The Supreme Court (SC) has criticised the National Disaster Management Authority’s (NDMA) failure to ensure transparency in expenditures pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic and locust control.
A five-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed, heard the coronavirus suo moto case, during which the CJP suggested abolishing the NDMA over the authority’s failure to explain its expenses.
NDMA has yet to submit crucial documents, observed the CJP. “Where are the documents permitting imports of machinery from Al-Hafeez Crystoplast (Pvt) Ltd?” he asked. The CJP also inquired why the documents have not been submitted despite directives being issued thrice in this regard. Where are the details pertaining to chartering the aircraft and its payments, he asked further.
The director of NDMA maintained before the court that the authority did not import machines from Al-Hafeez company.
The owner of the company has yet to appear, noted the CJP. The real issue is non-compliance with customs and other laws, he remarked.
Meanwhile, Justice Ijazul Hasan noted that the cost of the machinery has not been disclosed in the documents.
Over Rs10.7 million was paid for the charter, observed the CJP. How were the payments made according to the charter agreement, he asked. How can someone give this much cash in Karachi, asked the CJP.
Where are the documents pertaining to imports of vaccine and the medicines, asked the CJP
The relevant authorities will have to satisfy the court, said the Attorney General.
The CJP observed that it appeared that the NDMA would have to be abolished as its chief has failed to provide explanations.
Perhaps a lot has gone wrong and attempts are being made to cover up, observed the CJP. Should contempt of court notices be issued to the NDMA chief, he asked.
The institutions of the country should be run in a transparent manner, said the chief justice.
The NDMA was given a free hand and hefty amounts to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, said Justice Hasan. The authority is answerable to the court and the people, he added.
The NDMA is acquiring planes and machinery for locust control, noted the CJP. Transparency will have to be ensured through documents and not just verbal statements, he remarked, adding that it was not comprehensible how billions of rupees were being spent.
From corona to floods to locusts, everything has been handed over to the NDMA, remarked Justice Hasan. But the NDMA’s admin member himself does not know anything, he added.
Late Tuesday night, a video of a man beating and abusing his mother went viral on social media. According to details, the man thrashed his mother for property and cash.
The man’s sister Zobia Meer, who shared a video on social media, revealed all the details of the incident and said that she and her sister reported that violent act to the police but they released their brother an hour later. She added that they are trying to register an FIR but the police is not helping them in this matter.
The video sparked outrage on social media and many journalists, celebrities, social activists and other members of the civil society condemned the incident and demanded justice for Meer and her mother.
نہ ویڈیو پوسٹ کرنے کی ہمت ہے اور نہ ہی اس پر کچھ کہنے کو کوئی لفظ سوجھ رہا ہے۔۔۔ بس افسوس یہ ہے کہ اپنی ماں پر تشدد کرنے والا کائنات کا بدترین بدبخت اب بھی آزاد ہے۔۔۔ #zoobiameer
— Iqrar ul Hassan Syed (@iqrarulhassan) July 21, 2020
Ali Rehman Khan, Ushna Shah, Hamza Ali Abbasi and Armeena Khan also Tweeted to condemn the incident.
Despicable and disgusting. How can one even think of raising their hands and calling their mother names?? Appalled and sick to the stomachs he needs to be in prison! #Shamefulhttps://t.co/Uw40xwuREV
Ya Allah… I don’t have words… At all…cant post tht video.. deleted it… Oh my God…deepest corner of hell awaits this demon who raised his hands on his old mother… DEEPEST MOST ROTTEN CORNER OF HELL #zoobiameer
I can’t believe what I just saw,it made me cry.This man beating his mother because of property and cash,his wife standing behind encouraging the act. You both animals just purchased the confirm deed of a land in Jahannum.#zoobiameerpic.twitter.com/KyGO1YJqdX
Newlyweds Sarah Khan and Falak Shabir have been on a social media roll sharing gorgeous pictures and videos from their wedding.
A new video shared by the couple shows the bride ask her groom to think again just before she walks to stage for their nikkah.
“Mein keh rahe hoon souch lein abhi bhi,” an ecstatic Sarah is seen saying in the video.
Responding to Sarah, Falak says: “Ab time guzar gaya sochnay ka, ab qabool hai qabool hai bolnay ka time aagaya hai.”
“Bohat darr lag raha hai Falak,” continues Sarah.
“Mat darein aap, main aapkay saath hoon“, says Falak in response.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CC6jlNsFMJ8/
Meanwhile, Falak while speaking to a local media outlet, revealed that he proposed to Sarah after their second meeting.
“It was at the 2019 Hum TV Bridal Couture Week where Sarah was a showstopper that we met properly,” said Shabbir. “Previously we had only met as acquaintances, but that day I was drinking tea at the hotel when Sarah and Noor were passing by. I asked them to join me and we had tea together. That was probably the first time we spoke to each other in detail.”
Their second meeting was at a restaurant in Lahore right after the show where the two talked a lot and when Falak was dropping Sarah home after dinner, he proposed to her.
“I didn’t say I love you or anything, I just directly said I want to do a nikkah with you, marry you, tell me how it can happen,” says Shabir.
Sharing further details, he said that Sarah told him to meet her father.
“She told me to meet her father. I went to her house from Karachi to Lahore. The first time I met her father, we spoke for about two hours. Sarah had told me, if Baba leaves in 15 minutes, it’s a no.”
Sarah and Falak tied the knot on July 16 in an intimate wedding ceremony. Sarah looked like a vision in a rose pink outfit by Nilofar Shahid.
Throwing light on the highly controversial Indian (and Pakistani) wedding and matchmaking culture, a new Netflix original reality series has stirred a debate online and received mixed reviews about the toxicity ingrained in the country’s age-old process of finding a life partner. The show is currently trending at number four on Netflix Pakistan.
The eight-part series Indian Matchmaking premiered on Netflix on Thursday and is currently among its top-ranked India shows. It features Sima Taparia, a real-life matchmaker from Mumbai, who offers her services to families within India and abroad. As the show gains traction, the one question which is crossing everyone’s mind is ‘Who really in Sima Taparia’?
In a recent interview, Taparia, who hails from a small town of Gulbarga in Karnataka, opened up about herself and revealed that she always wanted to be famous.
“I always had great ambition and wanted to make something of myself so people far and wide would know my name,” she says.
However, her marriage was arranged when she was just 19 and because her in-laws were from an orthodox family of Marwaris, she never really got a chance to work on her dreams.
But as fate would have had it, the small-town girl has become a sensation ever since her series streamed on Netflix.
On how she ended up in this business, Taparia said that she considers herself a natural born matchmaker.
“I am an extrovert and so I am very social and I love meeting new people, talking to them and finding out little details that I lock away in my brain,” says the 57-year-old.
“When people come to me saying they have a son, daughter, nephew, niece or a grandchild who is looking to get married, I immediately start thinking of all the people I know of who could be a good match,” she explains, adding that she is always mentally matching people. “I have found matches for people when I was on vacation in Zermatt and in Interlaken and even when we were in the Canadian Rockies, I was on duty matching people up. Hell, I have even matched people up while waiting at the luggage carousel at Mumbai airport.”
Ever since Taparia set up her matchmaking bureau ‘Suitable Rishta’, based out of her apartment in the midtown Mumbai neighbourhood of Worli, she has brought hundreds of couples together in India as well as in diaspora communities around the world.
Taparia follows a tried and tested approach that she has found success with. “I go and meet the boy and the family, see what their home is like, where they work, where they have been to school,” she explains. It’s not just the information the family provides but unsaid details she has learned to pick up over the years.
“This helps me assess their lifestyles so I can recommend a match that is on an even keel. This is where Tinder, Bumble and Shaadi.com can’t compete. I get to the bottom of things, finding out all the inside stories, the family’s values and other such details you would never get from looking at a person’s online profile,” says Taparia.
She further shared that she only works with “high-profile clients”.
“In India when I meet clients they usually have a working wedding budget in mind. So based on that golden number, I quote my price that I charge as a lump sum,” said the match-maker.
Following the series’ success, Taparia’s phone has not stopped ringing.
“Now young people who have seen the series have been getting in touch with me from all around the world and people in India are asking their parents to get in touch with me to find them partners like Nadia and Aparna,” she says.
Netflix’s ‘Indian Matchmaking’ divides the internet
Meanwhile, the show has the internet divided. The show has become a subject of memes and jokes, and criticism, on how individuals and their parents are picky and have a long list of demands that centre around factors like caste, height or skin colour.
The show “makes very clear how regressive Indian communities can be. Where sexism, casteism, and classism are a prevalent part of the process of finding a life partner,” wrote Twitter user Maunika Gowardhan.
Thousands of Twitter and Instagram posts echo that view. “The show is simply holding a mirror to the ugly society we are a part of,” Vishaka George, another Twitter user, wrote.
Created by Oscar-nominated director Smriti Mundhra, the show focuses on matchmaker Taparia’s visits to the homes of families who need her assistance. After hearing their demands, she presents résumés of prospective matches and then arranges meetings between them.
“The two families have their reputation and many millions of dollars at stake. So the parents guide their children,” Taparia says at one point in the show, referring to some of her wealthier clients.
In the first episode titled Slim, Trim and Educated, an Indian mother tells Taparia her son is getting a lot of marriage proposals but in most cases, the prospective bride’s education or height was not ideal.
Just as Taparia says: “So you want a smart, outgoing, height …” the mother interjects, “I won’t even consider (a girl) below 5 feet 3 inches.”
Some have praised the show for its honesty and treating its subjects respectfully.
“The hate against it is, frankly, baffling … Indian Matchmaking is well on its way to becoming a cultural phenomenon,” a column in the Mint newspaper said.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have announced to hold an ‘All Parties Conference’ (APC) after Eidul Azha in order to discuss strategies to “get rid of this government”.
Addressing a joint press conference, PPP’s Qamar Zaman Kaira and PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal said that a coordination committee meeting will be held this week to discuss the APC agenda.
The presser was held after a meeting between PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and a three-member PML-N delegation at Bilawal House, Lahore. The PML-N delegation included Iqbal, Khawaja Saad Rafique and Ayaz Sadiq, while PPP’s Kaira, Chaudhry Manzoor and Hasan Murtaza also attended the meeting.
Addressing reporters, Kaira said that opposition parties will “complete our homework” before Eidul Azha and discuss strategies to oust the government in the APC.
“The opposition feels that Pakistan will face several external and internal dangers [if] this government remains in power,” Iqbal said. “[Considering] what is happening in our region, we need internal unity but this government only has a vengeful agenda with which it is disintegrating the country.
“In this situation, the country’s two biggest opposition parties agree that to get rid of this incompetent government will be representative of this country’s 220 million people.”
Ahsan also criticised the government for trying to introduce a law that is “twice as bad” as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in order to put an end to terror financing and comply with Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) guidelines. The law, he said, would allow authorities to arrest a suspect for 90 days without getting a remand and the detention can be extended without allowing the suspect to obtain a bail.
“FATF members are not telling Pakistan to turn the country into a fascist state through legislation [to stop terror financing],” the PML-N MNA said and added that the move was “defaming FATF, the international community and the United Nations”. He said that while the opposition was in favour of compliance with FATF guidelines, it would not allow the government to curb individual rights and freedom.
He accused the government of making people’s lives difficult by pushing them into poverty, throttling the media and isolating the country in the international community.
In response to a question regarding Maryam Nawaz’s participation in the upcoming meetings, Iqbal said that “no one has played as huge a role in public mobilisation than” the former premier’s daughter. He added that she will play her role when it came to public mobilisation.
Separately, Ahsan Iqbal, in a conversation with The Current, said that the APC would provide opposition parties a chance to present a unified stance on how to bring change in the government, which the entire opposition believes has thoroughly been exposed for its “incompetence and making irreparable damage to country’s economy and governance”.
“A joint opposition coordination committee comprising of senior leaders from all parties has been formed to work out options for the APC to be meaningful,” he said.
The All Pakistan Private Schools and Colleges Association (APPSCA) has announced the reopening of private schools from August 15 across the country rejecting the Federal Government’s decision to reopen them in September.
In a press conference, the association said that students had to go through an educational loss because schools have been shut down for the past six to eight months.
The APPSCA president, Hidayat Khan, added that the virus has slowed down and that cases are also decreasing.
He added that the association had tried to negotiate with the government but they did not listen. Khan warned that if the government does not listen to them, they will march to protest against the government. He also strongly criticised the federal government and called it incompetent.
“We will open schools in line with the SOPs. Madrassas have been opened, and they have even conducted examinations,” he added.
Following are some snippets that stood out from Urdu newspapers on July 21, 2020, which The Current takes no responsibility for.
Foreign Ministry’s approval of $25,000 for bathroomdecor
It has been reported by Daily Jang that the Foreign Ministry has approved $25,000 for the decor of bathroom of Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations (UN). An amount of $50,000 has already been spent on the renovation of the official’s residence.
‘Judges ko phone kr k marzi k faislay lenay walay‘
Daily Jang has quoted Federal Minister for Communication Murad Saeed as saying,“Judges ko phone kr k marzi k faislay lenay walay humein jamhooriyat ka dars de rahay hain.”
‘Peeth mein chura ghonpnay wala Shehbaz’
According to Daily Jang, Punjab Information Minister Fayazul Hasan Chohan has said, “Barray bhai aur bhateeji ki peeth mein chura ghonpney walay Shehbaz Sharif pr Bilawal aitebaar krnay se hichkacha rahay hain.”
His statement came as PML-N President and Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Sunday spoke to each other over the phone and discussed the prevailing political situation and the possibility of holding an All Parties Conference (APC) after Eid.
Televangelist and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker in the National Assembly, Aamir Liaquat Hussain, has claimed that Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has rejected his resignation letter.
“After a long meeting with PM Imran Khan, my four-page resignation was rejected. I opened my heart told the PM everything. The PM hailed my efforts for raising my voice for Karachi’s issues and said thinking about the public was the role of an elected leader,” he tweeted on Monday.
وزیر اعظم عمران خان سے طویل ملاقات، 4صفحات پر مشتمل استعفی مستردکردیا،اس پر بات نہیں ہوگی اپنا دل کھول کر وزیراعظم کے سامنے رکھا، انہوں نے کراچی کےمسائل پر آواز بلند کرنے کو سراہااور کہا یہی ایک سیاسی سوجھ بوجھ اور عوام کا درد رکھنے والے منتخب رہنما کا کردار ہوناچاہیے
— Aamir Liaquat Husain (@AamirLiaquat) July 20, 2020
Earlier in the day, Hussain had posted on social media that he was on his way to the PM House to submit his resignation.
Last week, he had announced resigning as an MNA from Karachi over prolonged unannounced power outages in the port city.
“I confess that I am a helpless MNA of Karachi. I am unable to provide electricity to the people of my city. I cannot see the people of my city suffer. I will ask the prime minister for time and submit my resignation,” he had said.
میں اعتراف کرتا ہوں میں کراچی کا ایک بے بس ایم این اے ہوں… اپنے شہر کے لوگوں کو بجلی فراہم کروانے سے قاصر ہوں… مجھ سے کراچی اور بالخصوص اپنے حلقے کے لوگوں کا تڑپنا سسکنا اور مونس علوعی کے جھوٹ سہنا نہیں دیکھا جاتا وَیراعظم سے وقت مانگا ہے مل کر انہیں استعفی پیش کردوں گا
— Aamir Liaquat Husain (@AamirLiaquat) July 16, 2020
A spike in power outages is spelling misery for a major chunk of the metropolis’ residents with some areas having interrupted electric supply for weeks now.
This, however, is not the first time that the PTI MNA has been in the news for being upset at his party.
In 2018, a month after the general election, reports had emerged of differences between Hussain and the PTI after he had expressed anger with the party over failure to invite him to a dinner hosted at the Governor’s House.
According to reports, Liaquat left a WhatsApp group comprising PTI Sindh’s leaders over the issue.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Monday said that fast bowler, Mohammad Amir, who had initially pulled out of England tour, will join the Pakistan squad following the birth of his second daughter last week.
According to the board, the white-ball specialist and masseur Mohammad Imran underwent COVID-19 tests on Monday and they must register two negative results before they can join the squad in England.
“If their first tests return negative, they will be moved to a bio-secure environment in Lahore where their second tests will be conducted on Wednesday, with the expected departures over the weekend,” the PCB said.
The Pakistan Cricket Board has confirmed fast bowler Mohammad Amir will join the Pakistan men’s national cricket team in England following the birth of his second daughter last week.https://t.co/F9HRtFxGHKpic.twitter.com/pWjfyqPoRQ
Meanwhile, Shoaib Malik’s departure has been delayed until the second week of August after India extended the ban on international flights until July 31, which, in turn, has delayed a planned family reunion. The board had allowed Malik to meet with his family, including wife Sania Mirza and son Izhaan Mirza, before joining the team. The board added that when Malik joins the squad for the T20I series, which starts on August 28 in Manchester, the team management will release a player.
On the other hand, all-rounder Khushdil Shah, who fractured his thumb, will miss the first test against England. Khushdil has been ruled out for up to three weeks after injuring his left thumb while batting during Saturday’s training session in Derby.
Abid Ali also survived a scare after being struck on the helmet while fielding at forward short-leg during an intra-squad match on Sunday.
“Abid is absolutely fine and will be available to resume training on Wednesday following Tuesday’s rest day,” team doctor Sohail Saleem said. “He underwent a precautionary CT scan which has also returned normal.”
The three-test series begins in Manchester on August 5, with the last two matches scheduled in Southampton.
Beginning on August 28, Pakistan will also play three Twenty20 Internationals against England with Manchester hosting all the matches.
Nabeel Qureshi and Fizza Ali Meerza of Load Wedding and Na Maloom Afraad fame have announced their new project: a web series based on the infamous Lyari Gang War of Karachi.
According to reports, work on the web series is underway and the screenplay of the series has been written by Ali Abbas and Basit Naqvi, who also penned the script of Pakistan’s official entry to the Oscars Laal Kabootar.
Nabeel further shared that they have been working on the series for a while now. He added that they are planning to release the series on a Pakistani OTT platform.
Meanwhile, Fizza while speaking to a local media outlet said that the project is in its initial stages.
“The Lyari Gang War has been making news yet again for a while now, so we thought this was a good time to start working on it,” said Meerza. “It’s too soon to reveal details, but we have completed our research on the subject and our script is in completion stages as well. We plan on covering the incidents from the beginning. We plan to start shooting in winters as the weather is nicer and it’s easier to work then.”
She added that the cast has not been finalised as yet.
Fizza and Nabeel are currently gearing up for the release of their upcoming film Quaid-e-Azam Zindabadstarring Mahira Khan and Fahad Mustafa. The film was scheduled to hit theatres on Eid-ul-Azha but has been postponed due to the COVID-19 situation. Fizza said that they will release it whenever cinemas are operational.
