Hisham Sajid

Pakistan has taken 21 loans from the IMF

Most success stories are coming out of first world countries, so where does that leave us?

Is urbanisation putting pressure on our import bill?

If done right, this will help widen the tax net in Pakistan and make tax auditors faster and more efficient

Pakistan’s energy sector is China’s single biggest investment at an estimated value of $22.6b

The State Bank of Pakistan’s dollar reserves do not depend on American aid as much as we think

SAMAA Digital went through four years of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s tweets and here are some of the promises he has made for his long-awaited tenure as PM. He has promised to reform the police multiple times, making it apolitical and free from political interference.​   On #PoliceMartyrsDay we salute our police martyrs who laid…

More than 1.6 million votes were disqualified in the July 25 elections—the highest ever. A look at trends shows that it was never this high.In 1993, only 0.27 million votes were disqualified. This number slowly goes up every election year. It levels out in the 2013 general election when roughly 1.5 million votes were disqualified….

In 35 National Assembly constituencies the number of votes rejected or disqualified is higher than the margin of victory of the winning candidate. This data was released in election watchdog FAFEN’s Preliminary Election Observation Report. And while this may come as a shock to many, especially the losing candidate, some digging by SAMAA Digital found…

Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan candidates were given enough votes to land them in the top three slots in 72 constituencies across Pakistan—even if they didn’t win a single seat. For a party that didn’t exist a few months ago, that’s not too bad.  Last year, the TLP became the new face of the Pakistani far-right. It brought Islamabad to a standstill with a 21-day…

What is on PTI chief Imran Khan’s mind? Judging by his Twitter timeline, he seems to be thinking more about the Sharifs than his own party. SAMAA Digital scraped and analysed Imran Khan’s tweets for the past 11 months. Between September 5, 2017 and July 8, 2018, Imran Khan tweeted 808 times. We see a…

A stronghold is a constituency whose voters have been loyal to one party for a long time. Take NA-256 (formerly NA-245) Paposh, Sakhi Hasan and Nazimabad in Karachi, for example. The MQM has won here for the past ten years.  A constituency is called a stronghold when a party has: Consistently won from it, year after year, after…

More private schools opened in the Punjab than new government schools in the last eight years, data shows. From 2008 to 2016, 974 government schools were opened in total. In comparison, however, 39,958  private schools were established. These private schools were opened for primary, middle, high and higher secondary level education. 8,644 private schools were…

Retired military officers have often ventured into politics, but how well do they perform?  In the past five general elections between 1993 and 2013, 138 National Assembly seats were contested by candidates who declared themselves ex-military officers. Of them, only 16 won. For the past five general elections, retired military officers contested 65 NA seats…

In each election, independent candidates stand for seats in the national and provincial assemblies. They pitch themselves as outsiders rebelling against what they say are decadent and corrupt political parties. But then something strange happens when these independents make it to power. Post-election, many of them are only too happy to be absorbed by mainstream…