Friday, 19 November, 2021 I 13 Rabi-us-Sani, 1443 I Rs 15.00 I Vol XII No 141 I 12 Pages I Karachi Edition
Politicians resisting eVMs benefited froM ‘old corruPt systeM’, says iMran Khan g
says voting rights will add valuE g ‘ElEmEnts rEsisting automation to ovErsEas Pakistanis’ staturE in govt systEms would fail’
ISLAMABAD Mian abrar
t
aking a jibe at the opposition parties resisting the recent legislation, Prime minister imran khan thursday said that the politicians resisting voting rights for non-resident Pakistanis and use of Electronic voting machines (Evms) were part of the status quo that benefited from the old ‘corrupt system’.
addressing a ceremony held for the launch of a digital portal to enable overseas citizens to verify the power of attorney, the premier congratulated overseas Pakistanis on getting the right to vote, saying all future governments would now value Pakistani expats and work for their facilitation. “it made me especially happy yesterday that we have now included overseas Pakistanis in Pakistan’s democracy,” the prime minister told the ceremony. he said
coronaVirus in
PaKistan
CONFIRMED CASES:
1,280,822
LAST UPDATED AT 9:47 AM ON NOVEMBER 18, 2021
DAY'S DEATH TOLL:
NEW CASES:
10
460
RECOVERED:
DEATHS:
1,229,683 28,638 SINDH:
PUNJAB:
473,561
442,162
KPK:
BALOCHISTAN:
179,346 AJK/GB: 34,521/10,404
33,422 ISLAMABAD:
107,406
the rights given to expats meant that “now every government will be bound to value our overseas Pakistanis because they can now vote.” “when they vote, the nine million nonresident Pakistanis will vote for the government that can improve their lives. so the biggest benefit will be that a citizen can keep a check on the government through their vote in a democracy,” he emphasised. the premier said the passage of legislation regarding Evms also made him very happy, and noted that rapidly changing technology was bringing ease to humans’ lives in all spheres. “so there can’t be a more foolish mentality than avoiding the use of technology today,” he said, recalling that a government commission and the ECP had recommended the use of Evms as far back as 2008. “But why weren’t they accepted? [Because] all the people benefiting from the old system will never allow change.” Prime minister imran said Evms were being used “all over the world”, adding that the machines would put an end to issues of wastage of votes, fake votes, and votes cast in the name of deceased people.
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Extremism not rooted in madressahs but schools, colleges: Fawad ISLAMABAD staff report
minister for information and Broadcasting fawad Chaudhry thursday triggered a new controversy, saying that extremism in Pakistan was not rooted in madressahs but schools and colleges. addressing a consultative conference on terrorism here, fawad Chaudhry said the school teachers were hired during the 1980s and 1990s as part of a plot to ‘basically teach extremism’. Chaudhry said that the students of ‘ordinary schools and colleges’ had been involved in notable incidents of extremism in Pakistan and not of madressahs. Because, he went on, “you closed their (school and college students’) minds. if you cultivate a society where an opposing view is immediately declared kufr (heresy) … how can you present an opposing view?” “and if no opposing views are tolerated, how will you bring a soft change [in society]?” he asked rhetorically. in this regard, Chaudhry gave the example of late Jamiat ulemai-islam-fazl leader and religious scholar maulana hassan Jan, whom
TLP chief Saad Rizvi released from prison LAHORE
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more inside
CNG, CPPs may face gas shortage in peak winter
staff report
the leader of the radical tehreek-i-labbaik Pakistan (tlP) party was released from kot lakhpat prison in lahore on thursday, Jail superintendent ijaz asghar confirmed to media. as per videos and pictures shared, the tlP chief reached mosque rehmatul-il-aalimeen in lahore shortly after his release. a large number of supporters had gathered outside the party headquarters to welcome rizvi. the tlP chief had been under detention since april 11. his release is said to be a part of the recent agreement reached between the government and the tlP following the party’s recent sit-in. rizvi’s release comes a weak after the government removed him from the terrorism watchlist, paving the way for his release from detention under the deal to end weeks of deadly protests by his followers. rizvi, son of the late firebrand cleric khadim hussain rizvi, was arrested on charges of inciting his followers and party activists to take the law into their own hands after, according to him, the government had reneged on its
he said was murdered for giving a fatwa that declared suicide attacks forbidden in islam. similarly, he added, for such reasons many other scholars were unable to come to Pakistan. “likewise, when a matter is taken up by the Council of islamic ideology and i ask that the other side’s perspective also be presented, they ask back, ‘do you want us killed?'” the minister said. he claimed that scholars in Pakistan were afraid of speaking up, adding that society itself had to rectify the narrative of extremism.
STORY ON BACK PAGE
promise to expel the french ambassador over the publication of blasphemous caricatures. his detention was scheduled to end on July 10 in light of a decision of the review board of the supreme Court. however, the office of the deputy commissioner issued a fresh notification extending the detention for another three months under section 11-EEE (powers to arrest and detain suspected persons) of the anti-terrorism act. on august 2, rizvi, through his uncle, filed another petition with the lahore high Court (lhC), claiming the government extended his detention with “mala
fide intention”. he said it implicated him in 14 criminal cases following his detention. through the petition, rizvi’s uncle asked the court to declare the extension of the detention period illegal and order his release. two weeks later, on august 17, the court sought replies from the authorities on the request. subsequently, on october 1, the court declared as illegal the detention of rizvi. following the court order, the lahore deputy commissioner, umer sher Chattha, also issued orders for his release.
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Civilian killings: masarrat aalam, hurriyat forum call for shutdown in iioJk STORY ON PAGE 02
PML-N wants ‘election-stealers’ tried for treason STORY ON BACK PAGE
China overtakes us to become richest nation in the world: report STORY ON PAGE 03
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Friday, 19 November, 2021 | KARACHI
NEWS
CiviLian KiLLinGS: MaSaRRaT aaLaM, HuRRiYaT FoRuM CaLL FoR SHuTdown in iioJK SrINAgAr
i
Staff RepoRt
N Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the illegally detained All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman, Masarrat Aalam Butt, and the Hurriyat forum led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq have called for complete shutdown, tomorrow, against the recent extra-judicial killing of four civilians by Indian troops in Srinagar. According to Kashmir Media Service, Masarrat Alam Butt in a message from New Delhi’s Tihar Jail appealed to people of
IIOJK to organise mass funeral prayers in absentia for the four civilians martyred by the troops in a fake encounter in Hyderpora area of Srinagar and hold peaceful protest rallies against the brutal killings after Juma prayers, today. He also asked the people to conduct marches towards the houses of the martyrs Altaf Ahmad Butt and Dr Mudasir Gull in Srinagar and Amir Ahmad in Banihal area of Ramban district in Jammu region. The APHC Chairman strongly condemning the extra-judicial killing of the civilians said that the troops in a dastardly and brazen act of violence killed the
Govt raises Rs56bn against Rs600bn target in T-bills auction MONItOrINg repOrt The government rejected almost all competitive bids in the auction of treasury bills held on Wednesday while it accepted only Rs0.5 billion for three-month tenor, according to a report by Dawn. However, the government raised Rs55.258bn through non-competitive bids for three-month making the total as Rs55.8bn. The cut-off yield remained unchanged at 8.5 per cent. Bankers said the investors were asking higher rates but the government rejected almost all except Rs0.5bn for three-month against the target of Rs200bn. The total bids for the auction were Rs541.4bn while the government’s target for the auction was Rs600bn. The highest bids of Rs282.9bn were for three-month papers. The government also raised Rs29.44bn through competitive and non-competitive bids of Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIBs).
Gold imports jump 138pc during 4MFY22 ISLAMABAD app
The import of gold into the country increased by 37.99 per cent during the first four months of the current fiscal year (4MFY22) as compared to the corresponding period of last year, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Thursday. As per details, gold imports during the (July-October) period were recorded at $5.626 million as compared to the imports of 2.364 million during July-October FY21, according to the data. In terms of quantity, Pakistan imported 93 kilograms of gold during the period under review as compared to the imports of 39 kilograms last year, showing a positive growth of 138.5pc. Meanwhile, on year-on-year (YoY) basis, the gold imports witnessed an increase of 1.07pc to $1.322 million during the month of October 2021 as compared to the imports of $1.308 million the same month of last year. On month-onmonth (MoM) basis, gold imports during August 2021 increased by 0.76pc as compared to the imports of $1.312 million in September 2021. It is pertinent to mention here that the country’s total merchandise exports surged by 24.94pc to $9.462 billion during 4MFY22 compared to the exports of $7.573 billion the corresponding period of last year.
LSM grows 5.15pc in Q1FY22
innocent civilians in cold blood in Srinagar. He said, the Modi-led fascist regime has let loose the reign of terror for the last several years, especially after August 05, 2019 and has given a free hand to the 1,000,000 Indian troops to kill the Kashmiris. In a recent statement, India’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, has exposed the Indian policy to exterminate Kashmiris, saying that all the Kashmiris involved in anti-India activities shall be lynched, he deplored. Masarrat Aalam Butt expressed solidarity with the bereaved families and saluted the courage and determination they showed by
holding strong protests against the brutal murder of their loved ones. He reiterated that the sacrifices of the Kashmiri people would not be allowed go to waste and the ongoing freedom struggle will continue till the right to self-determination was achieved. He said, the resilient Kashmiris are bravely fighting to foil the anti-Kashmiri agenda of the fascist Indian government and urged the Kashmiri Diaspora to register their strong protest worldwide before the Indian embassies against the civilian killings in IIOJK by Indian troops. Meanwhile, the Hurriyat forum led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a statement in
Oil near six-week low as China readies crude reserve release LONDON agencieS
Oil prices slid to six-week lows on Thursday before recovering some ground, as China said it was moving to tap reserves after a Reuters report that the United States was asking large consuming nations to consider a stockpile release to lower prices. The bid by the US to cool markets, asking China to join a coordinated action for the first time, comes as inflationary pressures – partly driven by surging energy prices – start to produce a political backlash. Brent crude was down 20 cents, or 0.2%, to $80.08 a barrel by 1035 GMT, after earlier dropping to $79.28, the lowest since Oct. 7. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down 39 cents, or 0.5%, at $77.97 a barrel, having fallen earlier to $77.08, also the lowest since early last
month. Coordinated oil reserve releases “coincide with this virtual meeting between Biden and Xi Jinping”, said John Driscoll, managing director at consultancy JTD Energy in Singapore. “The US wants to arrest inflation and China probably wouldn’t mind seeing a damper on oil prices.”
Prices hit seven-year highs in October as the market focused on the swift rebound in demand that has come with the lifting of lockdowns to halt the spread of the coronavirus. The rally was fuelled in part by the strategy of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, called OPEC+, to resume
Ahsan Iqbal fears EVMs will tamper polling results for govt’s milage NewS DeSk PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday, after the approval of electronic voting machines (EVM) bill in the joint parliamentary joint session stated that EVMs could be used to tamper the polling results. “Polling results can be doctored through changing a chip in EVMs and that is the reason most countries have discarded these machines,” said Iqbal, while talking to media in Islamabad. Iqbal as well other other members of the Opposition strongly opposed the decision of approving 33 bills including the contentious Elections (Second Amendment) Bill, 2021, which paved the way for the use of EVMs in the next general elections. The legislation drew strong criticism from the opposition, which claimed that the government was introducing electronic machines to doctor poll results for its own mileage. Flanked by PPP’s Sherry Rehman and other lawmakers, Iqbal said the opposition believed the judiciary would uphold the Constitution of Pakistan. The PML-N leader said Nov 17 would be remembered as the darkest day in the history of Pakistan,
adding that the opposition would have to take the “parliament issue” to the court. “The government made the entire electoral process controversial through legislation disputed by other members of the House,” he said, adding that the government neglected the Election Commission of Pakistan which was a major stakeholder in the election process. He also accused the government of attempting to take control of all election arrangements in their hands. Iqbal said a foundation had been laid to rig the next elections. Iqbal, quoting “information” given to his party, said that the Nadra chairman was allegedly using organisational resources and data for the government’s campaign for the upcoming elections. “If Nadra is found leaking national data to the government, they will be liable to face treason charges.” Reprimanding the government for its insistence to employ technology in conducting elections, the PML-N leader said Pakistan was a “beggar” in technology and Germany was the “king” of it. “The Supreme Court in Germany termed that EVMs cannot keep the secrecy of people’s vote and hence declared it unconstitutional,” explained Iqbal.
ISLAMABAD app
Pakistan’s Large Scale Manufacturing Industries (LSMI) production grew by 5.15 per cent during the first quarter of the current fiscal year (Q1FY22) compared to the corresponding period of last year, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported Thursday. As per details, the highest increase of 3.3pc during July-September FY22 was witnessed in indices monitored by the Ministry of Industries, followed by a 1.57pc increase in indices monitored by the Provincial Board of Statistics (PBS) and a 0.28pc increase in the products monitored by the Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC). On year on year basis (YoY), the industry grew by 1.19pc during the month of September 2021 compared to the growth of September 2020, according to PBS data. The major sectors that showed positive growth during the period under review included textile which grew by 0.80pc, food, beverages and tobacco which grew by 3.39pc, coke and petroleum products by 4.75pc, pharmaceuticals 11.53pc, chemicals 4.70pc, mon-metallic mineral products 1.44pc, automobiles 42.64pc, iron and steel products 13.77pc, leather produts 13.94pc, paper and board 13.12pc, engineering products 3.17pc and wood products registered a 4.44pc growth. The commodities that witnessed negative growth included fertilisers which took a 2.66pc hit, electronics 4.51pc and rubber products 31.5pc.
Srinagar said the Kashmiris are victims of daily fake encounters, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and humiliation by Indian occupation forces. It said the tragedy that has struck the families of innocent civilians killed in the Hyderpora staged encounter is so tormenting that its pain has stunned the people of IIOJK. The statement said, the picture of eighteen month old Inaya, infant daughter of slain Dr Mudasir Gul held by her distraught mother who was sitting on the roads in freezing cold, protesting not for punishment to the killers of her husband, but pleading and begging to the authorities that at least the dead body of her husband be returned to her so that she sees him one last time and gives him a decent burial is agonizing. The Hurriyat forum urged the people to observe complete shutdown on Friday to send a message to the world to impress upon India to stop human rights violations in IIOJK and to support the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.
Pakistan’s exports to Canada register 32pc jump in 9MCY21 ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt
Pakistan’s exports to Canada have registered a 32 per cent increase in the first nine months of the ongoing calendar year (9MFY21). This was revealed during an online public forum organised by the Pakistan High Commission (PHC) in Canada along with its consulates in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal to take up questions and concerns of the Pakistani diaspora about consular and public services offered by the government of Pakistan. During the forum, it was mentioned that total exports from Pakistan to Canada during the (January-September) period, as per figures shared by Statistics Canada, total exports from Pakistan to Canada amounted to $313 million as compared with exports of $237.1 million during the same period last year. To another question, members of Pakistani community were informed that a series of educational webinars and e-workshops were being planned by the PHC, the first of which would be held on November 23. The purpose of the webinars will be to explore
opportunities and prospects for the Pakistani students to pursue higher education in Canada under the Student Direct Stream launched by the Government of Canada to fast track visa processing for students from certain countries, including Pakistan. The forum addressed various questions and concerns about a host of issues, including online issuance of power of attorney, issuance of NICOP to children born in Canada, use of Roshan Digital Accounts (RDA) and promotion of international tourism, particularly religious and medical tourism, in Pakistan.
output only slowly. The International Energy Agency and OPEC have said in recent weeks that more supply will be available in the coming months. But the proposed release of reserves represents an unprecedented challenge to OPEC, because it involves top importer China. China’s state reserve bureau said it was working on a release of crude oil reserves although it declined to comment on the US request. A Japanese industry ministry official said the United States had requested Tokyo’s cooperation in dealing with higher oil prices. By law, Japan cannot use reserve releases to lower prices, the official said. A South Korean official confirmed the United States had asked Seoul to release some oil reserves and it was reviewing the request but added that it could only release crude in case of a supply imbalance.
Finance committee rejects proposal of depriving non-filers of electricity, gas connections ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt
The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue on Thursday rejected a proposal to disconnect mobile, electricity and gas connections of non-filers. The meeting of the committee was held under the chair of Senator Talha Mahmood at parliament house which discussed the third Tax Amendment Act presented by FBR in detail. As per details, the Upper House panel not only turned down the proposal of disconnecting mobile, electricity and gas connections of non-filers but also rejected the proposal of providing taxpayer information to NAB. The chairman committee said that the move would be cruel as such a law is a violation of basic human rights. In addition, the Senate committee also rejected the proposal to impose a tax above a Rs20,000 electricity bill as well as the proposal of withdrawing sales tax on the import of meltable scraps. The Chairman committee questioned who submitted the proposal to which Senator Musadiq Malik answered that it was steel mill owners. On the other hand, the Upper House panel approved proposals with regard to imposing a tax on apples imported from Afghanistan, extending a tax waiver on auto-disable syringes to December 31, abolishing sales tax on imports at PSO terminals, getting 16 per cent instead of 17pc sales tax from tier-1 retailers through debit or credit card purchasing, and a zero-rated regime for packed milk. It also approved a 5pc tax on the import of electric vehicles and remittance above Rs5 million sent through banks and exchange companies. Furthermore, the committee also discussed the issue being faced by the Iraqi Embassy in managing a $10 million account with Habib Bank Limited (HBL) as per the policy of SBP. While deliberating on the issue, the meeting took serious notice of the absence of the SBP Governor Reza Baqir. The chairman committee said that he can order the police to arrest or present the SBP governor in the committee if he does not turn up himself. Mandviwala said that Baqir did not appear in the last three meetings of the committee whereas the Iraqi ambassador has appeared and wanted that a privilege motion moved against the SBP governor.
Friday, 19 November, 2021 | KARACHI
ChiNA ovERTAKEs Us To BECoME RiChEsT NATioN iN ThE woRLd: REPoRT
C
MOnitOring rEpOrt
HINA has seen vast economic growth over the past couple of decades, propelling the world’s latgest nation to become the wealthiest country as well, leaving behind its rival, the United States (US). A report by the research arm of consultants McKinsey & Co. has concluded that China is on top of the top 10 countries that account for more than 60% of world income. China has grabbed the top spot in the list of wealthiest nations in the world
mostly as it gained almost one-third of the global net wealth during the past two decades. “We are now wealthier than we have ever been,” Jan Mischke, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute in Zurich, said in an interview. The study said global net wealth increased to $514 trillion in 2020, from $156 trillion in 2000. China has almost secured a one-third share in this net wealth, the study noted. The country’s wealth mushroomed to $120 trillion from $7 trillion in 2000, revealed the report. Nearly two decades ago, China spurred its economic progress after it
Aamir Ahsan Khan named country manager of Ericsson Pakistan Karachi press release
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) has announced the appointment of Aamir Ahsan Khan as Country Manager of Ericsson Pakistan. Aamir is set to lead a strong crossfunctional team aided by a network of partners to support communication service providers and increase Ericsson’s digital footprint in the country. Having joined Ericsson 14 years ago, Aamir brings forward progressive and professional experience in information technology, telecommunication, and management, with a proven record of increasing business through relationship-based client management and streamlined processes. “I am thrilled to lead Ericsson Pakistan during such an exciting time when connectivity is transforming industries and helping us reimagine the possible,” said Aamir. “In my capacity as Country Manager, I aspire to build strong strategies that will not only innovate our current client offerings, but grow Ericsson’s regional business, and support the digital transformation momentum in the country. By working together with various public and private business partners in Pakistan, I aspire to accelerate digital innovation in the country and prepare Pakistan for the digital era.”
NA-133 by-election: ECP asks Punjab govt for deployment of Rangers The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has sought deployment of Rangers for the NA-133 by-election, scheduled to take place on December 5, a news outlet reported on Thursday. According to the report, the provincial election commission has submitted a formal application to the Punjab home department in this regard but the latter has not responded to the former so far. Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras will be installed at the polling stations to monitor the polling process while the provincial election commission will finalise the poling scheme by November 20. The scrutiny of the nomination papers was completed on October 30. News Desk
joined the World Trade Organization. The US saw its net wealth go up to over $90 trillion, however, with more muted increases in property prices. More than two-thirds of the wealth of the global wealth is possessed by 10% of the elite in the world, as per the report. According to the report by McKinsey, 68% of the global net wealth can be attributed to real estate. As per a report in Bloomberg, surging prices of real estate properties can make housing difficult to afford for many across the globe which in turn, can cause an economic crisis. “Surging real-estate values can make home ownership
unaffordable for many people and increase the risk of a financial crisis — like the one that hit the US in 2008 after a housing bubble burst,” states the report. “China could potentially run into similar trouble over the debt of property developers like China Evergrande Group.” The McKinsey report said the ideal resolution to this problem would be for an increase in more productive investments that would increase global GDP. “The nightmare scenario would be a collapse in asset prices that could erase as much as one-third of global wealth, bringing it more in line with world income,” stated the report.
South Korea keen to import urea from Pakistan iSLaMaBaD News Desk
South Korea has shown interest in importing urea from Pakistan since South Korean urea supplies have been impacted due to recent limitation on export of urea and other fertilisers from China. In this regard, a delegation of Engro Fertilizers Limited was called by the South Korean Embassy to discuss the possible opportunity of exporting urea to South Korea. Pakistan has significant potential to export urea and earn valuable foreign currency for the country. Pakistan has significant potential to export urea and earn valuable foreign currency for the country.
After the meeting with the Ambassador Suh Sangpyo and Counsellor (DCM) – June Seo Park, Engro Fertilisers Limited CFO Imran Ahmed briefed the media on these significant discussions. Imran Ahmed highlighted that Pakistan was a net importer of urea till 2012 as the domestic manufacturers faced capacity constraints to meet the country’s high urea demand. However, the Fertiliser Policy 2001 incentivised the local industry to invest around Rs162 billion in new plants and capacity expansions. As a result, the domestic production capacity increased by approximately 2 million tons and helped Pakistan not only to attain self-sufficiency in urea but has also created excess capacity which may earn precious foreign exchange for the country.
Administrator Karachi has interactive session with Banking and Corporate sectors Karachi press release
Barrister MurtazaWahab - Administrator Karachi, had a detailed interactive discussion with Presidents of Pakistan’s banking sector and CEOs of several leading corporates to seek their support towards his initiative of launching infrastructure and beautification projects for Karachi city. The breakfast meeting was held at Meezan Bank’s Head Office. Welcome note was given by Chairman Pakistan Banks’ Association (PBA), Mr Muhammad Aurangzeb in which he gave assurance of support towards this initiative from the banking sector. Following the welcome note, Mr. MurtazaWahab gave a detailed update on the latest projects, either completed or in pipeline, by the Sindh government, to improve the city’s infrastructure. He further informed them about infrastructure and beautification projects such as parks, underpasses and bridges in the city that banks and private sector organizations can adopt and independently maintain. He elaborated the importance of Public-private partnership and invited the meeting’s participants to play their role in the city’s beautification and infrastructure improvement by adopting projects of their choice under their CSR initiatives. Mr. IrfanSiddiqui, President & CEO, Meezan Bank, while giving the vote of thanks to the chief guest, also thanked all the Presidents and CEOs for their participation in this event. This event was attended byMr. Muhammad
Aurangzeb – President & CEO, Habib Bank and Chairman PBA, Mr. ArifUsmani – President & CEO, National Bank of Pakistan, Mr. RehanShaikh – CEO, Standard Chartered Bank (Pakistan), Mr. YousafHussain – President & CEO, Faysal Bank, Syed Amir Ali – President & CEO, Bank Islami, Mr. Junaid Ahmed – CEO, Dubai Islamic Bank (Pakistan), Mr. Imran Samad – President & CEO, Sindh Bank, Mr. IrfanSiddiqui, President & CEO, Meezan Bank, Mr. Ariful Islam – Deputy CEO, Meezan Bank, Mr. Mohammad Shoaib, CEO, Al Meezan Investment Management Limited, Mr. ArifHabib – Chairman, ArifHabib Group, Mr. Ali H. Shirazi - President / Chief Executive, Atlas Battery, Mr. Faizan Ali Ghori – Executive Director, Matco Foods, and Mr. Abdul Rahim - Siddiqsons Group.
Ruda -A Gold Mine for Investors-Ravi City Catches Saudi Attention LahOrE Our COrrespONDeNt
Ravi city will be the world’s biggest environment friendly riverfront city. Commercial construction in CBD will be a gold mine for investors. Construction work in Sapphire Bay will be initiated in coming days. These were the thoughts of CEO RUDA Mr. Imran Ameen while he briefed a delegation from a Saudi Arabian investment company in the presence of Mr. GoharEjaz, member of APTMA. According to the details, Mr. Khalid Abdul-Aziz Al Mogbel, Chairman of SARH ATTAQNIA CO., a Ravi City Investment Company, met Ravi Urban Development Authority leadership here at RUDA Headquarters on Tuesday along with the member of APTMA, Mr. GoharEjaz where RUDA leadership thoroughly briefed the delegation on the first phase of Ravi City – Sapphire Bay and its construction plans. Executive Director Commercial – RUDA, Mr. KashifQureshi initiated the briefing and said that Sapphire Bay, a 2000 acres big project with barrages
and lakes, will be the inception of an environment friendly era. He further added that various zones like Knowledge City, Medical City, and Industrial Zone etc. will present attractive investment opportunities to investors. Mr. Bilal Ahmed, Executive Director Engineering RUDA, continued the briefing and informed the delegation about Zone-2 and Zone-3 of Ravi City project saying these zones will be model constructions of a modern era. Mr. GoharEjaz, told the Chairman of Saudi Arabian Company that the country of Saudi Arabia is our brother that supported us through thick and thin. He added that the partnership between RUDA and Saudi Arabian Investment Company will be historic and will change the future of the region. Moreover, CBD leadership also thoroughly briefed the Saudi delegation. In the end, CEO RUDA, Mr. Imran Ameen presented the Chairman of Arab Investment Company with a shield and gifts. He also thanked member of APTMA, Mr. GoharEjaz for accompanying the delegation.
NEWS
03
Nazim Jokhio murder: Brother withdraws complaint against MNA Jam Abdul Karim KARACHI: In a surprising development in the Nazim Jokhio murder case, the petitioner of the deceased, Afzal Jokhio, has withdrawn his complaint against PPP MPA Jam Awais’s elder brother, MNA Jam Abdul Karim. MNA Abdul Karim was nominated as a suspect in the case on November 9 and acquired protective bail from the Balochistan High Court on November 12. The development, on Thursday, came as Afzal Jokhio, the brother of deceased Nazim Jokhio, recorded his statement during a hearing in the court of the Malir judicial magistrate. At the outset of the hearing, six arrested suspects, including prime suspect Jam Awais were presented before the court. Inspector Siraj Lashari informed the court that the investigation was handed over to him yesterday and the former investigation officer (IO) Mujtaba Bajwa will no longer handle the case. The new IO, Lashari, then moved a plea seeking a 14-day extension in the physical remand of the arrested suspects. He said that the post-mortem report of the deceased hasn’t been received yet. On November 9, the police had told the court that besides three suspects — PPP MPA Jam Owais, Haider, and Meher Ali — who have been arrested, an additional 11 people have been nominated in the case. They added that the prime suspect PPP MPA Jam Owais’ older brother, MNA Jam Abdul Karim, is also among those to have been nominated. ageNCies
Paragon Golf Tournament launched
November 13th 2021, marked the grand opening ceremony & launch of Paragon Golf View Apartments in Golf City, Bahria Town, Karachi with the first ever Paragon Golf Tournament. Avid golfers in all categories participated in the tournament, the Governor Sind Mr. Imran Ismail also took a day out to play golf on the sprawling 36- hole night lit golf course. The first Paragon Golf Tournament was sponsored by Allied Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, and Bank Al Falah. Chairman Paragon Group and Member National Assembly Engineer AftabSiddiqui, CEO Paragon Developers AnamSiddiqui and CEO Paragon constructors Mr. Babar Siddiqui were all present at the inaugural function. Apart from playing golf the Governor Sind also distributed prizes amongst the players who placed in the tournament. A special prize for a hole in one was also announced by KIA , the automobile company. Brigadier Ahmad Talal Khan, Col. Akbar, Col. Abdul Farooq Khan, Captain Ansar, Nawaz Khan, Amir Ghafoor, Umar Hamzaghani, Imran Haider and many others also partook in the tournament. The night ended with a grand display of fireworks and a concert by UstadRahatFateh Ali Khan with over 5000 people in attendance. Golf City is the first and only residential project in Bahria Town Karachi. A large number of people visited the sales office and had the opportunity to visit the model apartment. The response was incredible. press release
PTCL &Ufone Annual Gala Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) Group held its Annual Sports and Family Fun Gala in Islamabad to provide employees and their families an excellent opportunity to break away from their work routine. The gala is a long-standing tradition that helps employees bring together as a single family to engage in sports and fun activities and make memories for life. The gala had sports and fun activities designed for employees and family members from all ages. Sharing his thoughts at the event, Group Chief Human Resource Officer, PTCL &Ufone, Syed MazharHussain, said, “I am glad that the entire PTCL and Ufone family is out here having a good time. The idea behind the event is to have PTCL and Ufone employees come together to enjoy and explore their talents for sports and fun activities. It gives them a much-needed break from their routine activities to boost their physical and mental health. Most of the activities are based on team building and coordination, which are valuable life skills for employees to remember and practice for professional growth.” press release
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Friday, 19 November, 2021 | KARACHI
04 NEWS
BJP deLegAtIOn enteRs PAkIstAn FOR AnnuAL sIkH ReLIgIOus FestIvItIes Former Rawalpindi commissioner gets bail in ring road case
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21-member delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders from northern Punjab state of India entered Pakistan via the Kartarpur Sahib corridor on Thursday for an annual commemoration of the birth of Sikhism founder, The Indian Express reported. Two main border crossings with India — at Wagah and Kartarpur — were reopened for the festivities Wednesday, after being closed due to coronavirus restrictions for about two years. The week-long celebrations mark 552 years since the birth of Baba Guru Nanak who settled in today’s Pakistan. His shrine is also in the Kartarpur town of Narowal District and is visible from across the border in India. This was the first delegation of a political party to visit the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib since the reopening of the corridor. A Foreign Office statement said Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) party, will also arrive to take part in Gurpurab, an event that marks the birth anniversary of Nanak. President of Punjab chapter of INC and former cricket star, Navjot Singh Sidhu, will also arrive, but separately, Hindustan Times reported. Sidhu, an old friend of Prime Minister Imran Khan from their cricketing days, was part of the first Sikh delegation
from India who had participated in the opening of the historic corridor in 2019. The Foreign Office statement further said Minis-
LHC directs businesses to halve staff attendance to cut air pollution
ter of Revenue Harish Chaudhary in the northern state of Rajasthan and eight members of the Punjab Legislative Assembly will also be part of the delegation.
US puts Pakistan, China on religious freedom blacklist WASHINGTON AgeNcIes
LAHORE: In the wake of increasing toxic air pollution across the city, Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday directed private offices to allow 50 percent of their employees to work from home. Pakistan’s secondlargest city is choking on smog, driven in part by smoke from bricks kiln and steel mills, burning of rice stubble and garbage, growing numbers of vehicles on the road and large-scale losses of trees as the expanding city makes way for new roads and buildings, residents say. Many in the city of 11 million complain of headaches and burning eyes and throats as air pollution levels this winter have on some days hit five times the legal limit, according to a global air quality index that many in Lahore check via the AirVisual phone app. During the hearing, the court ordered the concerned authorities to summon sessions regarding the employees working in the government sector. On the other hand, Lahore has been declared the second-most polluted city globally. The city had an air quality ranking of 367, well over the hazardous level of 300, according to IQAir, the technology company that operates the AirVisual monitoring platform. The worst quality of air was recorded in Gulberg as AQI reached 564, followed by Kot Lakhpat 563, Davis Road 513, Defence 487, Township 465, Bahria Orchard 413, Allama Iqbal Town 422, Punjab University 475 and Anar Kali Bazar at 416. Residents choking in acrid smog pleaded with officials to take action. Air pollution has worsened in Pakistan in recent years, as a mixture of low-grade diesel fumes, smoke from seasonal crop burn off, and colder winter temperatures coalesce into stagnant clouds of smog. Lahore, a bustling megacity of more than 11 million people in Punjab province near the border with India, consistently ranks among the worst cities in the world for air pollution. In recent years residents have built their own air purifiers and taken out lawsuits against government officials in desperate bids to clean the air — but authorities have been slow to act, blaming the smog on India or claiming the figures are exaggerated. Since coming into office, Prime Minister Imran Khan has organised meetings with brick kiln owners and won a two-month winter shutdown of factories in 12 districts, including Lahore. The government has also pushed brick kiln owners to shift to cleaner technology, offering loans to make the switch, as well as issuing fines for kilns that operate using the dirtiest technologies, such as burning used tires. INP
The United States designated 10 countries — including Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia — as countries of particular concern for alleged religious freedoms violations. In addition to the four nations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken blacklisted Russia, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan for “having engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom”. However, India, a member of the four-nation China-focused Quad alliance, escaped the list despite repeated recommendations, the latest in April this year, by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) — an independent, bipartisan federal commission — that it be placed on the religious freedom blacklist. The April report also recommended that Blinken should impose targeted sanctions on Indian government agencies and officials responsible for the “severe religious freedom violations” by freezing their assets, including barring their entry into the US. But the recommendations never materialised amid fears that any US sanctions on India would be self-defeating for Washington as it would damage defence relations between the two na-
tions concerned by the rising global stature of China. According to US law, nations on the blacklist must make improvements or face sanctions including losses of US government assistance. However, the administration can waive such actions. “The United States will not waiver in its commitment to advocate for freedom of religion or belief for all and in every country,” Blinken said in a statement Wednesday. “In far too many places around the world, we continue to see governments harass, arrest, threaten, jail, and kill individuals simply for seeking to live their lives in accordance with their beliefs. This Administration is committed to supporting every individual’s right to freedom of religion or belief, including by confronting and combating violators and abusers of this human right,” he added. Nigeria, which was placed on the list last December under former President Donald Trump, was removed. Blinken is expected to visit the west African nation later this week amid his ongoing diplomatic tour of the continent. Separately, the State Department said Algeria, Comoros, Cuba and Nicaragua have been added to a religious freedom watch list. And alShabab, Boko Haram, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Houthis, Daesh/ISIS, Daesh/SIS-Greater Sahara, Daesh/ISIS-West Africa, Jama’at Nasr alIslam wal Muslimin and the Taliban were listed as entities of particular concern.
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday granted post-arrest bail to two suspects, former Rawalpindi commissioner retired Captain Mohammad Mahmood and Land Acquisition Commissioner Wasim Tabish, in the Rawalpindi Ring Road scam. Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry approved the bail of the two subject to submission of a surety bond of Rs10 million each. Advocate Burhan Moazzam Malik, the counsel for the suspects, contended before the court that the anti-corruption establishment (ACE) has already completed its investigation against his clients, pleading with it to grant them bail. The counsel for the ACE informed the judge that the accused were found guilty of being involved in the scam. The former commissioner disbursed millions of rupees for the acquisition of the land for the project without prior approval, he alleged. The former commissioner was taken into custody by the anti-corruption establishment on July 14. The ACE had registered the case against Mahmood and others for their alleged involvement in the scam. They have been accused of corruption and misusing their authority. They allegedly changed the design of the project and the length of the road was increased from 18 kilometres to 36 kilometres, thereby increasing its cost. INP
PCAA prepares for ICAO audit
KARACHI: A team of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will arrive on November 29 to conduct a safety audit of the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA). As per the schedule released by the global agency, the auditors will stay until December 10. During their stay, they would conduct a complete audit of the aviation regulator. The team will audit the pilot licencing mechanism, the air navigation system (ANS), aircraft operations, and aerodromes and ground aids (AGA) among other areas. Meanwhile, the PCAA has completed its preparations at the airports across the country ahead of the audit. Earlier this year, the ICAO had expressed satisfaction over the steps taken by the PCAA for improving its licencing process. The satisfactory remarks came after a report presented by the PCAA regarding the reforms and progress on the Significant Safety Concerns (SSCs) of the international aviation institution. The PCAA’s steps for reforming personal licencing grabbed an 83 per cent rating out of the highest 97.4 percent from ICAO. stAff RePoRt
AGP states that giving Kulbhushan Jadhav right to appeal won’t affect his trial or conviction NeWS DeSk Attorney-General for Pakistan Khalid Jawed Khan has stated that giving Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav the right to appeal will not affect his trial or conviction. The attorney-general stated that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has directed Pakistan to make amendments in the country’s laws or pass new laws to give the spy the right to appeal. “Giving Kulbhushan the right to appeal will not affect his trial or conviction. He has murdered innocent Pakistanis,” the AGP stated. The AG further stated that if the government hadn’t passed the bill for giving Kulbhushan the right to appeal, India would have dragged Pakistan into the ICJ and United Nations by building new cases. He went on to add that Pakistan would have had to face sanctions by international forums. It is pertinent to note that the PTI-led government on Wednesday powered through the International Court of Justice (Review and Reconsideration) Bill, 2020, that allows the right to review and reconsideration to
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Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, along with 32 other bills during a joint session of Parliament amid a strong protest by the Opposition and rigging claims during the counting. The statement of objects and reasons of the bill says that the government of India initiated proceedings against Pakistan in the ICJ, concerning alleged violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 24 April 1963 ”in the matter of detention and trial of an Indian national, Commander Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav”, who had been sentenced to death by the Military Court in Pakistan in April 2017. The ICJ gave its judgment on July 17, 2019, wherein it observed that “Pakistan is under an obligation to provide by means of its own choosing effective review and reconsideration of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav, so as to ensure that full weight is given to the effect of the violation of the rights set forth in Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, taking account of paragraphs 139, 145 and 146 of this judgment”. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, following the passage of the bills on Wednesday, said the Opposition would challenge the
bills passed in the lower house, as the government “did not have enough votes” to get them passed. “The NRO to Kulbhushan Jadhav, election amendment bill, and all other bills will be challenged at every forum,” Bilawal said, speaking to media outside Parliament. Similarly, PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal said today it was the “blackest day” in the history of Parliament, expressing the hope that the courts would now uphold the constitution — in line with the Opposition’s aims to challenge the bills in court. While addressing a presser in Islamabad where the joint Opposition lashed out at the government for bulldozing more than three dozen bills in a joint sitting of Parliament Iqbal said that the passage of the bill related to Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhav, in presence of the National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, was a “blot” on the Parliament. He went on to say that the government had given “an NRO” (referring to a concession under the National Reconciliation Ordinance) to the Indian spy by getting the International Court of Justice ICJ (Review and Reconsideration) Bill, 2021 passed.
Friday, 19 November, 2021 | KARACHI
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ExTREMiSM noT RooTEd in MAdRESSAhS bUT SchooLS, coLLEgES: FAwAd continued from page 01 The ThreaT wiThin: The minister recalled that at the time of creation of Pakistan, “it was the land of Sufis [and] home to [their] tombs.” He continued that around 300 years ago, there was no religious extremism in today’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and other areas in the country. “Religious extremism was seen more in regions that are in India now. Areas over here (Pakistan) never had religious extremism to the extent [seen today],” he said, regretting that “Pakistan faces a grave danger today.” “We don’t have any potential threat from India. We have the sixth largest army in the world, we are an atomic power, and India cannot compete with us,” he continued. “We face no danger from America. We face no danger from Europe. The biggest danger we face
[today] is from within [Pakistan].” The minister acknowledged that remedial steps taken to counter extremism in the country were not sufficient, adding that neither the government nor the state was prepared enough to deal with the problem. Giving the recent example of the government’s dealings with the Tehreeki-Labbaik Pakistan, the minister said: “We [all] saw how the government had to go on the back foot.” And this was indicative of a ticking bomb, he remarked. ‘Extremism not related to religion’ Speaking about extremism in the context of Islam, he questioned: “Whoever has even little understanding of Islam and is aware of the way Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) spent his life, how could he adopt extremism?” So the issue of extremism was not related to the teachings of Islam, he ex-
TLP chief Saad Rizvi released from prison continued from page 01 But on October 11, the Punjab government challenged in the Supreme Court the high court order declaring Rizvi’s detention as illegal and directing the provincial government to release him immediately. The following day, the Supreme Court remanded the matter to the high court for a twomember special bench to decide after hearing arguments from both sides. His release is the result of the deal with the government, contents of which are yet to be officially disclosed, after which the latter agreed to free 2,000 detained members of the movement, lifted the ban on the group and agreed to let it contest elections. In return, the TLP agreed to shun the politics of violence and withdraw a demand to have France’s ambassador expelled over the publication of caricatures of Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H.) by a French magazine, negotiators said. The TLP took to the streets in midOctober, kicking off weeks of protests and clashes that killed at least seven policemen, injured scores on both sides and blocked the GT Road highway.
Afghanistan women soccer players flown to UK with Kardashian help iSLamaBad The AssociATed Press
Members of Afghanistan’s women’s youth development soccer team arrived in Britain early Thursday after being flown from Pakistan with the help of a New York rabbi, a UK soccer club and Kim Kardashian. A plane carrying more than 30 teenage players and their families, about 130 people in all, landed at Stansted Airport near London. They will spend 10 days in coronavirus quarantine before starting new lives in Britain. English Premier League (EPL) club Leeds United has offered to support the players. Britain and other countries evacuated thousands of Afghans in a rushed airlift as Kabul fell to Taliban militants in August. Many more people have since left overland for neighbouring countries in hopes of travelling on to the West. Women playing sports was seen as a political act of defiance against the Taliban, and hundreds of female athletes have left Afghanistan since the group returned to power and began curbing women’s education and freedoms. “The Afghan female footballers are wellknown figures in the country.
plained, adding that it was neither related to any other religion. “The problem is with those who interpret religious injunctions,” the minister commented. The dilemma: Pointing out another “dilemma” pertaining to the issue of extremism, Chaudhry lamented that “we have destroyed the policing and law enforcement system developed by the British here.” “And we didn’t even come up with a replacement [for the system].” Lamenting that the institutions of “numberdar, chowkidar and thanedar” had been destroyed, he elaborated that “opposing views will not be given space until people’s lives are safeguarded, and their lives cannot be protected until the law is enforced.” “[The] state should have only one business, and that business is the enforcement of law. If a state is unable to enforce
the law, its existence is questioned, as in this scenario, it gradually moves towards civil war.” In this regard, he also explained the difference between “enforcing a different point of view and presenting a different point of view”. A society may have different views and it is the state’s job to ensure that no group within it is allowed to use violence to impose its view, he said. “This will ensure that there is diversity of views within a society and keep extremism at bay.” He added, however, that “if the state weakens and violent groups gain strength, there lies a problem.” Hence, Chaudhry said, soft change in society was not possible without establishing the writ of the state and enforcing the law. “If you want to bring a soft change, you (state) will have to be hard.”
Politicians resisting EVMs benefited from ‘old corrupt system’, says Imran Khan continued from page 01 He questioned how the EVMs would benefit the PTI government in particular, and pointed out that the PTI had sought open ballot in the Senate polls 2021 despite being in the government, while the PPP and the PML-N had opposed the proposal. “How would it benefit our party if the public found out who voted for whom?” he asked. “This is the whole battle in Pakistan. Sitting on one side is the corrupt status quo and on the other, there is an effort to take the country forward through the use of new technology and reforms,” Imran said, adding that “the whole drama” in yesterday’s joint session was part of the same struggle. “Why are you stopping overseas Pakistanis from voting? The country runs on their money but they can’t be allowed to vote?” he said while addressing the opposition.
The prime minister cited other incidents where his government’s reforms were resisted, recalling that people “working inside utility stores” had obtained stay orders from court after the government tried to automate their systems in order to check pilferage. The Federal Board of Revenue, too, has been unable to reform its revenue collection because people inside the board oppose automation, he said, adding that under the existing system, “money doesn’t go to the government but the tax collectors make a lot of it”. He further said the FBR had been trying to introduce the track and trace system to curb tax evasion by major companies and businesses for the last 15 years but had been unable to. “Now after three years of efforts by us, we are bringing the track and trace system, which has been sabotaged for many years, next
week for the first time in Pakistan’s history,” he announced. With the launch of the ‘Digital Power of Attorney’ portal, overseas Pakistanis can apply for PoA “from the comfort of [their] homes”, Nadra Chairperson Tariq Malik said on Twitter. The portal has been developed by the National Database and Registration Authority. Malik noted that approximately 75,000 people visited Pakistani foreign missions for the issuance of PoA annually, which they no longer needed to. “This innovative web-based solution by Nadra utilises online biometrics verification & video interview to verify applicants remotely for PoA issuance,” he shared. The pilot phase of the project has been launched in 10 Pakistani missions in the United States and United Kingdom; it will be rolled out globally in 10 weeks.
DG ISI pays farewell calls on PM Imran Khan, FM Qureshi iSLamaBad sTAff rePorT
Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence (DG ISI) Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed paid separate farewell calls to Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad Thursday. In their farewell meetings, both the PM and FM appreciated the efforts and services of Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed as DG ISI for the country. They also expressed their best wishes for Lt Gen Faiz Hameed on his new assignment as the Peshawar Corps Commander. A day earlier, the DG ISI paid a farewell visit to President Dr Arif Alvi at the Presidential Palace, where the President, too, appreciated the efforts and services of Lt Gen Hameed as DG ISI for the country’s security. Lt Gen Hameed will serve as DG ISI till November 19 after which Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum will take charge
of the post on November 20. Lt Gen Anjum was appointed the new DG ISI by Prime Minister Imran Khan on October 26. “The Prime Minister has seen and approved the appointment of Lt Gen Nadeem Ahmed Anjum, HI (M) as Director General Inter-Services Intelligence, with effect from 20th November, 2021, from the panel of officers at para 6 of the summary,” reads the notification from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
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APTMA proposes MoU with Kazakhstan to boost trade ties LaHore shAhAb omer
The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) has suggested to the Kazakhstani government that a memorandum of understanding be signed between APTMA and the Kazakhstani government, which would play a positive role in strengthening economic relations between the two countries, Profit learnt here on Thursday. According to details, a zoom [Online] meeting was held for the first time between APTMA and the Kazakh government whereas the meeting was attended by MaratKarabayev, Vice Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Chairman APTMA Abdul Rahim Nasir, Chairman APTMA Northern Zone Hamid Zaman, Senior Vice Chairman Kamran Arshad, Secretary General Mohammad Raza Baqir and leading APTMA members from Southern and Northern zones. Addressing the meeting, the Kazakh minister said that there was tremendous scope for promoting economic cooperation between the both countries and he also reiterated his commitment to boost trade and economic ties between the two countries. Speaking to participants, the minister explained in detail how the Kazakh government was offering incentives, benefits and tax breaks to foreign investors for setting up industries in special economic zones (SEZs). “The cheap recycled textile fibers and inexpensive electricity @ US¢3/KW offer bonanza to the foreign investors. There is a need for greater communication between the people on both sides. It is imperative for the both countries to find all available avenues to further strengthen the centuries-old ties. The whole region is ready to get benefit of peace and stability in Afghanistan and there is a need to multiply the current bilateral trade volume of $ 45 million by all means,” he said. The Minister also invited Pakistan business delegation to Kazakhstan and offered to send a similar business delegation from Kazakhstan to Pakistan for adopting practical measures for expanding of economic and trade ties. Speaking on the occasion, Chairman APTMA, highlighted the strengths and potential of textile industry of Pakistan. Nasir informed that textile sector in Pakistan in on an upward trajectory with lofty export target of $ 21 Billion for the current year as against actual export of $ 15 Billion during the last year, new investment of $ 5 Billion in textile sector, addition of 100 new plants and creating 500,000 extra jobs. Rahim pointed out issues adversely affecting bilateral trade including logistic issues, obtaining and using Letters of Credit (LC) in trade with Kazakhstan, language barriers in labeling the goods in Kazakh or Russian language, difficulties in land rout due to security situation in Afghanistan and delay in signing of Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA). With a view to foster economic relations between Pakistan and Kazakhstan, Chairman proposed to sign MOU between APTMA and Kazakhstan Government which would positively contribute to pave way for consolidation of economic ties. “Frequent exchange of trade delegations, mutual capacity building in textile sectors, establishment of joint ventures, early signing of FTA, strengthening of banking channels and utilization of OIC, ECO and Shangai Trade Cooperation platforms will help in uplifting the trade statistics. There is a need of strengthening of banking channels between Pakistan & Kazakhstan, an early signing of PTA, utilization of OIC, ECO, and SCO platforms for expansion of bilateral trade, joint investment in the textile industry and establishment of joint ventures, frequent exchange of trade delegations, synergies in bilateral trade expansion, mutual capacity building in textile sectors, and bilateral exchange of business delegations to identify trade and investment options as a way forward to solidify trade and investment relations between Pakistan and Kazakhstan,” Nasir added. Nasir also hoped that the business community of both the countries would benefit from TIR to cut cargo costs substantially.
Parliament approves chemical castration of those convicted of multiple sex attacks iSLamaBad moniToring rePorT
Sex offenders convicted of multiple assaults could face chemical castration after Parliament passed a new legislation aimed at speeding up convictions and imposing tougher sentences. A series of mass protests over the levels of sexual violence prompted the government to amend the law this year and allow for harsher punishments for rapists, including chemical castration for repeat offenders. The bill was presented in response to a public outcry against the spike in incidents of sex attacks on women and children and growing demands for an effective curbing of
the crime. The passage of the bill comes almost a year after President Arif Alvi approved the new anti-rape ordinance, and cleared by the Cabinet, calling for the chemical castration of sex offenders with the consent of the convict and setting up of special courts for speedy trials. The Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, was passed along with 33 other bills by the joint session of parliament on Wednesday. It seeks to amend the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898. “Chemical castration is a process duly notified by rules framed by the prime minister, whereby a person is rendered incapable
of performing sexual intercourse for any period of his life, as may be determined by the court through administration of drugs which shall be conducted through a notified medical board,” according to the bill. Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan protested over the bill, saying it does not address the underlying reasons for widespread violence against women. He said a rapist should be hanged publicly and added there was no mention of castration in Islam. Chemical castration, as it’s popularly known, has been practised all over the world for more than 50 years. Clinicians prefer the term “anti-libidinal psychopharmacological intervention”, and it consists
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of treating sex offenders with drugs that fall into two broad categories. It is a legal form of punishment in countries including South Korea, Poland, the Czech Republic and in at least eight states in the US. Before the new law, rape cases could drag on for years, mainly because of faulty investigations and flawed laws, making it difficult for victims to come forward to share their ordeal. But while rights groups celebrated the law, Amnesty International expressed concern at the inclusion of a chemical castration punishment for repeat rape offenders, a process that involves an injection to lower testosterone levels.
Rimmel Mohydin, a south Asia campaigner at Amnesty International, accused the government of attempting to “deflect attention” from the root causes of sexual violence in Pakistan. She said: “Forced chemical castrations would violate Pakistan’s international and constitutional obligations to prohibit torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Punishments like this will do nothing to fix a flawed criminal justice system.” The new law comes months after the prime minister promised to remove deficiencies in existing legislation to expedite justice for rape victims. Imran Khan and his cabinet approved the legislation in November last.
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Friday, 19 November, 2021
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Majority is authority
A setback for democracy Hot potato on SC’s table
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HATeVeR happened in the joint session of Parliament on Thursday was a setback for democracy. The eVM bill had become a matter of prestige for the government while voting rights for overseas Pakistanis were considered crucial to win the next elections. The government was twice defeated in the national Assembly in voting on some bills and a joint session of Parliament was called off at the last moment. The way the PTI got a number of bills passed has naturally aroused questions. All the more so when days before the session numerous PTI allies went public over the miseries of the people and the allies’ inability to sell government policies to their voters. What led to a sudden change of heart in them raises questions. The way the bills were passed brought no credit to the government. The Speaker acted as an unabashed party loyalist. His rulings invariably favoured the government. His decision on the voice vote was almost automatic, supporting the government irrespective of which side had the loudest voice. This led to noisy protests, jeering and a chaotic situation. This speaks volumes about the lack of democratic culture in the country’s parliamentary process. When the Chair ignored the opposition which had serious reservation against the bills, the opposition leaders staged a walkout to register their protest. According to the Leader of the Opposition, despite recourse to all unfair tactics the government failed to come up with 222 members required for the passage of bills in a joint sesion. The Opposition also claimed that Treasury votes were over-counted The PTI government’s contempt for state institutions has led to bypassing Parliament by increasingly relying on presidential ordinances to make changes in the laws. The electronic voting system could aggravate differences with the eCP. The devious ways used to carry the day would serve those who hope to control the country by manipulating the flaws in the system.
‘Friendly’ forces ensure adequate numbers at joint-session At Penpoint M A NIAZI
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ne of the most serious things that can happen to a government in a parliamentary system happened, but no one is paying it any attention. That indicates that the government is not aware of the system under which it operates, despite Prime Minister Imran Khan’s claims of knowing the West better than anyone else. It is not as if the government was blithely unaware of the disaster. Though it was not the reason given, the almost immediate postponement of a scheduled joint session showed that it was aware that there was a danger that the purpose of the joint session, legislation, was not a certainty. However, there has been no penalisation of the whips. Instead of a powerful, indeed disliked, group of enforcers, who make sure that the members of a House do as they are told, the whips seem to enjoy nothing but an empty title. The PTI Chief Whip, Amir Dogar, only shot into prominence when his comments about the DG ISI’s appointment showed that there was a crisis. During the recent episode of the Treasury’s double defeat in the national Assembly during Private Members’ Day, he was not mentioned. If the government had decided to remove its whip for those votes, which would leave the members to vote according to their consciences, Mr Dogar would have been off the hook, but as that excuse was not proffered, and the governments seems to get away with it by its silence, there have been no calls for his head. The whole point of a parliamentary system is that the party put in charge of the legislature is also supposed to form the executive. While it is a constitutional obligation here, it is not the case in the UK. There, where the principle developed, it was seen as a convenience, and it avoids the situation seen in the USA, where the executive is headed by a President from one party, and the other party has a majority in the legislature. Obviously, though the separation of the three branches of government is desirable, it does not apply dully. The separation of the judiciary and the executive has been more closely pursued, not just in the Constitution. The appointment of sitting superior court judges as federal Law Secretary has been seen with disfavour, as has the appointment of members of the lower judiciary as returning officers in various constituencies. The problem seems to be that the PTI does not understand that the Legislative power is separate from the executive, and that by winning the 2018 election, it obtained both, but they remained separate. The reason is practical, and is in fact the reason for the demand for separation of powers. The executive
Fresh census The decision to hold a fresh census leaves problems unsolved
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He reason for conducting a fresh census before the decennial requirement is because the government was unable to solve the problems inherent in the last one in 2017. That census was not formally notified because of objections by the Sindh government, and thus the next general election will either be conducted according to the previous delimitations, based on the 1998 Census, itself late. A new census this year, as Prime Minister Imran Khan proposes would bring the country back to having censuses in years ending with 1, restoring a sequence started by the British in 1872. While the census determines both, distribution of resources to the provinces, it also determines the delimitation of seats. However, there seems no real justification for reducing the intercensal period so drastically. It would be much cheaper to remove the objections to the census, primarily from the Sindh government, rather than conduct a fresh census. There is no guarantee that the same objections will not be raised, that there has been undercounting or overcounting in one area or another. The expense of re-enumerating a sample of census blocks should solve the problem, but as time passes, that solution will probably not be available. As the census results determine the allocation of seats, the parties have vested interest in raising objections. The last two censuses had the Army providing enumerators, but it is unlikely now that the use of the military would not cause the opposition to claim that there was some gerrymandering being done. Perhaps most crucial is the government’s ability to perform such tasks. It seems unlikely that a government which was unable to notify the last census would be able to conduct an uncontroversial census. The nation could find itself having to have a constitutional amendment passed to stop the constituencies reverting to the pre-2017 delimitations. That is not something that the government should look forward to, but it seems that that may happen. The PTI would not like to conduct a 21st century election using 20th century delimitations.
The best way of dealing with AIDS and hepatitis ZEESHAN AHMAD KHAN
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ITH the looming deadline of 30th november 2021, the health sector is once again on the cusp of betterment. Since the early transition from glass syringes to plastic syringes in 1955, now autodestruct syringes are ready to break new grounds in the health sector. Here is the one main query. Why do we need these AD [auto-destruct] syringes? The earliest prototype of the syringe was made of glass, so that was expensive and was used repeatedly after cleaning with boiling water. Plastic syringes– a little development – for one-time use, better but not “the best.” The emergence of blood-borne diseases [1980] ended the euphoria over the development of plastic syringes, especially in developing countries where improper sterilization of used syringes and their reuse was a significant problem that still prevails. The reuse of those syringes creates severe problems in the form of outbreaks of diseases such as AIDS and Hepatitis. These blood-borne disease viruses transfer from one patient to another by using an improperly sterilized syringe. In 2019, the outbreak of HIV in Larkana is a clear example of such condemnable acts of reusing the same syringe in all children. It has also been proved that the reuse of non-sterilized syringes is the leading cause of this endemic. A similar incident was reported in Gujarat in 2009. The reuse of syringes is still a common phenomenon that one can observe clearly in private health care facilities in Pakistan. To save money, health care practitioners use the same syringe for several innocent patients. To stop this malpractice, after the Larkana outbreak, the federal ministry of health established nTIS [national Task Force on Injection Safety] in november 2019. After thorough consideration by all the stakehold-
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The government achieved a double success. Not only did it get the legislation it wanted, but it revived the ‘same-page’ image it has always cultivated, and it has put paid to the talk of ‘establishment neutrality’ that arose after the DG ISI’s appointment to-do
The writer is a member of staff.
Replacing old syringes with ad syringes
Dedicated to the legacy of late Hameed Nizami
Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad
has to interpret the law and enforce it. If it is allowed to make the laws it enforces, and if it is allowed to interpret what the law means and how it applies to an individual case, the result will be a kind of lawlessness, with the executive power bound by nothing, and free to make up the rules as it goes along. For this reason, the executive power is entrusted only to a party which demonstrates the ability to legislate. Ability actually means a monopoly over legislation. If the Opposition can pass laws, what is the point of giving the government the executive power? That is why governments take even private members’ legislation so seriously. A government is not supposed to be defeated; and if it is, it would indicate some very poor whipping. The possibility has been raised that allies are no longer willing to vote with the ruling party, and that led to the postponement of the joint session. The reason being mentioned is that those parties have been told by certain quarters that they did not have to support it. That would be the government’s fault, for its dependence on the allies should not have been in someone else’s hands. The defeat in the national Assembly was 104107. Imran Khan had obtained 176 votes to become PM, which was narrow enough, as it meant only four votes more than the 172 needed in the House of 342. The defeat meant that no less than 72 votes had melted away, including at least 42 of the 149 PTI MnAs who had not voted with the government. True, they had not voted with the Opposition, which had improved from the 86 its candidate had got in the PM’s election, mainly because the PML(n) and PPP voted together. The last major test after the Senate elections in March had seen the Treasury candidate for Chairman got 56 votes for Deputy Chairman. The Chairman candidate got 48 votes, winning only because of spoiled ballots. In a joint session of 442, 222 is a majority. Going into it with a peak of 224, and a recent low of 155, means that the Treasury majority in the national Assembly does not counterbalance the Opposition’s majority in the Senate. One calculation shows the government having a majority of two. That is very thin, and with the government relying on the votes of the Senators who spoiled their ballots in the Chairmanship election, it is skating on very thin ice indeed.
That meant the government may not have been able to pass the laws it had done in the national Assembly, which related to changes to the nAB Ordinance and to the introduction of electronic voting machines (eVMs). It did so, but after pressure was exerted from non-parliamentary quarters. The government whips did not seem to play much of a role in the process, and the passage was by a voice vote, but again the margin was too low to be comfortable. It was interesting that neither side called for a division, which is the next step when one side feels the Chair has miscalled the voice vote. A division means that votes are recorded. The Treasury has got its legislation through, but at a price. The Treasury, it seems, cannot legislate without help. That is not a good position to be in. The government has been subjected to opposition barbs about being controlled from elsewhere. These votes are unlikely to cause any reduction in pressure. The passage of the laws for internet voting and electronic voting machines do not solve the problem, merely create new ones. The biggest issue is the implementing organization, the election Commission of Pakistan. It suddenly has got a vast amount on its plate, and not enough time to do it in, and probably not enough capacity. There are local body elections to be conducted in all provinces. Then there are to be fresh delimitations to be carried out according to a census yet to be held. There is supposed to be an updating of the electoral rolls, now to include overseas Pakistanis. And the eVMS have to be acquired and introduced, even as the eCP officials themselves are not convinced of their ability to maintain secrecy. It is almost as if the government was arranging to ensure that the next election could be fixed without the more obvious methods of rigging, allowing winners to be selected. The original declared purpose, preventing those allegations of rigging, seems to have been abandoned. There was a nod towards this by the postponement of the joint session, but no attempt seems to have been made to achieve consensus, and the purpose seems merely to have been to ensure a government majority. The government achieved a double success. not only did it get the legislation it wanted, but it revived the ‘same-page’ image it has always cultivated, and it has put paid to the talk of ‘establishment neutrality’ that arose after the DG ISI’s appointment to-do.
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Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9
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ers, a comprehensive plan of action was devised to stop importing, manufacturing, and selling plastic syringes. Therefore, no surprise if there is a nine percent prevalence rate of hepatitis C and the highest reporting of cases of AIDS in Asia. Undoubtedly, the usage of unsafe syringes is a significant factor but only one in all other contributing factors. Unauthorized medical practitioners and unreasonable use of injections are also playing havoc on people’s lives. The central dilemma is to instill an utterly wrong belief by health care workers that injection is mandatory even for minor illnesses. According to some statistics, Pakistan is at number one for administering injections– 9 to 10 injections per person per year. eight out of nine injections are unneeded. AD syringe is the most significant development in putting an end to the spread of blood-borne diseases as its plunger gets stuck automatically after medicine administration. If one tries to release the plunger forcefully, it will break, and the syringe will become useless again. The Sindh government tried to implement the same practice of using AD syringes a decade ago with the name of “The Sind Regulation and Control of Disposable Syringe Act, 2010. The Act’s purpose was to stop manufacturing, selling, and using plastic syringes other than AD syringes. Implementation of the law was the primary failure at that time. After approval by the national task force, the manufacturer’s hard-line
Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545
behaviour was the main problem. They highlighted the possible adverse effects on their business and the issue of new investment for profound changes in their manufacturing facilities. They argued that the reuse of syringes is not the main problem solely. Improper medical waste disposal is one of the biggest problems. However, after three meetings, they asked for some time to make some alterations mandatory for changing the manufacturing system. So, a deadline was set. Government relaxation of taxes for all stakeholders (producers and consumers) is a breakthrough in this regard. That will help in fixing a minimal affordable price in comparison to conventional syringes. While fast-track registration of AD syringes for suppliers by DRAP [Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan], which could be a major hurdle, is also good. Despite many hurdles due to the coronavirus pandemic, the last date for importers to clear their stocks was 31st March 2021, and for manufacturers, it was 31st July 2021. It is good to see that out of 16 manufacturing plants, nine have been converted to AD syringe manufacturing facilities, while the transition of the remaining seven plants is in progress. There is a greater need to spread awareness about the proper use and disposal of AD syringes. That would only be possible by collective efforts at the national level. no doubt, Pakistan is going to set an example for other countries by eliminating the primary cause of blood-borne diseases.
There is a greater need to spread awareness about the proper use and disposal of AD syringes. That would only be possible by collective efforts at the national level. No doubt, Pakistan is going to set an example for other countries by eliminating the primary cause of bloodborne diseases
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The writer is a freelance columnist
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COMMENT 07 Editor’s mail Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan. E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively
Importance of academic and professional degrees
Lessons from Afghan Imbroglio Pakistan must learn before it is too late NAZIM UDDIN The USA has been by and large one of the greatest powers in recorded history. Of course, its decline kicked off since the end of the Cold War, yet its relative advantage— since the world was virtually in shambles—made it stay in the game till it turned the tide and became the only superpower about 30 years ago. The USA had to fight proxy wars to counter the USSR. Out of this ambitious goal, unsurprisingly, started the creation, training, indoctrination, and propping up of an extremist religious group—Al-Qaeda. Indeed, the USA routed its archrival, but the Frankenstein’s monster— the Jihadist groups— it created, had a bigger mission than to go quiet after the said mission. In addition, “The end of History” became a buzzword among the intelligentsia, but they paid lip service to the coming anarchy. After a decade, the same group surprised the world by attacking the greatest power on 9/11. For the next 20 years, the USA fought against a shadow enemy to get the same lesson in the end— you can’t have your cake and eat it too. The rest is, they call history, and history has been so unkind to the USA since its creation. Although Afghanistan has been made a graveyard of human rights, thanks to the USA’s embarrassing withdrawal, there are some lessons for the rest of the world. First and foremost, a country’s stability hinges upon its people, to put it bluntly. When there is discontent among people, they find it useless to hold up the system by going the extra mile. People’s trust solely matters without which there is no way to a democratic dispensation, let alone a stable democracy. This is the tragedy of sham democracies because they lose the trust of people after the initial euphoria. Afghanistan was no exception. When the Taliban moved towards Kabul, province after province surrendered because the people and the forces had nothing to lose. By the same token, democracy doesn’t seem importable. After two decades of herculean feats, raining billions of dollars, the US found itself against the wall when it tried to replicate its values in a country bathing in ignorance, conflicts, and other issues, which nipped democracy in the bud before it could take a breath. Democracy is, nevertheless, culture rather than a name of periodical elections— that too unfair, under-represented, and rigged; it evolves through the thick and thin of time much more like it did in the UK and the USA, to name only two. In general, the east doesn’t feel a spark about western democracy, which is the worst system except for all the others. Worse so, it takes time for democracy to penetrate society and be taken for granted. A polity mired in corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and the exclusionary system is bound to collapse in one way or the other. Various right groups showed the world the writing on the wall in Afghanistan before it was too late; however, no one paid heed to the endemic issues— graft, nepotism, and incompetence. The USA brushed all manifest allegations under the fat carpet and continued the easy way
forward to no avail. Another lesson is that one should never underestimate one’s enemy. While the USA was busy in finding a fig leaf to get rid of Afghanistan, the Taliban understood that it was their time. What has emboldened the militia since then is the sense of courage they found after destroying the superpower and its allies in no time. needless to say, the group had no trained army, air force, and weapons, yet they brought the USA to its knees because of their clarity of mind, faith, and of course, spirit of holy war. even the ocean of army personnel found it useless to take arms against the ragtag group for obvious reasons like lack of hope, direction, or monthly salary. As a whole, no one took ownership of Afghanistan. It became a battleground among various factions: regional, local and international. All its neighbouring countries made Afghanistan a productive soil for proxies and the government was too busy in corruption to pay attention to nation-building. The Afghan Papers published by The Washington Post made a mockery of all stakeholders in Afghanistan for their lack of concerns, integrity, and absence of ownership for the orphan country. It was looted, plundered, ransacked, carpetbombed, and turned into a wasteland by literally every other country which had no concerns for the issues of common Afghans. The US army, the Post revealed, lied to the world for years about the situation in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan embodies all the evils of the modern world, Pakistan also seems to be moving towards an unpleasant end. Here, people are tired of inflation and unemployment, which are going through the roof these days. In past times, when the Army took over the country, people celebrated, for like in Afghanistan their elected leaders were showing cold shoulders to the daily struggles of people. Many groups have voiced their discontent; nevertheless, the upcoming days will be more uncertain for people, thanks to another IMF bailout package.
Since the new Cold War has already been in full swing with the powerful countries mustering their muscles, Pakistan shouldn’t be a party to this disaster. We shared a great deal of the upheaval in Afghanistan by giving grounds and training jihadists to fight the war, however, this time, we should tread carefully. Powerful countries have their own national interests, and once they are done with their mission they throw the client state out of the window. The US sanctions in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War is a case in point. The most significant thing Pakistan can learn from the Afghan catastrophe is the importance of inclusiveness. elite capture is deeply entrenched in every nook and cranny of Pakistan. excruciatingly, only tw6 percent of people pay direct taxes and those who are sitting at the helm of affairs are tax evaders. Land tax and agriculture tax are nonexistent because they belong to the elite, and the bomb of petrol is dropped on laymen now and then. Things can’t go like this for long. Furthermore, the Global Corruption Index shows that corruption is on the rise in Pakistan, both white- and bluecollar corruption. If this trend goes unchecked, the Pakistani political system can go into a tailspin sooner than later. If today any undemocratic entity takes over the country, not a single person will resist. In that perspective, our situation is not very different from Afghanistan. The banned group TLP has already rung the bell by forcing the state to accept its demands and forget the past when civilians were slaughtered like pests. The fact is that there is no future for those countries whose whole debates hover around security, proxy wars, strategic depth, and conspiracy theories. There seems no place in today’s technological world for those countries which are occupied with religious-laden discourse. Today science and technology are what define a state, its relevance, and even its independence. Instead of sticking to tribalism, modernity, inclusiveness, liberal traits must be adopted and cherished if the country needs to compete at the global level.
Furthermore, the Global Corruption Index shows that corruption is on the rise in Pakistan, both whiteand blue-collar corruption. If this trend goes unchecked, the Pakistani political system can go into a tailspin sooner than later. If today any undemocratic entity takes over the country, not a single person will resist. In that perspective, our situation is not very different from Afghanistan. The banned group TLP has already rung the bell by forcing the state to accept its demands and forget the past when civilians were slaughtered like pests
The writer is a freelance columnist
THe skills with degrees are the reciprocal relations. They are both unstable without each other. The combination of both makes your life astonishing. Without a degree and skill, nowadays, it is hard as stone to survive in the 21st century. The degree provides theoretical knowledge that assists us in various aspects of our lives, and the skills gained through practical experience have increased and improved our abilities. In the past, after getting a degree, we got the job, but in the present circumstances, jobs also require skills to do the proper job. Some take skills with a degree, some take relevant skills according to their degree, and some take different skills according to their interests. Skills and degrees are equivalent in this century. neither can we skip the degree nor the skill. Degrees are certified documents that prove that a person has succeeded in their academic institution. And it is not necessary that you succeed in real life. A few years back, a person had the skills, so that person does not give value to the degree because he was able to earn with skills in the opposite degree. The degree holder does not value the skill because the job did not require skill in the past. A degree works on personal development and makes a person polite and humble. A skill is an abstract term. A person has a skill and that skill does not have paper proof to show that he has too much experience in that skill. Some people were born with that skill, like painting, sketching, and so many others. If we talk about the ancient era, people did not have a degree, but they were skilled people, and all had excellent skills. If you go to get a job today, they will ask you about your skills and how many skills you have. Both have faced various types of barriers in recent centuries. People who have the skills face a lot of difficulties because, in job places, without a degree, you are not considered for a job. You must have a degree to get a job. If you just have a degree, it is very difficult for you to grow further. And in the 21st century, the interviewer’s perspective is that if you do not have the skills, you cannot do your job well. “If you have a degree but no skill, then you will be “hired” in the morning and “fired” in the evening” (Lucky Agrawal). If you want to survive in this century, you have to work on both your skills and degrees. If you want to earn more, it is essential to learn the skill with a degree. Irham ahmEd ISlamabad
Drug predilection at educational institutions ACCORDInG to an nGO report, Shehryar Afridi, the Interior State Minister, stated that “in the capital, 75 percent of female students and 45 percent of male students are hooked on narcotics, particularly crack cocaine, often known as ice.” Students’ usage of drugs at educational institutions has been augmented. In the year 2019, a survey conducted by Quaid-e-Azam University with the collaboration of the Higher education Commission polled 4947 students from schools, colleges, and universities in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar. According to the survey, “2% of students in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar are regular drug users in educational institutions. “By virtue of the convenient availability of drugs in the academic system, an increasing number of students in Pakistan’s state universities have fallen prey to the perils of drugs. Students have turned to drugs as a result of exorbitant expectations from professors and family, the stress environment of intensive work, and an erroneous peer group. “Why did I stop using drugs, and is it purely my responsibility to avoid them? How do I deal with academic pressure, and what occurred when I knew where to get it easily?” Sara, a university student, said. When PPP (Public-Private Partnership) MnA presented the Act 2018, MnA “points to discouraging excessive drug use among students and reinforces institutions’ drug prevention roles.” nevertheless, no evidence has been discovered to support this assertion. Drug misuse among students in educational institutions is connected to a variety of concerns, including terrorism, suicide, and a variety of crimes, their future is jeopardized, and this is an obstacle not just for students, but also for Pakistan’s prospective. The government should adopt stringent laws on the prevention of drug use among students. Dr. Muhammad Ali, vice chancellor of Quaid-e-Azam University, said, “Students must report occurrences of any action associated with drug consumption” and “the young must learn to say no if they are given drugs.” arEEba Iqbal KarachI
Floating fake news on social media CAn people rely on social media as a source of news? Though social media has become an almost unavoidable part of our culture, we cannot always rely on it. Misinformation is not a new phenomenon on social media. every day, we read a plethora of things on social media that may or may not be true. This inaccurate or deceptive information results in fake news. now a days, floating fake news on social media or in any other platform is not new, but these news are totally disturbing and showing such unethical behavior of our society, even that we all know it’s also an crime to do such things but we still do that, sometime for attention, something for promotion, or may be for popularity, even though we did not think once that what impact it will give to others or how people would react or how our society is getting harm from it, but that only for own self. And you see more for us are there for entertainment purpose, for our own joy , which includes jokes, laugh, fake statement, cross discussion, making fun of other mistakes, so that is what creates a very negative impact on our society. Throughout this COVID-19 period, there are various types of fake news on COVID-19 that are quickly spreading on social media and among the general public. From offering a variety of home remedies to combat the virus to disseminating bogus advisories advising people to avoid foods such as ice cream and chicken, to disseminating conspiracy theories, everybody’s phones are being inundated with misinformation. You will get something new to listen everyday, our government in ready in such bed condition to face their public , and the citizens trying to make it more difficult, if you want popularity please work hard for it, if you want attention please do show your creativity so that people can see your abilities and can also think that they are also able to do such thinks, the majority of people today is busy in this one thing I won’t say we shouldn’t use it , but use it as it requires. aqSa azIz, Jawad JawEEd lyarI
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08 WORLD VIEW
Are people lyinG More in The AGe of sociAl MediA And sMArTphones? COMMUNICATION SCHOLARS HAVE LONG WONDERED NOT JUST WHO LIES THE MOST, BUT ALSO WHETHER PEOPLE TEND TO LIE MORE ONLINE, IN PERSON OR OVER THE PHONE A seminal 2004 study was among the first to investigate the connection between deception rates and technology. Since then, the ways we communicate have shifted – fewer phone calls and more social media messaging, for example – and I wanted to see how well earlier results held up.
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DAVID MARKowItz
eChNOLOGy has given people more ways to connect, but has it also given them more opportunities to lie? you might text your friend a white lie to get out of going to dinner, exaggerate your height on a dating profile to appear more attractive or invent an excuse to your boss over email to save face. Social psychologists and communication scholars have long wondered not just who lies the most, but where people tend to lie the most – that is, in person or through some other communication medium.
DECEPTION AND TECHNOLOGY: Back in 2004, communication researcher Jeff hancock and his colleagues had 28 students report the number of social interactions they had via face-to-face communication, the phone, instant messaging and email over seven days. Students also reported the number of times they lied in each social interaction. The results suggested people told the most lies per social interaction on the phone. The fewest were told via email. The findings aligned with a framework hancock called the “feature-based model”. According to this model, specific aspects of a technology – whether people can communicate back and forth seamlessly, whether the messages are fleeting and whether communicators are distant – predict where people tend to lie the most. In hancock’s study, the most lies per so-
cial interaction occurred via the technology with all of these features: the phone. The fewest occurred on email, where people couldn’t communicate synchronously and the messages were recorded. HANCOCK’S STUDY REVISITED: When hancock conducted his study, only students at a few select universities could create a Facebook account. The iPhone was in its early stages of development, a highly confidential project nicknamed “Project Purple”. What would his results look like nearly 20 years later? In a new study, I recruited a larger group of participants and studied interactions from more forms of technology. A total of 250 people recorded their social interactions and number of interactions with a lie over seven days, across face-to-face communication, social media, the phone, texting, video chat and email. As in hancock’s study, people told the most lies per social interaction over media that were synchronous and recordless and when communicators were distant: over the phone or on video chat. They told the fewest lies per social interaction via email. Interestingly, though, the differences across the
Gaddafi’s son returns to the political stage MANY LIBYANS MAY NOW WONDER: TO WHAT CONCEIVABLE QUESTION COULD SAIF AL-ISLAM BE THE ANSWER?
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DAVID GARDNER
ANy Libyans who survived the 42-year tyranny of Muammer Gaddafi may have done a double take at the weekend, watching footage of a brown-turbaned man looking uncannily like him signing papers to register for elections in Libya due next month. The apparition was his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. The ageing princeling, now 49, has been mostly out of sight since he was caught trying to escape the country after his father was hunted down and killed in 2011 following a Nato-backed rebellion that toppled his regime. Libya has since been torn apart by civil war and tribal rivalries. Many of those same Libyans, at home and scattered to the winds, may now wonder: to what conceivable question could Saif al-Islam be the answer? There was a time, in the nineties and noughties, when American and european officials — mistrustful of Arab democracy and at a loss for alternatives — alighted on a policy of cultivating the sons of local despots. Touted as modernisers, they were often better educated and groomed than their progenitors; so was Michael Corleone. examples such as Bashar al-Assad and Gamal Mubarak, sons of hafez al-Assad and hosni Mubarak, the presidents of Syria and egypt respectively, suggest this strategy was not a great success. But a lot of people invested a lot of time in Saif al-Islam, believing he would open up the oilrich north African country from the nightmarish police state created by his father, who eviscerated Libyan institutional life under his ersatz Jamahiriya, a neologism colliding the Arabic words for people and republic. his neighbours found Gaddafi more and more wilful and hard to handle. he turned up in
Cairo once for an Arab summit and pitched his desert encampment in the middle of the city. Changing costumes like a chameleon, this master of political repertory still found time to pose on a hotel staircase, looking like a cross between a wizened rock star and Ozymandias. Saif al-Islam attracted many hopeful looks. Increasingly feted in western and Arab capitals as a reformer, he was nowhere more fairy-dusted than in London, where he was welcomed into high society. In 2008 he acquired a PhD from the London School of economics titled “The role of civil society in the democratization of global governance institutions”, parts of which were later alleged by critics to have been plagiarised or ghostwritten. I saw him around then at a lunch in the Café Royal in London, on a raised dais flanked by grandees and mandarins, looking genially through his spectacles at the assembled guests as he was proffered as a portent of the future. That mask dropped at the outset of the 2011 rebellion against his father, one chapter in the chain of regional upheavals then known as the Arab spring. he threatened his countrymen with “rivers of blood”, promising to “fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet”. Since then he has been convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death in Tripoli in 2015 and is still pursued for the same reason by the International Criminal Court at The hague. held throughout by militiamen in Zintan in the western mountains, he seems to have paid his way back into the game. But what is the game? After the west walked away from postGaddafi Libya and left tribal paramilitaries and jihadis to fill the vacuum, powerful external actors entered the fray, with egypt, the Gulf and France backing Khalifa haftar, a renegade Gaddafi commander and warlord, whose attempt to reconquer the whole country has failed. President emmanuel Macron of France, for whom north Africa and Syria are the main locus of europe’s migration nightmares, seems inclined to back strongmen as bulwarks. Arab leaders are rebuilding fences with Assad, who actually shed the blood the Gaddafis promised to spill. What better time to resurrect Saif al-Islam? The December elections, if they happen, are unlikely to unify Libya. It would also be impossible to recreate his father’s theatrical regime, backlit by bombast and buffoonery. One veteran of the region, whose country has irons in the Libyan fire, says Gaddafi junior is “a charlatan”, whose real role is to “clear the path for haftar”. It does not look like that’s his plan.
forms of communication were small. Differences among participants – how much people varied in their lying tendencies – were more predictive of deception rates than differences among media. Despite changes in the way people communicate over the past two decades – along with ways the Covid-19 pandemic changed how people socialise – people seem to lie systematically and in alignment with the feature-based model. There are several possible explanations for these results, though more work is needed to understand exactly why different media lead to different lying rates. It is possible that certain media are better facilitators of deception than others. Some media – the phone, video chat – might make deception feel easier or less costly to a social relationship if caught. Deception rates might also differ across technology because people use some forms of technology for certain social relationships. For example, people might only email their professional colleagues, while video chat might be a better fit for more personal relationships. TECHNOLOGY MISUNDERSTOOD: To me, there are two key takeaways. First,
there are, overall, small differences in lying rates across media. An individual’s tendency to lie matters more than whether someone is emailing or talking on the phone. Second, there is a low rate of lying across the board. Most people are honest – a premise consistent with truth-default theory, which suggests most people report being honest most of the time and there are only a few prolific liars in a population. Since 2004, social media have become a primary place for interacting with other people. yet a common misperception persists that communicating online or via technology, as opposed to in person, leads to social interactions that are lower in quantity and quality. People often believe that just because we use technology to interact, honesty is harder to come by and users are not well served. Not only is this perception misguided, but it is also unsupported by empirical evidence. The belief that lying is rampant in the digital age just does not match the data. David Markowitz is an Assistant Professor of Social Media Data Analytics at the University of Oregon.
The Biden-Xi summit was actually kind of a big deal THE SUMMIT WITH XI WAS NOT A BLOCKBUSTER, BUT IT MAY MARK THE START OF THE PIVOT
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FRED KAPLAN
he outcome of the Biden-Xi summit wasn’t exactly the stuff of banner headlines, but it was more significant—potentially even pathbreaking— than the shrugs of many pundits indicated. Back in June, Joe Biden outlined three reasons for holding a meeting with another world leader, Vladimir Putin, despite the dim chances of producing major results. First, he had long felt there was “no substitute for faceto-face dialogue among leaders.” Second, he and Putin, as possessors of vast nuclear arsenals, shared “a unique responsibility” to maintain “stable and predictable” relations. Third, “we should be able to cooperate when it’s in our mutual interests,” while minimizing the chance of conflict when our interests differ. At a briefing Tuesday morning, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan gave a nearly identical explanation for Biden’s virtual conversation with Xi Jingping on Monday night—though he noted America and China’s role as the two largest economic powers, rather than their nuclear arsenals, as the source of their obligation to stabilize relations. Biden entered the White house with U.S.-China relations as grim as they have been since China emerged as a global power—and, for the first few months of his term, they got worse. A trade war, left over from the Trump years, is still simmering. The two sides’ military leaders no longer meet routinely. Top U.S. officers openly predict war over Taiwan. And the one previous in-person meeting of
top diplomats—Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s summit in Anchorage with his Beijing counterpart near the start of Biden’s term—degenerated into a shouting match. In this sense, while the meeting itself did not produce much, the fact that the Biden-Xi summit on Monday came off as a normal, cordial, and businesslike session of diplomacy—which lasted more than three hours, a bit longer than expected—should be seen as a triumph, even if a modest one. More tangible goods came out of the summit with Putin, not least the restoration of a longstanding U.S.Russian dialogue on “strategic stability.” That meeting was also preceded by an extension of the Obama-era New START strategic-arms reduction treaty, which was about to expire. Nothing like that is ready to be signed with China. As Sullivan said at today’s briefing, Biden and Xi discussed “the need for a strategic-stability set of conversations,” but this is “not the same” as the formal dialogue that Washington and Moscow have been having on the subject for many years. Still, Sullivan said the two leaders held frank, at times “incredibly candid,” talks on every issue facing them, with a mutually clear aim of starting or resuming high-level negotiations on “tangible issues, one by one, to see where we can make progress”—and, where no progress can be made, staying in touch with each other to minimize the chance that disagreements escalate to conflict. he added that the key to discussions in the future— whether by the leaders or their senior diplomats—will be figuring out “how to manage differences.” This may seem banal, but at the moment, there is no forum or set of procedures for managing differences, so the fact that they recognize the need to create such a thing might mean the difference between war and peace in the future. Biden has long placed great, perhaps excessive emphasis on personal relationships in international politics. But his relationship with Xi in partic-
ular has deep roots. When Biden was vice president and Xi was a rising figure in the Chinese Communist Party, the two talked in person or over the phone for hundreds of hours. At the start of Monday’s discussion, Xi referred to Biden as his “old friend”—a signal that was heard not only by the White house but by his own apparatchiks in Beijing. “There are lots of indicators that both leaders want to back off from the brink,” Daniel Sneider, a lecturer in east Asian affairs at Stanford University, told me on Tuesday. “They both face serious political and economic problems domestically. They’ve both used their rivalry as a way of deflecting attention from these problems. At the same time, they’re both aware that this can lead to the real danger of being dragged into a conflict, which would make their problems much worse.” Along those lines, Sullivan made several references in his briefing to the danger of war triggered by “miscommunication or miscalculation.” Sullivan also reiterated a theme that he and Biden have both stressed in several speeches—the interrelationship between domestic and foreign policy. Biden has in the past talked about a “foreign policy for the middle class”— meaning, for instance, trade policies that don’t put American workers or industries at a disadvantage. Biden has sold his two main economic packages—especially the $1 trillion infrastructure bill—as vital to winning the global competition with China: first, as a way to shore up American prosperity, so that we’re no longer so dependent on Chinese exports; second, to show the world that a democratic government can get things done. Now that Congress has passed the bill, Biden may feel safe in pivoting to a less rhetorically fraught China policy, while remaining fully aware of the convergences and divergences in the two countries’ interests. The summit with Xi was not a blockbuster, but it may mark the start of the pivot.
Friday, 19 November, 2021 | KARACHI
NEWS corporate corner NEPRA’s Webinar and Award Ceremony National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) Thursday in a graceful ceremony honored the winners of the first-ever NEPRA’s Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Performance Evaluation Awards that took place at the NEPRA Tower, Islamabad in an HSE related webinar on “Electrical Circuits and Apparatus”. The awards were given to the top HSE performers of Power Industry for the year 2020. The webinar and award ceremony was chaired by Chairman NEPRA, Mr. Tauseef H. Farooqi along-with Member NEPRA, Mr. Rehmatullah Baloch. It was attended by thousands of professionals, field staff and contractors from Public and Private Sector’s Generation, Transmission and Distribution companies of Pakistan including Chairman, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and Member, Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA). The main objective of the Performance Evaluation initiative is to create an HSE baseline for the power sector entities, identify top HSE performers for benchmarking and provide an opportunity for improvement in the safety standards. Chairman NEPRA, Mr. Farooqi in his opening remarks highlighted the significance of NEPRA’s drive of “Power with Safety” and stressed that HSE issues are at the forefront of his priorities and therefore, the power sector companies must strive hard in improving their performance in the areas of Occupational Health, Safety and Environment. He elaborated that NEPRA being the sole regulator will continue to apply and promote the best HSE practices in the industry and will continue to respond to all potential challenges so as to prevent the fatal accidents and any potential risks. He reiterated that NEPRA will never compromise on safety as death of an individual matters a lot and that everyone who reports for duty deserves to go back to their families safe and healthy. NEPRA also recognized the winners for their outstanding performance in the field of HSE for the year 2020 wherein Foundation Power Company (Daharki) Limited was declared as the top performer and awarded Gold medal. Whereas, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and UCH Power (Private) Limited stood 2nd and 3rd earning Silver and Bronze medals respectively. Special Recognition awards were also given to Hub Power Company, Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim and Sapphire Electric Company Limited. Similarly, sixteen employees from different companies were also recognized by NEPRA on the basis of the best HSE practices in their respective fields. Mr. Farooqi concluded the ceremony by thanking the participants for their presence and also congratulated the winners for their outstanding performance in the HSE field. pr
Secretary General DCO Visits PTA ISLAMABAD: Secretary General for Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO), Deemah Al-Yahya visited Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) headquarters, Islamabad today. Chairman PTA, Maj General Amir Azeem Bajwa (R) welcomed the Secretary General. The two sides discussed matters of mutual interest including enhanced cooperation in the field of information & communication technologies (ICTs), growth of digital economy and efforts to advance the Digital Pakistan vision. The Secretary General and Chairman PTA agreed to further expand mutual collaboration for inclusive digital transformation and growth of digital industries. DCO is a global multilateral body, established in 2020, that aims to increase digital prosperity for all by accelerating the inclusive growth of the digital economy through cooperation among the member states which includes the Islamic Republic of Pakistan along with the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the State of Kuwait, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Sultanate of Oman, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. pr
09
ThIRD LEG Of EhSAAS RAShAN 30 CITy TOuR; SANIA COVERS 10 SmALL CITIES IN ONE DAy MIANWALI pr
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N the third leg of Ehsaas Rashan Tour to 30 cities, Senator Dr. Sania Nishtar, SAPM covered 10 small cities and towns today around Attock, Chakwal, Mianwali and Dera Ismail Khan. Last weekend, she visited 14 small cities and towns along the G.T. Road from Jhelum to Peshawar. During the visit to Fateh Jhang, Talagang, Lawa, Moosa Khel, Purani Kiri, Mianwali, Kundiyan, Saidaliyan, Rangpur Adda and Dera Ismail Khan, Dr. Sania was joined by senior officials of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), Ehsaas and district administrations. “Part of Ehsaas Communications Strategy, these visits are aimed to mobilize people and local information resources on the ground for raising awareness on the Ehsaas Rashan Registration Campaign”, said Dr. Sania. Speaking to retailers, trader associations, and public in each of the 10 small cities and towns, Dr. Sania guided them that Kiryana owners from all over the country can register themselves exclusively via online Rashan portal: ehsaasrashan.pass.gov.pk that is open for registration till next two weeks. Dr. Sania also convened two press conferences on Ehsaas Rashan Riayat
EHSAAS 8171 SERVICE REOPENING TODAY FOR EHSAAS RASHAN REGISTRATION: SANIA
with the local press and electronic media in Mianwali and Dera Ismail Khan. In the press conference held at Dera Ismail Khan, Dr. Sania was also joined by Ali Amin Gandapur, Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan. Speaking to media, she announced, “Ehsaas 8171 service is reopening tomorrow for enrollment of families under Ehsaas Rashan Registration. Premised on field insights, this is to fa-
cilitate the enrollment of deserving families with no access to internet connectivity.” Further, she explained that families earning less than Rs. 50,000 a month can register themselves under the Rashan programme of Ehsaas. Only one member of an applicant family whose cell number is issued on his personal Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) can enroll his family either through web-portal or 8171 SMS
service. A monthly subsidy of Rs. 1,000 will be granted to every eligible family on the purchase of flour, cooking oil and pulses. Recently, Federal Cabinet has also approved the criteria that deserving families of foreign travelers and government employees with salaries less than Rs. 31,500 can also benefit from Ehsaas Rashan Riayat. Regarding enrollment of Kiryana merchants, it is mandatory for them to have an android cell phone and a bank account with any branch of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP). In addition to the subsidy amount, the authorized retailers will also get 5-8% commission every morning against their previous day transactions into their bank accounts. Based on their performance, retailers will also be able to win cars, motorcycles, mobile phones in quarterly lucky draws. Responding to a question, Dr. Sania informed that the Rashan mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) app will be available on Google Play Store for the use of authorized Kiryana Merchants. Retailers widely appreciated the userfriendly features of the app. Ehsaas Rashan Riayat worth Rs. 120 billion would cover 20 million families. Overall, 53% population of the country including those already registered under the Ehsaas Kafaalat programme.
Students urged to conduct research on geoeconomic, geo-strategic significance of Balochistan TURBAT: Executive Director Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN), University of Turbat (UoT) Dr. Zafar Khan Thursday urged students to conduct research on the geopolitical, geo-economics and geostrategic significance of Balochistan. Addressing an awareness session titled ‘Objectives and functions of Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN)’, Dr. Zafar Khan briefed the audience about the establishment, objectives, aims and vision of the Balochistan Think Tank Network. He said, it was a new addition into the think tank
institutions of Pakistan and the first of its kind in Balochistan. It focuses on issues of provincial and national importance keeping in view the current developments towards regional and global significance. He announced that his organization would provide internship opportunities to the students of University of Turbat. The event was organized by Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Turbat (UoT) in collaboration with BTTN at UoT. The session was chaired by Professor Dr. Jan Mohammad, Vice Chancellor, University of Turbat. The
Water resources depleting with a rapid pace: watchdog ISLAMABAD INp
The Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Thursday warned water resources are depleting at a rapid pace posing a great threat not only to food security and industry, but also to juvenile peace with India. Apart from water scarcity, Pakistan is facing a serious problem of explosive population growth, destroying al-
most all sorts of economic planning while no government has taken this issue seriously, it said. A growing population and poor planning have together led to the depletion of the country’s resources, said PEW Chairman retired Brig. Aslam Khan. He said the per capita availability of water in the country has decreased in the last seven decades to 935 cubic metres from 5,260
cubic metres which is a very alarming level. Khan said if the government fails to formulate an effective conservation strategy now, the per capita availability would decrease to 860 cubic metres by 2025 and even down to 500 cubic metres by 2040. He noted that climate change is also causing extreme rainfall in some areas where there is almost no capacity for water storage.
program mainly focused on issues like unemployment, poverty and scarcity of water in Balochistan. Apart from vice chancellor, Executive Director BTTN, Prof. Dr. Zafar Khan, Dean Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Dr. Abdul Saboor Baloch and Assistant Professor, Political Science Department, Changiz Ahmed also shared views on the occasion and presented various suggestions for the development and prosperity of Balochistan. The session was also attended by the faculty members and students of the university. News desk
Issues of policemen to be resolved for effective performance ISLAMABAD: Islamabad police is committed to resolve the issues of its personnel which would be held to improve their performance and accomplishment of responsibilities in an efficient manner. Following the directions of Inspector General of Police Islamabad Qazi Jamil ur Rehman, Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) would take every possible steps to resolve problems of its personnel on priority, said ASP (Traffic) Ayesha Gul during a meeting with officials and traffic policemen. The policemen highlighted the issues being faced to them during this interaction while the ASP (Traffic) assured to resolve them. She directed to provide quality meal and accommodation as well as the best treatment facilities to the personnel of the force. She said the purpose of this interaction was to boost the morale of the policemen and ensure welfare steps for them. pr
Experts for stakeholders’ say on post-Covid challenges for youth ISLAMABAD pr
Experts at a panel discussion have emphasized for a major role of stakeholders especially parliamentarians, educationists and parents for moving forward with education agenda to resolve host of critical issues and limitations created with the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. The policy discussion was organized by the Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE) as part of its 12th Annual Convention in Islamabad with a theme “Re-thinking education in the times of Covid-19”. Sharmila Faruqui, former Advisor to Sindh Chief Minister, Deputy Focal Person Policy Planning and Implementation Unit Balochistan Abdul Khaliq, and National Coordinator of PCE, Zehra Arshad, were the main participants of the discussion. They discussed the grave situation created by the Covid-19 pandemic in the country and its negative impacts especially on the
education sector. The discussion revolved around the urgent need for all stakeholders, especially the parliamentarians to come together and address the areas where the existing public education system, and more recently, the digital education is falling short in accommodating the needs of the marginalized communities. Sharmila Faruqui, former Advisor to Sindh Chief Minister, was of the view that the youth does not have proper accessibility to technology such as smartphones, laptops, and the Covid-19 has highlighted this inequality. She mentioned that only 32 percent of students across the country reported that learning material was provided by their schools during the lockdowns. The most important aspect to promote education is poverty reduction. “We also need to have focus on social protection programs to ensure that children especially girls are protected,” Sharmila said suggesting that trainings and legislations must be done to have better results, she added. Participating in the discussion, Abdul
Khaliq, Deputy Focal Person – Policy Planning and Implementation Unit Balochistan suggested to look at different models currently in practice to adopt in Balochistan keeping in mind the extensive challenges and poverty in the province. He said that they need a system that ensures the continuity of learning in the future. “Our government has allowed us leverage as they have created new positions of IT teachers to facilitate the process of online education which is an achievement of the institute,” he explained. National Coordinator of PCE, Zehra Arshad, gave an overview of the educational landscape under the COVID and explained how important it is to ensure inclusivity. She emphasized the governments to review policies and plans by including all partners and stakeholders like civil society organizations, parents and teachers across the board to ensure their voices are heard and incorporated into the policy making process to transform education in the post-pandemic era.
Executive Director Pakistan Youth Change Advocates, Areebah Shahid also stressed that standing committees of parliament should have effective oversight to cover marginalized children mainly girls, children with disabilities and students belonging to low socio-economic. Other participants of the discussion in-
cluded Research Fellow at I-SAPS Abdullah Alam, Managing Director SCSPEB Balochistan Irfan Ahmed Awan, Program Director Shawana Shah, Chief Executive Thar Education Alliance Sindh Partab Shivani, Chief Executive Awaz CDS – Punjab, Zia Ur Rehman and Pakistan Programme Director Malala Fund Javed Malik.
Friday, 19 November, 2021 | KARACHI
10 FOREIGN NEWS
Economic crisis could fuEl ExtrEmism in AfghAnistAn: un unITED naTIonS
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AFP
FGHANISTAN’S deep economic crisis threatens to raise the “risk of extremism” in the region, a senior UN official warned on Wednesday. The war-ravaged country finds itself on the brink of a humanitarian disaster as foreign assets and monetary assistance remain frozen after the Taliban’s return to power in August. UN envoy to Afghanistan Deborah Lyons told the UN Security Council that
with the local economy in tatters, illicit drugs, arms flows and human trafficking are likely to surge. The United Nations has warned that around 22 million Afghans, or about half the country, will face food shortages this winter. “The reality of the current situation threatens to heighten the risk of extremism,” Lyons said. “The ongoing paralysis of the banking sector will push more of the financial system into on unregulated informal money exchanges which can only help facilitate
hate speech trial for french far-right presidential hopeful Zemmour PaRIS
terrorism, trafficking and further drug smuggling,” Lyons warned, adding: “These pathologies will first affect Afghanistan but then they will infect the region.” Lyons spoke soon after the Taliban issued a statement urging US lawmakers to release the country’s frozen assets. In an open letter, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said the biggest challenge facing Afghanistan was financial insecurity, “and the roots of this concern lead back to the freezing of assets of our people by the American government.” Washington has seized nearly $9.5 bil-
russia to evacuate 380 people from Afghanistan MoSCoW ReuteRs
Russia will evacuate 380 people from Afghanistan, including citizens of Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Ukraine and Afghanistan, the RIA news agency cited the Russian Defence Ministry as saying on Thursday. Three Russian military Il-76 aircraft delivered 108 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Kabul and will evacuate people on their way back to Russia, the report said.
able to pay for imports. Lyons also lamented that the Taliban have been unable to stem the spread of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.
India orders probe into shooting of two ‘civilians’ in occupied Kashmir nEW DELhI AFP
AFP
French far-right pundit Eric Zemmour, who is widely expected to run for the presidency next year, went on trial Wednesday charged with racist hate speech over a televised tirade against unaccompanied child migrants. He told the CNews channel in September last year that child migrants were “thieves, killers, they’re rapists. That’s all they are. We should send them back.” The 63year-old did not appear in person, saying in a statement that he refused “to accept that a political debate takes place in a courtroom”. Even if he were convicted, he would almost certainly appeal, and his electoral prospects would be unlikely to suffer as his contempt for “politically correct” speech is part of his appeal. Around 20 members of his “Generation Z” support group gathered in front of the Paris court building and unfurled a French flag. The case was “nothing other than another attempt to intimidate me”, his statement said under the headline “they won’t shut me up”. The journalist, author and TV pundit has two previous convictions for hate speech and has been investigated 16 times in total for his incendiary remarks on immigration and Islam. polliNg stroNgly: In court Wednesday, the prosecution denounced what it described as Zemmour’s “contemptuous, outrageous” words and called for a 10,000-euro fine. “The limits of freedom of expression have been crossed,” said Manon Adam, calling for the fine to be set at 100 euros a day for 100 days, with the possibility of jail if it was not paid. For the defence, lawyer Olivier Pardo argued that Zemmour was developing a political argument. “His thesis, that there must be no immigration”, was a political position, he said, calling for Zemmour to be cleared. The court will hand down its verdict on January 17. In his initial comments during the debate on CNews, Zemmour referred repeatedly to “all” unaccompanied child migrants as thieves, killers and rapists, but he later conceded that “not all” of them were criminals after prompting from a presenter. He was talking several days after a man attacked two people with a meat cleaver at the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, which had recently republished blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (P.B.U.H.). The 25-year-old assailant, who was unaware that the magazine had changed location, had arrived in France with false papers to claim asylum as an unaccompanied minor. Immigration is a major theme of early presidential campaigning, with Zemmour and other right-wing hopefuls promising to address fraud in the asylum system and the difficulty of returning people if their claims are rejected. In 2011, he was fined 10,000 euros ($11,300) for claiming on TV that “most drug dealers are black and Arab”. In 2018, he was ordered to pay 3,000 euros for stigmatising comments about a Muslim “invasion” of France. Polls have shown a surge in support for him over the last two months, with some at the end of October putting him ahead of the veteran far-right leader Marine Le Pen. In the latest surveys ahead of the first round of the election on April 10, he was shown winning 13 to 15 percent, with Le Pen on around 18 percent and President Emmanuel Macron on around 25 percent. Macron is tipped to win the second-round run-off irrespective of his opponent, but analysts warn that the election remains highly unpredictable.
lion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, and the aid-dependent economy has effectively collapsed — with civil servants unpaid for months and the treasury un-
Authorities in Indian-occupied Kashmir ordered a probe Thursday into the killing of two men during a security operation after police violently broke up a protest demanding the bodies be returned to their families. Police said the men died in “crossfire” on Monday during a shootout inside a commercial complex in Srinagar, the disputed region’s main city. Their families said they were civilians and accused security forces of murdering the pair in “cold blood”, denying police claims that the pair were associated with fighters. Manoj Sinha, a New Delhi appointee serving as occupied Kashmir’s top administrator, said the government would take “suitable action” as soon as a report into Monday’s incident was completed. The deaths of Mohammad Altaf Bhat and Mudasir Ahmed Gul sparked outrage in the territory, where around three dozen civilians have been killed this year. Bhat owned the building where Monday’s incident
took place, while Gul was a tenant in the complex running a real estate business. Two suspected fighters also died in the encounter. Police raided a candlelight vigil in Srinagar staged by family members demanding the pair’s bodies be returned for a proper Islamic burial. The sit-in protest had been underway since Wednesday morning, despite biting winter cold, but electricity was cut in the area around midnight and several people were bundled into an armoured vehicle. “They harassed and beat us up and took us into a police station,” Abdul Majeed, Bhat’s brother, told AFP. “All I am saying is that please return my innocent brother’s body so we can give him a decent burial.” Those detained were later sent home. ‘Never puNished’: After Bhat and Gul were killed, they were hurriedly buried in the middle of the night by police in a remote graveyard without their families present. Since last year police in occupied Kashmir have refused families access to the bodies of slain fighters or their “associates”, saying it helps stop the “glorifica-
tion” of anti-India fighters, whose funerals were usually attended by thousands of people. Pervez Imroz, a prominent human rights lawyer who has monitored violence in the restive territory for over three decades, said the probe was meant to “deflate public anger”. “We have seen numerous executive probes ordered here in the past, but perpetrators were never punished despite many indictments,” Imroz told AFP. A faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) group called on people in Kashmir to shutter their shops and businesses on Friday to protest the deaths. Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947. The arch-rivals separately administer parts of the Himalayan region and each claim the territory in full. Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed since an armed rebellion against Indian rule erupted more than three decades ago. Tensions have festered since 2019 when New Delhi cancelled the region’s partial autonomy and brought it under direct rule.
Misreading of China’s BRI and aid data by US think tanks is disappointing Zhang Chuanhong US research institute AidData recently issued a report claiming in an average year during the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) era, China spent $85 billion on overseas development programs, causing a significant increase in “hidden debt” in low- and middle-income countries. The report also listed a range of other problems that it alleged was caused by BRI, such as “infringement of labor rights” and “environmental issues.” A closer look into the report shows that it is full holes and errors like distorted data, confusing concepts, misinterpretation, and unfounded assumptions,which deviate from the academic neutrality and rigor that a think tank should abide by. The report mistakenly included a considerable component based on nonofficial funds such as commercial investment and financing and non-profit activities into the scope of China’s foreign aid, and it exaggerated the proportion of relevant data. Ignoring the possible double-counting between the capital output of relevant banks and other enterprises, the report regards commercial loans provided by state-owned commercial banks as government spending. More absurd, the report includes military cooperation such as China’s provision of peacekeeping operations funds to the United Nations, as well as foreign investment by the private companies such as Huawei, in the scope of official development finance. The report’s interpretation of the data also contains serious bias. The report claims that most of its data comes from Chinese official channels, but it actually turns a blind eye to China’s official data sources. The report claims that China’s development financing is mostly invested in resource-rich countries, and its goal is to grab resources, but the reality is that most of China’s foreign aid
flows to the least developed countries, and many of the BRI recipient countries are resource-poor economies. The report linked the flow of Chinese funds to countries with serious corruption problems as listed by the World Governance Index, accusing of supporting corruption. This conclusion is also untenable. China’s BRI cooperation adheres to the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, the program is committed to the concept of openness, greenness and integrity. Whether it is the BRI cooperation blueprint or specific projects, all parties participate openly and transparently, and have zero tolerance for corruption. China has never attached any conditions to its international cooperation, and it is based solely on the willingness and needs of involved parties. China mainly supports other developing countries through project assistance and material assistance, mainly for the purpose of avoiding the possibility of corrupt behavior. On the contrary, many of the aid funds led by Western countries are con-
trolled by the elites in recipient countries, which not only increase the economic and social inequality of the recipient countries, but also breed corruption. In recent years, under the BRI framework, China’s international development cooperation has become more effective. China has always adhered to the guiding principle of South-South Cooperation. China’s development financing to other developing countries not only help them solve long-term financial difficulties, but also provided public products for local development. China provides commercial loans with relatively low interest rates that often last 20 years or longer. AidData’s data for the past few years showed that Chinese aid has a positive role in promoting local economic development and has significantly reduced development inequality within African countries. On average, for every doubling of China’s aid, the recipient country’s economy will grow by 0.4 percent. In this sense, although China’s aid to the international community may not exceed the amount given by G7 countries, but the actual influence of China’s aid may
be far more potent. The US is unwilling to support the public good to developing countries, nor does it want to see China play a growing role in global development. By concocting theories like “debt traps,” “resource plundering,” and “pollution,” the US is simply attempting to slander China’s cooperation with other countries, and try to damage China’s international reputation, hinder China’s cooperation with other countries, in order to maintain the US’ hegemony. Established in 2013, AidData has been receiving funding from the US Agency for International Development since 2017. Compared with earlier reports, this report clearly echoes the US government’s very biased policy towards China. As a scholar who has been paying attention to AidData data for a long time, I was looking forward to future publication of new data, but its excessively exaggerated data and misinterpreted methods are very disappointing. Whether this is due to a technical misunderstanding or a deliberate misunderstanding remains a mystery.
Friday, 19 November, 2021 | KARACHI
SPORTS 11
Pakistan to continue winning MoMentuM in Bangladesh series: BaBar
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AKISTAN cricket team captain Babar Azam has said that his side will continue winning momentum in the upcoming three-match T20I series against Bangladesh, scheduled to start from Friday. “We want to continue the winning momentum and after this series, there are also matches against West Indies. We don’t want to take Bangladesh easy. We will
Football industry embraces crypto as Messi helps ‘fan tokens’ take off PARIS AFP
When Paris Saint-Germain signed Lionel Messi, the salary package included something previously unheard of for a player — a one-off payment, understood to be worth around one million euros ($1.15m), made in PSG ‘fan tokens’. It was the result of a partnership signed by the French giants in 2018 with Socios.com which sees fans use a cryptocurrency called ‘chiliz’ to buy tokens allowing them to vote on issues related to the club. These issues have tended to be rather mundane, for example Juventus asking what music they should play in their stadium, but the concept has caught on. The company has grown quickly since signing its first partnerships with PSG and Juventus to being involved with 56 football clubs and around 100 sports teams worldwide, says CEO Alexandre Dreyfus. Messi has brought more publicity, and Dreyfus believes the Argentinian will “set a trend”. “This is more a top-up that is never going to replace any compensation. It is more like a bonus, but it is a bonus that at some point players will start to ask for,” Dreyfus tells AFP from his office in Malta. “We hope that in two years, during the ‘mercato’ (transfer window), a player will say: ‘Yes I am going to that team but they had better give me a million dollars of fan tokens’.” Dreyfus admits the pandemic and resulting economic crisis has benefited his company, allowing them to multiply their partnerships. “The fact is that clubs suddenly lost 50 or 70 or 80 percent of their revenue, and they realised: ‘Hey, we have fans all over the world, what can we sell them?'” They now have shirt sponsorship deals with Inter Milan and Valencia, promoting their fan tokens. SponSorShip bonanza: New analysis by KPMG Football Benchmark shows that over 40 shirt sponsorship deals have been signed in Europe’s five biggest leagues since the pandemic’s onset. It says Inter doubled income by switching from Pirelli to Socios.com and a deal worth $23.57 million. There is a mini-revolution happening as businesses related to cryptocurrency have started appearing on shirts. In July, Roma announced a three-year deal worth $14 million annually that sees their shirts carry the name of DigitalBits, “an easy-to-use opensource blockchain used to power consumer digital assets”. “Not only can fans witness history, but they can now own part of it,” boasted Roma. “Get ready to trade and collect. Join us as we step into the future of football.” The emergence of crypto-related businesses in football comes as countries are introducing regulation to clamp down on gambling sponsorship -– a ban is in place in Spain, for example, while the UK government is considering one. “The door is ajar for new companies to stick their foot in,” say KPMG. “Something has to fill the void and fan tokens, or something which is not defined as gambling but is gambling, are likely to be the big ticket in town,” Kieran Maguire, a lecturer in football finance at Liverpool University, tells AFP. ConCernS: There are concerns about curious punters being drawn into using crypto-related products without having a proper understanding. To highlight their volatility, the value of ‘chiliz’ — a less well-known cryptocurrency than, say, Bitcoin — shot up 58 percent in the four weeks after Messi’s arrival. “Ultimately these are speculative products. Someone described them to me as gambling with a small G,” says Maguire. Meanwhile, some supporter groups have criticised their clubs for embracing fan tokens. Aston Villa Supporters Trust told Joe.co.uk their club’s agreement with Socios.com was “wholly inappropriate” and questioned why fan engagement should be monetised. Maguire says: “The clubs are targeting the ‘nonlegacy fans’ and asking: ‘Can we make some money out of these new fans?’ “If we take Manchester United, they claim to have 1.1 billion fans and in a normal year they will make around 600 million pounds ($805m) in revenue. So that works out as about 55 pence per fan per year.
test our bench strength too in the next matches,” Babar said in a presser. “Not thinking of the next World Cup, we will discuss with the selectors and work out a plan of action. Right now, the focus is on the Bangladesh series, If we win every series, the quality of performance will also get higher,” he added. “The whole team was saddened by the [ICC T20 World Cup] semi-final defeat. They discussed their mistakes in the dressing room and decided to improve. They
trusted each other and tried not to let this momentum break,” he said, adding that “we have clarified roles to every player and what kind of performance is needed from them. When the mind of the player is clear, everything goes smoothly.” Talking about his batting, he said, “I don’t think that I am perfect and there is always a need for improvement. I analyse everything and try to correct them as it will benefit me. Every match is a new challenge, the process of learning never ends”.
Muguruza beats Kontaveit to clinch WTA Finals GUADALAJARA AFP
Garbine Muguruza beat Anett Kontaveit 6-3, 7-5 on Wednesday to become the first Spaniard to win the elite season-ending WTA Finals in Guadalajara, Mexico. Muguruza, the winner of the 2016 French Open and 2017 Wimbledon titles, capped a 2021 campaign that saw her return to the highest level with titles in Dubai and Chicago after three years outside of the top 10. Muguruza, a former world number one, is projected to end the year at number three in the world. Kontaveit, whose late-season surge included titles at Moscow and Cluj-Napoca, is projected to reach a career-high ranking of seventh in the world. Muguruza battled back from a breakdown in the second set, winning the last four games of the match to seal her 10th career title, breaking Kontaveit at love. She notched her second win of the tournament against Kontaveit, having ended the Estonian’s 12-match WTA win streak with a must-have round-robin victory on Sunday. It was the seventh time in WTA Finals history that round-robin opponents have had a rematch in the final. “I’d like to congratulate Garbine,” Kontaveit said as she accepted her runner-up award. “You’ve beaten me twice this week, that’s just too good.” For Muguruza it was another standout performance in Mexico, where she won backto-back titles in Monterrey in 2018 and 2019. The WTA Finals were moved to Guadalajara from Shenzhen, China, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Balochistan Football Cup eliminators conclude as KP catches up ISLAMABAD News Desk
The Balochistan leg of Ufone Football Cup Tournament’s Eliminator round is drawing to conclusion as Super 8 slots quickly fill up. Meanwhile, the KP Edition that started a week later is quickly catching up as well. On Monday, DFA Qilla Abdullah played an Eliminators round match against DFA Pishin at Taj Lala Ground, Pishin. DFA Pishin’s player Noorullah scored a goal in the 15th minute of the match to put his team in command of the game. Pishin’s domination was further solidified by Ikram who scored in the 22nd minute. DFA Pishin won the match 2-0 to proceed further in the tournament. The second match was played between DFA Kharan and DFA Noshki. The teams were unrelenting in their pursuit of dominance over the opposition but remained without any success during the entire allocated time. DFA Noshki prevailed in penalty strokes and took the match away 3-1 to win this crucial match. Meanwhile, the KP leg of the tournament is also witnessing fierce competition for glory amongst the regional teams. On Monday, DFA Malakand faced DFA Swabi at Yunus Stadium Mardan. Both teams launched fierce attacks on opposition but failed to
stir the scoreboard. Declaring the match a draw, the match points were distributed between the teams; on the basis of which DFA Malakand was able to proceed further in the tournament. In the second match, DFA Mardan played against DFA Buner at its home ground, Yunus Stadium Mardan. DFA Mardan put up a great show to outclass the opposition. DFA Mardan’s player Asim scored two back to back goals in the 12th and 19th minutes to put its team in a commanding position. Usman then sealed DFA Buner’s fate by scoring the 3rd goal for its team in the 46th minute and Mardan grabbed a slot in the final round by 3-0. Peshawar’s Tehmas Khan Stadium opened to a sensational match between DFA Nowshera and DFA Charsadda on Tuesday. The teams engaged in fierce competition from the very beginning. DFA Charsadda player, Haider sent the crowd into frenzy by scoring a beautiful goal in the 33rd minute of the match, which couldn’t be equalized by the opposition and Charsadda went ahead to the next round. The winning teams of the Eliminator round will proceed to the Super 8 and then onto Semi Finals and finals. The two editions of the Ufone Cup will converge on a Super final played in Peshawar on Dec 03. All Super 8, Semi Finals and Finals will be live broadcast from PTV Sports.
Finch wants to lead australia’s t20 title defence on home soil
MeLBOURNe ReuteRs
Aaron Finch has stepped down from the captaincy of Big Bash League (BBL) side the Melbourne Renegades but is determined to lead Australia’s T20 World Cup title defence on home soil next year. Finch’s Australia claimed their first global T20 title with victory over New Zealand in the final in Dubai on Sunday and have less than a year to prepare for the next tournament which starts in October 2022. Finch, who turned 35 on Wednesday, has had knee problems after surgery in recent months but said he would hold onto the captaincy if fit. “If I can get there, absolutely,” the short-format skipper told reporters on Thursday. “I probably need a little bit of extra time to get my knee right now. “I pushed the rehab really hard and probably paid the price for it a little bit throughout the tournament.” The Renegades confirmed Finch had stepped down from the captaincy on Thursday, with Nic Maddinson to take over for the upcoming BBL season. Australia’s World Cup win eased the pressure on head coach Justin Langer following reports of disharmony in the dressing room on recent tours. Finch said Langer had received “confronting” feedback from players about his coaching style and taken their advice on board. “You have some really honest conversations which aren’t always the easiest ones to have,” Finch said. “But he took that all on board and probably handed the reins over a little bit more to the playing group and his assistant coaches in their various areas.” Spinner Adam Zampa said players would focus on keeping the victorious squad together for the title defence. “It is always bloody tough playing international cricket, but with a bit of confidence after this one we are going to be really tough to beat at home,” Zampa said.
Friday, 19 November, 2021
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CNG, CPPs may FaCe Gas shortaGe iN PeaK wiNter ISLAMABAD
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ahmaD ahmaDaNi
OMPRESSED Natural Gas (CNG) and captive power plants (CPPs) may face a shortage of gas in the near future as the petroleum division has been mulling to ensure supply to domestic consumers and the export oriented sector during winter. A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCOE) in this regard was held here under the chairmanship of the Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Thursday. As per details, the petroleum division presented the projected natural gas supply and demand position in the country for the coming winter during the meeting of CCoE.
During the course of CCoE’s meeting, petroleum division presented a detailed impact analysis of different policy options for the management of gas demand during winter 2021-22 (FY22). It was informed in the meeting that the enhanced demand of domestic consumers is to be met through savings from captive power generation. The prudent pressure management plan will also be developed to ensure the stable supply of gas to the consumers. Gas supply to CNG will be curtailed during the winters. Industrial activity will be a focus in the gas management plans, especially the export industry. The CCOE approved the demand side of the proposals submitted by the Petroleum Division. It was further directed that the CCoE will consider the supply side proposals in the next meeting.
Fazl jeers at establishment, bureaucracy for ‘controlling electoral results’
The CCoE also considered the summary presented by the Maritime Affairs Division on the construction of Oil Storage at Oil Installation Area Keamari, Karachi. The meeting was informed that insufficient storage infrastructure at the ports creates a bottleneck in the supply chain and results in increased costs. To comprehensively review the situation and available options, the CCoE formed a sub-committee under SAPM on CPEC Khalid Mansor including member Energy Planning Commission, secretary Petroleum, and secretary Power. The sub-committee will submit its proposals to the CCOE within two weeks. The committee also reviewed the monthly report submitted by the power division on the out of merit power plant operations due to network constraints. It was assured that a constraint removal
plan for the encountered issues is already under implementation. It is pertinent to mention here that the CCoE remained indecisive on the Oil Refinery Policy, 2021, noting that a summary regarding deemed duty had already been tabled in the last meeting. Therefore, it discussed but preferred to stay away from taking any decision in this regard. The petroleum division had earlier linked 10 per cent tariff protection for the existing refineries on motor gasoline and diesel with the construction of up-gradation projects before December 31, 2025, in the new oil refinery policy 2021. The energy ministry has been preparing a summary again with some changes like the incentives are capped at 30pc instead of the previous 40pc of the project cost.
PML-N wants ‘electionstealers’ tried for treason ISLAMABAD staff CorrespoNDeNt
QUETTA News Desk
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Thursday criticised the country’s establishment and bureaucracy for allegedly controlling electoral results. While addressing an Ulema convention here, the JUI-F chief stated that when elections arrive, our country’s system, bureaucracy and establishment keep control of electoral results in their hands so the Western world can be told not to worry about religious people. “[That] they have at most 12-14 seats and they don’t have support among Pakistan’s people,” he alleged, adding that for the above reason, “they (bureaucracy and the establishment) carry out rigging”. “This time we have taken notice of this. We always knew about this but this time we took notice [of that rigging]. [We] took such notice that the JUI carried out ’14 million marches’ in all the country and then lastly did the ‘Azadi March’. “The participation of the public in hundreds and thousands [in our marches] sent the world this message that the establishment gives wrong reporting to you by doing rigging. This is the real power of the JUI,” Rehman said. Fazl called July 25, 2018, as a “black day” when, according to him, the general elections were rigged. “Yesterday was [also] a ‘black day’ of Pakistan’s history on November 17 when [33] bills were passed in the parliament within an hour with rowdiness [and] shamelessness,” he added. “The criminal standing behind the incident [of rigging] of that time (2018) is the same one standing behind this incident (bulldozing of amendments in the joint parliament session).” He stated that the movements for the supremacy of democracy were being launched since the time of General Ziaul Haq. “But why aren’t we getting results? Because despite that, the grip of nondemocratic forces over us continues to get stronger,” Rehman said.
Former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) Vice President Shahid Khaqan Abbasi suggested to amend the Constitution to apply Article 6, that deals with treason, on elements found rigging the elections. His comment came a day after the Parliament passed a law allowing electronic vote-counting despite furious protests from the opposition which said it had been pushed through by the government to rig the next election. Opposition MPs tore up copies of the law, chanted slogans and called Khan a vote thief before walking out. “I believe that this is the blackest day of our parliamentary history. We condemn it,” PML-N president and the leader of the opposition in National Assembly, Shehbaz Sharif, said. Talking to the media in Karachi Thursday, Abbasi said: “Elections are stolen here and the only way to ensure free and fair elections in Pakistan is to bring a constitutional amendment.” He accused the government of attempting to bring the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) under its control through the passage of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) legislation. He claimed the electronic voting machines have failed worldwide, while in Pakistan, the government was adamant to waste public money on such futile ex-
periments. “The electoral process in Pakistan is not controversial, [but ]the mechanism to hold polls is. But, we are now even making the election process tainted,” he added. Abbasi feared that the machines would even erase the evidence [of attempted rigging], saying “stealing elections will remain a crime regardless of any tactic used by the government.” He recalled the National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser had sent opposition parties a letter seeking consensus of all political parties for passage of bills in the parliament. “We agreed to it and said the so-called electoral reform bills should also be sent to Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms in view of the practice of the past. But the speaker did not respond to us on this,” he moaned. Pakistan has a history of parties alleging vote-rigging after every election. Prime Minister Imran Khan believes that electronic vote-counting will ensure transparency. The government has for months been trying to pass the law that will allow overseas Pakistanis to cast their ballot online. Khan enjoys widespread support among some nine million Pakistan nationals living abroad. The next national election is scheduled for 2023. The opposition claim Khan is unlikely to secure a second term.
Economic crisis could fuel extremism in Afghanistan: UN NEW YORK: Afghanistan’s deep economic crisis threatens to raise the “risk of extremism” in the region, a senior UN official warned on Wednesday. The war-ravaged country finds itself on the brink of a humanitarian disaster as foreign assets and monetary assistance remain frozen after the Taliban’s return to power in August. UN envoy to Afghanistan Deborah Lyons told the UN Security Council that with the local economy in tatters, illicit drugs, arms flows and human trafficking are likely to surge. The United Nations has warned that around 22 million Afghans, or about half the country, will face food shortages this winter. “The reality of the current situation threatens to heighten the risk of extremism,” Lyons said. “The ongoing paralysis of the banking sector will push more of the financial system into on unregulated informal money exchanges which can only help facilitate terrorism, trafficking and further drug smuggling,” Lyons warned, adding: “These pathologies will first affect Afghanistan but then they will infect the region.” afp
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Germany, UK to provide climate change assistance of 150m euros to Pakistan ISLAMABAD Ghulam abbas
Pakistan has signed multiple agreements during the international climate change conference, 26th Conference of Parties (COP-26), under which Germany would provide 150 million euro and the United Kingdom (UK) would give 50 million Pound as climate change assistance to Pakistan. Addressing a press conference regarding the COP-26 held from November 1 to 12 in Glasgow, Scotland, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam on Thursday said that under the agreements, the German and UK governments would provide the assistance for nature conservation and support for the nature bonds initiative of Pakistan. Talking about achievements in the international event, Malik Amin said Pakistan in recognition of its leading environmental conservation and climate action efforts bagged two global titles, elected as Vice President and member to eight important committees at the COP-26. He said the world at the highest forum on environment has agreed to the vision based on two main agendas of conserving forests and reducing carbon emissions or reliance on fuel based energy to achieve net zero emissions which the Prime Minister of Pakistan gave three years back. Amin said the COP-16 was attended by some 196 countries and around 140 heads of states in the mega environmental moot in Glasgow where Prime Minister Imran Khan was also going to attend it but his engagement was cancelled for some certain reasons. He informed that Pakistan was awarded the title of Forestry Champion along with Congo and Costa Rica at the third place due to its ambitious Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Plantation project. Moreover, the UK organized Nature Leaders initiative only invited Maldives, Costa Rica, Gabon and Pakistan to take the honour of leading nations on climate action and conservation, he added. At the end of the conference, he said Pakistan was elected as vice president to the COP for one year and member to eight significant committees on finance, adaptation fund, climate experts, Paris Agreement Monitoring. “These bodies will lead the future negotiations at the next COP to be held in 2022,” he added. The SAPM further mentioned that Pakistan was also made chair to the G77 plus China Group for the first time which would chaired by the country in January 2022, adding, “Almost 80 countries are member to this group where Pakistan will lead the negotiations at the forum on behalf of the member states,” Amin Aslam said. He underlined that the German Chancellor and Canadian Prime Minister told him that they were waiting to hear Prime Minister Imran Khan’s address at the COP-26 but felt his absence at the global conference. “I was leading the delegation and also conveyed Prime Minister Imran Khan’s message at the COP-26,” he added. He said that the Pakistani pavilion at the COP26 was one of the famous places and it hosted 25 sideline events and over 50 bilateral meetings were organized at the pavilion. The Asian Development Bank, he said, has also selected Pakistan along with Indonesia, Philippines and Indonesia, to study the conversion of fossil fuel based energy plants over renewable energy. “Pakistan has also signed an MOU with the UAE and supported the chairmanship of the COP-28 for UAE as the decision was to be made by Pakistan,” he added. Moreover, he lambasted the Indian prime minister for his non-serious commitment of net zero emissions by 2070 and decision to phase down Coal Power Plants at the COP-26. “India has played the role of a spoiled child at the event and I told the global leaders that it was a non-serious state on climate change. Its net zero emissions pledge made her a laughing stock for the entire Conference,” he said. In reply to a query, Amin Aslam said that under the green energy initiatives, Pakistan would be converting the coal based power plants to renewable energy in phases for which Chinese firms were also being consulted.
Pakistan rejects US designation on religious freedom, calls it ‘arbitrary, selective’ ISLAMABAD staff report
Pakistan Thursday rejected the US State Department’s assessment under the US domestic legislation on religious freedom, terming it ‘arbitrary and selective’. The designation of Pakistan as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ is completely against the realities on the ground and raises serious doubts about the credibility of this exercise, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Asim Iftikhar said during his weekly press briefing. Each year the US secretary of state identifies “governments and non-state actors, who, because of their religious freedom violations, merit designation under the International Religious Freedom Act”, a statement by US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken said.
The US secretary of state has placed Pakistan and several other countries on the list for allegedly “having engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom”. Iftikhar noted that such subjective designations do not contribute towards promoting the cause of religious freedom worldwide. “Pakistan and the US have been constructively engaging on the subject at the bilateral level, a fact regrettably overlooked by the US,” the spokesperson said. “Pakistani society is multi-religious and pluralistic with a rich tradition of inter-faith harmony. Religious freedom and the protection of the rights of minorities are guaranteed by our constitution and ensured through a range of legislative, policy, and administrative measures,” he said.
Iftikhar highlighted that the glaring omission of India, where the RSS-BJP regime and their leaders openly disregard religious freedom and discriminate against minority communities in an institutionalised manner, is unfortunate and puts the credibility of the US report into question. “State complicity in organised violence against the Muslim minority in India is a matter of record,” the spokesperson said. Iftikhar said it was no secret that attacks by cow vigilantes and mob lynchings of Indian Muslims take place regularly, with complete impunity for the perpetrators. Systematic demonisation, dispossession, marginalisation, and targeted violence against Muslims in Hindutva-inspired India have become commonplace, he said. The findings and recommendations of the US Commission on International Reli-
gious Freedom, as well as the US Congressional hearings on the maltreatment of minorities in India and the violation of religious freedom including in the Muslim-majority Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir were ignored by the US State Department, he said. ‘PaKistaN is siNcERElY PlaYiNg its PaRt’: “We believe the redressal of the rising trend of intolerance, discrimination, xenophobia, and Islamophobia requires global efforts based on the principles of cooperation and mutual understanding,” he said. Pakistan is sincerely playing its part in this endeavour and will continue to do so, the spokesperson added. Iftikhar said Pakistan was deeply concerned by the rising trend of violence against minorities particularly Muslims in India and the increasing constraints on re-
ligious freedom. Pakistan condemns the restrictions imposed on offering Friday prayers, vandalisation of mosques, attacks against Muslims offering prayers, and sacrilege of Muslim places of worship, he said. The detention of hundreds of activists under draconian laws for raising voices against widespread human rights violations of minorities in India has attracted global attention, Iftikhar said. The spokesperson called on the international community, particularly the United Nations and relevant human rights and humanitarian organisations to fulfil their responsibilities to stop the rising Islamophobia and violent attacks against minorities particularly Muslims in India, and ensure their safety and security and the protection of their places of worship.
Published by Arif Nizami at Plot No 66-C, 1st Floor, 21st Commercial Street, Phase-II (Extension), DHA Karachi and printed at Ibn-e-Hassan Printing Press, Hockey Stadium, Karachi, for PT Print (Pvt) Limited. Ph: 021-35381208-9. Email: newsroom@pakistantoday.com.pk