TheUS embassy in Pakistan announced that it will award 700 additional graduate-level scholarships for Pakistani women in partnership with the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
The program targets young people from remote and rural areas of Pakistan includes Interior Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
The two-year scholarships will begin this year and last until 2023. The students can earn master’s degrees in agriculture, business, engineering, health sciences, and social sciences.
“These additional 700 fully-funded graduate-level scholarships will be awarded to some of the most talented Pakistani women to help meet their higher education goals,” said USAID Deputy Mission Director Michael Nehrbass.
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has increased the number of scholarships and allocated 50 percent of scholarships to women. Today’s announcement brings the total of Merit- and Needs-Based Scholarship Program (MNBSP) scholarships awarded to Pakistani students to 6,000.
Since 2003, the US had granted 5,300 merit and need-based scholarships to financially disadvantaged but academically successful students throughout Pakistan.
Newly hired medical superintendent of the Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH) Dr Muhammad Younus Warraich has banned jeans in the hospital and made dupatta or scarf mandatory for the women medical officers (WMOs) and paramedics, Majeed Gill reported for Dawn.
The new dress code has been introduced reportedly by the new head of the hospital to ‘preach Islam and reform the society’.
A notification signed by Mr Warraich, titled as, DRESS CODE RULES IN B.V. HOSPITAL BAHAWALPUR PREMISES consisted of two categories of ‘ALLOWED’ and ‘NOT ALLOWED’.
The letter gives the list of the dresses, which are not permitted in the hospital. It includes “jeans/tights (but only with knee-length shirt), high-up trousers/capri above ankle, tight fitted clothes, see-through clothes, heavy/tacky bangles or rings, sleeveless/half sleeves clothes, heavy make-up (especially dark lipsticks), untied long hair, high heels (making loud sounds and turning heads of everyone), extreme hairstyles (especially high buns like the hump of camels), low neckline (front and back), nail paint on long nails, slippers and anklets (Pazaib)”.
The “ALLOWED” category includes, “shalwar kameez or trousers with long shirts, dupatta/scarf, minimal jewelry like studs/tops, simple ring, or a chain with locket, sleeves below the elbow, lab coat (compulsory in hospital premises), maternity gowns/suitable dresses (during antenatal period) and scrubs with long sleeves that can be folded for females”.
It is notable that the code looks to be mostly women-centric.
Talking to Dawn, Mr Warraich confirmed that lab coats and maternity gowns during operations are now necessary on the hospital premises along with dupatta/scarf with minimum jewellery for women medical officers. Explaining the move, he said the step had been taken to preach Islam, promote religious values and reform society.
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry accused Dawn media group of being part of an international conspiracy against Pakistan.
When anchorperson Absa Komal asked Fawad about media freedom in Pakistan and for an update on the investigation related to recent attacks on journalists in Islamabad, Fawad dodged the question and said, “Your institution [Dawn] is an active participant of an international conspiracy theory which works against Pakistan.” Fawad appeared on ‘News Eye with Absa Komal’ on Dawn News.
“Your institution propagates an environment that works against the country, trying to take things out of context.”
“Human Rights Watch (HRW) has written an entire article on PMDA and it says that there is five-year prosecution. When we inquired about it from HRW, they said it was entirely based on [Dawn’s] editorial,” said Fawad.
When @AbsaKomal asked @fawadchaudhry about the update on the investigation related to attacks on journalists happened in Islamabad. Fawad Ch conveniently dodged the question & accused ‘Dawn newspaper’ of working ‘against Pakistan’. Last week Fawad ch accused Geo/Jang group. pic.twitter.com/mQ2QdjK9va
Twitter reacted to the minister’s statement against Dawn.
Journalist Benazir Shah tweeted, “The Info. Minister accuses Dawn of being part of an ‘international conspiracy’ to defame Pakistan, without presenting a shred of evidence to support his claim. On the other hand, there is enough evidence of increasing censorship against media.”
The Info. Minister accuses Dawn of being part of an “international conspiracy” to defame Pakistan, without presenting a shred of evidence to support his claim.
On the other hand, there is enough evidence of increasing censorship against media. https://t.co/NqTx4Ta0a9
Lawyer Aftab Alam questioned, “If govt is serious about media regulatory reforms, why is it keeping the process secret? Why not putting ‘Bill’ on the official page of @GovtofPakistan and sharing with stakeholders?”
Another Twitter user wrote, “A journalist has a genuine concern? – Instead of addressing it just accuse them of being anti-state and dodge the question. This way you save yourself the embarrassment of giving a proper clarification which you clearly don’t have.”
A journalist has a genuine concern? – Instead of addressing it just accuse them of being anti state and dodge the question. This way you save yourself the embarrassment of giving a proper clarification which you clearly don’t have.
Pictures of three physically challenged Pakistani friends on a tour to Egypt are doing the rounds on social media. The three women are Tanzeela, Afshan and Zarghona. Tanzeela is from Lahore, Afshan hails from Peshawar and Zarghona lives in Quetta.
Talking to BBC Urdu, Tanzeela said that she is physically challenged since her childhood. She says, “I have no legs below the knees and I have been in a wheelchair all my life,” but so far she has travelled 20 countries in a wheelchair.
“I wanted to prove that a disabled girl doesn’t need anyone, she can be independent, she can make her own decisions,” she said talking about travelling alone.
Tanzeela said, “Allah has created us all independent, but in our country, a differently-abled person is made dependant on others and he cannot go anywhere without the help of anyone, from restaurants to public washrooms.” She added that there are no facilities for physically challenged persons to go anywhere alone. They have to ask for someone’s help to go to the restaurants or public washrooms. There is no privacy and if there is no privacy, then your self-confidence is completely destroyed.
“I thought I would take a step forward and set an example for other people.”
The other friend, Afshan told BBC Urdu that 75 per cent of her body was paralysed because she was not vaccinated against polio when she was a child. Physiotherapy has made her healthy enough that she can now sit in a wheelchair.
Sharing her feelings about travelling alone, she said that women with disabilities are often looked upon with pity. “It is a common notion about them that they cannot go anywhere so I decided to show the world that when you have the courage, then nothing is impossible.”
Afshan said that we used to see girls travelling outside Pakistan but never saw anybody mentioning facilities provided to the physically challenged people who want to travel to other countries. “Nobody mentioned whether the conditions are the same in foreign countries as in Pakistan or better for people like us.”
Zarghona was seven months old when she contracted polio and was unable to walk.
“I have never travelled from Quetta to Islamabad or Karachi alone before this and I used to have some attendant with me. Even if I go somewhere in Quetta, I have to take someone with me,” she said.
This is her first trip alone. She has previously travelled with different groups to three countries. “I was very excited to see Tanzeela and Afshan and I dared to travel alone,” she added. “If they can travel alone, why can’t I?”
Member National Assembly (MNA) Mohsin Dawar on Wednesday launched a new political party called the National Democratic Movement (NDM). The new party includes some members of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).
NDM’s central organising committee was announced at its first formal meeting in Peshawar. Mohsin Dawar will be the central organiser, Muzamil Shah general secretary and Jamila Gilani information secretary. Abdullah Nangyal, Ibrahim Khan, Haroon Bazai, Anwar Sulemankhel, Aijaz Aslam and Tariq Wazir Khan are also part of the central organising committee.
NDM’s first press conference was attended by former senator Afrasiab Khattak, former MNA Bushra Gohar and several others. The manifesto of the new political party was also unveiled at the launch. It says that the party’s basic principle is the promotion of a secular federal democratic parliamentary system, among other things. It also states that the NDM believes in upholding civilian constitutional supremacy.
Talking to The Current, Mohsin Dawar said the NDM will speak for the oppressed and the marginalised from every part of Pakistan. “We believe in supremacy of parliament and we believe in providing space to the youth to lead this movement. We want to steer the country towards equality and progress and will also resist growing militarisation, which is dominating every sphere.”
A power outage is reported in several parts of Karachi on Wednesday, the city’s power utility K-Electric reported.
According to Geo News, the areas facing power outages are Nazimabad, North Nazimabad, Federal B Area, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Clifton and Defence.
K-electric, while responding to the complaints, stated on Twitter that it is “actively monitoring the situation and will keep updating this space”.
We are receiving reports of interruption in power supply from some parts of the city. We are actively monitoring the situation and will keep updating this space.
A resident told Geo News that just before the outage, there was pronounced fluctuation in the power supply.
A lot of the areas where a power outage was reported were areas where it drizzled today, leading to people hoping that the rains expected this month will not cause havoc in the city like before.
Two girls were allegedly kidnapped and gang-raped in a factory in Lahore, ARY news reported.
Another day Another RAPE case…2 girls abducted from Shahdra, 3 abductors took them to a factory near Gujjarpura, Lahore and raped them. Factory owner found the girls next morning and called the police.#GujjarpuraRape
As per details, two girls were abducted from Lahore’s Shahdara area and were moved to Gujjarpura.
The girls were gang-raped by three men in the Karol Khatti factory in Gujjarpura, the police said and added that the rapists later escaped the crime scene.
The police claim that they have arrested the factory owner while a search operation is underway to arrest the rapists.
A four-year-old boy was raped in a school in Karachi when he went to fetch the ball, ARY News reported on Tuesday.
As per details, the incident happened in Karachi’s North Nazimabad, where a four-year-old boy was raped by a school watchman inside a school when he went to pick up the ball.
Other reports state that the boy was raped by the guard’s son.
Speaking to anchorperson Gharidah Farooqi on ‘G For Gharidah’, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Special Assistant on Capital Development Authority (CDA), Ali Nawaz Awan, said: “Pakistan is on United Kingdom’s (UK) Red List because of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif.”
پاکستان برطانیہ کی ریڈ لسٹ میں اسلئے ہے کیونکہ نوازشریف نے برطانیہ میں اپنی جعلی ہیلتھ رپورٹس جمع کروائیں جس کے بعد برطانیہ نے ہمیں ہولڈ پر ڈال دیا !!!
Awan said that despite providing all the data and information required by the UK, Pakistan suffered due to Nawaz.
Awan said that the government was very hopeful that Pakistan would be taken to the amber list but then thrice elected former prime minister Nawaz Sharif attached his fake medical reports along with his extended stay application. Hence the UK decided that if a three-time prime minister can lie, they cannot trust Pakistan and have thus kept us on hold.
Awan’s argument left the panel laughing. Anchorperson Gharida Farooqi asked Awan as to what connection did the former prime minister’s health have with Pakistan staying on the Red List.
Awan stressed again that the UK is looking at the fake reports submitted by Nawaz Sharif.
