Current Final

Author: News Desk

  • Policemen being investigated for filming female colleagues for TikTok without their permission

    Policemen being investigated for filming female colleagues for TikTok without their permission

    A TikTok video has been circulating across Twitter (now X) recorded by two male police officers of the Punjab police. The video shows female police officers in the middle of a meeting, being recorded without their knowledge. The video has been dubbed with a Bollywood song while the policemen give unprofessional expressions.

    When the video was criticized by Twitter users, the official page of Punjab Police responded, condemning the action and stating that an investigation against the two men is underway.

  • Khalil-ul-Rehman Qamar is still not over Mahira Khan schooling him for his misogyny

    Khalil-ul-Rehman Qamar is still not over Mahira Khan schooling him for his misogyny

    Controversial drama writer Khalil-ul-Rehman Qamar has said that he will never work with superstar Mahira Khan again. The writer had landed in a storm when during a TV appearance alongside journalist Marvi Sarmad on Neo TV, he hurled swear words at her after she chanted the famous Aurat March slogan ‘Mera jism meri marzi’. Several prominent figures lashed out at Qamar on his misogynist behavior, including actress Mahira Khan. Her outspoken condemnation became the source of a grudge against the actress that Qamar seems to carry till date.

    How dare a woman correct a man for using degrading, disgusting language against another woman, right?

    Recently, while talking on ‘Public Demand with Mohsin Abbas Haider’ the ‘Mere Pass Tum Ho’ writer was asked about whether he would ever ‘forgive’ Mahira Khan. Qamar replied that despite efforts made by others to fix the feud between the two, the screen writer has no desire to ever work with the actress again.

    “I’m still shocked today that the way the two of us respected each other, it gave her no right to tweet the way she did. She had every right to phone me, she could have discussed with me and I could have explained…She is a beautiful and accomplished actress but I’ll never be able to work with her.”

    Mahira has never publicly expressed regret or spoken about the feud, however, KRQ keeps talking about it three years later, openly expressing resentment towards her.

    Last year, KRQ shared a screenshot of Mahira condemning the brutal language Khalil used against Marvi, and in the caption he wrote: “May iska behad ehtram karta tha lekin iski ye zaban aur ghatiapan mujhay martay dam tk nahi bhoolay ga.”

    Like last year, KRQ shared a screenshot of Mahira ciondemning the brutal language Khalil used against Marvi, and in the caption he wrote: “May iska behad ehtram karta tha lekin iski ye zaban aur ghatiapan mujhay martay dam tk nahi bhoolay ga.”

    During an interview with Nadir Ali in October 2022, KRQ said Mahira had lost out on the opportunity to star in ‘London Nahi Jaungi’ and ‘Mere Pass Tum Ho’ because of her comments.

  • Anti-terrorism court grants 3-day physicial remand of Imaan Mazari and Ali Wazir

    Lawyer and activist Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and Former Member of the National Assembly (MNA) Ali Wazir were produced before Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) judge Abul Hasnat Zulqarnain on Monday. Imaan’s legal team argued that “Police have not yet found anything,” and that “officials had also not investigated anything related to Imaan”.

    It was also mentioned that Imaan fainted at the police station and was unable to meet her mother. “Imaan Mazari wants accountability of institutions for which she is being called a terrorist,”

    Similarly, Ali Wazir affirmed that “nothing wrong” has been done and that they had insisted the interim government let them gather in islamabad. “We wanted our voices to be heard in Islamabad”, added Wazir.

    The court reversed its verdict and granted a three-day physical remand of the two.

    On Sunday, 20 August, human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and former lawmaker Ali Wazir were arrested by “unidentified persons”. While the reasons for the arrests have not been given by the police, Islamabad Capital Police stated, “No one is authorised to give a statement from a police station.”

    Imaan Mazari’s mother, Shireen Mazari, said while talking to the media that Imaan was dragged out and taken away. The policewomen also dragged Shireen Mazari herself but the officials let her go since they were only there to arrest Imaan Mazari.

    About twenty men made their way to Imaan’s bedroom and confiscated her laptop and phone. They did not let her change her clothes either and dragged her out where another 20 officials were standing outside. No men, however, wore police uniforms.

    The cases so far

    On Friday, 18 August, approximately 300 people attended the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement protest in Islamabad. The speakers included Ali Wazir and Imaan Mazari. The focus of the speeches was condemnation of discrimination against the Pashtuns and called for the return of missing persons.

    Imaan Mazari and Ali Wazir were presented before district and sessions court where Judicial Magistrate Ihtasham Alam Khan heard two of their cases on Sunday.

    In the first, terrorism case, the investigating officer (IO) requested for a 10-day physical remand. The judge, however, has ordered for the two to be presented in an anti-terrorism court. Imaan was to be kept in a women police station till Monday.


    In the other case, the IO requested a five-day physical remand for Mazari and Wazir but the judge said the court could not grant Imaan’s physical remand.


    She has been sent on 14-day judicial remand with orders to be produced on September 2 whereas Wazir has been granted two-day physical remand after pre and post-medical examination.


    Two first information reports (FIR) have been registered against Wazir and Imaan.


    The first FIR was registered on the complaint of Tarnol Station House Officer (SHO) Miam Mohammad Imran who was present at Tarnol Phatak chowk to ensure peace during a rally led by Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). According to the complainant, the rallly devaited from the allocated area violating no-objection certificate


    The SHO has claimed that the participants of about 700-800 were armed with sticks who attacked the police, official vehicles, and shut down shops when asked to restore access to GT road that they had blocked.


    The second FIR was registered under the complaint of Inspector Mohammad Ashraf who was present when about 950 PTM supporters blocked GT road. He said that people including Manzoor Pashteen and Iman Mazari spoke against the state, inciting hatred and revolt.


    A PTM spokesperson told AFP that many more members have also been detained since Friday protests.

  • X starts deleting Tweets including photos and links shared before 2014

    X starts deleting Tweets including photos and links shared before 2014

    Twitter seems to have removed a bunch of pictures uploaded on the platform between 2011 and 2014. This was noticed by a user named Tom Coates last Saturday. Not only did the images vanish, but links made using Twitter’s link shortening service during the same time don’t work anymore.

    Tom Coates updated his tweet to explain that pictures are gone and links are broken, but the data still exists on Twitter’s servers.

    Famous images like Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars selfie, which got over 2.8 million retweets and is the most retweeted post ever, were affected. Luckily, this image was restored on Saturday, along with a tweet of Barack Obama hugging the First Lady after his re-election in 2012.

    It seems that photos and links added from 2016 onward are working fine. This suggests there might be a cutoff related to this issue. This also lines up with when Twitter added “enhanced URL enrichment” for link previews and “native attachments” that let you add photos without using up the 140-character limit.

  • Activist Malala Yousafzai sends support to Afghanistan women’s football team

    Women’s rights activist and Noble Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has expressed her support for the women’s football team from Afghanistan, who were banned by the current Taliban government from playing the sport after the takeover in 2021. Currently, the team resides in Melbourne, Australia, where they escaped to in 2021, but right now the football team is not recognised by the government or the FIFA organisation.

    “I’m very sad. I was expecting a lot more for football’s governing body,” said Khalida Popal, who was the former captain of the women’s football team.

    “[Fifa needs] to stand with these women. We want leadership – we need a strong voice to stand with us. Don’t keep silent.”

    Currently, the Afghanistan Women’s Football team is being sponsored by the Australian professional football club Melbourne Victory, and now activist and Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has joined the ranks in calling for the team to be recognised by FIFA.

    The producer behind ‘Joyland’ was in Melbourne to watch the Women’s World Cup and shared a post of her meeting the team members of the Afghanistan women’s football team, writing that she was inspired by their bravery and determination.

    “I came to Melbourne because of a story. The New York Times published an incredible account of the keeper for the Afghanistan Women’s Team and how its founder @khalida_popal_girlpower helped the players escape near-certain death after the Taliban gained control and banned women’s sports. I was inspired by their bravery and determination. They were so proud to play for their national team and now they were burying their jerseys to avoid being caught and killed.

    Today, I finally met the AWT in person— including Fatima and Khalida — to continue to support their campaign to be recognised by FIFA. This is the power of stories and why we must continue to share them. You never know who could be listening.”

    The Pakistan-born activist urged her followers to read more about the football team and to donate funds to help support them as they live in exile and away from their families

  • Team AGONxi8 won PUBG mobile pro League Pakistan Fall 2023

    Team AGONxi8 won PUBG mobile pro League Pakistan Fall 2023

    AGONxi8, a PUBG mobile competitive team, has won PMPL (PUBG mobile pro league), the biggest PUBG mobile event in Pakistan, organized by Krafton, Tencent and Nodwin.

    PMPL has a league stage that is two weeks long, in which the top 20 teams from Pakistan compete with each other. The top 16 teams from the league stage qualify for finals, where they compete for the title of PMPL Champions.


    A mini match of TDM (Team Death Match) is also played during this event having an overall prize pool of USD 1000.
    In the first week of the tournament, Agonxi8 was on the top spot with 238 points, holding on to first place in the second week with 210 points. In the finals, they played aggressively from day one. By day three, they finished in first place with 295 points.


    FALAK was the MVP of this PMPL, having 60 eliminations points. He also makes a global record of 60 elimination in the three days finals. The previous record was made by TonyK from team Vampire E-Sports from Thailand.


    The overall prize pool is 70,000$ which is distributed as follows:
    Participation award: 1,750$
    TDM Award: 1,000$
    MVP (Most value able player) Award: 1,000$


    AGONxi8 also qualified for PMGC (PUBG mobile global championship) which will be a LAN event in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. PMGC is the global tournament of PUBG mobile with a prize pool of USD 4,000,000.

    Overall Standings of PMPL fall 2023:

  • Six universities are now offering courses on Taylor Swift

    Six universities are now offering courses on Taylor Swift

    ‘Well they didn’t teach you that in prep school so it’s up to me!”

    Looks like Taylor Swift has decided to take this lyric literally and influenced more than six universities across America, including NYU and Stanford, are introducing courses revolving around the pop mastermind and her works, ranging from literature to psychology.

    Arizona State University announced this month that they were offering a course titled “Psychology of Taylor Swift — Advanced Topics of Social Psychology” where the course revolves around connecting various themes from Taylor’s music like revenge, trauma, anxiety- and link it to psychology. PHD student Alexandra Wormey used Swift 2017 album ‘Reputation’ as an example:

    “Taylor’s sixth album, Reputation, is her comeback after disappearing from the spotlight due to conflicts with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. She enacts her revenge on them — and the broader media landscape — by dropping an incredibly successful album along with a stadium tour,” she explained. “The students know this — but do they know why we like revenge? Do they know how we enact revenge? Social psychology can tell us.”

    This decision to incorporate the singer-songwriter’s ballads into academic life has long started with places like New York University, when in 2022 the Clive Davis Institute introduced their first ever course on Taylor Swift, which will explore her evolution as a songstress, country, pop and indie legend, as well discourses surrounding girlhood, sexism and trauma from her work. The course is three months long, and Swift had also been invited as a guest speaker.

    In August 2022, University of Texas at Austin introduced “Literary Contests and Contexts — The Taylor Swift Songbook”, where the 12 time Grammy award winning’s music would be studied alongside the masters of literature like Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath.

    There are courses dedicated to dissecting some of her most critically acclaimed songs like ‘All Too Well’ (10 minute version) which Taylor had released on Red (Taylor’s Version). Stanford University announced the set up of their winter quarter course ‘All Too Well (10 week version)’ which would revolve around an in-depth analysis of Taylor’s hit.

    Berkley College of Music recently announced that the students could opt for a course that requires them to study the songs written by Taylor Swift and dissect each album and the themes it revolved around.

    And it’s not just the US now which is offering Taylor Swift courses now! Ghent University in Belgium called ‘Literature: Taylor’s Version’ which, according to the instructor Elly McCausland, would delve into how the ‘Anti Hero’ singer incoporates some of the most prominent writers of English literture like Jane Austen, Shakespeare or even Charlotte Bronte into her works.

    “The way she uses the war, like a metaphor for a relationship, made me a bit uncomfortable and it got me thinking about Sylvia Plath’s poem Daddy, which does a similar thing and also it’s very uncomfortable reading,” the academic said speaking to AFP. “Literature (Taylor’s Version)”, is a way to make literature “more accessible” and “not to create a Swift fan club”.

  • Shehbaz Sharif arrives in London to meet Nawaz

    Shehbaz Sharif arrives in London to meet Nawaz

    Former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has reached London on Sunday to meet Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif. According to Geo News, the agenda of the meeting between the two brothers included the upcoming general elections and Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan.

    Shehbaz Sharif’s son Salman Shehbaz is accompanying him.


    According to PML-N sources, Shehbaz Sharif will meet his brother as well as other party leaders in London.
    Several former federal ministers are also present in the British capital to join the crucial meeting about Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country.
    Earlier, Shehbaz Sharif has said that his elder brother will return to Pakistan next month and face the law.

  • Illegal cigarettes capture 50% of market share: Official tobacco sector calls for govt help

    Illegal cigarettes capture 50% of market share: Official tobacco sector calls for govt help

    The tobacco sector that’s officially documented is urgently seeking government support to address the growing issue of smuggled and illicit cigarettes, which now make up over 50 per cent of the local market.

    During a recent briefing on “Current Tobacco Dynamics,” representatives from the Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC) expressed concern that the market share of these illicit tobacco products could surpass 53 per cent in the next quarter of the fiscal year 2023–24.

    While a 200 per cent increase in excise duty (FED) on cigarettes was implemented, its real impact is expected to become evident in the current fiscal year. Sami Zaman, spokesperson for PTC, highlighted a 44 per cent drop in legitimate cigarette production in June, along with a 28.4 per cent overall sales decrease for the 2022–23 period.

    The implementation of the track-and-trace system has been limited to just two international manufacturers, leaving the rest of the undocumented tobacco sector largely unmonitored. Zaman stressed the need for consistent application across all local manufacturers to prevent tax evasion units from buying untaxed tobacco directly from farmers.

    Zaman also expressed concern about the government’s inability to effectively control the sale of untaxed, health-warning-free smuggled cigarettes. Currently, only multinational companies with track-and-trace systems are under scrutiny.

    According to Brecorder, smuggled cigarettes, due to their tax evasion, remain cheaper, lack mandatory graphic health warnings, and often come in appealing flavours, sometimes even in loose packs. Despite a significant 200 per cent increase in excise duty, the market continues to be flooded with untaxed, affordable cigarettes.

    Due to a shortage of raw tobacco, prices have risen. The growing illicit market is expected to have a significant impact on both legitimate industry volumes and government revenues in the upcoming quarter.

    Despite contributing Rs175 billion during the 2022–23 period (compared to a Rs180 billion target), the tobacco sector’s excise duty collections increased while volumes decreased.

  • Islamabad police takes action against online propagandists

    Islamabad police takes action against online propagandists

    A spokesperson for Inspector General of Islamabad police, Dr. Akbar Nasir Khan, has said that the process of countering hate-mongering content and pages online that instigate conflicts in the capital city has been sped up. The action comes under the structure of the Violent Extremism Prevention Unit (VEPU) in order to prevent propaganda aimed against the state and its institutions.

    It has been claimed that more than 700 social media accounts, extensively investigated across Twitter, Facebook, and other media platforms, are unfurling religious hatred and terrorism. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has been asked to shut down such accounts and so far, more than 200 have been suspended.

    The IGP is adamant to objectively curb extremism and VEPU has been prompt in taking measures against propagandists.

    Violent Extremism Prevention Unit (VEPU) was inaugurated earlier this year in February by Director General National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) Muhammad Tahir Rai along with Inspector General of Police (IGP) Islamabad at Safe City Islamabad. The mission of the unit is to “monitor the political, linguistic, sectarian and religious extremist content on social media and websites and submit its report” supervised by SP.

    The police and Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) are to work together to fulfil the goal. Apart from identifying the suspects online, the goal is also to hold them accountable. Additionally, communication experts are included and recommendations for legislation are to be made as well.