Ep03dec2014

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Gen Raheel charms US policymakers................................................Pakistan’s huge defenceproduction potential................................................PM may intervene to saveKorean steel project

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Govt, PTI backdoor talks begin: Dar

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Senator IshaqDar addressing a Press conference. Continued on Page 7

MIAN ARSHAD

ISLAMABAD—Backdoor dia-logues between the govern-ment and protesting PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf began asShah Mehmood Qureshi andJahangir Tareen contactedFinance Minister Ishaq Daron Tuesday.

PTI has invited Dar toresume talks in a bid to wardoff prevailing political stale-mate.

Talking to media, the fi-nance minister said that hewould resume talks with PTIafter Prime Minister NawazSharif return from Londonand consulting the top lead-

ZUBAIR QURESHI

ISLAMABAD—The SupremeCourt on Tuesday said that if apermanent Chief Election Com-missioner (CEC) was not ap-pointed by December 05, thenthe court would consider onDec 8 the issuance of noticesagainst Prime Minister NawazSharif and Leader of the Oppo-sition in the National AssemblySyed Khursheed Shah. A three-member bench of the apex court headed by ChiefJustice Nasirul Mulk, was hearing the case per-taining to the appointment of a permanent CEC.During the hearing, Attorney General Salman

Butt was unable to convince the court in writ-ing that the CEC post would be filled by Dec 5.

On Monday, the court haddirected Butt to provide assur-ance to the apex court on Tues-day that the appointment of anew CEC would be made be-fore the court’s Dec 5 deadlineexpires. AG apprised the courtthat Prime Minister NawazSharif and Leader of the Op-position Syed Khursheed Shahhad held a meeting on Monday

and a few names came under consideration; bothhad a consensus over a name as well and wouldsoon agree on a name.

SC warns of action ifCEC not named by FridayAsks ECP for reply in electoral reforms caseTransparent election must for democracy

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4 short listedfor CEC

ISLAMABAD—Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif and Leader of theOpposition, Syed Khursheed

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24 militantsmowed downin NWA blitz,Orakzai action

TARIQ SAEED

PESHAWAR—The PakistanArmy led security forces Tues-day mowed down at least twodozen terrorists in NorthWaziristan and Orakzai agen-cies in precise strikes andclashes with the trouble mak-ers as the Operation titled Zerb-e-Azb goes on.

In early action the PakistanAir Force war birds on Tues-day wee hours destroyed num-ber of militants hideouts andmowed down yet another 17terrorists in North Waziristanagency.

The PAF war planes, theInter-Services Public Relations(ISPR) communiqué issued tomedia said , went for incessant

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days after PTI chairmanImran Khan threatened to shutdown the entire country onDecember 18 under what hecalled “Plan C.”

Finance Minister IshaqDar has said that the govern-ment did not want to repeatthe bitterness of the past andwill resume talks from thepoint they were left at.

Talking to mediamen onTuesday here, Ishaq Dar saidthat the government wanted asolution of current politicalturmoil through talks. He saidthat the government was sin-cere but sincerity should bedisplayed from both sides.

ership of ruling Pakistan Mus-lim League-N.

The contact between thetwo political rivals came two

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OBSERVER REPORT

LONDON/ISLAMABAD—Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif said on Tuesday that his govern-ment was prepared for meaningful dialogue withthe Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and its chairmanImran Khan and added that calls to shut downthe country would not only be inappropriate butdisastrous and that Pakistan is being played within an unfortunate manner.

The prime minister made the remarks afterarriving in the United Kingdom to attend theLondon Conference on Afghanistan.

He said that his government strongly be-lieved in settling issues through talks. “We arethe democratic people. The negotiations shouldbe constructive. If they want to talk, we wouldhave no objection,” he added.

Speaking of an inquiry into alleged riggingin the 2013 general elections, the PM stated that

Ready for meaningfuldialogue with PTI: PM

Political neophytes engaged in sowing seeds of hatred

LONDON: Prime Minister MuhammadNawaz Sharif talking to media persons uponhis arrival here on Tuesday.

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—The KSE-100took a stride to gain 381points as predicted by Paki-stan Observer in its earlierreport about the bullishtrend to keep on going onthe back of positive indica-tors including inflation atsix year low thanks to steep

KSE-100 takes a quantum jump

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MUZAFFAR ALI

LAHORE—Co-Chairman Pa-kistan People’s Party AsifZardari on Tuesday said Paki-stan Tehreek-e-Insaf chiefImran Khan lacked politicalacumen and that’s why he firstgave a protest call for Decem-ber 16, completely overlooking

Imran lacks political acumen: Zadarithe historical significance ofthis date.

Addressing the PPP foun-dation day ceremony, formerpresident Asif Zardari said theonly thing that he could not doduring his stint as head of thestate was to ‘embrace’ the PPPworkers. He said he wouldmake it up to them by meeting

the workers at district level andalso resolve their issues.

Asif Zardari said interestsof the coming generationsshould precede all other con-siderations and stressed uponshunning the intention to para-lyze the country. “The punish-

French MPsvote in favourof recognisingPalestinePARIS—French lawmakersvoted on Tuesday in favour ofrecognising Palestine as astate, sparking an immediateangry reaction from Israelwhich said such “unilateralmeasures” would harm effortstowards Middle East peace.

Following hot on theheels of similar votes inBritain and Spain, FrenchMPs voted 339 to 151 infavour of a motion urging thegovernment to recognise thestate of Palestine as a way ofachieving a “definitiveresolution of the conflict.“

Shahbaz meetsSheikh Tamim

Bin HamadAl Thani

OBSERVER REPORT

DOHA—Punjab Chief Minis-ter Muhammad Shahbaz Sharifmet Emir of Qatar SheikhTamim Bin Hamad Al Thani inDoha Tuesday. It was agreed inthe meeting to promote rela-tions between Pakistan andQatar and expand economic

and trade ties between the twocountries.

The Emir of Qatar an-nounced investment in varioussectors of development besidescooperation of his country inelimination of energy crisis inPakistan. He said that Pakistanis a friendly country of Qatar

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POL pricesdrop bringsinflation tosix-year lowAMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—The inflationrate dipped to six year lowfollowing recent develop-ment in oil scenarioensuring yet another 50-100BPS interest rate cut prior toreview of the MonetaryPolicy by the State Bank ofPakistan.

Lowering of the POLprices by the governmenttwice within a short span aswell as cut in interest ratemay help in gaining political

Picture on Back Page

MULTAN: Member of National Assembly Jamshed Dasti talking to the media personsoutside commissioner office.

Federal Minister for Defence Khawaja Muhammad Asif is being briefed by Lt Gen Muhammad Ahsan Mahmood, Chair-man POF Board at POF stall during ongoing IDEAS-2014 Expo at Karachi.

Foreign delegatescontinue flooding POFstall at IDEAS-2014

STAFF REPORT

KARACHI—Small and heavyarmaments of Pakistan Ordi-nance Factories put on displayat Karachi Expo Centre duringInternational Defence Exhibi-tion and Seminar (IDEAS-2014) have been dominantsince the show kicked off re-ceiving extra ordinary coveragefrom the media and visitingdignitaries.

Foreign delegates, who de-clared POF products as ‘hotcake’ continued flooding POFStall, decorated with smallarms and ammunition espe-cially the most sophisticatedrifle produced by POF namely“POF Eye” and newly launchedrifle “AZB”. The delegatestook keen interest in their de-tail.

The foreign visiting del-egates who kept visiting POFstall in the 2nd day of exhibi-tion expressed their views thatPOF is a reliable trademark inweapons manufacturing whichhas all required capabilities tonot only produce innovative

weaponries but also exportthem to larger world. POFChairman Lt Gen MuhammadAhsan Mahmood HI (M) whilewelcoming the delegates saidthat POF is well aware of itsresponsibilities to fulfill thehigh requirements of ArmedForces of Pakistan.

He said that POF is com-mitted to manufacture the bestquality armaments. He furtherremarked that we have met for-eign delegates during ongoingIDEAS and joint ventures withother countries have been dis-cussed and soon such projectscould be initiated. Chairmanhoped that positive resultswould come out of the dialoguewith various countries.

POF chairman further re-marked that IDEAS will go along way in defence productionof the country which has a reli-able and bright future.

He is optimistic to declarethat POF has been successfulto come upto the modern daychallenges and expectation ofcountrymen for defence pro-duction.

Air Chief: PAF capable to givebefitting response to aggressors

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—A constitutional petition (CP)against 40,000 ghost teachers was field in theSindh High Court (SHC) Tuesday. The CP hadin particular focused on those teachers, who gotjobs in government schools as teachers but theyworked for print and electronic media as report-ers. Such ghost teachers-cum-journalists had con-tinued to drawing salary and perks and privilegefrom Sindh government.

The petitioner Advocate Mehfooz Yar Khanhad in his petition carried details about the ghostteachers and stated that 522 ghost teachers wereworking as reporters with different print andelectronic media while they were continuouslydrawing salaries and perks and privileges formSindh Education Department, which was a fraudand heavy burden on tax-payers.

The petitioner had in his CP held SindhChief Secretary, Sindh secretary Education,Sindh Chief Minister and other relevant officialsas respondents.

The petitioner appealed to the SHC to pass

Petition against 40000 ghostteachers-cum-journalist filed

ISLAMABAD—Minister for Ports and ShippingKamran Michael on Tuesday informed NationalAssembly that future appointments in Karachi PortTrust will be made strictly on merit and keeping inview the provincial quota. Answering a CallingAttention Notice, the minister said, as per the gov-ernment policy priority will be given to kids ofthose employees who expired during service or

Merit to be strictly observedin recruitments: Kamran

were completely disabled. MNAs SahibzadaTariqullah, Sher Akbar Khan, SahibzadaMuhammad Ayub and Aisha Syed had drawn theattention of Minister for Ports and Shipping to-wards non-restoration of son quota for employ-ment. The members had also pointed out towardsprotest by such employees kids who were facingemployment problems in this regard.—APP

Khursheedgreets APP

Employees UnionISLAMABAD—Leader of theOpposition in the National As-sembly Syed Khursheed AhmedShah on Tuesday greeted newlyelected body of Associated Pressof Pakistan (APP) EmployeesUnion (CBA).

Khursheed Shah, in a mes-sage, congratulated union Presi-dent Shahzad AhmedChaudhry, Senior Vice Presi-dent Rasheed Malik, GeneralSecretary Sohail IqbalCheema,, senior executivemembers Shahid Ali Butt andArshad Majeed Chaudhry, andother office-bearers.

Khursheed Shah expressedthe hope that the union wouldwork for the welfare of employ-ees, putting aside their personalinterests.

He said that ShaheedZulfikar Ali Bhutto, the pioneerof labour unions in the country,had provided a platform to thelabour class to raise their voicefor legal rights and work for thedevelopment of theirorganisations.

Talking to APP, Senior VicePresident of union RasheedMalik said they would utilize alltheir energies for the welfare ofworkers and to come up to theirexpectations.—APP

an immediate order for the stoppage of salariesof such 522 ghost teachers-cum-reporters whilesalaries of all ghost teachers should immediatelybe stopped and all the ghost teachers should beremoved and those eligible for the post of teach-ers should be appointed as teachers on merit.

The petitioner also appealed to the highercourt that the money drawn by those 40, 000ghost teachers should be recovered and depos-ited to the provincial exchequer.

He also appealed to the higher court that theillegal occupation on schools by the influentialshould be removed so that the children of therespective areas might start attending schools.

It is pertinent to mention that the former pro-vincial education Minister of Sindh from Paki-stan People’s Party Pir Mazhar Ul HaqShahnawaz had raised the issue of ghost teach-ers-cum-journalists in the Sindh Assembly andhad asked all such workers of print and electronicmedia to quit one job, either as teacher or as me-dia worker or else they would be dealt with inaccordance to country’s existing laws. However,the issue was stuck and had yet to be resolved.

KARACHI—PAF Chief AirChief Marshal Tahir Rafiq Butthas said that the PAF has thecapabilities to give a befitting re-sponse to those casting an evileye on Pakistan.

Talking to media persons atIDEAS-2014 at Karachi ExpoCentre here Tuesday, the AirChief said that though the PAFis outnumbered but its profes-

sionalism, commitment and ca-pabilities are more than enoughthat no one can raise evil eye to-wards us.

He said the PAF is everalert for the defence of thecountry. He however saidthat Pakistan is a peace lovingcountry and has no aggressivedesigns. He said no power onearth can stop Pakistan to make

defence preparations for pres-ervation of peace and sover-eignty of our country.

In reply to a question, AirChief Marshal Tahir Rafiq Buttsaid that many countries areshowing interest in JF-17Thunder aircraft which mostand at the same time cost ef-fective. He said negotiationsare going on with some coun-

tries for deal.He said relations between

Pakistan and Russia havebeen restored and they havebecome friendly countries. Hesaid he was the first to visitRussia and after that there hadbeen exchange of several vis-its. To another question, theAir Chief said Pakistan ismaking Drones and usingthem too. Meanwhile, FederalMinister for Defence Produc-tion, Rana Tanveer Hussain hassaid that Pakistan has very hugepotential for arms and ammuni-tion production, therefore,PML-N government hasdoubled their export and wouldfurther enhance.—Agencies

Workshopon disaster,

medicalemergencies

held at SALUSTAFF REPORTER

KHAIRPUR—The one-dayworkshop on Disaster andMedical Emergencies was heldat Shah Abdul Latif University,Khairpur organized by StudentAdvancement Fund Endow-ment (SAFE), SALU,Khairpur. Syed MohammadJaved Sadiq, Senior AdvisorPublic Diplomacy, U.S Consu-late, Karachi was the keynotespeaker of the workshop, whileMr. Nasir Aftab Khan, SSP,Khairpur was the Resource Per-son.

Syed Javed Sadiq formerSenior Advisor Public Diplo-macy U.S Consulate Karachi inhis opening remarks deeply ap-preciated the trend setting poli-cies of SALU Khairpur underdynamic leadership of VCSALU Khairpur .He started hispresentation by highlighting thekinds of disasters and MedicalEmergencies by offering theirimmediate mitigation measuresat community level. He said, abetter disaster management andfirst aid can minimize the riskand it is possible only by meansof preparedness and mitigationmeasures at different levels fromindividual to national and inter-national level. He said thatYoung students with basic infor-mation of Disaster and MedicalEmergencies could be very vi-tal and value added force forrapid response the maximum thedisaster preparedness, the mini-mum the vulnerability.—APP

MQM beingvictimized in

Karachi: GodelIS L A M A B A D —MuttahidaQaumi Movement (MQM)leader Rasheed Godel has saidthat his party is being politicallyvictimized in Karachi in thename of targeted operations.

Rasheed Godel, speaking atthe floor of the National Assem-bly on Tuesday, said that terror-ists are roaming freely inKarachi. He added that the fed-eral government, when beinginformed, says that the issue isa provincial one.

The MQM leader asked thefederal government to take no-tice of the terror incidents in themetropolis.

He further said that Sindhis being deprived from the jobsquota. He added that MQM pro-tested against more than a thou-sand illegal hirings in theKarachi Port Trust (KPT).

Pakistan Muslim League -Nawaz (PML-N) leaderKamran Michael said that thehirings were made as if Karachiwas “Mini-Pakistan”. He saidthe inquiry of illegal recruit-ments is underway.—Online

Muqam asksKhan to do KP uplift

PESHAWAR—Pakistan MuslimLeague (Nawaz) leader and Ad-visor to Prime Minister, EngineerAmir Muqam Tuesday asked Pa-kistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI)leader, Imran Khan to give a planfor prosperity of KhyberPakhtunkhwa instead of givingdeadlines for anarchy in the coun-try.

He said PTI workers havealso fed up of Imran Khan’s plansand deadlines for the change,adding that Khan gave variousdeadlines and plans during thelast four months.

He said PTI chairman hasalso realized that he could notachieve anything from just the sit-in, protests and deadlines for al-ternate plans. Amir Muqam saidPTI itself was not clear on theissue of resignation from Na-tional Assembly, addign that PTIparliamentarians were attendingassembly sessions.

Muqam said PTI chairmandisrespected the mandate of KPKpeople by not paying attention totheir problems and ignoring theirsufferings and backwardness.

He said Imran Khan andother parliamentarians should ei-ther have to resign from the as-sembly so that by-polls could beheld in those constituencies orattend the assembly session toraise the issue of masses.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

QUETTA—Adviser to Chief Minister on Educa-tion Sardar Raza Muhammad Barech narrowlyescaped an attempt on his life at Joint Road hereon Tuesday. According to Police sources, explo-sives device was planted on roadside of Joint Roadin Quetta and it was remotely-detonated whenvehicle of the adviser to CM reached near theexplosive but fortunately he and his driver re-mained unhurt. Two persons were injured in theblast targeting Barech’s vehicle.

The injured were shifted to Civil HospitalQuetta for medical treatment. Barech, who be-

longs to the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party(PkMap), is an elected legislator in theBalochistan Assembly. He and his driver re-mained unhurt in the explosion. The blastsmashed the glasses of Barech’s vehicle who latertold reporters that he “had no enmity with any-one”. “As soon as Barech’s vehicle approachedthe spot, the explosives went off with a big bang,”said Balochistan Home Minister Mir SarfarazBugti, who strongly condemned the incident andvowed to bring the perpetrators to book. He saidthere were no specific threats to the chiefminister’s adviser. There was no claim of respon-sibility for the attack.

CM Balochistan’s advisernarrowly escapes blast

BAJAUR AGENCY: Doctors examining patients in a mobile hospital organized by Direc-torate of Health .

CHAMAN: Provincial Minister for Planning and Development Dr Hamid Khan Achakzaiaddressing a public gathering on death anniversary of Khan Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai.

ISLAMABAD—The met officeon Tuesday forecast cold anddry weather in most parts of thecountry including federal capi-tal for the next 24 hours.

According to details,mainly cold and dry weather isexpected in Punjab, KhyberPakhtunkhwa, Balochistan andKashmir. However, Sindh willremain dry while Gilgit-Baltistan is expected to bepartly cloudy.

Meanwhile, continental airis prevailing over most parts ofthe country. Meanwhile, theKarachi Meteorological De-partment Tuesday forecast dry

SALEEM AHMED

LAHORE—Central leader of Muslim League-N and Member National Assembly HamzaShahbaz Sharif has said that government ma-chinery has been activated to ensure that thebenefits of record decrease in the prices of pe-troleum products should reach the commonman.

He directed that concerned departmentsshould develop a mechanism for immediate re-duction in the transport fares and rates of es-sential items in ratio with the decrease in theprices of petroleum products. He was presid-ing over a meeting of Price Control Commit-tee with regard to impact of decrease in theprices of petroleum products on the rates ofessential items at Central Secretariat of PML-N Model Town on Thursday.

Provincial Ministers Col. (Retd.) ShujaKhanzada, Bilal Yasin, Rana Sanaullah, Kh.Ahmed Hassan and senior officers of variousdepartments were present.The meeting was informed about the measurestaken by Transport, Labour & Human Re-source, Agri Marketing and other departmentsto ensure reduction in transport fares and pricesof essential items including fruits and veg-etables as well as supply of petrol and diesel.Hamza Shahbaz Sharif said that prices of pe-troleum products are being further reduced next

More cut in petroleumprices next month: Hamza

month. He said that the promises made byPrime Minister Nawaz Sharif are beinghonoured through reducing prices of daily useitems in the wake of reduction in the prices ofpetroleum products.

He said that a trend of decrease in inflationrate is being witnessed in Pakistan first time inthe last ten years. He said that the leadershipof the country is following public welfare poli-cies and it can be judged from the fact that In-dian government has not yet transferred thebenefits of decline in the prices of petroleumproducts in the international markets to themasses while Muslim League-N governmenthas taken immediate steps in this regard.

He said that concerned departments and ad-ministration should also include public repre-sentatives in the efforts to reduce price-hike asit will yield more effective results.

He said that due to reduction in the cost ofproduction and transportation of vegetables,fruits and agri items, their prices should de-crease immediately.

He directed concerned authorities that astransport fares and prices of essential items in-crease rapidly as a result of increase in the ratesof petroleum products, reduction in their pricesshould also be made at the same speed and con-cerned departments should evolve a mechanismin this regard so that immediate relief could beprovided to the masses.

Cold, dry weather to prevailweather with hazy or misty

morning for Karachi during thenext 24 hours.

According to the Met officethe minimum temperature inthe city would remain between17 and 19 degrees centigrade.

Mainly cool/cold and dryweather is likely to prevail inthe region.—APP

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—Muhammad Jihad Allaham, Speakerof the Syrian Parliament and Ms. GaniraPashayeva, member of Azerbaijan Parliamentseparately called on Chairman Senate SyedNayyer Hussain Bokhari and discussed with himregional situation and matters of importance toboth countries. Both delegations among manyothers are here to participate in the three daylong Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA). Themeetings were held here on Tuesday at a localhotel.

In his meeting with Azerbaijani MemberParliament, Nayyer Bokhari, president APA con-gratulated Ms. Pashayeva on becoming a mem-ber parliament of APA and appreciated hercountry’s commitment to work with the Assem-bly for regional stability. It may be noted thatAzerbaijan previously exercised status of anobserver parliament and did not have right tovote in the Assembly.

Both leaders hoped that the 7th plenary ofthe APA will be very beneficial for people ofAsia but also agreed that this task is not an easyone because the region is widely diverse.NayyerBokhari appreciated Ms. GaniraPashayeva’s efforts for ensuring human rightsto her people. She apprised the president of APA

Azerbaijan, Syrian delegates meetBokhari, discuss regional situation

about the tensions between Azerbaijan and Ar-menia and said that Armenian aggression con-tinues despite raising this issue on many plat-forms including UN Security Council. Chair-man Senate expressed gratefulness to Azerbaijanfor supporting Kashmir cause openly. Ms.Pashayeva told Nayyer Bokhari that Azerbaijanseeks his visit and she formally invited him tovisit her country.

In his meeting with Speaker of SyrianPeoples Assembly Muhammad Jihad Allaham,Chairman Senate Syed Nayyer Hussain Bokharisaid that Pakistan places bilateral relations withSyria in high esteem and looks forward to fur-ther foster mutual cooperation. He said that APAis an institutional voice of the people of Asiaand it provides an opportunity for dialogue anddiscourse on issues faced by the region.

He said that dialogue is the only solution toall issues of the region and we can work collec-tively for peace and stability through the plat-form of the Asian Parliament. “Pakistan asnuclear power looks forward to working forunity and strength of the Muslim Ummah”, theChairman remarked.

Leader of the Syrian parliamentary delega-tion appreciated the steps taken by President ofthe APA, Nayyer Bokhari to make the APA morevibrant and dynamic.

PESHAWAR: UNODC country representative Cesar Guedes handing over keys of 10 rugged terrain vehicles to NasirDurrani IG KP to improve the technical capacity of its law enforcement agencies in areas of illicict trafficking and bordermanagement, criminal justice system and drug demand reduction.

Rs 6000 assistance to IDP families by UN agencies

Mehtab links IDPs repatriation topeace guarantee by tribal elders

PESHAWAR—UNHCR and WFP, agen-cies of United Nations, have identified6000 most vulnerable families of InternallyDisplaced Persons (IDPs) from Waziristanas majority of them are led by femalemembers and have not received any finan-cial assistance due to cultural norms andlack of identity cards.

“These vulnerable families are identi-fied through holding of a thorough surveyconducted by joint team of UNHCR andWFP,” said Niamatullah Khan, Head ofWFP Programme Provincial OfficePeshawar.

Talking to media persons at a briefingarranged to apprise about activities of UNagencies for assistance of people of Paki-stan, he said the joint team of UNHCR andWFP comprised of female who held houseto house survey in Bannu, D.I.Khan andLakki Marwat districts to find out mostvulnerable families.

The affected families have lost theirmale members and are led by female ofadolescents who cannot understand intri-cacies of registration for getting officialassistance extended to displaced popula-tion.

“As culture of the area, most of thefemale head of families don’t have iden-tity cards and cannot communicate withconcerned officials due to cultural norms”,he continued.

Naimatullah said the UNHCR andWFP will jointly provide an assistance ofRs 6000 to these vulnerable families for aperiod of four months.

During these four months, efforts willbe made to prepare identity cards of thesefamilies on emergency basis and get themregistered with concerned government de-partments so that they can get assistanceon continuous basis.

Earlier, Vittorio Cammarota, DirectorUN Information Center Islamabad ap-prised media persons about working ofUnited Nations for assistance of people ofPakistan at time of crisis.

He said the UN is supporting the gov-ernments of its member states with primaryfocus on long term development strategies.In term of crisis in any state, humanitar-ian and early recovery work is carried out,he added.Nowshera: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Gover-nor, Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Tuesday saidthat process of repatriation of Bara Inter-nally Displaced Persons (IDPs) could beundertaken in few weeks if the tribal el-ders give proper guarantee of maintainingpeace in their respective areas.

Talking to affected persons of Baraoperation here at Jalozai relief camp, theGovernor said that all the trading and com-mercial centres in tehsil Bara of KhyberAgency would be opened after restoration

of peace adding an era of developmentwould be ushered after establishing of per-manent peace.

The operation in Khyber Agency wasinitiated for the elimination of terrorismfrom the region so that lasting peace couldbe established in Khyber Agency, headded. The NADRA has verified 28 thou-sands families displaced by the Bara op-eration whom are provided all the facili-ties in the relief camp.

The Governor also listened to the prob-lems of the affectees besides visiting aschool in the relief camp. He also distrib-uted gifts among the children.

The Governor said that Prime Minis-ter, Muhammed Nawaz Sharif earnestlydesires peace and prosperity in the FATA.He said that the present government wasfocusing resources for the assistance of pa-triotic tribesmen and youth of the areawould be provided equal opportunities ofemployment.

Mehtab Khan also enumerated the sac-rifices offered by the brave tribesmen forthe integrity and solidarity of the countrywhich are part of their rich history andcould not be forgotten.

However, he maintained that tribal el-ders would have to shoulders their respon-sibilities in a manner to ensure early es-tablishment of peace and rehabilitation ofaffectees. —APP

PESHAWAR—The PTI led coalition governmentin Khyber Pakhtunkhwa come under fire for reg-istration of FIR against the JUI-F workers for stag-ing protest in Kohat against the killing of theirparty leader Dr. Khalid Mehmood Soomro.

The issue was raised by Mahmood Khan ofJUI-F while speaking on a point order in the houseon Tuesday. The JUI-F legislator said that the partyworkers in Kohat were staging peaceful protestagainst the killing of their party leader, Dr. KhalidMehmood Soomro on November 30, 2014. But,the provincial government registered cases againstthem.

He said that they strongly condemned the reg-istration of FIRs and demanded the immediatewithdrawal of the cases. Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli ofQWP said that the JUI-F workers were protest-ing against the gruesome killing of their party

leader in Sindh. But, police has registered againstthem under Terrorism Act, which is political vic-timization. He asked the government to avoid thepolitical victimization of their opponents other-wise there would be no change.

Syed Jaffar Shah of ANP said that the pro-test was peaceful, which was constitutional andlegal right of the JUI-F workers, saying the reg-istration of cases under the sections of terrorismis sheer injustice with them. He asked the gov-ernment for immediate withdrawal of the FIR.

Sardar Aurangzeb Nalota said that whereverany political leader murdered their workerswould ultimately stage protest and the same wasdone in Kohat. But, the police register casesagainst their leadership. Therefore, he said thegovernment should withdraw the FIRs with im-mediate effect.—APP

KP govt comes under fire forFIRs against JUI-F protestors

Another 69 gastrocases reported

MULTAN—Another 69 casesof gastroenteritis were reportedfrom various public sector hos-pitals here on Tuesday. As manyas 28 gastro cases were reportedfrom Nishtar Medical Instituteand 34 from Children Complex,said an official sources. Fourpatients of gastro were admit-ted to Civil Hospital whilethree patients were reportedfrom Fatima Jinnah Hospital forWomen, they added. Twentyfive patients were dischargedand No Acute Watery Diarrhoea(AWD) case was reported today,the sources informed.—APP

Govt releasesRs 8b for quakeaffected schools

A B B O T TA B A D — D e p u t ySpeaker National AssemblyMurtaza Javed Abbassi onTuesday said that the Federalgovernment has released Rs 8billion for reconstruction ofschools affected by the 2005earthquake.

The funds were announcedby Prime Minister MuhammadNawaz Sharif during his recentvisit to Hazara division.

Talking to APP he said thePM has fulfilled almost all hispromises with the people ofHazara division includingmotorway, Mansehra Airport,Baldher dryport and reconstruc-tion of schools.

Murtaza Javed Abbassisaid that release of Rs 8 billionhas been notified which is agreat success for the people ofHazara division. “PM believesin practical work and resolvingissues of the masses”, he main-tained.—APP

NAB apprehendsBDA contractors

PESHAWAR—NAB KhyberPakhtunkhwa today arrestedTaj Ali and Malik Zaman con-tractors Bannu DevelopmentAuthority (BDA) for their al-leged involvement in embezzle-ment of development fundscausing loss of millions of ru-pees to the public exchequer.

During the course of in-quiry, it was revealed that TajAli and Malik Zaman contrac-tors were illegally allotted sev-eral developmental works i.e.Construction of Roads, Protec-tion Walls and Street LightsProjects in Bannu Townshipduring 2011-12.

The accused persons usedsub-standard material in allthese works at highly exorbitantrates and thus caused millionsof rupees, loss to the nationalexchequer. It’s worth mention-ing here, that NAB KhyberPakhtunkhwa has already ar-rested Muhammad Tayyab, Di-visional Account Officer BDAin the instant case.—APP

ABDDUL QAYYUM KHAN

GUJRANWALA—State Minister for Water andPower Abid Sher Ali suspended 10 Gepco offi-cials including three SDOs for corruption andmisuse of powers. He was addressing an openkutchery here at Gujranwala. Abid Sher Ali saidthat A,B and C plan of PTI have drowned inNullah Lai Rawalpindi, he praised the role oftraders that they condemned the strike call fromPTI. He warned the PTI leaders and workers thatno attempt would be tolerated to shut down themarkets forcedly and such elements would bedealt with iron hand.

He said PTI is acting as enemy of the coun-try and Imran Khan carrying on his anti estateagenda but government with the helps of devoted

Abid suspends Gepco employeespeoples shall defeat the anti state efforts. InAbid Sher Ali listened the complaints of citi-zens regarding electricity bills and issued orderson the spot. On the complaints of citizens AbidSher Ali suspended three SDOs including SDOShaheen Abad, Ladhawala Warriach and Aroopsub divisions and seven other officials for cor-ruption and misuse of powers.

***No society can progress without active partici-pation of women in the development process,steps taken by the government for developmentare recommendable and our females are beingable to use their skills for development and pros-perity of the country. This was stated by Presi-dent Chamber of Education Schools Mr. UzmanRashid while addressing a parents day ceremony.

UNODC hands over10 mountainous

vehicles to KP PolicePESHAWAR—UNODC con-tinues to work in partnershipwith Government of Pakistanto improve the technical capac-ity of its law enforcementagencies in areas of illicit traf-ficking and border manage-ment, criminal justice systemand drug demand reductionwith focus on the KhyberPakhtunkhwa (KPK) Police.

As part of this partnershipUNODC handed over to KPKpolice, 10 Rugged terrain ve-hicles, one of the most impor-tant law enforcement agenciesin Pakistan that stands as avanguard, in fighting to protectsociety from those who seek toundermine the rule of lawthrough their criminal activi-ties, as highlighted by the ulti-mate sacrifice of its coura-geous personnel who have laiddown their lives in the line ofduty and to whom we pay ourrespect and tribute today.

One of the serious chal-lenges to the security andhealth of the nation is posed bydrug trafficking networks andwith the province of KPK bor-dering Afghanistan which pro-duces 90% of the world’s opi-ates, places it in a uniquely vul-nerable position.

UNODC in recognition ofthis phenomena feels that allagencies involved in the com-batting of the scourge of drugtrafficking whether through thespecific counter narcoticsmandate vested in them orthrough a de facto position ofdealing with the effects of drugtrafficking in others spheres ofcriminality, should be empow-ered through adequate re-sources.—INP

UHS certifies114 medical

teachersMUZAFFAR ALI

LAHORE—The BritishCouncil’s regional director forPunjab, Kevin McLaven hassaid that it is important to in-vest in the training of localhealth professionals and con-stantly update their skills sothat they are capable of meet-ing the health challenges facedby Pakistan including disease,malnutrition, a lack of cleandrinking water and high infantmortality rate.

Addressing a certificatedistribution ceremony at theUniversity of Health Sciences(UHS) on Tuesday, Kevin saidthat Medical Education was astrand of medicine that focusedon these very areas – provid-ing training and continuousprofessional development tohealth practitioners.

He added that health in Pa-kistan received a tiny portionof the total national expendi-ture. Any project that aimed tostrengthen the local medicalprofession had the potential toaffect millions.—APP

Traders rejectPTI’s call for

shutdownFAISALABAD—The local tradeand business organizations haverejected Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf(PTI)’s announcement to shut-down the country, saying thatshops and markets would remainopen on December 8 and 16.

Senior vice-chairman Paki-stan Hosiery ManufacturingAssociation (PHMA) RanaAltaf Ahmed talking to APP hereTuesday said that he would notbe a part of such announcement.

He said that no one wouldbe allowed to get close theirbusinesses by force, adding thatImran Khan’s announcement toshutdown the cities includingLahore, Faisalabad, Karachi onDecember 4, 8 and 12 and thanthe country on December 16 in-dicated the agenda of anti-stateelements, which he was imple-menting.

He said the government wasimplementing people friendlypolicies and providing relief tothe people, adding that decreasein petroleum prices was a his-torical decision of the govern-ment.

He said that transport faresand cost of production would bereduced due to recent decreasein POL prices while would beavailable to the people on lowrates.

Chairman Industries andPower Looms Owners Associa-tion Mirza Muhammad Shafiqsaid the PTI chairman has cre-ated the atmosphere of hate byhis announcement and wants tocreate chaos in the country.

He said Imran was doing thepolitics of agitation and damag-ing the economy badly throughsit-ins. —APP

Gen Raheel charmsUS policy makers

ACCORDING to reports, over two week visit to the United States byArmy Chief General Raheel Sharif, who is accompanied by DGsMilitary Operations and ISPR, has been highly successful as he put

across Pakistan’s case in a logical and persuasive manner. During his stayin the US, he met almost all those who matter in American policy makingcircles and the State Department was opened on Sunday for a meeting be-tween General Raheel and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Remarks of the US leaders with whom the COAS met and the signifi-cance that the US attached to the visit are clear points that the General hasbeen able to remove several misperceptions and divergence of opinion hasminimized. General Raheel, who is considered a doer and the one who playson front foot, obviously made a good case for Pakistan military, which isengaged in a decisive war against terror. Pakistan has suffered hugely due toterrorism and counter-terrorism both in terms of men and material and thenumber of those who laid down their lives has crossed forty thousand includ-ing over five hundred personnel of Pakistan Army and security agencies.Pakistan’s infrastructure has been damaged, economy shattered and growthmarred by continued insecurity caused by terrorism. However, unfortunately,there was no genuine appreciation of Pakistan’s sacrifices and instead of sup-porting it, at times, accusing fingers were raised against the country. That theGeneral has succeeded in presenting his case in a very convincing mannerwas evident from the remarks of John Kerry who acknowledged sacrifices ofPakistan Armed Forces in the war against terror and observed that PakistanArmy is a real force to keep the country united. This is a well-deserved tributeas it is the Army that is keeping both internal and external enemies of thecountry at bay. It is also worth mentioning that at a time when Pakistan is inmidst of operation Zarb-e-Azb, required level of cooperation is not beingextended by the United States and Afghanistan, as the terrorists are fleeing toAfghanistan and living there in safe havens. We hope that this point musthave been hammered by General Raheel, as the problem of terrorism can beaddressed once for all through sincere cooperation and support.

Pakistan’s huge defenceproduction potential

THE mega event of International Defence Exhibition and Seminar(IDEAS 2014) began at Expo Centre in Karachi, providing a platform

for convergence of local and foreign exhibitors, policy-makers and research-ers all related to the defence sector. Its importance can be gauged by the factthat exhibitors and delegates from 67 countries of the world are taking partor attending the event.

It is highly encouraging that IDEAS 2014 had put on display more thantwo thousand varied categories of defence equipment and gadgets, mostlymanufactured in Pakistan, which speaks volumes about achievements ofthe country in defence production and the potential that exists. Prime Min-ister Nawaz Sharif, who inaugurated the exhibition, rightly pointed out thatthe defence industry of Pakistan has developed a large military portfoliowith satisfactory defence capability supported by a viable infrastructure inorder to ward off untoward dangers. For a country like Pakistan, the secu-rity and sovereignty of which is almost perpetually threatened, it is abso-lutely necessary to make requisite investments in defence so as to reducereliance on those who have repeatedly proved unreliable suppliers. ThoughPakistan is manufacturing training aircrafts and co-producing JF-17 thun-der aircrafts in collaboration with China but understandably it cannot in-vest much on major defence industries because of tough competition andresource constraints. However, it definitely can and should concentrateon diversifying its base for small and medium tactical weapons and mod-ernize conventional arms and ammunition. This can be done by focusingon higher education and research and entering into joint ventures withsome dependable friendly countries. Pakistan can also generate resourcesby marketing its conventional products effectively as they excel in stan-dards and compare well with those of advanced countries. Buyers canalso feel assured that Pakistan is a dependable supplier as, unlike someother countries, no conditions are attached for such sales.

PM may intervene tosave Korean steel projectTUWAIRQI Steel Mills, a joint venture between Saudi Arabian and South

Korean companies, with production capacity of 1.28 million tons perannum is on the verge of closure due to apathy on the part of bureaucracy inPakistan. The $ 340 million project which is Pakistan’s first private sectorintegrated steel manufacturing project at Bin Qasim, employees about 1100persons and according to the Mill’s Project Director, the Koreans are highlyfrustrated over the dilly dallying in Islamabad and if the issues are not re-solved in two weeks, they may say good bye to Pakistan.

As per our information the plant had been set up after a commitmentgiven by the government of Pakistan about gas availability. In a memoran-dum of understanding, the government had given an undertaking that 40million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) will be provided to the Mill asfeedstock and 30 mmcfd as fuel. Tariffs for the gas would be the same asapplied to other industrial consumers. But for unexplained reasons, the com-mitment to the investors is not being honoured. Though the plant now standsclosed because of the gas allocation issue, the Mill did not sack any em-ployees hoping that things would be settled down once it is brought to thenotice of the Prime Minister who is all out to attract foreign investments totake the country on the path of economic revival. It is, definitely, surprisingthat the ECC in its meeting last month dismissed the summary of Ministryof Industries’ for the supply of feedstock natural gas to the direct reducediron (DRI) plant of Tuwairqi Steel at a concessionary rate of Rs 5 billionper annum over the next five years. Steel is vital for economic developmentof any country and the public sector Pakistan Steel Mills is already in troubledwaters because despite announcement for bailout package, required moneyis not being released according to management’s request. In this scenario,while it is necessary that bureaucracy should be pulled up to honour thecommitments, while the Prime Minister should personally look into theissue of Tuwairqi Steel as its closure may send a negative message to for-eign investors who are already shy of coming to Pakistan.

Bangladesh: Hasina is the law!

What we don’tknow about

police violence

YOU can’t make goodpolicy on the basis of badinformation — or no infor-

mation at all. Among the lessonsof the tragedy in Ferguson, Mo.,is that, when it comes to the reali-ties of policing their cities and sub-urbs, many Americans did notknow how much they did notknow. In addition to the learningthat’s taking place about racial dis-parities in law enforcement, thereis also a sense of surprise at whatthe federal government had beendoing prior to Michael Brown’sdeath to make relations betweencommunities and the police better— or worse. Perhaps nothing wasmore eye-opening than the spec-tacle of protesters squaring offagainst local police using militaryweaponry and armoured vehicles,much, if not all, of it supplied byWashington. Before Ferguson,“police militarisation” was therelatively arcane concern of civillibertarians; after Ferguson, it’spractically a cliché.

None of this equipment wassupplied in meaningful coordina-tion with other, similar federal pro-grams, according to the report. Mr.Obama seeks to remedy that by re-quiring civilian input and by com-piling more information about howpolice use the equipment they ob-tain. Those changes, to be embod-ied in an executive order, are wel-come. He balked at more substan-tial reforms, however, such as bi-partisan proposals on Capitol Hillto limit military equipment trans-fers. It’s going to be up to Con-gress to rein in the flow of mili-tary equipment, in the face of whatis already strong lobbying frompolice unions and others. Thepresident did propose $263 millionin funding for police training andcommunity policing, the most im-portant aspect of which was $75million for body cameras for of-ficers. That could be enough to puta video recording device on 50,000police officers — or less than 10percent of the total working in cit-ies and suburbs. Cameras couldbring more transparency to policework, deterring violence by bothofficers and civilians and render-ing more accurate any investiga-tions of violence that does occur.Left out of the president’s propos-als, though, was any mention of asystematic clean-up of the federalgovernment’s data on police use ofdeadly force, the completeness andaccuracy of which remain decid-edly unsatisfactory 20 years afterCongress passed a law intended totrack such incidents. To this day,no annual report provides authori-tative data on killings by police andthe circumstances in which theyoccur. That’s the kind of truth thatthe federal government is uniquelyequipped to seek, and to tell.— The Washington Post

*****

Moral ofAfghan security

forces

THE decision by the Kabulpolice chief to quit his postafter Afghanistan’s capital

was rocked by Taliban attacksshows that the country’s internalsecurity apparatus is beingstretched to its limits. Afghanistanis on the edge after the pullout byNato and US forces and the esca-lation of violence by the Taliban,who are seeking to consolidatethemselves. The Afghan securityforces must raise their moral andshowcase their professional abili-ties in the face of this grave threat.

The brutal offensive by theTaliban, which included the kill-ing of foreign civilians, has high-lighted the fact that the US mustre-examine their role when weigh-ing the options to assist the gov-ernment. The Taliban are hell-benton sowing the seeds of insecurityacross the country. The new gov-ernment, headed by PresidentAshraf Gani, needs time to settledown and this is being fully ex-ploited by the militants. By attack-ing Kabul, the Taliban are makinga significant point. The capital haswithstood previous offensives, butthe recent violence drives home themessage that everyone is vulner-able. The government must standfirm and not buckle down in thisgame of wits. — Gulf News

MEDIA WATCH

WHENEVER I return toBangladesh, I find thatone institution or the other

has gone under. The last time it wasparliament. This time it is the judi-ciary which, to quote a top lawyer,has been “decimated.” Yet, what isdisconcerting is that a country bornout of people’s revolt against a dis-tant exploitive government has be-come a status quo society. True, it isstill living under the shadow of thearmy. It does not interfere in the day-to-day affairs. But, to quote one topretired army official, “we ruled once,but we found the society preferringthe confused people’s raj to the dis-ciplined military rule.”

Today, the challenge is similarin a different form. Prime MinisterSheikh Hasina is concentratingpower in herself and posting at keypositions such officials who are loyalto her. She has become the law untoherself even though this goes againstthe grain of the people who areknown for their defiance and inde-pendence. Prime Minister Hasinacontrols parliament. Unthinkingly,Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)boycotted elections leaving the fieldopen to the Awami League, the partythat Hasina heads. She “won” morethan 60 percent of seats in parlia-ment even before a single vote wascast. It was thought that a fresh elec-tion would be held to undo the farce

Pakistan-India ties via SAARC

MORE often than not, questions have been raisedabout the utility and neces-

sity of SAARC. India has a varietyof disputes with all its immediateneighbours and it is in no mood toresolve these matters. Moreover,India views SAARC as an instru-ment of establishing and consolidat-ing its hegemony in the region; othermembers of the organization resentthis approach by India. India’s ef-fort to scuttles China’s membershipto SAARC, during the recent sum-mit, indicates Indian intent to per-petuate its monopoly over SAARC.

Recent summit was also besetby oozing tension between Pakistanand India. Nevertheless, last mo-ment handshake between the PrimeMinisters of Pakistan and India gaveSAARC another lease of life, tillnext summit. Turning this brief in-teraction into diplomatic reality isnot going to be easy. Indian attitudeof blaming Pakistan for everythingthat may have or could go wrong inIndia, especially maligning militaryand ISI has bred a sickening mindsetthat has bedevilled some very robustpeace initiatives from various quar-ters to strengthen bilateral relations.False flag operations by Indian in-telligence agencies are being in-creasingly attributed to ISI. How-ever, there have been crediblevoices, from within India that havespoken the truth about such mali-cious operations; but by then shortterm objectives had already beenachieved and absorbed by India; andsuch confessions hardly had anypractical value; nevertheless whistleblowers did set the record straight.

Back in 2002, PresidentMusharraf after delivering hisspeech at the SAARC summit, pro-ceeded to Indian Premier Atal BihariVajpayee, and engaged him in a

Example is theschool of mankind,and they will learn atno other.

memorable handshake. That hap-pened despite the fact that beforeleaving for that summit, Vajpayee hadasserted that there was no chance ofany interaction with the Pakistanipresident on the sidelines. But whenMusharraf forwarded his hand toVajpayee, he was left with no otheroption than to respond positively. Andnow Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharifand Narendra Modi shook hands atthe closing ceremony of the summitto the delight of the gathering.

When Nawaz and Modi movedtowards each other for a handshake,at the instance of Nepal’s Prime Min-ister Sushil Koirala, the audiencegreeted them with applause. Televi-sion showed the two men smiling andexchanging a few words. “Both aretalking in a friendly manner,”Nepalese Prime Minister told report-ers. The relief on the faces of the hostSushil Koirala, other leaders and del-egates was conspicuous as theyclapped when Nawaz and Modi vig-orously shook hands. Except for thesebrief exchanges, the two leaders hadspent most of the summit cold-shoul-dering each other. Whether by a uni-formed president or a civilian pre-mier, one has to accept that Pakistanhas never shied away from offeringfriendship to India. It has done soseveral times in the past and even thistime; it has welcomed the resump-tion of dialogue more eagerly thanIndia. India, on the other hand, sus-pends dialogue whenever a break-through is in sight. While addressingthe summit, Prime Minister Nawazcalled for dispute-free South Asia:“My vision for South Asia is to havea dispute-free region”. He empha-sized that the region which was hometo a quarter of the world’s populationwas mired in poverty, disease and il-literacy, and had the lowest humanand social indicators. “The regiononly accounts for 6 per cent of theworld’s GDP in purchasing powerparity and is one of the least inte-grated regions in the world,” he said.Committed to address the issues

faced by the region and resolvingthem, the premier said that the peopleshould be central to the SAARC pro-cesses. He added that the regionshould build upon its inherentstrengths in order to effectively ad-dress common issues like socio-eco-nomic disparity. Nawaz further said,“(it) would require close coordinationat national and regional levels andgreater collaboration in all sectors ofdevelopment”. Touching on the re-cent monsoon floods in South Asiancountries, Nawaz said that “naturaldisasters affect everyone, regardlessof national boundaries and economicstatus...We must develop bonds oftrust to resolve our problems”. Whileaddressing the summit, PresidentAshraf Ghani said he would not al-low anyone to conduct a proxy warin his country or Afghan territory tobe used against its neighbours. “Wewill not allow our territory to be usedagainst any of our neighbours. Hisspeech came after warnings that therivalry between India and Pakistancould spill across Afghan border.

Prime Minister Modi insisted thathis vision for India and the regionwere identical.”Nowhere are collec-tive efforts more important than inSouth Asia and nowhere else it ismore moderate,” he said. Modipledged to assist funding for infra-structure in the region, streamlinecustom duties at borders, provide 3-5 year business visas to investors andimplement a travellers’ card. Imme-diate medical visa was also assuredalong with funds to set up a labora-tory to combat tuberculosis in the re-gion. He also pledged to release vac-cines to rid SAARC of polio. All lead-ers appealed for cross border coop-eration in liberalizing trade and fight-ing climate change, which is affect-ing all member states.

South Asian leaders regretted thatSAARC, despite its nearly three-de-cade existence, had failed to live upto the expectations. SAARC was ini-tially founded with the goal of mov-ing towards a European-style union.

of the polls the country hadhad. Instead, she found thehouse without the oppositionto her liking. Even facelessMPs have begun to believethat their “popularity” had“elected” them as members.

This is bad enough. Worse is thebeginning of the thinking of the rul-ing party that elections are tedious,cumbersome and uncertain. Someother apparatus should be devised toascertain people’s opinion. I am afraidthat Hasina, who hates opposition,may consider doing away with theelections after enjoying the unbridledpower. The people may resist that inthe streets, but a determined, authori-tarian administration can cope withthe situation as it has done in the past.In these circumstances the indepen-dence of the judiciary is a must. How-ever, a Bangladesh journalist who hascovered the courts for more than twodecades told me that corruption hascorroded every part of the judiciary.“The judgments are sold,” he said.That the sons of judges are practic-ing in the same courts where theirfathers or uncles are on the bench.This has only aggravated situation.Prime Minister Hasina has playedhavoc with appointment of judges.

The Bangladesh constitution saysthat the President will appoint thejudges in consultation with the PrimeMinister. She has stretched the wordconsultation to mean concurrence.The result is that even brief-less law-yers, avowing loyalty to the rulingAwami League, have been elevatedas judges. The judgments are report-edly slanted and shoddy. None chal-lenges the appointments because he

or she would be shouted down as asupporter of “the enemy.” There is nodoubt that the BNP is attracting largecrowds. But those who come to hearthe party leaders are not necessarilytheir followers. The criticism of therulers is music to the ears of thepeople. They are growing under theburden of ever increasing prices andthe spiraling inflation. The only faith-ful supporters are really followers ofJamiat-i-Islami. Their fundamental-ism still sells and surprisingly the pro-Pakistan elements are quite a few.

One authentic report is that theynumber approximately 20 percent.Without contradiction one can saythat the solid supporters of AwamiLeague will be many more, around30-35 per cent. I was happy to findrelations between the India andBangladesh friendly. It goes to thecredit of Hasina that she has removedthe irritants between the two coun-tries. There are no anti-India militantsoperating from Bangladesh, a matterof concern for New Delhi until re-cently. Alas, there is an absence ofidealism of the days whenBangladeshis were fighting their lib-eration battle. People consider that astheir finest hour. Surprisingly, thereis no bitterness against Pakistan forhaving committed the worst atroci-ties in an attempt to suppress the lib-eration movement. “We have pitythem,” say many Bangladeshis see-ing that country beleaguered withmany problems.

And they take pride in citing factsand figures to show how an averageBangladeshi is better than an aver-age Pakistan. This may be true, butthe dynamism which I witnessed in

my earlier visits is lacking. It is as ifthe people are tired, if not reconciledto the authoritarianism of the rulers.Hasina has probably detected that.So, it seems that she has decided tore-establish the dynastic rule as isthe suspicion that Sheikh Mujib-urRahman, the father of the nation,was doing in the case of his daugh-ter, Hasina. Her son is the most pow-erful person today, although he re-sides in America for the namesake.

She has even given him an offi-cial position in technical field andhe is reportedly on a salary. Nodoubt, it smacks of dynastic rule.But then she seems to have torn apage from book of Indira Gandhi-Rahul Gandhi dynasty. The army,the country’s powerful chamber, issitting pretty because it is morepopular than any political party.Hasina has given the army person-nel the best of perks and salaries toplacate them and keep them on herside. This seems to work in herfavour. I asked a top editor whypeople did not revolt and throw outthe armed forces. He said that theydo not know what would emergefrom the clash if there were to be aconfrontation between the peopleand the armed forces. He said it maywell lead to a situation of comingout of the frying pan to into the fire.Maybe, the disciplined fundamen-talists of the Jamiat might emergevictorious. This thought deters eventhe liberals who want a change. Itonly strengthens idea of why BDshould not disturb the status quo.—The writer is a veteran Indianjournalist, syndicated columnist,human rights activist and author.

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— Edmund Burke British politician

However, despite a free trade pact,in force since 2006, high tariffs andcurbs on movement limit tradeamong South Asian nations to justfive percent of their total trade. “De-spite several transformative poten-tials in the region, our achievementstands short of expectations...Wealone are responsible for shortcom-ings in the SAAR process,” saidSushil Koirala.

A 31-point document titled the“Kathmandu Declaration” was is-sued at the end of the summit. Ittouches on a wide range of issuesincluding counterterrorism, tradeand investment promotion, infra-structure development, youth em-ployment, telecommunication tariffcuts, regional connectivity, socialsecurity for elderly people, literacy,and SAARC transformation intoSouth Asian Economic Union by2030. Aiming to transform the regioninto a vibrant economic zone,SAARC leaders resolved to set up aSouth Asian Economic Union onlines of European Union by facilitat-ing a common market and removingtrade barriers, easier said than done.

While talking to journalists,Prime Minister Nawaz said that Pa-kistan is ready for dialogue, but In-dia would have to take the first step.And given how India suspended for-eign secretary level talks, Nawaz isright in his stance. Pakistan wants tieswith India on the basis of dignity, self-respect and honour and desires ameaningful dialogue to resolve allissues including the Kashmir dispute.The world community realises thatKashmir is a dispute endangeringpeace in South Asia. Therefore, noprogress towards normalisation ofbilateral relations with India is pos-sible without making meaningfuladvancement to resolve Kashmir is-sue. And until bilateral conflictsamongst the member state are re-solved, SAARC will continue towander like a rudderless ship.—The writer is a Consultant Policy& Strategic Response at IPRI.

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Voice of the People

Privatisationin Pakistan

ZULQARNAIN SEWAG

The term privatisation is more po-litical than economic. Privatisingthe nationalized institutions is likeprivatising the country itself.There is no local, national or in-ternational rationale in privatisingall such institutions, public sectorenterprises and departments whichare generating millions of profitlike OGDCL, PSO, and PARCOetc. There is a very naïve questionthat why have these profit earn-ing institutions turned into losingwhite elephants? One other morenaïve question is as to why theseinstitutions start profiting afterbeing privatised?

If government makes lame ex-cuses of having not enough re-sources or technology then thevery answer is that how were theyearning profit earlier? Why hasonly incumbent government mostof the times sold nationalized in-stitutions? Why has always suchinstitutions been sold to thefavourites and relatives?Privatization is not the suitableword; it should be somethingmraning or denoting selling tofamily. Privatization has manynames like contracting out, vouch-ers, asset sales, public-private part-nership, grants, franchises, deregu-lation, service shedding, managedcompetition etc which govern-ment adopts according to its needsand circumstances. Explicitly theParliament formulates the publicpolicies but implicitly there are al-ways big guns and business ty-coons who influence these policiesaccording to their conceited inter-ests. Public representatives remainhandicapped and hijacked. Theythen also become the part of filthyfraudulent system and further suckthe sick voters.

Dr Akhtar Hasan Khan,former Federal Secretary and au-thor of ‘The Impact ofPrivatization in Pakistan’ arguesthat privatizations have never putfavourable impacts on oureconomy. Misuse and stealing ofstate resources, inefficiency, cor-ruption, favouritism and merit kill-ing are the major troubles in thissystem. Firm and sound steps areneeded to alleviate them.

Government should handoverthe control of such entities in thehands of professional and techno-crats instead of bureaucrats. Itshould nip the corruption in thebud in place of privatization. Itshould identify the reasons thathave resulted in the low produc-tion of these institutions, punishthe culprits involved, and over-come all such issues. The policyof merit, transparency and ac-countability ought to be madepopular. Rule of law and goodmanagement can overcome all thefactors that have made these en-terprises lethargic.—Via email

Dwindlingpeace in ME

SAMREEN GONDAL

MIDDLE East is a complex regionand considered as a hub of multi-dimensional or multifaceted con-flicts. Peace in such a multidimen-sional region remains a challeng-ing phenomenon in different eras.Why have I call it a multidimen-sional conflicting region, becauseconflicts in ME are not specifi-cally about one particular aspectas these conflicts are in one wayor the other a matter of religion,territory, ideology or conflict overresources and terrorism. Theseconflicts are looking forward for

Murder mysteriesNAUSHABA ABID

It is about the recent murder of Dr. Khalid Mehmood Somroo who was shot dead for unknown reasonswhile he was offering Fajar prayer in mosque, Sukkur and it raised a number of questions apart from

his political affiliation with JUI-F. I as a follower of news and current affairs noticed that on such inhu-man incidents, our electronic champion media seems divided i.e Sindhi local media, Urdu media, Balochimedia, National media etc and social media on other side. Sometimes, I ask myself, do we know who weare and who is our enemy? It seems as if we are enemies within ourselves. Every coming day brings in anew murder mystery in Pakistan and we are used to it. After lamentations comes new day with newbrutality and it continues; nothing has been solved and changed till today and no one has been identifiedafter such acts of brutality. In other words you don’t need definite definition or purpose for killings ormurders in this country; you have hundred and one justifications to indulging in heinous act of killingfellow human beings. In the name of blasphemies you can kill a man burn families worship places andanything you want; what a pity it is. If you have political affiliation you must be like a puppet or you donot deserve to live in this world; if you love your dharti, you speak language other than that of the locals,you have and identity of being a resident of the Province or region other than that of the area you arecurrently in, you deserve to be killed and eliminated; if you speak for your rights, you should be killed;if you ask question on contradictions you should be killed; if you are Shia you should be killed; if you areSunni you should be killed; if you are Hindu you must be a Muslim in order to live in this country; if youare a Qadiani, you have no right to exist; if you are weak, you should be eliminated; if you have nomoney to pay the ransom, you deserve to be killed; if you are journalist you should be killed or attacked;if you are a teacher, you are destined to be humiliated and punished; if you are a doctor or a well-to-dobusinessman, you deserve to be kidnapped for ransom, if you are a lawyer you should be killed; if youare a well-read scholar or intellectual, or who so ever you are? you are unacceptable until and unless youopt to live a disrespectful life of abject humiliation. We are fighting against unidentified enemies andagainst each other. We have to sort out and find out who is our enemy in order to live with peace or weshould stop acting like we are united and peace lovers. We kill each other and speak of peace and unity.Such incidents portray that we are more threatened internally than externally.—Via email

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View From Abroad

Defying West on nuke issue a matter of pride in Iran

IN the late 1960s, the RollingStones recorded one of their classic tunes: “You Can’t Always Get

What You Want.” The song’s philo-sophical message — to the extentMick Jagger and Keith Richardsthought about it — seemed to sug-gest that there are times in life whenyou can’t get what you want (mosteverything). But you just might getwhat you need (less than everythingbut still pretty darn good).

Based on my years in and aroundMiddle East negotiations, that tunepretty well summed up the approachto successful negotiations too. In ev-ery negotiation that worked, nobodygot everything they wanted, no onegot 100%. But they at least receivedwhat they really needed to make thedeal. In short, the perfect was not al-lowed to become the enemy of thegood. The Stones’ message wasclearly not on display in the talks be-tween six world powers and Iran lastweek in Vienna, certainly not on thepart of the Iranian negotiators andtheir leaders in Tehran. In these so-called P5-plus-1 talks, US negotia-tors may have hoped that Iran waswilling to conclude a deal based onneeds, not wants. But Iran clearly sawmatters differently and felt little pres-sure to do a deal now. And here’s why.

It’s been evident for a good whilethat the negotiators in Tehran, For-eign Minister Mohammad Javad

Zarif and even President HassanRouhani aren’t running the show. Nonegotiator ever does. Leaders do. Butfor talks on truly big issues to work,negotiators and leaders need to be insync. In this case, they’re not. Thegap between what Zarif and Rouhanimight have been willing to concede,particularly on Iran’s capacity to en-rich uranium, and the red lines of thesupreme leader, Ayatollah AliKhamenei, and those around him wassimply too wide to make a deal.

And the negotiators clearlyfailed to persuade the harder linemullahs — assuming they even tried— to be more flexible or of the ur-gency of the situation. Iran’s lever-age and the integrity of the entirenegotiating enterprise will be muchweaker, not stronger, in Washingtononce a Republican Congress comesinto session. Paradoxically for thehard-liners, that’s OK. But morepressure on Tehran probably wouldonly convince the mullahcracy thatwhat the US really wants is regimechange, not a change in behaviouron the nuclear issue.

It is true that sanctions imposedby Washington, Europe and the UNSecurity Council were crucial in get-ting Iran to the table. But that doesn’tmean economic and financial pres-sure is powerful enough to compelan agreement. Iran is hurting from di-minished oil sales, currency devalu-ation, budget deficits and banking andfinancial restrictions. But Iran’s ca-pacity to withstand economic painand to engage in what the supreme

leader calls a “resistance economy”— one resistant to sanctions and out-side economic pressures — is muchgreater than we think. No doubt hard-line security elites are also makingtons of money from the black mar-ket. Tehran also has been very agilein finding loopholes and cutting oildeals with Russia and China.

Iran also has no intention ofthrowing away billions invested in itsnuclear infrastructure. We can’t un-derestimate how important Iran’snuclear program is as a hedge againstregime change and as a symbol of itsgreat power status in the region, par-ticularly to many hard-line conserva-tive elites convinced that the USwants the mullahs gone. The nuclearissue has become part of Iran’s iden-tity. Defying the West’s effort to re-strict that enterprise has become amatter of national pride and dignity.Iran may not want to weaponise now.But those in charge may well wantthe option to do so at some point oftheir choosing.

Iran isn’t 10 feet tall, but the waythe situation in the Middle East isplaying out may have persuaded themullahs that Iran’s centrality and in-fluence in US policy is increasing.There is a view that America needsTehran to stabilize the situation inIraq and in Syria, and to fight IslamicState militants. Indeed, Iran mayactually believe that it’s winning,that there is less urgency to settle thenuclear issue now and much moreincentive to not give in, and hope togain more. Finally, reaching an

Aaron David Miller

Pictures of healing..!

SO many of us have been hurtand wounded as we growthrough life! Unfortunately

we keep those hurts open andworse don’t allow those woundsto heal. We let them fester and rotand spread the pus of hate fromthose injuries to all around.

My father, before he diedgifted me with the autobiographyof Nelson Mandela. But it’s not thebook I remember so much as whatmy father penned in the front pagefor me: Dear Bob, he wrote, “Cour-age comes in many forms, but toturn ones enemies into friends isone of the greatest!”Ah dad I

know what you were trying to tell me.‘Look you were saying at a pictureof healing than the hatred your mindis painting for you, look beyond yourhurts and insults and show that pic-ture to those who follow.’

Photographer Nick Ut receiveda Pulitzer Prize for a dramatic war-time picture taken in Viet Nam. Youmay remember seeing it. The pictureshows a little girl in agony walkingnaked down a country road amongstother weeping children. Dark smokehangs heavily in the sky behind thefleeing group. The child’s arms arepainfully outstretched and her face iscontorted in an expression of terrorand misery. A Napalm bomb, droppedon her village, seared off the littlegirl’s clothing and severely burnedher skin. The date is June 8, 1972.The child, Kim Phuc, was carried by

Nick to a truck and transported to anarea hospital. She cried over and over,“Non’g Qu’a. Non’g Qu’a,” whichmeans “Too hot! Too hot!” Kim hov-ered between life and death. She re-quired 17 different surgical operationsand months of rehabilitation. But to-day she paints pictures of healing!She lives in Canada and has becomean important spokesperson on issuesof peace. “Pain never disappears,”Kim says. “You just learn how to dealwith it.”

In 1996 she was asked to say afew words at the Viet Nam War Me-morial in Washington D.C. Kimtalked about forgiving those peoplewho were responsible for all the mis-ery and suffering inflicted that tragicday. She said, “Even if I could talkface to face with the pilot whodropped the bombs, I would tell him

we cannot change history but weshould try to do good things for thepresent and for the future to pro-mote peace.” It was a message offorgiveness. She knew that her actsof reconciliation were the bricksthat could pave the only true roadto peace. Kim could easily spendthe rest of her life blaming othersfor her suffering. She could havegrown up a bitter and resentfulwoman instead, she made a coura-geous choice - a choice for peace.She painted a healing picture andheld it up for all to behold.

Today this world needs you, yesyou my friend, you, to look beyondinsult and injury, beyond abuse,slights and snubs and instead startpainting canvasses that show pic-tures of healing..!—Email: [email protected]

agreement in an environment inwhich the negotiators may havecome to like and trust one anotherbut the leaders do not is no easymatter. The domestic politics oneach side allows little room for giv-ing the benefit of the doubt. Andfrom Iran’s perspective that meansgetting paid upfront with serioussanctions relief, not to be put onsome kind of probation. Iran’s pastand probably current cheating onnuclear matters, however, meansthat Washington has almost no flex-ibility when it comes to sanctionsrelief and will have even less witha Republican-controlled Congress.

Put all of this together and ex-tending the talks for seven monthsbecomes the least bad option, at leastfrom the negotiators’ perspective.So is a deal going to be possible nextyear? As Secretary of State John F.Kerry said in a news conference lastweek, it’s hard to imagine that timeis going to make tough issues easierto resolve. Iran can’t continue on itsmerry way to becoming a nuclearthreshold state and expect serioussanctions relief. Right now, Iranisn’t prepared to make a choice. Willit in coming months? That’s not atall clear, but one thing is. I’m prettysure the supreme leader isn’t a Roll-ing Stones fan. The writer, a vicepresident at the Woodrow WilsonInternational Centre for Scholars,served as a Middle East negotiatorin Republican and Democratic ad-ministrations.— Courtesy: Los Angeles Times

Electoral reforms, new CEC

ELECTORAL System in Pakistan has always remained aquestion mark upon the elected

representative and the election Com-mission of Pakistan. Pakistan is ademocratic country where five yeartenure is fixed for every party to com-plete and installs the interim Govern-ment itself with consultation of op-position party leader for both theNational and Provincial Assemblies.The Democracy has been undergo-ing the process of transformation andtransition, and the people have nottested or reaped the fruit of true de-mocracy. With frequent Coup D’états,Pakistan has remained more underrule of Military leaders than theelected Civilian Government.

Pakistan presents a bleak pictureof Political tenures if compared withour neighbouring India where elec-toral system has improved with thepassage of time and the democracyhas been transformed into real de-mocracy where every Governmentcompletes its term and goes away andChief Election Commissioner be-comes the head of the Governmentsand holds elections in phases andhands over the reins of Country in thehands of Party having simple major-ity or the party leading any coalition.In Pakistan, in last five decades from1947 to 1999, the country was ruledby Armed Forces Heads by impos-ing Martial Law and over throwingthe Civilian Governments. The Civil-ian Governments were hardly to com-plete three and half years. The maxi-mum time completed by any Partywas in PPP led Government from2008 to 2013. Though, PPP failed todeliver. Given the circumstances, yetit could be said that it was first civil-ian Government to complete its ten-ure in entirety.

But it is very important to beshared here that whenever, the Politi-cal parties plan to fail or oust the gov-ernment, they invite the Army tocome and hold the reins country giv-ing the instanced of Bad Governance,law and Order Situation, Inter and Ex-ternal Security threat to the existence

of Pakistan. But in the end when theyfeel that they need to be the part ofthe Government, they start agitatingthe Army that they derailed democ-racy by over throwing Elected CivilGovernment by terming the MartialLaw Administrators as dictators.

If we go through the ElectoralSystem or Framework of Pakistan, Itwill be observed it helps the partial-ity than impartiality. First the tenureof government is too long whichshould be Four years as Proposed bythe opposition leader SyedKhursheed Shah. Second is the mostproblematic issue of Induction of in-terim federal or provincial Govern-ments. The Party which rules for fiveyears, The Same party selects the PMin Federal Govt and CM Provincialwith the consultation Oppositionleaders in national and ProvincialAssemblies. One feels that how theselection of elected Representativeswill be impartial since the chance offixing or partiality cannot be ruled outas person being nominated may sup-port Either of party or demand favorsor use its office for personal gains.

It will be fine that unlike In-dia, the outgoing Government musthand over the power to ElectionCommission of Pakistan to hold theFree, fair and transparent electionwithin the stipulated time. This willempower CEC to hold electionswithout any political influence. Hemay be provided the required Fundsfor Printing of the Ballot Papers,Stipends to Polling Staff, Transpor-tation and Shipping Costs and ITsupport for Consolidated Results atDistrict and Taluka Offices of Rev-enue. The polling may also be heldin Phases for Example in two orthree Phases for both Provincial andNational level.

The Polling station may be di-vided into clusters and a cluster incharge may be deputed to collect theresults of Polling Stations on the Spotand material without compelling Pre-siding Officers to Submit the Resultsbefore ROs or DROs Mostly Judges.The Employees may be given Postalballot, E-ballot facility to exercisetheir Vote. The EVS may be intro-duced so that Transparency can beinsured at all levels. Electronic Vot-ing System will attract a large num-

ber of Youth and Women who avoidcasting their vote either Political pres-sure or Family Restriction such asveiled Environment. With Introduc-tion of EVS, Such families may casttheir vote either by a nearby ATM,NADRA Kiosk or Touch enabledSmartphone or Tab at home. ECPonly has o develop an APP or Soft-ware which gets connected throughInternet or Mobile 3G or 4G.

It is irony for us that the Elec-toral system in Pakistan has not im-proved despite passage of 66 Yearsof Independence .Where as in theworld technology has provided agreat Support to democracy by en-suring transparency . We have sofar some nominal changes speciallyintroduction of thumb on the ballotpapers though it was on the singlepart of ballot paper raising doubtsabout the authentication of Vote, themagnetic Ink. But the NADRAfindings are shocking even the Inkcannot be indicator for fake votesor verified . There should be Re-turning Officers from ElectionCommission. Election officer mustact as DROs and at Tehseel Levels,ACs or DDOs of Revenue Depart-ment may be made as Teasel Re-turning Officer. They may be as-sisted by Revenue and DistrictElection Officer Staff for compil-ing the consolidated vote Position.

Whereas DRO role should be tocompile the results of Tehseels andannounce the Winner and the Run-ners up . The Staff for polling maybe hired locally or deputing the Of-ficers from Banks, revenue, policebesides education as well as hiringvolunteers from NGOs. Election De-bate either face to face in form ofConference or Open Public Debatemay be made mandatory for the en-tire Candidate. The Condition ofGraduate will sift the candidates whoare uneducated or Less Educated. TheDegree of the Candidates may be gotverified from boards and Universi-ties prior to launching election Cam-paigns’. This will enable real candi-dates to go for election and fake De-gree holders will not be able to maketheir way to either national or Pro-vincial Assemblies.

The Assets may be verified fromCBR, SBP and Excite Revenue and

Custom Department so that TaxEvaders or Loan or land RevenueTax defaulters may not be able tomake their way to assemblies.

Finally , for the Selection ofChief Election Commissioner it isnecessary that he may be in the agerange of 45 to 55 as Person agedmore than 55 ,will not be able totravel and monitor the process sincehe would be lazy in discharge ofduties . As the last CECFakhuruddin was aged about 86,which might have affected the paceof his work as Chief Election Com-missioner of Pakistan .

The Electoral Reforms Com-mittee must have the mandate ofall the Political Parties so that theirRecommendation may be givendue consideration and Weight ageand may be implemented in letterand in spirit. So far the Commit-tee has missed the Deadline to cre-ate Strategy or Report for Recom-mendation to reform The Elec-tions. The Committee must reviewthe Proposed Amendments Draftsent by ECP to the ParliamentaryCommittee besides including theinput from various Opinion lead-ers, Writers, NGOs, Legal Expertsand Ex-Legislators who have ex-pertise in drafting laws for Elec-toral Process. Moreover, it is notnecessary that CEC should fromJudiciary; He may be from Corpo-rate Sector, retired Bureaucrat withClear Service Record, Develop-ment Sector person, A Journalistor a Noted Lawyer.

But he should be free in takingdecisions to implement the policiesin letter and Spirit. CEC can alsobe from Police from the Ranks suchas IG or from the Ranks of Rangersor Military such as Rtd General orTechnocrat or a retired Professorfrom College or University, A re-tired Attorney. He may be a retiredChairman of Planning Commissionor Bureau of Statistics, Ambassa-dor the Choice is infinite. But theProposed CEC must have the willto bring change in the ElectoralSystems so that ECP may not becriticized Disappointing Results.—The writer is Islamabad-basedprofessional policy research andgovernance specialist.

a multidimensional solutions orconflict prevention strategies.

For conflict resolution, differ-ent methods were applied in pastto restore stability; and differentfactors played a substantial role tomake this regions peaceful. Mostlythese peaceful activities and con-flict prevention strategies are doneby United States of America suchas Oslo peace accord and CampDavid accord and there are manybilateral and multilateral agree-ments between Israel and Arabstates. In Middle East the peaceprevailing process is mainly basedon these factors, United States ofAmerica’s interest in Middle East,Israel’s interest or Israel lobby andIslamic militant groups.

Why policies of super powerare ending in disastrous failures toconfront terrorism and why theirpolicies are useless to maintainpeace in Middle East? There arehundreds or millions of questionsregarding the chaos in peace pro-cess and conflicting areas due toinexcusable policies of UnitedStates which needed to answer. Butpolicy makers and government ofUnited States don’t have any satis-factory answer to defend its poli-cies in Middle East and for its con-tinued categorical support for Is-rael.

The dreadful US policies regard-ing the segregation of Middle Eastfrom one regional power eventuallyhave been ending up in a disastrousway and hence the potential of con-flicts, terrorist activities have con-verted the whole region into a safehaven for terrorist activities insteadof making a peaceful and stabledemocratic region. The influentialIsrael lobby is participating in mak-ing Middle East a complex regionjust for the nonsensical security as-surance of Israel or an exclusivelyJewish democratic state in world.And militant groups are fighting fortheir rights or to establish an Islamicstate or to gain territory or to showtheir grudges for a Jewish State andthey want occupied territories ofholy Palestine for Palestinians backin their control.—Via email

Educationfor girls

MARIAM AGHA GRADE 8

MY father always laid emphasison my studies. Since I was a littlegirl, he told me he wanted to seeme working when I grew up. If Idid this, I could buy all the dolliesin the world since I’d be very rich,and this, of course, attracted me. Iwould go to school every day, andwatch my cleaning lady’s son go,as well, but not her daughter. Theyoung girl, barely 16, would stayhome and help clean the house.

I didn’t realize the problem, tillI grew up a little bit. It wasn’t likeshe didn’t want to go to school, butthe family didn’t feel the need forher to go to school. Sometimes itis also a problem with boys also,who help out the family by earn-ing some money. But when itcomes to girls education, themindset in our community is gen-erally less accommodating. Theylet their sons go to school to study,but think their daughters have nobusiness there, and are meant tostay home to cook and clean. Thisis observed not only in small vil-lages, but also in cities, wherewomen take a back seat to educa-tion. This is in sharp contrast to thefact that girls outdo boys in exami-nation boards and medical test ad-missions.

I once watched a documentary,in which a woman interviewed agroup of men, asking them whythey do not send their daughtersto school, after they reach a cer-tain age. Their answers were simi-

lar. They all told the woman thatthey did not like strange men star-ing at their daughters. One of themen from the group being inter-viewed told the woman that he hadbeen made fun of by his friendswhen he sent his 15 year olddaughter to school, so he wasforced to pull her out. I thought thiswas strange as old men were mak-ing decisions for young girls! Buthow would this change if wedidn’t, let the girls go to school inthe first place.

Girls should be allowed to goto school. Their fathers shouldn’tbe ashamed, but be proud of it.Girls and boys should have equalrights to school and everythingelse. Our society needs to under-stand that we as young girls haveequal ambitions as any boy of ourage. Our dreams are for a betterfuture and a prosperous Pakistan.—Via email

Myth of derailingdemocracyJAVAID BASHIR

Democracy is the best form ofGovernment ever invented, but itmust deliver or else it fails. Theopportunists find the opportunityand strike. Thus it becomes easyto derail the democracy. Everyother institution claims to save thefragile democracy. The Court it-self claims that the Martial law hasbeen buried for ever. This meansthat diseased mind has been cured.To gain power is desirable andfeeds upon the weakness of thepeople.

The temptation is too great tojust make a pass. The power at-tracts and attracts for ever. Thesane people do not deal with con-spiracy theories; neither do theyindulge in them nor believe inthem. In the short history of Paki-stan more than thirty odd yearsremained under the dictatorial rule.They ruled with impunity and withthe blessings of the Court. Theyexceeded their authority. Theirrule was always given lease of lifeby the Court. The Court did notfollow the Constitution and eventhe rule of law was convenientlycompromised. The champions ofdemocracy sided with the MartialLaw regimes.

All of them made a mockeryof democracy. They joined handswith the Martial law Regimesand strengthened the dictators.The dictators turned into loversof democracy - the golden rule.The Greeks chose democracyover autocracy. They propagateddemocracy throughout GreekCity States and fought againsthegemonistic designs of dicta-tors. We have been giving lip ser-vice to Greek model of democ-racy, never giving it a chance toprosper. No power can save de-mocracy unless we as people arewilling to strengthen its roots inthe society. It has to come fromwithin. No outside force can de-rail it. We should stop beratingthe democracy. The days of Mar-tial Law are gone, but we haveto keep vigilance over ourselves.Only we can sustain or derail de-mocracy.—Lahore

Abdul Rahman MalikEmail:[email protected]

GORDON G. CHANG

ON NOVEMBER 18, the United NationsThird Committee adopted a resolutionrecommending the referral of the Demo-

cratic People’s Republic of Korea to the Inter-national Criminal Court, alleging crimes againsthumanity. This was the first time a U.N. reso-lution recommended sending North Korea toThe Hague.The General Assembly is expectedto accept the committee’s report next monthand formally pass the matter to the SecurityCouncil. China and Russia, among the 19 vot-ing against the Third Committee resolution,will undoubtedly use their Security Councilvetoes to make sure the ICC does not get anopportunity to hear the case.

South Korea, which has been pushing hardfor the ICC referral, is not dismayed by theintransigence of Beijing and Moscow. “Thisis just the beginning,” said Lee Jung-hoon,South Korea’s human rights ambassador, to

Criminal States Protecting Their Proxies at UNthe Wall Street Journal. “The fact that the Secu-rity Council will discuss this, and talk about KimJong Un and the International Criminal Courtin one sentence—that’s a huge step forward.”

Lee is right, but a conversation about humanrights in North Korea is not complete withouttalking about Pyongyang’s long-time accomplice.The regime in Pyongyang could not brutalize itspopulation without the active support of its north-ern neighbor, the People’s Republic of China. InFebruary, the U.N.’s Commission of Inquiry citedChina for possibly “aiding and abetting of crimesagainst humanity” by, among other things, forc-ibly repatriating refugees to the North.

As Roberta Cohen of the Brookings Institu-tion tells us, the U.N., for the first time, put China“under broad international censure” for the re-turn of refugees. The U.N. report was damning,pointing out, in Cohen’s words, “that over a pe-riod of two decades, China has forcibly returnedtens of thousands of North Koreans almost all ofwhom have been subjected to inhuman treatment

and punishment in the form of ‘imprisonment,execution, torture, arbitrary detention, deliberatestarvation, illegal cavity searches, forced abor-tions, and other sexual violence.’ Beijing, whichsaid the report was “divorced from reality,” hasbeen blatantly violating its international obli-gations for years by refusing to consider refu-gee status for fleeing North Koreans, but nei-ther America nor any other nation was willingto hold China accountable.

Therefore, it is no surprise the Third Com-mittee did not recommend referring the Chinesestate to the ICC. No one, it seems, wants to takeon a seemingly powerful Beijing, but there isanother reason for the failure to enforce normsand rules. In short, there is an enduring hope thatChinese communists will one day become re-sponsible actors. “How many times is China go-ing to veto this down?” South Korea’s Lee asked,referring to the Third Committee’s recommen-dation. “If China wants to be a world leader withthe U.S., it needs to take a moral stance.”

Lee miscomprehends China’s CommunistParty, which thinks it can become a worldleader without making bows to morality, atleast as the concept is understood around theworld. The Chinese people are undoubtedly asmoral as any other, but the one-party state thatrules them has its own imperatives.

One of those imperatives is supportingPyongyang to the hilt when it comes to refugees.Last Thursday, the lawyer for Peter Hahn, a Ko-rean-American running a Christian charity andschool in China just across the Tumen River fromNorth Korea, said the activist had been detainedby authorities. Hahn’s detention follows the tak-ing into custody of Kevin and Julie Garratt threemonths ago in Dandong, along the Yalu River.

These detentions are part of an intensifiedcrackdown on aid agencies and networks inborder areas, and are a reminder that China’ssupport for Kim family crimes remainsstrong—surely a crime against humanity itself.

—Courtesy: World Affairs

An Iraqi Army helicopter flies over the city of Baquba, the capital of Iraq’s Diyala province, 35 miles northeast ofBaghdad, Iraq.

Fishing vessel Oryong 501 operated by Sajo Industries, which sank in the Bering Sea, isseen in this undated picture provided by Sajo Industries and released by Yonhap.

DOMINIQUE MOISI

FORMER British prime minister Harold Wilson once saidthat a week is a very long time in politics. If that is true,France’s 2017 presidential election is an eternity away, and

any speculation at this point is premature, even imprudent. None-theless, some interesting preliminary developments merit con-sideration — specifically those concerning perceptions of Presi-dent François Hollande and his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy,neither of whom would be likely to win an election today.

The French electorate’s disapproval is among the things thatHollande and Sarkozy — two men with strikingly different per-sonalities and approaches — have in common. In fact, Hollandewas elected in 2012 precisely because he presented himself asthe “anti-Sarkozy”. Today, a significant majority of French vot-ers cannot stomach the prospect of seeing either leader on theirtelevision screens for five more years (the duration of a Frenchpresidential mandate). Both Hollande and Sarkozy have beenrelegated to the category of “unwanted incumbent”. Some mightblame France’s rejection of Hollande and Sarkozy on the chal-lenges facing Europe today. Given rampant distrust of politi-cians and widespread frustration with the state of the economy,it would be difficult for any leader — except perhaps in Ger-many — to campaign successfully for reelection.

this explanation fails to account for those political figures— such as Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, and formerprime minister Alain Juppé — who are popular precisely be-cause of their experience. Indeed, while only 20 per cent of theFrench electorate view Hollande favourably, and nearly two-thirds of them do not want to see Sarkozy return to the ElyséePalace, more than two-thirds hope that Juppé will play an im-portant political role in coming years.

Nonetheless, Sarkozy appears convinced that, despite hisinglorious departure from the presidency (not to mention theongoing corruption investigation against him), he can recapturethe approval level enjoyed by Juppé who, like Sarkozy, is affili-ated with the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Sarkozy,who has never stopped viewing himself as the saviour that Franceurgently needs, seems to believe that Hollande’s plummetingpopularity must mean that his fellow citizens are ready for hisreturn to the centre stage.

What Sarkozy has failed to grasp is that the reasons for hisloss to Hollande in 2012 — such as his extreme nervousness andapparent untrustworthiness — are not only still relevant; theyhave been compounded by an evident desire for revenge. Andthere is little that he can do to diminish the salience of that. Fewvoters seem to care about Sarkozy’s quick and determined re-sponse to the 2007 global financial crisis. In politics, what youdo matters less than how you are perceived. Just as public per-ceptions are undermining Sarkozy’s political prospects, they arefuelling Juppé’s irresistible rise.

Though Juppé, like Sarkozy, is no stranger to scandal — hewas temporarily barred from public office for abuse of publicfunds during Chirac’s tenure as mayor of Paris — his age isreassuring to French voters, who consider him wiser and mel-lower now (he was also widely viewed as Chirac’s scapegoat).Indeed, as the very successful mayor of Bordeaux, Juppé — un-like Hollande and Sarkozy — seems at ease with himself, bothpersonally and politically.

—Courtesy: Jordan Times[The writer, a professor at L’Institut d’études politiques de Paris

(Sciences Po), is senior adviser at the French Institute for Interna-tional Affairs (IFRI) and a visiting professor at King’s College Lon-don. ©Project Syndicate, 2014. www.project-syndicate.org]

The resistiblereturn of Sarkozy

BAGHDAD—The Iraqi federal govern-ment and the Kurdish regional governmentin northern Iraq have reached an agreementover longstanding oil and budget disputesthat for months have created a rift.

The agreement stipulates that the semi-autonomous Kurdish government willsend a total of 550,000 barrels of oil perday to the Iraqi oil ministry, half of whichwill come from disputed Kirkuk oil fields,according to Iraqi Finance MinisterHoshyar Zebari. In exchange, the Kurdswill receive their 17-percent share of thenational budget allocated to their region,plus installments of as much as $1 billionto boost the capabilities of Kurdishpeshmerga fighters battling the IslamicState militant group.

Iraqi, Kurdish governmentsagree to oil deal

“This deal is a win-win deal for bothsides,” Zebari, a Kurd, told The Associ-ated Press. “The (Kurdish government)needed more stability in its relations withBaghdad and the Iraqi (central) govern-ment is going through very serious finan-cial difficulties because of the drop in oilprices, and because of...spending that hasbeen taking place, so really we are strug-gling to increase oil production.”

Earlier this year, Baghdad cut the 17percent of the state budget that is supposedto go to the Kurdish region — which in 2013totaled about $12 billion, according to Zebari.The central government withheld the fundsafter the Kurds began transporting oil fromfields inside the autonomous zone to Turkeyagainst Baghdad’s wishes. The Kurdish gov-

ernment says it needs that money to meet itsgrowing security demands, particularly amidthe current fight against the Islamic Stategroup, and to pay public-sector employeesand fund much-needed infrastructure devel-opment. Since Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came to power in September, theKurds have pushed for a quick resolution,saying they will give him three months toresolve the outstanding dispute or they wouldboycott his government.

Last month, the government in Irbil,the capital of the Kurdish region, agreedpreliminarily to sell 150,000 barrels of oilper day to the federal government in re-turn for a one-time payment of $500 mil-lion, in a sign that tensions between thetwo sides were thawing.—AP

HELSINKEY—Finland-OICbilateral consultation was heldat the OIC Headquarters onDecember 2, 2014. During theconsultation, both sides dis-cussed and examined variousregional and international is-sues of mutual concern.

Ambassador JarnoSYRJÄLÄ, Director General,Department for Africa and theMiddle East, Ministry of For-

OIC-Finlad tocooperate on int’l issues

eign Affairs of Finland andAmbassador Abdullah A. Alim,Assistant Secretary General forPolitical Affairs Department ofthe OIC led their respective del-egation during the consultation.OIC and Finland reiterated theircommitments to remain en-gaged on shared issues and tocontinue cooperation for com-mon benefits in the comingdays.—Email

SEOUL—More than 50 people remain missinga day after a South Korean fishing vessel sankin the Bering Sea off the coast of Russia’s fareastern Chukotka region as severe weather con-ditions hampered a rescue operation, officialssaid on Tuesday. Eight people - a Russian offi-cial, a South Korean crew member, three Filipi-nos and three Indonesians - have been pulledfrom the water although the South Korean diedof hypothermia, officials in Seoul said.

US rescue helicopters joined the search op-eration for several hours on Tuesday but failedto make headway, South Korean Prime Minis-ter Chung Hong-won told a meeting of govern-ment officials. The South Korean governmentand Sajo Industries, the vessel’s operator, saidthere were 60 people on board, including 11South Koreans, 13 Filipinos and 35 Indonesians.

Artur Rets, the head of the maritime rescueservice in Russia’s far eastern port of

Weather hamperssearch for 50 missing

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, had said on Mon-day that records showed 62 people on board.

“When the fish were being hauled in, thevessel was hit by a wave,” Rets said, addingthat the South Korean vessel, the Oriong-501,had sunk. The 36-year-old vessel was one of alarge fleet of ships operated by Sajo Industries,which owns the world’s largest number of tunafishing vessels, according to its Website.

Sajo, founded in 1971 and initially fo-cused on trawling and tuna fishing, has ex-panded into food and meat processing andruns a golf resort.

The company’s shares fell 3.5 percent onTuesday in their highest volume in nearly fouryears. They had climbed to a 17-month high theday before, after the company reported operat-ing profit more than doubled to 44.6 billion won($40.2 million) in the first three quarters of thisyear from a year earlier.—Reuters

NEW DELHI—India is close toan agreement to buy Rafalefighter planes from France, anIndian defense spokesman saidTuesday. The 12 billion euros($15 billion) deal for 126 of thejets would be France’s first for-eign sale of the combat-testedplanes.

France and French manu-facturer Dassault Aviation havebeen trying for years to sell thejets abroad without success.The Rafale has been in servicefor the French Air Force since2006.

Defense spokesmanSitanshu Kar said Tuesday thatIndian defense ministerManohar Parrikar met hisfrench counterpart Jean-YvesLe Drian on Monday as part ofan official visit to India.

“All issues related to de-fense were discussed includingthe Rafale,” Kar said. “Bothsides decided to adopt a fasttrack approach wherever thereare differences.”

A French defense official,who was not authorized to dis-cuss the matter publicly, alsosaid that the two defense min-isters agreed to accelerate ne-gotiations.

India has become the

India buying $ 15bln fighter planes

from Franceworld’s biggest arms importeras an economic boom has al-lowed it to modernize its mili-tary. Major arms manufactur-ers are wooing the country asit replaces its obsolete Soviet-era weapons and buys newequipment. India already hasa fleet of the older Miragejets.

India’s air force has around700 fighter aircraft and is onlyexceeded in size by the UnitedStates, Russia and China.

Growing worries aboutChina’s fast-expanding mili-tary and the decades-old mis-trust of Pakistan have fueledIndia’s impetus to add heft toits defense forces.

The Rafale has struggled tofind an export market becauseof its high cost, complexity anda design that was a marked shiftfrom France’s last big-namefighter jet, the Mirage.

Competing jets from theUnited States and Russia suchas the General Dynamics F-16,McDonnell Douglas F-15 andthe Sukhoi Su-27 have grabbeda large slice of the market.

Deals for Brazil, Libya andSwitzerland to buy the Rafalehave all fallen through, oftenat the last minute.—AP

JAVIER SOLANA

MILITANCY is flourishing. Tensions with Russia are flaring. Agreement between Iran and the “E3+3” (Britain,France, and Germany from the European Union, plus

China, Russia, and the United States) remains elusive, with do-mestic politics in all of the negotiating partners introducing ad-ditional complexities into an already complicated process. USPresident Barack Obama, having suffered a severe midterm elec-tion defeat, must now deal with a Congress under full Republi-can control. In the euro zone, economic growth remains anemic,causing leaders to look inward.

One could easily conclude that the world is being suckedinto a vortex of instability. But the past month featured somehopeful moments, and pausing to study them is imperative toavoid succumbing to pessimism. Concluding a deal with Iran onits nuclear program remains an unfinished item of global busi-ness. The negotiations in Vienna failed to produce a deal that iscritically important to both regional and global stability. But theatmosphere was positive: Iran fulfilled its obligations under lastyear’s interim agreement, and the E3+3 showed a willingness toend sanctions. The deadline to finalize negotiations has now beenextended to June 2015. The West has a unique window of oppor-tunity. Achieving a deal is essential to avoid a new — and poten-tially catastrophic — conflict in the Middle East. Negotiationand diplomacy are the only way to resolve the Iranian nuclearquestion in the long term and to normalize Iran’s critical role inregional security.

There were several other promising developments in No-vember. The new European Commission took office on Nov. 1,launching its mandate with a plan to boost public and privateinvestment by •315 billion ($392 billion) over the next threeyears. Similarly, in Brisbane, the G-20 approved a package ofeconomic measures to boost global economic growth by 2.1 per-centage points by 2018. Moreover, the 20 leaders endorsed theGlobal Infrastructure Initiative, which will create a Global In-frastructure Hub to serve as a knowledge-sharing platform forgovernments, the private sector, development banks, and inter-national organizations. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation(APEC) summit in Beijing featured several important agreementsas well. At the top of the list is the announcement of a US-Chinabilateral climate deal, which helps to smooth the path toward thecrucial United Nations Climate Change Summit (COP21) in Parisnext year. If India were to adopt a similar stance, hope wouldgrow stronger still.

The UN’s Green Climate Fund, meanwhile, has been boostedwith additional financing pledges — another critical stepping stoneon the path to Paris. The Fund, financed by developed countries,is designed to help developing countries meet the costs of mitigat-ing and adapting to climate change. The US has now pledged $3billion, with Japan promising $1.5 billion, augmenting previouspledges by France and Germany — funding that is essential toensure developing countries’ fruitful participation at COP21.

The EU is also looking forward to Paris, following the Euro-pean Council’s approval of the European Commission’s 2030framework for climate and energy policies. Targets have beenset for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, increasing the per-centage of renewables in Europe’s energy mix, enhancing en-ergy efficiency, and promoting electricity interconnection amongmember states.

China and the US reached another bilateral deal at the APECsummit, which will serve to unblock the World TradeOrganization’s Information Technology Agreement and thuseliminate tariffs on information and communication technology.The Obama administration has estimated that, once applied, thisagreement — which was frozen for a year as China sought toprotect its domestic industry — will increase annual global GDPby $190 billion. At the same summit, Chinese President Xi Jinpingannounced steps toward a 17-member Free Trade Area of theAsia-Pacific (FTAAP).

—Courtesy: Arab News

Seeing light at theend of the tunnel

BEIRUT—The Lebanese armydetained a wife and daughter ofIslamic State leader Abu Bakral-Baghdadi as they crossedfrom Syria nine days ago, se-curity officials said on Tuesday.

The officials declined togive the name or nationality ofthe woman whom they de-scribed as one of his wives. TheLebanese newspaper As-Safirreported the army had detainedher in coordination with “for-eign intelligence apparatus”.

The arrest is a blow toBaghdadi and could be used asa bargaining chip against hisgroup which has capturedmany foreign, Iraqi and Syrianprisoners and declared a caliph-ate across territory his groupseized in Syria and Iraq.

A senior Lebanese securityofficial said Baghdadi’s wifehad been traveling with one oftheir daughters, contradictingearlier reports that it was hisson. DNA tests were conductedto verify it was Baghdadi’schild, the official said.

They were detained innorthern Lebanon. Investiga-tors were questioning her at theheadquarters of the Lebanesedefense ministry, the securityofficials said.

There was no immediatereaction from Islamic Statewebsites to the arrest. IslamicState has seized wide areas ofIraq and Syria, Lebanon’sneighbor to the east.

The Lebanese securityforces have waged a crack-down on Islamic State sympa-thizers in Lebanon and the in-telligence services have been

Lebanese army detainsIS leader’s wife

extra vigilant on the borderswith Syria.

They have arrested over thepast few months a number ofIslamic militants suspected ofstaging attacks to expand Is-lamic State influence in thecountry neighboring Syria.

A US-led alliance is seek-ing to roll back Islamic State’sterritorial gains in Iraq andSyria. US President BarackObama has vowed to “degradeand ultimately destroy”Baghdadi’s group, which isseeking to reshape the MiddleEast according to its radicalvision of Islam.

Spillover from the Syrianconflict has repeatedly joltedLebanon. Militants affiliated tothe al Qaeda-linked Nusra Frontand Islamic State are demand-ing the release of Islamists heldby the Lebanese authorities inexchange for 27 members of theLebanese security forces takencaptive in August.

Baghdadi, an Iraqi, called forattacks against the rulers of SaudiArabia in a speech purported tobe in his name last month. Hesaid his self-declared caliphatewas expanding in Saudi Arabiaand four other Arab countries andcalled for “volcanoes of jihad”the world over in the speech re-leased on Nov. 13.

A CV of Baghdadi pub-lished on social media in Julyby Islamic State sympathizersdescribed him as married butgave no further details. It isunclear how many wives hehas. He is allowed up to four,in accordance with Islamiclaw.—Reuters

Russianeconomy to run into

recession soonMOSCOW—The Russian gov-ernment has warned that thecountry’s economy will enterrecession next year. The forecastreleased by the economic devel-opment ministry on Tuesdaywas the first acknowledgementthat the Russian economy willcontract in 2015.

The forecast was revisedfrom growth of 1.2 percent toa drop of 0.8 percent. Dispos-able income is expected to de-cline by 2.8 percent against thepreviously expected 0.4 per-cent growth.

Russia’s economy has beenbattered by low oil prices, thebackbone of its budget andWestern sanctions over its rolein eastern Ukraine. That has ledthe national currency, the ruble,to drop by more than 40 per-cent this year.—AP

Liberia Eboladeaths 3,145

DAKAR—The World HealthOrganization has sharply re-vised down its tally of Eboladeaths in Liberia, after a jumpof more than 1,000 in the deathtoll there.

The U.N. health agency saidlate Monday that 3,145 peoplein Liberia had died from the dis-ease, which is also hitting neigh-boring Guinea and Sierra Leonehard. Figures published Fridayput the death toll at 4,181, a jumpof more than 1,000 deaths fromtwo days earlier.

Spokesman Tarik Jasarevicsaid Tuesday that the Fridaytoll mistakenly included non-Ebola deaths.—AP

World Prematurity Day

1m deaths in theworld each year

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan ob-served the World PrematurityDay along with the rest of theworld, to show commitmenttowards reducing the numberof preterm births in the coun-try. Pakistan is ranked fourthout of 184 countries in respectof preterm births.

World Prematurity Day ispart of a global effort to raiseawareness about the deaths anddisabilities due to prematurity,which is regarded as one of theleading causes for newborndeaths worldwide. Yet 75 percent of these babies could besaved even without high tech-nology care through simple,proven and effective measures.

“Precious lives lost due tocomplications from pretermbirths can and must be saved”,

says Angela Kearney, UNICEFRepresentative in Pakistan.“There are inexpensive andproven prevention and treat-ment methods that can helpsave a child’s life.

These include regular an-tenatal check-up of pregnantmothers and delivering with thehelp of a skilled health worker,enhancing new born resuscita-tion skills of health care pro-viders such as helping babiesbreathe, keeping newbornswarm, ensuring umbilical cordcare and supporting early ini-tiation of exclusive breast feed-ing.”

She further said, “Empow-ering communities throughraising awareness and ensuringdelivery of services at doorstepcan help in significant reduc-tion of preterm births and neo-natal mortality.”

bombings on the insurgent’s positions inDatta Khel tehsil of the volatile agency anddestroyed number of militant’s hideouts.Sources said at least 17 militants werekilled during the fresh strikes that were car-ried in the wee hours Tuesday.

Those killed as the military sourcessaid include any fugitives and a couple ofmilitant’s commanders with locals sayingfew vehicles of the insurgents were alsodestroyed. In the yet another action asmany as 7 militants were killed and morethan 20 others were injured in a clash be-tween security forces and militants inShireen Darra area of Lower OrakzaiAgency the same day. The clashes eruptedafter a group of militants ambushed a se-curity check post. Some more than 50 mili-tants attacked a security forces check postin Shireen Darra area on Tuesday and the

security forces repulsed the attack with fullmight and gunned down killed 7 militants.The sources in the security forces said tthe dead bodies were in their custody. Morethan 20 militants were also injured in theclash.

Reports said soon after the incidentsecurity forces kicked off search operationin the area to arrest the militants involvedin the attack. The Pakistan Army led secu-rity forces, it may be recalled, had comeinto action on June 15 last after the peacetalks between the government and the pro-scribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)fizzled out and months long efforts to findout negotiated settlement of the militancyissue eventually exhausted. The PAF birdssince then have been pounding themilitant’s hideouts in the agency some-times with a pause of day or so and have

so far killed more than 1300 miscreantsbesides destroying more than 200militant’s hide outs. Likewise the groundoperation was also started on June 30thand the Pak Army lead security forces haveseized scores of bomb and other explosivesmanufacturing factories of the terrorists invarious parts of the agencies as they suc-cessfully continued their advancementsagainst the trouble makers.

While more than five months havegone since the initiation of the military op-eration, the military sources said a major-ity of the troubled areas have been purgedof the militants and security forces wereclosed to totally clearing the region of theinsurgent including the fugitives. The freshstrikes were, however, launched after arelative pause of one week.

24 militants mowedFrom Page 1

Ishaq Dar said that the nameof Chief Election Commissionerwill be finalized by December5.

“The name will be final-ized between governmentand Opposition Leader SyedKhurshid Shah by tomor-row”, Dar said. He said thatif Prime Minister and Oppo-sition Leader failed to agreeupon one name then the de-cision will be made by par-liamentary committee.

Dar asked PTI to call offthe strike on December 5. He

Govt readyFrom Page 1

“The government is making serious ef-forts and we are close to the appointment,”he said, and appealed the court to grant moretime. The Supreme Court announced that itwill initiate action against PM Nawaz andShah if they fail to announce a new CEC byDec 5. It also said that its previous decisionto withdraw Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali ofthe apex court on Dec 5 from the post of CECwould remain if the government and the op-position did not honour the court’s deadline.The hearing of the case was subsequently ad-journed to Dec 8.

The CEC office has been vacant for over16 months after the retirement of FakhruddinG. Ibrahim. This is the fifth deadline givento the government by the Supreme Court.

In electoral reform case, the SupremeCourt of Pakistan (SC) on Tuesday orderedFederation and Election Commission of Pa-kistan (ECP) to submit their replies for notimplementing court’s order on electoral re-forms Justice Saqib Nisar enraged over theissue of electoral reforms said that the courtis not a laundry to remove political grime.He warned the Federation and ECP that elec-tions of 2014 would be revoked or a con-tempt notice would also be issued in case ofnot implementing court’s order. He stated

that Pakistan has been made in the name ofdemocracy and democracy is based on trans-parent elections so a strong legislature isneeded to inspect the electoral system. Onthe other hand, the lawyer of ECP MunirParacha added that the court doesn’t have au-thority to give suggestion of legislation onelectoral reforms.

Dissenting with the statement of ECPlawyer, Justice Saqib said that if you don’tlike the SC decision, you can inform the At-torney General. However, the court ad-journed the hearing till the second week ofJanuary and directed the Federation and ECPto submit their reply on the issue.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court (SC) al-lowed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to be-come party in implementation of court’s de-cision in electoral reforms case.

SC has warned if implementation ofcourt’s orders is delayed with regard to elec-toral reforms then contempt of court proceed-ing will be initiated against the responsiblepersons.

Justice Mian Saqib Nisar remarked “an democracy is based on transparent elec-tion. Legislating is not domain of the court.Court can however give proposals to gov-ernment in connection with legislation.

SC warns of actionFrom Page 1

Shah have reportedly shortlisted four names for the slotof Chief Election Commis-sioner (CEC).

According to reports, Jus-tice (retd) Sardar Raza Khan,Justice (retd) Shakir Ullah Jan,Justice (retd) Mian MuhammadAjmal and Justice (retd) TariqPervez have been short listed.Justice (retd) Sardar Raza Khanis Chief Justice of FederalShariat Court (FSC).

Justice (retd) Shakir UllahJan has served as Acting CEC,Justice (retd) Mian MuhammadAjmal is ex-Secretary Lawwhereas Justice (retd) TariqPervez is former judge of theSupreme Court and formerChief Justice Peshawar HighCourt.

Prime Minister and the op-position leader held a meetingin Islamabad on Monday anddiscussed the names to appointan impartial and non-contro-versial CEC, a constitutionalobligation for the top slot ofElection Commission of Paki-stan (ECP).

Last month, the govern-ment finalized three names af-ter consultation with the oppo-sition; however, Justice (rtd)Rana Bhagwandas and Justice(rtd) Tasadduq Hussain Jilaniexcused themselves from ac-cepting the post.—INP

4 short listedfor CEC

From Page 1

said that strike would be det-rimental for the economy.“Traders have rejected PTI’scall for strike”, he said. IshaqDar said that the governmentwas trying to strengthen andstabil ize the economy.Country’s economy wouldhave been in even better asituation had there been nosit-ins, he claimed.

Ishaq Dar said that theforeign exchange reserveswill be raised to 15 billiondollars by the end of the year.He told that the Sukuk bonds

Info Ministrydenies releaseorders for ads

ISLAMABAD—The Ministry ofInformation, Broadcasting andNational Heritage Tuesday de-nied the allegations of PakistanTehreek- I-Insaf (PTI) leadersfor issuing release orders ofadvertisements shown on vari-ous TV channels on Saturday,Sunday last.

Commenting on the jointpress conference of MNAsAsad Umar and Ms ShireenMazari, a spokesperson of theministry said that PTI leadershave showed a release order ofa private advertisement agencyfor releasing advertisements onNov 29 and 30 as baseless.

The PTI leaders, spokes-person added, have wronglyattributed the release order ofthe private advertisementagency for the release of adver-tisements as orders of the In-formation Ministry.—APP

French MPs voteFrom Page 1

The vote, which is non-binding on the government buthighly symbolic, comes as Eu-ropean countries seek alterna-tive ways to restart the stalledMiddle East process. Sweden’sgovernment has gone even fur-ther, officially recognising Pal-estine as a state in a controver-sial move that prompted Israelto recall its ambassador.But theFrench vote result stillprompted a swift and angry re-sponse from Tel Aviv, whichsaid it would send the “wrongmessage” to the region andwould be counterproductive tothe drive towards peace.

“Israel believes that the votein the National Assembly... willreduce the possibility of achiev-ing a deal between Israel and thePalestinians,” its embassy inParis said in a statement.

experience was successfulfor the government as it at-tracted more offers than ex-pected.

Ishaq Dar said that meet-ings with 29 different inves-tor groups were held in Lon-don regarding issuance ofSukuk bonds.

He said that he received 5percent more offers than the tar-get. Dar told that offers worth2.3 billion dollars were receivedfor Sukuk bonds but the govern-ment accepted only 1 billiondollar offers.

POL pricesFrom Page 1

mileage by the government,however the chain effect ofreducing POL prices ongeneral prices and servicescalls for sincere watch bythe provincial governmentsas price control now is thebaby of the provincialgovernments.

It may be noted that theconsumer price index (CPI)has dipped to 3.96% — low-est since Financial Year 2008that naturally prompts cut inFinancial Year 2015 inflationforecast to 6.5%.

Latest PBS data unveiledanother positive macro devel-opment as CPI dipped to3.96% in Nov-2014- lowestin current base year (FY08)series – from 5.8% in Oct-2014.

The larger than expecteddecline (Nov-2014 CPI expec-tation: 4.2%) however thanksto decline in perishable foodprices (4.4%), reduction inPOL prices by 5.8%-9% and11% lower transport fares onMoM basis.

KSE-100 takesFrom Page 1

decline in POL prices.The market confidence was

reflected in the growing tradingvolume which also touched 337million shares. Although cementwere the choice scrips for theinvestors yet the volume lead-ers for the day were includingK. Electric31 million shares,Next was the national airlinePIA with 26 million sharesSummit Bank with 13 millionshares was on the third position.

The KSE-100 was declaredas the best performer after Ar-gentine in November while De-cember is likely upgrade KSEto yet another milestone as thetrend indicates.

Imran lacksFrom Page 1

ment for one wrong act mustnot be awarded to the history,nation and Pakistan,” he added.

He said he had given bet-ter positions to those partymembers who had been activefor the past 20 years, adding,those who intend to part theirways are free to join thosewho speak of the umpire’sfinger.

Zardari said reason behindBenazir Bhutto’s signing theCharter of Democracy with thePakistan Muslim League-Nwas the cause of democracy,country and the system. Look-ing down upon Imran Khan asa politician devoid of politicalvision, Asif Ali Zardari Tues-day bawled out at his party’s‘suspected future defectors’,who were likely flapping theirwings to fly to PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf camp.

“Be my guest, if you wantto part ways with Bhutto’sparty to join those (PTI) whoare wrapped around ‘umpire’sfinger’ If you cannot serve theworkers/people then partydoesn’t need you anymore,” hesaid.

Ready for meaningful dialogueFrom Page 1

the issue should have beenraised earlier on.

He also took aim at thegovernment in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa saying that edu-cation institutes are in a terribleshape and that jails are brokenin the province. “First make anew KP, then think about mak-ing a new Pakistan,” the PMsaid.

He said first there were sit-ins and now there is talk ofshutting down Pakistan. “Thepeople of Pakistan did not votefor them to engage in the poli-

tics of agitation.” Withoutnaming the party, the Premiersaid the people of KhyberPakhtunkhwa had voted theparty but instead of focusingon the province they appearmore interested in speakingfor the entire Pakistan.“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s con-dition is getting worse,” heobserved.

He regretted that politicalneophytes were engaged in thepractice of sowing the seeds ofhatred, adding, a deplorablegame was being played with

Pakistan.The prime minister was

received by a representative ofthe British government and Pa-kistan High Commissioner tothe UK, Syed Ibne Abbas, atHeathrow Airport.

The London Conference onAfghanistan, is being held onDecember 3-4. Afghan Presi-dent Ashraf Ghani and ChiefExecutive Abdullah Abdullahwill also attend the conference.On the sidelines of the confer-ence, the prime minister willalso hold meetings with DavidCameron and US Secretary ofState John Kerry.

Earlier, Foreign Officespokesperson Tasneem Aslamsaid in a statement that duringthe visit, the premier wouldalso hold a meeting with WorldBank officials.

Shahbaz meetsFrom Page 1

and all out cooperation will beextended for resolving its prob-lems.

He said that Qatar is deeplyinterested in progress and sta-bility of Pakistan. He furthersaid that besides meeting gasrequirements of Pakistan, Qatarwill also cooperate in agricul-ture, power generation andskilled manpower sectors.

The Emir of Qatar fur-ther said that his countryis fully aware of the prob-lems being faced by Pakistanin energy sector and will ex-tend maximum cooperationfor r idding i ts Pakistanibrethren of the shortage ofpower.

He said that Qatar isready to welcome skilled andexperienced persons fromPakistan in various sectors.

A solution to the conflictwill be achieved “only withhonest and direct talks betweenthe parties and not by unilat-eral measures taken by one ofthe parties or by third parties,”it said. The Palestinian leader-ship, meanwhile, expressed its“gratitude” for the vote andurged Paris to “translate itsparliament’s vote into action”

Palestinians are seeking toachieve statehood in Gaza andthe Israeli-occupied West Bankwith east Jerusalem as the capi-tal. With little progress onreaching a settlement, theyhave been lobbying foreignpowers for international recog-nition. The Palestinian Author-ity estimates that 135 countrieshave now recognised Palestineas a state, although that num-ber is disputed.—AFP

DOHA: Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif shaking hands with Emirof Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani on Tuesday.

Bulgarianas 1stwoman UNchief?PARIS — She’salready the first female andeastern European to headUNESCO. Now IrinaBokova is a contenderbecome the first female andeastern European UnitedNations secretary-general.Bokova, the 62-year-oldBulgarian chief of the U.N.cultural agency, has beennominated by the Bulgariangovernment to succeed BanKi-Moon as U.N. secretary-general, after his secondmandate expires in 2016.“It’s time for a woman tobecome secretary-general.Definitely,” Bokova toldThe AP from UNESCO’sParis headquarters, hereyes lighting up. Thoughshe has not declared she isgoing for the job, Bokovais certainly not puttingrumors at rest.—AP

AppealagainstMubarakverdictCAIRO—Egypt’s public prosecutorsaid on Tuesday he hadappealed against a courtdecision to drop chargesagainst former presidentHosni Mubarak, hisinterior minister and sixaides over the killing ofprotesters in a 2011uprising. Mubarak, now86, was sentenced to life inprison in 2012 for conspir-ing to murder 239 demon-strators during an 18-dayrevolt that ended his 30-year rule, but an appealscourt ordered a retrial.Last Saturday, the courtdropped its case againstMubarak, igniting angryprotests in Cairo in whichtwo people were killed.The judge in the casesaid criminal chargesshould never have beenbrought against theformer ruler.—Reuters

A.R.Antulaydead at 85MUMBAI—Former unionminister andMaharashtra’s first Muslimchief minister A.R. Antulaydied onTuesday followingprolonged illness, hisnephew said. He was 85.Antulay breathed his lastat Mumbai’s Breach CandyHospital where he hadbeen admitted a few daysago. He is survived by hiswife Nargis, son Navedand daughters Neelam,Shabnam and Mubina,said nephew and son-in-law Mushtaque Antulay.Known as ‘BarristerAntulay’, he was thestate’s first Muslim chiefminister from June 1980-Jan 1982.—IANS

ISLAMABAD—Advisor to Prime Minister onNational Security and Foreign Affairs SartajAziz on Tuesday said that there is no possi-bility of immediate resumption of dialogueswith India.

Talking to media persons in Islamabad,he said New Delhi ended the negotiation pro-cess and it would have to take initiative. “In-dia has suspended the dialogue process andnow it’s their responsibility to resume it,” hesaid. Earlier in August, India had called offforeign secretary-level bilateral talks with Pa-kistan following criticism of Pakistani HighCommissioner Abdul Basit’s meeting withHurriyat leader Shabir Shah. Aziz also la-mented the attitude of the Indian governmenttowards the Kashmir dispute and said thatthe neighbouring country wanted to linkKashmir with terrorism to divert the world’sattention.

“Over the last forty years bilateralism hasfailed on Kashmir and that’s why Pakistanwanted to engage international communityon the matter,” he remarked. Aziz said thatfriendship with India could only possible with-out compromising on our self-respect,honour and equality He said foreign invest-ment in Pakistan has decreased due to sit-insand the ‘politics of protests’ in the country,hoping that ‘uncertain situation’ will come toan end soon. Earlier, the National Security

No breakthrough expectedin talks with India: Sartaj

Delhi should take initiative for resumption of dialogueAdvisor addressed the inaugural session of30th annual general meeting and conferenceof Pakistan Institute of Development Econom-ics (PIDE) here at Pak-China Friendship Cen-tre.

In his address, he emphasized the needto adopt national strategy to fight povertyand ensure more job opportunities in thecountry. He said, the government had takena number of steps to provide more opportu-nities to attract foreign and local investmentin various sectors. Sartaj Aziz said there aresocial and economic challenges being facedby the country but there is need to find thesolution to these problems.

He said it is unfortunate that there is alarge population in Pakistan which is still liv-ing below the poverty line of one dollar a day.The advisor said there are many root-causesfor the poverty but with effective and com-prehensive policies, the government wouldbe able to alleviate poverty. He said land hold-ing and lack of equitable distribution of re-sources are one of the major causes of pov-erty couple with manmade policies which arenot in favour to the poor community.

He said decentralization of power couldbe one of the major solution to solve theissue of poverty and improve the living con-ditions of the people especially living in ru-ral areas. —INP

LONDON—MQM leader Altaf Hussain hasasked Government of Pakistan, heads oflaw-enforcing agencies, former presidentAsif Ali Zardari, former Interior MinisterRehman Malik, Chief Minister Sindh SyedQaim Ali Shah and Governor Sindh DrIshratul Ebad to hold an inquiry about thethreatening statement given by PPP Chair-man Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on October 6.

Hussain asked them to hold inquirywithin fifteen days and a detailed answershould be given as to what caused thisominous statement otherwise he would beforced to seek legal and constitutional rem-edy from the court.

He said, “I would ask the PPP ChairmanBilawal Bhutto Zardari, Co-chairman AsifAli Zardari and the Central Executive Com-mittee of the PPP to inform me as to whatharm had come to their workers as BilawalBhutto Zardari claimed on 6 October. Whydid he accuse me?”

Altaf demands inquiry regarding Bilawal’s threat

Memon to move Britishcourt against MQM chief

Hussain said if the PPP ChairmanBilawal Bhutto Zardari, Co-chairman AsifAli Zardari and the Central Executive Com-mittee of the PPP could not give answers tomy questions within 15 days, I would di-rect legal and constitutional experts to seeklegal action against Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Responding to Altaf Hussain’s demandto hold inquiry into Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s“threatening statement”, Sindh InformationMinister Sharjeel Memon said that PakistanPeople’s Party would not give any clarifi-cation to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

In a statement issued here Tuesday,Memon claimed that Bilawal Bhutto Zardarididn’t give threatening statement but ev-erything the PPP chairman said was thetruth.

PPP would move British court with evi-dences against MQM supremo AltafHusain, threatened the provincial informa-tion minister. —INP/Online

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—The Risala Policehas registered an FIR againsteminent Naat Khawan, TVshow presenter JunaidJamshed on charges of com-mitting blasphemy under Pa-kistan Penal Code.

The complainantMuhammad Mobeen Qadrison of Iqbal Hussain Qadri,who lived in Korangi re-corded his statement at theRisala Police Station in DistrictSouth that Junaid Jamshedhad used derogatory remarksagainst the Holy ProphetMuhammad (peace be uponhim) and Prophet’s spouses

FIR against Junaid Jamshedfor alleged blasphemy

especially Syeda AyeshaSiddiqua (R.A), which was adeliberate act of committingblasphemy and hence the ac-cused should be arrested oncharges of committing blas-phemy, tried and taken to task.

It is pertinent to mentionthat punishment for the act ofblasphemy is capital sentenceif proved in court of law.

Junaid Jamshed had in aTV programme talked aboutwoman’s psychology and hadquoted one of the sayings(Hadith) of the Holy ProphetMuhammad (peace be uponhim) in which he narrated ascene of Syeda AyeshaSiddiqua.

KARACHI—The head ofPakistan AeronauticalComplex said on Tuesdaythat 50 home-assembledmulti-role JF-17 Thunderfighter jets had been intro-duced into the Pakistanairforce.

Air Marshal JavedAhmed, chief of the PAC,said the Pakistan Air Forcehad already received 50 ofthe home-made aircraft andthat the supply of the sec-ond block would start thismonth.

50 Pak-assembled JF-17inducted into PAF: PAC chief

“The five aircraft of thenext block would be in-ducted (into PAF) this year,”Air Marshal Javed Ahmed,told AFP on the sidelines ofthe International DefenceExhibition And Seminars(Ideas) in Karachi, an armsfair that brings togetherdealers from all over theworld.

Pakistan has been manu-facturing the JF-17 aircraftsince 2009 with the help ofthe Chengdu Aircraft Indus-try Corporation of China.

“JF-17 is a modern aircraft,it fulfils all the needs ofPAF, it is affordable, thecockpit is very userfriendly, all beyond visualrange attack capabilities aswell as stand of deliveriesare available at this air-craft, “Ahmed said.

Pakistani ordnancefactories have recentlybeen making attempts todevelop arms to meet do-mestic needs, as well asseeking to tap into the ex-port market.—AFP

Qadri leaves forUS today

LAHORE—Chief of PakistanAwami Tehreek (PAT), Dr.Tahir-ul-Qadri, will leave thecountry for US today after ateam of doctors declared hishealth condition ‘unsatisfac-tory’. According to partysources, a panel of five doc-tors, comprising three Paki-stanis and two foreigners,conducted medical checkupof the PAT chief who is suf-fering from high blood pres-sure and heart ailment. “Thedoctors were of the view thathis condition is unsatisfac-tory, so we have decided toshift him abroad,” the PATspokesman said. Sourcessaid the PAT chief will fly forHuston at 6am today(Wednesday).—INP

India test-firesN-capable

Agni-IV missileBALASORE—India Tues-day successfully test-firedits nuclear-capable strategicballistic missile Agni-IV, witha strike range of about 4000km, from a test range off theOdisha coast.

This was the fourth trialof Agni-IV missile. The lasttrial was carried out suc-cessfully on January 20 thisyear from the same testrange off Odisha coast.Supported by a mobilelauncher, the sleek missilewas flight tested from thelaunch complex-4 of Inte-grated Test Range (ITR) atWheeler Island, at about1020 hours.

The test conducted bythe specially formed Strate-gic Force Command (SFC)was successful, said RaviKumar Gupta, Director of theDirectorate of Public Inter-face, Defence Research andDevelopment Organisation( DRDO).

“The sophisticated sur-face-to-surface missile isequipped with modern andcompact avionics to pro-vide high level of reliability,”sources said.—Agencies

NEW research shows that walking boostscreative thinking. In a series of experiments, researchers from Stanford Uni-

versity in California compared levels of cre-ativity in people while they walked with whilethey sat and found creativeoutput went up by an aver-age of 60% while walking.Many people claim thatthey come up with theirbest ideas while walking.Steve Jobs, late co-founderof Apple, used to holdmeetings while walking,and Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, hasalso been seen doing thesame.

Now, a study by Dr.Marily Oppezzo and DanielSchwartz, a professor atStanford Graduate School ofEducation, may explainwhy. They report their find-ings in the Journal of Experi-mental Psychology: Learn-ing, Memory and Cognition. They found thatthe act of walking itself does the trick - it doesnot matter whether the walk is indoors or out-doors, it has the same effect in boosting cre-ative inspiration.

In one experiment, they found that com-pared with sitting down, walking indoors on atreadmill facing a blank wall or walking out-doors in the fresh air produced twice as manycreative responses. Dr. Oppezzo says shethought “walking outside would blow every-thing out of the water, but walking on a tread-mill in a small, boring room still had strongresults, which surprised me.” She says theirsappears to be the first study to look specifi-

cally at the effect of non-aerobic walking onsimultaneously generating new ideas, andcompare it with sitting.

The effect of walking appears to persistfor a little while; even if people sat down

shortly after a walk, their cre-ative juices continued to flow,the researchers found. To carryout their four experiments, Dr.Oppezzo and Prof. Schwartzrecruited 176 college studentsand other adults, and had themcomplete tasks that researchersnormally use to measure cre-ative thinking. They placed theparticipants in various condi-tions, comparing non-aerobicwalking to sitting, indoors andoutdoors. When outdoors, forinstance, the walkers wouldwalk, and the sitters werepushed in wheelchairs arounda pre-determined path on theStanford campus.

The reason for pushing sit-ters around in wheelchairs in

the outdoor parts of experiments was to givethem the same visual movement as walk-ing. The participants also underwent dif-ferent combinations of walking and sitting.For example, there might be two consecu-tive walking sessions, or two consecutiveseated sessions, or a walking session fol-lowed by a seated one. The sessions lastedfrom 5 to 16 minutes, depending on thetasks the participants were asked to com-plete. In three of the experiments, the par-ticipants undertook tests of their divergentthinking creativity. Divergent thinking iswhere you generate ideas by thinking of lotsof possible solutions.

Walking boostscreative thinking

LIAQAT TOOR

ISLAMABAD—Pak-Romaniabilateral relations have seengolden era of 70s and 80s whenboth the nations picked uptheir new found association tonew heights in all fields of na-tional activities.

Bilateral trade jumped up,Romanian technology helpedin building industrial units,particularly in the sectors ofpetroleum and cement produc-tion, Romanian heavy buseswere plying on Pakistani roadsand a large number of studentswere in Romanian universities.

This era provided a strongbasis for today’s relationswhich are moving ahead on afast track.

In the back drop of such bi-lateral status, the RomaniaAmbassador Emilian Ionstaged a show to celebrateNational Day of his country onMonday evening in a local ho-tel.

In the jam-packed hall,

politicians, parliamentarians, members of diplomatic corps, businessmen, social scientists, students and friends of Roma-nia joined hands with the Am-bassador to make this eventmemorable.

On arrival of the ChiefGuest SenatorAbbas KhanAfridi, Ministerfor Textile In-dustry, the cer-emonies of playing of nationalanthems of both the countriesand cake-cutting were per-formed.

The tasteful dishes wel-comed the guests who settleddown in groups to discuss any-thing under the Sun in a cozyatmosphere.

Emilian Ion who consid-ered Pakistan his second homehas spent a long time in Paki-stan in striving to upgrade bi-lateral ties including increasein trade and commercial tries.

He said Pakistan has greatpotential to become regionalpower. Its people with unlim-ited talents are ready to playtheir role in making Pakistan

Romanian National Day

Pak-Romania bilateral relations to touch new heightsGolden era of 70s and 80s to be revived;

Pakistan has potential to become regional power: Emilian Ion;Jam-packed hall reflects sentiments of friendship

ISLAMABAD: Ambassador of Romania Emilion Ion, Chief Guest Minister for Textile AbbasKhan Afridi, Ambassador of Argentine Rodolfo Martin Saravia, Head of EU DelegationLars Gunnar Wigemark, Saleem Saifullah and others, cutting the cake during a ceremonyto celebrate the 96th Anniversary of National Day of Romania.—PO photo by Sultan Bashir

a great country.He congratulated Paki-

stani people for the NobelPeace Prize awarded toMalala Yousafzai, being only

the second Pa-kistani andyoungest everlaureate of thisPrize.

The Partnership betweenPakistan and Romania is fiftyyears old and exchanges ofbusiness delegations willusher in a new era in com-mercial field.

Pak-Romania BusinessCouncil (PRBC) formed in2011 has played a construc-tive role in building up asso-ciations.

P a k i s t a n - R o m a n i aFriendship Association isalso actively promoting cul-tural relations.

The days are not far offwhen such ties will go fur-ther for the benefit of boththe countries and theirpeople.

ISLAMABAD—The establish-ment of Pak-China EconomicCorridor isn’t aimed to under-mine the interests of any coun-try rather it aims to economi-cally upgrade the otherwise poorbordering regions of both coun-tries by connecting Gwadar Portin southern Pakistan to China’snorthwestern region of Xinjiangvia highways, railways andpipelines to transport oil and gas,stated Mr Yuan Jianmin, a re-nowned and politically influen-tial personality of Xinjiangprovince of China. Mr Yuan,who is an honoury visiting Pro-fessor NUML, holds portfoliosof Deputy Secretary General,China Council for InternationalInvestment Promotion, Execu-tive Director and MD Sinotransand CSC Xinjinag Co Ltd.,Standing Vice Chairman ofXinjiang Institute of ForeignAffairs and Vice Chairman ofXinjiang International Chamberof Commerce, China. He ex-pressed these views while ad-dressing the gathering of Deans,Directors, Heads, faculty andstudents of different depart-ments at National University ofModern Languages (NUML),Islamabad on the topic of “Pak-China Relations: Pak-ChinaEconomic Corridors”.

Mr Yuan said that the ideaof connecting different countriesof this region economically withone common route was quiteold. Different programs hadbeen appearing by different re-gional players at different times.American Foreign SecretaryHillary Clinton during her visitto India in 2011 floated the ideaof an economic zone to connectthe North with the South, Presi-dent of Russia proposed the ideaof Euro-Asia silk route, Japanextended the concept of AsianSilk route for the region and theyall were meant to surround andcontain China, he added.

Pak-China Economic Corridorto boost economy of region

Rector NUML Maj Gen (Retd) Masood Hasan presenting a gift to Mr Yuan Jianmin, Honorary visiting Prof NUML andDeputy Secretary General China Council for International Investment Promotion, during his visit to NUML.

He went on saying that finally ChinesePresident Xi Jinping presented One Belt,One Road initiative which was the estab-lishment of New Silk Road Economic Beltand the Maritime Silk Road to deepen glo-bal peace and development through estab-lishment of intensive physical and otherforms of connectivity as well as coopera-tive ties between China and the countriesacross Eurasia, Africa and beyond. Paki-stani and Chinese leadership had held num-ber of meetings and reached an understand-ing for the investment of more than billionsof dollars to facilitate road and railway linksbetween China and Pakistan, energy andpower provision, development of telecom,trade, live stock, coal and hydro power sec-tors, export of sea food to China and many

other products between the two brotherlycountries, he enumerated.

He appreciating the role of NUML saidthat this economic benefit for the regioncould not be translated into reality with-out the active participation of NUML asthe relation between Pakistan and Chinawas not limited to few people rather wehad to transfer our warmth, feelings andknowledge of each other down to our gen-erations. In this context NUML was atfront to carry forward the cause of Paki-stan-China Economic Corridor by dissemi-nating the knowledge of Chinese Lan-guage and Culture here in Pakistan andUrdu and English in the Chinese institu-tions and universities of China and espe-cially in Urumqi through the establishment

of NUML International Center of Educa-tion (NICE).

Speaking at the occasion Director Gen-eral (DG) Brig Azam Jamal eulogized ex-tensive engagement of Mr Yuan for promot-ing an understanding and importance ofPak-China Economic Corridor which wasgoing to play a significant role in the devel-opment of Pakistan and his key role inendeavours of establishing NICE inUrumqi. Rector NUML Maj Gen (R)Masood Hasan conferred a Letter of Au-thorization to appoint Mr Yuan as Repre-sentative of NUML Affairs in People’s Re-public of China and ensured all possibleassistance of NUML to Chinese universi-ties and institutions to communicate withthe world.—INP

ISLAMABAD—The economic experts hereTuesday called for promoting progressingeconomic reforms agenda for socio-eco-nomic development of the country.

Addressing 30th annual general meet-ing and conference of Pakistan Institute ofDevelopment Economics (PIDE) here atPak-China Friendship Centre, the panelistssaid that the political economic reforms inPakistan was very crucial for enhancinginclusive economic growth in the country.

“Although the government can facechallenges in promoting political eco-

Economists for promoting progressiveeconomic reforms agenda

nomic reforms due to the vested interestsof different stakeholders but this movereally needs to be addressed”, said PhillipKauppert, Country Director Pakistan,Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).

He suggested the government to comeup with such an inclusive developmentmodel which really address needs of thesociety. Saqib Shirnai, an independent eco-nomic researcher also proposed suggestionsregarding reforms for inclusiveness.

The suggestions included fixing eco-nomic growth model, adjusting spending

priorities, improving education system andskill development, improving publichealthcare system, subsidized mass trans-portation, fair and equitable taxation andstrengthening institutional framework.

While giving presentation onPrivatization, Dr Pervez Tahir, formerchief economist, Planning Commission ofPakistan said that privatization process didnot prove to be fruitful for the governmentsas majority of units’ performance wit-nessed no change or even showed worseperformance after privatization.—APP

Deputy Speaker NA Murtaza Javed Abbasi visiting Aabpara Market to inspect the cleanli-ness condition. The representatives of Aabpara Traders’ Association and senior officers ofCDA are also present on the occasion.

Guests at the National Day Reception of Romania

RAZA UR REHMAN

ISLAMABAD—The year 2014 marks thecentenary of the First World War, whichis such a devastating period in the his-tory that it needs remembering.

To observe the centenary commemo-rations of World War – I, National De-fence University (NDU) Islamabad in col-laboration with High Commission ofUnited Kingdom organized an interna-tional symposium on “World War I andits Impact on South Asia” on 2 December2014 at NDU Islamabad.

The aim of this event was to raiseawareness of the region’s contributionsin the World War – I.

Sahibzada Yaqoob Khan, formerForeign Minister of Pakis tan, gracedthe occasion as the chief guest. BritishHigh Commiss ioner to Pakis tan Mr.Phi l ip Bar ton del ivered a key notespeech in the opening session of sym-posium.

The event was largely attended by theservices officers, academicians, histori-ans, students and policy makers.

Extending warm welcome to theguests, President NDU, Lieutenant Gen-eral Javed Iqbal, HI (M) highlighted thatFirst World War had an indelible exten-

Symposium on WWI

First World War had extensive bearingon environment of South Asia

Sahibzada Yaqoob Khan, ex-Foreign Minister addressing the symposium as chief guest. British High CommissionerMr Philip Barton is sitting on the stage.

sive bearing on the then evolving envi-ronment of South Asia.

He further added that sub-continentraised the world’s largest volunteer armies:1.5 million in World War - I and 2.5 millionin World War - II. First World War markedan important watershed as for the first timeBritish Indian soldiers were fighting on Eu-ropean soil.

They fought in all the major theatresof war on land, air and sea, alongsideBritish troops.

Their many awards for bravery, as wellas their war graves and memorials on thebattlefields, are testimony to their sacri-fice in the course of this War.

During the course of this World War,British Indian Army lost more than 74,000soldiers. It included regiments, whosesuccessors now form part of PakistanArmy.

The Symposium also highlighted po-litical and geographical scenario of theregion, as the World War ensued.

This event shows NDU’s commitmentto provide a platform for the intellectualsto discuss topics of historical significanceand regional relevance.

The speakers and UK High Commis-sioner appreciated the role of managementteam of the event.

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Minister of the State forFederal Education and Professional Train-ing, Muhammad Bligur Rehman has saidgovernment is doing its best to ensureaccess to education to a common manand improving quality of the education.

He expressed these views talkingto a 2-member delegation of Qatar Foun-dation headed by Miechel Morrsonwhich called on him here on Tuesday.

Balighur Rehman said, “In light ofsocio-economic and demographic trans-formations, we are determined to im-prove the technical and vocational edu-cation and training system in the coun-

Govt to ensure education access tocommon man: Balighur Rehman

try to facilitate learners to acquire rel-evant competencies for decent work.”

He said about 15 million out ofschool children, youth and adults withinsufficient literacy skills continue tobe a greater challenge for the govern-ment although we are improving higheducational standards with better rat-ings of our universities in Asia.

The State Minister told the delega-tion that 20,000 community schools arebeing run by the government success-fully in the areas where formal schoolscannot be established for want of re-quired population.

“Many non-formal schools havebeen adopted by philanthropists who

have started contributing money to runthe community schools”, he added.

Expressing government’s resolve toincrease public spending on educationsector during the next four years, theminister said o.5 % of educational bud-get of PSDP and 20% of provincial bud-get will be increased every year.

Provinces are spending alreadymore than committed budget as Punjabis spending 26%, KhyberPakhtunkhawa 27%, Sindh 21% andBalochistan 19%, the minister added.

The delegation assured to extend ahelping hand to address the challengesin the education sector for improvingliteracy rate in the country.

RAWALPINDI—Regional Transport Au-thority (RTA) Rawalpindi has reduced thepublic transport fare by 7 percent withdecreasing the fare from stop to stop byRs 2 on urban and inter city routes.

As per new fare schedule, fare of firststage of inter city routes in Rawalpindihas been slashed from RS 14 to 13, forsecond stage from Rs 17 to 16, for thirdstage from Rs 21 to 20, for forth stagefrom Rs 25 to 24, for 6th stage from Rs 31to 29 and for last stage from Rs 35 to 33.

Public transport fares slashedby Rs 2 in Rawalpindi

Secretary RTA Owais Manzoor Tararsaid new fare list will be put to display inall public service vehicles and all thetransporters will be bound to charge newfare to commuters from Wednesday.

He said that 5 mobile squads havebeen set up to check over charging offare on different routes. In order to curbover charging help line under No 051-9270011 has been set up and promptnotice wil l be taken of every com-plaint.—Online

A delegation of Qatar Foundation headed by Miechel Morrson meeting with Minister of State for Education, Trainingsand Standards in Higher Education, Muhammad Balighur Rehman.

RAWALPINDI—Chief Traffic Officer(CTO) Rawalpindi Shoaib KhurramJanbaz on Tuesday urged the citizensto use Airport Road and PeshawarRoad to reach Islamabad as the con-struction work on Metro Bus Service(MBS) Project is in final stages andthe pace of work on the project hasbeen accelerated by the contractors.

He said great efforts were beingmade by the traffic police to regulatetraffic on Murree Road but withoutthe cooperation of the citizens, traf-fic load on city roads includingBenazir Bhutto Road cannot be con-

Citizens urged to use Airport Road,Peshawar Road to reach Islamabad

trolled.The CTO said besides enhanced

number of traffic wardens, the offi-cials who were performing duties inother areas, have also been deployedon Murree Road. The authorities con-cerned have announced that themetro bus service in twin cities wouldbe launched on January 30, 2015, headded.

He advised the motorists to useAirport Road through Karal Chowk,and Peshawar Road through IJP Roadand Golra Mor, to reach Islamabad.

The citizens can come to the city

area through Rawal Road, SaidpurRoad and IJP Road, he added.

The city traffic police have alsoprepared a plan to keep the trafficmoving as much as possible.

All necessary arrangements, re-garding the flow of the traffic, havebeen made aimed at facilitating thecitizens, mainly motorists, he said.

In order to mitigate the sufferingsof the general public, and to avoid amess of traffic on the Murree road, al-ternative routes have been providedto the traffic, to minimise the load onthe busiest road of the city.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

IS L A M A B A D—State Minister forParliamentary Affairs, Sheikh Aftabon Tuesday informed the NationalAssembly that Capital Develop-ment Authori ty (CDA) andRawalpindi Development Authority(RDA), are jointly undertaking aproject for providing portable wa-ter to the residents of twin cities of

CDA, RDA jointly undertaking projectfor providing portable water

Rawalpindi and Islamabad fromTarbela Dam.

Responding to a point of order,the minister said that population inthe twin cities is increasing day byday, therefore people are facing wa-ter shortage.

Earlier MNA Malik Ibrar speak-ing on point of order said that peopleof Rawalpindi Cant are facing acutewater shortage.

He said that CDA and RDAshould take concrete steps for pro-viding clean drinking water to theresidents.

Raja Javed Ikhlas said that up-raising of Mangla dam was com-pleted eight years before butaffectees are still waiting for com-pensation money.

He said that around 20000 agri-culture land came under dam water.

RAWALPINDI—Rawalpindi Board of Inter-mediate and Secondary Education(RBISE) on Tuesday directed all regularand private candidates who are submit-ting matric admission forms online to alsosubmit hard copy of the forms to RBISEoffice otherwise, their forms will not beaccepted.

According to RBISE spokesman, theadmission forms of those who will notsubmit hard copy, will be considered in-complete and they will not be issued rollnumber slips for annual matric exams2015.

Matric (SSC) Exams 2015 would be

Students asked to submit hardcopy of matric admission forms

held in March. Last date for submittingadmission forms with single fee is Dec 9while the students can submit applica-tions with double fee till Dec 18 and withtriple fee till Dec 31.

RBISE will announce the date sheetbefore one month of annual examination.The students can check the Date Sheet2015 of BISE Rawalpindi at the websitewhen the board will announce.

The spokesman further informedthat the Exams would start in accordancewith the announced schedule and therewill be no extension in the forms submis-sion date.—APP

06:15 01:3003:45

07:00

Zohr

Asr

Isha

Fajar

Meghrab at Sunset

Brothers in Islamestablish regularprayers & charity

December 3Conversation

PAKISTAN Study Group onFederalism will host a conver-sation with renowned econo-mist Dr Kaiser Bengali on po-litical economy of fiscal fed-eration on Wednesday, De-cember 3, 2014 at 12.00 noon atthe National Institute of His-torical & Cultural Research,Quaid-i-AzamUniversity, NewCampus, Shahdarra Road,Islamabad.

Funfair

CHILDREN funfair under theministry of Capital Adminis-tration and Development Di-vision (CADD) aimed at en-couraging the special chil-dren to demonstrate their ar-tistic potential will be heldhere at park for disabled onWednesday (today). Barris-ter Usman Ibrahim, ministerof state for CADD will inau-gurate the funfair.

December 5Josh conference

JOSH National Literary Confer-ence in connection with 120th

birth anniversary of poet HazratJosh Malihabadi, jointlyorganised by the Josh Adabifoundation and Sukhhanwar, tobe presided over the FederalMinister Information andBroadcasting Senator PervezRashid, at the Rawalpindi ArtsCouncil, Cultural Complex,Shamsabad, Murree Road,Rawalpindi, 3 p.m.

December 07Exhibition

ABH interiors. gallery organiz-ing the exhibition on InteriorDesigning, Architecture, Digi-tal Art, Ceiling Art, Architec-tural Woodwork and fine Arts.Exhibition will start from 25November to 07 December,2014. H.E. Nawaf KhalifehIbrahim Saraireh Ambassador,Hashemite Kingdom of Jordanwill open the exhibition on 25thNovember, 2014 at 4pm.

Braving winter chill, voters line up outside a polling station at Karnah Leepa Valley on Tuesday morning.

MUZAFFARABAD – TV Cable Operators Association President Sohail Gujjar, Secretary General Mirza Akhtar, and central official KhurramShahzad addressing Press conference here on Tuesday.

DR. GHULAM NABI FAI

THERE is something very high schoolish andunsophisticated about the barbs and threatsbeing traded between Pakistan and India,

where fully grown men given the responsibility tomanage nations shout at one another like two boysin a park squabbling over some Barbie Doll stand-ing on the sidelines, who invariably has a look ofdisgust on her face. Think Kashmir. Yes, there havebeen two wars between the two over Kashmir, buttoo much is at stake. The statesmanship dictatesthat neither of these two countries should go to war,not nuclear war, because that might prove devas-tating to both countries. But they’ve got to beattheir chests , behaving as though they’ve got some-thing to prove.

Meanwhile, the cost of doing nothing aboutwhat stands between them continues to rise, andit isn’t pocket change. Someone pays for all this.The crossfire disputes at the Ceasefire Line arepaid for in lives and infrastructure of the peopleof Kashmir caught in the middle who live alongthe disputed border.

It’s interesting that former Pakistani foreignminister Khurshid Kasuri has written a book dueto be released soon called Neither Hawk, nor Dovein which he states that he was party to back chan-nel discussions between India and Pakistan that tookplace during his term in office between 2002 and2007 in which the two countries came very closeto agreement on resolving the crisis over Kashmir.

As we know it now, the plan proposed byPresident Musharraf was as follows: i). Identify-ing the geographical regions of Kashmir; ii). De-militarizing the whole of Jammu & Kashmir; iii).Introducing self-governance; and iv). Joint man-agement mechanism consisting of Indians, Paki-

Kashmir: Restoring the Visionstanis and Kashmiris. So what has happenedsince? Why did this agreement fall apart? Presi-dent Musharraf who wanted to sell it to the peopleof Kashmir failed to do that. He said later in aninterview that Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelanidid not endorse his four-point formula.

In other words, the history makes it clear thatif an agreement is reached between India and Pa-kistan without the participation of the Kashmirileadership, it is bound to fail. Unfortunately, thatis exactly what happened to Musharraf’s 4-pointformula.

Given the current state of crises-based rela-tions between India & Pakistan, it’s very difficultif not impossible to initiate diplomatic efforts todiffuse tensions without addressing the Kashmirdispute. There was a glimmer of hope when ameeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifand Indian Prime Minister Modi took place dur-ing the latter’s inauguration in New Delhi. Butrational diplomacy has been a major casualty ofevents since.

Violations of the Ceasefire Line have occurredalmost unabated during this past summer, and theModi plan now is clearly one of unilaterally mak-ing efforts through elections in Kashmir to en-able the BJP to seize control of the Assembly,abrogate Article 370 which gives semi-autono-mous status to Kashmir, and fully integrate Kash-mir into India.

Still, the friction between Pakistan and Indiaremains volatile. On August 18, 2014, New Delhicanceled the foreign secretaries’ scheduled meet-ing on the pretext that Pakistani High Commis-sioner met with the leadership of All PartiesHurriyet Conference (APHC), although, this hasbeen the routine consultation between APHC andPakistani High Commissioner since 1990. It is

interesting to note that such meetings happenedduring the administration of another BJP leader,Atel Behari Vajpayee – the mentor of Prime Min-ister Modi – as well as Dr. Manmohan Singh, theIndian National Congress.

Following this cancellation, the violence onthe border immediately escalated, and accordingto a Reuters report, the new Indian NSA andcounterinsurgency strongman Ajit Doval autho-rized Indian BSF and ground commanders inJammu ‘no-holds-barred’ retaliatory powers —quite a departure from previous governmentpolicy. This came in the context of a refusal byIndia to allow UN relief agencies to aid in rescueefforts of flood victims. “The enemy (Pakistan)has realized,” Prime Minister Modi said on Octo-ber 9, 2014 , “that times have changed and theirold habits will not be tolerated.”

Modi’s rhetoric set off alarm bells across theborder. In response, General Raheel Sharief,Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff declared, “Letthere be no doubt that any aggression against ourbeloved country will get a befitting response.”“Lasting peace in the region ,” he said, “will onlycome about with a fair and just resolution of Kash-mir issue in accordance with the will of Kashmiripeople, as enshrined in the UN resolution.”

Further, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif raisedthe issue of Kashmir at the United Nations andsaid “We cannot draw a veil on the issue of Kash-mir, until it is addressed in accordance with thewishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.” TheUnited Nations Military Observer Group in Indiaand Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has had a presence inSrinagar and Rawalpindi since 1948 to monitorceasefire violations. In July 2014, however, Indiaasked the UN Military Observer Group to vacatethe government bungalow that has been provided

for them for the past 40 years, asserting as it hasfor some time that the UN organization has “out-lived its relevance” and made obsolete by theSimla Agreement of 1972, an agreement betweenIndia and Pakistan to resolve the issue of Kash-mir bilaterally.

Pakistan has frequently called on the UN tointervene whenever Ceasefire violations haveoccurred, but India has lodged no complaints tothe UN since that agreement was made. In addi-tion, they have restricted the activities of UN ob-servers on the Indian side, making it difficult forthe true facts to be known about these violations.It’s been made quite clear in debates on the issueand addressed very clearly in the UN SecurityCouncil resolution, however, that bilateral agree-ments like Simla Agreement between India andPakistan cannot supersede the resolution whichmandated the observer mission.

More pertinent to the issue is that the Kashmiristhemselves were not consulted. In respect to India’sactions regarding UNMOGIP, the spokesman ofthe Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Geelani.stated that “Kashmiri people are not the party tothe Simla Agreement, therefore they are neitherbound by such agreements, nor has this agreementimpacted the international status of Kashmir dis-pute. The UN passed 18 resolutions regarding Kash-mir and both India and Pakistan are signatory tothese resolutions. The order of the government tovacate the office premises of UNMOGIP is equalto running away from the reality,” he said.

The United States has expressed concern overthe hostilities between India and Pakistan and hasrecommended that both countries resolve all is-sues including the issue of Kashmir through bi-lateral talks. We all know that bilateralism betweenthese neighboring countries has failed. When bi-

lateral dialogue and the peace process fails, it au-tomatically gives birth to trilateralism.Trilateralism is not an insult but a vital part ofinternational diplomacy. So the world powers in-cluding the United States should persuade bothIndia and Pakistan to initiate dialogue with theKashmiri leadership to set a stage for the settle-ment of the Kashmir dispute.

As Husain Haqqani stated in his book Mag-nificent Delusions, (2013), “Obama wrote that theUnited States would tell countries of the region that‘the old ways of doing business are no longer ac-ceptable’. He acknowledged that some countries -a reference to India - had used ‘unresolved disputesto leave open bilateral wounds for years or decades.They must find ways to come together.’”

Perhaps now is the time for President Obamato act on his vision. The United States should real-ize that the time to merely try to defuse the tensionbetween India and Pakistan is over. Now is the timeto address the root cause of the tensions betweenNew Delhi and Islamabad — the unresolved issueof Kashmir.

The vision of President Obama that was of-fered by him on September 25, 2008, to “con-tinue support of ongoing Indian Pakistani effortsto resolve Kashmir problem in order to addressthe political roots of the arms race between In-dia and Pakistan,” could still come to pass, ifthe President gets involved. Both sides need toput away their bullish talk and take into consid-eration the views of Kashmiris themselves byincluding them in the peace process. The way toresolve the issues clearly is through dialogue andnot war. Email.

[Dr. Fai can be reached at:[email protected] OR 202-607-6435www.kashmirwareness.org]

KUPWARA, IHK—Police have arrested atleast 280 youth from Kupwara and Kulgamdistricts of Kashmir in the past four days to“ensure peaceful polling” in the twin districtson December 3, officials said. The crack-down, according to police, “is a precaution-ary measure to ensure incident-free elec-tions.” Kulgam district in south Kashmir andKupwara district of north Kashmir is goingto polls in the second phase on Tuesday. Of-ficials and witnesses said police carried outnocturnal raids and detained youth “withoutany provocation.” The police action, theysaid, has forced scores of youth to go intohiding. “We don’t understand why police haslaunched a massive crackdown here,” saidAbdul Rashid Mir of Kulgam. “For the pastfew days, cops are carrying out nocturnalraids in most parts of the district to detainyouth.” Reports said youth are also beingcalled to police stations and later detained.

280 Kashmiri youth arrestedon pre-poll occasion

Reports from Kupwara and Handwara saidcops conducted raids at various places andarrested scores of youth in the past four days,claiming they were “previously involved inprotests and stone-pelting.” However, theirfamilies denied the charges as baseless.Sources said due to the arrest spree, scoresof youth in Kupwara and Handwara havegone into hiding. Inspector General of Po-lice, Kashmir, Abdul Ghani Mir, admittedthat 200 youth have been arrested in Kulgam,Kupwara and Handwara. He claimed mostof them are stone-throwers and over-groundworkers. “To ensure violence-free polling inthese areas, police has been taking preven-tive measures. We have arrested some 200stone throwers and trouble mongers in theseareas,” the IGP said, adding, “We have learnta lesson from the first phase. We will ensurepeaceful and impartial polling in the secondphase.”—GK

SRINAGAR—In occupied Kashmir, the fo-rum patronized by the veteran Hurriyetleader, Syed Ali Gilani terming as horrify-ing the prevailing situation in the territory,has urged Amnesty International, AsiaWatch, Organisation of Islamic Cooperationand other world bodies and human rightsorganizations to help stop the exercise as itis aimed at diluting the real dispute overJammu and Kashmir.

The forum in a statement issued inSrinagar, said, “Situation in Kashmir is ex-tremely grim and gloomy and is little knownto external world particularly in the back-drop of ongoing election drama. The humanrights violation in the territory is at its peakand the excesses at the hands of lakhs of In-dian armed personnel and thousands of vil-lage defenses committees are beyond imagi-

MENDHAR—Hurriyat Conference (G) has al-leged that elections were aimed to dilute theKashmir issue and urged people to boycott thepolls. In a statement a spokesman of Hurriyat(G) appealed to people of Kupwara, Lolab,Handwara, Langate, Noorabad, Kulgam,Homshalibugh, Devsar, Poonch, Mendhar andSurankote to boycott these ‘so-called electionsand observe complete strike on December 2against it.’While referring to present situationin Kashmir, he asserted that “it is very horrify-ing and wretched and in its appeal to Interna-tional agencies, Amnesty International, AsiaWatch, OIC and Pakistan and urged to take cog-nizance of deteriorating situation in Kashmir.”“The human rights violations in state are at itspeak and the excesses collaborated by 8 lakhsforces personel, 28 thousand village defensescommittees and police is beyond imagination,”he said. The statement while referring to arrestdrive unleashed by authorities, said, “Since lastmonth state authorities arrested more than fourthousand pro-freedom leaders, activists and

‘Polls aimed at sidetracking Kashmir issue’

youth. They have turned state into a big jail.”While lamenting at authorities the spokesman

said, “Elections are mere drama and during nightraids the leaders are being arrested and put behindbars. There is no justification for these elections,said Hurriyat and added that these election aremeaningless, immoral and unconstitutional. Allpro-freedom parties in an unequivocal voice haverejected these manipulated elections.” “India oc-cupied state and since last 67 years India with thehelp of 8 lakh forces personnel and 28 thousandvillage defenses committees is perpetrating kill-ings and atrocities. Six lakh people were massa-cred, lakhs were arrested, properties looted andrazed to ground and thousands of women sexuallyassaulted. Indian authorities have turned JammuKashmir into an into slaughter house,” he alleged.“Since the BJP came into power the excessesagainst people were escalated, said Hurriyat andthousands are on run and desperate to save theirlives and dignity from the wrath of present regimeand added they have destroyed the carrier of thou-sands of students,” he further alleged.—KW

UDHAMPUR, IHK—A day ahead of the polls, anofficer of the Indian army was seriously injured in aImprovised Explosive Device explosion in Jammuand Kashmir’s Poonch district, a senior official saidhere.

He said Junior Commission Officer RajinderSingh was grievously hurt when a explosion tookplace in Mendhar area near the Line of Control inthe district. He was airlifted to army’s hospital inUdhampur district, the official said. “The IED was

Army officer injured in Poonch blastplanted along a roadside and was targeted towards apatrol party of the army of which the injured JCOwas a part,” he said. The polling for the assemblyelections in the region is scheduled to take place onTuesday under the second phase.

These attacks are taking place at a time whenthe state is holding five-phased Assembly elections.As many as eight people were injured in the explo-sion that took place at the prominent Lal Chowkarea of Srinagar on Saturday.—KD

KUPWARA, IHK—Army Chief, GeneralDalbir Singh, visited Tuesday forward postsin frontier district of Kupwara. This is hissecond visit to Kashmir since the start of As-sembly elections on November 25.

Earlier Gen Singh visited Kashmir onNovember 24. Senior Army officials saidGen Singh was briefed about the overall se-curity scenario in the Valley by GOC-in-Chief northern Command, Lt Gen DS Hooda,and General Officer Commanding 15 Corps,Lt Gen Subrata Saha, who received him here.

“He was apprised about the successful firstphase of Assembly election in J&K and prepared-ness for the second phase of polling on Tuesday,”A senior Army officer told Greater Kashmir. “Hewas told that for successful elections, extraordi-nary coordination is being maintained by varioussecurity agencies.”

Later, the Army Chief visited 5/5 GRUnit, also known as “Shararat Battalion” inTangdhar and interacted with its soldiers.“This unit has done well in Tangdhar Sector

Indian army chief visitsKashmir forward areas

on Line of Control,” the Army official said,adding, “Soldiers of the Unit have foiledmost of infiltration bids this year.”

The Army chief also visited forwardposts in Machil Sector and Baramulla-based19 Infantry Division. “At each location, hewas briefed by officers on ground about thesituation along the LoC and hinterland,”sources said.

“He appreciated the effectiveness of thecounter-infiltration grid and the much highersuccess rate this year in neutralizing infil-tration attempts which has contributed sig-nificantly towards ensuring a secure environ-ment in Kashmir,” they said.

An Army spokesman said Gen Singhcomplimented commanders on “high-level ofintegration achieved with J&K Police andCentral Armed Police Forces and expressedhis satisfaction at the efforts put in for re-source mobilization, innovative surveillancetechniques and other security measures whichwere showing excellent results.” —GK

Pro freedomprotests in Kulgam

on voting dayKULGAM—Pro freedom protestsare happening in parts of Kulgamdistrict in Jammu and Kashmir onTuesday where polling in under-way for the state assembly elec-tion in the second phase. Wit-nesses said groups of youth shout-ing pro Azaadi slogans were en-gaged in a stone-clash with gov-ernment forces in Redwani adja-cent to the main town of the southKashmir district.—KD

Kashmir disputepertains to future

of millions:Leaders

SRINAGAR—In occupied Kash-mir, the Jammu and KashmirNational Front, Salvation Move-ment, Peoples League and IslamicPolitical Party while strongly con-demning the detention of Hurriyetleaders Nayeem Ahmad Khan,Mukhtar Ahmad Waza, ZafarAkbar Butt and MohammadYousuf Naqash have said that theKashmir dispute is a human is-sue and pertains to future of mil-lions of people. These parties intheir separate statements issued inSrinagar said that the Kashmirwas an internationally recognizeddispute, which had nothing to dowith the so-called assembly elec-tions. The detained leaders, ac-cording to the statements, said thatthe ongoing liberation strugglewould not be sabotaged by politi-cal.—KMS

OIC, HR bodies urged tostop poll drama in IOK

nation,” the statement added.“The continued arrest drive launched by

the administration particularly from the lastmonth has created panic and insecurityamong all the people across the Valley. Theauthorities have till date arrested more than4000 pro-freedom leaders, activists andyouth.

They have turned the state into a big jailin the name of so-called assembly elections,which are meaningless, immoral and uncon-stitutional,” it said.“All the pro-freedom parties in an unequivo-cal voice have rejected these manipulatedelections”, the spokesman maintained. Thespokesman said that Pakistan being a primaryparty to the Kashmir issue has a greater re-sponsibility to highlight the realities aboutKashmir.—KMS

JKLF denouncespolice crackdowns,

arrest of leadersSRINAGAR—In occupiedKashmir, the Jammu and Kash-mir Liberation Front has saidthat Indian rulers, their localstooges and puppet administra-tion are continuously playingwith the life of illegally de-tained JKLF Chairman,Mohammad Yasin Malik.

The JKLF in a statement is-sued in Srinagar, today, saidthat police continuing its crack-down on party leaders raidedthe residence of Sheikh KhalidMubarak. The police, the state-ment added, arrested anotheractivist Mohammad, AltafRaina from Pulwama and alsoshifted two more JKLF activ-ists Mushtaq Ahmad Malooraand Shakir Ahmad toIslamabad jail.

JKLF pays rich tributes toits martyrs, Hyder Ali, Jamal-ud-Din, Tanveer Ahmad andAbdul Hamid who embracedmartyrdom in 1991. JKLF ViceChairman, Mushtaq AhmadAjmal in a statement issued inSrinagar condemned the child-ish and callous approach of rul-ers towards deteriorating healthcondition of detained JKLFChairman, Mohammad YasinMalik.—KMS

The first rule of anytechnology used ina business is that

automation appliedto an efficientoperation will

magnify the effi-ciency. The secondis that automation

applied to aninefficient opera-tion will magnifythe inefficiency.

—Bill Gates

ISLAMABAD: A delegation of General Electric Company headed by its Chief Financial Officer, Frederick Ribierascalled on President Mamnoon Hussain at Aiwan-e-Sadr.

Stable Pakistan offers vast opportunities to foreign investorsSTAFF REPORTER

I S L A M A B A D — P r e s i d e n tMamnoon Hussain on Tuesdaysaid militancy in the country wasunder control and the menacewould be completely eradicatedsoon. The elimination of mili-tancy would help boost foreigninvestment as Pakistan offeredthe best trade regulations in theregion, he said, talking to a del-egation of General Electric com-pany led by its Chief FinancialOfficer Mr Frederick here at theAiwan-e-Sadr.

President Mamnoon saidPakistan was on the right pathas its economy was growingbetter than regional countriesdespite international economiccrisis. The government wasworking on several importantprojects for next four years,which would create business opportunities for foreign inves-tors, he added. The President wooed the General Electric com-

pany to benefit from investment opportunities in Pakistanand invited it to particularly invest in power and railways

sectors. He appreciated theGeneral Electric company for itssupport in Pakistan’s energy,transport and aviation sectors,which he hoped, wouldstrengthen in future.

He said the Prime Min-ister and his energy team wasdetermined to end the power cri-sis in the country, adding thatthe problem would be overcomeduring the tenure of presentgovernment. He hoped that thegovernment’s efforts would helperadicate polio at national level.The meeting was attended byChairman Board of Investment(BoI) Miftah Ismail, BoI Secre-tary Syed Iftikhar HussainBabar, Secretary Petroleum andNatural Resources Abid Saeed,Secretary Planning CommissionHassan Nawaz Tarar, SecretaryRailways Perveen Agha, Secre-

tary Water and Power Muhammad Younus Dagha andPresident’s Secretary Ahmed Farooq.

KARACHI: Federal Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif with Managing Director Rohde &Schwarz, Sameer Ahmad Siddiqui at Rohde & Schwarz pavilion at IDEAS 2014.—POphoto by Sultan Chaki

DANISH DAR

IN the world of today, many young aspiringentrepreneurs come up with brilliant ideasbut ultimately fail or are either held back by

the fear that their idea might never reach themasses because they don’t have enoughmoney to advertise. ‘How do I advertise? Ican’t afford a billboard’. Those who manageto print flyers and posters lack in the creativitydepartment and their attempts turn out to bejust an addition to the limbo of forgettable anduninspired marketing attempts out there. Canyou relate to this? Do you have a great ideabut cannot present it in a way that would get itthe attention it deserves? You can remedy thisby joining the third group of people. The peoplethink out of the box. They look around; ana-lyze people and research on pop culture. Theythen use this information to create cheap andunique campaigns and promotion techniques.Some of these ideas are brilliant and eccentricwhile some of these are so unbelievably simplethat you are blown away by their ability toattract hoards of eager customers. This phe-nomenon is called ‘Guerilla Marketing’.

You don’t need BIG money to advertise BIGWhat many of us fail to realize is that it is

now possible to engage a major part of world’spopulation just with the help of a laptop/tab-let/smartphone and an internet connection.Think about it. You might not even know whoI am but you are reading what I have to sayand just like you many others might be doingthe same. I don’t even have to step outsidemy door and send this to the personal de-vices of thousands and thousands of people.You can do the same with you business ideas.Almost everyone checks their texts, twitter,facebook, instagram and other social mediaaccount every other minute. Use that to youradvantage properly and you’ll do wonders.

But just sending an idea to people is notenough anymore. You have to be cunning inyour approach. Your message must rise abovethe hundreds of other out there and pounceat the viewer like nothing else. You have touse your most valuable and ironically the mostignored asset, your Brain. Think and thenthink again. Look for inspiration and you’llcome up with ideas that will blow you away.Just look around your room. Look at the TV.What do you see? How can you relate this to

your product/service? The possibilities arecountless but you just have to try. As I men-tioned above, use the Pop culture of today togarner ideas. What are people interested in?What are the current trends? What famousjoke or scenario can I relate to my product?You have to ask yourself these questionsevery day. Use free websites and communi-ties like 9GAG, twitter, Facebook etc to sharethese ideas. It might get ignored initially butkeep sharing it eventually it will bear fruit.There are thousands of inspiring examplesout there where the developers and market-ers used their brains to promote their prod-uct/service in the cheapest way possible.Some of these ways were technically free. Letme share two of favorite examples here.The Blair Witch ProjectConsidered to be the most brilliant marketingcampaign done for a movie, this campaignhelped a movie with unknown actors and amere budget of $25,000 to gather $250 millionworldwide. This movie gave rise to the beloved‘Found Footage Horror Genre’ and the way inwhich the nature of this genre was utilized waspure brilliance. The people behind this movie

created a website in which it was stated that itwas a documentary which uses the actual foot-age shot by a group of filmmakers set out todocument the legend of the Blair witch. Theymade people believe that it was all real by flood-ing the forums with messages and posting pic-tures of the crime scene taken by the police ontheir website. ‘Missing’ posters of the actorswere posted around and they even made fakewebsites with information on the legend of Blairwitch. The IMDB page for the movie showedthe actors to be either dead or missing. All thisconfused and in most cases convinced peoplethat this documentary was in fact real. Thecampaign went viral and the rest is history.Flappy BirdAlmost every one of us has played this game.This is by far one the most simple and straight-forward games available in the market and isalso one the most frustrating. Then why didthis game become an internet sensation? Whydid every smart phone have that game in-stalled? This game that was pretty simple todevelop and used almost zero money for mar-keting started bringing home almost $50,000every day. This was all done with the help of a

mere ‘Share’ button and effectively utilizingits difficulty level into a promotion tool. FlappyBirds’s difficulty level made it hard to masterand its simple nature made it addictive as hell.The developer knew that a high score in a dif-ficult game as this would considered anachievement and he encouraged sharing theirscores with their friends with the help of a con-veniently placed ‘share’ button.

One click and your score was shared onyour twitter and Facebook profile. In this waythe, developer used simplicity and the diffi-culty level of the game as a strength and be-came an internet sensation. The game wastaken down eventually but he is still makingmoney through it. So here we are. I presentedto you two examples. One used cunningnessand out of the box thinking to promote theirproduct in the cheapest way possible. Thelatter used simplicity and an understandingof the trends in social media to become a mar-keting behemoth for practically free. You cando the same. You have countless tools at yourdisposal for free. Take the first step and usethem. Push away that fear, create somethingunique and the rest will be history.

KARACHI: Khurram Dastgir Khan, Minister for Commerce addressing businesscommunity during his visit at PHMA House. Muhammad Jawed Bilwani, ChairmanPHMA and others are seen in picture.—PO photo

Kazakhstan toparticipate in

TAPI gaspipeline projectASHGABAT—Kazakhstan willtake part in Turkmenistan-Af-ghanistan-Pakistan-India gaspipeline project. This was an-nounced by Kazakh PresidentNursultan Nazarbayev duringa meeting with his Turkmencounterpart GurbangulyBerdymukhamedov inAshgabat. “We supportTurkmenistan’s intention con-cerning the construction of theTAPI gas pipeline, and willparticipate in this project,”Nazarbayev said.

The presidents of twocountries said that fuel, en-ergy and transport sectors arethe most promising areas forbilateral economic coopera-tion.

The basic document forthe promotion of TAPI isAshgabat interstate agree-ment signed between theparticipating states in 2010on starting the practicalimplementation of thisproject.

The design capacity ofthe TAPI will be up to 33 bil-lion cubic meters of gas peryear, while the expected life-time is 30 years.

The total length ofTAPI will reach 1,735 kilo-meters. Some 200 kilometersof the pipeline will runthrough Turkmenistan, 735kilometers – through Af-ghanistan, 800 kilometers -through Pakistan to thesettlement of Fazilka, lo-cated on the border withIndia.—INP

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Since the announcement ofPrime Minister’s Youth Business Loan(PMYBL) programme, National Bank of Pa-kistan (NBP) has successfully disbursedover Rs3 billion among 5,000 applicants af-ter a rigorous scrutiny plan.“Management is confident theinnovative programme will notonly provide the much neededfinancial support to small busi-nesses but would also be ben-eficial for the Bank” said S. H. Irtiza Kazmi -Executive Vice President the Bank.

Mr. Kazmi who is also the Coordinator ofPMYBL scheme while giving a backgroundon the PMYBL scheme to media, said thatgrowth of small businesses through access toformal financing channels is imperative for sus-tainable economic development, says a state-ment issued by the Bank here today. He saidthat Small and medium enterprises (SMEs)stimulate domestic demand through job cre-ation, innovation, and competition; thus, theycan be a driving force behind a resilient andsustainable economic growth. Therefore, pri-oritizing SME development is critical and canlead to a multiplier effect yielding positive re-sults toward sustainable economic growth.

On the role of NBP in this regard, Mr.Kazmi further mentioned that NBP, being

FAISALABAD—The local trade and businessorganizations have rejected Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s announcement to shutdown the coun-try, saying that shops and markets would re-main open. Senior vice-chairman Pakistan Ho-siery Manufacturing Association (PHMA)Rana Altaf Ahmed talking to APP here Tues-day said that he would not be a part of suchannouncement.

He said that no one would be allowed toget close their businesses by force, addingthat Imran Khan’s announcement to shut-down the cities including Lahore, Faisalabad,Karachi on December 4, 8 and 12 and thanthe country on December 16 indicated theagenda of anti-state elements, which he wasimplementing. He said the government wasimplementing people friendly policies andproviding relief to the people, adding that

ISE-10 indexwitnesses

bullish trendIS L A M A B A D—IslamabadStock Exchange witnessedbullish trend on Tuesday asthe ISE-10 index was up by85.78 points and closed at3935.75 points. A total of129,000 shares were traded,down by 124,000 sharesthan the previous day’s trad-ing of 253,000 shares.

Out of 156 companies,share prices of 109 recordedincrease while those of 47shares decreased. The shareprice of Ferozsons Labora-tories increased by Rs 59.82while the share price of Pa-kistan Tobacco decreasedby Rs 34.4. PIA, Bank ofPunjab and Lotte ChemicalPakistan remained the toptrading companies with100,000, 20,000 and 5000shares respectively.—APP

Pakistan wantsto boost trade

ties with RussiaSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Russia whichattended the Defence Exhi-bition Ideas 2014 for thefirst time is a major devel-opment as the relationswith Russia have been re-stored after a gap of manydecades. Federal DefenseMinister Khawaja Asif wasspeaking on the secondday of Ideas 2014 said thatPakistan wants to developgood relations with allneighboring countries andthe restoration of relationswith Russia is a great de-velopment says

Khawaja Asif said thatthe relations with Russiahave been restored aftermany decades and they willbecome stronger in the fu-ture. He also said thatChina and Russia are bigforces of the region. Thefederal minister mentionedthat Pakistan has everlast-ing relations with Chinaand is looking forward totheir co operation on sev-eral issues including eco-nomics and defense.

Four ships berth atPort QasimKARACHI—Four shipscarrying containers,Furnace Oil and EdibleOil berthed at QasimInternational ContainersTerminal, FOTCOTerminal and LiquidCargo Terminal respec-tively. Meanwhile twomore ships carryingContainers also arrived atouter anchorage of PortQasim (PQ) during last 24hours. Berth occupancywas 65% at the Port onTuesday where sevenships namely SafmarineNgami, Mare Slculum,Jasmine-C, Virginia,Moon Globe, Al Mahfozaand Prosperity arecurrently occupyingberths to load/offloadcontainers, ProjectCargo, Wheat, Coal,Furnace Oil and EdibleOil respectively duringlast 24 hours. A cargovolume of 112910 tonnescomprising 94052 tonnesimports and 18858 tonnesexports inclusive ofcontainerized cargocarried in 2366 containers(TEUs) where handled atthe Port during last 24hours.—APP

SCCI facilitatingwomen entrepreneurSIALKOT—PresidentSialkot Chamber ofCommerce and Industry(SCCI) Fazal Jilani hassaid that Chamber isproviding necessaryguidance and assistanceto women entrepreneursfor business. Addressinga workshop on SmallBusiness Managementfor women entrepreneursheld in collaboration withSMEDA here Tuesday,he said that womenentrepreneur would getbenefit from the work-shop to move ahead intheir business. The SCCIPresident urged thebusiness women thatthey must learn andapply management skilland techniques toprogress in business,adding that participationof women in mainstreambusiness was vital for theprogress and prosperityof the country. Fazal saidthe SCCI had alwaysencouraged and moti-vated women to joinbusiness, facilitatingthem with maximum helpand support.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—The Business-men Forum led by SenatorIlyas Ahmed Bilour todayannounced full support toMian Muhammad Idress,Presidential Candidate of theUnited Business Group(UBG) for the elections ofFederation of Pakistan Cham-ber of Commerce and Indus-try (FPCCI) due for Decem-ber 29, 2014. Senator Bilourhosted a luncheon here at hisresidence in honour of thevisiting Chairman United

Businessmen Forum tosupport UBG in FPCCI polls

Business Group, IftikharMalik, Mian MuhammadIdress.

The event was attendedby President KPCCI FawadIshaq, President WomenChamber of Commerce KP,presidents of different cham-bers of commerce and indus-tries, representatives of vari-ous traders associationsfrom all over the country.Addressing the function,Senator Ilyas Bilour said“we are men of commitmentand honour our pledges towhom we made it”.

NBP disburses over Rs 3b to 5Kapplicants under PMYBL program

the largest public sector bank has over theyears developed a variety of products tocater to specific market segments and en-hanced financial inclusion. NBP shares thecommitment of the Government towardsuplifting the youth and providing themopportunities of financial independence

through self-employment.While appreciating the role ofNBP in leading this significantprogram, Mr. Zia Shahidshared the feedback receivedby him and his publication

house on the PMYBL scheme.He specifically mentioned about the re-

quirement of a Guarantor being a major impedi-ment for a number of prospective borrowers.He further said that even blood relations arenot comfortable in extending a personal guar-antee for obtaining loan under this scheme.Mr. Kazmi responded by stating that he won-ders how could anyone expect a bank to lendhundreds of thousands of rupees to a personwhen his own relatives are uneasy and/or un-willing to guarantee the repayment of the loan.

Upon a query by Zia Shahid on the pos-sibility of obtaining loans by small borrow-ers in absence of a guarantee, Mr. Kazmiresponded that such borrowers may seekassistance under another scheme beingimplemented under the Prime Minister’sYouth program (PMYP).

Traders reject PTI’s shutdown calldecrease in petroleum prices was a histori-cal decision of the government.

He said that transport fares and cost ofproduction would be reduced due to recentdecrease in POL prices while would be avail-able to the people on low rates. Chairman In-dustries and Power Looms Owners Associa-tion Mirza Muhammad Shafiq said the PTIchairman has created the atmosphere of hateby his announcement and wants to createchaos in the country. He said Imran was doingthe politics of agitation and damaging theeconomy badly through sit-ins.

Imran had already given civil disobedi-ence call in his sit-in address, which wasrejected by the people, adding that Imranwould also face failure in achieving his de-sirous results his announcement, headded.—APP

Khurram Sayeed,Acting President

FPCCISTAFF REPORTER

K A R A C H I — K h u r r a mSayeed, Vice Presidenthas taken over charge asActing President ofFPCCI, during the foreignvisit of Mr. Zakaria UsmanPresident FPCCI, from2nd December, 2014. He isan energetic entrepreneurand one of the youngerVice Presidents of FPCCI.Mr. Sayeed is also the Ex-ecutive Committee Mem-ber of SAARC Chamberof Commerce & Industryand India-Pakistan Cham-ber of Commerce.

Mr. Sayeed has beena long time proponent ofDevelopment of Renew-able Energy to mitigate cli-mate crises. He is the ChiefExecutive of IP WindPower (Pvt) Ltd and PlanetPetrochemicals Pvt Ltd.Besides being active inmany local and interna-tional forums, Mr. Sayeedwas also nominated forthe 3rd Asia Pacific YoungEntrepreneur Award.

Samsung,Christie’s partner

to unveil UHD TVSTAFF REPORTER

K A R A C H I — S a m s u n gElectronics Co., Ltd., to-day announced a partner-ship with Christie’s toauction a stunning, goldlacquer-painted 78”Curved UHD TV. Thebeautiful piece combinesinnovative technologywith intricate design, andwill be on public displayduring the preview ofChristie’s Hong Kong au-tumn auction beginningon November 20. Pro-ceeds from the sale will bedonated to the Orbis, aglobal non-governmentorganization (NGO) withthe mission to improveaccess to high-quality eyehealth.

“The Samsung CurvedUHD TV is an artistic cre-ation, but this collabora-tion with Sung Yong Hongelevates it to a true workof art,” said KK Park, Ex-ecutive Vice President andhead of Sales & Market-ing, Visual Display Busi-ness, Samsung Electron-ics.” The TV is the center-piece of every home, andwe are excited to share thiswork of art with the clientsof Christie’s Hong Kong.TV is a part of all culturesand we hope that every-one can enjoy watching it.We are also very proud tosupport Orbis, as theywork towards the preven-tion and treatment of thecauses of avoidable blind-ness.”

Hong was commis-sioned by Samsung forhis expertise in Ottchil, aKorean lacquer paintingtechnique that datesback to the Neolithic Era,and for his ability to ap-ply a traditional art formonto modern materials.Just as it was once usedto preserve valuable an-cient artefacts, Hong’suse of Ottchil was delib-erate and symbolic – topreserve those cher-ished moments of enter-tainment that TV deliv-ers. The cutting-edge TVwas designed by Koreanartist, Sung Yong Hongin connection with thetheme, “Memory of TV.”

Currency Selling Buying

USA 97.90 97.70

UK 161.42 161.09

Euro 135.15 135.43

Canada 87.26 86.44

Switzerland 110.86 110.63

Australia 89.28 89.46

Sweden 15.26 15.23

Japan 0.9556 0.9537

Norway 16.18 16.14

Singapore 77.03 77.18

Denmark 18.10 18.06

Saudi Arabia 26.10 26.05

Hong Kong 12.59 12.62

Kuwait 347.38 346.67

Malaysia 29.63 29.57

Newzealand 83.62 83.57

Qatar 26.88 26.76

UAE 26.65 26.60

KR. WON 0.0907 0.0905

Thailand 3.016 3.010

Daily opening& closing ratesPMEX Index 2,729Total Volume (Lots): 23,014Traded Value (Rs): 4,124,249,064

Commodity -------------------- Price Quotation --------------- Open ------------- CloseCRUDE OIL ------------------- $ Per Barrel --------------------- 67.41 ------------- 69.19SILVER ------------------------- $ Per Ounce -------------------- 15.440 ------------ 16.432GOLD --------------------------- $ Per Ounce -------------------- 1,165.9 ----------- 1,211.1GOLD --------------------------- Rs Per 10 gms ------------------ 38,485 ------------ 40,112MTOLAGOLD --------------- Rs Per Tola --------------------- 39,669 ------------ 48,102GOLD --------------------------- Rs Per Tola --------------------- 39,669 ------------ 48,102RICEIRRI6 --------------------- Rs Per 100 kg ------------------- 3,285 ------------- 3,282PALMOLEIN ----------------- Rs Per Maund ----------------- 3,697 ------------- 3,624SUGAR ------------------------- Rs Per kg ------------------------ 46.53 ------------- 46.17ICOTTON --------------------- US Cents per pound --------- 61.13 ------------- 60.11WHEAT ------------------------ Rs Per 100 kg ------------------- 3,443 ------------- 3,440

The total value traded was PKR 4.12 billion as compared to PKR 3.00 billion reportedon last business day, an increase of 37 percent. Number of lots traded also increasedby 45 percent to 23,014 from 15,849. PMEX Commodity Index increased by 5.27percent and closed at 2,729. Major business was contributed by crude oil amountingto PKR 2.07 billion, a 16 percent increase when compared to the previous tradingday. This was followed by gold (PKR 1.83 million) and silver (PKR 224 million).

KARACHI: Mohammad Yahya Polani and UBG President candidate, Mian MuhammadIdress presenting souvenir to UBG Patron-in-Chief S.M.Muneer. Mian Zahid Hussain,Sardar Yasin Malik and Ikhtiar Baig also seen in picture.

Mobilink signs MoU with Standarad Chartered Bank to provide Telecommunicationand Mobile Internet services.

LAHORE—Continuing its support foryouth education, Warid Telecom this yearagain donated Rs 1 million to the GC Uni-versity Lahore Endowment Fund Trust(GCU EFT) for initiating a golden scholar-

ship for financially-challenged students. Itis the third consecutive year in which Waridhas initiated scholarships for GCU stu-dents. Mr. AmerAman Khan, Director WaridTelecom handed over the cheque to ProfDr Muhammad Khaleeq-ur-Rahman ViceChancellor at a poised ceremony held atthe GCU Syndicate Committee Room. GCUEFT Executive Committee Secretary DrKhalid Manzoor Butt was also present atthe ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Khaleeq-ur-Rahman said that there was a dire needthat noted companies like Warid shouldcome forward and support quality educa-tion in Pakistan. He said that the world overuniversities had come forward by establish-

Warid donates Rs 1m to GCUEndowment Fund Trust

ing their endowment funds with the help oftheir old students and corporate sector.“Harvard University has an endowmentfund worth billions of dollars,” he added.However, he said that GCU was the only

public sector university in Pakistan whichhad an active endowment fund givingscholarships to deserving students.

Mr. AmerAman Khan while sharing hisviews said that our talented youth is thefuture of Pakistan and being a responsiblecorporate entity, Warid Telecom has alwaysbeen at the forefront in supporting differ-ent youth initiatives. The costs of educa-tion are rising every year and collective ef-forts are required to help the worthy stu-dents of the society, who cannot afford theiracademic expenses. He further elaboratedthat GCU is an international standard insti-tution in Pakistan and it is a privilege tosupport the bright students of such an es-teemed educational institution.—PR

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Patron-in-Chief, UnitedBusiness Group S.M.Muneer said thatthe Executives and members of UnitedBusiness Group will not accept anypolitical pressure. People sitting ontwo boats decide to whom they sup-port. Opponent group has seen theirclear defeat so it will be better to avoidblames. This was stated by him ad-dressing at a dinner reception hostedin honour of Mian Mohammad Idress,Candidate for President of UnitedBusiness Group by famous social per-sonality and Chairman APJC,Mohammad Yahya Polani. At this oc-casion, Mian Zahid Hussain, SenatorAbdul Haseeb Khan, Khalid Tawab,Abdul Rahim Jano,Dr.Mirza IkhtiarBaig and Ijaz Khokhar also addressedwhile Zubair Tufail, MehtabuddinChawla, Rafiq Suleman, Sardar YasinMalik, Javed Ali Ghori, Noor AhmedKhan and others were present.

S.M.Muneer said that candidatefor President election of OpponentGroup, Anjum Nisar has time now andafter viewing present situation, he willsurrender in favour of Mian Idrees asUnited Business Group have support

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—Former British Foreign Affairs Minister DavidMilliband, on a special visit to Punjab Information Tech-nology Board (PITB), expressed his enthusiasm for thePITB’s Mobile Governance Initiative and declared it to bethe best way to improve governance. Briefing Mr. Millibandabout PITB’s Mobile Governance Initiative, the Chief Min-ister of Punjab Mr. Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, and Chair-man PITB Dr. Umar Saif explained that through this initia-tive, government workers are equipped with smartphonesand are required to send in time-stamped and geo-taggedpictorial evidence of their field activities. This, they ex-plained, ensures that the administration is constantly ableto monitor on-ground situations and take timely preven-tive actions to avert disasters.

Additionally, they pointed out, this system is also extremelyvaluable for enabling an effective monitoring and accountabil-

Miliband shows interest in PITB’sMobile Governance Initiative

ity system for government field-workers. Since all field-work-ers are required to report their activities and locations in real-time through smartphones, they are obliged to perform theirtasks fully and have become more productive. Mr. Millibandwas extremely impressed by the Punjab Government’s incred-ible success in curbing the dengue epidemic in Punjab in sucha short time using this system whereas countries like Sri Lankaand Thailand haven’t been able to achieve comparable suc-cess in their forty years’ worth of efforts to fight the epidemic.

He further expressed his wish to adopt this model de-signed by Dr. Saif for the humanitarian organization heruns; International Rescue Commission (IRC). Using thissystem, said Mr. Milliband, IRC can fight against thespread of epidemics in Northern and Western Africa. Inlight of this, PITB has come to an understanding with IRCwherein PITB will provide IRC with full technical supportto replicate this system for its humanitarian efforts againstepidemics prevailing in Africa.

UBG enjoys overwhelming support ofchambers, associations: S M Muneer

of more than 90% chambers and asso-ciations. He said that United BusinessGroup has no link with any politicalparty. UBG is a party of businessmenand we know how to reply to the oppo-nent group. UBG Candidate for Presi-dent, Mian Mohammad Idrees said thatthere is no representation of FPCCI atgovernment level while Indian Federa-tion has very active role in economicdevelopment. He said that Indian Gov-ernment works after consultation withIndian Federation and it has best insti-tution for resolving the issues of busi-nessmen while Federation of Pakistanhas lost its recognition from the lastseveral years. He said that he wouldtry to fulfil the confidence of core com-mittee and businessmen and he wouldalso reply on work done after comple-tion of one year term.

UBG Leader Mian Zahid Hussainsaid that businessmen and industrial-ist hoped for betterment due to UnitedBusiness Group and monopoly inFPCCI has in big danger. He said thatExecutive members of United BusinessGroup would resolve the real issue ofbusinessmen instead of issuing SROfor personal vanity after success in theelection and they would play their ac-

tive role for the reputation of FPCCIand revival of economy of the country.Senator Abdul Haseeb Khan said thatFPCCI has getting fame for corruptionin past but now, all works would bedone on merit. He said that business-men of Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab andKhyber Pakhtoon Khawa want achange and waves of change is goingon and nobody could stop it.

At this occasion, Khalid Tawab saidthat business community of entirecountry are with Mian MohammadIdrees and a roadmap would be formedwhich could develop the economicgrowth of the country. Spokesman,UBG Gulzar Firoz said that federationhas lost their value after misuse power.Unfair benefits have been got by sell-ing stalls in conduction of Exhibitionsin China and India. He said that reformprocess has been started in FPCCI andnow one man show politics would beended now as United Business Grouphas full support of businessmen fromKarachi to Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa.Abdul Rahim Janoo said that graph ofFPCCI has gone down but now wehope that a positive effects would beshown after implementing the mani-festo of United Business Group.

STAFF REPORTER

L A H O R E — G o v e r n o rPunjab Ch. MuhammadSarwar inaugurated 2 daysInternational Foundry Con-gress and Exhibition at lo-cal hotel under the auspicesof Pakistan Foundry Asso-ciation. Governor said thatour business community afacing a lot challenges inPakistan like energy and gascrisis but they are very hardworkers and devoted withPakistan. Foundry exhibi-tion would provide a plateform to all stack holder wherediscuss and solve all the re-lated issues under one roof.

Government would pro-vide all facilities to our busi-nessman and industrialist fordevelopment of our nation.Mr. Skandar Khan PresidentPakistan Foundry Associa-tion has said our industry afacing many problems we

Governor Punjab inauguratesInt’l Foundry Congress

request government wouldsupport our industry. He fur-ther said that we have real-ized our objective of bring-ing the world to Pakistan andgetting acknowledged in theglobal fraternity. Our organi-zation also encouraged theparticipation of local found-ries in foreign exhibition withthe objective to broadentheir exposure for the chang-ing foundry practices.

The main theme of thisexhibition will provide anopportunity to investors,machinery manufactures,foundry material suppliersand services providers toshowcase their products,services to their counter-parts and potential custom-ers to make alliances. IFCE2014 is aimed at bringingtogether professional andindustrialist. Mr. Asim Qadriand Mr. Masood Akhtarwere spoke on the occasion.

TEVTA to devisetraining coursesin collaboration

with industrySTAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—TEVTA hastrained 3047 staff membersin a variety of disciplinesduring 2013-14. Thesetrainings would be reflectedin enhanced professionalcapability of TEVTA teach-ers for imparting skills to thetrainees. ChairpersonTEVTA Irfan Qaiser Shaikhwas addressing a meetinghere on Tuesday at TEVTASecretariat.

Irfan Qaiser Shaikh saidthat the focus to arrange thetraining programs was inline with revised curriculaand industrial exposure.767 staff members had gottraining in management dis-cipline, 736 teaching staffgot training in the area ofPedagogy & Blended learn-ing, 1017 teaching staff aswell as supporting staffwere imparted IT training,239 staff members weretrained in the area of SkillUp Gradation, 19 teachingstaff improves their skill byacquiring English Lan-guage training, 15 staffmember availed opportu-nity of foreign trainingfunded by different spon-soring agencies, 122 teach-ing staff was provided thetraining in renowned indus-tries for industrial expo-sure, 62 staff members weretrained to serve as Mastertrainer in the area of GPATIand Blended Learningtraining, 43 teaching andnon-teaching in variousdisciplines, 27 teachingstaff were trained in orderto improve entrepreneur-ship trends in the TVETsector.

Chairperson directed theofficers to develop close li-aison with the Chambers ofCommerce & Industries, In-dustrial Organizations andassociations of concernedsectors so that new coursesfor second phase may be in-troduced according to themarket trend. Thesetrainings should also be ar-ranged for revised/new cur-ricula so that trainees mayget benefit from professionalexpertise of TEVTA teach-ers. The trainers may alsobe given training in differentindustrial organizations tomake them acquainted withthe changes in the curricula,he concluded.

Farmers advisedto harvest

turmeric byDecember end

MULTAN—Agriculture ex-perts have advised farmersto harvest turmeric crop byDecember end when its leafstart drying up. In a releaseissued by media liaison unitof Punjab agriculture de-partment, experts said thatfarmers should water thefield lightly 3-4 days beforethe harvest and cut the leafwhen the field is wet. Farm-ers should ensure that theland should neither be ex-cessively wet nor should itbe hard so that the turmericbe dug out easily and soilbe removed from it withoutmuch hassle. Crop be har-vested by utilizing ‘Kassi’, atraditional earth digging tool.Some part of the yield shouldbe left inside the soil if farm-ers wish to utilize it as seedfor the next crop.—APP

Secretary Board of Investment, Syed Iftikhar Hussain Babar along with DG Policy, Dr.Raania Ahsan, Advisor BOI, Syed Feroze Shah visited office of Sindh Board of Invest-ment to get update on recently declared Special Economic Zones under SEZ ACT 2013,being managed and operated by National Industrial Parks Development & ManagementCompany. Riaz Uddin ,DG SBoI, Azeem Uqaili, Director SBoI, Nasreen Ali , DG BOI(KHI), Qazi Sheryar and Frahan Baig of NIP are also seen in picture.

Ufone signed a contract with Punjab Vocational Training Council to provide telecomsolutions. Abdul Aziz, President & CEO, Ufone and Faisal Ijaz Khan, Chairman PVTCexchanging documents during the ceremony.

WAH CANTT: Players showing their skills at the end of Wah martial arts and fitness club championship 2014.

FAISALABAD: Foreigner women team preparing for International Handball tournament commencing at the Univer-sity of Agriculture.

Omar Associates tohonour women’s

Asian Games goldmedalist

KARACHI—Gold Medal willbe awarded to Pakistanwomen’s cricketers for theirtrimuph in Asian Games inIncheon (Korea) on Septem-ber 27.

Omar Associates is hold-ing the reception in honourof Pakistan women’s team atHotel Marriott on Wednes-day evening in which teammembers will be presentedgold medal.

Shaharyar M.Khan,Chairman, Pakistan CricketBoard will be the chief guestat the ceremony, Chief Ex-ecutive Omar AssociatesNadeem Omar said on Tues-day.

“We want to rewardour women’s cricketers forretaining the gold medal inAsian Games,” he said.

Sana Mir ’s Pakistan’swomen’s cricket team de-feated Bangladesh in the fi-nal by four runs to winlone gold for the nationalin 17th Asiad.—APP

KARACHI—Fahad Academy set-upWednesday’s title clash in HBL Inter SchoolCricket Tournament final with BeaconhouseNorth Nazimabad after they overwhelmedSt.Pauls School by 135-run in one sidedsecond semi-final here at the National Sta-dium on Tuesday.

Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB),Shaharyar M.Khan will be the chief guestat the presentation ceremony.

Muhammad Saleem slammed a quick fire78 off 61 balls with 15 boundaries and onesix and Farhan Shah banged ten bound-aries and in his 65-ball knock of 71 in FahadAcademy’s triumph.

Sent to bat first, Fahad Academy piledup 315 for the loss of seven wickets in their

KARACHI—Pakistan hockey team coachShehnaz Sheikh and captain MohammadImran were full of confidence of putting upa good show in the champions Trophy inIndia. The 18 member team departed for In-dia via Wagah border and will play theiropening match against Belgium inBhubhneshwar on December 6. Talking tomedia before the departure the team coachShenaz Sheikh said that the boys haveworked hard to prepare for the ChampionsTrophy and will look to rectify the short-comings of the Asian Games. He also saidthey will try their level best to win the tour-nament and bring consistency in their per-formances. The skipper Mohammad Imransaid that the team will try and win the tour-nament and improve their ranking. He hassaid that Pakistan team has improved andthey are looking forward to put it on dis-play in the Champions Trophy.

“I firmly believed that my team was in agood frame of mind to put an improved per-formance after winning silver medal in Asian

Pakistan team improve aheadof Champions Trophy: Imran

Games,” he said.He said they have left their financial and

monetary problems behind to fully focus inachieving their best position.

Double Olympic full-back Imran said,Champions Trophy is rough and toughevent with eight best teams from across theglobe in the fray for the title.

He said it will be a good test for thepotential and skill of some of youngstersagainst the best players of the world.

Muhammad Imran said his team defi-nitely lacking in international exposureagainst European teams.

“Our coach and we are targeting to fin-ish among the top four,” he maintained.

He said boys really worked hard duringthe training camp in Karachi and it was timefor them to deliver their best for the revivalof national game.

Captain Imran said performances ofyoungsters inducted for the first time in thenational team would be setting future trendsfor Pakistan hockey.—APP

PESHAWAR—Peshawar Green secured thrill-ing 2-1 victory as Peshawar White and Blueswere locked 2-2 in the ongoing PeshawarHockey Academy League being played hereat Lala Ayub Hockey Stadium on Tuesday.

In the first match Peshawar Green de-feated Charsadda XI by 2-1 in the thrill-ing match with Charsadda XI took thelead through Nishad Khan on the fieldattempt in the 9th minute while Wahaband Ismail scored two goals for Pesahwarin the 13th and 66th minute to seal thefate of rivals at 2-1.

Peshawar Green win as White holdBlues to 2-2 draw in Hockey League

In the second match both PeshawarWhite stunned Peshawar Blues were tied 2-2 and got one point each.

Peshawar White took the lead throughGohar Shah and Sami Ullahi on the field at-tempt in the 6th and 18th minute but the leadwas leveled by Ihsisham Khan, the centerstriker, by scoring two quick goals in the53rd and 69th minute.

The final will be played on December 4at 2.30 p.m with Adviser to the Chief Minis-ter on Sports Amjad Khan Afridi will gracethe occasion as chief guest.—APP

HPS regainsInter School

Hockey crownKARACHI—Habib PublicSchool (HPS) regained theInter School Hockey Tour-nament t i t le after sevenyears when they beatGhulam-e-Abbas School1-0 here in the f inal onTuesday.

Zuhair Abbas slammedin the match winner in thefourth minute of extra-timeafter match has ended in a0-0 stalemate in the regu-lation time.

HPS ManagingTrustee Muslim Habibwas chief guest distr ib-uted the prizes. HPS Prin-cipal Nargis Alvi ,G h u l a m a n - e - A b b a sSchool Principal ShahidBadami and other officialswere present on the occa-s ion.

Speaking on the occa-sion, Nargis Alvicomplimented the effortsof the team and coachShakir Ali in regaining thetitle after so many yearsfro HPS.—APP

Fahad Academy meets Beaconhousein HBL School final today

40 overs. Left arm spinner Hamza Khan cap-tured three wickets for 55 runs in eightovers.

St.Pauls School in reply was bowled outfor 180 in 35th over.

Muhammad Kashan top-scored with 41off 50 deliveries with two sixes and one four.Summarized score:

Fahad Academy 315-7 in 40 overs(Muhammad Saleem 78, Farhan Shah 71,Umair Bin Yousuf 43, Saeed MahmoodShah 29 not out, Zeeshan Ahmed 26,Adeel Irshad 21, Hamza Khan 3-55,Hammad Ahmed 2-47) St.Pauls Schook180 all out in 34.2 overs (MuhammadKashan 41, Noman Ahmed 21, AdeelIrshad 2-27).—APP

LA H O R E—Former world juniorsquash champion, Sohail Qaisar hascalled for changes in the present setup of Punjab squash association tosecure the future of the game inPunjab. “Owing to the autocraticdecisions of the present regime ofthe PSA, the game has suffered alot which is evident from hard factthat Punjab’s players are strugglingat international events abroad”, hesaid in a statement here on Tuesday.

Sohail said the present regime isruling the PSA for the last ten yearsand their dismal performance can beevaluated from the fact that noPunjab player could get notableranking at Asia level, what to talkabout the World level.

“Punjab players failed in the re-cently concluded national juniorchampionship and lost in variousage groups”, he said, adding,“Punjab players were beaten in quali-fying rounds of World Open in Qatarrecently and in an international tour-nament at Dubai and it followed their

Standard of squash goes downpoor show in the World Jr champi-onship at Namibia where all the fourplayers failed to show decent fightand fell in early rounds.”

He said instead of paying atten-tion to revive the game, the PSA au-thorities were spending huge fundson non squash activities and play-ers are participating in the interna-tional events abroad on self helpbasis which was an unfair practice.

He said the entire PSA complexpresents the picture of a publicityhouse of a private business firmFMC which has installed its adver-tisement all over the complex, evenon the audience seats, inside thecourts, so much so even on the outerface and walls of the complex.

The former world champion saidthe money received from the pri-vates business houses was beingspent on administrative affairs andupcoming players were being de-prived to take part in the interna-tional events at the expense of thePSA.

“A lot of financial irregularitiesare being committed in PSA and in-stead of renovating the existingcourts and infrastructure heavyamount has been spent on install-ing cameras”, he said adding,

“Even the cement courts for thebeginner squash players are brokenand wooden courts are also rippedoff and lights are not functioningproperly in the courts which widelyspeak the lack of interest of the PSAauthorities in providing ideal play-ing conditions to the players”.

He urged the Pakistan SquashFederation to look into the matterand take remedial measures to safethe game from destruction in Punjab.When contacted, President, PSA,Malik Amjad Ali said efforts are be-ing made for the promotion ofsquash in the PSA but admitted thepoor performance of Punjab playersin various events. He said he wouldlook into the matter to remove ad-vertisement boards from the pre-mises of PSA.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

TEHRAN—The Qatari delegation, participat-ing in the 10th Session of the Islamic Con-ference of Information Ministers, held inTehran on 1-4 December, requested themeeting to adopt a recommendation “de-nouncing smear and tendentious cam-paigns against the right of Qatar, one ofthe 57 OIC Member States, to host the 2022World Cup.

The Qatari delegation called for the adop-tion of a recommendation that “invites insti-tutions of joint public information action andmedia outlets in OIC Member States to backthe State of Qatar in facing up to the false-hood and incitement propagated by a num-ber of western media outlets”.

The Qatari delegation’s call was mootedin the preparatory senior officials’ meeting,

Qatar seeks OIC supportfor staging 2022 WC

held yesterday, 1 December 2014, in Tehran.The delegation expressed concern over“western tendentious media campaigns tar-geting the State of Qatar and casting doubton its rightfulness to stage the World Cup,and over the insistence of some westernmedia outlets to disseminate and broadcastfalse and biased information designed toprejudice Qatar’s eligibility to host this glo-bal sporting event”.

The Qatari delegation said that thesebiased campaigns are being launched de-spite “Qatar’s winning of the bid to hostthe 2022 World Cup in an open, honest andtransparent competition”.

The delegation considered the stagingof the 2022 World Cup by Qatar as an “ac-complishment for all OIC Member Statesand a well-deserved right for all the IslamicWorld nations”.

KARACHI—New Zealand head coach MikeHesson was pleased with how his team hasadapted to the challenges they have faced inthe past 15 months.

New Zealand team staged a strong come-back after losing the opening Test to beatPakistan by an innings and 80 runs in thirdTest in Sharjah to end the se-ries 1-1.

“We have been unde-feated over their last five Testseries. This year, they hadclung to a 1-0 lead over Indiawith a stunning show of de-fiance in Wellington,trumped hosts West Indies2-1 for their first series winaway from home against aFull Member in 12 years, andcapped it off by coming frombehind to draw with Pakistan,a team they have tended tostruggle against,” he toldleading cricket website onTuesday.

“Obviously we’ve beenable to create history in WestIndies and to win a Test over here, wherehistorically we really struggle - ’96 was a re-ally good tour for the Black Caps over here,but other than that we’ve got a history oflosing pretty badly over here,” he said. “Soto be able to bounce back from 0-1 gave theteam a lot of satisfaction.”

“Though they were thoroughly outplayedin the first Test in Abu Dhabi, New Zealand

Kiwi coach rejoicesteam’s fight back

had “showed the initial improvement inDubai”, according to Hesson.

“Brendon McCullum and the rest of theline-up made a conscious effort to upsetPakistan’s spinners Yasir Shah and ZulfiqarBabar, who have been critical to Pakistan’sdominance in the UAE this season, and

Hesson said that contributedgreatly to the team comingback to square the series.

“It is very difficult to sur-vive when you have fourguys around the bat, and of-ten the only way to changethat is to be pretty proactive,”he said.

“I think there’s no doubtwe probably took that to ex-tremes at times and some ofthe strokeplay was astound-ing, really, and that allowed usto play with no guys aroundthe bat and push a lot ofsingles.”

With the limited-oversseries coming up against Pa-kistan, Hesson is hopeful that

his batsmen can continue to be the play-mak-ers.

“Top-order runs,” he said. “I think if you’reable to set the game up with top-order runsover here, then you allow your power to comelater on and put the cream on.

The first of two T20s against Pakistan isset for Thursday, and the five-ODI series be-gins on Monday.—APP

Sports Galaof MuslimEducationSystem infull swing

PESHAWAR—The SportsGala of Muslim EducationSystem KhyberPakhtunkhwa is in full swingas matches of variousevents decided on the sec-ond day at different venueson Tuesday.

In the cricket eventplayed at University Cam-pus ground Muslim Collegeof Commerce and Manage-ment Peshawar Worries de-feated Muslim College ofTechnology PeshawarKinds by five wickets.Peshawar Kings while bat-ting first scored 95 runs andin reply Peshawar Worrieschased the target for the lossof five wickets.

In the second matchMCCM Junior facedMCCM Peshawar Lionswherein Peshawar Lionssecured 27 runs victory.Muslim Education CollegeDolphin defeated MuslimCollege of Commerce andManagement defeatedMardan’s Buraq team by 27runs while and in the thirdmatch Muslim EducationCollege Dolphin defeatedBuraq team by eight wick-ets and moved into the nextround.

In the football eventMuslim Education Collegeof Technology PeshawarKings defeated MCCMPeshawar Riders by 3-1,Dolphin Peshawar defeatedPeshawar King by 4-2,Peshawar Worries beatMCC&M defeated BuraqMardan by 3-2, MuslimCollege of Commerce andManagement Campus IIPeshawar Lions II defeatedMCCM Peshawar Riders by5-3 and in the fifth matchPeshawar Dolphin beatRiders by 2-1 and moved tothe next round.

In the basketball eventPeshawar Worries beatPeshawar Kings by 65-40,MCCM Campus IIPeshawar Lions beatMCCM Junior Riders beat56-34 points. In the volley-ball Peshawar Lions,Peshawar Worries,Peshawar Dolphin regis-tered victories. In the firstmatch Muslim CollegeWorries beat PeshawarKings by 3-0.—APP

SYDNEY—Cricketers and officials fromaround Australia began converging on thesmall town of Macksville, New SouthWales for the funeral of Phillip Hughes asthe impact of his untimely death on theinternational game unfolded on Tuesday.

Hughes, who would have been 26 atthe weekend, died last Thursday from acatastrophic injury caused by a ball strik-ing him in the back of the head during adomestic match, triggering a huge out-pouring of grief in Australia and aroundthe world. Some 5,000 people are expectedfor the funeral at 2pm local time (0300GMT) on Wednesday in the small coastaltown halfway between Sydney andBrisbane, where Hughes grew up on a farmproducing bananas and beef.

Among them will be his team matesfrom the Australia squad, whose grief athis death caused the postponement of thefirst test of a four-match series againstIndia which was scheduled to start inBrisbane on Thursday. Cricket Australiahave re-jigged the schedule with the se-ries now getting underway in Adelaide nextTuesday but are aware that even thatmight still be too soon for some players.

Chief executive James Sutherland saidCA would be understanding of playerswho still feel uncomfortable about play-ing next week. “There´s a funeral tomor-row, let´s just understand that´s going tobe difficult enough as it is,” he told re-porters at Sydney Airport on his way toMacksville. “I´d encourage everyone togive players their space and let them intheir own way work through that. It´s ab-

No pressure on Australianplayers for Adelaide test

solutely up to the individual (whether theyplay), and any player that is not comfort-able or doesn´t feel right, or there is medi-cal advice that it is not quite right, we willobviously understand that.”

Pace bowler Ryan Harris later said hewas not sure he would be emotionallyready to bowl in Adelaide. “Tomorrow isthe day we are thinking about. In the backof our mind is Tuesday and we have gotto do what we can to try to prepare forthat,” he told reporters in Brisbane. “I´mstill thinking about it and I´m not sure, seehow we go tomorrow, I guess. But this istough for some boys and it is going to betough for me. I will have to work it outwhen I get to Adelaide and see how we allfeel. The boys who were there who wit-nessed what happened I can´t speak forthem because I can´t imagine what theyare going through.”

Sutherland said consideration hadbeen given to cancelling the Brisbane test,which is worth some A$20 million ($16.97million) to Cricket Australia and will nowbe squeezed between the Adelaide andMelbourne tests from Dec. 17-21. “To behonest it was close, there were only a fewdays in it, but in the end we´ve been ableto get to a solution that I believe was opti-mal,” he said. “I just hope everyone willunderstand the big picture here, these aretragic and extraordinary circumstances.”

Alistair Nicholson, chief executive of theAustralian Cricketers´ Association (ACA),represented the players in the discussionsabout the rescheduling and said the solutionsatisfied their two main concerns.—Agencies

HAMBANTOTA: Angelo Mathews prepares for a reverse sweep as Marvan Atapattu looks on.

Bipin DaniOBSERVER CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI—Seven members of Team In-dia currently on Australia tour will joinPhillip Hughes’ funeral on Wednesday.This was revealed by the team managerArshad Ayyub.

Speaking exclusively over his mobilefrom Adelaide, he said, Ishant Sharma,Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan willjoin us for the funeral”.

Originally, there was a plan to at-tend the funeral by the entire India teambut was cut short and decided only tosend the acting captain Virat Kohli, Di-rector (coaching) Ravi Shastri, coachDuncan Fletcher and manager Ayyubhimself.

However, in consultation with the In-dian cricket board, it has been decided tosend seven members (four playing andthree support staff).

At Adelaide, where the first Testmatch is scheduled to begin on Decem-ber 9, there will be no practice session forthe remaining members of the squad.

Rohit, Ishant and Shikhar tojoin Phillip Hughes funeral

The funeral is to take place inMacksville High School where the 25-year-old Hughes studied.

“It will be held in sports hall, which isalso an indoor Stadium”, Robyn Walsh,the principal of the School said over tele-phone.

“Phillip Hughes was a hero of ourSchool. We have many cricketers in thisSchool, but yes, Hughes is the first onewho represented the national team”, sheadded.

It could not be confirmed whetherSean Abbott, the 23-year-right arm fastbowler would be attending the funeral.

“I am not yet sure whether he (SeanAbbott) has made any plan to join thefuneral”, his manager Peter Lovitt saidfrom Sydney.

During a Sheffield Shield match on 25November 2014, Sean Abbott’s bouncerhit Phillip Hughes on the neck with a re-sult the batsman died two days after thehospitalization.There will be many more foreign players -ex and present- will be attending the fu-neral in a small town in Australia onWednesday.

LAHORE—Pakistan cricket chiefs saidTuesday they are seeking a reassess-ment of Saeed Ajmal’s bowling actionwhich was deemed illegal in Septem-ber, in a bid to clear the star off-spin-ner before next year’s World Cup.

Ajmal was suspended frombowling at international level aftera bio-mechanical analysis of his ac-tion which was reported as suspectduring the Galle Test against SriLanka in August. After placing himin a corrective programme, the Pa-

Pakistan apply for reassessmentof Ajmal’s action

kistan Cricket Board (PCB) said itwas ready to have his act ion re-tested by the International CricketCouncil (ICC).

“We have sent an email to the ICCfor Ajmal’s official bowling reassess-

ment and are wait-ing for a date,” itsaid in a state-ment. Ajmal’s sus-pension had dis-rupted Pakistan’splanning for theWorld Cup inAustralia andNew Zealand inFebruary-March,since Ajmal hasbeen their mainwicket-taker.

He has 178Test, 183 one-dayand 85 Twenty20wickets. But with-out Ajmal Paki-stan won 2-0 in aTest series againstAustralia — theirfirst win over theopponents in 20years — as left-arm spinner

Zulfiqar Babar and leg spinner YasirShah came to the fore.

They later drew their Test serieswith New Zealand 1-1. Under the ICCrules bowlers are allowed to extendtheir elbow by 15 degrees, beyondwhich an action is deemed illegal.

Ajmal’s assessment in Australiashowed his extension was nearly 43degrees. During the remedial workAjmal underwent two unofficial testsat Loughborough University in En-gland.

PCB chairman Shaharyar Khansaid he was now confident of pass-ing. “Ajmal called me from Londonafter his unofficial tests and showedconfidence that he will get cleared,”Khan said, adding he hoped the testwould take place within 10 days.

Under the ICC rules a suspendedbowler’s remodelled action will becompared with the action employedin the match in which he was reported.If the re-assessment concludes thatthe action is no longer illegal, his sus-pension shall be lifted and he shall beallowed to bowl at international levelinstantly.

But if the cleared bowler is foundagain in breach of the legal limit insidetwo years of the first report, he risks aone-year ban. Sri Lanka’s off-spinnerSachitra Senanayake, suspended inJuly this year, had his action reas-sessed last week.

Besides Ajmal and Senanayake,New Zealand’s Kane Williamson,Zimbabwe’s Prosper Usteya andBangladesh’s Sohag Gazi were alsosuspended in a major crackdown onchuckers by the ICC launched in Junethis year.

Pakistan’s Mohammad Hafeez wasalso reported and had his biomechani-cal test last month.—AFP

Froome totarget 2015

Tour de FranceLONDON—Former Tour deFrance champion ChrisFroome scotched doubtsabout his commitment to the2015 race on Tuesday bydeclaring that it will be the“main focus” of his season.

The mountainous routefor the 2015 Tour does notfavour Froome, the 2013champion, and he hinted inOctober that he could electto skip it and focus insteadon the Giro d’Italia and theVuelta a Espana.

But having softened hisstance in a subsequent inter-view, the 29-year-old TeamSky rider has now announcedthat the Tour will be his pri-mary target next year.

“Of course, togetherwith the team, we’ve had toprioritise some events overothers, but the Tour will re-main my main focus for2015,” Froome said in an in-terview published on theTeam Sky website.

Froome, who was forcedto withdraw from this year’sTour after a number ofcrashes, added that focus-ing on next year’s racewould make it difficult tomount a sustained challengein the Giro and the Vuelta.

“The concept of doing allthree Grand Tours in a sea-son has got appeal, but hav-ing said that, I know howhard it is to do two GrandTours while targeting theoverall win,” said the Kenya-born Briton, who finishedsecond to Alberto Contadorin this year’s Vuelta.—AFP

DUBAI—Paceman Umar Gul’s return boostsformer world champions Pakistan againstan under-strength New Zealand in the twoTwenty20 internationals starting in Dubaion Thursday.

The 30-year-old returns from a kneeproblem which kept him away from interna-tional cricket since the fifth edition of theWorld Twenty20 in Bangladesh in April thisyear.

His inclusion will helpPakistan overcome the ab-sence of ace off-spinnerSaeed Ajmal who is sus-pended from internationalcricket after his bowling ac-tion was found illegal in Sep-tember this year.

Gul is the second high-est wicket-taker in the short-est format of the game with80 in 56 games, five behindAjmal’s 85.

He famously took 5-6 ina World Twenty20 groupmatch against New Zealandat The Oval when Pakistanwon the title in 2009.

Pakistan will hope theirpace attack, which also includes the lanky7 feet, one inch (2.1m) Mohammad Irfansupplement the bowling attack which hasspinners in Raza Hasan and Shahid Afridi.

Pakistan had a miserable WorldTwenty20 in Bangladesh where they failedto reach the last four for the first time in fiveeditions of the tournament.

That prompted captain MohammadHafeez to step down, giving the responsi-bility to all-rounder Afridi for a second stint.

But Afridi’s return as captain wasn’tauspicious as Pakistan lost the onlyTwenty20 against Australia in Dubai inOctober by six wickets.

Afridi said Pakistan will not underesti-mate New Zealand who are without their

Gul, Irfan give Pakistan edgein T20s against New Zealand

dashing skipper Brendon McCullum who,along with pacemen Tim Southee and TrentBoult, have returned to New Zealand toprepare for the upcoming home seriesagainst Sri Lanka.

“New Zealand is a dangerous limitedover side and we will not underestimatethem,” said Afridi.

“We have to be at out best to beatthem.”

McCullum smashed a brilliant 202 tohelp New Zealand win the third and finalTest in Sharjah on Sunday, levelling thethree-match Test series 1-1.

Kane Williamson, who has led NewZealand in three one-day matches and twoTwenty20s will lead New Zealand whileRoss Taylor, fast bowler Adam Milne andbatting all-rounder Anton Devcich returnto the squad.

Pacemen Mitchell McClenaghan andKyle Mills and spinner Nathan McCullumwill also boost New Zealand.

Pakistan have beaten New Zealand insix of their nine Twenty20s with threelosses.

KARACHI—The International CricketCouncil (ICC) Tuesday named four WorldCup winners in a 25-member match offi-

cials’ teamfor the ICCC r i c k e tWorld Cup2015, whichruns fromFebruary 14to March 29.

T h eteam in-cludes fiveo f f i c i a l sfrom ElitePanel of ICCMatch Ref-erees, 12 um-

pires from Elite Panel of ICC Umpires andeight umpires from the International Panelof ICC Umpires.

Aleem Dar is the lone Pakistani in theElite Panel of Umpires.

The match referees are: David Boon,Chris Broad, Jeff Crowe, Ranjan Madugalleand Roshan Mahanama.

The elite panel umpires are: Aleem Dar,Billy Bowden, Bruce Oxenford, Ian Gould,Kumar Dharmasena, Marais Erasmus, NigelLlong, Paul Reiffel, Richard Illingworth, Ri-chard Kettleborough, Rod Tucker andSteve Davis.

The international panel umpires are:Johan Cloete, Simon Fry, Chris Gaffaney,

ICC announces match officialsfor Cricket World Cup 2015

Michael Gough, Ranmore Martinesz,Ruchira Palliyaguru, S.Ravi and Joel Wil-son.

The eight umpires from the interna-tional panel have been identified as emerg-ing and talented match officials, who havealready officiated at international level.

The World Cup winners in the line-upare Boon, Dharmasena, Mahanama andReiffel.

Boon was part of Allan Border’s sidethat triumphed in Kolkata in the ICC CricketWorld Cup 1987 final, Dharmasena andMahanama played in the ICC Cricket WorldCup 1996 final in Lahore and Reiffel repre-sented Australia at Lord’s in the ICCCricket World Cup 1999 final.

In addition to the four, Crowe repre-sented New Zealand in the 1983 and 1987ICC Cricket World Cups, Broad featuredin three matches of the ICC Cricket WorldCup 1987, Illingworth participated in thefinal of the ICC Cricket World Cup 1992 inMelbourne as well as in the ICC CricketWorld Cup 1996 and Madugalle played inthree ICC Cricket World Cups - 1979, 1983and 1987.

The umpires were chosen by the se-lection panel of Geoff Allardice (ICC Gen-eral Manager Cricket), Ranjan Madugalle(ICC Chief Match Referee), David Lloyd(former player, coach, umpire and now tele-vision commentator) and SrinivasVenkataraghavan (former elite panel um-pire).—APP

Henry’s returnto Arsenal a

certainty, saysWenger

LONDON—Arsenal man-ager Arsene Wenger said onTuesday that former greatThierry Henry will “cer-tainly” return to the club insome capacity in the future.

Henry, Arsenal’s recordgoal-scorer, announced onMonday that he wouldleave Major League Socceroutfit the New York RedBulls after a four-and-a-half-year spell in the UnitedStates.

The 37-year-old re-cently told French sportsnewspaper L’Equipe that hewanted to “help” Arsenalwin the Champions Leagueand Wenger believes it isonly a matter of time beforehe returns to the EmiratesStadium. “He is an Arsenalman.

The best moment cer-tainly of his life and of hiscareer has been experi-enced here,” Wenger tolda press conference aheadof his side’s PremierLeague home game withSouthampton on Wednes-day. “Certainly one day hewill come back here. Inwhat role, I don’t know.That is what he has to thinkabout: what direction hewants to give to his nextlife.” Wenger added thatHenry possessed the nec-essary attributes to suc-ceed as a coach, saying:

“Thierry has all thequalities because he is in-telligent, committed, heloves the game. “He justhas to think, ‘Do I want tosacrifice all the rest of mylife to be involved in thatjob?’” Henry, a world andEuropean champion withFrance, spent eight years atArsenal, winning two Pre-mier League titles and threeFA Cups, before joiningBarcelona in 2007. He wonseven trophies at Barcelona,including the 2009 Champi-ons League, and moved toNew York the followingyear, briefly returning toArsenal on loan in January2012.

Speaking after the RedBulls’ 4-3 aggregate defeatby New England Revolutionin the Eastern ConferenceChampionship play-off,Henry said he would “takethe next few weeks to re-flect” on his future. WhileArsenal could in theory re-sign Henry as a player,Wenger played down thepossibility. Asked if Henrycould still make a contribu-tion on the pitch, he replied:“Yes, but 37 today in thePremier League... I don’tthink he wants to do thatagain.”—AFP

Gayle out ofWest Indiestour of SA

MIAMI—Opening batsmanChris Gayle is out of thismonth’s West Indies tour ofSouth Africa because of in-jury, with Devon Smithcalled up to replace him.

Gayle has not featuredon the international stagesince September and hasstruggled with a back injuryalthough he recently playedin South Africa’s ‘Ram SlamT20’ tournament.

West Indies said in astatement that he had “beenreplaced due to injury” with-out offering any further de-tails. Winward Islandsopener Smith has been inexcellent form in regionalcompetition with two half-centuries and a ton in hislast three games but he hasnot played a test for WestIndies since 2011. The Car-ibbean side will play threetests in South Africa start-ing on Dec 10 in Centu-rion.—APP

SINGAPORE: Andre Agassi of the Singapore Slammers plays a forehand in his matchagainst Mark Philippoussis of the Manila Mavericks during the Coca-Cola Interna-tional Premier Tennis League at the Singapore Sports Hub.

NEW research shows that walkingboosts creative thinking. In a series ofexperiments, researchers from

Stanford University in California comparedlevels of creativity in people while theywalked with while they satand found creative outputwent up by an average of60% while walking. Manypeople claim that they comeup with their best ideas whilewalking. Steve Jobs, late co-founder of Apple, used tohold meetings while walk-ing, and Mark Zuckerberg,co-founder of Facebook, hasalso been seen doing thesame.

Now, a study by Dr.Marily Oppezzo and DanielSchwartz, a professor atStanford Graduate School ofEducation, may explainwhy. They report their find-ings in the Journal of Experi-mental Psychology: Learn-ing, Memory and Cognition. They found thatthe act of walking itself does the trick - it doesnot matter whether the walk is indoors or out-doors, it has the same effect in boosting cre-ative inspiration.

In one experiment, they found that com-pared with sitting down, walking indoors ona treadmill facing a blank wall or walkingoutdoors in the fresh air produced twice asmany creative responses. Dr. Oppezzo saysshe thought “walking outside would bloweverything out of the water, but walking on atreadmill in a small, boring room still hadstrong results, which surprised me.” She saystheirs appears to be the first study to look spe-

Walking boostscreative thinking

Chief of the Royal Malaysian Navy Admiral Tan Sri Abdul Aziz called on Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Mohammad Zakaullah at IDEAS-2014.

Dr Fazlullah Pechuho, Secretary Education and Literacy Department Governmentof Sindh, addressing the launching ceremony of “Save the Children’s project‘Chaon’.—PO photo by Sultan Chaki

A group photograph of Ghazanfar Rauf CEO Academy of Aesthetics with model during the lunching ceremony.—PO photo

cifically at the effect of non-aerobic walkingon simultaneously generating new ideas, andcompare it with sitting.

The effect of walking appears to persistfor a little while; even if people sat down

shortly after a walk, their cre-ative juices continued to flow,the researchers found. To carryout their four experiments, Dr.Oppezzo and Prof. Schwartzrecruited 176 college studentsand other adults, and had themcomplete tasks that researchersnormally use to measure cre-ative thinking. They placed theparticipants in various condi-tions, comparing non-aerobicwalking to sitting, indoors andoutdoors. When outdoors, forinstance, the walkers wouldwalk, and the sitters werepushed in wheelchairs arounda pre-determined path on theStanford campus.

The reason for pushing sit-ters around in wheelchairs in

the outdoor parts of experiments was to givethem the same visual movement as walking.The participants also underwent differentcombinations of walking and sitting. For ex-ample, there might be two consecutive walk-ing sessions, or two consecutive seated ses-sions, or a walking session followed by aseated one. The sessions lasted from 5 to 16minutes, depending on the tasks the partici-pants were asked to complete. In three of theexperiments, the participants undertook testsof their divergent thinking creativity. Diver-gent thinking is where you generate ideas bythinking of lots of possible solutions.

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—The Sikh community, a religious mi-nority in Pakistan would be pleased to have a templeat Karachi soon for which the federal governmenthad consented to allocate a piece of land measuring600 square yards. The ETPB Chairman SiddiqueAl Farooque said that the government intends togive the property of the Trust in Karachi for com-mercial purposes and hence the investors, who wouldhave their interest in investing their money, mightapproach the ETPB for onward process.

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) se-nior leader and the Evacuee Trust Property Board(ETPB) Chairman Siddique Al Farooque announcedthis in a meeting held in Karachi Tuesday at theoffice of ETPB, which was attended by the com-mittee that was constituted for the construction ofthe Sikh temple, the Gurdwara Nankana Sahib inKarachi. Sardar Manmohan Singh had led the saidcommittee with the members Sardar Bhola Singh,Sardar Jeet Kumar, Nanki Bai, Johar Lal, SureshKumar, Jag Mohan and Sardar Manjeet Singh.

Federal Govt allocates 600 sq yards plot

Sikhs to have their Gurdwarain Karachi soon: Siddiq

With regard to security concerns of the religiousminority, he reiterated the absolute resolve of hisgovernment that the security of the places of wor-ships of the Hindus and the Sikhs would be fullyensured and the Sikh pilgrims on their visit to Paki-stan for participating in their religious rituals wouldalso be provided with fool proof security. Completesecurity to the pilgrims visiting Sadhu Bela andMirpur Mathelo Hayat Petafi Darbar would also beensured, he vowed.

On a dispute between the Hindus and the Sikhs,the ETPB chairman assured the meeting that thedisputes would be resolved especially the issue ofBagh Nari temple would be soon resolved. He alsotold the meeting that the federal government hadalso provided a boat made of fibre glass worth Rs.1million to Sadhu Bela temple, while the old boatwas being repaired.

The ETPB Chairman Siddique Al Farooque toldthe meeting that the federal government had alsoincreased annual grant for the Hindu temple inSukkur, Sadhu Bela had also been increased fromRs. 1 million to Rs. 1.5 million.

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—Kidnapping for ransomgaining an alarming rise shattering theconfidence of the potential investorstriggering security concerns in Sindhespecially in Karachi. Hassan MustafaPhul (son of provisional secretary forZakat and Usher) was kidnapped on11th September 2014,from Jamshoro.Immediately after the incident, CPLCteam jointly started working on the case

Alarming rise in kidnapping for ransom

Strong crackdown inevitable, CPLCrecovers son of secretary zakat

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Pakistan People’s Party(PPP) Karachi Division President AbdulQadir Patel and General SecretaryNajmi Alam in response to MuttahhidaQaumi Movement’s (MQM) Chief AltafHussain’s statement regarding movingcourt against the PPP Chairman BilawalBhutto Zardari for his statement saidwhat the PPP Chairman had stated wasin accordance to factual situation. ThePPP Chairman or any chief of a politi-cal party had the right to protest against

PPP urges MQM chief to be carefulof elements seeking violence

with the collaboration of Sindh Policeand Rangers.

Extensive raids took place by thejoint action team, and some suspectsalso arrested. The rapid response of thejoint team, threatened and feared thekidnappers. CPLC, 72 wing rangers andHyderabad Police was working daynight for the safe release of the boy. Re-cently through the joint efforts ofCPLC, SSP Jamshoro and SP Jamshorofew more suspects were arrested from

the areas of Kandh Kot, TandoMuhammad Yar, Lakki Shah, Saddar,Jamshorow and Kotri. The exclusiveprogress was terrifying for the kidnap-pers, and due to unavoidable intensepressure, the kidnappers had no otheroption, except to release the victimsafely, without receiving any ransom.

Governor Sindh Dr. Ishrat ul IbadKhan and Chief Minister Sindh SyedQaim Ali Shah has congratulated thewhole team of CPLC, Sindh Police and

Rangers, where as CPLC, Sindh Policeand rangers are still looking forward tobust the whole gang, and rapid raids arein progress.

Although CPLC Sindh GovernorHouse doping well in combating thecases of kidnapping for ransom, yet astrong crackdown on the gangs involvedin the heinous crime is essentially neededto restore confidence of the investors andthe environment of doing business in thecommercial hub of Pakistan.

AAMIR MAJEED

KARACHI—Pakistan Rangers Sindh-circle on Tuesday unfolded successes ofthe paramilitary force during ongoing tar-geted operation in the highly-volatile me-tropolis since its start on September 05,2013. As per details, Pakistan RangersSindh-chapter has started targeted opera-tion across the city on September 05, 2013after getting directives from Prime Min-ister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Shariff.

The Rangers on Tuesday issued sta-tistics, higlighting the achievments of theparamilitary force during the ongoingtargeted operation so far. The numbers

Karachi operation

Rangers detain 7618 in 4147 raidsinclude successful targeted raids leadingto the arrest of thousands of the suspectsand recovery of huge chache of weaponsalong with rounds from their possesion.

The paramilitary force has claimedthat it had conducted 4147 targeted raidsduring September 04, 2013 till December02, 2014. In above mentioned raids, Rang-ers successfully arrested 7618 suspectswhich include target killers, extortionistsand kidnappers. The paramilitary forcefuther claimed that it had handed 3481criminals to police after intial interroga-tion for prosecution. Those suspects whichwere handed over to police for prosecu-tion include 178 targt killers and 230 ex-

tortionists,” the border security force of-ficials maintained.

The offificials claimed that the para-military force has arrested 35 kidnappersand rescued 35 kidnapees from their un-lawful detention since September 04.

The border security force alsoclaimed its share in making the uncer-tain metropolis free from arms and am-munition for restoration of peace. “Dur-ing targeted raids, Rangers recovered6146 weapons including MGs, LMGs,Sniper Rifles, RPG-7, Uni Barrel RocketLaunchers, SMGs, Improvised Explo-sive Devices (IEDs) and hand grenades,”the officials continued.

murders of party workers for nothing. TheMQM Chief had also been exercising thesame right while condemning extra-judi-cial killings of his worker.

They said what Bilawal Bhutto Zardarihad stated was quite natural and it was noth-ing supernatural to feel the agony and speakon the atrocities being inflicted on the Jialasfor their devotion with the PPP andBhuttoism. If there was anything wrong,the MQM Chief should also stop condemn-ing the killings of his party workers.

The PPP leaders said the PPP wouldnot ask the MQM Chief to avoid moving

court while using his democratic and legalright but it should also be kept in mind thatthe PPP also had same constitutional,democratic and legal rights to seek rem-edy from the judiciary on killings of work-ers of the PPP, not in the country but at theinternational level, too.

However, they said, the PPP alwaysbelieved in mutual respect and the philoso-phy of ‘live and let live’ and the PPP’spolicy of reconciliation was still in fullswing. A good gesture of that policy of rec-onciliation was showed by the PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari for dedicating

two universities in Karachi andHyderabad to the MQM Chief AltafHussain.

They said the MQM Chief AltafHussain should be careful of those ele-ments, who wanted to created a state ofanarchy through violence and that suchelements could be present anywhere. ThePPP had time and again reiterated its re-solve for non-violence and political en-durance as any state of violence woulddestroy the country and the resolve ofthe country for fighting the terrorism untilfully eliminated.

KARACHI—The Crime Investigation Department (CID) of po-lice on Tuesday conducted a raid in Orangi Town and recovered100 kilograms of explosives.

The raid in Orangi’s Mominabad area was conducted by theAnti-Extremism Cell (AEC) which also recovered 13 mobilephones, six police uniforms, six ball bombs, six batteries, three

CID seizes 100kg of explosivessuicide jackets, three hand grenades, three pistols, several gov-ernment number plates and remote controls.

According to in-charge of AEC CID Ali Raza, when the policeraised a suspected factory, an encounter ensued with members of abanned organisation. However, the suspected managed to flee andadditional police teams were deputed for their arrest.—INP

NEW research shows that walkingboosts creative thinking. In a series ofexperiments, researchers from

Stanford University in California comparedlevels of creativity in people while theywalked with while they satand found creative outputwent up by an average of60% while walking. Manypeople claim that they comeup with their best ideas whilewalking. Steve Jobs, late co-founder of Apple, used tohold meetings while walk-ing, and Mark Zuckerberg,co-founder of Facebook, hasalso been seen doing thesame.

Now, a study by Dr.Marily Oppezzo and DanielSchwartz, a professor atStanford Graduate School ofEducation, may explainwhy. They report their find-ings in the Journal of Experi-mental Psychology: Learn-ing, Memory and Cognition. They found thatthe act of walking itself does the trick - it doesnot matter whether the walk is indoors or out-doors, it has the same effect in boosting cre-ative inspiration.

In one experiment, they found that com-pared with sitting down, walking indoors ona treadmill facing a blank wall or walkingoutdoors in the fresh air produced twice asmany creative responses. Dr. Oppezzo saysshe thought “walking outside would bloweverything out of the water, but walking on atreadmill in a small, boring room still hadstrong results, which surprised me.” She saystheirs appears to be the first study to look spe-

Walking boostscreative thinking

Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar visiting the stalls after inaugurating 5th International Foundry Congress Exhibition.

Former President Asif Ali Zardari with kids during inauguration of Pakistan People’sParty Social Wing.

Blind persons hold a demonstration in support of their demands outside Press Club.

cifically at the effect of non-aerobic walkingon simultaneously generating new ideas, andcompare it with sitting.

The effect of walking appears to persistfor a little while; even if people sat down

shortly after a walk, their cre-ative juices continued to flow,the researchers found. To carryout their four experiments, Dr.Oppezzo and Prof. Schwartzrecruited 176 college studentsand other adults, and had themcomplete tasks that researchersnormally use to measure cre-ative thinking. They placed theparticipants in various condi-tions, comparing non-aerobicwalking to sitting, indoors andoutdoors. When outdoors, forinstance, the walkers wouldwalk, and the sitters werepushed in wheelchairs arounda pre-determined path on theStanford campus.

The reason for pushing sit-ters around in wheelchairs in

the outdoor parts of experiments was to givethem the same visual movement as walking.The participants also underwent differentcombinations of walking and sitting. For ex-ample, there might be two consecutive walk-ing sessions, or two consecutive seated ses-sions, or a walking session followed by aseated one. The sessions lasted from 5 to 16minutes, depending on the tasks the partici-pants were asked to complete. In three of theexperiments, the participants undertook testsof their divergent thinking creativity. Diver-gent thinking is where you generate ideas bythinking of lots of possible solutions.

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—The Ravian Forensic Soci-ety (RFA) Tuesday held a public aware-ness seminar on “Combating Fake Cur-rency Notes” at the Government CollegeUniversity, Lahore in collaboration withthe State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Agroup of experts from SBP comprisingKanwaal Kaleem, Sumeran and ArifMehmood briefed the faculty membersand students about the security features,characteristics and composition of thecountry’s currency notes.

GCU holds seminar oncombating fake currency notes

Vice Chancellor Prof Dr MuhammadKhaleeq-ur-Rahman said that the universitywas holding a series of awareness seminarsto increase the understanding of studentsabout different social, economic and healthrelated issues. RFA Advisor Dr MuhammadAkhyar Farrukh told students about historyof currency notes and their benefits.

Addressing the seminar, the SBP ex-perts said that Pakistan’s currency noteshad the world’s best security features andtheir exact copy was yet impossible dueto geometrical features, electrotype water-marks, rainbow printing, ant-scan areas,

cylinder mold and several other hiddenfeatures. They said that geometrical por-traits of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad AliJinnah had never been exactly copied infake note besides several other charac-teristics regarding paper, thickness andcolour of currency notes. They said thatthe country’s currency notes were madefrom cotton and due several processeshad high resistance to environmentalconditions. The bank experts also toldthat the state bank accepted the claim ofeven burnt notes if you had the 51 per-cent portion of the note.

MUZAFFAR ALI

LAHORE—Punjab University Iqbal Chair hascompleted a mega research project on Iqbaliyatafter a research work of 12 years and has pro-duced the largest encyclopaedia on Iqbaliyatcovering all the major concepts introduced bythe Poet of the East and the Thinker of Paki-stan Allama Muhammad Iqbal. In this regard,a launching ceremony of third and final part of“Daira Muarif-e-Iqbal” was organized atSherani Hall of Oriental College, Old Campushere on Tuesday.

Addressing the ceremony, Dr MujahidKamran congratulated Prof Dr Syed AkramShah and editorial team on completing the gi-gantic research project on the philosophy andconcepts of Allama Iqbal. Dr Kamran said thatthe poetry of Iqbal clearly narrated the linkagebetween the universe and its Creator.

He said that Iqbal’s poetry inspired vari-ous regions and countries and penetrated intothe bodies and souls. He advised the studentsto adopt reading habits because Iqbal had saidthat the Muslims would be assigned the duty

PU produces largestencyclopaedia on Iqbaliyat

to lead the world. He called upon the rulers toprovide subsidy on books so that reading hab-its could be promoted.

Dr Khawaja Muhammad Zakriya said thatAllama Iqbal had written in three languagesincluding English, Urdu and Persian and alsowished to write in Arabic language in the lastpart of his age.

He advised the students to understand ter-minology used in Allama Iqbal’s poetry in itstrue spirit. He said that Iqbal wanted changeand end to status-co. He said that Iqbal hadalso used the word of evolution besides revo-lution.

Dr Syed Akram Shah said that the threeparts of “Daira Muarif-e-Iqbal” covered 372basic and important concepts related to thephilosophy of Allama Iqbal and it was thelargest encyclopaedia on Iqbaliyat. Hethanked PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr MujahidKamran for providing all-out support for com-pleting this research project. Dr IsmatullahZahid and Rafi uddin also lauded the effortsof Dr Syed Akram Shah and congratulated himon this achievement.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—The BritishCouncil’s regional director forPunjab, Kevin McLaven hassaid that it is important to in-vest in the training of localhealth professionals and con-stantly update their skills sothat they are capable of meet-ing the health challenges facedby Pakistan including disease,malnutrition, a lack of cleandrinking water and high infantmortality rate.

Addressing a certificate dis-tribution ceremony at the Univer-sity of Health Sciences (UHS) on

Health sector receiving tinyportion of national expenditure

MUZAFFAR ALI

LAHORE—TEVTA has trained 3047 staffmembers in a variety of disciplines during2013-14. These trainings would be reflectedin enhanced professional capability ofTEVTA teachers for imparting skills to thetrainees,” these views were expressed byChairperson TEVTA Irfan Qaiser Shaikhwhile addressing a meeting here on Tues-day at TEVTA Secretariat.

Chief Operating Officer TEVTA Jawad

3047 teachers trained toenhance professional capability

Ahmed Qureshi and other officers of TEVTAwere also present on this occasion. Irfan QaiserShaikh said that the focus to arrange the train-ing programs was in line with revised cur-ricula and industrial exposure. 767 staff mem-bers had got training in management disci-pline, 736 teaching staff got training in thearea of Pedagogy & Blended learning, 1017teaching staff as well as supporting staff wereimparted IT training, 239 staff members weretrained in the area of Skill Up Gradation, 19teaching staff improves their skill by acquir-

ing English Language training, 15 staffmember availed opportunity of foreigntraining funded by different sponsoringagencies, 122 teaching staff was providedthe training in renowned industries for in-dustrial exposure, 62 staff members weretrained to serve as Master trainer in the areaof GPATI and Blended Learning training,43 teaching and non-teaching in various dis-ciplines, 27 teaching staff were trained inorder to improve entrepreneurship trendsin the TVET sector.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—On the instructions of ChiefMinister Punjab Muhammad ShahbazSharif, the first meeting of the commit-tee on collaboration with Afghanistanwas held at Punjab Board of Investmentand Trade(PBIT) office, Tuesday. Themeeting was chaired by Minister Indus-tries, Chaudhry Muhammad Shafique

Ecnomics collaboration betweenAfghanistan, Punjab improving

and attended by Irfan Ilahi ChairmanPlanning & Development, Arif AnwarBaloch Secretary Industries,Mohammad Ilyas Ghauri, Chief Execu-tive Officer PBIT and representativesof other government departments.

Due to economic complementaritiesbetween Afghanistan and Punjab, manypossible areas of collaboration were dis-cussed to be part of economic develop-

ment of Afghanistan. It was stressed thatthere is need to develop strong business-to-business relations between Afghani-stan and Punjab. The Committee shallconvene meetings and submit detailedreport to Chief Minister on areas of co-operation and way forward on Afghani-stan and Punjab collaboration.

It is worth mentioning that PunjabChief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz

Sharif and President of Afghanistan,Ashraf Ghani met on 15th November2014, in which many key points werediscussed regarding the Punjab’s rolein development of Afghanistan. Boththe leaders agreed to declare Lahore andKabul sister cities as well. One of thekey decisions taken was to establish aCommittee of Collaboration betweenAfghanistan and Punjab.

Tuesday, Kevin said that Medi-cal Education was a strand ofmedicine that focused on thesevery areas – providing trainingand continuous professional de-velopment to health practitioners.

He added that health inPakistan received a tiny portionof the total national expendi-ture. Any project that aimed tostrengthen the local medical

profession had the potential toaffect millions. He said that thecertificate course in medicalteaching, launched by the UHSunder the International Strate-gic Partnership in Research andEducation (INSPIRE) projectsponsored by the British Coun-cil, can be ground breaking interms of the positive changesit brings about in the health in-

dustry and the delivery of qual-ity service.

UHS member board ofgovernors, Justice Amer RazaKhan said that the universityhad done a lot of things overlast 10 years to improve thestandards of medical education.He emphasized that effortsshould be made to introduceUrdu as a medium of instruc-

tion in professional institutes.UHS Vice-Chancellor Maj-

Gen Prof Muhammad Aslam (re-tired) said the university is col-laborating with the University ofLiverpool under the INSPIREbanner to develop an innovativeand sustainable project aimed toincrease efficiency, enhance re-search and secure funding forhealth projects.