TAXILA: In the archaeological city of Taxila, some 32 kilometers northwest of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, lives an eye doctor of Indian origin, the country’s first female ophthalmologist, who has saved hundreds of thousands of people from visual impairment and continues her crusade against blindness despite crossing her retirement age.
Dr. Pramila Lall, 87, was born in Kerala, India, in 1932. She immigrated to Pakistan in 1957 after receiving MBBS from the Christian Medical College and marrying her Pakistani classmate, Dr. Ernest Lall, who advised her to become an eye specialist. Since then, she has dedicated her life to the cause and is said to have conducted over 500,000 surgeries, the highest number of such operations performed by any single doctor in Asia.
In 1987, Lall became member of the American Academy of Ophthalmologists, and the London Royal College of Ophthalmologists awarded her a fellowship in 1990.
Hailing from a family of academics, she recently narrated her journey from India to Pakistan while talking exclusively to Arab News at the Christian Hospital, Taxila, which was built in 1922 by missionaries.
“When I was young, I had a speech defect. I couldn’t speak out. If the teacher asked me anything, I would know the answer, but I closed my mouth, put my head down like I didn’t know it. It used to make me very ashamed of myself. My only hope was to be a veterinarian and take care of animals since I didn’t need to talk to them,” Lall said while she sat on her favorite black chair next to an old eye examination equipment.
“It was my mother,” she continued, “who told me: ‘You don’t take care of animals; you take care of human beings. You’ll become a doctor.’ My father said, ‘No, we don’t have money to send her to a medical college.’ But my mother said, ‘This daughter of mine is going to do medicine.’”
Lall enrolled in the medical school where she met her future husband, a Pakistani “Punjabi boy” who told her that there was “a lot of eye work required across the border” and advised her to do her residency in ophthalmology.
“I came to Pakistan on the 27th of September, 1957, at 4 o’clock in the evening. I was wearing a sari I didn’t have any socks on my feet and no shoes. I had only chappals, because in India that’s what we used all the time. We wore chappals and we wore saris.”
She had Pakistani visa stamped on her Indian passport and was accompanied by her husband. At the Amritsar border, she said, an “Indian immigration officer said, ‘Two doctors going off to Pakistan. We need doctors in India. You people better not go, you better stay in India.’”
Crossing over, the Pakistani immigration official said: “Welcome to Pakistan. We need doctors in this country.” It was a big welcome, she added, though she had to change her nationality within the first six months to permanently stay in the country.
Since then, Lall has returned to India once to receive the Paul Harrison Award in 1985 after previously being denied entry in 1965 when the two South Asian rivals suspended diplomatic relations while fighting a full-scale war.
“We needed to get an Indian visa to collect an award. The [Indian] embassy officer said, ‘You are a Pakistani. How come you are getting an award from India?’ I had to explain to him, that we came from India. We studied in Vellore, our work was there, training was there, and that was the reason why the Indians were giving me the award because I had done so much for the prevention of blindness in Pakistan. Only then he understood why I wanted to go to India,” Lall said, adding she did not have the urge to return to her country of origin. “Whatever I have are my staff and my friends in this country,” she said.
In 2002, President General (r) Pervez Musharraf gave her Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, an award of excellence conferred by the state, and she capitalized on the opportunity by requesting him to allow Christians to vote.
“When I got the award, I thanked the president and said I had one request: ‘I want you to do something for the rights of the minorities. We are not allowed to vote.’ He said, ‘I’ll do something about it,’” Lall said, smiling.
Discussing her career, she said there came a time when she was not able to take the pressure and influx of patients. She also faced hardships during the 1965 and 1971 wars since she was treated as a suspect due to her Indian origin.
“I just wrote a small message to my father and said, ‘Enough of Taxila. We are going to Canada. We are going to work over there. We’ll get good money over there and we won’t have all this business of being in Pakistan.’ My father wrote back and said, ‘Have you forgotten? Once you put your hand to the plow, you don’t turn back. Stick to your job and have faith in God. That’s the most important thing.’ The Lord had saved me. I am in my 80s now, and I keep praying, ‘Lord! Use me as long as you can, but I am ready to go to you whenever you call me,’” she told Arab News.
Lall continues her mission, though she now feels lonely since her husband passed away in March this year, her children live in the United States, and there is no one left in her family in India.
“I have stopped doing surgery now for four years. But I keep training others who come here so they can develop their skills and be good surgeons. I don’t want to be a burden. I have only one woman [maid] at home and one dog. I keep telling her, ‘If any day you find I am not breathing properly, this is the phone number. You call this ward and tell them, Please come and see Mrs. Lall.’”
Woman of vision: A life spent preventing blindness in Pakistan
https://arab.news/yr5k4
Woman of vision: A life spent preventing blindness in Pakistan
- Dr. Pramila Lall is Pakistan’s first female eye specialist who has saved thousands from visual impairment
- The female ophthalmologist has conducted the highest number of eye surgeries in Asia
Pakistan looks to boost US imports, remove non-tariff barriers to escape Trump measures
- Pakistan’s government mulling options which range from importing crude oil from the US to abolishing tariffs on American imports
- Islamabad is trying to appease the US to seek reprieve from the 29 percent reciprocal tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump last month
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told Bloomberg this week Pakistan is looking to buy more goods from the US and remove non-tariffs barriers to escape President Donald Trump’s high tariffs.
Pakistan’s government is mulling options, which range from importing crude oil from the US to abolishing tariffs on American imports, as Islamabad attempts to offset a trade imbalance that has triggered higher tariffs from Washington.
“It’s a bigger canvas that we are looking at in terms of engaging the US,” Aurangzeb said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Monday ahead of the IMF-World Bank spring meetings in Washington. “We will constructively engage, and we will have a formal delegation coming in.”
Pakistan is looking to buy more cotton and soybean from the US, the finance chief said, adding that it is also in talks to tear down non-trade barriers to open its markets to more US products.
“We can also look at if there are any issues with respect to non-tariff discussion, whether there are any onerous inspections at our end for US products, we can obviously view that.”
Islamabad is trying to appease the US to seek reprieve from the 29 percent reciprocal tariffs imposed by Trump. While those levies are on hold until July, Pakistan has said it will send a trade delegation to Washington in the coming months to bridge the trade gap.
The US is Pakistan’s largest export market with over $5 billion in annual exports as of 2024, while Pakistan’s imports from the US are about $2.1 billion.
The finance minister said the country is also open to foreign direct investments from US firms in its recently opened minerals and mining sectors.
Aurangzeb, a close aide of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, is in the US for a nearly week-long trip to participate in the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The former JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker said that the crisis-ridden nation will tap the international capital markets to secure more funds for a sustainable growth.
“What we are looking for is how we get away from a boom-and-bust cycle which Pakistan has gone through and get on to a sustainable growth path,” he told Bloomberg.
Pakistan is preparing to debut its first-ever Panda bond in the range of $200 million to $250 million that will likely take place in the fourth quarter of this year, the minister added.
Authorities are trying to rebuild Pakistan’s tattered economy after it came close to a default in 2023. Last month, the South Asian nation won an initial nod for a $2.3 billion IMF loan that will give it funding visibility until 2027.
Last week, Fitch upgraded Pakistan’s credit rating, citing confidence that the South Asian country will be able to sustain reforms under the IMF loan program.
Pakistan sets up National Cybercrime Investigation Agency amid digital crackdown concerns
- The development comes months after Pakistan introduced new law to regulate social media content, which provides for a regulator with its own investigation agency, tribunals
- Journalists have long complained of increasing state pressure on traditional and digital media in Pakistan, which is ranked 152nd out of 180 countries on press freedom index
KARACHI: Pakistan has transformed the Cybercrime Wing of its Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) into an autonomous organization and named the new agency as the National Cybercrime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), the FIA said on Tuesday, amid digital crackdown concerns in the South Asian country.
The development comes months after Pakistan introduced a new law to regulate social media content, with journalist groups and rights activists saying it is aimed at curbing press freedom and dissent on social media.
Enacted in 2016 and further tightened with amendments this January, the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) was drafted with the stated aim to combat cybercrimes such as hacking, online harassment, and data breaches.
In its statement on Tuesday, the FIA said the Pakistani government had given autonomous status to its erstwhile cybercrime wing in view of the “growing threats of cybercrime” and transformed it into the NCCIA.
“This new organization has been established under the name of National Cybercrime Investigation Agency, which has full authority to prevent, investigate and prosecute cybercrime across the country,” it said.
“This organization will take effective measures against online fraud, harassment, digital blackmail, fake websites, identity theft, social media crime and other cyber activities.”
The FIA said the public will now have to contact the NCCIA for the sake of investigation or complaints relating to cybercrimes, the FIA said, adding that the new agency could be reached at helpline number 0519106691 or email helpdesk@nr3c.gov.pk.
The development comes weeks after the Freedom Network, a Pakistani media and development sector watchdog, said the new social media law was being used as a “tool” by state authorities to suppress freedom of expression and target journalists. It released a data analysis for March 2025 documenting eight instances of threats against journalists, with three cases directly involving the contentious PECA legislation.
Pakistani officials have defended the PECA law, which provides for a social media regulatory authority that will have its own investigation agency and tribunals, according to a draft on the parliament’s website. Such tribunals will be able to try and punish offenders with prison sentences of up to three years and fines of two million rupees ($7,200) for dissemination of “false or fake” information.
“This is the first time the government has defined what social media is,” Information Minister Ataullah Tarar told reporters after the amended law was passed this year.
“There is already a system in place for print and electronic media and complaints can be registered against them.”
Journalists have long complained of increasing state pressure on traditional and digital media in Pakistan, which is ranked 152nd out of 180 countries on press freedom index of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a media watchdog that promotes and defends press freedom.
Social media platform X is officially banned in Pakistan, but accessible using VPNs, while YouTube and TikTok have faced bans in the past.
Breaking barriers: Women fuel change at Pakistan’s male-dominated petrol pumps
- While fuel stations have been predominantly staffed by men, there is a growing movement toward gender inclusivity
- In the federal capital of Islamabad, hundreds of women are now working alongside male staff at fuel stations
ISLAMABAD: Clad in a crisp blue uniform and gripping the nozzle with practiced ease, Sumeera Bibi pumped fuel into the tank of a car, gesturing to the driver to check the reading on the dispenser machine.
While fuel stations in Pakistan have been traditionally staffed by men, there is a growing movement toward gender inclusivity, with some stations now employing women like Sumeera as attendants.
One notable example was the launch last year of Pakistan’s first all-female staffed fuel station, located in Johar Town, Lahore.
In the federal capital of Islamabad also, hundreds of women are now working alongside male staff at fuel stations.
“Since getting this job, I have been able to care for my children on my own and overcome all my problems,” Sumeera, a mother of five, told Arab News on Monday at a Pakistan State Oil station on Constitution Avenue, home to major government buildings and embassies.
Getting the job has been life changing for Sumeera, married for years to a drug addict, before the relationship spiraled out of control and she was forced to move in with her sister.
“There were many difficulties as I had no job and was dependent on my sister,” said Sumeera, who works an 8 am-6pm shift six days a week.
“We faced many problems in the beginning, especially when customers would often try to touch our hands while returning their [credit] cards,” she said.
But getting a timely salary, annual bonus, free medical care and the means to raise and educate her children without being dependent on anyone have made all the difficulties worth it.
“Before this, I had never worked. I had never even dealt with strangers,” she said. “Now, I deal with all kinds of people every day. There’s no shame in hard work.”
“POSITIVE RESPONSE“
The overall labor force participation rate for women in Pakistan at 25 percent is significantly lower than the global and South Asian average. A large portion of women in the labor force (67 percent) are employed in agriculture, with only 16 percent in services and 14 percent in manufacturing, according to UN Women. Even among women with higher education, labor force participation rates are relatively low, with only around 25 percent of women with a university degree participating in the labor force.
Several factors contribute to the lower female labor force participation, including social norms, safety concerns, lack of mobility, and the availability of transportation.
But despite the challenges, more and more women are venturing out.
Another fuel station attendant, Sana, who only gave her first name, said getting a job had taught her how to face the world and deal with all kinds of people, including those who did not appreciate women working in public spaces in a male-dominated filed.
“Every type of customer visits the station,” she told Arab News.
“Some customers praise our work, saying it’s great that we are working in an open environment instead of being confined to an office, while others discourage us, saying it’s not suitable for women.”
But management was supportive and helped to protect against and handle customers who caused trouble or misbehaved, Sana added.
Rukhsana Bibi, who works at a PSO station in Islamabad’s F-8 sector, said she felt “secure” at the job, as all stations were monitored by CCTV cameras.
Coming from a middle-class background with limited education, Rukhsana said she stepped out of her home not just to earn but to build a better future for her children.
“My husband is a laborer, and his income couldn’t cover our household expenses and children’s education, that’s why I left home.”
Jahanzaib Abbasi, Deputy Division Manager at PSO Islamabad, said the company, as an equal opportunity employer, had started hiring women during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We received a very positive response,” he said. “Many women have now been working for six months to two years, and they are satisfied and happy with their jobs.”
For customers like Azka Durrani, seeing women confidently working at fuel stations is a “heartening sign of growing empowerment and changing social norms.”
“Whenever I see these ladies working at a fuel station,” she said as Rukhsana filled her car’s tank, “I feel empowered.”
Rare caracal wild cat spotted in Pakistan’s Cholistan desert
- Caracal is a medium-sized wild cat native to Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, arid areas of Pakistan, northwestern India
- Highly elusive creature is difficult to observe, even by researchers, and is territorial, living mainly alone or in pairs
ISLAMABAD: The highly elusive and rare caracal wild cat has been spotted in the Cholistan desert in Pakistan’s southern Punjab province this week, a wildlife official said on Tuesday.
The caracal is a medium-sized animal native to Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and arid areas of Pakistan and northwestern India. It is characterized by a robust build, long legs, a short face, long and pointed ears, relatively short tail, and long canine teeth.
The secretive creature is difficult to observe, even by researchers, and is territorial, living mainly alone or in pairs. Its speed and agility make it an efficient hunter, able to take down prey two to three times its size. It primarily hunts the chinkara deer, also known as the Indian gazelle, in the Cholistan desert, which is in the southern part of Pakistani Punjab, extending into the Greater Thar Desert.
“Over the past month, there have been multiple sightings, and just this morning [Monday], Mujahid Kaleem, Assistant Conservator Wildlife from Rahim Yar Khan, successfully spotted the animal [caracal] on camera for the very first time,” Ali Usman, a wildlife ranger for the Bahawalpur region, told Arab News in a phone interview.
Usman said the department currently lacked exact figures on caracal numbers in Pakistan.
“For a long time, this elusive species hadn’t been sighted in the region,” he said.
“However, with the current government’s support in the form of equipment, vehicles, and additional staff, our protection efforts have significantly improved. As a result, we’re beginning to see signs of ecological balance and resilience returning to the ecosystem and the caracal’s presence is a key indicator of that.”
The caracal is thought to be close to extinction in North Africa, critically endangered in Pakistan, endangered in Jordan, but stable in central and Southern Africa.
Heatwave grips southern Pakistan, disrupting public life
- Experts say rising temperatures are part of broader trend linked to climate change
- Met Office urges residents to undertake precautionary measures from Apr. 22-24
KARACHI: An intense heatwave has gripped Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, particularly its commercial capital of Karachi, as the mercury rose above 40 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, with the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) warning that the weather conditions will prevail in the region for another two days.
The warning comes amid increasingly unpredictable climate patterns across South Asia, with Karachi experiencing more frequent and intense heatwaves in recent years — a trend that climate experts attribute to broader shifts caused by global warming.
The situation underscores rising concerns over the city’s preparedness for extreme weather events, amid growing calls for stronger climate adaptation policies, increased urban tree cover and more effective public awareness campaigns.
“Prevailing heatwave condition is likely to continue in Karachi division with daytime maximum temperatures are likely 4-6°C above normal till tomorrow,” the PMD said in a statement.
“Hot/very hot and dry weather prevails over most parts of the province.”
It advised people, especially women, children and the elderly, to stay indoors, avoid direct sunlight and stay well-hydrated. The maximum temperature predicted for Tuesday was 41°C, followed by 40°C on Wednesday and 39°C on Thursday.
Zaheer Abbas, a laborer in Karachi, said the scorching heat had severely affected daily life.
“A poor person who pushes a cart can’t even work in this weather,” he told AFP.
Experts say rising temperatures are part of a broader trend linked to climate change, straining Karachi’s infrastructure and putting vulnerable populations at risk.
Iqra Ali, a Karachi student, said she was trying not to leave home unnecessarily.
“It’s hot,” she said. “For this, the more a person stays hydrated, it will be better.”
Pakistan has witnessed frequent, erratic changes in its weather patterns, including floods, droughts, cyclones, torrential rainstorms, heatwaves and the slow-onset threat of glacial melting, in recent years that scientists have blamed on human-driven climate change.
In 2022, unusually heavy rains triggered floods in many parts of the country, killing over 1,700 people, inflicting economic losses of around $30 billion and affecting at least 30 million people.
— With additional input from AFP
