Hamza Ali Abbasi’s birthday wish for wife Naimal Khawar might have been a few days late, but it sure was worth the wait.
Sharing a lovely family photo of them dressed in white, Hamza said: “Couldn’t have wasted this wish while travelling, so here goes: I thank Allah every day for his biggest gift to me in this world, I love you Naimal and it’s a blessing from Allah that I get to spend my life with you.”
He also praised Naimal for being an amazing mother and showered her with lots of love.
According to details, Hamza and Naimal are travelling back to Pakistan from the United States, where Hamza is studying religion at the Ghamidi Center of Islamic Learning.
France on Sunday objected to a statement by Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari equating President Emmanuel Macron’s new measures to counter “Islamist separatism” in France with the anti-semitic policies of Nazi Germany, however, the issue was later resolved when both sides held dialogue after a false claim in the cited news article came to light.
Earlier this week, Macron issued a “charter of republican values”, detailing a series of steps aimed at purging France of what he declared as “radical Islam”. One of the measures made it necessary for school-going children to wear an identification number that would be used to ensure they are attending school.
Mazari, who apparently understood that the identification number would be issued exclusively to Muslim children, censured the move, saying through the new measures, “Macron is doing to Muslims what the Nazis did to the Jews” in Nazi Germany.
“Muslim children will get ID numbers (other children won’t) just as Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing for identification,” she added linking to an online article.
Responding to the tweet, the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs on Sunday issued a statement, calling the minister’s remark “insulting […] blatant lies, loaded with an ideology of hatred and violence.”
The rather unceremonious statement asked Pakistan to “return to the path of dialogue based on respect.”
The publication later amended the article and issued a clarification stating that the law mentioned in the article applies to all children in France, not specifically Muslim children.
The embassy also sent a series of tweets to point out the mistakes in the article.
In response to the French envoy’s message, Mazari deleted her tweet and issued a clarification on Twitter and admitted her mistake. “The French Envoy to Pak sent me the following message and as the article I had cited has been corrected by the relevant publication, I have also deleted my tweet on the same,” she tweeted.
Responding to the minister’s tweet, the French Embassy thanked Mazari for the clarification and apology, and wrote that “freedom of expression and debates are essential in democracies, based on verified and accurate facts.”
Macron on Wednesday unveiled the bill and asked Muslim leaders in France to agree to its instructions as part of a broad clampdown on so-called “Islamic extremism”. He gave the French Council of the Muslim Faith 15 days to work with the interior ministry.
The bill includes measures which include: restrictions on home-schooling and harsher punishments for those who intimidate public officials on religious grounds; giving children an identification number under the law that would be used to ensure they are attending school and a ban on sharing the personal information of a person in a way that allows them to be located by people who want to harm them.
Parents who break the law could face up to six months in jail as well as large fines, it said.
The draft law — which Macron said will strengthen a 1905 law separating Church and state in France — will be discussed by the French cabinet on December 9.
The new bill comes on the heels of three separate instances of terrorism following the publication of blasphemous caricatures by Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly best known for vulgar irreverence, and Macron’s insistence on defending the act in the name of freedom of expression.
Following the publication of these cartoons and Macron’s defense of it, relations between France and the Muslim world grew sour as tens of thousands of Muslims in several countries joined protests, burned effigies of Macron, chanted anti-French slogans and called for a boycott of French goods.
The National Institute of Electronics has developed an artificial intelligence-based software that would detect the coronavirus in the lungs in 60 seconds.
The AI software was developed by the institute to upgrade the testing process, as currently, it takes several hours for the PCR tests to detect the virus in a patient. The new virus detecting system named ‘Cov-Raid AI Detection’ has already been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP).
DRAP said that the Cov-Raid “shall employ Convolutional Neural Networks to predict [presence of] Covid-19 in suspected individuals” by using X-rays and it has been approved for “secondary detection” of the virus, reported Dawn.
According to the creators of the software, ‘Cov-Raid’ has been developed by “creating a data repository of Chest X Rays (CXR) for Covid-19 or non-Covid-19 detection”.
“The Cov-Raid requires a chest X-Ray image as an input for the detection of Covid-19 positive or negative patients in less than one minute,” the description on the website said.
“The algorithm has been trained on more than 35,000 CXRs (data authentication done through multiple certified radiologists and PCR reports),” the website said, adding that the test can be used to test a large number of patients in a limited time.
Meanwhile, DRAP Chief Executive Officer Dr Asim Rauf has reportedly said that the new software is registered under the DRAP Act of 2012.
With the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) insisting that they will go ahead with the Peshawar jalsa as planned on November 22, despite a sharp increase in cases of COVID-19, Special Assistant to PM on Political Communication Dr Shahbaz Gill has accused opposition parties of not caring about the lives of ordinary people.
Taking a dig at Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari’s upcoming engagement, Dr Gill shared a picture of the invitation card and said: “For Bakhtawar’s engagement, you need a mandatory COVID-19 test report or you will not be allowed to enter Bilawal House. But you call ordinary citizens to your jalsas and put them at risk.”
“These are those people who consider the public to be less than them,” added the SAPM.
بختاور کی منگنی پروگرام کیلئے کرونا ٹیسٹ کی رپورٹ بھیجنا لازم ورنہ آپ کو بلاول ہاوس آنے نہیں دیاجائیگا خلقِ خدا کو جب جلسوں میں بلاتے ہو تو کیوں اُن کی جانوں کا خیال نہیں رکھتے اپنی جانیں تو بہت عزیز ہیں تمہیں؟ یہ ہے وہ فرعونیت یہ ہے وہ ظالمانہ سوچ جو عوام کوکم ترسمجھتے ہیں pic.twitter.com/WsBEqmCmsf
Bakhtawar will be getting engaged to Mahmood Choudhry on November 27 at Bilawal House in Karachi. All guests attending the ceremony have been requested to get tested for COVID-19 and send the results via e-mail.
“All attendees are requested to please email a scanned copy of their negative COVID-19 PCR test result 24 hours prior to attendance. This is a mandatory requirement for security clearance,” the invitation reads.
The guests have also been asked not to bring mobile phones with them due to security purposes.
“Please note — no photography or mobile phones will be permitted inside the venue and photographs will be available for all guests through our official photographer.”
“We thank you in advance for adhering to our safety protocols to keep you and your loved ones safe, and enable us all to enjoy the occasion,” it added.
The couple will reportedly tie the knot in January 2021 in Karachi.
Meanwhile, it is being reported that Bakhtawar is looking to recreate her mother Benazir Bhutto’s Nikkah look for her engagement.
Indian television comedian Bharti Singh was taken into custody by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday for alleged possession and consumption of the banned drug marijuana after the department conducted a raid at her house. A day after her arrest, her husband Harsh Limbachiya, who is also a popular television comedian, was arrested on the same charges.
According to a NCB official, 86.5 grams of marijuana (ganja) was seized from Singh and Limbachiyaa’s home and office.
“Both Singh and her husband accepted the consumption of ganja,” confirmed the NCB official.
The arrest of the popular television comedian stunned the entertainment world. Fellow comedian Raju Shrivastava shared, “I am really shocked and hurt and because of her the entire fraternity gets defamed.”
Meanwhile another comedian Ehsaan Qureshi said,“ I have worked with Bharti on shows and live events but I have never seen her doing drugs in front of people or during shoots maybe she did it on the sly. I am really shocked to know that she has confessed to doing Drugs.”
He added: “The industry has still not been able to come to terms with Sushant Singh Rajput case who died due to drugs or maybe depression.”
The couples’ arrest comes as a part of the ongoing probe by the NCB into alleged drug use in Bollywood, after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput from alleged suicide in June. The central agency had earlier arrested Rajput’s girlfriend, actress Rhea Chakraborty, her brother, some employees of the late film star, and a few others during investigation. Moreover, top Bollywood actors including Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan and Arjun Rampal have also been questioned by the NCB.
The agency has said this is part of its attempt to unravel a network of supply of drugs to Bollywood celebrities.
As part of the initiative launched by UNICEF Pakistan and the Human Rights Ministry of Pakistan, 30 monuments across the country turned blue to commemorate World Children’s Day on November 20, 2020.
Monuments in six cities including Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Ziarat, Karachi and Lahore were illuminated with blue lights. Minar-e-Pakistan, the Ministry of Human Rights, Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Saudi-Pak Tower in Islamabad were among the buildings that turned blue.
Minar-e-Pakistan, LahoreDelhi Gate, LahoreQuaid-e-Azam House, KarachiZiaratQuaid-e-Azam Library, LahoreKarachi PortNational AssemblyPrime Minister office, Islamabad Islamia College, PeshawarKhyber Pakhtunkhwa AssemblyKhyber Pass, PeshawarPakistan Telecommunication Authority, Islamabad Punjab Assembly, Lahore. Saudi Pak Tower, Islamabad
Another view of Do Talwar (The Two Swords) Monument going blue in Karachi for #WorldChildrensDay 2020.
It went blue shortly after Teen Talwar (see thread)
This the third year in a row that buildings across the country and globe were lit up to call for a world in which the vision of the CRC of the Child becomes a reality. World Children’s Day marks the adoption of the Convention on Nov 20, 1989. Pakistan ratified the convention the following year.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan, while commemorating Children’s Day said: “Children are the most precious resource of any nation and the sole guarantee for its future.”
The National Triangular T20 Women’s Cricket championship is scheduled to kick off on Sunday at the Pindi Cricket Stadium. The championship will run from November 22 to December 1.
As per details, 42 players will take part in the championship, which will be played on a double-league basis with the top two teams competing in the final on December 1.
Following a 100 percent increase in their domestic match-fee, women cricketers will have an added incentive to bring out the best performances as the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has doubled the prize money for the event from the last season.
The top-run getter and player of the tournament in the last edition will be eager to defend the title with Rs 1million up for grabs for the championship winners. The runner-up will pocket Rs 500,000.
Rs 50,000 will be awarded to the player of the championship, while player of the match will get Rs 20,000.
Aliya Riaz , Ramin Shamim and Muneeba Ali will captain PCB Blasters , PCB Dynamites and PCB Challengers respectively.
The championship will be live streamed on PCB’s YouTube channel through a nine-camera production. Keeping in view the COVID-19 situation special guidelines for media have also been issued by PCB.
Following a sharp increase in cases of coronavirus, the Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department has enforced a smart lockdown in six cities in the province including Lahore to control the spread of the disease.
According to a notification issued by the department, hotspot areas of district Lahore included Block F1, Valencia Town, Nishtar Town; Blocks E1, E2, F1, F2, G2, G4, G5 Johar Town; Boys’ Hostel No. 11, Superintendent House, PU, Allama lqbal Town; Sector AA, Sector BB, Sector CC, Sector FF, Phase 4, DHA; Sector XX, Phase 3, DHA; Sector N, DHA Phase 1; Paragon City, Lahore Cantt; and Block A, Block B, FCC, Gulberg-4, Gulberg Town. Other areas of Lahore shall remain open.
In the closed areas, the following shall be exempted from this order: grocery stores, general/karyana stores, atta chakkis, fruit & vegetable shops, tondoors & petrol pumps shall be open from 9am to 7 pm for seven days a week; all medical services and pharmacies/medical stores, laboratories and collection points, hospitals and clinics for 24 hours a day, seven days a week; and milk shops, chicken & meat/fish shops, and bakeries shall remain open from 7am to 7pm seven days a week. Large departmental stores will only keep their grocery/pharmacy sections open while all others sections will remain closed.
A Hindu temple, believed to be 1,300 years ago, has been discovered by Pakistani and Italian archaeological experts at a mountain in Swat district. The discovery was reportedly made during an excavation at Barikot Ghundai.
According to Fazle Khaliq of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Department of Archaeology, the temple discovered is of Lord Vishnu. It was built by the Hindus 1,300 years ago during the Hindu Shahi period, he said.
The Hindu Shahis or Kabul Shahis (850-1026 CE) was a Hindu dynasty that ruled the Kabul Valley (eastern Afghanistan), Gandhara (modern-day Pakistan), and present-day northwestern India.
During their excavation, archaeologists also found traces of a cantonment and watchtowers near the temple site. Experts also found a water tank near the temple site which they assume was used by the Hindus for bathing before worship.
Khaliq said that the Swat district is home to numerous ancient archaeological sites, some of which are thousands of years old, but traces of the Hindu Shahi period have been found for the first time in the area.
Dr Luka, the head of the Italian archaeological mission, said this was the first temple of the Ghandhara Civilisation discovered in Swat district.
Swat district is among the top 20 sites in Pakistan which is home to every kind of tourism such as natural beauty, religious tourism, cultural tourism and archaeological sites.
Several places of worship of Buddhism are also situated in Swat district.
Last year in October, archaeologists and historians discovered another temple, reportedly built in the 7th century, during the Turki Shahi period, on the top of Ghwandai mount at Bazira in Barikot Swat.
The Current starts its day with a morning mood to engage followers and find out what they are interested in. This is done via a ‘This or That’ poll and the winner has to compete in the same category the next day. It is mostly done over a week’s time and we found out a lot about our followers – and Pakistanis – based on what they vote for.
The Current has compiled a few fun polls it did on its Instagram account.
Professor VS Berlin: What would you like to be?
Professor wins with 67%.
Who is your favourite female anchor?
We put this poll the whole week and got our winner. Can you guess who that was?
ARY’s Maria Memon won the vote beating the likes of Sana Bucha, Meher Bokhari and Asma Shirazi.
Favourite male anchor
Waseem Badami is clearly the winner beating all prominent news anchors of Pakistan.
