ISLAMABAD: A day after senators Faisal Vawada and Talal Chaudhry questioned judges about their allegations of interference by intelligence agencies in judicial matters, leaders of MQM-P and Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP) also jumped on the bandwagon on Thursday, reminding the judiciary of its own shortcomings. In separate press conferences at the National Press Club, MQM-P’s Syed Mustafa Kamal and IPP’s Awn Chaudhry called …

ISLAMABAD: A third-party validation report about the Federal Sehat Sahulat Programme (SSP) commonly known as Health Card has showed that though it is a cashless programme, 33pc of the patients paid from their pockets. This indicated the need for more effective enforcement of the programme policies to ensure that all services are fully covered under the benefit package. Although there …

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) disposed of a petition filed by Naanbais Association after the issue related to the prices of Roti and Naan was settled amicably. The IHC released the order on the petition that had challenged the prices of Roti and Naan at Rs16 and Rs20, respectively. The association through their counsel Barrister Umar Ijaz Gillani had …

BEIJING: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Thursday the government under its economic reforms agenda offers attractive incentives for investment and asked the Chinese entrepreneurs to take advantage of the friendly policies and set up labour intensive industry in Pakistan. “The labour cost is very competitive and much less as compared to the current labour cost …

LAHORE: Being a businessman, I will invest my money where I like, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Thursday. “My wife has a property in London. She had a property in Dubai in 2017 which she sold in 2023. I was not a public office-holder 10 years ago,” he said. “Tax has been paid on these properties,” he said, clarifying …

ISLAMABAD: Severe heatwaves will sweep most parts of the country over the next 10 days, the Meteorological Depart­ment warned on Thursday, forecasting dust storms, thunderstorms, and heavy rains in the country’s northern areas. The presence of high pressure in the upper atmosphere will result in heatwave conditions in most parts of the country, especially Punjab and Sindh from May 21 …

ISLAMABAD: The government is mulling a move to introduce a carbon tax on petroleum and similar products, amid a push for an integrated general sales tax (GST) from the Inter­national Monetary Fund to achieve the true spirit and benefits of the value-added tax (VAT) for documentation and digitisation. Sources told Dawn that carbon tax was one of the measures being deliberated that …

ISLAMABAD: The controversy over the import of wheat continued to echo in the National Assembly on Thursday, as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle slammed the government over the arrest of a large number of farmers’ leaders. PPP’s Shazia Marri regretted that the raids and arrests had intensified a day after her party chairman spoke in the house against the ‘economic …

The National Assembly on Friday suspended PML-Q legislator Tariq Bashir Cheema from today’s session over his alleged abusive discourse towards PTI’s Zartaj Gul Wazir. Cheema delivered a speech in the assembly on Thursday, during which he was interrupted by Gul who jibed that he should talk about the Bahawalpur University case instead, in which Cheema’s son was a suspect. When he was returning to …

The Supreme Court on Friday issued show-cause notices to lawmakers Faisal Vawda and Mustafa Kamal, seeking responses from them on their recent rhetoric against the judiciary. The development came as a three-member bench — headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa and including Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan — presided over the proceedings of a suo …