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LAHORE: PTI Chairman Imran Khan waves to crowd during a large public meeting at Minar-e-Pakistan ground onSaturday.

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ISLAMABAD: Secretary Election Commission of Paki-stan, Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan talking to media persons out-side the ECP Office.

ZAHID MALIK

BAGHDAD—The scars ofUS war in Iraq, some ofthem being horrible, are vis-ible all around but a new,and vibrant, Iraq is all setto move ahead with deeproots in its centuries-oldrich culture. The US inva-sion of Iraq, exactly a de-cade ago, with the firstdeadly missile strike onMarch 19, 2003, causing anestimated death toll of200,000, has definitelyfailed to break the will ofthe proud Iraqis and theyhave genuinely stood upon their feet and with astyle. “They think theyhave defeated us. But in

Iraq stands on its own feet, and with a stylefact in final analysis, theystand defeated,” said an Edi-tor of one of the largest-cir-culated newspapers confi-dently.

The attackers had un-leashed an assault in 2003causing havoc to the infra-structure and a severe blowto the economy but Iraq isequipped with an unparal-leled will and resilience tobounce back, this is the mes-sage one gets all around.

Though all is not well yetthe attempts to break Iraqinto three is now a story ofthe past and barring a fewstray incidents of attackshere and there the whole ofthe nation is all set to moveahead under the democrati-

cally-elected government torebuild the country.

Iraq, like Pakistan and

other extremism-infestedcountries, may take a fewmonths more to cause a fur-

ther dent to the Iraqi versionof Al-Qaeda and a last nail inthe coffin of extremism.

To showcase the Iraqi re-solve, the Iraqi Ministry ofCulture has organized a se-ries of activities and festivi-ties to mark the Baghdad asCapital of Arab Culture 2013.This mega event being wit-nessed by a number of Min-isters and senior functionar-ies of the Ministries of Cul-ture of many Arab States re-flects the resolve of the Gov-ernment and the people ofIraq to assert the grandeur ofthe centuries-old culture ofIraq in all respects.

An interaction with someprominent Iraqis revealedthat the monster of Shiite-

Sunni divide, an ugly headof which was seen in someparts of Pakistan as well, issubsiding and inter-mar-riages between the twocommunities are being wit-nessed in some parts ofIraq.

The Under Secretary ofthe Ministry of Culture toldthis scribe that the Govern-ment planned a year-longcelebration to demonstratethe cultural and archeologi-cal heritage of Iraq as a partof celebrations. These in-clude a series of field tripsfor the visiting delegates tovarious historical sites andlandmarks around Baghdadsuch as monuments, stat-

Nationcelebrates

Pakistan DayISLAMABAD—The nation cel-ebrated 73rd Pakistan Day onSaturday with enthusiasm,fervour, high spirit andpledge to make Pakistan trulya democratic state.

It was on this day in 1940that the historic PakistanResolution was adopted inLahore, which led to creationof a separate homeland forthe Muslims of South Asia.

Special prayers were of-fered for the solidarity andintegrity of the country atMosques after Fajr prayers.The day dawned with 31 gunsalute at the federal capitaland 21 gun salutes in the pro-vincial capitals.

Change of guard cer-Fakhar Imamjoins PML-NSTAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Former SpeakerNational Assembly SyedFakhar Imam called on Presi-dent Pakistan MuslimLeague-N MuhammadNawaz Sharif and PunjabChief Minister MuhammadShahbaz Sharif at ModelTown, Saturday and joinedPakistan Muslim League-N.

He expressed his confi-dence in the leadership ofPresident Pakistan MuslimLeague-N. Nawaz Sharif andShahbaz Sharif welcomed thedecision of Syed Fakhar

Taliban threaten ex-President

Musharraf all setto arrive today

DUBAI—Pakistan’s formermilitary ruler PervezMusharraf is all set to land inKarachi today (Sunday)morning to contest historicelections in May. The formermilitary ruler also said that hewas prepared to risk any dan-ger to his life.

All Pakistan MuslimLeague (APML) Central In-formation Secretary Aasia

Ishaq said that preparationsare in full swing to accord ahistoric welcome to theirparty chief.

People of Karachi will re-ceive the APML chief in anunprecedented historic man-ner, said Aasia Musharraf,who seized power in 1999 andleft the country after step-ping down in 2008, is wanted

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—A meeting of thePunjab parliamentary com-mittee is being held in theCommittee Room “A” ofPunjab Assembly on Sunday(today) to reach a consensuson the appointment of thecaretaker Punjab Chief Min-ister.

The parliamentary com-mittee will finalise the nameof the caretaker Punjab ChiefMinister in terms of clause (3)of Article 224A of the Con-stitution.

Pakistan MuslimLeague–Nawaz (PML-N) has

given the names of RanaSanaullah, Mian MujtabaShujaur Rehman and IqbalChannar as members of theparliamentary committeewhile Pakistan People’s Partyhas nominated Ch. ShaukatBasra, Zulfikar Ali Gondaland Chaudhry ZahiruddinKhan for the panel, whichwould deliberate upon thecaretaker Punjab Chief Min-ister.

The PML-N had sug-gested the names of Justice(Retd.) Amir Raza Khan andKhawaja Zaheer, a formerbureaucrat, for the slot of

Punjab Caretaker CM

Committee to deliberateon four names today

Filing ofnomination

papers beginstoday

ISLAMABAD—Offices of Dis-trict Returning Officers andReturning Officers will re-main open on Sunday to re-ceive nomination papersfrom the potential candidatesfor the National and Provin-cial Assemblies.

According to Media re-ports, the process of filing

23 killed as bushits power pylonSHEIKHUPURA—At least 25people, including womenand children were killed andmore than 70 others injuredafter a passenger buscollided with an electricitypole on Faisalabad road,here on Saturday.

According to Rescue1122 officials, the passen-ger bus fell on the roadafter the collision leavingalmost 25 people killed andmore than 70 others injured.The bus was traveling toFaisalabad fromSheikhupura.

Women and childrenwere among the dead in sadaccident. The bus, registra-tion number LRO-6078, wason its way to Faisalabadfrom Sialkot for a religiouspilgrim.

The incident occurreddue to the over speeding ofthe bus; they said. The buswas overloaded as manypassengers were sitting on

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Saturdayshowed its political strengthin Lahore ahead of May 11,2013 general elections, as theparty held massive publicmeeting at Minar-e-Pakistanin which around 80,000 partyoffice bearers from across thecountry apart from a largenumber of people hailing fromdifferent walks of life partici-pated.

The PTI leadershiptermed the gathering as a his-torical moment in thecountry’s political history,that has laid the foundationof a new Pakistan.

Cricket legend-turnedpolitician Imran Khan ledaround 100,000 flag-wavingsupporters amid musicalshow and slogans of Prime

Imran pledges tobuild new Pakistan

Makes six promises with nationMinister Imran Khan.

Imran Khan made sixpromises to nation beforeheavy rain that halted hisspeech. His promises are 1) Iwill always speak the truth tothe people of Pakistan, 2) thePTI government will try toend the system of tyranny,3) I will never take my moneyout of Pakistan, 4) I will nevertake personal benefit fromgovernment, nor will I allowmy relatives to have personalbenefits, 5) I will protect yourtax money and 6) we willstand together with everyPakistani in or outside Paki-stan. He asked party activ-ists to remove him, if he notfollow these promise.

Before this, Imran saidmassive public participationin this gathering proves thatchange has come for a newPakistan. He said he always

took bold decisions becausehe is is striving for securingfuture of coming genera-tions.

Since much of Khan’ssupport has come fromyoung, middle class Paki-stanis in the country’s majorcities, he urged the youth notto afraid of anybody exceptAllah work sincerely for abright futrure of the country.

He criticized the UnitedStates drone attacks and said,“We want to clean up corrup-tion. We want justice.”

Khan hoped that the mo-mentum from the tsunamiplus rally will break thestranglehold of these twoparties. He said he would notmake falso promises andwould tell the truth to thenation.

Imran said Mian Sahid is

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The ElectionCommission of Pakistan(ECP) ended consultativemeetings on Saturday with-out reaching a decision onthe name of caretaker primeminister.

The ECP will now recon-vene again on this (Sunday)morning to finalise a name forthe caretaker premier.

The ECP member RoshanIsani, who was unable to

First day of deliberations: ECPfails to tick caretaker PM

travel to Islamabad duringthe day, will be reaching thecapital later on Saturdayevening. Bilal added thatIsani was unable to take a

morning flight due to a com-mitment. However, attemptsto get on an afternoon flightwere unsuccessful. He is nowexpected to board an eveningflight to reach the federalcapital.

During their meetings onSaturday, Justice Riaz Kayanisaid that the ECP reviewedproposed candidates for theinterim prime minister slot.

Earlier, the first round oftalks at the ECP ended with-out a decision.

The decision could notbe taken in the first round due

to the absence of the Sindhelection commissioner, whowill leave for Islamabad fromKarachi at 7pm today.

Secretary ECP IshtiaqAhmed told the media thatthe decision will be taken bytonight after the meeting re-sumes or by tomorrow “atany cost”.

The meeting was headed

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PML-N MPs bodymembers react togovt letter to ECP

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Members of Par-liamentary Committee of Pa-kistan Muslim League-N forselection of caretaker PrimeMinister Sardar YaqubNasir, Senator PervaizRashid, Sardar MehtabAbbasi and Khawaja SaadRafique in a joint statementregarding the letter writtenby members of governmentparliamentary committee toElection Commission have

Any external forcehas no right of govtaccountability:NawazSTAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz (PML-N)President Nawaz Sharif hassaid that elected govern-ment is accountable to thepeople, while army and anyexternal force has no rightfor accountability of thegovernment.

While addressing agathering here at JamiaNaeemia on Saturday,Nawaz said that we all muststrive for better Pakistan.He said bad governancehas defamed the country’simage abroad. ‘We need todecide what type ofPakistan we need andPakistani nation shouldunite and place Pakistan onthe top of the agenda,’ hesaid.

Raising concerns aboutthe country’s future, Nawaz

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—The MuttahidaQaumi Movement (MQM)Chief Altaf Hussain had saidthat he did not have any truston the Election Commissionof Pakistan (ECP). The MQMChief had stated this whilerejecting the decision thatthe ECP had announced todemarcate the eleven elec-toral constituencies inKarachi of which three wereof national while the rest wereof the provincial profiles. TheMQM Chief had showed se-rious reservations on that de-cision and had termed it wastantamount to depriving the

Exclusive Karachi delimitations alonesmack of anti-MQM plot: Altaf

MQM from the mandate ofthe people it had been enjoy-ing for the last two and a halfdecades. Hussain said thatthe ECP had only chosen theport city where the MQMhad been representing themasses of lower socialclasses, which he also termedwas a conspiracy becausethe reasons were candid thatthe ECP wanted to divide thepublic mandate of the MQMand to marginalize the party’svote bank.

He warned that thepeople of the city and theworkers of the MQM wouldnever let that delimitationprocess happen and the con-

spiracy would be foiled.The MQM Chief also dis-

cussed the prevailing situa-tion with the Co-OrdinationCommittees here in the coun-try and in London and saidthat the decision of the ECPto re-define the electoral con-stituencies in Karachi was il-legal and unconstitutional.He said that the ECP was tak-ing prejudicial actionsagainst the people ofKarachi. People were forcedto question the neutrality andimpartiality of the ECP as itwas taking illegal and uncon-stitutional steps while theelections were not far. Such

OUR CORRESPONDENT

WAH CANTT—Studentsshould adopt the habit of bookreading in order to gain suc-cess in their practical life. POFadministration is striving itsbest to provide best platformto the youth in achieving theknowledge and it is the moralobligation of the youths to givepreference to the book in theirlife. These views were ex-pressed by Lt Gen Muhammad

Ahsan Mahmood, ChairmanPOF Board, while addressinga colorful ceremony held atPOF Central Library after theinauguration of Mobile Li-brary, Iqbal Corner, Itfaal Cor-ner and Book Fair.

He said, “We shall have torevive this lost tradition andpersuade the public especiallyyouths to spend maximumtime in book reading. The POFChairman further remarked thatwe shall have to revive that

fundamental theory on whichthe foundation of Pakistan waslaid and should keep abreastthe youths about thethoughts of Quaid-e-Azam &Allama Muhammad Iqbal. Itis the need of hour to seekguidance from the thoughts ofAllama Iqbal.

Prof. Fateh MuhammadMalik, former Rector Interna-tional Islamic universityIslamabad, who was the chiefguest, remarked that Wah Cantt

QUETTA—Nawab ZulfiqarAli Magsi, GovernorBalochistan has categoricallyrejected the impression of anyrigging in general elections2013 in Balochistan. “ElectionCommission of Pakistan iscompletely authorized and in-dependent in its decision,thus there must not be anyambiguity in the conduct offree, fair and transparent elec-tions in Balochistan,” NawabMagsi said while talking tomedia here at GovernorHouse. He said thatBalochistan is not the onlyprovince faced with the poorlaw and order situation.

He said that it is the re-

sponsibility of the interimgovernment to ensure peace-

ful conduct of election acrossthe province by utilizing all

available resources. To aquestion, he said that peopleare the best observer to sayabout the performance of theprevious government. “Pub-lic could give better answerabout the performance of thelawmakers whom they electedin 2008 polls,” he said.

Governor BalochistanNawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi onSaturday conferred awardson six individuals belongingto various fields for their meri-torious performance. FormerMPAs, bureaucrats, mem-bers of civil society attendedthe ceremony held in connec-tion with Pakistan Day hereat Governor House.—APP

Governor Balochistan confers awards

Magsi rejects polls riggingimpression in Balochistan I S L A M A B A D —Pakis tan’s

Ambassador in KuwaitIftekhar Aziz on Saturdaysaid that it was heartening tosee the roots of democracygetting deeper and deeper inPakistan with the democraticinstitutions gaining newstrengths. Addressing theceremony to mark country’s73rd National Day in Kuwait,he said the National Day cel-ebrations this year came at atime when a democratically

Democracy roots gettingdeeper in Pakistan: Aziz

elected parliament has justcompleted its term and thepeople are bracing them-selves to elect a new leader-ship, says a press release re-ceived here today from Ku-wait.

A people’s representativeparliament, an independentjudiciary, a vocal media and avibrant civil society are thepillars upon which the foun-dations of today’s Pakistanrest firmly’ he added. Earlier,

the ceremony started with thehoisting of Pakistani flag amidcheers from the jubilant par-ticipants. The National Daymessages of the Presidentand the Prime Minister of Pa-kistan were also read to theaudience, according to mes-sage received here. A largenumber of people represent-ing cross-section of Pakistanicommunity and officials ofthe Embassy were present onthe occasion.—APP

Landlord shotdead in

HafizabadBASHIR AHMAD RAHMANI

HAFIZABAD—A middle-agedlandlord was shot at killed bytwo armed criminals yester-day. The motive of the of-fence could not be ascer-tained as yet. However, it ispresumed that he was killedby his rivals. The police areinvestigating. According topolice source, Syed FiazAhmad, son of Iffat Ali wassitting in his ‘dera’ when twounidentified gunmen riding abike opened indiscriminatefiring resulting in his instan-taneous death. The policestarted investigation into themurder of Fiaz Ahmad.

*****A minor girl in Atla

Mirwan was forcibly rapedby a young man of the samevillage. According to policesource, 7-year-old SumairaBibi was alone in her housewhen a fiendish young manintruded into the house andforcibly subjected her to hisanimal lust. On the complaintof her father Haq Nawaz thepolice are investigating.

*****Two armed bandits de-

prived a villager of his bike,cell phone and cash at pistolpoint here. According to po-lice source, MuhammadAsghar, son of, Nadeem, resi-dent of Haveli Karimdad, wason way to his village. Whenhe reached near Hinduanatwo armed dacoits inter-cepted him and snatchedaway his bike, cell phone andcash amount of Rs. 3000. Thepolice are investigating.

*****A ninth class student

Adil Shahzad was caughtred-handed while using un-fair means during Islamiyatpaper in Kaleke Mandi.

Proposal to setup NFSC underconsideration

ISLAMABAD—A proposal isunder consideration to set upa National Food SecurityCouncil (NFSC) for promotingdiverse, affordable and nutri-tious food in the domesticmarket. The other objective ofthe council would be startfood relating social protectionschemes to reduce food inse-curity. An official at Ministryof National Food Security andResearch on Saturday saidNational Zero HungerProgramme based on successstory of Brazil was also beingworked out. He also high-lighted the other measuresadopted to reduce food inse-curity in the country.—APP

OUR CORRESPONDENT

HAFIZABAD—District Coordi-nation Officer, Hafizabad, Dr.Farah Masood has stressedthe need for rededication tomake the country stable andprosperous by pooling all ourresources and energies tomaterialise the dreams ofAllama Iqbal and Father of theNation Quaid-e-AzamMuhammad Ali Jinnah.

Addressing a function ar-ranged to observe PakistanDay and Universal PrimaryEducation under the aus-pices of District Governmentand National Commission forHuman Development here,she said that younger gen-

Students can change destiny of nationeration particularly male andfemale students were asset ofthe country and they couldchange the destiny of the na-tion if they concentrate ontheir studies and acquireknowledge for eliminatingpoverty, ignorance, unem-ployment and other prob-lems.

She deplored that thosewho were weeping over thepresent sad state of affair didnot realise their obligationsand responsibilities towardsthe nation. She said that if ev-eryone realise his/her respon-sibility and work honestly andsincerely, all problems con-fronting the nation could beeliminated and no enemy could

dare put evil eye on us. Shehoped that the future of thecountry was in the hands ofstudents and she was optimis-tic that they would not frus-trate the nation.

Later, MuhammadShahzad, Programme Man-ager NCHD, highlighted im-portance of primary educa-tion and stressed upon theparents to enroll their chil-dren for their better future.The DCO inaugurated theUniversal Primary EducationCampaign by enrolling twochildren. Later, the DCOgave away certificates to thestudents who participated inthe speech contest and na-tional songs, etc.

No ghost schoolsin TalagangSHAFFAAT MALIK

TALAGANG—School SurveyCommittee, formed on the di-rective of the Supreme Court,checked 440 schools in TehsilTalagang and found the situa-tion satisfactory as no ghostschools were traced out in en-tire Tehsil Talagang.

The Committee, headedby Additional SessionsJudge, Talagang, MianMuhammad Abdul Raffiqcomprised Dy Education Of-ficer Talagang Malik Arif;Assistant Education Officer(Headquarter) Malik AhmedNawaz Agral, President BarCouncil Malik Nasir Jamaland Gen Secretary Bar Coun-cil Malik Riaz Mogla. Mem-bers of civil society wel-comed this step of the com-mittee and expressed satis-faction over the report thatno ghost schools werefound on the area; however,still a lot needs to be doneto further improve the physi-cal and academic conditionof the schools.

*****Police Check-post at

Mial, Talagang, seizedheroin worth millions of ru-pees. According to details,Police Check-post InchargeSub-Inspector KhalidMehmood along with histeam stopped a suspectedcar during snap checking.They found 15 Kg heroin un-der the back seats.

FR Bannuelders call onKP Governor

STAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—A delegation ofelders from the Frontier Region,Bannu called on the KhyberPakhtunkhwa Governor, Engi-neer Shaukat Ullah atGovernor’s House on Satur-day and apprised him some ofthe problems which the peopleof the area have been facing.

The Deputy Commis-sioner, Bannu, Syed AhmadJan who also acts as PoliticalAgent for F.R. Bannu alsoaccompanied the delegation.The delegation remainedwith him for sometime andapprised the Governor abouttheir grievances being facedby people of FR Bannu.

Students advised to inculcate habit of book readingWAH CANTT: Prof. Fateh Muhammad Malik, ex-Rector IIUI visiting books stalls afterinaugurating three day Book Fair at POF Central Library.

HYDERABAD: A group of students enjoying during a function at Sindh Museum tomark the Pakistan Day celebrations arranged by IMSA Institute.

STAFF REPORTER

P E S H A W A R — G o v e r n o rKhyber Pakthunkhwa Engr.Shaukatullah Khan has saidthat armed clashes betweenthe banned rival militantsoutfits in Tirah Valley ofKhyber Agency has forcedover 80,000 people to fleetheir homes in search of saferplaces. Talking to reportersafter addressing distributionof Laptop among the posi-tion holder students of FATAhere at Governor House, hesaid that, majority of the IDPsof Tirah valley have movedto Aurakzai agency whilesome of them have taken shel-ter with their relatives inPeshawar city area.

The FDMA authorities havebeen directed to provide thebest possible help and assis-tance to the IDPs within theiravailable resources.

In reply to a questionGovernor Shaukatullah Khansaid that blast occurred nearthe site of relief distributepoint of WFP in Jalozai campwas being investigated fromdifferent aspects with mainfocus to ascertain as to whythere was no security cordonon that particular day. Hesaid proper steps have beentaken to increase securitymeasures in the camp and thedistribution of relief items hasbeen started again.

To a question he in-formed that serious efforts

were underway for the re-covery of the kidnappedWapda employees and ex-pressed the confidence thatthey would be recoveredsoon. The political adminis-tration and tribal elders havebeen directed to acceleratetheir efforts for safe recov-ery of the kidnapped em-ployees. The governmentwas in contact with the fami-lies of the Wapda employ-ees.

He said that he has or-dered the concerned quar-ters to establish solar powercomputer labs in all the col-leges and schools of thetribal areas. He told that an-nually 468 laptops would begiven to position holder stu-

dents of tribal areas com-prising seven tribal agen-cies. Similarly the authoritieshave also been directed tomake arrangement for theprovision of same to the bril-liant students of six FR re-gions.

The distribution oflaptops to shining tribalstudents would end theirsense of deprivation as itwere being given to stu-dents of other parts of thecountry. The Governorgave 43 laptops to top threeeach position holders ofSSC and FA/FSc studentsbelonging to seven tribalagencies at a special cer-emony held at GovernorHouse on Saturday.

Tirah fighting displaced 80,000 people

has become the center of so-cial, literary and educationalactivities and seeing such ac-tivities in the city, it is felt thatPOF administration is followingthe thoughts of Allama Iqbaland Quaid-e-Azam in its trueletter and spirits.

He further remarked thatbeside producing arms &ammunition, POF administra-tion seems to promote firm-ness in the thoughts ofyouths

STAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—Like other partof the country, the PakistanDay was celebrated inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa andFATA with great fervor andenthusiasm. In this connec-tion Pakistan Tinhkers Forumand Janoon League Congressorganized the Pakistan Daycelebration here at ArchiveHall with former AttorneyGeneral Abdul Hakeem wasgraced the occasion as thechief guest. The ceremonywas attended by people fromdifferent walk of life, scholar,poet, writers who threw lighton the sacrifices that had beenrendered for the motherland.

They said that the day of

Pak Day celebrated in KP, FATA with new zeal, spirit23rd March has a great sig-nificance in the history of Pa-kistan therefore whole thenation should celebrate it withfervor and enthusiasm. Thespeakers said that March 23,1940 is a landmark in the move-ment for Pakistan, the Mus-lims of the sub-continentadopted the Lahore Resolu-tion which was the beginningof practical struggle for thecreation of Pakistan under theleadership of Quaid-e-AzamMohammad Ali Jinnah. Theystressed upon the people tofollow the teachings of Quaid-e-Azam to make Pakistan areal Islamic welfare state.

Earlier, national flag hoist-ing ceremony was also held atdifferent places like Jinnah

Academy on main GT Road,followed by declamation con-tests. The contest was won byBushra Wadood. Principal ofthe Jinnah Academy WadoodKhan was the chief guest. Healso gave away trophies andcertificates to the participantsof the declamation contestheld in connection with thePakistan Day celebration.

The Pakistan Day was cel-ebrated with traditional zealand enthusiasm to commemo-rate passage of the objectiveresolution which laid the ba-sis for the creating of Pakistan.The day dawn with a 21 gun-salute in the provincial capitaland the special prayers wereoffered at the mosques forprogress and prosperity of the

country. The national flaghoisted on important publicand private buildings through-out the province and FATA.The day has already been de-clared a public holiday to fa-cilitate the people for partici-pating in day related activities.

Various governments,political, cultural, social andother organizations have vari-ous programs to mark the dayin a befitting manner. Mean-while, Caretaker Chief Min-ister Justice(R) Tariq PervezKhan in his Pakistan Daymessage said that Pakistanhas been established to liveforever and Inshallah, it willremain intact till the Day ofJudgment. However, he un-derscored the need for pro-

moting brotherhood, toler-ance and elimination of ha-treds from the society so thatto get it rid of the challengesfacing the country today.

Justice (R) Tariq PervezKhan said the Day de-manded us of making thepledge to make this countrya citadel of peace and reso-lute of the problems withconsensus. He said unluck-ily the country was plungedinto problems of terrorismand militancy whichcoughed up hundreds of in-nocent lives and the bloodwas being shed from bothsides. Violence could not beeliminated with violence butthrough peaceful means, hesaid, adding, that big issues.

Kharmang now GB districtSKARDU—Chief Minister GilgitBaltistan (GB) Syed Mehdi Shah onSaturday inaugurated a new districtKharmang in District Head Quarters(DHQs) Tolti. According to the pressrelease, Shah shed lights on theachievements of Pakistan PeoplesParty’s Federal and Provincial Govern-ment of (GB). He said, PPP provincialgovernment will continue its develop-mental activities in future for the wel-

fare and betterment of the people of (GB). On the occa-sion, there were large number of public representatives,PPP office bearers, elites and people at the inaugural func-tion. Pakistan Day celebrated in Baltistan: Like rest of thecountry ‘Pakistan Day’ was celebrated in Skardu andGhangche, both districts of Baltistan on Saturday and na-tional flag hoisting ceremony was also held at differentplaces. The national flag ceremony was held in Yadgar-e-Shuhuda, Skardu and in high school ground in Khaplu,said a press release issued here. In Khaplu Haji Ismail Min-ister for local govt and rural development Gilgit Baltistanhoisted the national flag. Addressing the public meetingon this occasion, he stressed upon the people to followthe teachings of Quaid-e-Azam to make Pakistan a realIslamic welfare state. Function was attended by Deputycommissioner Ghangche Basharat Hussain, public reps,elites and large number of people. In Skardu assistant com-missioner Skardu Capt. (R) Abid Ali hoisted the nationalflag at Yadgar-e-Shuhuda and offered Fateha to theShuhudas of war of liberation 1948. In Skardu functionwas held under auspices of Bazme-Elmo-Fun Skardu inconnection with Pakistan Day.—APP

No party tickets awarded yet: MuqamStaff Reporter

PESHAWAR —Central Vice President ofPMLN Amir Muqam has said that hisparty has not yet finalized names of thecontesting candidates for the 2013 elec-tions from KP as its parliamentary boardwould announce their candidates in thecoming two to three days time. In a clari-fication statement here, he said the partyworkers should not worry about partycandidates and instead they shouldconcentrate on preparations for the elec-

tions. The party leadership would take the final decisionabout award of tickets in two to three days time which willbe formally announced at a function in Peshawar. The partyhas not awarded ticket to anyone yet in the KP, he saidadding some elements wanted to create rift in the ranks ofparty by spreading baseless rumors. Opportunists to facedefeat in polls: Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister forHealth, Syed Zahir Ali Shah has said that opportunists willbe defeated in the upcoming general elections. Address-ing a public meeting held on the occasion of the joining ofthe ANP and Jamaat-e-Islami (J.I) activists into PPP atSaeedabad, Shaheen Muslim Town, he said hatching con-spiracies against the party is not new. However, he saidthose who are in search of backdoor to come into powerwill be defeated with the massive support of the people.Meanwhile, former opposition leader in Punjab Assemblyand Pakistan Peoples Party leader Raja Riaz Ahmad hasconstituted a three-member committee to participate in dia-logues with PML-N for nomination of caretaker chief min-ister in the province. According to the PPP sources hereon Friday, the committee comprises of Zulfiqar Gondal,Shaukat Basra and Chaudhary Zaheer Ahmad.

Ayat appreciates all political partiesISLAMABAD—Leader of PakistanPeoples Party (PPP) Dr Ayat UllahDurrani has said that all the politicalparties played a proactive role instrengthening the democracy. Talkingto PTV, he said PPP had restored the1973 constitution in its original shape,adding continuity in the democraticprocess would build our good imageamong the community of nation. BothPakistan Army and country’s establish-

ment played supportive role in strengthening the democ-racy and this commendable role would be appreciated atevery forum, he said. Replying to a question, he said thatElection Commission of Pakistan (ECP) would conductfree, fair and transparent elections. Dr Ayat Ullah saidthat PPP led government completed its constitutional five-year term for the first time in the country’s history. Heexpressed hope that PPP would win upcoming electionson the basis of its best performances. He said that dicta-tors in the past had derailed the democratic process whilePPP rendered great sacrifices for its restoration. Durranisaid that democracy was the only solution of all the prob-lems, adding that all the political parties should work underthe Constitution of the country. PPP will return to powerwith masses’ support: Pakistan Peoples Party leader, NazarMuhammad Gondal said that the PPP had its roots in themasses because of its leaders’ commitment to live anddie for the people. Talking to APP, he said PPP wouldagain return to power with support of people in upcom-ing elections.—APP

Mirwaiz flays Omar’s statementIS L A M A B A D—All Parties HurriyetConference Chairman, Mirwaiz UmarFarooq has castigated the puppetChief Minster, Omar Abdullah’s state-ment regarding use of social media inthe territory. The APHC Chairman in astatement issued in Srinagar said thatit was unfortunate that the puppet ad-ministration was not even feelingashamed of putting restrictions on thefreedom of expression, KMS reported

on Saturday. Omar Abdullah on Thursday indicated thatthe spread of rumours with malafide intention on socialnetworking sites could not be interpreted as freedom ofspeech. “This is unfortunate that Omar Abdullah is in-terpreting the things in such a misleading manner,” hesaid, adding that the people of the territory had beendevoid of the basic right of expression. “We in HeldKashmir do not have the right to express our opinionfreely. We do not have even a right to raise our voicepeacefully,” the Mirwaiz said and outrightly rejectedthe assertion of the puppet Chief Minister. Meanwhile,the APHC Chairman also castigated the Director Gen-eral Police, Ashok Prasad, for his statement that pro-liberation leaders could not be released until the situa-tion returned to normal in the territory. “Police itselfcreates law and order problem. They kill innocent peoplewhich evokes reaction,” the Mirwaiz said. “Give me oneinstance where Hurriyet leaders have asked people toattack police posts, break the windowpanes of vehicles,attack on houses, set property on fire?” he asked. Inoccupied Kashmir, the Imam of central Jamia Masjid,Srinagar, Maulana Syed Naqashbandi, has condemnedthe continued house arrest of the All Parties HurriyetConference Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, since Feb-ruary 9. Addressing a gathering at Jamia Masjid inSrinagar, Maulana Syed Naqashbandi said that the pup-pet administration was suppressing the genuine voiceof Kashmiris under a well planned conspiracy, KashmirMedia Service reported.—APP

SHER GONDAL

MANDI BAHAUDDIN—Resi-dents of Wasu village havedemanded construction oflink road between Wasu andDistrict Complex. It is abouttwo kilometer long but dueto its poor condition it is un-fit for vehicular traffic. Resi-dents and school going chil-dren have to travel on footto reach their destinations.Chaudhry MuhammadAslam Faiz Gondal, taking tomedia persons here, the otherday said that he along withother residents had been re-questing authorities for con-struction of the link road butthey did not pay any heed.

*****The lawyers’ communityand the common public ofMandi Bahauddin have de-manded that the LahoreHigh Court benches shouldbe set up at five divisionalheadquarters of Gujranwala,Faisalabad, Sargodha,

Sahiwal and Dera GhaziKhan. For more than onemonth, court work in the fivedivisions remained sus-pended because of the con-tinuous strike of the lawyers.The Punjab government hasalready recommended for theestablishment of High Courtbenches at the divisions butthe high-ups concerned arenot paying heed to the issue.Litigants and the commonpublic besides lawyers haveshown grave concerns overthe apathy of the authorities.As per an estimate, the planwould not cost much as nofurther recruitment of judgesand staff is required. TheLHC benches should be setup at the earliest.

*****PML N workers and votershave demand to nominate can-didates in Mandi Bahauddindistrict who are well educated,honest and competent. FiazAhmed Gondal Advocate whois a staunch activist of PML N

and people in general stressedthat the candidates who arerepeater and have bad reputa-tion due to their poor past per-formance should not be con-sidered for grant of tickets.Heavy donations of money forparty fund should not be cri-teria for grant of tickets, theywarned. Another activist IjazAhmed Gondal said thatMuhammad Aslam FaizGondal advocate is an oldworker of PML-N and he is welleducated, honest and compe-tent and asked PML-N to con-sider him for grant of ticket forupcoming election on the seatNA 108.

*****A married woman namelyShehnaz, resident of KuthalaSheikhan, a suburban villageof Mandi Bahauddin, com-mitted suicide after swallow-ing poisonous tablets alleg-edly over family dispute. Shedied before she could beevacuated to hospital formedical treatment.

Construction of link road demanded

M HALEEM ASAD

TIMERGARA—The local PPPworkers have demanded ofthe party’s provincial andcentral leadership to awardticket for NA-34 to formerdistrict naib nazim ZahirShah. Speaking at a newsconference here workers ofthe PPP from different areasincluding Haji Ihsanullah,Taj Sultan, former councillorBakht Munir and UmarBacha warned to boycottelections if party ticket forNA-34 was awarded to per-son other than Zahir Shah.

“We will not cast ourvotes for national assembly ifour demand was not material-ized by party leadership,” theysaid, adding that majority ofthe PPP workers in Dir Lowerwanted Zahir Shah as theircandidate. They pointed outthat a specific lobby had beenopposing him.

Meanwhile insidesources in the PPP told thisreporter that party provincial

parliamentary committee hadformed a two-member commit-tee comprised of senatorAhmad Hassan Khan andformer parliamentarian AbdulAkbar Khan with the task tomeet workers in PK-94 forawarding ticket on merit.Sources said that majority ofthe PPP workers in the con-stituency had not been satis-fied with the performance offormer provincial minister fortechnical educationMahmood Zeb Khan.

The PPP workers hadbeen demanding awardingparty ticket to someone elseinstead of Mahmood ZebKhan, sources said, addingthat the two member commit-tee would meet party workersand recommend suitablename for awarding ticket forPK-94. Similarly the PPPformer MPA Dr ZakirullahKhan, according to insidershad also been facing difficultyto get party ticket for PK-97.Sources said that former stateminister and MNA Malik

Azmat Khan wanted to con-test election on this seat.

****Experts of livestock have

asked people to be aware ofZoonosis and take extra careto avoid various zoonoticdiseases that spread in hu-man from animals and in ani-mals from human. The ReliefInternational, an internationalorganization under its ‘Live-stock for life project’ ar-ranged a three-day workshopfor local journalists that con-cluded at the Chakdara yes-terday.

The speakers, project man-ager Jamal Nasir, Dr MuhammadTayyab, Dr Hassan Khan, DrSadiqullah, Dr Hazrat Nabi andHashmat Ali threw light onzoonotic diseases like tubercu-losis, rabies, anthrax, diphthe-ria, congo, bird flu andlashminosis and said these be-come fatal if not cured in time.They also informed partici-pants about their signs andsymptoms, treatment and pre-cautionary measures.

NA-34 PPP ticket demanded for Zahir

STAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—A high levelmeeting to review the overalllaw and order situation andthe preparations for the up-coming general election inthe province and FATA washeld here with KhyberPakhtunkhwa CaretakerChief Minister Justice (Retd)Tariq Pervez Khan in the chair.

Addressing the meetingthe chief minister reiteratedhis resolve to hold the up-coming general elections infree, fair and transparent

manner and peaceful atmo-sphere. He stressed the needof peaceful environment forthe holding of fair and trans-parent election and directedthe relevant quarters to takeall necessary measure in timeto maintain law and order andimplement the code of con-duct issued by the electioncommission of Pakistan forelection campaign accordingto its letter and spirit.

While briefing the partici-pants of the meeting aboutpreparations for the upcominggeneral election, Secretary Lo-

cal Government and ProvincialElection Commission informedthat there were a total of thirtyfive general seats of NationalAssembly and 99 seats of pro-vincial assembly in KhyberPakhtunkhwa while in FATAthere were twelve seats of Na-tional Assembly.

The meeting was in-formed that a total of 12001polling stations and 34220polling booths would be es-tablished across the provinceand tribal areas to facilitate13.740 million registered vot-ers to cast their votes.

CM assures fair, free polls

Woman commits suicide

Brother killsbrother over

domestic problemKHANPUR—A brother wasallegedly killed by his realbrother over a domestic is-sue in the jurisdiction ofKhot Samba police stationhere on Saturday. Accordingto police sources, the de-ceased was identified asMuhammad Arshad.

Faisalabad: A marriedwoman committed suicide inSadar police station limits.According to police,Anam,18, of Duddhiwaladrank acid after quarrel withher husband over a domesticdispute. She was shifted tothe District Headquarters(DHQ) Hospital but she couldnot survive. Police took thebody into custody and startedinvestigation. Five women,including three young girls,were abducted from differentparts during last 24 hours.

Hyderabad: An eight-year-old child was killed in aroad accident on Hyderabad-Tando Muhammad Khan roadhere Saturday. According toSHO SITE police NaeemSiddiqui, a speeding truck ranover the child while he wascrossing the road.—APP

GUL HAMAAD FAROOQI

CHITRAL—The 73rd Paki-stan Resolution Day wascelebrated at Chitral on Sat-urday. A number of func-tions were held to highlightthe Importance of PakistanDay and to create aware-ness about the situation inwhich the Muslims of theSubcontinent struggledhard and scrificed lakhs oflives to achieve this coun-try. Flag hoisting ceremo-nies were held at a numberof government buildingsand schools and in this

connection flag was hoistedat Deputy Commissioner Of-fice and a function was heldat Commerce College hallunder the chair of DeputyCommissioner RahmatullahKhan Wazir.

Some Students deliv-ered speeches on the im-portance of this day andobjectives of independenceof Pakistan. Prof AbdulSami and other intellectu-als highlighted PakistanResolution and its impor-tance. The speakersstressed upon the younggenerat ion to defend the

country at al l cost . Theysaid that unfortunately wefailed to achieve the aim forwhich this country hadcome into being and stil lwe depend upon foreignloans which is damagingour dignity. Addressingthe ceremony Deputy com-missioner RahmatullahWazir said that indepen-dence is a gift from AllahAlmighty and we should tohonour and respect thisgift.

He said that AllamaIqbal and other pioneerspassed a resolution of Pa-

kistan on 23rd March 1940for creation of Pakistan andafter that Pakistan came intobeing in 1947.

He said that they had toface different internal andexternal challenges. Hesaid,”We should not allowanyone to disturb peace inour country.”

He said, “we should sup-port each other and partici-pate in social activities fordevelopment of the country.”Fatiha Khwani was also of-fered for the soul of ArmyColonel and other soldierswho died in a road accident

on their way from Chitral totheir homes.

Senior journalist and poetMuhkamuddin, JehangirJigar and others also pre-sented poems on relevanttopic. Later, cash awards andprizes were awarded to stu-dents who performed excel-lently. Awards were given tostudents and heroes ofChitral by non-governmentorganizations. A large num-ber of students, teachers,Assistant Commissioner andofficers of district administra-tion were present on the oc-casion.

Youth boosted to defend ideology, country at all costs World Health Day:KONPAL to arrange

Mela next monthKARACHI—KONPAL, ChildAbuse Prevention Society incollaboration with Dow Uni-versity of Health Sciences(DUHS) and Pakistan Paedi-atrics Association will hold aHealth Mela on April 7. Theevent is meant to commemo-rate World Health Day and isbeing actively supported byMedical and Social Commit-tee of the Arts Council of Pa-kistan, Karachi, said theorganisers on Friday. Citizensof all age group would be pro-vided health education, infor-mation.—APP

RAO ATIQ

MIRPUR—AJK prime Minis-ter Chaudhry Abdul Majid saidthat the historic day of 23rdMarch has the distinctive im-portance in the Islamic historyof the Sub continent whenMuslims of the Sub continentlaunched a decisive struggleunder the dynamic leadershipof Quaid e Azam MuhammadAli Jinnah for their separatehomeland for themselves andmaterialized the dream of greatpoet philosopher AlamaMuhammad Iqbal.

Addressing PakistanDay ceremony in the capitalcity of Muzaffarabad on Sat-urday, the Prime Ministersaid Kashmir is the unfin-ished agenda of the partitionplan. And Kashmiris havelinked their destiny with Pa-kistan by adopting a historicresolution before the cre-ation of Pakistan. He saidthey are rendering unprec-edented sacrifices to

Kashmiris destiny linkedwith Pakistan: Majeed

achieve this goal.Chaudhry Abdul Majid

said a stable and prosperousPakistan is a great guaranteefor the success of Kashmir lib-eration struggle. Lauding theKashmir Policy of Pakistan hethanked President Asif AliZardari for highlighting Kash-mir issue at international leveland taking keen interest in thedevelopment of Azad Kashmir.

AJK Prime Minister saidKashmiris are determined tocontinue their liberationstruggle till the right of self-determination is achieved.He urged International com-munity to pressurize India tostop state terrorism in occu-pied Kashmir. He also urgedthe world community to playits due role to resolve Kash-mir in accordance with thewishes of Kashmiri people.Chaudhry Abdul Majid an-nounced to establish Paki-stan National center inMuzaffarabad to highlightKashmir issue.

HYDERABAD: Sanan Qureshi Chairman JSQM and son of ex-chairman JSQM late Basher Khan Qureshi talkingto media during protest rally against non-registration of FIR of murder of his father.

IS L A M A B A D—Fair/part lycloudy weather has beenforecast for Sunday in themetropolis, said a weatherreport on Saturday. Accord-ing to the report, the mini-mum and maximum tempera-tures are expected to remainbetween 18 to 20 and 30 to 32degree celsius, respectively.

It said rain/ thunderstormis likely to occur at one or twoplaces in Zhob, Quetta, Sibiand Kalat divisions ofBalochistan. Dry weather islikely to prevail elsewhere inthe region, the weather reportsaid. The local Met office hasforecast partly cloudyweather with chances of thun-der storm and light rain for thecity and its suburbs during thenext 24 hours. The maximumand minimum temperatureswere recorded as 28.2 and 17.9degrees centigrade, respec-tively. Humidity was recordedas 81 per cent at 8 a.m. and 54percent at 5 p.m.

Large areas of Balochistanwere lashed by heavy rains withhail storm while upper KPK, andNorth Punjab had light drizzleson Sunday. According to re-ports heavy rain lashedChaman, Sibi, Dalbandin,,Ziarat, Pishin, Sibi, Mastung,

Fair partly cloudyweather likely

Kalat, Zhob and Quetta. Streamand nullahs were flooded withwater in most of the areas.Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Murreeand hilly areas of KPK receivedlight rain making the weatherpleasant.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,widespread rain-thunder-storm with isolated heavy fallscoupled with hailstorm is ex-

pected in Malakand,Peshawar, Kohat and Bannudivisions during next 24hours. In Sindh, mostly partlycloudy weather expected inmost parts of the province withchances of light rain at a fewplaces of upper Sindh duringsame time span. InBalochistan, scattered rain-thunderstorm expected inNortheast Balochistan(Quetta, Zhob, Kalat, Sibbi di-visions) while isolated rainmay occur in Khuzdar andMakran divisions during next24 hours.—APP

Heavy responsibilityon ECP

AFTER inability of political leaders to sort out the issue of selection of Caretaker Prime Minister, heavy responsibility in thisregard now falls on the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)

with many observers believing that it would be a test case for neutralityof the Commission, which had been accused by Dr. Tahirul Qadri asrepresenting political parties and custodian of their vested interests.Hopefully, the Commission would take a decision with consensus, de-priving those who are in search of an opportunity to make it controver-sial. Barring planted disinformation about possibility of consensus onthis or that candidate, it was a foregone conclusion that the Parliamen-tary Committee would not succeed in making a breakthrough. Thiswas evident from composition of the Committee and limited mandateit got for picking up a name out of four on which no agreement couldbe reached between the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition inthe now dissolved National Assembly. But it was highly distasteful onpart of the members of governmental team and a former Cabinet minis-ter to have passed public remarks against some candidates. This notonly meant sabotaging of the process of selection of Caretaker PrimeMinister at level of the Parliamentary Committee but also amounted toconvey a rough message to the ECP. All this was unfortunate as every-thing is proceeding ahead perfectly as envisaged in the 18th Constitu-tional Amendment, which was unanimously adopted by all parties rep-resented in Parliament. Any attempt to make any of the proposed can-didates controversial is unfortunate as it means attack on the honestyand neutrality of that personality and no one has a right to do so. Wefirmly believe that the Election Commission would not be influencedby such pressure tactics and make a decision on the basis of its ownanalysis and expectations. The only objective of installing caretakerset-ups is to ensure impartiality of electoral process and therefore, theCommission should make a choice that could provide a strong um-brella to it in this regard. Any consideration to accommodate this orthat party or interest could deprive nation of an opportunity to bringabout a change throughballot.

Revoking politicalappointments

According to a report appearing in a section of national media,the Election Commission of Pakistan is set to request the Care-

taker Government to remove political appointees, who were eitherinducted in last days of the outgoing Government or have been pro-tecting party interests in different organizations and capacities dur-ing the last five years.

This would be a welcome development and go a long way in mov-ing towards ultimate goal of holding free, fair and transparent elec-tions. No doubt, the Election Commission is independent and is fullyempowered to take measures to realize this objective but it is under-stood that it has to rely on State machinery to carry out its plans. It isan open secret that political appointees wherever they are would trytheir best at their own level to influence outcome of the polls in favourof their political patrons and therefore, must be removed immedi-ately from their posts. There should be reshuffling of higher bureau-cracy while contracts of political appointees in different organiza-tions, agencies and corporations be terminated forthwith. But eventhis exercise would end in futility if Governors known for their po-litical affiliations and loyalties are not removed and a solution is notfound to the key issue of cabinets representing various political par-ties. Caretaker PM and CMs would just be a joke if same politicalparties get representation in their cabinets as has been agreed uponthem in the case of Sindh and KPK.

SC asserts for peacein Karachi

THE Supreme Court has given police and rangers two weeks time toclear all “no go” areas in Karachi and ensure that life and property

of citizens were protected as general elections were around the corner.The Apex Court has been hearing the case for quite sometime in thevolatile city after taking notice of daily killings.

The Supreme Court’s assertion of its authority to restore peace inthe city would be lauded by people at large who are living under scareand there is no writ of the government. We expect that law enforcementagencies would take advantage of the order and go all out to nab crimi-nal elements who have made the lives of the people miserable. Thesegangs were enjoying political backing but now that the caretaker is inplace and considered as non political, the rangers and police would behaving free hand and they need to act and deliver. After the SupremeCourt order many criminal elements would go underground but theagencies must be having necessary information that must be used toarrest them. This is the time when business hub of the country could becleansed of all anti social elements because there would be no politicalpressure of any sort on the police and rangers. The Court also directedprovincial chiefs of police and rangers as well as the Chief Secretary tosubmit a statement within two weeks about the law and order in thecity. We would stress that if there is no improvement in the situationduring this period, it would be total failure of the two organisations andnot only their chiefs be replaced but there should be complete overhaulincluding removal of police officials appointed on political basis toward off fear of bloodshed during general elections.

Will elections change system?

If a job’s worthdoing, it’s worthdoing well.

A brutalbail-out

The confiscation of fundsfrom Cypriot bank accountsto help fund a bail-out will

have sent chills down the spine ofevery saver in Europe. We are allused to governments taking ourmoney – but not to them actuallyreaching into our savings in a bru-tal act of expropriation. Those Brit-ons who have built their lives onthe island will feel especially ag-grieved by their hard-earned fundsbeing depleted seemingly on thewhim of the government in Berlin.

What few people realise, how-ever, is that an even greater act oflarceny has been carried out in Brit-ain. Indeed, it is still going on. Ster-ling has dropped by roughly a tenthsince the start of the year, and by aquarter since the start of the finan-cial crisis – and so has the value ofour savings. Yet like inflation –which is pushing up the cost of liv-ing and squeezing wages merci-lessly – devaluation is as subtle asit is vicious: to paraphrase Colbert’sfamous dictum about tax, the goosehas been plucked clean withouteven noticing. The difference, ofcourse, is that Britain has controlof its currency, and can soften (orconceal) the impact of its policies.Cyprus has no such luck. Its onlyoption is bail-out and austerity; in-deed, the haircut on savers may bethe lesser of two evils.

Without their unwilling con-tribution, a loan large enough tosave the island’s banks would haveleft it with huge debts, promptingGreek-style cuts and even greatermisery. Those in Brussels insistthat this measure is a one-off, andthat no precedent has been set.Based on their forecasting record,it is hard to be so sanguine. Theeuro has put intolerable pressureon its members, and will continueto do so – not least because ofGermany’s reluctance to rebalanceits economy. Despite tremors inthe markets, Cyprus will not be thecrisis that undoes the single cur-rency. But it is yet another re-minder of just how weak its foun-dations are. — The Telegraph

*****

Syrianrefugees

Lebanese infrastructure isslowly collapsing under thestrain of coping with more

than a million Syrian refugees, flee-ing the bitter war in their own coun-try. Every day, more people in des-perate conditions are pouring overthe border and there is little hopethat they will be able to return homein the near future. Many of thesesuffering people had got out just be-fore their homes were destroyed byshelling or bombing and theywould have little to go back to whenthe fighting stops.

Antonio Guterres, the UNHigh Commissioner for Refugees,has thanked the Lebanese govern-ment for keeping its borders opento the 8,000 new Syrian refugeeswho are crossing into Lebanon ev-ery day at the moment. In the twoyears since the Syrian civil warstarted in 2011, more than one mil-lion refugees have come to live inLebanon, which is more than 25 percent of Lebanon’s indigenouspopulation. The problem the Leba-nese government faces is that merewords of thanks from the UN donot help the situation on the groundas hundreds of thousands of newresidents need water, electricity andfood. All this has to come fromsomewhere.

Lebanon was simply not pre-pared for such a vast influx. Al-ready the supplies are failing andthe local population is starting tosuffer. It does not help that the gov-ernment is weak. Prime MinisterNajeeb Mikati has been in officesince 2011, when he replacedformer prime minister, Saad Hariri,after ministers loyal to the March8 alliance resigned, forcing thegovernment’s collapse. Growingtensions led to a clash last weekbetween supporters of Hezbollahand Sunni preacher, Shaikh AhmadAssir, in Sidon which left threepeople dead. Mikati does not haveenough authority to take the deci-sive steps that are needed to givehis country a new political direc-tion, as well as cope with the larg-est refugee crisis that Lebanon hashad since the Palestinians first ar-rived in the country — triggeringpolitical unrest that led to the di-sastrous civil war. — Gulf News

MEDIA WATCH

—Proverb

Pakistan will be going to elections but are elections any indication of what will happen

after these are held. The future isuncertain and full of risks. That isthe fear that friends have instilledin me. Normally low specificityfunctions like the present one aredifficult to predict as there is verylittle monitoring or assessment thatcan be made before the electionstake lace. Public choice in suchcases rests with the political lead-ership and what form this willemerge in is difficult to state. Thatdiscretion on choice of candidateis very much a factor in the politi-cal party leaders asking for fees forgetting a ticket. It has been statedvery frequently that the winnerswere not due to the personal excel-lence of the candidates but due tothe prestige and the vote pullingability of the leaders. That is whyonce in awhile, no frequently, onesees power structure from the uni-form make their way to the leader-ship positions in the civil gover-nance system. All such actions asgood governance are of high trans-action costs and low specificity ac-tions. No matter how much onetries the accountability and goodgovernance issues emerge when thedecision maker and the public areface to face-the action taker and theconsequential affected. Even thenthe ability to understand the conse-quential actions are determined bythe cognitive ability of the affected.

Of statistics and a fishy tale!

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Sunday Magazine

Sadia Zahid MalikEditor

Ph: 2852027-8, Ext: 116Email: magazinesocialdiary@hotmail.com

Most tales one comesacross these days arefishy. Some, to be sure,

are more fishy than others, butfishy nevertheless. One was look-ing through the archives of the pastfew years when one came across afishy tale of immense proportionsrevealed by the New York Timesand emanating from China of allplaces. One craves the indulgenceof the gentle reader to go oversome of the details. The tale, then,goes something like this. It appearsthat for years on end marine sci-entists had been raising the alarmthat far too much fish was beingcaught from the world’s oceansand calling for drastic measures tocurb “wide-spread over-fishing”.The reported global yield of ma-rine fisheries continued to rise dur-ing the decade of 1990s, mainlydue to the statistics provided byChina. According to the New YorkTimes, evidence surfacing in the2000s revealed that there had been“substantial over-reporting” duringthe 1990s mainly by China.

What happened was that, un-der the system of matching resultwith plan, the same set of bureau-crats was responsible for not onlycounting the catch but also meet-ing targets to increase it. So, intypical bureaucratic fashion, theytook the easy way out by simplyexaggerating the count to meettheir allotted goals. As a result,instead of rising by an average of330,000 tonnes per year since 1988

One has been asked this ques-tion time and again as to whythe society does not protestmore vociferously when itcomes to public utilities breakdown. The civil society hastried but empathy sets in when

the decision makers are deaf anddumb. They ride the storm knowingthat state power is behind them.

All elections are divisive and dothe Pakistanis have the inherent ca-pability to handle these aspects. Inthese low specificity activities elabo-rate systems only increase the trans-action cost but achieve little as theachievement is not quantifiable forone or many forces and individualsmay be responsible for what is goingon and the accountability aspects aredifficult to pin point. Take the con-flict case of the political power struc-ture and the bureaucracy and the out-come of their actions for the welfareof the society. The low specificitywork of just one organization suchas Planning Division may be consid-ered. The entire investment on brickand mortar in Islamabad helps no one.We have been relying on the institu-tions so derived to provide the nec-essary where withal to helping thecountry achieve its social goals andbring about harmony. Yet barring theSC which dispense justice and pro-vides a modicum of rule of law andthe FBR which is meant for collect-ing revenue generated by Pakistanisthrough the wealth created by themarket place.

Did devolution achieve its ob-jectives? The jury need not be outas the outcomes would have beenvisible by now. The concept as a de-sirable one in as much as it did prom-ise that the provinces and ultimatelythe local governments were to be

empowered to do their own work.Yet of the many amendments 102were political ones. The ultimateactions were not achieved. The de-sign flaws were there but the basicswas that the three ways power struc-ture had not been adequately exam-ined to make this option successful?Low specificity activities with hightransaction volumes require a con-sidered approach to such actions.After all this would affect about 180million people. In the private sectorit is possible to develop a competi-tive structure and that has been as-signed to the Competitive commis-sion of Pakistan. They themselvesare low specificity organization in as much as their own functions can-not be determined in any way. Butthe private sector has an exit solu-tion for if a private sector venturecannot perform that unit finds itselfon the way out. In public sector andespecially in the utilities there is noway to determine this. The discre-tion of the on the job worker is sig-nificantly important. The SHO andthe Revenue system defy any solu-tion. No power structure can makethem do what they do not want todo. You and I may rant and do what-ever is warranted but the revenuesystem and the utilities are in powerat the level where only the voice ofthe locals matter. The dysfunctionsare controversial and although youand I may know much about themthese are difficult to handle.

If the classic conflict betweenthe political system and the bureau-cracy is to be handled then powerhas to flow from the tp don. But thatis never the case for the bureaucracyis charged with other responsibili-ties and a time may come when theywill have to answer for what they

have done. So all that the standingcommittees have done is to bolsterthat conflict and this becomes acatch situation. So what do we havein public service- a catch situationthat requires either an exit or avoice system? The former is partof a market solution for do we havethe ability to sort out the railwaysand the other public sector institu-tions. The debate on what is wrongwill go on but the debate on the so-lutions will never be exercised.

What can be done? The orga-nizational ambiguities have to bechanged. One is dealing with pur-pose, process, clients and geo-graphical areas. Try solving thismatrix. Then there are embeddedpriorities of each of us. Add to thisthere are transactional intensities[Baluchistan Package etc] and thediscretionary character of these in-dividuals to handle. TheBaluchistan package is a mess sofar as agriculture is concerned. Theselection process was such that theresearch effort that was already fullof scandals has been again made thetarget of policies that are not con-ducive to the country.

Take a lesson from China andpromote not favorites but workingpersonal. Prime Minister Li whowas recently appointed has beengiven this job for his excellent per-formance in Fushon slum areas. Hemanaged to improve the livelihoodof 1.26 million people of that slumarea. Where effort is rewarded andlaziness taken to task the nationrevives. Can the elections in Paki-stan bind the people together? Orwill there be hell to pay. Your gutfeelings? Since we clog everythingthis time only one best option forthat is what an unforeseen futureseeks from you.

as recorded in United Na-tions data, the world catchhas actually been decliningby an average of 360,000tonnes per year! Marine ex-perts expressed the opinionthat the findings of the studypublished in the journal Na-ture that led to these conclu-sions have major implica-

tions for world food supplies and forthe contentious battles to cut backon oversized fishing fleets. The au-thors of the study note that the great-est impact of the finding that catchstatistics have been inflated may beto engender complacency about thestate of the world’s marine stock andabout “over-fishing”.

So much for the fishy statistics!Now for the wider implications!Statistics, as is well known, is bigbusiness in today’s world beset withfigures. All the world’s plans andstrategies have been, and are, basedessentially on statistical data. Andwho supplies this data? They arenone other than the petty bureau-crats who are well aware of thepowers of their super-pens. Onedecimal point this way or that canchange the fate of the world. Genu-ine mistakes aside, a deliberate slipof the mighty pen can create noth-ing less than havoc. Nature’s studyof the world’s fisheries should nowprovide the incentive to carry outstudies in other vital fields toowhere faulty statistics, whetherwillful or accidental, may have re-sulted in mischief.

It should also lead to the obvi-ous conclusion that over reliance onstatistical data can prove fatal. Ifonly the international data process-ing agencies were to look with awee bit of suspicion at the statisti-cal figures supplied to them, theymight discover to their surprise thatall that glitters is not gold or – giventhe rocketing price of precious

metal - even its nearest replica.Putting the matter of fisheries aside,one could perhaps turn to a widercanvas and take a closer look at thesorcery of statistics. Statisticians,whose forte lies in juggling withfigures, often tend to forget that thatfigures alone – however impressive– cannot stand on their own. Fig-ures are like the bones of a skel-

eton that need not only to be fleshedout with facts but also interpretedwith circumspection as well as asense of realism to project the truepicture. This latter, regrettably ismuch too often lacking. Statisticscan be used to prove anything andeverything. Figures – taken on theirown - can be devastatingly mislead-ing. So-called technical expertshave invariably had the regrettabletendency to take undue advantage

of the obscure tools of their tradeto throw the layman off the righttrack. Give the statistician (and hiscousin once removed – the econo-mist) enough latitude and the twoof them between them wouldweave the rosy web of well-stacked figures to boggle thesimple minds of the unsuspectingcommon folk.

We, in the Land of the Purehave spent the better part of ourlives being led up the garden pathby our economic planners with thehelp of a web of statistics. Evenwhen the statistics are proffered asproof of the country well on theway to emulate the Asian tigers, theman in the street is left to ponderwhere his next meal is going tocome from. Man cannot live by sta-tistics alone. No wonder, then, thatover the ages right-thinking peoplehave invariably looked at statisticsand statisticians with a generousmeasure of suspicion.

If one cares to take a closerlook, one finds that modern civili-zation and all else connected withit are based more on figures and lesson facts. As the Chinese fish sagashows, many, if not most, of thesefigures may be ‘doctored’ one wayor the other. Let us take another ex-ample. Now that everybody and hisuncle have celebrated the “WorldPopulation Day”, has a thoughtbeen given to what havoc the stat-isticians may have played with theworld population figures? How canone possibly be certain that thepopulation figures put out by a par-ticular government are what theyare purported to be? Chances arethat the figures may have been sub-jected to juggling and that too on amassive scale. The whole rigmaroleof statistics smells fishy, as theysay. It is hardly for us lesser mor-tals to challenge what may well turnout to be a truism!

Dr Zafar AltafEmail:dr_altaf@hotmail.com

Khalid SaleemEmail: binwakeel@yahoo.com

Friendly FireFriendly FireFriendly FireFriendly FireFriendly Fire

If one cares totake a closer look,

one finds that mod-ern civilization andall else connectedwith it are based

more on figures andless on facts. As the

Chinese fish sagashows, many, if notmost, of these fig-ures may be ‘doc-tored’ one way or

the other. How canone possibly becertain that the

population figuresput out by a par-

ticular governmentare what they arepurported to be?

Voice of the People

The fourth round of talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program

was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan on26 February 2013.The six powers in-volved in negotiations with Iran in-cludes: Russia, U.S.A, China,France, the United Kingdom andGerman. The previous three roundsof negotiations of the “six” tookplace in 2012 in Istanbul, Baghdadand Moscow. But there was no ma-jor breakthrough on the issue. Opin-ions of the world’s experts on thisquestion were divided into twocamps. First group is of the viewthat each round is completed withsmall concessions from Tehranwhere as second group believes thatin this game Iran only buys time forthe enrichment of uranium. Thereare many factors compelling Iranto reconsider its bargaining posi-tion. Some of these factors includeeconomic sanctions, the turmoil inits ally Syria and other issues inMiddle East.

The presence of Iran’s uraniumand associated conditions for its de-velopment do not give rest to the in-ternational community. Recently, agroup of American scientists pub-

Talks on Iran’s nuke programme

Students’behaviour

UROOJ ADNAN

This is with reference to the bus ac-cident that took the life of a studentin Faisalabad on March 19. I con-demn the death of the student ow-ing to the irrational behaviour of thebus driver. I am writing this letter tohighlight the fact that other studentsstarted beating the bus driver follow-ing the accident, though the driversomehow managed to escape.

I condemn this act because thisis not the way to take revenge. Stu-dents should fight through the powerof the pen. The law and order situa-tion is at its worst but this is not theright way to express one’s anger.This act does not leave a good im-pression. Youngsters should not actrashly, and instead adopt a positiveattitude to resolve all problems.—Karachi

Motorway woesMANSOOR SAEED

I recently travelled on GT Road andthe Motorway (M2 and M3) on myway from Islamabad to Multan andback. Travelling on GT Road hasnever been a good experience, andthat is understandable since youtravel through small towns and cit-ies. The motorway (M2) experiencehas always been good and I havebeen impressed by the way theMotorway police conduct them-selves. However, my recent travel-ling experience was an eye-opener.The performance of the Motorwaypolice has deteriorated. Since I wastravelling in the evening, I saw manyvehicles without functioning tail-lights, headlights not working cor-rectly, as well as people frequentlydriving on full beam and with HIDs.

Another dangerous aspects wasthat people were overtaking vehiclesfrom the left side, and failing to turnindicators on. Overspeeding is ram-pant; I saw a lot of vehicles racingas if it was an F1 track. I would ad-vise the Motorway police to checkall cars that enter the motorway tomake sure they have functioninglights whether its day or night andharsh fines must be imposed sincethe only way people learn is when ithits their pocket.—Islamabad

M M Alam:A hero foreverAIR MARSHAL AYAZ A

KHAN (R)

Air Commodore M.M. Alam wasawarded Sitara-i-Jurrat twice forvalour in air combat during the 1965war with India. He was a squadronleader at that time. In the first airbattle with Indian Air Force fight-ers exiting after attacking PAFSargodah Air Base on Sept 7, 1965,he shot down five IAF Hunter fight-ers in one minute. He shot two ofthem with Sidewinder missiles andthree with canon fire. Soon after heshot down four IAF Mystere fight-ers. By destroying nine enemy fight-ers, he became an air ace and an iconfor PAF fighter pilots. A day earlierhe had led an attack on the well-de-fended IAF Halwara Air Base, butwas intercepted by several IndianHunter fighters.

Having shot down one Hunterhe broke engagement and returnedwith his formation of four Saber jets.While over the Indian territory hewarned Squadron Leader SarfrazRafaqui, who was on his way to at-tack Halwara with only three F-86Sabre jets, that he must watch sev-eral IAF fighters over Halwara. Alesser man would have turned about.But the dashing Rafiqui in the high-est tradition of Pakistan Air Forcepressed on with the attack. The threePAF fighters were intercepted byseveral IAF Hunters. In the unequalair combat, the guns of Rafiqui’sSaber jet jammed. He asked FlightLieutenant Cecil Choudhry to takeover the command, but did not breakaway to exit. His crippled F-86 Sa-bre was shot down by Indian Hunterfighters. That day Pakistan Air Forcelost the bravest fighter pilot. In hismemory Shorkot Air Base was re-named Rafiqui Air Force Base. Cecil

Pak-Iran gas pipelineAD BABAR

The long-pending Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline has finally been inaugurated at an official level on March11. The said project would likely boost economic growth in both the countries.For Pakistan, this is

virtually an adequate choice to meet its energy crisis in terms of its price, which is linked with globalprice rather than keeping with the US advised Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline projectunder consideration. There appear hindrances over the pipeline issue both on a national as well as aninternational scale. At the international level, the US factor is one of the biggest hampers on its comple-tion. And, lack of multi-billion dollars which the banks refused fearing US sanctions. It is sad thatinternally Baloch nationalists have been demanding a share in terms of job provisions. The truth is thatUN Security Council sanctions against Iran have nothing to stop the gas pipeline legally. The sanctionmay only be placed by the US directly or indirectly. The European Union can play an instrumental rolefor vested interest of the US. This is oblivious and unfair as the US tactics is to try and keep Pakistanpulled out of the project. In Pakistan, the next incumbent government would hopefully pay attention toconstructing the pipeline to meet the energy requirements of the country.—Zhob

READERS

Email:editorial@pakobserver.net

are requested to typetheir letters legibly withdouble spacing and only onone side of the paper.

—Editor

Choudry broke the air combat afterdestroying one IAF Hunter.

In due course of time M.M Alamrose to the rank of Air Commodore.He was a person of great integrity andcharacter. Flying was his passion andPakistan Air Force was his life. Hebelieved in the highest standards ofhonesty in his official dealings andpersonal life. He felt lack of it in theway Air Chief Marshal AnwarShamim ran the Pakistan Air Force.He thought it his duty to keep the AirChief informed of rumours about lackof ethics in the way Air Force wasbeing administered and run. Alam’sadvice and criticism angered the AirChief and was not well taken.

M.M. Alam decided that the highprestige of Pakistan Air Force mustnot be tarnished and decided to in-form President Ziaul Haq about the‘goings-on’ in PAF. Shamim, as Chiefof the Air Staff, was very close to thepresident, who did not endorse M.M.Alam’s complaints and grievanceagainst the Air Chief. This was an un-fortunate development. Air ChiefMarshal Shamim ordered pre-matureretirement of Air Commodore M.M,Alam. As the Vice Chief of Air Staff,I felt grieved and unhappy that Paki-stan Air Force had lost a competentofficer of unblemished integrity.Alam felt deeply hurt and refused hispension. Air Chief Marshal JamalAhmed Khan, who took over thecommand of Pakistan Air Force af-ter Anwar Shamim, tried his best topersuade M.M. Alam, who had noother income, to accept his pension,which was his legal and constitutionalright. But M.M. Alam declined. M.M.Alam went out of sight. After sometime it transpired that he had joinedthe Afghan Mujahideen to fight theSoviet army of occupation.

One day several months laterthere was a knock on the door of myIslamabad house after midnight. Iopened the door and found a starvedperson with a beard wearing thePushtun cap. I did not recognise himtill he said: “Can I come in”? I said:“Alam, what have you done to your-self?” Alam said: “I am starving, Ihad nothing to eat since two days.”The way he ate, proved it. He wasvery tired and slept for three days.Then he left and I lost contact withhim. Apart from being a great fighterpilot, M.M. Alam was a good humanbeing and a highly religious person.May Allah shower His blessings onAlam and give him a place in heaven.Amen—Via email

Terrorismin Syria

M SUFIYAN RAZA AHMED

The top most Syrian Sunni clericSheikh Muhammad Al-Buti wasmartyred by Salifist terrorist. Thisnews rocked the globally and strongprotest have been registered by Paki-stan and the entire Islamic world.Sheikh Muhammad Al-Buti was arenowned cleric and the Imam ofUmmayyad Mosque. The growingterrorism activities of Salifist are get-ting intolerable.

The Salifist fundamentalist havedestroyed many shrines in Libya af-ter the Post civil war and this kind ofnews have been reported in Syria aswell. This is an indication of waginga war against other Islamic sects.—Karachi

Technology &communication

FURQAN H SHAIKH

Today the world walks over the roadof science and technology. Whetherit is business, education, health, com-merce, or economic conditions, apotential difference has always beenfound among them all. Good profes-sionals of related areas and sectorsare busy enhancing their businessactivities, debiting liabilities, and in-creasing proprietorship and capitalthrough financing in tangible andnon-tangible assets.

And some successful layers havelikely been adopted by analysts orprofessionals to explore the supplyacross the country and the world. Inthis way, science and good commu-nication have played a vital role inthe way of success because throughscience people can have pro-

Return of old John McCain

Senator John McCain’s “StraightTalk Express” has been in therepair shop for a while, but it

sure was rolling this week during aninterview. The main theme was thatRepublicans should end their self-iso-lation and “start working for theAmerican people.” Journalists havealways had a soft spot for McCain(R-Ariz.) when he’s in the mode ofbipartisan conciliator. And I don’twant to overstate the evidence of anhour-long conversation the other dayin his Senate office.

He remains a complex and mer-curial man whose support for centristpolicies has ebbed and flowed overthe years. But he’s definitely in out-reach gear right now.

What seems to perturb McCainmost is some Republicans’ willing-ness to harm the military as part of“sequestration” budget cuts. You canhear the Vietnam veteran and formerPOW speaking when McCain de-scribes the military impact as “soappalling I can’t describe to you how

upset I am.” McCain denounced con-gressional moves that will idle a Navyaircraft carrier and reduce the readi-ness of the Marine Corps. Mean-while, he complained that the “con-tinuing resolution” will spend $5 mil-lion on a needless Pentagon scienceprogram for elementary schools and$11 million on a volunteer civil airprogram, and it will prohibit the re-tirement of C-23 aircraft the Armydoesn’t want and state governors haverejected. This tirade about pork-bar-rel spending is vintage McCain, butwhat’s interesting is that much of theferocity is toward his own party.

Why is the GOP bending towardits isolationist wing? McCain said theparty is suffering from “war weari-ness” and from its continued stresson spending cuts to the exclusion ofother issues.

Early in the interview, McCainmentioned that he has been talkingwith President Obama about immi-gration reform. When I asked if hehad also raised Syria, where McCainhas sharply criticized administrationpassivity, he said no: “I don’t want toget into an argument with the presi-dent.” That’s interesting for a com-

bative man who often can’t resist azinger. McCain said he is talking bi-partisanship now because “I really be-lieve the American people are fedup.” He joked about a survey show-ing that Congress is less popular withthe public than a colonoscopy as evi-dence that “we are really in serioustrouble,” and that “Americans wantus to work together.” He pointed tocompromises he’s trying to work outwith Senate Democrats such as CarlLevin, Chuck Schumer and evenMajority Leader Harry Reid.

The centre piece of McCain’snew outreach is his engagement withObama, which reverses a long pe-riod of frosty relations that culmi-nated in his recent battle against thenomination of Chuck Hagel as de-fence secretary. When I asked if theHagel attacks were too partisan, herepeated his disagreements on prin-ciple with the nominee but then con-ceded: “I plead guilty to being com-bative, to being zealous, to over-reaching sometimes.”

McCain said many other promi-nent Republicans share his view thatit’s time to walk back from the parti-san cliff. “There is an attitude change

David Ignatius

lished a report stating that bymid-2014 Iran will haveenough enriched uranium toproduce one or more nuclearbombs.Fuel to the fire was alsopoured by Iran’s statement pro-mulgated on February this year

about the discovery of new depositsof uranium, which triples the provenuranium reserves of the country. Inaddition, in mid-February, Iran an-nounced the installation of new gen-eration centrifuges. They are able toenrich uranium three times faster toa level suitable for the productionof nuclear bombs.

Nine months ago in Moscow, theIranian side proposed five sugges-tions of cooperation, and before thenegotiations in Almaty “Six” was toconsider these proposals. During thepress conference, Secretary of theSupreme Council of National Secu-rity Saeed Jalili noted with satisfac-tion that countries of “six” came tothe development of the proposals,taking into account the remarks thatwere announced by Iran in the pastthree rounds.In turn, the countries ofthe “six” offered to shoot a numberof sanctions against Iran, in ex-change for a reduction in the enrich-ment of uranium to a level of 20percent at an underground factory inthe “Fordow”. Here the country of“six” made some concessions, asthey had previously insisted on acomplete cessation of work in thearea. In turn, Tehran proved the ne-

Views From Abroad

Intolerance, illiteracy & PhDs

Regrettably, discrimination,prejudice, hatred, bigotry, extremism, impatience, social

injustice and terrorism is thriving ourin Pakistan society nowadays. Of allthese social evils, the greatest prob-lem is alarmingly increasing intol-erance. I very much dislike the mon-ster of intolerance. People have be-come intolerant to each other on thebasis of their religion, sect, ethnicity,community, region and professions.So much so our intellectuals, writ-ers, jurists have become intolerantof others.

Once you watch any television“ Talk Shows” or go to attend anyworkshop or seminar, the curse ofgross intolerance becomes visible

within no time. Our retired re-hired government officers, avast majority of Babaas ( agedold) are seen extremely intol-erant of enterprising and ener-getic young talent in the pub-lic sector. Out of frustration

this intolerant lot kills the future ofthe young officers. It is visible thatthe voices of intolerance have be-come extremely powerful in theKPK, Punjab province and alsoQuetta and Karachi city.

The curse of intolerance is alsovisible in the Federal Capital,Islamabad, and upper and lowerdistricts Sindh where the influx ofintolerant elements from KPK,FATA, Seriaki and Hazara regions,have become the source of disor-der and squabbling in the tolerantand pacifist Sindhi society. Dis-crimination, prejudice, bigotry, ex-tremism, social injustice and terror-ism are not accidents, but these so-cial evils grow out of abject pov-

erty, illiteracy, and socialization.The past successive regimes havedone nothing to promote tolerance,toleration, human harmony and so-cial justice in the society. We alldecry intolerance, discrimination,prejudice, yet we are all intolerant,practice discrimination and preju-diced. Our electronic media andpublic sector organizations such asHigher Education Commission arefocused on the production of a fewhundreds PhDs.

What miracles these few hun-dred or a few thousand PhD hold-ers would cause in a society wherethere is an ocean of illiterate peopleand this sea of illiterate people isexpanding massively. Would youbelieve me sir? In the upper andlower Sindh districts more than70% boys and more than 95 per-cent girls never go to schools be-cause people are poor and theynever send their children to schoolsand somewhere where they want to

grammed-human-like machine whichis ‘robot’, that has decreased humanefforts and also facilitated people andso many sectors of life, and it alwaysoperates according to the instructionsthat are assigned (programmed) byprogrammers/software engineers.

Developing a robot needs a paleof logic. While good communicationlayer among different entities hasknelt down the knees of unreliability,frustration, deprivation and alsogeared up the trust, forgiveness, love,and care. In my opinion, withoutcomputer technology, software tech-nology and good communication en-vironment, people and their life’s re-lated sectors are zilch. This is becausewe are all integrated circuits of theglobe which have different tasks andcommands to operate.

Therefore, having awarenessabout science and technology andimportance of good communicationenvironment, the authorities con-cerned should organise fairs andseminars at public places, scienceparks, district libraries, schools, col-lages and universities. And the printand electronic media should also takepart in this initiative by publishingweekly articles regarding science andtechnology . It must invite computerscientists and engineers to share theirimportant ideas on television for thesake of promoting technology andcommunication for all.

And the profit-orientedorganisations and non-profit-orientedorganisations must also come forwardto do the same with the help of good-natured people, well-heeled businesscommunities, industrialists, interna-tional welfare agencies, includingUnesco, Unicef, UNDP, etc, with thecoordination of the government.—Jamshoro

Renewableenergy

AZFAR KHAN

We cannot gain by opting for solarenergy unless we establish manufac-turing facilities for solar equipmentin our own country. We should firstimport solar panels (ready-made) andthen, in cooperation with a renownedforeign company, establish facilitiesfor production of the same locally.China would be a better option in thisregard as it is much cheaper thanEurope and the US. A panel com-prises about 100 to 200 cells depend-ing upon power which is required tobe generated through these cells.These cells, which are quite costly,will initially have to be imported. Butthe real impact will only be madewhen we start manufacturing thesecells also in Pakistan. As these cellswould be required in millions if wego for a solar option in a big way,we’ll have to produce them locally.

To manufacture solar cells, twotypes of raw materials are required:quartz and silica. Quartz is availablein northern areas of our country.Some people there are raising wallsof their houses utilising this raw ma-terial in place of bricks, withoutknowing its real worth. The other rawmaterial, silica, is available in our riv-ers and being utilised by our bulb-manufacturing factories. As regardsmanpower, thousands and thousandsof our educated young, men andwomen are roaming around withoutjobs. They possess diplomas and de-grees in various engineering disci-plines like electronics, mechanicaland electrical engineering. Peoplewith these qualifications would berequired to be deployed in manufac-turing facilities.

In foreign countries, peopleworking on such projects are beingpaid $45-$50 an hour. To us, suchmanpower would be available at therate of $3 an hour only, which comesto about Rs72,000 a month. Toachieve this end, the only requirementis a will and commitment at the high-est level of the government.—Rawalpindi

send their children to schools, thereare either no schools or no teach-ers. The civil society and enlight-ened individuals must take a standagainst intolerance for our Indusvalley values of human harmony,tolerance and peace. Lets’ promotedialogue and education (universalprimary education in the earnestsense instead of producing a fewhundred non-productive PhDs de-gree holders) for peace and free ourhearts from the impulse toward in-tolerance, hatred, prejudice and therejection of others in the society.

In this dismal scenario, AllamaIqbal Open University (AIOU) canplay the role of a catalyst to promoteliteracy in the illiterate areas and sufiand cultural institutes along withINGOs can promote the culture oftolerance and social justice where welive together like brothers and sis-ters in this country or may perish likefools and intolerant and illiteratepeople in the twenty first century.

on the part of people who want toget this done for the Americanpeople. All politicians crave ap-proval. That’s part of our DNA.When there’s such strong disap-proval, that has an effect.

“The Republicans have a prob-lem,” he added bluntly. “Thepresident’s [approval] numbers aregoing down, but not nearly as muchas the Republicans’.” He cited theunsuccessful GOP Senate cam-paigns last November of RichardMourdock in Indiana and Todd Akinin Missouri as evidence that “if wenominate people outside the main-stream, we’re going to pay for it.”What accounts for McCain’s newtone and the return of the happywarrior of the centre? Certainly,he’s prickly about recent commentsthat his jihad against Hagel showedhe had become “bitter” or “angry.”Not so, he insisted. After surviv-ing cancer surgery and torture in aNorth Vietnamese prison, “I’m theluckiest man who ever lived. Ishould have gone a long time ago. Idon’t want to look back on anywasted days.”— Courtesy: The Washington Post

cessity of 20 percent enriched fuelin connection with its use for medi-cal purposes.

Easing of sanctions will covertrade in gold and other precious met-als. Recall that earlier EuropeanUnion countries introduced an em-bargo on imports of Iranian oil,which came into force on 1 July2012. These actions of the EU wereexplained by the fact that theywanted to force Tehran to abandonits nuclear ambitions. The samepackage of measures against Iranpreviously was conducted byWashington at the beginning ofthis year, with the introduction ofthe sanctions aimed at reducing theincome of the republic from oilsales.Some experts tend to believethat if the above measures will leadIran’s economy to a standstill, thiscountry could launch military ac-tion in the Strait of Hormuz,which, in fact, is a trade artery forthe Gulf countries and in general forthe Middle East. It passes through40 percent of the world oil traffic.And then it will be a boost for thewhole of Western Europe.

It is important that right after thecompletion of negotiations inAlmaty, Saeed Jalili said that thenext round of negotiations of theparties is agreed to be held inIstanbul on 18 and 19 March, andthen again will return to Almaty on5 and 6 April 2013. Moreover, theinitiative of early resumption of the

talks came from Iran. Recall thatearlier intervals between negotia-tions were much longer. Parties hadnever administered the next meet-ing so close to the date. This sug-gests that Iran is seeking the liftingof sanctions, and ready to meet therequirements of the “six”.According to the U.S. Secretary ofState, John Kerry, a meeting inKazakhstan was “productive”. Re-plying to journalists in Paris, hesaid that if Iran goes to serioustalks, it can lead to a lasting solu-tion to the dispute over its nuclearprogram.Executive director of As-sociation on arms control DarylKimball surprised that Iran is readyto continue negotiations in connec-tion with the fact that presidentialelections in Iran must be held onJune. “So many of us were sur-prised that they agreed to a newround of negotiations, becausethere are many good political rea-sons why they could simply refuseto enter into any agreement in thenear future”, - he said.For his part,the Assistant of Foreign Ministerof China Ma Chzhaosyuyv in aninterview with Chinese media alsosaid that after talks in Almaty it wastaken the first step toward the startof real talks on the Iranian nuclearissue, which will benefit the solu-tion of this problem through dia-logue and negotiations.—The writer is Research Fellowat IPRI.

When you come to NewYork dad,” said mydaughter over the phone

yesterday, “We’ll drive down andsee the Niagara Falls!” I rememberthe Niagara Falls. For years beforevisiting it the first time, I had seenpictures and picture postcards of thewaters cascading down the rockysides onto the river below. For yearsbefore seeing it, I had visualized thespectacular picture in my mind, butwhat I saw that day was beyond mywildest dreams. I traveled from

Unbridled power, quiet peace..!New York to Buffalo by the Grey-hound, very comfortable and with allthe luxury of an airplane. For com-pany I had a young man from Japanand we two became good friends onthe bus.

I remember ever so often watch-ing him open his Japanese to Englishdictionary so he could describe some-thing to me, using the correct word.It was important to him that he saideverything precisely and to the point.It’s no wonder they are a great nationtoday. We traveled through the nightand in the morning reached Buffalofrom where we changed buses to goto the Falls.

From the bus station, we walkedtowards the falls, wondering whatspectacular sound or scene wouldsuddenly startle us. There was an ee-rie stillness; it was like that split mo-ment before a magician shows his

biggest magical scene to the audienceand indeed God here was the magi-cian: Far away I heard the spray, itgently wafted through the stillness,like a curtain being opened and thenbefore my eyes was the most incred-ible, breathtaking spectacle I had everseen.

Till date the magnitude of thatscene remains frozen in my mind:The roar! Huge and powerful, likethat of the lion, in the stillness of thejungle, it tore through the air, mak-ing me shudder with the sheer terrorof the sound.

The screaming river rushingacross the edge of the horseshoe cliffand falling continuously with a re-sounding hoarse throated bellowthousands of feet below. I stood atthe edge, shivering at the formidablemight of nature at her furious best: Awild beast, unchained and unfettered,

it’s waters like rippling muscles,savage, brutally primitive. Yetstrangely, as I stood and watchedthat scene that day, I felt a sense ofpeace descending on me. I had cometo the Falls, beset by problems, sud-denly the hugeness and grandeur ofthe power I felt made the problemssmall and inconsequential.

My voice broke forth, and Isang, “Before the hills in orderstood, or earth received her frame,from everlasting Thou art God, toendless years the same!” It was notjust the might of the Niagara I saw,but a glimpse of the omnipotentpower of its creator. “Yes mychild!” I whisper, “We’ll travel tothe Falls again, to thank Him forshowing His unbridled power, thathad given me quiet peace, manymoons ago..!”—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com

Hashim AbroEmail:hashimabro@hotmail.com

Muhammad MunirEmail: munirwarsi@yahoo.com

LAHORE: People visiting the Lahore Fort and mausoleum of poet-philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal on theoccasion of Pakistan Day.

LAHORE: A woman selling strawberries on her push-cart to earn money for her family.

23 killed as bushits power pylon

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roof of the bus, police said.The causalities increased

after the passengers weretrapped inside the bus.Meanwhile, rescue officialshave started to pull out thebodies and injured from thebus. The bodies and injuredwere shifted to a DHQ hos-pital in Sheikhupura.

The deceased have beenidentified as 18 year oldFaisal, Mumtaz BB, ShahzadAhmed, Muhammad Arshad,Tuheed Ahmed, Rasheed Ali,Muhammad Ashiq andHamza. Identities of otherdeceased are yet to be deter-mined.—Online

Fakhar Imamjoins

PML-NFrom Page 1

in Pakistan for conspiracy tomurder and illegally arrestingjudges.

“I will go by land, air orsea, whatever. even to theperil of my life this is the oathI took for the country,” saidthe former army chief of staff.

Last year he delayed aplanned homecoming afterbeing threatened with deten-tion.

The Pakistani Talibanhave threatened to use sui-cide bombers and snipers tokill former president PervezMusharraf when he returnshome from exile. Speaking toa private TV channel, TTP

ues, squares, old markets andstreets etc.

All this reflects that thewar on Iraq waged to destroythe alleged weapons of massdestruction with an esti-mated cost of more than twotrillion US Dollars against theoriginal estimated cost of 500billion US Dollars could noterode the spirit of the peopleof Iraq in any way.

Why did George W. Bushchoose March 18, 2003. I amtold by a senior functionaryof the government to invadeIraq, rather than some day inJuly, or August or never?”Because he was afraid thatfurther delay would give UNarms inspectors time to refutethe accusations that SaddamHussain was working onnuclear weapons.

Anyhow, Iraq’s infra-structure has not fully recov-ered to the pre-war level. ButIraq has recovered otherwisetoo and now, every day Iraqwill move forward. The on-going cultural festival beingattended by many personali-ties from across the region,mostly Arab and some non-Arab, is step in the right di-rection.

Iraq stands onits own feet, and

with a styleFrom Page 1

Committee todeliberate onfour names

todayFrom Page 1

caretaker Punjab Chief Min-ister. On the other hand,Leader of the Opposition inPunjab Assembly Raja Riazhad earlier proposed threenames- Mian AmirMehmood, Asma Jehangirand Hafeez Akhtar Randhawafor this slot.

Asma Jenhangir had al-ready declined to this offer,hence, her name was ex-cluded. The PPP named Jus-tice (retd) Zahid Hussain inher place.

The PPP withdrew thenames of Mian AmerMahmood and Hafeez AkhtarRandhawa for the position ofPunjab caretaker Chief Min-ister and proposed thenames of political analystNajam Sethi and Justice(retd) Zahid Hussain. ThePML-N, is however, stick toits two nominees.

There is room for newnames and the parliamentarycommittee will take the pro-cess of dialogue and nego-tiations forward on abovefour names.

Exclusive Karachidelimitations alone smackof anti-MQM plot: Altaf

From Page 1

Nation celebrates Pakistan DayFrom Page 1

emony was held at the Mau-soleum of the Quaid andQuran Khawani took placefor the departed soul. Rep-resentatives of all threearmed forces and a largenumber of citizens were alsopresent at the mausoleum.

Governor and CaretakerChief Minister Sindh visitedthe Mazar of the Quaid andlaid floral wreaths.

Several literary organiza-tions held functions in differ-ent parts of the country tohighlight the objectives ofPakistan Resolution.

Pakistani community andembassies abroad also cel-ebrated the Pakistan Daywith pomp and show.

In Beijing, Pakistan’sAmbassador Masood Khalidhoisted the national flag andread out messages of thePresident and the Prime Min-

ister at a ceremony at theembassy.

China’s Minister forTransport, Yang Chuantangwho was Chief Guest on theoccasion, said whatever maybe the changes in regional orinternational situation, Chinawill continue to resolutelydevelop the relations withPakistan.

In New Delhi, PakistaniHigh Commissioner SalmanBashir hoisted the nationalflag at Chancery buildingto the tune of national an-them.

The High Commissionerreaffirmed Pakistan’s firm de-termination to promote good,friendly and cooperative re-lations with all neighbours inparticular India.

He also affirmed the com-plete solidarity of the Paki-stani nation with their

Musharraf all set to arrive todayFrom Page 1

spokesman EhsanullahEhsan said the group had setup squads of suicide bomb-ers to assassinateMusharraf.

“Suicide bombers are be-ing trained and assigned toassassinate” the formerpresident, Ehsan said. More-over, Adnan Rasheed, whotook part in a previous at-tempt to assassinateMusharraf, has been giventhe charge of these suicidesquads.

Rasheed is a former jun-ior technician of Pakistan AirForce who was on death rowafter getting convicted by a

field general court martial forengineering an attack onMusharraf in December 2003.He was among the prisonerswho had escaped during theApril 15, 2012 Bannu jailbreak. Musharraf angeredthe Taliban and other groupsby joining the US war on ter-ror following the September11 attacks and later launch-ing a major crackdown onmilitancy in Pakistan.

Musharraf is due to returnto Pakistan on Sunday fromDubai, after nearly four yearsof self-imposed exile, in time totake part in parliamentary elec-tions on May 11.—Online

Greece: 2 hurt,11 escape in

prison shootingTRIKALA—At least 11 in-mates escaped from a Greekprison after gunmen brazenlyattacked the site with gre-nades and automatic weap-ons, kicking off a nightlongstandoff between police andprisoners. Two guards wereinjured, one of them seriously.

A police official, speakingon condition of anonymity be-cause he was not authorized totalk to the media, told the As-sociated Press that two of theescaped inmates had beenfound and arrested. He saidthey were hiding in a churchnot far from the site of theprison. The official added thatall the escapees were Albanian.

The incident occurred nearthe town of Trikala, in centralGreece, some 320 kilometers(200 miles) northwest of Ath-ens. As many as six gunmenattacked the prison after driv-ing up to the site in a van andpickup truck, according to offi-cials. The Ministry of Justiceannounced that gunmen using“two vehicles and very heavyweapons” attacked the prison’soutside guards, as well as aprison patrol vehicle and twopolice cars.—Agencies

ROME—Italy’s center-leftleader, Pier Luigi Bersani, wasgiven the tough task Fridayto form a new and viable gov-ernment, which is badlyneeded to steer the countryout of recession and getmore Italians back to work.

National elections lastmonth produced no clearwinner, but President GiorgioNapolitano said the 61-year-old Bersani was best posi-tioned to create a govern-ment given “the most diffi-cult circumstances” — a ref-erence that while the politi-cal leader has a comfortablemajority in the lower house,the Senate is split.

The vote made plain mayvoters were disenchantedwith mainstream parties andlargely divided over whichforces should lead Italy atthis delicate moment.

Bersani’s forces finishedfirst, but he has ruled out acoalition with the next-big-gest vote-getter, former Pre-mier Silvio Berlusconi’s con-

Italy’s Bersani tapped to form new govtservative alliance. Such amove would risk further alien-ating the voting base ofBersani’s Democratic Party.

But if he shunsBerlusconi, Bersani will needto win support fromParliament’s new third bloc,a populist, anti-euro move-ment founded by comic-turned-political leader BeppeGrillo. Grillo has rejected avote of confidence to sup-port any established party —and in the required vote ofconfidence for a new govern-ment to go forward. Still, someGrillo lawmakers broke ranksover the weekend and votedto support Bersani’s candi-date as Senate speaker, indi-cating the comic’s grip on hislawmaker’s might not be iron-clad.

Nevertheless, “I don’tthink Bersani has a chanceto put together a govern-ment,” said political scientistRobert D’Alimonte.

If Bersani fails,Napolitano could tap some-

one else, a fresh face to poli-tics, like newly chosen Sen-ate President Piero Grasso, awidely respected former anti-Mafia prosecutor, saidD’Alimonte, a professor atLUISS university in Rome.Grasso could be tasked toform a technical governmentwith a specific mandate, in-cluding rewriting the elec-toral law.

Bersani pledged dialoguewith political forces in thecoming days, seeking a bal-ance between “a governmentseeking the change expectedby the Italians and one ableto carry out reforms.”

Outgoing Premier MarioMonti’s centrist forces fin-ished fourth with around 10percent of the vote. Monti,whose government was ap-pointed in late 2011 to enactreforms and austerity mea-sures to safeguard Italy fromthe continent’s debt crisis,continues as caretaker pre-mier until a new one is inplace.—AP

Imranpledges tobuild newPakistan

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joining hands with everybody including Fazl urRehman but they cannot stoptheir march for a new Paki-stan.

Heavy rain caused sus-pension of proceedings ofpublic gathering till the filingof this report.

Earlier, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader ShahMahmood Qureshi said PTIhas become a force to bringto an end the traditional poli-tics of Pakistan. He said to-day country is passingthrough a critical time withhigh poverty and inflationand depilated economy.

He highlighted theachievements demonstratedby PTI chief Imran Khan inthe field of sports, health andeducation. He stated ImranKhan has achieved what wasbeing labeled by many asunachievable by holding in-tra-party elections.

“I supported Imran Khanby leaving the politics of tra-ditional politics,” Qureshiadded. He called uponpeople to support the PTI inthe coming elections.

Qureshi says the PTI, ifvoted into power, will end tra-ditional politics and build anew Pakistan.

First day of deliberationsFrom Page 1

by Chief Election Commis-sioner Fakhruddin GEbrahim. The commission,under the constitutional pro-visions, had 48 hours to agreeon a candidate after the eight-member parliamentary com-mittee failed to reach a con-sensus despite holding threemeetings on consecutivedays.

The ECP has to choose

from the four nominees putforward by the PakistanPeoples Party (PPP) and Pa-kistan Muslim League –Nawaz (PML-N).

The PPP had proposedthe names of Dr IshratHusain and Justice (retd) MirHazar Khan Khoso. PML-N’snominees are Justice (retd)Nasir Aslam Zahid andRasool Bux Paliejo.

PML-N MPs body membersreact to govt letter to ECP

From Page 1said that government mem-bers have shown dishon-esty by writing this letter asit was decided in the meet-ing that only informationwould be conveyed to theElection Commission of Pa-kistan by the parliamentarycommittee that the membersof the committee have notagreed to any name for care-taker prime minister but theletter based on one sidedobjections written by themembers of governmentcommittee have violated theprivilege of all members ofthe committee.

They said that if at all aletter had to be written, itwould have been written with

mutual consultation andagreement by all members ofthe committee so that theElection Commission wouldhave got information aboutthe views of both parties.

They said that in thepresent situation, parliamen-tary committee of PML-N hasdecided that they will alsowrite a letter to Election Com-mission of Pakistan for inform-ing it about their point of view.

They said that membersof the committee also in-formed the election com-mission that it should nottake any decision before lis-tening to the point of viewof the members of PML-Nparliamentary committee.

CAIRO— Cairo airport offi-cials confiscated 10,000pieces of military-styleclothing on Saturday as of-ficials in the Mediterraneancity of Alexandria seized 25tons of camouflage materialused for making military uni-forms.

Maj. Gen. Yousri Abdel-Aziz, head of security at theairport, said the large ship-ment of items such as shirtsand pullovers lacked propershipping permits and wasessentially being smuggledout of Egypt to Libya’s east-ern city of Benghazi.

Airport officials said anEgyptian businessman wastrying to ship the uniforms

to a businessman in Libya.It was not clear what the uni-forms would be used for inLibya, where the govern-ment has yet to bring mili-tias fully under its control.

Separately, a state pros-ecutor in Alexandria said of-ficials are investigating aChinese company after twoof its shipments from Chinawere found to contain 25tons of material in the khakiand brownish-green styleworn by soldiers. The com-pany manufactures clothingin Egypt and sells abroad.

All officials spokeanonymously because in-vestigations are underway.—Agencies

Egypt confiscates shipmentsof military uniforms

Kashmiri brethren.Preneet Kaur, Minister of

State for External Affairs rep-resented the Government ofIndia at the Pakistan Day re-ception.

Pakistan embassy in An-kara the Ambassador of Pa-kistan Mr. MuhammadHaroon Shaukat unfurled thePakistan flag on the tune ofNational Anthem in presenceof the Pakistani community,Pakistani students studyingin Turkish Universities andEmbassy officials.

The Ambassador readout messages of the Presi-dent and the Prime Ministerof Pakistan.

Ceremonies were alsoheld in United Arab Emirates,Germany, Turkey, Sri Lanka,Thailand, Iran, AfghanistanIndonesia and other coun-tries.—INP

Imam to join PML-N. Sharifsaid that PML-N is a nationalparty and has presented arevolutionary manifesto forthe forthcoming general elec-tions.

Shahbaz Sharif saidpopularity of PML-N is in-creasing day by day and itwill achieve a thumping suc-cess across the country inthe forthcoming general elec-tions.

NawazFrom Page 1

said the electricityloadshedding would loomlarge.

He said the peopleshould hold accountable thegovernment, as PresidentAsif Zardari his governmenthad done nothing to addressthe issue.

He said that there wereno missile attacks, suicidebombings and loadsheddingwhen he was at the helm ofaffairs, but former presidentGeneral Pervez Musharrafbrought terrorism to the coun-try. He said during the nextgeneral elections the masseswill have to decide what kindof the future of the countrywe need. He said joint effortsare required for country’sprogress. He said that themistakes done in the pastmust not be repeated now.

If Allah Almighty pro-vided an opportunity as aresult of elections, the PML-N would render selfless ser-vices for the betterment ofthe country with focus onresolving all the issues facedby the country, he added.

He expressed concernover state of economy in thecountry and said the govern-ment was printing currencynotes of three billions of ru-pees daily while long hoursload shedding has causedmanifold problems both for thepeople as well as industry.However, he said that plan-ning needs to be made for next30 years. He said the problemof load shedding cannot beresolved in two years; how-ever, issues could be resolvedto the maximum with sincerityin five years. He said there ex-ists vast natural resources inthe country and load shed-ding problem can be overcomethrough exploiting these re-sources. There is need to pro-duce 50,000 of MW keepingin view future needs, he said.

Nawaz exhorted upon thePakistani nation to unite andplace Pakistan on the top ofthe agenda. “We all must strivefor a better Pakistan.” He saidjoint efforts are needed for thecountry’s progress.

The PML-N leader high-lighted the achievements madeby the PML-N during its pre-vious tenure. He added thatduring last 65 years, the coun-try was run either through dic-tatorship or courts. Had thePML-N government was notremoved; the country wasamong the comity of devel-oped nations, he added. Hesaid, in 2008 their hands weretied and all the institutionswere against the PML-N.

Filing ofnomination

papers beginstoday

From Page 1nomination papers wouldcontinue till 29th of thismonth.The scrutiny of nomi-nation papers would be heldfrom 30th of this month to 5thof next month.Last date for fil-ing of appeals against deci-sions of the Returning Officersregarding acceptance or rejec-tion of the nomination paperswould be 9th of next month.

Tribunals would decideappeals by 16th of nextmonth.Last date for with-drawal of candidature will be17th and revised list of can-didates would be publishedon 18th of next month.

The elections will be heldon 11th of May.—Online

prejudicial actions taken inpast had inflicted harm to thecountry instead of promotingharmony and brotherhood theEast Pakistan and the WestPakistan, such decisions weretaken that widened distancesbetween the two wings andultimately, the country brokeapart, argued Hussain. Les-sons were not learnt from thepast due to which the remain-ing country was also movingtowards disintegration, he re-gretfully asserted.

If the prejudicial policieswere not changed by taking les-sons from the past, it would behighly detrimental to the coun-try, he warned. The Co-or-dination Committee should in-form the people and the work-ers about the conspiracies be-ing hatched against the MQM.

The office-bearers andworkers of the MQM shouldbe informed that wicked planshad been devised to snatchthe public mandate of theMQM and it was their basicconstitutional and democratic

right to protest against this,directed Hussain.

He told the Co-Ordina-tion Committee, the people ofthe city, the workers andsympathisers of the MQMthat they should cling to thepillar of the party and stayunited and be prepared bothmentally and physically asthe days to come would bebitter, harsh and agonising.

On the other hand, theUrdu-speaking people ofKarachi and Hyderabad hadbeen caught in panic and un-rest had prevailed across theboard over the ECP’s an-nouncement for setting theeleven electoral constituenciesonce again. It was observedthat the situation could lead toany worst untoward situation.

It was also likely that theforces that had in recent pastdemanded the creation of aseparate province in Sindh forthe Mohajirs could also re-start the movement while thesources privy to the ongoingpolitical situation feared.

France confirms death of al-Qaeda chief Abou ZeidPARIS—The al-Qaida-linkedwarlord Abou Zeid was killedin combat with French-ledtroops in Mali in February,France said Saturday, endingweeks of uncertainty aboutwhether one of the group’sleading commanders in the re-gion was dead. In a statementSaturday the office of FrenchPresident Francois Hollandesaid the death was “defini-tively confirmed” and that thekilling “marks an importantstep in the fight against terror-ism in the Sahel.” C h a d ’ spresident had said earlier thismonth that Chadian troops

killed Abou Zeid while fight-ing to dislodge his al-Qaidaaffiliate in northern Mali.French officials have main-tained for weeks that the Al-gerian was “probably” deadbut waited to conduct DNAtests to verify.

Abdelhamid Abou Zeid,thought to be 47, was a pillarof the southern realm of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb,or AQIM, responsible for thedeath of at least two Europeanhostages and a leader of theextremist takeover of the north.

The French military movedinto Mali on Jan. 11 to push

back militants linked to him andothers who had imposed harshIslamic rule and who are seenas an international terroristthreat.

Abou Zeid was killed inoperations in the Adrar desIfoghas mountains in northernMali in late February, the state-ment from Hollande’s officesaid.

One analyst warned thatAbou Zeid’s death will notsignificantly weaken AQIM,as some analysts predict, andmay in fact lead to greaterunity among its factions.—A P

AUCKLAND: Steven Finn leads England off after equalling his best figures during New Zealand vs England 3rd Teston Saturday.

PESHAWAR: Player of Swat hit penalty against Mardan during Inter Region District Women’s Hockey Tournamentorganized by Director of Sports Women at PU ground.

AUCKLAND—Fast bowlerSteven Finn equalled his ca-reer best Test figures of sixfor 125 as England foughttheir way back into the de-ciding third Test against NewZealand at Eden Park on Sat-urday. At stumps on the sec-ond day, England were 50 fortwo, 393 runs in arrears afterdismissing New Zealand for443 soon after tea.

Finn, who in the morningsession claimed the prizedNew Zealand scalp of PeterFulton for 136, ripped out thetail taking the final four wick-ets in the space of 21 balls.England made an uncomfort-able start to their reply whenAlastair Cook was snappedup down the leg side bywicketkeeper BJ Watling offTrent Boult for four at thestart of the third over.

Jonathan Trott reached27 before he followed Cookback to the pavilion whenBoult beat him off the pitchto be leg before wicket andEngland were two for 44. NickCompton (12 not out) and IanBell (six not out) then took ano risk approach through tostumps with only six runsscored in the final nine overs.

While New Zealand hadreason to feel satisfied withtheir bowling, it was a disap-pointing end to the innings

after resuming the day at 250for one. The overnight pairof Fulton and KaneWilliamson added a further10 runs before the final ninewickets fell for 183 on aplacid wicket as Finnequalled his best figures ofsix for 125 set against Aus-tralia at Brisbane in 2010.

Wicketkeeper Matt Priorwas the other standout per-former for England, takingfive catches behind thestumps, including a spec-tacular one-handed divingeffort to remove Fulton. The34-year-old Fulton, whoposted his maiden Test cen-tury, was in the middle fornearly eight hours and fea-tured in a 181-run stand forthe second wicket withWilliamson (91).

However, New Zealandwill be disappointed no otherbatsman was able to reach ahalf century. Tim Southeemanaged 44 in a late cameothat included two sixes andfour fours, but his dismissalin the third over after tea trig-gered a rapid end to the in-nings as the last three wick-ets fell in four overs. Finnended sitting on a hattrickafter removing Watling (21)and Boult in successiveballs. England took threewickets in the morning ses-

sion starting with the removalof Williamson who was insight of his fourth Test cen-tury when he edged JamesAnderson to Prior.

Fulton’s marathon inningscame to an end at 136 whenhe whipped Finn down the legside only to see the athleticPrior just manage to get aglove to the ball and make thecatch stick. Former NewZealand captain Ross Taylorproduced a quick 19 before hewas caught and bowled togive Monty Panesar his onlywicket of the innings.

Brendon McCullum’sdismissal on the second ballhe faced was overturned onreview. Replays showed theball came off his pads, negat-ing England’s appeal forcaught behind, and that theball would have gone overmiddle stump, negating thesecondary appeal for lbw.From there McCullum (38)teamed up with DeanBrownlie (36) to add 68 forthe fifth wicket before bothfell before tea to end the onlyother New Zealand partner-ship of note.—AFP

New Zealand vs England 3rd Test

Finn’s career best keepsEngland in hunt

New Zealand 1st innings:PG Fulton b Finn .......... 136HD Rutherford b Finn ... 37Williamson b Anderson 91Taylor c & b Panesar ..... 19Brownlie b Anderson .... 36McCullum b Trott .......... 38Watling c Prior b Finn ... 21Southee c Prior b Finn ... 44Martin c Trott b Finn ..... 10N Wagner not out ............ 2Boult c Compton b Finn .. 0Extras (b 4, lb 4, nb 1) ...... 9Total (all out) ................ 443Fall of wickets 1-79, 2-260,3-289, 4-297, 5-365, 6-373, 7-424, 8-436, 9-443, 10-443Bowling ............ O-M-R–WJM Anderson ...... 30-8-79-2

SCJ Broad ............ 30-6-94-0ST Finn ........... 37.3-8-125-6MS Panesar ..... 47-17-123-1IJL Trott ................... 6-3-9-1JE Root .................... 2-1-5-0

England 1st innings:Cook c Watling b Boult ... 4NRD Compton not out .. 12IJL Trott lbw b Boult ..... 27IR Bell not out .................. 6Extras (w 1) ........................ 1Total (2 wickets) ............. 50Fall of wickets 1-8, 2-44Bowling ............. O-M-R-WTA Boult .............. 10-4-26-2TG Southee ........... 6-4-12-0N Wagner ................ 2-0-6-0BP Martin ................ 7-4-6-0

MIAMI—On a day when rainleft plenty of players waitingaround Maria Sharapovadidn’t waste any time in a 6-2,6-0 second-round victory overCanadian Eugenie Bouchardin the Miami ATP Masters andWTA tournament. Sharapova,seeded third even though hertriumph at Indian Wells lastweekend saw her jump fromthird to second in the worldrankings, needed less than anhour to subdue the 19-year-oldwild card.

Even a brief power outagethat halted the match as thefloodlights went out barelyslowed her.

“It was a bigger surprisethat it was all around the outercourts as well, not just the sta-dium,” she said of the outagethat plunged the court intodarkness.

In the end however, it wasjust a small hurdle on a daywhen a three-hour rain delayhad matches backing up. “Iwas just trying to find a quietcorner where I could just restand just wait it out,”Sharapova said of her ap-proach to the rain delay.

“I have been on the tourfor many years and I have beenpart of a few delays ... you haveto get out and just be ready,do a quick warmup, and beready for the match.”Sharapova next faces RussianElena Vesnina, a 6-4, 6-2 win-ner over Croatian Donna Vekic.

Victoria Azarenka, theAustralian Open championwho is seeded second, al-though she’s dropped to No.3 in the world rankings thisweek, withdrew before herscheduled second-roundmatch against US wild cardMadison Keys with a rightankle injury. The injury hadprompted Azarenka to pull outbefore her semi-final match lastweek at Indian Wells, but shehad held out hope she’d beable to play in Miami. “It wasreally obvious what the deci-sion was couple days ago al-ready,” Azarenka said. “I justwanted to give my 100 percent

possibility to play and todaywas my last test.”

Azarenka, who like all Mi-ami seeds received a first-round bye, is unbeaten oncourt this year, a 17-0 run thatincludes the Australian Openand a title in Doha. But she hastwice surrendered matches bywalkover, the first in Januaryat a Brisbane semi-final againstSerena Williams with an in-fected right toe that resultedfrom a pedicure.

“I feel like I’m in a goodtennis shape, not physicalshape right now,” saidAzarenka. “Even though Ididn’t feel very good physi-cally, I played well in IndianWells and still won threematches pretty good.”Azarenka was replaced in thedraw by lucky loser LaurenDavis, who made the most ofher opportunity with a 6-1, 5-7, 7-6 (9/7) victory over Keys.

Davis, 19, saved three

match points in the decidingtiebreaker. Ranked 81st, Davisadmitted she never expectedto even have the chance toplay after watching Azarenkawarm up in the morning. “I’mso ecstatically happy,” Davissaid. “I came here this morn-ing with like no hope left that Iwas going to get in, because Ihad seen Azarenka practicingand stuff, but I just hoped andI wished and I prayed that Iwould get in.”—AFP

Sharapova cruises through asAzarenka withdraws

KEY BISCAYNE: Maria Sharapova, of Russia serves to Eugenie Bouchard of Canadaduring the Sony Open tennis tournament.

KARACHI—Former NationalChampions Imran Shehzad,Muhammad Sajjad withAbdul Sattar and juniorcueist Hamza Akbar enteredthe semi-finals of Jubilee In-surance 38th NationalSnooker Championship afterwinning their quarter-finalmatches in contrasting fash-ions at Karachi GymkhanaBilliards Hall on Saturday.

Pakistan junior numberfour Hamza from Punjab re-covered from 1-2 down tobeat province-mate FarhanNoor 5-4 after an exciting andintriguing contest.

Former Asian numbertwo Muhammad Sajjadlooked in top form as herouted another former Na-tional Champion Shahid

Aftab 5-1 which included abreak of 53.

Imran Shahzad dropped

the opening frame beforebeating Abu Saim 5-3 whileAbdul Sattar was lone Sindhcueist to reach the last four

rounds by ending the finerun of play of Babar Masihwith a 5-2 victory.

In the best of 11-framesemi-finals on Sunday, AbdulSattar takes on ImranShahzad and MuhamadSajad faces rising cueistHamza Akbar.

Quarter-final results: ImranShehzad (Pjb) bt Abu Saim (Pjb)5-3 (49-55, 65-07, 54-42, 87-18,79-08, 55-58, 60-69, 57-39),Abdul Sattar (Sindh) bt BabarMasih (Pjb) 5-2 (67-34, 71-30,10-78, 70-37, 68-26, 42-61, 64-01),Muhammad Sajjad (Pjb) btShahid Aftab (Pjb) 5-1(67-20,75-05, 10-69, 68-08, 118-13, 58-09) Hamza Akber (Pjb) btFarhan Noor (Pjb) 5-4 (12-69, 88-60, 73-06, 59-73, 69-44, 32-67, 07-91, 59-58, 69-55).—APP

Hamza, Imran, Sattar, Sajjadin National Snooker semis

PESHAWAR—Peshawar andMardan setup final showdownafter registering victoriesagainst their respective rivalsin the ongoing KhyberPakhtunkhwa Inter-RegionWomen Hockey Champion-ship being played here at LalaAyub Hockey Stadium on Sat-urday. Peshawar defeatedBannu by 3-1 in a thrilling semi-final match while Mardan facedtough resistance in the secondsemi-final against Malakand asboth were stretched to penaltyshoot-out battle.

Peshawar and Bannu pro-vided great thrilling for the largenumber of spectators who re-sponded well with their cheer-ing hands, specially support-ing Peshawar. Peshawar joltedby Bannu when it took the leadthrough Naila on the field at-tempt. The winger Irum Khantravelled past two defendersfrom the center line and gave afree ball to unmarked Naila whodid nothing wrong in dispatch-ing the ball into the net. Aftertaking lead, Bannu put in morepressure to double the lead but

Peshawar’s goal-keeper Shaistaplayed well and did not allowthe Bannu strikers to score anygoal.

Peshawar on the otherhands managed their positionafter conceding the goal. Theirforwards comprising SanaLiaqat, Yusra, Sidra, Anum andHina played well and madesome fine inroads as a result itwas in the 33rd minute whenPeshawar succeeded in level-ing the tally 1-1 when Sidrasounded the board on a pen-alty corner rebound.—APP

Peshawar, Mardan to clash inInter-Region Women Hockey final

BENONI, South Africa—Beaten by New Zealand in theirprevious series, South Africaare in danger of losing back-to-back home two-team series forthe first time. They wereshoddy with the willow in thefourth one-day international inDurban and have lacked con-sistency at the key time.Toavoid a defeat in Sunday’sMatch, the selectors could re-place Rory Kleinveldt withKyle Abbott in the bowlingdepartment while Quinton deKock may usurp Graeme Smithwho has been useless, averag-ing 13.

It is Pakistan’s bowlingwhich has kept them in thisseries. Mohammad Irfan,Junaid Khan and Wahab Riazwere superb in Durban andthe tourists will hope for moreof the same. Irfan and Junaidtook three wickets each whileWahab was miserly, conced-ing 16 runs off four overs.

Because he bowled onlya short spell, however, wehave to wonder whether heis an injury doubt. Umar Gulcould replace him but he hasbeen struggling with aniggle himself. Sohail Tanvir,the left-armer, would be a

more than useful addition,however. Imran Farhat re-placed Nasir Jamshed lasttime and it was a fine call.

Willowmore Park is not oneof the most recognised inter-national venues but it hashosted 10 ODIs since 2006.The ground was redevelopedinto a world-class facility andextra pitches were laid to im-prove consistency. It has beenrewarded with plenty of action.South Africa captain GraemeSmith has been ruled out of thefinal one-day internationalagainst Pakistan because of anankle injury.—INP

Smith ruled out of final ODI

Pakistan chase rareseries win in South Africa

Hockey playerIrfan likely toface the axe

L A H O R E — D e f e n d e rMohammad Irfan is likely tobe ousted from the nationalhockey team for his irrespon-sible play in the recently con-cluded Azlan Shah Cup, inwhich Pakistan finished atthe bottom.

Sources told Dawn thathead coach Akhtar Rasool inhis report on the performanceof the national team had ex-pressed his surprise over theirresponsible play by Irfanduring the tournament, in-cluding scoring an own goalin the match against SouthKorea, which ended in 2-2draw.

Irfan, whose performancewas also not satisfactory atthe London Olympics, hadalso faced a disciplinary ac-tion when the head coachhad suspended him for sixmonths for not reporting backat the camp well on time afterattending a wedding cer-emony in the month of No-vember.

The camp was set up forthe Champions Trophypreparations, which was heldin Australia in December lastyear. But later, PHF presidentQasim Zia reduced the sus-pension period from sixmonths to just one month,enabling the defender to par-ticipate in the Asian Champi-ons Trophy which was heldin the last week of Decemberin Doha, Qatar. Meanwhile,the absence of two seniorplayers Rashid Mahmoodand Rizwan Senior from thetraining camp of Azlan ShahCup, is still a mystery.—APP

Pakistan signsdeal to lift cricket

in AfghanistanLAHORE—Pakistan signed anagreement o provide greatersupport for cricket in Afghani-stan by training players andstaff to help lift the sport in thewar-torn country. Cricket is fastovertaking football as the mostpopular sport in Afghanistanafter the 2001 US-led invasionbrought down the Taliban re-gime, with the national teamqualifying for back-to-backWorld Twenty20s in 2010 and2012.

The sport was introducedby Afghan refugees returningfrom cricket-mad Pakistan,where they fled following the1979 Soviet invasion. Afghani-stan became a member of theInternational Cricket Councilin 2001 and in 2009.—Online

2 devotees die inroad accidentHUB—At least two devoteeswere killed and more than 70 oth-ers injured when a bus carryingpilgrims turned turtle here onSaturday. According to rescuesources, an over speeding buscarrying devotees from Karachito Shah Noorani over turned dueto overloading in Hub area ofBalochistan near Shah NooraniMore. As a result of accident twopilgrims were killed on the spotand more than six dozens otherssustained wounds. The Edhi vol-unteers and rescue personnelreached the scene of the accidentand rushed the injured to Gov-ernment Hospital, Jam GhulamQadir where several injuredpeople with serious woundswere referred to Civil HospitalKarachi.—INP

ECP 400 teamsto monitor

polls process,campaigns

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The ElectionCommission of Pakistan (ECP)Saturday constituted 400 teamsto monitor election activities ofcandidates and election processin more than 1000 constituenciesof the National Assembly andprovincial assemblies.

According to the informationprovided to media by the ECP,officers of Grade 17 and aboveof the district administrations willbe heading the monitoring teams.

Each monitoring team willbe provided two video cameras,transport facility and security.Training workshops for the teamswill be held in divisional head-quarters from March 25 to 31 andthe provincial election commis-sioners and other higher officialswill impart training to them.The monitoring teams will reportto the district returning officialsand returning officers about theviolation of the Election Com-mission by-laws by the candi-dates and their supporters.

The reports of the teams willalso help in estimating the elec-tion campaign expenditures ofthe candidates.

Barozai takes oathas Balochistancaretaker CM

QU E T TA—Ghaus BakhshBarozai took oath of caretakerchief minister Balochistan,here on Saturday. BalochistanNawab Zulfiqar Magsi admin-istered the oath to Barozai.

Outgoing chief ministerAslam Raisani and some mem-bers of his cabinet were alsopresent on the occasion.

Barozai belongs to the Sibiarea of Balochistan.

His father, NawabMuhammad Khan Barozai,was the first speaker ofBalochistan Assembly in 1970,as well as the chief minister ofthe province in 1970s. Barozaiwas also a caretaker provincialminister in the previous care-taker government inBalochistan.—INP

Thunderboltclaims 3 FCmen’s lives

HANGU—Atleast three securitypersonals were killed while fivesustained severe injuries whena thunderbolt struck in the areaof Orakzai agency on Saturday.

According to media reports,three security personals weredeployed on duty in the area ofGodala located in OrakzaiAgency. Unfortunately the rainstarted with thunderstorm as aresult three security personalsdied on the spot while five oth-ers sustained severe injurieswhen a thunderbolt struck in thearea of Orakzai agency.

Later on, the injured person-als were shifted to hospital formedical aid.—Online

US reaffirmssupport for freepolls in Pakistan

WASHINGTON—The UnitedStates has reaffirmed its supportfor timely and free polls in Paki-stan following the landmarkcompletion of the constitutionalterm of the government.

The US State Departmentspokesperson Victoria Nuland ata briefing in Washington said thatwe look forward to timely, free,and fair elections that are goingto result in the first civilian, demo-cratic transition of power inPakistan’s history.

In response to a question, thespokesperson said it is up to thepeople of Pakistan to decide whotheir preventatives should be, ac-cording to their democratic pro-cess. In reply to a questionwhether the United States willsend any observers for the polls,she said we obviously will lookto the Government of Pakistanwith regard to any help or sup-port they might need.—Online

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—Punjab Chief Minis-ter Muhammad Shahbaz Sharifhas said that forthcoming generalelections are of extraordinary im-portance as the survival and fu-ture of the country depend uponthese elections.

He expressed the hope thatmasses through their votes wouldbring forward such an honest andsincere leadership as would trans-form Pakistan in accordance withthe vision of Quaid-e-Azam andAllama Iqbal.

He said that Pakistan is fac-ing serious challenges like terror-ism, loadshedding, corruption andeconomic crises and he believesthat Pakistan Muslim League-Nled by Muhammad Nawaz Sharifis the only political party which iscapable of resolving these prob-lems.

He was addressing separatemeetings of leaders and office-bearers of Pakistan MuslimLeague-N belonging to Toba TekSingh, Jhang, Chiniot, Hafizabad,Mandi Bahauddin, Narowal andSialkot districts at ModelTown,Saturday. Senior leaders ofPML-N were also present on theoccasion. The Chief Minister saidthat there is no doubt that peoplewant a real change and not emptyslogans and hollow claims. Hesaid that change and prosperitycan be brought about in the life ofthe people through solid measuresas have been adopted by Punjab

Country’s survival ,future depend uponelections: Shahbaz

government in the service of themasses during last five years.

He said that even the politi-cal opponents of the Punjab lead-ership have lauded the revolution-ary steps taken in education,health, employment and other sec-tors in the province due to whichthe living standard of the masseshas improved and they are ben-efitting from developmentprojects. He said that he canrightly claim that PML-N govern-ment has introduced a real changein Punjab.

He said the development ac-tivities, uplift projects and welfareprogrammes of the provincialgovernment have been widelyappreciated by the people.

LIAQAT TOOR

ISLAMABAD—Wishing wellfor Pakistan on successful run-ning of democratic process andthe forthcoming elections, In-dian High Commissioner toPakistan Sharat Sabharwal hassaid New Delhi wants cordialrelations with Pakistan but is-sue of terrorism should be re-solved affectively.

In a very calculated wayand using guarded languagewhile informally talking tomediamen during a dinnerhosted by him in honour of edi-tors, anchorpersons and seniorjournalists at his residencehere he said the governmentand the people of India arevery sensitive and concernabout acts of terrorism in In-dia.

The issue will continue toplague the smooth running be-tween both the neighbouringcountries.

Issue of terrorismplaguing Pak-India

ties: SabharwalIndian cricket team did not

visit because of security prob-lem in Pakistan.

Referring to visa regimesigned last year, he said it ismoving well except two cat-egories group and on arrivalvisas, which have some tech-nical and procedural snags.Otherwise, visas are beinggranted under the agreement tothe people including business-men, he said.

Sharat Sabharwal said hehad met politicians in Pakistanincluding PML-Q leaderNawaz Sharif. India will con-tinue its efforts to address is-sues with the next elected gov-ernment.

He said Election Commis-sion in India is independentand powerful. It can makechanges in administrative setup where it deems necessary.

Democratic values andnorms are deep rooted in In-dia, he said.

US lawmaker ties aid to Pakistan

with Afridi’s releaseWASHINGTON—A RepublicanSenator with presidential ambitionmoved an amendment on the Sen-ate floor to cut off all foreign aidto Pakistan until Shakeel Afridi, akey informant in the capture andkilling of Osama bin Laden, isreleased from prison. “Pakistan’sactions are unacceptable and notsuitable for any country wishingto receive a single dollar from UStaxpayers - especially consideringtheir country is one of the largestrecipients,” said Senator RandPaul, as he moved Amendment379, to Senate Con Res 8, theBudget Resolution. —Online

Free medicalcamp heldPESHAWAR—A four-day freemedical camp was organized byDirectorate of Health FATA atKalay, Orakzai Agency with aspecial team of doctors exam-ined 2347 patients. According todetail, the free medical campheld under the supervision ofprogram manager Dr. NiazAfridi wherein 2347 peoplewere provided free medicaltreatment besides conducting X-Ray and blood tests. The pa-tients were also referred to gen-eral hospitals as well and manyof them were provided freemedicines.—APP

Ijlal Haider Zaidipasses away

ISLAMABAD—Retired seniorbureaucrat Syed Ijlal HaiderZaidi died after protracted ill-ness in Lahore on Saturday.

According to media re-ports, Syed Ijlal Haider Zaidiwas 84.

Besides holding key posi-tions, he also served as Direc-tor General Radio Pakistan.—Online

24 inch gaspipeline blown up

SUI—A 24-inch diameter gaspipeline supplying gas toKarachi city from Sui area wasblown up with explosive devicein Gopit area here on Saturday.

The banned outfit Bloch Re-publican Army(BRA) hasclaimed responsibility in thisregard. —INP

FA/FSc examspostponedMINGORA—The Board of Inter-mediate and Secondary Educa-tion (BISE) has postponed theFA and FSc annual examinationtill May 15, owing to the gen-eral elections scheduled for May11 next. The examination wasscheduled for April 24, saidController of Examination BISESwat Syed Shahbuddin whiletalking to local reporters here onSaturday. He said that now theexams would commence fromMay 15, 2013 after the generalelections.—APP

Ramzan new NABspokespersonI S L A M A B A D — M u h a m m a dRamzan Sajid, a senior officerof the Federal Government hasbeen appointed spokesperson ofthe National Accounability Bu-reau (NAB) Ramzan Sajid with13-year experince as a publicrelations professional, has beenrecently posted Additional Direc-tor Media in the National Ac-countability Bureau (NAB) HQon deputation, said a press release.Prior to this posting, Sajid workedas spokesperson and DirectorPublic Relations, Capital Devel-opment Authority (CDA), foraround four years.—APP

QUETTA: Balochistan Governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi administering oath to caretaker Chief Minister Ghaus BuxBarozai.

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari shaking hand with Yang Jiechi, Foreign Minister of China, after conferring uponhim award of Hilal-i-Pakistan at the investiture ceremony held at Aiwan-e- Sadr.

BEIRUT—Syrian rebels on Sat-urday seized a major air defencebase in a strategic region in thesouth near the Jordanian border,the latest battlefield triumph forfighters seeking to topple Presi-dent Bashar Assad, activists said.

Fighters with a rebel groupactive in the south stormed andseized control of the base used bythe 38th Division after a 16-daysiege, according to a statementposted on websites of the groupknown as the Yarmouk MartyrsBrigade. The base near the villageof Saida is situated along the in-ternational highway linking theSyrian capital, Damascus, withJordan to the south.

Fighting in Syria’s southernprovinces bordering Jordan andIsrael has increased sharply in thepast few days. The Syrian Obser-vatory for Human Rights saiddozens of people, mostly opposi-tion fighters, were killed in heavyclashes this week in the Quneitra

region along the cease-fire linebetween Syria and Israel in theGolan Heights.

The Britain-based group,which relies on a network of ac-tivists on the ground, said it haddocumented the deaths of 35 op-position fighters and that contacthad been lost with more than 20others believed to have died in thefighting. Dozens of others werewounded, the group said.

The fighting in the area inten-sified midweek after rebels seizeda village and parts of other vil-lages, closing in on the strategicplateau that Israel captured fromSyria in 1967 and later annexed.

If the rebels take over theQuneitra region, it will bring radi-cal Islamic militants to a front linewith Israeli troops. The rebelforce comprises dozens of groups,including the powerful al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, which theObama administration labels a ter-rorist organization.—AP

Rebels seize air defencebase in southern Syria

President conferscivil‚ military awardsISLAMABAD—President AsifAli Zardari has conferred civil‚military awards on eve of Paki-stan Day celebrations on Satur-day. As per details, an investitureceremony was held at Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad to awardciviland military awards as part of thePakistan Day celebrations.

President Asif Ali Zardaridecorated the recipients. The cer-emony was attended among oth-ers by Prime Minister RajaPervez Ashraf‚ Chairman SenateSyed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari‚Speaker National Assembly Dr.Fehmida Mirza‚ former membersof the Federal Cabinet‚ Senators‚services chiefs‚ foreign diplo-mats and senior civil and mili-tary officials. Major Mujahid Aliwas awarded posthumous Sitara-e-Jurrat.

Recipients of Nishan-e-Imtiaz included Saadat HassanManto‚ late Mehdi Hassan‚ lateMunir Ahmad Khan‚Muhammad Irfan Burney‚Sherry Rehman and Dr. AsimHussain. Hilal-e-Imtiaz wasgiven to late Fauzia Wahab‚Ansar Burney‚ Abida Parveen‚late Josh Malih Abadi‚ AnsarParvez‚ Ahmad Chinnoy‚ AnwarMaqsood‚ Fatima SurriyaBajiya‚ Masood Khan‚ Major-General Ahmad Bilal‚ ZiaMohiuddin‚ Khalid Abbas Dar‚Hamid Mir‚ late Abdul HafeezKardar and late Fazal Mahmood.Sitara-e-Shujaat was awarded toMaulana Hassan Jan Shaheed.—Online

ISLAMABAD—A delegation com-prising of Shia Ulema, headedby Allama Sajid Hussain Naqvi,Saturday, called on PresidentAsif Ali Zardari at Aiwan-e-Sadr. The delegation includedShabbir Mesmi, RamzanToqeer, Wazarat Hussain Naqvi,Aarif Wahidi and AllamaMazhar Abbas.

Syed Khursheed AhmedShah, Ms. Shehla Raza and Ms.Mehreen Anwar Raja were alsopresent during the meeting.

Spokesperson to the Presi-dent Senator Farhatullah Babarsaid that during the meeting thePresident while emphasizingupon the need for greater effortsto promote interfaith harmony

President for greater efforts topromote interfaith harmony

said that the religious leaders,scholars and Ulema have a criti-cal role in promoting inter-faithdialogue and religious harmony.He said that it was disturbing tosee that the values of toleranceand harmony were fast erodingduring the present times.

The extremists, the Presi-dent said, have destroyed thepeace of the society in the nameof religion and added that theextremist mindset was not con-fined to any one religion orcountry. It was growing theworld over and was an alarm-ing trend. The Spokespersonsaid that the President also reaf-firmed the resolve of the Gov-ernment to continue fighting

against the forces of extremismand religious bigotry by promot-ing democratic values of recon-ciliation, tolerance and dialogueand by propagating message ofpeace and harmony.

He reiterated that the Gov-ernment would continue to un-dertake every effort for the pro-tection of the vulnerable sec-tions of the society and that noone would be allowed to mis-use the name of the religion fortheir vested interests.

The Ulema thanked thePresident for meeting and as-sured their continued support tothe efforts aimed at promotinginter-faith harmony and protec-tion of the vulnerable.—Online

ANP’s manifestotodayPESHAWAR—Awami NationalParty (ANP) has finalized itsparty manifesto in connectionwith upcoming polls whichwould be announced today(Sunday, March 24). Sources inANP told Online that the slo-gan of peace and prosperity isat the top of its manifesto whileenergy crisis including windenergy projects and unemploy-ment were inculcated in themanifesto. Meanwhile, indus-trial development, independentforeign policy, cordial andfriendly relations with allneighboring countries and pro-vision of accessible educationto the poverty stricken masseswere part of the manifestomolded by the think tanks ofANP. —Online

EXPERTS fear older women are ditchingcontraception in the mistaken belief that

they cannot get pregnant past a certain age.The Family Planning Association (FPA) be-lieves the message on infertility and age hasgone “too far”.

Although fertility doeswane, women can still fallpregnant well into their thir-ties, forties and even fifties.Abortion rates for womenaged 40 to 44 match thosefor the under 16s, figures forEngland and Wales show. In2008, both of these groupshad an abortion rate of fourper 1,000 women.

There are many reasonswhy some women opt for anabortion - including birthabnormalities in the baby,which are more commonwhen the mothers are older.But FPA says its anecdotalevidence suggests some ofthe abortions are becausewomen wrongly assumed they could not getpregnant because they were too old.

Aimed at women aged 35 and over, theFPA’s new campaign ‘Conceivable?’ remindswomen to stay vigilant about unplanned preg-nancy and to keep using contraception untilafter the menopause if they do not wish tobecome pregnant.

Chief executive of the FPA Julie Bentleysaid: “Whilst the message about fertility de-clining with age is an important one, it is of-ten overplayed, alongside disproportionatemessaging about unplanned teenage pregnan-cies. “It sends an inaccurate message towomen and society that only the young fall

pregnant and is leading older women to be-lieve their fertility has gone long before itactually has.”

She said women should realise it is en-tirely conceivable that just one night of un-

protected sex in your late 30s,40s and even 50s can end inan unplanned pregnancy. “Ourhelpline receives calls fromsuch women, shocked this hashappened to them.

“They thought their agewould protect them from be-coming pregnant.” She said ingeneral all methods of contra-ception were suitable for theover-35s.

Women aged 30 to 34continue to have the highestfertility rate - 113.1 live birthsper 1,000 women. But the rateamong women aged 40 andover has more than doubledsince 1988, from 5.1 to 12.6per 1,000 women, and therewere more than 26,000 live

births to women in this age group in 2008,figures from the Office for National Statis-tics show.

Emily James of Marie Stopes Interna-tional said: “Many older women facing anunplanned pregnancy are completelyshocked to find themselves in this position -many assume that their irregular periods aredue to menopause, and are surprised to learnthat they are in fact pregnant.

“It is vital that women of all ages areprovided with the information, support andadvice they need when deciding whetheror not to continue with an unplanned preg-nancy.”

Unplanned pregnancy warningto older women over 35

ISLAMABAD: Police band presenting national songs during a ceremony to celebrate Pakistan Day, organized by Nazriya Pakistan Council (Trust) atAiwan-e-Quaid.—PO photo Sultan Bashir

ISLAMABAD: Children of Pakistan Sweet Homes participating in a peace walk to markthe Pakistan Day celebrations.

CITY REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—In connectionwith Pakistan Day celebrationsand Jashn-e-Nowruz,Rawalpindi Arts Council(RAC) on Saturday organizedFestival and an exhibition show-casing photographs of PakistanMovement.

Stalls depicting culture ofall federating unites and Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan, and othercountries including Turkey,Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan,Uzbekistan and Cyprus were setup in the lawns of the Councilas part of Nowruz Festival thatwas organized with the collabo-ration of The Diplomatic In-sight. The main objective of thefestival was to exchange culturewith nations that celebrateNowruz Festival.

Besides a large number ofthe people from all walks, am-bassadors and diplomats of vari-ous countries also attended thefestival.Folk singer QurbanNiazi and his companions, andlocal bands of Rawalpindi and

Islamabad also performed on theoccasion. Besides cultural stallsof various countries, stalls of thePunjab Tourism Development

Corporation, woodcraft works,calligraphy, truck art, embroideryand others were also set up.

Naheed Manzoor, flanked by

diplomats from Turkey, Iran, Af-ghanistan, Azerbaijan,Uzbekistan and Cyprus, andRAC Resident Director Waqar

Ahmed inaugurated the festival,while Muhammad Asif Noor,Chief Editor The DiplomaticInsight and Khalid Zia Siddiquecontributed a lot to make theevent success. At Nowruz fes-tival, Naheed Manzoor saidNowruz Festival marks the be-ginning of the spring season,and Rawalpindi Arts Councilhas utilized this opportunity topresent cultures of differentnations at one place.

She said Pakistani culture,and art and crafts have pre-sented thoroughly for foreigndelegates and the local public.

PML-N leader ShahidKhaqan Abbasi inaugurated thephoto exhibition based on Pa-kistan Movement, which show-cased over 75 photographs.

Speaking on the occasion,he said the photo exhibition haspresented a complete history ofPakistan movement. He saidphotographs have been taken soskillfully and preserved soproperly that one feels witness-ing images of Pakistan Move-ment from their own eyes.

Colourful Nowruz festival at RAC

RAWALPINDI: Visitors taking interest in items displayed during an exhibition at Arts Coun-cil in connection with Nowruz Festival.

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Lok Virsa (Na-tional Institute of Folk and Tra-ditional Heritage) and Ministry ofNational Heritage and Integrationcelebrated Pakistan Day with agreat fervour and festivity here atShakaparian.

In this regard, a specialprogramme was organized at thePakistan Monument Museum,where a group of students of lo-cal school sang national songsalong with folk artist Javed Niazi.Their performances were highlyappreciated by the visitors.

In order to attract maximumnumber of visitors for joining inthe celebrations, free entry wasallowed by the management onthe day. A cake cutting ceremonyalso took place at the MonumentMuseum which was performedby Joint Secretary of the NationalHeritage Ministry MashoodMirza. Pakistan National Mu-seum of Ethnology, popularly

known as Heritage Museum,also remained open for publicthroughout the day and enter-tained a huge number of visitors.

Talking to newsmen, Execu-tive Director Lok Virssa KhalidJavaid said, “this year we spe-cially invited school children toparticipate in our programmeswith a view to inculcate aware-ness among them about our richcultural heritatge.” This idea wasconceived by Asaf Ghafoor, Fed-eral Secretary, Ministry of Na-tional Heritage and Integrationkeeping in mind the educationalpotential of Lok Virsa’s facilitiesfor the benefit of young genera-tions, he maintained.

He further added that Paki-stani culture is diverse but it hasunity in it. This unity in diver-sity needs to be explained to ourchildren through cultural activi-ties and folkloric expressions.Lok Virsa is trying to impart andcommunicate the characteristicsof the Pakistani folklore with the

objective to raise awareness levelof school children about theirown culture and to develop theirinterest in a broader perspective,he said. “We believe that childrenneed exposure to the world out-side their immediate and localenvirons. Lack of opportunitiesand remoteness prevents themfrom stepping out of their localenvirons and see the worldaround.” Feeling this require-ment in mind and to achieve theseobjectives, Lok Virsa has alsolaunched a full fledged project onestablishment of Children’s Folk-lore Society under which eightsocieties have already been set upin remotest parts of Sindh,Balochistan and KhyberPakhtunkwa provinces, he added.

A large number of residentsof twin cities of Islamabad andRawalpindi, in particular stu-dents, youth and families visitedLok Virsa facilities and appreci-ated the activities presented bythe organizers.

Pakistan Day celebrations

Great fervour andfestivity at Shakarparian

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Zhang YiungPao, Cultural Counselor of Chinain Pakistan called on Prof. Dr.Ahmad Yousif Al-Draiweesh,President International IslamicUniversity, Islamabad (IIUI).

On his arrival Prof DrAhmad Yousif warmly wel-comed the distinguished guestand exchanged views on mat-ters of mutual interests and also

discussed need for cooperationin the areas of research and edu-cation between IIUI and Uni-versities of China and SaudiArabia.

While talking on the occa-sion Dr Al-Draiweesh said thatabout 600 male and female Chi-nese students are studying in thisuniversity and are getting qual-ity education of Islamic as wellas modern sciences. He in-formed that IIU wants to estab-

lish “Chinese Language Depart-ment” in the university and ini-tially one year diploma programof Chinese Language will beintroduced and services of twosenior teachers will also be hiredfrom China, later on the saidprogramme will be upgraded upto graduation level.

Zhang Yiung Pao assuredfull cooperation regarding estab-lishment of said department inthe university.

IIUI to establish ChineseLanguage Department

RAWALPINDI—With the start ofnew educational year, privateschools and colleges of twin cit-ies of Islamabad and Rawalpindihave increased fees beyond thereach of parents and putting themin a fix whether to continue thestudy of their children in theseinstitutions.

Moreover, rise in the pricesof books and stationary hasadded to the miseries of the par-ents.

Expressing their concernsover the issue, the parents saidthat the administrations of pri-vate educational institutionshave increased tuition fee inthousands by minting hugemoney in the name of securityfee, laboratory fee, computer labfee etc.

They said they have to paynot only the fees on the start of

every educational year but alsospend huge money on books,notebooks and stationary. Theysaid that the private schools andcolleges receive commission onbooks from stationary shops andrefer the students to the specificshops, resulting in rise in station-ary and books prices.

Furthermore, the parentssaid, this year the shopkeepershave increased prices of booksand stationary up to 20 to50 per-cent. This situation created finan-cial problems for them, theyadded.Parents sending their twoto three children in these institu-tions are highly disturbed as theysay that in addition to monthlyfee, and books and stationary, theinstitutions are charging in thou-sands under different heads.

The parents appealed to theChief Justice of Supreme Court

of Pakistan to order the forma-tion of an authority to regulatethe fees and other matters of theprivate education institutionspointing out that the owners ofthese institutions are in leaguewith the bureaucracy and politi-cal government, who never takenotice of the highhandedness.

Meanwhile, office bearers ofPrivate Schools ManagementAssociation said that they had toincrease the fees keeping in viewthe current inflation rate. Theysaid that increasing rents of build-ings and inflation with everypassing year were making it dif-ficult to run the schools.

Parents on the other hand saythat due to heavy profit, theseinstitutions increase the numberof their branches but the facili-ties extended in return are negli-gible.—INP

Parents decry massive increasein fee by private institutions

CRIME REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Shalimar Policehave arrested 9 including fourwomen during raids at guesthouses recovering bottles ofwines from their possession, a

police spokesman said on Sat-urday

On the tip of Station houseofficer police station Shalimarinspector Ghulam MuhammadBaqir and ASI Mumtaz alongwith police team raided a guesthouse in sector F-11/3 and ar-rested 9 accuse including fourwomen namely MuhammadKhalid, Usman, AhmadAbdullah, Junaid, Usman Shazad,lady accused Saima bibi, Amanabibi, Sajida bibi and Ineela bibi

involved immoral activities. Thepolice team recovered five liquorbottles from their possession.

Cases have been registeredagainst all the arrested suspectsunder relevant sections of lawand further investigation is un-derway.

Besides appreciating the per-formance of police, the SSPIslamabad Yaseen Farooq has di-rected all police officials to ensureeffective policing to curb crimi-nal and anti-social elements.

Nine arrested duringraids on guest houses

Enchantingperformance byPolice band at

Aiwan-e-QuaidSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—In connectionwith the weeklong Pakistan Daycelebrations, the Nazriya-i-Paki-stan Council arranged a beauti-ful and enchanting display ofpatriotic music played by theIslamabad Police band at Aiwan-i-Quaid, Fatima Jinnah Park.

For about two hours, theband enthralled the audiencecomprising of students, familiesand a group of FC personnel de-puted in the capital city by play-ing tunes of popular nationalsongs such as Sohni Dharti,Jevay Jevay Pakistan, Ay WatanPak Watan and Iss Perchum KaySaae Talay etc. The display wasso well received by the audiencethat some of them kept on danc-ing on the beats of these songswhile many chanted the slogansof Pakistan Zindabad to expresstheir love for the country.

Apart from the Police banddisplay, the event also featuredscreening of documentaries onPakistan movements arrangedby NPC in collaboration withthe directorate of electronic me-dia and publications, GOP.

This event went on for threedays starting form 21st March2013, in the Aiwan-i-Quaid au-ditorium commemorating thehistorical events of the Pakistanmovement. The celebrationswill be concluded on 27th March2013, with a grand annual goldmedal ceremony and NationalSeminar to be presided over bythe eminent scientist and scholarDr Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Out oforder signals

ISLAMABAD—The dysfunc-tional traffic signals are creatingenormous problems for the com-muters of the capital city whiletraffic wardens deployed at thesesignals allow each side to go ac-cording to their own will with-out taking care of time whichcauses traffic jams.

Due to the load-sheddingmost of the signals in the cityoften remains dysfunctional,whereas at some signals wardenof the Islamabad traffic police(ITP) are deployed while thereare no personnel’s deployed atmost of the signal to controlheavy flow of traffic.

Rehan Abbasi, one of thecommuters said that the longqueues on traffic signals alsocausing inconvenience for ambu-lances, because it was not pos-sible for ambulance and otheremergency vehicles to rushthrough the heavy traffic.

Another commuter said thatit is not possible for one wardento control the heavy flow of traf-fic and suggested that it is nec-essary to deploy at least three tofour personnel’s at each sig-nal.—Online

The only limits are, asalways, those of vision.

— James Broughton

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Earth Hourprovides an opportunity to theresponsible organizations tothink again on ways to reducethe environmental footprint bytaking proactive steps to saveour planet. Engro believes intraining the employees andpublic at large for their respon-sibility to reduce the carbonfootprint and providing ahealthy & better life to the next

Engro launches campaign to save environmentgenerations.

Earth Hour is a global ini-tiative led by WWF. Individu-als, businesses, governmentsand communities have been in-vited to turn out their lights forone hour on Saturday, 23rdMarch 2012 at 8:30pm for anhour to show their support forenvironmentally sustainable ac-tion. The event began in Sydneyin 2007, when two millionpeople switched off their lights.Later, Earth Hour had created

history as the largest voluntaryaction ever witnessed with par-ticipation across 135 countries,including the world’s most rec-ognized man-made marvels andnatural wonders in a landmarkenvironmental action. It alsomarked the start of somethingnew – going Beyond the Hourto commit to lasting action onclimate change.

To commemorate the occa-sion Engro launched yet anotherinnovative campaign to drive

awareness into action themed as“One Planet – One Future”. Thecampaign was aimed at raisingthe awareness level of employ-ees as well as others with apledge that they will not onlyactively participate in the earthhour activity but will also gobeyond and make energy con-servation a part of their dailylives and undertake sustainableenvironmental actions that go‘beyond the hour’ to preserveand protect the planet.

Since its certification,Engro’s Green Office Initiativehas advocated a culture of en-vironmental responsibility sothat our employees adhere tothe strictest standards and eth-ics with regards to environ-mental protection, in turn re-ducing the effects of globalwarming and increased carbonfootprint.

As a result of our efforts weable to reduce our electricityconsumption and registered a

27% conservation of electricityagainst the baseline in 2012.Similarly, a 32% decrease inpaper usage and 52% reductionin waste against baselinebenchmarks were also wit-nessed. These reductions re-sulted in a 31% reduction in ourcarbon footprint at the head of-fice level.

Engro Corporation and itsassociated Companies embarkedupon a novel campaign to raiseawareness of Earth Hour through

a roadshow at their head officeunder the Green Office Initia-tive led by Wajid HussainJunejo in a step to show soli-darity with the global activityto showcase support for climatechange and reduce environmen-tal footprint under WWF um-brella. Through the EarthHour and related eventsEngro aims to play its role increation of an environmen-tally aware society for a bet-ter and brighter tomorrow.

DUBAI—The UAE will host theAnnual Meeting of Arab FinancialInstitutions and Fourth Meeting ofthe Council of Arab Ministers onthe 2nd and 3rd of April, in Dubai.The event will take place under thepatronage of His Highness ShaikhMohammed bin Rashid AlMaktoum, Vice-President andPrime Minister of the UAE andRuler of Dubai.

The Annual Meeting of ArabFinancial Institutions will be at-tended by representatives of ArabFund for Economic and SocialDevelopment, Arab MonetaryFund and Arab Investment and

UAE to host annual meetingof Arab Financial Institutions

Export Credit Guarantee, ArabAuthority for Agricultural Invest-ment and Development, ArabBank for Economic Developmentin Africa along with the participa-tion of Their Excellencies the Min-isters of Finance and Central BankGovernors as well as general di-rectors of Arab finance institutionsand a number of regional and in-ternational observers and delegates,as the meetings are expected tohave over 300 attendees.

On the sidelines of the annualmeetings of the Arab FinancialInstitutions, the Fourth Meetingof the Council of Arab Ministers

of Finance will be held to addressseveral issues, including mecha-nisms to strengthen mutual co-ordination on fiscal policyamongst Arab countries to facethe economic and financial de-velopments, and to unify posi-tions in international forums andmeetings, as well as manage ef-forts in strengthening inter-Arabinvestments and financial flowsto and from the Arab countries.

The meetings will also includethe reports submitted on followingup the UAE Initiative in terms ofeconomic development of the Arabcountries.—Agencies

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Central DepositoryCompany of Pakistan Limited(CDC) has si gned a Memoran-dum of Understanding (MoU)with Life Insurance and Takafulcompanies of the country toimplement a Centralized Infor-mation Sharing Solution for In-surance Industry (CISSII).

The signing ceremonywas held at CDC House,which was attended amongothers by senior officials ofCDC, life insurance compa-nies and SECP.

On this occasion, Chair-man State Life Insurances Cor-poration of Pakistan ShahidAziz Siddiqi, CEO CDCMohammad Hanif Jakhura andCommissioner Insurance Divi-sion - SECP Mohammad AsifArif were also present. The lifeinsurance companies signedMoU with CDC include State

Centralized implementing informationsharing solution MoU signed

Life Insurance Corporation ofPakistan, EFU Life Assurance,Jubilee Life Insurance Com-pany, MetLife Alico Pakistan,Adamjee Life Insurance Com-pany, Pak-Qatar FamilyTakaful and Dawood FamilyTakaful Ltd.

During the ceremony allcompanies agreed in principlethat a Centralized InformationSharing Solution for the Insur-ance Industry (CISSII) shouldbe developed to bring ingreater efficiencies and trans-parency in the industry forsharing of critical informationto reduce fraudulent practicesdamaging the insurance indus-try in general and insurancecompanies in particular.Shahid Aziz Siddiqi, ChairmanState Life Insurance Corpora-tion of Pakistan said thatCISSII is a first step towardsmitigating risks and screeningof bogus claims.

All information aboutfraudulent and bogus claimswould be made available throughCentralized Information SharingSolution for Insurance Industry(CISSII) for signatory insuranceand takaful companies in orderto mitigate risks of fraudulentclaims, he said, adding that simi-lar kind of project has been run-ning in India and other countries.Exchange of information be-tween companies would also dis-courage bogus insurance agents,he added.

Central Depository Com-pany has been entrusted by Se-curities and Exchange of Paki-stan (SECP) to undertake andimplement a Centralized Infor-mation Sharing Solution for In-surance Industry (CISSII) aspart of the plan to develop acomprehensive roadmap to pro-mote a financially sound andtechnologically efficient insur-ance industry in Pakistan.

Shafqat Sultana, President First Women Bank presiding over a meeting of Board of Direc-tor of the Bank.

Nauman Dar, President and CEO HBL, Faiq Sadiq, Head-Payment Services HBL, Akkas-ul-Hussaini, Divisional Head ofFinance, Metro-Habib Cash and Carry and Bouzeneth, Benouda, Managing Director, Metro-Habib Cash and Carry atsigning ceremony.

Atif R Bokhari, President & CEO, UBL, Mushtaq Chhapra, Chairman TCF along withother senior executives at UBL-TCF ceremony.

Ijara Sukuktarget set

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—A target of Rs 43billion has been set for auctionof Ijara Sukuk during the thirdquarter of current fiscal year(2012-2013).

Tender for Sale of 3-YearGovernment of Pakistan IjaraSukuk (GIS) has been invitedby the Director, DomesticMarkets & Monetary Manage-ment Department (DMMD),State Bank of Pakistan,Karachi from the designatedPrimary Dealers in accor-dance with the provisions ofDMMD circular No.05 dated22nd March, 2013.

Under this auction a tar-get of Rs 43 billion has set forsale of Ijara Sukuk.

Tenders will be receivedup to 11:15 hours on March26, 2013 and opened the sameday at 11:30 hours. State Bankof Pakistan has made it clearthat single or all bids can berejected without assigningany reason.

STAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—To mark theWorld Water Day, differentorganisations, public and pri-vate sector entities held semi-nars and special function tohighlight significance of richwater reservoirs in the coun-try.

The Department of WaterManagement, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa University ofAgriculture, Peshawar,organised a seminar to observethe Day. Former Chief Secre-tary, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,Khalid Aziz was the ChiefGuest on the occasion. On theoccasion, the departmentChairman, Prof Dr Jamal

Construction of dams forirrigation, energy needs stressed

Khan, Prof Dr Munir Khan,Rizwan Ahmad and Chief Plan-ning Officer, Ahmad Saeed, fac-ulty members and a large num-ber of students were present.

Dr Jamal Khan, whilespeaking on the occasion, ex-plained about the differentsources of water, stressed theneed for provision of clean wa-ter in the country. If we can con-sume water resources throughproper planning, it would com-plete our growing needs of wa-ter in future, he viewed.

He informed that the watertable graph had been consider-ably down due to natural andman-made disasters. Most of thepopulation is compelled to con-sume contaminated water in the

present situation, he added.Other speakers, including Dr

Gulzar, Dr Tahir Sarwar, AhmadSaeed, Rizwan Khan, high-lighted several proposals andsuggestions for making consum-able various sources of water.They stressed the need for properplanning for fully utilisation ofabundant water reservoirs in thecountry. The speakers said thatthe water needed for irrigation,and energy would be fulfilled byconstruction of different damsunder the comprehensive plan-ning.

Khalid Aziz, while ad-dressing as chief guest at theseminar said that the water ina huge quantity is wasted dueto negligence of people.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The Board ofDirectors of the Overseas Pri-vate Investment Corporation(OPIC) has approved a total of$288 million in financing fortwo Wind Power Projects poisedto deliver much-needed electric-ity to Pakistan and Peru.

According to a statementissued on Saturday by AlternateEnergy development board(AEDB) it is stated that OPICPresident and CEO Elizabeth L.Littlefield said OPIC it wouldhelp diversify its energy produc-tion to include important contri-butions from renewable energysources.

“The wind power projectswill enable both countries totake advantage of their massiverenewable energy potential tohelp meet unmet demand forelectricity,” Littlefield contin-ued.

“We are thrilled to partnerwith innovative U.S. companies

$288m approved forwind power generation

to bring these highly-develop-mental projects to realization.“The provision of clean and re-liable electricity is an essentialbuilding block of any economy,”she added.

The OPIC credit facilitywould help build a 50 MW windpower plant in Gharo-KettiBandar Wind Corridor, designedto generate 133 Giga Watt hoursof emission-free electricity an-nually.

Using GE Wind turbines, theSapphire Wind Power plantwould help Pakistan diversify itspower generation beyond reli-ance on high-priced fuel oil bytapping vast renewable energypotential, which the Corridoralone possesses generation ca-pacity of over 132,000 MW- vir-tually equal to the world’s entireinstalled wind capacity for 2010.

Private Sector has been trig-gered to invest in Wind Power.Currently, 45 Wind PowerProjects of around 3200 MWcapacity are under process, said

the CEO of AEDB ArifAllaudin.

Two projects of 49.5 MWand 56 MW (106 MW) belong-ing to M/s FFC Energy Limitedand M/s Zorlu Enerji Pakistanhave already been completed atJhampir while another threeprojects namely Three GorgesFirst Wind Farm Pakistan Ltd.,Foundation Wind Energy-I Ltdand Foundation Wind Energy -IIPvt. Ltd are under construction.

Talking about the OPIC fi-nancing the CEO AEDB, Mr. ArifAlauddin stated that he has beentrying for opic funding for Paki-stan projects for some time, and isglad to see it coming now. OPIC isalready funding a SSJD Energy’s12 MW Baggass based RenewableEnergy Project in Pakistan. In theWind Sector, following Sapphire,Fina Energy of Turkey is the nextproject in the OPIC pipeline forPakistan. CEO AEDB also statedthat RE has already become thesector attracting the largest invest-ment of any sector in the country.

Developmentprojects droppedStaff ReporterKARACHI—Several develop-ment projects were shelvedafter the Sindh governmentfailed to make up its mind onthe local government system,sources said. They said that thefrequent introduction andrepealing of new localgovernment systems in thecity, apparently for gainingpolitical mileage, also createdreservations among globalinvestors, hurting variousuplift projects. Besides, theysaid, employees of relevantdepartments also remainedunpaid for two months, addingthat changes in local govern-ment systems also perplexedofficials of Karachi Metropoli-tan Corporation, who were stillclueless regarding their actualworking parameters. TheSindh Assembly adopted theSindh People Local Govern-ment Ordinance (SPLGO) of2012 in last year after longdeliberations between majorcoalition partners in the Sindhgovernment. But after a veryshot time the Sindh Assemblyagain reversed the SPLGO2012 in February this year,restoring the Local Govern-ment Act of 1979.

KBP observes WorldWater Day as black dayStaff ReporterLAHORE—Kisan BoardPakistan (KBP) observed theWorld Water Day as BlackDay against the Indian wateraggression against Pakistanand cold attitude of thegovernment in tackling thisissue and giving no attentiontowards construction ofKalabagh Dam. Speaking at agathering of growers, KBPPresident Sardar ZafarHussein Khan and GeneralSecretary Malik MuhammadRamzan Rohari claimed thatincreasing water crisisaround the globe was due towater aggression of differentcountries. He said this crisiswas affecting 3.2 billionpeople directly throughoutthe world. They said thiswater aggression mightresult in another world war,adding that next target ofworld powers would betaking possession of waterafter capturing oil producingregions. They said Pakistanwas also facing gravesituation due to wateraggression, adding thatdespite having hydraulicsystem of six rivers inPakistan it had beendeprived of water of threerivers completely.

New internetprotocolABU DHABI—The IPv6project is the initiativechampioned by the Telecom-munications RegulatoryAuthority (TRA) as a means toprepare the UAE and itsinternet stakeholders for thelooming IPv4 depletion andensure business continuity.The UAE IPv6 Project aims todevise a National IPv6 Policy,Strategy and Implementationplan to be followed by anImplementation Phase tosecuring the healthy levels ofgrowth in the UAE’s ICTsector and preserving its rolein economic and socialdevelopment. The 2nd IPv6workshop on 19th and 20th ofMarch comes as part of theIPv6 strategic project handledby TRA. Last year, an intro-workshop was held by TRAand attended by governmentand private entities to explainthe importance of their rolesthroughout the UAE IPv6project. The 2nd workshopwill prepare governmentdepartments and a range ofprivate bodies for theinevitable transition to IPv6and will focus on the need toincorporate the new InternetProtocol (IP) into theirnetworks, applications andservices.—Agencies

Mango exportsto Japanese

marketSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Pakistani Mangocommercial shipments expectedto reach in Japan in the comingsummer said CEO HarvestTradings, Ahmad Jawad on Sat-urday.

As the Japanese governmenthas already approved the qual-ity of Pakistani mangoes whichare superior in taste and have thepotential of giving a tough com-petition to Indian mangoeswhich are already there in thatmarket.

Jawad said the VHT plantswill be installed in Karachi andMultan and are expected to beimported from Japan by March2013. With the investment ofat least Rs 250 million, theconcerned authorities herehave already approved pro-curement of the plant espe-cially for Multan district, thehub of mangoes.

These plants will processat least 15,000 kilogram or 15tones mango daily. VapourHeat Treatment System useshot saturated water vapour toheat the fruit slowly, treatingpossible fruit flies.

In this regard country mayexport around $4-5 million man-goes to Japan subject to instal-lation on time and meet the laiddown requirements.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—There exists a greatdeal of potential to enhance thebilateral trade between the Re-public of Korea and Pakistan.

This was stated by the Con-sul General of the Republic ofKorea in Karachi, Chang-heeLee. He said this while inaugu-rating a ‘Basant’ festival at aposh hotel here on Friday.

Immense Pak, Korea tradepotential exists

The Consul General saidthat his efforts would be to fur-ther increase the bilateral tradebetween the two countries fromits present level of dollars 1.6billion. He said that he would dohis best for further promotingthe friendly relations betweenthe Republic of Korea and Pa-kistan.

The Consul General furthersaid that he enjoyed attending

the ‘Basant’ festival. A numberof stalls were set up to depict theculture of various areas.

Chang-hee Lee visited thestalls and evinced keen interestin the exhibits on display. TheGeneral Manager of the poshhotel, Muhammad AzeemQureshi, said that holding of theevent was enabling theKarachiites to mark Basant andenjoy traditional foods.

Shipping activityat Port Qasim

KARACHI—Two ships arrivedat the port to load/ offload con-tainers at QICT, palm oil atMW-1 on Friday, port sourcessaid here Saturday.

Berth occupancy was 64%at the Port on Friday where atotal of nine ships namely M.VKPS-I Alican Bey-Powership,M.T Chem Road Nova, M.TArgent Bloom, M.T Dong-A-Iris, M.V Michaelas, M.VNedlloyd Drake, M.V CapeFlores, M.V Union Mariner, andM.V Recon Emere are currentlyoccupying berths to load/offload containers, palm oil,canola seed and wheat.

Cargo handling operationswere carried out smoothly at thePort where a cargo volume47930 tonnes comprising 34415tonnes import, 13515 tonnesexports and (14227) Tues washandled at the Port during last24 hours.

M.V Michael-S, M.T Dong-A-Iris sailed on Friday, after-noon M.V Nedlloyd Drake, M.TChem Road Nova sailed on Sat-urday morning.

M.T Maritime Yanessa atLct M.V Ayala at Qict arrivedon Saturday as per schedule.—APP

RASHID AHMED

MUGHAL

GLOBAL economic andfinancial crisis havehurt all the countries of

the world-albeit with varyingdegree. No country is an ex-ception. No one thought fouryears ago that the high tide ofeconomic growth will turn intoa economic tsunami which willengulf our entire globe. No onethought that China-the eco-nomic juggernaut and powerhouse of Asia too will be af-fected by this El-nino.Yet it isa hard reality that this Asiangiant, which did not see agrowth rate of less that 10-12%in over a decade, is too berattled by these crisis, not seensince the great depression of1930’s. Foreign direct invest-ment in China declined for thefirst time in three years in

In cutthroat global competitions China emerges as Asian giant2012, official data showed re-cently, amid economic turmoilin developed markets and aslowdown in Chinese manufac-turing and exports.

FDI, which excludes finan-cial sectors, into China declined3.7 percent to $111.72 billionlast year from 2011, the com-merce ministry announced. Itslipped from an all-time high of$116 billion recorded in 2011and was the first year-on-yeardecrease since 2009, accordingto previous figures.

Ministry spokesman ShenDanyang said, meanwhile, thatin 2012, Chinese directly in-vested $77.22 billion overseas innon-financial sectors in 141countries and regions, an in-crease of 28.6 percent from theyear before.

The investment figurescome as China’s economyslowed throughout most of

2012, while developed econo-mies such as the United States,the European Union and Japanlargely remained weak.

Economic growth in Chinahas declined for seven straightquarters though recent positivesigns have led economists toexpect a rebound this year.

The median forecasts in sur-veys of economists are forgrowth of 7.7 percent in 2012.Economists polled also expectthe economy to grow 8 percentin 2013.

The lion’s share of FDI intoChina comes from 10 Asiancountries and economies includ-ing Japan, Taiwan and HongKong. That figure declined 4.8percent last year to $95.74 bil-lion. Investment from the Euro-pean Union fell 3.8 percent to$6.11 billion. But investmentfrom the United States and Ja-pan increased. Inflows from the

US gained 4.5 percent to $3.12billion, while those from Japanincreased 16.3 percent to $7.38billion.

The growth momentum andtempo of investment from somedeveloped countries includingthe United States and Japan wasmixed.

In 2013, the ministry islikely to keep fundamental poli-cies on foreign investment stableand the overall size of FDIstable. However one significantchange in the growth and invest-ment strategies is notable. Chinais keen to promote overseas in-vestment as part of its efforts toreform Chinese growth modeland acquire important foreignassets in sectors such asenegy,mining and high tech in-dustries. It is going to be a trendin the long run.It is highly likelythat overseas direct investmentwill surpass foreign direct in-

vestment in the years to come.It seems to be national strategyto transform China from big ex-porter to big investor.

The biggest rise in Chineseinvestment in a major marketduring January and February2013 was in Australia where itsurged 282%.It was followed byHongKong where it went up156% and US by 146%,while insouth east Asia,it went up by114%.However it recorded anegative trend with regards toJapan, where it went down by31% and Russia down by 46%.

As regards income in-equal-ity, the media made no attemptto show either China’s phenom-enal rise in recent decades or theconsequences of that rise, for theChinese workers and society.According to a study, the top 10percent of the population todayaccount for 75 percent of na-tional income. The wealthiest

five percent earn 44 percent. Atthe top of the Chinese pyramidthere are 251 billionaires. At thebottom, more than 150 millionChinese who still live on lessthan $1.25 a day.

The “market-socialism” thathas apparently triggered the“phenomenal rise” can neitherelevate the dollar-a-day Chineselabourer out of poverty nor evenoffer better living standards forthe majority of Chinese.

The World Bank’s China2030 report worked out withChina’s State Council (cabinet)and presided over by incomingPremier– envisages that the re-gime will maintain the largeststrategic state enterprises, butroughly 100,000 government-owned companies will be fullyprivatised.

The world’s second-largesteconomy is not expected to re-turn to double-digit growth, but

the economists’ predictions area welcome spot of good newsin a financial world assailed bythe Eurozone debt crisis andlacklustre recovery in the UnitedStates.

After seven consecutivequarters of slowing growth,China’s gross domestic product(GDP), will rise by 7.7 percentin 2013, according to the medianforecast of 15 economists sur-veyed by AFP. The growth for2012 was recorded at 7.8%.

But the economy still faceschallenges such as unresolvedstructural problems includingovercapacity and reliance on in-vestment-driven growth, saidYao Wei, Hong Kong-basedeconomist with Society Gener-ate.

“We can’t get over-optimis-tic over the current recovery,”she said.China’s economy aver-aged GDP growth of 10 percent

LONDON—Global crude oilprices diverged on Friday astraders tracked efforts by Cyprusto draw up a revised plan for avital bailout, while winning sup-port from Chinese data. BrentNorth Sea crude for delivery inMay dipped five cents to$107.42 a barrel in London earlyafternoon deals. New York’smain contract, light sweet crudefor May, won 17 cents to $92.92a barrel.

“There are no other eco-nomic data for today in theUnited States or eurozone, so alleyes remain on Cyprus regard-ing any further negotiations thatcould avoid the country’s bank-ing system to default,” saidSucden brokers analyst MyrtoSokou. “It seems quite anuninspiring trading session forthe oil market, with crude oilprices possibly consolidatingwithin the recent range, while

Oil prices diverge, with alleyes on Cyprus recovery

any surprises from Cyprus couldgive some momentum to themarket.” Cyprus was Fridaylocked in “hard negotiations”with a troika of lenders to savethe eurozone member’s bankingsystem and economy in generalfrom ruin, government spokes-man Christos Stylianides said.

The European Union hasgiven Nicosia until Monday toraise 5.8 billion euros ($7.47billion) to unlock loans worth 10billion euros or face beingchoked from European CentralBank emergency funding in amove that would bankrupt theisland.

“I think positive Chinesedata is keeping prices up, whilethe market waits for Cyprus tomake a decision on its bailoutdeal,” said Tony Nunan, riskmanager at Mitsubishi Corp inTokyo. Manufacturing activity inChina, the world’s largest energy

user, improved in March afterexpanding at its slowest pace infour months in February, HSBCsaid Thursday. The British bank-ing giant’s preliminary purchas-ing managers’ index (PMI) forChina, a widely watched barom-eter of the health of its economy,came in at 51.7 for the monthfrom 50.4 in February.

A reading above 50 points togrowth while anything below in-dicates contraction. However, themarket remains jittery about apossible debt default by Cyprus.The withdrawal of ECB supportfor Cypriot banks could lead apossible run by customers scram-bling to withdraw their cash, re-sulting in the collapse of theisland’s financial system. Ana-lysts fear this would cause con-tagion in the eurozone, which isalready grappling with debt cri-ses in other, bigger countries in-cluding Spain and Italy.—APP

ISLAMABAD: A team of PTCL Medical Department providing free medical check-up andhealthcare facilities.

Gold Tezab 51685.00Silver Tezabi 900.00

Gold Tezabi (24-Ct) 51090.00Gold 22 Ct 46710.00SilverTezabi 970.00Silver Thobi 895.00

USA 98.10 97.90

UK 148.09 147.79

EURO 126.50 126.25

Canada 95.76 95.56

Switzerland 103.95 103.73

Australia 101.59 101.38

Sweden 15.19 15.16

Japan 1.0350 1.0329

Norway 16.90 16.86

Singapore 78.35 78.19

Denmark 16.97 16.93

Omani Riyal 250.00 246.00

Saudi Arabia 26.13 26.08

Hong Kong 12.63 12.60

Kuwait 344.43 343.72

Malaysia 31.28 31.22

Newzeland 80.75 80.58

Qatar 26.92 26.86

UAE 26.68 26.63

KR WON 0.880 0.0878

Thailand 3.312 3.305

New BlackBerryphone launchedin US in key test

WASHINGTON—The new-est version of the BlackBerrysmartphone went on sale inthe United States in what isseen as a crucial test for thestruggling tech firm.

The BlackBerry Z10, thefirst phone using the newBlackBerry 10 platform, isbeing sold through T-Mobile,AT&T and Verizon Wireless,and at US retailer Best Buy.

The new platform is seenas the Canadian firm’s lastopportunity to regain groundin a market dominated byGoogle’s Android and Apple’siOS operating systems.

The touchscreen Z10 hasalready been launched inother markets, includingAustralia, Britain and Indo-nesia. The company alsoplans a model with a physi-cal keyboard called Q10.

While the launch lackedthe crowds seen for theiPhone, an event held in NewYork’s Times Square and re-counted on the BlackBerryblog showed interest amongUS customers to be the firstto get the device just aftermidnight. “Here’s Manny, aneager fan who ‘just had to bethe first’ to get his hands onthe new BlackBerry Z10 inthe United States,” said a cap-tion for a picture on the blog.“He was met with cheersfrom the crowd as he held uphis newly activated device.”

But Daniel Ernst, an ana-lyst at Hudson Square Re-search, said demand ap-peared to be sluggish in acheck of retailers.

“Today, we found nolines, no signage announcingthe launch, and clerks told usthey had very few pre-or-ders,” he said.

The new device has re-ceived generally positive re-views, but analysts say it willbe an uphill battle forBlackBerry, which has lostmuch of its market share.

According to researchfirm IDC, BlackBerry’s glo-bal market share fell to 3.2percent in the fourth quarterof 2012, from 8.1 percent ayear earlier.—APP

in the decade to 2010. Aslower rate of 7.0-8.0 percentis seen by economists as partof China’s natural economicevolution as spending onprojects such as transport andutility networks are reined in.

Never the less, the growthof China has been spectacularduring the last two decades. Ithas been growing at a doubledigit rate since 20 years andhas now become second big-gest economy of the world,after USA.The predictions arethat it is going to take over thatrole from US in 2030 whichdoes not seem to be impos-sible, keeping in view thetrends and growth model ofChina.—The writer is Former Direc-tor, Emigration, overseas em-ployment and Protector ofEmigrants, Consultant: I.L.Oand I.O.M.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The UN de-clared world water day was cel-ebrated in the provincial capitalof Balochistan Quetta under theauspices of Food and Agricul-ture Organization (FAO) of UNwith the presence of participantsfrom local, National and inter-national organizations, civil so-cieties and NGOs (farmer asso-ciation & IUCN). Dr. IftikharAhmad, Chairman, PARCgraced the occasion as chiefguest of the celebration. In hisdeliberations, he started withhighlighting the importance ofthe day, scope, objective, needand gravity of this year’s theme“International year of water co-operation”. He gave a brief onglobal water availability disclos-ing the fact that only 0.007% ofthe total water body is availableto human for use. Further, heelaborated the distribution offresh water among the conti-nents with the minimum figure

World Water Daycelebrated

(3400 m3) of per capita avail-ability of water for Asia. Dr.Ahmad described the inter andintra sector competition and itstrend for low income, mediumincome and higher income coun-tries. Viz-a-viz he also presentedthe water consumption patternfor industrially developed andagro-based economy dependentcountries.

Describing the water situa-tion in Pakistan, the Chairman,PARC stated that at the dawn ofPakistan the country was a wa-ter-surplus country with a percapita water availability of morethan 5000 cubic meters andgradually with the populationgrowth from 35 million to 180million the country has reachedto a status of water stressedcountry with a per capita wateravailability of less than 1000cubic meters. Dr. IftikharAhmad Chairman PARC por-trayed the major stakeholder ofwater as agriculture sector with93% consumption.

NYSE preparesdisaster backup

plan: WSJNEW YORK—The New YorkStock Exchange is readyingplans to be able to operate with-out human traders in case an-other disaster, such asSuperstorm Sandy, forces theshutdown of its historic tradingfloor in downtown Manhattan,The Wall Street Journal re-ported.

NYSE Euronext (NYX) ispreparing to submit details of theplan to the U.S. Securities andExchange Commission, accord-ing to the report, which citedpeople involved in the prepara-tions. If activated, the planwould represent the first time the221-year-old exchange wouldrely entirely on computer sys-tems, without the oversight offloor-based traders, the papersaid.

The disaster plan wouldshift trading entirely to Arca,NYSE’s all-electronic sistermarket. It would replaceNYSE’s current backup planthat calls for the exchange toremain open in a limited capac-ity while sending orders to Arcato be filled.—Newswire

STAFF CORRESPONDENT

SIALKOT—A meeting of Chair-men of Trade Associations rep-resenting all five-zero rated ex-port-oriented sectors and Execu-tive Body of Sialkot Chamberwas held under the Chairman-ship of President Sialkot Cham-ber of Commerce and Industry(SCCI) Sheikh Abdul Majid, atSCCI to record protest againstthe issuance of controversialSROs by Federal Board of Rev-enue (FBR).

The Chairmen of Associa-tions expressed strong resent-ment against FBR’s policy ofimposing controversial SROs onthe export sectors without tak-ing relevant trade bodies andstakeholders on board prior toissuance of SROs.

The Chairmen unanimouslyresolved that government should

Zero-rated sectors protestcontroversial SROs

immediately withdraw SRO98(I)/2013 dated February 14,SRO 140(I)/2013 dated Febru-ary 26, and SRO 154(I)/2013dated February 28, as theseSROs were creating panic andharassment amongst the fivezero rated sectors.

The representatives reiter-ated their protest and expressedsolidarity with the protestsstaged by various zero-ratedstakeholders at Karachi againstthe government’s policy of tak-ing arbitrary decisions in thematter of imposition of taxes onexport sector.

The Chairmen were of theview that SROs 98, 140 and 154would prove a futile effort toenhance government revenue asit would pave the way for fakerefund claims and departmentalcorruption. They said FBR wasimplementing policies resulting

in financial hardships and incon-venience to documented sectorsand would adversely affect over-all exports of the country.

The Chairmen declared thatif the government was sincerein its efforts to provide facilita-tion to the export sector, thenFBR should immediately with-draw controversial SROs andrestore prior status. They warnedthat if SROs 98, 140 and 154would not be withdrawn forth-with, it would discourage theexport sector and results in clo-sure of export-oriented manu-facturing units and lay off ofworkers and employees.

They further resolved tocontinue their protests till theirgenuine demand for alleviationof problems of export sectors bywithdrawal of controversialSROs would be accepted by thegovernment.

RRGMEA rejectsST regime under

SRO 154STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—The PakistanReadymade Garments Manu-facturers & Exporters Associa-tion (PRGMEA) has rejectedsales tax regime for export-ori-ented industries under SRO154.

PRGMEA central chairmanSajid Saleem Minhas asked theLahore Chamber of Commerce& Industry (LCCI) and Federa-tion of Chambers of Commerce& Industry’s regional office tostand up for the cause of indus-try.

He said that majority of thewoven and knitted garment in-dustry comprises SME’s and arelocated in Punjab and Lahore isthe hub of this trade.

He appealed to the LCCIleadership to call the meeting ofall zero rated sector trade bod-ies in Lahore to understand thecore issues involved in theirstand against SRO 154.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Pakistan Indus-trial and Traders AssociationsFront (PIAF) would put in itsbest efforts to get resolved theissues being faced by com-puter and mobile phone sec-tors, as it is preparing a set ofproposals for the upcomingbudget.

PIAF Chairman MalikTahir Javaid stated this whileaddressing a gathering ofAnjman-e-Tajiran, HafeezCentre. The PresidentAnjman-e-Tajiran, HafeezCentre Fayyaz Butt, SecretaryGeneral Fayyaz Sheikh andChairman of the association

Karachi unrest hurts trade badlyMian Sajjad also spoke on theoccasion.

He said that the Informa-tion Technology has an impor-tant role for the promotion oftrade and industry in today’sworld therefore the policymakers should uti l ize al lavailable resources for thepromotion of this importantsector.

He said that unrest all overthe country, particularly inKarachi has halted the eco-nomic activities but hopefullynew regime would take allstakeholders into confidenceat evolve policies for early re-vival of business activities inthe country.

Malik Tahir Javed urgedthe office-bearers ofAnjuman-e-Tajiran HafeezCenter to forward their pro-posals as PIAF has alreadystarted the exercise for thepreparation of budget propos-als.

Secretary General ofAnjuman-e-Tajiran HafeezCenter presented the perfor-mance report and highlightedthe taken by the associationfor the prosperity of the busi-ness community. He said thatmore than dozen developmentprojects have been completedsuccessfully and inaugurationof a state-of-art lift systemwas one of them.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—About eighty-fivebusinesses being run by familiesin the United States and Euro-pean Union are quite successfulmainly because of implementa-tion of true corporate gover-nance that is a key to growth andhelps minimize wastages, as itleads to a good flow of capitalminimizes corruption, risks andmismanagement besides lower-ing capital costs.

It is imperative in a grow-ing economy to boost inves-tors confidence and good cor-porate governance leads togreater confidence. This wasthe upshot of speeches andpresentations made at one-daytraining workshop on corpo-rate governance jointly orga-nized by the Lahore Chamberof Commerce and Industry

Good corporategovernance vital for uplift

(LCCI) and International Fi-nance Corporation (IFC).

LCCI President FarooqIftikhar, former LCCI presi-dent Tariq Hameed, MohsinAli from IFC, LCCI Execu-t ive Committee MemberShoaib Zahid Malik and Con-vener LCCI Standing Com-mittee on Corporate Gover-nance Altaf Hussain Turabiwere also present on the oc-casion.

The speakers shared theirexperiences with the audienceregarding benefits of corpo-rate governance and familyowned businesses. They saidthat the companies that havegood corporate governancestructures always performbetter than those that haveweak governance structures.

Speaking on the occasion,Farooq Iftikhar said that cor-

porate governance is an in-creasingly important area offocus for stakeholders in allorganizations and particularlythose listed on publicly tradedexchanges. He said that com-pliance with applicable lawsand regulations while estab-lishing effective managementsystems in line with interna-tional standards require seri-ous commitment on the partof entrepreneurs and properguidelines to be provided byinstitutions like LCCI andIFC.

Due to the ever changingsocietal norms, increasinglycomplex business environ-ment and the recent corporatecollapse of companies aroundthe globe, corporate gover-nance has emerged as an im-perative issue at the forefrontof organizational concerns.

MoU signing ceremony between Bank Alfalah and PAF.

FPCCI, TDAPseminar on secondphase of Pak-China

FTA tomorrowSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Federation Paki-stan Chamber of Commerceand Industry (FPCCI), andPakistan-China BusinessCouncil of FPCCI, in collabo-ration with Trade Develop-ment Authority of Pakistan(TDAP) will hold a seminaron “Second Phase of Paki-stan-China FTA” here onMonday.

The seminar will start by10.30 a.m. at the FederationHouse. The seminar is a part ofconsultation among stakehold-ers for furthering and deepeningPak-China Free Trade Agree-ment (FTA).

The Federal Secretary ofCommerce, representing hisMinistry, will be the chief guest.He will accompanied by highranking officials from NationalTariff Commission, Ministry ofIndustries, Federal Board ofRevenue (FBR), Trade Devel-opment Authority of Pakistan(TDAP), Export DevelopmentBoard (EDB) from the publicsector.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Federation of Pa-kistan Chamber of Commerceand Industry and SAARCChamber of Commerce and In-dustry Saturday greetedShahzad Ali Malik, formerPresident, Lahore Chamber ofCommerce and Industry foraward of “Sitara-i-Imtiaz” inrecognition of excellent socialservices.

The Punjab Governordecorated him with civil awardfor rendering remarkable and

Shahzad Malik greetedfor Sitara-i-Imtiaz

valuable services in social sec-tor and great contribution forevolving the best quality dis-ease resistant rice seeds yield-ing higher per acre productionin the country.

President FPCCI FazalQadir Sherani and SCCI Paki-stan chapter Iftikhar Ali Malikwhile congratulating ShahzadAli Malik said it was first timein history that one of the pri-vate sector entity “Guard Ag-ricultural and Research Cen-tre” after two decades continu-ous field experiences and tri-

als successfully evolved sev-eral best quality basmati riceseeds which are not only popu-lar at home but also morepopular abroad.

It may be mentioned herethat his illustrious father lateMuhammad Shafi Malik wasalso decorated with same civilaward few years ago for un-precedented services in socialsector by running 100 bedseach two Mumtaz BukhtawarMemorial Trust hospitals incity for free treatment of poorpeople.

EXPERTS fear older women are ditchingcontraception in the mistaken belief that

they cannot get pregnant past a certain age.The Family Planning Association (FPA) be-lieves the message on infertility and agehas gone “too far”.

Although fertility doeswane, women can still fallpregnant well into their thir-ties, forties and even fifties.Abortion rates for womenaged 40 to 44 match thosefor the under 16s, figures forEngland and Wales show.In 2008, both of thesegroups had an abortion rateof four per 1,000 women.

There are many reasonswhy some women opt foran abortion - including birthabnormalities in the baby,which are more commonwhen the mothers are older.But FPA says its anecdotalevidence suggests some ofthe abortions are becausewomen wrongly assumedthey could not get pregnant because theywere too old. Aimed at women aged 35 andover, the FPA’s new campaign ‘Conceiv-able?’ reminds women to stay vigilant aboutunplanned pregnancy and to keep usingcontraception until after the menopause ifthey do not wish to become pregnant.

Chief executive of the FPA Julie Bentleysaid: “Whilst the message about fertility de-clining with age is an important one, it isoften overplayed, alongside disproportion-ate messaging about unplanned teenagepregnancies. “It sends an inaccurate mes-sage to women and society that only the

Unplanned pregnancy warningto older women over 35

young fall pregnant and is leading olderwomen to believe their fertility has gonelong before it actually has.”

She said women should realise it isentirely conceivable that just one night of

unprotected sex in your late30s, 40s and even 50s can endin an unplanned pregnancy.“Our helpline receives callsfrom such women, shockedthis has happened to them.

“They thought theirage would protect them frombecoming pregnant.” Shesaid in general all methodsof contraception were suit-able for the over-35s.

Women aged 30 to 34continue to have the high-est fertility rate - 113.1 livebirths per 1,000 women. Butthe rate among women aged40 and over has more thandoubled since 1988, from 5.1to 12.6 per 1,000 women, andthere were more than 26,000live births to women in this

age group in 2008, figures from the Officefor National Statistics show.

Emily James of Marie Stopes Interna-tional said: “Many older women facing anunplanned pregnancy are completelyshocked to find themselves in this posi-tion - many assume that their irregularperiods are due to menopause, and aresurprised to learn that they are in fact preg-nant. “It is vital that women of all agesare provided with the information, sup-port and advice they need when decid-ing whether or not to continue with anunplanned pregnancy.”

KARACHI: Corps Commander Lt-Gen Muhammad Ijaz Chaudhry conferring awardupon an officer during a ceremony.

KARACHI: Rangers showing recovered weapons during Manghopir Target Opera-tion.—PO Photo by Sultan Chaki

Ebad welcomescompletion of

5-year tenure byelected govt

KARACHI—Sindh Governor,Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan onSaturday said completion offive years tenure by the electeddemocratic government isgood for the country.

He was talking to mediaduring a visit to the mauso-leum of Father of the Nation,Quaid-e-Azam MohammadAli Jinnah on Pakistan Day,here.

Dr. Ebad said “we shouldadopt the principles of ‘faith,unity and discipline’ to takethe country on path of devel-opment. He said promotingthe image of Pakistan acrossthe world as a moderate anddeveloped country is need ofthe hour.

Caretaker Chief MinisterSindh, Justice (Retd), ZahidKurban Alavi said Karachi isa city of lights and restoringpeace in the city is a collec-tive responsibility.

He said practical and ef-fective measures will be takento maintain the law and orderin the metropolis.—APP

Al-Khidmat toset up medical

campsKARACHI—The Al-KhidmatWelfare Society will establishfree medical camps at sixplaces in the metropolis onMarch 24.

A statement of the orga-nization said on Friday thatvaccination facility againstmeasles would also be avail-able there. It said that ladydoctors would also be de-ployed at the medical camp.

General physicians, eyespecialists will also examinethe patients. The facility ofsugar test would also beavailable, it was furtherpointed out.—APP

Sindh PPPCouncil

meeting todayKARACHI—The meeting ofthe Sindh Council of PakistanPeoples Party (PPP), will beheld on March 24, atHyderabad, the Secretary In-formation PPP Karachi Divi-sion, Lateef Mughal said onSaturday.

President PPP Sindh, SyedQaim Ali Shah will chair themeeting of the party’s SindhCouncil, to be held at the resi-dence of PPP leader, Syed AliNawaz Shah Rizvi in Gulistan-e-Sajjad, district Hyderabad.

The meeting will discussthe arrangements in connec-tion with the death anniver-sary programmes of PPP’sfounder Shaheed Zulfikar AliBhutto which will be observedon April 4.—APP

SubzwaricriticisesKarachi

delimitationK A R A C H I — M u t t a h i d aQaumi Movement (MQM)leader Faisal Subzwari onSaturday said boundaries ofseveral constituencies inKarachi were redrawn over-night, adding that the mea-sure should be implementedcountrywide and not simplycentric to one city.

Subwari’s statementcomes in the wake of theElection Commission ofPakistan’s move for the de-limitation of three constitu-encies of National Assemblyand eight constituencies ofSindh Assembly in Karachi.The city has 20 National As-sembly and 42 provincial as-sembly seats.

Subzwari said MQM hadalways welcomed every le-gitimate call made by theelection commission, addingthat his party would ap-proach the courts when it istime to do so.

Alleging that the recentmove had political incen-tives, he said the electioncommission should not beturned into a wrestlingground for political parties.

Earlier on Friday, MQMchief Altaf Hussain termedthe delimitation of 11 con-stituencies a violation of lawand the constitution andsaid his party would chal-lenge the ECP’s move in thesuperior judiciary.—NNI

KARACHI: Governor Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan and caretaker Chif Minister Zahid Qurban Alvi offering Fateha at Quaid’s Mausoleum onPakistan Day.—Po Photo

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—The CaretakerSindh Chief Minister Justice(Retd) Zahid Kurban Alvi Sat-urday attended DIS-CON-2013 organized by Rotary In-ternational Dis-trict 3271 at alocal hotel.

Speaking on the occa-sion, the Caretaker CMlauded the efforts of RotaryInternational and said thatthere was poverty and prob-lems of health, education,clean drinking water and so-cial evils in most of the partsof interior Sindh.

The society should con-sider about miserable life theywere facing and should thinkhow they would be passingnight without elec-tricity andpotable water. Rotary had al-ways been in forefront, andthey should come forward toassist the needy and deprivedpeople.

Alavi said that law andorder situation was improv-ing particularly in Karachi,which was worst since lastmany years and the Caretakergovernment had evolved astrategy to control the situa-tion and curb the menace forwhich law enforcement agen-

Strategy evolved tocontrol law, order: Alvi

cies have been directed ac-cordingly.

He said that in spite ofminimum period of 3 months,the Caretaker government willfully strive to restore peaceand bring the lights ofKarachi back. Doors of theCM House would always beopen to common man and thepeople could met the Care-taker CM on working daysdaily from 11:30 am to 01:30pm at CM House.

Regarding role of SindhZakat Council, the Care-takerCM informed that there wasannual budgetary allocationof Rs. 90 million of SindhZakat Council and was beingdistributed regularly amongneedy, poor and deservedthroughout the province. Headded that 56,000 people weregiven Zakat regu-larly.

He maintained that he hadto bridge the gap and Rotaryand Zakat Departmentshould jointly work for helpand assistance of needypeople. He added that the56000 recipients of Zakat werevolunteers of Rotary Interna-tional.

With regard to Land Com-mittee, he maintained that be-ing Chairman of the Commit-

tee, Secretary Fi-nance, Sec-retary Law and few other mem-bers had worked in a trans-parent manner and had can-celled thousands of acres ofland; and Committee after re-ceiving payment as per mar-ket value had then allotted theland.

He informed that anamount of Rs.14 billion wasrecovered from such allotees.He added that being head ofvarious enquiry commissionsparticularly the Commissionof 2011 – Conducting enquiryof target killing and sectariankillings, he had pre-sented re-ports on facts.

Earlier, speaking on theoccasion Iqbal Qureshi,Jalaluddin Shaikh,Muhammad Faiz Kidwaie andPast District Governor AzizMemon highlighted the roleof Rotary International in Pa-kistan.

Aziz Memon informed thatRotary International was do-ing a lot for Polio-free Paki-stan while efforts were aheadfor provision of hand-pumps,organizing free eye camps,assistance for school, arrang-ing open heart surgeries, pro-visions of clean drinking wa-ter and other health care.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—The SupremeCourt of Pakistan had heardthe Karachi lawlessness caseat the Karachi Registry andhad issued orders to the headsof the Law Enforcement Agen-cies to ensure complete resto-ration of law and order in themetropolis.

On the other hand, SindhGovernor Dr Ishrat Ul EbadKhan and the care-taker ChiefMinister Justice (Retd) ZahidKurban Alvi had held morethan one meeting with theheads of the LEAs and othertop officials and had also di-

No writ of govt as 7 more gunned down in cityrected the heads of the LEAsto take concrete actionsagainst the criminals and es-tablish the writ of the govern-ment.

It looked as if the law andorder situation in the port citywould improve and the writ ofthe government would prevailacross the province especiallythe city of Karachi. However,the criminals acted more sav-agely and perhaps sent a mes-sage to the government thatfeared none.

On Saturday, the tar-get killers continued to wreak-ing havoc on the citizens as 7were gunned down. Tortured

dead bodies were also foundfrom different areas of the city.

Unidentified militants on amotorcycle gunned Asim aliasMushki and Arsalan in GardenEast Area. According to Police,the deceased were residents ofLiyari and belonged to bannedPeople’s Amn Committee.

Tahir Khan was gunneddown in Gulbahar Colonywhile a tortured body wasfound from Nazimabad No 2.The victim was tortured, killedand wrapped in a sack. InKorangi No 2-1/5, unidentifiedarmed men had killed Faraz, ayoung man, who was sittingat a Pan shop. Faraz had died

on the spot.Bodies of a young man,

Shahid, resident ofMusharraf Colony and a girlwere found from Ilyas Gothin Liaquatabad near Tin Hatti.An unidentified man wasgunned down near ParachaChowk in Sher Shah.

On the other hand, SindhRangers conducted a tar-geted operation inSultanabad, Manghopir andhad held more than 100 sus-pects. The targeted operationwas conducted in direct su-pervision of Sindh RangersDirector General RizwanAkhtar.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Fatima JinnahDental College (FJDC)awarded 75 successful stu-dents that had qualified theBachelor of Dental Surgery(BDS). Dr Ammar HussainPabany was declared valedic-torian at the ceremony. Alongwith a cash prize, this topscholar was also awarded 8gold medals.

All in all, 16 gold medals,12 shields and 114 certificateswere awarded during thecourse of the ceremony. A to-tal of 75 scholars graduatedwith their degree in Bachelorsof Dentistry (BDS).

The awarding of BDS de-grees was performed in FJDC16th Convocation held Fridayat a local hotel. In addition, the

FJDC also celebrated its 20thanniversary. Abdul HaseebKhan, Senator, was the ChiefGuest at the occasion. Otherdignitaries at the occasion in-cluded Karachi University Vice- Chancellor Dr MuhammadQaiser, FJDC Chief ExecutiveDr S. Baqar Askary, FJDC Di-rector Dr S. Hussain Askary,FJDC Principal Prof. DrTasleem Hosein, and KarachiUniversity Dean Dr S. M.Abbas Hussain.

Senator Abdul HaseebKhan, who was the key notespeaker at the convocationsaid that the current status ofbudget allocation to educationand health were not satisfac-tory. Lauding the parents ofthe graduates as well as thegraduates themselves, he fur-ther added that Pakistan’s fu-

ture could not be an illiterateand unhealthy populace.

Addressing those presentat the convocation, DrMuhammad Qaiser praised ef-forts undertaken by privatesector for promotion of profes-sional instruction.

He appreciated the effortsundertaken by both FJDC andthe graduates in their pursuitof professional knowledge.FJDC Principal Dr TasleemHosein also congratulated thegraduates and urged them tomaintain the high standardsimbibed to them by their teach-ers at the university.

He expressed admirationfor the efforts of the facultymembers of FJDC in instill-ing fine values and qualityacademic instruction to thescholars.

FJDC awards 75 BDS degrees

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—On behalf ofPresident of Islamic Republicof Pakistan, Corps Com-mander, Lieut. Gen.Muhammad Ijaz Chauhadryconferred awarded upon vari-ous military officers, juniorcommissioned officers andsoldiers in a simple yet impres-sive ceremony held at MalirCantt Saturday.

The honours wereawarded to the recipients inrecognition of their act of gal-lantry and outstanding perfor-mances in their respectivefields and for their long meri-torious services.

Corps Commanderconfers military awards

The recipients ofTamgha-i-Imtiaz (Military)were Brig. Anis Ahmed, Brig.Kamran Jalil, Brig.Muhammad Waseem, Col.Javed Mobin, Col. Shams UdDin, Col. Sahibzada SajjadAhmed, Lieut. Colonel QaziSaif Ullah, Lieut. ColonelSyed Asif Iqbal Zaidi, Lieut.Colonel Amer Ajmal, Lieut.Mahmood Ul Hasan, Lieut.Col.Faredoon Shah, Lieut.Col. Shakeel Nasir, Lieut. Col.Ahsan Ullah, Lieut. Col.Mohsin Ahmad, Lieut. Col.Muhammad Sohail Tariq,Maj. Ahsan Ahmed, MajorAbdul Qudus Khan, MajorMuhammad Amir Butt, Maj.

Mir Hassan Jamali, Maj.Malik Muhammad Khan,Maj. Faiz Bari Siddiqui andMaj. Motasim Hussain Khan.

The recipients of Tamgha-i-Basalat were HavaldarGhulam Abbas (Shaheed),Lance Naik Muhammad Saeed(Shaheed), Sepoy MohassanAli (Shaheed), Sepoy FaisalMehmood (Shaheed), SepoyMujahid Hussain (Shaheed),Sepoy Muhammad Aslam(Shaheed), Sepoy AltafHussain (Shaheed).

The ceremony was at-tended by a large number ofsenior armed forces officersand relatives of the awardwinners.

A STUDY from the Stanford University School of Medicine is publishedthis week in Psychological Science

showing that children who experience dif-ficulty with math exhibit an altered brainfunction fromanxiety.When it comes toequations and formulas, allyou have to fear is fear it-self it seems, with secondand third grade studentsshowing brain activity as-sociated with panicky orfrightened feelings, de-creasing activity in the partof the brain that handlesmath.

It’s certainly an interest-ing theory and if put intoaction, could provide ameans of counseling chil-dren that have problemswith math by way of im-proving their abilities.AsVinod Menon, PhD, theStanford professor of psy-chiatry and behavioral sciences who led theresearch confirms:“The same part of thebrain that responds to fearful situations,such as seeing a spider or snake, also showsa heightened response in children with highmath anxiety.” Menon and his team usedfunctional magnetic resonance imagingbrain scans on nearly 50 students with lowand high math anxiety. The children werealso assessed for math anxiety with a modi-fied version of a standardized questionnairefor adults, and also received standard intel-ligence and cognitive tests.

As Menon continues, math anxiety hasbeen known about for a long time, but has

Anxiety makes brain poorat math for some children

never really been studied in terms of itseffect on students, and especiallyyounger ones, when maths skills are built:

“It’s remarkable that, although thephenomena was first identified over 50

years back, nobody hadbothered to ask how mathanxiety manifests itself interms of neural activity ... Youcannot just wish it away assomething that’s unreal. Ourfindings validate math anxi-ety as a genuine type ofstimulus- and situation-spe-cific anxiety.” Essentiallywhat he is saying is that histeam’s observations showthat math anxiety isneurobiologically similar toother kinds of anxiety orphobias. In theory, the pro-cess may work for many otherissues that children and evenadults have difficulty dealingwith.

Menon says that’s itsalso possible for someone

who is considered good at maths to havea bad day and feel the anxiety that blockshis or her skills.Victor Carrion, MD, a pe-diatric psychiatrist at Lucile PackardChildren’s Hospital and an expert on theeffects of anxiety in children. Carrion, whowas not involved in Menon’s research,is also an associate professor of psychia-try and behavioral sciences at Stanford,said:The results are a significant step to-ward our understanding of brain func-tion during math anxiety and will influ-ence development of new academic in-terventions.”

LAHORE: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif speaking during Mufti-e-Azam Semi-nar at Jamia Naeemia.

LAHORE: People visiting the Lahore Fort and mausoleum of poet-philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal on the occasion of Pakistan Day.

LAHORE: A woman selling strawberries on her push-cart to earn money for her family.

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—The Punjab Edu-cation Foundation (PEF) hasopened the doors of qualityeducation to 47 thousandspoor and deserving studentsthrough its New SchoolProgramme NSP) in the prov-ince to eradicate illiteracy inthe poor and far-flung hinter-lands where school infra-structure is scarce or too in-adequate to accommodatethe poor children who couldnot afford their educationalexpenses.

Chairman Punjab Edu-cation Foundation RajaAnwar stated this while ad-dressing the prize distribu-

tion function of a girls PEF-NSP school on Lahore-Kasur road. Teachers, par-ents and girl students at-tended the ceremony inlarge numbers.

Addressing the function,Raja Anwar said that NSP hasemerged as a ray of hope forthe poor children especiallythe girls who couldn’t go toafar places for studies onpublic transport orunsupportive cultural normsof their families also hampertheir education. He said thatpartnership has been madewith 421 schools in variousdistricts under the NSP topromote quality education inthe education-wise back-

ward areas. PEF-NSP schoolteachers’ capacity building isalso done to improve andstrengthen the educationalstandards, he added. He fur-ther said that promotion ofgirls’ education is the needof the hour so that our girlscould play their due role innational mainstream. VariousPEF programs have changedthe destinies of poor chil-dren by providing them qual-ity education in a conduciveatmosphere near to their door-steps, he concluded.

The function was alsoaddressed by the schoolprincipal. Later, the PEFChairman distributed prizesamong the brilliant students.

PEF to provide qualityeducation to poor students

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Water availabilityto farmers plays a key role inenhancing per acre yield andachieving the targets of agro-production and food autarky.In this regard, it is quite essen-tial to promote efficient use ofwater in the agri-sector so thatall the farmers could get theirequitable share of water. It is,therefore, imperative to sensi-tize the farmers as well as thegeneral public about the effi-cient use of water resourcesso that this important boonmay not get wasted.

General Manager PunjabIrrigation & Drainage Au-thority (PIDA) MianMaqbool Ahmad stated thisin an official circular issuedto the field formation for pro-moting efficient use of waterin the farming community byintroducing latest water sav-ing technologies.

The GM-PIDA in the cir-cular asked the field officersto include the aspect of effi-cient use of water in the ca-pacity-building programs ofFarmer Organizations (FOs).He said that promotion of ef-ficient use of water is a col-

lective responsibility of thesociety adding that availablewater resources should beused with utmost care so thatthe lack of irrigation watercould be curtailed and tail-end farmers also get their dueshare. The farmers shouldalso be sensitized about sow-ing such crops which needless amount of water, hepointed out. Similarly, theFOs also realize to the farm-ers and the general publicthat respect to water rightsof the others should betreated as moral as well associal obligation.

Water availabilityvital for increasing yield

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Secretary HealthPunjab, Arif Nadeem has di-rected that vector surveil-lance activities should beaccelerated to check the den-gue breeding, while targetedindoor spray also be con-ducted in those towns wheredengue larva have been re-ported.

He stated this while pre-siding over a meeting of Tech-nical Advisory Committee onDengue in his office. Be-sides, Addl. Secretary Health(Tech) Dr. Anwar Janjua, DGHealth Punjab Dr. NisarAhmad Cheema, Dean Chil-dren Hospital Lahore Prof. Dr.Tahir Masood, PrincipalSIMS, Prof. Dr. Hamid But,Dean IPH Prof. Dr. MuazAhmad, Prof. Muhammad Aliof Services Hospital, MS

Mayo Hospital Dr. ZahidPervaiz, MS Services Hospi-tal Dr. Rehana Malik, MSLahore General Hospital Dr.Muhammad Hassan, EDOHealth Lahore Dr. Inam ulHaq, EDO Health RawalpindiDr. Zaffar Gondal, EDOHealth Sheikhupura Dr.Raffique Khan, EDO HealthFaisalabad Dr. Abdul Rauf,EDO Health Nankana Dr.Mushtaq, EDO HealthMultan Dr. Iftikhar Qureshiand other officers attendedthe meeting.

The experts informed themeeting that since the situationis normal therefore, there is noneed to initiate thermal foggingfor dengue control, but techni-cal method should be appliedfor larvae-ciding, while targetedindoor spry strategy beadopted for dengue check.Secretary Health directed the

City District Government tostart indoor targeted spray im-mediately in Samanabad,Shalamar, Ravi Town andWahga Town, from where den-gue larva was reported.

He said that governmentbuildings and public schoolsshould also be covered dur-ing the spray. He directedthat inspection should beconducted in the teachinghospitals to review the ar-rangements for medical treat-ment of dengue patients andfunctioning of High Depen-dency Units. He also directedthat revised guidelines ofDengue Experts AdvisoryGroup (DEAG) immediatelybe circulated among all theteaching hospitals. The meet-ing also decided to beginimplementation on actionplan for research on denguemosquito.

Call for boosting vectorsurveillance activities

Change ofguards at mazarof Allama Iqbal

LA H O R E —A change ofguards ceremony was heldon Saturday at the tomb ofDr Allama MuhammadIqbal on Pakistan day.

Smartly turned out con-t ingent of the PakistanAirforce assumed guardsduties at the Mizar-e-Iqbal.

The contingent of Paki-stan Rangers earl ier per-formed guards duties at thetomb of Allama Iqbal.

Incoming guards wereinspected by Air Vice Mar-shal Asad Lodhi. TheAirforce contingent movedto take positions at the fourcorners of the tomb.

The ceremonial guardmounting followed wreathlaying at the tomb ofAllama Iqbal by Air ViceMarshal Asad Lodhi andoffered Fateha.—APP

Highlights ofPTI’s meeting

LAHORE—A large numberof people from every local-ity of the city are pouringat Minar-e-Pakistanthrough motorcade proces-sions with Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf flags and posters ofImran Khan.

The public meeting ofPakistan Tehrik-e-Insafwas scheduled to be heldat Minar-e-Pakistan at2:00pm on Saturday.

The Lahori t ies hadstarted their journey to-wards Minar-e-Pakistan inthe morning.

More them 20 thousandchairs are stated to havebeen placed at the venueof the PTI meeting.

A large number of emo-tionally charged youth andwomen were also present atMinar-e-Pakistan to listenthe speech of Imran Khan.Hundreds of special buseshave also been seen com-ing from different districtsof Punjab carrying ImranKhan’s supporters.

Traffic mess was wit-nessed at many spots ofthe city due to the motor-cade processions beingdriven to Minar-e-Paki-stan. PTI chairman ImranKhan has reached Minar-e-Pakistan at 5:30pm.

Thousands of PTIworkers danced and raisedslogans in favour of ImranKhan at his arrival. Promi-nent singer Sulman Ahmedpresented songs at thes tage .

About 80,000 recentlyelected office bearers ofthe PTI from all over thecountry will take an oathduring the meeting.

Besides, PTI chairmanImran Khan is expected toannounce PTI elect ionmanifesto at the meet-ing.—APP

Pakistan Daycelebrated in

Camp JailLA H O R E —The PakistanDay was celebrated in a be-fitting manner on Saturdayat Camp Jail and was par-ticipated by over 2,937 in-mates. Superintendent JailEjaz Asghar addressing theprisoners highlighted thesignificance of the Paki-stan Day and urged theprisoners to transformtheir l ives in accordancewith principles of Islam.

He said governmenthad launched a number oftrade courses of short du-ration within the jail pre-mises for al l convicts tomake them responsible citi-zen and earn livelihood re-spectfully in the societyafter their release.

Several national songswere played and specialmeal with fruits and sweetswere served to all inmates.Similar event also tookplace at Central Jai lKotlakhpat where SeniorSuperintendent Jai lMohsin Rafiq Ch was chiefguest and special meal withsweet dish was served toall inmates.—APP

PLB issuesfact-sheet

LAHORE—The PeoplesLabour Bureau Punjab is-sued a fact-sheet on Satur-day about the five-year ten-ure of the previous govern-ment.

The fact-sheet re-counts achievements ofthe PPP-led governmentincluding restoration of ju-diciary and sacked employ-ees, amendments to theconstitution, laws for thelabour, children andwomen, Benazir IncomeSupport Programme anddevelopment work.

I t said reconcil iat ionpolitics was introduced inthe country under the vi-sion of Mohtarma BenazirBhutto Shaheed and twomajor projects with Chinaand Iran were signed in thelarger interest of the coun-try.—APP

Trainingworkshop

LAHORE—The Punjab Ag-riculture Department isholding a 10-day trainingworkshop on “InformationScience and AgricultureJournalism” from March25.

Punjab agriculture offi-cials and other people con-cerned would participate inthe workshop.

Experts of print and elec-tronic media and professorsof journalism will deliver lec-tures.—APP

LAHORE—Pakistan PeoplesParty ensures continuity ofdemocratic process and itwould form the next govern-ment after passing through

PPP to form next govt: Saminathe democratic electoral pro-cess. PPP Lahore presidentSamina Khalid Ghurki andinformation secretary AbidHussain Siddiqui claimedthis in a joint statement here.

They said the PPP alwayswanted elections to be held ontime as elections were soul ofdemocracy.

They said the PPP wouldserve the people with the samespirit after winning the elec-tions. Meanwhile, PakistanPeoples Party Punjab vicepresident Haji Azizur RehmanChan has said conspiraciesagainst democratic processwill be failed and elections willbe held on time.

Talking to media here, hesaid people and workers of thePPP had sacrificed for democ-racy and they would never al-low to damage democracy anddemocratic institutions.

He hoped the people

would vote the PPP on its per-formance and the PPP wouldform the next government inthe country. He urged thepeople to elect such peoplewho could ensure protectionof national interests and rightsof the nation.

Leader of PakistanPeoples Party (PPP) ShaukatBasra has claimed that the PPPwould form the next govern-ment by winning elections asit always worked for rights ofpeople. Talking to a privatenews channel, he said thatrecent PPP led governmenthad strengthened democracyand national institutions inthe country. Basra said thatreconciliation politics of Presi-dent Asif Ali Zardari had pro-tected democracy in the coun-try, adding the PPP leadershiphad sacrificed their lives forthe country and democ-racy.—APP