Tag: The News

  • PML-N internal rifts cause delays in ticket announcements

    PML-N internal rifts cause delays in ticket announcements

    Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidates for the upcoming general elections hang in limbo as internal disagreements and seat adjustments cause delays in announcement of final ticket announcements, The News has reported on Monday.

    A source within PML-N told The News that it was expected that the party’s top leadership will award final party tickets on Sunday, however, the announcement got postponed due to seat adjustments with multiple political parties and internal disagreements between PML-N leaders.

    According to sources in the party, the matter of tickets is creating difficulties for aspirants who have yet to start their election campaigns.

    In Lahore, a rift between stalwarts Ayaz Sadiq and Sheikh Rohail Ashgar over party tickets has not been resolved, as both were not ready to give up. Similar is the case at Narowal, where Daniyal Aziz and Ahsan Iqbal are entangled in a rift over tickets for their blue-eyed candidates.

    PML-N leader Rohail Asghar said that he doesn’t know the destiny of the seat, but he enjoyed good relations with PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and has no disagreements with party leadership.

  • Govt’s Hajj 2024 scheme fails to attract enough applications

    Govt’s Hajj 2024 scheme fails to attract enough applications

    Journalist Rana Ghulam Qadir has published a report in The News about the shocking drop in the number of applications submitted for the Hajj 2024.

    The report states the last date for receiving Hajj applications is approaching. The Ministry of Religious Affairs said on Tuesday that the number of applications received in five days from November 27 to December 5 was disappointing. One week is left till the ending date.

    The number of Hajj quotas under the government scheme is 89,605. Out of this, the quota of the sponsorship scheme has been fixed at 25,000. According to the ministry, the number of Hajj applications received in the last ten days is 12,600.

    Out of them, 800 have come under the sponsorship scheme while the remaining one comes under the regular scheme.

    In the past, a large number of applications was submitted in the initial days, but this year the number is very low. There is a possibility that there may not be a required number of applications as per the Hajj quota, especially since the target of the sponsorship scheme seems difficult to achieve.

    Officials of the ministry said that if the target is not met by December 12, the deadline will be extended.

    One reason for the low demand is inflation and the other reason is that Hajj is in June and the ministry is already moving six months in advance. The ministry sought the applications early so that Hajj arrangements could be improved.

  • ‘Officers from diverse departments’ may serve as DROs, ROs: ECP

    ‘Officers from diverse departments’ may serve as DROs, ROs: ECP

    The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is considering the appointment of “officers from diverse departments,” including judiciary, federal, and provincial governments, and officers from ECP as district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs) in the upcoming election on February 8, The News has reported on Thursday.

    According to the report, it is highly likely that ECP will use a mix of officers, but no official decision has been taken in this matter.

    “The Election Commission is left with no option but to engage officers from diverse departments. Already, the provincial election commissioners are in the process of finalising lists of officers for the poll job, besides Central Secretariat,” a senior official of the ECP told The News.

    The source from ECP also said that judiciary had rejected the request to appoint officers for election duty because of multiple reasons, including several pending cases. However, one of the smaller provincial high courts expressed a willingness to provide officers for election duty.

    To a question, he said around 1,000 DROs and ROs would be involved in the nationwide election duty.

    In 2009, the National Judicial Policy Making Committee (NJPMC) decided not to appoint judicial officers for election duty, as this had dragged the “judiciary into political controversies”.

  • Court fixes contempt case against former Chief Judge Rana Shamim

    Court fixes contempt case against former Chief Judge Rana Shamim

    The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has fixed a contempt case against former Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Chief Judge (CJ), Dr Rana Muhammad Shamim, on September 5.

    Shamim allegedly signed an affidavit that incriminates former Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar.

    The affidavit contained allegations that Saqib Nisar attempted to influence a case against former Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, Maryam Nawaz, in an attempt to bring Imran Khan into power.

    The authenticity of the affidavit, which surfaced in one of Pakistan’s leading newspapers in November 2021, has been in question.

    Journalist Ansar Abbasi who published this investigative report has also been called in for contempt of court.

    Earlier in January, IHC indicted Rana Shamim for allegations that he levelled against Saqib.

    At the time, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah deferred the framing of charges against the media personnel who were also named in the case, including journalist Abbasi and Jang Group owner Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman.

  • PM says ‘no question of cut in HEC budget’, two days after educationist raises issue in Op-ed

    PM says ‘no question of cut in HEC budget’, two days after educationist raises issue in Op-ed

    Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said there is no question of a cut in the budget of the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

    “There is no question of a cut in the budget of Higher Education Commission. I am aware of the negative effect that cuts have had on higher education during the past four years. I have given clear directions to Planning Commission & Ministry of Finance in this regard,” he wrote in a tweet.

    Two days before PM’s statement, an opinion piece was published in The News titled ‘Abandoning higher education‘ by Dr Ayesha Razzaque.

    “For the next fiscal year, the HEC requested a recurrent budget of Rs104 billion. However, a few days ago an official letter (dated May 23, 2022) from the Finance Division regarding the 2022-23 budget emerged. It directs the HEC to prepare a new budget for next year that fits into Rs30 billion, – less than a third of what was requested and less than half of this year’s Rs65.25 billion. Here I would like to acknowledge that Federal Minister for Planning and Development Dr Ahsan Iqbal has voiced his opposition to this news.”

    Dr Ayesha Razzaque took to Twitter to share PM’s statement.

    A thread by Dr Razzaque on the issue of HEC budget can be accessed here.

  • Fact Check: All Confucius Chinese learning centers except NUML are shutting down

    Fact Check: All Confucius Chinese learning centers except NUML are shutting down

    Claim: All Confucius Chinese learning centers have shut down in Pakistan in the wake of the University of Karachi bomb blast in which three Chinese nationals were killed.

    Fact: All Confucius Chinese learning centers except the one in NUML are shutting down as most Chinese educators have gone back to China. Remaining classes for the current session have been shifted online.

    On May 15, right-wing activist and journalist Orya Maqbool Jan with 477.2K followers on Twitter, shared a tweet claiming that all five Confucius centers in Pakistan are being shut down in the aftermath of the University of Karachi bombing by Shari Baloch. The female suicide bomber targeted three Chinese nationals working at the Confucius Institute of the University of Karachi.

    On May 17, The News posted an article quoting Zhang Heqing, the Cultural Counsellor at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad, stating that all centers are operating and that China will continue to increase educational support sent towards Pakistan. After the article in the English daily, social media users started “fact checking” Orya Maqbool Jan, including Naya Daur andUrdu News, using The News’ article to back up their claim that none of the Confucius centers are shutting down.

    Team Current decided to verify this widely spread news and we discovered that except for the Confucius center inside National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad, all other centers – in Lahore, Faisalabad, Karachi and Bahawalpur, are on their way to shutting down for the foreseeable future.

    We got in touch with Babar Saleem, the accounts officer at the University of Karachi Confucius center, who confirmed on call that outside these five centers the Chinese government had set up a few classes in PItaro as well. But since all Chinese educators have already gone back to China, the current session in these centers have been changed from in person to online and after the current session ends, all activities at the center have been cancelled.

    Verdict: 90% TRUE (since the learning center at NUML will remain open)

  • Senior journalist Talat Aslam passes away

    Senior journalist Talat Aslam passes away

    Veteran journalist and senior editor of the English Daily The News International, Talat Aslam passed away on Wednesday at the age of 67.

    In his final few tweets, he talked about ARY News channel being pushed back. He urged the government to not do what its predecessor did to the media.

    Aslam was a veteran journalist with a career spanning many publications, including Herald and The News.

    Following the news of Aslam’s death, Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif expressed deep sorrow over the death of senior journalist and paid tribute to him.

    Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman tweeted: “Burst with grief upon hearing that old friend, Aslam just passed away. He was the kindest, funniest, wittiest, warmest soul in the whole world.”

    Several journalists also came forward to express their condolences.

  • PTI ready for elections in three months, ECP makes arrangements

    PTI ready for elections in three months, ECP makes arrangements

    Interim Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has directed his party members and workers to start preparations for the next elections, expressing his hope that the poll will be held in the country in the next three months.

    Addressing a function at Governor’s House in Lahore, he criticised the opposition, saying that they should be given “exemplary punishment for betraying the country”, [for tabling the no-confidence motion in NA against him]. “The PTI will also approach the Supreme Court (SC) against them [Opposition]. “

    Not only this, the interim PM urged the nation to come to the F-9 Park Islamabad to protest peacefully against the Opposition and its conspiracy. He asked the nation to protest on a daily basis to send a message to the United States (US), which he claims, is behind the foreign conspiracy. “Everyone knows who has aided and abetted the Pakistani Opposition in tabling the no-confidence motion.”

    According to The News, after Khan asked the nation to prepare for the next general election in three months, the understaffed Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has started finding a way to make the polls possible during the stipulated time.

    Sources within the commission said that Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja has become active and making arrangements requisite for timely conduct of elections.

    Earlier, a news report published in Dawn quoted an ECP official as saying that it is not possible to hold general elections within three months due to a variety of legal and procedural issues.

    However, the commission denied issuing any statement regarding the time frame for the next general elections on Tuesday.

    According to Fawad Chaudhry, “The [interim] prime minister has decided to give party tickets to those former 135 MNAs who remained loyal and stuck to the party till the end.”

  • Man, wife, stabbed to death and baby girl strangled in their own house

    Man, wife, stabbed to death and baby girl strangled in their own house

    A wife, husband and their child were killed by unidentified persons, in Lahore on Sunday. According to details, some unidentified persons barged into the home of a lawyer in Lahore’s Chuhng neighbourhood and murdered him, his wife, and a baby daughter after repeatedly assaulting the pair with a knife, reports The News.

    The man was a lawyer, Advocate Amanat. According to the police, investigators are collecting evidence from the crime scene. The baby girl was strangled, according to preliminary police reports.

    Preliminary police reports suggest that the incident was the result of a long-standing feud. The police have arrested a suspect, Babar, from the house of advocate Amanat’s brother-in-law.

    The brother of the murdered advocate, Salim, has also said that there is a chance that his sibling and his family were murdered due to some rivalry.

    Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar took notice of the incident and directed the inspector general of police to investigate the matter and trace the killers immediately.

  • Getting direct with Australia: PIA to fly directly down under for the first time

    Getting direct with Australia: PIA to fly directly down under for the first time

    The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has announced plans to launch two weekly flights to Australia, cutting travel time to and from the country by around one-third, The News reports.

    PIA spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez says that if it (flights to Australia by a Pakistani carrier) happens, it would be happening for the first time.  He said that PIA has conducted a feasibility study, which concluded that it would be beneficial to the airline.

    PIA intends to operate two weekly flights from Karachi and Lahore to Sydney at first. Later, it might also include Islamabad.

    Flights might commence in late March or early April, according to the national carrier. The airline, however, has yet to receive authorisation from the Australian aviation authority.

    Direct flights would shorten a traveler’s flight duration to 12:30 hours and 13 hours, if one is going to Australia or coming to Pakistan respectively.

    Because there are no direct flights between Pakistan and Australia, passengers must travel for 34 to 35 hours with stopovers, which adds to their travel time.

    “Every airline must touch their hub before flying on to their destination,” stated Nadeem Sharif, Chairman of the Travel Agents Association of Pakistan (TAAP). “There may be eight-hour layovers or even overnight stays, which adds to the travel time.”

    He added that, for example, if a person travelling to Australia via Qatar Airways from Pakistan, he or she must first fly to Doha, Qatar Airways’ hub, and then be carried to Australia from there. Similarly, when a person travels from Australia to Pakistan, the same thing happens.

    PIA’s fleet is expected to grow from the current 29 to 49 by 2026, comprising 16 wide body, 27 narrow body and 6 turbo propeller aircraft. PIA’s share price increased by 1.24 percent on Tuesday to Rs4.09.