ISLAMABAD: The government’s battle against bloated trade deficit is reversing as it widened 81.4 per cent in the first month of the current fiscal year (FY22), driven largely by almost double increase in imports compared to exports from the country. Merchandise trade deficit reached $3.058 billion in July this year against $1.686bn over the corresponding month last year, according to …

Federal Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Minister Asad Umar announced on Tuesday that Pakistan had hit the target of administering one million Covid-19 vaccination doses in a day. The minister said in a tweet: “[I am] happy to report that the target we had set for 1 million vaccinations in a day was crossed yesterday with 10 lakh 72 thousand …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said that after attaining what he called “stability” in the economy, his government’s next target was to increase exports and cut imports to save foreign exchange and create wealth that would bring prosperity to the country. He stressed the need for manufacturing all sorts of products at the local level so that people …

ISLAMABAD: In a new twist, it has been transpired that Capital Development Authority (CDA) itself approved narrowing of the nullah in E-11/2 from 40 feet to 18 feet, which caused urban flooding and the death of a mother and her child. Sources said that the CDA’s Planning Wing had approved a layout plan of the Pakistan Medical Cooperative Housing Society …

KARACHI: The death of a 36-year-old unmarried woman from severe burns on Monday took a new turn when her brother accused his stepmother and stepbrother of burning her to death and trying to give it a colour of suicide. Sharea Faisal police said that Kanwal Javed, 36, had suffered critical burns at her home in Sindh-Baloch Society, Block-12, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, on …

LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly speaker is adamant on ‘protecting’ the sanctity of the house on Nazir Chohan’s production issue, though the MPA himself shows his inability to attend the assembly session for being hospitalised due to a cardiac problem. “I shall never let anyone violate the sanctity of the house and its members, come what may. The officers who didn’t …

ISLAMABAD: Reitera­ting the government’s stance that the country has been in the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list merely on political grounds, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan on Monday declared on the floor of the National Assembly that Pakistan would not take any foreign dictation on the issue of prosecution of its nationals. “We will …

ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has issued draft cloud adoption guidelines for the registered companies to secure their sensitive and secretive data from cyber attacks and digital leakages However, all the business entities have to ensure that the selected cloud service providers do not offer the services through their data centres located in any hostile country …

LAHORE: The burden of critical patients of Covid-19 is increasing fast in public and private hospitals of Punjab after the highly infectious and deadly Delta variant visibly dominated other strains. The official figures showed that the number of critical patients of Covid-19 has increased to 840 in both the government and private hospitals of Punjab. Presently, total 1,332 Covid patients …

GUJAR KHAN: Two suspects wanted for their alleged involvement in the rape of a boy were arrested by Kallar Syedan police on Sunday night. According to details, the case was registered in Kallar Syedan police station on the victim’s complaint on July 28. The victim informed police that the suspects raped him and recorded the incident by taking videos and …