EpaperLHR_21-03-25

Thursday, 25 March, 2021 I 10 Shaban, 1442 I Rs 15.00 I Vol XI No 266 I 12 Pages I Lahore Edition

Govt reFuses Nawaz’s PassPort reNewal, oFFers sPecIal docuMeNt to returN hoMe g

TERMS NAWAZ ‘FuGITIvE’, SEEkS HIS TREATMENT dETAIlS IN loNdoN ISLAMABAD

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HE federal government has trashed an application for issuance of passport by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who is wanted by the country’s superior courts in many pending cases, and asked the “proclaimed offender” politician to surrender before the country’s High Commission in london to be brought back for production in the courts.

In two separate letters, copies of which are available with Pakistan Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and Ministry of Interior (MoI) have asked Pakistan Muslim league-Nawaz (PMl-N) supreme leader Nawaz to provide details on the status of his medical treatment in london and be ready to travel back to Pakistan on emergency travel documents.

In response to MoFA’s Islamabad do No AS(A) 1/2021 dated February 19, 2021, and MoI’s uo of even number dated March 4, 2021, on the request for issuance of passport, the Interior Ministry said that the application for renewal of passport by Nawaz is misconceived and may not be processed by the relevant authorities for the following reasons: Nawaz has been declared a proclaimed offender by Islamabad High Court (IHC) in Criminal Appeal No 1/2019, titled, “Mian Nawaz vs NAB [Na-

tional Accountability Bureau]” as well as in Reference No 6/2020, namely, Toshakhana Reference by the Accountability Court No 3 of Islamabad.

Similarly, he has been declared a proclaimed offender in Reference No 15/2020 in case of Mir Shakeelur Rehman by the Accountability Court No 1 of lahore. “Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is thereby required to return to Pakistan and appear before the relevant courts to face charges. He, being a fugitive of the law and absconder, cannot seek any further relief unless he surrenders before the Courts in Pakistan,” the letter read.

As per the IHC order dated october 29, 2019, Nawaz was granted an eightweek bail in the form of suspension of sentence, which upon expiry was not extended by the Punjab government as he failed to put forth reasonable cause as to why it should be extended for his medical treatment.

Hence, Nawaz is now required to serve the remainder of his sentence at kot lakhpat Jail, lahore. Yet, rather than obeying the dictates of the court and abiding by the conditions precedent in the bail granting order, he fled the country to avoid prosecution.

The following cases are pending in different courts in which the PMl-N supremo is required to appear and defend himself: i. Toshakhana Reference No 6/2020

pending in Accountability Court No 3, Islamabad; ii. Criminal Appeal No 1/7019 pending before the IHC; iii. Criminal Appeal No 121/2018 pending before the IHC; iv. Criminal Appeal No 3/2019 pending before the IHC. In the light of the above, Nawaz has failed to satisfy as to how he fulfils the requirement as envisaged under the relevant scheme of law for renewal of passport, the ministry stated.

It is pertinent to mention that the issuance of a passport is not a fundamental right of any citizen. It, being a property

of the federal government, may only be issued once the applicant satisfies the relevant authorities regarding the bonafide of the application. A citizen’s right to travel abroad extinguishes once declared a fugitive of the law.

In order to return to Pakistan, Nawaz may apply for emergency travel documents from the Pakistan High Commission in london and the same may be issued once he produces prior bookings of travel to Pakistan through Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) only.

In light of the above details, it is appropriate that a reply may be given to Nawaz by the Pakistan High Commission,

london, united kingdom, accordingly.

MINISTRY SEEKS INFORMATION ON SHARIF’S MEDICAL TREATMENT: The Interior Ministry, in another letter to the additional secretary (Europe), asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help provide information related to the medical treatment of the former prime minister Nawaz, in view of the lahore High Court’s (lHC) order dated November 16, 2019 (WP No 68815/2019) and the undertakings provided by Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif before the court.

The Ministry of Interior has sought the following information: Current diagnosis by the medical doctors; Name and address of doctors under whom you are receiving medical treatment; Copies of all the medical reports including tests undertaken in the uk with results of the tests; details of treatment (if any) received in the uk hospitals; details of ongoing treatment (if any); It has also asked for the details of payments made for medical treatment in the uk, the dates of visits and consultations made with doctors in the uk.

It further asked for the signatures of Nawaz on the consent form as per the legal requirements for the release of medical information in the uk to the Pakistan High Commission.

Educational institutions to remain closed till April 11: Shafqat ISLAMABAD Staff rEport

Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood on Wednesday announced the extension in educational institutions closure till April 11, in the highrisk areas and specific districts of the country keeping in view the spike in prevalence of the novel coronavirus.

Addressing a press conference after holding an important meeting of provincial education and health ministers at the National Command and operation Centre (NCoC) to review the spike in current wave of the pandemic, he said that more educational institutions could be closed in high-risk areas and selected districts as per discretion of the provinces.

All educational institutions – schools, colleges, universities, madrassas, academies – in the nine districts of Punjab – Rawalpindi, lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Sargodha, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Multan, Sheikhupura – and Islamabad Cap-

ital Territory (ICT) would be closed till April 11, he mentioned.

He said that Covid-19 spike had observed in urban centres, especially Punjab’s lahore district, few areas of khyber Pakhtunkhwa (kP) and Azad Jammu and kashmir (AJk).

The prevalence of disease in the Balochistan, Sindh and GilgitBaltistan (GB) had relatively low as compared to the ICT, Punjab, and kP,

he said, adding that all those matters were being considered in detail during the NCoC meeting.

“We are cognisant of the fact that the closure of educational institutions time and again were causing students loss but their health was top priority and the government would not make any compromise on it,” he maintained.

Announcing the government’s decision regarding annual examina-

tions of matric and intermediate, he said that during the NCoC meeting the consensus was built on the final examinations that they would be held as per prescribed schedule.

He said that o and A levels Cambridge examinations were scheduled from April 26 and “we are going to hold a meeting with Cambridge authorities for postponing the examinations due to upward trend in the pandemic and the decision in that regard will be made afterward”.

Shafqat said that provinces were permitted to operate staggered classes in low-risk districts. A final review would be made after viewing overall situation with health and education ministers on April 7, he said, declaring that if some academies violating closure orders would be sealed.

The government, earlier, announced to close the educational institutions from March 15, to 28, keeping in view the burgeoning Covid-19 cases in the wake of third wave of the deadly virus.

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IHC dismisses Gillani’s plea challenging Senate chairman election ISLAMABAD Staff rEport

Citing Article 69 of the Constitution which bars courts from inquiring into the proceedings of the parliament, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday dismissed Senator Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani’s plea against Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani’s election, and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have announced that they will challenge the verdict.

The court in its 13-page verdict said that the petition to declare Senate chairman election results null and void, filed by Farooq H Naek of PPP on behalf of Gillani, is beyond the jurisdiction of the court.

Responding to the verdict, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari stated the polling process at a polling station cannot be described as parliamentary proceedings, adding that the PPP will ex-

ercise its legitimate right to go to an elevated forum for seeking justice under the principle that a presiding officer has no right to engineer the polling process and results.

He said that the PPP believes in parliamentary

IMF agrees to release third loan tranche for Pakistan Following stringent measures on Pakistan’s end, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday agreed to release the third loan tranche of around $500 million for Pakistan while approving four pending reviews of the country’s economy. According to a report published by The Express Tribune, the decision to revive the $6 billion programme came following government’s decisions to jack up electricity prices, impose additional taxes and to grant significant autonomy to the central bank. The report stated that last month’s staff level agreement was endorsed by the international creditor’s Executive Board, which paved the way for the release of the next loan tranche. It is worth mentioning here that IMF has already given $1.45 billion in the previous two tranches out of the $6 billion agreed between the international creditor and Pakistan. Citing sources, the report stated that Pakistan would be in difficult position this year as it would impose taxes amounting to Rs700 billion and reduce expenditures in the budget for the next fiscal year. NEWS DESK

and constitutional supremacy, admitting that the Constitution bars calling into question the proceedings of the parliament. “However,” he added, “this was not a proceeding of the parliament”.

He termed the so-called theft of Senate chairmanship as a “litmus test” for the democratic system, expressing the fear that such manipulations may occur again in the future.

He maintained that the PPP candidate, Yousaf Raza Gillani, had a legal right to the position of Senate chairman. Bilawal underscored that the PPP had the right to knock on elevated forums and that the theft would not be allowed to stand.

Earlier in the day, IHC Chief Justice (CJ) Athar Minallah took up the petition and after a preliminary hearing, the court reserved its judgement on the maintainability of the petition.

Commercial import of vaccines is a ‘deliberate policy tool’: NHS

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STORY ON PAGE 03

more inside

PML-N blasts SBP bill, says they will not allow it to pass STORY ON PAGE 02

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Thursday, 25 March, 2021

LAHORE

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PML-N bLAsts sbP bILL, sAys they wILL Not ALLow It to PAss NEwS DESk

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AKISTAN Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and main spokesperson for party supreme leader Nawaz Sharif, Muhammad Zubair, has said that the PML-N will not allow the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) bill, which grants the bank great autonomy in line with the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to pass.

The federal government had agreed to grant absolute autonomy to SBP. The central bank’s primary objective under the SBP Amendment Bill, 2021, would be to ensure domestic price stability as it would be free from the responsibilities of supporting economic growth and providing budgetary loans to revive the stalled IMF programme.

The bill states that supporting economic policies has been declared as a “tertiary objective” of the central bank, while the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) cannot investigate the SBP governor, deputy governors, its executives and board and committee members.

“On behalf of our party we have a lot of reservations and this is equal to snatching Pakistan’s freedom. The SBP will now have even less powers than the central bank of India before 1947,” Zubair stated while addressing a press conference in Karachi, though he refused to go into the reasons behind his party’s opposition against the bill.

Zubair said that the PML-N had no reservations on

the SBP being an independent institution but did have reservations over the fact that the bill was being brought at the behest of the IMF. “The IMF and World Bank have been trying since quite some for a bill to be passed on the SBP’s autonomy,” Zubair said, adding that this was “dangerous”.

The PML-N spokesperson said that the bill would allow the SBP to escape accountability. He said that would only inform the parliament annually on their policies, while the parliament itself would not be able to call on them, Zubair said that up until now, the National Economic Council, which was chaired by the prime minister, had set the targets for Pakistan’s inflation and growth rate.

If this participation was done away with and left solely to the SBP, acting on the instructions of the IMF, it would be akin to “handing the keys to Pakistan’s financial freedom to the SBP,” he added.

Zubair pointed out that the bill would also grant blanket immunity to the governors, deputy governors and other personnel of the SBP from agencies such as the FIA and NAB. “The SBP governor, after the passage of this bill, will be a representative of the IMF like a viceroy which Britain sent in India & Pakistan.” He claimed that the sitting prime minister was aiming to establish a status quo wherein everyone, including current and former public office holders, could be held accountable, and yet had created an exception for members of the SBP. “If one year from today, the people are screaming

[…] that there is a lot of inflation, then the finance minister, the prime minister or other ministers will say we do not have any relation with this or concern with inflation,” he said, adding that they would point towards the SBP and its governor — who would be protected against any investigation through the bill and thus untouchable. Zubair also lambasted the government, saying that for the last two-and-a-half years, it had blamed previous governments and held them responsible for Pakistan’s economic woes and “now for the next twoand-a-half years, when the bill will be passed, they will say that we are not responsible but SBP is according to the law”. He stated that if the bill is passed, then the SBP would be liable to share information with the IMF, including the confidential information which might previously have been reserved for only the prime minister or finance minister.

He asked why Pakistan was being made to agree to such terms and conditions when other countries that had previously availed IMF programmes had not been compelled to pass such laws.

On the other hand, National Business Group of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) Chairman and Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance President Mian Zahid Hussain supported the government’s decision to empower the SBP through legislation.

In a statement issued in the federal capital on Wednesday, he said that limiting the government’s role will reduce political interference and it will be able to

discharge its duty according to the mandate which will benefit the economy while controlling inflation.

Zahid said that the government should consider the reservations of the stakeholders and try to introduce a proper accountability mechanism in the central bank.

He maintained that serious problems will crop up without the control of elected representatives on the activities of the bank as submitting an annual report in the parliament means nothing.

The government should consider forming a committee comprising politicians and independent economists with powers to judge and fire the SBP chief if needed, the business leader added.

Zahid said that SBP is a national institution and not a private business that should be out of the control of every authority and should be answerable to the parliament.

In case the proposed amendment becomes law, the government will be left with no option but to appoint weak persons violating merit which will cripple the institution, he remarked.

He noted that important economic institutions should be independent but with consensus, while it is a fact that hasty decisions result in remorse.

He said that the decision to amend the SBP Act is also a decision taken in haste to revive IMF’s stalled programme which required thorough debate.

The issue requires a national debate while policies should not be short-term but should be framed for longterm benefits as firefighting will lead the economy to nowhere, he added.

Enough of political revenge, it is time to vie, says Maryam PML-N VP SAYS NO DIFFERENCES WITH BILAWAL LAHORE iNP

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday said that she has had enough of political revenge and has shown enough endurance but it is time to vie now. After getting interim bail from the Lahore High Court (LHC) till April 12, Maryam talked to the media and said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is being run by everyone except the institution itself.

The PML-N leader said that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government is in trouble and the anti-graft body will not be allowed to save his sinking ship.

Maryam said that there are no differences with Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and such ups and downs are a part of politics. PML-N and PPP have individual strategies and some common goals under Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), she added.

The PML-N vice-president asserted that she has a good relationship with PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. “I am Nawaz Sharif’s daughter, I am aware of the politics of tolerance, and know how to follow it,” she commented. Earlier in the day, the high court approved Maryam’s interim bail till April 12 and barred the

NAB from arresting her.

A two-member bench heard the PMLN VP’s plea as she moved the court, requesting an interim bail ahead of her NAB hearing on March 26. The court directed Maryam to appear before the NAB investigation officer. The court issued notice to the NAB chairman and summoned a reply in the next hearing.

PML-N’s Muhammad Safdar, Rana Sanaullah and Pervaiz Rasheed were present in the courtroom along with Maryam who had been summoned by the anti-corruption watchdog in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills and illegal land transfer cases.

She had challenged the NAB notices afterwards.

As per NAB, the Sharif family in 2013 had acquired 3,568 kanals of land allegedly in connivance with a former DCO and an ex-DG of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) during the tenure of Shehbaz as chief minister. Out of it, 1,936 kanals were allotted to the Sharif brothers’ mother Shamim Bibi, 96 kanals each to Nawaz and Shehbaz and 1,440 to Maryam.

Meanwhile, PML-N leader Mohammad Zubair on Wednesday said that Maryam’s popularity is the biggest threat for Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government. Zubair said in a statement

FIA exposes sugar mafia’s gambling, money laundering network LAHORE aPP

Zubair MehfooZ

that the PML-N VP is the pride of former premier Nawaz and the party. NAB has become an accountability wing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), he added. While referring to PM Imran as a “coward”, the PML-N leader alleged the premier is collaborating with the anti-graft body to silence Maryam. A false, baseless and political case has been created against the PML-N vice-president, he added.

Zubair said that Maryam kept the narrative of Nawaz alive with full force.

He also said that the “NAB-Niazi nexus” ignores theft of flour, sugar, electricity, gas and medicine along with corruption in cases pertaining to Peshawar BRT, Malam

Jabba, Billion Tree Tsunami and helicopter use. Separately, Federal Minister for Interior Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said that the ministry has approved the deployment of Rangers outside the NAB Lahore office on the Punjab government’s request.

Addressing a press conference, he said that the Punjab government had requested the federal government to maintain law and order in the provincial capital ahead of PML-N Vice President Maryam’s appearance before the NAB on Friday (March 26). The minister clarified that the Punjab police would lead from the front in providing security to the NAB’s Lahore office.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has exposed the sugar mafia involved in monetary fraud, speculative trade and money laundering as it got evidences of persistent increase in sugar prices through creating artificial shortage of the commodity. The sugar mafia earned Rs110 billion in a year by increasing the sugar prices from Rs70 to Rs90 by practicing ‘satta’ gambling and stashed the illegally gotten amount in fake and secret accounts, FIA sources said on Wednesday. Almost all the major sugar producing groups, including Sharif Group, Tareen Group, Alliance Group, Almoiz Thal Group and Hamza Group were found involved in the gambling. The FIA got evidence about their corrupt practices from 32 cell phones and laptops. It was also revealed that the sugar mafia would also conspire to further increase sugar prices through gambling in the holy month of Ramzan. The FIA has decided to investigate and scrutinise the accounts of prominent members of sugar gambling mafia, and then arrest them after registration of cases under Anti-Money Laundering Act. For the purpose, the FIA Lahore had formed 20 teams, which would launch a crackdown against the sugar mafia under the supervision of the Director FIA Lahore, the sources said.

Zardari signals resolving tiff with PML-N as Mengal plays ‘peacemaker’ ZARDARI, FAZL SPEAK OVER THE PHONE, VOW TO RESOLVE DIFFERENCES ISLAMABAD MiaN abrar

As Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) offered its services to play peacemaker between two major parties of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) President Asif Ali Zardari Wednesday agreed to mend fences with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz

(PML-N) and vowed to carry forward the anti-government struggle from the platform.

The breakthrough came during a meeting of Zardari with a BNP-M delegation who called on the PPP chief at Bilawal House, Karachi. The meeting was held in which consideration was given to end the ongoing differences in the PDM. Sources in the opposition alliance have told Pakistan Today that Zardari held a

meeting with a delegation of BNP-M and tasked it to speak with the fellow parties of the PDM to take decisions collectively.

Former president Zardari also phoned PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and agreed to resolve all differences together.

The sources said that the PPP chief also sent a message to the PML-N leadership through the delegation of the BNP-M, saying that the PPP is ready to end differences and

grievances with the PML-N. Given the apparently cooperative and conducive manner in which PPP Cochairman Zardari is showing in his attempts to put an end to the ongoing differences within the PDM, the BNP-M has intensified its efforts to resolve the differences between the PML-N and the PPP in the PDM. Senator Jehanzeb Jamaldini, who was leading the BNP-M delegation, said that

Zardari gave a positive message in the meeting and this message will be conveyed to the PML-N leadership and will try to end the grievances. The source said that in order to resolve the differences between the parties in the PDM, the PPP is ready to go to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) hearing on March 26 to express solidarity with Maryam Nawaz.

Meanwhile, Zardari and Fazl also discussed the political situation in Pakistan.

The sources said Fazl said that all parties of the PDM should respect joint decisions.

The PDM chief said that according to a joint decision, the seat of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate belongs to the PML-N. Fazl hoped that the PPP would respect the joint decisions of the PDM, the sources said.

The two leaders agreed to resolve all issues together and after the intervention of the PDM leadership, both parties stopped their workers and spokespersons from making opposing statements.

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

LAHORE

CoMMeRCIAL IMPoRt oF vACCINes Is A ‘deLIbeRAte PoLICy tooL’: Nhs ISLAMABAD

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HE Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) on Wednesday responded to a letter issued by Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) wherein it stated that the decision to allow private imports of Covid-19 vaccines by the incumbent government was a “deliberate policy tool”.

The allowance of privately imported vaccine would be used to facilitate the inculcation of those members of the society who are not yet part of the government’s mass vaccination programmes, NHS Secretary Aamir Ashraf Khawaja said in the letter.

“It was a well-concerned decision of the federal government to allow the private sector to import vaccine as the national vaccination priorities favoured the healthcare workers and the elderly, involving some lag in reaching other segments of the society.”

In the letter, it was stated that there initially had been no price set for imported vaccines, but the government had later decided to issue a provision of the Drug Pricing Policy which was applied to Covid vaccines “to keep a check on prices instead of leaving it solely to free-market

WHO CHIEF SAYS THEY'RE WORKING WITH VACCINE MANUFACTURERS TO ENSURE ITS DELIVERY TO ALL COUNTRIES DESPITE 'SUPPLY CHALLENGES” dynamics”. The NHS secretary pointed out that the government was fixing the maximum price and hoped that this would allow capitalistic competition and freemarket dynamics to lower to the price of the vaccine in the private market.

Earlier, TIP had asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to cancel the policy of allowing private the sector to import the Covid-19 vaccine.

According to a letter to the premier in this regard, the global civil society organisation had said that governments all over the world are procuring and administering vaccines to their citizens for free as it is the state’s responsibility.

TIP Chairperson Justice (r) Nasira Iqbal had pointed out that Pakistan is one of the first countries to allow the private sector to import and sell Covid-19 vaccines, a move that will provide a window of corruption.

“The government’s vaccines may be sold to private hospitals,” the letter had warned.

Separately, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services Dr Faisal Sultan on Wednesday said that the

government believed in merit, transparency and good governance.

The digitisation of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), with the introduction of e-offices, was a major step towards the realisation of good governance and transparency, he added.

Dr Faisal was addressing the ceremony to handing over of management system documents to DRAP and inauguration of its e-office through video-link.

He said that decades-old record of DRAP would now be accessible after its digitalisation, which was undoubtedly a great achievement. The instant delivery of services and getting information could only be made possible through system automation, he added.

Dr Faisal stressed that in the modern age, people were improving their products or getting their required services and products through a single click.

He added that the trace and track system would help other institutions save their precious time and resources. The government would eliminate corrupt practices in institutions by introducing a

sophisticated and transparent system, the SAPM stated.

Appreciating the induction of the Pakistan Integrated Information Management System in DRAP, digitisation of its record and opening of its e-office, the SAPM thanked the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for extending their technical support to make it possible.

Moreover, the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a telephonic conversation assured SAPM Dr Faisal that it is working with vaccine manufacturers to ensure the drug is delivered to all countries despite “supply challenges”.

“WHO and the COVAX partners are committed to delivering vaccines to all countries despite supply challenges,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted after a phone call with Dr Faisal.

The WHO chief added that by speeding up the process, COVAX will be able to “expand its portfolio and deliver doses quicker and in larger quantities” to all countries.

NEWS

“I had a very productive conversation last evening with Dr Tedros on Covid vaccine supply chain especially via GAVI to maintain an adequate and consistent availability, across the world,” said Dr Faisal in the morning.

Currently, Pakistan is vaccinating the country’s healthcare workers and people over the age of 60 after launching the vaccination drive on February 2.

Pakistan is using the Sinopharm vaccine developed by state-run China National Pharmaceutical Group, which has shown to be 79 per cent efficacy.

Meanwhile, Indus Hospital Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Abdul Bari Khan stressed the need to wear a face mask and observe other safety precautions against the coronavirus even after getting vaccinated against the deadly disease.

Addressing a seminar titled “Business responses to Covid-19 pandemic” organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH), he said that observance of the safety precautions against the deadly infectious disease remained compulsory even after vaccination as the human body required some days after the inoculation to develop the immune system against the coronavirus.

He informed the audience of the seminar that the scientific data available so far showed that all forms of vaccines invented against the coronavirus were effective against the highly contagious disease as the use of any of them provided the necessary protection against the pandemic.

“There are chances that one could contract coronavirus infection even after vaccination but in that case, the severity of the disease would be mild with very fewer chances of fatality,” said Dr Khan.

Nawaz conducted secret meetings with Modi, claims ex-envoy BASIT SAYS NAWAZ WOULD PANDER TO MODI'S DEMANDS AND REFUSED TO EVEN RAISE KASHMIR ISSUE DURING THE MEETINGS IN DEHLI NEwS DESk Former high commissioner Abdul Basit has asserted that former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif would keep his own envoy out of the loop during his meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Speaking to veteran anchor Karan Thapar in an interview for The Wire, Basit said that Nawaz would pander to Modi’s demands and even refused to raise Kashmir issue during the meetings in Dehli.

Furthermore, he alleged that the former premier would hold secret talks with Modi through an Indian businessman, adding that Nawaz’s senior advisers, Sartaj Aziz and Tariq Fatemi, were party to the unusual approach in conducting ties behind the back of Pakistan’s envoy in New Delhi.

Regarding these meetings, Basit said that Indian businessman Sajjan Jindal was the middle man that connected the two premiers to discuss matters such as Hurriyat leaders and the Kulbhushan Jadhav case.

All of them were “pandering to India unilaterally and unconditionally,”

Basit said in the interview, which discussed his book Hostility, a memoir of his three years posting in India from 2014 to 2017.

Basit maintained that the senior advisers were “apologetic” and were more concerned with catering to Modi’s demands and concerns rather than standing up for the interests of Pakistan. He similarly dubbed former foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry as “brazenly apologetic and improvident” and a person who “wanted to deliver (to India) no matter what”.

Basit revealed how he was repeatedly and deliberately excluded from PakistanIndia meetings or communications, specifically at the behest of the former premier whose foreign secretary humiliated him by telling junior officers not to communicate with him without the foreign secretary’s permission.

He added that how over the Jadhav matter he received a letter of reprimand, again from a junior officer, which effectively minimised him and tied his hands. “Right from the word go Pakistan has mishandled the Kulbhushan Jadhav case,” he said and added it’s “gradually losing its credibility in the matter”.

LAHORE: Teachers of private schools protest for the fulfillment of their demands outside the Lahore Press Club. Zubair MehfooZ

Pakistan urges world community to mitigate Rohingya crisis ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday urged the international community to work together to “mitigate” the simmering Rohingya crisis. Expressing grief over the deaths of more than a dozen Rohingya refugees after a massive fire swept through a shelter camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar earlier this week, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhry said in a tweet the incident is a “sad reminder of continued sufferings of Rohingya Muslims”. At least 55,000 refugees were affected by the fire in the camps as over 10,000 shelters became unusable. A field hospital built by Turkey in the refugee camp was also inoperable due to the massive fire that killed at least 15 refugees and injured over 550. The crowded camp currently houses 1.2 million Rohingya, most of whom have fled a crackdown by the Myanmar military in 2017. The fire incident came at a time when there is growing frustration among Rohingya refugees over the Bangladesh government’s attempt to relocate them to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal. Amid opposition by UN agencies, the government has relocated 14,000 people to the Bhasan Char island, which is prone to natural disasters. In the first phase, the government wants to relocate 100,000 refugees on the island. TLTP

Opposition parties should sit with govt for public welfare reforms: Faraz ISLAMABAD STaff rePorT

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Senator Shibli Faraz has urged the opposition parties to sit with government for reforms relating to public welfare.

Talking to a private TV channel on Wednesday, the federal information minister said that the opposition parties were not playing their due role in the parliament for public welfare

reforms, rather they were using the forum for protecting the corruption of their leaders.

Referring to the remarks of Islamabad High Court (IHC) chief justice remarks regarding the Senate chairman elections, Faraz said that the opposition should accept the election results and move forward for electoral reforms, so that transparency could be ensured future elections, he added.

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Thursday, 25 March, 2021

LAHORE

NEWS

Buzdar announces Rs25bn uplift package, varsities for three districts GUJRANWALA Staff repOrt

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar visited Sheikhupura, Hafizabad and Gujranwala on Wednesday and announced new development projects, worth Rs25 billion, along with the establishment of universities in the areas. Talking to the media, the chief minister announced new projects of Rs8.41 billion, including a flyover at Alam Chowk and internal and external link roads in the city. He said that 14 more projects will be started, including construction of a burn unit with a cost of Rs1.92 billion. He also announced the university of Gujranwala project, having a sub-campus of Punjab University and both campuses of UET. “The necessary process has already been started and I will monitor this project,” the CM added. He said that instructions have been issued for the feasibility study of the children hospital and the federal government will also be approached for improvement of the GT Road. Along with it, the CM announced that a road will be constructed to link Gujranwala with Sialkot-Lahore Motorway. The CM said Sahulat bazaars will be established at the level of tehsil and items will be provided at the rates of 2018 in Ramazan bazaars. To a question, he termed it improper to lead processions to appear before institutions and asserted that the law will come into action on any violation. Meanwhile, the CM inaugurated four projects of Rs7.84 billion at Gakhar Sports Arena. He also inaugurated Gakhar Sports Arena, Gujranwala Arts Council Auditorium, OPD unit of Teaching Hospital Medical College Gujranwala and 62.5 acres of landfill site project. He handed over the keys of 106 vehicles of Gujranwala Waste Management Company to the officials and laid the foundation stone of BS Block in Government Postgraduate College for Women, Shadab Training Institute and building of special education centre Kamoke, worth over Rs2. 23 billion. The Lahore-Sialkot Motorway will be linked with the GT Road at Morr Eminabad. For Sheikhupura, the chief minister announced a development package worth more than Rs10 billion along with the establishment of Waris Shah University. He also also inaugurated a tree plantation drive at Sheikhupura Gymkhana, besides removing Tehsildar Muridke and SDO local government from their posts on public complaints He inaugurated district education complex, Muridke Trauma Centre, CTD regional office and dual road projects, worth Rs1.27 billion.

He also laid the foundation stone of a water supply and drainage project, costing Rs410 million, in Sheikhupura. For Hafizabad, the CM announced a Rs7.2 billion development package. He said that Hafizabad University Act will be presented before the cabinet meeting. Talking to the media, the CM said the package has been announced for the district, adding that PM Imran Khan had announced to establish the University of Hafizabad and DHQ hospital.

Saudi BuSineSSman SeekS govt’S SuPPoRt foR 66.4Pc ke ShaReS’ acquiSition By chineSe fiRm ISLAMABAD

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aHMaD aHMaDani

OLLOWING the downfall of Abraaj Group Chief Arif Naqvi, Saudi billionaire Sheikh Abdulaziz Hamad Aljomaih has attempted to convince the Pakistani leadership to ensure smooth acquisition of 66.4 per cent shares of the K-Electric (KE) by Chinese firm Shanghai Electric Power (SEP).

Sources disclosed that despite being minority shareholder in the KE, the Saudi business tycoon, during his two-day visit to Pakistan, attempted to remove impediments in the acquisition of 66.4pc controlling stake in the KE by the SEP. Sheikh is the managing director investments of Aljomaih Group and is principally responsible for all international investments on behalf of the group. He is the chairman of Arcapita Investment in Bahrain and holds numerous board positions in various portfolio companies of Aljomaih Group. Previously, he had served on the board of directors of Etihad Etisalat in Saudi Arabia and Dana Gas in the UAE. The Aljomaih Group has invested in the KE for the past 15 years since its privatisation in 2005. Sheikh had also served as the first chairman of the KE’s BoD at that time. He is one of the largest investors in the KE through a consortium that bought out the then Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) in 2005. He was the main driver of the privatisation process of the company.

As per details, Sheikh arrived in Pakistan on a two-day visit on March 15 and left the country on March 16.

During the first day of his visit, he met with the Pakistani leadership, including President Arif Alvi, Prime Minister Imran Khan, Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Sheikh, Federal Minister for Privatisation Mohammed Mian

Soomro, Federal Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan, Special Assistant to PM on Petroleum Nadeem Babar and other senior officials and got the commitment that all the impediments, particularly the issue of receivables and payables, in the way of the KE’s transaction will be removed.

On the second day of his visit, he met with key stakeholders in Sindh, including Governor Sindh Imran Ismail, Provincial Minister for Energy Imtiaz Shaikh, Murtaza Wahab, adviser to Sindh chief minister on law, anti-corruption establishment and information and some other senior officers, to ensure their help in the speedy transaction of the KE. According to sources, the PM has asked him to expedite the resolution of KE’s debt issues with other entities to facilitate a smooth transaction with the SEP. Sharing details of the meetings, sources said that the Saudi business tycoon took up several issues, including acquisition of KE shares by the SEP, price

differential claims, and gas sales and power purchase agreements with the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) respectively, which were hindering the KE’s acquisition by the Chinese firm.

They said that the Saudi businessman, in his meetings, insisted for the release of KE’s pending payments and removal of hindrances in the way of signing of fresh agreements regarding KE’s upcoming 900 MW power plant located at Bin Qasim and concluding the SEP’s proposal to acquire 66.4pc controlling stake in the KE. They added that he asked the Pakistan government to extend its support in expediting the process of approvals so that the tariff differential claims to the tune of around Rs275 billion on principal basis could be settled at the earliest.

They said that the KE, SSGC and NTDC have been in dispute over payment issues, which to some extent are halting the process of SEP’s acquisition

of KE shares.

The KE is engaged in negotiation process with the government to ink an arbitration agreement for settlement of issues and it is desiring favours by getting waiver from debts while the Saudi tycoon arrived in the country to ensure favours for the KE from the government, said sources.

“It is strange that Aljomaih is a minority shareholder in the KE, but he has been making efforts to convince the government for smooth transaction of KE to the SEP,” sources added.

When contacted, a spokesman of power division, said negotiations are on for the sale of KE to the SEP and the Privatisation Commission has been dealing with it.

About the meeting of Aljomaih with the energy minister, he told that it was a brief meeting and it remained under discussion that outstanding issues of the KE should be resolved in the best interests of the people of Karachi.

It is pertinent to mention that as of 2017, the Abraaj Group, in partnership with Aljomaih Group and National Industries Group of Kuwait, has 66.4 per cent stake in the KE while the Pakistan government's shareholding stands at 24.36 per cent. This three-firm consortium operates in the name of KESP, which is the parent company of KE. Non-receipt of net receivables from various federal and provincial entities for over a decade has pushed the KE into losses. Similarly, delayed payment of price differential claims by the NTDC had also led to halting investments in the KE. The KE, on the other hand, claims around Rs234 billion against the government and its agencies on a gross payable basis and expects around Rs80 billion net payments from the public sector, provided all payables and receivables are settled on principal payment basis.

107 rural revenue centres made operational in Punjab, says minister LAHORE tltp

Punjab Minister for Revenue Malik Mohammad Anwer has said that the government has made 107 Rural Revenue Centres operational in the province.

In a statement on Wednesday, Anwer said that it is a matter of satisfaction that the facility of obtaining land deed and transfer is being made available to the citizens at village level. He said that 700 more Rural Revenue Centres will be made operational by the end of this month. Similarly, 2,000 centres till June 2021 and 8,000 centres will be made operational by the end of this year. He said that the PTI-led government is determined to provide relief to the people.

He said that effective measures are being taken to provide relief to the people by ensuring a system of good governance.

ISLAMABAD: The sun shines on the federal capital after days of overcast weather, rainfall. Online

PEMRA asks TV channels to abstain from judgemental remarks about NAB NEWS DESK The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has ordered TV channels to refrain from broadcasting "judgemental and unipolar remarks" about the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in their news programmes.

In a letter issued Wednesday, the state’s media regulator said it had "monitored with concerns" that various talk shows and news pro-

grammes broadcast "highly unsubstantiated, judgmental, and unipolar remarks" about the anti-graft watchdog without getting its official point of view.

The PEMRA said broadcasting such remarks is against the orders issued by the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan. "Airing of such unsubstantiated and unipolar remarks are in absolute disregard to […] the orders of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan passed in Sou Moto Case No. 28 of 2018

dated 12.09.2020 regarding the prohibition of discussion on sub-judice and under trail cases," it wrote.

"Airing of such content is also in violation of Section 20(d) & (f) of PEMRA Ordinance 2002 as amended by PEMRA (Amendment) Act 2007, Rule 15(10) of PEMRA Rules 2009, and Clauses 3(10)(i), 4(2), 4(4), 14(7)(a&c), 4(10), 5, 17 & 22 of Electronic Media (Programmes & Advertisements) Code of Conduct 2015."

"The licensees are also obliged through these provisions of law to observe reasonable constraints while extracting contents from court proceedings, police records and court proceedings and to air them fairly, accurately and in an objective manner," it added.

The regulator also advised TV channels to tighten their editorial oversight and review the programmes’ content via in-house monitoring committees.

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

LAHORE

NEWS

IHC dismisses Gillani’s plea challenging Senate chairman election continued from page 01 During the hearing, the top IHC judge suggested that the petitioner could send a reference to the National Assembly (NA) speaker under Article 63 to have his grievance redressed. “Has the Senate chairman ever been removed from the post in the past?” Justice Minallah asked Farooq H Naek, who represented Gillani. “What is the procedure for removal of the Senate chairman?” he further asked. The judge observed that the court abstains from unnecessarily intervening in the matter. “You can take the matter to a Senate committee,” he suggested. At this, the PPP counsel said that no committee has powers to dislodge the Senate chairman. Senator Gillani moved the petition through his counsel requesting the high court to declare the result of the election of Senate chairman held on March 12 “illegal, unlawful and void”. He further demanded that the IHC declare the rejection of seven votes polled in favour of the petitioner illegal and suspend the notification dated March 13 regarding the re-election of Sadiq Sanjrani as Senate chairman and restrain him from carrying out his duties in this capacity until this petition is decided. Gillani alleged in his petition that the government attempted to influence the result of the election to the seat of Senate chairman to win it by hook or crook. “During the process of counting of votes the Presiding Officer (PO) [Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah] arbitrarily rejected 7 of the votes [the rejected votes] cast in the petitioner’s favour on the ground that stamp is affixed on the name of the petitioner despite the protest of the petitioner’s polling agent Senator Farooq H Naek that the stamp had been fixed within the box containing the name of the petitioner,” he contended.

“The votes rejected by the presiding officer clearly evince the voter’s intent to vote for the petitioner and no one else,” the petitioner argued. Moreover, he added, these are in compliance with the notice affixed near the polling booth as well as the understanding conveyed by the Senate secretary. On March 12, the ruling PTIbacked candidates grabbed the top slots of the Senate in a controversial contest. In the polls, incumbent Senate Chairman Sanjrani was re-elected. He defeated Gillani, a joint candidate of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – an opposition parties’ alliance. 98 senators had exercised their right to vote, out of which seven votes – most of which cast in favour of Gillani – were rejected.

Sanjrani who had received 48 votes as opposed to 42 votes of Gillani was later declared the winner by the presiding officer.

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EduCatIonal InStItutIonS to rEmaIn CloSEd tIll aprIl 11: SHafqat continued from page 01 Separately, Punjab Education Minister Murad Raas stated on social media, “All Public and Private schools of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Sargoda, Sheikhupura will remain closed till April 11th, 2021. The schools in remaining districts will open on previous schedule.”

Similarly, KP Education Minister Shahram Khan Tarkai on Wednesday said that closing of educational institutions in all notified districts extended to April 11, 2021, according to the guidelines of NCOC. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the provincial education minister said that all educational institutions, both private and public, would be closed till April 11 in the notified districts including Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera, Swabi, Charsadda,

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Kohat, Swat, Malakand, Lower Dir and Buner.

He said that educational activities have also been suspended in Buner due to increasing cases of coronavirus.

Thus, the districts where the number of corona cases will increase will also be closed immediately till April 11.

He also said that this decision has been taken in view of the health of students and teachers.

He said that the health of students and teachers is our top priority.

Shahram said that in all the districts where schools have been kept open, the administration has been strictly directed to strictly implement standard operating procedures (SOPs) there.

He added that the provincial government is monitoring the educational institutions ourselves and no negligence will be tolerated in this regard.

To a question about board

exams, he said that that there will be exams this year and we pray that the situation will be under control till the exams.

On the other hand, Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani said that all educational institutions in the province will remain open under strict coronavirus related SOPs. The education minister said that schools can remain open with only 50 per cent attendance and if a coronavirus case is found in a school, only that institution will be sealed. He further announced that all examinations will be held as per the schedule.

He added that all private and public schools will follow government orders and warned that a strict action will be taken against institutions as well as individuals found violating the official guidelines.

Furthermore, Balochistan on Wednesday decided against closing the schools and other educa-

tional institutions.

Parliamentary Secretary for Health Dr Rubaba Buledi said that the ratio of positive cases of Covid-19 in Balochistan, has been between 3 per cent to 3.8 per cent.

The government conducting screening of passengers at airport, railway stations and bus terminals, the parliamentary secretary said.

In all regions of the province, officials monitoring coronavirus spread, Rubaba Buledi said.

“The situation of the pandemic has been under control in the province with no smart lockdown in any area,” the parliamentary secretary said.

“We are not in favour of closing the schools and other academic institutions,” Buledi said.

“The government will ensure strict enforcement of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) in the province,” the official added.

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

06 COMMENT

Transfer of power to transfer of technology

Kashmir and peace with India Need for national consensus

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N his Pakistan Day message to PM Imran Khan, Indian PM Narendra Modi expressed his country’s desire for cordial relations with Pakistani people.

What is required for this, according to Mr Modi, is an environment of trust, devoid of terror and hostility.

One would welcome any move aimed at peace with India provided it contributes to the resolution of Kashmir issue, the key dispute between the two countries. In January PM Imran Khan insisted that there would be no talks with India until the restoration of J&K’s autonomous status. At Islamabad security Dialogue last week he again rejected the revocation as a unilateral move and underlined the need for an enabling environment for meaningful dialogue, “India must take the first step forward”. In case India does not accept the precondition will the PM still continue with the peace move?

Weeks earlier COAs Bajwa had called for extending the hand of peace in all directions. In yet another statement he maintained that people of Kashmir and the region deserved peace. Gen Bajwa said it was time to bury the past and move forward. In his March18 speech the COAs noted that without the resolution of Kashmir dispute through peaceful means, process of subcontinental rapprochement will remain susceptible to derailment. Unlike the PM there was no mention of any precondition for initiating the dialogue. Does this indicate that there are differences in the approach. There is need for the two sides to have uniformity in matters of policy.

Hopefully the peace move will not face the fate of President Musharraf’s efforts in the direction. Once Musharrf was no more the COAs, the Kashmir plan was left to gather dust by his successor. To avoid this there is a need for the military establishment to put on record its endorsement of its top leadership’s plan.

No peace policy will succeed unless it has public support in Pakistan. For this there is a need to take the opposition also on board. The Arab countries that are pressing for peace have large investments in India and are naturally wary of war. They however are not much concerned about the plight of the Kashmiris. One of the sponsors of peace had in fact endorsed the Indian move to revoke Article 370. Pakistan on the other hand cannot ignore the Kashmiris.

The link between power and technology

Dr FariD a. Malik

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s my expertise is in Transfer of Technology ( TOT ), I knew very little about Transfer of Power ( TOP ) before my recent innings in the land of the pure. In the year 1992, the very first project that I started to work on involved TOT. The saindak Copper-Gold Project had been started as a turnkey project with the Metallurgical Corporation of China ( MCC ). Being built at a cost of Rs 16 billion, it was the largest project of that time with a foreign exchange investment of $80 Million by the Chinese Contractor. The plan was to complete the plant by August 1995 followed by a joint run by the Chinese and Pakistani personnel for a three months overlap after which the plant was to be run by the local management. During the regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto ( ZAB ) an organization by the name of Resource Development Corporation ( RDC ) was created to exploit the much needed mineral potential of the country. RDC identified this project in the 1970s.

The bench studies of the Ore Deposit were carried out at Mountain states Mineral Enterprise, an Arizonabased engineering outfit, where I happened to work at that time. Dr sabihuddin Bilgrami was Director Technical of RDC and later its Chief Executive Officer ( CEO ), I remained in touch with him. As there were very few experts in this field, he always encouraged me to join the project when formally launched.

When I arrived at the site after a backbreaking road journey of about 8 hours from Quetta, the very first question I asked was, “ Where is the Transfer of Technology Package?” No one knew about it. All they could tell me was that it was a turnkey project, it would be jointly run by both organizations for three months before final handing over. saindak Metals Limited (sML), was created by RDC for this project.

Mr Yakub Bizenjo headed sML. He had no mining or technical management background. Upon the insistence of the then Governor Nawab Akbar Bugti, the head office of sML was shifted to Quetta and later on RDC was also merged with this outfit. Dr Bilgrami, the world renowned Geologist retired and stayed behind in Karachi. Despite obstacles, I kept my course to keep the project alive and on track.

After saindak, came Reko Diq. Again I tried my

Sugar prices rise Impunity last time behind new crisis

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HAT sugar prices are touching Rs 100 per kg, with the price reaching Rs 110 per kg in Karachi at the moment the highest, but as Karachi’s market sets the pace for the rest of the country, that is not at all a good sign. The increase comes even as the government failed to take any action against those who caused the crisis last year. While the government was careful to take credit for releasing the FIA report on the crisis, it was cavalier about taking action against those responsible, especially those who also happened to be government stalwarts. That impunity may well be the reason for the current spiral in the price of the basic food item, which is likely to lead to particularly painful problems for the consumer, with the approach of both the hot weather and of Ramazan fasting.

The price hike is occurring at a time when there is no new crop expected, and crushing is just over, and even though the government has allowed imports in the hope of lowering prices. Instead of having learned anything from last year’s crisis, it seems as if the government is content to allow this addition to the problems of the common man. While the downturn in the economy, partly but not entirely caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, has squeezed incomes, the inflation has been eroding what purchasing power people have left.

It’s not just sugar. Prices across a broad area are climbing, but particularly problematic are the increases in the prices of food items, of which sugar is important, but by no means the only comestible. The upwards climb of the sugar price shows that it is not just the supply of the commodity that must be fixed, but there must be proper punitive against those who profited from the scam.

Otherwise, there will continue to be scams, and the consumer will continue being forced to pick up the tab.

The government should realise that the sugar price is something of a symbol. Even now, though over half a century has passed, it is still remembered that the Ayub regime was brought down by a minor increase in the sugar price. The government must not fool itself that this hike will have no consequences at the hustings.

Pakistan needs to work hard to keep its talent at home

rehan SaeeD anD SuMeera aSghar roy

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HE prominent role of drones in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict has manifested that the future belongs to drones, be it a battlefield or any other sector of life. The superiority of Azerbaijan in drone’s technology (though not homemade) helped it defeat the enemy and recapture its illegally occupied land. This unmanned and tiny aeroplane has also helped transform dimensions of agriculture as well. seeding, monitoring and spraying can be done with the help of drones, saving time as well as labor costs. Many countrird, including developed as well as developing, have started to reap the benefits of drones.

The use of drone in Pakistan is in its initial phase owing to not having concrete policies over drone technology as it is a sensitive issue with regard to security matters. But as now Prime Minister has ratified the establishment of Civil Drone Authority, a hike in the production of drones will be seen within a few months. Considerably, a handsome initiative it is.

In July 2020 the Federal minister of science and

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Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

together with the introduction of Mobile Technology.

Two federal secretaries (Defense, science and Technnology) opposed it. According to them it would create a security hazard as the Defense Communication may be compromised. As I had some exposure to defined in-use frequencies all over the world, I was able to convince the President that the private operators should be allowed to operate outside the secured bands. Today Pakistan has the fastest growing Telecom sector in the world. Thid happened despite the hurdles created by the royal, colonial bureaucracy of Pakistan. I was then able to convince Leghari sahib that all procurement above Rs 10 Million should come with TOT starting with consumables,then replaceable parts and finally local design and manufacture. India follows a similar policy of indigenization. Procurement without TOT robs the nation of its resources. A P/I ratio ( Procurement vs Indigenization Ratio ) was also proposed to monitor the system.

There were several written exchanges between me and the secretary Defense to initiate this Ratio but no one could break the non-performing viscous cordon of the bureaucracy of the land. Telecom sector grew as their negativity was contained by the President of Pakistan and they had no role in its implementation and growth.

On a lighter note, once I had the opportunity to sit next to the legendary Late Air Marshal Asghar Khan in a seminar on self Reliance held in Lahore.

After his talk I asked him if TOP had ever taken place in Pakistan. His answer was a spontaneous ‘Yes’, when he saw a blank look on my face he ventured to explain that both Benazir and Nawaz had been in power. I felt sorry for his understanding of ground realities but kept quite to avoid embarrassment after all he was our hero and father of the Air Force.

Real attempts at TOP have been very brief ( 1947 to 1951 and 1971 to 1977 ). When Ghulam Muhammad managed to become the third Governor General the process of transfer was stalled. Then again when Zia-ul-Haq took power in July 1977, both TOP and TOT came to a grinding halt. The struggle continues but with tainted players who have robbed the nation for vested self interests. There is no unified plan to move forward.Now that the party in power has control of the senate, it is expected that both TOP and TOT will be back on the agenda. Pakistan needs its own indigenous technology to grow and prosper.

The writer is ex-Chairman, Pakistan Science Foundation. He can be contacted at: fmaliks@hotmail.com.

Drone Technology and the future of Pakistan’s Agriculture

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Yousaf Nizami Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

best to reach a negotiated settlement which is always the best approach in business. The disaster of Reko Diq was also because of a lack of understanding of large scale commercial mining and the TOT protocol involved. As Chairman Pakistan science Foundation ( 2002 to 2005 ), I launched several mining projects with Thar Coal being the most important one.

Putting the pieces together for development of Thar was a herculean task as the world was moving away from it. Mining was the major challenge followed by application of 21st century environmentfriendly technologies. Again there was a lack of understanding of TOT practices. I kept going with several papers in international fora on the potential of this 175-billion-ton coal deposit which is the energy future of Pakistan. CPEC came to the rescue. sECMC ( sindh Engro Coal Mining Company ) started mining the coal in August 2018. Two power plants ( 330 + 330 MW ) are already on line while I continue to push for Gasification of Coal for production of Urea and sNG (substitute Natural Gas) to replace imported LNG. I was invited by sECMC to see my dream come true, I thanked the Almighty when I touched the Black Gold seam at the bottom of the pit at Block II of Thar.

Technology is the application of science used for solving problems of mankind. After facing so many obstacles in all the technology-driven projects, I decided to look at the larger picture in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which achieved the status of a constitutional democracy on 14 August 1973. Almost no one in the corridors of power seems interested in nation building. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew, the founder and builder of modern singapore; “ Everyone seems be on a suicidal mission in Pakistan”.

There has been no real transfer of power in the land of the pure.

The system of governance continues to be exploitative and barbaric in nature with almost no accountability of the rulers. I now firmly believe that without TOP there can be no meaningful TOT. The focus of the nation will shift to solving the problems faced by the masses only when they will have the power to take decisions and hold those to account who do not. That reminds me of another important interaction with the past rulers.

President sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari was a very well-read individual who took keen interest in the development of technology. He formed a committee under his leadership of established technologists in various fields. In one of the meetings it was suggested to deregulate the emerging Telecom sector

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Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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technology gave the assurance that he would take the Prime Minister into confidence regarding issuance of permits to private companies in the formation of drones because at that time Pakistan was lacking a regulatory framework and production of drones by private companies was totally banned.

Another issue is the communication gap between industries and engineering universities as they are working separate platforms. THe need of the hour is collaboration between industries and universities.

Many a university, NUsT being an example, is working efficiently in the field of drones.

Revolution in agriculture is indispensable to meet the challenges of overpopulation. Now with the help of a drone one can spray up to ten acres in just an hour. Manually it would take an hour per acre with less accuracy as well as less efficiency. The science and Technology Minister announced on social media that Pakistan has prepared drones for the agriculture sector, furthermore he quoted that drones have the capacity to spray 16 litres of pesticide in just 18 minutes and have the ability to mark the affected area as drones are well equipped with sensor technology too.

The curriculum is unable to meet the requirements of contemporary challenges of the digital world. Almost three decades have passed but the same obsolete technology techniques and gadgets are taught despite knowing the fact that efforts are being made to land on Mars.

Introduction of technology hubs can be useful to provide a centre to ones who have mastery in the field of technology so that bright minds can work together and there will be sharing of ideas, skills and knowledge among members. Competitions must be arranged and scholarships be given too. Initiatives are being taken by the current government to gather all likeminded people (in the field of technology) in one place.

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

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Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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There is no dearth of talent in Pakistan. But there is a deficiency of supportive role by the government, the masses and the media. Media and masses are interested in characters like the singers who became famous by clips peechay to dekho and pawri ho rhi hai to bring them to limelight rather than syed Nabeel Haider, who introduced instant messaging app and a student belonging to Karachi who invented the speaking glove.

Another dilemma is those Pakistanis who learnt about modern technology after getting the degrees when they return back to Pakistan with the intention to serve the country with zest and zeal, they cannot find any opportunities as we are far behind in technology, we have a very few research institutes so they don’t have any option left except leaving Pakistan and going somewhere else where they have the opportunities and are in demand. As a result Pakistan is turning out to be a barren land.

As currently the Pakistan government and higher education commission are focusing on the exchange of agricultural development and particularly the transfer of technology from China in the contest of CPEC, it is the high time to demand such technology like drones, remote sensing, modern and efficient harvesting technology and post-harvest technology in all branches of agriculture including crops, fruits, vegetables, poultry, dairy and agricultural machinery as China has announced they have reached the target of feeding the 1.4 billion population with the local food production.

Rehan Saeed is a postgraduate student at the College of Agricultural Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.

Sumeera Asghar Roy is a PhD candidate at the National key laboratory of Fruit’s genetics improvement at China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

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

Scapegoating education

Landmarks of South Asian nuclearisation India went nuclear because of both global and regional factors

Dr rajkuMar Singh

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HE regional and global environment prevailing in the 1960s compelled India to be ready for nuclearisation. In addition, China’s first atomic test had indeed unleashed a national uproar which was to kick-start India’s first serious debate in favour of building nuclear weapons. The 69th annual session of the Indian National Congress which followed the Chinese test in January 1965, witnessed a heated debate on the issue. Again, during september 1965, over 100 Members of Parliament from various political parties submitted to the government a joint memorandum demanding a prompt and immediate decision to develop nuclear weapons.

The annual session of the Indian science Congress in 1966 passed a resolution making the same demand. At last Homi Bhabha, the founder architect of India’s nuclear establishment, had to reassure the nation, that, given the political green signal, India’s scientific community could explode a nuclear bomb in 18 months. And it is in this context that the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur shastri was to sanction the proposal put forward by Bhabha on investigating a subterranean Nuclear Explosion Project. This can be seen as the earliest signal of a pro-bomb tilt in India’s nuclear policy. By the end of 1966, there was unanimous support for a nuclear weapons programme. Further developments were the discriminatory aspects of the Non- Proliferation Treaty of 1968 which India rejected, New Delhi had decided to sustain its independence on international security by allowing her development of the peaceful nuclear explosion technology.

The minor shift in policy and emphasis that we see in India’s nuclear policy is mostly due to change in regional and global perspectives. The new regional atmosphere on the subject was indicated when India’s Ambassador to the UNO said on 14 May 1968, ‘‘It is a matter of concern to India that across its borders a major power, the People’s Republic of China, continues to conduct nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere

in flagrant violation of the will of the quite the international community and in total disregard of the grave dangers posed by such testings.”

At the same time it was also considered in some quarters that it was in India’s interest to balance Chinese nuclear capabilities by developing an ‘Asian Balance of Power’ and by acquiring similar nuclear capabilities.

On the other hand, at the close of the 1960s the international milieu on the nuclear issue was also deteriorating and discriminatory treaties were signed one after another. In 1967, in a strategic move, the UsA and UssR presented to the Eighteen Nations Committee on Disarmament at Geneva on 20th August 1967, two separate but identical drafts of a treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons. These were subsequently revised in January 1968 and in March 1968, making some amendments. Later, the UN General Assembly adopted and commended the treaty, but in India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of the country, criticised several articles of the treaty under which it was improper that each nuclear weapon state party to the treaty undertook not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive device directly or indirectly, and not in any way to assist, encourage or induce any non-nuclear weapon state to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons of explosive devices.

India refused to sign it on these very grounds, though it reiterated its pledge not to produce nuclear weapons.

India since independence had entirely contributed to the Disarmament Conference aimed to make the world nuclear-weapon free, but on the other continued to review the emphasis on self-reliance. Earlier the research and development work which the Atomic Energy Commission was carrying on, had been in pursuance of the national objective of harnessing atomic energy for peaceful purposes only.

To the contrary, the prevailing situation necessitated the development of Indian nuclear devices and the progress made so far had been informed to the Lok sabha by Mrs Indira Gandhi on 15h November 1972. “The Atomic Energy Commission is studying conditions under which peaceful nuclear explosions carried out underground could be of economic benefit to India without environmental hazards.’’ Exactly after one year, on 15 November 1973, she informed the members of the Rajya sabha of the continuing interest of the Atomic Energy Commission in this field and also stated that after satisfactory answers to the problems of the possible effects on environmental and ecological conditions became available, the question of actual underground test for peaceful purposes could be considered.

On 18 May 1974, at 8.05 am, India had detonated its first atomic device at Pokhran in Rajasthan.The Nehru- Bhabha combination

provided India’s nuclear programme a chain of nuclear research and development facilities, some of them matching the most advanced in the West. Now India had acquired capability in the nuclear sphere which also meant scientific, technological and industrial acquisitions right from the stage of uranium mining to developing fuels for various reactor types-designing, building and operating reactors, and atomic power stations.

The nuclear device tested at Pokhran was the cheapest nuclear device built and tested by any nation in the world.

Taking into account its nuclear capability, India’s standing was distinct in two respects.

First, the country ranked among top five nations in technology attainments along the entire nuclear fuel cycle – ahead of China except in the limited domain of weaponising – India had been pushed into the wilderness of nuclear have-nots. secondly, barring the leading industrial nations, no country has assimilated and developed plutonium-based technology, both for India’s second generation atomic power programme and weapon- grade plutonium capability, as India had done. However, the whole issue of explosion was clarified by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. she said that India did not intend to make nuclear weapons of destruction. But nuclear technology and nuclear explosions, whether for peaceful or destructive purposes, cost the same.The main threat comes from China which has not been a friendly neighbour and has opted for development of nuclear weapons of destruction.The problem of nuclear deterrence by India is mainly a problem of developing a weapon system which will be adequate to deter the Chinese weapons system. In this situation India should not close her option of making nuclear weapons for defensive purposes.

‘Nuclear deterrence’ as a theory means the threatened use of nuclear weapons, to keep someone else from actually doing what they may be contemplating doing. The possibility of an adversary possessing such weapons influences the perception of a nuclear weapon threat by a country. The estimation of the probability of war with the country concerned and of the probability of that country using or threatening to use nuclear weapons in such a war, play important roles in the development of threat perception.

It happened for the first time in the history of international relations that the very existence of a weapons system devised to enhance the security of great powers had become sufficiently threatening to those powers to provide them with a persistent and strong incentive to settle their differences, rather than to risk getting into situations where they might be forced to use the means of warfare they themselves had devised.

This was, then, a new kind of international order, imposed not by design or by principle, but by fear.

The writer is Head of the Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the B.N.Mandal University, Madhepura, Bihar, India and can be reached at rajkumarsinghpg@gmail.com

DO you know who I am? Here we go. We enter into the theater ordained deftly with the smudges of cronyism, political mudslinging, corruption, lies, patronage/stature and the trailblazer: “The Protocol/stature Culture”.

Also, Bear in mind that we live in a state deeply rooted in a sea of problems ranging from political/social desolation, economic downturn at the one extreme to the inferiority complex succored by the ‘entitlement culture’ at the other extreme. We live in a state where the people are often bumped off or spirited out in the broad daylight when they refuse to subscribe to or to toe the official line. The ‘entitlement culture’ may rightly be considered as the root of all our problems.

In such a culture, people at the lower rungs of the economic, societal stature ladder are often oppressed at the hands of the people who occupy the higher rungs of the ladder. The problems of the entitled ‘few’ get solved in a matter of seconds whereas the perennial problems of the downtrodden rarely see a light of rectification. The very same culture doesn’t accord due attention to education and is often sidelined in the policy matters. Various trivial problems, generated primarily by the lack of accord to it, often get precedence in the policy matters.

The phenomenon can easily be reflected in the recent government’s policy matters since the onset of Coronavirus pandemic. Education wasn’t given a due importance. Education was often preceded by the discussion/unraveling of policies on economic matters such as the opening of markets, societal matters such as resuming the operations of “Marriage halls” etc. Education was given a lip-service.

It is not beyond the comprehension of occupants of official corridors that online education is no substitute for physical/in person education. The essence of education is greatly scurried by online education. A huge horde of unskilled workforce is in the process of making. Again, it is beyond the comprehension of laymen, that why do the educational institutions get a precedence in matters of closure even when they are better positioned to enforce the sOPs as opposed to the markets or “marriage halls”.

Education provides a basic foundation stone for both the exemplary progress in different fields and the opposite downturn in the very same fields in matters of neglect. A due attention to education is imperative for the higher authorities and the society alike. Without due diligence to education, the economic, technological, social disparity gaps would be further expanding with serious ramifications for the whole of the structural block of the state.

MuhaMMad Tayyab Rawalpindi

Plague in Australia AFTER Fire and Covid-19, Plague has broken out in Australia. It is a big disaster and moment of concern for Australia. Plague is badly affecting the life of people there. Restaurant workers complain that we are not able to store groceries in big amounts because in every container we find a big amount of dead mice.

Local said the morning starter of conversation has been changed from weather conditions to “how many mice did you caught last night”. We still have not found a permanent remedy against Covid-19 and here it is plague.

We know the disaster of ‘great plague’, if it starts spreading outside Australia then the situation would become worse than we think.

SyEda MalEEha KiRan KaRachi

Decrease in GDP GROss Domestic Products are total amount of the goods produced in a country during one year. It is important because it tells us about the economy of a country and its size in a country. GDP can be calculated in three ways, by taking the expenditures of a country, its savings and income. GDP is calculated in every year in order to see whether the economy of a country is expanding or contacting and tells the difference between the economy of a country of different years. so according to the current situation of Pakistan’s GDP, is going to tell about that every individual’s income is below the poverty lines due to which the residents of its are suffering from every bad condition. Thus, I want to say that government needs to over look the issue which clear by GDP. MahEEn baloch TuRbaT

Pollution in Karachi THIs is to draw the attention of the higher authorities to take serious action towards the air pollution problems in Karachi. The air of Karachi is highly polluted due to automobiles, smokes emitted by rickshaws, car, bikes and other vehicles. Burning of garbage, fossil fuel based power plants exhaust from industrial factories and plants and construction activities.

Pakistan’s largest city Karachi is under the grip of multifarious pollutions due to lack of government’s environment friendly policies.

Pollution is rising with each passing day as there is no proper check and balance system. Air Pollution affecting people’s health causes disease like asthma, bronchitis, lung and skin ailments. Air is required to breathe and if air is polluted, then how could a person live a long and healthy life??

The higher authorities should take some serious action towards this matter.

SaMRa abid KaRachi

Unemployment As we know Unemployment imposes a negative impact on individual lives and society as well. Due to no or low origin of income, people face hardships in their lives being unable to create proper living for themselves and their families. Particularly, youngsters (15-25 years old) are struggling to find jobs. Lack of necessary sources such as food, clothes and shelter gives rise to devilish heat. It may also be a reason behind increased robbery and snatching cases. Ascribed to COVID-19 pandemic unemployment rate has been increased to 5.1% this year that has triggered the economic values greatly.

Talbia SyEd KaRachi

clear: what

es.

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

08 WORLD VIEW

ChIna doesn’T respeCT us anymore — for good reason WE’VE STOPPED FOLLOWING OUR FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

new York Times

s

ThoMas l FriedMaN

OMETIMEs a comedian cuts through foreign policy issues better than any diplomat. Bill Maher did that the other week with an epic rant on U.s.-China relations, nailing the most troubling contrast between the two countries: China can still get big things done. America, not so much.

For many of our political leaders, governing has become sports, entertainment or just mindless tribal warfare. No wonder China’s leaders see us as a nation in imperial decline, living off the leftover fumes of American “exceptionalism.” I wish I could say they were all wrong.

“New Rule: You’re not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are a ‘silly people.’ And Americans are a silly people,” said Maher. “That’s the classic phrase from ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ — when Lawrence tells his Bedouin allies that as long as they stay a bunch of squabbling tribes, they will remain ‘a silly people.’ …

“We all know China does bad stuff.

They break promises about Hong Kong autonomy; they put Uyghurs in camps and punish dissent. And we don’t want to be that.

But it’s got to be something between authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can’t do anything at all.”

Maher added: “On a national level, we’ve been having Infrastructure Week every week since 2009, but we never do anything. Half the country is having a neverending ‘woke’ competition. … The other

half believes we have to stop the lizard people, because they’re eating babies. … China sees a problem and they fix it. They build a dam. We debate what to rename it.”

Yes, China has huge problems. Its leaders are not 10 feet tall, but they are focused on real metrics of success. “China’s leaders are fierce but fragile,” argues James McGregor, the chairman of the consultancy APCO Worldwide, Greater China. “Precisely because they were not elected, they wake up every day scared of their own people, and that makes them very focused on performance” — particularly around jobs, housing and clean air.

By contrast, many U.s. politicians these days are elected from safe, gerrymandered districts and seek to stay in power by just “performing” for their base with populist theatrics. Whenever I point this out, critics on the far right or far left ridiculously respond, “Oh, so you love China.” Actually, I am not interested in China. I care about America. My goal is to frighten us out of our complacency by getting more Americans to understand that China can be really evil AND really focused on educating its people and building its infrastructure and adopting best practices in business and science and promoting government bureaucrats on merit — all at the same time. Condemning China for the former will have zero impact if we’re not its equal in all of the latter.

At last week’s Alaska meeting between America’s and China’s top diplomats, Chi-

If killing of six Asian women isn’t hate crime, what is?

L a Times

I

Mary McNaMara

f anyone was still “uneducated” about the insidious and brutal nature of racism in this country, the recent contemptible slaughter of eight people, including six Asian women, in the Atlanta area, along with the early police statements and media coverage of the crime, should clear everything right up.

On Tuesday, eight people were killed and others wounded at three day spas in the Atlanta area. Police apprehended Robert Aaron Long, who officers said later admitted that he was responsible. speaking to the press, Cherokee County sheriff Frank Reynolds, who is white, said that despite the fact that most of the victims were Asian women, the killings did not appear to be hate crimes — that race “did not appear to be the motive.” Instead, Reynolds said, Long “has some issues, potentially sexual addiction”; he may have “frequented these places in the past and may have been lashing out.” “Lashing out.”

According to Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee sheriff’s office, Long saw the spas “as an outlet for him — something he shouldn’t be doing, an issue with porn — and he was attempting to take out that temptation. “Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did,” Baker said.

The “bad day” comment may go down as the official worst public statement ever made by a law enforcement officer, but honestly, the entire early

narrative offered by Cherokee County was horrifying. And not in a “let’s add insult to injury” way.

In a “let’s reveal all the social forces of sexism and racism that make this mass killing possible” way. Including the media’s continued willingness to accept law enforcement’s narrative in early coverage — variations of “killings not racially motivated” headlined stories on every media outlet, including this one.

It would be laughable, if it weren’t so catastrophic. And tragic. And infuriating. And proof of exactly what the problem is.

First of all, police dismissed the idea that a shooting spree that killed six Asian women was a racist hate crime for the simple reason that Long told them it was not.

“During his interview, he gave no indicators that this was racially motivated,” Reynolds said. “We asked him specifically and the answer was no.”

Oh, OK. Because killers are notoriously honest and self-aware, let’s go with that.

Long may or may not have been motivated by the recent rise in antiAsian rhetoric, abuse and violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, which various ignorant bigots have attempted to blame entirely on China and, by xenophobic extension, anyone whose heritage includes any of the 48 countries that make up Asia. But Long was most certainly acting on a broader and more historic variety of racism — the continual objectification and sexualization of Asian women in Western culture.

From “dragon lady” to “china doll,” Asian women have been fetishized and stereotyped in literature, film, television, comedy and everyday conversation. Whether portrayed as docile and subservient, scheming and insatiable or exotic and inscrutable, Asian women have until very recently been almost categorically depicted as “the other.”

After Reynolds and Baker spoke to the press, thousands of Asian women responded on social and mainstream media to the initial “poor little sex addict” narrative with their stories of

nese officials made it quite clear that they no longer fear our criticism, because they don’t respect us as they once did, and they don’t think the rest of the world does, either. Or as Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign affairs policymaker, baldly told his U.s. counterparts: “The United states does not have the qualification … to speak to China from a position of strength.” surprised? What did you think, that the Chinese didn’t notice that our last president inspired his followers to ransack our Capitol, that a majority of his party did not recognize the results of our democratic election, that a member of our Congress believes that Jewish-run space lasers cause forest fires, that left-wing anarchists were allowed to take over a section of downtown Portland, creating havoc for months, that during the pandemic the U.s. printed money to help its consumers keep spending — much of it on Chinesemade goods — while China printed money to invest in even more infrastructure, and that gun violence in America is out control?

You think they didn’t notice?

Which brings me to the 2022 Winter Olympics, scheduled for China.

A rising number of voices are beginning to suggest that we boycott the China Games.

I have sympathy with that call, as we watch China crush the infrastructure of democracy in Hong Kong and use internment camps to brutally suppress Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang with utter indifference to world opinion. How do we just ignore all that and focus on ice skating?

But here’s the thing: The competition that we really need to focus on winning is not the 2022 Olympics but the 2025 Olympics.

Oh, you haven’t heard of the 2025

abuse, harassment and plain old racism.

And, as Caroline Framke pointed out in Variety, Twitter responses to the initial news of the killings were just as revealing: “the overwhelming sameness of the replies was unavoidable, infuriating, and instructive. ‘Not quite the happy ending they were expecting,’ crowed one.”

According to the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, 24 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander women in America report being stalked during their lifetime, and the LA Times need look only at its own award-winning coverage for further proof of the connection between violence and such fetishization. Four years ago, a Times investigation revealed that Dr. George Tyndall, the then-full-time gynecologist at UsC’s student health clinic, had not only abused and sexually harassed hundreds of his patients but had also appeared to target Asian women, including many Chinese students.

Yet this paper’s initial headline about the Atlanta killings — later changed — seemed to give credence to the official account: “suspect in Atlanta-area massage parlor shootings had ‘sexual addiction,’ authorities say.”

Because even after all the soulsearching done during last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, when first covering any crime, the media — not just The Times — tend to follow the narrative offered by law enforcement.

And in this case, law enforcement was following the narrative offered by an admitted killer.

Long may actually believe that he is not a racist. Just like many millions of us believe that America is not racist, despite this being a country where some states are openly attempting to curtail voting rights in ways that disproportionately affect people of color, where for some “mysterious” reason, the Black and Latino population continues to die from COVID-19 at a far higher rate than the rest of the population and where hate crimes against Asian Americans are rising — stop AAPI Hate recently reported that the last year saw nearly 3,800 racist attacks on Asian Americans, most of them women.

What Long believes about himself may be interesting to his psychiatrists, but a monster should not be permitted to frame the coverage of his own monstrosities.

Racism pollutes the mind in many ways and often intersects with other bigotries, especially sexism. Eight peo-

Olympics? They are not on your NBC calendar? Well, they are on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s calendar. Xi unilaterally declared the 2025 Olympics in 2015 and suggested that there would be only two competitors: China and America. It was an initiative that Xi’s government called “Made in China 2025.”

It was a 10-year plan to modernize China’s manufacturing base by massively investing government resources to dominate what Xi defined as the 10 key high-tech industries of the 21st century, and he was implicitly daring America to go head-to-head.

The industries include artificial intelligence; electric cars and other new energy vehicles; 5G telecommunications; robotics; new agricultural technologies; aerospace and maritime engineering; synthetic materials; and biomedicine.

And just a few weeks ago, when China issued its 14th five-year plan, to run through 2025, Xi basically doubled down on his government’s investment in “innovation-driven development.” Message to America: We will try to beat you at your own game so we will never, ever again be dependent on you for high-tech goods.

My message to China is: Be careful. some of your diplomats sound awfully arrogant. As the proverb says: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” America still excels in a lot of areas.

But my message to my fellow Americans is: We now have to return to and double down on what was our formula for success.

And that is: educating our work force up to and beyond whatever technology demands; building the world’s best infrastructure of ports, roads and telecommunications; attracting the world’s most energetic and

high-I.Q. immigrants to enrich our universities and start new businesses; legislating the best regulations to incentivize risk-taking while curbing recklessness; and steadily increasing government-funded research to push out the boundaries of science so our entrepreneurs can turn the most promising new ideas into start-ups.

On this front there is some hope, noted McGregor: “Congress has begun sorting through the hundreds of China bills introduced in the last Congress to forge bipartisan legislation to invest in science and technology, R&D and U.s. leadership in the same technologies that China has declared as the next frontiers.” And President Biden is talking about spending trillions!

Nothing could be more important. Because good ideas — respect for human rights, democracy, an independent judiciary, free markets, protection for minorities — don’t just win in the world because they are good ideas. They diffuse and are embraced because others see them producing justice, power, wealth, opportunity and stability in countries that practice them.

American ideals infused every global institution in the 20th century because we were powerful, and we were powerful because more often than not we implemented our ideals.

But, if we as a country continue to act as we have of late — “dumb as we want to be” — then our power will be diminished and with it the power of our ideals. We will have steadily less influence on China and on the world at large no matter how loudly we chant “U.s.A., U.s.A., U.s.A.” so, let’s make sure we win the Olympics that count.

Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Op-Ed columnist.

After 30 years of war against Iraq, Americans must make reparations

Common Dreams

T

Jared Keyel

HIs March is the 18th anniversary of the United states invasion of Iraq. However, the American war against that country did not begin in 2003. The U.s. has been fighting a war against Iraq since 1991.

Thirty years of conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and injured many times more.

“Reparation funding must be allocated to provide individual Iraqis with monetary compensation for the extreme pain and suffering we have caused them and to (re)build their lives however they see fit.”

Millions of people have been displaced directly

by American bombing and invasion and indirectly by the rise of militia and paramilitary groups that flourished after the U.s. dismantled the Iraqi state.

Extensive bombardment has destroyed thousands of homes, mosques, schools, and hospitals.

The use of weapons such as cluster bombs and depleted uranium has contaminated the landscape with dangerous and toxic unexploded munitions and heavy metals. Bombing, battles, and careless military occupation have damaged and destroyed an unknown number of priceless artifacts and world-historical monuments.

Americans must also remember—or learn for the first time—that their CIA helped the Iraqi Ba’ath Party come to power in the 1960s. This set in motion the events that led to saddam Hussein’s rise to the presidency in 1979.

Despite, or perhaps because of his brutality, the U.s. allied with saddam in his war against Iran in the 1980s. It supported and enabled his use

of internationally banned chemical weapons.

American companies supplied the technologies to build those weapons.

It was only after saddam’s usefulness had been exhausted that George H.W. Bush turned on his former ally and launched the war that continues to this day. six American presidents—George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and now Joe Biden—have continued this conflict. Americans owe a debt to the people of Iraq that can never be repaid in full. However, it is incumbent and imperative that we try.

First and foremost, Biden must end the American war against Iraq without precondition or caveat. This means withdrawing all of the troops, stopping the bombing, and dismantling the structures of permanent occupation. second, we must bring the leaders and participants in this devastating war to account. starting with the bombing of Iraq in 1991 that United Nations investigators called “near apocalyptic,” the U.s. has continued to commit atrocities and war crimes for three decades. We must bring the planners and perpetrators of these crimes to some measure of justice.

Third, the United states must vastly expand its financial support for refugee resettlement.

Those still leaving Iraq because of instability and violence should have the option to resettle in the United states or elsewhere as they so choose, and the U.s. should facilitate those processes.

Fourth, reparation funding must be allocated to provide individual Iraqis with monetary compensation for the extreme pain and suffering we have caused them and to (re)build their lives however they see fit. The U.s. must also dedicate resources for rebuilding infrastructure and environmental remediation. The toxic remains of weapons such as depleted uranium need to be safely cleaned up.

No amount of money can ever fully heal the physical and psychic wounds that the American war against Iraq has caused. But, on the inauspicious 30th anniversary of this conflict, Americans can demonstrate contrition, and work to ameliorate, if only partially, the suffering their government and military have caused by making that government make reparations to the people of Iraq.

Jared Keyel, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a scholar of war and displacement based in Virginia.

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

businEss 09

lahorE China, Sri Lanka sign $1.5bn currency swap deal COLOMBO AGENCIES

Sri Lanka and China have signed a $1.5 billion currency swap deal, the island nation’s central bank has said, as it struggles with a major foreign exchange crisis and debt repayments. Colombo had been negotiating for months to secure credit from China — its largest single source of imports — as the island’s foreign reserves plummet amid the pandemic. Chinese influence in the South Asian nation has been growing in recent years, through loans and projects under its vast Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, raising concerns among regional powers and Western nations. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka said the three-year swap arrangement for 10 billion yuan with the People’s Bank of China was “with a view to promoting bilateral trade and direct investment for economic development of the two countries”. Officials said talks were also under way to secure another $700 million from the China Development Bank. Sri Lanka’s economy was already reeling from the deadly 2019 Easter bombings, with the coronavirus epidemic and lockdowns further weighing on growth. The economy contracted by a record 3.9 percent last year. Foreign reserves fell to $4.5 billion in February from $8.0 billion a year ago, despite Sri Lanka banning the import of luxury goods and vehicles as well as some food commodities. Under former president Mahinda Rajapaksa between 2005 and 2015, Colombo borrowed billions from China, accumulating a mountain of debt for expensive infrastructure projects. Rajapaksa returned to power as prime minister in 2019, after his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected president.

Pakistan’s exports to US increase 11.9pc in 8MFY21 ISLAMABAD APP

Pakistan’s exports of goods and services to the United State (US) witnessed a surge of 11.86 per cent during the first eight months of the fiscal year 2020-21 (FY21) as compared to the corresponding period last year. According to details, overall exports to the US were recorded at $3,082.2 million during the (July-February) period against exports of $2,755.2 million during the corresponding period in FY20, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) data revealed on Thursday. Meanwhile, on a year-to-year (YoY) basis, exports during February 2021 also increased by 27.68pc, from $314.8 million against the exports of $401.949 million. However, on a month-on-month (MoM) basis, exports rose by 0.5pc during February 2021 in comparison with exports of $399.9 million in January 2021, SBP data said. Overall, the country's exports to other countries witnessed a decline of 2.26pc in 8MFY21, from $16.438 billion to $16.065 billion. On the other hand, imports from the US during the period under review were recorded as $1,467.5 million against $1,470.7 million last year, showing a nominal decrease of 0.24pc in 7MFY21. The overall imports into the country increased by 8.59pc, from $29.6 billion to $32.1 billion. Earlier, Pakistan’s exports to the United States surpassed the $400-million mark during the months of October and November 2020. The US also remained the top export destinations of the Pakistani products during the first four months (July-Oct) of FY21, followed by United Kingdom (UK) and Germany.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s exports to regional countries declined 22 per cent in the first eight months of the current fiscal year due to the impact of Covid-19. Exports to Afghanistan, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Iran, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives fell to $1.171 billion in 8MFY21, from $1.504bn the previous year, according to the latest data compiled by the State Bank of Pakistan. On the other hand, the country’s trade deficit with the region narrowed slightly during the period under review as imports from these countries also dipped. Pakistan’s exports to Afghanistan fell 13.6pc to $629.324m in 8MFY21 from $728.315m in 8MFY20. A few years ago, Afghanistan was the second major export destination after the United States.

PakiStan LOSeS SPOt aS tOP trade Partner OF aFghaniStan PESHAWAR

P

AZIZ BUNERI

AKISTAN is no longer the leading country in terms of trade with Afghanistan as bilateral trade has declined drastically over the last several years because of restrictions and hurdles on border crossing points on both sides.

According to details, the volume of Afghan trade through Pakistan has declined by more than 50 per cent from $2.5 billion to $1bn.

Currently, Iran has replaced Pakistan while India has got secured third place as Afghanistan's biggest trade partner.

In this regard, Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber (PAJC) former senior vice president, Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi, said that the Torkham border crossing was opened 24 hours a day from

2019 to promote Pak-Afghanistan bilateral trade but despite this, no significant progress has been made in bilateral trade.

Sarhadi said in the last 10 years, 832,000 containers of Afghan transit

trade worth $33 billion passed through Pakistan, meaning a 30pc reduction in transit trade as it shifted to Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

For years, Afghan traders are demanding that the process of clearing the

Foreign inflows in securities show recovery Foreign investments in government debt securities such as T-bills and Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIBs) are gradually increasing amid a surge in the rate of profit on securities, return of stability in rupee-dollar parity and hopes of Islamabad resuming the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) loan programme soon.

According to a local media report on Thursday, although the volume of net foreign investment in the securities stood nominal at $17 million in the first 20 days of the ongoing month of March, the number suggests gradually return of foreign investment into Pakistan’s debt market.

Similarly, the net divestment has reduced to $83 million in the past nine months 9MFY21 as compared to net divestment worth $162 million in 7MFY21.

The net divestment stood at $266 million in 5MFY21, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

Government securities had witnessed an aggressive investment of over $3.5 billion from July 2019 following the IMF bailout package worth $6 billion, until February 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic reached Pakistan, delivering a hit to the value of the rupee against the dollar.

During the March to June period, there was an aggressive outflow of over $3 billion.

It may be noted here that the rate of profit on three-year PIBs has increased to 9.31 per cent on March 22 compared to 7.53pc at the end of June 2020

in the secondary market. Similarly, the rate of profit on five-year PIB surged to 9.84pc compared to 8.11pc at end of June 2020.

Similarly, the rate of return on three to 12-month T-bills and other longer tenure PIBs have surged sharply in recent months whereas the profit rates have also surged on the securities in the secondary market despite the real interest rate remaining negative as the central bank wanted to support economic growth during the ongoing pandemic. MONITORING REPORT

APP

The palm oil imports into the country increased by 34.03 per cent during the first eight months of the current fiscal year (8MFY21) against the imports of the same period last year.

According to details, palm oil imports during the July-February period were recorded at $1,585.4 million against imports of $1,182.9 million during July-February of FY20, according to the latest data of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

Ordinance protecting sugarcane growers expires The extended Punjab Sugar Factories (Control) (Amended) Ordinance 2020, promulgated by the Punjab government on September 24, 2020, to protect the rights of sugarcane growers, lapsed on Tuesday as it could not be converted into a law by the Punjab government. Local media reports state the ordinance amended the previous law to penalise millers for delaying payment to growers for more than 15 days after the purchase of crop or illegally deducting their dues, with violators to serve three years in jail and pay a fine up to Rs5 million. Further, sugar mills were required to issue a formal receipt at the time of receiving a crop and transfer dues to the farmer’s account. Similarly, issuing informal receipts to farmers on receiving their crop was made a crime and sugar mill agents were ordered to issue formal receipts. The ordinance, which was re-promulgated after three months, cannot be promulgated for a third term without approval of the relevant assembly as per the Constitution. Under the previous law, FIR could not be registered against the sugar mills for various offences and permission of the concerned Magistrate was required to institute criminal proceedings. MONITORING REPORT

Yarn exports pause as dollar falls

Palm oil import increases 34pc in 8MFY21 ISLAMABAD

Karachi port should be expedited. "The volume of trade annual shipments from Karachi to Afghanistan can be increased to 75,000 containers while the volume of bilateral trade can rise to Rs5 billion if their request is accepted," Sarhadi said.

It should be noted that the PakAfghan Transit Trade Agreement, 2010 expired on February 11.

It may also be noted that Afghanistan wishes to access India via the Wagah border while Pakistan's principled position in this regard is that the trade corridor agreement between Islamabad and Kabul is not tripartite but bilateral due to which Pakistan cannot facilitate bilateral trade to Afghanistan via Wagah in view of often tense and strained relations with New Delhi.

On the other hand, Pakistan wants free trade with the Central Asian Republics (CARs) through Afghanistan but no agreement has been reached so far.

Meanwhile, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, palm oil imports increased by 19.9pc at $217.550 million in February 2021 as compared to imports worth $181.465 million in February 2020.

On a month-on-month (MoM) basis, palm oil imports decreased by 15.01pc in February 2021 when compared to imports of $255.967 million in January 2021.

It is pertinent to mention here that the overall merchandise exports from the country increased by 4.29pc during the first eight months of the current fiscal year (2020-21) as compared to the corresponding period of last year.

The export of yarn has come to a halt due to drastically falling profits in the wake of a depreciating dollar, resulting in higher availability of the raw material at cheaper rates in the domestic market. Yarn exporters who sold their products at the rate of Rs160-161 now face a decline in their profits. The dollar is around Rs157 in the inter-bank market, with daily fluctuations in the exchange rate. The dollar lost 7.5pc in value since August against the Pak rupee. It may be mentioned here that the value-added textile sector had been demanding the government to allow the import of yarn as locally produced yarn is more expensive, which spinners opined were costlier due to costly cotton imports. MONITORING REPORT

Tesla can now be bought for bitcoin: Elon Musk NEW YORK AGENCIES

Tesla Inc customers can now buy its electric vehicles with bitcoin, its boss, Elon Musk, said on Wednesday, marking a significant step forward for the cryptocurrency’s use in commerce.

“You can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin,” Musk said on Twitter, adding that the option would be available outside the United States later this year.

The electric-car maker said last month it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment for cars, in a large stride towards mainstream acceptance that sent bitcoin soaring to a record high of nearly $62,000.

Bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital currency, rose more than four per cent after

Musk’s tweet and was last trading at $56,429.

Musk said bitcoin paid to Tesla would

CMYK

not be converted into traditional currency, but he gave few other details on how the bitcoin payments would be processed. The company was using “internal & open source software”, he said.

Most mainstream companies, such as AT&T Inc and Microsoft Corp, that allow customers to pay with bitcoin typically use specialist payment processors that convert the cryptocurrency into, say, dollars and send the sum to the company.

Like other cryptocurrencies, bitcoin is still little used for commerce in major economies, hampered by its volatility and relatively costly and slow processing times.

Musk, who regularly posts comments on Twitter about cryptocurrencies, last month criticised conventional cash, saying when it “has negative real interest, only a fool wouldn’t look elsewhere”.

He had said that the difference with cash made bitcoin “adventurous enough” for the S&P 500 company to hold the cryptocurrency.

Following Tesla’s investment in bitcoin, companies including Mastercard Inc and Bank of New York Mellon Corp have embraced the emerging asset, sparking predictions that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would become a regular part of investment portfolios.

Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the ride-hailing company discussed and “quickly dismissed” the idea of investing in bitcoin. However, he said Uber could potentially accept the cryptocurrency as payment.

General Motors Co said it would evaluate whether bitcoin could be accepted as payment for its vehicles.

Tesla recently added “Technoking of Tesla” to Musk’s list of official titles.

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

10 FOREIGN NEWS

LAHORE

'No NoISES, oNly BIrDS': SIlENt StrIkE SHUtS MyANMAr AS prISoNErS frEED YANGON

M

AGENCIES

yANMAR’S junta freed hundreds of demonstrators on Wednesday arrested during its months-long crackdown on protests, while businesses in yangon were shut and streets deserted in response to a call by anti-coup activists for a silent strike.

Several buses full of prisoners drove out of yangon’s Insein jail in the morning, said witnesses, who included lawyers for some inmates. There was no immediate word from authorities on how many prisoners were freed. A spokesman for the military did not answer calls.

“All the released are the ones arrested due to the protests, as well as night arrests or those who were out to buy something,” said a member of a legal advisory group who said he saw around 15 buses leaving.

In the biggest city yangon, a call by pro-democracy activists for a silent strike turned the streets eerily quiet.

“No going out, no shops, no working.

All shut down. Just for one day,” Nobel Aung, an illustrator and activist, told Reuters.

“The usual meat and vegetables vendors on the street didn’t show up,” said a resident of the city’s Mayangone district.

“No car noises, only birds.”

A teacher in the Kyauktada district

said the roads were deserted: “There aren’t many people in the streets, only water delivery men.” Activists have called for a “big protest” on Thursday. “The strongest storm comes after the silence,” Ei Thinzar Maung, one of the protest leaders, said in a post on Facebook.

AP JOURNALIST FREED: The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) activist group says at least 2,000 people have been arrested in the military crackdown on the protests against the February 1 coup.

Among those freed on Wednesday, was Thein Zaw, a journalist for The Associated Press who was arrested last month, AP reported, quoting him as saying the judge had dropped the charges because he was doing his job at the time of

his arrest.

Wednesday’s strike came a day after staff at a funeral service in Mandalay told Reuters that a seven-year-old girl had died of bullet wounds in the city - the youngest of about 275 people killed in the bloody crackdown, according to the AAPP. Soldiers shot at her father but hit the girl who was sitting on his lap inside their home, her sister told the Myanmar Now media outlet. Two men were also killed in the district, it said.

The military had no immediate comment on the incident.

The Myanmar office of the United Nations children’s agency said “the continuing use of force against children, including the use of live ammunition, by security forces is taking a devastating toll

on children in Myanmar.”

Since the crisis started at least 23 children have been killed and at least 11 others seriously injured, UNICEF said.

The junta has faced international condemnation for staging the coup that halted Myanmar’s slow transition to democracy and for its lethal suppression of the protests that followed.

It has tried to justify the takeover by saying a November 8 election won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) was fraudulent - an accusation the electoral commission has rejected. Military leaders have promised a new election but have not set a date and have declared a state of emergency.

Opponents of military rule have regularly called for strikes and parts of the economy have been paralysed by a civil disobedience campaign, including among civil servants.

Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her campaign to bring democratic civilian rule to Myanmar, has been in detention since the coup and faces charges that her lawyer says have been cooked up to discredit her.

The ousted leader was due to appear for another court hearing via video conferencing on Wednesday, but the head of her legal team Khin Maung Zaw said it had been postponed until April 1, marking the second successive delay due to internet issues.

Thousands of Thai protesters demand monarchy reform, release of jailed leaders BANGKOK AGENCIES

Thousands of protesters gathered in the Thai capital Bangkok on Wednesday to demand reform of the monarchy and the release of jailed leaders, days after one of the most violent demonstrations since they began last year.

Thailand’s youth protest movement emerged last year and has posed the biggest challenge to the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chanocha, a former army chief who seized power in 2014 from an elected government.

More than 30 civilians and police were injured in a clash at a protest near the palace on Saturday, after police used water cannon, teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the rally.

The protesters have also demanded curbs to the power of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and the abolition of a strict lese majeste law that mandates up to 15 years in prison for insulting the monarchy.

Protesters on Wednesday peace-

fully occupied one of Bangkok’s busiest street intersections and cheered as some leaders demanded monarchy reforms and called for their “friends” to be freed from jail.

“This is a long and tiring fight.

We must fight together along this path to democracy,” Attapon Buapat, who was indicted for lese majeste earlier this month but later released on bail, told the crowd.

“Change has begun. They could only slow it down but never stop it.”

Criminal cases have been mounting against protest leaders.

The most prominent ones have already been jailed pending trial for insulting the royalty.

More activists, including Attapon again, could be indicted on Thursday when they were due to meet with prosecutors over their roles in the protests.

The Royal Palace has not commented directly on the protests.

The government has said criticism of the king is unlawful and inappropriate.

UAE finance minister and Dubai deputy ruler Sheikh Hamdan dies at 75 DUBAI AGENCIES

Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai’s deputy ruler and the United Arab Emirates’ longserving finance minister, has died, Dubai’s ruler said on Wednesday. Sheikh Hamdan, 75, was the brother of the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. He had been unwell for some months and had surgery abroad in October. Dubai’s ruler bid farewell to “my brother, my support, my lifelong friend”. The UAE’s de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nayhan, tweeted: “Today we lost one of the UAE’s faithful men after a life rich with giving and true patriotic work.” Funeral prayers will be restricted to family members due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Dubai Media Office said. Dubai has announced 10 days of mourning with flags to be flown at half-mast and a closure of government institutions in the emirate for three days as of Thursday. In 2008, Dubai’s ruler established the line of succession in the emirate by naming his son Hamdan, 38, as the crown prince. His other son Maktoum is also a deputy ruler of Dubai. Sheikh Hamdan had been the UAE’s finance minister since 1971. The UAE also has a minister of state for financial affairs, Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, who has held the post since 2008. The emirate, part of the UAE federation, is the Middle East’s business, trade and tourism hub.

British police arrest man after suspicious package at queen's Edinburgh residence LONDON AGENCIES

British police said on Wednesday they had arrested a man after a bomb disposal team made a suspicious item safe on the grounds of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the queen’s official Scottish residence in Edinburgh. Police Scotland said they were alerted to a report of a suspicious item on Tuesday evening at the palace as in the centre of the Scottish capital. “Following examination by Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), it was made safe,” police said in a statement. “A 39-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the incident.” The statement said there was no threat to the public and investigation were ongoing.

India detects 'double mutant' coronavirus variant in western state NEW DELHI AGENCIES

India has detected a “double mutant variant” of the novel coronavirus in 206 samples in the worst-hit western state of Maharashtra, a senior government official said on Wednesday. The new variant was also detected in nine samples in the capital New Delhi, the director of the National Centre for Disease Control, Sujeet Kumar Singh, told a news conference.

Women in 40s, 50s who survive Covid more likely to suffer persistent problems: UK studies LONDON AGENCIES

Women in their 40s and 50s appear more at risk of long-term problems following discharge from hospital after Covid-19, with many suffering months of persistent symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness and brain fog, two UK studies found on Wednesday.

One study found that five months after leaving hospital, Covid-19 patients who were also middle-aged, white, female, and had other health problems such as diabetes, lung or heart disease, tended to be more likely to report long-Covid symptoms.

“Our study finds that those who have the most severe prolonged symptoms tend to be white women aged approximately 40 to 60 who have at least two long term health conditions,” said Chris Brightling, a professor of respiratory medicine at Leicester University who co-led the study known as PHOSP-COVID.

A second study led by the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infections Consortium (ISARIC) found that women under 50 had higher odds of worse long-term health outcomes than men and than older study participants, even if they had no underlying health conditions.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that Covid-19 has profound consequences for those who survive the disease,” said Tom Drake, a clinical research fellow at Edinburgh University who co-led the ISARIC study.

“We found that younger women were most likely to have worse long-term outcomes.”

The ISARIC study, which covered 327 patients, found that women under 50 were twice as likely to report fatigue, seven times more likely to have breathlessness, and also more likely to have problems relating to memory, mobility and communication.

The PHOSP study analysed 1,077 male and female patients who were discharged

from hospitals in Britain between March and November 2020 after having Covid-19.

A majority of patients reported multiple persistent symptoms after 5 months, with common symptoms being muscle and joint pain, fatigue, weakness, breathlessness and brain fog.

More than a quarter had what doctors said were “clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and depression” at five months, and 12 per cent had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Louise Wain, a professor and respiratory specialist at Leicester University who co-led PHOSP, said differences in male and female immune responses “may explain why postCovid syndrome seems to be more prevalent” in women.

“We...know that autoimmunity, where the body has an immune response to its own healthy cells and organs, is more common in middle-aged women,” she said, but “further investigation is needed to fully understand” the processes involved.

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

LAHORE

NISSaNKa STarS aS SrI LaNKa buILD LEaD OvEr WINDIES TO 257 Sri Lanka 169 (ThiriManne 70; hOLDer 5-27) anD 359-5 (FernanDO 91, ThiriManne 76, niSSanka 74 nOT OuT) VS WeST inDieS 271 (COrnWaLL 61; LakMaL 5-47)

SPORTS 11 Kohli rises to fourth spot in T20I rankings for batsmen DUBAI AGENCIES

Virat Kohli has moved up to fourth place in the latest T20I rankings for batsmen following his unbeaten 80 in the final T20I against England in Ahmedabad, which helped India clinch the fivematch series 3-2. Kohli went past KL Rahul, and now has 762 rating points. Rahul, who had a horror run with the bat with scores of 1, 0, 0 and 14 in the series, has slipped to No. 5.

Despite England losing the series, Dawid Malan, who scored a 46-ball 68 in the last game, continued to top the table with 892 rating points.

Aaron Finch (No. 2, 830 points) and Babar Azam (No. 3, 801 points) are the others in the top five. In the ODI rankings, Jonny Bairstow climbed four places after his blazing 66-ball 94 in the first ODI against India in Pune. He is now in the seventh spot with 775 rating points. Kohli continued to occupy the No. 1 spot among ODI batsmen, with Azam and Rohit Sharma battling for the second position. With 837 rating points, Azam is No. 2, and Sharma, with one point fewer, is at No. 3. Among bowlers, Adil Rashid gained one spot to be at No. 4 in T20Is, where South Africa's Tabraiz Shamsi is at the pole position, with a lead of 14 points over No. 2 Rashid Khan. New Zealand seamer Matt Henry is now ranked eighth among ODI bowlers, having gained three places since the last update, while Trent Boult continued to head the list.

India’s Shreyas Iyer ruled out of England ODIs NEW DELHI ANTIGUA

P

AGENCIES

ATHUM Nissanka was heading towards a hundred on debut as Sri Lanka reached 359 for five in their second innings, a lead of 257 runs, at lunch in the first Test against the West Indies at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua on Wednesday.

Nissanka, who lost overnight partner

Dhananjaya de Silva in the first over of the morning, was 74 not out at the interval having put on 100 for the sixth-wicket with Niroshan Dickwella (38 not out).

West Indian delight at the early success when fast bowler Alzarri Joseph, operating with the second new ball, dismissed de Silva for an even 50 proved to be shortlived as the 22-year-old newcomer found another solid partner in the pugnacious Dickwella.

Captain Kraigg Brathwaite even brought himself on for a spell of part-time off-spin in an increasingly desperate attempt to separate the pairing, but to no avail. There was no luck either for allrounder Kyle Mayers, who broke a 162run second-wicket stand between Oshada Fernando and Lahiru Thirimanne late on day three and promptly added the wicket of Dinesh Chandimal.

Nissanka, whose partnership with de

Silva for the fifth wicket was worth 70 runs, has so far faced 161 deliveries and stroked five fours in a composed innings.

West Indies struggled to recapture the bowling discipline and consistency of the first innings as the runs flowed with increasing freedom for the Sri Lankan pair to the extent that 104 runs came off 25 overs, a stark contrast to the generally pedestrian rate of scoring in the first three days of the match.

Miami Open: Venus loses in first round to Diyas as main draw action begins MIAMI AGENCIES

Venus Williams crashed out of the Miami Open on Tuesday, losing her first round game in straight sets to Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan.

Diyas advanced to a second round meeting with Swiss 11th seed Belinda Bencic after completing a 6-2, 7-6 (12/10) victory in 1hr 28min on the Hard Rock Stadium’s Grandstand court.

The round of 128 defeat is the 40-year-old Williams’

earliest exit in Miami since she made her debut in the tournament in 1997. After Diyas raced through the first set, Williams fought back in the second, breaking her Kazakh opponent’s serve in the 12th game to force a tie break.

Williams saved three match points to extend the tie break but handed Diyas a fourth match point with a double fault which she converted to complete victory.

“I’m very happy with the win, especially against such a legend as Venus – I looked up to her when I was little,” the 27-year-old from Almaty said.

Diyas set up the victory behind an accurate service

game, winning 61 per cent of her first serve points, and varying play cleverly to pull Williams around the court.

Tuesday marked the start of main draw action at this year’s tournament, which is being held after the Covid-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 event. A slew of top names have withdrawn from Miami in the build-up, with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic all pulling out of the men’s draw. Britain’s Andy Murray became the latest star to withdraw earlier Tuesday after suffering a groin injury. Serena Williams meanwhile pulled out of the women’s tournament on Sunday.

AGENCIES

Shreyas Iyer has been ruled out of the remaining two England ODIs after hurting his left shoulder in the field during the series opener on Tuesday night in Pune. On Tuesday, Iyer was taken for scans immediately after he walked off the field during the eighth over of England's chase. In a flash medical update at the time, the BCCI said Iyer had "subluxated" (partially dislocated) his left shoulder. Although the BCCI is yet to announce Iyer's exit from the England series, it is understood that the injury will take several weeks to heal, putting in doubt Iyer's return for the IPL. It is understood that Iyer is likely to undergo surgery on the left shoulder which he has injured thrice since the 2020 IPL. In case Iyer does undergo surgery, his recovery period could stretch to a few months. Iyer's absence is unlikely to hurt India's gameplans for the remaining two matches in the ODI series considering there is more than one option on bench in Suryakumar Yadav and Shubman Gill.

This is the second time in the last six months that Iyer has suffered a shoulder injury, having picked one during the white-ball segment of the Australia tour. Before joining the India squad for the limited-overs series against England, Iyer had played in just four of the eight 50-overs matches in the Vijay Hazare Trophy for Mumbai, in which he scored two centuries. The timing of his injury will also concern Lancashire, who had signed Iyer for the Royal London Cup (50-overs tournament) in the summer. Iyer was meant to join Lancashire from July 15.

Tokyo Olympic torch relay stirs mixed emotions ahead of its Fukushima start FUKUSHIMA AGENCIES

When Shusaku Sagi was 19, he watched his soccer training centre at J-Village in Fukushima morph into a base for workers decommissioning the nuclear power plant nearby after the 2011 earthquake crippled it and caused thousands to flee.

On Thursday (today), the sports complex will house the starting ceremony for the Olympic torch relay, kicking off a countdown to the Games in Tokyo - the first ever organised during a deadly pandemic.

“Big sports events like the Olympics can energize people and send a message to the world to not forget Fukushima,” said Sagi, now 29, who organises youth soccer tournaments at J-Village.

Members of the Japanese national women’s soccer team will use the Olympic flame, flown in from Greece, to light the torch. But the ceremony - originally planned

for thousands of fans as a celebration of Japan’s recovery - will be closed to the public. The first section of the relay will not have spectators, and as some 10,000 runners take the torch across Japan’s 47 prefectures, including far-flung islands, onlookers must wear masks and socially distance.

The four-month event has been hit by several high-profile runner cancellations as celebrities have pulled out, citing late notice and worries about drawing crowds during the pandemic.

Hiromi Kawamura, who oversees the relay, said organisers have had “some crazy days” juggling fast-changing information, a shifting pandemic situation and negotiations with national and local governments.

“We’re asking people not to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. If it gets really crowded... if we feel the situation is dangerous, we’ll suspend the relay. Then we’ll start it again after we’ve made the area safe,” Kawamura said.

Japan has fared better than most coun-

tries, with fewer than 9,000 coronavirus deaths. But a third wave of infections has pushed the numbers to record highs, triggering a state of emergency in Tokyo and other areas that was lifted this week. The majority of the public are against the Olympics being held as scheduled, polls show.

‘LEFT OUT’: After the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, the government enforced a 20kilometre (12.4 miles) no-go zone around the plant and turned the J-Village into a staging centre for thousands of nuclear cleanup workers to don protective gear.

“Seeing my childhood playground turn into a base for decommissioning work - even though it played an important function made me sad because I thought it would never be able to come back to what it used to be,” said J-Village’s Sagi.

The Fukushima native trained there from age 8 until he graduated from high school.

Over time, the nuclear workers left. The rebuilding of J-Village began in 2014; two

CMYK

years later, Sagi, who now organises youth soccer tournaments at the complex, was tasked with measuring radiation levels.

The start of the relay at the venue is meant to highlight the “Reconstruction Olympics” theme - lauding Japan’s nearly $300 billion effort to revive the region. But some residents do not share Sagi’s enthusiasm and chafe at the government’s efforts to showcase Fukushima. Vast areas around the plant remain off-limits, worries about radiation linger and many who left have settled elsewhere. Decommissioning will take up to a century and cost billions of dollars.

Takayuki Yanai, who works at a fisheries cooperative in Iwaki, 50km south of the plant, said the concept of “Reconstruction Olympics” was not widely shared by the locals. “Coastal fishing catch off Fukushima is still about 20 per cent of what it used to be,” Yanai said. “I’m afraid we are sort of left out of the reconstruction.”

‘OUR RESPONSIBILITY’: Still, mem-

bers of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee remained confident that the event would be a success despite news on Wednesday that another torch bearer was dropping out.

Homare Sawa, who led Japan’s women’s football team to victory at the FIFA World Cup four months after the 2011 earthquake, withdrew from the torch relay, citing health reasons. Figure skater and Olympic medallist Shoma Uno, as well as two high-profile actresses, also pulled out on Wednesday.

But Tokyo 2020 said that organisers were well prepared to host the relay.

“I’m certain we can hold an Olympics that will be safe and secure for both the participants and the public,” Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto said at a news conference on Wednesday. Norio Sasaki, who coached the women’s football team that won in 2011, shared Muto’s sentiment.

“If anything, it is our responsibility as the host nation to showcase the power of sport now,” he said at the news conference.

Thursday, 25 March, 2021

prayEr tImINGS

NEWS

FAJR SUNRISE

ZUHR

ASR MAGHRIB ISHA

5:36

12:14

3:07

7:01

5:27

6:52

Pakistan lauDs reaCtivation of afghan PeaCe ProCess, but warns against sPoilers UNITED NATIONS app

P

AKISTAN has welcomed the recent efforts to re-energise the process aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, but warned against spoilers’ attempts to subvert the peace negotiations and prevent a political settlement in the strife-torn country.

In a statement submitted to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Ambassador Munir Akram called on all sides to work towards the reduction of violence leading to a ceasefire, a natural expectation from the peace process.

The Pakistani envoy’s statement followed a briefing, via video-link from Kabul, by Special Representative for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons, about the situation in that country during which she sounded the alarm about soaring rates of violence that continue to hamper humanitarian efforts and erode public confidence more broadly.

“Continuation of violence will strengthen the hands of ‘spoilers’, both within and outside Afghanistan, to subvert the peace negotiations and prevent a com-

prehensive political settlement in Afghanistan,” Ambassador Akram said in his remarks.

“We must guard against those who desire to frustrate a peaceful settlement on the pretext of safeguarding democracy and human rights and to continue to use Afghan territory against its neighbours.”

“Terrorism has had a devastating impact on Afghanistan and its neighbouring

countries,” the Pakistan envoy said.

Pakistan, he said, shares the international community’s determination not to allow Afghan soil to be used by Al-Qaeda, ISIL/Da’esh or other groups to threaten or attack any country.

“Some who have waxed eloquent about terrorism today are the very ones who wish to continue to foment terrorism from Afghanistan’s ungoverned spaces to

conduct their war of terrorism against my country,” Ambassador Akram said, likely with India in mind.

He regretted that the Security Council has been prevented from considering the evidence of their sponsorship of terrorism.

He hoped that despite multiple challenges, and possible periodic setbacks, all Afghan parties will persevere in the pursuit of a political settlement.

Efforts must be made to ensure that such efforts complement, not subvert, the peace process, the Pakistani envoy said, adding that “bringing in ‘spoilers’ to the table will retard the prospects of an early settlement.

Pakistan, he said, facilitated the commencement and the conclusion of last year’s US-Taliban Peace Agreement and the subsequent Intra-Afghan Negotiations.

In this regard, Ambassador Akram said that Pakistan will support the consensus between Afghan leaders and the Taliban on any inclusive political settlement in Afghanistan.

“It is the Afghans who must be the masters of their destiny and decide their own future, without outside influence or interference,” he added.

asad orders allocation of additional PsDP funds for fast-moving projects Minister for Planning and Development, Asad Umar, has directed the Planning Commission to allocate additional funds out of the Public Sector Development Programme (PDSP) to facilitate the early completion of fast moving projects. Chairing a meeting to review the PDSP for the current fiscal year, the minister called for re-appropriations to and from different projects for this purpose. “For this purpose, the Planning Division should encourage and facilitate re-appropriations to and from different projects,” he said. The minister also ordered provincial governments to expedite the finalisation of healthcare upgradation schemes so that available financial resources under the Covid-19 relief programme could be transferred to them. NEWS DESK

Coronavirus in

Pakistan

CONFIRMED CASES:

637,042

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani jets perform aerobatic manoeuvres during a rehearsal for the Pakistan Day parade in the federal capital. oNLINE

uk general lauds Pak army’s role in afghan peace process RAWALPINDI Staff rEport

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Commander Strategic Command United Kingdom General Sir Patrick Nicholas Yardley Monrad Sanders discussed matters pertaining to regional security, especially the Afghan peace process, said the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) on Wednesday. According to the military’s media wing, General Sanders called on General Bajwa at the General Headquarters (GHQ). “During the meeting, matters of professional & mutual interest and regional security issues were discussed,” read a statement issued by the ISPR. The visiting dignitary acknowledged and appreciated Pakistan Army’s sincere efforts in fight against terrorism and efforts for bringing peace and stability in the region, especially the Afghan peace process, the statement added. “The Pakistan Army greatly values its friendly relations with the United Kingdom,” stated the COAS while wholeheartedly thanking the foreign dignitary. Earlier on March 9, COAS General Bajwa had discussed the Afghan peace process, security and defence cooperation and the evolving global geo-strategic environment of the region with United Kingdom’s Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) General Sir Nicholas Patrick Carter.

According to the ISPR, General Carter called on General Bajwa at the GHQ to discuss matters of mutual interest. The visiting dignitary acknowledged Pakistan’s continuous efforts for peace and stability in the region and pledged to further enhance bilateral relations between both countries, the ISPR added. On Sunday, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated Washington’s “commitment to maintaining a strong bilateral defence relationship with Pakistan”. The Pentagon chief renewed the commitment in a phone call with General Bajwa. “Secretary Austin reinforced the United States’ commitment to maintaining a strong bilateral defence relationship with Pakistan and expressed gratitude for Islamabad’s continued support for the Afghan peace process,” said a press statement issued. In the phone call, the US defence chief noted that he looks forward to “further cooperation” between the two countries in areas of common interest. The phone call came just weeks before Washington is due to withdraw the last of its troops under a deal struck with the Afghan Taliban and Austin’s unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Sunday.

LAST UPDATED AT 8:08 AM ON MARCH 24, 2021

DAY'S DEATH TOLL:

NEW CASES:

30

3,301

RECOVERED:

DEATHS:

586,228 13,965 SINDH:

PUNJAB:

263,664

202,743

KP:

BALOCHISTAN:

AJK/GB:

ISLAMABAD:

81,204

11,946/4,975

19,374

53,136

Islamic party becomes surprise kingmaker after Israel election Israel's election brought a surprise when a conservative Islamic party crossed the threshold to enter parliament and its leader emerged on Wednesday as a possible kingmaker.

Mansour Abbas and his Raam party -- unlike other Arab political groups before it -- have not ruled out joining an Israeli government.

"We are prepared to engage" with either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's camp or his rivals, Abbas told Israeli radio while stressing that "I'm not in anyone's pocket".

On Wednesday the party was on track to win five seats in Israel's 120member Knesset, with roughly 90 per cent of the vote counted.

Israel's latest inconclusive election

left no clear path for Netanyahu or his rivals to form a government, setting the stage for protracted coalition talks.

When Israel last voted a year ago, Raam had been part of the mainly Arab Joint List. But that alliance fractured earlier this year amid ideological divisions between Abbas and his former partners.

The conservative Abbas long had frictions with other Arab Israeli factions, including those with communist roots.

Weeks before Tuesday's vote, Abbas indicated an openness to dealing with Netanyahu, even though the premier has demonised Arab-Israelis at various points through his political career.

But Abbas argued that Arab leaders have a responsibility to partner with whoever is in power in order to tackle

a crime epidemic rocking Arab communities.

NO RED LINES: Analysis by state broadcaster Kan vote showed that the combined strength of the declared proNetanyahu parties was 52 seats while those seeking to end his long reign commanded 56.

For Netanyahu, that means securing a 61-seat majority could require an alliance with his estranged former protege, the religious nationalist Naftali Bennett, who is projected to control seven seats, as well as with Abbas.

Such alliance would however be plagued by bitter divisions.

The pro-Netanyahu bloc following Tuesday's vote also includes the far-right extremist Religious Zionism bloc whose

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members have spouted incendiary antiArab rhetoric.

The prospects for Raam and Religious Zionism to sit a stable coalition under Netanyahu appear dim.

For the ideologically divided antiNetanyahu camp, bringing Abbas on board could also prove complicated.

That bloc includes the staunchly secular centrist Yesh Atid party, led by Yair Lapid, religious right-wingers who defected from Netanyahu's Likud, as well as Abbas's rivals in the Joint List.

Amal Jamal, an analyst at Tel Aviv University, said Abbas "has no red lines" and could align with whichever camp best caters to his interests. "He will flirt with all parties to try and achieve what he wants," Jamal said. aGENCIES