Pakistani Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem named in Forbes 30 Under 30 list
Pakistani Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem named in Forbes 30 Under 30 list/node/2604713/pakistan
Pakistani Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem named in Forbes 30 Under 30 list
Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem competes in the men's javelin throw final of the athletics event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on August 8, 2024. (AFP/ File)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Olympic gold medalist and star javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem has been featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for South Asia in 2025, the international business magazine said in a report on Monday.
Forbes 30 Under 30 is an annual list published by Forbes since 2011 that recognizes outstanding individuals under the age of 30 across multiple industries.
Nadeem, 28, made headlines around the world when he threw the javelin over the 90-meter mark in August 2024 during the Paris Olympics. The record-shattering throw handed Pakistan its first Olympic medal since 1992. It was also the first-ever gold medal Pakistan had bagged in a track and field competition.
“Arshad Nadeem’s impressive javelin throws won Pakistan its first-ever Olympic gold for an individual sport in Paris 2024,” Forbes said in the report.
“Nadeem’s stunning show at the Paris Olympics though, set a new Olympic record for his 92.97m javelin throw.”
The magazine noted that Nadeem also won gold at the Islamic Solidarity Games in Turkiye and the Commonwealth Games in 2022, and secured a silver medal in the men’s javelin throw at the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
In May, Nadeem claimed gold with an 86.4-meter throw in the men’s javelin final at the Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea.
He is the first Pakistani in over 50 years to win a gold medal at the Asian Athletics Championships. Pakistan’s Allah Daad had last topped the podium in javelin throw and Muhammad Younis won the 800-meter event in 1973.
He hails from the small town of Mian Channu and has since become a national hero, inspiring millions with his rise from modest beginnings to the top of the Olympic podium.
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday extended his condolences to Ƶ’s royal family on the passing of the mother of Prince Fahd bin Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Sharif office said.
The Saudi Royal Court announced on Thursday the passing of the mother of Prince Fahd in a statement, with the funeral prayer due to be held at the Grand Mosque in Makkah.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif extended his condolences to the Saudi royal family,” the prime minister’s office said on Friday.
“Sharif prayed for the elevation of the deceased’s rank and patience for the family.”
Pakistan and Ƶ have close religious, cultural, diplomatic and strategic ties, particularly in trade and defense. The Kingdom is home to over two million Pakistani expatriates, who are the largest source of remittances to the South Asian country.
The Kingdom has also provided substantial support to Pakistan during its prolonged economic challenges in recent years, including external financing and assistance with International Monetary Fund loan programs.
KARACHI: Pakistan has extended for the fourth time its airspace ban on Indian aircraft till September 24, the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) said on Friday, amid prevailing tensions between the neighbors.
The restriction was first imposed on Apr. 24 as part of a series of tit-for-tat measures announced by both India and Pakistan, following an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.
India blamed Pakistan for the assault that killed 26 tourists, Islamabad denied the allegation. Both countries later engaged in a four-day military conflict that killed around 70 people in May.
“Pakistani airspace will remain completely closed to Indian registered aircraft, aircraft owned or leased by Indian airlines/operators, and military flights,” the PAA said in a notice to airmen, or MOTAM.
Pakistan previously extended the one-month ban in May, June and July.
The restriction has forced Indian airlines to reroute their flights, resulting in increased fuel consumption, longer travel times and higher operational costs.
This month, Air India said it would stop services between the capital cities of India and the US from September 1, citing aircraft shortage due to the planned upgrades to its aging Boeing planes and the closure of Pakistan’s airspace.
The suspension of services between New Delhi and Washington, D.C., marks the latest setback for Air India, which is facing heightened regulatory scrutiny after a June crash in Ahmedabad killed 260 people.
The airline estimated in May that the Pakistan airspace ban could lead to approximately $600 million in additional expenses over the course of a year.
ISLAMABAD: The death toll from an explosion at a fireworks storage facility in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi has risen to four, the provincial rescue service said on Friday, with more than 30 others injured.
The blast occurred in the warehouse located within a building in the densely populated Saddar area of the metropolis on Friday evening, according to officials and members of the Sindh Rescue 1122 service.
Television footage showed thick smoke billowing into the sky from the building as broken glass from nearby shop windows littered the road, with panicked residents rushing from the scene.
One of the injured persons had died during treatment at a hospital, while rescue workers had recovered two bodies from the warehouse near Taj Complex on M.A. Jinnah Road on Thursday.
“Rescue 1122 has recovered another body [from the debris],” Hassaan Khan, a Rescue 1122 spokesperson, said in a statement. “The number of deaths from the accident have risen to 4.”
On Thursday, firefighters extinguished the blaze at the warehouse after several hours.
“Ten fire tenders and a snorkel unit were involved in extinguishing the blaze,” Khan said.
The cause of the explosion could not be immediately known, according to police. The warehouse was owned by two brothers, both of whom were injured in the incident.
“We have recorded an initial statement from one of the owners, both will be included in the investigation,” Deputy Inspector-General South Asad Raza said on Thursday.
The explosion also damaged several nearby vehicles.
Sindh Home Minister Zia-ul-Hassan Lanjar told reporters such warehouses are not allowed to exist in residential areas and assured that those responsible would face legal action, seeking a report from police.
“Police will thoroughly investigate how the blast occurred,” DIG Raza said. “Once the cause is determined, appropriate action will follow.”
Explosions at fireworks facilities are common in Pakistan due to a lack of safety protocols and lax enforcement of regulations.
In January this year, six people were killed in a similar blast at a fireworks storage site in Mandi Bahauddin, a city in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province.
Pakistan woos old rival Bangladesh as India watches on
An uprising in Dhaka last year that toppled India ally Sheikh Hasina has strained Bangladesh’s ties with New Delhi
Bangladesh is hosting the foreign minister and trade envoy this week, its most senior Pakistani visitors in years
Updated 22 August 2025
AFP
DHAKA, Bangladesh: Decades after Pakistani troops killed his friends in Bangladesh’s independence war, veteran freedom fighter Syed Abu Naser Bukhtear Ahmed eyes warming ties between Dhaka and Islamabad with cautious pragmatism.
Bangladesh is hosting the foreign minister and trade envoy this week, its most senior Pakistani visitors in years, in a bid to reset relations scarred by the bloody 1971 conflict and shaped by shifting regional power balances.
“The brutality was unbounded,” said Ahmed, 79, a banker, describing the war in which East Pakistan broke away to form Bangladesh.
Hundreds of thousands were killed — Bangladeshi estimates say millions — and Pakistan’s military was accused of widespread atrocities.
“I would have loved to see the responsible people tried — the ones who killed six of my friends,” Ahmed told AFP.
“I don’t mind normalizing relations with those who opposed the war, but were not directly involved in the atrocities committed.”
Contact between the two Muslim-majority nations was long limited to little more than cultural ties: a shared love of cricket, music and Pakistan’s prized cotton used to make the flowing trousers and shirt known as shalwar kameez.
Bangladesh instead leaned heavily on India, which almost encircles the country of 170 million people.
However, a mass uprising in Dhaka last year that toppled longtime India ally Sheikh Hasina has strained ties with New Delhi and opened the door for dialogue with Islamabad.
Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan arrived in Dhaka on Thursday and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar is expected on Saturday.
Analysts say India, which fought a four-day conflict with Pakistan in May, will be watching closely.
“Bangladesh had been one of India’s closest partners in its neighborhood, and now it is flirting with India’s chief adversary,” said Michael Kugelman, a US-based analyst.
The last time a Pakistani foreign minister visited Dhaka was in 2012, according to Bangladesh newspapers.
Pakistan and Bangladesh began sea trade last year, expanding government-to-government commerce in February.
“It is the emergence of a new strategic equation — one that reduces Indian influence and instead strengthens a cooperative axis between Pakistan and Bangladesh,” Azeem Khalid, a New York-based international relations expert, told AFP.
“If sustained, this evolution has the potential to reshape South Asia’s geopolitical and economic order.”
Bangladesh’s interim government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus is furious that Hasina fled to India and has defied a summons to answer charges amounting to crimes against humanity.
“Under Yunus, there have been a number of high-level meetings, trade relations have expanded, the two countries have agreed to relax visa rules and there has even been some limited military cooperation,” said analyst Thomas Kean from the International Crisis Group.
Still, reconciliation faces obstacles.
Calls for Pakistan to apologize for the 1971 killings remain popular in Bangladesh, but foreign policy expert Qamar Cheema believes it is unlikely Islamabad will oblige.
“Pakistan’s engagement with Bangladesh is only possible if Bangladesh does not bring historical animosity in re-establishing ties,” said Cheema, from Islamabad’s Sanober Institute.
“Bangladesh always demanded an apology, which (Pakistan) never provided — and even today, doesn’t have any such intentions.”
Dhaka’s foreign affairs adviser Mohammad Touhid Hossain, asked if Bangladesh would raise the issue of a public apology, said that “all issues will be on the table.”
Bangladesh courts have sentenced several people for “genocide” during the 1971 war, accusing them of aiding Pakistani forces in the ethnic cleansing of Bengalis.
“As long as the wound remains open, the relationship cannot be sustainable,” said anthropologist Sayeed Ferdous from Dhaka’s Jahangirnagar University.
Others strike a more balanced tone.
“From a victim’s perspective, I can’t accept a warming of bilateral relations before Pakistan meets certain conditions,” said Bangladeshi academic Meghna Guhathakurta, whose father was killed by Pakistani troops.
She said Islamabad “should make all information related to the war public.”
However, the retired international relations professor from Dhaka University also accepted that it was “natural to have trade relations with Pakistan,” and acknowledged the “geopolitical dimensions.”
With elections in February, when Yunus’s administration will hand over power, relations could shift once again.
“If the next government is prepared to patch up ties with India — and Delhi is willing to reciprocate — then the surge in ties with Islamabad could become a casualty,” Kugelman said.
KARACHI: At 51, single mother Anjum Nida Rahman has transformed her Karachi kitchen into a bustling food business. What began as a passion for healthy recipes has grown into Lo-Kal Bites, a gluten- and sugar-free brand known for its pizza and best-selling chocolate mousse.
Rahman joined foodpanda’s home chef platform in 2022. Today, she employs a team of four across Karachi and Lahore, dispatching dozens of parcels daily.
“The money that I make in this business helps me provide for my son,” she told Arab News. “I’m a single mother … Our business is enough for us to have this [small] team.”
Rahman is part of a digital food revolution. Nearly 6,000 women across Pakistan are now selling everything from French desserts to Burmese Khow Suey and Moroccan chicken through foodpanda, the country’s largest food delivery service. For many, it is the first time they have been able to monetize traditional family recipes and reach customers far beyond their neighborhoods.
Pakistan’s embrace of mobile technology has fueled this shift. With mobile penetration exceeding 80 percent, digital services are expanding rapidly. Statista estimates the country’s online food delivery market will generate $2.4 billion by the end of 2025.
Despite the deep Internet penetration and growing e-commerce ecosystem, overall, only about 24 percent of Pakistani women aged 15 and older participate in the labor force, one of the lowest rates in South Asia, according to the World Bank. Social norms, safety concerns, and limited mobility have historically excluded women from formal employment, pushing many toward home-based enterprises.
Chef and Co-founder of Lo-Kal Bites, Anjum Nida Rahman (left) preparing a food order for delivery in Karachi, Pakistan on August 13, 2025. (AN Photo)
And even within entrepreneurship, women’s share remains small. A diagnostic study by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) found that of Pakistan’s more than five million small and medium enterprises, only about 8 percent are women-owned, highlighting structural barriers to finance, training and market access. The World Bank notes that women-led businesses are also far less likely to have access to formal financial services such as bank loans, limiting their growth potential.
According to Global System for Mobile Communications Association, the global industry body that represents mobile network operators and the wider mobile ecosystem, and the World Bank, Pakistan faces a staggering economic loss of up to $17 billion annually due to women’s exclusion from digital connectivity, particularly mobile Internet. This isn’t simply about online access but represents lost opportunities in e-commerce, online education, digital financial services and remote work.
These statistics make this surge in women-led enterprises particularly significant, with home-based platforms offering a rare chance at financial independence.
“I want to spend time with my son at home,” Rahman explained. “I have elderly parents I need to look after … foodpanda gives us a platform where we can create an industry, make traditional food … and share it with everybody.”
Her success is measurable.
In Karachi, Rahman’s orders grew 42 percent in just six months, totaling more than 2,500 deliveries.
“As a company, we have grown 28 percent and we’ve made in the last six months over 4,600 orders,” she said. “We are growing almost double.”
Fellow entrepreneur Nazish Rehman has followed a similar trajectory.
Home Chef Nazish Rehman (not in picture) preparing servings of Khausey for delivery in Karachi, Pakistan, on August 13, 2025. (AN Photo)
Four years ago, she received a single order in her first week. Today, her brand Kausey Extreme handles around 50 orders a day. Her menu has expanded from a lone bowl of Khow Suey to over 22 dishes ranging from dumplings and chow mein to pastas and fries.
“The most exciting impact this business has on my life is that I have become an earner and am no more dependent on others,” she said.
THE FOODPANDA FACTOR
Foodpanda is a subsidiary of Berlin-based Delivery Hero, which operates in more than 70 countries. The company generated $1.2 billion in economic activity in FY24 and now connects millions of users in 35 Pakistani cities with restaurants, home chefs, and its own pandamart grocery stores. It engages thousands of freelance riders and handles up to 20 percent of the total food business for its restaurant partners.
Muntaqa Peracha, CEO of foodpanda Pakistan, told Arab News the company had deliberately positioned itself as an enabler for women.
“We’ve given opportunities [to] these women to [join the platform] without spending too much time … on marketing themselves,” he said, adding that of the 6,000 home chefs on the platform, 75 percent are women, with more than half earning for the first time.
But the partnership is not without its critics.
Industry insiders point out that foodpanda’s commission, reportedly above 30 percent per order, plus a 10 percent marketing fee, cuts deep into home chefs’ margins.
“Commission rates for home chefs on our platform can vary based on several factors, and we are committed to supporting these entrepreneurs, who are often new to the business,” said Hassan Arshad, the company’s director of policy and communications.
He added that foodpanda had engaged provincial governments to reduce the tax burden on commissions to “better incentivize and support the growth of these home-based businesses.”
Despite the costs, both Rahman and Nazish insist the visibility and reach are worth it.
“It’s a fantastic platform to … bring women into the workplace and increase financial inclusion,” Rahman said. “Women are now able to contribute to their households. They don’t need to leave their house … We feel very empowered.”
