Transparency International (TI) — a Berlin-based international non-governmental organisation combating global corruption — on Thursday released a new report, according to which, the country under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has witnessed more corruption in 2019 than it did in the outgoing year of the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
According to TI’s global report on the 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), while Pakistan’s ranking dropped from 117 to 120 in 2019, the CPI score also dropped from 33 to 32.
Here’s what Twitterati have to say about the report that was to determine if corruption in the country under the PTI government has decreased as Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s promised accountability drive continues against opposition lawmakers and government officials.
So this happened… According to Transparency International’s global Corruption Perception Index, Naya Pakistan actually got *worse* than Purana Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/NKZ6w0qFZK
BREAKING: Transparency International, Berlin’s global report 2019 released. Shows Pakistan more corrupt than before. As against 2018 Pak’s ranking dropped from 117 to 120 in 2019. CPI score also dropped from 33 to 32. Since 2010, this is 4 the 1st time Pak did worse than before.
Despite rhetoric, both Score and Ranking of Pakistan on TI Corruption Perception has taken a hit during 2019. Score decreased from 33 to 32 and ranking further plummeted from 117 to 120. https://t.co/2p0rOTPis8
— احمد بلال محبوبAhmedBilalMehboob (@ABMPildat) January 23, 2020
Transparency International releases rankings – Pakistan’s rank falls – more corrupt than before https://t.co/ZnhmCPgryE
Pakistan witnessed slight improvement in the 2018 CPI, scoring a point higher than in 2017 but remaining unchanged in the rankings.
According to Geo, the country scored 33 out of 100 on the index — one point better than its score of 32 in the previous year. Its ranking, however, remained unchanged at 117 out of 180 countries, same as 2017.
TI’s annual report on CPI is formulated on the basis of input from 13 international agencies. In the case of Pakistan, however, the assessment of eight agencies is taken into account. These include the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey; the World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment; the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index; the Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index; the Economist Intelligence Unit Country Risk Service; the Global Insight Country Risk Ratings; the IMD World Competitiveness Center World Competitiveness Yearbook Executive Opinion Survey; and the Varieties of Democracy project’s findings.
Pakistan in the last 10 years (since 2010) has improved its index score from 23 in 2010 to 33 in 2018. In 2016 and 2017, Pakistan maintained the same score, 32, which in 2018 increased to 33. However, never in these last ten years has Pakistan been assessed to have performed negatively as compared to the previous year.
Two persons beat up a differently-abled person and robbed a 15kg bag of wheat from him on Wednesday in Faisalabad.
Imran Haider filed a complaint at the Ghulam Muhammad Abad Police Station asserting that he was on his way home to the University of Agriculture Faisalabad road when two men on a motorcycle stopped him.
“They [robbers] were riding a motorcycle. I was also on a motorcycle. They robbed me of a bag of wheat. I tried to stop them but I am disabled and they were two so they were able to get away,” he said.
The incident took place when wheat prices have increased across the country. In Karachi, a sack of flour was being sold for Rs500 a couple of days ago. The Flour Mill Association Punjab increased the price of flour by Rs6 per kg in Lahore after which flour was being sold at Rs70 per kg across the city.
In the city of Khanewal, Punjab, a bus hostess refused to accept a police officer’s ‘friendship’ request. The policeman was persistent, sending her indecent messages and asking her to be his friend, she says.
After she refused, the police officer broke into her home, forcibly stripped her clothes off and made him dance for him. He allegedly took her phone because he was worried that she would reveal the messages he had sent her.
The police officer is the Station House Officer (SHO) of the local station (which is a high position at the station). He has now been suspended pending an investigation. Khanewal’s District Police Officer, Faisal Shahzad has sad taht a forensic report and an inquiry would take place soon.
Singer and actor Mohsin Abbas Haider, who went through a very public divorce from his former wife, anchor Fatema Sohail, has refused to provide childcare for his son.
Fatema has filed a petition in a family court, asking that Mohsin pay for child support for his son.
Mohsin has refused to do so, saying that, “I was previously paying for the expenses of Fatema and my son,” he said. “But I can’t pay for them anymore because I don’t have a job or money,” and that he was going through a “financial crunch”.
WATCH: Mohsin’s controversial comments about his wife during their separation
The couple went through a public separation and divoce in July last year
The hearing has been adjourned till next week.
Mohsin was a co-host of Dunya TV’s Mazakaraat and was fired after his wife accused him of beating her up and cheating on her. She filed a case against him, saying he was threatening to kill her and had stolen money from her family. Both Mohsin and Fatema swore on The Holy Quran, stirring a debate on whether anyone should use The Holy Book to prove their point.
The popular online game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG had taken the world by storm and many people are addicted to this game. Recently, a man died of a stroke while playing the game.
25-year-old Harshal Menane, from the Indian state of Maharastra, died as he suffered a brain stroke while playing PUBG on the mobile. As per reports, the man suffered from an Intracerebral hemorrhaging because he got too excited while playing the game.
Following the stroke, the man was instantly taken to the hospital to undergo surgery. Unfortunately, it was too late as he died during the process. The autopsy report stated,
This is not the first time that the popular mobile game has taken a life. A 20-year-old Saurabh of India accidentally drank a bottle of chemical instead of water. This happened because he was too focused on the video game to notice what he was consuming.
Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has accused Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Rana Sanaullah of “murdering at least 18 people” and called him a “criminal out of the gutter”.
The remarks were made by the premier as he last week addressed YouTubers from across the country at an event called “Digital Pakistan”. It was the first in series of interactive sessions to be held between government officials and digital publishers as well as content creators to work on developing a positive image of the country.
“Our fight is against people like Rana Sanaullah, who is a criminal from the gutter. People from his own party say he has killed 18 people, which too is debatable… he must’ve murdered more [people] than that,” PM Imran said as he spoke of social media’s role in today’s politics.
WATCH VIDEO:
Earlier, he said that PML-N trolls had left no stone unturned in slandering Bushra Bibi even though she had nothing to do with politics. “Maryam Nawaz, on the other hand, runs a social media cell of her own. But we never did any such thing against [the late] Kusloom Nawaz.”
Even though Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Usman Buzdar is continuing as the provincial chief executive, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) has practically taken over the slot — with its leaders holding crucial meetings and reportedly preparing a roadmap for power-sharing and distribution of development funds, a private media outlet has claimed.
According to reports, PML-Q leader Moonis Elahi has held a crucial meeting with Punjab Chief Secretary (CS) Azam Suleman Khan and prepared a roadmap for power-sharing and distribution of development funds in the province. Moonis had also hinted at it while speaking to a private media outlet earlier this week.
The power-sharing decision has seriously disturbed CM Buzdar, who has complained about it to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Jahangir Tareen, the report said. It added that development funds worth Rs20 billion would be released for PML-Q parliamentarians’ constituencies, and the party would also be authorised to give instructions to the bureaucracy directly.
Tareen has reportedly accepted all PML-Q demands about power-sharing that they had made in a meeting held earlier this month, and directed the Punjab CS to prepare a roadmap in this regard, with the help of Moonis. “I even could not sleep the whole night because of this worrying situation,” the report quoted a disturbed Buzdar as telling Tareen, who is a close aide of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan.
On the other hand, the report added, PML-Q office bearers say “it was just the beginning”. “We don’t want to remove [Usman] Buzdar, but we can’t sacrifice the entire party and voters for this friendship. So we will try our level best to maintain each other’s integrity.”
‘FAKE NEWS’:
Reacting to the report, the Punjab government has dubbed it as “baseless and factually incorrect”.
As per the details, Punjab government spokesperson Musarrat Cheema, through a series of tweets, said that the government is “considering legal action against reporter and news outlet for such malicious reporting”.
“PTI and PML-Q have a good working relationship in Punjab and we are determined to work for the prosperity of our province under CM [Buzdar],” she tweeted.
You often decide to take a break from social media that is called “toxic” by a large number of people.
Toxic social media is disturbing the sanity of their minds because there are tons of disturbing news out there. Despite deactivating all social media profiles, you see them coming back again. Yes, it is addictive, but here is what you can do to reduce its toxicity.
UNFOLLOW ON FACEBOOK
Most of us have Facebook profiles along with other 1.5 billion people who use it every day. We all started with sharing pictures on our profiles, or with our friends, but now it has turned into a battlefield of narratives between people. The best thing you can do is to ‘unfollow‘ those people who you want to avoid.
Facebook is structured in a way that it will show you everything that you have searched in the past or what your friends are discussing, but when you unfollow someone, you’ll no longer see their activities or discussions.
In some circumstances, you cannot unfriend or block a person, because of the reaction that you will get would be proportional to a threat of breakup or a divorce. So unfollow that person to cut down negativity.
2. Stop tapping on everything on Instagram
Although you might havecontrol over what you follow on Instagram, you may turn off comments on your posts, or you do not follow hashtags that you do not like. But, what about the search tab that shows you the weirdest stuff you cannot even imagine in your nightmare. Here come the algorithms of Instagram.
If you are tapping on the pictures of dogs, 50-60% of the picture you might see would be of dogs – the rest of the pictures will depend on the previous searches done from your account. So, if you want to cut down what you see in the search tab, skip it for a few days and tap on only those items that you want to follow.
3. Twitter is not easy
Cutting toxicity on Facebook or Instagram might be little convenient, but handling Twitter in this regard is tricky. You might follow a writer that posted something you like, but their next tweet ruins your entire day, what you can do about it? Here is what you can do.
To block or unfollow that most toxic account would be just right. But if you like the real tweets of someone’s account and do not like their retweets, you can simply turn off retweet on a per-account basis. Moreover, you can use quality and advance filters to censor the words you do not like.
These are few tools you can tweak to filter toxicity, but if you really want to cut down of social media poison; discipline yourself. The biggest filter one can use is to have positive thinking, but that is another topic for some other day.
The country is facing one of the biggest wheat crises in Pakistan’s history with a bag of atta costing a record high of Rupees 75 per KG. Amid the wheat crisis, PML-N’s member of the Punjab Assembly (MPA) Azma Bokhari was engaged in a heated debate on a television talk show with the Chairman of Punjab Food Authority and PTI MPA Umer Tanveer Butt.
PML-N’s Azma Bokhari telling PTI’s Omar Tauseef to send a bag of atta to her house since she was unable to find it in Model Town
Azma said that there was a wheat crisis in the country and Umer refused to accept it, saying there was no shortage. Azma then said that if there was no shortage, then he could send a bag of atta to her house.
We called Azma to confirm the following story. She says that when she woke up this morning, she was told by the cook in her house that a truck had come with bags of atta. The bags were being unloaded outside her house and her cook told her that he had bought a bag from them for Rs. 790 a bag. Others living on the street had also come by to buy bags of atta.
Bags of atta were dropped outside Azma’s house by Umer
Azma says that she went out and asked the people unloading the bags to take the bags and leave. They said that they had “been instructed” to leave the bags outside her house and sell it to people living in the area. She ordered them to leave her property and says that this was an attempt to “harass” her.
But according to Food and Authority Chairman Umer Tauseef, who was on the program with Azma, they weren’t harassing her and that she is “once again, using the harassment card”.
Umer says that she asked for a bag of atta on the show, saying that people in Model Town were not finding atta anywhere. He says that there is no wheat crisis and therefore, bags are available everywhere and to prove his point, he sent bags of atta to her house so people living in Model Town could have access to it.
When asked if PTI was trying to divert attention from the real issues, like a looming wheat crisis, he said that this was, “PML-N’s propaganda machine” at work and challenged to show him “one place where atta is not available”. He denied that there was any wheat crisis and said that the prices had increased due to the fact that the government had removed subsidies from certain forms of wheat.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Accountability Shahzad Akbar has been accused of getting removed at least two top-tier civil servants, including Rawalpindi Deputy Commissioner (DC) Saifullah Dogar, in a bid “to assist his brother grab land” in Mandra town ofthe district’s Gujjar Khan tehsil.
According to sources, the tussle began when British-Pakistani Jawad Sohrab Malik, who is the nephew of Federal Minister for Privatisation Muhammad Mian Soomro, accused Murad Akbar, the brother of PM Imran Khan’s aide, of attempting to illegally occupy his land in the town near the Grand Trunk (GT) Road.
They said Malik’s late grandfather had purchased over 10 kanals of land in the town back in 1986 and built on it a flour mill a year later, which still stands there. “A watchman was also hired to look after the said piece of land as its succession to the heirs has not yet been made and it is still in the name of Malik’s deceased grandfather.”
‘MURAD AKBAR WANTS TO GRAB LAND’:
Sources close to the lawmaker’s nephew told The Current that his supervisor on January 14 called Malik to inform him that six or seven people had arrived at the site claiming they had purchased two kanals of it. “Malik told him [the watchman] to approach the police and file a complaint against the intruders’ attempt to forcibly take possession of his land,” sources said, adding that the unidentified persons fled as soon as they saw police reaching the scene.
A report quoted Malik as saying that three days after the incident, nearly 50 people sent by Murad arrived at the venue with bricks and other construction material. Once again the supervisor called him to inform what was going on. “A senior police officer and assistant commissioner of Gujjar Khan also arrived at the site uninvited to ensure these people take the possession of the land,” he said.
Malik said a case was filed by Murad in a civil court in 2015, claiming the ownership of two kanals of land, and got a favourable decision ex-parte in 2018. “The deceased grandfather was made the respondent and notices were deliberately sent to wrong addresses so that the one-sided proceedings are held.”
He further said he was scared that by using government machinery, Murad would take possession of the land by force, leaving him in the lurch. “To avoid this, I got stay orders from a civil court and the ADCR.”
Sources claimed that as the tussle continued, Additional District Collector Revenue (ADCR) Rizwan Qadeer also reported that Murad’s ownership was forged and the transfer of land was fake, allegedly upsetting Imran’s aide Shahzad. The report was approved by the DC, following which the Rawalpindi police chief was ordered to use force to ensure transfer of the two kanals of land to Murad.
“The cop, however, refused to intervene saying that it was a civil matter and police couldn’t interfere,” sources said, adding that in the meantime, DC Dogar was reprimanded by powerful circles and transferred along with the ADCR in what was “ironic misuse of authority” by the premier’s aide on accountability.
OTHER SIDE OF STORY:
A friend of Shahzad Akbar, who presented the SAPM’s version but clarified he “wasn’t his spokesperson”, told The Current that the cabinet member had been stopped to issue any statement over the episode by the premier himself.
He asserted that succession of the land had not been carried out because of the disputes within the Malik family, and shared documents and footage to support his claims.
According to documents provided by Akbar’s friend, Murad had bought 17 marlas of land in Moaza Bucha of Gujjar Khan’s Khasra # 473 on main GT Road in April 2005. He later also purchased another 23 marlas of land from the same khasra on June 9, 2008, the documents claimed.
In 2009, he gave an application to the revenue office of Gujjar Khan for partition and possession of his land, he claimed. “After 10 years of hectic litigation, in April 2018 the Gujjar Khan revenue office finalised the partition suit and divided Khasra # 473 into two, making Murad exclusive owner of Khasra 473/1 measuring 40 Marlas,” as per the documents.
After giving him possession, the revenue office also sectioned partition mutation number 2849 dated May 31, 2018 declaring exclusive and legal owner and possessor of Khasra number 473/1. Murad got demarcated the dimensions of his land on Jan 13, 2020 before starting construction and consigned demarcation report in Tehsil Office, Gujjar Khan, they claimed.
The source claimed Malik visited the Gujjar Khan Revenue Office on January 13-16 escorted by police officials deputed for squad duty of Soomro.
On January 17, when labourers were working on Murad’s alleged land to construct boundary wall, the minister’s official escort number GAE 538 with uniformed police officials reached the spot.
A private Vigo UC-1-ICT, allegedly registered in the name of Malik, with armed guards reached the scene and threatened labourers of consequences and asked them to stop the work.
Murad claimed that Somroo called Mandra station house officer (SHO) and ordered him to intervene. The Gujjar Khan Revenue Department after examining the documents of both sides decided that Murad, being “legal owner”, is within his right to build the wall.
Somroo and Shahzad Akbar have reportedly spoken to each other about the dispute, but wide differences exist as both fully support the claims of their relatives and are unwilling to budge from their respective stands. Both the leaders were contacted for a comment, however, they were unavailable.
Malik, however, denied the claims made by the aide of Akbar, saying his family was the rightful owner of the property. He also claimed that he was not present at the scene when the incident took place.
OFFICERS BEAR THE BRUNT:
Meanwhile, an official notification, a copy of which is available with The Current, showed that two civil servants who have been removed from office include Rawalpindi DC Saifullah Khan Dogar and ADCR Rizwan Qadeer.
Sources said the two officials, who were also allegedly reprimanded by Shahzad, were let go due to alleged misuse of authority owing to the high-level power struggle between the two top members of the federal cabinet.
Saifullah was transferred on January 20 and replaced with Capt (r) Muhammad Anwar-ul-Haq, while Rizwan Qadeer was transferred two days earlier. An assistant superintendent of police (ASP) in Gujjar Khan has also been transferred reportedly due to the dispute.
Shahzad Akbar’s friend, however, says that the removal was merely a co-incidence. He also hinted at another case pertaining to a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senator, being the reason behind the transfer of the Rawalpindi DC.
None of the said officers were available for a comment.
