Author: newsdesk

  • Tobacco companies in Pakistan may bump cigarette prices

    Tobacco companies in Pakistan may bump cigarette prices

    Farmers have asked the government and firms to increase the price of future tobacco products in accordance with the current price hikes in pesticides, fertilisers, and other crop preparation and selling charges.

    On May 9, the demand was made at a meeting of Ittehad-e-Kashtkaran in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The participants agreed that the government should reduce agricultural inputs because pesticide, fertiliser, and other costs have risen dramatically.

    Attendees suggested that the price of tobacco be set at Rs350 per kilogramme so that growers may meet the current price increases in pesticides, fertilisers, and other expenses spent during crop preparation and marketing.

    The newly elected officials also encouraged the government to create favourable local marketplaces for agricultural products to aid hardworking farmers. They demanded that the government and tobacco businesses pay the farmers’ outstanding debts immediately.

    Read more: Open market: Lemon being sold at Rs1,100 per kg in Lahore

    Growers also asked the government to develop a policy to prevent tobacco-related industries from moving from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Azad Kashmir and other provinces.

    It should be noted that tobacco is grown in Pakistan, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounting for 80 per cent of total production.

    Tobacco products also give Rs135 billion to the federal budget, while the tobacco development tax contributes Rs980 million to the provincial budget.

  • Punjab Governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema removed by federal government

    Punjab Governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema removed by federal government

    Punjab Governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema has been de-notified on Tuesday after President Arif Alvi’s rejection to approve Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif’s summary to remove Cheema from his post.

    President Alvi had conveyed to the prime minister that the Punjab governor cannot be removed without his approval.

    However, in contrast to the president’s rejection of the PM’s advice, the federal cabinet division issued a notification regarding the removal of Omar Cheema as governor of Punjab.

    “In terms of Article 101 and proviso to Article 48 (1) of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, read with serial No. 2D of schedule V-B to the Rules of Business, 1973 and the Prime Minister’s advice (s) rendered on 17-04-2022 and 01-05-2022 for removal of Governor of Punjab, Mr Omer Sarfraz Cheema ceases to hold the office of the Governor Punjab, with immediate effect,” the notification read.

    The Punjab Assembly speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi shall perform the functions of the governor till the appointment of an incumbent, in accordance with Article 104 of the Constitution.

    Cheema was appointed Punjab Governor by Imran Khan during his last days in power. 

  • 250,000 students to appear in Matric exams starting today

    250,000 students to appear in Matric exams starting today

    The Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education (BISE) Lahore will begin Matric (10th Class) examinations on Tuesday (today), with over 250,000 students expected to take part. According to a BISE Lahore official, the Lahore Board has set up 759 examination centers for the exam.

    The 9th Class exams will begin on May 26 and will attract nearly 270,000 students. He noted that Intermediate exams would begin the second week of June 2022, following Matric exams.

    Read more: Dr Murtaza Syed assumes charge as the new Governor State Bank of Pakistan

    BISE Lahore Chairman Mirza Habib Ali stated that these exams will cover the entire course. He also asked the concerned officials to make watertight arrangements for conducting the tests in a transparent and supervised manner.

  • ‘Like a miracle’: How Instagram helped an Islamabad influencer find lost cat after two months

    ‘Like a miracle’: How Instagram helped an Islamabad influencer find lost cat after two months

    Islamabad based influencer Waliya Najib has been reunited with her cat after two months. Waliya lost her cat on March 9 in Islamabad and after that, she kept posting pictures of her cat on Instagram to ask people for help. She also offered a lakh rupees as reward money.

    Waliya got a lead on her cat when an Islamabad based vet posted pictures and videos of her lost cat, “Muffin.” However, there is a twist in the story. The people who brought the cat to the vet did not leave a contact number. “They can’t contact the people that brought him because they didn’t leave a number, and took him back once he was groomed.” The vet helped her Waliya to “track him down.”

    After a few days, she was finally reunited with Muffin. Social media users gave an overwhelming response to her post, helping her find Muffin.

    “KING MUFF IS BACK HOMEEEE! This is nothing short of a miracle Thank you so much @aliyanvets for randomly posting that video and for helping me track him down, if it wasn’t for you guys I wouldn’t have found him! And to all of you guys for praying constantly. I’ve been so stressed today but the wait was worth it! I cant right now! Need to give him all the cuddles for the two whole months he was away,” she wrote while sharing videos and pictures of her cat.

    She also trended on Twitter.

    https://twitter.com/Jiyascircle/status/1523547149232795648

  • Abdullah Qureshi releases new single with Haider Mustehsan, ropes in Saheefa Jabbar

    Abdullah Qureshi releases new single with Haider Mustehsan, ropes in Saheefa Jabbar

    Singer Abdullah Qureshi has released his new single after a year’s break in collaboration with emerging musician Haider Mustehsan, featuring actor Saheefa Jabbar.

    The Bhool star dons a refreshing look in the video.

    Abdullah has carved his own niche in the music fraternity for 10 years. While churning out new music isn’t an easy task, Qureshi is on a roll with his new single in collaboration with Haider, the new sensation in the fraternity and also a popular choice of the Gen Z.

    Hasda Rehnda is a product of Qureshi and Mustehsan’s hard work and talent. Abdullah formerly wrote this love song which has a fun vibe to it and later on when this became a duo, Haider added his own spin to it.

    The song has graced the screens with a simple yet beautiful video featuring Saheefa Jabbar Khattak. Saheefa dons a simple look for her character while we see both the musicians in their element as well. Together, the melody as well as lyrics make for a single you would definitely hum along.

    Last year Jabbar took to her Instagram stories to announce that she hasn’t quit acting, she has just taken a break because of lack of good scripts and progressive roles for women.

    The Beti diva questioned that why do our women in drama remain oppressed despite there being diverse women in society.

    “There are no good scripts out there. The scripts which are being offered to me at the moment are not up to the standards of storytelling I feel comfortable endorsing,” she said. “I am writing this today because a few rumours have made their way back to me and it does not feel nice to hear untrue things about yourself.”

    Her posts raised important issues regarding portrayal of women in Pakistani dramas.

    Jabbbar was last seen opposite Faysal Qureshi and Aijaz Aslam in Log Kya Kahenge.

  • Pakistani rupee nearing an all-time low

    Pakistani rupee nearing an all-time low

    On Monday, the Pakistani rupee (PKR) fell for the third consecutive session as depleted foreign exchange reserves and uncertainty over the renewal of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme weighed on the local currency.

    The PKR lost 0.48 per cent of its value against the US dollar in the interbank market.

    The rupee ended the day at Rs187.53, down 90 paisas, or 0.48 percent, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). After a 0.5 per cent decline, the rupee finished at Rs186.63 on Friday.

    Considering the latest decline, the local currency is only 65 paisas away from reaching an all-time low of Rs188.18 on April 7, 2022.

    Oil prices fell on Monday alongside equities, driven down by a strong dollar and demand fears stemming from China’s continued coronavirus lockdowns.

    Read more: Bitcoin falls to lowest since January after stock market

    The key cause driving the rupee’s decline against the greenback, according to Arif Habib Limited Head of Research Tahir Abbas, is uncertainty on the IMF front.

    Uncertainty about the programme led to a surge in selling pressure in Pakistani stocks, which fell throughout the day.

  • Heard it but know it? Who are Mir Jafar and Mir Sadiq?

    Heard it but know it? Who are Mir Jafar and Mir Sadiq?

    Former Prime Minister and PTI Chairman Imran Khan at many instances hit out at the opposition by calling them the ‘Mir Jafars and Mir Sadiqs’ of present time.

    Mir Jafar and Mir Sadiq are two people from 18th-century India who are symbolised as the subcontinent’s ultimate sin of ghaddari (treason), like a South Asian version of Brutus, the man who betrayed Roman Emperor Julius Caesar. But who were they really? Let’s find out.

    Who Was Mir Jafar?

    Mir Jafar was born in the late 17th century. He served as a Bengal crown major general. Jafar replaced Siraj-Ud-Daulah as the eighth Nawab of Bengal with the help of the British under Robert Clive. Mir Jafar was forced to cede some area around Calcutta in exchange for British assistance in the conspiracy that brought him to the throne, to confirm and expand British economic advantages, and to make large public and private payments as rewards and indemnities to his British supporters. These payments bankrupted the state, and his power was quickly lost.

    Who was Mir Sadiq?
    Tipu Sultan of Mysore appointed Mir Sadiq as a minister in his cabinet. He supposedly betrayed Tipu Sultan during the Siege of Srirangapatana in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1798–99, clearing the door for a British triumph. He betrayed Tipu by assassinating Tipu’s loyalist Ghazi Khan and then trapping Tipu behind sealed doors. Following the loss, Sadiq was assassinated by some of the bewildered Mysorean forces as he attempted to cross the border to greet the Brit

  • Who is going to be the next governor of Sindh?

    Who is going to be the next governor of Sindh?

    The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led government has decided to appoint their party ally Muttahida Qaumi Move­ment-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) senior leader Nasreen Jalil as the governor of Sindh.

    If Jalil becomes the next governor, she would be the second female governor in the province’s history after the first Prime Minister (PM) Liaquat Ali Khan’s wife Begum Raana Liaquat Ali Khan who served in the 1970s.

    The office of the Sindh governor fell vacant on April 12 when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) leader Imran Ismail resigned, hours before PM Shehbaz Sharif took oath as the premier of Pakistan.

    Nasreen Jalil was born in Lahore but she spent most of her time in Karachi. In her childhood, she lived in London. She went to Paris for her education. She joined MQM and started her political career in Karachi. She served as a senator two times. Nasreen Jalil had been elected as chairperson of the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights in 1994 and 2012.

    Following the news, the former Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry took to Twitter, saying the “crime minister” has proposed the name of Nasreen Jalil as Sindh governor. He claimed that Jalil had written a letter to the Indian high commissioner on June 18, 2015, and sought ‘help’ against Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies.

    Similarly, PTI’s Imran Ismail and former Sindh governor said that it appears that in order to become part of the present government it has become ‘imperative’ that one should be on bail or an “expert of vicious attacks” on security institutions.

    Responding to Ismail’s tweet, Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Senator Faisal Subzwari cleared that the letter was written to all diplomats.

    He admitted that it was the party office’s mistake that the name of the Indian diplomat was not excluded from the list of diplomats. However, this letter surfaced in 2015 and its contents were before everyone.

  • Microsoft to add a built-in VPN in Edge browser to improve privacy

    Microsoft to add a built-in VPN in Edge browser to improve privacy

    Microsoft is adding a free built-in virtual private network (VPN) option to its Edge browser in order to boost security and privacy.

    The tech giant is presently testing the Cloudflare-powered VPN service, dubbed ‘Edge Secure Network,’ and says it will roll it out to the public as part of a security upgrade.

    When enabled, Edge Secure Network should encrypt users’ online traffic so that internet service providers are unable to acquire browsing data that you’d prefer to keep secret, such as health-related searches or merely weird questions.

    Users will be able to mask their location by browsing the web using a fake IP address, according to the new capability. Users will be able to access content that is restricted in their country, such as Netflix or Hulu shows.

    Read more: Instagram is testing ‘pin’ feature for posts

    While the functionality is still under development and not yet accessible for early testing, Microsoft has provided instructions on how people can get a sneak peek.

    This means that it will first be available through one of the Microsoft Edge Insider channels, which users may download and join here.

  • ‘Maybe PTI does not trust the court’: Justice Athar Minallah

     Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice (CJ) Athar Minallah on Monday questioned former Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed if he trusted the IHC.

    Justice Minallah said that it seemed as if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) did not have faith in the courts.

    “It is said in rallies that courts are not independent. Political statements are made at rallies questioning why courts opened at night. It is said that the courts open at the behest of someone,” he said.

    IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah heard the petition of the former interior minister against the appointment of Hanif Abbasi as a Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM), with Sheikh Rasheed appearing before the court on Monday.

    The IHC CJ summoned Rasheed to the rostrum and said, “These courts are for everyone. Perhaps, people don’t believe this.”

    “Important cases of this country are being heard in this court,” he said, further telling Rasheed that the IHC would hear his plea if he had faith in his court. Justice Minallah said important and big cases are pending in the high court, like the cases of missing persons and Baloch students.

    “There are other courts and judges who, too, can hear your cases. But if Imran Khan does not have faith [in this court] … I will refer the case to another court,” he stated.

    “If you have faith in it, then this court would hear your case. Also, ask the PTI chairperson about this,” Justice Minallah said, adding that the courts had been “issuing judgements for the weak”.

    “Your lawyers must have told you that there are rules and the chief justice can take up a case at any time,” CJ IHC told Rasheed.

    Rasheed said that he had appeared before the court because he had faith in it. “I will talk to Imran Khan,” added Rasheed.

    Justice Minallah said, “One should have the respect for the judiciary in their heart.” He then told Rasheed to “decide by tomorrow” whether he had faith in his court.

    At that, Rasheed asserted that he was already decided on the matter.

    “I have been a minister 16 times and that is why I have appeared before the court,” said Rasheed.

    IHC directs PM Shehbaz to review Hanif Abbasi’s appointment as SAPM

    IHC on Monday directed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to review his decision of appointing Hanif Abbasi as his special assistant.

    Rasheed had filed the petition challenging Abbasi’s appointment on May 6.