Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Questio­ning the bonafides of the petitioner, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah on Friday said sometimes he felt tired of pushing too hard to find errors in the amendment made to the National Account­ability Ordinance (NAO). If someone believes that the amendment is tailored to benefit certain politicians and their family members, then the only available remedy is to throw …

TOBA TEK SINGH: The Faisalabad Anti-Terrorism Court on Friday sent 83 Jaranwala riot suspects on physical remand until Sept 9. At the end of their physical remand, they were produced before the court with a request to grant further remand for investigation. A spokesperson for the Faisalabad city police said that they were arrested in the Jaranwala city police FIR numbers: 1260, …

ISLAMABAD: Amid continued unrest over inflated power bills across the country, the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat on Friday termed the issue a national crisis. Taking serious notice of the hike in electricity prices, the committee noted that a number of suicide cases linked to excessive billing have been reported from different areas. Committee Chairman Rana Maqbool Ahmad, who belongs to PML-N, stated that …

NORTH WAZIRISTAN/KHYBER: Three military personnel, including an officer, were martyred in separate attacks in North Waziristan and Khyber districts, according to the military’s media wing. A statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Friday that two security personnel, including a major, were martyred during an intelligence-based operation in Miramshah area of North Waziristan. The operation was being carried …

ISLAMABAD: As a countrywide wheel-jam and shutter-down strike is being observed today (Saturday) on inflated electricity bills, Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has called it a “non-issue”, insisting that it was being raised by some political parties as a “tool” in their election campaigns. “It is not a very serious issue, but political parties are in election mode and using it …

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday dispelled rumours about holding an emergency meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), saying that such reports were “completely baseless”. “The reports making rounds in media about holding of an emergency meeting of the MPC of SBP are completely baseless,” the central bank said on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).   …

QUETTA: Balochistan National Party-­Mengal (BNP-M) Pres­i­dent Sardar Akhtar Mengal has announced that his party would contest the upcoming elections on the slogan of “recovery of missing persons”. He lamented that despite raising the issue at all forums, nothing was done by the government to resolve it. Speaking at a seminar, organised by the ‘Voice for the Baloch Missing Persons’ to …

LAHORE: In a bid to reduce escalating expenditures and mitigate losses, Pakistan Railways (PR) is all set to shift its entire array of field formations, encompassing stations, offices, workshops and factories, to solar power. In the first phase, the department plans to transition 99 formations, including major railway stations, nine divisional headquarters and various other important offices, to operate on …

LAHORE: The State Life Insurance Corporation (SLIC) has suspended cataract surgeries under Sehat Sahulat Programme at all the empanelled private hospitals of the Punjab province. The step was taken following the serious complaints of implanting substandard/low quality lenses during cataract procedures which were not approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (Drap). There were also reports that the private hospitals …

ISLAMABAD: A majority of the industrial units in the country have no plan to expand in the coming years mainly due to non-availability of electricity, reveals a report released by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) on Thursday. “A staggering 83 per cent of the surveyed firms expressed that the unavailability of electricity created hurdles in achieving their production goals, resulting in …