6 Min Read
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - On hot summer evenings, Khawaja Magbool Hadieri’s family used to sit on their home’s balcony and relish the cool breeze wafting off the nearby Neelum river.
But these days, after 80% of the river’s flow was diverted for hydropower, “we’re sweating while sitting there, even using an electric fan,” Hadieri, 70, a resident of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir capital, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
As Pakistan seeks new sources of green energy, officials are diverting rivers through tunnels to harness clean hydropower.
But the diversions are also causing a range of problems, from hotter urban temperatures to water shortages and sewage buildups in riverbeds once rushing with water.
6 Min Read
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - On hot summer evenings, Khawaja Magbool Hadieri’s family used to sit on their home’s balcony and relish the cool breeze wafting off the nearby Neelum river.
But these days, after 80% of the river’s flow was diverted for hydropower, “we’re sweating while sitting there, even using an electric fan,” Hadieri, 70, a resident of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir capital, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
As Pakistan seeks new sources of green energy, officials are diverting rivers through tunnels to harness clean hydropower.
But the diversions are also causing a range of problems, from hotter urban temperatures to water shortages and sewage buildups in riverbeds once rushing with water.
7 Min Read
KARACHI, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - After suffering decades of electricity shortages that left families and businesses in the dark, Pakistan finds itself with a new problem: more electrical generating capacity than it needs.
Large-scale construction of new power plants - largely coal-fired ones funded by China - has dramatically boosted the country’s energy capacity.
“It’s true. We are producing much more than we need,” Tabish Gauhar, a special assistant to the prime minister on power, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.
But even as supply surges, electric power is still not reaching up to 50 million people in Pakistan who need it, according to a 2018 World Bank report, though expansion of tranmission lines is planned.
7 Min Read
KARACHI, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - After suffering decades of electricity shortages that left families and businesses in the dark, Pakistan finds itself with a new problem: more electrical generating capacity than it needs.
Large-scale construction of new power plants - largely coal-fired ones funded by China - has dramatically boosted the country’s energy capacity.
“It’s true. We are producing much more than we need,” Tabish Gauhar, a special assistant to the prime minister on power, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.
But even as supply surges, electric power is still not reaching up to 50 million people in Pakistan who need it, according to a 2018 World Bank report, though expansion of tranmission lines is planned.
3 Min Read
LAHORE, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Pakistan introduced a rape law on Tuesday that will create special courts to try cases within four months, after protests over the gang rape of a woman whose car ran out of fuel.
The presidential decree also provides for anti-rape cells to provide medical examinations within six hours of a complaint being made and creates a national sex offender registry.
“The ordinance will help expedite cases of sexual abuse against women and children. Special courts will be set up across the country to expedite trials and cases of rape suspects as soon as possible,” President Arif Alvi said on Twitter.