alumni did in the U.S. The harder comparison is with Indonesia. 1⃣ In 1998, Pakistan and Indonesia were both around $800 GDP per capita. Today, #Indonesia is around $4,800. Pakistan is around $1,800. 2⃣ Indonesia built Gojek and 8 unicorns. Pakistan built promise, but not enough purchasing power to sustain even a $250M venture at scale. So the real question is not why Careem, Pfizer, or Dell left. The real question is: why did Pakistan’s economy not grow enough to keep them?

@Nabeel1124 Pakistan is a price sensitive market. Every additional feature or upgrade is possible but the local marketeer has to decide if it would be worth the customers extra spend. Wishes are countless but resources are always scarce.

@SohaibTweets Why does a JDM and USDM Corolla cross has e brake?

There’s a company in fact one of the biggest of Pakistan whose not a single product has electric brake…. Can anyone guess the company? Hint: CEO of the company is 24/7 available for podcasts

Data doesn't just record history; in the digital age, it shows us exactly when the world pivots. The April 2026 "Islamabad Accord" didn't just rewrite regional geopolitics, it triggered one of the most violent, rapid spikes in global search history. Let’s look at what the data shows 🧵👇 #googletrends

How Pakistani taxation works: Suppose you are a company and you suffer a loss of PKR 1 billion on a turnover of PKR 10 billion. Even then, you will still have to pay minimum / turnover tax at 1.25% of turnover. On PKR 10 billion turnover, that comes to PKR 125 million in tax despite making a loss. One can still argue that this is fair because the state needs revenue to run its affairs, agree!. Also, technically, this minimum tax is adjustable against future profits, so in a way it is like an interest-free loan to the government. But our brilliant-minded babus (in the business tax-friendly move 😀) instead of bringing more people into the tax net, conveniently reduced the period for future adjustment of this tax from 5 years to 3 years in 2022, and in the last budget from 3 years to 2 years. So if a company suffers continuous losses for 2-3 years for any reason, its first year's minimum tax payment, which is effectively a loan in other words, may simply expire and be lost forever. Magic.

Criticism against the civil service is on the rise. Every delay, every failure, every unpopular decision finds an easy target. But this pattern is not new. Christopher Hood called it “blame avoidance”. In modern governance, authority is diffused across layers, but visibility is concentrated at the point of delivery. So blame settles where the public can see it. On the civil servant. The interesting part is how different systems have responded. The UK tried to deal with it by clarifying accountability, making ministers answerable for policy while protecting the neutrality of the civil service. Singapore took a different route. It built a culture of trust, competence and shared ownership between political leadership and public officials, so that success and failure are not selectively assigned. The lesson is simple. When responsibility is blurred, blame becomes personal. And when blame becomes personal, the system quietly shifts its burden onto those who are most visible.

Challenege to all PSX, LUMS, and IBA guys. On a monetary front, Shahbaz Sharif has been the winner of the last decade. And be known that i criticized him daily for bad tax reforms and loose control on babucracy. Data, not political cliche, please.

Even the darkest night ends. The sun always finds a way back.

@suneelmunj Suneel bhai you have hit the nail on the head. The problem of Pakistans market is not expensive cars but low purchasing power. Increase in per capita income coupled with financing will increase the demand.

Demand is not low, Purchasing Power is.... The high cost of production is driving up prices, making it unaffordable for the majority of people.

@AzazSyed Azaz bhai, the victim's name is Amir Awan. Thank you.

@ShamaJunejo The Jap premier was surely caught in surprise.

Bloody hell 🤦‍♀️😲 Look at the face of Japanese Prime Minister and her terrifying reaction when Trump said “We didn't tell anyone about it (attacking Iran). Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK?"

@am_nawazish It is an inconvenience & a safety hazard at the same time.

The absolute stupidity of checkposts in Islamabad. This is incredibly damaging not only in terms of time wasted but people will avoid Islamabad damaging its economy and businesses. I don’t want to waste 15 minutes of my life every time I am coming to Islamabad. @MohsinnaqviC42 please time on average how much time is wasted everyday… this can’t continue. It took me 20 minutes at a non peak time!

The used car market has been over priced in Pakistan with limit depreciation. With the addition of a number of players especially in the top tier hopefully the used car market would become much more vibrant.

Among honorarium & perks announced by AJK Govt for elected LG officials, heads of large LGs will also get the services of a cook at residence at Govt expense! This will set an example for the four provinces as well. A JK notifies honorarium, privileges for heads of local government institutions epaper.dawn.com/DetailNews.php…

@junaidmuhammadd Its all about margins for automobile companies and the bigger is better in that context. Also the purchasing power is a big factor as well.

While Pakistanis are desperate for A segment & fuel saving cars. No market is dumber than Pakistani business market

@TheSaadKaiser Well put! 👏

I will always have a problem with the hypocrisy of overseas PTI supporters who enjoy all the perks of foreign countries but demand a revolution in Pakistan simply because they belong to Imran Khan’s cult. Why don’t they renounce their foreign nationalities, come back, live in Pakistan permanently, pay taxes, and then talk about bringing change? But they won’t. On top of that, many of them have little political awareness or understanding of Pakistan’s history. Khud Bahir reh kar mazzay karnay hain, lekin ‘Tabdeeli’ Pakistan mae chaiye. Sit down! 🤫

@omar_quraishi The simple measure would be to time a passenger from entering the airport premises to reaching the gate which would include parking, entry into terminal, initial security, checking in immigration and final security. Islamabad airport is the best among 3 but needs improvement.

Following severe criticism of crowded airports at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad on social media, Dawn decided to do a story on the state of airports esp vis-a-vis crowds and delays etc If you read the comments of the government officials deployed at airports in this story such as ASF and FIA, it seems that they live in a different world altogether - saying there are no delays at all - and the staff is doing the job which they have been tasked for - to prevent illegals from flying out - people with fake and bogus documents, or anyone who may overstay and look for work or go and beg (in Gulf countries) And one piece of data was missing entirely - and that was while annual passengers for both Lahore and Islamabad airports were given for 2025, so such figure for Karachi was mentioned in the report

An intelligent note from the tennis star Sania Mirza: “Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard. Obesity is difficult. Fitness is hard. Choose your hard. Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard. Communication is difficult. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard. Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard. Pick wisely.” (Adopted)