t has been, hands down, a challenging year. Economic deprivation, increasing human rights violations across the country coupled with a continued political uncertainty have made it all the more taxing for ordinary Pakistanis. Despair is not and should never be a constant. The political highs and lows throughout the year have given little hope to the people of Pakistan for a better, a more democratic, future. Be that as it may, electoral politics has produced interesting trends in 2021, and as we enter the years right before the next scheduled general election, things are bound to get even more exciting.

While the year began with the hope of curtailing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has transformed lives across the globe since the end of 2019, the emergence of new and more infectious variants has already dampened the festivities that come with the year-end celebrations. The disparities in vaccine distribution and availability continue to haunt global efforts to contain, and hopefully one day make irrelevant, the spread of the virus. We look at this and social behaviours surrounding Covid in one of our pieces this week.

The year 2021 posed great adversities for journalists, and journalism across the world. The fact that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 was awarded to two journalists – Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov – “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”, speaks volumes about the times we live in. Pakistan is no different in that the news media – mainstream, indie and digital – was faced with a barrage of challenges including censorship, threats and intimidation. This week, we explore the state of media freedoms in the year gone by.

As we put to bed our last edition of the year, we do so with the hope that our collective experiences will provide us a chance to learn from the mistakes of the year that comes to a close, and allows us a chance to introspect with optimism as we step into the new year.

From everyone at The News on Sunday, a happy New Year.