LONDON: Son Heung-min’s late winner fired Tottenham Hotspur into the Premier League’s top four with a 2-1 win over Luton Town as Chelsea twice blew a lead against 10-man Burnley in a 2-2 draw on Saturday.
An action-packed afternoon also saw Newcastle United come from 3-1 down to stun West Ham United 4-3 and Fulham hit back for a 3-3 draw at bottom-of-the-table Sheffield United.
Spurs have now come from behind to win in four of their last five home games and needed another second-half turnaround to keep their challenge for a return to the Champions League next season on track.
Tahith Chong’s strike after just three minutes gave Luton a shock lead, but the Hatters ended the day in the relegation zone as their winless run extended to 10 games.
An Ange Postecoglou half-time substitution again made an impact for Tottenham as Brennan Johnson’s cross was turned into his own net by Issa Kabore just six minutes after the Welsh international’s introduction.
Son had missed a number of chances earlier in the game but finally got some fortune when his deflected effort trickled past Thomas Kaminski for his 15th goal of the season.
Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino was met with another backlash at Stamford Bridge after his side failed to make the most of an extra man for the entire second half against second-bottom Burnley.
The Blues appeared on course to cruise to victory after Lorenz Assignon was harshly sent-off for pulling down Mykhailo Mudryk inside the area.
Burnley boss Vincent Kompany was also shown a red card for taking his protests too far.
Cole Palmer coolly chipped in the resulting penalty, but the 10 men levelled two minutes into the second half thanks to Josh Cullen’s super finish from outside the box.
Raheem Sterling had been booed off in Chelsea’s FA Cup quarter-final win over Leicester a fortnight ago but thought he had set up the winner in style with a flick that Palmer stroked into the far corner.
Chelsea, though, failed to hold out again as Dara O’Shea headed in a corner nine minutes from time to leave Pochettino’s men still in the bottom half of the table.
Newcastle closed to within one point of West Ham in seventh after a remarkable fightback at St. James’ Park.
Goals from Michail Antonio, Mohammed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen wiped out the advantage given to Newcastle by Aleksander Isak’s early penalty.
However, a second Isak spot-kick 13 minutes from time sparked the turnaround before substitute Harvey Barnes struck twice to send Eddie Howe scurrying down the touchline in celebration.
Newly-capped England international Anthony Gordon had been involved in three of the four Newcastle goals but was then sent-off in stoppage time for kicking the ball away.
“A lot of emotions in that game, we were swinging all over the place,” said Howe. “The last 10 minutes was amazing to be part of.”
Everton’s winless run stretched to 12 Premier League games after a 2-1 defeat at Bournemouth to leave the Toffees still perilously placed just three points above the relegation zone.
Nottingham Forest edged out of the bottom three on goal difference in their first match since receiving a four-point deduction as Chris Wood salvaged a 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace.
Sheffield were denied just their fourth win of the season by Fulham’s late fightback at Bramall Lane.
Ben Brereton Diaz struck twice as the Blades led 3-1 with four minutes of the 90 left only for Bobby DeCordova-Reid and Rodrigo Muniz to snatch a point for the visitors.
BELGRADE: Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo and Beatrice Chebet of Kenya successfully defended their world cross country titles in Belgrade on Saturday.
It’s just the fifth time in history that both the senior men’s and women’s champions have retained their titles at the championships — the first since Ethiopian duo Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba did in (2005/06).
Kiplimo, 23, made it three successive world crowns for Uganda — Joshua Cheptegei winning the 2019 edition — timing 28 minutes 09 seconds over the 10,000m trip.
Kiplimo joins legends Bekele and Paul Tergat in defending the title, although he has still to go some way to equal their achievements of winning five in a row.
“It actually feels more exciting to successfully defend my title than to win the first one,” said Kiplimo. “But it was also tougher. I came here expecting I could win again, but the field was really strong. The course was fine, a little challenging with the obstacles. It was a little tough running in the heat, but that wasn’t a major issue.”
Kiplimo said the title was a perfect boost for his morale after missing the outdoor World Athletics Championships last year due to a hamstring injury.
“I was hungry for medals after missing Budapest last year,” said Kiplimo, who is the world half marathon record holder. “I was in good shape, but then the injury happened and I had to get treatment, but I am back now. My goal this year is to do what Joshua Cheptegei did and win an Olympic gold. My main focus is the 10,000m, but I’m not sure yet if I want to double.”
The 5,000m and 10,000m Commonwealth titleholder finished three seconds clear of Berihu Aregawi of Ethiopia, who also took silver last year in Bathurst, Australia.
Kenya’s Benson Kiplangat took bronze, two seconds adrift of Aregawi — Cheptegei finished a disappointing sixth, 15 seconds off his compatriot’s winning time.
Chebet had earlier become the first female runner since Ethiopian great Dibaba (2005/06) to successfully defend her title leading home a Kenyan medals clean sweep.
The 24-year-old was only fourth in the Kenyan trials for the championships but she came home three seconds clear of Lilian Rengeruk.
Margaret Kipkemboi took bronze, a second adrift of Rengeruk and two other Kenyans filled fourth and fifth spots.
Chebet’s victory was the ninth successive win for Kenya in the women’s race.
“We won the team title, that showed very strong teamwork,” said Chebet. “After trials we trained together, we eat the same food. We were a team and being together helped us achieve the best result here.
“It is not easy to come to a world championship and defend your title, there is a lot of pressure. My target was to be on the podium. I felt I was stronger with about 500m to go.”
MUZAFFARGARH: Two nine-year-old girls were raped in separate incidents at the District Headquarters Hospital Layyah and Kot Addu.
A mentally challenged minor girl was raped at the DHQ Hospital, Layyah, on Thursday evening.
The nine-year-old girl belonged to Chak 515-TDA of Kot Addu who was visiting the hospital with her family.
A CCTV footage showed the victim child being taken away by the suspect, identified as a 15-year-old resident of the General Bus Stand.
According to a police spokesperson, the suspect was a sweets vendor and he lured the girl by giving her toffees. He raped the victim within the boundary wall of the hospital.
After the incident, City police arrested the suspect with the help of modern technology and CCTV footage.
Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz had taken notice of the incident and ordered the inspector general of police (IGP) and the South Punjab additional IG to take immediate action and submit a report to her.
On her instructions, Layyah District Police Officer Asadul Rehman formed a special team to trace the suspect and arrest him. The suspect was arrested within hours of the incident.
The Layyah City Police Station registered a case.
In the other incident, another nine-year-old girl was raped in the limits of the Kot Addu Police Station.
The girl child was going to a shop to buy food items where the suspect raped her.
The City SHO registered a case and ordered the Gender Crime in-charge Saeeda Khaliq to arrest the suspect.
A team, led by Ms Khaliq, arrested the facilitator of the suspect who revealed the identity of the main suspect.
The police are conducting raids to arrest the main suspect.
QUETTA: Ten coal miners were rescued on Friday after being trapped for 16 hours in a coal mine filled up with rainwater in the Duki area of Harnai.
Officials said miners were digging at a depth of 2,000 feet when rainfall flooded the mine, leaving them trapped.
Subsequently, a PDMA team of rescuers along with other miners launched an operation to and after night-long efforts they succeeded to rescue all the 10 miners.
Meanwhile, the inquiry committee assigned to probe the methane gas explosion in a Harnai coal mine in which 12 miners were killed, held mine owner and contractor responsible for the incident.
In its initial report, the committee recommended filing of a criminal case against them for their negligence. It also called
Probe committee recommends FIR against mine owner, contractor for Harnai tragedy
On March 19, an explosion of methane gas resulted in the death of 12 miners who were stuck deep inside the mine owned by a local coal company in the Zardalo area of Harnai.
According to the report submitted to the mines secretary, mining had resumed five to six months ago after a prolonged closure of the mine. For the mine’s examination and gas detection, the company hired a manager and overseer. However, both individuals were not present in the mine at the time of the incident.
Former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani on Friday said the Special Investment Facilitation Council was “infringing on provincial autonomy” by taking up education-related matters.
The statement comes a day after the SIFC convened a meeting to review a new education policy and deliberate on an “education emergency” proposal.
The SIFC was established in June last year under an “economic revival plan” devised by civilian and military leaders to capitalise on “untapped potential in key sectors” and attract foreign direct investment (FDI).
The then-cabinet had approved a number of initiatives, including proposed legislation for amendments to the Investment Board Ordinance to empower the SIFC to facilitate FDI.
In November, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had raised questions on the SIFC’s creation, advising Pakistan against creating a group of preferred investors or distortions in the country and to ensure transparency and accountability in its business deals.
Last week, newly appointed Education Minister Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui called for imposing an “education emergency” to address the issue of an alarming number of out-of-school children (OOSC) across the country. He had said that a national conference would be organised in collaboration with the SIFC.
On Thursday, the SIFC expressed concerns over the alarming number of OOSC in the country and called for urgent steps to formulate a comprehensive framework and strategy to address the challenge.
The meeting also discussed the proposed new education policy. Currently, the education policy from 2009, which is considered outdated, is in place. On the direction of SIFC, the education ministry has been working to prepare a new education policy.
Today, Rabbani condemned the SIFC taking up the question of OOSC and the education policy.
In a statement, he noted that the council had been created through a notification that did not “allow it to take up education or matters ancillary thereto”.
“Education is a devolved subject from the Government of India Act, 1935 but usurped by the federal government,” the former senator said. “The 18th Amendment, with the deletion of the Concurrent List, from the Fourth Schedule [of] Constitution, 1973, removed any doubts, if any existed,” he added.
“The SIFC is infringing on provincial autonomy,” the PPP leader said, asserting that if any coordination was required on the matter of OOSC, then the appropriate “constitutional forum” was the Council of Common Interests (CCI).
“The federal government can only take up the education policy to the extent of the federal territory and not the provinces,” Rabbani emphasised. “If any coordination in policy is required, the CCI is the constitutional forum and not the SIFC,” he reiterated.
The senior politician further stated, “The federal government must realise that Pakistan is a participatory federation under the Constitution and not a one (single) unit.”
New education policy
Education experts, who are involved in the drafting of the new education policy, had toldDawn that the new policy would focus on education participation, out-of-school children, dropouts, excellence, quality and relevance, and technology deficit.
They also said that new policy should also cover efficient education financing, national standards and strengthening of federal and provincial coordination, skills gaps and employability, and higher education. Sources said that the SIFC in a previous meeting suggested some valuable priority areas to be covered in the new policy.
This includes enrolling out-of-school kids, mainstreaming technical education, a focus on creativity and concept-based learning, uniform education, retaining dropout and out-of-school children into technical streams, inclusive education with special needs and requirements of gifted children, auditing of performance of teachers and schools, and introducing national curriculum into seminaries.
As per the officials, the new national document will focus on power learning and skills through technology, prepare youth for national and international markets, connect schooling and skilling, equip students with a “futuristic mindset” to tackle the problems of the future (climate change, food scarcity), and exams reforms.
The new policy will also focus on school structure, teachers’ career paths, certification, accountability, language, curriculum, assessment, and disaster risk reduction etc.
The National Education Policy 2009 is outdated and also has some anomalies, among them being the budget, which was set at 7pc of the GDP, whereas the country spends less than 2pc of the GDP on education.
During the tenure of the PML-N government from 2013-18, efforts were made to frame a new policy and its draft had also been prepared in 2016, under which nine new chapters were to be added. However, the government could not introduce the policy.
Later, when the PTI came to power, it also announced that a new policy would be introduced but it too failed to do so. However, it managed to introduce an education framework in 2018, which suggested feedback from the public before finalising the education policy 2021, which could not be introduced.
In August 2022, then-education minister Rana Tanveer Hussain told the National Assembly that the National Education Policy 2009 was still intact and work on developing a new policy had been initiated.
His soldier son toured Afghanistan with insurgents in his crosshairs, but American traveller Oscar Wells has a different objective — sightseeing promoted by the interim Taliban government’s fledgling tourism sector.
“It is a unique place, it touches my heart,” the 65-year-old Indiana farmer told AFP, praising “its magnificent mountains” with “people living in the old way”.
Marvelling at the 15th century Blue Mosque in northern Mazar-i-Sharif, Wells is among a small but rising number of travellers coming to Afghanistan since the war’s end.
Decades of conflict made tourism extremely rare, and while most violence has now abated, visitors are confronted with extreme poverty, dilapidated cultural sites and scant hospitality infrastructure.
They holiday under the austere control of Taliban authorities, without consular support after most embassies were evacuated following the fall of the Western-backed government in 2021.
They must register with officials on arrival in each province, comply with a strict dress code and submit to searches at checkpoints manned by men armed with Kalashnikovs.
Attacks by the militant Islamic State also still pose a potential threat within the country.
“The first thing your loved ones say is: ‘You’re crazy to go there!’” said French tourist Didier Goudant, a 57-year-old lawyer, of a country that Western governments warn against visiting.
Security concerns worried Nayuree Chainton, the 45-year-old Thai owner of a travel agency in Bangkok, who recently took a six-day trip with a group to test the waters.
“I feel safe despite the checkpoints in the cities,” she said during a visit to a shrine in the capital Kabul.
‘Sharing a good image’
The number of foreign tourists visiting Afghanistan rose 120 per cent year-on-year in 2023, reaching nearly 5,200, according to official figures.
The Taliban government has yet to be officially recognised by any country — in part because of its heavy restrictions on women — but it has welcomed foreign tourism.
“Afghanistan’s enemies don’t present the country in a good light,” said Information and Culture Minister Khairullah Khairkhwa.
“But if these people come and see what it’s really like… they will definitely share a good image of it,” he said.
But Wells and Goudant — on a trip with firm Untamed Borders, which also offers tours of Syria and Somalia — describe their visit as a way to connect with Afghanistan’s people.
Tourists “like us are curious and want to be in contact with the population, to try to help them a little” said Goudant, on his second trip, which included skiing in central Bamiyan province.
He said part of his visits is making donations to local groups, something he describes as “small-scale humanitarian work” in a country that has seen foreign aid drastically shrink since the Taliban takeover.
For Wells, there is a “sense of guilt for the departure” of US troops.
“I really felt we had a horrible exit, it created such a vacuum and disaster,” he said. “It’s good to help these people and keep relations.”
‘Bittersweet’
Untamed Borders brought around 100 tourists to Afghanistan last year, with a nine-day package starting in neighbouring Pakistan costing $2,850.
The end of the fighting means tourists “can do more things”, said founder James Willcox. “But on the other hand it is disruptive,” he added, noting a female tour guide with the company fled to Italy after the Taliban return.
While the Taliban government has shut girls and women out of education and much of public life, foreign women are granted greater freedoms.
For solo traveller Stefanie Meier, a 53-year-old American who spent a month travelling from Kabul to Kandahar via Bamiyan and Herat in the west, it was a “bittersweet experience”.
“I have been able to meet people I never thought I would meet, who told me about their life,” she said, adding that she didn’t face any issues as a woman on her own.
She experienced “disbelief that people have to live like this”, she added. “The poverty, there are no jobs, women not being able to go to school, no future for them”.
With little by way of official information, tourists band together on social media and messaging apps to trade tips.
While two airlines serve Afghanistan’s major cities, backpackers prefer buses and don’t shy away from the 20-hour journey from Kabul to Herat.
An active WhatsApp group named Afghanistan Travel Experience brings together over 600 people from places as far-flung as Mexico, India and Italy, who are already in the country or on their way out.
They pepper the group with questions, such as one from user Alberto asking if it is “haram” (forbidden) to travel with a dog, or if it’s a problem to have visible tattoos. Another named Soo, asked: “Is there a co-working space in Mazar “?
Header image: In this picture taken on March 25, Thai tourists pose for a group picture during their visit to the Kart-e-Sakhi Shrine in Kabul. — AFP
Pakistan and Afghanistan reached certain agreements during trade talks in Kabul, including beginning negotiations on a revised transit trade agreement and implementing a temporary admission document (TAD) for trade vehicle drivers, officials said on Friday.
Talks were held amid tensions following Pakistan’s March 18 airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Patika and Khost provinces in “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations”, which Afghan authorities said killed eight people.
The Foreign Office had confirmed the strikes, saying they were aimed at the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, which was responsible for multiple terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, including one on security forces in North Waziristan that martyred seven soldiers.
On Thursday, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a weekly press briefing that Commerce Secretary Mohammad Khurrum Agha visited Afghanistan from March 24-27 to discuss bilateral trade and transit with his Afghan counterpart Nooruddin Azizi.
The two sides discussed a bilateral Preferential Trade Agreement, implementing a TAD for trade vehicle drivers, multimodal air transit and issues related to transit trade.
“We are encouraged by the progress made on these issues and remain committed to promoting trade and people-to-people ties with Afghanistan,” the FO had said.
Pakistan embassy officials in Kabul said today that progress was achieved on multiple issues — including a bilateral preferential trade agreement, air transit, the operation of border crossings 24/7 for trade purposes, addressing the issues in transit trade through Afghanistan and Afghan Transit Trade that passes through Pakistan.
Afghan charge d’affaires Sardar Shakib Ahmad rushed to Kabul to brief officials about his meetings in Islamabad. He met acting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and briefed him regarding recent developments in the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, deputy foreign ministry spokesman Hafiz Zia Ahmad Takkal said.
Pakistan’s head of mission in Kabul Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani said the visit of the commerce ministry delegation was part of Pakistan’s efforts to build strong ties with Afghanistan in transit, trade and all other mutually beneficial areas.
“I am happy to report that this was a successful visit and both sides have agreed to work together for mutual benefit in a number of areas,” Nizamani said in a video statement.
He said Pakistan and Afghanistan will facilitate transit and bilateral trade and take all possible measures to create an environment conducive to continuous and productive trade and economic relations between the two countries.
Secretary Commerce Mohammad Khurram Agha led the Pakistani delegation in the two-day talks with Acting Minister of Industry and Commerce Azizi.
Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said both sides agreed to discuss the Afghan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) and decided that a revised agreement should be finalised within two months.
The revised 2010 APTTA expired before the Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021. Both sides had failed to agree on a new draft during the tenure of former President Ashraf Ghani.
Mujahid said it was also agreed that Pakistan would facilitate the transfer of goods from international containers to regional containers (cross-stuffing) in the ports of Karachi in the next six months.
An agreement was also reached regarding preferential trade, where both sides will give tariff preferences to 10 items of export goods, eight of which are agricultural and two industrial.
Furthermore, an agreement was reached on providing temporary free licenses for truck traffic over a one-year trial period, which will be implemented from May 2024 onwards.
Both sides also reached a consensus on the transfer of goods through both countries’ airports in the form of multi-modal air transit, which will start in the next two months.
As part of Pakistan’s recent measures regarding Afghanistan’s transit goods, it was agreed that within a week, the mandatory bank guarantee should be removed and insurance should be used as before. Necessary measures will be taken to remove other obstacles in consultation with the parties.
Both sides also agreed to abandon barter and establish and develop banking relationships. The export of coal from Afghanistan to Pakistan was discussed and the Pakistani side expressed its readiness to buy it at the international price.
Abdul Salam Jawad, spokesman for the Afghan commerce ministry, said: “We will take up the issue of a ban on several transit items. Pakistan has banned the import of certain items under the transit agreement.”
Pak-Afghan traders welcome agreements
Pakistani and Afghan delegates offer a prayer after agreements were reached on trade during talks in Kabul. — Pakistani embassy in Kabul
Pakistani and Afghan business leaders welcomed the agreements and said it would help normalise transit and trade relations.
Khan Jan Alokozai, co-chairman of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI), noted that both countries reached certain useful agreements after a long time.
“There was a determination by both sides to bring transit and bilateral relations to normal. A review of the APTTA is an achievement. All problems have not been resolved but the agreements have paved the way for solutions to problems,” Alkozai told Dawn.com.
Highlighting that agreements were signed but sometimes were not implemented. “We will see if they are implemented, but I can say we are moving in the right direction.”
Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, coordinator of PAJCCI for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was confident that the agreements would bring back nearly 70 per cent of transit trade to Pakistani ports, which had been shifted from Karachi ports to Iranian ports.
“Ending the condition of 100pc bank guarantee for Afghan importers, reviewing the negative list and imposing a 10pc duty on Afghan imports are key decisions to end hurdles in trade relations,” Peshawar-based Sarhadi told Dawn.com.
He also welcomed an end to the conditions of visas and passports for Afghan drivers and cleaners.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Friday expressed hope for reaching a Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by the end of the fiscal year (June 30), adding that there haven’t been any final discussions with the Fund yet.
The $3 billion standby arrangement with the global lender expires on April 11, and the two sides reached a staff-level agreement regarding the disbursal of the final tranche of $1.1bn last week. The minister has previously voiced the government’s intention to seek “larger and longer” bailout package from the IMF.
During the gong ceremony at the Pakistan Stock Exchange, the finance minister elaborated that the details of the deal would be discussed during the spring meetings in Washington where the delegation led by him would go around “14th to 15th April”.
The finance minister elaborated that they had requested to “enter a larger and longer programme” during the SLA discussions to which the IMF was receptive, adding that the size of programme hasn’t been decided yet.
“We need the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to execute the structural reform agenda,” he said, “The operative word here is execution, not getting into debating clubs or policy prescriptions. We have known the what and the why for decades.”
Aurangzeb added that the request to enter the EFF will be further formalised in spring.
“But there hasn’t been any final discussion or agreement with them but it is our wish that by the time we wrap up this fiscal year, the SLA is reached,” he stated, adding that the previous SLA was important to ensure continuity of macroeconomic stability.
Over implementing the reforms, Aurangzeb elaborated, “And we have gone into the implementation stage in the last few weeks with a two-pronged strategy.”
“There is one short-term to medium-term [phase], which is closing the gaps, stemming the leakages and the losses,” he said, adding “And the second one is phasing in the structural reforms in the medium to longer-term.”
He gave the example of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)’s challenge of stemming leakages: “We have the Track and Trace system — we have the functionality. [However], the implementation has been lax therefore the operational effectiveness is just not there.”
Regarding other leakages, he mentioned that roughly Rs1.7 trillion of litigation were languishing in tribunals, adding that in conjunction with the law minister and the attorney general for Pakistan (AGP), they have asked the tribunals to make decisions in the next three months for timely execution.
“Concurrently, we start bringing the undertaxed and untaxed sectors into the fold along with the digitalisation effort which has been done in some vertical,” he said that the end-to-end digitalisation was necessary to bring transparency and a “superior client experience”.
He said that would restore trust and confidence in this institution and also “deal with some aspects of the social contract”.
Trade with India not yet brought to the table
While talking to a group of reporters, the finance minister, when asked about decision regarding trade relations with India, stated: “I cannot comment on that, this is ultimately the prime minister, cabinet and parliament’s decision, but no such thing has come to my table yet.”
As for the FBR’s digitalisation agenda, Aurangzeb stated that the Request for Proposal (RFP) for a “world class consultant” would issued on April 8th and that the consultant hired would be someone who has experience in emerging markets such as Pakistan.
“God willing, by the end of April we will be appointing that consultant,” he said.
Previously, the minister had apprised the FBR officials of his top priority plan hovering around two pillars — documentation of the economy and end-to-end digitalisation of the tax system.
The Foreign Office (FO) said on Thursday that there was no doubt that Tuesday’s suicide attack in Bisham — which claimed the lives of six people including five Chinese nationals — was “orchestrated by the enemies of Pak-China friendship”.
The five Chinese engineers — and their Pakistani driver — were killed in the suicide bombing on Tuesday while travelling between Islamabad and a hydroelectric dam construction site in Dasu, in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The bus was attacked in the Bisham city of KP’s Shangla district.
The attack prompted China to demand a thorough probe into the deadly blast and security for its citizens. In response, Islamabad announced a swift probe to hold the “perpetrators and accomplices” accountable.
According to police, the bus was travelling from Islamabad to Kohistan when it came under the attack on Karakoram Highway. “It was a suicide attack on the Chinese convoy and an explosive-laden vehicle approaching from Kohistan hit the bus,” Bisham Sub Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Juma Rehman told Dawn. SDPO Rehman said that following the attack, the bus caught fire and fell into the ravine.
“A huge amount of explosives were used in the attack, the force of which threw the bus into the ravine,” he said. The officer said that police cordoned off the area to collect evidence. “We have also collected body parts of the suspected suicide bomber from the site,” SDPO Rehman said.
Soon after the bombing, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif along with his cabinet members visited the Chinese embassy to assure Beijing about security for its citizens and promise a comprehensive probe into the suicide bombing.
On Wednesday, government reiterated its resolve to comprehensively combat terrorism by employing all resources available to the state and bring the perpetrators to justice swiftly. In response to the Chinese government’s demand to promptly investigate the incident and act against those involved, the government also decided to form a joint investigation team (JIT) to probe the attack.
Today, FO Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch addressed a weekly press briefing where she said that Pakistan was contact with the Chinese government regarding the “heinous attack”.
She said Pakistan was “fully committed to bringing terrorists, and their facilitators and abettors to justice”.
“Such despicable attacks further strengthen Pakistan’s resolve in combatting terrorism in all of its forms and manifestations,” the FO spokesperson said.
“Pakistan and China are close friends and iron brothers. We have no doubt that the Bisham terror attack was orchestrated by the enemies of Pakistan-China friendship,” she stated.
“Together, we will resolutely act against all such acts and forces and defeat them,” Baloch said.
“Pakistan will continue to work with our Chinese brothers in ensuring the safety and security of Chinese nationals, projects and institutions in Pakistan,” she said.
Deaths of Chinese prompt renewed anti-terror resolve
The commitment to eradicate terrorism was echoed in an emergency meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The high-level meeting was also attended by Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Gen Asim Munir, federal ministers, all chief ministers, chief secretaries, inspector generals of the provinces, chief secretaries, and IGs of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
It was decided in the meeting that the government would crush the resurgence of terrorism in the country at any cost.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), PM Shehbaz offered his deepest condolences to the victims’ families and assured them that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
The premier said the whole nation was saddened by the loss of Chinese lives and also gave instructions for a thorough joint investigation to be conducted, utilising all state resources.
“The acts targeting Pakistan-China friendship are particularly aimed at creating mistrust between the two iron brothers,” the prime minister was quoted as saying in the official statement.
During the meeting, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Asim Munir reiterated the resolve of armed forces to eliminate the scourge of terrorism afflicting the country. Noting the recent surge in terrorist incidents, Gen Munir underestimated the resilience and grit of the state and the people of Pakistan“.
“We shall not leave any stone unturned to ensure that every foreign citizen, especially Chinese nationals, contributing to the prosperity of Pakistan, is safe and secure in Pakistan. We shall fight terrorism with all our might, to the very end,” he added.
UNSC condemns attack
The UN Security Council (UNSC) also urged all UN member states to actively cooperate with Pakistan and China in apprehending the perpetrators of the Bisham attack.
In a statement issued in New York on Wednesday, the Security Council members strongly condemned the “heinous and cowardly terrorist attack”.
The 15-state council, including the five veto powers, reaffirmed that “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security”.
They emphasised the importance of apprehending perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of such reprehensible acts and ensuring their prosecution.
The council urged all states, in compliance with their obligations and relevant Security Council resolutions, to actively collaborate with the governments of Pakistan and China, as well as other relevant authorities, in this matter.
Brightly coloured pink buses, seldom seen on the roads of Karachi, are like a fragile thread suturing the wounds borne by women after years of transport woes and facing harassment on the city’s streets.
Emblazoned with logos of various brands, and loaded with women belonging to different classes and ethnicities, the dedicated bus service, comprising 18 vehicles only runs on three main routes — Model Colony to Merewether Tower, North Karachi to Korangi and Numaish Chowrangi to Sea View Beach.
The pink bus fleet is part of a public initiative called the Sindh Peoples Intra District Project launched in 2021. The two parties involved in this project are the Government of Sindh (GsS) and the National Radio and Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC).
The latter is the contractor responsible for the maintenance and operations of the buses and their depots. Meanwhile, the GOS provides the subsidies and logistical support to run the project.
A bus for their own
Sitting on a bench at a footpath, parallel to Shahrea Faisal — the major thoroughfare connecting almost all of Karachi — was Wajahat Fatima who has commuted via the pink bus every day since its launch last year.
Putting aside the book she had been reading for the past hour while waiting for the bus, she stood up with great difficulty and stepped closer to the edge of the footpath once the bus was in sight.
The bus driver parked close to the edge of the footpath as the conductor came out to assist Fatima climb the bus. She sat on one of the two seats allocated for disabled persons. “Ever since I got into an accident last year there has been constant joint pain in my leg,” said Fatima, who works at a shipping company.
She took out a small portable stool from inside her bag and set it on the floor to rest her leg on. Although it occupied space, none of the women standing inside the crowded bus seemed to complain; rather they made space for her.
“The bus has been a blessing for women like me who need to sit down, men in the other bus service [red bus] hog up the seats for the disabled and refuse to stand up, even though they are able-bodied,” she lamented.
While Wajahat chooses to wait for the bus, most women board any available.
“All the buses, whether pink, green, red, or white, provide the same comfort. It doesn’t matter which bus you get on, as long as you don’t have to wait on the bus stand for too long — that gets very uncomfortable,” Zareen Khan noted, as she awaited a bus that would take her from II Chundrigarh Road to Model Town.
As per the NRTC operator, Abdul Shakoor, the pink bus is running with a headway time of 30 minutes, which means that one should be able to get a pink bus every 30 minutes on its three routes.
However, it seems to be far from the truth. The author herself was unable to get a bus even after waiting for two hours, from 3:30pm to 5:30pm on the Merewether Clock Tower and II Chundrigar bus stop for four days in a row.
When Dawn.com asked Shakoor about the shortage of buses, there was no response.
Unfulfilled promises
When the bus was launched last year, women and urban planners talking to the author had pointed out how safety at bus stops would be essential in making transport safe for women. At the time, then managing director (MD) of the Sindh Mass Transit Authority (SMTA) Zubair Channa had said that the authority was working on establishing more bus stops and that they “have asked the authorities and are waiting for approvals”.
However, the situation seems to remain the same today.
People waiting for the people bus on the footpath near Karachi Press Club roundabout
The incumbent MD of SMTA, Kamal Dayo, told Dawn.com that the authority and contractors did build some stops but the cameras, benches, and lights installed were stolen by “drug addicts”.
“We asked the Karachi Electric (KE) for light connections at the bus stops, however, the response had been lukewarm. Hence, to solve that issue, we took connections from nearby installations,” Dayo said. This is, however, illegal and when the KE found out, they sent detection bills to the operator worth Rs0.2 million.
“We are trying to address the objections raised by KE. However, it takes months; until then the contractors, who invested money in building the bus stop, can’t stop running the operations; it would cause them huge losses,” Bashir Hussain, the SMTA Director Admin & Finance, pointed out.
Dayo said that another problem is that there are 17 land-owning agencies in Karachi, and to make depots on even one route, they have to take permission from several different authorities. “There are bureaucratic hurdles in getting the facilities to the public because each department has its own laws, rules, and regulations. There should be exemptions when you’re running public projects,” said the SMTA MD.
In the inaugural ceremony, there was also talk of women driving these buses.
Following that promise, six months on, a bus driver training programme was launched in which 12 women were trained to drive these buses. To date, however, no woman has been seen in the driver’s seat.
“Two of the 12 women we trained had a Light Traffic Vehicle (LTV) license and after the training, they obtained the Heavy Traffic Vehicle (HTV) license,” said Huma Ashar, the gender specialist at SMTA. To be able to drive a pink bus, women need a permanent HTV license. To obtain this, a person needs three years of experience driving an LTV, followed by three months on a learner’s HTV license.
Most women selected for training had no prior experience, hence, they were only given training on LTV licenses. However, as the women trained belonged to less-privileged backgrounds, they lacked access to driving vehicles in the first place. It therefore made it highly unlikely for them to have enough driving experience to apply for an HTV license.
The two women who have received a learner’s HTV licence are unable to drive the pink buses because the contractors are hesitant to put them on board as drivers.
“We are trying to convince the contractors to put them in the bus as co-drivers so they can observe, learn and practice but they [contractors] are reluctant to do so,” said Ashraf. He added that they will start training new batches of women from May.
Another problem for commuters who want to use pink buses is the lack of information.
While there is an app called the People Bus Service, developed by Kentkart, which gives information about the routes, closest bus stops, and tariffs, it lacks important features, as pointed out by users in the review section of the app on Google store, such as live tracking of the buses as well as specific information about pink buses.
Users also said that the option to buy tickets is unavailable online which they found inconvenient.
Cracks in the system
When the provincial minister for transport and mass transit, Sharjeel Memon added two routes to the pink bus in March last year, after the successful run of the bus on a single route, he said that they would add more in the future.
WOMEN wait for their turn to board a Pink Bus to be the first to use the women-only service in Hyderabad.—PPI
After that, pink buses were launched in Hyderabad, however, their operation quickly ceased due to a “lack of ridership”.
When Dawn.com asked Dayo about the lack of growth, he said that the ridership of the bus is very low — at only 1,800 per day — which makes it unsustainable for the operator.
“It is us who have forcefully told them to run the operations. Otherwise, it would have closed down,” Dayo noted.
Dayo’s statistics are, however, contradictory to those provided by the project director of NRTC, Sohaib Shafique, who said that the ridership of pink buses stands at 2,700 per day on weekdays and 1,000 per day on weekends. He added that for the whole of last year, they have worked on understanding the pattern on which women use the bus and in the future, they will incorporate the lessons learnt to improve the service.
For now, Shafique said that the cost is spread among and absorbed by the whole operation of Peoples Bus Service. Moreover, they have increased the headway from an initial nine minutes to 15-20 minutes.
“We will keep it running for the next 12 years with concessions from the government and in the meantime, figure out a way to run it sustainably without the GoS,” added Shafique.
One of the ways the contractors plan to make the operation sustainable is by introducing inter-feeder routes which means that the buses would go beyond the main arteries on which they are currently running, onboarding people who are far from the main roads.
“The connection will hopefully increase the ridership, making the service sustainable,” said the project director.
“We are also getting some non-fare revenues such as through advertisements on buses and bus stops, but it isn’t much,” he explained.
While the people running the operations are figuring out a way to keep the pink bus operational, daily commuters fear that the closure of the service will cause great problems.
“It would be hell to commute in the red bus; they shouldn’t even think about closing it down, rather they should put more buses in this fleet,” said Fatima.
For now, the service has run smoothly for a year. The speculation that it was a political gimmick seems to have lost merit as buses are still being seen on the roads even after the elections in which the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) won with a majority.
Regardless of whom it benefits and the popularity it has brought to the PPP, the pink bus has become a safe haven for women in Karachi, giving them the much-needed courage to step into the public after years of harassment and unwanted male gaze on the roads.
Header image: Pink bus — photo taken from Wikimedia Commons
In India’s general elections, scheduled for April-May 2024, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to repeat, if not outdo, its 2019 performance.
In those elections, the party and its allies garnered 45 per cent of the vote share and won over 300 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. Few observers had anticipated this scale of victory, subsequently attributed to factors ranging from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s persona, the BJP’s superior party organisation and higher levels of financial endowments, and its skillful blending of Hindutva, nationalism, and social welfare.
In the 2024 elections, the BJP is aiming to cross the 400-seat mark, building on the fervor created by the January 2024 inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
As the elections approach, we can expect analysts to mull over the same questions: why do people vote the way they do? What motivates voters, in India and elsewhere, to vote overwhelmingly for some parties and ignore others? Are voters rational entities or emotional beings?
While we have a growing understanding, as well as scholarship on the role of emotions in the context of protest politics, social movements, and riots, we have been left with the erroneous assumption that emotions are unimportant to electoral politics.
Scholarly efforts at understanding Indian voters have often focused on gauging their response to issues — the economy, unemployment, welfare — or examining their identity politics through the lenses of caste, class, and religion.
The prestigious Lokniti National Election Studies, for example, comprehensively documents voters’ knowledge, awareness, and perceptions of political developments in India that might impact their political behavior without sufficient attention to the feelings and passions engendered by electoral politics.
The neglect of emotions in electoral politics has led social scientists to ignore the importance of emotions in a key pillar of India’s democracy: elections. Meanwhile, the increasingly sophisticated analysis of elections could do more to integrate the study of emotion. Where does the studying of passions fit into the scholarship on routine electoral politics?
Narendra Modi in Telangana on March 17. — @narendramodi/X.
Our focus on emotions in Passionate Politics does not deny voters their rationality. Emotions are not non-rational. By definition, they suppose events or situations that we appraise as harmful or beneficial.
Neuroscientists have demonstrated that emotions support rationality and provide it with salience and goals. Furthermore, emotions are intrinsically social, embedded as they are in economic, cultural, and political processes.
Other scholars have begun to study emotions in South Asia and how they matter. Historian Margrit Pernau suggests that emotions matter at three different levels.
First, they impact the way humans experience the world around them. Second, they shape the process through which individuals (and social groups) endow their experiences with meaning and understand the world. Third, emotions provide the motivation to transform the interpretation of the world into acting in the world.
Such an understanding of emotions cautions against creating a dichotomy between emotional and rational analysis and between passion and reason. Indeed, just as the pursuit of rational interests is never emotionally neutral, passions often inhere their own rationalities.
In their insightful commentary on the politics of emotions in South Asia, anthropologists Amélie Blom and Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal distinguish between the representation of emotion, the ways in which it is experienced, and its expression. Representation of emotions describes how people’s emotions are represented by others. The expression of emotions draws on verbal and non-verbal markers, including self-reporting of how respondents feel. The experience of emotions relates to the emotions people actually feel.
Scholars of India have turned their attention to the politics of emotions in the country, as historians and anthropologists offer us rich and granular perspectives. The landscape of Indian politics is dotted with moments when passions, feelings, and emotions were on full display.
Attention to passions has tended to focus on cataclysmic events such as India’s Partition and communal violence that has blemished India’s record as a democracy, mass movements such as the cow protection campaigns, agitations against the implementation of affirmative action, and collective protests against such atrocities on women, children, and members of oppressed social groups.
Still, not enough has been done on the direct question of emotions in electoral politics, including how they apply to routine democratic practice. In its heyday as India’s dominant party, the Congress Party may well have benefitted from such passionate politics. In the first ever general elections after becoming a republic, held in 1951-52, the Congress Party under first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru won 45pc of the vote and 364 of 489 parliamentary seats.
In the second general election, the Congress Party improved its vote share (47pc) as well as seat share (371). In 1971, Indira Gandhi commanded 43pc of the vote and 352 seats out of 543, successfully translating a smaller vote share than Modi’s into larger seat-shares than he did in 2019.
In all three cases, passions among voters translated into their thumping support for the Congress Party. Sadly, we know very little of the emotions underpinning voters as they handed the Congress Party such crushing majorities.
This book is aimed at a contribution to understand the ways in which passions infuse the routine aspects of politics as election. The passionate politics described in the book are distinct from passions that are produced during such spectacular episodes as protests, riots, and social movements.
Instead, the aim has been to explicitly analyse the passions on display during, prior to, and following the elections, as well as contextualise them in hopes of making sense of the 2019 general elections.
This focus on a single empirical case furthers a theoretical contribution on the study of passions in politics — that emotion is entwined with reason, thereby contributing to render untenable the false dichotomy that is often drawn between the emotional and the rational.
Efforts to engage with emotions in politics, as in our volume, build on the pathways innovated by anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee in her fascinating ethnography of India’s 2009 General Elections. Her book focuses on “ordinary Indians’ experience of elections, and on what elections mean to them”.
The “expressive acts of voting” discussed in that work emerge from their feelings and emotions toward issues and politicians that journalists, academics, and activists might find far less interesting than Modi or Hindu nationalism.
In order to better understand the passionate politics that underpin electoral democracy in India, we need further conversations between political scientists, economists, sociologists, and anthropologists scrutinising this vital, understudied element of our democratic practice.
This article originally appeared in India in Transition, a publication of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania and has been reproduced with permission.
Calls emerged from various quarters on Wednesday for a probe into allegations made by six Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges against interference in judicial affairs by the country’s intelligence apparatus.
On Tuesday, six IHC judges — out of a total strength of eight — wrote a startling letter to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) members, regarding attempts to pressure judges through abduction and torture of their relatives as well as secret surveillance inside their homes.
The letter addressed to SJC members — Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, Supreme Court Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Munib Akhtar and IHC CJ Aamer Farooq and Peshawar High Court CJ Mohammad Ibrahim Khan — also questioned if there existed a state policy to “intimidate” and coerce judges.
The six judges also supported the demand of the former IHC judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, for a probe into the allegations of interference by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operatives.
In an open letter released today, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Additional Secretary Sardar Shahbaz Ali Khosa urged CJP Isa to take suo motu notice of the matter under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and conduct a “thorough and transparent (live) hearing” of the case.
He also called for an “immediate and rigorous scrutiny” into the allegations. “The judiciary must be a safe haven for the pursuit of justice, untouched by the shadow of coercion, fear, or undue influence,” Khosa said.
He also highlighted a “recent crackdown on journalists and media outlets who have reported on these alleged interferences” and urged CJP Isa to summon prominent journalists across Pakistan to detail the “extent of interference and coercion that the free press is being meted to on an everyday basis”.
The SCBA official further called for a meeting of the SJC to be convened on the issue and “not only ascertain the way forward but also fix responsibilities”.
“The SCBA of Pakistan, alongside lawyers and bar associations across the nation, will and must stand ready to support our judiciary in upholding the rule of law,” the open letter stated.
“For if we are not just today or turn a blind eye or a deaf ear, history will surely judge us harshly even if it is after fifty years,” it added.
Human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir termed the letter “huge”. “Everyone has known the pressure the courts have been under but the bravery of these 6 judges must be applauded,” she said.
PTI calls for ‘impartial inquiry’
Meanwhile, a statement posted on the X account of former prime minister Imran Khan — who is currently incarcerated — “welcomed the six brave judges […] who have highlighted the alarming state of affairs of the higher judiciary” and called for an “impartial inquiry” into the matter.
“This letter with its two annexures, brings on the record the brazen and shameful interference of the intelligence agencies in judicial matters, which is a damning indictment against the independence of the judiciary in the country,” the statement said.
“The fact that the judges have been intimidated and coerced into giving judgments based on political expediency raises a lot of questions on the fairness of the courts and their judgments over the last two years,” it added.
It said the letter also questioned the “credibility of the state narrative with results to May 9, an event instigated within the IHC when Chairman PTI Imran Khan was abducted and dragged from the court premises by paramilitary forces, who stormed the building of the IHC”.
Highlighting that a “wave of political victimisation has been unleashed” against the party, the PTI said that “courts have been unable to assert their authority or dispense justice”.
The statement emphasised that as the IHC and its lower courts were where cases against Imran were sub judice, “the fact that this court is under influence and pressure raises serious doubts on these cases as well”.
Judges lauded for showing ‘bravery’
PPP’s human rights cell president and former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the letter by the six judges about “their coercion, intimidation and invasion of privacy by agencies is beyond wildest imagination”.
“Sweeping it under the rug is inviting disaster, hastening implosion. Eternal gratitude to judges for standing up and calling [a] bluff at [a] huge risk,” he said.
“As an advocate of the high courts of Pakistan, I stand in solidarity with the judges of IHC,” said Barrister Khadija Siddiqi.
Activist Usama Khilji said that “the bar must stand with the bench with full force to uphold the independence of the judiciary in Pakistan”.
The letter
Dated March 25, the letter was signed by IHC Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Babar Sattar, Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Saman Rafat Imtiaz.
It mentioned seven instances of alleged interference and intimidation “to influence the outcome of cases of interest” by the intelligence officials, pointing out that when two out of three judges in the bench hearing the plea to disqualify PTI leader Imran Khan for concealing his alleged daughter opined that the case was not maintainable, they were pressured by “operatives of the ISI” through friends and relatives.
The situation got so stressful that one of the judges had to be admitted to hospital due to high blood pressure, the letter said.
According to the six judges, the matter was brought to the notice of the IHC chief justice and the then-CJP. The former informed the judges that he had “spoken to the DG-C of ISI and had been assured that no official from ISI will approach the judges of the IHC”.
The letter complained that “interference on the part of intelligence operatives” continued even after IHC CJ’s assurance.
It also referred to the abduction of an IHC judge’s brother-in-law by armed men who claimed to be ISI operatives. The victim was “administered electric shocks” and “forced to record a video” making false allegations, apparently against the judge.
“Subsequently, a complaint was filed against the judge of IHC before the SJC, accompanied by an orchestrated media campaign to bring pressure to bear upon the judge to resign.”
The letter revealed that in May 2023, an IHC inspection judge reported to the chief justice that district court judges were being intimidated and crackers were thrown into the house of one additional district and sessions judge.
The judge was even called to the IHC to verify the claims which he confirmed. But instead of probing the allegations, the judge “was made officer on special duty and transferred to IHC, before being sent back to Punjab as he was a judicial officer on deputation”.
The letter said that last year, during routine maintenance, an IHC judge found that his official residence had been bugged with spy cameras concealed in his drawing room and bedroom.
When data from surveillance equipment was recovered, it showed that “private videos of the judge and his family members” were stored. “The matter was brought to the attention of the IHC chief justice. There has been no determination of who installed the equipment and who is to be held accountable…”, the letter added.
Along with their letter to the SJC, the six judges also attached copies of letters written to Justice Farooq on May 10, 2023 and Feb 12, 2024.
The letters mentioned, among other complaints, ISI officials’ efforts to pressurise IHC judges and probe into the tax records of at least one judge “to seek a certain outcome”.
They added that it was imperative to determine whether there was a “policy on the part of the executive … implemented by intelligence operatives” to intimidate judges.
“[The] allegations of interference by operatives of ISI have been dealt with and relief has been granted to a former judge of IHC who was wronged. We believe that while such action was necessary, it may not be sufficient,” the letter said about Justice Siddiqui’s case.
The judges noted that the SJC’s code of conduct for judges did not outline the response to such incidents “that are tantamount to intimidation and interfere with judicial independence”.
They called for a judicial convention to discuss the interference of intelligence officials “that undermines independence of the judiciary”.
The consultation would help the Supreme Court to determine a course of action that judges could take “when they find themselves at the receiving end”, the letter said.
Bulls dominated the trading floor of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday as shares gained over 500 points in intraday trade, with analysts attributing the gains to “good progress” made regarding the privatisation of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).
On Tuesday, the federal cabinet approved the board of PIA Holding Company, with former State Bank governor Tariq Bajwa being appointed as its chairman.
The move was hailed as a significant development in the national carrier’s privatisation process as its liabilities and assets will be transferred to the holding company, which will be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. The board will include seven independent directors and four government officials.
Today, the benchmark KSE-100 index gained 520.58 points, or 0.79 per cent, to stand at 66,426.85 points at 11:14am from the previous close of 65,906.27.
Mohammed Sohail, chief executive of Topline Securities, said “good progress” made regarding the privatisation of the national carrier and a “likely new deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)” was helping market sentiment.
He highlighted that the benchmark index was once again closing in on the all-time high number of 66,427 points, which was seen in December.
Moreover, he said that foreign fund buying — as shown by National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL) data — also supported share prices “which are trading at an attractive price-to-earning ratio of less than four”.
He said that currently the country’s market was the best performing market with the highest gains in last six months.
Shahab Farooq, director of research at Next Capital Limited, attributed the rally to “positive developments” on the macroeconomic front such as the progression of PIA’s privatisation and moving ahead with the new IMF deal.
“The finance minister’s statement regarding interest rates and foreign buying are [also] fueling positive sentiments in the market,” he said.
Yousuf M. Farooq, director of research at Chase Securities, said, “The relative calm on the political front, coupled with the finance minister’s rational interview on a media channel, alongside institutional and foreign buying this morning, has kept investors upbeat.”
However, he warned that participants were getting increasingly concerned about the record high interest rate “which could potentially lead to more defaults and non-performing loans (NPLs), particularly in the textile sector where higher energy costs compared to peers are making textile firms uncompetitive”.
The Pakistan cricket team is set to visit Australia for a white-ball series scheduled for November this year as Cricket Australia (CA) on Tuesday released its international schedule for the 2024-25 season.
In a press release, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said that the tour — which will mark the start of Australia’s white-ball schedule for the summer of 2024-25 — would comprise six games in total.
It said that three one-day internationals (ODIs) and as many T20Is will be played across six venues from November 4 to 18.
“Pakistan will be returning to Australia after a gap of almost one year, after having competed in the Benaud-Qadir Trophy which comprised three Test matches played across Perth, Sydney and Melbourne in December 2023-January 2024,” the PCB said.
The cricket board further said that the ODI series would begin on November 4 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before moving to Adelaide and Perth on November 8 and 10, respectively.
Pakistan last played an ODI series on Australian soil back in 2016, which saw the home side come out on top, the PCB said.
Subsequently, Pakistan and Australia will face each face-off in the three T20Is. Pakistan’s last T20I outing on Australian soil was back in 2022, wherein the men in green appeared in the final of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.
“The series will start at The Gabba in Brisbane. Action will then move to the Sydney Cricket Ground; Pakistan’s last T20I at the venue saw them beat New Zealand at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup semi-final. Hobart will be the last stop on the tour, where the final T20I will be played on November 18,” the PCB said.
Australia-India Test series
Meanwhile, CA also announced that Perth will host the first match of a blockbuster five-Test series against India from November 22.
The series will then move to Adelaide for a day-night Test and then Brisbane’s Gabba, which traditionally was the opening venue of Australia’s Test summer.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground will stage the Boxing Day Test and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series will wrap up at Sydney Cricket Ground starting on January 3.
CA chief executive Nick Hockley called it “one of the most highly anticipated summers of cricket in memory”.
“Fittingly, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy has been put on the same footing as the (men’s) Ashes with a five-Test series for the first time since 1991-92,” he said.
Australia have not beaten India in a home series since 2014-2015.
The hosts have, however, won all four previous Tests at Perth Stadium.
“We’re confident the schedule will maximise viewership and attendance and there will be a tremendous atmosphere in stadiums across the country,” said Hockley.
PPP Central Information Secretary Faisal Karim Kundi on Tuesday asserted that opposition parties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would spring a “surprise” in the upcoming Senate elections.
He made the remarks while addressing a press conference in Islamabad with PPP General Secretary Nayyer Bukhari and former Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) senator Talha Mahmood — who announced that he would be joining the party.
“As soon as the oath (on reserved seats) is taken, opposition parties in KP will give a surprise in the Senate elections,” Kundi said.
The PPP leader also criticised the KP government for employing “delaying tactics” in the oath-taking of MPAs on reserved seats. Noting that the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) had been denied reserved seats by the Peshawar High Court, he said the PPP wanted the oath-taking to take place as soon as possible.
He said the PTI-SIC was afraid that “they would lose many Senate seats” if oaths were administered to women and minorities on reserved seats.
The PPP leader stated that the PTI-SIC was violating the Constitution and law, urging KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati to fulfil his constitutional role.
Kundi further said there were reports of a “forward bloc” within the PTI-SIC in Punjab and that there were also rumours of the same happening in KP.
“I am also hearing such voices in KP that there there may soon be a press conference, and a forward bloc may be announced,” he said. Kundi further said that “more friends from KP” were in contact with the party and would join it.
JUI-F’s Talha Mahmood joins PPP
Meanwhile, former JUI-F senator Mahmood announced in the same press conference that he was joining the PPP.
“In my opinion, Pakistan right now immensely needs […] that I do some work on the national level. And on the national level, I think there is no other party other than the PPP in the current circumstances.
“Therefore, I have decided […] I have joined the PPP and they have shown me respect. The PPP’s history is that they have stood by in difficult times and tried to play their role in improving Pakistan’s situation,” he added.
Mahmood said that the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had invited him to join his party. The former religious affairs minister added President Asif Ali Zardari also held a “detailed meeting” with him a week ago and invited him to join the PPP.
Recalling that he had been a part of the JUI-F ever since he joined politics, Mahmood highlighted that Pakistan currently faced “various” challenges.
The former senator, whose tenure ended earlier this month, recalled that he had also served as the chairman of the Senate committees on finance and interior.
“In the past 18 years, I did not seek any privileges from the government of Pakistan. Neither did I take any salary nor any other kind of privilege,” he said.
Bukhari welcomed Mahmood to the party, saying, “We all, on our behalf and the party’s, welcome Talha Mahmood sahib into the PPP.
“You expressed trust in the party leadership [and] considered the PPP a party that can steer the country out of the crises under current circumstances,” he said.
Highlighting Mahmood’s role as a senator from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Bukhari said, “We hope that his role in the PPP will be very positive as well.”
LAHORE: The ongoing tussle for power in the Pakistan Hockey Federation intensified on Monday when Tariq Hussain Bugti, who took the vote of confidence from the divided Congress on March 21 in Islamabad, sacked a number of officials believed to be close to his rival group.
Bugti visited the PHF office in Lahore and sacked all the officials, who had a soft corner for the rival group — headed by PPP MNA Shehla Raza — who took the vote of confidence from her like-minded members of the PHF Congress meeting held in Karachi on March 19.
The employees who were sacked included Ali Abbas (executive secretary), Khalid Bashir (administrator) and Qadeer Bashir (assistant admin).
Tariq said that he had also registered an FIR against Haider Hussain, who is working as secretary under Shehla-headed federation.
“We have got an FIR registered against Haider for taking home the PHF office documents and using the official PHF email [account] correspondence with the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and the Asia Hockey Federation (AHF),” Tariq said while addressing a press conference alongside PHF secretary Rana Mujahid in Lahore on Monday.
When highlighted that he had sent a letter to the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination (IPC) on Dec 28 last year for placing all the PHF presidents and secretaries who had worked from 2008 to 2022 on the exit control list and now he was working with the same officials, Bugti said the investigation into the registered cases with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) would continue and if anyone was punished in those cases, he would not be allowed to work with the PHF.
It may be mentioned here that Mujahid, Asif Bajwa, Shahbaz Senior as secretaries and Qasim Zia, Akhtar Rasool and Brig Khalid Sajjad Khokhar as presidents had worked in the PHF from 2008 to 2022.
Tariq further said that show-cause notices had been issued to the Karachi Hockey Association office-bearers for their “unconstitutional activities against the PHF”.
According to Tariq, he was expecting a meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif after April 2 in which he would request him to support the PHF financially insisting “huge funds are required to put the federation’s affairs back on track”.
He said that Mujahid would finalise a programme of hockey activities to present it to the PM.
To a question, Tariq said that the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) had issued the notification of his election as PHF president while the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) had also endorsed his election by attending the March 21 Congress in Islamabad.
He said that the PHF bank accounts had also been restored and the staff salaries due for the last seven months, would also be cleared soon.
“The arrears of the Pakistan’s senior and junior teams will also be paid soon.”
Later on Monday, Bugti and Mujahid went to the Olympic House and met POA secretary general Khalid Mahmood.
When Mohammad Hasan returned to his hometown in Gilgit-Baltistan last month, he was welcomed by a parched Skardu gasping for precipitation. The peaks encircling the town, usually hidden under a blanket of snow, looked livid with thirst.
In neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, ‘hotspots’ Malam Jabba, Swat and Kalam also failed to transition from brown to white. The cities’ otherwise crowded streets only sported desperate shopkeepers cajoling disappointed tourists.
Snow and rain had eluded the northern areas in the peak of winter.
On the other hand, down south, floods wreaked havoc in Balochistan — that too in February. Gwadar received over 2,200 millimetres of rain within a span of just a few days, while other areas of the province recorded freezing temperatures.
In the southeast, an ‘unusual’ cold wave left Sindh shivering. Karachi saw temperatures going down to 11 degrees Celsius earlier this month, recording the coldest-ever March since 1979.
Just three months into 2024, Pakistan already seems to be treading a path of extremities (no, I am not talking about the post-election situation). So what is making the weather bipolar?
Snow deficit
Across Pakistan, January generally qualifies as the coldest month of the year and sees the highest amount of rain or snowfall, particularly in the upper regions. But in KP and GB, this year brought a “big and rare snow deficit”.
“By this time of the year (December-January), the streets should have been covered with seven to eight feet of snow,” said Hasan, a travel photographer. Instead, what he met were dry weather and dust pollution.
The average snowfall across the country during these months is 47.5 inches. But this year was very different because January was coming to an end and Pakistan had only received one to two inches of snow.
While the prolonged dry spell in both KP and GB finally broke in the beginning of February, Chief Meteorologist Sardar Sarfraz said these new patterns were nothing less than “alarming”.
“Snowfall on the mountains keeps the flow in rivers and streams going during spring and summers,” he told Dawn.com, explaining that this water does not just help with domestic use but also produces electricity, helps with irrigation and feeds dams.
The snow in January, he continued, is solid, stagnant and lasts longer than other months. “The lifetime of the snowfall in February and March is less and it melts faster,” Sarfraz said.
This means that the country may face a water and food shortage this year. But how?
The journey of water from up north down to the plains of Punjab and further south towards the Indus Delta is fed by snowmelts. For instance, water from the mountains of Kashmir feeds the Mangla and Tarbela dams, while the Indus River travels all the way from GB to the Kotri Barrage in Jamshoro.
“If the water flow is not good, these water expeditions will be affected and that would in turn harm irrigation,” Sarfraz elaborated. For an agro-based country like ours, this poses a major risk.
Moreover, the economy of KP and GB primarily thrives on tourism. Every year, people from across the country, throng up to Naran, Kaghan, Hunza and other areas only to enjoy winters.
But many of those who made the tiring journey up north this year came back disheartened, and the reason was just one: no snow. Ali Sheikh, a Rawalpindi-based traveller, said the ski resorts of Malam Jabba and Kalam, once packed with tourists, were empty in January.
“It seemed as if a strange drought had hit these areas,” he recalled.
This “drought” had hit both the mountains and the locals alike. Shopkeepers and vendors who depend on tourists for their livelihood had to fend for themselves through alternative means.
Dr Tariq Rauf, a PhD scholar who works on disaster management in Kohistan, blamed seasonal shifts for these weather patterns. He explained that the number of seasons over the past several years, even up north, has reduced to just two — summer and winter.
“It is either the monsoon rains or the winter landslides. There is nothing in between,” he told Dawn.com, explaining that average temperatures have increased. “Even in winters, temperatures are relatively warmer, which is forcing the glaciers to melt rapidly.
“And when these glaciers melt at such a pace, they bring floods — similar to or worse than the 2022 disaster.”
Gwadar deluge
More than 1,400 kilometres to the south, just as February came to a close, a storm hit Balochistan. Record-breaking rains ravaged several areas of the province, especially Gwadar — a city that the government boasts for its development and overseas investment — and neighbouring towns, and triggered floods.
“It rained for two consecutive days,” said Muhammad Bizenjo, a resident. “Our houses were flooded. The furniture in my house was swimming in waist-high water.”
Next door, the walls of Yaqoob’s room had caved in, forcing him to spend the night on the roof of their katcha makaan. “At 3am, when there was no other option, I waded to my sister’s house and have been living here with my wife and children ever since,” the 34-year-old government employee said.
The aftermath of the chaotic rains that lashed Gwadar. — Photo shared by Yaqoob
Two weeks on, Yaqoob has still not been able to return home. His house, located in the Thanawar area of Gwadar, bore the cracks of the rain assault. They were, however, now hidden with cheap plaster. Several of his neighbours had a similar story to tell.
According to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, at least 10 people lost their lives during the February-March rains. Hundreds of houses were either completely or partially damaged in the floods — they were not just makaans, but tiny abodes built with life-long savings.
While incessant showers battered Gwadar, temperatures in other areas of the province tanked below zero, paralysing life.
Incessant rains wreak havoc in Gwadar. — Photo shared by Yaqoob
“For the first time in years, major stations across Balochistan recorded the lowest day and night temperatures,” the chief meteorologist told Dawn.com.
Besides drowning Gwadar, these rains and snowfalls also penetrated down to Karachi, resulting in an unusual cold wave in March. The average daily temperature in the city during this month lies between 32.6 degrees in the day and 19 degrees at night.
But this time, Karachiites, many of whom had put away their winter clothes for the year, saw temperatures going as low as 11 degrees Celsius — that too in March.
Dr Masood Arshad, senior director of programmes at WWF-Pakistan, attributed the Balochistan rains to the “La Nina phenomenon”.
La Nina, literally translating to “little girl” in Spanish, is a weather condition which strengthens the south-westerly jet, responsible for bringing in the winter season over Pakistan. It translates into intermittent waves of extremely cold weather throughout the season and has thus resulted in much cooler temperatures not only up north but also in the south.
“Climate change has further strengthened the impact of La Nina. There is more moisture in the air due to global warming. In summer, it leads to monsoons while in winter it leads to cooler temperatures,” Arshad explained.
In the case of Balochistan, he continued, this phenomenon resulted in significant rains. Curtailment of natural drainage due to development activities further served as the cherry on top.
Bizenjo concurred. He said drainage in Gwadar had been severely affected due to the construction of the Marine Drive and Expressway, highlighting that the roads had been built at a higher height than the city.
“Earlier, the water used to be directly drained into the sea, but that entire process has been disturbed now,” he added.
Invisible forces
Amid the tug-of-war between rain and snow, the plains of Punjab remained invisible due to impenetrable fog and toxic smog.
For the past several years, Pakistan has been topping the chart of toxicity, with the air quality index showing Lahore and Karachi as the most polluted cities numerous times.
Before delving deeper into this problem, let’s first understand the difference between fog and smog. Fog consists of water droplets in the air, whereas smog is a serious air pollutant that combines fog and smoke. Fog makes it hard to notice things from a distance but isn’t dangerous to health, while long-term exposure to smog causes chronic conditions such as asthma, or lung problems.
The causes of smog are complex and multifaceted, involving both natural and human factors. Some of the natural factors include low wind speed, high humidity, and temperature inversion, which trap the pollutants near the ground.
Punjab reported plenty of both smog and fog from December to late February. And the already bad situation was worsened by dry weather, prompting the provincial government to resort to artificial rain.
WWF’s Arshad told Dawn.com that the absence of western disturbances — a weather pattern that brings moisture from the Mediterranean — created very dry weather conditions in November, December and January in both Pakistan and India.
This resulted in reduced temperatures as well as intense fog and smog, he said.
To put it simply, when the temperature drops and cold air blankets the ground, it traps the pollutants — think of it like a pollutant-catching blanket that covers the ground during winter. The particles in cold air also naturally hold less moisture, which isn’t exactly ideal because rain helps wash away pollutants.
According to a 2019 study, titled Falling Trend of Western Disturbances in Future Climate Simulations, winter precipitation in northern India and Pakistan was projected to decrease over the coming century due to falling western disturbance activity.
“The decline in WD frequency and intensity will cause a decrease in mean winter rainfall over Pakistan and northern India amounting to about 15 per cent of the mean,” it highlighted.
But at the same, another trend has been noted in western disturbances is their increasingly frequent occurrences in May, June and July, as highlighted by Kieran Hunt, a meteorology research fellow, in his analysis of western disturbances.
Hunt’s most important finding was the increase in monsoonal western disturbances, which means that “catastrophic events”, like floods, are becoming “much more frequent”.
What next?
But that is just the first three months of the year. From the looks of it, these extreme climate events don’t seem to end here.
The arrival of unexpected weather conditions in the spring months of this year is an indication that floods, if they hit Pakistan again this year, are only going to get worse.
As disaster and climate vulnerability expert Fatima Yasin put it, the rising sea temperatures had warmed up oceans, which in turn triggered a host of climate-related activities such as prolonged summers, unpredictable rainfall and everything else which is not in sync with the natural order of things.
The fact that the surface temperature of the world’s oceans hit its highest-ever level — global average daily sea surface temperatures hit 20.96 Celsius in August, breaking the record of 20.95C reached in 2016 — only adds weight to Yasin’s analysis.
The rising temperature of the oceans has nearly doubled the melting speed of glaciers over the last two decades. The glaciers of the Hindukush and Himalayan ranges, which cap almost the whole South Asian region, including Pakistan, are particularly vulnerable to being affected and could lose up to 75pc of their volume by the turn of the century, scientists warn.
The instability caused by global warming is not going to spare any of the five elements of nature — air, water, fire, earth and space — all of which are interconnected. Floods, droughts and natural disasters have occurred throughout the course of human existence, but the exponential rise in the scale and ferociousness of such events is telling of the times to come.
