Rise Pakistan

When a family member dies leaving behind bank accounts, shares or other movable assets, the bank will not simply hand the money to the family. It will ask for a succession certificate — the document that names the rightful heirs and lets them collect what the deceased person left behind. In Pakistan, that certificate now comes from NADRA, and the process is far quicker than going to court. What is a succession certificate? A succession certificate authorises the legal heirs of a deceased person to collect debts and securities owed to them — bank balances, prize bonds, shares and similar movable assets. It does not cover immovable property such as houses or land; for that, NADRA issues a separate Letter of Administration. Since the Letters of Administration and Succession Certificates Act, 2020, NADRA has the authority to issue these certificates alongside the courts. The court route still exists, but it is now mainly used where NADRA cannot act — for example, where the heirs disagree o...

Suhail Ahmed's career began in 2018 on online marketplaces — and it has taken him from Islamabad to the chief executive's office of a California-based company. In 2024 he became CEO of Hearthy Foods, a US company that closed 2025 with $5.27 million in revenue. It is a journey built step by step, through e-commerce, team leadership and his own agency, and it has made him one of the more striking examples of Pakistani talent reaching the top of an American business. Starting with online marketplaces Ahmed began in 2018, working with online marketplaces — the digital shopfronts where sellers list products and learn, often the hard way, how online trade actually works. He moved from there into managing Amazon stores, a role that demands attention to listings, pricing, customer service and the platform's constantly changing rules. That grounding matters. Running a store on a marketplace teaches the unglamorous fundamentals of e-commerce: which products sell, what customers compl...

Around 1,000 stalls, kiosks and carts were flattened in the dark. Between 2am and 3am on Thursday, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) demolished Islamabad's G-10 Sunday Bazaar, wiping out goods worth millions of rupees and leaving stallholders to return in the morning to rubble where their livelihoods had stood. The traders say they were given no chance to save anything. Many describe the stock destroyed in the operation as their lifetime savings — goods bought on credit and built up over years — now gone without warning and without a chance to collect their belongings. A market that was meant to reopen The demolition came as a shock because the market had only been shut temporarily two weeks earlier, over security concerns. Traders say they were assured at the time that the closure was short-term and that the bazaar would reopen. Instead, they woke to news that it had been razed overnight. That gap between the assurance and the demolition is now the heart of the traders' ...

Islamabad is preparing for a transformation. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has said the capital will look like a totally different city by the time it hosts the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in August 2027, unveiling a package of landmark projects that includes a new cricket stadium, a modern convention centre and what is planned to be Asia's largest safari park. The announcement sets a clear deadline. With the summit around nine months away, the government has tied the city's makeover directly to the arrival of foreign delegations, turning the event into both a diplomatic occasion and a test of the capital's ability to deliver major infrastructure on time. What is being built Three projects sit at the centre of the plan. A new cricket stadium would give the capital a modern venue for international matches, something Islamabad has long lacked despite being home to a large cricket-loving population. A convention centre would provide the formal setting for t...

A traffic challan used to mean a trip to the bank and half a day lost. Today, in most of Pakistan's big cities, you can check and pay one by phone in minutes. This guide explains where to check your fine and how to pay it safely. What is an e-challan? An e-challan is an electronic traffic fine, issued when a Safe City camera records a violation — running a red light, speeding, a missing helmet, or crossing a lane line — or when traffic police issue a ticket on the road. Cameras photograph the vehicle and record the fine against the registered owner. Because the system is run city by city, there is no single national portal yet: you check the portal for the province or city where your vehicle is registered or where the violation happened. Step 1: Check your challan Punjab has the most developed system, run by the Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA), covering Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Sialkot and Bahawalpur. 1. Open the official PSCA e-challan portal at echa...

Millions of Pakistani families depend on the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), and the question they ask most is a simple one: has my payment arrived? The answer takes less than a minute to find — if you use the official 8171 channels. This guide explains the two free ways to check, what the result means, and how to avoid the scams that target BISP families. What is BISP 8171? BISP is Pakistan's largest cash-support programme for low-income households. Its main scheme, Benazir Kafaalat, pays eligible families a quarterly installment — currently Rs 14,500 per quarter. The number 8171 is the programme's official shortcode: the same number works for the web portal and for SMS checks. Checking is free. BISP does not charge any fee for status checks, registration or payments, and no agent can speed up your payment for money. Method 1: Check on the 8171 web portal The official portal is 8171.bisp.gov.pk. Type the address yourself into your browser — never tap a link sent on Wh...