The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), has denied the rumours that it will not supply mineral water to passengers on domestic flights, Geo News has reported.
Some media reports suggested that PIA has decided to stop serving bottles of mineral water to passengers on all domestic flights as part of the national carrier’s efforts to reduce its huge losses.
“PIA refutes a web news item intended to damage our repute that we will not provide water onboard,” said the PIA, adding that it is a “misrepresentation by some prominent media outlets”, which is both irresponsible and unprofessional.
PIA categorically rejected the reports saying that “such reports only intended to mislead passengers”.
In a separate development, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has barred barred airlines from serving food on domestic flights due to the sharp increase of Covid-19 cases in the country.
For the longest time, our country’s private sector has dealt with obstacles that don’t fully allow small companies to flourish. These obstacles combined with lack of opportunities cause a lot of frustration and reduce the ability to move forward.
In some respects, startups are not too different. After all, they also take birth in the same corporate culture. So naturally one wonders if regulations, opportunities, efficiency, and the business environment were more conducive, would our entrepreneurs be able to do things differently?
Could there be an area where progressive rules were introduced and one could monitor the changes and see if that made a major difference to the mechanics of the industry?
The Current, Pakistan’s first digital news-lifestyle platform that simplifies news for Pakistani millennials, is a startup. After winning the Google News Innovation Challenge in 2020, we faced immense challenges. When Google was sending over the first half of our grant, we were unable to meet the requirements to open a US Dollar bank account. We reached out to six different banks and were refused every time. Frustrated, we kept at it, until one bank took a chance and allowed us to open the account, granted we provide details that the money was indeed coming in from Google. We did and waited for our money to come in. When it did, the bank sent it back, citing that, according to State Bank regulations, getting the money into the country would be tough. Desperate, we appealed to the then Science and Technology Minister, Fawad Chaudhry, as well as contacting State Bank’s President Reza Baqir. Chaudhry was receptive and got us in touch with the right people to help us get our grant across. We were lucky that tech giant Google was in the picture. We finally got our money through and now, will be launching Pakistan’s first membership program.
The Current now comes around bearing good news for all startups. After we became the catalyst that pushed the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to understand the issues being faced by tech startups, the SBP introduced a new policy to facilitate startups and provide them a way to get their money home.
“You won the Google grant and there were issues bringing the money to Pakistan. Since I was the Science and Technology Minister at the time, I discussed the issue with Reza Baqir (President State Bank of Pakistan). Since the State Bank is in very capable hands, they made a new policy to facilitate startups,” says Fawad.
Chaudhry further added, “The credit goes to State Bank President, his team and to The Current, the reason why this issue was highlighted in the first place.”
SBP officially removed a major obstacle that has been subsequently thwarting the growth of the startup companies by allowing them to avail foreign loans as convertible debt.
Startup firms face funding issues due to the unavailability of collateral or security. Foreign investors, including equity funds and angel investors, show interest in startups but they try to cover the risk through alternative means like high return on loan, reports Dawn.
A company may raise funds from abroad in the form of convertible debt, i.e. the lender shall have the option to convert the loan into the equity of the borrowing company.
“It is expected that this initiative will help in attracting more foreign investment as it will provide another option to the international investors to invest in startup companies operating in Pakistan,” said the SBP.
We at The Current are immensely happy that we have helped carve a way and provide an easier path for Pakistani startups.
Could Pakistan be the latest world stock market to see a blow-up of interest from retail investors? Ali Farid, the cofounder of KTrade , thinks that KTrade is the next big thing.
As reported in Forbes, the brokerage firm will be announcing a $4.5m funding round that Farid believes will position KTrade perfectly as a new generation of Pakistanis embracing the stock market. “It is time for people to get their money out from under their mattresses and get a better return from more formal types of savings,” Farid insists.
KTrade is the fintech retail trading app created by Khalid Ali Shah Bukhari (KASB) securities, the leading stock brokerage in Pakistan. KTrade provides easy access to financial markets for retail investors much like its global peers such as XP in Brazil, Zerodha and Groww in India, Tiger in China, Flatex in Germany, and Robinhood in the US.
Ali Farid led the creation of KTrade. He was previously the CFO of UK listed fintech company SafeCharge (acquired by Nuvei) and a Partner at Autonomous Research (acquired by Alliance Bernstein) in London. Ali is a Rhodes Scholar and has been a top ranked Technology Analyst in Europe since 2013.
Ali Farid, the cofounder of KTrade
“KTrade will enable this mobile-first population to participate in the investment opportunity. By connecting these people to companies we can drive capital trapped in unproductive assets into the formal economy which would eventually drive a virtuous cycle of economic growth and higher investments”, says Farid.
KASB’s aim is to provide retail savers access to financial education, information and financial products and to help them make better decisions in the field of finance.
“We aim to regularise access to the capital markets and enable them to make stock market investments. The strong demand for KTrade shows that the market is ready for this transformation. Other regional and emerging markets have seen similar evolution led by successful fintech companies” added Farid.
The Global System for Mobile Communication’s innovation Fund has announced three Pakistani startups as winners out of 597 applications.
These startups are working on the inclusion of Mobile, Internet and Digital technologies in Pakistan. The winning startups Vceela and Orenda Pakistan will get a grant of £668,000 (Rs146 million).
The head of Asia Pacific GSMA, Julian Gorman, said that digital technologies would transform how people work and live in Pakistan. By 2023 the economic contribution of the mobile industry in Pakistan will reach $24 billion that is 6.6 per cent of the expected Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Pakistan has also moved forward with significant mobile services tax reforms. “As we saw in the GSMA 2020 Digital Societies Report, which tracks the progress of 11 focus countries in the Asia Pacific, Pakistan is advancing its societal, economic and digital ambition, as outlined in Digital Pakistan Vision,” Mr Gorman said.
Pakistan has achieved one of the highest scores overall as per the GSMA report on the digital society index.
Federal Minister for Information Technology (IT) Syed Aminul Haq said that the Ministry of IT & Telecom (MOITT) lauded the efforts of the GSMA for its endeavours to bring revolutionary changes in the field of telecommunication in Pakistan.
He added that the reforms taken by the incumbent government in the telecommunication sector have made it possible for investors in the broadband and communication sector to facilitate the investors’ sentiment.
He said the “right way of policy” has been implemented by the government, which was one of the demands of the telephony and internet service providers for the last 24 years.
Haque has also said that the government was taking steps to provided 3G and 4G services all across Pakistan, but the COVID pandemic has changed the landscape. However, the Telecommunication sector strategy has not changed because of high demand and technological relevance.
Not just GSMA, even World Economic Forums (WEF) has ranked Pakistan as one of the best countries in terms of affordability of ICT services.
A Dubai salesman has been sentenced to two years in prison for setting a textile shop on fire, causing losses of nearly Dh1 million to the owner.
As per reports, the 27-year-old salesman from Afghanistan was fined Dh985,000 fine. He will be expelled after he has served his sentence.
He reportedly wanted to take revenge from the owner, who did not pay his salary for a year. In December last year, the defendant went to the shop and unlocked the shop using a cutter. He accused the owner didn’t pay his salary for one year. He expected to find some cash inside the shop, but couldn’t find any.
The suspect told Dubai Police that he found a lighter inside the shop and decided to set the textile shop on fire in vengeance.
The shop’s owner testified that he checked the CCTV footage in the area and saw the defendant braking into the shop. “I was alerted about the fire and discovered that the defendant was responsible. He damaged the lock and the glass door before setting the shop on fire,” the 40-year-old Pakistani owner said.
Dubai Public Prosecution charged the defendant with setting fire to a property and causing damages worth Dh985,000. The verdict will be subject to appeal within 15 days.
Around Rs 827.2 billion were reportedly drawn from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) during Ramazan and Eid holidays, through approximately 63.2 million transactions.
Only on Eid, Rs137.8 billion were withdrawn through 11.6 million ATM transactions. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) collaborated with commercial banks to make ATM services available for people on holidays and other festivals.
SBP formed a special team through which they monitored ATMs during Ramazan and Eid as there is a high demand for cash during these festivals.
Besides, the banks also managed to sustain an average uptime of 96.5 percent which further improved to 98 percent during Eid-ul-Fitr holidays earlier this month. The special team performed nationwide operations on all banks through both on-site and off-site inspections and monitoring.
During these holidays, only 500 complaints were received from the public and were immediately resolved. SBP praised the efforts of the banks to maintain the availability of services during these festivals.
“SBP firmly resolves to keep facilitating the public and carrying out similar exercises in future as well to facilitate the general public at large,” read a statement from the bank.
The Federal Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin predicted that the economy of Pakistan would grow by six per cent as the incumbent government has dealt with COVID-19 in a better way.
“Growth rate is projected at five percent this year and would move further upwards to six percent during the next fiscal year. The government has developed short and long-term plans to achieve the target,” Tarin said while addressing a virtual press conference.
“The government of Pakistan is doing long-term planning not just to stabilise the economy but to push economic growth,” he added.
The strategy is divided into short, medium, and long-term planning for almost 12 sectors, and the plan will be presented to Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan for approval by the end of May. Shaukat Tarin made these strategies after taking over again as finance minister.
In addition, Pakistan is going through food scarcity and has to import from outside. Tarin blamed the lack of agriculture industry behind food shortage.
By paying attention and taking action against people who are profiting and hoarding food, these issues are addressable. “We will tackle this through the creation of strategic reserves and dump food wherever people try to profit,” Tarin said.
On the financial sector, he said that we will bring more people into the tax net. Besides, people should be encouraged to deposit money into banks so it could be used productively, and the money can be spent on all provinces rather than “nine cities”.
While responding to a question about power tariffs, he said the government would not increase tariffs to prevent further burden on the people, and the same would follow for taxes.
He said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been told that money would instead be collected through other “innovative ways” and he had “full hope” that the IMF would give space.
He also explained that Pakistan had fulfilled most of the Financial Action Task Force’s conditions with one or two “transactional items” left so he said the government was hopeful of a favourable response in the meeting in June.
Since we started getting high-speed internet, online streaming has become a normal trend. Currently, YouTube is the largest repository of the latest and oldest videos to enjoy. Here we have options to watch videos in multiple resolutions and devices according to our convenience.
The problem starts when the internet data gets exhausted or you are at a remote location where the network is poor. How to stay entertained while offline? Not just one but we have five different solutions to this problem. Please scroll down to know about some innovative tools for downloading videos directly from YouTube and similar platforms.
The vidmate apk file is compatible with almost every latest model of Android devices. It is probably one of the oldest video downloader applications existing on the internet. Before using it for the first time after installation, it allows you to select a regional or international language according to your convenience. The app has an interactive user interface where beginners don’t confuse while searching for their desired video stuff. All the latest released YouTube videos will appear on your homepage screen.
2. Snaptube
If you are looking for an allrounder downloader app, we recommend Snaptube. It is available for free of cost in apk file format just like Vidmate. The user interface looks like a typical browser where you can explore all the multimedia stuff. Along with YouTube, users can also explore various social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Users don’t have to register with the app by providing personal credentials. Just install it and start downloading your favorite videos in all desired resolutions.
3. Snappea
We understand that not everyone is available on the Android platform. The above two apps are specifically meant for working on Android smartphones only. If you are using a Windows PC or any other operating system, try Snappea. Instead of downloading an app, you just need to open this platform in your browser. Find any YouTube video by keyword in its search bar. The search bar also supports URLs of YouTube videos.
4. Tubemate
TubeMate is one of the fastest and lightest Android apps meant for downloading videos and audios on the Android platform. This tool has a simple user interface where you will get infinite YouTube video options to enjoy online as well as offline. While downloading the file, it will ask you to select the options between video, audio and captions. Options for selecting a number of threads and resolutions are also available.
5. Savefrom.net
Here is another convenient option for people who don’t have an Android device. Savefrom.net is a web application accessible with any popular web browsers. A search bar appears on the homepage where you just need to paste the video link. It will instantly download your file in both audio or video format according to the requirement.
All these five tools are easy to use even for beginners. Please try and figure out which one is more satisfactory.
The Government of Kyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on February 4, 2021, appointed Waqar Zaka as an expert on digital assets (Cryptocurrency & Cryptomining). Zaka was the host of the wildly popular reality show Living on the Edge and is now a YouTuber.
The Directorate of Science and Technology of KP formed an advisory committee on the “resolutions and recommendation” of KP’s assembly.
Advisor to Chief Minister (CM) KP on Science and Technology Ziaullah Khan Bangash has been appointed the chairperson for the advisory committee while KP Minister for Finance Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra has been appointed Senior Vice Chairman.
Sharing the news on social media, Zaka said: “I’m hired as a crypto expert by the government of Pakistan, and I have decided not to charge a single penny and I will provide all my services for free.”
I’m hired as a crypto expert by Government of Pakistan and I have decided not to charge a single penny and I will provide all my services for free – pic.twitter.com/TVAjtr12Ld
Along with the official notification, Zaka also shared a video expressing disappointment with the Sindh government for not taking the necessary steps on digital assets.
“I have contacted the concerned IT person who is working for the Sindh government, and I can show all WhatsApp messages that I have sent to him,” said Zaka. “I have also talked to many people from Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) but no one has taken it seriously.”
“I will work for free. All province should launch their coin, and Pakistan can generate lots of revenue through digital assets. It will also bring innovation in the processes of tax collection. People should ask Bilawal Bhutto, chairman of PPP, that why these facilities aren’t provided to the common people,” added the host.
It is noteworthy to mention that KP is the first province in Pakistan to legalise crypto trading, and the administration is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency.
Alliance aims at promoting the use of the Karachi Electric (KE) Live mobile app by offering an exclusive discount on the Foodpanda App & Befiler
Karachi – April xx, 2021: K-Electric has announced an exciting offer for new users of its KE Live Mobile application through strategic alliances with Foodpanda – Pakistan’s largest delivery platform, and Befiler – the country’s leading tax filing and NTN registration portal. Customers who download the KE Live App will be able to avail of exclusive discounts of up to PKR 500 on Foodpanda and savings of up to 87% on Befiler portals.
The KE Live App is a complete digital solution offering multiple services on the go and is available for download on the Google Play Store and Apple Appstore. Customers can view their billing history, download duplicate bills and make online bill payments, lodge complaints, and even apply for a new connection from the comfort of their homes. Now, new users will also be provided promo codes to enjoy up to PKR 500 discount on their first order via the Foodpanda App, with the exception of Pandamart.
New KE Live App users can also avail NTN registration and Tax filing services via Befiler at an 87% discounted rate of only PKR 500 rupees. Upon successful download of the KE Live App, a voucher will be delivered to users via SMS on their registered mobile number and email address. Moreover, multiple users can register and avail the offer against one KE account number.
Commenting on these strategic alliances, Imran Rana, Director Communications KE said, “K-Electric continues to prioritize customer-centricity and enrich consumer experience through innovative digital products and solutions. Much like our partners, we share a vision to facilitate customers from the comfort of their homes. The KE Live App and Web Portal are pioneering platforms marking a major milestone via the provision of several facilities under one digital roof.”
“Undocumented economy and weak tax filing culture is a major challenge of Pakistan’s economy, further exacerbated by complexities in tax compliance. Beiler is excited to have partnered with K-Electric to address the issue by offering a simple and user-friendly digital solution to assist citizens of Karachi in their tax compliance for a very nominal fee,” said Akbar Tejani, Befiler’s CEO and Co-Founder.
The KE Live App and Web Portal are evidence of KE’s progressive vision and the fact that customer-centricity is a core tenet of the business strategy.
