Epaper_22-10-17 ISB

Imran makes hIstory as PtI regaIns sIx na seats, adds two In Punjab assembly

seats,

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE/KARACHI Saleem Jadoon

Pakistantehreek-e-insaf (pti) chairman and former prime minister imran khan on sunday swept the by-elections in six of the eight national assembly constituencies to make a history band two seats were clinched by the ppp while pti secured victory in by-elections to two, of three seats of the punjab assembly, according unofficial and unconfirmed results.

imran khan handed defeat to his rivals including mQm in na-239 karachi, anp in na-31 peshawar, Jui-f na-22 mardan, anp in na-24

charsadda, pml-n in na 108 faisalabad, and pmln in na-118 nankana sahib-ii. the ppp, however, clinched na-157 multan-iv and na-237 malir karachi seats by defeating pti candidates – imran khan and meher Bano Qureshi, daughter of shah mahmood Qureshi.

PTI CHIEF WINS ALL THREE NA SEATS IN KP: the pti chief won all the three na seats in khyber pakhtunkhwa. according to unofficial results, pti candidate imran khan won na-31 peshawar-v by securing 57,818 votes, while his opponent anp's candidate ghulam ahmad Bilour secured 32,252 votes. similarly, imran khan got 78,589 votes while anp provincial president aimal wali khan secured

g Overall pOlling held in peaceful manner except fOr sOme spOradic unpleasant incidents

68,356 votes in na-24 charsadda. pti chief imran khan also succeeded in na-22 mardan where he secured 76,683 votes while Jui-f’s maulana muhammad Qasim got 68,181 votes.

a total of 16 candidates were in run for by-elections in these constituencies including four each candidates were in run for na-22 mardan and na24 charsadda while eight candidates were contesting from na-31, peshawar-v respectively.

according to a spokesman of the kp provincial election commission, 979 polling stations were established in all three na constituencies including 429 polling stations for men and 351 for women while 199 polling stations were for both men and women.

SETBACK FOR PTI IN NA-157: ppp candidate syed ali musa gillani won the by-election to na-157 (multan-iv) by defeating his rival candidate of pti mehar Bano with a huge lead of 25,186 votes. according to unofficial results, declared by the office of returning officer on sunday, the ppp's candidate syed ali musa gillani secured 107,327 votes, while pti candidate mehar Bano Qureshi secured 82,141 votes. the overall turnout was recorded 44.22 percent. the total registered votes of the constituency were 462,205, including 247,920 male and 214,285 female voters, out of which 204,404 were cast on sunday during the by-election.

IMrAn’s by-polls vIctory to be reMeMbereD In hIstory: sh rAsheeD

RAWALPINDI Staff RepoRt

AWAMIMuslim League (AML) Chief Sheikh Rasheed predicted on Sunday that Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan will emerge victorious in majority of the seats in the by-elections underway in eight constituencies of the Nation Assembly and three constituencies of the Punjab Assembly.

“The by-polls defeat will be in fact a

lahore Gymkhana club donates rs10m to pM relief Funds

LAHORE Staff RepoRt

defeat of 13 parties’ alliance and it will go down in the history of the country.”

While talking to ARY News on Sunday, Sheikh Rasheed said that the 13-party alliance is contesting against PTI chief Imran Khan in the by-elections.

“Tonight is very important. Imran Khan will have to wait for today’s [byelections] results before making an announcement for the long march.”

The AML chief claimed that everything is going in the favour of Khan.

He added that the government received a

strong public reaction after Joe Biden’s statement. He was of the view that the PTI chairman should give the call for the long march.

While giving a message to the current rulers, he questioned, “We are definitely your opponents but we are part of this nation. Will you carry out a drone strike on us?”

He said that “Chor Chor [thief]” has become the national and international slogan against the current rulers.

Rasheed claimed that the 13-party alliance was not in a position to go to the

public. He predicted that Imran Khan will defeat the 13-party alliance in today’s byelections.

Earlier, Sheikh Rasheed had reiterated the demand for early elections in Pakistan. He warned the PDM government that the use of bullets instead of ballots will be harmful to the country.

Rasheed had said only fair, free and transparent elections will bring political stability to the country as the government cannot stop the masses from coming to Islamabad for protest.

PTI chief ridiculed electoral process, criticizes Kaira

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI Staff RepoRt

A delegation of Lahore Gymkhana Club led by Mian Misbahur Rehman on Sunday called on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and presented a cheque worth Rs10 million for the Prime Minister relief Fund set for the support of the flood affected people, PM Office Media Wing said in a press release.

pM Condoles deMise of senior journalist Kh farruKh saeed: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief and sorrow over the sad demise of senior journalist Khawaja Farrukh Saeed. In a message of condolence here on Sunday, the prime minister said Khawaja Farrukh was a prominent leader of journalists of Pakistan, particularly of Punjab. The prime minister said all his life he did journalism based on values and traditions and was known for his ideological writings. The services of Khawaja Farrukh for journalism and journalists would be remembered for a long time to come, he added. He prayed to Allah Almighty to rest the departed soul in eternal peace and grant courage to the bereaved family to bear the loss with fortitude.

MarriyuM grieved over deMise of senior journalist: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb on Sunday expressed profound grief and sorrow over the demise of senior journalist Khawaja Farrukh Saeed. She, in her condolence message, prayed to the Almighty to rest the departed soul in the highest ranks of Jannah and grant courage to the bereaved family to bear the irreparable loss. The minister said the death of Farrukh Saeed was a big loss to the journalism and trade unions. Throughout his life, he remained active not only in Punjab but also across the country for the welfare of the journalist community. She said Farrukh Saeed was a torchbearer of ideological and principled journalism, adding that he was known for his bold and courageous expression.

Muqam, Afghan cG discuss matters of mutual interests

PESHAWAR Staff RepoRt

Advisor to Prime Minister on Political, Public Affairs and National Heritage Engr. Amir Muqam on Sunday met with Afghan Consul General Hafiz Mohib and discussed matters pertaining to Pak-Afghan bilateral relations. The meeting was held at the residence of Afghan Consul General in Peshawar, discussing several matters, including relaxation in visa policy, trade card on Pak-Afghan border, and import and export activities between the two neighbouring countries. Amir Muqam informed Hafiz Mohib about public concerns regarding the current worsening law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, particularly in Swat district.

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Qamar Zaman Kaira on Sunday said that Imran Khan has made this whole by-election a mockery.

For him, this election has no meaning as he was contesting just to ridicule the electoral process, he added. The result of by-election will not have any impact on the date of the next general election. General elections would be held on time, he said.

Adviser further said everyone has the right to protest, but if anyone tried to challenge the writ of the

state, the government is obliged to defend it.

Answering to a question advisor said “NA-157 Multan was of great importance for us, it will be a good contest and we will win,” he said.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) alliance with Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) was the need of hour, which will take the country towards stability. “If that alliance cost us temporary political loss, the party sees nothing wrong in it.” he added. Mandviwalla deplores allegations at eCp: Former Finance Minister Saleem Mandviwalla condemned Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf for levelling allegations against the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Army, FC continue relief, rehab operations in Balochistan

QUETTA Staff RepoRt

Relief operations jointly carried out by Pakistan Army and Frontier Corps, Balochistan are continue in the flood-affected areas of Balochistan.

A handout, issued by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), Balochistan chapter on Sunday, said, “Pak Army along with the civil administration is carrying out relief activities in the calamity-stricken areas of the province.”

While giving details of the ongoing relief operation, it said three relief camps were working in the flood-affected areas of Jhal Magsi and Sohbatpur districts where 12,429 flood-hit people were provided with cooked food along with other facilities.

During the last 24 hours, as many as 4,348 ration packets, 1,562 tents, 5,280 blankets and mosquito nets were distributed among the affectees.

Under the supervision of Pakistan Army and FC Balochistan, several collection points were also established in Quetta so that timely assistance could

be provided to the flood victims.

“A total of 14 free medical camps were organized by Pakistan Army, FC Balochistan, PDMA and welfare organizations during the last 24 hours to control epidemics and other diseases in the floodaffected districts, in which 2,984 patients were treated.

“All the highways of Balochistan have been fully opened for traffic,” ISPR handout said, adding that the National Highway Authority, Pakistan Army, FC Balochistan, Pakistan Coast Guard and Civil Administration are busy to maintain the flow of traffic on national highways.

About the survey in progress, it said that as many as 35 survey teams were working to assess the damages caused due to flooding in the affected areas. During the last 24 hours, 6,774 houses were surveyed; while 98% of the flood damage in the affected areas had been assessed.

Balochistan government, Pakistan Army, FC Balochistan and civil administration are providing all possible assistance to the flood victims by utilizing all their resources.

Saleem Mandviwala deplored that Tehreek-e-Insaf is trying to make the elections controversial by making allegations against a constitutional body.

He said that it is a sad act of Tehreek-e-Insaf to level allegations against the Election Commission during the by-elections.

PPP Senator Salim Mandviwala said levelling allegations against the commission before results are clear evidence of fear of defeat by PTI.

These allegations during the by-elections amount to blackmailing the Election Commission, he added.

If Tehreek-e-Insaf has any reservations, it should take the legal course for complaints instead of accusations, he concluded.

Dr Al-Issa acted as catalyst for change in Muslim Ummah: Ashrafi

ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Interfaith Harmony and Middle East Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi on Sunday said Muslim World League (MWL) Secretary General Dr Muhammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa was a catalyst for change as he had been making hard efforts to reform the Muslim societies around the globe. Highlighting the significance of Dr Al-Issa’s visit to Pakistan, Ashrafi, who is also the chairman of Pakistan Ulema Council, told APP that he was making all-out efforts to unite all the Muslims under one platform for achieving common interests and resolving issues being faced by the Ummah globally. He said it was high time to remove differences and devise a unified strategy to meet the challenges with pragmatic approach. He was of the view that the sectarianism, extremism and terrorism had brought destruction in the Muslim world due to which “the Muslims are lagging behind in the comity of nations.”

Elections only remedy to steer country out of crises: Asad Umar

ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

Former federal minister and PTI leader

Asad Umar on Sunday said that the situation in the country is getting worst from bad with each passing day, reiterating that the soon general elections held, the better it will be for the country.

Addressing a press conference, PTI leader Asad Umar said it would have been better that had general elections been held in the whole of Pakistan. He said that

Raising a stink in Islamabad

M a Niazi

It seems everyone wants Imran Khan to declare the date of his Long March, but no one is willing to provide him the sort of help he needs to do so. The Punjab Home Minister was supposed to be key in this respect, as he was supposed to arrange the special forces that would herald Haqiqi Azadi into Islamabad.

Lt-Col (retd) Hashim Dogar, until recently the incumbent, apparently refused to play ball, and resigned. Instead, Senior Minister Aslam Iqbal has got the job.

Punjab Home Minister resigns, replaced by Mian Aslam Iqbal. He must be raring to go, though he is handicapped by the fact

that no date has been set. He has yet to assign those with the important function of supervising the deghs that will be needed at the expected sit-in, or those who will supervise the PortaPotties that will be very much needed, unless the workers are expected to crowd on the grass verges and do their business there.

Imran may nor may not bring about Haaqiqi Azadi, but he will raise an awful stink in Islamabad. In 2015, Mian Nawaz’s nerve held. Will Shehbaz’s? Or is his nose more sensitive? Or do youthias bring a hitherto untried scent to the table?

Actually, Imran is caught in a cleft stick. If he delays much longer, he won’t find many willing to freeze in the Open in Islamabad, but at the same time, the longer he holds out, the less stick will be raised by his party workers. While the strategy

Imran Khan’s government was removed under conspiracy and this government was brought and now the talk has started against Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

Asad Umar said that till now the voter turnout is going very well and advised the voters to come out of their homes to vote as it is their national responsibility.

He said today’s by-election results will show that Imran Khan will return with a two-thirds majority. Asad Umar said that Imran Khan’s supporters

might be to smoke Shehbaz out, the odour will hit him first. And he will be so close that even handkerchiefs soaked in Cologne would not do the job.

Imran might then regret having got bail in the foreign-funding case, and drop his unaccountable prejudice against being arrested. He has a good reason to want to stay free: you can get anything in jail, including drugs, but you can’t get organic food.

I wonder if Imran is acquainted with the Imran series. That series of spy novels could have been commissioned by the PTI, because it has as its hero Imran, who is a Pakistani version of James Bond. The two Imrans differ, because the fictional Imran is a bachelor and faithful to his fiancée Julia. However, the real Imran would like to be a superspy.

should come out of their homes and cast votes in favour of the party. He said whatever the government does, PTI will win the elections.

He further said that PT does not expect from the Election Commission Pakistan but today’s by-elections are the test case for the commission whether they will take action on irregularities or not. On the other hand, the senior leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Ali Zaidi has said that the government’s foreign policy has badly failed.

One intriguing similarity is that the fictional Imran has a faithful servant, Tiger. The real Imran has a Tiger Force. In fact, he now has a protective force, which is commanded by Omer Sarfraz Cheema, the former Punjab Governor, who has accepted the office of CM’s Information Adviser.

Information has always caused problems in Punjab. Fayyazul Hasan Chauhan was twice minister, while CM’s Information Adviser was first Shahbaz Gill. He was sacked because Usman Buzdar felt he was not promoting his achievements en ough. Gill went on to replace Naeemul

Haque on Khan’s own team after he died, and Dr Firdaus Ashiq Awan, after being in the wilderness after hsving been Special Assistant to the PM, accepted the slot. Buzdar sacked her too last August. Cheema should note that she had to after her fights with the AC Sialkot at a Ramzan Bazar, and with the PPP’s Abdul Qadir Mandokhel on National TV. So long as he avoids any fights, and keeps Ch Pervez happy, he

Ali Zaidi while talking to a private TV channel said although Hakeem Baloch contesting from Malir is a strong candidate but not more than Imran Khan. He while criticizing Ishaq Dar said a criminal came from abroad and became the finance minister of the country. He said that America used Zardari and Nawaz for conspiracy. The former federal minister said that the foreign minister stayed out for five months and spent a month in the US but the foreign policy of the country badly failed.

should be OK.

By the way, I saw a very bad clip on the Net recently, on which people were shown a picture of the new Sindh Governor, Khalid Tessori, and asked to identify it. They variously said it was a dacoit, a robber, a killer, and so on. No one identified his true profession, which is jeweller. The last time the MQM had the pick, it was of a doctor, Dr Ishratul Ibad, he was appointed in 2002 under Musharraf and remained in office until 2016. I wonder if Tessori will last that long?

I also wonder if he has forgotten how to design jewellery? But then maybe looks are deceptive. Behind that menacing exterior may lie a person who is happiest among his books, and who thinks flowers are the souls of little children who have died young. Maybe he is moved to tears by a beautiful sunset, and prefers to spend his mornings painting stilllifes. Or maybe he will break your knees rather than swear you in as a minister. Maybe he saysof people, “He sleeps with the fishes.”

MAster oF U-tUrns, IMrAn AlwAys preFer personAl Interests: tArAr

LAHORE Staff RepoRt

sPECIALAssistant to Prime Minister Attaullah

Tarar said on Sunday that Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf Chairman Imran Khan was master of U-turns, and he had always preferred his personal interests to the country’s interests. Addressing a press conference at Model Town, along with other party leaders here, he claimed that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and its allies would win the by-elections, held in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber-

pakistan’s nuclear assets well protected by pak Army: ch shujaat

LAHORE Staff RepoRt

Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) supremo Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on Sunday said that the country’s nuclear weapons are well protected by the Pakistan Army. The PML-Q supremo lashed out at US President Joe Biden by terming his [Biden’s] statement in this regard as ‘baseless’. The former prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat said, “Before the 2008 general elections, the current US president [Joe Biden] visited our home with Senator John Kerry and Chuck Hagel and praised Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi’s education policies. Subsequently, they went on to say that if PML-Q wins the elections, then we will not accept the result.” “They [Biden and his aides] reiterated this in an interview, to which Pervaiz Elahi asked them what their reaction would be if something like that was said in their election campaign. On this, the US senator changed the subject and started praising Punjab’s health and education sectors. Speaking further about nuclear weapons, the former prime minister [Chaudhury Shujaat] said, “Our nuclear programme has been supported by 220 million people. Pakistan has never been irresponsible since it began its nuclear programme. Our nuclear weapons are safer than India and other countries. There is no logic in bringing Pakistan’s nuclear programme into the discussion.”

Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday.

The SAPM said that even if PTI chairman would win the by-elections, re-election would have to be held on these seats as his resignation from Mianwali National Assembly seat was not accepted yet. He said whoever would vote for him in by-elections would, in fact, waste his vote. He said that contesting each seat by himself was the failed strategy of Imran Khan, that was why turnout remained very low in urban centers.

He said that PTI chairman’s every political move reflected contradictions. His tactics to trap his opponents had been exposed before the nation through audio leaks

and other scandals, Atta Tarar said.

He asserted that the coalition government, led by the PML-N, was making sincere efforts to save the country through tough decisions. “We have saved the country instead of our politics,” he added.

Tarar said that candidates of PML-N and its allies were satisfied and confident about their victory, adding that the PTI always speaks against hereditary politics. But in the by-elections in Multan, none else but Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s daughter was contesting the polls. He said that Qureshi, who was former MNA from Multan, his son MPA and now his daughter was contesting for the MNA seat,

President directs private bank to refund Rs0.2m with profit to bank fraud victim

ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

President Dr Arif Alvi has upheld a decision of the Banking Mohtasib (BM) and directed the Silk Bank Ltd (SBL) to refund the bank account of a fraud victim with Rs 200,000 along with the remaining profit till the date and credit the amount in his bank account.

The President said Silk Bank had committed maladministration by failing to appoint honest officials at its bank branch and unjustly withheld the profit amount. The President gave these directions while rejecting a representation of Silk Bank against a decision of BM in a case where a citizen of Multan, Muhammad Shafiq, the complainant, had invested Rs 200,000 in Term Deposit Receipt (TDR) with the bank, however, he was only paid profit for six months and when he went to withdraw the remaining profit from his account, he was informed that his TDR was fake and he had been hoodwinked by the ex-Branch Operations Manager.

The President in his decision held that since the complainant had produced original TDR which bore the bank’s logo, duly stamped and signed by the ex-

branch operations manager, the bank was responsible for any document signed by its employee on purportedly bank’s stationery and stamp of the bank. He added that there was no litmus test for the general public to differentiate between the original and fake stationery of the bank.

The President held that the bank’s contention, that profit amounts of six months were credited in complainant’s account through fund transfers from multiple accounts of the customers and not from the bank’s payable account as normally done, carried no weight as a customer was usually satisfied when monthly profit was credited in his account.

He said that it was not the duty of the customer to scrutinize the records and internal processes of a bank and to ascertain whether profit was credited in his account by the Bank by routing through bank’s books and proper vouchers were passed.

The President said that the Bank was shifting responsibility to complainant in order to cover its own internal lapses and controls. He observed that the bank had admitted that the ex-branch manager had signed the said TDR and had committed fraud and had been terminated from

Imran makes history as PTI regains six NA seats, adds two in Punjab Assembly

CONTINUED fROM PAgE 01

Meanwhile, 2,337 votes had been rejected during the counting process.

ppp’s aBdul haKiM BaloCh wins na-237 KaraChi: PPP) candidate Abdul Hakim Baloch trounced Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf Chairman Imran Khan with an impressive margin on the NA-237 Malir-II seat. According to unofficial results announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Baloch secured 32,567 votes, while Imran Khan obtained only 22,493 votes, defeating the latter with a margin of more than 10,000 votes.

Meanwhile, Samiullah Khan of TLP secured 2,956 votes.

iMran Khan wins na-108 seat: PTI Chairman Imran Khan won the seat of National Assembly’s constituency NA-108 (Faisalabad-VIII) by defeating his rivals with a margin of 24,757 votes during by-election held here on Sunday.

According to unofficial result issued by the Returning Officer, Imran Khan got 99,841 votes whereas his opponent Abid Sher Ali bagged 75,266 votes while Arsalan Arshad (independent) got 23 votes, Khurram Shehzad (Pakistan Nazriyati Party) 394 votes, Rizwan Mehmood (independent) 83 votes, Sohail Kashif (Awami Justice Party Pakistan) 51 votes, Shahbaz Ali Gulzar (independent) 673 votes, Abdul Hafeez (independent) 1,408 votes, Farrukh Habib (independent) 645 votes, Liaqat Ali (independent) 97 votes, Muhammad Siddique (Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan) 3,088 votes and Malik Muhammad Ali Tahir (independent) secured 766 votes.

There were total of 505,186 voters including 271,039 males and 234,147 females in this constituency, said RO. Thus turnout remained at 36.49 per cent.

KaraChi’s na-239 Korangi: PTI candidate Imran Khan won the NA-239, Korangi, Karachi by-election, securing 48,936 votes. According to unofficial results announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Imran’s rival candidate, Syed Nayyer Raza of MQM-P secured 17,989 votes.

Whereas, TLP’s Muhammad Yasin secured 7,926 votes. Voting percentage was 14.85 percent, the ECP said.

ConstituenCy: PTI candidate Imran Khan won NA-118, Nankana Sahib-II constituency's by-polls by obtaining 90,180 votes. According to unofficial results announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Imran’s rival Shuzra Mansab Ali Khan Kharal secured 78,024 votes. Syed Afzaal Rizvi of TLP secured 24,630 votes. Voting percentage was 44.01 percent, said ECP.

pti Candidate wins By-eleCtion to pp-209 Khanewal: Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf candidate Faisal Khan Niazi won byelections to PP-209 by securing 71,156 votes.

According to unofficial results, PML N candidate Chaudhary Ziaur Rehman got 57,603 votes. Rao Arif Ali, candidate of Tehreek Labaik Pakistan obtained 4,697 votes.

In general elections 2018, Faisal Khan Niazi won the seat on the PML N ticket. He resigned and contested the election on the PTI ticket. pti's MaliK Muzaffar wins pp-241 By-eleCtion: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) candidate Malik Muhammad Muzaffar Khan won the by-election for the Punjab Assembly seat PP-241 (Bahawalnagar-V) on Sunday.

According to unofficial results announced by the District Election CommissionerI/Returning Officer PP-241 (Bahawalnagar-V), PTI candidate secured 59,957 votes, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's (PML-N) candidate Amanullah Bajwa bagged 48,147 votes and Ghulam Qadir of TLP got 3,953 votes.

A total of 168 polling stations were established for 237,045 registered voters of the constituency.

pMl-n Candidate wins By-polls to pp-139 sheiKhupura: Iftikhar Ahmed Bhangu, a candidate of Pakistan Muslim league Nawaz (PML-N) clinched Punjab Assembly’s PP-139, Sheikhupura-V seat by defeating Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) candidate Abu Bakar Sharaqpuri on Sunday.

According to unofficial results announced by the District Election Commissioner-I/Returning Officer PP-139 (Sheikhupura-V) Basil Akram, PML-N candidate secured 40,829 votes while PTI's candidate Abu Bakar Sharaqpuri got 37,712 votes.

A total 153 polling stations were established for 227,541 registered voters.

voting for high-staKes By-polls to 8 na and 3 pa seats: Voting began in the high-stakes by-elections to eight National Assembly and three Punjab Assembly seats on Sunday with PTI Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan contested on record seven NA seats. Polling started at 8:00 am and continued till 5:00 pm without any break.

Police, Rangers and Pakistan Army remained alert to ensure law and order situation during the polling.

By-elections were held in eight constituencies of the National Assembly and three constituencies of the Punjab Assembly. The constituencies of the National Assembly fell vacant after the acceptance of the resignations of PTI members of the Assembly by the Speaker of the National Assembly.

The by-elections were held on two NA seats in Karachi and three NA seats in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) each. eCp orders aCtion against Cellphone usage at polling stations: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) took notice of cell phone’s usage at some polling stations during the polling process for by-elections to eight seats of the National Assembly and three of the Punjab Assembly.

The ECP ordered a strict legal action over the usage of cellphones during the polling process. The ECP issued instructions to the ROs, DROs and provincial election commissioners concerned.

They had been ordered to take a strict legal action against those using mobile phones at polling stations.

It is to be noted here that some voters had filmed videos and uploaded them on social media while casting votes at some polling stations in Karachi and Faisalabad. five arMed Men arrested froM na-24: The police arrested five armed persons in Charsadda’s area of Umarzai as voting in NA-24 by-election continued. According to DPO Charsadda Sohail Khalid, the armed persons belonged to different political parties.

Special arrangements were made in the constituency by the election authorities to make the polling transparent. However, the turnout at polling stations was not much encouraging so far.

which was evidence of hereditary politics in the PTI ranks.

He rejected the allegations of PTI leader Farrukh Habib of voter list mismanagement from election commission deliberately, adding that the Election Commissioner of Pakistan had made it clear that not a single case of rigging or any attempt had yet been reported. He challenged the PTI chairman to dissolve the Punjab and KP assemblies and his party [PML-N] would announce the date for general election as per Imran’s wish. To a question, he said that the Punjab government had completely failed to address the issues of masses. He regretted that the landgrabbers, in connivance with the Punjab police, demolished a building under the garb of anti-encroachment campaign in Lahore last week. He said that four directors general of Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment had been replaced and now a 5th one had been appointed.

To another query, he said that the Establishment Division had a clear policy on transfers and postings, under which officer concerned have to report in the division within a given time period.

pDMA director fumes at poor work at sukkur relief camp

bank’s service in a fraud case. He added that it was a well-settled principle of “vicarious liability” that an employee was liable for the loss caused to a customer through the wrongful act of his employee in the course of the employer’s business.

The President concluded that the appointment of vigilant bank officials/officers, honest and professional staff was the responsibility of Bank and not of the complainant, who had posed his trust in the bank. He added that the Bank was the custodian and trustee of the hard-earned money of the account holder.

“The bank official was there in the bank duly posted by the management, and there was unimpeachable evidence of commission of fraud by the bank official in the bank branch,” he stated.

The President, therefore, rejected the Bank’s representation as the Bank could not escape the liability in a case of this kind, when the commission of fraud was established and admitted. “It is a case of wrongdoing and maladministration by the Bank officials. The Bank is, therefore, responsible to make good the loss of the complainant without further delay,” the President added.

KARACHI Staff RepoRt

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) director admonished the officers for inadequate medical facilities after he paid a surprise visit to relief camp set up in Sukkur on Sunday, and assured flood victims to provide all the facilities until they return to their homes. The Director of PDMA Sindh Imdad Siddiqui along with other officers made a surprise visit to the camp located in Labour Colony of Sukkur. He was outraged to learn that that the flood victims are neither getting health facilities nor being given food on time. On this occasion, he heard the grievances and complaints of the afflicted who brought their sick and injured children before the director. The PDMA director then voiced his rage to the officers and comforted the sufferers. The director also assured affectees that the government and PDMA would provide them with every amenity available till they returned to their homes. He also advised officers to provide them with all available facilities, warning that any neglect in this area would not be tolerated.

MPhIl, PhD ClASSeS to be StArteD At InStItute of QurAn & SeerAt StuDIeS: PunjAb CM

LAHORE stAff RepoRt

PUNJABChief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi Sunday visited the Punjab Institute of Quran and Seerat Studies and inspected its various sections including Library, Auditorium and offices.

On the occasion, the CM said that he had laid the foundation of Seerat Academy and the Quran Complex in June 2006 and inaugurated this on November 18, 2007.

He said that Seerat Academy was set up to promote the sacred teachings of Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). He directed the authorities to display ‘Quranic Ayats’ in the Punjab Institute of Quran and Seerat Studies and upgrade & digitalise the library.

MPhil and PhD classes would be started in the Seerat Academy and in collaboration withthe Madina University, Jamia Al-Azhar and other distinguished universities of the Islamic world these classes would be conducted.

Hostels would be constructed for the research scholars so that their accommodation problem could be resolved permanently, the CM said. Pervaiz Elahi said, “A Quran Museum will also be made in the institution where the precious and rare scripts of the Quran will be placed.” He said that research work would also be done in the Academy regarding religious curriculum. Later, the CM, while talking to media announced to grant 15 per cent and 25 per cent special allowances for the officials of Auqaf department and upgrading the posts of Director General Religious Affairs, Khateeb and ‘Moazan’.

The chief minister said that the scale of Moazan BPS-4,5 would be upgraded to BPS-7, Naib Khateeb, Madris BPS-6,7 would be upgraded to BPS-12 whereas Khateeb Imam BPS-9 would be upgraded to BPS-14 and the scale of Senior Khateeb BPS-12 would be upgraded to BPS-16.

Similarly the scale of District Khateeb BPS-16 would be upgraded to BPS-17, the scale of Zonal Khateeb BPS-17 would be

PIA to operate direct flights to Istanbul KARACHI stAff RepoRt

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of relations between Pakistan and Turkey, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has announced to operate direct flights from Pakistan to Istanbul starting from November 14. The PIA has taken this initiative in order to facilitate its passengers and will start direct flights to Istanbul from Lahore and Islamabad. There will be two flights per week from Lahore and four flights per week from Islamabad, respectively. Through this initiative, the PIA will give passengers access to different countries including America, Great Britain and Europe under code sharing with Turkish Airlines. The PIA has also started booking tickets from Lahore to Istanbul.

Minorities for making ‘Population Census’ process all-inclusive

ISLAMABAD stAff RepoRt

The representatives of different religious minorities have urged the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to ensure proper representation of their youth in data collection for an all-inclusive population census. Chairman One-man Commission on Minority Rights (OMC) Dr Shoaib Suddle presided over a meeting with the PBS officials and the representatives of minorities to ascertain the latest status and plan of the ensuing population census, an official of the OMC told APP while sharing the recent update on the meeting. The OMC chairman briefed the participants about the purpose of the meeting which mainly related to sharing of concerns of minority communities in relation to their lack of participation in, and certain reservations about the 2017 Census data. After listening to the participants’ suggestions, the Director General (Admin) of PBS agreed to get the following points considered: Inclusion of different marginalized groups in the enumeration teams, trainers and entire process of data collection and data processing; sensitizing the enumerators on cultural, caste and religious factors, so that they fill the census form correctly; train and instruct the relevant staff so that the entire population with its religious, ethnic, caste, gender or racial identity etc., was reflected in the results. Moreover, the minorities’ representatives demanded real-time transferring of data from the field to the main system without any data losses; effective awareness campaigns be launched through electronic and print media regarding the registration process; online registration facility be provided so that people having access to internet may avail this facility; and places of worship should be used for awareness purposes. The DG (Admin) also agreed to address the concerns of minorities at district-level and below to educate people on the importance of census; and issue cards to civil society groups to facilitate the enumeration process, while mobilizing local civil society organizations and volunteers to assist enumerators particularly in the areas with minority settlements. Moreover, the PBS officials concurred said that the non-governmental organisations and community based organisations should be encouraged to launch awareness campaign on the significance of the population census. The minorities also highlighted to ensure two separate categories of ‘Hindu Jati’ and ‘Schedule Caste Hindu’ be included in the new census, as the absence of those had led to data distortion in the previous censuses. The results of the census be shared at all levels (Union Council, Tehsil and District) in order to build confidence among all sections of the populace, they added.

upgraded to BPS-18 and the scale of Provincial Khateeb BPS-18 would be upgraded to BPS-19 whereas the scale of DG Religious Affairs BPS-20 would be upgraded to BPS21. He said that Punjab government would give Rs300 million annual grant to the Auqaf & Religious Affairs department and Rs50 million would be increased in this grant every year.

He said, “We will make such a law that no one will be able to stop these expenditures.” The CM said, “We will set a trend that the new generation does not tread on the path of immorality.”

Pervaiz Elahi said that research work was to be done with regard to the Seerat-eNabvi (PBUH). He urged the research scholars to guide us as how we can adopt the golden principles of Islamic religion in the present conditions. He further said that soon after coming into power he functionalised Ittehad-e-Bain Ul Muslimeen committee and the Muttahida Ulema Board.

The CM said, “We took decisions with consultation on Muharram-ul-Haram and

other occasions and implemented them.”

M.Phil research projects would be started in the Seerat Academy and a research would be conducted on the periods of Khulfa-e-Rashideen, he maintained.

He said, “We have made compulsory the recitation of Nazra and the translation of the Holy Quran upto grade 12 for the mental development of the children.”

He said that Imran Khan had always talked about the ‘Khatm-e-Nabuwat PBUH’ and the religion.

He said competent scholars and prominent Ulema from foreign countries would be invited in the Seerat Academy, besides scholars from Jamia Al Azhar. A hostel of 100 rooms would also be constructed for the research scholars. Pervaiz said that investigation regarding the Nishtar Hospital Multan incident was under way and soon action would be taken and those found responsible would be punished.

He said that he also directed the Inspector General of Police to investigate this sorrowful incident from every aspect and

submit a report in this regard.

Chief Minister Parvez Elahi said action would be taken against those found responsible for committing negligence in the death incident of infant at Mayo Hospital.

He said, “We are doing legislation to stop the usage and selling of narcotics in the educational institutions and will make a separate department of Anti-Narcotics.”

The CM said indiscriminate action would continue against the illegal housing societies and LDA Lahore would formally declare Green and Brown areas and no one would be allowed to construct a housing society in the Green area.

Punjab Quran Board Chairman Maulana Muhammad Hanif Jallandari, Mufti Ahmad

Ali of Jamia Ashrafia Auqaf Secretary, C&W secretary, commissioner Lahore, information secretary, PHA DG and other officials were also present.

Govt to restart polio vaccination drive in flood-hit areas

ISLAMABAD stAff RepoRt

The Pakistan Polio Programme has planned to restart the immunization campaign in the flood-hit areas as soon as it becomes feasible. According to an official of the programme, it is high time to take measures to prevent children from this disease as in the given circumstances, the risk of polio has amplified.

He said that the large-scale movement of people, in addition to the high transmission season for the poliovirus, escalates the risk of wild poliovirus spreading. He said that despite the extreme climatic conditions, the Pakistan Polio Programme would conduct an immunization campaign wherever possible.

Meanwhile, the official of the Ministry of National Health Services Regu-

lations and Coordination said that a positive environmental sample for Poliovirus was detected from Karachi, in addition to four other isolates from Bannu, Peshawar, Swat and Lahore. He said that Karachi being home to communities from across Pakistan was a historic polio reservoir and remains among areas categorized by the programme at high risk of wild poliovirus transmission.

The humanitarian crisis in the wake of the unprecedented floods will pose graver challenges to Karachi and other areas of Pakistan in the foreseeable future, “as millions of people are displaced and moved to urban centres for refuge”, he added.

He said that the programme had established health camps in 32 districts of the country to support the health needs of flood-affected populations.

He said that these health camps were

China Gezhouba Group reiterates support for flood-affected people in Pakistan

President of China Gezhouba Group Company (CGGC) International, Zhang Jun said his company would continue to support the people of Pakistan in this difficult time.

He expressed his good wishes for Pakistan government’s efforts for post-flood rehabilitation and infrastructure development in the affected areas.

China Gezhouba Group Company, a longstanding partner of Pakistan in hydropower generation, presented a cheque of RMB 300,000 in Prime Minister’s Flood Relief Fund evening for the relief and rehabilitation of flood victims in Pakistan, CEN reported.

Zhang Jun presented the donation cheque to Pakistan’s Ambassador to China Moinul Haque during the ceremony held at the Embassy.

Speaking on the occasion, Ambassador Moin conveyed sincere gratitude of the government and the people of Pakistan to the company’s leadership for the generous assistance.

Recalling that the two countries have always stood together in difficult times, he said, Chinese assistance to Pakistan for flood victims’ rehabilitation had once again

proven the unique nature of fraternal ties between the two countries.

“We are grateful to the Chinese people for their generous support, and also to the Chinese leadership who have sent letters to their counterparts in Pakistan. The Chinese government is one of the first to come to our rescue, and send relief to Pakistan”, he added.

500 Sikh yatrees to arrive on 26th to attending Saka Punja Sahib celebrations

LAHORE stAff RepoRt

As many as 500 Indian Sikh yatrees will arrive here via Wahga Border on October 26 to participate in the celebrations of Sikh Religion Saka Punja Sahib.

The main ceremony of Saka Punja Sahib will be held in Hassanabad on October 30, in which, Sikh yatrees from different countries including India will participate, said official sources here on Sunday.

Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) Chairman Habibur Rehman said the guests (Sikh yatrees) would be entertained with hospitality. He said that foolproof security arrangements had been made for Sikh yatrees besides accommodations and travelling facilities for them. Additional Secretary Shrines Rana Shahid said that on the directions of ETPB Chairman, all arrangements had been finalized.

PR demands huge grant to restore flood-damaged infrastructure

ISLAMABAD stAff RepoRt

The Department of Civil Engineering of Pakistan Railways, in a summary moved to the Ministry of Railways, has demanded huge grant of money for the restoration of infrastructure damaged by massive torrential rains and floods.

The Civil Engineering Department required about Rs 53 billion to restore the signals system, as many as Rs 60 billion to fix the partial damage suffered by 33 Railway Stations in Lahore, Karachi, Multan, Sukkur, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Quetta divisions and over Rs 6 billion to make the communication tower and other equipment functional again, sources in the Pakistan Railways told APP.

They said the signals system had also suffered massive destruction in Lahore, Karachi, Multan and Sukkur divisions due to unexpected rains and flood in most parts of the country.

The sources said for the repairing of the drainage system at 41 railway yards and their restoration, an estimate of Rs 2.23 billion was made, adding that 3,187 kilometres track of Main Line-I, II and III was completely destroyed.

Likewise, they said 1,446 railway bridges and culverts were damaged out of which two railway bridges were completely destroyed in Quetta division while one of the two bridges in Sukkur and Karachi divisions were also washed away.

The Railways official informed that a total of 1,181 railway bridges were damaged and a sum of Rs 433 bil-

lion was estimated for their restoration and the construction of 259 new ones.

Regarding the tracks, they said that due to the floods, 109.4 kilometres of tracks in Chaman, Mirpurkhas, Khokhrapar, Hyderabad, Quetta and Sialkot sections were completely destroyed. A stretch of 68.123 kilometres of tracks was partially damaged in this section, they added.

To repair the damage and for safety in the future, they said an amount of Rs 17 billion would have to be spent on this section along with the construction of 79 new bridges. They said that the technical and non-technical staff of Pakistan Railways, with the help of local administration and the Frontier Works Organization (FWO), was working day and night to restore the train service across the country.

providing basic clinical services, particularly ensuring treatment of waterborne, vector-borne and skin diseases that are ex-

pected to be prevalent. “All routine immunization antigens are also being provided to targeted children and pregnant women.”

NUMS SUCCESSfULLy CoNdUCtS MdCAt iN PAkiStAN, two foREigN CoUNtRiES

ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

NATIONALUniversity of Medical Sciences (NUMS) has successfully completed the gigantic task of holding Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) in Pakistan and two foreign countries.

Vice Chancellor National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) Lt Gen Wasim Alamgir said that the MDCAT was held simultaneously in more than 20 cities throughout Pakistan and in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates on Sunday. He said this was due to well coordinated and robust arrangements made by our trained staff.

The Vice Chancellor said that Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) had divided MDCAT among the Federation, provinces and MDCAT for

NUMS to fill the seats in the medical colleges across the country.

President PMC Prof Dr. Noshad Ahmad Shaikh visited NUMS on Sunday where he was received by Vice Chancellor and senior management of the university. He also visited NUMS Control Room and was given a comprehensive briefing by Controller Examination Brig (r) Saifullah Butt on the elaborate arrangements for safe and transparent process.

While talking to media, Dr Noshad Ahmad Shaikh appreciated NUMS arrangements and said that those students who would have NUMS MDCAT Certificate would also be eligible to seek admission on merit in MBBS and BDS in private colleges anywhere in the country as well.

These students can also take MDCAT which was being conducted by PMC on November 13, he added.

Later, PMC President along with Vice Chancellor NUMS Lt Gen Wasim Alamgir, Pro VC Academics and Pro VC Administration also visited NUMS examination centre in Rawalpindi and witnessed the students taking their test in a congenial atmosphere.

In his comments Maj Gen (R) Syed Ammar Reza Hamdani, Pro VC Administration said that two officers of the University were specially sent to Saudi Arabia (Riyadh) and UAE (Ras-ul Khaima) to supervise the MDCAT while embassies of Pakistan in the two countries facilitated it for holding this test.

MDCAT for NUMS is being held for admission in 13 medical and dental colleges. The students seeking admission in these colleges are no longer required to sit any other test as per the decision of PMC last month.

The nomenclature of NUMS Entry Test (NET) has been changed to

MDCAT for NUMS 2022.

All MBBS and BDS candidates having Pakistani nationality will have to secure 55% and 45 % passing marks respectively to be successful in the test and are competing for 2075 seats. Of all the contesting candidates, 46,582 girls and 23,641 boys had applied for the admission. Maj-Gen (r) Saleem Ahmed Khan, NUMS Pro Vice Chancellor Academics and Maj-Gen (r) Syed Ammar Reza Hamdani, Pro VC Administration also separately visited some examination centers in the twin cities.

Controller of Examination Brig (R) Saifullah Butt on the occasion said that dedicated teams and trained invigilation staff were deployed for supervising the test and to ensure its peaceful and smooth conclusion.

The result of MDCAT for NUMS is expected to be announced within two to three weeks, said the Registrar.

Around 15 to 20pc Pakistani students in every class suffering from dyslexic

RAWALPINDI Staff RepoRt

HRCP probe reveals personal dispute behind attack on transgenders in Peshawar

LAHORE Staff RepoRt

A fact-finding mission led by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) to investigate an attack on four transgender persons in Peshawar on 11 September 2022 has concluded that the attack was a result of a personal dispute—one of the victims had refused to allow the accused to conduct a physical relationship with a junior member of her team.

On 11 September 2022, four transgender persons and a man were seriously injured when the accused opened fire on their vehicle. They were returning from a wedding, at which they had been slated to perform. HRCP felt it was necessary to investigate the incident, given the context of violence against transgender persons in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). It is the responsibility of the police to arrest the accused as soon as possible and take action according to the law. However, noting the prejudiced attitude of the Peshawar police to the trans community in general, HRCP recommends immediate and effective gender sensitivity training for the police. In addition, any police officers guilty of extorting money from transgender persons should be penalised for doing so. HRCP also recommends that the KP provincial cabinet pass legislation to address transgender persons’ welfare as soon as possible, especially given the malicious disinformation campaign being led by religious political parties against the federal Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018. Additionally, the KP Child Protection and Welfare Commission should start registering transgender persons below 18 years of age.

Chairperson of IDEAS and Department of Social Welfare, Punjab, Iram Mumtaz said some 15 to 20 percent of children studying in every class in educational institutions of Pakistan lack the timely ability to learn and understand due to dyslexia.

The IDEAS Chairperson while stating international studies and statistics said five years ago, the number of dyslexic children in Pakistan was 12 million which gradually increased over time.

Mumtaz said one of the main reasons for this was the lack of timely identification and therapy of dyslexic children.

“There is an urgent need to take timely measures to inform parents, teachers, institutions and especially the government about dyslexia. So that dyslexic children can be made active citizens of the country like other children by timely therapy,” she said.

The IDEAS Chairperson mentioned that a workshop was held at Women Development and Welfare Center, Sewing Center, Department of Social Welfare and Bait ul-Maal, Rawalpindi, in connection with the “Dyslexia Children Awareness Campaign” organized by IDEAS every year in Pakistan, like the rest of the world.

The workshop was participated by more than 50 female teachers and staff members, including specialist therapists Gulnaz Shah, Maleeha Arif, Dr Shaista Kamran, Dr Sadia, Lamiya Munaaf, Sumbal, Zeeshan Masood and others who worked with dyslexia children in IDEAS.

The female teachers were sensitised on the importance of paying special attention to children who were facing difficulty in writing, reading, learning and understanding while studying.

On this occasion, Chairperson Iram Mumtaz along with her fellow members informed the female teachers and staff about the various methods of learning and teaching dyslexic children through practical activities.

After understanding the development and learning process of a dyslexic child, the teachers also demonstrated by doing a practical demonstration. The teachers thanked Mumtaz and her members and termed the workshop as crucial for teachers.

They stressed, “Many children around us are suffering from dyslexia, but due to lack of awareness and our inattention, these children are suffering from depression and negative attitudes instead of learning and understanding, which is affecting their self-esteem badly.”

“We are very grateful for the ideas. Those who raised this important issue and we will request them to organize such informative workshops in other cities also,” the teachers voiced.

Chairman IDEAS Iram Mumtaz said that as a teacher, she was carrying out the duty of awareness about dyslexia and children for more than 18 years. But 9 years ago, IDEAS was officially founded with the purpose of spreading awareness about dyslexia and providing facilities for dyslexic children in the educational system and curriculum.

She also thanked the hardworking team of IDEAS for their efforts through which the Dyslexia Bill was approved by both Houses of the Parliament and would soon be enacted into law.

“Senator Samina Saeed, Member of National Assembly and Parliamentary Secretary for Education Zeib Jafar and Senator Nuzhat Sadiq gave ideas in this effort for which we are very grateful,” she concluded.

PMC takes steps to recognize Pakistan’s NLE test in major countries

Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) has started working to strengthen its technical relationship with leading international medical regulatory authorities to enhance the standard of Pakistan’s National Licensing Exam (NLE).

According to the PMC spokesperson, the objective behind these efforts was to acquire a transfer of knowledge and technical expertise and international recognition of the NLE to provide further recognize the country’s medical and dental graduates.

He said that the commission has made sincere steps to collaborate with international regulatory authorities and to ensure recognition of its standards in key countries where Pakistani doctors seek to undertake postgraduate training and gain work experience.

He said that the PMC has formally initiated the application process for recognition by World Federation for Medical Education (WFME). He added the WFME recognition is essential for Pakistan to ensure that doctors from Pakistan are able to go and train and work internationally.

The PMC will be closely liaising with WFME and other international organizations to ensure that all requirements for recognition are fully met prior to the actual assessment and inspection process of WFME, he added.

He said that the entire process of assessment including a physical visit by the WFME and inspection is expected to take 12 to 15 months, which is well within the time frame of 2024 when WFME recognition will be mandatory to enable Pakistani doctors and students to study or work abroad and specifically in compliance to the requirements of the authorities in the United States, he added.

In addition, PMC as part of the process planned for extensive workshops and seminars for all medical colleges in Pakistan over the next four months to assist in capacity building and enable and prepare all medical colleges for the WFME visit and inspections. The WFME recognition process initiated runs its full course divided over phases with extensive data and information submissions made and evaluated as per the steps of the WFME process culminating in the final physical visit and assessment of the PMC and selected medical colleges. It has taken the commission extensive efforts and continued work for almost 18 months to prepare for the WFME process, which is now complete. The formal application to WFME to initiate the process required the prior approval of the new 2022 national standards for recognition of medical and dental colleges and teaching hospitals as well as the 2022 national medical and dental curricula. These requirements have recently been approved and notified after the invaluable and immense effort including hundreds of hours of work put in by the National Medical and Dental Academic Board over the last 15 months to formulate and structure these standards and the curriculum. The standards and curriculum provide the foundation for modern medical and dental education systems and the Board will be continuing their work to consistently improve the standards and curriculum raising the quality bar for both colleges and students. The commission has worked tirelessly to ensure that all regulatory processes including the recognition and accreditation of teaching hospitals and colleges as well as the admission and examination process and especially the national licensing examination are designed and implemented at the highest international standards including the introduction of digital licensing for practitioners.

These are key aspects required for the WFME recognition process. The commission had unfortunately inherited a system that was based on outdated and manual processes without the proper transparency or objectivity required in a modern regulatory structure, he added.

He said that the commission’s digital transformation has been one of the key ingredients which has enabled the large-scale reforms to the medical and dental sector regulation. The PMC is also a full member of the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities (IAMRA).

The PMC is today internationally recognized as the exclusive regulatory body in Pakistan following the highest standards for medical and dental education and licensure of medical and dental practitioners.

Effective adaptation strategy needed to achieve climate resilience

After facing a recurring phenomenon of natural catastrophes from scorching heat waves to massive inundation due to torrential monsoon, the country is in dire need of a long-term adaptation strategy founded on Nature Based Solutions (NbS) to ensure climate resilience.

Ranking among top ten vulnerable countries to climatic changes as revealed by global watchdog ‘German Watch’, Pakistan direly needed proper adaptation strategy or plan as its entire nature conservation efforts remained focused on climate mitigation.

Country’s National Adaptation Plan is mostly considered as a significant tool or

mechanism for adapting to climate change. Its objective is to enhance resilience of a region against climate change effects by creating holistic medium and long term plans, including the integration of adaptation measures into national policy.

A two-year project to develop the adaptation plan, supported by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and funded by the Green Climate Fund with US$ 2.7 million, was formally launched back in March 2021. However, the then PTI government kept the process slow and left the plan in limbo.

“Previous regime showed a criminal negligence in formulation of national adaptation plan as many key initiatives related to adaptation merely ended up on papers,” remarked

Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman. “Since, we have taken this issue very seriously. I assure all out efforts to prepare much needed climate adaptation plan by the end of this year,” she added.

The Minister recently launched the country’s largest NbS “Living Indus initiative” to conserve and protect second most polluted river in the world. “Indus feeds entire agriculture and humanity living around it from north to south. So, we will have to ensure development in harmony with nature and not against the nature.” She said nature, topography and biodiversity of Indus River changes with every area it passes through. “Whenever, there is heavy downpour, the Indus explodes. Therefore, we need to find

ways for reviving its natural routes.”

Access of adaptation is imperative for climate change mitigation planning as country’s reliance on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, water and natural resources make it more vulnerable to climate change.

“Since international climate negotiations began in 1990, global greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 62 per cent,” says Jessica Troni, Head of United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)’s Climate Change Adaptation Unit. “This shows us why adaptation must be seen as a core approach for tackling the climate crisis.”

“The National Plan process will strengthen country’s capacity to promote adaptation at all levels of governance as it

would help generate and share adaptation knowledge and experiences,” Troni said.

The UNEP globally assists countries to create National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) for identifying vulnerabilities, medium and long-term adaptation needs and processes to develop strategies.

Global EbA Fund has also been launched in March 2021to overcome barriers to nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation by providing seed capital to innovative approaches.

“With the new nature-based solutions program, we are using the power of ecosystems to help societies adapt to climate change,” said Executive Director UNEP, Inger Andersen.

“Ecosystem-based adaptation is being undertaken by more and more governments.

Nuclear explosion

US President Joe Biden’s remarks about Pakistan were uncalled-for, to say the least. His characterizing of Pakistan as a country that lacked cohesion and listing it among the global threats that the USa had to tackle came before a Democrat Party fundraising event, before an audience of campaigners. it was thus part of a message that President Biden wants carried into the elections next month, when both the Senate and the House are up for grabs. While Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has been forthright in saying that nuclear security is safely protected, and while the Foreign ministry has called in the US ambassador to Pakistan to hand him a démarche, it is still not clear why President Biden chose to say what he did. Pti chief and ex-Pm imran Khan, apart from saying that Pakistan had ‘one of the world’s most secure command and control systems’, he pointed out that Pakistan had never threatened any other country with its nuclear weapons, and that these remarks made nonsense of the PDm’s claims of having achieved a reset in relations with the USa.

it is more than possible that the instability afflicting Pakistan, both political and economic, have caused jitters in Washington. Pakistan additionally has the threat of terrorist militancy, which has seen an upsurge since last year’s US exit from afghanistan. then there are the factors (very closely interlinked) of the USa’s growing closeness to india, and its increasing rivalry with China, which are the mirror images of Pakistan’s traditional relationships: friendship with China and hostility towards india. However, friendship with the USa had been also a cornerstone of its foreign policy. Since the increasing rivalry of the USa and China, Pakistan has had to walk a tightrope, and is still trying to do so. that it has abstained twice in the UN, the second time on thursday, in votes on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, also upsets the USa, which has taken on the leadership of the anti-Russia forces.

it is as if the USa is expressing its anger at the vote by picking at a scab on an issue which the two countries differ on at the most fundamental level.it is almost as if the decision point is upon Pakistan. if Pakistan was to turn against Russia, and thus China, and grow closer to india, all its nuclear sins will probably be forgiven. the US relationship is very important to Pakistan, and it becomes necessary to decide whether it is more necessary than its nuclear status. it should not forget that that status is all that stands between it and indian bullying.

ON October 12, Former Prime minister (Pm) and Chairman Pakistan tehreek e insaf (Pti) imran Khan reiterated his claim that though he was the Pm, the country was run by some other power. that is, as the Pm, he remained devoid of full power to run the country’s affairs. Khan said so during his interaction with journalists in lahore.

that Khan was having less than half power to run the country is an admission of serious proportions.

Politically, the statement can be cashed in on by the opponents as Khan remained a puppet Pm while some other quarters were calling the shots. However, the account may be taken as a declaration of reality that the Pm office was sabotaged by the influence created from somewhere else. in his admission, Khan was referring to the overarching power of the army to run the country’s affairs by bypassing his office.

Khan’s avowal must be seen in conjunction with another statement that he has given several times in interviews to various electronic media channels. He said that he was not instrumental in activating the National accountability Bureau (NaB) against his political opponents who kept on casting slurs on him each time they got released from the NaB custody. in this admission, Khan also referred to the institution of the army to manage the NaB by bypassing his office.

During the Pti’s stint in power, it was known that the Foreign Office was being controlled other than the office of the Pm. Nevertheless, Khan is now saying that his office lacked independence in running the country’s affairs, which means that his office did not remain fully functional.

Politicians of all hues must not take these statements light-heartedly, if they believe in the supremacy of Parliament and if they think that the country should be run by the dictates of the constitution. Khan is telling clearly that the political sphere had been breached to the detriment of Parliament. By extension, any new government would meet the same fate.

Half Prime Minister

gated a wave of disappointment affecting all those who dream of and yearn for the supremacy of Parliament. Khan has said that the Pm office is not fully independent in taking decisions. Khan’s statement should not be taken as a situation specific to the Pti or that the situation would never be confronted by other political parties in power. the issue of DaWN leaks and the consequent plight of the government of the Pakistan muslim league Nawaz (Pml-N) was an excellent example. Similarly, the sit-in arranged in Faizabad to dent the resolve of the Pml(N) government was a hint who wanted what.

Khan’s statement is a telling reminder that the vote of people is disrespected. Voters are considered imprudent to elect their representatives whereas the salaried class in the uniform is the real rules of the country. the whole electoral process is a farce meant for hoodwinking the voters, who falsely kept on believing that they were defining the country’s destiny. it is unfortunate that a salaried class has assumed powers of a master, who could decide the country’s future.

Developing countries are beset with a calamity that, in search of monetary gains, they side with one bloc or the other. the benefactor finds all reasons and opportunities to exploit the beneficiary. Pakistan saw this phenomenon as a rentier state, not once but multiple times. it was the time when decisions about Pakistan had been made outside the country. to elaborate, Pakistan’s rentier status made it possible to run the country remotely.Pakistan was just an implementing force, even for the jihad project in afghanistan. the project is over but the machinery is still in place.

the country’s rentier status enticed the local masters into behaving like foreign benefactors to run the country. the difference is that the foreign benefactors were financial donors as well, whereas the local masters are financially dependent on the national exchequer. With the end of all kinds of Cold Wars and Wars on terror in the region, the local masters have been facing the challenge of financial constraints, though they are not yet ready to let go of power.that is, the local masters want to ape the foreign benefactors to run the country but the financial supply line should come from the pocket of a common man. this is where the rub lies.

Yousaf Nizami Editor

M. A. Niazi Joint Editor Umar Aziz Executive Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

Editor

it may be possible that the incumbent coalition government of the Pakistan Democratic movement (PDm) is strong enough to carve out its own path, especially in the post-Pti stint at the Centre; however, it should not be ruled out that the PDm can also be shown the exit door if it defied the powers that be.

Generally speaking, Khan’s statement has insti-

it is known that, during the Pti’s spell in power, both serving and retired army officers were sent to various administrative posts meant for civilians. One assumed the reason was that the army was supporting the Pti’s government to make it successful. However, Khan is saying that the invasion caused more harm to his government than bestowing any benefit on it. in reality, civil servants are far better qualified, educated and trained officers to run civil administration. No officer from any other institution can be a match for them. the exam of Central Superior Services produces a lot intellectually superior to administer and more capable of running the country.

With the power of hindsight, one can say that Khan’s government should have relied on civil servants to run the country. Khan’s silence on the other-

wise situation spoiled his stretch in power. Now, he is regretting the past.

Pakistan does not need local masters who could surrogate foreign masters. People are being heavily taxed. Public money runs the country’s affairs. it is high time the civilians took the destiny of the country in their hands. assert the supremacy of Parliament, follow the constitution, and bank on civil servants to perform the assigned tasks.

When the pocket of a common man is used to run the financial affairs of the country, his vote must carry a value of decision. Stop deceiving voters lest the voters get disassociated from the electoral practice.

The writer can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com

Floods in Pakistan due to harmful human activities?

Climate change is not the only reason to blame. there has been corruption, weak governance or inadequate planning. ineffective water management is majorly to blame for the severity of the present calamity.

the last week of June saw the onset of the monsoon season in Pakistan. Pakistan just had three weeks to experience 60 percent of its typical monsoon rainfall after the season began. Glacial lake Outburst Floods were generated by heavy rainfall throughout Pakistan, particularly in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, and Baluchistan. Over 7.9 million individuals need support after experiencing temporary displacement. Homes, farms, and vital infrastructures, such as roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and public health centres were destroyed as several major rivers burst their banks and dams spilled. the affected people urgently need a place to stay and emergency medical care.

monsoon rain is a frequent occurrence in Pakistan, particularly in its northern regions. But what was unusual this season was that the country’s southern dry area saw five times the typical annual rainfall, which caused traditional, poorly maintained canals to overflow and poorly constructed, muddy, and sandbased protection embankments to collapse.

Pakistan emits less than one percent of

the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, but between 1952 and 2009, the country’s temperatures increased by 0.3°C each decade, above the worldwide average. the extraordinary weather events in april and may of this year, which saw several locations experience temperatures exceeding 40°C for extended periods, were brought on by this progressive warming of the climate. the country’s northern mountainous areas, which are home to the majority of glaciers outside of the arctic areas, saw glacial melt as a result of the intense heat, which increased the volume of water flowing into rivers that ultimately fall into the indus. Pakistan is crossed by the indus River from north to south, supporting many towns,

cities, and vast tracts of arable land. the water collection was made worse by improper water management. as a consequence, several underdeveloped towns and villages in Balochistan and Sindh were submerged. Standing water rose as much as three to six meters in certain areas of Sindh Balochistan experienced the same thing. Flash floods induced by water buildup and invasion in certain areas wiped away roads, bridges, homes, and hundreds of thousands of acres of crops.

as Federal Climate Change minister Sherry Rehman and others have noted repeatedly, the flash floods that ravaged Sindh and Balochistan were not only the effect of climate change.

the effects of climate change in Pakistan are undeniable, as shown by heat waves, such as the all-time high temperature of 53.5°C in turbat, Baluchistan, in may 2017, and the frightening rate of glacier melting in the Himalayan mountains. However, the poor infrastructure and lack of adequate floodplains have increased the flooding’s severity.

Rehman dislikes bringing up or discussing her government’s lack of readiness and inadequate floodplain regulation. She neglected to mention Sindh province’s inadequate infrastructure and deficient water management system. Now, millions of people face a serious health risk due to the nation’s inadequate to nonexistent public health and inability to adequately drain the accumulated floods in certain locations.

the government was unprepared to treat

a disaster-like situation. there are several reasons why the present flooding is the most severe and deadly in Pakistan’s 75-year history. although comparable calamities occurred in 2007, 2010, and 2012, the country was unprepared to handle a significant flooding crisis. the effect of the calamity was worsened this time due to a lack of planning and preparation, and it will only become worse if the water that has gathered in the flood-affected regions doesn’t evaporate.

additionally, the focus on developing infrastructure and housing projects on natural floodplains contributed to greater harm being done to both the people and the environment. We witnessed this in Swat, where expensive hotels and cafes were instantly destroyed by floodwater.

Flash floods may have been brought on by climate change, but poor leadership and management made the resulting humanitarian situation much worse. if the present government and its predecessors had acted promptly and in a proactive manner to address basic concerns like climate change, the disastrous effects would have been lessened.

Since laws are affected by political objectives and self-interests and local governments are inactive, Pakistan lacked long-term strategy, climate-resilient initiatives, suitable water infrastructure, flood-resilient development plans, and an efficient drainage system.

The writer is an Environmental Scientist in Pakistan. Currently, she acts as an “Environmental advisor” for both local and international organizations. She holds a BS and MS in Environmental Science from Bahria University.

Pakistan’s concerns will not be fobbed off by a démarche

When the pocket of a common man is used to run the financial affairs of the country, his vote must carry a value of decision. Stop deceiving voters lest the voters get disassociated from the electoral practice

Flash floods may have been brought on by climate change, but poor leadership and management made the resulting humanitarian situation much worse.

Dr

Civilians must take control of their destiny

wouldn’t have stopped the losses, but would have lessened them

Dedicated to the legacy of late Hameed Nizami Arif Nizami (Late) Founding Editor

Editor’s mail

Thorny issue

HUmaN is commonly known by its phenotype; its physical appearance. When a child is born, he/she can be determined easily as a boy or a girl. along with two genders of human race, there is a third one known as transgender. the term transgender refers to a person whose gender identity or expressions do not conform to what is typically associated with the gender to which they were assigned at birth. the transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) act, 2018, was introduced in the National assembly by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) during the government led by the Pakistan muslim league-Nawaz (Pml-N) which was subsequently passed. interestingly, the current opposition was not opposed to the bill at the time, and in fact it had strongly supported the bill in parliament. there are multiple flaws in the transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) (amendment) Bill, 2022, which is a matter of heated debate in the political arena, mainstream media and among the citizens of all shades of opinion on social media. the major area that needs to be deliberated upon is sub-section 4 of Section 3. even the so-called liberal countries do not allow a person to change his/her gender without being examined by a team of doctors, including a psychologist.

Pharma mafia

Abrogation of existing social contract

a Letter from Prometheus agha iQrar haroon

COaS Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, while addressing the passing-out ceremony of cadets at the Pakistan military academy Kakul, directed the newly commissioned men in uniform to respect the democratic institutions and be always ready to defend the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and Constitution of Pakistan with their lives.

this statement from the chief of the army is very encouraging because the army has a long history of abrogating the Constitution of Pakistan and then standing behind those who nullified the Constitution. One can remember the incident punishment announced by the court to former OaS Gen Pervez musharraf for abrogating the constitution of Pakistan and the swift and strong reaction that came from the Pakistan army against the verdict on 19 December 2019, when the then Director General inter Service Public Relations of Pakistan army said that the military had expressed its reservations after musharraf was sentenced to death by a special court for high treason and the decision given by the special court had been received with a lot of pain and anguish by rank and file of Pakistan armed Forces. He was of the view the Pakistan army was not just an institution. it was a family. “We know how to defend the country and also know very well how to defend the respect and dignity of the institution. But for us, the country comes first and the institution second”, he added.

i remember General musharraf used to call the Constitution of Pakistan “just a piece of paper”. i also remember that the abrogation of the 1973 Constitution by Gen Ziaul Haq, therefore i consider the statement of COaS Qamar Bajwa as an excellent beginning of the new military-parliamentary relationship and i hope cadets who would be officers soon would esteem in the future what their chief had directed them.

We cannot live in the past and we have to move forward. that is why i consider that civil and military relationships need a “New Social Contract” and massive amendments are needed in the Constitution of Pakistan and in the establishment Code.

the abrogation of the 1973 Constitution is an act of High treason and the punishment can

be a death sentence. is it not a very harsh punishment? is it a healthy approach to protect someone even if he abrogates the Constitution of Pakistan? after every martial law, the courts tailored justifications for acts of abrogation of the Constitution. Was it not a partnership in the crime? Why, under civilian as well as under military rules, the rich are becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer and the country slowly but surely heading towards economic collapse?is it not a pertinent question that also needs an answer? Greed for power is playing havoc with the country almost in all sections of the administrative structure and even a peon behaves like “British Gora” when a poor and powerless person asks him to allow to meet the “Sahib” sitting in an office. after 35 years in journalism i have a firm belief that the entire (social, administrative, moral, and economic) structure of the country is crumbling and nothing good can be contracted out of this redundant system. the public blames politicians for the collective disaster and politicians blame the army for all ills and army after every abrogation of the Constitution of Pakistan said that the state was in danger and all civil institutions were corrupt and non-operational so it came to rescue the country from collapse. Can we survive with such a long thread of blame games?

in today’s Pakistan, the punishment of the powerful is not possible and every powerful institution jumps on the way of execution of punishment (if ever announced) to protect its member. People like me criticize the “abrogation of the Constitution” but usually keep silent over the “abrogation of the entire social System”. as i mentioned above, we cannot live with a constantly failing system and we have to establish a “New Social Contract”. the Social Contract theory tells us persons’ moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live. We need to decide once and for all whether we need a religion-based Social Contract or should we continue with a western-based Social contract since we cannot live for long with a hybrid Social Contract because the Social Contract is the foundation of reward and punishment in any society, and the slow death of our society is due to abuse ofreward and punishment within the system.

from Socrates.the dialogue between Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito of alopece is written by the Greek philosopher Plato who was a student of Socrates. in this dialogue, Crito wants to bail out Socrates from the death penalty he is facing and Crito also offered Socrates to arrange his escape from athens to avoid his death, but Socrates tells him why his death by drinking poison is important for society and why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty. this dialogue tells us about justice, injustice, and the appropriate response to injustice.

in this dialogue, Socrates believes injustice may not be answered with injustice, personifies the laws of athens to prove this, and refuses Crito’s offer to finance his escape from prison.

Economically vulnerable, depending mostly on the real estate industry that is eating out agricultural lands, disproportionate population growth, depleting natural resources like gas, facing the brunt of climate change and natural disaster, foreignsponsored terrorism, having a redundant administrative system, ever-increasing corruption are huge challenges Pakistan is facing, and the expanding civil-military relation faultline can be more disastrous than we can imagine today.

Socrates tells us that society cannot live without unconditional obedience to the law of society even if laws are unjust. if they are unjust, they must be amended but the obedience to laws must be unconditional till they are ruling society. this dialogue is considered the core of the Social Contract theory that the majority of governments follow today.

Unfortunately, in societies like Pakistan, laws are obeyed only by the poor and powerless while the rich and powerful give a damn about them. although i am a strong supporter of the parliamentary system i have to believe that Parliament has failed to amend laws that are redundant and support only the powerful, like the Criminal Procedure Code, while the judiciary looks helpless to follow written laws and finds the “law of Necessity” to bail out powerful and the State machinery, the administration, looks as if it has totally failed in ensuring the implementation of the laws. economically vulnerable, depending mostly on the real estate industry that is eating out agricultural lands, disproportionate population growth, depleting natural resources like gas, facing the brunt of climate change and natural disaster, foreign-sponsored terrorism, having a redundant administrative system, ever-increasing corruption are huge challenges Pakistan is facing, and the expanding civil-military relation faultline can be more disastrous than we can imagine today. the only way out is a New Social Contract approved by all stakeholders, including the common man, who is the real victim of whatever the system is bringing to him.

From morning to evening we see that the corrupt are rewarded and the honest are facing the brunt of corruption. the first idea of Social Contract we find in Political Philosophy came

The writer is an international award winning journalist who has been in the field since 1988 and appears in national and international media as analyst and political scientist.

SOHAIL IQBAL TURBAT

it seems the only objective of the pharmaceutical industry is to make money even if it is at the cost of the lives of millions. most of the multinational pharma-ceutical companies have their head offices in foreign countries. For marketing their products, they are hand in glove with medical practitioners who prescribe their medicines and in return get joy rides and other ‘rewards’. Panadol manufacturers claimed loss of Re1 per tablet. Previously, a strip of 10 tablets was available for Rs10 which was discontinued and later re-introduced with a price tag of Rs60; costlier by six times. the alleged loss of Rs1 could have been adjusted by raising the price from Rs10 to Rs20, but we have mafias in Pakistan that exploit the common man as much as possible, and that, too, without any fear of punishment or accountability. We need to learn from our regional neighbours where pharmaceutical industry has become a major player in the global supply chain, instead of exploiting their own people by hoarding medicines and profiteering during a health crisis.

ABDUL GHAFFAR GHEEWALA KARACHI

Targeting 10,000 Lakes

tHiS year’s rains may become a regular feature in the coming years due to the climate change phenomenon. this ‘blue gold’ must be routed towards the existing shallow areas by converting them into thousands of lakes and ponds in Koh Suleman foothills.

minnesota in the United States has more than 10,000 lakes, each spreading over 10-acre area or more. We can start digging using tractors or even shovels. these 10,000 lakes may not be possible by the next monsoon, but we can surely target 1,000. the following year we can have another 3,000 and by year 2025 we will have 10,000 lakes. imagine the benefits if we fill these lakes with rainwater instead of allowing it to play havoc with the lives of millions of people, destroying their livelihoods and homes. also, the virgin lands around these lakes can become fertile grounds for fruit orchards. We can even plant saffron and damask roses. i am already imagining the poor people of Balochistan becoming proud owners of their own lush green lands, orchards and livestock.

S NAYYAR IQBAL RAZA KARACHI

Trust building

iN the last few months, Karachi has witnessed a sharp rise in street crimes. Concurrently, it is believed that factors like unemployment, poverty and illegal immigrants are responsible for the spike in such crimes. Considering this, we need to improve technical infrastructure of police stations by taking several measures. We should build model police stations with sufficient manpower and utilise modern technology and gadgets, such as mobile tracking software, in police stations and CCtV surveillance. the whole information technology (it) system needs to be upgraded by hiring experts in the field, besides upgrading wireless operations. this needs to be done along with enhanced police patrolling, especially on motorcycles for easy and better mobility in narrow streets and lanes in congested areas of the city. the police force also needs support and cooperation from the relevant departments to maintain online verification record system. the National Database and Registration authority (Nadra), excise, Customs, Federal investigation agency (Fia), anti-Narcotics Force (aNF) and other enforcement agencies should share data with the police force. the supervisory body should revisit police training policies and adopt measures to train recruits’ mental approach as well, instead of focussing only on physical training. more importantly, police personnel should be educated on ethical guidelines as well as on troubleshooting skills to overcome problems whose solutions are hard to find. it has been observed that station house officers (SHOs) are transferred frequently for one reason or the other. there should be a fixed tenure for police officials, including the SHOs. taking these measures, we may command respect and build people’s trust in the department.

ASI AMIR ALI KARACHI

Contradictory claim

it was interesting to see Sindh Chief minister utter the words ‘inclusivity’ and ‘equality’ in his speech at the inauguration of a learning centre for people with Down Syndrome. He referred to ‘inclusivity’ in terms of absorbing people with disabilities (PWDs) into the overall governance structure. the provincial education department has a strict policy in this regard which is against the spirit of teaching and non-teaching recruitment policy of 2021. the chief minister should end the existing contradictions in policies before even talking about ‘inclusivity’.

HOW MODERNITY SWALLOWED ISLAMISM

SECULARIZING STATES WISHED TO “RATIONALIZE” ISLAM AND SUBORDINATE IT IN THE SERVICE OF THE STATE. IN A DIFFERENT WAY—BUT WITH SIMILAR EFFECTS— ISLAMISTS, TOO, WISHED TO RATIONALIZE ISLAM. THEIR GOAL, HOWEVER, WAS NOT TO CONSTRAIN ISLAM’S ROLE IN POLITICS AND PUBLIC LIFE, BUT TO UNLEASH IT

First things Shadi hamid

The Middle east was ahead of its time—and certainly ahead of the West—on at least one thing: existential debates over culture, identity, and religion. During the heady, sometimes frightening days of the Arab Spring, the region was struggling over some of the same questions Americans are contending with today. What does it mean to be a nation? What do citizens need to agree on in order to be or become a people? Must the “people” be united, or can they be divided?

The fall of stagnant Arab autocracies opened up a divide over religion, illiberalism, and the relationship between Islam and the state. Liberalism—with its emphasis on nonnegotiable freedoms, individual autonomy, and minority rights—faced an uphill battle. Liberalism requires liberals, and there simply weren’t enough of them.

In the Middle east, Muslims went further, because they could. In the absence of a preexisting liberal consensus, alternatives to liberalism—in the form of Islamism—weren’t merely considered; they were voted into power. In egypt and Tunisia, this period, brief as it was, represented a certain “model” of peaceful intellectual combat. Political life was vibrant, perhaps too vibrant. The freedom to think differently and imagine alternative futures can be disorienting, and so the experiment was ended by those who had the power to end it.

Islamists, whom Westerners until not long ago (incorrectly) called Islamic fundamentalists, were the most vigorous objectors to a secular-liberal consensus that, at the time, seemed secure. As far as the postCold-War era was concerned, Islamist movements were carrying the banner of anti-liberalism before anti-liberalism was cool. This was the “end of history,” when ideological alternatives seemed unimaginable. As Francis Fukuyama wrote, only Islam seemed able to offer a viable intellectual counterpoint to liberal presumptions. But even this exception seemed to hint at liberalism’s intellectual hegemony. After all, it was more difficult to convert to a religion than to subscribe to an ideology. In one of history’s ironies, what might have been a counterpoint became a confirmation.

Over the last century, hundreds of articles and monographs have attempted to outline a distinctly Islamic conception of politics and the state. Muslims’ encounter with the West—and Western colonialism— is what made this conception both possible and necessary. There had, of course, long been a rich classical Islamic tradition, focused on the primacy of the law, or sharia. But sharia was not law in the modern or Western sense. It was not codified, and it could not be found in any single repository. Rather, it was an organic and decentralized corpus of contingent rulings by jurists and judges.

This should not be a surprise. Islam and the legal corpus it generated were not designed for the nationstate. how could they have been? The Qur’an, which Muslims consider not only the word of God but God’s actual speech, was revealed in an era when nationstates did not yet exist. Islam’s crisis—one imposed on it by circumstances largely outside its control—arose from the need to accommodate Islam’s outsized public role within the inherently secularizing nature of the modern state. Beginning with the late Ottoman empire’s Tanzimat reforms, which attempted to codify Islamic law for the first time, the modern state took it upon itself to systematize and regulate. And to regulate something was to domesticate it, lest it threaten state power and authority.

Though it was not their purpose, the Tanzimat hastened what the legal theorist Wael hallaq calls the “evisceration” of the sharia. With increasingly uniform legal codes, the state was strengthened and the role of clerics weakened. Contrary to what secularists might assume, this change was not necessarily for the best. A self-regulating clerical class had provided a crucial check on the caliph’s executive power and authority. As keepers of the law, the clerics had ensured that the caliph was bound by something beyond himself.

Secularizing states wished to “rationalize” Islam and subordinate it in the service of the state. In a different way—but with similar effects—Islamists, too, wished to rationalize Islam. Their goal, however, was not to constrain Islam’s role in politics and public life, but to unleash it.

In the early twentieth century, the so-called “Islamic modernists” observed the success of the colonial project on the one hand, and the many and varied Muslim failures on the other.

The Islamic modernists were the original “Salafis”: a word commonly associated today with ultraconservative literalism, theocratic rule, and religious violence.

But for these first “Salafis,” the basic thrust was quite different. They hoped to return to the unadulterated Islam of al-Salaf al-Salih, the early generations of Muslims who were closest in time and proximity to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUh). But for these reformers, the purification of Islam meant moving away from literalism, not toward it. This was how they would revive Islam and restore it to its proper place.

The modernists—most prominent among them men like the pan-Islamic ideologue Jamal al-Din alAfghani (d. 1897), the egyptian theologian Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905), and the Levantine theorist Rashid Rida (d. 1935)—were alarmed by the influx of Christian missionaries under colonial rule. They feared that ordinary Muslims, who they believed held to superstitious, mystical understandings of Islam, would fall under the sway of Christian arguments about the contradictions of the Qur’an and Islamic inferiority more broadly. Their solution was innovative and distinctly modern: They would affirm the inherent rationality of Islam. In this respect, Rashid Rida’s apologetics are illustrative. For Rida, Islam is the “religion of reason,” “the ally of the sciences,” and “nearer to mankind’s innate disposition and intelligence.” he advises his readers: “You may come to know your religion’s truths through logical proof and evidence.”

Rida portrays Christianity, in contrast, as otherworldly, irrational—a religion of magical thinking. “[The word ‘reason’] is not mentioned in the Bible,” Rida writes with palpable disdain.

After Rida, the successor to the modernist legacy was none other than the egyptian schoolteacher hassan al-Banna (d. 1949), the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood—the world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movement.

Modernity and Islamism are, ironically, intertwined. It is nearly impossible to imagine one without the other. The very premise of “Islamism”—the idea that Islam and Islamic law should play a central role in political life—would have met with blank stares at any point prior to the nineteenth century.

With the emergence of secularism as both a challenge and a threat, Islam would, for the first time, become an enterprise to be fashioned, developed, and advocated for. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood began to speak explicitly of promoting al-mashrou’ alIslami—literally “the Islamic project.” But what did it mean for a religion to become a project? This Islam was self-conscious and mannered. hence the paradox inherent in Islamism: In order to retrieve what was lost— this supposedly pure, original version of itself—Islam would need to be transformed into something new and unprecedented. Islamism was not so much a reaction to modernity as an expression of it.

hassan al-Banna himself was not a religious scholar, and he seemed largely uninterested in recruiting clerics to the cause. Instead, he preached in crowded coffeehouses across egypt. In his memoirs, Banna recounts that these captive audiences were initially confused, even “astonished,” by his impromptu sermonizing. But it worked. his formula was to take a complex religion and make it easy for the masses to understand. his focus was not on what Islam was, but on what Islam could do. One of his tracts was titled, “Are We Practical People?” Presumably, his answer was yes.

The Brotherhood’s slogan was “Islam is the solution,” an update of Rida’s argument that when Muslims were most faithful to Islam, they were most successful in gaining territory, knowledge of the sciences, and technological prowess. Unlike Christianity, which had been in a relatively weak political position during its first centuries, Islam had enjoyed consistent, impressive earthly gains from the time of its founding. Until the modern era, there was never a period without a great Islamic caliphate. To call Islam the “solution” was implicitly to recognize that the link between faith and worldly fortune, so long enjoyed by Islam, had been broken.

This rationalization of Islam lent itself to flexibility and pragmatism. The Brotherhood’s tent was a big one. Banna avoided getting into details, which he felt would only alienate potential recruits and sow division. The outward form of an Islamic state was left vague by design. Since no one knew how it was to be organized, anyone could fill in the particulars of the imagined polity according to his hopes and desires. The Brotherhood could accommodate itself to the nation-state, if that’s what was required. The state could retain its current structure, but be Islamized. What about parliamentary democracy, with its implicit premise that sovereignty was located in the people, rather than God? The Islamic precedent of Shura, or consultation, could be repurposed to conform with democratic expectations. In what, for Islamists at least, was Islam’s “golden age”— running thirty years from the death of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUh) to the assassination of his sonin-law hazrat Ali (AS)—caliphs had been “elected” by notables and men of learning.

On economic issues, the practice of Zakat, or mandated charity, redistributed income from rich to poor, allowing Islamist ideologues such as Sayyid Qutb to write treatises on the importance of social justice in Islam. Finally, since the Sharia provided a check on the caliph’s executive authority, Islam’s apparent preoccupation with legality wasn’t too far off from what moderns call “rule of law.”

None of this meant that Islamists were becoming liberals. They were still defiantly illiberal, insofar as they wished to put constraints on what they considered immoral behavior. They sought to restrict alcohol consumption, keep businesses closed on Fridays, implement neo-natalist policies, and criminalize blasphemy. They hoped to increase religious programming on television and “Islamize” the educational curriculum. They were Islamists, after all. But short of becoming something other than what they were and probably would always be, their pragmatism allowed them considerable room to maneuver. At times, Islamists could appear too pragmatic, leading to accusations that they were concealing their true intentions.

This political dexterity also presents us with a different paradox: It is precisely Islam and Islamic law’s ability to accommodate modern ideas that makes Islamism—so often portrayed as anti-modern—relevant and resonant in today’s politics. As the Princeton historian Michael Cook notes in Ancient Religions, Modern Politics: Where the Islamic heritage stands apart is in providing a compelling parallel to european egalitarianism. Without question this has been one of the most attractive features of this heritage under modern conditions, a source of almost lyrical inspiration to leading Islamists.

There was a dark side, however. Brotherhoodinspired Islamist movements could not, in the end, resist the secularizing premises of their politico-theological outlook. They, like everyone else, were products of an environment in which the state was ever-expanding and increasingly intrusive. Across the Arab world, even as it failed to meet basic expectations, the state was everywhere. When it was absent, which was often enough, its absence was felt. And so Islamists came to see the state as both the source of and the solution to their problems. They could bide their time, and then one day when the opportunity was ripe, they would acquire the levers of the state through democratic means.

Though various Brotherhood branches ran parliamentary candidates from the 1950s through the 1980s, it was only in the post–Cold War period that they began to prioritize electoral competition. Banna’s coy ambivalence was replaced by something approaching certainty. What once had been primarily religious movements founded political wings and political parties. Through a flurry of statements and platforms, they committed themselves to procedural democracy. In this sense, Islamists, like nearly everyone else, were influenced by the end of history, and rightly so. For all its faults, democracy was the best way to push for gradual political change. But their embrace of democratic means to effect political change indicated little about their ulti-

SINCE THE SHARIA PROVIDED A CHECK ON THE CALIPH’S EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY, ISLAM’S APPARENT PREOCCUPATION WITH LEGALITY WASN’T TOO FAR OFF FROM WHAT MODERNS CALL “RULE OF LAW”

mate objectives. What did Islamists really want?

In this respect, Islamist parties, despite their “moderation” or perhaps because of it, fell into the old populist trap of defining themselves in opposition to something real but failing to articulate a distinctive vision of what the state could be. The rest of us, as observers, may judge that this was for the best: If they didn’t know what they wanted, they would not succeed in altering the state and its foundations. For Islamists, however, this lack of vision would prove to be their Achilles heel. They would be feared and disliked for who they were, regardless of what—or how little—they did. It was the worst of both worlds. They were different enough to be hated by their opponents, but not different enough to follow through on their promise, however inchoate, of providing a genuine alternative to liberalism and the world liberalism built.

By now, there are enough examples of Islamist parties in power to suggest that their ultimate failure was intellectual rather than political. Islamists believed that once they acquired executive authority, the very fact that they were Islamists would be enough. As long as they, as individuals, were morally superior, their virtue and moral conduct would (somehow) enable them to succeed within the existing state without having to articulate a cogent alternative.

Tunisia’s main Islamist party, ennahda, provides an intriguing model—palatable to internal skeptics and external patrons alike—of what Islamists could become. Over the course of the Arab Spring, ennahda’s leaders had worked diligently to dilute their Islamism and present a gentler, progressive image. As they sometimes described it, their party was different not because of anything they might do, but because of who they were. I remember an odd but instructive conversation with Noureddine Arbaoui, a longtime ennahda figure. In their election campaigns, ennahda candidates had increasingly tried to portray themselves as technocratic problem-solvers. I asked Arbaoui why exactly ennahda would do a better job on the economy than secular parties that had more economists in their ranks and more experience in government. “The program of ennahda, the program of secular parties, they’re similar,” he admitted. “So, then, what makes me as a citizen vote for ennahda? It’s like what [Turkish president Recep Tayyip] erdoğan said: ‘We don’t steal.’” he offered the example of why Palestinians had voted for hamas over Fatah in their elections.

I could tell that Arbaoui thought this sounded appealing to a Western researcher like me. In this account, Islamists were like secularists, but better—because they were less corrupt, presumably because they feared God. Arbaoui’s comment betrayed a belief that the religious commitments of Islamists made them not just better people, but better politicians. This was the traditional Islamist premise taken to a new extreme, ostensibly in the service of modernity and moderation. As the French scholar Olivier Roy puts it in The Failure of Political Islam, “For Islamists, a discussion about institutions quickly turns into a discussion about determining the virtues and personal qualities of those qualified to fulfill the various functions.” The institutional setup of the modern state is treated as a given. Instead of changing the foundations of the state in a way that centers Islam, the Islamist project is reduced to accepting existing structures, as if they always were and always will be.

This problem—if one sees it as such—is not unique to Islamism or Islamists. It turns out to be quite challenging to come up with a fundamentally different way of organizing a polity. It is difficult to see beyond the state. For everyone except the almost extinct population that remembers the twilight of the last great empires, the nation-state is all we’ve ever known.

ARE WE AT THE END OF HISTORY? In a sense, Islamism was the most promising candidate for a postliberal future. Groups like the Brotherhood enjoyed something Christian conservatives and illiberal populists in the West have only occasionally had: a real shot at majority support and electoral victories. But the state apparatus is powerful. It constricts the imagination, confining liberalism’s critics to the pursuit of often symbolic modifications to a structure that works according to its own powerful logic. In the attempt to reconcile premodern Islamic law with the modern nation-state, the latter won. In rationalizing Islam, Islamists became so focused on what worked that they lost the ability—if they ever had it—to think beyond modernity’s assumptions.

Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and assistant research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary. He is the author of The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea.

even on issues like women’s rights, the Prophet (PBUh) pushed important changes, forbidding female infanticide and guaranteeing women the right to own property and earn their own income. So one may claim, as many Muslims do, that Islam is not in tension with women’s rights. (Gender equality is a different matter.)

Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida, Sayyid Qutb, Hassan al-Banna

President Alvi calls for imparting tech skills to youth at Pakistan digital ecommerce summit

PromoTion of coTTAge indusTry key To PoverTy ALLeviATion, economic revivAL

FAISALABAD Staff RepoRt

oNCEseen in abundance at houses of small towns and big cities, the cottage industry gradually diminished leaving thousands self employed as jobless making them earning hands for others instead of running their own business.

Small units meant for earning living by lower middle class in cities like Lahore, Karachi, Hyderabad, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Multan, Peshawar and Quetta had to gradually shut down with the advent of big industries and multi-nationals.

Considered as the backbone for economy of any country, the big modern technology machines gradually ate up the traditional small scale manufacturing of goods that were meeting the demand of poor segments of society.

the big machines have engulfed these small production units.

Underlining the importance of cottage industry, Zahid said, it was the most convenient way of earning for the people with low income. “It can still be an easy mode of earning and arresting increasing rural poverty and unemployment besides discouraging mass movement of people to urban areas.”

“We must encourage sustainable models of cottage industry at grassroots with necessary paraphernalia and incentives enabling the coming generation to self-employ instead of running after jobs,” he recommended.

Ghulam Muhammad Abad settlement in Faisalabad was once called the Asia’s biggest hub of cottage industry. The people migrated from India had established hand looms within rooms of their houses not only to cater for their own needs but also provide cheaper goods to communities.

and could play an important role in economic progress if provided congenial atmosphere and sufficient funding to set up small businesses,” said Ms. Robina Amjad President Faisalabad Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FWCCI).

She said when a girl completes her education, she is married to someone and her in-laws confine her to house premises. “If these talented girls are provided opportunity to establish cottage industry, it would be beneficial for both the girl and the family.”

“If they are self-employed through cottage industry within their house premises, it would also not be shameful for those who take the women employment as a taboo,” she added.

She called upon the government to focus on promotion of this sector in urban as well as rural areas, making the female component to also play their active role in economic revival and nation building.

Islamabad:The Enablers conducted the Pakistan Digital eCommerce Summit in which all the industry Leaders & Experts in eCommerce/freelancing/IT gathered under one roof in Jinnah Convention Center. It was an opportunity for massive networking & raising funds for agencies, and startups, and also delivering top-class knowledgeable sessions to five thousand people. The President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Mr. Arif Alvi was the chief guest along with several renowned motivational speakers and trainers of the country. Mr. Arif Alvi himself has great insight into IT and always urges to promote the usage of the latest technology. Here too, he emphasized imparting new skills and artificial intelligence skills among the youth to develop society. To discuss the concerns in raising Female empowerment in Pakistani society, funds raising for deserving candidates, and discuss how to overcome the obstacles to succeed with the major issues related to the market of-commerce in Pakistan the group and panelists joined the audience. The scope of e-commerce in Pakistan was another hot discussion by the industry figures. They explored new developments and figure out future perspectives of the field. Saqib Azhar, the spirit of The Enablers said that we have great potential among Pakistani youth. They need a little support and encouragement from the government. Authorities should improvise the decision of tax implementation as it's a major concern of the public. As this field is the fastest-growing market in Pakistan and we have established many distinct records all over the world, government authorities should support the public in every possible way. This sector shall generate funds through freelancing and ecommerce means to an extent that economic problems of the country could be resolved, if government starts taking the sector seriously. pR

Bid to smuggle electronic goods foiled at Lahore Airport

LAHORE Staff RepoRt

The Pakistan Custom Authority personnel conducted an operation at Lahore Airport on Sunday and detained a passenger arriving from Dubai after foiling an attempt to smuggle electronic goods worth millions of rupees including laptops, hard disks and printers.

Assistant Commissioner (AC) Customs Sara Batool, during one of her anti-smuggling operations at the Lahore Airport, thwarted a bid to illegally bring in laptops, hard drives, and printers. They arrested Hassan Abbas, a passenger who had taken the PIA flight PK-204 from Dubai to Lahore.

According to Customs officials, the passenger’s luggage contained non-custom laptops, hard drives, and printer devices worth more than five million rupees. Following that, the Custom authorities registered an FIR against the passenger and initiated further action.

Meanwhile, Collector Customs Syed Asad Raza Rizvi appreciated the efforts of AC Collector Sara Batool and other staff for doing excellent work and prompt action.

Self-explanatory in its essence as it used to confine to small houses, this industry was being run by skilled males or females at very small scale by installing hand looms or starting sewing web with only a sewing machine.

“During good old days even people with low income could start their own business by employing cottage industry modes,” said Zahid Aslam, former President of Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI).

“Once this industry used to produce valuable items like carpets, leather goods, handicrafts, jewelry, surgical instruments, woodwork and daily use items like pottery, sports good, ceramics, cutlery and number of hosiery products,” he said and regretted now

These hand looms and small machines producing variety of goods were gradually replaced with power looms during 1960s and 1970s and thereon with modern machinery. But, this evolution process in Faisalabad gradually erased the most important component of small scale earning.

Although, the cottage industry survived to some extent in Gujranwala, Wazirabad and Sialkot, its overall patronage and growth in other parts of country stalled especially in textile sector.

Besides male members of the family, the cottage industry also provides opportunities of respectable earning for the females members in a homely environment.

“Women constitute 50 percent of our population

PCMEA wants Pakistani products displayed at foreign superstores

The Pakistan Carpet Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PCMEA) has stressed the need for displaying Pakistani products at superstores of foreign countries through respective Pakistani embassies.

Talking to a business delegation here on Sunday, PCMEA Senior Chairman Usman Ashraf said that Pakistani embassies abroad should meet the local importers and Pakistani products should be displayed at superstores there. He also urged the

government to ensure patronage of the carpet industry, as it would not only help control rural migration to urban centres but also provide ample employment opportunities in villages. He added that focus should be on development of small industries for provision of employment and development of the economy.

Usman Ashraf said that maximum participation of Pakistani exporters in foreign exhibitions should be ensured for effective marketing of local products. He said that carpet manufacturing did not need electricity or gas from the government, but this

sector was contributing to exports as well as providing employment to a number of people.

The PCMEA senior chairman said that the government should provide support for promotion of exports and exchange of delegations with different countries on private level.

Senior central leader Abdul Latif Malik, senior member Riyaz Ahmed, Saeed Khan, Ejazur Rehman, Malik Muhammad Akbar and others were also present. The problems faced by the carpet industry and various suggestions for their solution were considered.

She also proposed to train local and under educated people for running the cottage industry through Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) and National Vocational & Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC).

Women in rural areas can be engaged in small scale production of daily use items like pickle, jam, jelly besides sewing, knitting and weaving on small machines. It may provide cheaper goods to local consumers and the money minted by big chains and multi-nationals will go into hands of lower middle class.

Waheed Khaliq Ramay of Council of Looms Owners Association (CLOA) said, the looms were the part of cottage industry when number of machines remained below four.

Tobacco exports witness 97.36pc increase

ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

Tobacco exports during the second month of fiscal year of 2022-23 increased by 97.36 percent as compared to the exports of the commodity during the corresponding period of last year.

During the period from July 22-August 22, tobacco worth US$ 10,253,000 were exported as compared to the exports of US $ 5,195,000 during the same period of last year.

ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

Islamabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industries (ICSTSI) and Rawalpindi Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industries (RCSTSI) have urged the government to immediately de-seal Islamabad’s major business centre, Centaurs Mall.

The President of Islamabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industries Sajjad Sarwar, Senior Vice President Tariq Mehmood Khokhar, Vice President Muhammad Dawood Shaikh, Rawalpindi Chamber of Small Traders and Small

Industries President Tariq Jadoon, Senior Vice President Naeem Ashraf and Vice President M Mahfooz in a joint statement on Sunday said, the employment of lakhs of families is connected to this centre. The property should be opened in public interest away from political affiliation as business activities have already stopped due to the economic crisis, they added.

The representatives of the business community demanded that Centaurus Mall should be de-sealed so that maintenance work could be completed as soon as possible as the temporary closure of Centaurus Mall has made daily wage-earners jobless.

According to the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the exports of Vegetables increased by 53.13 percent, worth US$ 57,717,000 as compared to exports of US$ 37,691,000 during the same period of last year.

Meanwhile, meat and meat preparations exports also increased by 32.71 percent as the exports recorded during current fiscal year were US$ 65,754,000 as compared to the exports during the same period of last year which were US$ 49,547,000.

During the period under review, All other food items exports increased by 26.29 percent, worth US$ 189,257,000 in current fiscal year, as compared to the exports of US$ 149,864,000 during the same period of last year.

Uncollected solid waste posing health hazards to Multanites

MULTAN

app

Solid waste management is getting tougher in the fifth largest metropolitan of the country adding to environmental pollution and endangering hundreds of thousands dweller to serious health hazards.

With an urban population of just over 2.1 million, the city daily generates around 1300 tone solid, industrial and hospital waste of which the local authorities have the capacity to only collect only 700 tone waste.

The only landfill site used by Multan Waste Management Company (MWMC) since 2013 is now filled up to the brim, leaving MWMC staff with no option to identify another place to dump the waste.

The concerned authorities have described the shortage of staff and resource constraint behind uncollected waste as the situation is getting tougher with every passing day due

to population influx as well as proper mechanism of waste segregation and treatment.

“We have the capacity to collect only 700 tone waste daily against a daily bulge of 1300 tone,” said Manager Operations MWMC Anwar-ul-Haq. “The company is covering 68 urban Union Councils housing over two million people with only 2200 staff including 1500 sanitary workers.”

“Expecting 100 percent results with such staff strength was unjust,” the Manager Operations said, revealing that no recruitment of workforce or acquisition of new machinery was made since 2013.

‘The Hospital Management Rules’ were introduced in 2005 necessitating yellowbagged waste to be disposed by burning and then dump it at a landfill site or dispose it of through any other method approved by the concerned Federal or Provincial agencies.

In 2012, the Punjab government had established Waste Management Companies in

big cities for swift cleanliness arrangements in the major cities but the objective is yet to be fully achieved in case of Multan due to certain factors despite MWMC fully operational since 2014.

Keeping in view the urgency, the Manager Operation said that the company Board of Directors (BoD) recently approved recruitment of 500 workers and procurement of over 100 vehicles at a cost of Rs 170 million in first phase. “These measures would help evolve a swift sanitation system to ensure proper waste disposal.”

Although, the officials are busy locating an alternate place to use landfill site, yet there are other issues like hazards of dumping waste in open, proper segregation of house, industrial and hospital waste and having different landfill sites for it.

Lack of professional human resource to collect and properly dump or treat solid waste is yet another reason contributing to

environmental degradation and hazards to human health.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) MWMC Muhammad Farooq Dogar said that international standards require a sanitary worker deployed for every 1000 persons for proper sanitation and waste management. “This is missing in our case. To fill the gap of company’s limitations, special campaigns are launched periodically targeting specific areas to cover maximum, if not 100 per cent.”

Moreover, he said, there was no practice of solid waste segregation to manage different kinds of waste properly. “Waste segregation would ensure proper management and disposal in accordance with the nature of waste.”

Officials are busy these days, in searching a new landfill site and locations including 17-Kassi, Labar Morr and Head Muhammad Wala are in focus. A plan is also under consideration to develop a park at Habiba Siyal landfill site to avoid environ-

mental pollution.

Talking of equipment, Farooq Dogar said the waste collection containers have completed their life span running for nine years instead of three years specific period.

He pleaded to raise the workforce number to 3500 besides procurement of more machinery to cover maximum area of the urban population.

He also proposed to enhance the number of present 12 transfer stations to 20 where primary waste is gathered for onward transportation to dumping site.

“It is our utmost endeavor to collect maximum waste generated daily,” he said. “Our mission is to provide healthy living conditions and better environment to Multanites.”

Assistant Director Environment Hameed Akhtar said, environment should be made part of curriculum to raise awareness on the issue right from primary level.

LAHORE Staff RepoRt

RCSTSI urge govt to de-seal Centaurs Mall

China will ‘nEvER CoMMit to abandoninG

UsE of foRCE’ on taiwan, Xi tElls CPC

territorial integrity.

PRESIDENTXi Jinping on Sunday vowed China would “never commit to abandoning the use of force” when it comes to the issue of Taiwan, in a speech marking the beginning of the Communist Party Congress (CPC) in Beijing.

“Resolving the Taiwan issue is a matter for Chinese people themselves, and must be resolved by Chinese people alone. We will adhere to striving for the prospect of a peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and greatest efforts, but will never commit to abandoning the use of force, and reserve the option to take all necessary measures,” Xi told Communist Party delegates at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

China sees self-ruled, democratic Taiwan as part of its territory, to be reclaimed one day by military intervention if necessary.

“The historical wheels of national reunification and national rejuvenation are rolling forward,” Xi added. “Reunification of the motherland must be

achieved and will be achieved.”

Xi condemned “separatism and interference” on the matter.

He also hailed Hong Kong’s transition from “chaos to governance”, after the imposition of a national security law in 2020 that has quashed dissent in the once outspoken city.

“The situation in Hong Kong has achieved a major transition from chaos to governance,” he said.

FULL CONTROL OVER HONG

Gunmen kill 11 at Russian army base in new blow to Moscow’s Ukraine campaign

KYIV ReuteRs

Gunmen shot dead 11 people at a Russian military training ground, the defence ministry said, in the latest blow to President Vladimir Putin’s forces since the invasion of Ukraine. RIA news agency cited the ministry as saying 15 others were wounded in the shooting on Saturday, in Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region that borders Ukraine, when two men gunned down a group who had volunteered to take part in the war.

It said the two assailants – nationals from an unspecified former Soviet republic – had been shot dead. Some Russian independent media outlets reported that the number of casualties was higher than the official figures. “A terrible event happened on our territory, on the territory of one of the military units,” the governor of Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov said early on Sunday.

“Many soldiers were killed and wounded … There are no residents of the Belgorod region among the wounded and killed,’ Gladkov said in a video post on the Telegram messaging app.

The attack took place a week after a blast damaged a bridge in Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. Earlier in the war, Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea blew up and sank. “During a firearms training session with individuals who voluntarily expressed a desire to participate in the special military operation (against Ukraine), the terrorists opened fire.

KONG ACHIEVED: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday told the 20th Communist party Congress that the country has gained full control over Hong Kong and turned it from chaos to governance, according to Reuters news agency.

Delivering a report to the twice-adecade party meeting in Beijing, Xi said China has also waged a major struggle against Taiwan separatism and is determined and able to oppose

Along with the crackdown on Hong Kong, Xi Jinping also defended the military aggression against Taiwan, saying he “safeguarded” the country’s “dignity and core interests” for ensuring security.

“In the face of turbulent developments in Hong Kong, the central government exercised its overall jurisdiction over the special administrative region as prescribed by China’s Constitution and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,” state media outlet Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

He said it was ensured that Hong Kong is governed by “patriots” after the “order” was restored in the region.

On the self-governed island of Taiwan, he said, “In response to separatist activities aimed at Taiwan independence and gross provocations of external interference in Taiwan affairs, we have resolutely fought against separatism and countered interference.”

He said that China has demonstrated their resolve and ability to safeguard “China’s sovereignty and to oppose “Taiwan’s independence.”

UK’s embattled Truss told: ‘The game is up’

LONDON Agencies

Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss on Sunday vied to reboot her economic programme, but Conservative critics warned the party faces electoral oblivion under her crippled leadership.

With even US President Joe Biden joining in attacks on her libertarian platform, Truss admitted it had been a “wrench” to fire her friend Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor of the exchequer on Friday. But writing in the Sun on Sunday newspaper, she said: “We cannot pave the way to a low-tax, high-growth economy without maintaining the confidence of the markets in our commitment to sound money.”

That confidence was jeopardised on September 23 when Kwarteng and Truss unveiled a right-wing programme, inspired by 1980s US president Ronald Reagan, of £45 billion ($50 billion) in tax cuts financed exclusively by higher debt.

Markets tanked in response, driving up borrowing costs for millions of Britons, and the Conservatives’ poll ratings have similarly slumped, leading to

open warfare in the governing party mere weeks after Truss succeeded Boris Johnson.

“I think the game is up, and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed,” senior Tory MP Crispin Blunt said on Channel 4. Truss has been forced into a screeching policy U-turn which cost Kwarteng his job. But she depressed the bond markets even more with a painful press conference on Friday, and the government was nervously awaiting the resumption of trading on Monday.

Bidding to placate investors, Kwarteng’s replacement Jeremy Hunt is now warning that taxes may in fact have to rise, and is pressing for spending restraint by his cabinet colleagues even as Britons endure a cost-of-living crisis.

The new chancellor met the prime minister at her country retreat on Sunday to thrash out a new budget plan which he is due to deliver on October 31, effectively demolishing the “Trussonomics” programme that brought her to power.

– Who’s in charge? –

“It’s going to be very, very difficult, and I think we have to

be honest with people about that,” Hunt told the BBC — prompting a warning from trade unions of concerted strike action if he enforces painful cuts.

Hunt said he was “not taking anything off the table”, but also defended Truss.

“She’s been willing to do that most difficult of things in politics, and that is to change tack,” he said, adding: “The prime minister’s in charge.”

But many questioned that verdict. “Truss has become a pointless prime minister — an empty vessel with no policies or power,” the Sunday Times editorialised. The Treasury declined to confirm reports that Hunt plans to delay a planned cut to the basic rate of income tax, removing yet another headline measure announced by the new government last month.

Up to 100 letters expressing no confidence in Truss have been submitted by Tory MPs, the Sunday Times and Sunday Express said. Opponents were said to be coalescing around Truss’s defeated leadership rival Rishi Sunak and another onetime foe, Penny Mordaunt, for a possible “unity ticket”.

Pak-China traditional medicines sector possesses broad prospects for cooperation: Experts

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Unani Tibb (traditional medicine in Pakistan) enjoy a broad space of collaboration in research and development, management and production,” highlighted Prof. Liu Xinmin, Member, Expert Advisory Panel on Traditional Medicine, World Health Organization (WHO) and Co-Director of Sino-Pakistan Cooperation Center on TCM (SPCCTCM).

On the efficacy and safety of Jinhua Qinggan Granules (JHQG) in treating COVID-19 patients in Pakistan at the beginning of this year, Prof. Liu Xinmin said, “this is China’s first proprietary Chinese medicine to complete clinical trials guided by drug registration abroad, and it is also the first proprietary Chinese medicine to be verified by foreign scientists on the basis of international evidence-based medicine abroad.”

Prof. Liu Xinmin said in an interview, “The International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi is internationally influential in the field of natural product chemistry. This is another recognition of traditional Chinese medicine in Pakistan and even the international community after the successful clinical trial of Yinhuang Qingfei Capsule in Pakistan, and it is also a major booster to promote cooperation in traditional medicine between China and Pakistan,” China Economic Net (CEN) reported. Pakistani herbal medicines have rich resources in the treatment of respiratory and skin diseases, and the products are exported to Central Asia and other countries. Pakistanis are accustomed to taking herbal medicines and are highly receptive to TCM.

“In recent years, the industrial scale and research & development level of TCM have been significantly improved. China’s management experience of high-quality herbal medicine resources can be shared with Pakistan. Pakistan is very active in international and exchange platforms, and Pakistan and China can jointly increase the popularity and influence of traditional medicine in the world,” Prof. Liu suggested.

After thousands of years of development, TCM has developed numerous effective treatments for the plague. TCM has sustained efficacy in the face of complex and variable viruses, and it is well-suited to cope with the ever-changing COVID-19 virus.

Prof. Liu Qingquan, President of Beijing Hospital of TCM introduced that TCM has formed an extremely strict theoretical law, and its rapid accessibility is one of its greatest advantages and characteristics. “Chinese medicine is a very valuable crystallization of human civilization, and we hope to serve mankind. Complementation of traditional Chinese and Western medicine can improve the overall therapeutic effect.”

JHQG is produced by Juxiechang (Beijing) Pharmaceutical Company. According to Mao Zhibing, R&D Director of Juxiechang, the clinical testing of JHQG in Pakistan was carried out with the support of the Chinese and Pakistani governments and top-level research teams.

The protocols were approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, Ethics Committees in Pakistan, etc.

“We intend to have more cooperation with Pakistan, such as conducting clinical studies in Pakistan on JHQG for additional indications, including upper respiratory tract infections of influenza.

‘They were all young’: Turkish village mourns miners killed in blast

AHATLAR, TURKEY Agencies

Sitting on the stairs of his house overlooking the Black Sea, the father of a dead miner accepts condolences from relatives and neighbours. His scarred Turkish village lost three of its young men in this Friday’s mining disaster.

Three out of 41 miners killed in the coal mine explosion in the town of Amasra on Friday were from Ahatlar, a village on its outskirts, where funeral services were held on Sunday.

“My son is gone. I am falling apart, this is ruining me,” said grieving Kemal Yildirim, father of Saban, who was in his early 20s when he died. “Friends gave me the sad news. We hurried to the pit on Friday. He was one of the last remaining ones to be pulled out at 7 am the next day,” he said.

The young miner’s pregnant wife is expecting twins. He was employed by the stateowned Turkish Hard Coal Enterprises’ mine in 2019 after graduating from university.

A relative hung flags outside the house. Shoes piled up on the doormat, and women covering their heads with scarves packed

into a room, while men waited under a blue canvas outside, protected from the rain.

Hundreds of people from neighbouring villages also gathered outside the house as an imam led the funeral service. Saban’s wife hugged the coffin, which was covered with a Turkish flag.

“Take me, not him,” said the grieving father, so moved he could barely breathe. Officials said 28 miners were wounded and 58 survived following the blast, which according to preliminary findings was caused by firedamp — a term referring to a build-up of methane gas.

-‘Gas smell’-

Saban had told his wife “the mine had been smelling of gas inside for 10 days,” his father said. “He was going to take an annual vacation.” “His dream was to raise his children. I am devastated,” he said.

The sister of another miner killed in the explosion said he too had smelt gas. Her brief exchange with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday was caught by cameras.

Erdogan attended funerals in nearby villages after arriving at the mine together with ministers and rescuers.

In the village of Makaraci, which lost four men, a tearful sister told Erdogan: “President, my brother knew, he said there was a gas leak 10, 15 days ago. He said ‘they will explode us soon’. How come it’s negligence? He said ‘they will explode us here’… He knew it”.

Erdogan, after a moment of silence, was heard answering: “Sorry for your loss, may Allah give patience.”

– ‘Mine martyrs’ –

The government has described the dead as “mine martyrs”. Mevlut Ozgun, a relative of the Yildirim family, said the three from Ahatlar were “all young sons”. “They had been miners for only three or four years,” he told AFP outside the house.

“It’s dangerous, causes diseases in the future but what could have they done? That was how they (made) their living.”

Erdogan sparked controversy on Saturday when he linked the killings to destiny.

“We are people who believe in the plan of destiny,” he told reporters, surrounded by rescue workers. Such accidents “will always be, we need to know that too.” His comments sparked anger among his opponents,

and triggered protests in Istanbul with a few demonstrators saying “it was not an accident but a massacre”. Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who also attended funerals in Amasra, said the state was obliged to ensure the safety of its people.

Turkey?” he said.

Emin Koramaz, who leads the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, said on Twitter: “If you send miners hundreds of metres underground without taking the necessary precautions, without inspection and without creating safe conditions, you cannot call it an accident”.

“In which century we are living? Why (do) the mine accidents happen only in

FryliNCk sTArs As NAmibiA sTUN sri lANkA iN T20 WC opENEr

a second straight Super 12 place after achieving the feat on their T20 World Cup debut last year in the United Arab Emirates.

JANFrylinck smashed 44 runs and took two wickets as Namibia hammered Asia Cup champions Sri Lanka by 55 runs to cause a major upset in the Twenty20 World Cup opener on Sunday. The left-handed Frylinck and JJ Smit, who made an unbeaten 31, lifted Namibia to 163-7 with their 69-run seventhwicket stand, after being invited to bat first in Geelong.

Sri Lanka were then bowled out for 108 in 19 overs with David Wiese, Frylinck, Bernard Scholtz and Ben Shikongo taking two wickets each in the team’s first of three opening-round matches.

The African minnows are on course for

Namibia lost their openers inside three overs with returning fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera getting a wicket third ball when Michael van Lingen was caught at deep third-man. Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton fell to a brilliant diving catch by wicketkeeper Kusal Mendis after a 12-ball 20.

Stephan Baard and skipper Gerhard Erasmus attempted to rebuild with a stand of 41 but Sri Lanka’s bowlers kept chipping away with wickets. Namibia slipped to 93-6 when spinner Maheesh Theekshana got bighitter David Wiese caught behind for nought but Frylinck, who hit four fours in his 28ball innings, and Smit had other ideas.

shaheen available for warm-up match vs England AGENcIES

Great News for Pakistan fans as spearhead pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi is available for selection in the T20 World Cup 2022 warm-up match against England tomorrow at the Gabba in Brisbane. According to details, the 22-year-old will get some match practice before the high-octane clash against traditional rivals India on October 23 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). On the other hand, batter Fakhar Zaman will undergo further rehabilitation. The left-handed batter also continued his cricket training in Brisbane. The Men in Green will play their second warm-up game against Afghanistan at the same venue.

street Child Football WC: pakistan finishes as runner-up

ISLAMABAD stAff RepoRt

Pakistan put up a valiant show in the Street Child Football World Cup U-16 but was unlucky to get over the line in the final, conceding a 4-3 defeat on a penalty shoot-out to Egypt in Qatar on late Saturday. It was a gripping clash between the two sides as, despite several attacking moves at each other’s post, they remained unable to score any goal till the end of the second half. Earlier, Pakistan outwitted Brazil 3-1 in the semifinal on a penalty shoot-out to advance to the final. They had edged passed Tanzania 2-1 in a nail-biting quarterfinal. Pakistan’s Tufail Shinwari, Mohammad Junaid and Abdul Wahab displayed stunning performances in the event to see their side moving to the final. This is Pakistan’s highest position in the event after 2014 when they finished third.

gloves of Zane Green. Ben Shikongo silenced the Sri Lankan fans when he sent back Pathum Nissanka for nine and Danushka Gunathilaka for nought on consecutive balls.

Bhanuka Rajapaksa played out the hattrick ball, surviving a big lbw shout. Frylinck, a left-arm seamer, then got Dhananjaya de Silva as Sri Lanka slipped to 40-4. The left-handed Rajapaksa and skipper Dasun Shanaka, who made 29, attempted to put the chase back on track with a partnership of 34 but Bernard Scholtz broke the stand with his left-arm spin.

Scholtz got Rajapaksa out for 20 when he skied a shot and soon sent back Wanindu Hasaranga. Frylinck ended captain Shanka’s resistance and the lower order soon followed to spark joyous celebrations when Wiese claimed the final wicket.

Fernando approved as replacement for Madushanka in SL squad

ISLAMABAD stAff RepoRt

The Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 has approved Binura Fernando as a replacement for left-arm fast bowler Dilshan Madushanka in the Sri Lanka squad.

Fernando who has played nine T20Is, was named as a replacement after Madushanka was ruled out due to a torn quad muscle. Fernando would travel out from Sri Lanka and join the rest of the squad in Australia, said

a press release on Sunday.

The replacement of a player requires the approval of the Event Technical Committee before the replacement player can be officially added to the squad.

The Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 includes Wasim Khan, ICC General Manager – Cricket (Chair); Chris Tetley, ICC Head of Events; Peter Roach, Cricket Australia; Shane Doyle, Men’s T20 World Cup Local Organising Committee; Shaun Pollock (Independent) and Ian Bishop (Independent).

10-year-old Mahnoor of Pakistan wins Penang Malaysian Jr Squash title

PESHAWAR stAff RepoRt

Promising 10-year-old Mahnoor Ali, hailing from Peshawar, clichéd the trophy after defeating top seeded Avantikhashrii Seenivasagam of Malaysia in the final of the 18th Penang Malaysian Open Junior Squash Championship played at Penang, Malaysia on Sunday.

It was first ever gold medal for Pakistan in the International squash event of a 10-year-old girl who entered into the Championship as qualifier and reached to the final by recording thumping victory against top seeded Avantgikhashrii Saveenivasgam of Malaysia. “We are delighted the way, she played and recorded a straight sets victory against host Malaysian player,” Mahnoor Ali’s jubilant mother informed the media.

Mahnoor, like in the other matches, started the final match with fast tempo and did not give much time to her rival, who also has local crowd support, to settle down and marched into victory in the straight sets, the score was 11-4, 11-1 and 11-3. She is in great form, giving only 8 points to her top seeded rival.

Earlier, she recorded her victory against six-seeded Nur Ul Gina Abdul Basir in straight sets, the score was 11-2, 11-5 and 11-7 in the semi-finals and faced Seenivasgam of Malaysia in the final.

Throughout the Championship, Mahnoor Ali was outstanding, showing her superiority and classic game of attacking shorts and forceful smashes. She also defeated another top seeded player Malaysian Hetikaa Murali by 3-0, the score was 11-2, 11-7 and 11-6 in the quarter-final and reached the semi-finals. She also the winner of the National U11 Junior Championship.

She thanked all the Pakistanis, her mother and father and elder sister, also international squash player, Mehwish Ali, and her coaches, Director General Sports Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, former World Champion Qamar Zaman, for extending all out support to her and guided her to reach into the international squash.

“I will work harder and win back more tournaments in the world of squash,” Mahnoor told APP on phone. “I

am so excited to have won the Malaysian Junior U11 title for Pakistan and I am thankful to the President Pakistan Squash Federation and the entire squash family for their prayers and support,” Mahnoor Ali said.

It is certainly a gift to the people of Pakistan, who celebrated World Squash Day on Saturday, Mahnoor said. Director General Sports Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khalid Khan, former World Champion Qamar Zaman, squash coaches of the Qamar Zaman Squash Complex including Munawar Zaman, Tahir Iqbal, Muhammad Waseem, Niamat Ullah, Alamzeb, former Sports Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Aqil Shah, Secretary Sports Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, President KP Squash Association Dawood Khan, former Directors General Sports Junaid Khan, Asfandiyar Khan Khattak also congratulated her for winning the title in Malaysian Junior Squash in the age of just 10year. Her mother also thanked all for their prayers for Mahnoor Ali who won back the title as she faced top seeded Malaysian player in the final.

Swiatek beats Pegula in San Diego

quarter-finals, Swiatek dropped the first set just before a lengthy rain delay that allowed the 21-year-old Polish star to regroup.

World number one Iga Swiatek of Poland rallied after a rain delay to defeat sixth-ranked American Jessica Pegula on Saturday and reach the WTA San Diego Open final.

Swiatek, seeking her eighth title of the year, advanced to her ninth WTA final of the season by defeating Pegula 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 after two hours and six minutes.

But the three-time Grand Slam champion will have to wait until to find out her opponent in the championship match.

Heavy rain forced suspension of the second semifinal with 19th-ranked American Danielle Collins, this year’s Australian Open runner-up, leading Croatia’s 77th-ranked Donna Vekic 4-6, 6-4, 4-2, after two hours and 29 minutes.

In a rematch of this year’s French and US Open

“I came back and I wanted to be really composed and not lose in those important moments,” Swiatek said.

Swiatek raced ahead 3-0 and broke again on a forehand winner in the eighth game to force a third set, which she also dominated, taking the victory with a break when Pegula netted a forehand.

Winner of a WTA-best 63 matches this year, Swiatek improved to 4-1 all-time against Pegula, having lost their first meeting in 2019 at Washington but wining this year at Miami and in the US and French Open quarterfinals.

Swiatek, a runner-up last week at Ostrava, seeks her 11th career WTA title. Her titles this year include Qatar, Indian Wells, Miami, Rome, Stuttgart and the US and French Opens.

Collins won her only WTA titles last year at Palermo and Silicon Valley.

Vekic won her third career WTA title last October at Courmayeur in her most recent tour final.

Netherlands edge UAE in low-scoring T20 World Cup thriller

GEELONG, AUSTRALIA Agencies

Bowlers led by Bas de Leede helped the Netherlands edge out the United Arab Emirates by three wickets in a tense low-scoring match of the T20 World Cup on Sunday in Geelong. Skipper Scott Edwards stood unbeaten on 16 as the Netherlands chased down their target of 112 with one ball to spare in second match of the day. UAE pace spearhead Junaid Siddique returned figures of 324 and put the opposition in trouble with two wickets in the 14th over but Edwards held his nerve to get his team off to a win in round one. De Leede, an all-rounder who is a pace bowler, led the charge with his three wickets to keep down the UAE to 111-8. Electing to bat, the UAE batsmen survived the disciplined Dutch attack albeit scoring slowly as they reached 85-2 in 15 overs with Muhammad Waseem making 41 before falling to pace spearhead Fred Klaassen. The wicket triggered a collapse as de Leede struck three times in the 19th over as the UAE slipped from 91-2 and managed just 26 runs in the final five overs. In reply, Vikramjit Singh got out for 10 but Max O’Dowd hit 23 off 18 balls to get the team off to a quick start.

England’s James to miss World Cup

LONDON Agencies

Chelsea and England defender Reece James will miss the World Cup in Qatar after the Premier League club confirmed on Saturday he will be out for eight weeks due to a knee injury. James, who had established himself as Gareth Southgate’s firstchoice right wing-back at international level, limped off during Chelsea’s 2-0 Champions League win at AC Milan on Tuesday. “Following the knee injury sustained in our away match against AC Milan, Reece has received treatment from the Chelsea medical department and visited a specialist this weekend,” the Blues said in a statement. “After consultation between all parties, Reece will now undergo a rehabilitation programme and is expected to be out for eight weeks.” England begin their World Cup campaign in little over five weeks’ time against Iran on November 21. James is also set to miss Chelsea’s next nine games before the World Cup break. The news is a major blow to England’s World Cup hopes with Manchester City right-back Kyle Walker also facing a race against time to be fit for Qatar after undergoing groin surgery. James and Walker’s flexibility to play either on the right-side of a back three or at wing-back has allowed Southgate the ability to switch between formations. But the England manager predicted he would lose players before the World Cup due to the demanding club schedule.“What I do see is a really packed schedule now with a lot of players playing a lot of minutes,” said Southgate last week.

The pair took the attack to the opposition with five fours and two sixes in the final five overs. Sri Lanka, who won the Asia Cup last month, lost Kusal Mendis for six when his top-edge off Wiese ballooned up to land in the

No oNe caN be allowed ‘to briNg’ New govt through Mobs: raNa saNaullah

FAISALABAD/ISLAMABAD

report

NTERIORMinister Rana Sanaullah on Sunday reiterated the resolve that the government would take the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf long march by surprise, elaborating on that the PTI would be dealt with more “heavy hand” than they experienced during long march to Islamabad on May 25.

“They should mind that no one can be allowed to bring a new government through mobs or long march”, Rana Sanaullah said after casting his vote during the by-polls in Faisalabad. The interior minister then warned the PTI of worst repercussions if its protesters turn up in Islamabad.

He pointed out: “If change is brought through a democratic process,

we have no problems with it but we will not allow any long march under any circumstances.”

The PML-N leader said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has all the power and all agencies must implement its orders. He urged the voters to come out and vote, adding that the polling was underway in a transparent and peaceful manner.

“All agencies including Rangers and police have done a remarkable whereas the counting of votes will be completed as per the procedure,” he added.

The statement comes a day after former prime minister Imran Khan, during an interview, announced that his much-hyped long march to the capital would take place in October.

Responding to a question, the interior minister said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will decide

PM calls for taking collective steps to ensure food security

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Sunday called for taking collective steps to ensure food security in the world. In tweets on social media platform Twitter on the occasion of World Food Day, he said the recent devastating floods in Pakistan had destroyed standing crops on millions of acres.

He said an agricultural country like Pakistan had to import edible items to compensate for these crop losses.

“Today World Food Day highlights the need for collective measures of the world to ensure food security of different countries.” “Due to climate-induced natural disasters and because of rising prices in the international market, there is a risk of further shortage of already scarce nutritional food at the international level,” the prime minister added.

He said that the climate change was having negative effects on our lives and the increase in poverty and hunger were the foremost issues.

He said that World Food Day highlights the importance of global steps to ensure food security in different countries. After natural disasters due to climate change and rising prices in the global markets, the world is witnessing a shortage of food which would be intensified in the coming days.

PM Sharif added that climate change is giving negative impacts on our lives in many aspects in which poverty and hunger at the top of the list.

about return to the country.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah stated that he voted for Abid Sher Ali as PML-N is the only party that consistently upholds the law and the constitution.

Rana Sanaullah hit back at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) by saying that the truth will prevail today and lies will be defeated as the politics of lies and hypocrisy does not survive for long.

He also talked about the statement made by American President Joe Biden and said that the US president gave a controversial statement without any reasons.

Meanwhile, the federal government has approved a three-month extension in the deployment of Rangers in the federal capital.

According to sources, the federal cabinet approved the extension in the deployment of Rangers in Islamabad after the federal capital’s chief com-

missioner requested for an extension.

The federal capital has braced for a law and order situation in wake of the expected long march of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

Former prime minister Imran Khan has been on a campaign against the coalition government since his ouster from office. He has threatened to march on the federal capital against the coalition government.

The Islamabad Capital Police have gathered more than 1,100 containers, with hundreds delivered to the federal capital, in an effort to prevent PTI’s ‘Haqeeqi Azadi March’ to the federal capital.

According to sources, the capital will be completely sealed for a week following PTI chief Imran Khan’s announcement of a confirmed date for the march. Schools and colleges will be shut down for this duration and all exams will be postponed.

Dar calls for greater policy support from IMF, donors

ISLAMABAD staff report

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar has called for greater policy support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and multilateral donors in the backdrop of the climate-induced catastrophe and losses suffered by the country.

The minister was addressing a meeting of MENAP (Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in Washington DC.

He urged the IMF to tailor its response to the situation in Pakistan and similar countries by taking into consideration the serious economic, social and political challenges that those countries were facing in the backdrop of climate induced calamities.

He highlighted the humanitarian catastrophe and losses suffered by the country. Given the scale of disaster, he pleaded more policy support for Pakistan. He welcomed new IMF instruments Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST) and Food Shock Window under Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) to support countries.

He also thanked the IMF managing director

for her sentiments and committed to complete the Fund programme despite challenges, according to press statement received here Sunday.

The IMF managing director highlighted challenges faced by regional economies including from climate change events citing Pakistan’s damaging floods. She expressed her deep sympathies with Pakistan and assured the Fund’s full support.

Meanwhile, the minister and Governor of State Bank of Pakistan Jameel Ahmed met Queen Maxima of Netherlands on the sidelines of annual meetings of IMF-WB to discuss financial inclusion and banking on equality.

The two sides reiterated their commitment to work together to achieve fast progress in the subjects discussed. Dar also met Director General of Kuwait Fund Marwan Abdullah Yusuf Thunayan Al- Ghanem. The minister appreciated the contribution of Kuwait Fund to Pakistan’s economic development and discussed the ongoing projects and the potential new areas of investments.

The minister held a meeting with President of Asian Development Bank (ADB) Masatsugu Asakawa and thanked him for support provided over the years as a major development partner of Pakistan and also for the recent post-flood commitments.

ETPB serves notice on Sh Rasheed to vacate Lal Haveli in a week

ISLAMABAD

Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rasheed has been served a notice by the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) to vacate Lal Haveli within seven days.

The Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) served notice to AML chief Sheikh Rasheed to vacate his property including Lal Haveli located in Rawalpindi and Rasheed’s political office within a week.

According to sources that Sh Rasheed’s properties included Lal Haveli, whereas, the ETPB also sought police assistance to vacate the properties.

The board decided to conduct an operation on October 19 while the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) will also take part in the action.

Sources said that the former interior minister would soon be summoned by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in connection with a probe into occupying ETPB land.

It is pertinent to mention here that Lal Haveli (D-

158) Bohar Bazaar Rawalpindi is the party Secretariat of AML Chief Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed

Lal Haveli belonged to a Hindu woman prior to partition and was converted into Sheikh Rasheed’s political office in 1980 after he entered parliamentary politics.

This is not the first time Rasheed receives ETPB’s notice as he had claimed to receive an eviction notice in October 2016.

The board’s regional administrator had claimed that Rasheed was served a notice for an occupied land adjacent to the building being used by the AML chief.

imran says contested by-elections against PdM, ecP

ISLAMABAD staff report

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Sunday declared that his party is contesting by-elections as a contest against the “duo” of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). During polling for the by-elections to eight National Assembly seats and three Punjab Assembly seats, Imran Khan took to his Twitter handle and urged the citizens to vote for “Haqiqi Azadi”, calling the incumbent government a “cabal of crooks.”

Imran Khan maintained that PTI has been contesting against all of PDM parties, the ECP, and “namaloom afraad.” On the other hand, PTI leader Farrukh Habib in a presser said that a total of 123 resignations were submitted by the PTI members while only a few were accepted. It is to be noted that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has been contesting byelection to seven of the total eight national seats. Earlier, Imran Khan shared a special message for the nation ahead of the by-polls.

In a video message, the former prime minister said elections being held on October 16 are the most important election in the history of Pakistan. He said the elections decide whether Pakistan will continue to be a truly independent country or will we be enslaved by a cabal of criminals imposed under a foreign conspiracy. “I appeal you to take part in this election for yourself, your children and for the future of Pakistan,” he added. “This is our jihad for free for an independent and sovereign Pakistan.”

A day earlier in an interview with private news channel, former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said his party’s upcoming long march towards Islamabad would take place in October, however, he did not reveal the exact date.

Imran Khan said that he had completed the planning for the next long march, however, he would not reveal the plan to anyone. “Long march will be held in October,” Khan said, adding that he could take back his long march if the incumbent government announces fresh elections. He predicted that the march to Islamabad would be the “biggest” in Pakistan’s history and a “sea of people” would flood into the city.

AGP reveals what CDA concealed in contract award of low-cost housing project

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE

omer

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) violated the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules by awarding the contract for the low-cost housing project to the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) at exorbitant rates, revealed the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) in the audit report.

The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) in the audit report of CDA 2021-22 raised strong objections to the contract award to FWO and revealed that FWO was inexperienced in housing projects. A CDA official on the condition of anonymity informed this scribe that for the development of low cost housing apartments at Farash Town for displaced persons of katchi abadis, beneficiaries of Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority (NAPHDA) and for public auction, a summary was prepared and put up in March 2021 during the CDA board meeting by its Member (Estate).

The official further informed that it was discussed during the meeting that in order to accommodate a larger number of families as well as settlement of katachi abadi residents, a new low cost housing scheme namely Model Urban Shelter Project (MUSP) was planned.

The board members were briefed that Frontier Works Organization (FWO) will carry out the construction work and CDA would be the executing agency whereas the formal concept plan has been prepared by the FWO for vertical construction wherein 4,400 apartments were planned on the designated land, allocated for this purpose.

According to the official, the board approved summary of the project and further recommended that the matter may be referred to the Federal Cabinet for seeking approval of the Federal Government through MOI.

The official further informed that later in March 2022, for the construction of Nilore Heights Farash Islamabad, another project of low cost housing at Alipur Farash Islamabad, another summary was presented by CDA

member Engineering during a board meeting.

It was told during the meeting that the project was being executed by FWO subsequent to Cabinet decision therein. However, after due deliberation and on the basis of information of the summary, the board endorsed the rates i.e. RS 6950 per SFT as recommendation by the committee against rates claimed by FWO RS 7938.12 per SFT subject to law.

A contradiction also came to the fore when CDA claimed that the said project would be executed by FWO, while on the other hand, NAPHDA claimed in November 2021 that NAPHDA was executing the said project in collaboration with FWO and CDA.

NAPHDA also made the claim that the project will be completed over a period of two years and out of the 4,400 apartments, 2,000 will be allotted to members registered with NAPHDA and out of the remaining apartments, 2000 will be sold out in the open market, while 400 will be allocated for the residents of ‘kachi abadis’. However, NAPHDA made this claim during a briefing

given to the former Prime Minister Imran Khan in November 2021.

However, later the Auditor General of Pakistan audited the CDA and objected to awarding the low cost housing project to FWO. The audit report said that the CDA was granted a one-time exemption by the Cabinet Division to bypass the PPRA rules on the recommendation of the regulatory authority’s board.

It stated that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between CDA, the Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority (NPHDA), and the FWO for the execution of the housing project on an Escalation Payment Certificate (EPC) basis was signed on August 4, 2021.

The report stated that CDA’s Special Projects Directorate awarded the project to FWO on EPC basis with an agreed amount of RS 13.4 billion and the completion period of the said project was two years. Interestingly, CDA issued a revised letter of acceptance and increased the EPC from RS 13.4bn to RS 14.7bn.

The audit also revealed that the PC-1 of

the project was approved for an amount of Rs15.3bn by the CDA and the Development Working Party (DWP) wherein it was provided that the project would be executed through the FWO.

The CDA and DWP had no mandate to decide whether or not the project would be executed through the FWO, the report said, adding that the FWO did not possess any expertise in housing projects either.

It further observed that the PC-1 was not based on detailed quantities and rates; instead lump sum per square feet cost was provided.

The auditor noted that the MoU between CDA and FWO was signed on April 8, 2021, while the exemption from the PPRA rules was granted on April 16. “It showed that CDA took [the] decision in anticipation of the approval.”

As per the audit report, CDA could have gotten better rates had it floated the tender and opted for a competitive process. It recommended a thorough probe into this matter and holding the CDA officials accountable.