Need to resolve Pakistan-Indiaissues................................................Drone attacks will fuelterrorism................................................All eyes are now set on SC

See Page 04

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—KSE-100 amid a lackluster trad-ing session on the back of strikecalled by MQM closed in redwith a loss of 21 points at 34408levels on Thursday. The marketvolume was also dropped to206million shares.

However the index was re-silient and likely to bounceback when the political noise issettled down as the short termbullish trend line is currently inthe 34,150-34,200 range. If theindex continued to hold the

34,150-34,200 support, then it could retest itsall-time high.

Strike shadows trading activity

KSE-100 shows resistance,drops 21 points

Continued on Page 7

LAHORE—Governor Punjab ChaudharyMuhammad Sarwar on Thursday ten-dered his resignation following a conver-sation with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifover statements the governor had maderegarding the failure of the government’sforeign policy. The government acceptedhis resignation, with Punjab AssemblySpeaker Rana Iqbal having taken over asacting governor Punjab.

However, Sarwar denied any com-munication with the Prime MinisterHouse, and other reports saying that hewas asked to resign. The resignation wasreportedly handed to President MamnoonHussain late Wednesday night, with somereports suggesting that the federal gov-ernment had requested an explanationfrom Sarwar over his statement afterwhich the governor handed in his resig-nation.

Talking to Pakistan Observer, a re-liable source close to ChaudharyMuhammad Sarwar said his resignationwas not unexpected since he is a man ofaction who came to Pakistan with anambition to serve the nation but the real-ity was contrary to his ambitious soulsince Sharif brothers took Sarwar to Pa-kistan for the symbolic but important post

of the Punjab governor. “This kind of postwas against the nature of ChaudharyMuhammad Sarwar; therefore, he re-mains defiant,” adding he said it was to-tally injustice to propagate thatChaudhary Sarwar betrayed Sharif Broth-ers or played any destructive role to ma-lign PML-N government since those whoare close to Chaudhary Sarwar know thathe is a loyal friend and will stand by hisbenefactors and even ordinary people inthe most difficult of times. “Sarwar wasclose to Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharifand helped both of them while they livedin exile. Benazir Bhutto offered him asenior post but he declined but was per-suaded by Sharifs to return to Pakistanto become the governor,” adding he saidthis was wrong impression thatChaudhary Sarwar was eyeing at someother lucrative post in Pakistan.

On the other hand, the sources inPML-N are claiming that the party lead-ership was unhappy with GovernorPunjab Chaudhary Muhammad Sarwarover the media statements he had givenoccasionally against the performance ofthe incumbent government.

Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharifparticipate decided to remove Sarwarowing to multiple reasons but particularlybecause of recent statement on thegovernment’s failure to secure Obama’s

visit to Pakistan. However, ChaudharyMuhammad Sarwar categorically deniedthat he raised objections over the failureof Pakistan’s foreign policy in wake ofUS President Obama’s recent tour in In-dia. He said he has no objection toObama’s India visit but the Americangovernment should have treated Pakistanequally and visited to express solidarity.

The sources further claimed thatSarwar was reportedly eyeing the foreignminister’s post. However, according tosources, the prime minister had refusedto accept his request.

Talking about the differences be-tween Chaudhary Muhammad Sarwarand Sharif Brothers, the sources said therift between Governor Punjab ChaudharyMuhammad Sarwar and PML-N leader-ship surfaced first time when GovernorPunjab Chaudhary Muhammad Sarwar’salleged role in regard of London Plancame into limelight. It is true GovernorSarwar has spoken to Khan and Qadri onseveral occasions, including around thetime London Plan was finalized, but itwas later confirmed that GovernorSarwar had nothing to do with the plans.

Interestingly, ChaudharyMuhammad Sarwar categorically deniedthese allegations saying that he neithermet Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)

……Finally Ch Sarwar resignsComment

Muzaffar Ali

Continued on Page 7

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—Punjab GovernorChaudhry Mohammad Sarwarresigned on Thursday, overwhat he said was a fail-ure to achieve what hehad set out to do.Chaudhry Sarwarpointed out that it isPakistan’s bad luck thathonesty is scarce in thecountry.

A former UK MPwho relinquished hisBritish nationality toserve Pakistan steppeddown as Governor ofthe country’s largestprovince on Thursday.

“I want to witness ademocracy where acommon man’s son canget the same opportuni-ties and rights as theelite in this country,”Sarwar in a press con-ference Thursday, add-ing that he has resignedof his own volition andnot under pressure.

The moves comes days af-ter he called out the federalgovernment for failing to enterpartnership with the UnitedStates government as he saidIndia had done. At the press

Discomfort with govt,Punjab governor resignsHonesty is scarce here I can serve Pakistan better out ofoffice Speaker Rana Iqbal takes over as acting governor

Continued on Page 7

ASHRAF ANSARI

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan on Thursday said Indiadoes not qualify to become full member of theUnited Nations Security Council given its recordof violation of UN resolutions particularly per-taining to Jammu and Kashmir.

At her weekly news briefing in Islamabad,Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam saidnew permanent member could make the Secu-rity Council even more undemocratic. She saidthe UNSC reforms should make this vital organfor peace and security more democratic, effec-tive and responsive to the aspirations of themember states. A reformed UNSC should re-flect interests of wider membership of the UN.She, however, warned that the idea of new per-manent member seats in the UNSC will createonly new centers of powers and privileges, andcould make the Security Council even moreundemocratic. Pakistan has always advocatedeffective and feasible reforms of the UN Secu-rity Council and its working methods on the ba-sis of consensus among the UN members.

India not eligible forUNSC permanent seat: FO

Responding to questions about the recentUS-India defence pact, the spokesperson saidthe pact can only add to the conventional asym-metry and undermine the regional stability. Shevoiced concerns over India’s massive acquisi-tion of conventional weapons saying this willfurther complicate stability in the region. Shesaid India has increased its defence spending by12 percent in 2014-15. Its defence budget standsat 38.3 billion dollars. India has for the last threeyears been top buyer of conventional weapons.

To a question, Tasnim Aslam said China isa global power and is significantly contributingto regional stability. About the visit of Chinesepresident, she said it will take place; howeverdates have yet not been finalized. About rela-tions with the United States, Tasnim Aslam saidPakistan is determined to work with the US toexpand bilateral relations on the basis of mu-tual respect and interests.“Washington is our major trading partner and abig investor in Pakistan. A new round of strate-gic dialogue commenced this month. We have

Continued on Page 7

PISHIN—As many as 11 per-sons including women andchildren died after gas filledfrom generator in the room oftheir house in Kali Karbalaarea in Pishin, Baluchistan,local media reported.

Levies officials told thatall victims that included sixchildren, three women andtwo men were members ofthe same family and had leftthe gas generator turned onbefore going to bed. Thebodies were shifted to CivilHospital Pishin for postmor-

tem.Power outages in the area

force people to use gas gen-erators to ensure they haveelectricity and are able toperform day-to-day func-tions.

The household was alsousing gas to run the genera-tor but late in the night, thesupply got interrupted some-how and upon resumption ofsupply, the room got filledwith gas, leading to death bysuffocation of the 11 familymembers.—Online

11 die of gassuffocation in Pishin

144,000Pakistanis toperform Hajj

this yearJEDDAH—Some 144,000 Pa-kistani nationals will performHajj pilgrim in 2015.

The pact was signed herebetween Federal Minister forReligious Affairs SardarYousuf and Saudi Minister forHajj Dr Bandar Bin Hajjar onThursday.

According to the agree-ment, 71,684 Pakistani pil-grims would visit the holy sites

Continued on Page 7

Continued on Page 7

4 killed in USdrone strikenear Pak-Afghan borderSTAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—At least fourmilitants were killed in aUS drone strike onThursday in the Nazyandistrict near the Pak-Afghan border.

Intelligence sources saythat the drone fired threemissiles on militantpositions, killing at leastfour.

A number of othershave also reportedly beeninjured in the strike.

The identity of themilitants is yet to beascertained, but the area isreported to be mostlyinhabited by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)militants let by MullahFazllullah and also someforeign fighters.

According to securityofficials, militants based inthe Nazyan district hadplanned the devastatingattack on the Army PublicSchool in Peshawar, whichleft over 140 children andteachers dead and scoresinjured.

Strikes against militantshave increased on bothsides of the border sincethe attack.

Pakistani securityforces have also beencarrying out groundoffensives in KhyberAgency, particularly theTirah Valley of Bara whichborders Nazyan.

Airlineswarned ofterrorist attacksin PakistanEASA—European Union(EU) regulatory bodyworking in the field ofcivilian aviation safety –issued a notice on itswebsite stating that the“potential” of terroristattacks in Pakistan has ledto an increased risk forairlines.

The body’s warning wasbased on the DirectorateGeneral for Civil Aviation(France) issuing a noticerecommending that Frenchoperators should not flybelow 24,000 feet insidePakistani territory.—AP

Peshawar judgesseniority

CJP excusesfrom hearingcaseISLAMABAD—ChiefJustice of Pakistan (CJP)Nasir ul Mulk has excusedfrom hearing Peshawarsubordinate judiciaryjudges seniority case andordered for fixing the casein some other bench forhearing.

A 3-member bench ofSupreme Court (SC)presided over by ChiefJustice of Pakistan Nasir ulMulk took up the case forhearing Thursday. ChiefJustice of Pakistan (CJP)remarked that he hadremained judge ofPeshawar High Court(PHC) and this case hadcome before him therefore,he can not sit in this case.It will be better case befixed in some other bench.

Adjourning the hearingof the case till February, 20the CJP directed registrarSC to fix the bench in someother bench.—Online

Musharraf’srequest for

travel to SaudiArabia rejected

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Former mili-tary ruler Gen (Retd) PervezMusharraf was denied permis-sion to travel to Saudi Arabiato condole over the death ofKing Abdullah.

Sources at the Interior Min-istry said that the former presi-dent had made a request totravel to Saudi Arabia to offercondolences over themonarch’s death.

Musharraf, in his request,stated that King Abdullah hadbeen like a brother to him thatis why he wanted to travel to

KARACHI: Shops seen closed in Bolton Market during a strike called by MQM against killing of workers on Thursday.

conference Sarwar said, “Wehave no objection to Obama’sIndia visit, says Sarwar, butObama should have treatedPakistan equally and visited to

express solidarity.”The government accepted

his resignation, with PunjabAssembly Speaker Rana Iqbalhaving taken over as actinggovernor Punjab.

Sarwar denied any com-

munication with the PrimeMinister House, and denied re-ports saying that he was askedto resign. The resignation wasreportedly handed to President

Mamnoon Hussain lastnight, with some reportssuggesting that the fed-eral government had re-quested an explanationfrom Sarwar over hisstatement after whichthe governor handed inhis resignation.

He further addedthat he can help themasses more effectivelyaway from the governorhouse, explaining thatthe decision to resignhad nothing to do withthe Sharif brothers.

“I can serve Paki-stan better out of office,”he said. “I will live anddie in Pakistan.”

He further said thathe wants to continue tohelp Pakistan in creatingsuch a society where

progress can be ensured for allthe masses.

“It’s time to wake up,” hesaid, addressing political par-ties, adding that out-of-schoolchildren, lack of access to clean

LAHORE: Punjab Governor ChaudhryMohammad Sarwar addressing a press con-ference regarding his resignation on Thursday.

AAMIR MAJEED

KARACHI—The routine life inthis metropolitan city, crawledback to normalcy after theMuttaheda Qaumi Movement(MQM) announced to endstrike on Thursday.

Earlier, the routine life gotsuspended in Karachi and par-tially in some parts of the Sindhprovince on call of MQM tomourn alleged extrajudicialkilling of MQM Society Sec-tor Incharge Sohail Ahmed theprevious day.

The shops and markets inthe metropolis opened again onThursday evening after a day-long closure. Some of thepetrol pumps and the city werealso opened on Thursdayevening while many of thepump owners decided to openthe stations on Friday (today)after reviewing the city situa-tion.

Some of the public trans-

Normalcy returns to Karachiafter MQM ends strike

Altaf takes back decision to sever ties with partyport was back to roads and theadministration of the educa-tional institutes have decided toreopen school, colleges anduniversities on Friday (today).

MQM chief Altaf Hussainappealed to the people, traders,shopkeepers and transporters toopen their businesses andthanked them for their supportduring the mourning-day calledby MQM on Thursday.

He also directed the MQMCoordination Committee tonote down the contact detailsof traders and industrialistswho supported MQM’s calldespite their political affilia-tions. He said that he wouldsoon thank all of them in afunction.

Earlier, the metropolitancity wore a deserted look onMQM call of a day of mourn-ing over alleged extrajudicialkilling of party’s sector In-charge. The shops and marketsin the metropolitan city, whichstarted closing on Thursdayevening, remained shut onThursday and people bookedthemselves in houses to avoid

Continued on Page 7

PM dashesto Karachi

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Prime Minister(PM) Mian MuhammadNawaz Sharif on one-dayvisit would arrive at the portcity today. He would chair ahigh level meeting at SindhGovernor House. The meet-ing would focus on progresson ongoing targeted opera-tion in the city and deterio-rated law and order.

Earlier, the PM had talked

Continued on Page 7

Continued on Page 7

Border violations

India resortsto firing in

Charwah sectorOUR CORRESPONDENT

SIALKOT—Indian Border Se-curity Force on Thursday re-sorted to unprovoked firingalong the working boundary atCharwah Sector in Sialkot.

Pakistan Rangers re-sponded to Indian aggressionin befitting manner, accordingto a statement issued by InterServices Public Relations(ISPR).

Earlier on January 25, theBSF had sorted to unpro-voked shelling on the bordervillages in Charwah Sector ofSialkot Working Boundary,creating panic among thepeople living close to the bor-der at Sialkot WorkingBoundary.

However, no loss of life orinjury was reported, ChenabRangers officials confirmed.

I S L A M A B A D — P a k i s t a nTehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chiefImran Khan Thursday warnedif PTI again took to the streets,then government would find itdifficult to survive. Talking toreporters he reiterated that de-mocracy never existed in Pa-kistan. PML-N allowed thePPP government to loot thecountry under a planned con-spiracy, he told a press confer-ence here.

Imran slammed thatChiniot police incarcerated awoman and her children, whichwas sheer injustice. He alleged

Imran threatensanti-govt street protests

that police followed the direc-tives of Salman Shahbaz to takethe unjust step. The PTI chiefsaid Punjab GovernorChaudhary Muhammad Sarwarpaid the price for speaking truthand exposing ‘corruptionmafia’.

He questioned how NawazSharif’s son Hussain Nawazacquired so much wealth. Herepeated that governmentshould have constituted the ju-dicial commission if he ‘in-deed’ came to power throughfair elections. Cricketer-turned-politician leader said that

Chaudhry MohammadSarwar’s nceremoniously re-linquishing the office of gov-ernor Punjab has evidencedwhatever he had been sayingagainst the Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz’s (PMLN) des-potic government.

“The government hasturned Punjab into a policestate as they use the law en-forcement agency to victimizetheir political and non-politicalopponents alike,” Khan toldreporters here implying thatSarwar had been sidelined be-

877,568 IMEIsblocked to curb

mobile phones theftISLAMABAD—Pakistan Tele-communication Authority(PTA) has blocked 877,568International Mobile StationEquipment Identity (IMEIs)during last eight years to curbmobile phones theft in thecountry. The IMEI blockingfacility, introduced by PTA in2006, is one of the major ini-tiatives to assist Law Enforce-ment Agencies (LEAs) to curbincidents of stolen, lost andsnatched mobile phones.

As reported by handsetowners, PTA not only blocksuse of a reported handset onany cellular network in thecountry but also helps un-block the phone in casehandset is recovered by theowner. According to data is-sued by PTA here on Thurs-day, out of total 877,568blocked IMEIs, 48,394 IMEIswere unblocked after suc-cessful recovery.—APP

KARACHI—In recognition tothe remarkable contributionmade by the ship during the

multinational Black Sea Re-gatta held from Varna, Bulgariatill Novorossiysk, Russia inMay 2014, Pakistan NavyShip Rahnaward, a class Atype Sail Training Ship of Pa-kistan Navy (also called TallShip) has been rewarded with

the “Best Newcomer” Awardduring annual prize ceremony,recently held in London by

Sail Training International.According to a press re-

lease of Pakistan Navy issuedhere on Thursday this annualaward/distinction is awardedto the Vessel/Ship that madethe best contribution to theTall Ships Regattas anywhere

PN ship wins prestigious awardin Black Sea Tall Ships Regatta

IS L A M A B A D—Minister for Water andPower Khawaja Muhammad Asif has saidsufficient electricity would be availableafter utilization of coal and liquefied natu-ral gas to generate electricity. In an in-terview, he said the government tookconcrete measures in the power sector,and several plants would start produc-ing electricity soon.

LNG coal best means toovercome energy crisis: Asif

Says public to get relief in electricity bills dueto reduction in petroleum prices

The minister said sufficient water is notavailable in the canals and rivers particu-larly in the winter season, which is creatingproblems in production of electricity. Heurged people to pay their electricity billsregularly to ensure smooth system of powerin the country. He said people would getrelief in electricity bills due to reduction inprices of petroleum.—INP

KARACHI—Sindh Education Foundation(SEF) and Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA)organized the provincial launch of the “An-nual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pa-kistan – 2014” for Sindh Province Thrusdayat Arena hall Karachi.

The launch was organized to share thefindings of the survey with those concerned,including major stakeholders belonging tothe field of academics, practitioners workingin the field of education and representativesfrom the government and media personnel.Aziz Kabani, Managing Director, Sindh Edu-cation Foundation welcome the guests to theevent. He said that it was inspiring to seealthough slight improvement in access toeducational facilities and increase in literacyin Sindh. He said that the event was not onlyto launch the ASER-Pakistan 2014 report, butalso a chance for the government officials toinform the audience about the initiatives thatare being taken to improve the education sta-tus at the grassroots level Baela Raza Jameel,Director Programs-ITA, shared the findingsof the ASER Pakistan 2014 in detail. She ex-pressed pleasure over the fact that citizenscan rise and collect extensive data in 14.5weeks.

She appreciated the talent that the citi-zens show to collect the door-to-door sur-vey throughout the country. She lamentedthe fact that the citizens were not assignedthe duty of the census and that it was yearsago that the country had its census. Shecalled the ASER a ‘social movement’ of theeducated individuals of the country. She alsoinformed that label ASER was a brand underwhich various partner organizations are work-ing throughout the process fromconceptualization to printing of the report.She said that it was a welcome step in March2013 when the Sindh Assembly passed the

Sindh framing ECE policyto up education system

Sindh Act of Right to Education (Article 25-A). She revealed the statistics achieved as aresult of the ASER survey which was, ac-cording to her, citizen-led large-scale nationalhousehold survey for the 3-16 years agedchildren. She called the ASER the largestdata set to date which is being quoted inpolicy documents and reports at national aswell as international level. The ASER toolsinclude Reading (Urdu/Sindhi/Pashto),Arithmetic, English and General Knowledgeas categories. Assessments are based onClass II level curriculum for English andClass III for Urdu/Sindhi/Pashto languages.

She said that Karachi-Malir has the high-est in school children at 97% as compared toother rural districts of Sindh. She informedthat 7% increase was seen in the trend ofchildren enrolling with the private schoolsfor 6-16 as well as 6-10 years old children. Shecalled it a point to ponder for the governmentthat can take it as a policy change to go forlow-cost private schools in rural areas.

Honourable Dr. Fazlullah Pechuho, Ad-ditional Chief Secretary-Education, Govt.of Sindh said that there is also dearth ofmerit-based HR as teachers have not beenhired on merit for the last 30 years. He ex-pressed his desire for conducting a policydialog involving political parties, educa-tionists and private entrepreneurs. He saidthat the Sindh Government’s policy ofAdopt-a-School policy was a robust onein which institutes are given chance to‘adopt’ schools by signing an MoU withthe government. He also mentioned thatthe Sindh Government was also framing apolicy for Early Childhood Education(ECE) as well as Non-formal Education inorder to strengthen the education systemat grassroots level from the platform ofpublic-private partnership.—INP

Media’s role inhighlighting FATA

issues soughtSTAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—FATA authori-ties are required to keepclose liaison with the Mediapersonals and ensure quickaccess to information for thejournalist community in or-der to remove confusionand misconceptions aboutthe FATA which is not por-trayed by the internationalmedia candidly. This was thecrux of a one daystakeholder ’s consultativeseminar on ‘Finalizing theCommunication Strategy forFederally AdministeredTribal Areas (FATA) Secre-tariat’ held at a local hotelthe other day. Director In-formation FATA Mr. SyedFayaz Ali Shah welcomedthe participants at the con-sultative session and hopedthat this activity would golong way in bridging the gapamong all the stakeholdersin Fata including tribal folk,media and the Fata authori-ties. Senior Lecturer of theJournalism and Mass Com-munication Department andStation Manager CampusRadio Mr. Ali Imran sharedthe proposed communica-tion strategy of the Fata Sec-retariat with the participantsand gave a detailed presen-tation on the subject.

The consultative sessionwas organized with an activeassistance of the USAIDfunded Fata institutionalStrengthening Project (FISP).The objective of the sessionwas to seek feedback andinput of the senior journal-ists as well as other stake-holders on the proposedcommunication strategy. Alarge number of media per-sons both from print and elec-tronic media shared theirviews and put forth valuableinputs and suggestions tofurther improve the commu-nication strategy. The Fatacommunication strategymainly focuses on socialmedia, electronic media, printmedia and effective dissemi-nation of information aboutdevelopmental activities ofGovernor KP and the FataSecretariat and other stake-holders through media.

Majority of the seniorjournalists were of the opin-ion that Fata Secretariat mustensure access to informationto the media persons to avoidconfusion andmisperception, it was sug-gested that PAs, APAs andofficials of the Fata Secretariatmust be asked to share infor-mation on emergency situa-tions with the media persons.Another suggestion was toappoint agency based infor-mation officers sharing infor-mation on regular basis.

Senate committee for retrievingstate land from squatters

LAHORE—Senate StandingCommittee on Housing andWorks on Thursday ex-pressed displeasure over in-effective steps taken by thedepartments concerned tovacate the state land occu-pied by the villagers ofDhaba Sing Wala at WafaqiColony Lahore.

“Forty five years havegone since the governmentpurchased land in 1971 andthree generations of bu-reaucrats have gone retiredbut they did nothing to re-trieve land from squatters,”Committee chairman Sena-tor Shahi Syed said thiswhile chairing a meetinghere at Chamba House.

Federal Minister forHousing and Works AkramDurrani,Senator Hamza,Federal Secretary Housing

and other members of thecommittee, besides con-cerned government officialswere present.

Shahi Syed said, “Thedepartments and their offic-ers who have no utility inthis regard should eitheropted for resignation ortheir departments should beclosed down.” Chief Engi-neer Pak PDWD S.M Zohairbriefing the Senate commit-tee said that the cases of il-legal occupants were pend-ing with courts.

He said that lack ofproper litigation cell wasamong the main reasons be-hind the delay in cases ofillegal occupation.

He said that the depart-ment could not hire costlylawyers due to legal and fi-nancial constraints but the

illegal occupants do hire biglawyers and create one afteranother hurdle in the way ofremoving their occupation.

The committee also dis-cussed public sector devel-opment projects (PSDP)being executed by Pak-PWD in Punjab provincefor the last five years. Thestanding committee alsoexpressed displeasure overdelay in renovation ofChamba House.

The committee alsostressed the Federal Govern-ment Employees HousingFoundation to take steps forincreasing housing facilitiesfor government employees byadopting a rational and bal-anced approach. The govern-ment employees living in lessdeveloped parts of the coun-try should also be given hous-ing facilities, the commiteechairman said.—APP

WB approves $50mfor improving Sindh

public sectorISLAMABAD—The WorldBank approved US$50 mil-lion to strengthen publicsector performance in theprovince of Sindh throughimproved revenue genera-tion and expenditure man-agement. The Sindh PublicSector Management ReformProject will contribute to im-proved collection of SalesTax on Services, improvedcredibility of budget execu-tion and increased timelinessof contract execution, saysa statement issued by theBank here on Thursday.

“Over the last few years,the Government of Sindhhas made commendable ef-forts to raise revenue to meetdevelopment expendituretargets. But the revenuesgenerated at the provinciallevel remain insufficient tosupport social and develop-ment expenditures neededfor economic growth in theprovince”, said RachidBenmessaoud, World BankCountry Director for Paki-

stan was quoted as sayingin the statement.

“The Project will supportinstitutional development ofthe Sindh Revenue Board withenhanced staffing, increasedautomation, and improved au-diting practices; and improvedmanagement for monitoring,evaluation and increased trans-parency.” The Project consistsof two complementary compo-nents: (i) A Public Sector Man-agement Reforms component,with results-based financinglinked to incentives to meetDisbursement Linked Indica-tors (DLIs) (US$ 40 million),and (ii) Technical Assistanceto support activities for achiev-ing DLIs (US$ 10 million).

Results-based financingwill disburse against agreedeligible expenditure programsin four reform areas: increas-ing tax revenue mobilization;enhancing performance ofpublic financial managementsystems; strengthening pub-lic procurement perfor-mance.—APP

ANF arrests ninedrugs smugglers

ISLAMABAD—Anti Narcot-ics Force (ANF) has recov-ered 363.2 kg charas, 7 kgheroin and 2.5 kg opium, ar-resting nine drug smugglers.ANF conducted sevencountrywide operations invarious cities includingAttock, Peshawar, Lahore,Jamshoro and Hyderabad.ANF also seized three ve-hicles during the operations,said a press release. Thevalue of recovered drugsapproximately amounts toRs. 414.7 million in interna-tional market.

According to details,ANF Lahore during routinesurveillance near Haroon Ex-press, Bus Stand, Thokar NiazBaig, Lahore seized a ToyotaDouble Cabin Registered No.ICT-440-WD and recovered 7kg herion concealed in secretcavities of the vehicle. Twodrug traffickers Abdul Wahid,resident of Khyber Agencyand Afsar Ali, resident ofPeshawar were arrested at thespot. ANF Peshawar on pur-suance of an intelligence re-port, intercepted a Truck(Isuzu) Registered No. X-0013-Shikrapur near Toll Plaza,Ring Road, Peshawar.—APP

in the world during her firstparticipation. Additionally,Rahnaward also won a total

of 5 trophies which includedtrophies for “Best Communi-cation” during the Race and“Best crew” in the parade heldin Varna, Bulgaria.

The Rahnaward; a tradi-tionally square rigged sailingvessel having 18 sails, is the

first ever Tall Ship of PakistanNavy inducted in PN Fleet inyear 2010. Since then, ship is

being extensively used for sailtraining of officers and men ofPakistan Navy. During the cer-emony held in London, De-fence and Naval Adviser (Pa-kistan) received the award atthe ceremony held in Lon-don.—APP

PN Ship Rahnaward with its crew at Novorossiysk Port in Russia.

HYDERABAD: Shops seen closed as MQM called a strike against killing of workers.

STAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattakhas asked the workers of PTI to start prepara-tions for local govt election being held in Maythis year as well as keep vigil on performance ofthe govt departments to make it subservient tothe needs of the people in the real sense. Heasserted that his govt is marching ahead suc-cessfully in achieving of the set goals by takingalong all the coalition partners. He said PTI andallied parties will contest local govt electionsjointly. He vowed that his govt besides all theresources and powers also transferred additional30% funds of the provincial govt to the localbodies wherein each district will receive extradevelopmental funds to the tune of Rs. 400 mil-lion that will be sufficient for revolutionarychanges of development at village and town lev-els after transparent use. Now village councilmember will be more powerful than MPA, headded.

He was talking to local office bearers of PTITehsil Khaal Dir Payan that called on him underdistrict Fakhruzaman, Tehsil President YousafAdeel, Provincial President Insaf Student Fed-eration Akhunzada Hussain Ahmad at CM Sec-retariat Peshawar and apprised him of the prob-

Khattak advises PTI workers toprepare for May local govt polls

lems and demands of the area. Besides the con-cerned authorities provincial General Secretaryof PTI Khalid Masood was also present. On thisoccasion ANP stalwart, Tehsil President andcandidate of PK-93 from ANP AkhunzadaAshfaqur Rahim announced joining PTIalongwith his 1500 supporters and tribe mem-bers. He said that he was impressed of the vi-sion of change of Imran Khan and undauntedsteps of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak ensuringsupremacy of merit, law and justice in the prov-ince and hence forth would render every sacri-fice for the cause of this party.

Pervez Khattak said that PTI under the dy-namic leadership of Imran Khan would reign fu-ture of the national politics as its popularity isgrowing with passage of each day. He wonderedthat even staunch politicians did not know aboutthe real essence of change but the people knowthe meaning of change for which they voted usinto power. He said we would ever never lootthe public exchequer like that of past regimesbut would take sigh of relief when the peoplewould be benefited of the fruits of change andinstitutions start delivering to them. He askedthe delegation whether they see any change inpolice and other departments in their areas uponwhich all raised hands and told univocally that

there was vivid change seen everywhere andsee more improvement as well.

Chief Minister while taking strong noticeof delay in rationalization of teachers as perratio of students in schools of the district, di-rected the deputy commissioner to completethis process within week otherwise order theimmediately dismissal of EDO concerned onfailing it as he said there was no room for le-thargic and law violating officials in this govt.He said there would be school based appoint-ments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while completeban has been imposed on transfers of teach-ers. He lamented that there was no concept oftransfer of teachers in rest of the world andthat was the basic reason of the high standardof education and progress there. He said Rs. 3billion are being released for construction ofboundary walls and other missing facilities inthe existing schools besides the Tameer-e-School program. “Coming decades will bringeducational revolution in our province due touniform syllabus and system of education inour schools”, he added. He further stated thatnew policies for scientific exploitation of min-eral and forests resources have been introducedthat would result into considerable increase ofincome and resources of the province.

PESHAWAR—The FATA teachers associa-tion Mohmand Agency here Thursday wel-comed the decision of Pe-shawar HighCourt regarding promotion of teachers tonext grades that would end their long dep-rivation.

Terming the decision based on justice,President of teachers associationMohmand Agency, Dast Ali told APP thatthat it would benefit hundreds of teacherswho were waiting for posting since long tonext grade.

He said 1339 teachers of different cad-res had moved Peshawar High Court seek-ing promotion to next grades. He said thiswould end long deprivation of teacherscommunity and would make positive im-pact on standard of education.It was reported earlier that the PeshawarHigh Court (PHC) Abbottabad bench or-dered to maintain the services of 2300 Sub-ject Specialist (SST), Secondary SchoolTeachers (SST) at their posts and promote

Teachers hail PHC promotion case decisionthe affected teachers in the province. Ac-cording to the details, the previous gov-ernment in 2007 Awami National Party(ANP) provin-cial government inducted2300 SS and SST on temporary basis andlater on regularized them. Hundreds of regu-lar teachers those were in cue of promotionfor SS and SST were affected in the prov-ince, the induction and regulari-zation waslater challenged by the teachers associa-tion in PHC Abbottabad bench. PHCAbbottabad bench com-prising JusticeSaith Waqar and Justice Hasrat Hilali whilegiving the detailed verdict ordered provin-cial govern-ment to continue the servicesof the 2300 SS and SST teachers where theywere inducted and also ordered to com-pensate the effected teachers through de-partmental promotions. Teachers Associa-tion KPK have appreciated the court ver-dict and demanded the immediate promo-tion of teachers those are waiting for eightyears.—APP

Psychologicalanalysis of

schools’ guardsadvised

MULTAN—DCO ZahidSaleem Gondal has askedschools heads to get theirsecurity guards psychologi-cally analyzed by experts toidentify those having nega-tive thinking to plugchances of unwanted inci-dents.

Presiding over a meetingwith heads of educational in-stitutions and district officershere Thursday, the DCO saidthe government had decidedto issue arms licenses to pri-vate schools and departmentsto improve their capability tocounter threat posed by un-scrupulous elements.

He added that renewal ofarms licenses would requireverification from National Da-tabase and Registration Au-thority. Gondal said that stu-dents organizations would bebanned in case of their in-volvement in dubious activi-ties.

He said that waving flagsof outlawed organizations andkeeping cash boxes to collectfunds have been banned andthe prohibition would bestrictly observed for effectiveimplementation of national ac-tion plan. He said that specialcheckposts have been set upand bullet proof jackets havebeen provided to the guardsof women university.

He added that iron shadeswould be fixed on both sidesof fly-over passing by the dis-trict courts. Gondal said thatarms licenses would be issuedand security gadgets would beprovided to Nishtar MedicalCollege and Hospital,Bahauddin Zakariya Univer-sity, Air University and otheruniversities declared sensi-tive.—APP

PESHAWAR: Tomb of Meghul Queen which is known as Bezo Qabar on Wazirbaghroad near Kakshal the centuries old tomb is damaging day by day due to apathy ofauthority concerned.

PESHAWAR—The KhyberPakhtunkhwa Police in the ongoingsearch and strike operation though outthe province against criminals andanti-social elements has rounded 175suspects and recovered huge quan-tity of Arms and ammunition.

According to police statementhere Thursday, security inspections of

245 suspects nabbed in KPSecurity inspections of 1173 educational institutes carried out

1173 educational institution were alsocarried out and various institutionswere advised to further beef up secu-rity arrangements.

During the operation, the KhyberPakhtunkhwa police in the operationconducted in different parts of theprovince recovered 15 arms and am-munition of different kinds and 222rounds of different bore. As many as652 houses and 205 hotels were

checked and 11 cases were registeredagainst the violators during theoperation.During snap checking on135 check points, 299 suspects wereheld and recovered eight arms of dif-ferent kinds and 94 cartridges of dif-ferent bore.

During action against illegal Af-ghans a total of 74 persons were de-tained on violation and 36 cases wereregistered against them.—APP

PESHAWAR—Minister ofState for Water and Power,Abid Sher Ali said Thursdaythe Federal Government onthe directives of the PrimeMinister has announced aspecial incentive packagefor defaulting domesticconsumers to provide themmaximum financial relief be-sides improving recoveryand generate revenue forthe country.

He said the consumersof Khyber Pakthunkhwacan also take advantage ofthe Government relief pack-age by March 25 next. Ad-dressing a press conferencehere at Pesco headquarters,the minister asked the de-faulters to take full advan-tage of the package andclear all their pending duesbefore the expiring of thesaid date to avoid legal and

Defaulting consumersneed to take advantage

from relief packagefinancial complications.

In wake of huge linelosses and non-recovery ofreceivable of Peshawar Elec-tricity Supply Company(PESCO), he said the gov-ernment has intended to of-fer special incentive pack-age to domestic consumerson recovery of the receiv-able, which has totaling ofover Rs.56billion, payable tothe company.

A receivable up toRs.56billion is outstandingagainst the domestic con-sumers for the last twoyears, due to which PESCOhas been faced numerouslosses, couple with Rs.20billion were unpaid by Gov-ernment of KhyberPakhtunkhwa along withowed of Rs.5 billion, duerunning feeders in default-ers in the province.—APP

Brother gets lifeterm for killing

brotherKHANPUR—Additional Ses-sion Judge Liaqatpur, RanaMuhammad Ali decided amurder case on Thursdayawarded life imprisonmentalongwith Rs. 1 lakh fine toto the convict. According toprosecution,Ghulam Akhtarhad killed by his real brotherover some minor disputehere few weeks back.—APP

ISLAMABAD—The met officehas forecast more rains withsnowfall over the hills in up-per parts of the country andBalochistan from Sunday toTuesday. According to de-tails, another westerly waveis likely to enter Pakistan onSunday and expected to per-sist in upper parts of thecountry till Tuesday. Scat-tered rain with snowfall overthe hills is expected in upperparts of the country while atisolated places in lowerKhyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP),north Balochistan, SouthPunjab and upper Sindh dur-

More snowfall expectedin Murree, Kashmir

ing the period. Scattered rain with snow

over the hills is predicted in

Islamabad, upper and cen-tral Punjab’s Rawalpindi,Sargodha, Faisalabad,Sahiwal, Gujranwala andLahore divisions, KhyberPakhtunkhwa’s Peshawar.—APP

Need to resolvePakistan-India issuesPRIME Minister Nawaz Sharif has declared that Pakistan wants to

have good neighbourly relations with India but on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect. Talking to Pakistan’s High Com-

missioner to New Delhi Abdul Basit on Wednesday, he said it is importantthat two countries resolve all their outstanding issues including Jammu andKashmir in order to have viable peace in the region.

The envoy understandably briefed the Prime Minister about recentlyconcluded visit of the US President to India during which the two countriessigned agreements and made statements that have regional and interna-tional implications and are of special relevance to Pakistan. Hopefully, thePrime Minister, Foreign Office and others concerned with issues of na-tional security would deliberate upon these issues in detail and formulate astrategy to respond to the emerging challenges. As far as Prime Minister’sintention to have normal relations with India is concerned, this is reflectiveof his keenness to improve bilateral ties so that the two countries couldfocus on the economic agenda. This is not for the first time that Mian NawazSharif has expressed such pious intentions as even before assumption ofoffice of the chief executive he made several statements as well as goodwillgestures for the purpose. Regrettably, these have still not been reciprocatedby India and instead a policy of provocations is witnessed as confirmed byhighly aggressive statements emanating from New Delhi and repeatedviolations of the LoC and the Working Boundary. The Prime Minister’sdesire to have friendly relations with India is shared by majority of peopleof Pakistan. The two countries have a common history and similar prob-lems and challenges of poverty, illiteracy and disease and there is direneed for them to focus on their resolution. However, we would point outto the worthy Prime Minister that it is equally important to remove irri-tants between the two countries especially the issue of Jammu and Kash-mir as without addressing these issues the dream of sustainable peace inthe region would remain elusive. Only the other day, Kashmiris observedIndia’s Republic Day as ‘Black Day’ and now they are set to observeKashmir Solidarity Day on February 5, which shows their resolve not tosettle less than securing their right of determination.

Drone attacks willfuel terrorism

A US drone fired missiles at a compound in Shawal area of NorthWaziristan Agency on Wednesday killing seven suspected militants

and injuring two others. Three of those killed are reportedly foreigners.This was the fourth drone strike by the US in North Waziristan during thismonth, which shows an escalation in drone campaign.

Drone strikes have legitimately been resisted by people of Pakistanfrom the very outset as they impinge upon the sovereignty of the country.People have been holding protest demonstrations against these attacks andthe Government too has taken up the issue with Washington at differentlevels during the last few years. However, it is regrettable that the UnitedStates is not listening to the viewpoint of Pakistan and continues to trampleits sovereignty. The timing of the latest drone attacks is all the more sensi-tive, as these come in the wake of an all out operation being launched byPakistani forces in the tribal areas including North Waziristan. One fails tounderstand the logic of resorting to these provocative strikes when Pakistanitself is taking care of the problem of terrorism and extremism with fullforce. An all encompassing National Action Plan against Terrorism has beenprepared with national consensus and is now being implemented by theArmed Forces, police, intelligence agencies and other relevant Ministries,Divisions and organizations. There is now a changed perception aboutthe war on terror with more and more people considering it as war of andwar for Pakistan and not the war being fought at the instance of the UnitedStates. However, the drone attacks being carried out by Washington couldchange this positive change and re-ignite anti-Americanism. Claims arealways made that terrorists and especially foreigners have been targetedin these attacks but there is no denying the fact that collateral damagedoes take place and this causes a lot of resentment, fuelling extremismand terrorism. It is in the interest of war on terror (being launched byPakistan itself) to bring these strike to a complete end.

All eyes are nowset on SC

THIS is how the system in Pakistan works. The Supreme Court onWednesday acknowledged that the Lahore High Court Bar Association

had highlighted questions of immense public importance in its challenge tothe 21st Amendment (pertaining to establishment of military courts) andasked the respondents to reply to the contentions raised in the petition.

It is, of course, the responsibility and domain of the apex court to inter-pret law and the Constitution and especially so when asked to do so. It is,however, to be recalled that the law relating to setting up of the militarycourts and its Constitutional protection represent collective will and wis-dom of the nation. No one is questioning the independence and role of thejudiciary and spirit and requirements of the democracy. However, laws andconstitutions are meant for smooth functioning of state organs and address-ing different situations. If a particular situation requires a particular law ormeans to tackle such situations, then these will have to be adopted for thegood of the people and the country. That is what happened in the case ofestablishment of special courts, headed by military officers, to try cases ofterrorism. The entire national leadership joined its heads together to findsolution to the challenge thrown by extremism and terrorism, which hasassumed dimensions threatening the very survival of the country. Lawyerswere there since in the traditional system for dispensation of justice butmany of them helped prolonged cases – be they of ordinary or specialnature – for their vested interests. But they must keep in mind that theirreal objective should be provision of un-delayed justice and maintenanceof peace in the society; and that the safety and protection of the citizenscannot be compromised at any costs. They should not have indulged inany game that could result into possible clash among institutions whichcould be highly detrimental to the country. Anyhow, the ball is now in theSupreme Court and all eyes are set on it as to which way it goes.

US backing for nuclear India

‘Darkmoney’haunts

democracy

THE plan by the Koch brothers’ political network tospend $889 million on the

2016 elections is certainly stunning.That figure is likely to meet or ex-ceed the amount spent by each ofthe two major political parties. Evenmore appalling, however, is thatmuch of the money will beshielded from public disclosure,making it impossible to knowwhich candidates’ favours are be-ing bought, who is buying them,or what their purpose is.

Charles and David Koch havebuilt a network dedicated to influ-encing politics and policy dis-cretely, or as discretely as possiblewhile spending hundreds of mil-lions of dollars. Their network isstructured primarily as a series ofnon-profit groups, which, becausethey claim to be close cousins ofcharitable organizations, areshielded from disclosure laws thatcover political action committees.The two brothers — collectivelyworth $83 billion, according toForbes — are hardly the only play-ers in this field. Casino magnateSheldon Adelson played an outsizerole in the 2012 Republican presi-dential primaries. And Democraticfinancier Tom Steyer has vowed tospend $100 million to raise the pro-file of climate change as an elec-tion year issue. But with their enor-mous plan for 2016, the Kochs areentering a league of their own.

As long as Citizens United v.FEC, the 5-year-old Supreme Courtruling that threw out certain limitson political contributions, continuesto be the law of the land, tighter dis-closure laws are needed. Gettingthem won’t be easy. Citizens Unitedwas crafted in part on a naive be-lief that Congress would enact newlaws once the limits were lifted. ButSen. Majority Leader MitchMcConnell, R-Ky., and other law-makers who used to support disclo-sure now contend that such laws area violation of donors’ First Amend-ment rights. Absent congressionalaction, the Obama administrationcould move administratively to beefup disclosure requirements for pub-licly listed corporations. But corpo-rate giving has not changed dra-matically since Citizens United.Corporations have customers andshareholders, and they know thatsecret political activity is likely tobe discovered. Many blue-chipcompanies have even voluntarilydecided to disclose. Wealthy indi-viduals like the Kochs are anothermatter. In a few short years, theyhave dramatically reshaped thenation’s democracy. Their below-the-radar injection of nearly a bil-lion dollars into the next election isfurther testament to a political sys-tem that’s out of kilter.— USA Today

*****

Russianaction inUkraine

FACING global sanctions, acurrency that is in free-falland an economy that is inch-

ing towards ruin, it would appear thatRussian President Vladimir Putinhas thrown all his cards into facili-tating a permanent presence inUkraine. Recent offensives havebeen some of deadliest, with deathtoll mounting steadily as Russian-backed rebels focus on bringingUkrainian President PetroPoroshenko’s govet to its knees.

Following failed talks betweenRussia, France and Ukraine in Ger-many on January 12. His intentionis to isolate Kiev, as it desperatelytries to ally itself with Russia’s ColdWar-era detractors, even as Euro-pean Union ministers prepare tomeet with the intention of tighten-ing sanctions against the Kremlin.Operating in an ambiguous environ-ment is Putin’s trump card. He hasrefined the habit of either feigningignorance about Russian action orbrushing away the consequencesthat his decisions may entail.Ukraine too is in debt — $15 bil-lion of it and facing an InternationalMonetary Fund default — and en-suring that the onslaught does notwork to Putin’s advantage, since itwould orchestrate the state’s even-tual deterioration. Clearly, bettersense needs to prevail all around.— Gulf News

MEDIA WATCH

INDIA has been arming itself tothe teeth way beyond its genuine defence requirements and is

likely to spend around 250 billion onacquisition of weapons in the nextfew years. With the latest visit of USPresident Barack Obama to India andhis support for India’s nuclear ambi-tions, has provided a greater impetusto Indian arms ambitions. The log-jam between the Indo-US nucleardeal, dragging for the last decade orso has finally been broken. The mainstumbling block had been Indian un-willingness to present its nuclear in-stallations for IAEA’s inspection andallow its fissile material to be tracked.President Obama is keen to removethe impediments. Signed in 2005,with a Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) waiver in 2008, the deal hasbeen in limbo for ten years.

The stage had been set for thenuclear deal in three rounds of dia-logue by the bilateral contact group,particularly the last one in Londonlast week. To break the impasse, In-dia will set up an insurance pool ledby General Insurance Co and fourother insurance companies of a totalamount of Rs 750 Crore to indem-nify companies that build reactors inthe country against liabilities in caseof a nuclear accident. The remainingRs 750 Crore of the total Rs 1,500Crore to offset liabilities will be pro-vided by the government of India.This will address US concerns overclause 17 of the Indian liability Act.

A more ominous outcome of the

Pakistan blamed for India’s sake

FOR many decades the US hasbeen altering its stand andswinging its policy between

India and Pakistan according to USpolitical needs. At this point an eco-nomically weakened America islooking towards a bullish Indianeconomy for cooperation and mu-tual gain. In addition, India is seenas useful partner by the US for build-ing alliances against China. Obamasaid the US will keep working withIndia for a future that deliversgreater security, prosperity and dig-nity for all people. This is the con-nection in which Obama was men-tioning the Mumbai attacks and theremark of “safe havens’ for terror-ists. Pakistan has long-standing dis-pute with India on this account.Obviously, whatever evidence hasbeen provided by India to Pakistanicourts has not been convincing; thatwas why Lahkvi had been acquit-ted in 2009 and got bail just recentlyby an Islamabad court while the gov-ernment of Pakistan extended hisdetention in Adiala Jail under theMaintenance of Public Order ordi-nance – obviously a move not togive any chance for ‘safe haven’even to alleged terrorists.

Pakistan Ministry of ForeignAffairs spokesperson TasneemAslam told the media that Lakhvi’scase is a legal matter sub-judice andthat Pakistan is actively investigat-ing the 26/11 terror attack case. Re-ferring to the Indian accusation ofdelay in the matter she drew atten-tion to the fact that it was as muchdisappointing that India has notshared its findings in the investiga-tion into the Samjhauta Express at-

The last strawbreaks thecamel’s back.

tack. “In the Samjhauta Ex-press terrorist attack, close tofifty Pakistanis were killed.The investigations and theconfession of the mastermindof the attack, SwamiAsimanand, pointed to the in-

volvement of India Military officersand some organizations linked tomajor political parties. Yet,Asimanand was granted bail on Au-gust 28, 2014. Although SamjhautaExpress terrorist attack happenedmore than two years before Mumbaiattack, it is very disappointing thatIndia has not shared findings ofSamjhauta Express terrorist attackinvestigations despite assurances atthe highest level,” she added.

The Mumbai incident that tookplace in 2008 was a well coordinatedshooting and bombing attacks lastingfour days occurred across Mumbai inwhich India is trying to blame Paki-stan while it is alleged that the attack-ers travelled by sea from Karachi,Pakistan, across the Arabian Sea, hi-jacked the Indian fishing trawler‘Kuber’, killed the crew of four, thenforced the captain to sail to Mumbai.After murdering the captain, the at-tackers entered Mumbai on a rubberdinghy. It is known that the IndianNavy was having a full-fledged na-val exercise at that time in this veryarea. Then how could it be possiblefor a small boat or rubber dinghy tocross into the shores of Mumbai with-out being intercepted by Indian Navyon exercise in the same waters?

There are further stories about thekilling of Additional Police Commis-sioner Ashok Kamte was along withanti-terrorism chief Hemant Karkareand inspector Vijay Salaskar in thefirst hours of the attacks to sabotagean earlier inquiry report that was infinal stages known to Ashok Kamteand Hemant Karkare who were killedin cold blood. Vinita Kamte has re-cently published a book “Stings my

heart”in this relation. Mrs Kamte’sbook provides a detailed account ofhow the policemen were trapped in alane near the Cama hospital, wherethey were killed when two of the gun-men ambushed their vehicle. “Therewere no clear answers forthcomingfor simple and basic questions,” shewrites. Her book contains several un-comfortable questions for the police– all relating to the co-ordination be-tween the police control room andofficers on the ground. The thoughtof our husbands lying bleeding for 40minutes with no help haunts our fami-lies Vinita Kamte writes and theMumbai hero’s wife seeks inquiry.She argues that the police controlroom did not pass on to the officerscrucial information which might havesaved their lives.

“With prior information, theywould have ambushed the terrorists...This is what stings my heart.” MrsKamte says it took 40 minutes for helpto reach the officers. “When after a full40 minutes help arrived, Mr Salaskarwas still breathing as he was taken tothe hospital,” she writes. “If only helphad arrived earlier, Mr Salaskar wouldcertainly have been saved and may beMr Karkare and Ashok too. But thereal masterminds of Mumbai dramawere after the blood of their own se-nior and upright officers. Mrs Kamtealso says she was not allowed to makea submission to an inquiry into policehandling of the attacks. “It is surpris-ing to note that the persons on whomthe committee relied were mostly per-sons who were themselves interestedin overing up their lapses.”

Last week Hemant Karkare’swidow also demanded an inquiry intohis death. Kavita Karkare said shewanted answers following media re-ports questioning the quality of bul-letproof jackets used by the police.While an independent inquiry intothese cold blooded murder has al-ready criticized the city police for a

US President’s Indian yatra isthat the US and India havesigned a ten year defence pact.The question being asked iswho is the defence pactagainst? Pakistan or China? Asfar as the US is concerned, it

is propping up India against China.The US sees its own powers slipping.Its over indulgence in various theatresof wars of its own initiation, haveweakened the world’s sole superpower. Its economy is on a downwardtrajectory while its importance haseroded. Simultaneously, China’s riseis propelling it to unprecedentedheights. It is likely to overtake the USand take its rightful place as theworld’s number one economic power.China’s military might is also a causefor worry for US policy makers. De-spite China’s assurances that it hasno hegemonic designs, the US is bentupon propping India as a bulwarkagainst China.

India on the other hand perceivesitself as China’s competitor, both eco-nomically as well as militarily. USsupport for India enables it to satiateits voracious appetite for acquiringmore weapons. Pakistan remains athorn in the side of India, which itwants to subdue and bring down to itsknees with US support. Since Paki-stan too is armed with non conven-tional weapons of the nuclear ilk, In-dia has to think a thousand times be-fore engaging Pakistan in an all outconflict, because possessing secondstrike capability, Pakistan can deci-mate India in case it is challenged.Being cognizant of this ground real-ity, India would prefer to inflict a thou-sand cuts rather than wreaking havocwith one severe blow which wouldhave dire consequences for itself.

As far as India’s nuclear appetite

is concerned, USA would have beenbetter served if it had not been blindedby the luster of India’s huge marketand its own desire to impede China’sinfluence in the region. India’s ea-gerness for entry into NSG and otherregimes like the Missile TechnologyControl Regime (MTCR), theWassenaar Arrangement and the Aus-tralia Group is aimed at enhancingDefence related capacities rather thanmeeting its purported energy require-ments. Extension of specific exemp-tion to India would be harmful to thenorms of nuclear non-proliferationtreaties and regimes and runs againstthe ethics of the American nation.

The only country to issue warn-ing signals for disregard of interna-tional safeguards in the Indo-USnuclear deal is China, whose exten-sion of conditional support for India’sNSG membership bid has come withthe advice that “prudence and caution”needs to be exercised on the issue.

It is ironic that despite India be-ing the world’s third-biggest pollut-ing nation behind China and the U.S.,it has been offered the nuclear dealand despite considering China a ri-val, Modi reached out to ChinesePresident Xi Jinping for reaching alandmark agreement to bring it into asystem limiting emissions. Previousclimate accords, including the 1997Kyoto protocol, required cuts onlyfrom developed nations. Since then,China surpassed the U.S. as theworld’s biggest polluter, and India’semissions increased rapidly.

More challenging is the factorthat India is bent upon acquiring andproducing weapons of mass destruc-tion which can annihilate the entirehumanity unchecked. Indian disre-gard for humanitarian considerationsis evident from the fact that while

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lack of co-ordination in dealing withthe attacks. Mumbai police Com-missioner D. Sivanandan admits thatthere had been lapses in dealing withthe attacks. “I am not giving any ex-cuses but all I can say is that whathappened was unprecedented andwe were unprepared to handle suchthings,” He promised that answerswould be found to questions raisedby Mrs Karkare and the families ofother officers who died in the at-tacks. “We will look into that andfind. We’ll look for the bulletproofjacket, but yes there was some kindof confusion at the time - becauseof that some slips might have takenplace,” he admits.

But the President of the world’ssole super power embarking on anEmpire building programme with-out going into details of Mumbaicase history has still preferred tolevel uncalled for allegations that arebelied by the widows of two seniorofficers of Indian Police. Thus it isquite clear that President Obama’sremarks were meant to make ‘goodweather’ in India for his visit. ForPakistan this speech and thisbehaviour of the US is just anotherwake-up call to be more sensible toPakistan’s partnerships. The USfrom the very beginning ofPakistan’s unfortunate alliance withit has used and abused Pakistan ac-cording to its own needs of the hour.Whatever gain in the field of mili-tary equipment or aid has been re-ceived is no comparison to the lossesand troubles we have faced in thisalliance. While it may not be possibleto cut ties completely on a short termPakistan needs to redirect its alliancestowards Russia and China and thusstrengthen our Asian identity insteadof Americanising ourselves any fur-ther. God bless Pakistan and Human-ity from any misadventure.—The writer is Karachi-basedsenior columnist.

—Proverb

President Obama was still on In-dian soil, on the one hand Modi waspressing him for issuing warningsto Pakistan and simultaneously,Indian forces were raining rocketsand heavy artillery fire across theworking boundary.

Indian arsenal of weapons ofmass destruction comprisingnuclear weapons and chemicalweapons is limitless. Though Indiahas not made any official state-ments about the size of its nucleararsenal, recent estimates suggestthat India has between 90 and 110nuclear weapons, consistent withearlier estimates that it had pro-duced enough weapons-grade plu-tonium for up to 75–110 nuclearweapons. In 1999 India was esti-mated to have 4,200 kg of separatedreactor-grade plutonium, enoughfor approximately 1,000 nuclearweapons. India is not a signatoryto the 1968 Nuclear Non-Prolifera-tion Treaty, yet a red carpet is be-ing extended for it. India hassigned and ratified both the Bio-logical Weapons Convention andthe Chemical Weapons Conven-tion, yet it is known to be pursu-ing both avenues unchecked. In-dian track record of nuclear pro-liferation and maintaining safetyprotocols for its nuclear installa-tions as well as radioactive mate-rial is pathetic. Internationalwatchdog IAEA has its hacklesraised at the prospect of waiversfor India. In case energy shortageis being used as an justification forthe nuclear energy deal for India,then Pakistan has a more justifi-able case but it is being sidelined.—The writer is retired PAFGroup Captain and a TV talkshow host.

Sultan M HaliEmail: sm_hali@yahoo.com

Double standard

Ali Ashraf KhanEmail:balti1551@gmail.com

Voice of the People

Power shortageA CITIZEN

Pakistan faces a shortfall of morethan 4500 MW at times. Accordingto the National Transmission andDispatch Company, the currentpower generation capacity stands ataround 16000 MW, including thegeneration by the IndependentPower Producers. But if one looksclosely, more than 50pc of power isgenerated by furnace oil, around40pc by hydel and just about 1pc bycoal. This means we are generatingmore than 50pc of electricity at 20cents/kWh, about 40pc at 3-4 cents/kWh and 1pc at 7-9 cents/kWh.

The overall cost of electricity isabout 12 cents/kWh, with line lossesat about 25pc (including theft). Withthe ever-mounting pressure from theIMF, these prices will rise steadilyunless Pakistan shifts to a cheapersource of electricity. Pakistan is al-ready losing the race against timeby delaying the hydel projects thatwere considered in the past.

Currently Pakistan needs a two-tier plan to bridge the supply-de-mand gap. The initial phase shouldfocus on reducing the line losses andthe conversion of the power plantsfrom furnace oil to coal as their in-put. This will not only reduce pres-sure on the consumers but also ben-efit the government with an annualsaving of more than $3bn. The fur-nace oil plants can be converted tocoal power plants by altering the de-sign of the boilers and by addingnew exhaust processors to make itenvironment-friendly.

The next phase, which can bestarted side by side, is the additionof renewable energy sources likehydel, solar and wind power plantsto generate cheaper electricity andto reduce dependence on fossil fuel.These projects, unlike the non-re-newable ones, have a minuscule run-ning cost, which means that theseplants will guarantee cheaper costsof electricity.

So la r /wind/micro-hydroprojects can easily be installed inremote areas away from the nationalgrid to provide them with cheapelectricity without compromising online losses. In the end, it all boilsdown to the policies set by the cur-rent government and how it drivesthese policies for the welfare of thestate. Pakistan has an unlimited po-tential, but the current power crisishas crippled our economy.—Karachi

Welfare role ofoil & gas entities

M ABBAS KHASKHELI

Badin is a district of Sindh which isrich in natural resources like oil andgas. However, district Badin pro-vides 65% of the national consump-tion of oil and gas. The current stateof the district is, sadly, is that thereis no development by the oil & gascompanies producing and exploringthe mineral resources from the dis-trict. These companies are lawfullybound to carry development initia-tives in the region where they keeptheir economic activities kicked off.

In addition, government has lay-ered these companies to become lu-crative for the people who are di-rectly or indirectly affected by theiractions/practices. Global businessethics strengthen the corporate en-tities and the people globally andmake these corporations successfuleconomically. However, in this way,my question is, have these compa-nies been following the global eth-ics and corporate social responsibili-ties (CSR) in district Badin? Arethey able to produce any evidencein this regard? Because there is hugenumber of people who have donethree years diploma in PetroleumTechnology from district Badin’sPolytechnic Institute but they arewithout relevant job and unlikelyworking at sweat shops.

Moreover, Ministry of Petroleum& Natural Resources instructs tothese companies through its revisedCSR guidelines regarding develop-ment and social works in the regionwhere these companies operate. Ac-cording to new revised guidelines ofMPNR, these companies are fullybound to remain in liaison with

Security of educational institutionsMOHAMMAD FAYYAZ

After the heinous, and gruesome event of the martyrdom of Peshawar school children by evil handsof the enemies, over-security steps for the protection of schools, colleges, and universities are being

taken, including training of teachers in the use, function and structure of firearms. The required mea-sures were and are need of the hour but it should in no way be at the cost of ignoring other populatedplaces of work like hospitals, courts, parks, cinemas, railway stations, trains, offices, bazaars, and so onand so forth. So why this abnormal anxiety and over-attention to schools, colleges, and universities; andleast attention to the security of other public and private units of work? One fails to understand thisattitude on the part of security-associated functionaries of the Provincial and Federal government, as towhy such security measures are taken only after the happening of an unfortunate incident. While we areover-attentive towards the security of educational institutions, we must not ignore the security of theother populated areas of work. While pushing and crushing the enemies from the front, we must notforget our back for our own safety, and safety of the nation, and its assets. It would be like a person whois on guard at the door of his house to protect it, while robbers attack from the back, and hostage all thehousehold members and rob the whole house.—Charsadda

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Email:editorial@pakobserver.net

THE articles, columns andletters are published on thesepages in good faith. However,the contents of these writingsmay not necessarily match theviews of the newspaper.

—Editor

View From Abroad

In Yemen, violence pays

WHEN I moved Sana,Yemen in 2010, not asingle gunman could be

seen on the streets. Anti-gun lawswere strictly enforced by the police,and violence was almost unknown.Nowadays, I escort my wife to thesupermarket armed with an automaticassault rifle and a 9-millimeter pis-tol. The number of spare magazinesI carry depends on the gravity of theever-escalating insecurity thatplagues my city.

Last week, the government col-lapsed. President Abdu RabbuMansour Hadi resigned, as did hisprime minister and the rest of thecabinet. The Houthis, a group ofShiite militants from the north whofought a bloody series of wars withthe central government for over adecade, now effectively control thecapital. Their flags fly on street cor-ners, and armed militias operatecheckpoints through the city.

While the takeover was shock-ing to foreign officials, for those ofus here it was less surprising. After

anti-government protests in 2011,Ali Abdullah Saleh, then the presi-dent, came under pressure from theUnited Nations and agreed to stepdown. Elections were held and Mr.Saleh’s vice president, Mr. Hadi, theonly candidate on the ballot, waselected president. Diplomats laudedthis “Yemen model” of non-violentpolitical transition, and hailed it asan ideal process for other troubledArab Spring states.

As the political transition mean-dered along, violence became dread-fully routine. The Yemeni state dis-integrated in slow motion. The tran-sition process, led by the United Na-tions envoy Jamal Benomar, was illconceived, badly managed and, as thepolitical vacuum in Sana attests,bound for failure. Yemen’s oil indus-try has been almost shut down. Thekidnappings of foreigners andYemenis for profit spiked tremen-dously. Symptomatic of the generallawlessness, over 100 officials havebeen assassinated, in what may be aresult of conflicts between factionsof the armed forces.

And worst of all, northern Yemenfell into a widespread state of war be-tween the Houthis and the Yemeni

military. Throughout a six-monthHouthi onslaught last year, Mr. Hadirefused to send army reinforcementsto fight the Houthi militia in the north.Instead, he set up a series of media-tion committees to try to arrangecease-fires as well as involve theHouthis in the political process. Thisapproach made sense to Mr. Hadi andthe United Nations — they wantedto avoid outright civil war, andthought diplomacy would work.

But Yemen moves to a differ-ent rhythm. In our country’s cultureof tribalism, a party to a conflictmust engage in the ritual of vio-lence, if only for the sake of savingface, and leave it to third parties tonegotiate. Mr. Hadi’s repeated fail-ure to punish Houthi aggression andhis tepid calls for peace were readas weakness.

And so each cease-fire deal wasbroken by the Houthi militia withimpunity: Within six months, theYemeni state had lost control of hugeamounts of their military hardware,as well as four northern provinces,to the Houthis. Army leadership re-sented Mr. Hadi for his refusal topunish the Houthis, despite thedeaths of hundreds of soldiers.

Islamic perspective on human psycheUNDOUBTEDLY the glorious

Qur’an is the best and mostexcellent, complete and com-

prehensive Book, containing guide-lines, message, rules and guidingprinciples of Truth about all aspectsof human life—religious, social, po-litical, economic, moral, spiritual, etc.That is, the guidance of the gloriousQur’an—a Book which appeals to theconscience of each person (or to “hu-man psyche”). This book covers allaspects of human life, both individualand collective, ranging from indi-vidual and social, material and moral,economic and political, legal and cul-tural, national and international. Thenature of this invitation and messageclearly shows that it appeals to theconscience of each person, for thereis no thrust upon anyone forcibly (Q.2:256: “there is no compulsion inReligion”) and thus it exhorts themto think and reflect carefully beforerejecting or denying their Lord (Q.6:149; 16:9; 76:3; 10:35; 27:59, 60).

There are numerous Qur’anicverses wherein the “psychologicalapproach” is apparent related to allmatters concerning mankind and cov-ering all aspects—from spiritual andmoral to socio-political and legalmatters. For example, the Qur’an re-fers to the various evils or “narrow

and mean qualities” of man (Q. 3:180;4:36-7; 104:1-3; 47:38)—like false-hood and hypocrisy (Q. 22:30; 9:77),extravagance (Q. 17:26-27), exploi-tation (Q. 3:161), backbiting and slan-der (Q. 49:12), jealousy (Q. 21:109;4:54), conceit and vanity (Q. 4:36;17:37)—which likely corrupt the so-cial norms of a society, and theQur’an has very eloquently drawnattention (among others) of the theo-logians and psychologists to them, sothat they may study the problems intheir proper perspective and suggestpossible solutions.

In this vein, when we look intothe concept of human being from anIslamic perspective, it becomes clearthat numerous Qur’anic verses reflectman’s nature (Q. 4:28; 21:37; 50:16-18; 70:19-35; 75:31, 40; 95:4). Infact, Allah has subjected for mankind,who is created “in a best stature” (Q.95:4), “whatsoever is in heavens andwhatsoever is in the earth, and hascompleted and perfected His Graces”upon mankind, both “apparent” aswell as “hidden”, evident and con-cealed, seen and unseen, known andunknown (Q. 31:20).

Human being, according to Glo-rious Quran, has been created as adistinguished Being, Ahsan al-Khalq(the best among the creation), and

enjoys the superiority among allother creations of Allah (Q.95:4;30:30; 32:7): “Verily, We createdman in a best stature (moulds)”(Surah at-Tin, 95:4).

Islam raises man to the highestand utmost position and place ofAshraf al-Makhluqaat. His creation

is distinguished and pure, notable andwholesome, and there is no flaw orfault in his creation. He is created onthe very nature of Fitrat Allah, and,therefore, is not created in vain, butwith purpose and responsibility:“And I (Allah) created not the jinn

Haykal Bafana

and mankind except that theyshould worship Me (Alone)” (Q.51:56; see also, 39: 64-66).

Man is bestowed with supremeand special blessings, and the goalof his work is to submit to Allahand is expressed in terms ofKhilafah (Caliphate/ Representa-tiveness). He is representative ofAllah on earth and His creation ispurposeful (Q. 2:30) and thus con-ducting his and others’ lives accord-ing to the will of God. As Khalifahof Allah on earth, he is responsible;thus making him the “Crown of thecreation”. He has to transform thisworld according to Allah’s Will. ForIslam’s focus is man in general andin totality. Neither isolation nor par-ticularism, neither tribalism andnationalism nor relativism have anyplace in Islam. The Glorious Qur’anrejects it in clear and categoricalwords: “O mankind! We have cre-ated you from a male and a female,and made you into nations andtribes, that you may know one an-other.” (Surah Al-Hujurat, 49:13).— The author has a PhD inIslamic Studies from AligarhMuslim University (India), andserved recently as “Iqbal (PostDoc) Fellow” at InternationalIslamic University, Islamabad.

That’s why, in September, it washardly a surprise when the Houthimilitia entered Sana and establishedcontrol. Military units refused tofight the Houthi advance, while oth-ers, perhaps sympathetic to theHouthi cause, were quietly support-ive. The capital fell as Yemen’sarmy gave Mr. Hadi a taste of hisown policy of appeasement.

Meanwhile, no one is in chargein the capital. Supermarket parkinglots are filled with heavily armedguards, and customers walk theaisles with guns slung over theirshoulders. Most taxi drivers in Sanahave a pistol tucked under their seat.Ultimately, Mr. Hadi’s governmentcollapsed through a series of griev-ous omissions: inaction in the faceof powerful militias, unwillingnessto impose law and security all overthe country, and a failure to improvethe lives of ordinary Yemenis. Mr.Hadi and the United Nations werenot able to create the change thatYemenis took to the streets for in2011. The Yemen model has beenreplaced by the Houthi model, withits simple adage: Violence pays. Thewriter is a lawyer. — Courtesy: The New York Times

Deputy Commissioner and the benefi-ciaries of the CSR scheme and jointlycall upon a public hiring after everysix months by advertising in the mostread newspaper, first. Unfortunately,not a single company has followed thesingle point of these guidelines byplacing any such type of public hiringby calling upon the beneficiaries, lo-cals and journalists in front of DC athis office, not in their base camp.

Recently, two key persons of ahighly reputed Oil & Gas companystepped up a such type of sin by call-ing upon just some journalists of re-lated district and gave them annualbriefing at a base camp of that com-pany. These types of acts may be ben-eficial for the Oil & Gas entities buthave never given any benefit to thelocals. I have also to make a humblerequest from the same entities work-ing in the region, how these compa-nies can hire the offspring of power-ful MPAs, MNAs and bureaucrats,although there are lot of talented andexperienced people present in the re-gion. Moreover, government, espe-cially, MNPR should introduce anystrong mechanism to monitor andobserve these companies and strictlymake these companies able to be ben-eficial for locals - the talented.—Sindh

Until Imrancame alongS MUBASHIR NOOR

For Pakistan’s sake, Imran Khan mustnever become Prime Minister. Hisstature and value to the country farexceeds that of the leadership ofPML-N and PPP combined. How-ever, not in the way you would sup-pose. As premier, Imran Khan mightnot be able to effectively make hispoint and project even his achieve-ments as is the case of KhyberPakhtunkhwa.

Akin to the evergreen cinematicvillain, he displays endless vigour andswagger when on the chase. It is afact that Imran Khan’s daily dose offinger-wagging keeps the govern-ment honest. It keeps them paranoidand semi-grovelling. Every majordecision now has an accompanyingdossier of explanations. They worry,his dissenting voice will drown outthe few good deeds they need for re-election. Politics is all about percep-tion. Imran Khan successfullypeddles his variety act of half-truthsprecisely because Messrs. Sharif &Zardari are the opponents. Both havemoral track records of a dubious kind,peppered with nepotism and glad-handing. This ill-equips them to makehis high horse budge.

Imran Khan is also successful be-cause he inspires emotion. People ei-ther love him or hate him. His un-abashed self-belief perks up the choir,while simultaneously invitingnaysayer ridicule. He acts over-the-top, PTI stay in the news. It’s a win-win situation. By comparison, what-ever charisma Messrs Sharif & Zardarihad has long since eroded. They lookplain, staid, the very definition of es-tablishment. Offenders of the faithcompared to messiah Imran. Theirparty ranks full of old timers, out ofstep with the young ones. Politics isalso about pressure. The downwardtrend of energy costs coinciding withthe ‘Tsunami March’ is remarkable.While Imran adjusts another featherin his cap, PML-N protests otherwise.Of course falling oil prices internation-ally are the catalyst, but like the boywho cried wolf, no one believes them.In many ways, the Nawaz governmenttripped itself over from the start. Over-joyed at the large mandate, they ex-pected the usual honeymoon period toease into work. A few years could goby before anyone politely inquiredabout results. Then out of the blue,sounded the PTI battle horns from D-Chowk. PML-N was caught napping,perplexed by the sour national mood.What of the amazing Metro Bus, theybleated? The even more amazingLaptop Scheme? We are the goodguys! Urban, middle-class Pakistandidn’t believe a word. After PPP’sfive-year master class in incompe-tence, business as usual was no longeracceptable. The word tabdeeli took ona life of its own, and Imran Khan be-came the custodian.

His greatest accomplishment re-mains distorting political reality to hisadvantage. He’s forced outright win-

ners to defending bits and pieces ofelectoral turf, while elevating serialflip-flopping to impassioned states-manship. This is exactly why ImranKhan must stay, but preferably faraway from the Prime Minister House.Not since Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto has anypolitician inspired a similar cult ofpersonality. As the perennial brides-maid, he will be a true boon for Paki-stan. If circumstance and happen-stance prevent us from having astrong government, then his robustopposition will at least keep indiscre-tions in check. Every yin needs a yangto keep balance. A habitually corruptPakistan needs the self-righteousKaptaan to move forward.—Islamabad

Selling foodexposed to fliesZEESHAN RASHEED RAJA

Let me draw the attention of thehealth department and other con-cerned relevant government depart-ments to the sorry state of affairs inthe matter of sale of food stuff to thepeople. Sweets, curd, milk and otheredibles are all kept by the shopkeep-ers and hawkers in big trays uncov-ered. They are exposed not only todust but also to flies. These flies, aseverybody knows, cause variouskinds of diseases.

They sit on these edibles and in-fect them with disease germs. Chol-era, typhoid etc appear in an epidem-ics form when men eat the contami-nated articles of food. The health of-ficer and sanitary inspectors shouldvisits shops every day and see thatall such articles are kept in glass casesor covered with wire gauze. The de-faulters who carelessly play with thelives of people must be punished.—Rawalpindi

Impact of mediaon children

SIDRA AKHLAQ

This age of media and technology iswitnessed in almost every nook andcorner of the world. We can say thatmedia is everywhere - TV, internet,radio, mobile phones etc. All grab-bing our children’s attention whichis not only affecting their lives butalso affecting their minds.

Nowadays children are spendingmore time on media than on theirstudies and physical activities, whichresults in making them idle and weak.It is important for children to use theirtime in activities like reading, play-ing, studying and using their imagi-nation to say it loud with their ideasand thinking. It is also the responsi-bility of parents to look after their kidsfor using media and choose the rightcontent for their children and avoidthe harmful ones which may affecttheir innocent minds like vulgarsongs, violence, fights or any otherinappropriate content.

Excessive use of media may leadchildren to think in the same way asthey learn by media; therefore, par-ents should limit their time for mediaand keep an eye to monitor them forwhat they are watching. In addition,they should offer them educationalmedia that is only designed for kidsand develop their interest towardsreading, playing outdoor, drawing,creativity and other healthy activitiesthat is good for them.

Everything has its good and badimpact; it depends on the user howhe/she uses it but media and childrenshould be handled carefully as achild’s brain develops and learns dur-ing his/her growing years. So parentsshould keep an eye on their childrenwhen using media and technology.—Karachi

Not much of holiday..!

I see a lot of old folk travelingabroad nowadays, but veryrarely do I see them overjoyed

in their second trip. “We are justglorified nannies for our grandchil-dren!” they sniff. And yet manygrandfathers and grandmotherspack up lock stock and barrel tojoin their children abroad: I talkedto a first timer who had heard hischildren wanted him in America:“So what d’you plan to do in the

States?” I ask the old man as he prac-tices walking round the house in anew pair of shorts he’s bought. “Wellmy son he’s going to take us to seethe Niagara on his off day!” “He’salways wanted to see the Nigara!”says his wife of many years as sheshyly comes and stands next to himin jeans she’s getting used to.

“And then I’d like to visit Wash-ington!” “Abraham Lincoln has beenmy husband’s hero from his child-hood!” “My son knows that,” says theold man proudly, “and he’s promisedto take me round to the Lincoln Me-morial and even Ford Theatre whereAbe was shot dead!” “Don’t try to

do what John Wilkes Booth did!Jumping from the balcony onto thestage!” laughs his wife “Ah! We’rejust waiting to get there!” says the oldman patting down his shorts.

I wish them goodbye and aftertheir house is bolted and locked, theycome over to give me the key, “Wemight not come back!” they say, “butjust open and air our place once in awhile!” They’re back in two months.“How was the Niagara and the Lin-coln Memorial?” I ask. “We didn’tsee anything! We had to get up earlyevery morning and husband dearwould take newspaper to the nurseryand sit by the cradle till baby wakes

up! “I couldn’t even rustle the pa-pers for fear of waking the child!”said the old man rustling his news-papers furiously. “And if it woketoo early the mite cried through theday! It’s nice to be back!”

“No babies!” “No screamingchildren!” “No rushing to meet theschool bus!” “No whipping them upbreakfast, lunch, dinner and .”“Snacks, snacks and snacks!” “Idon’t think you enjoyed beinggranny,” I said. “I’m a granny not ananny!” shouts the old lady and Iwatched as her husband stood defi-antly next to her..!—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com

A new era in US-India ties

PRESIDENT Barack Obama’svisit to India holds significance for the regional actors,

and in particular the US ally – Paki-stan. The visit seems to be a deter-mining factor of the US policy to-wards the region, in post-withdrawalphase.President Obama is the firstUS President to have attended theIndian Republic Day.India being inthe Soviet camp during the Cold Warand still having close ties with Rus-sia is being wooed by the US, thus,a strategic shift from the past. At thepress conference in Delhi, the lead-ership of both countries called eachother as “natural partners”. IndianPremier NarendraModi said: “ourtwo nations are ready to step forwardtogether and accept this global part-nership of our two countries andshape the future of this century. Thisis a natural global partnership”.

How does India bode well forthe US? What could be the rationalebehind this move? Well, it would notbe wrong to say that India’s marketis a source of attraction for the glo-bal players. Besides, India being the

largest arms import country, couldserve the US weapon industry. Apartfrom these factors, the changing geo-political realities, emergence ofChina on the world stage is a majorconcern for the US. Thus, there is astrategic convergence between Indiaand the US. Both view China as astrategic competitor, India at the re-gional level and the US at the glo-bal level. US support to India, overthe latter’s bid to join the NuclearSupplier Group (NSG), has beencriticized by China.

It is being viewed that the in-clusion of a non-NPT (NuclearNon-Proliferation Treaty) state likeIndia in the NSG could damage thecredibility of the organization.Meanwhile, India’s entry into theNSG will also impact the strategicstability of the South Asian region.President Obama has also assuredIndia of the US support for theUnited Nations Security Council(UNSC) membership. India is aviolator of UNSC resolutions overthe Kashmir issue. There was acomplete shutdown in Indian HeldKashmir (IHK) on the occasion ofIndian Republic Day.

Seen from Pakistan’s angle, theUS President did not visit Pakistan.Prior to his visit to India, PresidentObama said: “I’ve made it clear that

even as the US works with Pakistanto meet the threat of terrorism, safehavens within Pakistan are not ac-ceptable and those behind theMumbai terrorist attack must facejustice”. Pakistan, has been an allyof the US for 65 years, and has alsobeen a front-line state ally of the USin the War on Terror (WoT). Nocountry has sacrificed more thanPakistan in this war. Almost, 60,000people have lost their lives. InPeshawar school attack, over 145people, including 133 school chil-dren were martyred by the TTP(Tehreek-Taliban-Pakistan).Pakistanhas also been the biggest victim ofterrorism, including that sponsoredand supported from abroad.

Despite all this, the Westernworld in general and the US, in par-ticular, wants Pakistan to “do more”,while the Indian atrocities in IndianHeld Kashmir (IHK), violation ofLine of Control (LoC) and Indiansupport to armed separatists inBalochistan are being ignored. Dur-ing the US Secretary of State’s visitto Pakistan, the Secretary announcedUS $ 250 million assistance for theIDPs of North Waziristan. But healso called for action againstLashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), perhaps atthe request of India from where hehad come to Islamabad. This shows

that the US has accepted the Indianversion of terrorism. Such remarksat a time when Pakistan is engagedin a military operation (Zarb-e-Azb), in North Warizistanare tac-tics to discredit the services ren-dered by the Pakistan ArmedForces. Another point of concernfor Pakistan is the Indian ingressin Afghanistan. This has been asource of instability in Pakistan.

The US has its own interestsin India and engagement with In-dia is likely to be the cornerstoneof the US’s policy towards the re-gion. In such a scenario, if wewant our importance to be felt, ourvoice to be heard on Kashmir andterrorism, we need to make our-selves strong and put our house inorder. Besides, we need to diver-sify our foreign policy options;look for new partners/alliances.We should try to re-build trust withAfghanistan and also forge part-nership with China andRussia.The development of theChina-Pakistan economic corri-dor, connecting Western Chinaand Central Asian Republics(CARs) by both land and seathrough Gwadar port will strengthenPakistan’s regional position.— The writer is a Researcher,Islamabad Policy ResearchInstitute (IPRI).

The Spirit Of Islam

Dr Taussef A ParrayEmail:tauseef.parray21@gmail.com

Amna Ejaz RafiEmail:amnaejazrafi@gmail.com

ASSAF MOGHADAM

THIS paper first offers some empirical support to the idea that the vast majority ofcontemporary terrorist groups use a com-

bination of terrorist and guerrilla tactics. It thenargues that these transformations would ben-efit from a growing reliance on concepts drawnfrom the insurgency and counterinsurgency lit-erature on the part of analysts in order to fullyappreciate the evolving nature of these groups.Finally, the study calls for increased correspon-dence and cross-fertilisation between terrorismstudies and the scholarship on insurgency andcounterinsurgency, as well as the literature oncivil wars. We believe that such an interdisci-plinary effort can offer a more lucid and dis-passionate conceptualisation of these groups,of the full range of their activities and of thebroader context in which they tend to operate.Such an approach, in turn, can improve poli-cies to address the threat posed by these vio-lent actors.

In the summer of 2014, three prominent mili-tant groups commonly classified as terroristorganisations engaged in significant combat op-erations that featured capabilities and tacticsexceeding those traditionally ascribed to terror-ist groups. These groups also achieved rarebattlefield successes untypical of ordinary ter-rorist groups. The ‘Islamic State’ (IS, formerlythe Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, orISIS) has been able to extend its stronghold andcreate an imposing presence over large swathes

Interplay Between Terrorism, InsurgencyAnd Civil War In Middle East

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev walks across Pariser Platz near the Brandenburg Gate on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the fall of theBerlin Wall.

of territory in both Syria and Iraq, while threat-ening other neighbouring countries such as Jor-dan. The Lebanese Hizballah, dubbed by someanalysts as ‘among the most skilled light infan-try on the planet’, continues to amass signifi-cant battlefield experience through its ongoinginvolvement in the Syrian civil war on behalf ofthe incumbent Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad. Finally, in the Gaza Strip, the militantIslamist group Hamas has posed formidable chal-lenges to Israeli military forces and civiliansusing a combination of terrorist and insurgenttactics. These trends also apply to other groupsin broader geographical regions, including al-Qaeda. As a recent article by Jihadism scholarJ.M. Berger argued, even al-Qaeda, broadly de-fined, is currently focused on fighting ‘wars andinsurgencies’, while it conducts terrorism only‘on the side’.

The existing scholarship on terrorism andits perpetrators suggests that terrorist groups dif-fer from other militant actors such as guerrillaorganisations. Terrorist groups and guerrillaorganisations are said to differ, among otherthings, in their target selection. As Alex Schmidnotes in his magisterial volume on terrorism re-search, ‘in the dominant understanding amongexperts, the victims [of terrorism] are predomi-nantly not members of an armed force’. More-over, terrorist groups are generally consideredto be smaller in size, while employing uncom-promising violence. Conventional wisdom holdsthat the secret nature and small size of terroristorganisations generally prevents them from hold-

ing territory, while their focus on extreme vio-lence prevents them from enjoying popular sup-port. Bruce Hoffman, for example, writes thatterrorists do not function in the open as armedunits, generally do not attempt to seize or holdterritory, deliberately avoid engaging enemymilitary forces in combat, are constrained bothnumerically and logistically from undertakingconcerted mass political mobilization efforts, andexercise no direct control or governance over apopulace at either the local or the national level’.Terrorist groups, in other words, are generallyconsidered to have a modus operandi that dif-fers from those of guerrilla groups.

A cursory look at contemporary ‘terroristgroups’, however, suggests that these groupsregularly carry out guerrilla operations as well.In the existing literature, guerrilla attacks aresaid to typically emphasise extended campaignsof assassination, sabotage and hit-and-run at-tacks carried out by small and highly mobileparamilitary units. Like the tactics of terror-ism, guerrilla warfare is described as a ‘weaponof the weak’ designed to harass the enemy andgradually erode his will. Yet where terrorismis in essence an act of psychological warfare –it hopes to turn the targeted population againstits own government–, guerrilla operations pri-marily target their enemy’s capabilities.[8]Functioning as ‘small armies’, potent guerrillaforces are large and strong enough to seize andhold territory. Moreover, guerrilla tactics dif-fer from terrorist tactics in terms of its maintargets. While the prime targets of guerrilla

fighters are the enemy’s armed forces, policeor support units, as well as general governmentand economic targets, the targets of terroristgroups are usually understood to be civiliansand, at most, non-combatants.

Whereas terrorist groups have traditionallybeen treated as distinct from guerrillaorganisations, many contemporary militantgroups apply both terrorist and guerrilla tactics.As Robert Scales and Douglas Ollivant argue, agrowing array of Islamist ‘terrorists’ have turnedinto ‘skilled soldiers’ who increasingly use ablend of traditional terrorist tactics and modernwar-fighting techniques.[10] Contemporary mili-tants continue to use terrorist tactics to intimi-date potential supporters and enemies alike, buttheir modus operandi has evolved into skills thatcan pose considerable challenges to states andtheir populations. They now ‘maneuver in rea-sonably disciplined formations… and employmortars and rockets in deadly barrages’. Theyrely on ambushes, roadside bombings, sniper fireand other tactics that in places such as Iraq andAfghanistan have imposed considerable chal-lenges and losses to US forces. Groups such asthe Islamic State, Hizballah and Hamas are ableto handle second-generation weapons such asRussian RPG-29s and possibly wire-guided anti-tank missiles and build sophisticated under-ground tunnel systems.

—Courtesy: Eurasia Review[Assaf Moghadam Director of Academic

Affairs, International Institute for Counter-Ter-rorism (ICT), Interdisciplinary Center (IDC).]

PUANGTHONG PAWAKAPAN

THE aim of the latest coup in Thailand, which took place onMay 22, 2014, and which was carried out by the NationalCouncil for Peace and Order, goes beyond the simple oust-

ing of the government of Yingluck Shinawatra. The electoral vic-tories of Thaksin’s parties, the Palang Prachachon in 2007 and thePheu Thai in 2011, informed the royalist elite that they could nolonger afford to abide by the principle of majoritarian democracy.The discourse of anti-majoritarian democracy, crusaded by the anti-Thaksin Yellow Shirt movements, has now been now adopted bythe military-appointed Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC).

Instead of trying to win the hearts and minds of the elector-ate by introducing popular and positive policies, the entrenchedelite appears to prefer an aggressive manipulation of the elec-toral system through rewriting the Constitution. Seven monthsafter the coup, key actors have disclosed their ideas for the newConstitution, making their heretofore unseen agenda more ap-parent. The revelation indicates that the new Constitution willbe similar to the semi-democracy model that Thailand adoptedin the 1980s.

On the one hand, the structure that is being discussed, whenimplemented, will certainly prevent an emergence of strong andpopular elected government. The appointed Senate will be the agentof the conservative elite and will play a vital role in that capacity.On the other hand, the new Constitution will provide the militarywith legitimacy to intervene in politics. Even if the junta holdsgeneral elections in early 2016 as it has declared that it will do, thebrass will continue to exert major influence over events.

New Political Role: In a previous ISEAS Perspective, I haveargued that Thailand’s pro-coup entrenched royalists distrust elec-toral democracy, politicians and rural-voters. The anti-rural voterdiscourse was in fact central to the Yellow Shirt campaigns ledby the People’s Democratic Reform Council and its predecessorthe People’s Alliance for Democracy. The coup is an opportu-nity for them to construct a new political game where the elec-toral power of majority voters is reduced.

In late December 2014, members of the military-appointedCDC revealed that the new charter will allow for a non-electedMember of Parliament to become prime minister.

“We will not require the PM to be an MP or a member of anypolitical party,” said CDC spokesperson and a staunch anti-Thaksin royalist, Kamnoon Sidhisaman. The change, if it hap-pens, will be a step backwards for Thai politics. According tothe so-called People’s Constitution of 1997, a prime ministermust be an elected MP. It was one of the major demands madeby democratic movements in the 1980s and 1990s, and wasaimed at preventing military interference in politics. The inclu-sion of this requirement in the 1997 constitution was considereda major advance of Thailand’s democratization.

Moreover, the CDC wants the new Constitution to grant theSenate more power. Senators are to be able to propose reformbills and even scrutinize the profiles of nominated cabinet min-isters before the prime minister submits the list for royal ap-proval. The CDC also favors giving senators authority to vet theprofiles of heads of all governmental organizations and to pub-lish the details. In effect, the Senate will be a dutiful agent of theconservative powers in their attempt to steer the new game.

The set-up of the Senate proposed by the CDC reveals theconservative elite’s determination to consolidate their power overparliamentary politics. This ambition has been noticeable sincethe coup in 2006, which tore up the 1997 constitution. Previ-ously, the clause on the Senate in the 1997 Constitution statedthat all senators must be directly elected by the people.

The coup-sponsored 2007 Constitution altered that. Of the150 senators, 76 were directly elected while the rest were ap-pointed. According to Kamnoon, the presently expected Consti-tution will increase the number of senators to 200, half of whichwill be appointed and the rest “indirectly elected,” which meanin effect that they are appointed, as I shall explain below.Kamnoon has said that senators are to be drawn from five groups:the first four are appointed and the fifth group “indirectly elected.”

The first group will be comprised of former leaders of thethree power pillars. They are the 12 living prime ministers(Thaksin will no doubt be excluded), a small number of formerHouse Speakers who are not members of a political party, andformer court presidents.

—Courtesy: Asia Sentinel

Thailand: Return toAuthoritarianism

IVAN SUKHOV

I WAS born in Moscow in 1977 and as I child I was exposed tocountless films about the war between the Soviet Union andNazi Germany, along with constant propaganda concerning the

nuclear threat. Like many Soviet children, I occasionally had night-mares about German armored cars rumbling down our street, or ofhearing that a nuclear conflict had broken out and frantically search-ing for my parents in the ensuing chaos. Ever since former Sovietleader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range NuclearForces, or INF, Treaty with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan,thereby enabling every person on the planet to breathe a sigh ofrelief and stop the countdown to Armageddon, those childhoodnightmares never again came back to haunt me — until now.

This is not just because the specter of nuclear holocaustmight have arisen again, but for the simple fact that war hasreturned to Europe. It is easy enough to theorize about warwhen you are sitting in a comfortable office with a map ofevents on the wall or even standing at the podium during apresidential news conference. However, theory always fallsshort of the reality on the ground. There, during a pause in theshelling, a frightened civilian emerges from the dust of brokenconcrete and shattered glass to find bread, only to wind up acorpse, their face mauled by wild dogs. For the dead and theirloved ones, there is no “right side” or “guilty party,” no “sa-cred Russian sovereignty” and no “Western world of freedoms.”There, peaceful existence and life itself have ended. Only ru-ins, death and half-crazed dogs remain.

Even after we thought it was safe to forget the route to thenearest bomb shelter, we witnessed numerous instances of con-flict and killing — some in this part of the world, or even onRussian territory. But when the peace was shattered and peopledied in, say, Grozny, it did not feel like it was happening to usper se. But now, with the events in Ukraine, it does. This is partlybecause it does not seem that some outside force is controllingthe conflict in eastern Ukraine. With every hour it becomes clearerthat the demon of war has been set free, and that it is capable ofdestroying not only the Donbass. It is even possible that, duringthe hours that passed between the time I penned these words andthe moment you read them, the situation has changed yet again— and not for the better.

The question of who started the war is extremely importantfrom the standpoint of international law, but international lawwill have its say only after the guns are silenced — that is, ifanyone is left to speak or to listen. More important is the ques-tion of whether the international community possesses any toolsit can employ to stop the shooting now, before it is too late. Ofcourse, the answer to this question depends on the viability ofRussia’s political machine. Because Russia controls one side inthe conflict, a cease-fire is at least a possibility. And if Moscowwere to admit that it, and not the separatists, is actually conduct-ing one side of the war, it would create a clearer institutionalframework for resolving the conflict — despite the extremelynegative consequences it would also entail for Russia.

—Courtesy: Moscow Times[Ivan Sukhov is a journalist who has covered conflicts in

Russia and the CIS for the past 15 years]

Nuclear ArmageddonThreatens World Again

M O S C O W — M i k h a i lGorbachev, the last leader ofthe Soviet Union, warned thatRussia and the United Statesmay be teetering on the brinkof a “hot war” in comments toInterfax on Thursday. “If youcall things by their propernames, [the United States] hasalready pulled us into a new‘Cold War’ by trying to em-body its general notion oftriumphalism,” saidGorbachev, who is widelycredited with having broughtan end in the 1980s to the de-cades-long Cold War betweenthe Soviet Union and theUnited States. “What will hap-pen next? Unfortunately, I canno longer say firmly that the‘Cold War’ won’t turn into ahot one,” he said.

Relations between Mos-cow and the West have deterio-rated to a point unparalleledsince the Cold War in recentmonths over Russia’s absorp-tion of Crimea in March andWestern allegations ofMoscow’s support for eastUkrainian insurgents battlingfor independence from Kiev.But while international mediaoutlets have had a field daywith talk of a new Cold War,the present diplomatic standoffhas not been broadly acceptedas such.

This is “not a new ColdWar,” U.S. President BarackObama told reporters at the

Gorbachev warns of threatof ‘Hot War’ with US

White House in July. “What itis, is a very specific issue re-lated to Russia’s unwillingness

to recognize that Ukraine canchart its own path.” WhileGorbachev has voiced approval

of Russia’s annexation ofCrimea, he has urged Moscowto refrain from involving itself

in the Ukraine conflict. “If ourcountry gets involved [in thefighting], it could spark a fire

so strong the whole worldwon’t be able to put it out.”Gorbachev said.—MT

KABUL—The Organization of IslamicCooperation (OIC) and the new Govern-ment of the Islamic Republic of Afghani-stan agreed to work together for the imple-mentation of the initiatives of the NationalUnity Government in all political and eco-nomic fields. The agreement was reachedduring the meetings held by OIC Secre-tary General Iyad Ameen Madani with HisExcellency President Ashraf Ghani and theChief Executive Officer of Afghanistan,Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, in the capital Kabulon Wednesday 28 January 2015.

During his visit to Afghanistan, whichcame upon invitation of the new AfghanGovernment, the Secretary General dis-cussed with the Afghan leadership manypolitical and economic issues in Afghani-stan and the region, reaffirming OIC’s

OIC, Afghan Govt to implementpolitical, economic initiatives

readiness to work with the National UnityGovernment in all fields, and reviewingthe advantages which the OIC enjoys,making it an important strategic partner inthe next phase.

For his part, the Afghan President un-derscored the important role of the OIC inthe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, high-lighting the need to activate partnershipsbetween the two parties in the next phase.

In the same vein, the Chief ExecutiveOfficer of Afghanistan welcomed any ini-tiative proposed by the OIC in support ofAfghanistan.

The Secretary General also met Af-ghan Foreign Minister, SalahuddineRabbani, and discussed with him bilateralrelations between the OIC and the IslamicRepublic of Afghanistan.

In the beginning of his visit, Madanihad conveyed his congratulations to theAfghan leadership and listened to the vi-sion and priorities of Afghanistan at thiscrucial stage under the leadership of theAfghan Government, reaffirming OIC’scontinued support to the Afghan peopleand to the initiative of the National UnityGovernment on national solidarity.

The two parties agreed to work to-gether to table the issue of the situationand new developments in the Republic ofAfghanistan at the OIC Council of For-eign Ministers in its session scheduled inMay in the capital Kuwait.

The two parties also agreed to promotejoint cooperation and develop bilateral re-lations between the OIC and the IslamicRepublic of Afghanistan.—Email

KABUL: OIC Secreytary General Mr Iyad Madani meeting with Afghan President AshrafGhani on Thursday.

BEIJING—Chinese DefenseMinistry said on Thursday thatChina and Japan have agreedto launch a maritime and aerialcrisis management mechanismat an early date. Defense Min-istry spokesperson Yang Yujuntold a monthly press briefingthat a consensus had beenreached on various aspects intalks in Tokyo this month, in-cluding reaffirming previousagreements on the goal, consti-tution, operation and technicalissues of the mechanism;agreeing to change the name ofmaritime crisis management

China, Japan agree to launchmaritime, aerial crisis

management mechanismmechanism to maritime andaerial crisis managementmechanism so as to better con-duct consultations on maritimeand aerial issues.

“The two sides also agreedthat conditions for launching themechanism are met and agreedto launch it as soon as possible,”said Yang. Besides, both sideshave reached consensus on tele-communications norms, he said.The defense ministries of Chinaand Japan held the fourth roundof talks in Tokyo on maritimecrisis management mechanismon Jan. 12. —Xinhua

AMMAN (TOKYO)—An au-dio message purportedly froma Japanese journalist being heldby Islamic State militants saida Jordanian air force pilot alsocaptured by the group would bekilled unless an Iraqi femaleprisoner in Jordan was releasedby sunset on Thursday.

The message appeared topostpone a previous deadlineset on Tuesday in which thejournalist, Kenji Goto, said hewould be killed within 24 hoursif the Iraqi was not freed.

The latest audio recording,which could not be verified byReuters, was posted on

IS purportedly sets newhostage swap deadline

YouTube early on Thursday.Japanese Chief Cabinet Secre-tary Yoshihide Suga told anews conference that chanceswere high it was Goto’s voicein the recording.

“I am Kenji Goto. This isa voice message I’ve beentold to send to you. If Sajidaal-Rishawi is not ready forexchange for my life at theTurkish border by Thursdaysunset 29th of January Mosul(Iraq) time, the Jordanian pi-lot Muath al-Kasaesbeh willbe killed immediately,” thevoice in the recordingsays.—Reuters

China’s silk roadproposals notMarshall Plan

BEIJING—Commentatorshave found parallels betweenChina’s funding of a modernversion of the Silk Road andthe Marshall Plan, indicatingthat China would use the ini-tiatives to seek influence inAsia as the United States didin post-World War II Europe.

While wide knowledgeof history can help us under-stand current politics, inad-equate comparisons of con-cepts based on their superfi-cial similarities can distortinformation and misleadpoliticians in making deci-sions.—Xinhua

in Saudi Arabia under officialarrangements while 72,316would travel privately.

The 20 per cent officialcut in Hajj quota would stillprevail this year.

Machine readable pass-port and vaccinations to pre-

144,000 Pakistanis to perform HajjFrom Page 1

Pak Electron, Lafarage Ce-ment Cherat Cement were thevolume leaders with 14.05 mil-lion, 13 million and 12 millionshares respectively to theircredit.

Meanwhile in the changingmacro landscape, it is believedthat Pakistan bank’s growthoutlook depends on each bank’sdeposit mix, geographical di-versification of asset profile,and duration of existing PIBholdings.

Expecting the benchmarkPolicy Rate to settle at 8.0% for2015 and medium term DRoutlook slated at 8.0%-8.5%(vs 10.0% prevailing for thelarge part of previous year), webelieve Pakistan Banks’ earn-ings and growth profile is nowa function of varied catalystsfor each bank, rather than anacross the board euphoria af-forded by the nine month longPIB investment window en-joyed in 2014.

KSE-100From Page 1

the kingdom, the sources said.However Musharraf’s re-

quest was rejected by the Inte-rior Ministry due to his namebeing included in the Exit Con-trol List (ECL), which barspeople from leaving the coun-try.

The ministry stated that theformer president had been puton the ECL after a court deci-sion, and that he should referto the judiciary regarding hisrequest to leave the country.

Earlier reports suggestedthat the government had inprinciple agreed to allow theformer president to leave thecountry.

Musharraf had sought a re-laxation of the travel ban placedon him so that he could fly tomeet members of the Saudiroyal family.

A source had said that In-terior Minister Chaudhry NisarAli Khan was among the fewmembers of the cabinet whohad been trying to persuade thePML-N leadership to soften itsstance on Musharraf, particu-larly when the PTI’s sit-in wasongoing and there wererumours of a military takeover.

Musharraf ’s name wasadded to the ECL due to mul-tiple high-profile cases pendingagainst him, including hightreason and murder.

Musharraf’sFrom Page 1

Chairman Imran Khan or Pa-kistan Awami Tehreek (PAT)chief Tahirul Qadri and nor hadany knowledge about their suchplan or meeting in London. Hesaid that the media shouldverify the contents of suchnews items before its publica-tion and telecasting which headded was the hallmark of thefreedom of press and basic in-gredient of the responsiblejournalism.

The sources further saidthat a further rift between Gov-ernor Punjab and PML-N ledgovernment surfaced whenChaudhary Muhammad Sarwarmet with the chief of MuttahidaQaumi Movement (MQM) AltafHussain in London and thismeeting was held at that timewhen Altaf Hussain was de-manding to install technocratgovernment in Pakistan by re-placing the PML-N democrati-cally elected government. How-ever, Governor PunjabChaudhary Muhammad Sarwaronce again dispelled this impres-sion that his meeting with AltafHussain was a part of installa-tion of any technocrat govern-ment. He clearly said that he metAltaf Hussain just to express hisgratitude to him for his sincereefforts to help settle sit-in issue.About formation of a govern-ment of technocrats, he clarifiedthat it was exclusive point ofview of Altaf Hussain who sug-gested its formation after thecompletion of current tenure ofthe government and he had noth-ing to do with it.

The sources further claimed

……Finally Ch Sarwar resignsFrom Page 1

unfortunately there are certainbottlenecks which are neededto be removed to enable mediato play a role for strengtheningdemocratic values and institu-tions.

Praising the overall role ofmedia as watchdog, he said aconsensus is needed to trans-form it into a constructive forceto build Pakistan and its soci-ety.

Other speakers said Paki-stani media is vibrant and ag-gressive, but self regulation canplay a pivotal role to place iton strong footing. Due to itslopsided working, there arecomplaints against it by thegovernment, people and evenjournalists.

UN should redefineFrom Back Page

All sorts of influences in-cluding unknown funding,non-professionalism and ab-sence of strong laws and willto rectify the situation havemarred this exploding sector.Time has come to sit down andjudiciously address all issueson professional lines by allstakeholders, they said.

During the video confer-ence, in-depth discussions wereheld on different aspects of me-dia including civil society andgood governance, media asguardian of democratic values,state of media laws and prac-tice in Pakistan, relishing inde-pendence responsibility andbuilding consensus a way for-ward.

that PML-N was also unhappyover Governor Punjab’s closeassociation with PAT Chief DrTahirul Qadri and his role to ne-gotiate with Qadri and PTI dur-ing Islamabad sits-in created se-rious kind of concerns amongPML-N leadership that was thereason his name was droppedlater from the negotiating teamconstituted by the government totalk with PTI. Even Qadri in hispublic addresses hinted thatSarwar was toothless governorwho like an ordinary bureaucratwaiting in queue to meet withChief Minister Punjab MianNawaz Sharif. The sources saidthat the situation turned into em-barrassment for PML-N govern-ment when Governor PunjabChaudhary Muhammad Sarwarappeared in a talk show of a Pa-kistani-based private channelduring his stay in London in 2014and severely criticized the per-formance of the government.

Throwing light on the rea-sons of his resignation,Chaudhary Muhammad Sarwaron Thursday posted a messageon his official Facebook pagewhich runs as “I decided a whileback that I want to resign becauseI was not being able to deliverwhat I wanted to the masses.

Later talking to media atpress conference after his resig-nation, Chaudhary MuhammadSarwar claimed there was a‘famine’ for truth in the countryand that he had spoken to RanaSanaullah about resigning fourmonths ago. “I had decided thatI was not able to achieve what Iwanted to do for the masses.”

Chaudhry Sarwar said hehad spoke to both Prime Minis-ter Nawaz Sharif and Chief Min-ister Shahbaz Sharif and in-formed then that he wanted toresign. “I have no differenceswith the Sharif brothers,” Sarwarsaid.

Sarwar said he had not beenasked to resign but had ratherdone this out of his own accord.“I want to categorically say thatthere has been no contact be-tween myself and my staff withthe President or PM House.There was no clarification sum-moned on any statement I made.”

During the news confer-ence Sarwar emphasized that itis his dream to work for thepeople of Pakistan but he hadfailed to serve this purpose asGovernor Punjab. Sarwar furthersaid that injustice and problemsof the poor were increasing inPakistan, adding that he wantedto see a democracy in Pakistanwhere everyone and equal rights.

“I can serve Pakistan betterout of office,” he said. “I will liveand die in Pakistan.”

He further said that hewants to continue to help Paki-stan in creating such a societywhere progress can be ensuredfor all the masses. “It’s time towake up,” he said, adding thatout-of-school children, lack ofaccess to clean water, threats tominorities are issues plaguingPakistan.

Sarwar also criticized thecivil bureaucracy, saying theyenjoyed each and every perk andprivilege in the country but hadcontributed nothing to the nationin the last 68 years.

He had further said politemethods to make the civil bu-reaucracy realize its duty hadfailed and now the only optionleft to teach them through the useof “baton”.

Sarwar, a former BritishMP, gave up his British nation-ality in August 2013 to serve asGovernor of Punjab on the invi-tation of Pakistan MuslimLeague (PML-N) leadership.

Having served as LabourParty Member of Parliament inGlasgow for 13 years (from 1997till 2010), Chaudhry Sarwarcomes with the experience of leg-islation besides having been asuccessful businessman. He wasalso the first Muslim to sit in theBritish parliament. Through hisdiplomatic efforts, Sarwar suc-ceeded in getting GSP Plus sta-tus for the country.

Principal Information Officer Rao Tehsin Ali Khan laying floral wreath on Yadgar-e-Shuhda-e-Army Public School Peshawar on Thursday.

vent from viral diseases arealso declared compulsory forthe travel.

The pact has declaredobligatory a male companionwith all women less than 45years of age.

Meanwhile, Aab-e-Zam

Zam (sacred water) would notbe allowed on return as 5 litreper pilgrim would be arrangedon Hajj flights by theoraganisers.—Online

five working groups coveringthe wide spectrum of bilateralrelations, and a sixth workinggroup is being established oneducation,” the spokespersonadded.

About counter-terrorismoperations, the spokespersonsaid Pakistan is pursuing acomprehensive strategy to dealwith the menace. The Interna-tional community should alsodevise such a strategy forelimination of terrorism.

India noteligibleFrom Page 1

DiscomfortFrom Page 1

water, threats to minorities areissues plaguing Pakistan. Healso vowed to campaign ag-gressively for local-govern-ment elections in all provinces.

Sarwar on Tuesday at a cer-emony of Tehrik Istehkam-i-Pa-kistan had said: “It’s the diplo-matic failure of Pakistan that USPresident Obama visited Indiaand signed all-important civilnuclear deal with it that includedsome condition even againstAmerican and internationallaws.”

Sarwar had criticised thecivil bureaucracy, saying theyenjoyed each and every perk andprivilege in the country but hadcontributed nothing to the nationin the last 68 years.

He had further said that po-lite methods to make the civilbureaucracy realise its duty hadfailed and now the only optionleft was to teach them throughthe use of “baton”.

The governor had saidWashington should have givenequal importance to New Delhiand Islamabad while making itspolicies for the region. He saidObama should have used the op-portunity to normalise tensionsin Indo-Pak ties.

The controversy surround-ing Sarwar’s statements and sub-sequent resignation comes daysafter Federal Minister RiazHussain Pirzada came under fireafter making controversial re-marks about Saudi Arabia — aclose ally of the Sharif govern-ment. When pressed by the gov-ernment to explain his remarks,Pirzada backtracked and said themedia ‘twisted’ his words regard-ing Saudi Arabia’s role indestabilising the Muslim world.

PM dashesto Karachi

From Page 1

to the Muttahhida Qaumi Move-ment leader Babar Khan Ghauriand discussed about the reserva-tions of the MQM. Ghauri hadinformed the PM about extra-ju-dicial killings of workers of theMQM during the ongoing tar-geted operation in the city.

According to sources, thePM had assured Ghauri of mea-sures for alleviating the griev-ances and lessening the reserva-tions of the MQM regarding theongoing targeted operation.

The sources said the PM toldhim he would be visiting Karachion Friday (today) and wouldchair a high level meeting on tar-geted operation and overall lawand order scene in the city. Mea-sures would be taken o addressthe reservations of the MQM.

The PM told Ghauri that jus-tice would be done to the ag-grieved family of slain worker ofthe MQM, Sohail Ahmed andstern action would be takenagsint those responsible for hismurder. The meeting would beattended by Sindh Governor andSindh Chief Minister and thechiefs of all law enforcing agen-cies including Pakistan RangersSindh Director General, Inspec-tor General of Police, Sindh,Additional IG, Chief Secretary,Home Secretary, and others.

Imran threatensFrom Page 1

cause he was at odds with thePMLN leadership’s undemo-cratic policies. Khan said thatin Khjyber Pakhtunkhwa prov-ince, where PTI was in power,the police served the public andnot the authorities. “KPK po-lice is apolitical. No one is fac-ing any politically-motivatedcases in the courts of lawthere,” he said. To a question,the PTI chief said that govern-ment was playing hide-and-seek with them with regards tothe formation of a judicial com-mission to probe into May 11,2013 vote fraud. “Sitting in thefence, they are neither clearlysaying no nor yes.—Online

Normalcy returns to KarachiFrom Page 1

any untoward incident. All theroads leading towards ChiefMinister (CM) Sindh Housewere sealed off by placing con-tainers on the way.

The petrol pumps andCNG stations also remainedclose and public transport van-ished from roads. The admin-istration of private schools an-nounced to keep the educa-tional institutes closes onMQM call of day of mourning.The University of Karachi(KU) and Federal Urdu Uni-versity of Arts, Science andTechnology (FUUAST) havepostponed scheduled papersand classes over uncertain situ-ation of the city.

Meanwhile, MuttahidaQaumi Movement (MQM)chief Altaf Hussain on lateThursday night, withdrew hisearlier announcement to severall ties with his party.

The MQM leader made theannouncement during a tele-phonic address to party work-ers at Nine-Zero.

He had earlier stated thathe would deliver his last ad-dress to MQM workers andsupporters on Friday.

Earlier today, as parts ofSindh shut down on theMQM’s call to observe a dayof mourning over its workerSohail Ahmed’s killing, AltafHussain had announced that hewould sever all ties with hisparty, Talking to a private newschannel he had also asked forthe nation’s forgiveness.

The MQM chief hadclaimed that the Inter-ServicesIntelligence (ISI) had neveraccepted him and accused thecountry’s premier intelligenceagency of implicating him incases even though no corrup-tion was proved against him.

US appointsInt’lnegotiator ondevelopmentHameed ShaheenISLAMABAD—The US Depart-ment of State has appointedMr Tony Pipa as Special Co-ordinator for the Post-2015Development Agenda, saysa web press release Thurs-day. Mr. Pipa will lead U.S.engagement and negotia-tions during the intergovern-mental process at the UnitedNations, where the globalcommunity will work to de-fine—and agree upon—anambitious agenda on sus-tainable development for de-cades to come.

ZUBAIR QURESHI

ISLAMABAD—Former Law Minister DrBabar Awan on submitted his licence at alocal court on Thursday to defend Paki-stan Tehreek-e-Pakistan (PTI) ChairmanImran Khan in a libel case filed by ex-chiefjustice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Iftikhar Chaudhry’s counsel NayabHassan Gardezi, Ahsen-ud-Din Sheikh ex-changed harsh words with Babar Awan dur-ing the court session as they argued thatChaudhry had suspended Babar Awan’s lawlicence in the past.

Babar Awan, however, said the objec-tion was of no use as it had been repeatedlyset aside by various courts. Babar Awanargued that Imran Khan had faced “count-less injustices” due to which he had to comeout on the streets. Imran Khan had to cometo roads after he was denied justice, thoughall political parties had admitted rigging in2013 elections, said Awan.

He said justice should be seen by all.Nayab Gardezi however pointed out that inthat case Babar Awan should be ready toface charges of Nandipur Power Project cor-ruption and parting of ways with PPP. Noone is above law, said Gardezi. Babar Awansought two to two-and-a-half months forcase preparation.

Gardezi however said under section 14of Defamation Act a court is bound to givedecision within 90 days.

Babar Awan referred to a number of

Imran, Chaudhry’s lawyersenter in verbal brawl

cases in which constitutional provisionswere bypassed. Tension between the twosides was visible and at one time Ahsen-ud-Din Sheikh had to request the judge toask Babar Awan not to use inappropriatelanguage.

District and Session Judge NazeerAhmed Gajjana remarked that a decisionwill be taken without any pressure. He di-rected both the sides to focus on the caseinstead of deviating from the subject. Thecourt also asked Chaudhry’s counsels topresent their case regarding accusationsagainst Awan in the next hearing. BabarAwan previously served as the federal lawminister during Pakistan Peoples Party’s(PPP) tenure.

Later, while talking to media outside thecourt Babar Awan said the government wastaking refuge behind the defamation caseand his legal team would expose this in thecourse of proceedings.

Last year, Iftikhar Chaudhry’s counselsent a defamation notice worth Rs20 bil-lion to the PTI Chairman, on the groundsthat he leveled rigging allegations againstthe ex-chief justice. Chaudhry’s counselalso argued that Khan attempted to dispar-age and malign the superior judiciary.

Justice Chaudhry’s lawyers were of theview it was yet to be decided whetherBabar Awan could continue as defencelawyer since he is biased against JusticeIftikhar Chaudhry and was himself facinga number of cases.

UN should redefinedefinition of freedom ofexpression: Zahid Malik

Continued on Page 7

LIAQAT TOOR

ISLAMABAD—Keeping inview the latest developmentsin the world and sensitivitiesof different faiths, culture, re-gions, the United Nationsshould redefine definition offreedom of media and expres-sion to forge peace and har-mony in the world.

He was speaking in avideo conference as paneliston ‘Enabling Environment ForFree and Responsible Media’organised by Institute ofBusiness Management incoordination with HigherEducation Commission inIslamabad, Lahore and

Mr Zahid Malik Editor-in-Chief Pakistan Observer ad-dressing video conference.—PO Photo by Sultan Bashir

Karachi. Editors, seniormediapersons, education-ists and senior members ofcivil society participated.Presided over by Talib Karim,Sarmad Ali, Arif Nazami,Shahida Qazi and anchorperson Mati Ullah Jan wereamong the panelists. EjazWasay was the moderator.

Stressing the need toimplement laws and rules ofelectronic and print media,Zahid Malik said PressCouncil and Pemra haveframed comprehensivecode of conduct to stream-lining affairs of media, but

Noembezzlementfrom BoPISLAMABAD—Pa-kistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s Punjab president EjazChaudhry has denied that heembezzled Rs 5 million fromBank of Punjab and said thatit is a ploy by the PML-N todefame him. Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Punjab presi-dent Ejaz Chaudhry had ac-quired a loan worth Rs fivemillion from Bank of Punjab(BoP) in 2010 but did not re-turn it.—Online

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari said the PPPnever believed in political victimization be-cause it was a democratic party, which al-ways believed in resolving issues throughmeaningful dialogue.

The party in light of the reconciliationpolicy of slain Benazir Bhutto wanted tokeep good relations with all politicalparties.He was talking to Sindh Chief Min-ister Syed Qaim Ali Shah at Bilawal HouseThursday.

The PPP Co-Chairman had summonedthe CM to learn what was going on in the

province especially in the city especiallythe issues that pertained to theMuttahhida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

The meeting also discussed aboutparty policy regarding the forthcomingelections of the Senate of Pakistan and onthe occasion, Zardari told the CM that tick-ets for the Senate would only be offeredto those, who would meet the criteria ofthe merit.

The CM also briefed the PPP Co-Chair-man about law and order in Karachi cityand on development projects in the prov-ince. The meeting also discussed aboutthe allegations that were being leveledagainst the PPP by the MQM.

Zardari asks CM to take steps forredressal of MQM’s reservations

KABUL—At least eight people were killedon Thursday when a suicide bomber deto-nated himself at funeral in eastern Afghani-stan, provincial officials said.

A local official, who spoke on condi-tion of anonymity, said at least eight peoplewere killed in the attack in Mehtarlam, inthe eastern Laghman province. Laghmangovernor spokesperson Sarhadi Zwakplaced the death toll at 16, with another 39wounded. No one has claimed responsibil-ity for the attack as yet.

Afghanistan last year saw a surge inviolence as international forces wounddown their combat mission, which beganin 2001. It has now been downgraded to

support and training duties to help the Af-ghan army and police.

About 17,000 foreign soldiers, most ofthem from the US, will remain in Afghani-stan as part of the new mission.

But US troop numbers are set to halvewithin 12 months and fall to almost noth-ing in two years. Civilian casualties rose 19per cent from the previous year to a recordhigh in 2014, with nearly 3,200 civilians killedand 6,429 injured, a UN report found.

Child casualties had jumped a third bythe end of November and by 12 per centamong women, in the deadliest year fornon-combatants, said the report, releasedin December.—AP

Suicide attack at funeralin Afghanistan kills 8

Seven terroristskilled, 13 heldin D.I. Khan

D I KHAN—Securityforces on Thursday killedat least seven more terror-ists and arrested 13 sus-pects during the ongoingsearch operation in differ-ent areas of Dera IsmailKhan.

Earlier, the securityforces raided the area ofRozkot Sultan and killed atleast five terrorists and ar-rested as many as four onthe first day of operationwhereas on the second dayat least two terrorists werekilled and 13 others were ar-rested.—INP

ENOUGH is enough: stop wasting moneyon vitamin and mineral supplements, saymedical experts in an editorial of a lead-

ing journal that has just published three newstudies examining whether routine use of vita-min and mineral supple-ments brings health benefits.Writing in Annals of Inter-nal Medicine, the editorialauthors conclude that mostsupplements do not preventchronic disease or death,some may even be harmfulin well-nourished adults,and there is a large body ofevidence to support this.

“This message is espe-cially true for the generalpopulation with no clear evi-dence of micronutrient de-ficiencies, who representmost supplement users inthe United States and inother countries.” Editorialco-author Dr. Edgar Miller,professor of medicine andepidemiology at JohnsHopkins Bloomberg School of Public Healthin Baltimore, MD, told CBS News that peoplewould be better off spending money on healthyfoods, such as “fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans,low-fat dairy,” and getting exercise.

In the editorial, Dr. Miller and colleaguessay despite “sobering evidence” of no healthbenefit and even of possible harm, US adultsare spending more and more on multivitamins.They note how use of multivitamins increasedamong US adults from 30% between 1988 and1994 to 39% between 2003 and 2006, whileoverall use of dietary supplements grew from42% to 53% over the same period.

There have been some dips - for instance,

studies have linked certain supplements tonegative outcomes - but overall the supple-ments industry has kept growing. In the US,it reached $28 billion a year in 2010. Trendsin the UK and other European countries are

similar, notes the editorial. Onepoint that stands out in the edi-torial is that consumers seem toreact differently to evidence ofnegative results versus null re-sults.

While overall use ofsupplements has gone up, useof certain individual supple-ments has gone down, for ex-ample beta-carotene and vita-min E. This decline followedreports of studies that showedthese could be harmful. On theother hand, evidence that dailysupplements have null effects -that is, they make no differenceto health - appear to have noeffect on consumers and over-all sales have kept growing.

In one of the studies pub-lished in the same issue as the

editorial, Dr. Francine Grodstein, of HarvardSchool of Public Health, and colleagues ex-amined data from the Physicians’ HealthStudy II, to look at the effect of long-termuse of multivitamins on cognitive health. Theparticipants were nearly 6,000 male doctorsaged 65 and over, who were randomised totake either a daily multivitamin pill or pla-cebo pill for 12 years.

In another study, researchers reviewedevidence on the use of vitamin and mineralsupplements to prevent heart disease andcancer, in order to update the guidelines forthe US Preventive Services Task Force - anexpert panel that advises the US government.

Multivitamins ‘waste ofmoney,’ say medical experts

Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Muhammad Zakaullah called on Federal Minister forFinance, Muhammad Ishaq Dar.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Chief of the Naval Staff, Admi-ral Muhammad Zakaullah called on the FederalMinister for Finance, Senator Muhammad IshaqDar here on Thursday and discussed matters ofmutual interests. Admiral Zakaullah said thePrime Minister had given clear instructions tospare no efforts in eliminating extremism fromthe country and deal with iron hand with thosewho disrupt peace in the country.

It is the firm resolve of the Defense Forcesand political leadership to work in unison to re-store the feeling of security in the masses, headded. Admiral Zakaullah also praised the ef-forts of the Finance Minister in building the eco-nomic standing of the country in the interna-tional markets.

He further said that economic sovereignty

Naval Chief calls on Ishaq Dar

of a nation is very important. Economicallystable countries have better negotiating powersat the international fora and the current leader-ship is working hard to achieve this aim. TheFinance Minister said that the economic upliftof the country and its people is his top priority.

He and his team had been working hard toproject a better image of the country in the in-ternational markets. He said despite problemsthe current leadership was making sincere ef-forts to remove system inefficiencies and resolveissues in best possible manner.

The Finance Minister acknowledged theservices and sacrifices of the Defense Forcesfor the security of the country and discussedbriefly other issues related with the training andcapacity building of the Pakistan Navy person-nel. The meeting was also attended by seniorofficials of Finance Ministry and Pakistan Navy.

RAZA UR REHMAN

ISLAMABAD—Minister for Plan-ning, Development and Reforms,Professor Ahsan Iqbal Thursdaysaid the speed of development atGawadar would increase withevery single project coming onground under China-PakistanEconomic Corridor. He said theGawadar would be made a smartport city having commercial andtourist facilities like Singapore orDubai.

Addressing at a seminar onpotentials and prospects ofGawadar here, he also appreciatedPakistan Institute for conflict &Security Studies (PICSS) for or-ganizing the seminar on such animportant theme and highlightingthe strength of Gawadar to be-come model port city in the fu-ture.

The Federal Minister dis-pelled misconceptions roaming inthe media community and in somepolitical circles that China-Paki-stan Economic Corridor is a nameof any single road or rail align-ment, or that it is aimed at com-peting with other ports. He said, “The cor-ridor is spread over entire Pakistan fromsouth to north having several projects onenergy, infrastructure, health, education,clean drinking water etc. It will be devel-oped due to its own unique geographicallocation and will complement other portswithin and outside Pakistan through exist-ing regional infrastructure”.

He explained two phases ofinfrastructural development under ChinaPakistan economic Corridor. The firstphase, he said will link existing Motorwayfrom Lahore to Peshawar with Motorwayfrom Lahore to Karachi, linking south andnorth through series of motorways.

“We are constraint to borrow further

debt for country. The 2nd phase of corri-dor, envisaging road connectivity ofGawadar with Balochistan and KPK, willalso be started as the pace of developmentand traffic increases”, he added.

He said, “KKH is being upgraded upto Hawelian with Chinese assistance andN-85, which was neglected for so long, willalso be completed within three years link-ing Ratodero with Gawadar. This will bethe shortest road connectivity of Gawadarwith rest of Pakistan and attract investmentat Gawadar port”

The Minister announced that withinnext three years transformational changein Gawadar will be phenomenal with re-spect to integrated infrastructure and in-vestment opportunities.

The cluster of projects under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will makeGawadar a commerce and tourist resortintegrating three billion populations ofSouth Asia, China and central Asia. Ear-lier speaking at a Conference on Maternaland New born Health in Pakistan beyond2015, organized by Research and Advo-cacy Fund here, Ahsan Iqbal said, “Paki-stan is among those countries which havepoor social indicators.

During 35 years of military rule inPakistan desired allocations in social sec-tor were overlooked. The discontinuity ofpolicies has made the mess of our socialsector and it is now a big challenge for usto improve the situation through major eco-nomic initiatives”. “Vision 2025 is one of

the initiatives of our socio-economicagenda which will address the issues ofpoverty, malnutrition, provision of safedrinking water, gender inequalities etc”, headded.

He said Pakistan has immense poten-tial and the goal of the government is toachieve over 6% growth rate by 2017/18to turn Pakistan into one of the fastest grow-ing economies in Asia. Education sector isthe top priority in development agenda sothat our youth can become productivemembers in knowledge economy. “Thevery first pillar of Vision 2025 aims at im-proving quality education and increasingbudgetary allocation on education to 4%of GDP by 2018 against current 2% publicexpenditure on education”, he added.

Gawadar to be 2nd door to globaleconomy after Karachi: Ahsan Iqbal

Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal addressing seminar on “Potentials and Prospects ofGawadar”.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Speakerspaid glowing tributes toNobel Laureate Prof. Dr.Abdul Salam at his 89thanniversary’s function heldhere on Thursday at AllamaIqbal Open Universi ty(AIOU).

While narrating theachievements of the greatscientist, they urged theyouth to follow his foot-prints earning good namefor the country and them-selves.

Abiding commitmentwith research work and thespirit for working for na-tion were the hallmark ofhis personality, said vicechancellor Prof. Dr. ShahidSiddiqui while presidingover the function.

Dr. Salam proved thefact that one can realize hisdream by hard work andstrong commitment, no

matter what hurdles comes inhis way. He noted that thatProf Salam had been making

serious efforts to promote theculture of research in thecountry throughout his life.

Pakistan, he added en-joys rich human potentialand talents to produce morescientists like Abdus Salam

who had surprised the worldby his hard work, knowledgeand talent.

The AIOU, he said hasattached a top priority to theresearch work and promotinginnovative ideas to furtherdevelop country’s good im-age in the scientific field.Various academic programshave been introduced as afollow up of Dr. Salam work.

Eminent educationistProf. Dr. Ghulam Mutaza inhis key-note address spokehigh about the lasting quali-ties of head and heart of Dr.Salam, who he further saidplayed a major role in the de-velopment of science in Pa-kistan in 1960s and earlyseventies.

As chief scientist adviserto late President Ayub Khanand Prime Minister ZulfiqarAli Bhutto he helped to buildthe scientific infrastructurein the country.

Dr. Ghulam Murtaza

noted that the Dr. Salam cre-ated history by becomingthe first from the Muslimworld to win the NobelPrize in science.

He also created historyby setting up a unique insti-tution in the world- Interna-tional centre for theoreticalphysics in Italy. This centreis now citadel of learningwhere thousands of devo-tees come every year to ac-quire knowledge of the fron-tiers of physics.

A documentary on thelife of Dr. Salam was alsoshown on the occasion. Thefunction was arranged bythe AIOU’s department ofPhysics.

Chairman of the depart-ment Dr. Zafar Ilyas alsospoke on the occasion, eu-logizing the contribution ofDr. Salam in the field of sci-ence and technology. A cakewas also cut to celebrate hisbirthday.

Glowing tributes paid toDr. Abdus Salam at AIOU

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Special Assis-tant to the Prime Minister onNational Affairs,Mr. IrfanSiddiqui urged the youth to be-come a productive member ofthe society and contribute for thedevelopment of their homeland.He stressed on the significanceof education for eradicating ex-tremist and negative attitudesprevalent in our society.

He was speaking as chiefguest at the prize distributionceremony for the National Es-say Competition held in connec-tion with the Independence DayCelebrations.

Professor. Dr. MukhtarAhmed, Chairman, Higher Edu-cation Commission (HEC) andDr.Mansoor Akbar Kundi, Act-ing Executive Director HECwere also present at the cer-emony held at HEC Secretariat.On the directive of the PrimeMinister, while celebrating 67th Indepen-dence Day,HEC organized the NationalEssay Competition in five Regions i.eSindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,Punjab and Federal Area. The programmewas advertised with the theme “Celebratethe Freedom with Words”.

As many as 458 Essays received fromall over the country. The essays received

Youth have an important role ineradicating extremism: Irfan Siddiqui

Irfan Siddqui, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on national affairs distributing cer-tificates to national essay competition on Independence Day celebrations held at HEC.

from the students were evaluated by thejudges and 60 position holders in the cat-egory of Urdu and English were given cer-tificates and cash prizes in the five regionsat college and university level.

The Essays of position holders from allthe regions were further evaluated in HECat national level. After evaluation by thejudges, six students were selected from all

over the country for first, second and thirdposition in the Category of Urdu and En-glish. Their essays were evaluated keepingin view the, creativity, structure, adherence,grammar,length and wow factor. For rec-ognition, appreciation and encouragementof the student they were given cash prizesof Rs. 100000, 75000, and 50000 at nationallevel in both the categories.

ZUBAIR QURESHI

ISLAMABAD—On the directions of ChiefJustice Islamabad High Court (IHC)Mohammad Anwar Khan Kasi an investiga-tion officer (IO) of women police station(WPS) submitted challan of the case involv-ing wives of two magistrates before a judicialmagistrate. The judicial magistrate issuedwarrants of the accused, who happens to bewife of Deputy Commissioner (HunzaNagar). The petitioner, who is also wife of alocal magistrate held before the court throughAdvocate Nayab Gardezi that police did notsubmit challan for the last one year as the ac-cused was an influential officer’s wife.Gardezi while arguing before the court heldthat it was police’s duty to submit challan be-fore a court within 15 days time.

The petitioner Ghazal Gilani, a residentof Shahzad Town in her petition filed throughAdvocate Supreme Court of Pakistan Nayab

Hassan Gardezi alleged police were under theinfluence of the DC’s wife. She has nomi-nated SSP Islamabad, Station House Officer(SHO) Women Police Station andMuhammad Ishfaq Sub-Inspector/ Investiga-tion Officer (IO) as respondents

Syed Nayab Gerdezi while talking toPakistan Observer said in April last year SaimaKhan, wife of the DC, forcibly entered thehouse of Ghazal and beat her. His client thenregistered an FIR against the other lady undersections 506, 427, 337-F, 337-F, 337-A withWomen Police Station on April 30, 2014. LaterSiama Khan also lodged a complaint with thesame police station on May 20, 2014 whereshe narrated the story otherwise and accusedGhazal of beating her.

Now FIRs were registered against boththe ladies, while Ghazal Gillani applied forbail that was granted and confirmed. Accord-ing to the petitioner, Saima Khan also appliedfor bail that was dismissed on November 07,

2014 and now she is an absconder.She told the court the local police under

influence of Saima Khan’s husband neitherinitiated fair investigation nor the accused wasarrested. Above all police also did not submitchallan/report under section 173 CrPC.

Before that the petitioner also tried toavail remedy with the trial court that issuednotices number of times to the SHO but hedid not submitted challan. She said the ac-cused Saima Khan and her husband weretrying to involve her in false cases, litiga-tions and the local police as well as localadministration wee fully supporting them.

Upon her refusal for reconciliation thelocal administration under the influence ofSiama Khan’s husband directed the localpolice to remove the CCTV cameras fromthe house of the petitioner. The IHC benchaccepted the petition and as the judicialmagistrate also issued warrants for the ladySaima Khan.

Challan submitted upon IHC CJ’s orders

One-year old scuffle betweenmagistrates’ wives

Motorcyclerickshaws declared

illegalRAWALPINDI—Excise depart-ment has refused to registerMotorcycle rickshaws operat-ing in the city declaring themas illegal.

The department is of thestance that thousand of motor-cycle rickshaws on roads of 5big cities are already declaredillegal as they pollute the envi-ronment.—Online

06:25 01:3004:00

07:15

Zohr

Asr

Isha

Fajar

Meghrab at Sunset

Brothers in Islamestablish regularprayers & charity

Activists of Muttahida Qaumi Movement hold a demonstration in support of their demands outside National PressClub.—PO photo by Sultan Bashir

Motorway Police recovered 100 bottles of liquor.

Traders holding a demonstration rally against the blasphemous sketches at Raja Bazaar.

RAZA UR REHMAN

ISLAMABAD—National Highways &Motorway Police (NH&MP) hastaken several measures to control fa-tal accidents on motorways by ensur-ing strict enforcement against majorcauses of accidents i.e. lane violation,over-speeding, sleeping at wheel etc,said an official of Motorway Policeon Thursday. He said that awarenesscampaigns have been launched regu-larly to raise awareness about the ma-jor causes of accidents. Moreover, he

said black spots have been deter-mined and special measures havebeen adopted by installing warningsigns, speed limit signs, lane disci-pline signs and other similar road fur-niture.

Patrolling vehicles, he said, havebeen asked to spend sufficient timeat the black spots to make the driversand commuters alert especially at thatspecific point. He said that surpriseand random interception of vehiclesis made during night time to ensurethe vigil level of the drivers.

Entry of potentially hazardous ve-hicles i.e. poor body or engine condi-tion or heavily overloaded have com-pletely been restr icted on themotorway, he said adding it is beingensured by NH&MP that no driverdrives a vehicle on motorway with-out valid licence.

To a question, he said deploymentof two drivers has been made compul-sory for all public service vehicles hav-ing route of more than 5 hours. He saidentry of PSVs with commercial loadson their rooftops has been banned on

motorway as overweight vehicles posea great hazard not only to other ve-hicles plying on motorway but alsocause irreparable loss to the preciousnational infrastructure. He said weighstations are being operated at all themajor entry points of motorway wherevehicles are properly weighed beforetheir entry on motorway.

Overweight vehicles are returnedfrom the interchanges and not allowedto enter motorway. Likewise, over-weight or heavily loaded vehicles arealso made to exit from the next inter-

change if found plying on motorway.Use of seatbelt reduces the impact ofthe collision manifold, therefore, zerotolerance is being ensured againstnon-usage of seat belts, he said.

The official said that NH&MP hasformed Mobile Education Units onmotorway which regularly visit the Bus/Truck/Taxi stands, Education Institutesto create awareness of Road Safetyamongst the masses. Special measuresare being taken to control pedestriancrossing on motorway which is alsoone of the major causes of accidents.

NH&MP ensuring strict measurersagainst major causes of accidents

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Motorway Police haveseized 100 bottles of imported liquorform a car that was heading towardsLahore. As per details, officers ofMotorway Police, SPO Fazil Basra,SPO Mohsin Malik, PO Ansar Balochand PO Usman were on routine pa-

trolling on Motorway (Islamabad toLahore) when they intercepted the li-quor-laden car.

The officers seized 100 bottles (100liters) imported liquor of thousands ofrupees from a silver Corolla Car bear-ing registration number LEB-7136and arrested 01 culprit. The liquor waskept in back trunk of the vehicle. The

car joined motorway (M2) from Salaminterchange and was moving towardsLahore. The 30 years old accused,Farast Hayat, was resident of MandiBaha-ud-Din.

The recovered bottles of liquor,vehicle and the accused were handedover to Police Station Sukheke for fur-ther investigations.

Police seizes 100 importedliquor bottles, arrest culprit

ISLAMABAD—The Chief EngineerRawalpindi Development AuthoritySaeed Akhtar Thursday confirmedthat a total of 64 Metro buses havereached Karachi from Turkey whichare likely to reach Islamabad nextweek.

Talking to APP Saeed said that busdepot for Metro Buses on 17 acresland near Peshawar Morr has beenconstructed where the buses wouldbe parked.

He said, “We have paid Rs130 mil-

lion to the Capital Development Au-thority (CDA) for the greenbelts,which were damaged during the con-struction of Metro Bus Project.”

Fifty percent work on installationof escalators for Metro Bus stationshas been completed, he added. Saeedsaid the Project completion would bedelayed by another two weeks.

To a query he said that PunjabChief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has ex-pressed anguish and concern overdelay in completion of Metro Bus

Project on the deadline of January 31.Saeed confirmed that Chief Minis-

ter has directed the authorities to com-plete the Project by February 15 sothat buses start plying on Rawalpindiand Islamabad route.

He said that Package-II ofPeshawar Morr Interchange, which isa component of the project, would takesome time for completion. However,reconstruction and carpeting ofBenazir Bhutto Road would be com-pleted soon.—APP

64 Metro buses likely to reachIslamabad next week

Prof.Zahida QaziCommemoratedat condolence

referenceSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The col-leagues, friends and relativescommemorated ProfessorZahida Qazi as an illustriouseducationist and great hu-man being at a condolence

reference here at IslamabadClub organised by Fellowshipof Federal Government Fe-male Faculty Islamabad.

Prof. Qaiserah M Alviwho presided over the func-tion said Zahida Qazi knewwell about sacred bonds be-tween teacher and studentswhich play key role in pro-ducing excellent results ineducational field. She pro-duced brilliant students.

Paying tribute to her ex-Principal of FG College F-/2,Prof. Farhat Mujtaba aptlydescribed Zahida’s profes-sionalism as “Missionaryzeal, perfect commitment,upholding the highest prin-ciples of honesty, integrityand sincerity. Prof. AqilaKhattak, Prof. Nusrat Zia,Principal of Federal Govt.Humak College, AssociateProf. Khalida Makhdoom andVice Principal, FG College F-/2, Associate Prof. RubinaChohan also eulogized ser-vices of the late education-ist.

Prof. Samar Zafar, Prin-cipal of F-G Home Econom-ics College, presented a filmcontaining photographicmemories and a poem, remem-bering Zahida’s love for thecinema and reliving her joiede vivre. Zahida’s husbandand daughters spoke pas-sionately about her resil-ience, perseverance, indus-triousness.

IS L A M A B A D—The consumers of SuiNorthern Gas Pipeline (SNGPL)Rawalpindi region Thursday demandedaction against the illegal use of compres-sors by some people, causing low gaspressure.

The consumers said that use of com-pressors on connection of Sui gas is notonly i l legal but also dangerous inhouses .

Muhammad Adeel, a resident of Sat-ellite Town said that some people are us-ing compressors to increase gas pres-sure in their houses and creating prob-lems for their neighbors, which is notonly illegal but also disturbing their sup-ply.

“We have been deprived of gas forweeks because some houses in our sur-roundings are using compressor,” saidTahir Khan, a resident of Muslim Town,Sadiqabad. We are deprived of gas be-cause of this illegal practice,” he added.

When contacted an official of SNGPL,said that it is an illegal practice and wewould take strict legal action against theviolators. He said that SNGPL has startedremoving compressors from houses oncomplaints of low gas pressure in vari-ous localities. He said that customer ser-vice center is working round the clockto address complaints and they will carryout on the spot checking on complaintsof low pressure.—APP

Action against illegal use ofcompressor demanded

IS L A M A B A D—A distr ict and sessionjudge on Thursday adjourned the hear-ing of defamation case filed by formerchief just ice If t ikhar MuhammadChaudhary against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan till February14. The ex-CJ had filed a Rs 20 billiondefamation lawsuit against Khan for al-legedly maligning the Supreme Court andaccusing him of rigging in May 11, 2013general elections.

Former law minister and Senator DrBabar Awan submitted his license in or-der to represent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan in defa-mation suit filed by former Chief JusticeIftikhar Chaudhry. District and sessionsJudge Nazir Ahmad heard the case pro-ceedings when Iftikhar Chaudhry’s law-

yer, Sheikh Ahsan, objected stating thatformer CJ suspended Awan’s practice li-cense so he might hold a grudge againstthe plaintiff.

Babar Awan stated that the case willbring a lot of details to light adding thatImran Khan had to take it to the streetsto protest against the blatant injustice.Both the lawyers also exchanged verbalblows during the argument. Judge NazirAhmad remarked that court will pass thejudgment without any pressure.

Court ordered Imran Khan to submitresponse pertaining to the defamation suitin the next hearing and directed IftikharChaudry’s lawyer to provide rationale ofthe objections pointed at Babar Awan. Thecourt directed Imran Khan’s counsel tosubmit his reply till February 14.—INP

Defamation case against ImranKhan adjourned till Feb 14

STAFF REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—Traders held a protestrally here on Thursday against publi-cation of blasphemy sketches.

The protest rally was organised bythe trade associations and localUlema, which included AnjumanTajiran Raja Bazar; Anjuman Tajirancommercial market, Pharmaceuticaltrade Association, Anjuman Tajiran

Traders hold protest rally againstblasphemous sketches

Moti bazzar, Sarafa and Jewellers As-sociation, Ittehad Ahle Sunnat-o-Jamaat and Majlis Tahfuze KhatmayNubawat.

The rally started from FawaraChowk and culminated at LaiquatBagh.

The protesters carried differentplacards and banners inscribed withslogans against blasphemy sketchesand in support of Islam.

Those who addressed the rally in-cluded traders’ leaders Sharjeel Mir,Sheikh Sidique, Shahid GhafoorParacha,Ulema representatives Aziz urRehman Hazarvi,Mufti Qazi MustaqAhmed, Charagh Uddin Shah andMaulana Inam ul Haq Shah.

They said the West continuedto hurt feelings of the Muslims inthe name of right to freedom of ex-pression.

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Government notified a Dis-trict Coordination Committee (DCC) toeffectively implement the Enrolment Ex-ercise of out of school children underWaseela e Taleem Initiative. The initia-tive has been taken under Benazir IncomeSupport Program (BISP) Rawalpindiwhich launched an aggressive mobiliza-tion campaign to approach the parentsof poor families for enrolling their chil-dren in schools.

An incentive of Rs.200 per child permonth will be given to the mother of the

child for her child’s education in school.In this regard the first meeting of the Dis-trict Coordination Committee on Waseelae Taleem Initiative held here on Thurs-day at the Divisional DirectorateRawalpindi.

During the meeting it was agreed thatBISP will prepare and share a compre-hensive plan for District Coordinator withthe concerned Education Authorities sothat necessary arrangements for enrol-ment and registration of out of schoolchildren can be made. The Divisional Di-rector emphasized that focus during theoperation will be on relationship building

with the beneficiaries and families so thatthey can be extended support in this na-tional cause with full confidence.

BISP has already launched a door todoor campaign to seek the support ofpoor parents for sending their children inschools. The BISP officials were directedto get the support of teachers in schoolsfor gathering round the parents in vari-ous localities. It was also decided to ar-range specific training sessions for theteachers to equip them with the processof enrolment under Waseela e Taleem.However, it was directed not to arrangeTeacher Trainings during office hours.

DCC asked to implementout of school enrolment exercise

ISLAMABAD—The food outlets being op-erated in recreational spots of the federalcapital are out of the range of most visitorscausing a damper on the outing of the citi-zens.

It has been learnt that Hotels, foodstalls, tuck shops in popular picnic spotsof federal capital like Damn-e-Koh, PirSahawa, Lake View Park and Shakarparianare of low quality and very expensive forgeneral public. According to sources CDA

have given contracts of shops to their val-ued people so no check and balance couldbe done in the matter.

The police officers and managements ofIslamabad takes bribe from these shop hold-ers for that reason no rate list are enlisted.Items sold are double in rates as comparedto normal places. When directorate of mu-nicipal administration was contacted on thematter they said surprised inspection will bebeginning in next few days.—Online

Food outlets at recreationalspots heavy on pockets

MIRPUR: AJK Prime Minister ch. Abdul Majid offering dua after inaugurating Tourist Welcome Booth at Mangla here on Thursday.

Thousands attend funeral of martyred youth in Tral.

DR. ABDUL RUFF

AS DELHI poll date is nearing, the BJP isgoing all out to get a majority by hook orcrooks so that it could overcome the cur-

rent AAP-phobia and for that BJP must show toDelhiites that it could muster a majority in Kash-mir. One important item now on BJP chess boardis to form a BJP-PDP government in Kashmir toclaim a visual victory for BJP.

BJP is clearly trying to woo the power hungryPDP to forge a joint government even if BJP doesnot get CM or deputy CM- the goal of RSS-BJPcombine in Jammu Kashmir.(and even Congressparty which created Deputy CM post for Hindulast time but he was badly defeated in the poll is adifferent story)

Already, BJP and PDP leaders have met theimpatiently waiting governor N.N. Vohra in this

Kashmir scene: BJP tries to hook power hungry PDP

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan has reaffirmedunflinching political, moral and diplomaticsupport to the Kashmiri people. The com-mitment was made by the Foreign Secre-tary, Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry in a briefingto a group of foreign Ambassadors inIslamabad on Thursday. The briefing wasorganized in connection with ‘KashmirSolidarity Day’, to be commemorated onFebruary 5, and the important develop-ments taking place in the region.

Pakistan reiterates unflinching moral,diplomatic support to Kashmiris

Referring to the indigenous struggleof the Kashmiris, the Foreign Secretaryemphasized that resolution of the Kash-mir dispute was pivotal for ensuringpeace, security and stability in the re-gion. Paying tribute to the sacrificesof the Kashmiri people in their strugglefor self-determination, the Foreign Sec-retary stressed that the resolution of thislong-standing dispute must be ensuredin accordance with the UN SecurityCouncil resolutions.He stated that the elections in the In-

dian Occupied Kashmir could not bea substitute of the UN monitoredplebiscite. He also expressed concernover the Indian attempts to alter theground situation through demo-graphic changes. The Foreign Secre-tary underscored the crucial role ofthe international community in help-ing to bring about a sustainable andlasting solution to this issue. He drewattention to the continuous humanrights violations by the Indian forcesin Occupied Kashmir and the plight

of the Kashmiris, of which humanrights organizations and the interna-tional community are well aware. TheForeign Secretary expressed the hopethat the international communitywould continue to remain engaged onthis vital issue. The Foreign Secretaryalso stated that while remaining firmon its just stance, Pakistan is commit-ted to a meaningful and constructivedialogue with India to resolve all out-standing issues, including the core is-sue of Jammu and Kashmir.

SRINAGAR—A top Army officer has said the‘fresh trend’ of Kashmiri youth joining militantranks is a serious concern and “all agencies mustjoin hands to ensure that the youth are engagedproactively and positively.”

“I have always maintained (that) the way tokeep the local youth away from militancy is tohave them proactively engaged; to have thempositively engaged,” said General Officer Com-manding of Army’s 15 Corps, Lt GenSubrataSaha. He was talking to reporters on thesidelines of a function held in connection withthe wreath-laying of Colonel M N Rai who waskilled in an encounter with militants in Tral areaof south Kashmir yesterday.

He said to keep the youth away from join-ing militant ranks, the Army has taken a numberof initiatives. “You are perhaps aware of thenumber of initiatives taken, especially sportsactivities, to keep them (the youth) positivelyand proactively engaged. But in real sense it is acollective responsibility and every agency hasto come together to be sure that the youth do notstray into the ranks of militancy,” Saha said.

He said the Army has been “proactive” withregard to safety and security and “this is whymore encounters are taking place.”“Militants have not changed their base. I thinkthe primary reason has been that the army hasbeen pro-active to ensure that the security situa-tion remains stable for the mandate of the peopleto fructify,” he said, when asked why the inten-

Local youth joiningmilitant ranks:Lt Gen Saha

regards. With a BJP minister in PMO, JitendraSingh rushed to Jammu, possibilities of an alliancegovernment in the state of Jammu and Kashmirhas suddenly gained momentum. The BJP said thatJitendra, who is from Jammu region of the state ofJammu Kashmir, is one of the strongest party lead-ers from the Jammu region and maybe aspiring fora big post in Kashmir government, if not CM orDeputy CM.

A senior BJP leader claimed that the way thingshave started unfolding recently with close doormeetings, it appears that the PDP and BJP haveclinched a deal and are heading for the forming ofa coalition government.

Earlier, leaders of both the parties apprisedGovernor NN Vohra separately about progress intheir talks for the formation of an alliance govern-ment in the state. Both the parties have also re-portedly prepared for a tie-up in the coming Rajya

Sabha elections as well.Under instructions form New Delhi, the JK

governor has been pushing the PDP d leader Muftito clinch a deal with BJP and form a govnemnt atthe earliest so that PM Modi can use it for Delhipoll as BJP’s success story. PDP legislator HaseebDrabu, the interlocutor with the BJP on talks forgovernment formation, met the governor who ear-lier received a BJP delegation headed by party’sgeneral secretary Ram Madhav, the BJP inchargein the state.

Significantly after the meetings, Raj Bhavanissued a statement which said Drabu apprised thegovernor “about the realizations which haveemerged from the PDP-BJP parleys on governmentformation which have been continuing for the pastabout a month and the broad contours of the mat-ters being finalized in the coming days.”

In another release, the Raj Bhavan said dur-

ing the one-hour long meeting Madhav informedthe governor “about the present status of the on-going BJP-PDP discussions on the formation ofan elected government.” He was accompanied bystate BJP President Jugal Kishore and party MLANirmal Singh.

Indian government, BJP and JK governorare making strenuous efforts to put in place amanufactured government in JK, albeit fragileto withstand pressures until the Delhi poll. TheJK mandate was highly-fractured, with PDPhaving emerged as the single largest party with28 MLAs followed closely by BJP with 25. Na-tional Conference ended up with a tally of 15while Congress got 12 seats. In the 87-mem-ber House, two seats each went to People’sConference and Jammu & Kashmir PeopleDemocratic Front (Secular), three independentsand one to a CPM member.

Indian parties like Congress and BJP and Kash-mir parties like PDP and NC are playing a jointpolitical exercise to fool and keep the public at adistance. PDP and NC are ready to betray KashmiriMuslims while RSS and BJP are dreaming for aHindutva Kashmir to cause more deaths and se-cret grave yards in Kashmir valley known as a para-dise on earth.

It appears, Indian government and these par-ties are a bit concerned about the probability ofthe separatist parties also participating in thepoll, if conducted sooner or later. This perhapsmakes India to push for a government at PDP’sterms. But the separatist parties would not con-test the JK polls independently or with otherparties unless asked by the Pakistani governmentis a known fact.However, BJP does not want totake chances now.

—Courtesy: Kashmir Watch, Brussels

JI to observeKashmir

Solidarity DaySYED ALI RAZA NAQVI

MU Z A F FA R A B A D —AmirJamat-e-Islami Azad Kash-mir Abdul Rashid Turabi hasannounced that solidarityweek would be observedwith enthusiasm from Janu-ary Ist to express completesolidarity with the people ofJammu and Kashmir. He wasof the view that there was noneed of army courts in AJK.

Seminars and ral l ieswould be held in this connec-tion. Addressing a press con-ference at central press clubhere on other day he urgedthe federal government toadopt a comprehensivepolicy on Kashmir in thebackdrop of present scenario.

He also asked the PrimeMinister Mr. Nawaz Sharif toreinstate his strong stanceduring his address to jointsession on February 5.Turabi observed thatNorendra Modi won elec-tions in India on the basis ofMuslim enmity and he hascontinued his hostile attitudeagainst them.

He was of the view thatthere was no need of armycourts in AJK. If India set upsuch courts in IOK it wouldmultiply the difficulties ofpeople there.

Expressing concern overthe increasing proximity of re-lations between US and Indiaand agreements between the twocountries, Turabi said that itwould jeopardize the peace ef-forts and cause imbalance ofpower in the region.

He pointed out thatObama had condemned thepolicies of Modi in Gujratwhen he massacred the Mus-lims there. The same Obamais lauding the Indian PM nowwhich shows dual standardof the US.

sity of encounters has gone up over a period oftime.

Saha said most of the encounters in northKashmir “taken place during the counter-infil-tration process” while in south, “they have hap-pened in the hinterland.” “We cannot say thatthe militants have vacated one base for the other,but if you see it from the point of view of thenumbers, then there is less in south and more innorth.”

On yesterday’s Tral encounter, the GOCsaid Col MN Rai was approached by father ofone of the two slain militants that his son wouldlike to surrender. “He asked him to go aheadand get him surrendered. At the same time, theslain militant’s brother also approached andunder these circumstances, both the militantsrushed out of the house that they were hiding inand fired rampantly,” he said, adding, “TheArmy has been giving opportunity wherever theparents or relations do come up to try and saythey would like to ask their son or relation tosurrender. So in all fairness, we try to give themthis opportunity and I would not try to add anyfurther motives to that.”

Commenting on Rai’s killing, Saha saidthat Army officers always led from the front.“It is a matter of pride for us that we haveofficers of such caliber and such commit-ment,” he said, soon after laying wreath atthe Army headquarters here, along with someother senior officers.—GK

Massive treeplantation

in AJKSYED ALI RAZA NAQVI

MUZAFFARABAD—The Secre-tary Forests Farhat Ali Mir hassaid that people of all shades oflife along with armed forces ofthe country would be involvedin the spring tree plantation drivebeginning from February 9.

Addressing a high levelmeeting here on the other dayhe said tree plantation drive hasbeen named after PeshawarMartyrs in which all the sched-uled banks of the state wouldalso participate. He also re-viewed the steps taken so far tomake the tree plantation drive asuccess. Mir pointed out that25% percent of a country shouldhave trees keeping in view ofthe environmental principlesand international standard.

SRINAGAR—The policeman father of the slainKashmir rebel, who died in a gunfight with gov-ernment forces, says his son was on a ‘just path’and is ‘proud’ of him. Abid Khan, the HizbulMujahideen district commander for Pulwama,died in a brief gun battle in Handoora village onTuesday. An army colonel was among the deadin the gunfight that ended in less than an hour.

Abid’s family, including his father, Jalal-ul-Din Khan, who is a Head Constable in Jammuand Kashmir police, have no regrets about theirson death in front of their eyes as they are confi-dent that he was on ‘righteous path’. Not all arechosen for martyrdom, the policeman father says.

Abid, who was described as face of militancyin southern Tral region by locals and a ‘hardcore’militant by forces, left his house on September2012 after offering Asr (late-noon) prayers. “Thatwas Friday. Earlier he offered Jumah prayers atDar-ul-Uloom Noorpora Tral and then Asr at alocal mosque. He also gave Azaan (call for prayer)in the mosque. After offering prayers, my dadand he came to house and in a while, my brotherleft the home but he didn’t say where exactly hewas going,” recalls Owais Khan, the brother ofslain Hizb Commander.

That day he went missing. He had not in-formed anyone from his family about the deci-sion of taking up arms. A close relative of Abidsays on the condition of anonymity that his fam-ily particularly his maternal uncle, ManzoorAhmad, started searches for him. “They movedfrom one village to another enquiring aboutAbid,” he said.

The relative of slain Hizb commander says

Policeman father thanksAllah for son’s martyrdom

Manzoor, even announced that ‘whosoever gaveinformation about his whereabouts will be re-warded with money from selling his land’.

Perhaps, Abid was watching all these de-velopments. “He sent a letter to dad. In the let-ter, he mentioned that he has picked up arms forthe implementation of Shariah and don’t searchas I have adopted the path of Jihad-e-Feesabeelillah’,” Owais says. “He also said thatdon’t try to search me as I won’t leave this path.”

The revelations post-Abid’s death in bloodyencounter in which an army colonel, a SpecialOperation Group (SOG) policeman also died de-bunks many theories vis-à-vis Kashmir militancy.Though no one can deny the fact that many youthpost-2010 mass uprising adopted the militant pathafter continuous harassment of forces, but thereare those boys as well who were never picked upby forces but still joined militant outfits.

The relatives of Abid say he was never de-tained by police. “His fight was against un-Is-lamic institutions and in that fight, he achievedmartyrdom,” Owais, his brother, says. “He wasdeeply religious.” The father of Abid, says thathe has no ‘regrets’ about his son joining mili-tancy and then getting killed in a gunfight. “Al-lah doesn’t choose everyone for this mission.He was from Allah and he returned to Allah,”Jalal-ud-Din Khan says.

“He was on righteous path. I thank Allahfor his martyrdom. He didn’t betray me as I hedied in his house and I am satisfied because hadthe encounter taken place in some other house,there would have been damage (to that particu-lar house),” he says. —KD

KA N G A N (IHK)—Thetrader’s community staged aprotest against the alleged en-croachment of land in and ad-joining areas of tourist resortSonamarg by Army and urgedupon the General OfficerCommanding Northern Com-mand to look into the matterand initiate action against theerring Army officers.

Scores of traders fromBeopar Mandal Kangan car-rying banners and placardsassembled outside SDM of-fice Kangan on Wednesday.The protestors said that Armyencroached upon their morethan 100 kanals of land at thetourist resort here.

“As people migrate toother villages due to severe

Kashmir Traders protestagainst land occupation

cold, the Army occupies theland and claims that they havetaken it on lease. This yearalso the same was repeated,”the protestors said.

President Beopar MandalKangan, Gul Muhammad Vartold CNS that though theybrought the issue into the no-tice of higher authorities butthey failed to check the Army.“It is a disturbing situation forus. They (Army) refuses toacknowledge the governmentorders and continue to occupythe land during the dead of thenight. The Army have evenconstructed temporary shedson the land,” he said and ap-pealed GOC 15 Corps to lookinto the matter and provide asuccor to the local residents.

The protestors whomarched from Rest House toSDM office Kangan threat-ened that if the Army contin-ued ‘illegal possession of theland’, they will launch mas-sive agitation. SDM Kangan,Ghulam Ahmed Mir said thatthe administration will takeaction those who violate thenorms as nobody is abovelaw.

When contacted a seniorArmy official said that no-where in the tourist resortArmy has occupied any land.“We are looking into the mat-ter and trying to know thecauses what prompts peopleto believe that army is indulg-ing in encroachment,” hesaid.—KW

SRINAGAR—The Jammu and Kashmir PeoplesFreedom League (JKPFL) has paid glowing trib-utes to the two Tral martyred youth killed byIndian troops. The JKPFL spokesman, ImtiazAhmad Shah in a statement issued in Srinagarsaid that martyrs were the assets of Kashmiris.He said that the best way to pay homage to themartyrs was to continue their mission till com-plete success.

The spokesman also expressed sympathyand solidarity with the families of the martyredyouth. Meanwhile the General Secretary of

Tral martyred youth eulogizedKashmir Freedom Front (KFF), MohammadAkbar Dar in a statement in Srinagar, while pay-ing glowing tributes to the two youth, Abid Khanand Sheeraz Ahmad Dar of Tral, said that thesacred blood of the martyrs would never gowaste and sooner or later India had to accept theground realities regarding Kashmir dispute.

Mohammad Akbar Dar also prayed for thequick recovery of its party Chairman, SyedBashir Andrabi who has gone under a minorsurgery in his foot and is at rest as per the doc-tors’ advice.—KD

SRINAGAR—The Awami Itihaad Party Presi-dent (AIP) and member of so-called Kashmirassembly, Engineer Abdul Rasheed has criticizedthe mass reshuffle in the civil and police ad-ministration aiming at bringing Hindu employ-ees to all administrative posts to advance BJP’scommunal agenda in the territory. He termedthe move as a ploy to harm the basic aspirationsof the Kashmiri people.

Engineer Rasheed in a statement issued inSrinagar said, “There is a well-thought out con-spiracy to change the dynamics related to basiccharter of Kashmir Administrative Services (KAS)

Er Rasheed sees plot behindmass reshuffle in IOK admin

and Kashmir Police Services (KPS) and strengthenthe Indian Administrative Services (IAS).”

The latest administration changes by Gov-ernor, he added, reflects gross violation of thesenorms and when in future an administration takesover that will have excuse that Governor hasalready laid base for all this.

He vowed that AIP would go all out to pre-serve the genuine interests of Jammu and Kash-mir. It is worth mentioning that the Governor isbringing Hindu employees to almost all admin-istrative posts to advance the BJP’s communalagenda in the territory.—KW

K-Electric extendsbills due dateSTAFF REPORTER

KA R A C H I—K-Electr ichas extended the deadlinefor payments of electric-ity bills, which were dueon 29th January to thenew date of 30th January2015.

All banks have beeninformed to accept the latepayment without any pen-alty, said K-Electric’sspokesperson. He addedthat the reason for the ex-tension was to facilitatethe customers.

In-case any bank failsto accept the utility bill ata later date, consumerscan register their com-plaints at the followingemail ID, which will be ad-dressed immediately.

TDPs to getsettlement

allowance throMobicash

I S L A M A B A D —Around52,000 families of Tempo-rarily Displaced Persons(TDPs), moving back totheir homes, would beprovided financial assis-tance through Mobicash.Mobicash has beenawarded the mandate todisburse funds to TDPs inKhyber Pakhtunkhwaprovince. In the firstphase of this project, be-ing launched from Febru-ary, total 1,03,000 familieswould move back to theirhomes and each familywill be paid Rs. 8,000 as atransportation allowance.

In this regard, FATA Di-saster Management Author-ity (FDMA) and WaseelaMicrofinance Bank signedan agreement at a ceremony,which was attended byChief Commercial OfficerMobilink, Bilal MunirSheikh, Director Mobilink’sMobile Financial ServicesMs. Aniqa Afzal Sandhu,CEO/President WaseelaMicrofinance Bank,Ghazanfar Azzam and DGFDMA, Ikram Ullah.—APP

Pak to participateTexworld & ApparelSourcing exhibition

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Pakistan willparticipate in Texworldand Apparel Sourcing ex-hibition Paris with a GSPadvantage over othercountries. More than 630international exhibitorswill unveil their fabric andgarments 2016 collectionsat the next Texworld tradefair, from 9 to 12 February2015. Visitors from all overEurope attend the show asdo buyers from North andSouth America.

About 27 Pakistan ex-hibitors will take part inTexworld and ApparelSourcing 2015. Like everyedition there will be a pa-vilion from Trade Develop-ment Authority of Pakistan(TDAP) of fabric and gar-ments. Mr. Ghalib Iqbal Pa-kistani Ambassador inParis will visit the show. Pa-kistani companies are lo-cated in hall 2 with exhibi-tors such as Sarena Indus-tries, Sapphire, Nishatmills, Kohinoor, Kamal anddenim manufacturer suchas Kassim Denim, SMTraders and RajwaniDenim Mills.

Currency Selling Buying

USA 100.70 100.50

UK 152.46 152.16

Euro 113.55 113.32

Canada 80.39 80.23

Switzerland 110.58 110.36

Australia 79.41 79.25

Sweden 12.14 12.12

Japan 0.8538 0.8521

Norway 12.85 12.83

Singapore 74.41 74.26

Denmark 15.25 15.22

Saudi Arabia 26.79 26.73

Hong Kong 12.99 12.96

Kuwait 340.84 340.16

Malaysia 27.71 27.65

Newzealand 73.81 73.66

Qatar 27.65 27.60

UAE 27.42 27.36

Kr Won 0.0922 0.0920

Thailand 3.088 3.082

ISLAMABAD: A view of exchange of documents during agreement signing ceremonyas Japan International Cooperation Agency under ‘The Project for Technical Supportto Auto Parts Manufacturing Industry’ has agreed with Small & Medium EnterprisesDevelopment Authority for a technical assistance for enhancement of auto parts manu-facturing industry in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: Sardar Ghulam Mustafa, Director PR & Protocol PARC addressing atparty in the honour of PARC promotee officers. Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad, Chairman PARC,Technical Council Members, Director (Estt.) and other senior offiicials are also presentat the occasion.

Jubilee Life and Askari Bank join hands to offer Bancassurance solutions. Raja WaheedZaman, Head of Distribution Askari Bank; Farrukh Iqbal Khan, SEVP/Group HeadOperations Askari Bnak, Rashid Nawaz Tipu, EVP/Group Head Branch Banking GroupAskari Bank; Javed Ahmed, MD & CEO Jubilee Life, Abbas Hote, National SalesManager Jubilee Life and Farhan Faridi, Head of Retail Business Jubilee Life seen inthe picture.

ISLAMABAD: Ufone celebrated 14th anniversary with cake cutting ceremony held atUfone Tower. Picture shows Abdul Aziz, President & CEO Ufone along with UFamily.

PARC promotes57 officers

SENIOR REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The PakistanAgricultural ResearchCouncil (PARC) Thursdayissued notification for pro-motion of fifty seven (57)officers of various ranks tothe next grade. The Depart-mental Promotion Commit-tee of the council, after athorough evaluation of per-formance and seniority po-sition, promoted various of-ficers in grade 17, 18 and 19.

Among the promoted of-ficers, as many as thirteen(17) officers have been pro-moted in SPS-10 / BPS-19, fif-teen (15) officers in SPS-9 /BPS-18 and twenty five (25)Officers in SPS-8 / BPS-17.Chairman PARC, Dr. IftikharAhmad congratulated all theofficers for their promotionand expressed the hope thatthis would help strengthenthe research activities con-ducted by the organization.The management of thecouncil also arranged a re-ception party in the honourof the promoted officers.

Congratulating thenewly promoted officers,PARC Director Public Rela-tions and Protocol, SardarGhulam Mustafa said thatpromotion of agriculture sec-tor was the sole aim of thecouncil to ensure food secu-rity in the country. He saidthat the promotion wouldfurther encourage and moti-vate the officers to work hardin their respective areas andpromote agriculture sector.Among others, PARC boardmembers, Zafar HassanReza, Dr. Shahid Masood, Dr.Muhammad Munir Guraya,Dr. Nadeem Amjad, ArifKarim and other senior offic-ers of the organization werepresent on the occasion.

Crude oil pricesmight pick up

in a yearISLAMABAD—Given thatsigns of a recovery in crudeoil demand are still elusive anda cut in supply is still not vis-ible, when the slide in pricesmight halt remains an unan-swered question for analysts.The thought of these comingfurther down is a cause forconcern for oil producingcountries, as well as India’supstream oil companies. An-other important feature isSaudi Arabia’s leadership ofthe Organization of the Petro-leum Exporting Countrieswhich has steadfastly refusedto lower supply.—APP

MIAN ARSHAD

ISLAMABAD—The National AssemblyStanding committee on information tech-nology & telecommunication, Thursday,appreciated the efforts of the Ministry ofInformation Technology for making effortsto dredge out “Prevention of ElectronicCrimes Bill” and preparing its draft in shortspan of time. The Committee met here un-der the chairmanship of Capt. (Retd.)Muhammad Safdar to discuss the “preven-tion of electronic crimes bill”, improvementin performance of mobile cellular compa-nies after induction of 3g & 4g and sim veri-fication issue and appreciated the Ministryfor covering every aspect to control thecyber crimes in the Country.

Thereafter, the Committee discussed theBill clause-by-clause and opined to revisit

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—The 10th Cabi-net Committee meeting onGSP Plus, chaired by Minis-ter for Industries ChaudhryMuhammad Shafique, washeld Thursday to discussthe initiatives taken by dif-ferent departments pertain-ing to the 27 conventionsand to formulate a mutuallyacceptable way forward.Among the notables wereRaja Ashfaq Sarwar, Minis-ter Labor & Human Rights,Member National Assem-bly, Makhdoom KhusroBakhtiar, secretaries of con-cerned departments andPunjab Board of Investmentand Trade (PBIT) officials.PBIT being the focal bodyfor GSP Plus at provinciallevel convened the meeting.

Mohammad IlyasGhauri, Chief Executive Of-ficer PBIT welcomed theparticipants and com-menced the meeting with abrief overview of the agen-das to be discussed. Thedecisions taken in the 9thCabinet Committee meetingwere highlighted with cur-rent progress regardingtheir implementation. Thecommittee members wereinformed about the decisiontaken by the Federal Gov-ernment to lift the ban ondeath moratorium. It wasalso stated that this stepwas taken after due consid-eration post the horrific 16thDecember Peshawar inci-dent where hundreds of in-nocent school children werekilled ruthlessly by a terror-ist group.

ISLAMABAD—The SenateStanding Committee on Fi-nance here Thursday was in-formed that comprehensiveand modern regulation andlaws would be introduced forstrong securities regulationand monitory mechanism inSecurities and ExchangeCommission of Pakistan(SECP). Chairman SECP ZafarHijazi told the committee thatSecurities Bill, 2015 first partdeals with commencementand applicability of the Actand contains the definition ofterms used in the Act.

The Committee whichdiscussed Securities Bill,2015by SECP was chaired bySenator Nasreen Jalil. TheChairman added that part-IIof the Securities Bill has de-

OBSERVER REPORT

KARACHI—ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certi-fied Accountants) hasawarded Nayatel (Pvt) Ltd.with employer accreditationrecently in Islamabad. ACCA’sprestigious global programmeis awarded to employers whomeet high standards for train-ing and developing their em-ployees, and show a commit-ment towards supporting theongoing development of theirACCA employees.

Sajjeed Aslam, head ofACCA Pakistan, presentedNayatel with the Approved Em-ployer certificate. At the cer-emony Sajjeed stated, “Gaining global accreditation for Pro-fessional Development shows the commitment Nayatel hasto developing its staff. ACCA looks forward to furtherstrengthening this relationship to assist them in creating thenext generation of finance professionals across Pakistan.”

ISLAMABAD—The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) andBhoja Air on Thursday submitted their objections on thejudicial commission’s report, which fixed responsibility ofthe crash on the cockpit crew, CAA and Management ofBhoja Air. A one-judge bench of Justice Shaukat AzizSiddiqui resumed hearing of a writ petition in IslamabadHigh Court to ascertain the responsibility and for pay-ment of reasonable compensation.

During the proceedings, Barrister Attaullah KareemKundi counsel for CAA and Mahmood Ahmed counselfor Bhoja Air submitted their objection while terming thereport unrealistic, groundless and fiction. MeanwhileObaid ur Rahman Abbasi appeared on behalf of SecretaryCAA and said that he would submit some more objectionsover the report and sought time. Subsequently, the benchwhile allowing him adjourned further hearing of the casetill February 24.

Earlier a two-member judicial commission set up on thedirective of Islamabad High Court to probe and fix respon-sibility of the plane crash near Islamabad two years ago inwhich 121 passengers and six crew members lost their liveshad submitted its report in the court and fixed responsibil-ity of the crash on cockpit crew, the Civil Aviation Author-ity and the management of Bhoja Air.

ISLAMABAD—The government has releasedover Rs 184.714 billion so far under PublicSector Development Programme (PSDP) forvarious projects against total allocationsof Rs 525 billion for the fiscal year 2014-15.According to the latest data of Ministry ofPlanning, Development and Reforms,Rs33,996 million have been released forvarious projects of Pakistan Atomic EnergyCommission, out of its total allocations ofRs51,475 million, earmarked under PSDP forFY 2014-15.

An amount of Rs7,832 million have beenreleased for Higher Education Commission(HEC) out of its total allocations of Rs20,020million whereas Rs15,214 million have beenreleased for Water and Power Division (Water

CAA, Bhoja Air submit objectionsover commission report on plane crash

The report said that cockpit crew were not capable offlying Boeing 737-236-A, and despite knowing that theairline administration allowed them to fly the aircraft toIslamabad which was a inaugural flight to Islamabad. Bothfailed to take correct measures to avoid the incident due toincapability.

The report further states that the administration ofBhoja Air did not follow 80 to 90 percent of the interna-tional aviation rules. The airline continued their operationwith another aircraft, a DC-932, without proper airworthi-ness certificate, thus putting the l;ives of thousands indanger. The airline administration did not bother to pro-vide training for the said aircraft, nor did the captain go forsimulator training, and his training period was extendedby CAA. The management deliberately did not inform thecockpit crew about weather conditions around Islamabad.

They further recommended constitution of an inde-pendent committee to investigate the causes of autopilotsystem malfunctions in the ill-fated aircraft and their con-tribution towards the accident; emphasized on trainingfacilities; strictly review the procedures for the grant ofextension in simulator training and clearly prescribe prac-ticable terms and conditions for renewal/revalidation of alllicences and certificates.—APP

Cabinet body on GSPPlus meets

Comprehensive regulation,laws to be introduced in SECP

tailed provision relating to thelicensing requirements, eligi-bility for licensing, grant of alicense and duties of a secu-rities exchange. Zafar Hijazisaid “We registered 10,000companies in SECP and pro-vided this data to the StateBank of Pakistan and FederalBoard of Revenue (FBR) forrelating investigation.”

He added that 7000 com-panies out of the 10,000 com-panies returned their tax filesand further investigation re-lating the accounts and taxreturns would be investi-gated by the SBP and FBR.He said that due to the lackof proper legislation andlaws, SECP was not properlyfunctioning and regulat-ing.—APP

Rs184.714b released fordevelopment projects under PSDP

Sector) out of its total allocations of Rs43,427million for the current fiscal year. The govern-ment released Rs26,996 million for RailwaysDivision for which Rs39,566 million have beenearmarked in the PSDP of FY 2014-15.

An amount of Rs1,948 million has beenreleased for Cabinet Division out of its to-tal allocations of Rs2,767 million whereasRs2,989 million have been released for Com-munications Division (other then NHA) outof Rs3,152 million. A sum of Rs260 millionhave been released for Commerce Divisionout of its total allocations of Rs363 millionwhereas out of the total allocations ofRs11,611 million allocated for Finance Divi-sion, the government has so far releasedRs3,414 million.—APP

ACCA joins hands with NayatelWahaj us Siraj, CEO, Nayatel (Pvt) Ltd., appreciated

the acumen of the ACCA Trainees working at Nayatel.“We strongly believe that our country and society can

become a great contributor tothe knowledge basedeconomy of 21st century byleveraging on the talent andintellect of young generation.With our finance team led bythe young ACCA trainees, weare confident that we areheaded in the right direction.”

The ceremony wasalso presided by JunaidAhmed, head of North, ACCAPakistan. “We are extremelyexcited to have a wide spreadportfolio of organisations onboard with ACCA. Apart from

providing professional and training development toNayatel, we also look forward to the opportunities to col-laborate on a wide range of issues such as the support forenhancing the capacity building of ACCA Trainees andon improving access to finance talent.”

ICCI welcomescut in keypolicy rateSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Businessmenin a meeting at IslamabadChamber of Commerce andIndustry on Thursdaylauded government’s deci-sion to reduce the key policyrate by one percent. How-ever, they demanded thatgovernment should makefurther cut in discount rateto bring it to 8 percent thatwould lower the cost of do-ing business and prop upgrowth of business andeconomic activities, said apress release issued byICCI.

Addressing the meeting,Muzzamil Hussain SabriPresident ICCI, M. ShakeelMunir Senior Vice Presidentand M. Ashfaq HussainChatha Vice President,Islamabad Chamber of Com-merce and Industry saidthat the key policy rate inPakistan was still higher inthe region while China andIndia have brought downtheir policy rates to 5.6 per-cent and 7.75 percent re-spectively. They said thatthe tight monetary policy inPakistan dictated by the IMFfor years have normally re-sulted in expensive financ-ing for private sector and ledthe economy into a longperiod of slow growth. Itwas high time that banksshould give more focus toproductive sectors to steerthe economy out oftroubles.

They said as per WorldBank data, domestic creditto private sector as percent-age of GDP in 2013 was140% in China, 124% inMalaysia, 51.8% in India,41.8% in Bangladesh.

NA body lauds IT ministry over dredging out‘Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill’

the punishments proposed in the Bill. TheCommittee also felt that some of the clausesof Bill need to be further defined and de-cided to discuss the Bill in its next meeting.While discussing the issue of “improve-ment in performance of Mobile CellularCompanies after induction of 3G & 4G tech-nology, the Committee recommended thatPTA may direct the Mobile Companies toexpand their network of services to underdeveloped and rural areas of Pakistan.

The Committee appreciated the effortsof USF for establishing 500 Telecentersacross the country and stressed upon theneed to continue its working in future un-der its supervision. The Committee recom-mended that USF may ensure maximumpossible utilization of its funds for the ex-pansion of fiber cable network to the re-mote areas.

WELLINGTON: The New Zealand players with the series trophy at the end of 7th ODI on Thursday.

FAISALABAD: Horse riders participating in tent pegging competition during Univerrsity Festival at University ofAgriculture.

PESHAWAR: Provincial Minister for Information and Higher Education MushtaqAhmad Ghani with winning team of Inter-Regional Sports Gala.

WELLINGTON—Kumar Sangakkara’smasterful double of a century and aworld-record wicketkeeping perfor-mance inspired Sri Lanka to a 34-runwin over New Zealand in their one-day series finale in Wellington onThursday. Even though it was a deadrubber, with New Zealand going intothe match holding an unbeatable 4-1lead in the seven-match series, it wasa morale boosting win for Sri Lankawho had underperformed in the ear-lier matches.

They posted their highest total of

Sri Lanka innings:Thirimanne lbw bAnderson ....................... 30Dilshan b Southee ........ 81Sangakkara not out ..... 113Jayawardene c Ronchi bSouthee .......................... 14Prasanna lbw b Mills ...... 1Chandimal b Anderson .. 5Perera c Mills bAnderson ....................... 20Kulasekara not out ....... 12Extras: (lb 2, w 9) ........... 11Total: (6 wickets) ......... 287Fall of wickets: 1-71, 2-175,3-203, 4-209, 5-231, 6-253Bowling: ........... O-M-R-WMills ...................... 8-1-42-1Southee .............. 10-0-50-2McClenaghan ...... 9-0-47-0Vettori ................... 8-0-52-0Anderson ............. 9-0-59-3Elliott ..................... 4-0-24-0Williamson ........... 2-0-11-0

SCOREBOARDNew Zealand innings:Guptill lbw b Kulasekara 0Latham b Eranga ............. 6Williamson b Dilshan . 54Taylor b Chameera ........ 11Elliott b Chameera ......... 24Anderson b Eranga ...... 29Ronchi b Kulasekara ... 47Vettori b Prasanna ......... 35Mills run out .................. 30Southee b Perera ............. 1McClenaghan not out .... 5Extras: (lb 5, w 6) ........... 11Total: (all out) .............. 253Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-11, 3-42, 4-101, 5-121, 6-141, 7-215,8-218, 9-225, 10-253Bowling: ........... O-M-R-WKulasekara ........... 9-0-55-2Eranga ................... 9-1-34-2Prasanna ............ 9.2-0-30-1Chameera .............. 8-0-60-2Perera .................... 5-0-42-1Dilshan ................. 5-0-27-1

Sangakkara lifts Sri Lanka to 34-run winthe series with 287-6 from 50 overs,with Sangakkara contributing an un-beaten 113, and New Zealand were allout for 253 in the 46th over.

When Corey Anderson threatenedto blast New Zealand into contentionwith 29 off 20 deliveries, Sangakkara’sdiving one-handed catch to removethe sixth wicket made him the mostsuccessful ODI keeper.

It was his 473rd dismissal, onemore than the previous record set byAustralian Adam Gilchrist.

Although the victory restoredsome confidenceto Sri Lanka theystill have con-cerns about theirbatting depthwith onlyT i l l a k a r a t n eDilshan andL a h i r uThirimanne con-tributing decentp a r t n e r s h i p swith Sangakkara.

Sangakkara puton 71 for the firstwicket withThirimanne (30)and 104 for thesecond wicketwith Dilshan (81)who was caughtbehind off TimSouthee with SriLanka lookingstrong at 175-2and 17 overs re-maining.

But as

has been the pattern in their previousinnings, they were unable to acceler-ate the scoring despite having wick-ets in hand. Only Thisara Perera, with20 off 12 offered late lusty hitting whileMahela Jayawardene, who openedwith a century in game one of the se-ries, went for 14.

In contrast New Zealand fell wellbehind in the run chase and appearedon the ropes when the required rateballooned to 8.33 after the 35th overand only four wickets in hand.

But they showed their battingdepth going into the World Cup nextmonth with Luke Ronchi scoring 47off 42 deliveries, Daniel Vettori 35 off30 and Kyle Mills 30 but as the gapnarrowed they ran out of wickets.

Fittingly, Sangakkara ended thematch when he whipped off the bailsto run out Mills.

At the top of the New Zealand in-nings Martin Guptill was removed firstball for the second time in the series.

It offered an opportunity for TomLatham, deputising at the top of theorder for rested skipper BrendonMcCullum, to prove himself but heonly lasted nine deliveries before hewas bowled for six and New Zealandwere 11-2 in the fourth over.

Dushmantha Chameera made adream start to his international careerclaiming the wicket of New Zealand’ssenior batsman Ross Taylor with hissixth delivery.

Kane Williamson, with a cautious54 from 83 deliveries, top scored forNew Zealand who continue theirWorld Cup build up against Pakistanin Wellington on Saturday.—AFP

PERTH (Australia)—India and England clashon Friday in Perth with the winners takingtheir place in the tri series final against Aus-tralia in the shadow of the looming WorldCup. The hosts are enjoying extra time to pre-pare for Sunday’s final at Perth’s WACAground while the tourists go at each otheragain.

England thrashed India by nine wicketsin their last encounter and ran Australia closein their second meeting last week in Brisbane.

And that has put captain Eoin Morgan inconfident mood ahead of the World Cupwhich England kick off against Australia inMelbourne on February 14.

Morgan says he fancies another crack atAustralia before the big event.

“The opportunity to play Australia onSunday is huge,” he said Thursday.

Learning how to live with lengthy breaksbefore important matches could prove criti-cal for the World Cup, which carries on tillMarch 29, Morgan added.

“Having too much cricket on your mindcan sometimes create an issue.

“The less guys have to think about it, thebetter.

“And the more we can get used to timeoff going into the World Cup, it would be

England, India in knockout tiefor tri series final

really useful.“I mean we’ll have stages like this

throughout the World Cup that we’ll need toget ourselves ready for.”

For India, hamstrung batsman RohitSharma, who hasn’t played since scoring 138against Australia at the MCG on Jan 18, willagain be missing. But Sharma, who trained inPerth on Thursday, could be fit for the final ifIndia get through.

India are winless in the series so far, butskipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni feels his teamare slowly building after comprehensivelylosing the Test series to Australia.Opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan has suf-fered a poor tour and is under pressure tohold his place for the World Cup after averag-ing just 17 across 11 innings in Test, one-dayand warm-up matches.

But Dhoni is backing the 29-year-old tofind some form on Friday.

“Form is something people don’t reallysee - it’s an abstract,” Dhoni claimed.

“You can come into form and go out ofform very quickly. “You just have to spendthat 10 to 12 minutes of quality time in themiddle, and everything will fall into place.

“What’s important for him will be to behimself, and bat to his strength.”—AFP

Ronaldo escapeswith light twogame ban after

Cordoba red cardISLAMABAD—Real Madridstriker Cristiano Ronaldo washanded a two-game ban bythe disciplinary committee ofthe Spanish Football Federa-tion (RFEF) for his sendingoff against Cordoba.

Ronaldo was given hismarching orders for kickingout at Cordoba defender,Edimar, but the fact is that hewas lucky not have beensent off earlier after appear-ing to try and punch oneCordoba defender at a cornerkick 10 minutes earlier, XinhuaNews reported Thursday.

The decision is boundto cause controversy as de-fenders of the Real Madridstriker allege he was pro-voked by some tough de-fending, while his critics willpoint allege that given heactually committed two of-fenses, the punishmentshould have been muchharsher.—APP

ISLAMABAD—Former fast bowler Jalal-ud-Dinon Thursday said that International CricketCouncil’s (ICC) decision to allow MohammadAmir to return to domestic cricket under theauspices of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) wasa first step towards the fast bowler’s return tothe international cricket. “It was Amir’sright to be allowed to play again. But I thinkthere are still several challenges he has toface before making a comeback to the inter-national arena,” he told APP.

Amir, who alongwith former captainSalman Butt and fast bowler MohammadAsif was banned for spot-fixing duringPakistan’s tour of England in 2010, was givenan early reprieve on Thursday by ICC for areturn to domestic cricket.

Jalal-ud-Deen said that Amir’s return todomestic cricket could help him earn a space

Amir still has to facechallenges: Jala-ud-Din

in the national team once again although itdid not seem possible in near future.

“Although he is highly talented player,he will have to show performance in thedomestic cricket before making a come backto international cricket,” he added.

Jalal, who became the first bowler to takea hat-trick in ODI cricket, playing againstAustralia at Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad on 20September 1982, also said that facing publicwould be another challenge for Amir and forthat he should be strong mentally.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Amir has ex-pressed happiness at the ICC decision andthanked PCB for making efforts for his re-turn to domestic cricket. He said that Chair-man PCB always cooperated with him whilehis family too remained supportive through-out his banned period. —APP

LAHORE—Former chairman of thePakistan Cricket Board (PCB) retiredLt Gen Tauqir Zia has questioned thepossible return of tainted fast bowlerMohammad Amir to internationalcricket. Speaking to reporters at abook-launching ceremony here onWednesday, Tauqir said, “Amirshould not be allowed to return to in-ternational cricket.”

He added that Amir’s return mightcreate problems for his team-mates asit would not be easy for them to ad-just with the “criminal”.

There are reports that the ICC inits ongoing meetings in the UAE ismost likely to allow Amir to play do-mestic cricket forthwith and then in-ternational cricket from September thisyear after completing five-year banimposed on him in a spot-fixing caseerupted in England in 2010.

He claimed that the tainted fastbowler tried to meet him during a func-tion but he refused to do so.

“I observed during the functionthat Amir did not learn a lesson fromthe ban,” he said.

Tauqir alleged that PCB and ICCwere showing favourable attitude to-wards Amir but not towards otherbanned Pakistan players like SalmanButt and Mohammad Asif.

He said other cricketers like Salim

Amir should not be allowed to return: TauqirMalik and Ata-ur-Rehman, who hadbeen punished in the past for the samecrime, should also be allowed to playif Amir is allowed to return to interna-tional cricket.

Meanwhile, three former cricketersIntikhab Alam, Abdul Qadir and

Inzamam-ul-Haq also spoke on the

occasion.Intikhab, who is currently working

as director domestic cricket and wasthe manager of the Pakistan teamwhich won the World Cup in 1992, saidthe nation should support the Paki-stan team. He said Imran Khan’s cap-taincy was a major factor which keptthe team united and helped Pakistanwin the Cup.

Intikhab added that on the day ofthe final Imran wore a shirt carrying apicture of a tiger and asked his play-ers to play like that.

Qadir said intentions of the play-ers should be fair and clear otherwisethey would not get desired results.

He added that intention of the Pa-kistan team in 1992 was to win theWorld Cup but now players play formoney.

Qadir said great cricketers likeHanif Mohammad and late FazalMahmood were not duly honoured bythe PCB which was major injustice.

Former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq also backed the team, claimingit had talent but it should show men-tal strength as it would be key to suc-cess in the World Cup.

“Imran remained hopeful despitelosing matches in 1992, so I advise myplayers not to lose hearts even if theylose a match,” he said.—APP

KARACHI—Ten Sports Pakistan held a livelyupscale event at the Marquee, Pearl Conti-nental Hotel Karachi to celebrate the launchof its brand new sports programming lineup.The event marked Ten Sports as the exclu-sive providers for live streaming of the ICCCricket World Cup 2015 which will be pro-

vided to online users free of charge.This is the first time in Pakistan where

a global broadcasting partner of ICC willbe providing an opportunity to cricketlovers for having multi-screen accessibil-ity with ball to ball coverage, live scorecards and instant access over desktops,laptops, tablets and mobile phones bysimply going online atwww.tensports.com.

Ten sports holds launch eventThe new programming lineup mainly in-

cludes live coverage of the ICC Cricket WorldCup 2015, the ongoing prestigious EuropeanFootball Championship, UEFA 2015 and aprogramming revamp for WWE RAW andSMACKDOWN.

The event was attended by some of the

media’s most prominent personalities includ-ing former Pakistan Cricket Captain Mr. AamirSohail, The king of squash Mr. JehangirKhan, former World Amateur Snooker Cham-pion Mr. Mohammad Yousuf, ace sprinterfrom Asian Games Ms. Naseem Hameed, thesniper of Pakistan Hockey Mr. Sohail Abbasand numerous front runners of the PakistanCricket team who were amongst the longlineup of celebrities at the event.

PTF announcesteam for

Davis CupISLAMABAD—Pakistan Ten-nis Federation (PTF) onThursday announced theDavis Cup team that willplay against Kuwait at a neu-tral venue, Colombo, SriLanka from March 4 to 6.

According to thespokesman of PTF, the teamwas announced byKhawaja Saeed Hai, Chair-man Selection Committeeand Senior Executive VicePresident PTF after 4-daytrials held at Syed DilawarAbbas PTF Tennis ComplexIslamabad.

He said two players -Abid Ali Akbar and AhmedChaudhry were selected af-ter the trials were, while Pa-kistan No. 1 Aqeel Khan andATP player Aisamul HaqQureshi were exempted fromthe trials.—APP

Abbas Zebclinches U-15

KP JuniorSquash title

PESHAWAR—Abbas Zebclinched the trophy after de-feating Zeeshan Gul in thethrilling final of the KhyberPakhtunkhwa Under-15 Jun-ior Squash Championship be-ing played here at PAF HashimKhan Squash Complex.

Nasir Musa Zai, Secre-tary Information of PML(N)Khyber Pakhtunkhwa wasthe chief guest on this oc-casion. Former WorldChampion Qamar Zaman,Chief Referee MunawarZaman, players, officialswere also present.—APP

Sarfaraz asksplayers to adopt

aggressiveapproach

ISLAMABAD—Former fastbowler Sarfaraz Nawaz hassaid that Pakistan cricketteam must show aggressionand work hard to win two-match ODI series againstNew Zealand, starting onSaturday.

“Our players need towork hard and adopt an ag-gressive strategy to defeatNew Zealand,” he saidwhile talking to APP.

He said a win in the seriesagainst New Zealand wouldalso help boost morale of theplayers and give them muchneeded confidence ahead ofthe World Cup.

Pakistan recently suf-fered two back to back de-feats against domestic teamof New Zealand Board,President’s XI. Sarfaraz saidthat the team managementmust play its role to raiseplayers’ confidence to avoida total collapse in the megaevent.—APP

Bipin DaniOBSERVER CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI—Sri Lanka’s new Minister ofSports, Navin Dissanayake has ex-pressed concern over KumarSangakkara’s letter written to the SriLanka Cricket (SLC) board earlier thisweek.

The former wicket-keeper has claimedthat the permission which was granted tohim to play for Sunrisers Hyderabad teamin the Champions League was not re-vealed to him by someone in the boardand eventually it costs him $140,000 fromSunrisers.

Speaking exclusively over his mobilefrom Colombo, the sports minister says,“I shall appoint a committee to look intothis and initiate the enquiry. It is an injus-tice to the player if these allegations are

Sri Lankan sports minister set to issuestrict guidelines for board officials

proved right”.“First of all, I will meet the SLC board

officials on Monday and then see whatbest can be done to sort out the things. Ishall be issuing the strict guidelines tothe board and ensure that the same arefollowed”.

This is not the first instance whensenior players like Kumar Sangakkara andMahela Jayawardene have aimed at thefunctioning of the board.

“I want to clear the mess”, the hon.minister added.

There have also been charges of cor-ruption against the former sports minis-ter.

“My attitude will be to clear the cor-ruption in sports. Those who are foundguilty will not be spared”, he vowed.The minister has assumed charge earlierthis month.

ISLAMABAD—The InternationalCricket Council on Thursday gavepermission for banned Pakistanpaceman Mohammad Aamer to re-turn to domestic cricket with im-mediate effect, relaxing his ban forspot-fixing.

Aamer was one of three Paki-stani players handed bans of atleast five years for arranging no-balls to order in a Test against En-gland at Lord’s in 2010.

The 22-year-old’s ban was dueto expire on September 2, but theICC’s Anti-Corruption and Secu-rity Unit (ACSU) used discretion-ary powers to allow him to returnto Pakistani domestic games early.

“The ACSU Chairman, SirRonnie Flanagan, with the priorapproval of the ICC Board andthe PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board),has exercised his discretion toallow Aamer to return to domes-tic cricket played under the aus-pices of the PCB with immediateeffect,” the ICC said in a state-ment.

Aamer, along with captainSalman Butt and new-ball partnerMohammad Asif were found guiltyof orchestrating deliberate no-balls in the Lord’s Test againstEngland in August 2010.

The three players and theiragent Mazhar Majeed were jailedby a UK court after the now-de-funct tabloid News of the Worldexposed them in a sting operation.

At the time of the incidentAamer was regarded as one of thehottest young bowling prospectsin world cricket and there wassome sympathy for him, given hisyoung age — he was 18 at the time.

“The ACSU chairman was sat-

ICC allows Aamer to playdomestic cricket

ISLAMABAD—It’s a serious blow to cricket followers, wholove to see an intense battle between bat and ball, as twobest spinners in world cricket - Saeed Ajmal and SunilNarine are not going to participate in the much-antici-pated ICC World Cup 2015. Even after comfortably find-ing a place in their respective 15-member World Cupsquads, both the premium spinners decided to draw backtheir names from the list, Zee News reported Thursday.

It is certainly a huge set back for Pakistan and West

Indies, as they are going to miss their prime tweakers inthe World Cup, starting February 14. If Ajmal has beenthe best Pakistani spinner in the world for the last fewyears, then Narine too has proved his mettle across allthe formats. Both the bowlers have a knack of troublingbest of the batting line ups in world cricket and have ahigh reputation in the business.

They are true match-winners, who hardly look off-colour. With bag full of tricks up their sleeves, they are areal threat to their opponents. Though traditionally, con-ditions in Australia and New Zealand are not favourableto spinners, but the duo has the uncanny ability to de-ceive a batsman even with their line and length.—APP

World Cup won’t besame without SaeedAjmal, Sunil Narine

isfied that Aamer had cooperatedwith the ACSU by fully disclosing

his part in the matters that led tohis disqualification, admitting hisguilt, showing remorse and coop-erating with the Unit’s ongoing in-

vestigations and by recordingmessages for the ACSU education

sessions,”the ICCs ta t emen tsaid.

In 2013the PCBasked theICC to re-lax certainconditionsof Aamer’sban. Thatp r o m p t e dthe ICC toform acommitteewhich rec-o m -mended achange inthe play-ers’ codeof con-duct.

In No-v e m b e rlast yearthe ICCBoard ap-proved ap r o v i s i o nwhich al-lows allb a n n e dplayers toreturn tod o m e s t i ccricket af e wm o n t h s

before their ban expires.PCB lawyer Tafazzul Rizvi said

Aamer will be monitored during hisreturn to domestic matches.

“The ICC code was followedin the process and now PCB willmonitor Aamer’s behaviour in thenext few months and only after thatwill he be eligible to return to in-ternational cricket,” Rizvi told AFP.

Former captain Ramiz Raja andformer PCB head Tauqir Zia re-cently voiced their opposition toAamer ’s return to internationalcricket.

“Don’t get me wrong — I amall for rehabilitation and for find-ing ways to set a young man backon course in his life. But it justcan’t be in the very game that hesullied and brought disrepute to,”Raja said in December last year.

PCB chairman Shaharyar Khanhad also revealed that some cur-rent Pakistan players had indicatedthey would not be comfortablesharing a dressing room withAamer.

In the last four years, Amirhad completed an Anti Corrup-tion and Security Unit (ACSU)education program with PCB,showed a high degree of remorse,and disclosed relevant informa-tion to the PCB as well as the anti-corruption units.

With the Pakistan domestic sea-son about to finish before startingagain in October, Amir’s onlychance of competitive cricketwould be a possible return in theSuper Eight T20 Cup in Pakistanafter the World Cup.

However, a few Grade 1 teamshad already shown a keen interestto sign the player for next season.National Bank of Pakistan, who hadrevoked Amir’s contract after hisban, later offered to retain thebowler upon his return.—APP

MELBOURNE—Arch-rivals SerenaWilliams and Maria Sharapova setup a dream Australian Open finalThursday while Andy Murrayground down Tomas Berdych to givehimself a fourth crack at winning theMelbourne Park title.

Williams battled past gallant fel-low American Madison Keys whileSharapova demolished Russiancompatriot Ekaterina Makarova toensure the top seeds meet inSaturday’s showpiece.

The world’s best two playershave history and the odds arestacked in Williams’ favour, with the33-year-old holding a major psycho-logical advantage.

She has a 16-2 record againstSharapova, with the Russian five-time Grand Slam champion losing

Serena sets up dream Slamfinal with Sharapova

their every encounter since 2004.An impressive Murray swept into

a fourth Australian final in six yearsas he zeroed in on the elusive title,dousing big-serving Czech Berdych6-7 (6/8), 6-0, 6-3, 7-5.

There was plenty of friction be-tween the two over Berdych’s deci-sion to hire former Murray team mem-ber Dani Vallverdu as his coach, withsome steely glares at each other dur-ing the changeovers.

“I was disappointed to lose theopening set after I had a couple ofchances at the end but I felt I wasplaying better as the set went on andI was very aggressive at the begin-ning of the second set,” said the Brit-ish sixth seed.

“In the beginning I was feelingquite rushed and then I got more ag-

gressive andmade him domore running.”

Awai t inghim in Sunday’sfinal will be worldnumber oneNovak Djokovicor defendingchampion StanWawrinka, whoplay their block-buster semi onFriday.

D e s p i t ethe ominous sta-t i s t i c s ,Sharapova hasbeen in outstand-ing touch andblew away fellowR u s s i a n

Makarova 6-3, 6-2 on a blustery af-ternoon on Rod Laver Arena.

She is now in her fourth Austra-lian final, having won in 2008.

Williams was made to work harderby rising teen Keys, who saved eightmatch points.

Coached by former US great Lind-say Davenport, Keys forced Will-iams to a first set tiebreak before herillustrious opponent took charge towin 7-6 (7/5), 6-2.

“I was just happy to get throughit today,” said Williams. “My theorynow is to relax and just play the nextmatch as best I can.”

In reaching the final at 33, shebecame the oldest player to make theAustralian Open decider in the OpenEra, surpassing Chris Evert.

It also ensured that she keepsthe number one ranking she has heldfor more than 100 weeks.

Sharapova could have claimedthe accolade if she had won the titleand Williams had failed to make thefinal.

In another warning sign forSharapova, her rival has won all fiveof the previous finals she has madein Melbourne. Williams is now in her23rd major final, and has claimed 18of them.

The Russian was undaunted andsaid her confidence was high.

“I think my confidence should bepretty high going into a final of aGrand Slam no matter who I’m fac-ing and whether I’ve had a terriblerecord, to say the least, against some-one,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Igot there for a reason. I belong inthat spot.”—AFP

MELBOURNE: Top seed Serena Williams will meet arch-rival Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open final afterthe duo beat Madison Keys and Ekaterina Makarova re-spectively.

PARIS—FIFA boss Joseph Blatter on Thurs-day submitted his candidature for a fifthterm as president of world football’s gov-erning body. “Today (Thursday) is a keydate in the electoral calendar. I’ve made mysubmission, now the electoral committeefollow a process,” the 78-year-old Swisswrote on his Twitter account.

The deadline for nominees to announcetheir candidacies falls at midnight on Thurs-day. Blatter, who has held the post since1998, had already indicated his intention toseek another term, and has wide support inAsia, Africa and Oceania.

Among his challengers are former Por-tugal and Real Madrid winger Luis Figo,Dutch football boss Michael Van Praag,Asian Football Confederation vice-presi-dent Prince Ali bin Al Hussein, ex-FIFA ex-ecutive Jerome Champagne and formerFrance winger David Ginola.

“It’s very difficult to beat Blatter, I know,but I think the world of football is with me,”said Ginola, 47, who is being paid £250,000by betting company Paddy Power to throwhis hat into the ring. Ginola said the chal-lengers were looking for “more democracyand more transparency” in football’s worldgoverning body.

“It can’t be that football is the mostpopular sport, but the most inaccessible po-litically speaking,” Ginola told Spanishsports daily Marca. Candidates must haveplayed an active role in football administra-tion for two of the past five years and bepublicly nominated by five of FIFA’s 209member associations.

Blatter’s reign has been tarnished byaccusations of corruption stemming from thebidding process for the 2018 and 2022 WorldCups, which were awarded to Russia andQatar respectively. Although the deadline ison Thursday, FIFA official Domenico Scalasaid it could take time before the names ofthe candidates are revealed.

“We cannot make a statement at the timeof the date limit,” said Scala, president ofFIFA’s Audit and Compliance Committee.

Blatter submits bid for fifthterm as FIFA president

“A certain time will be needed before the adhoc electoral commission are in a positionto announce the candidates.” The electionwill take place in Zurich on May 29.

Meanwhile, FIFA president Sepp Blatterrecently visited Oxford University’s debating

society to vainly argue that he isn’t a Bondvillain. One of the questions he was askedwas the most contentious one in modern foot-ball: Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?

“Lionel Messi is a good boy that everyfather, every mother would like to have,”Blatter said in his rambling response, whichwas filmed and posted to YouTube. He thendid a bizarre impression of Ronaldo, march-ing around like a cross between a T-Rexand a military commander before adding,“One has more expenses for the hairdresserthan the other, but that doesn’t matter.” Inthe end, he finally admitted that he prefersMessi. And now Cristiano Ronaldo and RealMadrid are both upset.—AFP

Asian Cup: UAEgolden generation eye

bronze - and World CupNEWCASTLE (Australia)—United Arab Emirates coachMahdi Ali Thursday said his team were hopeful of ending

a nearly 30-year absencefrom the World Cup aftertheir run to the Asian Cup’slast four.

Playmaker OmarAbdulrahman and goal aceAli Mabkhout propelledUAE to their first Asian semi-finals since 1996, raisinghopes for their 2018 WorldCup qualifying campaign.

“There is a goodchance we can qualify forRussia (2018),” Ali told re-porters ahead of Friday’sthird-place play-off with Iraqin Newcastle.

“I think we have agood generation, a young team and we can perform well,”the coach added.

UAE have only appeared at one World Cup: Italy in1990, when they lost all three group games to Colombia,now-defunct Yugoslavia and eventual winners West Ger-many.

With 2018 World Cup qualifying starting this year,Abdulrahman and powerful forward Ahmed Khalil are only23, while Mabkhout, the tournament’s joint top-scorer, is24.

The attractive UAE side lost narrowly to Iran in GroupC before they stunned holders Japan in the quarter-finals,and went down 2-0 to hosts Australia in the semis onTuesday.

“In this tournament we played against three teams whoqualified for the last World Cup... we played Iran, Japanand Australia and we played well in those three games,”Ali said.

“There was not a big gap between them and us, andthat is a sign that we have a chance of qualifying for thenext World Cup.”—AFP

ISLAMABAD—The ICC Board reinstated the useof a Super Over in the event of a tie in the ICCCricket World Cup 2015 final.

This now replicates the arrangements forthe ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 final andother recent ICC events where a winner willbe determined on the day of the final (weatherpermitting), and a Super Over was the mostcredible way to separate the two sides, ICCofficial website icc-cricket reported Thursday.

The ICC Board also approved a change tothe application of ICC Code of Conduct of-fences relating to slow over-rates in ICC eventsso that captains do not carry any prior minorover-rate offence ‘strikes’ or over-rate suspen-sions from other series into an ICC event.

This approval means all captains will en-ter the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 with noover-rate ‘strikes’ against their names, andthey will only be suspended from playing inan ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 match if over-rate offences are committed during the event.

Any over-rate ‘strikes’ incurred prior tothe ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 will be car-ried forward to the first bilateral series after

Super Over in place for World Cup final once againthe event. Meanwhile, Ireland and Afghani-stan have the opportunity to gain direct quali-

f icat ion to the2019 World Cupif they areamong the top-eight rankedODI sides as ofSeptember 30,2017 after theywere groupedwith the currentFull Members.

The bot-tom four sides inthe rankings-based qualifica-t ion system forthe World Cup -which now in-cludes the tenFull Members,

Ireland and Afghanistan - will play in the 10-team World Cup Qualifier in 2018 that willdetermine the final two teams in the line-up,

ESPN Star reported.Alongside the elevation for Ireland and

Afghanistan there has also been a promo-tion and relegation system which will involvethe lowest-ranked Associate team in therankings take on the winner of the WCLChampionship to decide which side will taketheir place in the full rankings table for thenext cycle.

ICC chief executive David Richardsonsaid: “Both Afghanistan and Ireland have ex-celled on and off the field in recent years,and this decision is a critical step forward tothe ICC’s aim of having more competitiveteams in international cricket. The decisionalso provides even greater context to One-Day International cricket, and provides a fullymeritocratic pathway into ICC’s.

Cricket World Cup and Champions Tro-phy events.”

Afghanistan are currently 11th in the ODIrankings and Ireland 12th. Afghanistan are54 points behind the eighth-placed side,West Indies, and Ireland a further seven be-hind on 34 points.—AP

ENOUGH is enough: stop wasting moneyon vitamin and mineral supplements, saymedical experts in an editorial of a lead-

ing journal that has just published three newstudies examining whether routine use of vi-tamin and mineral supple-ments brings health benefits.Writing in Annals of InternalMedicine, the editorial authorsconclude that most supple-ments do not prevent chronicdisease or death, some mayeven be harmful in well-nour-ished adults, and there is alarge body of evidence to sup-port this.

“This message is espe-cially true for the generalpopulation with no clear evi-dence of micronutrient defi-ciencies, who represent mostsupplement users in the UnitedStates and in other countries.”Editorial co-author Dr. EdgarMiller, professor of medicineand epidemiology at JohnsHopkins Bloomberg School of Public Healthin Baltimore, MD, told CBS News that peoplewould be better off spending money on healthyfoods, such as “fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans,low-fat dairy,” and getting exercise.

In the editorial, Dr. Miller and colleaguessay despite “sobering evidence” of no healthbenefit and even of possible harm, US adultsare spending more and more on multivitamins.They note how use of multivitamins increasedamong US adults from 30% between 1988 and1994 to 39% between 2003 and 2006, whileoverall use of dietary supplements grew from42% to 53% over the same period.

There have been some dips - for instance,

Multivitamins ‘waste ofmoney,’ say medical experts

President PPP Karachi Division Abdul Qadir Patel speaks during a press conference regarding the killing of MQM worker Sohail Ahmad, at PPP Media Cell.

studies have linked certain supplements tonegative outcomes - but overall the supple-ments industry has kept growing. In the US, itreached $28 billion a year in 2010. Trends inthe UK and other European countries are simi-

lar, notes the editorial. Onepoint that stands out in theeditorial is that consumersseem to react differently toevidence of negative resultsversus null results.

While overall use ofsupplements has gone up, useof certain individual supple-ments has gone down, for ex-ample beta-carotene and vita-min E. This decline followedreports of studies that showedthese could be harmful. On theother hand, evidence that dailysupplements have null effects -that is, they make no differenceto health - appear to have noeffect on consumers and over-all sales have kept growing.

In one of the studies pub-lished in the same issue as the editorial, Dr.Francine Grodstein, of Harvard School of Pub-lic Health, and colleagues examined data fromthe Physicians’ Health Study II, to look at theeffect of long-term use of multivitamins oncognitive health. The participants were nearly6,000 male doctors aged 65 and over, who wererandomised to take either a daily multivitaminpill or placebo pill for 12 years.

In another study, researchers reviewed evi-dence on the use of vitamin and mineral supple-ments to prevent heart disease and cancer, inorder to update the guidelines for the US Pre-ventive Services Task Force - an expert panelthat advises the US government.

Midori Inomata wife of Ambassador of Japan speaking on the occasion the live demonstra-tion of the art ‘Bonseki’ at a local hotel.—PO photo by Sultan Chaki

Director Custom’s intelligence Karachi Muhammad Asif Marghoob Siddiqui and Director General PMSA Rear AdmiralAther Mukhtar showing the recovery of 13500 bottles of Whisky and beer cans.

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Pakistan Maritime Secu-rity Agency (PMSA) and PakistanCustoms Intelligence had in a jointaction foiled a bid to smuggle hugecache of illicit liquor. The joint ac-tion had placed speedboats, ships,which were assisted by the aerial sur-veillance by the PMSA.

During the operation, the PMSAand Customs Intelligence teamsmonitored boats and fishing launchesand on midnight of Jan 25-26, 2015,one suspected boat was detected andon searching the boat, the teamsfound 13500 bottles of liquor and

PMSA, Customs foil bidto smuggle illicit liquor

beer, which price in international mar-ket was in millions.

This was disclosed in a joint pressconference addressed by the PMSA Di-rector General Rear Admiral AtharMukhtar (Sitara-e Imtiaz) and PakistanCustoms Intel l igence DirectorMuhammad Asif Marghoob SiddiquiThursday. PMSA Deputy Director Gen-eral Commodore Rehan Aziz and otherofficials of the PMSA and PakistanCustoms Intelligence were present.

They said the PMSA had confis-cated the illicit cache of liquor and laterhanded it to the Pakistan Customs onJan 28 for onward legal action. Paki-stan Customs Intelligence Director

Muhammad Asif Marghoob Siddiquion the occasion said a case was reg-istered under the Customs Act-1969and a challans of the case would besubmitted at the Custom Court fortrial.

He lauded the PMSA for playinga pivotal role in foiling bids of smug-gling now and in past and the Cus-toms would with their support con-tinue to foiling the bid sof smugglingand bringing the smugglers to task asper law. The PMSA DG said theOMSA was always on high alert tosafeguard the Maritime Zones andhad full capacity to check smugglingin open Sea.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Pakistan People’s Party(PPP) Karachi Division PresidentAbdul Qadir Patel said the style of poli-tics of allegation being adopted by theMuttahhida Qaumi Movement (MQM)was very unfortunate and efforts formaligning the PPP District East Presi-dent in murder of Sohail Ahmed, aworker of the MQM was absolutelycondemnable. He said the allegationsthe MQM had leveled against Chawlafor exchange of bitter words was un-true as nothing such was happened.Sixty-four year old Chawla had been inPPP for past 45 years and was an activemember of the Shrine Committee ofGarhi Khuda Bux from Karachi city.

It would be better if the MQM couldhave come up with undeniable and con-crete proof against Chawla rather thanstriving at maligning him in maliciousscheme of Ahmed’s murder, Patel sug-gested, adding that in fact, the aggrievedfamily had registered an FIR at the

MQM should stop politics ofbaseless allegations: Qadir Patel

Ferozabad Police station on Dec 16 andtill the day of Ahmed’s murder,Chawla’s name was nowhere in FIR anddiscussions.

He was flanked by PPP District EastPresident Shaikh Saeed Chawla, Sena-tor Saeed Ghani, Sindh Minister forKatchi Abadis Jawaid Nagori, SindhChief Minister’s Adviser Waqar Mehdi,Special Assistant to the CM RashidRabbani, Zafar Siddiqui, MirzaMaqbool, Haji Qasim Balouch, RajaAbdul Razzaque, Nadeem Bhutto andPPP Media Cell Sindh membersHabibuddin Junaidi, Manzoor Abbas,Zulfiquar Ali Kaimkhani and LateefMughal.

He made it clear that the open courtin which the MQM alleged Chawla ofhaving exchanged bitter words was or-ganized by the civil administration andhe was there to represent the PPP asothers did for their selective parties.While deploring the overall attitude ofthe MQM said it was very unfortunateto note that the MQM had always been

demanding the Army to take over andimpose Martial Law in Sindh provincewhile the party had equally issuedthreats to the Army and the government,which record was intact with the me-dia.

The MQM had always alleged Po-lice of being bias toward it and eventhe party alleged the Inter-Services In-telligence (ISI) of May 12 mayhem, saidthe PPP Karachi Division Presidentadding that the targeted operation inKarachi was federal government’s planand was finalised at the GovernorHouse of Sindh in which all politicaland religious parties had agreed to givea free hand to the law enforcers.

He asked the MQM to give namesand residential addresses of those work-ers, who had been missing instead ofmaking uproar. In fact, the campaignof allegations against Sindh governmentand the PPP was an attempt to divertthe attention from internal rifts and theparty’s reaction was followed by thepress conference by the Additional In-

spector General of Police, GhulamQadir Thebo, who had quoted the ar-rested target killer had confessed to thePolice investigators that he had affili-ated to the MQM.

Patel said despite assurance of fullprotection, the traders and transportersof the city were reluctant to keep theirshops open plied their passengercoaches for fear of serever reaction af-terwards. The wave of fear had spreadthrough past 3 decades and the tradersand the transporters knew they had tolive in the city. Earlier, the MQM hadalso made attempts to malign SenatorSaeed Ghani in killings of workers ofthe MQM in Chaneesar Goth, remindedPatel, adding that “Media could alsocontact any political or religious partyin the metropolis to know who were thekillers of their workers and leaders andsadly all would point at a particularpolitical party’s unidentified militants.He appealed to the MQM to review itpolicy toward the PPP and Sindh gov-ernment.

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—The Muttahhida Qaumi Movement(MQM) leader Haider Abbas Rizvi said it was anestablished fact in light of the charter of the UnitedNations that any city would be declared as an oc-cupied territory if the Police force in that territorywould be of non-locals. Henceforth, Karachi hadnow become an occupied territory because all thehigh-ups and personnel of all the law enforcingagencies were brought at the port city from otherparts of the country and thus the metropolis wasoccupied.

He said it looked as if the state of Pakistan haddecided to treat anyone as terrorist in case he orshe would be affiliated to the MQM. It had be-come a practice of the law enforcers to arrest work-ers and supporters of the MQM and demand heftysums of money in bribe for safe return of themfailing which they were extra-judicially murderedand their bodies were being dumped at isolatedlocations in city’s periphery. On protesting the bru-

Karachi an occupied territory as perUN charter: Haider Abbas Rizvi

tality of extra-judicial killings, the MQM was al-leged of attacking the Sindh Chief Minister House.

One night before Sohail Ahmed was extra-ju-dicially murdered; his cell phone’s location wastraced in close vicinity of Police Headquarters inGarden East area of the city at about 10:40 p.m,which should be probed. He said the MQM ChiefAltaf Hussain had raised his voice against atroci-ties on any citizen but none ever spoke a word onbarbaric atrocities on MQM’ workers.

While addressing the Prime Minister, he saidthe Pakistan People’s Party would while ruiningthe city of Karachi in gross enmity would not onlyget eliminated but would also cause the PM to losehis government. He demanded the PM to take stepsto stop atrocities against the MQM as the overallscenario had taken a form of storm, which wouldflush all those that were bent upon wreaking havocon MQM. Today, the MQM is appealing the au-thorities concerned for stopping the atrocities anddoing the justice but the situation would not re-main as of today if atrocities not stopped.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—The doctors who are consid-ered as life savers all over the world arebeing subjected to target killing in Karachi.President Korangi Association of Tradeand Industry Rashid Ahmed Siddiqui andPresident All Karachi Industrial AllianceMian Zahid Hussain showed their concernon strike called by doctors on 2nd Febru-ary on the continues target killing of the

Doctors call for strike on Feb 2

Lifesavers becomingvictims of target killing

persons affiliated with medical professionand asked Syed Qaim Ali Shah and Dr.Eshrat ul Ebad to play their role in callingoff the strike.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that doctorsare recognized throughout the world as lifesavers, it is pity that for the last manymonths’ doctors were victims of target kill-ing and people including business commu-nity are worried on these target killingsand appealed doctors to defer their strike

as it would create difficult for the patients.They should use iron hand to deal with

target killers: Rashid Added. They ap-pealed the Governor Sindh Eshrat ul Ibadand Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim AliShah to intervene and have a dialogue withdoctors to resolve the issue so that strikeof 2nd February could be called off asstrike would pose problems for thousandsof patients coming to OPD of hospitals fortheir treatment.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—K-Electric has extended the deadline for paymentsof electricity bills, which were due on 29th January to the new

KE extends due date of bills paymentdate of Jan 30, 2015. All banks have been informed to accept thelate payment without any penalty, said K-Electric’s spokesper-son. He added that the reason for the extension was to facilitatethe customers.

ENOUGH is enough: stop wasting moneyon vitamin and mineral supplements, saymedical experts in an editorial of a lead-

ing journal that has just published three newstudies examining whether routine use of vi-tamin and mineral supple-ments brings health benefits.Writing in Annals of InternalMedicine, the editorial authorsconclude that most supple-ments do not prevent chronicdisease or death, some mayeven be harmful in well-nour-ished adults, and there is alarge body of evidence to sup-port this.

“This message is espe-cially true for the generalpopulation with no clear evi-dence of micronutrient defi-ciencies, who represent mostsupplement users in the UnitedStates and in other countries.”Editorial co-author Dr. EdgarMiller, professor of medicineand epidemiology at JohnsHopkins Bloomberg School of Public Healthin Baltimore, MD, told CBS News that peoplewould be better off spending money on healthyfoods, such as “fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans,low-fat dairy,” and getting exercise.

In the editorial, Dr. Miller and colleaguessay despite “sobering evidence” of no healthbenefit and even of possible harm, US adultsare spending more and more on multivitamins.They note how use of multivitamins increasedamong US adults from 30% between 1988 and1994 to 39% between 2003 and 2006, whileoverall use of dietary supplements grew from42% to 53% over the same period.

There have been some dips - for instance,

Multivitamins ‘waste ofmoney,’ say medical experts

MPAs Farzana Zubair Butt and Nabeera Andleeb with participants of a ceremony organised by South Asia Partnership Pakistan at a local hotel.

studies have linked certain supplements tonegative outcomes - but overall the supple-ments industry has kept growing. In the US, itreached $28 billion a year in 2010. Trends inthe UK and other European countries are simi-

lar, notes the editorial. Onepoint that stands out in theeditorial is that consumersseem to react differently toevidence of negative resultsversus null results.

While overall use ofsupplements has gone up, useof certain individual supple-ments has gone down, for ex-ample beta-carotene and vita-min E. This decline followedreports of studies that showedthese could be harmful. On theother hand, evidence that dailysupplements have null effects -that is, they make no differenceto health - appear to have noeffect on consumers and over-all sales have kept growing.

In one of the studies pub-lished in the same issue as the editorial, Dr.Francine Grodstein, of Harvard School of Pub-lic Health, and colleagues examined data fromthe Physicians’ Health Study II, to look at theeffect of long-term use of multivitamins oncognitive health. The participants were nearly6,000 male doctors aged 65 and over, who wererandomised to take either a daily multivitaminpill or placebo pill for 12 years.

In another study, researchers reviewed evi-dence on the use of vitamin and mineral supple-ments to prevent heart disease and cancer, inorder to update the guidelines for the US Pre-ventive Services Task Force - an expert panelthat advises the US government.

Women of Pak Pattan Community Midwives trying to bring their colleague to consciousduring a demonstration in support of their demands outside Lahore Press Club.

A lawyers speaks during All Pakistan Lawyers Convention organised by Lahore High Court Bar.

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—A delegation of British Coun-cil led by its Chief Executive CiaranDevane met Punjab Chief MinisterMuhammad Shahbaz Sharif here Thurs-day and agreed to promote ongoing coop-eration with Punjab in education sector.Talking to the delegation of British Coun-cil, the Chief Minister said that Punjab gov-ernment has taken revolutionary steps forthe promotion of education during the lastsix years. He said that quality education isthe right of every child which is being en-sured by the government.

He said that Provincial Higher Edu-cation Commission has been set up forthe promotion of higher education. Hesaid that Punjab School ReformsRoadmap Programme is being success-fully implemented in the province with

Govt has taken revolutionary steps topromote education: British delegation

the cooperation of British Department forInternational Development (DFID) andis yielding positive results. He said thateducation is the most effective weaponagainst terrorism and extremism.Shahbaz Sharif said that Skill Develop-ment Programme is also being imple-mented successfully in Punjab with thecooperation of DFID and thousands ofyouth have been imparted various skills.

He said that under Skill Develop-ment Programme investment is beingmade in the youth and they are being pro-vided respectable job opportunities. Hesaid that Punjab government is makinginvestment in the youth for their empow-erment. The Chief Minister further saidthat more than 10 lakh boys and girlshave been given admission in schoolsthrough the voucher scheme of PunjabEducation Foundation. He said that es-

tablishment of Punjab Educational En-dowment Fund is another historic stepof the provincial government.

He said that the total volume of PunjabEducational Endowment Fund has reached12 billion rupees and thousands of poorbut talented students have been given edu-cational scholarships from this fund en-abling them to study at prestigious educa-tional institutions. He said that IT labs havebeen set up in 4200 high schools whilelakhs of laptops worth billions of rupeeshave been distributed among talented boyand girl students during the last few years.

He said that after universities andcolleges, students of schools and reli-gious seminaries are also being givenlaptops. Shahbaz Sharif further said thatquality educational institutions likeDaanish Schools are being set up in back-ward areas of the province for providing

academic facilities to low-income seg-ments of the society. He said that evenbetter education than Atchison andGrammar schools is being given to stu-dents in Daanish Schools.

He said that digital libraries are be-ing set up in the province while a state-of-the-art Knowledge Park is being es-tablished in Lahore. He said that the firstkidney and liver institute of the countrywill also be set up in the Knowledge Parkfor which 50 acre land has been allocated.

He said that in order to provide mod-ern and economical transport facilitiesto the masses, metro bus project has beencompleted within a very short period andmore than 1.50 lakh people travel bymetro buses daily. Shahbaz Sharif saidthat cooperation with British Council ineducational programmes will be contin-ued in future as well.

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—On behalf of Punjab ChiefMinister, Chief Secretary Khizar HayyatGondal appreciated EDO HealthSargodha Muhammad Nazir AqibNekokara for good performance and im-proving health indicators in the district ata meeting held in his honour. Advisor onHealth Khwaja Salman Rafique, HealthSecretary Jawad Rafique Malik and DGHealth Zahid Pervez were also present.

Speaking on the occasion the ChiefSecretary said that it is matter of pridefor the Punjab Government that its of-

EDO HealthMuhammad Nazir honoured

ficers are earning a good name. He saidthat Punjab Chief Minister is desirous ofpromoting hard work and encouraging dili-gent officers. He said that Punjab ChiefMinister has issued instructions that en-couragement of good work and diligentofficers be ensured. Advisor on HealthKhawaja Salman Rafique said that sticksand carrots policy has been introduced onthe directions of Punjab Chief Minister.

He said that the hard working officerwill get full appreciation from PunjabChief Minister and Chief Secretary. Laud-ing the EDO Health Sargodha, KhwajaSalman Rafique said that 24/7 programme

was introduced to provide Gyne andlabour services at BHUs round the clock.District Sargodha remained on top po-sition in performance regarding thisprogramme and its credit goes to theEDO Health Sargodha, he added.

He expressed hope that EDO AqibNazir will continue working with thesame spirit. EDO Health Aqib Nazir saidthat encouragement by Punjab ChiefMinister and Chief Secretary is a matterof honour for him. He said that his teamwill continue to work with the same spiritand they will try to come up to the ex-pectations of Punjab Chief Minister.

MUZAFFAR ALI

LAHORE—Lahore Waste Management Com-pany (LWMC) has finally concluded its monthlong massive cleanliness and awareness cam-paign in the northern Lahore, mainly in 16Union Councils of Wahga & Aziz Bhatti Townwith aim to improve state of cleanliness andmobilize local residents on the use of wastecontainers.

Campaign lasted for the whole month onJanuary and was comprised of cleanup opera-tions, removal of waste from open plots, set-ting up camps for awareness and on spotredressal of complaints and awareness walksin several localities of both the towns.

Month longcleanliness, awarenesscampaign concludes

On the last day of campaign at Angori BaghScheme Link Road, an awareness walk was car-ried out which was lead by PML (N) leaderKhuram Rohail Asghar, Senior Manager Op-eration LWMC Suhail Anwar Malik, SeniorManager Operations Albayrak Hussain Kartaland Communication Head LWMC JamilKhawar.

Residents of the towns were sensitized onsanitation & use of waste bins through briefing,distribution of leaflets and activities by mascotcharacters. Special cleanliness arrangementswere made throughout the month by Albayrakincluding mechanical sweeping and washing ofroads. A large amount of waste was removedfrom several open plots during campaign.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Provincial Ministerfor Home Col. (R) ShujaKhanzada has said that under theNational Action Plan, a vigorouscampaign is continuing againstillegal weapons. He said that9233 illegal weapons were re-covered during general holdupand 315 illegal weapons in search

Illegal weapons recoveredduring general holdup

operation in 10 days whereas 420weapons have been taken intopossession during display ofarms and 365 cases have beenregistered.

The Provincial Minister saidthat on the violation of ban ondisplay of arms, licenses of threeKalashnikovs, 18 rifles, 14 gunsand 20 pistols have been can-celled and cases registeredagainst the persons responsible.

He said this while presiding

over a special meeting regardingnational action plan, here Thurs-day. Senior police officers andheads of agencies were presenton the occasion. The ProvincialMinister said that the arms li-censes issued from 2009 to 2014by the government can be gotrenewed from NADRA till Feb-ruary 28, 2015. He said that theissue of new arms licenses willbe started at the end of February2015 and in case of no objection,

license will be issued to the ap-plicant within 15 days. ShujaKhanzada said that the record ofarms license holder and weapondealers will be verified throughNADRA so that the apprehen-sion of more than one weaponwith the same number could beremoved.

Home Minister said that 500monitor systems have been givento the police for verification ofarms licenses through which on

placing the thumb, all particularsof arms license holder will bedisplayed. He said that casesagainst the persons having weap-ons without license will be heardin anti-terrorist court and its sen-tence is 14 years imprisonment.He said that due to the strict ac-tion by police and other law en-forcement agencies and promul-gation of five ordinances, thecrime rate has reduced more than45 percent.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—A Mehfil-e-Milad will be held on Sunday in con-nection with Eid Milad-un-Nabi (PBUH) celebrations atIslampura Rasheed Centre after the Isha prayer under the aegisof Anjman-e-Tajraan Islampura. The function will start with therecitation from the Holy Quran followed by Hamd and illustri-

Mehfil-e-Milad to be held on Sundayous Naat Khawan will recite Naat and Durood-o-Salam.

The prominent Naat Khawan among participants includedMurghoob Ahmed Hamdani, Muddassar Hamdani, KhurrumShahzad Naqshbandi, Qari Fiaz Chisti, Khurrum Shahzad Madni,Muhammad Abdul Majid, Qari Fiaz Qasuri. The Mehfil-e-Miladwill end with an overwhelming and heart-rending ‘Dua’ for theprosperity of the country and for the unity of the Muslim Ummah.