Window to Gilgit-Baltistan

By  Syed Shamsuddin Gilgit-Baltistan’s Exclusion from Federal Job Advertisements: A Persistent, Systemic, and Unaddressed Injustice The Gilgit-Baltistan Career Forum’s Facebook post of 27 November 2025 has once again brought into sharp focus a long-standing, deeply entrenched, and profoundly unsettling reality: the continuous omission of Gilgit-Baltistan’s (GB) quota from federal job advertisements issued by ministries, divisions, autonomous bodies, and state-owned organizations. Despite the constitutional spirit, administrative obligations, and moral imperative that mandate equitable—and now urgently enhanced—representation of GB in federal employment, the region remains persistently sidelined in national recruitment processes. This recurring exclusion represents not merely an administrative oversight but a structural and systemic injustice. It erodes foundational principles of equal opportunity, deepens institutional mistrust, and we...

By  Syed Shamsuddin Saving Woodlands, Groves, and Forests of Gilgit-Baltistan—The First and Most Crucial Step in Climate Resilience Climate change is no longer a distant or abstract threat for Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). As Rosham Din Diamiri rightly points out, global warming may be a worldwide crisis, but its effects are disproportionately severe for high-mountain regions like GB—home to fragile ecosystems, dense glacier systems, climate-sensitive valleys, and a population deeply dependent on natural resources for survival. Yet one core problem repeatedly undermines all climate adaptation efforts: the rapid depletion of the region’s woodlands, groves, and forests —a crisis driven primarily by the lack of accessible and affordable alternate energy resources. If this foundational issue is not addressed first, all other climate strategies will remain incomplete, and even ineffective. Why Gilgit-Baltistan Stands at the Frontline of Climat...

By  Syed Shamsuddin THE LAUNCH OF the new, upgraded website of the Gilgit-Baltistan Service Tribunal marks a transformative step in addressing one of the most persistent concerns of litigants and their lawyers— the problem of prolonged, and often inordinate, delays in the adjudication of service matters. For years, many petitioners have faced uncertainty, repeated visits to offices, and lack of access to reliable information regarding the status of their appeals. The frustration has been especially acute in cases that have remained unresolved for a decade or more. Among the longstanding matters are the appeals filed by teachers from the Education Departments of Skardu, Gilgit, and other districts. These petitioners maintain that they met all requisite professional qualifications, yet were subsequently removed from service on the basis of alleged irregularities in the recruitment criteria. Their appeals have remained unresolved for m...

By  Syed Shamsuddin Harnessing Botanical Expertise for a Resilient Future: How Scholars like Professor Dr. Sher Wali Khan Can Guide Gilgit-Baltistan Toward Drought-Resistant Landscapes Gilgit-Baltistan—an awe-inspiring land of towering peaks, glaciers, wind-swept plateaus, and deep valleys—is also a region marked by harsh climatic realities. With arid conditions, erratic precipitation, fragile soils, and rising temperatures driven by climate change, its vast stretches of barren and undulating land remain vulnerable to erosion, degradation, and ecological decline. The urgent need to rehabilitate these landscapes through drought-resistant and ecologically suitable plant species has never been more pronounced. In this context, erudite scholars like Professor Dr. Sher Wali Khan , Chairman of the Department of Plant Sciences at Karakoram International University (KIU), emerge as invaluable assets. His recent international recognition...

By  Syed Shamsuddin Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) stands at the climatic frontline of Pakistan. Often described as the country’s environmental barometer or North Pole , this mountainous region hosts the world’s largest concentration of glaciers outside the polar zones. These glaciers feed the Indus River system that sustains Pakistan’s agriculture, hydropower, and drinking-water needs. Simply put, the survival of Pakistan’s water economy hinges on the ecological stability of Gilgit-Baltistan . Yet, year after year, GB faces an energy crisis of such magnitude that its people have little choice but to cut down trees to survive harsh winters. Firewood remains the default fuel not because people prefer it, but because clean energy is either unavailable or unaffordable . This has pushed GB’s already fragile forests to the brink of survival. Deforestation here is not a local problem—it is a national emergency. And that is where Islamabad must st...

By  Syed Shamsuddin In an age that celebrates rapid advancement—artificial intelligence, global connectivity, digital literacy, and unprecedented access to knowledge—it has become commonplace to equate education with progress. Nations flaunt enrollment statistics, literacy rates, and numbers of graduates as indicators of development. Parents invest heavily in private schooling, coaching academies, and foreign degrees. Governments race to build educational institutions and produce “skilled human capital” to feed an increasingly competitive economy. Yet beneath this glittering narrative lies a troubling paradox: we may be mass-producing a generation of individuals who are educated in the technical sense, yet deeply deprived of empathy, ethics, and human values. Such an imbalance does not herald progress; it risks ushering in a form of societal chaos where intellectual advancement coexists with moral decay. The crux of the issue is si...