Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) conducted this year’s MDCAT on Sunday. The paper-based exam took place in centres across the country.
PMDC President Professor Dr Rizwan Taj said that a total of 180,534 students from Pakistan appeared in the MDCAT exam. 180,151 registered candidates appeared in national venues whereas 382 candidates appeared at two international centres; 185 candidates in Dubai and 197 candidates in Saudi Arabia.
Punjab hosted 66,875 candidates, Sindh 40,528, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 46439, Balochistan 9,230, Gilgit 926, Azad Jammu and Kashmir 4,036 and Islamabad 12,118.
The candidates were accommodated in 31 different cities including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Sialkot, DG Khan, Sargodha, Gujrat, Faisalabad, Karachi, Jamshoro, Dera Ismail Khan, Malakand, Nawabshah, Swat, Swabi, Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat, Bannu, Abbottabad, Quetta, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad, Huripur, Larkana, Mansehra, and Mirpur.
Dr. Taj pointed that special assistance had been provided to candidates with special needs or handicaps to fill out answer sheets.
As per the spokesperson of the Sindh Medical University, MDCAT results will come out after around one week.
It looks like the Avengers superhero is officially off the market
Actor Chris Evans has married actress Alba Baptista in an intimate ceremony at his Boston home, with only friends and family present. Page Six reports that guests had to sign NDAs, while phones were strictly not allowed during the ceremony. The 41-year-old actor’s fellow superheroes including Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth and Jeremy Renner, were present at the wedding, as was Emily Blunt and husband John Krasinski.
In November 2022, a source told People Magazine that the pair had been dating for over a year.
“They are in love, and Chris has never been happier,” the insider said, adding that the ‘Knives Out’ actor’s friends and family members all adored his girlfriend.
Chris Evans previously opened up to People Magazine about his desire to have a family and getting married:
“That’s absolutely something I want — wife, kids, building a family,” said the ‘Captain America’ actor. “When you read about most of the best artists, whether it’s actors, painters, writers, most of them [admit] it wasn’t the work they made [that they are most proud of], it was about the relationships, the families they created, the love they found, the love they shared.”
“So it’s also something through my long 41 years that also rings true. Those things are the most important. I love the idea of tradition and ceremony, I had a lot of that in my life so the idea of creating that, I can’t think of anything better.”
Shadab Khan and Virat Kohli’s camaraderie off the field has won the hearts of Pakistani and Indian cricket fans.
The Asia Cup 2023 match between Pakistan and India was officially called off on Sunday. It will resume tomorrow (Monday). India will resume their innings where they left off. Rain in Colombo, Sri Lanka, interrupted India’s innings at 24.1 overs, with India at 147-2.
Here are the Shadab-Kohli memes breaking the internet:
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said on Saturday that party leader Usman Dar has been “abducted”, demanding that the Sialkot native be recovered and presented in court, Geo News has reported.
“First it was Aoun Abbas Buppi, then Sadaqat Abbasi, and now Usman Dar has been abducted,” the party wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Usman Dar is the latest in a number of PTI leaders and officials who have encountered cases and incarceration after the May 9 riots. PTI leader Farrukh Habib said in a tweet on Saturday that Dar “be brought to light immediately and presented in court if there was a case against him so Dar could exercise his right to defend himself and his family could meet him”.
Earlier, Dar had said that his house, factory, and business in Sialkot were sealed in August. He had also said in one of his statements that his family members, including women, were left helpless.
Bushra Iqbal, the ex-wife of late television host and politician Aamir Liaquat, was a guest on Hafiz Ahmed’s podcast where she opened up about her 2020 divorce. The late politician’s divorce of his wife Syeda Bushra in 2020 left many in surprise, particularly as it came after he married actress Tuba Anwar.
At the time, Bushra had announced on her Instagram account that her marriage to the television host had ended, confirming that she was divorced by Liaquat on the phone at the request of his second wife, an act she termed traumatic for their two children.
Speaking at the podcast, the lawyer and television producer revealed she had not wanted to leave Aamir, but Tuba and her family kept pushing Aamir to divorce her, which is why he did it.
Bushra also addressed the leaked videos controversy, where the late host could be seen walking around a small room without clothes. Bushra said she was disappointed at how revenge videos were released to shame her husband.
“Honour is not just a woman’s. A man has honour as well. Had this happened to a woman, the entire country would have been out on the street, burning things. But a woman had done this. Men and women are kept equal. God has not kept the level of punishment different in the Quran.”
“People didn’t speak up. I was quite hurt. Everyone had their fun. YouTubers, members, everyone…People should think, ‘What if this happened to me?’ The best of people end up killing themselves. Who [ends up killing themselves]? Those who have no shame or honour. Otherwise, people have a lot of videos leaked, it was his honour. There are many videos of him crying. Some people claim we weren’t in contact. About facing his kids, he’s crying and saying – there are many audios that people haven’t even heard, I have them, on which basis I am fighting the case.”
October aka Spooktober has already set in motion with the return of the fan favourite horror novel series ‘Goosebumps’, set to release on Disney Plus and Hulu from October 13 onwards. A teaser trailer is already setting social media on fire. The series was created by Rob Letterman and Nicholas Stoller, and will feature an entirely new cast of child actors.
Omfg yessss can’t wait October is gonna be amazing I’m so hyped for this
— Hannah (Prp and banner is from my bestie cholley) (@Franandfriends1) September 7, 2023
The television series is adapted from the popular horror novel series written by R.L Stine, which explores the lives of protagonists who find them selves in scary situations involving ghosts or other supernatural elements.
The series were previously adapted into a television series in 1995, and a film in 2015, which followed a fictionalised version of Stine teaming up with his daughter to save the neighbourhood after the monsters written in his book escape and begin igniting chaos.
A new trend known as ‘Barbie Botox’ has been unleashed on TikTok. Women are getting Trapezius Botox in order to elongate the neck and shrink the shoulders, so it makes the person resemble a Barbie doll. The hashtag #barbiebotox has over 9.4 million views on TikTok according to Forbes, while #traptox has over 22.5 million views, with clips of popular influencers and reality tv who have gotten the procedure.
TikTok influencer Malibutoast who has over 195 K followers, shared clips of herself after having the procedure done, with users worried in her comments about whether the trend would encourage more insecurities among women on social media.
‘Wake up guys new insecurity just dropped,” wrote one user.
“Damn now I have to add… trapezius to the list of things I need to fix about myself ” another wrote.
Isabelle Lux, another TikTok influencer who credits herself with coining the phrase ‘Botox Barbie’ detailed her own experience of getting the treatment with CNN:
“It came from the idea that you would look more like a Barbie when you get it done, which I don’t think is a bad thing. It elongates the neck, slims the shoulders and creates a very delicate physique when it’s done properly.”
Speaking to the news organisation about the growing backlash she was getting on the internet, including being called an ‘anti-feminist’, Lux defended her choice by pointing out that women shouldn’t be belittled for wanting to look a certain way.
“The desire to look a certain way has for centuries been seen as silly, a waste of time, waste of money and pointless, especially for women,” she told CNN. “But when a man wants to look a certain way, it’s scientific, it’s cool. I think that we need to stop belittling women for things that they’re interested in, including looking a certain way if they want to. It’s not silly. Like, it’s real.”
But many plastic surgeons are condemning the trend, explaining that the procedure was coined in order to help those with excessive neck pain, with a side effect of creating the illusion of a longer and slimmer neck. Speaking to PEOPLE magazine, New York City dermatologist Dr Amy Wechsler pointed out that Barbie’s features are unrealistic and these cosmetic procedures won’t make a noticeable effect on women.
“Someone years ago explained that if you take a Barbie doll and make it into an adult woman, the measurements are not really realistic. So I don’t love jumping on social media trends because they often don’t have any basis in science,” she explains. “I think that’s human nature to try to wanna copy a trend, but usually what happens — which is good — is that the trend will fizzle out if it’s not a good idea or if it’s not healthy.”
“The #BarbieBotox trend is more about slimming,” Wechsler adds. “If you relax those muscles it can make a big improvement in the feel and the look. But if someone doesn’t overuse that muscle, I don’t think it does that much.”
Speaking to CNN, Dr Parisha Acharya warned that incorrect administration of Botox could weaken the muscle completely, and then effect your ability to hold up your neck properly. She expressed concerns about the trend going viral on social media, especially when younger audiences are watching:
“I think a medical procedure should be treated as a medical procedure. And in the UK, (the aesthetics industry) is unregulated. So shockingly anyone can administer botulinum toxin injections. That could be a beautician or hairdresser with no clinical experience, no anatomy knowledge. It really does worry me.”
Dr Acharya also pointed out that the trend took the wrong message from the movie ‘Barbie’ which advocated for women to stop trying to mould themselves to appease the patriarchy, and start accepting their bodies as the way they are:
“It was very pro-feminism, and (women) were moving away from sexualizing our bodies and thinking of them as just objects,” she stressed. “I don’t like the fact that this trend is using Barbie to say we should have slim necks. We should embrace ourselves for who we are.”
If you could share an unpopular opinion about marriage, what would you say?
Pakistani women are sharing cold hard facts with this trend on X (formerly Twitter), sharing their frank opinions about marriage. Since desi societies predominantly consider marriages to be a system arranged without a woman’s consent or opinion, many women shared what they thought about relationships, living with parents and other issues Pakistanis should really consider listening to.
We completely have to side with this one. Your wives are not hired helpers for your home or your parents.
If your wife moves in with your parents you owe her. This is even before she bears and raises your children. Very beghairat of any man who raises his voice to a wife who puts up with his mother. https://t.co/ycqGsW9ex7
— OhChiefestAndGreatestOfCalamities (@mustyoumustard) September 9, 2023
Never take any excuses like this from someone who claims to love you.
Chakor, an Instagram-based platform providing data-driven insights, recently compiled statistics on cousin-marriages in Pakistan
According to Chakor’s data, nearly 2 out of every 3 Pakistani marriages are between cousins. The organisation claims that Pakistan has one of the highest rates of marriages between cousins in the world.
They further highlighted medical evidence about how detrimental cousin-marriages can be for women’s reproductive health, adding that such marriages can cause serious health complications for the child.
Pakistan’s textile sector has experienced a continued decline in exports, with provisional data released by the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) indicating that in August, exports reached $1.48 billion, down by 6 per cent compared to the same month in the previous year when they stood at $1.58 billion.
Moreover, the data reveals that Pakistan’s textile exports for the first eight months of the calendar year 2023 have seen a significant drop of 19 per cent, totaling $10.58 billion, as opposed to the $13 billion recorded during the equivalent period in 2022. This year-on-year decline raises concerns for Pakistan’s economy, especially in light of its foreign exchange shortage, which has already led to a depreciation of the rupee by more than 25 per cent in the inter-bank market since the beginning of 2023.
However, there is a glimmer of optimism as monthly figures indicate a 13 per cent improvement in textile exports, rising to $1.48 billion in August compared to $1.31 billion recorded in July.
