PM WANTS GLOBAL STANDARDS OF SPECIALIZED HEALTHCARE IN CONSTRUCTION OF JMC
g PM SHEHBAZ DIRECTS TRANSPARENCY, MERIT IN CONSTRUCTION AND STAFF RECRUITMENT FOR JMC, STRESSING THIRD -PARTY VALIDATION FOR QUALITY AND TRANSPARENCY
g SAYS JMC WILL BE BUILT WITH INTERNATIONAL-STANDARD FACILITIES, WHICH WILL OFFER BETTER FACILITIES A S COMPARED TO LAHORE’S PKLI
g EXPRESSES SATISFACTION OVER PERFORMANCE OF PSX, CALLING BULLISH TREND IN STOCK MARKET AS A STRONG REFLECTION OF INVESTOR CONFIDENCE IN GOVT’S ECONOMIC POLICIES
Liver Institute (PKLI) was effectively serving as a source of treatment for patients
The Jinnah Medical Complex will be built with international-standard facilities, and it will have even better facilities as compared to that of PKLI, the prime minister said, stressing to outsource all related services including janitorial totally on merit
PM takes notice as flooding in capital following overnight heav y rain
COAS Munir ’s popularity has surged since the May conflict with India It added that the ruling coalition s recently acquired two-thirds majority in the parliament needed for a constitutional amendment ignited rumors that the army chief could become president too The government, as well as the military, has repeatedly warned about fake news and propaganda” proliferating on social media, with Gen Chaudhry saying that not enough was being done against digital terrorism under the laws On July 10 Naqvi asserted that President Asif Ali Zardari enjoys a strong and respectful relationship with the leadership of the armed forces He quoted the president as having clearly stated, I know who is spreading these falsehoods, why they are doing so, and who stands to benefit from this propaganda ” Naqvi stressed that the “sole focus” of COAS Munir was Pakistan s strength and stability and nothing else In May President Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formally decorated COAS Munir with the rank of field marshal for his sagacious leadership and exceptional strategy” during the recent conflict with India The rank of field marshal is the highest rank of armies built on the pattern of the British Army It has only been awarded to one other Gen Ayub Khan by the presidential cabinet in 1959 It is a ceremonial five-star rank that usually signifies extraordinary leadership and wartime achievement In a subsequent dinner hosted by the army chief, Field Marshal Munir lauded the political leadership for their “strategic foresight” during Marka-i-Haq against India
PHC bars ECP from fur ther action against disqualified PTI MPs
PESHAWAR S ta f f R e p o R t
The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday barred the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from taking any further action against the disqualified Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers
The high court issued the ruling on the pleas submitted by PTI s leader of opposition in the National Assembly Omar Ayub Khan and leader of opposition in the Senate, Shibli Faraz The court issued notices to the election commission and other respondents and adjourned the hearing till August 20
In its two-page order the PHC provided interim relief to the PTI members of parliament who had challenged the ECP s disqualification move following their conviction in the May 9 riots case
The court observed that the petitioners were convicted by Faisalabad’s anti-terrorism court (ATC) and at the time of the verdict they were not present in the said court It further stated that the petitioners wanted to appeal against their convictions in the Lahore High Court (LHC) as, according to their lawyers, the top electoral watchdog disqualified them without hearing them Earlier in the day, the opposition leaders in the Senate and National Assembly Senator Shibli Faraz and Omar Ayub Khan respectively challenged the
ECP s ruling terming them unlawful and pleaded with the court to overturn the ruling The development comes a day after ECP de-notified nine PTI lawmakers following their convictions in the May 9 cases, including the leaders of the opposition in the both the National Assembly and Senate Those disqualified include five members of the National Assembly one senator and three members of the Punjab Assembly
The list includes Omar Ayub (MNA from NA-18 Haripur) Rai Hassan Nawaz (MNA from NA-143 Sahiwal-III), Zartaj Gul (MNA from NA-185 DG Khan-II), Rai Haider Ali (MNA from NA-96 Faisalabad-II), and Sahibzada Hamid Raza (MNA from NA104 Faisalabad-X) from the lower house of parliament Punjab Assembly members Muhammad Ansar Iqbal (MPA from PP-73 Sargodha-III) Junaid Afzal (MPA from PP-98 Faisalabad-I) and Rai Muhammad Murtaza Iqbal (MPA from PP-203 Sahiwal-VI) were also de-notified The disqualification came days after a special anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Faisalabad sentenced several PTI leaders to 10 years in prison each in connection with cases registered in the aftermath of the May 9 2023 violence In its verdict the special ATC sentenced 108 individuals of the total 185 accused and acquitted 77 others including former federal minister Fawad Chaudhry, Zain Qureshi and Khayal Kastro
PESHAWAR
S ta f f R e p o R t
Seven persons, including four security personnel were martyred in two firing incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Karak district and Peshawar city the police officials confirmed on Wednesday
According to the security officials, four personnel of the Federal Constabulary (FC), including a driver, were martyred when unknown terrorists ambushed their vehicle in Karak’s Garagri area Both the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister and governor strongly condemned the attack KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur directed relevant authorities to arrest those involved in the incident as he expressed condolences to the families of those martyred We salute the security personnel and their families who sacrificed their lives for the country and the nation, said a statement from the office of KP CM’s press secretary Governor Faisal Kundi also condemned the attack saying The sacrifice of those martyred in the war against terrorism will not go in vain In a separate incident on Tuesday night three people died in a gun attack on Peshawar
cording to the
of Emigration
a change in Pakistan s labor
trends, traditionally dominated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) In the first half of 2025 only 13 865 workers were registered for the UAE down from over 229 000 in 2022 representing a 94% decline in just three years The drop comes as Gulf labor markets adjust post-Covid with the UAE focusing more on localization and technology, along with stricter immigration policies that have led to visa rejections for many Pakistani workers Overall, 336,442 Pakistanis registered for overseas employment in the first half of 2025 Of these 200 882 were laborers making up nearly 60% of the total registrations Drivers were the second-largest group with 73 342 registrations indicating strong demand in the Middle East for service
and transport workers Skilled trades also saw significant demand, with notable registrations in professions such as electricians (3 599) technicians (6 246) and plumbers (1 237) Meanwhile white-collar migration remains modest but steady with 2 884 engineers 1 869 doctors 752 nurses and 3 180 accountants registering for employment abroad
Other Gulf countries are also seeing growing interest, with Qatar receiving 26,448 workers in the first half of 2025 and Bahrain posting strong figures with 18 679 registrations on track to surpass
Bahrain saw
years In
88% increase in migration with 25
compared to 13 345 in 2023 Remittances from Gulf countries remain a crucial source of income for Pakistan In June 2025, Pakistan received $3 41 billion in remittances,
04
tH E administration cracked down as strongly as before, but there was not the same paralysis of daily life as before On the showing of tuesday’s protests, the Pakistan tehreek Insaf cannot be ruled out as a political force but it seems to have lost the keen edge to its protests that made the PML(N) describe it as a destabilising force
However, the real government reply was not so much the use of force to suppress the protests (though there were hundreds of arrests made) as the disqualification of a senator, three MNAs and three MPAs by the Election Commission of Pakistan on the ground of their conviction by an anti-terrorism court of being guilty of involvement in the 9 Mat 2023 riots those unseated included the Leaders of the Opposition in both the National Assembly and senate the Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly has also been disqualified as a result of conviction in an earlier case to top it all, Information secretary Waqas Akram may be unseated for not attending the National Assembly with his applications for leave being rejected the PPtI is in trouble, and may well be facing its biggest crisis since the events of 9 May 2023, when the party lost a number of senior leaders At that time, the party only temporarily achieved its purpose of getting party chief Imran Khan released, with his subsequent arrest t on 5 August 2023 a relatively tame affair the second anniversary of his incarceration was supposed to have seen the launch of a movement for his release, but the show on tuesday was not that though it showed that the PtI continues to exist, it also shows that it does not have the energy, or perhaps even ability, to work up enough disruption to force Mr Khan’s release the PtI has shown that it is essentially an electoral party not an agitational in the sense that it has not launched any successful agitations, but has been electorally successful, to the extent that being deprived of its symbol was able not just to win a substantial number of seats, but also to hold together its parliamentary parties the unseating of so many members should provide an opportunity for it to test its muscle once again the PML(N) should not get its hopes up, for none of the disqualified MNAs has a majority of less than 55,000 votes, and unless there has been a sudden change of public opinion, the best it can hope for is to reduce those majorities
Dedicated to the legac y of late Hameed Nizami Arif Nizami (Late) Founding Editor
M A Niazi Editor Pakistan Today Babar Nizami Editor Profit
JAreebA MAnzoor
u s t when you think this country cannot surprise you anymore it does Just when you begin to believe you ve grown numb to horror a new one claws its way into the public eye and proves you wrong the recent video of Banu Bibi and Ahsanullah, shot dead in Balochistan for the crime of love, forces us once again to look into the abyss we’ve normalized A country obsessed with honour it seems cannot protect its own thirteen suspects were arrested after the footage emerged the young couple had married of their own free will against the will of their families and paid the ultimate price their execution, filmed and distributed like a grotesque warning, wasn’t just a murder It was a ritual, sanctioned by tribal codes, soaked in the rhetoric of ‘honour ’ and enabled by a society that continues to see women s choices as threats to patriarchal order From Balochistan to sindh the blood does not dry In January alone, eight more people, five of them women, were murdered in the name of Karo Kari across four districts in sindh In June this year, 17-yearold sana Yousaf a tiktok influencer was shot dead by her cousin inside her own home on her birthday the motive authorities say was rooted in honour-based violence In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa a couple who had lived in hiding for two decades returned to their village in Mardan, only to be killed the same day their crime? Marriage without permission to count them all would require more ink than this space allows Yet this is not just a Pakistani problem it is a historical one rooted in centuries of patriarchy disguised as virtue Ancient Rome allowed the paterfamilias the father of the family to kill his unmarried daughter for sexual misconduct the Hammurabi Code of Mesopotamia, dated nearly 4,000 years ago, mandated that women accused of adultery be thrown into rivers Male adulterers of course walked free the idea that a woman’s body is the vessel of a man’s honour is not new it is as old as civilization itself Historian Matthew A Goldstein describes honour killing as a tool to control female sexuality, an ancient form of paternity insurance If women were kept under strict surveillance, denied choice, and punished for deviation, men could rest easy, confident in the legitimacy of their heirs Honour then was just another word for ownership this obsession travelled through time and geographies: from Roman laws to Renaissance Europe where German women accused of adultery were flogged and buried alive In 1536, Anne Boleyn was executed for adultery, incest, and witchcraft, charges now widely accepted to have been fabricated Egyptian feminist Nawal El saadawi wrote that smart women in medieval Europe were called sorceresses and burned alive not
for magic, but for knowledge the Napoleonic Code gave men legal power to imprison or divorce their wives for infidelity with no reciprocal rights today we are led to believe that religion condones honour killings It does not Neither the Qur an nor authentic Hadith permit such extrajudicial violence Religious scholars overwhelmingly condemn honour killings as haram Yet in Pakistan, such crimes persist fueled by misinterpretations of faith and the silence of institutions unwilling to confront them In Balochistan tribal jirgas continue to operate as shadow courts issuing death sentences that mock the rule of law the horror compounds when families of the victims become defenders of their own oppres-
is the intended legacy of these so-called honour killings, then their mission is tragically succeeding
T h e e r a o f t h e b u n k e r b u s t e r s
Aity s subterranean chambers therefore despite the
s 3000 pounds of explosive and theoretical about 61 metres capability, it could not reach a facility about 80 to 90 metres deep this exposes a discrepancy between the bomb’s advertised capability and its limited battlefield performance a technical shortfall against Iran s deeply buried nuclear infrastructure However despite not having fully succeeded in its mission in Iran, technologies like MOP must be given due importance, keeping in mind the increasing reinforcement of underground infrastructure by various states For instance countries have not only hardened and subterranean nuclear facilities but also military facilities including airbases naval installations and underground structures to shield their critical military assets technologies like the MOP demonstrate that conventional forces can now incapacitate targets previously deemed impervious to attack, prompting states to reassess both their covert infrastructure and the option for employing such advanced nonnuclear munitions
Following the MOP usage in Iran other states may be incentivised to consider conventional hard-target kill capabilities as a countermeasure For instance, India is reportedly
pursuing a high-powered conventional bunkerbuster missile similarly if other countries start pursuing these weapons, there could be a new arms race impacting the already fragile regional and global stability Besides, international law also comes into play when strikes on nuclear facilities are being discussed as these sites are under protection as per Article 56 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions It states that such installations shall not be made the object of attack, owing to the catastrophic consequences of radiological release However, states’ use of conventional munitions to target nuclear sites risks normalising the military viability of such strikes this weakens longstanding legal and normative restraints and also contributes to establishing norms of framing such actions as legitimate use of selfdefence or counter-proliferation the MOP’s first combat mission may become a technological next step in terms of nonnuclear strikes on critical infrastructures leading to escalated efforts by other states to acquire or develop it While the weapon showcased limited battlefield performance it still possesses the power to sway countries towards an arms race At the same time, attacks on nuclear installations may set dangerous precedents for future conflicts therefore all this must be navigated with consideration of both strategic goals and the long-term impact on global security
Samreen Shahbaz is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies (CASS), Lahore She can be reached at info@casslhr com
Comfor t , not growth
Neglecting small business
SAMreen ShAhbAz
America needs a New Asian Alliance to Counter China
TH E changing strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific region characterized by China’s growing assertiveness has led to renewed calls for the USA to establish a formal collective defence pact in Asia For decades, the idea of such an alliance was considered neither feasible nor necessary, primarily due to the fragmented political interests of regional actors the complexity of historical rivalries and the relatively stable balance of power maintained by the USA s bilateral security arrangements However in recent years China s rapid military modernization, its increasingly aggressive posture in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait and its broader geopolitical ambitions have significantly altered the regional power equation In this context the notion of a Pacific defence pact has evolved from a theoretical proposition to a strategic imperative China s foreign policy under President Xi Jinping has grown more assertive, driven by a vision of national resurgence encapsulated in the slogan “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation This ambition is not merely symbolic; it manifests in tangible geopolitical strategies including territorial claims over disputed waters, increased military incursions near Taiwan and efforts to expand Chinese influence through mechanisms such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Beijing’s long-term goal appears to be the establishment of a regional order in which China is the preeminent power capable of setting rules and norms to suit its strategic interests This trajectory, if left unchecked, threatens to destabilize the existing security framework in the Indo-Pacific and could potentially provoke military conflict
In response, several US allies and partners in the region have begun to recalibrate their defence postures Japan has significantly increased its defence budget and revised its security policies allowing for a more proactive military role Australia similarly, has intensified its military cooperation with the USA and other regional actors, notably through the AUKUS pact South Korea while traditionally more focused on the threat from North Korea is increasingly attentive to the strategic challenges posed by China Even countries in Southeast Asia such as the Philippines and Vietnam, are seeking closer security ties with the USA and other like-minded powers to hedge against Chinese encroachment Despite these efforts the lack of a formal institutionalized collective defence framework undermines the cohesion and effectiveness of regional deterrence
The USA, as the principal guarantor of regional stability, must therefore transition from its traditional hub-and-spokes model of bilateral alliances to a multilateral approach A Pacific defence pact similar in structure and purpose to NATO would offer a more unified and credible deterrent against Chinese adventurism Such an alliance would not only enhance interoperability and strategic coordination among member states but also signal a clear, collective commitment to defending the status quo in the IndoPacific The psychological impact of such a pact should not be underestimated: it would serve as a powerful message to Beijing that coercion and expansionism will be met with unified resistance One of the main arguments against the formation of a Pacific defence pact has been the diversity of political systems threat per-
ceptions and historical grievances among potential member states However, recent developments indicate that strategic convergence is now more attainable than ever before The Quad a security dialogue comprising the United States Japan India and Australia has evolved from a loose consultative mechanism into a more structured platform for defence cooperation While it is not a mutual defence alliance, its existence and growing activities suggest a willingness among its members to deepen strategic alignment Similarly the increasing frequency of joint military exercises intelligence sharing and defence technology transfers in the region underscores the readiness of like-minded nations to enhance their collective security Another critical aspect supporting the case for a Pacific defence pact is the evolving nature of warfare and security threats Traditional concepts of territorial defence are being supplemented, and in some cases replaced, by hybrid warfare, cyber-attacks and grey-zone operations China’s use of nonmilitary tools such as economic coercion, disinformation campaigns and maritime militias demonstrates the need for a security architecture that goes beyond conventional military alliances A collective defence pact would facilitate the sharing of not just military capabilities but also intelligence, cybersecurity infrastructure and early warning systems thus enabling member states to mount a coordinated response to a broader spectrum of threats
Critics may argue that a formal alliance could provoke Beijing and accelerate an arms race in the region While this concern is valid, it overlooks the fact that the status quo is already deteriorating China has been expanding its military capabilities and influence regardless of US policy choices In fact strategic ambiguity and fragmented defence arrangements are more likely to embolden China as they create uncertainty
A Pacific defence alliance would not only bolster deterrence and stability but also reaffirm the USAÊs commitment to upholding a free , open and rules-based order in the region. In the absence of such a concer ted effor t, the Indo-Pacific risks sliding into a period of uncer tainty, rivalr y and potential conflict, an outcome that no responsible power should accept.
IT h e p o l i t i c s o f m u r d e r
N Geoffrey Household s superlative thriller Rogue Male, from 1939, an English assassin-adventurer takes a potshot at Adolf Hitler and then flees for his life An assassin s intended victim is usually a Hitler of some sort In July 2024 in Pennsylvania an American youth aimed a rifle at Donald Trump from a rooftop and pulled the trigger He was dispatched by a team of counter-snipers before he could take better aim and – conceivably – alter the fate of nations What was his motive? Assassins are often seen as lone wolves with a sense of grievance against a perceived oppressor
Gavrilo Princip, the teenage Bosnian Serb who espoused the anti-Austrian cause, saw a potential tyrant in Archduke Franz Ferdinand after Bosnia was forcibly occupied by imperial Vienna In 1914 Princip shot dead the heir to the Habsburg throne in Sarajevo Princip s was by a long chalk the most clamorous assassination in modern history: it precipitated the First World War Through poison gas, starvation, shell fire and machine gun the 1914-18 conflict killed and wounded more than 35 million people both military and civilian Yet as Simon Ball points out in Death to Order his impeccably researched history of assassination from 1914 to the present day, Princip did not himself foresee the war ’s terrible carnage His aim, rather, was to liberate swathes of the future Yugoslavia from Austro-Habsburg dominance and create a united south Slavic state With Sarajevo as his starting point Ball considers the impact of targeted murder on international politics over the past 110 years The catastrophic detonator effect of Princip’s assassination led not only to the collapse of Vienna’s double-headed eagle empire but also Ball reminds us to a vastly expanded Serb-ruled polity that was only finally dismantled in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s For Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia, unsurprisingly, Princip was a nationalist hero who anticipated the Slav unification project under communism; for others (Hitler among them) he was a squalid stalker who shattered the equilibrium of Europe and represented a dangerous new type of assassin who shaped the exercise of power on the world stage As well as discussing the figure of the lone killer, Ball, a historian from the University of Leeds, introduces us to the techniques of state-sponsored assassination down the decades and to the leaders who have made use of murder from Joseph Stalin to Augusto Pinochet One of the most consequential of post-Sarajevo assassinations occurred in Leningrad in 1934 when
Assassins are often seen as lone wolves with a sense of grievance against a perceived oppressor
Through poison gas, star vation, shell fire and machine gun, the 1914-18 conflic t killed and wounded more than 35 million people, both militar y and civilian
Ball asks if there such a thing as an ‘honourable’ assassin He has some sympathy for the Anglo -Irish peer ’s daughter Violet Gibson who, in 1926, shot Mussolini in the face at close range in Rome amid a crowd of horrified fascists
Stalin the excuse he needed to scythe down all perceived enemies The Kremlin whipped itself into a frenzy as alleged conspirators were found guilty and executed Leon Trotsky having helped to overthrow the tsarist autocracy in 1917, was now apparently a counter-revolutionary traitor whose time was up In August 1940, the Spanish Stalinist agent Ramón Mercader struck Trotsky on the head with an ice pick while he was at work in his study in Mexico City The monster that Trotsky had helped to create – the Soviet Union – had now destroyed him As Stalin put it: No man, no problem ” Ball asks if there such a thing as an “honourable” assassin He has some sympathy for the Anglo-Irish peer s daughter Violet Gibson who in 1926 shot Mussolini in the face at close range in Rome amid a crowd of horrified fascists The bullet snicked the tip of his nose Mussolini s (surprisingly charitable) view was that Gibson was “insane” and therefore could not be detained as a political criminal She was an embarrassment to the British government though as the Duce was feted in most English newspapers and was on good terms with King George V In 1928, two years after her attempt on the dictator ’s life, Gibson was transferred to Britain to a mental home in Northampton where she remained until her death in 1956 unwept for and forgotten Assassination is a political instrument that can decide a nation s fate abruptly, says Ball Claus von Stauffenberg, the man who put the bomb in Hitler ’s briefcase, was unquestionably an honourable failed assassin Five people died from the blast in Hitler ’s GHQ in East Prussia on 20 July 1944 – yet the Führer sustained no more than damage to his eardrums and a pair of scorched trousers It was the 43rd attempt on his life; the botched assassination only fortified his messianic belief in his invulnerability The July Plot though unsuccessful became a foundation myth of Germany s postwar Federal Republic: there were Germans who had opposed
The author introduces us to the techniques of state -sponsored assassination down the decades and to the leaders who have made use of murder, from Joseph Stalin to Augusto Pinochet
Dr muhammaD akram Zaheer
The 1960s American trinit y of the assassinated – John F Kennedy, Mar tin Luther King, Rober t F Kennedy – inevitably lies at the
D eath to Order Plastic explosives transformed assassination tradecraft as
US envoy meets Putin for three hours ahead of Trump’s sanctions deadline
goals take precedence over his desire to improve relations with the US three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters
and oil depots, which it has hit many times Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that Russia had attacked a gas pumping station in southern Ukraine in what he called a deliberate and cynical blow to preparations for the winter heating season Russia said it had hit gas infrastructure supplying the Ukrainian military Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that a full ceasefire and a leaders summit were required The war must stop and for now this is on Russia, he posted on Telegram ‘LAST-DITCH EFFORT’ Putin is unlikely to bow to Trump’s sanctions ultimatum because he believes he is winning the war and his military
The visit of Witkoff is a last-ditch effort to find a face-saving solution for both sides I don t think, however, that there will be anything of a compromise between the two,” said Gerhard Mangott, an Austrian analyst and member of a group of Western academics and journalists who have met regularly with Putin over the years Russia will insist it is prepared to have a ceasefire but (only) under the conditions that it has formulated for the last two or three years already, he said in a telephone interview “Trump will be under pressure to do what he has announced – to raise tariffs for all the countries buying oil and gas, and uranium probably as well, from Russia ” The Russian sources told Reuters that Putin was sceptical that yet more US sanctions would have much of an impact after successive waves of economic penalties during three and a half years of war The Russian leader does not want
ACCA and EY share new guidance to help businesses boost confidence in AI
Businesses
Chartered Certified Accountants) and global professional services organisation, EY The report – AI Assessments: Enhancing Confidence in AI – explores the emerging field of AI assessments which encompasses a broad spectrum of AI evaluations spanning technical governance and compliance assessments, through to more traditional assurance and audits It outlines the role these assessments can play in evaluating whether AI systems are well governed, compliant with applicable laws and regulations and perform in line with business leaders’ and other users’ stated expectations It makes the case that effective AI assessments allow businesses to deploy AI systems that are more likely to be effective reliable and trusted The paper also addresses the current challenges that come with these emerging types of AI assessments and identifies the key elements needed to make them robust and meaningful for their different users AI assessments whether voluntary or mandated are
increasingly being considered and used by businesses investors, insurers and policymakers as adoption and deployment of AI accelerates around the world, and amid a growing need to build and enhance trust in the technology he publication of the this paper comes at a time when the policy landscape relating to AI assessment continues to evolve Among the latest developments is the Trump administration s publication of an AI Action Plan which states that rigorous evaluations can be a critical tool in defining and measuring AI reliability and performance in regulated industries The paper details how effective AI assessments can foster increased confidence in AI The paper identifies three emerging types of AI assessments: Governance assessments – to evaluate the internal governance structures surrounding AI systems; Conformity assessments
to determine compliance with any applicable laws, regulations and standards; and • Performance assessments
to measure AI systems against predefined quality and performance metrics The report outlines a number of current challenges that hinder the robustness and effectiveness of some AI assessment frameworks and explains how these can be managed through the adoption of well-specified objectives; clearly defined methodologies and criteria; and competent, objective and professionally accountable providers
and interoperability between two friendly navies The exercise featured a comprehensive range of training activities including combat firing techniques amphibious operation drills convoy escorting drills and military operations in urban terrain Live firing drills and close combat scenarios, designed to sharpen tactical coordination and readiness in littoral environments were also a part of the exercise
The exercise culminated with a comprehensive amphibious drill in the designated coastal area validating op-
LAHORE s ta f f r e p o r t
Punjab Inspector General of Police Dr Usman Anwar held a meeting with SSP Rana Shoaib Mehmood at the Central Police Office to commend him for securing the first position in the 37th Senior Management Course (SMC) SSP Rana Shoaib Mehmood currently is posted as Chief Administration Officer at Punjab Safe Cities Authority Headquarters Lahore The Punjab IGP congratulated SSP Rana Shoaib Mehmood and appreciated his outstanding achievement by awarding him a commendation letter Dr Anwar said that SSP Rana Shoaib Mehmood successfully completed the 37th Senior Management Course Such exceptional
Mehmood
SECOND PHASE OF PTI PROTEST ON AUGUST 14: ASAD QAISER
and digital defamation, emphasizing the need for strict punishment for such crimes
Minister Tarar vows media reforms, backs journalists’ rights in information committee
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar on Wednesday emphasized the need to promote quality entertainment to counter rising intolerance in society
Speaking at a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting, chaired by Senator Syed Ali Zafar, the minister underscored the government’s long-standing relationship with journalists stressing the importance of addressing past injustices against media professionals The committee session discussed various agenda items, including the Motion Picture (Amendment) Bill 2024 concerns of journalists cases under the PECA Act and issues related to salaries and pensions of employees of PTV and Radio Pakistan
Addressing the issue of film certification, Minister Tarar said that the 18th Constitutional Amendment had created complications regarding film import and certification He explained that if each film required cabinet approval for a new censor board the process would face serious delays To address this, the proposed bill would empower the relevant federal minister to approve the Film Certification Board enabling faster decision-making He further emphasized that coordination between the federal and provincial governments is crucial to
streamline film certification The minister pointed out that Pakistani films have seen significant success abroad, including in Canada, and the government is committed to supporting such content without unnecessary hurdles
Discussing PTV reforms Minister Tarar informed the committee that improvements have been made to PTV s screen quality PTV Sports has secured two-year broadcasting rights for the Asia Cup and efforts are underway to further enhance the channel He revealed that the government is negotiating a government-to-government (G2G) agreement with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) He added that PTV Home is being considered for outsourcing, while PTV World is undergoing a complete revamp to meet modern broadcasting standards
He acknowledged the financial challenges faced by PTV following the withdrawal of subsidies and shared that
payments to the ICC had been delayed although rights were eventually secured despite the hurdles He noted that PTV Sports ratings are twice as high as those of private sports channels On employees’ welfare, the minister said merit-based reforms are being introduced in PTV and efforts are being made to ensure timely payment of salaries and pensions He compared the situation to private channels, where employees sometimes go unpaid for months
Committee Chairman Senator Ali Zafar directed that the Finance Ministry officials be summoned in the next meeting to discuss PTV s financial matters in detail Regarding the Shalimar Recording and Broadcasting Company (SRBC), Minister Tarar said that three months salaries had recently been paid to its employees He personally appeared in court to seek SRBC’s revival and a business plan for its restoration has been developed
The committee also discussed cases registered under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) Minister Tarar highlighted his close association with journalists and revealed that he had discussed injustices faced by journalists with PFUJ’s Afzal Butt He proposed forming a sub-committee of the Senate Standing Committee to investigate these matters thoroughly Chairman Zafar supported this proposal and directed that the concerned RPO be summoned in the next session, along with action against the relevant SHO
ISLAMABAD