Epaper – May 17 LHR 2020

CMYK

17 May, 2020 I 23 Ramzan-ul-Mubarak, 1441 I Rs 15.00 I Vol X No 319 I 12 Pages I Lahore Edition

NAB reAdy to file New refereNce AgAiNst shehBAz shArif, govt ANNouNces g

PM’s Aide shAhzAd AkbAR sAYs coRRuPTion TRiAl oF PMl-n PResidenT should be held on dAilY bAsis

ISLAMABAD staff report

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RiMe Minister’s special Assistant on Accountability shahzad Akbar on saturday announced that a national Accountability bureau (nAb) reference was ready to be filed against Pakistan Muslim league-nawaz (PMl-n) President shehbaz sharif.

“Those who are working hand in glove with sharif in corruption stand exposed [… ] eid is near and the reference against shehbaz sharif is ready,” he said while addressing a press conference alongside Federal information Minister shibli Faraz.

Akbar claimed that there is a trail of the “kickbacks and commission received by the PMl-n leader”, adding that shehbaz sharif will have to respond to the corruption charges. he demanded a trial of the former Punjab chief minister on a day-

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inFo MinisTeR FARAz cRiTicises oPP FoR usinG nA session FoR PoliTicAl PoinT scoRinG insTeAd oF GivinG AnY PosiTive suGGesTions on covid-19

to-day basis.

Akbar claimed that hamza shehbaz used to submit “cheques without mentioning names on them”.

A nAb reference is ready and shehbaz sharif will have to answer all these questions, Akbar reiterated.

“According to eobi data, Masroor Anwar is an employee of the sharif group who submitted a cheque worth Rs900 million,” Akbar said, adding: “Anwar is in custody and he has given his statement.” on May 2, Federal Railways Minister sheikh Rasheed Ahmed had said that he “has been told” that nAb “will turn into Tarzan after eid”.

“Those who think they will remain safe will not be spared after eid,” he said in an apparent warning to detractors.

The minister said that it takes a lot of time to get the nAb ordinance changed, adding that the PMl-n will not get the

coroNAvirus iN

PAkistAN

ISLAMABAD

RECOVERED:

DEATHS:

SINDH:

PUNJAB:

10,880 15,590

866

14,201

KP:

BALOCHISTAN:

AJK/GB:

ISLAMABAD:

5,847 108/518

2,544 921

PML-N accuses PM of running smear campaign against Shehbaz STORY ON PAGE 02

As the covid-19 pandemic has left limited room for the government to spend on development projects, the centre has planned to allocate only Rs530 billion to Public sector development Programme (PsdP) for the next fiscal year, a reduction of almost Rs171 billion from the current fiscal year.

According to an official privy to this development, Planning Minister Asad umar, while chairing a review meeting of the indicative budget on saturday, has informed that development projects being proposed in the next budget would be within the limit of indicative budget ceilings of the Ministry of Finance.

The Finance division had reportedly asked the planning ministry to limit the federal PsdP to Rs530bn. however, according to sources, another Rs70bn may be allocated for projects being administered by the Finance Ministry, making the size of total spending on development projects to Rs600bn.

As the Planning Ministry usually adds around Rs25bn in the indicative budget of the Finance division, the total sum of Rs530bn could be jacked up to Rs550bn. but sources at the Ministry of Planning claim that the ministry is not forcing the Finance division to increase the PsdP. during the review meeting, which

PAkisTAn conducTs 14,878 TesTs in 24 houRs, The hiGhesT nuMbeR oF TesTs since covid-19 wAs FiRsT RePoRTed in counTRY staff report

39,729

CONTINUED ON PAGE 05

ISLAMABAD Ghulam abbas

Ignore SOPs and entire market will be shut down, govt warns traders g

CONFIRMED CASES:

amendments it is seeking.

‘GOVT TAKING STEPS AGAINST COVID-19’: Addressing the press conference, information Minister shibli Faraz said the government was taking important steps to curb the spread of the virus in the country.

The minister said the government was taking important steps to curb the spread of the virus in the country.

“The prime minister’s strategy has been clear from the first day,” Faraz said.

“As soon as the pandemic hit the country, the national coordination committee (ncc) and national command and operations centre (ncoc) were established to deal with it. People from all four provinces were made a part of the ncoc since PM imran wanted to take everyone’s input,” he said. he added that the country was facing several challenges and the government was working according to a roadmap to deal with the pandemic.

“PM announced $8 billion relief package for the masses and allocated Rs480 billion for the economy. Rs570 billion was kept to provide relief to the people and through the ehsaas Programme Rs104 billion was distributed to 85,000 families,” Faraz added. stressing upon the need for unity to tackle the challenge, the information minister said he regretted that the opposition parties did not give any positive suggestions in the national Assembly session for the fight against the pandemic.

Govt may reduce development budget to Rs530bn in FY21

The national command and operation centre (ncoc) on saturday warned the traders and shop owners that non-compliance of standard operating procedures (soPs) would result in the closure of markets.

The ncoc meeting, presided by Minister for Planning development Reforms and special initiatives Asad umar, maintained that the implementation of soPs and social distancing was only possible through public education and awareness.

“The forum was of the view that markets associations/traders organisations must ensure compliance of the soPs issued by health Ministry. in case of noncompliance the particular market as a whole be closed for failing to ensure collective responsibility,” the statement read.

The warning from the top governing body came after it was observed that the safety guidelines are not being followed across the country. in this regard, Minister for in-

dustries Punjab Mian Aslam iqbal informed the participants that around 336 warning notices were issued to different markets and industries on the violation of the soPs whereas on repeated violations these would be sealed as per the decided mechanism.

Minister for interior brig (r) ejaz Ahmed shah suggested that the district administration should engage with the trader associations and local stakeholders for the implementation of the soPs. The provincial chief secretaries and officials from Gilgitbaltistan and Azad Jammu and kashmir also gave their input on the implementation of health protocols and the soPs after an ease in the lockdown restrictions.

HIGHEST NUMBER OF TESTS: The meeting was also informed that in the past 24 hours, over 14,878 coronavirus tests were conducted in the country, which is the highest number since the first covid-19 case was reported in Pakistan. highlighting the achievement, Asad umar said: “Pakistan has been quick in enhancing its capacity and capability in every pol-

icy strand whether health management system, emergency health care equipment, raising structure like ncc and ncoc, channelising resources and tapping efficient human resource and most importantly formulating soPs and their implementation.” “where there is a will there is a way,” the minister said, adding “the people of Pakistan can’t be left on the mercy of pandemic.”

The minister further said that there was no shortage of equipment in the country rather it was necessary to focus on managing trained human resource for handling the pandemic. in addition, the epidemiologist and other health experts briefed the members on virus behaviour during May and June and the risk management plans and matching response of the healthcare system’s capacity.

Mentioning that the ehsaas emergency cash relief was going to recommence on Monday, the meeting also underscored that around Rs104 billion were distributed among 8 million beneficiaries through ehsaas emergency cash Relief Program.

was also attended by sindh Governor imran ismail via video link, Asad umar proposed maximum releases for sindh in the current financial year as there would be limited room for the same in the next fiscal year.

According to sources, since there are funds available due to a halt in economic activity during the past two months, the Planning Ministr y wanted to at least release sufficient funds for karachi-based projects.

As of May 8, the Planning Ministry had authorised Rs541bn for expenditures. but few ministries have started surrendering excess funds, as no development activities are taking place. by further squeezing the size of the development budget in its indicative ceiling, the Finance division has made it difficult for the planning ministry to adjust the number of important projects being proposed by various ministries and lawmakers, besides meeting the financing needs of ongoing projects.

The Rs530bn development envelope size for the fiscal year 202021 is Rs171bn less than the original budget of this fiscal year, which is Rs701bn. The actual spending in this fiscal year, however, is likely to remain around Rs525bn due to lower than expected revenue collection and development activities coming to a grinding halt because of the lockdown in the country.

fiqah-e-hanfia lahore sehr: 3:31 aM iftar: 6:54 PM

islaMabad sehr: 3:28 aM iftar: 7:03 PM

karachi sehr: 4:21 aM iftar: 7:10 PM

fiqah-e-jafaria lahore sehr: 3:21 aM iftar: 7:04 PM

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karachi sehr: 4:11 aM iftar: 7:20 PM

more inside

APTMA expects improvement in textile exports from this month STORY ON PAGE 02

Pakistan reports 31 more deaths as Covid-19 cases continue to soar STORY ON PAGE 03

Pakistan opens border with Afghanistan for trade STORY ON PAGE 09

02

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

NEWS

pmL-N Accuses pm of ruNNiNG smeAr cAmpAiGN AGAiNst shehBAz ISLAMABAD

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STAFF REPORT

AKISTAN Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) Information Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of initiating a smear campaign against Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif through a new reference of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prepared against him.

“PM Imran Khan backs each case and reference of NAB against the opposition, especially PML-N leaders,” said Aurangzeb responding to the news of a reference against the Sharif family.

Earlier, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar claimed to have unearthed 10 front compa-

nies of the PML-N president and his sons

construction of Gwadar airport in 'full swing' after ease in lockdown Construction of the much-awaited New Gwadar International Airport has entered its second phase, as the joint Pakistan and China project pushes towards completion. The airport is located in Gurandani, some 26 kilometers northeast of the city of Gwadar in Balochistan. Its total cost is $230 million. “In the second phase a permanent station is being built,” Zhang Baozhong, chairman of the China Oversees Port Holding Company Chairman (COPHC), told a private news channel, “This will spur up development activities with full speed and momentum.” Despite the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus, construction of the airport did not halt, he added, and the second phase has begun as per schedule. The project is expected to be completed in three years’ time. After which, Baozhong explained, it would be the second largest airport in Pakistan connecting Gwadar with the rest of the world. Separately, Lieutenant General (r) Asim Saleem Bajwa, the chairman of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority, also tweeted about the historic developed on May 7. Prime Minister Imran Khan performed the ground breaking ceremony of the Gwadar Airport on March 29, 2019. While construction began on October 31, 2019. Being part of the Early Harvest High Priority Project of CPEC, the airport is free from all loan obligations and debt burden. It is being constructed on grant assistance and is being completely bankrolled by the Chinese government. Nadir Baloch, a senior officials of the Gwadar Development Authority (GDA), told Geo.tv that in order to ensure an uninterrupted supply of electricity for construction work, the federal government had issued a license to install a 130 KW power plant near the site. With the ease in lockdown restrictions, especially for the construction industry, following the COVID-19 outbreak, Baloch added, “work on the airport is now in full swing.” NEWS DESK

Govt to oppose release of convict in child pornography case LAHORE: The federal government has decided to challenge the release of Saadat Amin, a convicted child pornographer, a day after the Lahore High Court (LHC) suspended his sentence and ordered his release on bail.

The LHC passed the release order reportedly on May 14, giving relief to Amin who was earlier convicted and sentenced to seven years in April 2018. The AGP’s office added that while the order of the convict’s release was reported in the media, so far no formal order by the LHC has been issued. “In view of the above, there is no order in the field for release of Saadat Amin and on May 19, the federal government would vehemently oppose the release of Sadaat Amin who was convicted for committing the most heinous offence.” The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had arrested Amin from Jhang. The arrest was made by the FIA’s Cyber Crime Cell in Lahore. A judicial magistrate had on April 26, 2018, awarded seven-year imprisonment to Saadat Amin of Sargodha under section 22 of Prevention of Electronic Crime Act 2016 and also imposed a fine of Rs1.2 million on him. STAFF REPORT

ministry of religious Affairs asks met office to refrain from shawwal moon sighting ISLAMABAD: A Ruet-e-Hilal Committee session has been called for May 23 to sight the Shawwal moon to announce the next Islamic month in the lunar calendar.

The session is scheduled to take place in Karachi next Saturday. The Ministry of Religious Affairs has asked the Meteorological Office to refrain from moon sightings.

The ministry has maintained that the right is exclusively ordained for the committee. The committee had asked the ministry of religious affairs to intervene in the matter and ask the Met office to cease and desist, although they can support the committee in the sighting on May 23. INP

from where over Rs17 billion had been transferred to their bank accounts.

In response, the PML-N Information secretary rubbished the claims of corruption on the party by the government and termed them a diversion to veil the ruling party’s corruption.

“NAB-Niazi alliance has failed to build narrative of corruption against PML-N through fabricated references against Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif and their family members in its attempt to divert attention from the incompetency and corruption of the government. So far, the government has not proved a single dime of corruption against them,” said Marriyum.

She accused the prime minister and NAB of dragging 90-year-old mother of Sharif brothers into political victimisation.

“The fiasco was initiated from Panama which led to fabricated case of personal

NAB uNfAzed By pressure tActics, sAys chAirmAN National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal on Saturday said that he was unfazed by the pressure tactics and threats being faced by NAB in its aim to recover money looted by the corrupt elite. In a statement, the NAB chief said that Pakistan has to be made corruption-free for which it has adopted a zero-tolerance policy. He said that NAB officials consider eradication of corruption from the country a national service. He further said that he is not worried about the intimidation and pressure tactics that corrupt elements employ and the investigations against money launderers will be carried out to their logical conclusion. The chairman said that the looted money of the country will be recovered and given back to the country. NEWS DESK

property. And now the family is being targeted for ancestral property,” noted the PML-N leader.

She further said the NAB was silent on the Supreme Court’s verdict on Bani Gala,

Govt announces six-day holiday for eidul fitr

PPP will defend 18th Amendment at all costs, says Sindh minister NASIR SHAH SAYS WILL TAKE TO STREETS AND MOVE COURTS IF ATTEMPTS ARE MADE TO ROLL BACK AMENDMENT ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

Amid a controversy concerning the 18th Amendment, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Saturday said it would use all options, including courts and street protests, to defend the amendment that gives greater autonomy to federating units.

In a press conference here, Sindh Information Minister Nasir Shah said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government wanted to hide its failures so it was distracting the people by making the National Finance Commission (NFC) and 18th Amendment controversial.

“We have to fully implement NFC and 18th Amendment first before we talk about them,” he added.

He accused the federal government of spreading confusion about the lockdown to contain the virus. He said that when the government witnessed that the entire world and media was appreciating the measures by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, it started criticising the Sindh government and PPP. “The only crime of the Sindh government was that it took appropriate measures to contain Covid-19 in time,” Shah said.

After Sindh, every other province and federation imposed lockdown within days but the PTI criticised only Sindh for lockdown. Similarly different areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad, and Punjab were sealed but only Sindh was criticised for sealing a few UCs in Karachi.

a house owned by prime minister in Zaman Park House, a flat in Grand Hyatt worth millions, 23 illegal secret accounts and the funding of billions from people whose credibility was in question.

He said if Pakistan had imposed a very strict lockdown for about two weeks as Sindh had suggested instead of sending mixed signals to the people, then the situation in the country would have been much better.

Regarding allowing the so-called tiger force to function in Sindh, Shah said that Sindh will facilitate the tiger force despite objection on the name.

He said that if Imran Khan decides to open transport then he should come out and say so but he does not want to take responsibility.

Similar was the case of opening businesses and shops but Imran Khan is continuously shying away from leading the country. He said that Sindh and Balochistan both had reservations about allowing transport to start.

Speaking about medical facilities, he said Sindh has 12,000 beds and the capacity will soon be increased to 20,000 beds. Sindh has 280 ventilators and 200 more are on the way. He also said that not a single ventilator has been provided by the federal government yet.

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has announced a six-day holiday for the upcoming Eidul Fitr, starting from May 22 (Friday) till May 27 (Wednesday). The Ministry of Interior in a notification issued on Saturday said all markets, public places and other non-essential businesses will remain closed during the Eid holiday amid the coronavirus outbreak. However, essential shops, medical services and other emergency services will continue to remain operational, said the official notification.

Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has already predicted that Eidul Fitr, which marks the culmination of Ramzan, is expected to fall on May 25 in the country.

However, a final decision in this regard will be taken during the meeting of the Ruet-eHilal Committee which will be held on May 23. This is the first major religious festival which the Muslims will celebrate across the world under the shadow of Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed over 3,00000 and infected an excess of 4.5 million while 1.66 million patients have recovered so far. The Pakistan’s tally of Covid-19 patients stands at 39,738 with at least 866 deaths while almost 10,880 coronavirus patients have recovered so far. STAFF REPORT

APTMA expects improvement in textile exports from this month LAHORE HASSAN NAQVI

The textile industry has apprised the federal government of its target of achieving 45pc exports in May and 55pc exports in June.

All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Executive Director Shahid Sattar, in his letter to Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood, stated that the abovementioned target may be difficult keeping in view that the demand in the USA and Europe has been limited to online sales only.

He maintained that the textile exports fell by 64pc in April as compared to the same month of last year, which means the textile industry was able to export 36pc of its capacity even during

the lockdown period (closure of markets and transport services).

"Our small redeeming factor is that a lot of our industries have picked up on new lines of supplying hospital and PPE apparel and have garnered a fair share of the market, Sattar stated and appreciated the role of the adviser in getting necessary approvals in this regard from the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan.

The executive director said apart of a shortfall in demand, another serious hurdle in the path of export recovery is the complete lack of liquidity in the market.

"Cash crunch has been compounded with the total closure of domestic retail sector, cancellation of L/C based exports orders, additional time imposed for payments of export sector buyers, non-deferral of interest for the

quarter ended March 30, interest due on June 30, and the amounts stuck up with Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)."

Sattar said that FBR has collected sales tax on all inputs but has refunded sales tax on goods that were exported and those also only till January 2020.

Furthermore, he stated, the FASTER system has failed to account for the full amount of the claim in the sales tax return, adding that a large proportion of the amount vanishes into thin air; neither paid, rejected or deferred.

The APTMA official said the association has been highlighting this issue with the FBR for the last eight months but to no avail.

"The FBR's FASTER system has another serious drawback whereby there is no system to resolve deferred payments. These fundamental flaws ac-

cumulate into approximately 25pc35pc of the claimed amount. And this amount equates to 4-5pc sales, which is the total profitability of a great majority of the textile firms."

He stated that this system is not responsive and not being able to cater for the complexity of the textile sector and needs serious review and modifications.

Sattar noted that the interest on loans which matured on March 30 is estimated to be Rs26 billion (on Rs700 billion at 15pc) plus Rs4 billion (on Rs30 billion concessional finance). "As per banking practice, KIBOR plus base rates are fixed on the last date of each quarter and since the lowering of interest rates by SBP was effective since April 16, the industry still continues to pay the higher rates of around 15pc to 16pc."

He further claimed that the total borrowing of the textile sector is estimated to be Rs1 trillion, adding that industry simply does not have the liquidity to pay these amounts as well as sales tax on inputs which would then be stuck in the system for yet another six months.

Leopards spotted in Islamabad park as virus clears way ISLAMABAD AGENCIES

Leopards, jackals and other creatures living in Islamabad’s tree-covered hills have been enjoying a rare respite from the throngs of hikers and joggers that normally pack the trails.

Rangers in Islamabad’s Margalla Hills National Park saw animal activity increase soon after the city was locked down in March to counter the coronavirus.

Islamabad’s normally reclusive leopards have been roaming onto deserted pathways, and social networks are rife with talk of purported sightings.

Motion-triggered wildlife cameras have been clicking away as animals explore areas they had long been nervous to visit.

“There is a big increase in the number of animals seen in the national park,” ranger Imran Khan told AFP.

Images the park provided to AFP include pictures of leopards padding along paths, an inquisitive jackal and a muddy boar.

“Wildlife is comfortable as there are no visitors here.

They are wandering here comfortably, which is a good sign for the jungle,” Khan said.

The park was locked down for about a month and foot traffic remains light as families, picnickers and walkers stay away during Ramzan.

Sakhwat Ali, Islamabad’s assistant wildlife director, said the space is home to 38 mammal species, 350 bird species and 34 reptile species including 27 types of snake. Ali added that rangers are conducting a survey and had already noticed new creatures.

“There are some species of butterfly which were not reported earlier, but these are visible now,” Ali said.

Lockdowns in various cities around the world have seen urban wildlife grow bolder as people stay home.

CMYK

A gang of goats was spotted in a Welsh town and coyotes were seen exploring deserted streets in San Francisco.

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

pAkistAN reports 31 more deAths As covid-19 cAses coNtiNue to soAr LAHORE

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AS LAHORE BECOME COVID-19 HOTBED, PUNJAB GOVT MULLS REIMPOSING LOCKDOWN OWING TO NON-COMPLIANCE OF SOPS

STAFF REPORT

AKISTAN confirmed 31 more deaths from novel coronavirus in one day as the nationwide tally of fatalities has jumped to 834 and positive cases neared to 38,799 on Saturday.

According to the latest figures by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), 1,581 persons have been tested positive for Covid-19 in 24 hours.

Sindh remains the worst-hit province by the pandemic followed by Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan.

Till now 14,201 coronavirus cases have

been confirmed in Punjab, 14,916 in Sindh, 5,678 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 2,457 in Balochistan, 921 in Islamabad, 518 in GilgitBaltistan and 108 in Kashmir. The patients are under treatment at quarantine centers of 462 hospitals where 7,295 beds are available.

Pakistan has so far conducted 359,264 coronavirus tests and 14,878 in the last 24 hours. 10,880 coronavirus patients have recovered in the country whereas many are in critical condition.

20 tonnes of medical equipment arrives from china ISLAMABAD: A plane carrying 20 tonnes of medical equipment has reached the capital from China, a spokesperson for the National Disaster Management Authority said on Saturday. The medical gear had been procured through the National Disaster Risk Management Fund, the spokesperson for the NDMA said. The equipment includes 99 ventilators, 260,000 N-95 masks, 300 protective suits, 600 safety goggles, over 7,000 KN-95 masks, and 6,000 surgical masks, the spokesperson said. Separately, the NDMA also received a donation from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), in which 40 ventilators were included. The equipment included 50,000 N-95 masks, 60,000 surgical masks, and 4,000 testing kits. On May 14, the Senate had unanimously passed a resolution thanking the Chinese people and government for their continuous support during the pandemic.

“Senate of Pakistan rejects the baseless propaganda against China from certain quarters, which stems from geopolitical rivalry and is more an attempt to divert attention from their own internal failings as it has no factual basis,” read the resolution. China has sent several consignments to Pakistan in a bid to help the country tackle the pandemic. Last month, it had sent a cargo of medical emergency relief items. The medical supplies included PCR testing kits, surgical masks, protective overall suits, N95 masks, and ventilators. STAFF REPORT

257 nationals stranded in iraq return home ISLAMABAD: A special Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight, carrying 257 stranded nationals from Iraq, landed in Islamabad on Saturday. Most of the nationals stranded in Iraq were working for oil and gas companies and were unable to return following the suspension of international flight operations. Pakistan Ambassador to Iraq Sajid Bilal saw off the passengers at the Baghdad International Airport. The flight was arranged by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Zulfi Bukhari. Ambassador Bilal also lauded the Iraqi government for facilitating the repatriation of the stranded nationals.

According to Minister for Aviation Division Ghulam Sarwar Khan, some 7,000 stranded nationals will be repatriated before Eid-ul-Fitr. He said thousands of stranded nationals, including students, workers, members of Tableeghi Jamaat and pilgrims have been repatriated from the world over. The minister further maintained that the Aviation Division operated 181 inbound flights, adding that at least 250 students from Wuhan will be repatriated through special flights on Monday. STAFF REPORT

Following the continuous violation of SOPs and precautionary measures by the traders, the Punjab government is considering closing various markets in Lahore.

According to sources, a high-level meeting was held under the chairmanship of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. The meeting expressed serious concerns over the situation in the markets. Sources said that SOPs were being violated in markets and the proposal to close some markets immediately

in being considered.

According to sources, the government may shut down Hall Road, Shah Alam Market, Anarkali, and Azam Market in Lahore, while there are also no security measures at Ichhra Bazaar, Township Bazaar, and other places. Sources privy to the government said that the shops will be challaned in the first phase and then the shops will be sealed as SOPs do not seem to be implemented.

On Tuesday, the Punjab government had threatened to re-impose a lockdown if the businesses continue to flout SOPs issued by the government as a part of easing the restrictions imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19. Speaking at the LCCI, Provin-

SC informed of govts’ anti-coronavirus measures BALOCHISTAN GOVT SAYS MASSIVE IRREGULARITIES IN DISTRIBUTION OF ZAKAT FUNDS ISLAMABAD APP

The federal government and all four provincial governments on Saturday submitted a response to the Supreme Court (SC) explaining the measures taken so far to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The federal government in its report informed the court that the shopping malls and wedding halls would be closed till May 31. The committee allowed the opening of small shopping malls for the convenience of the people.

In its reports, the Punjab government stated there was no fraud in the Zakat fund. The Auditor General raised objections to the violation of rules in the distribution of funds and added that there were no allegations of theft or embezzlement in the Auditor General’s objections.

The report stated that the provincial

government launched Punjab Infectious Diseases and Control Prevention Ordinance 2020 for Public Health and law and order. The federal government gave the provinces the power to decide on lockdowns, the report added.

The report stated that the business activities were suspended in Punjab on the direction of the federal government.

Under Articles 143 and 149, the provinces were bound to comply with the directives of the federal government, it added. Lockdown was essential for public health and the situation could affect federal taxes, it added.

All educational institutions will remain closed until July 15. As per the order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, steps are being taken to deal with the coronavirus under the national policy, the health ministry stated in its reply.

The Sindh government said the tax revenue to the federal government was slashed due to the lockdown.

The report stated that the Sindh government had not taken any steps to stop the federal tax.

The reply stated that the Sindh government was using all its resources to deal with the coronavirus and so far more than one hundred thousand coronavirus tests had been done in the province. About the Zakat fund, it said the fund was audited annually by the Auditor General and the action would be taken as per the report of the Auditor General, it added. However, the Balochistan government said there were massive irregularities in the Zakat fund. According to the Zakat Fund audit report from 2015 to 2018, Rs 1.002 billion was not spent, it added.

The report stated that cantonment hospitals were given Rs2 million unfairly and no record ofRs 51 million spent on treatment of deserving patients was provided. The report stated that no record of medicine provided to patients worth Rs5 million was found while district Zakat Committees did not submit a refund record of Rs 4.731 million. Rs 28 million was spent by appointing incompetent chairmen of local zakat committees, it added.

Limited domestic flight operations resume KARACHI STAFF REPORT

Domestic flight operations resumed in the country from five major airports on Saturday, a day after the government decided to further ease the lockdown measures amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The first Pakistan International Airline (PIA) flight carrying 84 passengers departed from Karachi for Lahore at 1pm, along with flights for Lahore and Islamabad operated by a private airline.

A spokesperson for the PIA said the SOPs are strictly being observed to avoid the spread of the coronavirus.

He said it has been made mandatory for the passengers to wear masks and use hand sanitizers. “The airline is operating flights as part of its national duty.”

In a video statement issued Friday, Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan had said 20 per cent of domestic flights would resume from Saturday, but in limited capacity. The announcement came following a final decision taken by the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) on Thursday.

The five major airports allowed to restart operations include Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport, Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport, Islamabad International Airport (IIAP), Quetta International Airport, and Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport.

Sarwar had said social distancing will

be followed based on available seats and flights will only be allowed to fill 50 per cent of their full capacity.

“Passengers will be provided the opportunity to travel safely,” he had added.

The move came “in view of the difficulties being faced by passengers in travelling between major cities in Pakistan”, the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) said on Twitter. The minister, it added, noted that the “Aviation Division has prepared very strict SOPs ensuring disinfection, social distancing and safety for the airline crew and passengers”.

Apart from social distancing, safety measures include “disinfection of the aircraft prior to boarding, at least one vacant seat between the passengers, compulsory wearing of masks and use of hand sanitizer”. Furthermore, no food or beverages would be allowed in flight.

Passengers will be required to fill health declaration forms before boarding the airplane and subjected to thermal scanning on entry and exit into and from a city. All luggage will be disinfected and no meet and greet will be allowed at the airport.

Drivers coming to pick and drop passengers will be advised to stay inside their respective vehicles in the parking lot.

A spokesperson for the PCAA said domestic flights will be operated by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and one private company for now. The national carrier’s administration said tickets sales may start as early as evening today.

NEWS

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cial Minister for Industries and Commerce Mian Aslam Iqbal said that the actions of the traders are not pleasing and are affecting the efforts of the government to control the outbreak of COVID-19.

The minister said if traders continue to disregard the SOPs agreed on before easing the lockdown, Punjab government won’t think twice about re-imposing the lockdown.

This time around, however, the lockdown will be stricter than the previous one.

Mian Aslam Iqbal said Lahore has become the centre of the coronavirus in Punjab and the locally transmitted cases of the virus are increasing the country, adding that the traders must show a sense of responsibility to avoid the lockdown reimposition. He said the lives of people have been put on stake for a few rupees. “I am tired of advocating for traders, but they have crossed all limits,” he said and added the attitude of the responsible people is beyond comprehension.

The provincial minister appealed that children should not be allowed in the markets while guards should be posted in the shops and markets, adding that all shopkeepers should arrange hand sanitizers.

railways minister urges pm imran to restore train services LAHORE: Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed on Saturday appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan to allow resumption of rail operations ahead of Eidul Fitr, saying that delays may result in a worsening of the economic crisis. While addressing a press conference at Railways Headquarters, the federal minister noted that railway services are being restored all around the world. If no decision is taken by the incumbent govt in the coming week, the Railways authorities will not be able to control the rush at railway stations across the country ahead of Eid, he warned.

“People have made advance bookings worth Rs240 million because of Eidul Fitr and are constantly asking us to resume train services,” the minister said, adding that after the coming week, Railways will have to return payments even though it is already in severe crisis and a default would be unbearable for the institution. The federal minister went on to add that people who have made advanced bookings would be given priority as soon train services are resumed in the country. Referring to precautionary measures against the contagious coronavirus, Rasheed said that the trains are already disinfected and briefing to the staff members regarding the issued Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) has also been given. “We do realise that resumption of train services will multiply our responsibilities in terms of ensuring the safety and well-being of passengers. However, we are ready to take up our duties,” he said. STAFF REPORT

04 LAHORE

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ShoPPing maLLS, auTo induSTrY To oPen From mondaY LAHORE

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STAFF REPORT

HE Punjab government on Saturday announced that as a part of lifting the lockdown in phases, it has decided to reopen shopping malls and allow the automotive industry to resume operations from Monday.

The announcement came as Punjab recorded more than 14,000 cases of the coronavirus and more than 240 deaths.

According to Punjab Information Minister Fayyazul Hassan Chohan, the overall situation across the province is satisfactory after the government allowed people to go on about their daily businesses while ensuring the implementation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

The minister said that the decision to either ease or ramp up lockdown restrictions will be taken keeping in view the public response during the coronavirus pandemic. He said that people can carry out daily activities while making sure they are following the SOPs put in place by the government.

The Punjab minister expressed hope that the public will not take undue advantage of the ease in curbs and act responsibly.

He said the transport industry has also been allowed to resume inter-city travel with the alreadyagreed SOPs. Earlier, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar gave

his approval for inter-city and inter-district transport to reopen and announced a 20 per cent reduction in fares.

"We will pass on the benefit of a reduction in petroleum prices to passengers," said Buzdar.

It was also decided to allow online taxi services to operate. Buzdar warned that all services will have to strictly abide by the safety protocols outlined by the government. All passengers, drivers and bus conductors must wear a mask when stepping out of their homes.

All bus operators will be required to make sanitisers available for passengers and ensure proper distancing between people while seated.

It was also decided that shopping malls and power looms will be reopened and churches will be allowed to hold service on Sunday as long as SOPs are followed.

Buzdar urged citizens to follow the Standard Operating Procedures laid out by the government in order to remain safe from the coronavirus.

The CM Punjab said that the decision to ease the lockdown came keeping in view the difficulties faced by a common man.

He said that the threat of the virus is still present, therefore, public needs to remain cautious and show responsibility.

Buzdar said that action would be taken against those violating the SOPs, adding that the government is vigilant regarding the situation arising out of the virus outbreak.

The chief minister explained that the Punjab government adopted a multilateral approach to the tackle

PUNJAB CM ALSO APPROVES RESUMPTION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT, ONLINE CAB SERVICE

the situation.

He added that if people stay at homes then the chances of spread of the virus will lessen, adding that protection lies in following the social distancing policy.

A day ago, the Punjab government decided in principle to allow public transport to resume.

Punjab finalised the SOPs in a meeting with the transport association, with the latter's representative agreeing to reduce the fares on the back of a steep decline in petroleum prices. It was decided that the passengers would be obligated to wear face masks and maintain a distance of three feet during travel. Transporters were also bound to check the temperature of everyone travelling and avoid overloading their vehicles.

Meanwhile, Provincial Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid presided over a session on Saturday, where she said that ending the lockdown does not mean that the virus threat has ended.

She said that the cases in Punjab are increasing, which is why the government is comprehensively noting the medical arrangements across the province.

Rashid said that the government is utilising all the resources to ensure adequate medical facilities are being provided to the people. Punjab Health Secretary Nabeel Ahmed also briefed the session regarding the measures put in place against the virus outbreak.

Punjab currently has more than 14,000 cases of infection and reported more than 240 deaths.

PML-N submits resolution against NAB in Punjab Assembly LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Saturday submitted a resolution in the Punjab Assembly against the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), condemning the cases filed against the Sharif family by the accountability watchdog. The resolution was submitted by PML-N member Sameera Komal.

"Strongly condemn the false propaganda against the Sharif family by the anti-corruption watchdog. The bureau has been mocking the Sharif family and PML-N for three years," the resolution submitted in Punjab Assembly read. "NAB cases against federal and provincial ministers, including the Prime Minister are underway; however, the bureau has failed to maintain its impartiality and efficacy," it added. The NAB is probing the Sharif family in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills for money-laundering and illegal transfer of its shares. NAB Lahore has forwarded a Rs 7 billion money laundering and assets beyond means reference against the Sharif family members to its chairman for approval to be filed in an accountability court. This also includes the investigation pertaining to the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case. In March this year, an accountability court had granted exemption from personal appearance to Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz and nephew Yousaf Abbas in the case till the filing of a reference. As per NAB, the bureau in January 2018 had received a Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) report describing huge suspicious transactions in billions of rupees in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills under Anti-Money Laundering Act. It is pertinent to mention here that in January 2018, the PML-N was ruling the country. After receiving the FMU report, the NAB started its inquiry in October 2018 and found that Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Shahbaz Sharif and family and Abbas Sharif and family were shareholders in the company, along with some foreigners from the UAE and the UK. STAFF REPORT

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LAHORE Punjab Governor Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar has said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is taking all decisions in consultation with its allied parties, including the Pakistani Muslim League - Quaid (PML-Q).

He was talking to media persons after inaugurating a coronavirus testing lab at ABWA Hospital and handing over ration to PTI MNA Riaz Fatiana by the Sarwar Foundation on Saturday. Sarwar Foundation Vice Chairperson (VC) Begum Perveen Sarwar, ABWA Hospital MD Khurram Iftikhar, businessman Junaid Subhani, Overseas Pakistanis Commission Vice-Chairman Muhammad Waseem Ramay and others were present on the occasion.

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Punjab’s budget for FY2020-21 to be unveiled in second week of June LAHORE STAFF REPORT

Punjab government has decided to present annual budget for next fiscal year 2020-21 in the second month of June.

Amid extraordinary situation due to ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Punjab government has decided to reduce uplift projects in the budget. The government has also decided to seek recommendations on the budget from the masses. It is pertinent to mention here that Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has announced that the federal government has planned to unveil next fiscal year’s budget in first week of June and it would be a coronavirus budget. On Friday, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, has chaired a meeting to review the economic outlook amid COVID-19 crisis and budget preparations for the new fiscal year. The matters related to the upcoming budget FY2020-21 and impact of COVID19 pandemic on the nationals have been discussed in the meeting. Shaikh urged exhibition of responsibility into financial affairs in view of the alarming situation of the national economy due to coronavirus. He asked ministries and departments to present recommendations for the new budget besides tabling suggestions to further reduce expenses and utilisation of available resources. The concerned authorities should also consider issuance of Shariah-compliant bonds. Shaikh was of the view that the reduction in policy rate would save up to Rs50 billion in term of loan payments. A briefing was also given by the secretary finance regarding the expenses and subsidies. It emerged that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was affected against debt volume after witnessing a visible decline in economic activities.

Two Lahore cops die of coronavirus LAHORE STAFF REPORT

Two policemen died in Lahore after contracting the coronavirus on duty, police officials said Saturday. The law enforcers were identified as constable Ramzan and head constable Shams. Lahore CCPO Zulfiqar Hameed said that so far at least 75 policemen in the city have been diagnosed with the virus and the number is expected to increase in the coming days. The virus has so far claimed 245 lives in Punjab and the number of known cases in the province has jumped to 14,201. Like other parts of the country, the province has been under a lockdown since March’s last week. But the government has now decided to ease the restrictions. In a meeting on Saturday morning, the chief minister decided to allow resumption of public transport and online taxi services in Punjab. Shopping centres are also likely to open from next week ahead of Eid.

Punjab flour millers to go on strike against govt raids LAHORE: The flour millers of Punjab have decided to go on a strike to protest the raids conducted by the Punjab Food Authority. The mill owners said they are required to keep wheat in their godowns for 72 hours for milling purposes. The mills, however, don’t even have enough wheat to last them for 24 to 48 hours now. They complained that the food authority has restricted mills from buying wheat from the open market, which has led to a shortage in the supply of raw material at the warehouses.

Flour Mills Association Chairperson Asim Raza said that flour mills were their homes and the government was violating their rights by stepping into their homes. “We won’t tolerate this disrespect,” he said while blaming the government for forcefully taking away wheat from them.

Earlier on Saturday, the PFMA had announced an increase in the price of a 20kg beg of flour to Rs825 from Rs805.

They said they had to hike the cost as they were being provided wheat at a higher rate. STAFF REPORT

PTI govt taking all decisions in consultation with allied parties: Sarwar STAFF REPORT

6:42

The governor said the PTI government had not instituted any case against any opposition political party’s leadership and added that all cases being preceded by the NAB and accountability institutions actually instituted by the opposition parties against each other.

“We believe in transparent and across the board accountability and ensured that all accountability institutions should stay apolitical,” he said.

He also said the NAB and all other accountability institutions were independent in taking their decisions.

The governor said that the government had decided to ease lockdown restrictions and open markets to mitigate the economic problems of traders, workers and daily-wagers. However, this did not mean that the threat of coronavirus receded.

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

NEWS

05

Pakistan PrePares to ward off loCust attaCk KARACHI

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AGENCIES

o many farmers in southeast Pakistan, an impending locust attack when summer crops of cotton, sugarcane and rice are being sown, and fruit and vegetables are ready to be picked is a much bigger problem than the coronavirus pandemic.

“If the crops are eaten up by the locusts, we will have a dire food security issue on our hands,” said Zahid Bhurgri, a farmer from Mirpur Khas district in Sindh province.

“The price of flour and vegetables will sky-rocket,” making staple foods hard for some to afford, added Bhurgri, who is also general secretary of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture organization (FAo) estimates losses to agriculture from locusts this year could be as high as PKR 353 billion ($2.2 billion) for winter crops like wheat and potatoes and about PKR 464 billion for summer crops.

A May update from the FAo warned it would be “imperative” to contain and control the desert locust infestation in the midst of the additional impacts of the CoVID-19 pandemic on health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition for Pakistan’s most poor and vulnerable communities. Last year, Pakistan suffered its worst attack of locusts since 1993, for which the country was largely unprepared. Farmers now have little confidence the government will help them fight a new wave of voracious insects threatening their harvests – though officials said extensive measures were being taken.

“Neither the central, nor the provincial government is doing anything about it,” said Bhurgri, who grows vegetables, red chillies, cotton and sugarcane on about 600 acres of land.

‘PERFECT SETTING’: The locusts arrived in Pakistan from Iran in June 2019, devouring cotton, wheat and maize, among other crops.

The invasion was initially expected to subside by mid-November. But it has persisted due to favourable weather conditions for continued locust breeding, linked

to global warming, according to FAo’s Pakistan office.

“Good vegetation due to plentiful rain and a sandy soil provided a perfect setting for the insects to multiply,” said Muhammad Tariq Khan, technical director at the Department of Plant Protection in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

In a recent letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah warned of a “massive locust attack” expected on local farmland when swarms from Iran reach his province in mid-May, which could “prove more harmful” than last year’s invasion.

With little time to waste, farmer Bhurgri decided to take matters into his own hands and “fight the locusts myself”.

Using a power sprayer fixed on a tractor, he plans to douse them with pesticides while they rest on trees at night, and get his farmhands to clang pots and pans during the day to drive the pests from his land.

But there are many small-scale farmers who lack the means to deal with the locusts on their own, he added.

Some do not feel confident enough to invest in their crop this year or are cutting costs by not using the required amount of fertiliser, he noted.

CLIMATE CONNECTION: Mubarik Ahmed, national coordinator for locust con-

trol at FAo’s office in Karachi, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that Pakistan had been taken by surprise last year when locusts wreaked havoc in all its four provinces. Unprecedented rains that led to vegetation cover in Sindh’s Tharparkar desert had enabled the locusts to breed and then attack crop areas, he said.

The country was “relatively better prepared” to meet the challenge this year, he added. But the situation could get worse with huge swarms expected to arrive in the coming two to three months from Iran, oman and the Horn of Africa.

Locust swarms are not new in East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. But climate scientists say erratic weather linked to climate change has created ideal conditions for the insects to surge in numbers not seen in a quarter of a century. Warmer seas have led to more cyclones in the Indian ocean, causing heavy rainfall along the Arabian Peninsula and in the Horn of Africa, producing the perfect environment for breeding.

Experts say insect populations have found new homes across Pakistan and are now laying eggs in nearly 40% of its territory, including Sindh but mainly in the southwest province of Balochistan.

FAo locust forecaster Keith Cressman said locusts that had unusually stayed in parts of Punjab, Khyber

Lifting virus lockdown may lead to ‘herd immunity’ ISLAMABAD ANADOLU AGENCY

Pakistani health experts fear a steep rise in already raging coronavirus cases in the country in days to come following easing of lockdown restrictions, with crowds of people pouring into markets.

Footage aired on local broadcasters on Thursday showed many markets, and shopping areas in the capital Islamabad, commercial capital Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, and other cities, packed with shoppers, who hardly bothered to follow precautions.

Many shopkeepers, and their shoppers, including women carrying small kids, were not even wearing face masks. Pakistan on Monday further relaxed coronavirus restrictions to open small markets and shops across the country despite a sharp rise in cases. The country has so far confirmed more than 35,700 cases with 770 deaths related to Covid-19 “What I have seen in the past two days, worries me a lot. Citizens have bulldozed all the precautions,” said Dr. Seemi Jamali, the head of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center in Karachi, one of the country’s largest health facilities.

“If this continues unchecked, I am afraid we will be heading towards the herd immunity in days to come,” Jamali told Anadolu Agency.

“We are already getting more serious patients than before. It would go even worse, and we would lose more precious lives in case of the herd immunity,” she warned.

Dr. Qaisar Sajjad, the secretary general of Pakistan Medical Association — a nationwide body of medical professionals — endorsed Jamali’s views expecting a sharp rise in number of Covid-19 cases after a couple of weeks.

“I do not want to say, but the current scenario would lead us to the herd immunity,” Sajjad told Anadolu Agency.

“Rise in Covid-19 cases means more number of severe patients who would require ventilators and intensive care facilities, which we unfortunately do not have,” he added.

Naazish Roshan Lakhani, an infection control coordinator at Dow University of Health Sciences Hospital Karachi, said “Citizens are not cooperating with us.

They are not following the precautions. They have no idea how much our health system is overburdened due to this pandemic,” Lakhani told Anadolu Agency, citing the crowds of shoppers at markets.

“I appeal to them [citizens] to follow precautions, mainly social distancing, and reduce the burden from us,” she said warning that hospitals are already running out of beds.

LOCKDOWN MIGHT BE REIMPOSED: Acknowledging that the people across the country were not following the government’s guidelines, Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar on Tuesday warned the restrictions could be reimposed if precautions were not adhered.

“This is unfortunate to see that people are not following the safety guidelines. Easing lockdown does not mean the coronavirus is over,” Umar, who also heads the country’s battle against Covid-19, said while addressing the volunteers of Tiger Force, a recently formed anti-coronavirus organization in Islamabad.

“If the citizens continue to violate the safety precautions, the lockdown can be reimposed,” he warned.

Authorities on Wednesday sealed several big markets in Karachi and Lahore that failed to follow safety precautions.

The federal and provincial governments have an-

nounced to take “stern” action against shopkeepers, and traders who do not follow the safety guidelines.

The government of southern Sindh province, hardest hit by the pandemic, has raised the fine amount from 3,000 to 1 million Pakistani rupees (from $18.6 to $6,204) for violation of safety guidelines.

Doctors in all four provinces have already issued separate calls for a stricter and longer nationwide shutdown, fearing that the country’s already fragile health system will collapse if the number of cases continues to grow at the current pace.

Naeem Mir, the secretary general of All Pakistan Traders Alliance, for his part, said the traders were “trying best” to implement the government’s guidelines.

“It will take a few more days because neither shopkeepers nor shoppers are used to such precautions,” Mir told reporters in Lahore.

Traders, he said, would never want the lockdown to be reimposed.

“This is true that we cannot lock the people forever.

But, the communities have to learn to live with this new way of life,” Dr. Jamali observed.

“Vaccinations are unlikely to come before a year or two. Until then, we have no other choice but to follow this new way of life with strict precautions,” she stressed.

Dr. Sajjad agreed, saying: “Prevention is the only cure for this virulent pandemic at the moment”.

Since appearing in China last December, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 188 countries and regions, with its epicenter having shifted to Europe and the US. The pandemic has killed nearly 300,000 people, with total infections surpassing 4.35 million, while more than 1.55 million people have recovered from the disease, according to figures compiled by the Johns Hopkins University.

NAB ready to file new reference against Shehbaz Sharif, govt announces ContInueD FRoM PAge 01 “What we saw was that Shehbaz Sharif was absent[from the session], and that their speeches were the same as media briefings,” Faraz said, adding: “Shehbaz not attending the session, is proof that the elite believe they don’t have to come in and attend the session. Lives of the other lawmakers are not important.”

Faraz also said that Prime Minister Imran considered himself the “premier of the entire country” and treated everyone equally.

Responding to allegations that the premier is “incompetent” and the government has no strategy to tackle the crisis, Faraz questioned whether “feeding the hungry” is considered incompetence.

“[The opposition] said we are incompetent. Are we incompetent because we want to feed the hungry? Are we incompetent because we want to end their corruption?” he questioned. He added that the country could “only win the war against coronavirus with unity”.

PML-N RESPONDS TO PRESSER: Following the government briefing, PML-N leader Malik Ahmad Khan said that ministers were directing investigation agencies which was a violation of the law.

Addressing a press conference alongside PML-N leaders Uzma Bukhari and Attaullah Tarar, he said: “Nawaz Sharif’s crime was that he took the country out of the dark.”

He said that the PML-N would reply to the questions asked by Akbar.

Taking over the press conference, Bukhari said that

before pointing fingers at others, Akbar must reflect on his own actions. “They are setting up the stage for the drama that will take place after Eid,” she said, adding: “Questions have already been raised on NAB’s performance.” Bukhari warned that old records of PM Imran could also be dug out.

Furthermore, Tarar said that Shehbaz owns a cattle farm that is registered and he pays taxes worth millions of rupees. “These accusations are the government’s tactics to shift attention from its performance.”

“Akbar accuses [the Sharif family] of corruption worth billions of rupees”, but he does not take this up with courts.

“Shehbaz has saved the nation billions of rupees,” he said, adding: “They [government] should worry about their sugar and wheat thieves.”

Pakhtunkhwa and the Indus Valley during the winter would now move southeast to their summer breeding areas in the Cholistan and Tharparkar deserts from May to July. Swarms breeding in Pakistan’s deserts will likely be joined by others from southern Iran in a few weeks, with more likely to arrive from the Horn of Africa around July, experts predict. The swarms are expected to be much larger than in 2019, because their numbers increase on average 20-fold with each generation. They travel in swarms of between 30 million to 50 million insects, covering a distance of 150 km (93 miles) and devouring 200 tonnes of crops per day.

NATIONAL PLAN: Khan of the Department of Plant Protection, who is the state’s focal point for locust control, said the government had been preparing for the next wave of locusts since last year.

In January, the ministry shared a national action plan for surveillance and control of the desert locusts with the prime minister, who declared the locust attacks a national emergency in February. That helped drive things forward with funding, surveillance and control operations, coordinated with provincial agriculture departments, the National Disaster Management Authority, the FAo and the army, said Khan.

In addition, officials from the FAo, Afghanistan, India, Iran and Pakistan meet each week to discuss and plan for the regional situation, he added. Khan said Pakistan now had “a fairly foolproof plan”, including aircraft and ground vehicles to spray the insects, pesticides and more than 1,000 trained teams of four people that can be deployed at short notice across the country.

Timely action since February in the remote desert of Balochistan, with support from the army, had so far helped tame the threat, he added. Surveys detected the locusts’ breeding ground and the hoppers – or young locusts – have been sprayed regularly to kill them before they become adults, he said.

If control operations go according to plan, he remains hopeful Pakistan will not suffer the high levels of infestation now being experienced in the Horn of Africa. "one of the reasons I say this with such confidence is that I know what their level of preparation is and what is ours right now," he added.

4 PM House officials contract Covid-19 NEWS DESK: At least four Prime Minister’s House officials have tested positive for coronavirus during a regular testing routine. They were put under isolation after they were found positive of Covid-19. Earlier on April 30, The National Assembly (NA) Speaker Asad Qaiser had gone into isolation at his residence as he was tested positive for coronavirus.

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

06 COMMENT

Passing the buck

NFC objections Earlier consultations with stakeholders could have helped

Anomalies of the 10th NFC

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hAT the National Finance Commission has been constituted has been overdue, but it has run into objections from the very outset, with Sindh Chief Minister writing to the Prime Minister to object to first the naming of Dr hafeez Sheikh to head it as PM’s Finance Adviser, and also to the terms of reference by which the Centre is allowed to charge the provinces for expenditure on defence, and on disaster management. Dr Sheikh will have to be found a seat in Parliament and made a full-fledged minister. There is no other solution.

This was what had to be done with the Seventh NFC, when then PM’s Finance Adviser Shaukat Tarin had to be found a seat in the Senate and made Finance Minister.

Ironically, he had been preceded by none other than Dr Sheikh, who had been found a Senate seat and made Finance Minister in the Gilani government. Additionally, an independent MNA has taken exception to the Balochistan member, former Minister of State Javed Jabbar, whose financial expertise is as murky as his connection to Balochistan.

Apart from these two objections, which will be shared by the other provinces, and which will probably end up before the Supreme Court for adjudication, another important question, which has still not been settled, is that of the 2017 census. The census is important to the NFC because, though no longer the sole basis of the distribution of the award between the provinces, it was still the primary basis in the last Award, and can be expected to form the primary basis in the present Commission’s deliberations. Its not being settled means that after the issue of the provincial-central split is settled, that of the provincial division will be left uncertain. The last general election was conducted on the basis of a delimitation based on the preliminary census results. At that time, it was decided that there would be selected audits of the result in Sindh, after which results would be given finality. Those audits never took place, and thus the population results have not been finalized.

The Sindh government is likely to be joined by other provincial governments in making objections.

Other provinces may have other objections to make.

The problem seems to have been the reluctance of the federal government to consult the opposition, or provinces, about anything. Initial soundings would have avoided some of the objections being made.

Arif nizAmi

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MIDST the scourge of exponentially spreading coronavirus, the president has found the time to announce the constitution of the tenth National Finance Commission (NFC). This was perhaps a constitutional obligation. In recent weeks the eighteenth amendment- the fount of devolution and additional provincial autonomy under the 1973 constitution- is being portrayed as the mother of all evils. The federal government’s spokesmen blame the amendment for preventing the federal government to evolve a seamless approach on how to tackle the pandemic.

Another myth that has perhaps been deliberately created is that thanks to the consensual amendment, somehow the federal government does not have enough resources to meet our ever-increasing defence needs. even the military leadership has been complaining about the amendments in close meetings.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has endorsed this notion hook, line and sinker. It suits his perennial narrative of blaming alleged or real malfeasance of past governments for his own failures and shortcomings.

To be fair the past government as well as the present failed to achieve the revenue targets stipulated in the seventh NFC Award.

For example, the tax to GDP ratio was to be increased by at least 1 percent every year to meet additional expenses and defray the loss to the centre owing to increased share of the provinces under the award.

The government has tried to take the easy way out. It knows that tinkering with the eighteenth amendment is not possible in the absence of having the necessary two-thirds majority in the parliament to amend the constitution.

The constitution can only be amended through consensual politics. But in the backdrop of the present trust deficit between the PTI government and the opposition, this is too much to ask for. hence the relatively easy route of constituting the 10th National Finance Commission (NFC) has been

Another rate cut Amid a bleak economic outlook

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INCe the coronavirus took a foothold in the country, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has cut the benchmark interest rate four times with the latest 100 basis point cut taking the discount rate down to 8 per cent. A cumulative cut of 525 basis points within two months, which is a complete reversal from the central bank’s IMF-driven policy of monetary policy tightening, was never on the cards when the interest rate peaked at 13.25 per cent. With international oil prices hitting historic lows due to a drastic reduction in global demand, domestic fuel prices have also been cut leading to a fall in the rate of inflation to around 8.5 per cent in April with SBP expecting ranges between 7-9 percent in the next fiscal year.

The cut in interest rate has become especially important due to the severe slowdown in economic activity in the country due to lockdowns and significant fall in spending. Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided to re-open the country in phases for the sake of the economy and daily wagers while the number of cases and deaths are rising by the day. The cut in interest rates is therefore aimed to help businesses and individuals recover from the shutdown. however, the move could prove to be temporary if the situation deteriorates uncontrollably and an even stricter lockdown than before has to be imposed to avoid catastrophe.

These are truly unprecedented times. The causes of deep recessions, the kind that has already set in and has the potential to become worse than the Great Depression of the 1930’s, are usually rooted in complicated economic problems. The coronavirus is perhaps unique in that way that it is an organism not visible to the naked eye that has brought the most powerful economies and their respective health systems to their knees. Pakistan’s external account situation is under control at the moment due to a stable exchange rate, good foreign exchange reserves, a one-year debt freeze from G20 countries, balance of payment support from the IMF and expectation of a stable flow of workers’ remittances going forward. The real challenge, as the SBP has also highlighted in its policy statement, will be the fiscal deficit that could reach as high as 9.4 per cent. With massive shortfalls in revenue and higher expenditures the economic outlook is quite bleak and will remain so for the considerable future.

Dr AhmeD KiAni

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he USA today is a self-proclaimed global ruler, a superpower of thuggery, thievery, butchery, and deceit. The destructive nature of the US establishment is deep-rooted far into its medulla oblongata. The country came into existence through this conduct, where the low-life society-rejected hunger-riddled criminals, shipped off from different impoverished quarters of europe, first massacred the local native Indians in their holy lands of refuge and then looted the entire world by conspiring on the basis of cruel governance, revenge, and lies, to portray themselves as saviours and to accumulate enormous wealth. To understand this, one must comprehend the inferiority complexes afflicting this relatively new and war-hungry nation.

The USA, in comparison to the ruling dynasties of the past and present, is nothing more than an infant. All other dynasties ruled for centuries by way of conquests and, over time, they somewhat perfected the rules of governance, models of operation, and orders of the system. The bratty brash behaviour of the US establishment is analogous to the new-money emiratis with their lavish spending, gold Rolexes, and expensive art pieces, as well as the minimal mental development of its populace and over-reliance on expatriate professionals. The only difference being that the USA pinches the wealth with blatant disregard to international council consent and captures overseas natural resources on false pretenses, a trait of an inebriate mobster with a pistol; and by ominous passport conversions of desperately needed intellect.

This bourgeois mindset is the US immigrant establishment's most deep-seated insecurity. hence, they lie not because it is in their interest but because it is in their nature to be treacherous, malevolent, and vile.

Before WWI, America was non-existent in the global stage as the country was deeply entrenched in its nomadic warfare of the Wild West of gun-slinging hillbillies, bog-Irish mobsters, guinea godfathers, kraut kapos wanderers, cubiche drug-runners, peckerwood racists, war-riddled gooks, deprived Apaches, whiskey-bootlegging cowboys, and whitey slavemasters. A mash-up of such felonious characters in mass migration to a continent forms the roots of the grand US society of today. This is precisely why the USA has always been at war since its inception. even during WWII, had it not been for the British and the Soviet war efforts, the Americans on their own would

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nor the eighteenth amendment but failure of successive governments to increase the size of the economic pie.

Instead of whining about the eighteenth amendment the federal government should set its own house in order. even before the pandemic, the economy was in dire straits. Now it will take a herculean effort even to set the ball rolling. The share of the provinces cannot be reduced from its present 57.5 per cent under the constitution. Previously this was 50 percent.

According to a study, the resource impact on the federal government owing to the NFC award is less than one per cent. Perhaps the only way out is to build a consensus on a workable economic accord with all stakeholders including the military leadership instead of chasing mirages.

The Sindh government has rejected composition of the NFC declaring it as unconstitutional. In a letter to the prime minister the chief minister Murad Ali Shah stating that the advisor on finance cannot head the Commission under the constitution.

Shah, like his colleague senator Raza Rabbani, is right. Shaukat Tarin chaired the seventh NFC commission as finance minister during the past PPP government in 2009.

While being interviewed on my television news program, Tarin told me that like hafeez Sheikh, he too was advisor on finance to the then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. In order to head the commission, he was elected as a senator in order to become federal minister for finance. Unfortunately, the federal government despite having so many legal eagles on its payroll is not privy to sound legal advice. The very composition of the Commission being brought into question makes it controversial even before it has set up shop.

The inclusion of Senator Javed Jabbar as member of the tenth NFC from Balochistan has also been criticised. his lack of qualification and experience in finance, it is being argued, make him unsuitable for the post.

Independent member of the National Assembly from Gwadar-Lasbela Mohammad Aslam Bhootani bemoaned how CM Balochistan could not find a single expert from a population of 10.3 million to plead Balochistan’s case in the NFC. hafeez Sheikh should be appointed as finance minister in order to remove this constitutional anomaly.

For that the government will have to manage a Senate seat for him. Otherwise the composition of the Commission is bound to be challenged in the apex court.

Arif Nizami is Editor, Pakistan Today. He can be contacted at arifn51@hotmail.com.

The USA: a complexed nation

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

adopted. however, its composition and TORs (terms of reference) are ominous. For example, for the first time, amidst the list of discussions, a new subject has been added under which the Centre wants provinces to be burdened with additional fiscal responsibilities.

Under the new NFC a formula is to be evolved to, “explore ways to reduce losses of state-owned enterprises (SOes) and agreeing on a mechanism for sharing these losses between the federal government and the provincial governments.”

This is a classic case of the federal government conveniently passing the buck to the provinces for its own incompetence. If the Centre has consistently failed to raise revenue through taxes why should the provinces pay for this?

Similarly, successive federal governments consistently failed to privatize loss making enterprises like PIA, Railways and the Steel Mills (amongst others).

This costs the exchequer a whopping Rs5 billion rupees a year. Why should the provinces be made to pay?

SOes have been haemorrhaging the exchequer for decades. But no government worth its salt- under pressure from labour unions and vested interests amongst the bureaucracy- were able to privatize them.

Under the seventh NFC award, by virtue of giving a bigger pie to the provinces, the Centre was mandated to increase its revenues. Increasing the tax to GDP by at least one per cent a year seemed quite doable.

But it did not happen. The tax to GDP ratio that was around 9 per cent at that time obstinately remains the same. had it increased as envisaged, it should have been 19 per cent by now.

According to conservative estimates this would have added at least 4.4 trillion rupees a year to the federal kitty. Along with the present 4 trillion this would have been more than sufficient to meet its needs after giving the provinces their due share.

Our successive federal governments simply lacked the will to increase taxation or to decrease their burgeoning expenses. The PML-N government believed in lower taxes. In fact, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was in favour of a flat tax of 10 percent.

The CPeC (China Pakistan economic Corridor) was a boon for the Sharif government as it enabled them to borrow relatively cheap money to be spent on grandiose infrastructure projects while managing 5.8 per cent GDP growth.

Now, with the pandemic further pummelling an already battered economy, we are looking at a negative growth during the next financial year.

The nub of the problem is neither the NFC award

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have been slaughtered on the beaches of Normandy much before nearing Berlin. Factually, the USA has never won the military side, but only the hyperbolic statements and jingoistic propaganda side, of any war fought outside its territory. The dynamics of killing helpless Native Indians as opposed to battle-hardened Afghan Mujahedeen and Iraqi rebel forces is different. This is precisely why Zalmay Khalilzad is now desperately fishing for regional support to broker the US exit from the region.

Americans are oblivious to the ground realities of the nations they wage wars against. They excite the media machinery with White house press conferences, fake news, hollywood screenplays, and unintelligible intelligence reports based on wild assumptions to justify their actions. Phrases like ‘axis of evil’, ‘WMDs’, ‘trade center bombers’, ‘Islamic terrorism’, ‘threats to the American people’, and so on, are synonymous with keeping the public in constant fear of death. even the supposedly democratically elected Presidents are puppets in the hands of the establishment. On the face of it, they exude confidence as saviours of humanity and realms, but actually, they cover up their heinous war crimes and theft of foreign assets. These conjuring tricks of the so-called Big Brother are a globally-spread organized crime syndicate, which amasses affluence while projecting fear. The US establishment's veto in the UN Security Council resolution on the global truce in wars during the covid-19 pandemic is a testament to their prowling and confrontational behaviour.

What the US establishment does not fathom is that alike to the ruling dynasties in history, there is an ultimate end to any rise. even after centuries of despotic self-rule and absorption of communist, Marxist, socialist, and capitalistic ideologies, these states still disintegrated. So how will the USA keep its unification of states alive when the USSR could not? By holding on to the Sixth and pleading the Fifth Amendment of the founding fathers’ constitution? The only exception being the Zionist state of Israel, whose sole existence came into effect when the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish lobbies flaunted billions in the face of the Senators and Congressman in Washington. So, what friends does the US establishment have? Sadly, none. Countries bow to or trade with the USA because of its large consumer base or fear of its burgled-cash-built military arsenal. But even these conditions only go so far. Covid19 has shown the world that even if you are a rich, healthy narcissist, your belongings cannot save you.

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Therefore, the blame on China for the virus is political face-saving for the upcoming elections. The enormous Chinese debts will still have to be paid back, and the hyped military action against China will never happen. In the worst-case scenario, Chinese retaliation will be enough to make the USA disunited and stateless.

The US establishment habitually treats every problem, local or global, as a hollywood movie with extreme emotion and an Armageddon situation, which only action hero Bruce Willis can solve by the ultimate sacrifice of blowing himself up for the greater good.

This mantra applies to every aspect of US life, be it baseball, or natural disasters. The commercial and capitalistic prospects are never lost in any translation, and the braggadocio’s siren is at maximum volume. A living testament is the WTC plane strike, where US lives were sadly lost, and the US establishment’s wrath in response was barbaric and unfathomable. This biblical liberator has never fallen short in inciting hate, overthrowing governments, blackmailing or corrupting officials, targeting kilfourth lings through privately-hired mercenaries such as Academi, a.k.a Blackwater, lobbying media for underhanded scheming and running proxy wars in other countries.

The establishment's boasting of the USA’s being the world’s best country, and a model, is far from true.

Globally, America is 28th in literacy, 38th in life expectancy, 33rd in infant mortality, fourth in median household income, the labour force and exports, 27th in healthcare, 45th in business potential and 15th in quality of life but it's the 1st in the number of incarcerated citizens per capita and in defense funding. even the US covid-19 death count has exposed the weaknesses of the country. This only justifies the argument that the the US mindset has been criminal over the years. So, it was never the greatest, but always a complex-riddled haggis of a nation.

This bogus brawny attitude of the US establishment is its own worst enemy with the White house compromised more internally than Russia ever could.

It is a wailing prayer of the global community that the Americans would grow out of their insecurities and maintain sanity for the sake of universal peace.

As the bible says “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (16:18).

The writer is a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is an expert in emerging technologies and currently serves as Vice President of Core Group in Pakistan.

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

COMMENT 07 Editor’s mail Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan.

E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively

Politics and Covid-19 I want to take your attention to the most important issue which nowadays we are seeing and observing. Political parties and their leaders in this disastrous situation of COVID-19. Despite the whole world and all nations are United in this situation, our political parties and opposition leaders are blaming the government for each and every move which they make for the betterment of our country and people.

They are supposed to support the government and their policies in such a disastrous situation but they blame them every day for their every move. The opposition are supposed to help the government and unite not to blame them. Because united we can beat this deadly disease but if we start blaming games, we will lose this fight against this deadly disease. So we have to unite and fight this disease before it's too late for us.

ARSLAN KHAN Rawalpindi

Ehssas program

Polemics around the pandemic Leaving behind a shining trail, or the dread of counting the dead

Candid Corner rAoof hAsAn “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change. At such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened, or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.”

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–Paulo Coelho

N the garb of covid-19, nature has set us a formidable challenge not only to face, but to overcome and learn from. Gauging the way we have conducted ourselves in the last couple of months, serious questions have arisen whether we are really up to defeating the scourge. There are varied apprehensions expressed with regard to our inability to understand the enormity of the challenge and live by a pragmatic strategy to overcome it without any proviso, without any exception.

There was a phase of uncertainty preceding the softening of the lockdown. Since then, we have seen people flouting the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) with relish. This is equally applicable to those on both sides of the counter: the ones who are selling the merchandise and those who are the buyers. When I questioned the vendors about not observing the basic requirements, I received nothing but shameless smiles. The worst part is that, even the customers present at a given premises, did not join me in forcing the shopkeepers to observe the minimum mandatory precautions like wearing the masks and gloves. And, by the way, they were all educated people, fully aware of the procedures to follow in these challenging times.

In the absence of the local government, the entire responsibility for ensuring observance of the SOPs rests with the district administration.

They are nowhere to be seen. even when one was able to register a complaint, even pointing out a place where SOPs were not being observed, there was virtually no response. It is as if they had forfeited their responsibility by leaving people at the mercy of their own preferences.

The virus is deadly, but the combined irresponsible and unworthy attitude of the people and the administration has only made it deadlier.

People seem not to care and the district authorities refuse to let a deadly situation puncture their traditional arrogance. But, on social media, they never tire of boasting endlessly how efficiently

they are extending help to fight the pestilence. hunger and death, thus making it untenable. This It is a strange country where people are cele- is exactly what has been happening in the world where hundreds of thousands of people have brated for committing murder.

Living through the crisis, one sees little in- been marching on the roads demanding the liftdication of any change in the fatalistic attitude ing of the lockdown. Many governments have that grips all echelons of society. The dominant already ceded to the demand.

The strategy that appears to have worked the narrative which is being promoted is that we cannot fight this pandemic. So, we should sub- best is the smart lockdown, allowing people mit before it and raise our hands in prayer that it enough space to carry on with their lives under may pass quickly. Nothing could be more illog- strict observance of the SOPs. Those countries where people have shown conscionable sensiical and defeatist than this abject surrender.

Beyond the pandemic, if we ever get there, tivity to the demands of the situation have fared one would have little recollection of the pain and better than others. Pakistan is not such a country. suffering that hundreds of thousands of families People here have continued to indulge their natendured who lost their dear ones to the scourge. ural penchant, kicking the SOPs all over the The big question being debated concerns the place. The lack of interest and the wherewithal prospect whether we are going to be any differ- of the administration have made things worse ent once we have passed the crisis, or will we and everyone who steps out, even with his full security gear, runs the persist in our errant berisk of catching the conhaviour? Some say there tagion simply because would be no alternative to others are not taking the bringing about a fundanecessary precautions. mental change in our conThis is a difficult sitduct, but there are others uation and the governwho claim that a change What must be strictly ment’s options are is not forthcoming and discouraged is the effort to limited. It has to try and people would continue to create a balance between indulge their penchant as construct polemics around the need to live a normal they have always done. life and the necessity of There is another di- the pandemic. This is no time doing so by observing mension to the crisis. The certain protocols. In the World health Organisa- to score petty political points. event this does not haption (WhO) has warned pen, which unfortunately that we may have to get Going in divergent directions has been the case in the used to living with Cowill only complicate matters past weeks, there is little rona as it is likely to become endemic. In that and, in the end, no one party that the government can do except to go for a event, how could we perwould be able to stamp its strict lockdown again, sist with our self-destrucmore specifically in tive behaviour which has victory as there would be far areas which have either wrecked our environment and the habitat around us? too many dead to count. This reported extensive infections, or which are found It may be worthwhile is a time to come together contravening the basic to go over the past panessential protocols. demics and see whether with a singular purpose of however, what must those had cultivated any long-term change in defeating the scourge: with be strictly discouraged is the effort to construct human behaviour. Nuunity, discipline and polemics around the merous plagues, yellow pandemic. This is no fever epidemics, polio determination time to score petty politepidemics, multiple flu ical points. Going in diepidemics, ebola, and vergent directions will such other afflictions only complicate matters have impacted the world and, in the end, no one through centuries. The party would be able to fear, by and large, perstamp its victory as there sisted only during the currency of the epidemics, not after they had would be far too many dead to count. This is a passed. Such has been the state of human nature. time to come together with a singular purpose of What makes us think that it may be any different defeating the scourge: with unity, discipline and determination. It is in times of such crises that this time around?

One reason which may spur people to think the character of a nation stands forth. Unfortuis that this pandemic is contagious. It spreads by nately, through these initial phases of the panhuman contact with lethal consequences. If one demic, we have exhibited a palpable lack of were to live with it, as has been warned by the discipline and utter insensitivity to the safety of WhO, it may ultimately trigger some change in our fellow citizens, thus rendering ourselves unhuman behaviour. But, the chances are that, with deserving of any special consideration. If, eventime, they will again lapse into a fatalistic do- tually, the government is not left with an option main, leaving much to the inevitability of things other than a strict lockdown, people will have no happening in certain ways which would be con- one to blame except themselves. strued as beyond human control.

The writer is a political and security strateThere are effects of a strict lockdown strategy which generate unbearable consequences. A gist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute – lockdown over a prolonged period of time, an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: Twitter: which may be an ideal solution to tide over the raoofhasan@hotmail.com. crisis, will inevitably lead to isolation, poverty, @RaoofHasan

I want to take your attention to the most important issue which nowadays poor people are facing. Due to COVID-19 lockdown, People gets imprisoned in their homes and in this situation, govt starts ehsaas program.

Through this platform a lot of poor gets ration or money. But still the help doesn't reach to every poor in our country.Govt should take this program on union council level and hand it over to every village elders because in every village, their own people better knows that who is the most deserving and by doing this we can achieve what we want and help the poor in a real manner. Because due to this lockdown every business has shut down or in loss.So poor who work there are jobless and they are waiting for someone to feed them and help them. Government of pakistan and all relevant authorities must do something for this. Because every poor has right to get basic needs and feed their children. Please consider this important issue of those people who are unable to amplify their voices to higher and relevant authorities. I am hereby on behalf of them requesting you to amplify their voice. Because every life matters. It doesn't matter its rich one or poor.

HAmzA SIDDIqUI Islamabad

Fees Fuss SIR, in this grim issue of corona virus, government must give a hand to each sector. All and sundry are facing it hard to walk through this menace. Public and private schools are closed since the heard of corona in the country. Financial conditions of the private schools’ employees in the country are in the way to gloom and doom. Government has declared and permitted the private schools to collect 80% of the fees. And ordered to provide salaries to employees. Nonetheless, the schools are yet, not out of the turmoil. No doubt, parents are unable to pay fees owing to their financial conditions came up due to corona. Consequently, without the fees Schools are unable to pay salaries to employees. having a glance to the ongoing circumstances it will be a far better option for government to help the private schools and let the people have somewhat a sigh of relief. It is an urge to the government to pay heed to this hurdle and take a win-win way out of the issue.

JAHANGIR JAmEEL Turbat

Online learning eDUCATION is one of the critical sector particularly affected by coronavirus. The ongoing pandemic caused an unprecedented crisis within all affected countries. Like Pakistan educational institutions remain to be closed and students and teachers are at crossroads over online education. It is obviously true that the quality of education is not much progress in Pakistan and in the era of COVID-19 the consequences have been more outrageous. Due to the schools closure educators are worried about students falling behind. This period of remote learning, In most of the areas in Pakistan online education is not proceeded at all. Such students are likely to live in low-income households which means less money for support in th home, such as tutoring computers and internet . So how can students learn properly if they won't access to Internet and good facilities. Pakistan is already suffering from a severe learning crisis which is grave. Therefore the authorities should work up to encourage proper online learning education in neglected areas where education is not focused during these difficult times.

BARKATULLAH Turbat

Continuing Diamer-Bhasha ALL the governments after 2000: Musharraf, Zardari, and Nawaz shareef had taken the credit for the commencement of the Dia-mir Bhasha dam's construction. And for now, the PTI government has once again announced the start of its construction, which in reality is not start but a resumption of work.

The project will offer 16500 jobs and adds 45MW to the electricity and saturate 1.2 million acres of agricultural land. It also increases 35 years in the age of the Tarbella dam, which is Pakistan's largest dam. Furthermore, it also supports PMIK's vision regarding global environmental change.

Now the main concern is that the price of construction of the dam is, for now, 15million which was 7million in 2008, like less than half of that and it will increase if we delay it more.

PTI government should start the construction immediately instead of short term projects for political purposes as past governments did.

Because it is a long-term project for the real progress of the country. If it gets delay it becomes unbearable for our fiscal resources.

It is also supporting us in different dimensions for progress. So it should be resumed as soon as possible.

FARI AHmED Havelian

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

08 WORLD VIEW

Now GeNeral BipiN rawat speaks up?

THE SHAMEFUL TRAGEDY IS THAT THE AMERICANS HAVE BOUGHT US CHEAP. THERE IS HARDLY ANYONE AMONG INDIA’S ELITE TODAY WHO DOESN’T HAVE A SON OR DAUGHTER OR SON-IN-LAW OR NEPHEW SETTLED IN THE US

IndIan PunchlIne

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M k BHaDRakUMaR

HROUGH the past three years and more at the pinnacle of the Indian armed forces, General Bipin Rawat acquired a reputation as an outspoken general causing firestorms of controversy every now and then. The controversies erupted largely due to his panache for making politically loaded remarks. An impression accrued over time that Gen. Rawat violated the purported core principles of nonpartisanship. Indeed, he has been viciously pilloried for this reason.

However, Gen. Rawat’s exclusive interview with the Times of India newspaper last weekend falls in an entirely different category, where he addresses the chorus of angry pro-forever-war generals (and ex-faujis) in our country who are disillusioned with the Modi government’s lack of enthusiasm to increase the defence budget.

The thrust of what Gen. Rawat said in the interview can be summarised in three clusters: * The coronavirus pandemic focuses attention on the social sectors and the overall state of the country’s economy where a reset of development strategies has become necessary demanding judicious resource allocation. The country simply cannot afford the armament programme as of today, which is heavily dependent on import of prohibitively expensive arms purchases. * The operational requirements of the armed forces should not be exaggerated.

India’s defence strategy is strictly limited to defending the country’s borders and dominating the Indian Ocean Region. A realistic and thorough reappraisal of operational priorities is needed to reduce arms imports so as to optimally utilise the available budget. * Equally, there is imperative need to indigenise the weapon systems. But “unrealistic GSQRs” (general staff qualitative requirements) stand in the way. Again, GSQRs should be redefined strictly in terms of our own operational requirements rather than by way of imitating the inventories of the US or other advanced countries.

Gen. Rawat has spoken with remarkable candour. It has a stunning effect already. Especially, since a reasonable assumption is

that Gen. Rawat has articulated official thinking with a purpose to calibrate India’s defence strategy. Indeed, what we see here is not a mere “tweaking” of the defence strategy. His views reflect radically new thinking. Concepts such as “cold start”, fighting two-front wars, interoperability and so on that were inherited from the UPA government (2004-2014) are being discarded. The new emphasis is on local products and local supply chains — self-reliance.

Gen. Rawat’s interview appeared two days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on Tuesday where he said, inter alia, “Making India self-reliant is the only way to make 21st century belong to India…

This era of self-reliance will be our new pledge, we have to move on with new resolve.”

Suffice to say, this week becomes a truly defining moment if one were not to miss the wood for the trees. The doctrine laid down by the PM and applied to the sphere of defence strategy by Gen. Rawat punctuates a 15-year steady upward curve in the thinking and actions by our bureaucratic and military establishment since the signing of the landmark India-US defence agreement in 2005 by then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his American counterpart Donald Rumsfeld.

It is crucial today to realise where we have reached in this 15 year-period in order to fully and properly assess the profundity of what Gen. Rawat has said in his weekend interview. From the Indian perspective, what began as a much-needed modernisation of our armed forces, metastasized incrementally — almost inexorably — over this period as an obsessive drive to attain interoperability between the Indian and US militaries.

The American side has done extraordinarily well in dominating the Indian bureaucracy — civilian and military alike — to take us to this point today, where we no longer, as Gen. Rawat plaintively framed it, tend to define our GSQRs not “as per our own operational requirements”, but instead in terms of “what the US or other advanced countries have”.

If the US has seven aircraft carriers,

shouldn’t we at least have three? Our mind no longer applies logically, rationally. The thinking is done for us largely by the Americans. It is plain to see that, to quote Gen. Rawat, “Anything on the surface can be picked up by satellites and knocked off by missiles. I think the Navy needs more submarines rather than aircraft carriers, which themselves require their own individual armadas for protection.”

Look at where we started this journey under the UPA rule and where we have reached today in such slavery of the mind. The

Americans did a brilliant job in calibrating the Indian mind to suit their purposes. They have tickled our vanities by giving us promises to make us rulers of the global commons — and in future even the space, including outer space — and to take us to wherever the Chinese went.

Thus, the Americans have designated India as a Major Defence Partner (MDP). Incredible, isn’t it? They have never designated another country like this — not even their closest Anglo-Saxon, NATO ally — Britain.

We became ecstatic when we were told that their “MDP designation is unique to India.”

We lost our mental poise in that ecstasy.

The Indian and American think tankers promptly sat down to jointly outline “actionable recommendations” for the Indian policymakers’ consideration with a view to make the MDP designation optimal in its applica-

The WTO is dead. Long live the WTO

BloomBerg DaviD Fickling

Many of the world’s multilateral organizations have the longevity of nation-states. The International Telecommunication Union is older than Germany.

The World Intellectual Property Organization directly descends from a body Victor Hugo helped to establish. The institutions governing global trade, by contrast, last about as long as Spinal Tap drummers.

After 25 years of existence, the World Trade Organization may be hurtling toward the irrelevance that doomed its predecessors. Robert Azevedo, who has been director-general since 2013, will step down before his term formally ends next year, four people familiar with the matter told Bryce Baschuk and Jenny Leonard of Bloomberg News.

That decision is hardly surprising. The kingdom over which he presides is crumbling. Global trade liberalization — the original purpose of the WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT — hit a wall more than a decade ago when the Doha round of talks

collapsed, thanks in part to the perennial sticking points of agriculture and services.

The so-called free trade deals that have been signed since are better described as preferential agreements, serving as much to constrain as to open up global commerce by creating in- and outgroups. Those on the outside often do worse than if no pact had been signed at all.

The biggest regional agreements that have been worked on over the past decade, the TransPacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, are more or less explicitly treated not as instruments to free up trade but as fronts in the long-term soft-power fight between the U.S. and China.

That same rivalry last year put paid to the Appellate Body, the WTO’s most important remaining function after the fall of the Doha round. The Geneva-based quasi-court, which adjudicates disputes between members, solved one of the most glaring problems with GATT, the inability of the trading system to bind its most powerful members.

Still, it had always had its discontents — both in emerging economies, which often saw it as a tool to force open their markets to powerful multinationals, and in the U.S., which equally didn’t appreciate coming in on the losing side of cases. With the rise of China as an export powerhouse and the arrival of long-standing WTO skeptic Robert Lighthizer as President Donald Trump’s trade representative, the Appellate Body’s disintegration last year was all but inevitable.

Right now, global trade seems under threat in a way it hasn’t been since the Cold War. In the short term, the coronavirus has brought swathes of international commerce to a halt: The WTO expects trade could decline this year by as much as 32%. World merchandise volumes, which almost always grow once you smooth out month-to-month

tion. We refused to see the writing on the wall — that MDP is quintessentially a sound business strategy to promote the commercial interests of American arms vendors.

The US has applied much the same technique to make its NATO allies a captive market for American arms exports. If they created the NATO doctrine in the Cold War era casting the former Soviet Union as their eternal “enemy”, today it is about the two revisionist powers — Russia and China. So they keep whispering into our ears that in China, India has an eternal enemy. For tackling the Soviet Russian enemy, the US and its NATO partners had enshrined interoperability of the armed forces of the western alliance as the cardinal principle of the common defence strategy of the member countries.

The result is plain to see.

The US supplies the bulk of the NATO countries’ requirements of weaponry.

Not only that, the US will not countenance if a member country chooses to turn to a third country for meeting its boutique requirements even in a specific situation.

Washington threatens to sanction such errant partners — as it is today doing to Turkey, which, by the way, has the second biggest army amongst the NATO allies, next only to the US, and has specific defence needs, given its geography and the post-cold war geopolitical situation in its surrounding regions.

The Indian bureaucratic establishment — civilian and military — should have no illusions that Turkey’s plight today can well be India’s tomorrow, if push comes to shove, and New Delhi ever decides to exercise its strategic autonomy in the pursuit of its national interests that does not conform to the US’ regional and global strategies.

In fact, the Americans are in such punishing mood that they are today training, arming and financing the Kurdish separatistterrorist groups that work toward vivisecting Turkey.

To cut a complex story short, on the one hand, brilliant minds like Ashton Carter — an Oxford-trained physicist whose entire adulthood was spent in the bowels of the US defence and intelligence — sold to us the doctrine of interoperability which has become the mantra today of the Indian defence establish-

volatilities, had been in decline for nearly a year even before the outbreak hit. The U.S.-China trade deal announced with great fanfare in January isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, as we’ve argued.

Worse still, its main deliverable outcome ended up being a $200 billion-over-two-years increase in Chinese imports from the U.S. that would lean heavily on farm produce and petroleum.

That’s now at the mercy of both Chinese demand and rickety virus-hit U.S. supply chains, not to mention plummeting prices and production of American oil, which will push the headline dollar target even further out of reach. Trump has recently been signaling deep discontent with the agreement as he ramps up anti-Chinese rhetoric around the coronavirus. In the current moment, January’s deal risks becoming less a balm for U.S.-Chinese relations than an irritant.

While all that seems quite grim, the course of liberalizing trade never did run smooth. GATT was born from the ashes of the International Trade Organization, which John Maynard Keynes had envisioned as a global body to eliminate trade surpluses and deficits. The WTO itself arose to fix GATT’s drift into irrelevancy in the 1980s, when a young lawyer named Robert Lighthizer assisted in a previous round of might-is-right trade diplomacy between the U.S. and Japan. Few suspected, as the WTO’s 1999 Seattle meeting attracted enormous anti-globalization protests, that China’s coming membership would kick off one of the richest periods for trade the world had ever seen.

That’s reason to hope that despite the current pre-dawn darkness, international commerce will some day find a way to rise above its current problems and open anew. The common view that trade liberalization has only helped the rich is justified — yet that was a shortcoming not of the WTO, but of the governments that failed to use the benefits of open commerce to improve the welfare of working people. Perhaps it requires the fall of the existing regime for the world to build a new trading system fit for the 21st century.

ment. Carter could do it with such delectable ease since we didn’t even have an interlocutor to match his intellect or vast experience — whose career graph since 1993 was almost entirely devoted to strategic affairs.

By the way, for his unparalleled service to the US national security, Carter was on five occasions awarded the Pentagon’s Distinguished Public Service Medal. (Besides, he is also the recipient of the CJCS Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award and the Defense Intelligence Medal for his contributions to intelligence.) It is doubtful if India can produce someone of his calibre in the next quarter century.

Now, why did the US press him into service on India? Why should the deepening and expansion of the interoperability between the two militaries be such top priority? Why such unseemly hurry? All that only goes to underscore the criticality of locking in India as a defence partner to meet the emergent requirements of the US’ “Indo-Pacific” strategies to contain China, the rising rival on the horizon who threatens to challenge America’s century-long global hegemony.

The slavery of the Indian mind is such today that, if Gen. Rawat is to believed, the Indian military is “misrepresenting our operational requirements” to the political masters to hoodwink them into permitting the acquisition of fanciful weaponry from abroad that are by no stretch of imagination relevant to the country’s actual defence requirements.

The shameful tragedy is that the Americans have bought us cheap. Suffice to say, there is hardly anyone among India’s elite today who doesn’t have a son or daughter or son-in-law or nephew settled in the US. Green Card has become the magical wand of the US that can open any door in Delhi today. To my mind, therefore, the real significance of PM’s address to the nation last night lies not in the combat against a medieval virus but in his determination to turn the present crisis into a window of opportunity to liberate the Indian mind and to choreograph and launch an entirely new approach for India’s national strategy pivoted on principles of self-reliance.

Having said that, when it comes to the defence arena, prudence demands that one must keep fingers crossed. To be sure, there will be institutionalised opposition from the Indian civilian and military bureaucracy and other entrenched interest groups who can be trusted to wage a war of attrition on the political leadership. If “Make in India” is languishing and the road to develop an indigenous defence industry for the country — something that a much smaller country like Iran could achieve with such stunning success despite very heavy odds — remains deserted without much traffic to speak of, the principal reason for it is that PM has to juggle a dozen balls in the air simultaneously at any given time.

Succinctly put, notwithstanding his fame for possessing a forceful will, attention span remains limited, whereas follow-up is always the all-important quotient of statecraft in the Byzantine corridors of power.

This is where, in retrospect, the appointment of Gen. Bipin Rawat as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff assumes an altogether new meaning.

Jeff Bezos could become world's first trillionaire uSa TodaY BRett Molina

We already have trillion dollar companies. How soon before we have our first trillionaire? According to Comparisun, a company which allows small- to medium-sized firms to compare different business products, the world's first trillionaire will likely be Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

Their projection shows Bezos reaching trillionaire status by 2026. The company said their projection is based on taking the average percentage of yearly growth over the past five years and applying it to future years. Comparisun shows Bezos' net worth grew an average of 34% over the last five years.

As of Thursday morning, Bezos' net worth was estimated at $143 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, which tracks the worth of the world's richest people daily. Compared to last year, Bezos' worth has surged by more than $28 billion.

The projection has sparked anger on Twitter, noting how many people are financially struggling during the coronavirus pandemic as Bezos rakes in billions of dollars. "Jeff Bezos is about to become the world's first trillionaire while we're about to enter a depression," said Twitter user @Thomas_A_Moore.

Talk of Bezos' potential trillionaire status follows public protests by Amazon employees over their safety as they continue to work during the coronavirus pandemic. On May 1, workers for Amazon and other companies including Instacart held a strike protesting a lack of "adequate protection in the workplace."

Amazon said it spent more than $800 million in the first half of 2020 on safety measures including masks, hand sanitizer and additional hand-washing stations at warehouses. The company also hired 175,000 new workers to keep up with demand as millions of consumers lean on Amazon to have goods delivered while stuck at home.

Jefferson Graham contributed to this report.

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

BUSINESS 09

Gold imports drop 2.2pc in 10 months ISLAMABAD APP

Gold imports into the country decreased by 2.18pc during the first ten months (July-April) of the current financial year (FY20) as compared to the corresponding period of last year. Pakistan imported gold worth $11.629 million during the period under review as compared to the imports of $11.888 million during the same period last year, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Saturday. In terms of quantity, the country imported 273 kilogrammes of gold in 10MFY20 as compared to the imports of 299 kilogrammes last year, showing a decrease of 8.70pc. Meanwhile, on a year-on-year basis, gold imports into the country during April 2020 increased by 580pc, from Rs0.025 million in April 2019 to $0.170 million. On a month-on-month basis, the gold imports during April 2020 witnessed a decrease of 37.27pc when compared to the imports of $0.271 million in March 2020. It is pertinent to mention that the country's merchandise trade deficit witnessed a significant reduction in first ten months of the current financial year, as it declined by 25.24pc when compared with the corresponding period of last year. During the period under review, the country's exports registered about 3.92pc decrease, whereas imports witnessed a sharp decline of 16.24pc. Exports were recorded at $18.408 billion during the period under review as against the exports of $19.160 billion in the same period of last year. On the other hand, the country's imports clocked in at $38.021 billion as compared $45.393 billion recorded in the first ten months of FY19. Based on the figures, the trade deficit during the period under review was recorded at $19.613 billion, as against the deficit of $26.233 billion during last year.

ICCI calls for further reduction in policy rate

PakIstan oPens border wIth afGhanIstan for trade; busInessmen haIl deCIsIon PESHAWAR

t

AZIZ BUNERI

HE government has announced the opening of Pak-Afghan border at Torkham and Chaman posts round the clock for six days per week, according to a notification issued by Ministry of Interior late Friday.

The border was closed on March 27, 2020, as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of COVID-19 virus. Later, it was opened for three days a week in April.

According to the notification, the decision regarding the opening of Pak-Afghan border was taken in the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) meeting.

"Both the borders will remain open 24 hours for six days except for Saturday, which will be reserved for pedestrian movement only as per procedure already in vogue. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), as applicable for air passengers, would be implemented for pedestrians as well," it stated. "During the six days when the border will be open, unlimited number of trucks will be allowed to cross per day while ensuring proper SOPs and guidelines for both Afghan bilateral trade and Afghan Transit Trade."

Meanwhile, the business community has hailed the government's decision, terming it "a milestone in the promotion of trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan".

Commenting on the development, Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Afghanistan and Central Asian Trade Committee Convener Shahid Khan Shinwari thanked the members of Afghan business delegations as well as the officials of the Afghanistan Border Force who recently held a meeting with their Pakistani counterparts at Torkham border to discuss ways and means to ensure the enhancement of bilateral trade between the two neighbouring countries.

He informed that the Afghan government had re-

quested Pakistan government regarding the reopening of the Torkham border, early clearance of stranded trucks on both sides of the border and issues pertaining to the facilitation of traders and businessmen at the border.

He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has extended all-out support to the traders of both countries as this decision would speed up the vehicle clearance processes.

He also thanked Jawad Hussain Kazmi and Col Siddique of Khyber Chamber of Commerce Group. "Solutions to border issues particularly helped ease the flow of visitors from both countries. It was a joint effort which would boost trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Meanwhile, Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) Senior Vice President Shahid Hussain said that the closure of the Pak-Afghan border

had disrupted the country remaining trade with Afghanistan. He welcomed the opening of border for exports but also urged the government to allow import from Kabul.

He informed that more than 8,000 Afghan transit trade vehicles were waiting for clearance.

Talking to this scribe, Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, former SVP of Pak-Afghan Chamber, told this scribe that the 24-hour opening of the Afghan border would facilitate the clearance of more than 8,000 Afghan transit trade, export trucks and containers stuck in Pakistan for over a month.

However, he also urged government to allow imports from Afghanistan, as it would be beneficial to enhance mutual trade relations. “Fresh fruits, including dates, pomegranates, apples and grapes, should be allowed to come to Pakistan.”

ISLAMABAD APP

Reacting to the 1pc slash in interest rate by the State Bank of Pakistan, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has urged the government to make a further cut in the policy rate. “Bringing the policy rate down to 5pc is imperative to revive business activities and turn around the downward slide of economy amid the prevalent challenging times,” said ICCI President Muhammad Ahmed Waheed in a statement issued on Saturday. “At a time when business and industry are struggling for survival due to Covid19 pandemic, a higher interest rate in Pakistan is a major hurdle in new investment and expansion of existing businesses.” He said to combat the challenges of Covid-19 pandemic, many countries had made a drastic cut in policy interest rates to mitigate the woes of businesses. The ICCI president informed that policy interest rate in Malaysia and Indonesia was currently 4.50pc, while the same in India was 4.40pc, China 3.85pc, South Korea and Thailand 0.75pc, Japan 0.10pc and USA & Euro Zone zero per cent. The ICCI president said due to Covid-19 pandemic, businesses and industrial units in Pakistan have suffered huge losses and were on the verge of collapse, adding that the current situation has made it very difficult for the business community to pay back loans taken from banks with markup. He, however, said the government had taken a wise decision by providing relief in payment of electricity bills to small businesses. He emphasized that SBP should also hold a dialogue with commercial banks to convince them to defer receipt of loans with markup from the business community for at least 6 months so that businessmen could revive business activities and be able to pay back the outstanding bank loans.

COVID-19: Spending on eating out falls 70pc, grocery shopping increases 58pc LAHORE TAIMOOR HASSAN

Consumer spending on groceries after coronavirus lockdown increased by 58pc, whereas the amount spent on eating out fell by 70pc.

This was revealed by fintech solutions provider Hysab Kytab in its webinar to share insights on the impact COVID-19 has had on consumer spending in Pakistan. Consumer spending on groceries rose further by 10pc during Ramadan, whereas the amount spent on eating out also witnessed a further decline of 21pc following the commencement of the holy month.

The information, which the company claims was gathered using aggregated and anonymized data sets, showed significant shifts in spending in sectors such as food and grocery, fuel and transport, online shopping, telecom and subscriptions and charity and donations. The company further claims that its insights were prepared using a dataset of 360,000 cash spending users.

However, it cannot be ascertained if the dataset was truly reflective of the spending habits of the whole population since Hysab Kytab refused to divulge specific details about the age groups of these users and if they were concentrated in urban areas.

Speaking about the online event, Hysab Kytab Founder Veqar Islam

said, "In these unprecedented times, how businesses react and learn to unlearn the ways of doing business that are different from any playbook that they have been following so far is absolutely crucial. While doing so, the power of real-time data insights becomes incomparable to any other means of decision making to provide

the best value to their customers."

While the fuel and transport sector witnessed a significant downward trend in spending post-COVID-19 i.e. 31 per cent, a 16pc increase was noted at the start of the Ramadan.

There has also been an upward trend in online shopping.

In the telecom and subscriptions category, the fintech revealed that there has been a noticeable increase in both, mobile expenditure and subscriptions to online streaming sites, such as Netflix. However, Hysab Kytab shared while the highest increase had been witnessed in charity and donations with consumers spending 324 per cent more post-COVID-19, the sector saw a 3pc decline in Ramadan.

Hysab Kytab Global Head Yasir Ilyas stated, “Data will play a central role during COVID-19 and beyond in the new normal. Business leaders should strive to make right decisions informed by data. To survive, recover and thrive, businesses will need to know more and guess less."

Rice exporters urged to prepare for upcoming Mexican delegation’s visit ISLAMABAD APP

Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood has said that in order to increase agricultural exports, Pakistan had managed to attain a huge space in the rice markets of Middle East, North America and Africa.

He said the government intends to take the exports to the highest-ever level and in this regard, it was taking different measures to reclaim traditional markets besides getting access to new ones.

Talking to APP on Saturday, he informed that a rice delegation from Mexico was expected to arrive in Pakistan next month to discuss opportunities to enhance bilateral trade.

“All members of the Rice Exports Association Pakistan (REAP) should prepare themselves for this opportunity so that they could get their orders approved in the Mexican market.”

He further informed that rice export to Mexico was stagnant for the past few years

DAWOOD SAYS GOVT STRIVING HARD TO RECLAIM TRADITIONAL MARKETS, BESIDES GETTING ACCESS TO NEW ONES but after the delegation's visit, "we are hoping that our rice will be able to enter the Mexican market".

Dawood said that rice was the largest agro-export commodity in the country's export basket, having a total volume of over $2 billion, which would be increased to $5 billion in the next five years. He asked the local rice exporters to introduce new varieties by investing in research and development.

On a query, he said even in the current situation, the country witnessed an increase in food exports, including meat, poultry, fruits & vegetables, cigarettes, especially to the Middle East, as compared to the same period of the previous year.

Replying to another question, he stressed the need to exploit the economic and trade opportunities expected postCOVID-19 pandemic.

“We perceive and expect more opportunities to promote bilateral trade and strengthen linkages with potential markets, including the European Union, China, Central Asian states, Middle East and Africa, once the pandemic is over,” he said.

Dawood stated that coronavirus has changed the world and that business processes would now be completely different. “Such difficult periods always bring out new opportunities, products, and new ways of thinking,” he opined.

He further said that the government was equally focusing on all sectors of the economy, including textile, non-textile, agriculture and engineering sectors, in order to build the country’s export potential in the coming months.

Talking about the external trade situation during the past three months, he said Pak-

istan’s export situation was not good, as they declined by around 54pc in April 2020 as compared to the same month of last year.

In the first 10 months (July-April) of the current fiscal year (FY20), the overall exports declined by four per cent as compared to the corresponding period of last year.

“The exports had increased by 13pc in February, however, they started reducing from March, following the closure of global markets, declining by 6.5pc as compared to March last year.”

However, the adviser said, even during the current lockdown situation, Pakistan exported textile and non-textile products while the country’s food exports also increased, especially to the Middle East. Likewise, he added, exports in steel articles also increased in the last three months despite critical situation.

On a question regarding the current account deficit, the adviser said a $6 billion decline was expected in the coming fiscal year owing to an improvement in the country’s balance of trade.

Dawood said the government was prior-

itizing to promote ‘Made in Pakistan’ policy to boost local production, reduce dependence on import and enhance exports. “An agenda in this regard is already with the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet,” he added.

Talking about the tariff structure, he informed that the Ministry of Commerce was pursuing to bring changes in the tariff structure for the upcoming fiscal year to facilitate local production and thereby move towards local manufacturing.

He said the government wanted to decrease customs’ duties on raw material and also wanted to document the non-tax businesses to bring them in the tax net.

The adviser further emphasized the need to exploit huge opportunities of increasing exports of the health and safety products, like personal protective equipment (PPE) for coronavirus; protective masks, gloves, sanitizers, clothing, helmets, goggles etc.

“We need to revisit our strategies and start manufacturing in different sectors to achieve our exports targets,” he added.

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

10 FOREIGN NEWS

IndIa's coronavIrus InFectIons surpass chIna, but contagIon slowIng MUMBAI

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AGENCIES

NDIA’S total novel coronavirus cases rose to 85,940 on Saturday, taking it past China, where the pandemic originated last year, though a strict lockdown enforced since late March has reduced the rate of contagion.

State leaders, businesses and working class Indians have called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reopen the battered economy, but the government is expected to extend the lockdown, which would otherwise expire on Sunday, though with

fewer restrictions.

So far the death rate in India appears far better, according to health ministry data, with 2,752 fatalities reported, compared with China’s 4,600. The toll in the United States, United Kingdom and Italy is much higher.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was also encouraged by the slowing rate of infection, as it now takes 11 days for the number of cases to double, whereas before the lockdown cases were doubling every 3.5 days.

“Clearly the situation has improved due to lockdown. We have utilised this period of lockdown to accelerate public health measures such as case detection, contact

Italy to allow international travel from June ROME

tracing, isolation and management of cases,” Vardhan said.

Indian officials say the low death rate could be because a majority of people infected with the virus were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms and that the vast shutdown imposed early on had helped avoid a major catastrophe.

A third of the infections are from Maharashtra, with Mumbai the worst hit, followed

by Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Delhi.

These are also the most important economic centres of the country, complicating the government’s task as it tries to re-open without triggering a big spurt in infections.

“India is still in the growth phase, since total cases are still rising. Active cases are growing at 3.8 per cent (daily) — and this needs to fall to zero per cent and decline subsequently for the country to recover overall,” Shamika Ravi, a Brookings expert and former member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said.

Crowds at Wuhan clinics fear coronavirus testing could rekindle disease

One area of concern has been India’s low testing in relation to its large population, public health officials say. The country has ramped up testing since the beginning of April to 100,000 this week, but with 1.3 billion people on a per capita basis it is trailing far behind other major countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.

30 migrant workers killed in India's lockdown crashes MUMBAI

WUHAN

AGENCIES

AGENCIES

AGENCIES

Italy’s government on Saturday approved a decree which will allow travel to and from abroad from June 3, in a major development as it moves to unwind one of the world’s most rigid coronavirus lockdowns. The government will allow free travel across the country from that same day. Some regions had pushed for a swifter rollback, but Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has insisted on a gradual return to normal to prevent a second wave of infections. More than 31,600 Italians have died of Covid-19 since the outbreak came to light on Feb 21, the third-highest death toll in the world after that of the United States and Britain. In a bid to contain the contagion, Italy was the first European country to impose nationwide restrictions in March, only sanctioning an initial relaxation of the rules on May 4, when it allowed factories and parks to reopen. Shops are due to open on May 18 and the government decided that all movement within individual regions should be allowed that same day, meaning people will be able to visit friends. The inter-regional and foreign travel ban will remain in place until after Italy’s June 2 Republic Day holiday, preventing any mass travel over that long-holiday weekend. But all travel curb will be lifted from June 3 — a major milestone on Italy’s road to recovery, with the government hoping to salvage the forthcoming vacation season, when Italians traditionally escape the cities for their annual summer breaks. The regions can reactivate all sectors of the economy that might still be shuttered, so long as safety protocols are followed. National health authorities will monitor the situation to make sure infections are kept in check, the decree said.

As Wuhan, the Chinese city where the Covid-19 pandemic began, revs up a massive testing campaign, some residents crowding the test centres expressed concern on Saturday that the very act of getting tested could expose them to the coronavirus.

Safety has become a hot topic on social media groups among the 11 million residents of Wuhan, people told Reuters as they converged on open-air test sites at clinics and other facilities. Many said, though, that they support the voluntary campaign.

Wuhan health authorities sprang back into action after confirming last weekend the central Chinese city’s first cluster of new infections since it was released from virtual lockdown on April 8.

The new cases — all of them people who had previously shown no symptoms of the disease — spurred Wuhan authorities to launch a citywide search for asymptomatic carriers of the virus, aiming to gauge the level of Covid-19 risk.

“Some people have expressed worry in the (social media) groups about the tests, which require people to cluster, and whether there’s any infection risk,” said one Wuhan resident

At least 30 Indian migrant workers were killed on Saturday in road accidents as they tried to return to their home villages during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, officials said. The accidents, in central and northern India, were the latest involving some of the millions of labourers left stranded and jobless by the seven-week shutdown. Scores have died in road and rail accidents and even from exhaustion walking home. In the most deadly incident, a truck carrying about 40 labourers struck another vehicle also carrying workers and their families that was parked at a roadside cafe in Uttar Pradesh, local magistrate Abishek Singh told AFP. It is thought the driver of the truck had fallen asleep, Singh said. “The vehicle was carrying lime powder which suffocated many of those who died, all of whom were men,” he added. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the accident “extremely tragic” in a Twitter post and said relief work was in “full swing” at the scene.

A drunk driver was blamed for the second accident, in Madhya Pradesh, when a truck bringing labourers back from neighbouring Maharashtra state overturned, local official Shashi Mishra said. Four of the five dead were women and 17 people were injured, he added. The millions of labourers, who live off subsistence wages, have become a major concern for the government as it prepares to ease the lockdown from Monday in a bid to get the economy moving again.

Iran sentences French-Iranian academic to 5 years in jail TEHRAN AGENCIES

Iran sentenced French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah to five years in prison on national security charges Saturday, her lawyer said, adding that she plans to appeal. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian denounced a "political" verdict and demanded Adelkhah's immediate release. The case of Adelkhah and her French colleague and partner Roland Marchal, who were arrested together in June last year, has been a thorn in relations between Tehran and Paris for months.

Marchal was released in an apparent prisoner swap in March that drew strong criticism from the United States. The 61-year-old Adelkhah has remained in custody ever since her arrest. A research director at Sciences Po university in Paris, she is a dual French-Iranian citizen, a status Iran does not recognise.

The academic was "sentenced to five years for gathering and conspiring against national security, and one year for propaganda against the Islamic republic," her lawyer Said Dehghan told AFP. The sentences were to be served concurrently, he said, adding that his client intended to appeal against her conviction. The punishment caused dismay in France. "I strongly condemn (this verdict). This sentence is not based on any serious element... it has a political nature," Le Drian said in a statement. Iranian authorities must "immediately free" Adelkhah and grant her a visit by French consular officials, he added. Her trial opened on March 3 with the final hearing held on April 19 at branch 15 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court.

ARGUMENT FOR APPEAL: Her French colleague Marchal, who was detained while visiting her in Tehran, is also a researcher at the Centre for International Research (CERI) at Sciences Po. He is a specialist in sub-Saharan Africa, while she is a specialist in Shiite Islam.

who asked not to be named.

“But others rebutted those worries, saying such comments are not supportive of the government.”

The unprecedented scale of testing indicates the official level of concern, some experts say. Others say it is an extremely costly exercise and question its effectiveness.

At a testing kiosk in Jianghan district in central Wuhan, a volunteer was patrolling and spraying disinfectant at a long line of people.

Many people observed social distancing, such as queuing 1 metre apart, and there were signs to remind them. But just as many did not. In some cases, volunteer workers were

not insisting that they comply.

At another open-air testing kiosk, where throat swabs were taken, yellow and black stickers on the ground kept people from converging.

But at the back of the long queue, about 40 people gathered with no guidance from officials or volunteers.

Residents said the authorities have not told them when they would get the results of their tests.

China has confirmed 82,941 cases of Covid-19 as of Friday and 4,633 deaths. The government does not include people found to be asymptomatic carriers of the virus in its tally and does not publish a cumulative number of asymptomatic cases.

Huge virus recovery bill clears US House, fate uncertain in Senate WASHINGTON AGENCIES

House Democrats on Friday narrowly pushed through the largest-ever US economic rescue package, but the coronavirus measure faces headwinds in the White House and Senate where Republicans bemoan its $3 trillion price tag.

The Heroes Act, which passed largely along party lines, provides some $1 trillion for state and local governments, another round of cash disbursements to millions of hard-hit American families, funds for hospitals, hazard pay for health workers, and relief for devastated small businesses.

In an attempt to counter the pandemic’s devastating economic fallout, the 1,815-page measure also would extend food and unemployment aid; provide rent and mortgage support for struggling households, and pump billions of dollars into virus testing, tracing operations and treatment.

“We think this is a major investment in the lives of the American people and in the budgets of our states and localities,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

More than 36 million Americans have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus catastrophe and related business lockdown.

“They’re suffering so much, in so many ways,” Pelosi said. “We want to lessen the pain for them.”

In a sign that the pandemic has jumbled Capitol Hill’s routines, the House also passed a rules change that would allow remote voting by proxy for the first time in the chamber’s 231-year history.

DOOMED IN SENATE: The legislation, which cleared the House on a vote of 208 to 199, with 14 Democrats and all but one Republican opposed, appears doomed in the Senate.

Many Republicans branded it an exorbitant liberal wish list packed with Democratic priorities like funding for

CMYK

vote-by-mail programs or marijuana studies and emergency checks for undocumented immigrants.

“It’s not a stretch to say that this bill is nothing more than a Democratic policy agenda masquerading as a response to the coronavirus crisis,” House Republican Tom Cole told colleagues.

“The Pelosi package will never see the light of day in the Senate,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator, added on Twitter after the House vote.

In the Republican-controlled chamber, “we will work with the Trump Administration to jump-start the economy and fund efforts to defeat COVID19.”

Senate leaders have expressed opposition to moving swiftly with a new tranche of relief, saying they prefer more time to study how the previous aid measures have helped American communities.

President Donald Trump has already signed four pandemic relief measures into law. They include a $2.2 trillion package in March and a $483 billion measure to pump additional funds into a loan program for hard-hit small businesses. Pelosi has said the latest bill is effectively an opening offer, and she expects Republicans to join Democrats in negotiating a compromise. The White House on Friday threw cold water on the Democratic gambit, signaling the administration would not support such a pricey rescue deal.

“Another $3 trillion package seems off-target to me,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters.

“I don’t believe we can spend our way into prosperity.” More than 87,000 people have died from coronavirus in the United States, which has reported 1.44 million confirmed infections.

The crisis has led to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and Trump has been keen to re-open shuttered state economies in a bid to jumpstart business activity that has been frozen during pandemic-related lockdowns.

C M YK

E R I T SA Sunday, 17 May, 2020

‘Stay home! But can go out’ – Boris borrows good pal Imran’s speech to announce uneased lockdown

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THE DEPENDENT LONDON/ISLAMABAD

K Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday announced what government advisors in both Britain and Pakistan are calling ‘uneased lockdown’, keeping in mind the demands of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. Sources within the UK Conservative Party and the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) government have confirmed that the recent

decisions to both ease and extend the lockdowns in both countries have been taken following due consultations between the two premiers Boris Johnson and Imran Khan. “If you notice, both Johnson and Khan are asking citizens to stay at home, but also that they can go out.

It essentially boils down to a masterful strategy that asks people to stay at home, but not if they can’t, shan’t or won’t,” Johnson’s advisor Dominic Cummings said

while talking to The Dependent.

Cummings further confirmed that that PM Johnson’s speech on Sunday was borrowed from PM Khan, underlining the reason behind the similarities in the words and approaches of the two leaders.

“Johnson asked his good friend Khan if he could use material from his covid-19 speeches, and the Pakistani premier was happy to help. After all, they’re both following the same science,” he added.

SatIre

Work-from-home Israeli platoon occupies Palestinian secondary school Zoom class THE DEPENDENT

a

Indian Army launches annual pre-budget summer offensive

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THE DEPENDENT RAWALPINDI

he cowardly Indian Army has once again initiated its annual summer offensive. While the Indian Army’s violations across the Line of Control (LoC), this special offensive is designed to increase the cross-border firing at this time of the year.

The increased violations, as part of the annual summer offensive of the Indian Army, were seen over the past week in Bandala sector of Bhimber district where Indian troops started shelling. Firing was witnessed in Poonch district this week as well. On Monday, the Indian Army completely discarded the ceasefire to target Kotli district. experts note that the unprovoked and unrelenting ceasefire violations from

PLATOOn of social distancing Isreali Defence Forces (IDF) platoon occupied a Zoom class of Palestinian middleschool students. “It was a swift operation,” said Captain Roni numa, of the IDF’s Givati Brigade, stationed inside the Gaza Strip. “We moved in, quickly secured the perimeter

and evicted the squatters outside of the math class.”

“It took no more than several minutes of our hackers to zero in on the Zoom servers in India and completely evict the squatters,” he said.

“We will be quickly moving in Israeli settlers into this Zoom class and even if the children don’t need this Zoom class, we will

make them retake this class in order to hold this territory,” he said. After their eviction, the Palestinian children formed a make-shift classroom under a streetlight sitting in the spatially distanced chalk circles that their teacher Abeeha el Masry had drawn out for them, so she could teach.

“Where were we? Yes, logarithms,” she said.

SatIre

across the dividing line reflect frustration of the Indian Army, which despite getting the third highest defence budget has yet to win any war against civilians.

“It is these budgetary frustrations – ie the failure to translate the budget that they get into any meaningful triumphs – that pushes Indian Army to launch this annual pre-budget summer offensive just a month before the budget announcement in Pakistan,” Lt Gen (retd) Amjad Shoaib said while talking to The Dependent.

Analyst Moeed Pirzada further stressed that the Indian Army’s offensive directly impacts the financial imbalance in the country.

“Indian Army’s aggression pushes budgetary mismatches every year. For instance, civilians ate up more than half the budget in both 2018 and 2019,” Pirzada said. g

SatIre

New Zealand reaping rewards of lessons learned from embarrassing ’92 World Cup semifinal defeat: PM Ardern

W

THE DEPENDENT

hile the entire world battles to save its citizens and economy from the lethal coronavirus, one country, new Zealand, with its single casualty and no new case for weeks, has emerged as a prime example of how to tackle a global pandemic, effectively. Its leader, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has credited this success to the important lessons her country learned from their embarrassing defeat to Pakistan in the semifinal of the 1992 Cricket World Cup. “Sure, you could say implementing a strict lockdown while closing borders before any other country in the world, ramping up testing, adopting emerging best practices, data analysis and the use of common sense

helped, but the real meat of the strategy came from the wisdom gained as a result of that thrashing at eden Park, Auckland 22 years ago at the hands of eleven ‘cornered tigers”, commented PM Ardern during a Zoom interview with The Dependent. Prime Minister Imran Khan endorsed PM Ardern’s comments, tweeting, “Yeah… I know!” Later, the same day, following a cabinet meeting on the coronavirus, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz disclosed that a decision had been taken to bill new Zealand to the tune of $350 million for ‘benefits gained through consultative services provided by Pakistan Cricket Team under Imran Khan’. The exchange was followed by reporters looking confusingly at each other murmuring, “did he just…”, “yoda…” “Star Wars…Really?”

SatIre

E D I TO R ’S N OT E The Dependent is a completely satirical publication. The articles within are not true and meant to be taken in good humour.

The Dependent is an “equal opportunity offender” and we would urge all concerned to humour our attempts at humour.

The Dependent is a completely satirical publication. The articles within are not true and are meant to be taken in good humour.

Sunday, 17 May, 2020

NEWS

US-ChinA wAr oF wordS CloUdS who meeT FoCUSed on pAndemiC WASHINGTON

A

AGENCIES

S the World Health Organisation (WHO) prepares to host its main annual meeting next week, fears abound that US-China tensions could hamper the strong action needed to address the COVID-19 crisis.

The UN health agency, which for months has been consumed by the towering task of trying to coordinate a global response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, will for the first time invite health ministers and other dignitaries to participate virtually in its annual meet.

The World Health Assembly, which has been trimmed from the usual three weeks to just two days, on Monday and Tuesday, is expected to focus almost solely on COVID-19, which in a matter of months has killed more than 300,000 globally, and infected nearly 4.5 million.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday the event would be “one of the most important (WHAs) since we were founded in 1948”.

But the chance of reaching an agreement on global measures to address the crisis could be threatened by steadily deteriorating relations between the world’s two largest economies over the pandemic.

‘POLITICISATION’: “Of course I am concerned at the politicisation of the WHA and the risk of its failure,” Gian

Luca Burci, an adjunct professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre, told AFP. US President Donald Trump this week threatened to cut ties with China, where the outbreak began late last year, over its role in the spread of COVID-19, and has repeatedly made unproven allegations that the virus originated in a Chinese lab.

He has also suspended funding to the WHO over allegations it initially downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak and was kowtowing to Beijing.

Despite the tensions, countries hope to adopt by consensus a resolution urging

a joint response to the pandemic.

Consultations around the resolution, tabled by the European Union, concluded this week after “tough” negotiations, according to Nora Kronig, who heads the international affairs division of Switzerland’s public health office.

“One challenge was that it is almost impossible to negotiate in a virtual fashion. That makes it more complicated to build consensus in small groups,” she told AFP. But after several days, a tentative agreement was reached to approve the resolution, which among other things calls for more equitable access for tests,

medical equipment, potential treatments and a possible future vaccine.

‘AMBITIOUS’: An EU source hailed the draft as “ambitious”, and pointed out that if it does indeed pass by consensus as expected, it would mark the first time a global forum achieves unanimous support for a text on the COVID-19 response.

The source said countries had not shied away from thorny topics, including a call for more WHO reform after determining that its capacities “have proven insufficient to prevent a crisis of this magnitude.”

While diplomats have agreed in principle on the draft resolution, observers voiced concerns that in the current politicised atmosphere, some countries might still choose to break the consensus next week.

“My hope is that we will be able to join consensus,” US Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Andrew Bremberg said Friday.

The United States and Europe are at loggerheads over future vaccine access, while Washington has also accused China of trying to steal US immunisation research.

And Washington is also leading a number of countries in demanding that the WHO end its exclusion of Taiwan — considered by Beijing to be part of its territory — and allow it to access next week’s assembly as an observer.

Pakistan rejects Indian accusation of supporting terror outfits ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

Federal govt likely to freeze recruitments for two years ISLAMABAD SHAHZAD PARACHA

Amid an economic crunch due to the coronavirus outbreak, the federal government is considering banning new recruitments for the next two years in order to control the expenditures. In addition to a ban on new hirings, all employees related expenses would also be frozen till 2023, sources claimed. Sources said that the government will be able to control expenditures around, one per cent of the GDP, through these initiatives if approved by the government. On the other hand, this would also be a disaster for the federal government employees, including cadre officers, who want the executive allowance. Dr Khaqan Najeeb, who has served as an adviser to the Ministry of Finance, said that room for savings in the upcoming budget has been created in interest payments of the government due to the reduction in the policy rate. “A part of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) can be financed through Public-Private Partnerships as well as creating money through asset recycling. Slowing growth in salaries and pensions can also help manage lower expenditures in the budget,” he said. Structurallevel state pensions of Rs421billion can be managed through creating a retirement funds market which would also help increase the country’s savings rate.

Pakistan has taken a strong exception to the recent allegations made

by Indian Army chief General MM Naravane, accusing the country of organising and supporting a new “terror group” in Indian Occupied Kashmir, knows as ‘The Resistance Front’.

“I would rather call it Terror Revival Front. It is another terrorist organisation by another name. This is a terrorist organisation supported by its proxies across the border. They’ will be dealt with appropriately,” he said in an interview with ANI. “We reject Indian army chief’s recent comments leveling allegations against Pakistan and hurling threats,” Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui said in response to the statement on Saturday.

She said such allegations are part of India’s “desperate” attempts to divert the world’s attention from its “state-terrorism and egregious viola-

tions of human rights” in Kashmir.

“The indigenous Kashmiri resistance being faced by India is the direct consequence of India’s unabated oppression and brutalisation of Kashmiris. India’s mischievous attempts to portray the legitimate Kashmiri struggle for self-determination as ‘terrorism’ would not succeed,” the spokesperson said.

India’s attempted diversions, misrepresentations and continued belligerence imperil peace and se-

curity in South Asia, she added.

Farooqui called upon the world community to take cognisance and urge India to act responsibly in the interest of regional peace and stability.

Pakistan has several times warned the international community that Modi-led government could stage a false flag operation in IOJ&K and demanded the UN to hold an inquiry into the Indian allegations of targeting “launching pads” and “infiltration attempts”.

Torkham border reopened for pedestrian travel PESHAWAR: The government on Saturday opened the Torkham border crossing for pedestrian traffic two months after the point was closed in a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19. As per details, Khyber Deputy Commissioner Mehmood Aslam Wazir informed that the border has been reopened in the light of the directives of the federal government. The border will be open for transit five days a week and one day for travel on foot.

Wazir added that with the reopening of the border, Pakistanis stranded in Afghanistan will be able to return home, while the border has also been opened for the citizens going to Afghanistan from Pakistan. STAFF REPORT

Brutal Afghan attacks highlight limitations of US-Taliban peace deal KABUL: Two brutal attacks this week laid bare major weaknesses of the US-Taliban troop withdrawal pact: nothing in it obliges the Taliban to prevent such massacres and the Afghan government’s ability to thwart them will only wane as US troops pull out. The pact is ultimately supposed to promote peace between the Afghan government and the Taliban, which denied carrying out a Kabul attack in which three gunmen disguised as police killed 24 people, including two babies, at a Kabul maternity ward here and a suicide bombing in eastern Afghanistan that killed 32. The key provisions of the Feb. 29 agreement – to which the Afghan government was not a party – involved a US commitment to reduce its military footprint in Afghanistan to 8,600 by mid-July and, conditions permitting, to zero by May 2021. In return, the Taliban promised, among other things, not to allow “its members, other individuals or groups, including Al-Qaeda, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.” Technically, Afghanistan is not formally an ally of the United States because they do not have a mutual defense treaty. And the agreement says nothing about attacks on Afghan civilians such as the two that occurred on Tuesday. “There’s nothing in our peace agreement with the Taliban that would preclude them from killing Afghans,” Democratic US Representative Tom Malinowski, a former top State Department official for human rights, told Reuters. “And of course the moment we’re out, there’s no practical deterrence either,” he added. US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, the architect of the deal here advocated by Republican President Donald Trump, acknowledged it did not bar attacks on Afghans and said it would be best if both sides began talks and efforts to combat such attacks while US forces are still there. “The agreement does not specifically (call) for them not to attack Afghan forces,” Khalilzad told reporters on Friday. However, he said the Taliban committed to reducing violence and that a ceasefire would be among the first topics in intraAfghan negotiations. “We are saying that they are violating the spirit, if not the letter,” he said.

‘FULL OF HOLES’: The Taliban has been careful not to attack the US and coalition forces, but have mounted more than 4,500 attacks in Afghanistan, a sharp increase in violence here in the first 45 days after signing the agreement, according to data reviewed by Reuters. More than 500 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in the first quarter of 2020 as violence raged even after the pact was struck, according to the United Nations. A Western diplomat based in Kabul suggested the Taliban got the better of the United States in their deal. “The agreement between the US and the Taliban is full of holes, while it clearly lays down the US/NATO withdrawal plan, it expects very little from the Taliban side,” the diplomat said. “It’s a nebulous deal where one side makes its intentions clear but the other side makes no serious commitment.” The United States on Thursday blamed an Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State here militant group – not the Taliban – for the gruesome hospital attack in Kabul and it renewed calls for Afghans to embrace a troubled peace push with the Taliban. Afghan officials, however, rejected this assessment and blamed the Taliban. They also suggested that the Taliban, which earned US enmity for harboring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, provides an environment that enables such groups.

The three main impediments to the start of intraAfghan negotiations – which were to begin on March 10 – have been the rise in violence, the pace of prisoner releases and the failure of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his main rival, former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, to resolve a power struggle. Further undercutting the prospects for talks, the Kabul government said it had decided to resume offensive operations against the Taliban following Tuesday’s attacks. Khalilzad said he had heard positive reports about the formation of an inclusive Afghan government and he urged the government and the Taliban to begin talks. “There are forces such as ISIS that doesn’t see peace in Afghanistan in its interest and are trying to increase violence to undermine the prospects for peace,” he told reporters. “We are urging both sides not to fall into that trap but indeed to cooperate against terrorists including ISIS. AGENCIES

Indian court rolls back Azaan ban ALLAHABAD: A court in Allahabad city of India on Friday allowed mosques to make Islamic call to prayer, known as the azaan, determining that it did not violate lockdown rules, Anadolu Agency reported.

Ruling that the azaan was an integral part of the Islamic religion, the Allahabad High Court (AHC) urged authorities against hindering its practice under the pretext of COVID19 guideline violations.

The azaan is recited by attendants called Muezzins, usually from a minaret adjoining a mosque and often with loudspeakers to ensure it is heard by Muslims in its vicinity.

However, the court only allowed muezzins to call the azaan without using loudspeakers, holding that amplifying devices were not protected under the country’s constitution.

The court was responding to Public Interest Litigations (PIL) and letter petitions challenging an order by the local Ghazipur district administration restricting the azaan during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Former Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid, Advocate S Wasim A Qadri and Member of Parliament Afzal Ansari had approached the court seeking permission for the azaan via loudspeakers.

Published by Arif Nizami at Qandeel Printing Press, 4 Queens Road, Lahore. Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965. Email: newsroom@pakistantoday.com.pk

Muslim clerics welcomed the court’s decision but may approach a higher court for permission to use loudspeakers.

“The court has said that there will be no ban on the recitation of azaan. We will take further course of action after receiving a copy of the order. However, we welcome the decision of the court,” said Mufti Sharif Ahmed, a Muslim cleric in Ghazipur.

Another cleric in the nearby city of Kanpur, Hafiz Shah Mohammed, said: “The court has accepted the fact that the azaan is an integral part of the Islamic religion and so the district administration should not ban it.” AGENCIES