Current Final

Category: National

  • The Current’s followers react to Hina Butt’s 3.98 GPA

    The Current’s followers react to Hina Butt’s 3.98 GPA

    Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hina Pervaiz Butt, in a recent talk show, revealed that she graduated from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) with a GPA of 3.98.

    The Current posted a midnight question asking people what their GPA was in university and here is how people responded to the question.

    Followers were quick to point out her faux pas of thinking that BBC Urdu is a credible source of information compared to BBC News.

    Some questioned the institute for this.

    A few had quite a funny reaction to the post.

    One of our followers won’t be relying on GPA system anymore.

    Some social media users appreciated Hina for scoring such a good GPA.

  • Bilawal not invited to Biden’s oath-taking ceremony, says PPP

    The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has denied the news that chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and former president Asif Ali Zardari have been invited to attend the oath-taking ceremony of US President-elect Joe Biden on Jan 20.

    The denial came a day after a media outlet reported that the PPP chairperson would be attending the inauguration ceremony of the US president-elect and leave for the US on January 18 on a four-day visit. It was being reported that the PPP chief would also meet the US senators.

    The report was also denied by PPP senior leader Farhatullah Babar, saying there was no truth to the reports of Bilawal going to the US.

    There were little chances of Bilawal attending the ceremony due to the coronavirus pandemic. It will only be attended by 1,000 people and most of the celebrations will be held online.

    Joe Biden, the Demoracts nominee, was elected as the president in November by defeating incumbent president Donald Trump. Trump had refused to accept the result and contest it in various courts — most of the pleas were dismissed by the judges.

    His refusal to accept the result and provocative speeches also resulted in an assault on The Capitol by the far-right supporters last week. These people stormed the building to stop the certification of Biden.

    The police and the National Guard managed to evacuate the building after four hours and imposed a curfew. Subsequently, Trump asked his supporters to remain calm and announced that he would support the peaceful transition of power. 

    Immediately after the certification, the White House released a statement from Trump in which he pledged an “orderly transition” on Jan. 20 when Biden will be sworn into office. Since then, the US president has attracted permanent bans on Twitter and Facebook for inciting violence.

  • VIDEO: ISPR’s new documentary highlights security forces’ role in development of remote areas

    VIDEO: ISPR’s new documentary highlights security forces’ role in development of remote areas

    The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has released its documentary titled ‘Chiragh-e-Rah: Beacons on the Path of Glory’ that highlights the role played by the country’s security forces in the socio-economic development of Pakistan’s remote areas.

    According to the military’s media wing, the documentary underlines the role played by Pakistani security forces in the socio-economic development of remote areas along the western borders.

    The security forces measured the threats and countered the nefarious designs head-on with a comprehensive strategy. The essence was to achieve enduring peace reinforced with a population-centric and community-driven developmental approach, through stabilisation of the western zone by defeating insurgency; concurrent mainstreaming and education of youth to make them useful members of the society, read an Instagram post by the ISPR.

    “Having addressed the menace of fear, terrorism and uncertainty, a new era of development and progress has been launched with the assistance of the government,” it read.

    “May it be:
    • Communication infrastructure like roads, tunnels and bridges to connect these remote areas to main cities.
    • Establishment of modern and progressive education system for the youth of the area.
    • Women empowerment initiatives.
    • Providing basic health facilities, provision of clean drinking water
    • Encouraging economic activities through promoting local industries
    • Mineral resources and tourism, providing sports grounds and other facilities for healthy and positive activities and to promote local talent
    • Restoration of law and order, establishing writ of the government.
    The documentary highlights that; the day is not far when these areas will be at par and in pace with other developed parts of the country.”

    WATCH VIDEO:

    What do you think of the new ISPR project? Let The Current know in the comments…

  • PM asks ministers to quit cabinet if they don’t agree with govt decisions

    PM asks ministers to quit cabinet if they don’t agree with govt decisions

    Prime Minister Imran Khan has asked his cabinet members quit the federal cabinet if they have a problem with the decisions taken by the government.

    According to Geo News, the PM told his ministers to “take ownership of the government’s decision” and if they cannot do that then they could resign from their posts.

    “In case of their failure to toe the party line, I will decide myself whether to keep them in the cabinet or not,” the PM was quoted as saying. 

    During the meeting, the PM said that there were no reforms in the state institutions. The governance system also did not improve, he said, responding to a briefing given by Institutional Reforms Adviser Ishrat Hussain on the situation of the state institutions.

    The report claimed that ministers questioned the pace of reforms in the governance in different institutions and asked about the accountability of those at the helm.

    At this, the PM told them to improve their performance and sought a comprehensive report on the state institutions’ performance that could be presented before the public.

    Rs 200bn SCAM IN AGP:

    The prime minister directed the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) to submit a report, saying that corruption amounting to over Rs180 billion had been unearthed in the institution.

    According to the PM, the prime minister directed the finance and revenue minister Hafeez Sheikh and Science minister Fawad Chaudhry to introduce a new digital system in the AGP’s office.

  • Cops run for life after pigs enter Sindh police station

    Cops run for life after pigs enter Sindh police station

     Two pigs have reportedly entered a police station in Sindh after which cops were seen running out of the building to save their lives.  

    According to the details, the incident took place in Moro City of Sindh’s Naushahro Feroze district.

    As soon as the pigs made an unexpected entry into the station building, the police staff present inside panicked. The witnesses noted that police stayed outside while pigs were inside.

    The station house officer (SHO) said one of the pigs was brought back out while the personnel sought help to bring out the other one.

    The police managed to reclaim the station with the help of locals.

  • Bilawal to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration next week

     Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has decided to attend the inauguration ceremony of US President-elect Joe Biden on January 18 (Monday) after an invite by the incoming US administration.

    The PPP chairman will leave for Washington on a four-day visit. His agenda includes meetings with the US senators among other officials, according to a report in ARY News.

    Joe Biden, the Demoracts nominee, was elected as the president in November by defeating incumbent president Donald Trump. Trump had refused to accept the result and contest it in various courts — most of the pleas were dismissed by the judges.

    His refusal to accept the result and provocative speeches also resulted in an assault on The Capitol by the far-right supporters last week. These people stormed the building to stop the certification of Biden.

    The police and the National Guard managed to evacuate the building after four hours and imposed a curfew. Subsequently, Trump asked his supporters to remain calm and announced that he would support the peaceful transition of power. 

    Immediately after the certification, the White House released a statement from Trump in which he pledged an “orderly transition” on Jan. 20 when Biden will be sworn into office.

    Since then, the US president has attracted permanent bans on Twitter and Facebook for inciting violence.

  • Kohat woman accuses KP lawmaker of harassment

    Kohat woman accuses KP lawmaker of harassment

    Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister’s aide Ziaullah Bangash has been accused of sexual harassment by a woman hailing from Kohat.

    According to The News, the woman urged the prime minister to take notice of the incident in a video posted on social media.

    On the other hand, Bangash, who is the CM’s aide on information technology, denied the allegations levelled by the woman and also sent a legal notice to Rahatul Ain.

    The newspaper quoted an official report over the episode which revealed that the “Rahat ul Ain, wife of Muhammad Ishfaq…alleged in her video that Ziaullah Bangash was harassing her”.

    The report said that Rahat had worked with Bangash in an NGO [non-government organisation] about 10 years ago and both allegedly had “good relations”. However, Bangash started ghosting the woman after becoming an MPA in 2013.

    Bangash had also promised Rahat a job but failed to fulfill his promise, it claimed. The woman, subsequently, started making these allegations against Bangash, it reported. It says Bangash stayed away from the said woman after the 2013 elections.

    Meanwhile, Bangash has sent a notice to Rahat through his counsel for bringing “disgrace” to his name.

    The notice said that “Ziaullah Bangash does not even know the woman”. It claimed that the woman had hurled similar allegations in 2018, but Bangash was proved innocent after an inquiry by the Kohat DPO.

    “The sole purpose of the video was to damage my client’s reputation,” said the lawmaker’s lawyer, asking the woman to issue an apology.

    “You are informed by this notice that you should pay 50 million as defamation to my client within seven days and deny your allegations by apologizing in writing as well as in a video message from your social media account. Otherwise, a claim will be filed against you in the court of law,” the notice quoted by The News read.

  • VIDEO: Indian media apologises for airing doctored video of Pakistani analyst on Balakot airstrike

    VIDEO: Indian media apologises for airing doctored video of Pakistani analyst on Balakot airstrike

    Media outlets from across the border, including India Today and NDTV, have apologised for airing a doctored video of Pakistani analyst and former diplomat Zafar Hilaly, wherein due to editing, he appeared to be supporting Indian claims of hundreds of casualties in the 2018 cross-border aggression by New Delhi.

    Several Indian television channels, newspapers and websites had carried the report by news agency ANI on Hilaly’s remarks that he made while speaking to a Pakistani media outlet over Indian claims of 300 terrorists dying in the Balakot airstrike on February 26, 2019.

    Besides ANI, India Today and NDTV, the story was reported by Republic, The Times of India, Moneycontrol, WION, Hindustan Times, NE Now, Odisha TV, Jagran, Swarajya, Lokmat, Oneindia, Deccan Herald, Business Today, Livemint, DNA, The Quint, News18 India, HW News, CNBC TV18 and ABP News among others.

    One of the reports said, “The admission by the former Pakistani diplomat, who regularly takes the Pakistan army side in TV debates, goes against the zero casualties claim made by Islamabad at that time.”

    Here’s how India Today reported the same:

    “India crossed the international border and did an act of war in which at least 300 were reported dead. Our target was different from theirs. We targeted their high command. That was our legitimate target because they are men of the military. We subconsciously accepted that a surgical strike — a limited action — did not result in any casualty. Now we have subconsciously told them that, whatever they will do, we’ll do only that much and won’t escalate,” ANI had quoted Hilaly as saying.

    But a fact-check by Alt News found that the comments were misreported. Hilaly also tweeted a video saying his statement was spliced and edited.

    In the debate posted on YouTube by HUM News as part of a programme called “Agenda Pakistan”, Hilaly had actually said, “What you did, India, was an act of war. By crossing the international boundary, India committed an act of war in which they intended to kill at least 300 people.”

    While the report has since been retracted by all outlets, here’s what India Today tweeted.

    BALAKOT AIRSTRIKE:

    The 2019 Balakot airstrike was conducted by India in the early morning hours of February 27 when Indian warplanes crossed the de facto border in the disputed region of Kashmir, and dropped bombs in the vicinity of the town of Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province in Pakistan.

    While India claimed having destroyed terror camps “established on the Pakistani side” with hundreds of terrorists dead, Pakistan had rebutted the claims and sent a group of both local and foreign journalists to the area to ascertain the facts by themselves.

    The episode had led to tensions running high between the two countries for months and embarrassment for India after Pakistan shot down one of its intruding fighter jets besides capturing an Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot.

    What do you think of the yet another rather embarrassing moment for Indian media? Let The Current know in the comments…

  • PM’s aide denies accompanying person who asked Broadsheet CEO for commission

    PM’s aide denies accompanying person who asked Broadsheet CEO for commission

    After it stirred controversy, Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Accountability Shahzad Akbar has responded to the Broadsheet CEO’s interview, saying he had met Kaveh Moussavi in 2019 to “negotiate the award price and trying to reduce the payable amount”.

    In a news report that has now been retracted, it was claimed that an unnamed individual who accompanied Shahzad Akbar to a meeting with Moussavi was “more interested in getting his cut than investigating suspects”.

    The newspaper retracted the report and offered a clarification, saying the claim by Moussavi has been rejected by Akbar. It could be someone whom Moussavi met separately, it quoted Shahzad Akbar as saying. According to the PM’s aide, he never met the Broadsheet CEO in 2018, as only two meetings took place between the CEO and Akbar in 2019.

    In the interview, Moussavi had claimed that a delegation visited London in 2018 to discuss with National Crime Agency money that had been frozen under an order. At that time, a meeting took place with a gentleman who had all the documents, he said, adding that gentleman asked him for commission when told about an account containing over a billion dollars.

    During the interview, he also claimed that Nawaz Sharif had offered a bribe to Broadsheet for abandoning probe against his foreign assets. In the interview, he said the assets recovery firm “had flatly refused the deal offered by a person claiming himself to be a nephew of Nawaz Sharif in 2012”. APP reported Moussavi as saying that the firm refused the deal because it did not “negotiate with the crooks”.

  • PM says no money for development due to ‘lowest tax collection rate’

    PM says no money for development due to ‘lowest tax collection rate’

    Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Pakistan cannot spend money on its infrastructure development, such as hospitals and schools, because it has the “lowest tax collection rate” in the world.

    The PM was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the State Bank of Pakistan’s digital payment project, Raast, in Islamabad when he made these remarks.

    The PM said the cash economy has badly affected tax collection, which is directly proportional to the lower tax rate. “Out of 220 million people, only two million people are filers,” said the PM, adding that only 30,000 people account for 70 per cent of the total tax collection.

    However, the digital payment programme would help Pakistan transition from cash economy to a digital economy, said the PM.

    The PM said: “Our biggest problem is the informal economy that’s so big that we could not collect taxes to develop Pakistan.”

    “This is an obstacle in tapping our true potential is because we can’t build our infrastructure, we can’t educate children, we can’t improve hospitals, the fastest growing country in the region 50 years ago can’t move forward because it does not have that much money for the development of the country,” he added.

    As per the PM, the news SBP initiative will allow the government expand the scope of the development to the lower classes.

    He also congratulated the SBP for efficient dealings with the overseas Pakistanis that led to capital growth at an unprecedented rate.

    “Our Pakistanis abroad sent money in an official manner due to which the current account deficit, which had been going on for years went into surplus for five months and the people did not care how much benefit was gained from it,” he added.