Pakistan

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday sought responses from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the federal government on a plea filed by lawyer Jibran Nasir against an “unlawful restriction” on his travel. The court asked the authorities to submit their replies by August 17. The court action came after the activist — who was “picked up by unidentified …

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will send a summary to President Dr Arif Alvi later today for the dissolution of the National Assembly (NA). The government had announced that assemblies would be dissolved on August 9 (today), three days ahead of its mandated period, following which elections are to be held within 90 days. Speaking at a ceremony at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday announced a Rs1 million reward for a student who topped the Secondary School Examination (SSC) of Gujranwala Board and announced a monthly stipend of Rs30,000. The prime minister made the announcement after the topper Jamshed Ali met the prime minister along with his mother, teacher Waheed Ashraf and Gujranwala Board of Intermediate and …

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for IT and Telecom Syed Aminul Haque launched the pilot of Pakistan’s first ever communication application ‘Beep Pakistan’ on Monday. The app would be accessible to general public after a year. The Beep Pakistan application is a local version of global voice, text and video sharing platform Whatsapp and it has been developed by National Information Technology …

ISLAMABAD: After Senate, the National Assembly also passed the Higher Education Commission (HEC) amendment bill, increasing the representation of provinces in it. The bill, which faced controversies in recent months, was with some amendments passed by the Senate standing committee recently before it sailed through the upper house of parliament on Sunday. On Monday, it was tabled in the National …

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is expected to decide the time frame for a fresh delimitation of constituencies following the approval of the final results of the first-ever digital census today (Tuesday), a senior ECP official told Dawn. He said the commission will see if it is possible to compress the timeline to hold elections within 90 days after the dissolution …

LONDON: PTI supporters descended on the campus of University of Hull this week, where Judge Humayun Dilawar is undergoing a training. The training program­­me appears to have been established about a decade ago by a University of Hull law Professor Niaz A. Shah. As news of Mr Dilawar’s participation circulated, PTI supporters and activists sent a deluge of emails, tweets …

LAHORE / HYDERABAD: Missing fishplates and a damaged track caused the derailment of the Hazara Express, acc­o­rding to a preliminary rep­ort of the departmental probe into the crash near Nawabshah that left at least 30 people dead and scores injured on Sunday. “After checking from all the aspects, we came to [the] conclusion that [the] accident took place due to fresh …

Former prime minister Imran Khan — who is currently incarcerated in Attock Jail — filed a plea in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday, challenging his conviction in the Toshakhana case by a trial court. The petition will be taken up tomorrow (Wednesday) by a two-member bench comprising IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri. On …

Human Rights Minister Riaz Pirzada has said that he does not see the Afghan interim government’s involvement in recent terror incidents across Pakistan, adding that there are misunderstandings between the two countries. The minister’s remarks come as a stark contradiction to recent statements issued by the government and the army who have repeatedly raised concerns over the use of Afghan …