Prime Minister Imran Khan has defended his U-turns once again, saying that going back on one’s words is fine as long as it doesn’t compromise “ideology”.
This is not the first time Imran has tried to defend the actions that saw him walk away from his promises. In 2018, he had said: “A leader who does not take ‘U-turns’ [in the best interests of the nation] is not a ‘real leader’.”
APP, the state-run news agency, reported the PM as saying that the idea of making “compromises to reach the ultimate goal was never bad until one compromised the ideology”. “I will never make a compromise on an NRO. The U-turn is when you give up your goal,” he remarked.
In an interview with Dunya News on Friday, the PM also talked about his statement wherein he had said that he was not prepared to run the country. “My statement that I was not prepared was completely misunderstood,” he said, adding: “I have never made any excuses that I was not prepared.”
According to the premier, only a “fool would not know about the problems of the country”. The PM said the two years have passed with great “difficulty” but now things are looking better. “Good times are soon to come.” “People will decide about my performance after five years [and] God willing, Pakistan will soon have great times.”
Speaking about economy, Imran said expenditure is on the rise as opposed to the income. “Reducing expenditure at home can become a pain,” he said, adding that half of tax revenue is spent on debt servicing.
The current government has paid back $20 billion worth of loans over the past two years and the current account deficit has also been in positive for the past five months, he added.
The remittances and exports have increased as well, the PM said, referring to a boost in the textile industry.
Emma Alam from Pakistan has won the 29th World Memory Championship which saw 300 contestants participate from across the globe.
The three-day competition included competitors from China, Canada, UK, South Korea, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Algeria, the United States, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Libya, Qatar, and Iraq.
Alam and Syeda Kisa Zehra from the Pakistani team also broke multiple World Records in this year’s championship.
World Memory Championships was founded in 1991 by an English author Tony Buzan and English journalist and author Raymond Keene to shine a global spotlight on the power of human memory.
The late Tony Buzan was among world’s top five speakers, as per Forbes Magazine. He was the one who promoted the idea of mental literacy. Raymond Keene is Grandmaster of Chess and an appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire by her majesty Queen Elizabeth.
The participants with the best, fastest and sharpest memory skills competed to show their intellectual power and set new heights of the potential of human memory.
Global President of The World Memory Sports Council Raymond Keene, in an official statement, said: “The field consisted of an impressive 300 competitors from 16 countries and from this extensive field the winner, the world champion from the 29th World Memory Championship, emerged from the Pakistan team, so excellently and expertly trained by Sania Alam.”
He congratulated the winner and said that “one of the great sporting achievers for Pakistan, a unique heroine in the pandemic-stricken 2020 and supreme grand world memory champion for 2020.’’
Meanwhile, Alam said that she was excited to have won.
“I had aimed to give my best in WMC 2020, backed by a lot of daily practice for the past two years with my coach and the institute,” said the winner. “I plan on competing again next year with even better performance. I congratulate all those amazing competitors who competed from across the globe.”
Alam has also competed in many memory championships before including the 3rd Asia Pacific Memory Championship in Malaysia and the 28th World Memory Championship in China and has won several medals and trophies. She is currently completing her studies through homeschooling.
Another member of Team Pakistan, Abeerah Ather, achieved 7th position in the 2020 global rankings.
Emma Alam and Team Pakistan were skilled under the Institute of Human Memory Development International (IHMD).
Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has removed Lahore police chief Umar Sheikh from his post.
Ghulam Mehmood Dogar, who was serving as DIG, Technical Procurement, CPO, Punjab, will be the new Capital City Police Officer (CCPO).
Whereas, the notification issued by the government said that Umar Sheikh will be “posted as Deputy Inspector General of Police/Deputy Commandant of Punjab Constabulary, Farooqabad, against a vacant post”.
Sheikh was posted as the Lahore police chief in September. Since then he has been involved in a number of controversies.
Soon after his posting, he allegedly told his subordinates that on any sensitive issue, the Lahore police must seek his permission even if they receive directions from the Central Police Office (CPO).
This had irked IGP Shoaib Dastgir, who refused to work as the IG till the removal of Sheikh. However, the government removed the IG following a standoff between the two.
“I am shocked… you are a mother of three and the only driver late at night… [she] should have taken the GT [Grand Trunk] Road instead, which is densely populated,” he had said while speaking to Dunya News.
Sheikh went had further said that the woman should “at least have checked her fuel before taking the motorway”.
Reacting to the statement of the CCPO Shaikh in which he said the criminals detained by the police were given bail by the courts, the chief justice had said the suspects are granted bail in line with the constitution.
He had said such statements by CCPO Shaikh were akin to committing contempt of court and asked the Punjab advocate general to give details of his interviews in 15 days.
The Lahore police on Thursday allegedly made a young boy and his sister do sit-ups in front of a police vehicle after they failed to provide their national identity cards to the police.
Speaking to ARY News, the girl said that she was coming back with her brother on a motorcycle from a factory where they both work when police officials stopped them at a check post near Ghalib Market police station and asked them to show their CNICs.
“The police officials forced us to perform sit-ups as we did not have the CNICs,” she said, adding that the policemen were recording a video while they were doing sit-ups.
Her brother said, “After inflicting corporal punishment to us in public, the police officials took us to the Ghalib Market police station where they subjected us to torture.”
The boy alleged that his sister was physically searched by the male police officer at the police station.
Meanwhile police officials have denied all allegations saying that the video shared on social media is fake and is aimed to “malign” the police.
Further reportsreveal that the Ghalib Market police station house officer (SHO) has said that “someone conspired to defame the police [in response to] an operation against the hotel mafia”.
“No official from Ghalib Market police station was involved” in the incident, the SHO said, claiming that the “footage of the boy and girl was made on purpose near the police van”.
The cop added that an investigation is underway and authorities would soon “reveal the facts”.
A man, who was wearing a ‘wolf mask’ in Peshawar on New Year’s Eve, was arrested by the Peshawar police for “trying to scare off people” in the provincial capital.
Police in the Pakistani city of Peshawar arrest a young man on New Year’s eve – for wearing a costume mask to scare people pic.twitter.com/sU9f1NDcAf
After the arrest, the police officials posed alongside the man, still wearing a mask and in handcuffs, for a picture. The photo went viral on social media, prompting people to say that if the intent of the costume was to scare off people off then why were police taking pictures of the accused in the same costume.
But the detainee says that he was wearing the mask in line with the government’s coronavirus Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
By the way when the police interrogated him last night, his statement in self defence was: “I was wearing the mask as part of the SOPs to protect myself from the Corona Virus” https://t.co/ZlXaM7N6uO
Twitterati, however, didn’t let this opportunity to bash policemen go.
A user wrote that the government should have been specific about the types of the face mask.
govt ka kasoor hai: instructions should be clear and specific. i mean, when you say 'wear your face mask', what is that you actually mean? 😠 https://t.co/qk2YCSqnig
The government has approved a hike of Rs2.31 and Rs1.80 in the prices of petrol and diesel, respectively, for the month January, while the price of the Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) has also been increased by Rs16 per kg.
“While considering relief for the people, Prime Minister Imran Khan approved the minimum possible increase in prices of petroleum products against OGRA’s [Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority] recommendations,” a Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) press release said.
OGRA had sought an increase of Rs10.68 in petrol price and Rs8.37 in diesel price, whereas it asked the government to increase the price of kerosene oil by Rs10.92 and light diesel oil (LDO) by Rs14.87; the government however reduced it by Rs3.36 and Rs3.95, respectively.
Meanwhile, OGRA notified a hike of Rs16 per kilogramme in the prices of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), effective from today, which comes as another blow for the public already facing high inflation.
According to OGRA’s notification, the LPG prices are raised by Rs16/kg. With the increase, the LPG cylinder for domestic users will be up by Rs188 and commercial users by Rs722.
It may be noted here that the consumers are already facing a shortage of gas nationwide and have to rely on LPG cylinders instead.
A rather tough year has came to an end, surprisingly, in the blink of an eye.
But while it negates the belief that hard times pass slow, here are all the major updates that added to the very happening COVID-19-infected year as most of the world stayed indoors.
Extension for Gen Bajwa
After some drama following earlier reservations, the Supreme Court (SC) on November 28, 2019 approved a short 6-month extension in General Bajwa’s term as the chief of army staff.
Subsequently, on January 7, 2020, the National Assembly passed three bills concerning the tenure of the three services chiefs — chief of army staff, chief of air staff and chief of naval staff — and the chairman of the joint chief of staff committee.
Gen Bajwa was granted extension up to three years till November 29, 2022.
Surprisingly though, the two major opposition parties — PML-N and PPP — were on board for the changes which was why the bills faced no resistance even in the opposition-dominated Senate.
Smooth sailing of the Army Act was also what prompted Federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda to bring with him an army boot to a live talkshow.
Coronavirus
After wreaking havoc in China and beginning to do the same in Europe as well as the worst-hit US, the first case of COVID-19 was reported from Karachi on February 26, 2020. Hundreds of thousands of infections and several deaths were reported.
Prominent figures were also on the list of COVID-19 patients.
While Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s smart lockdowns stay in place to deal with the pandemic but not at the cost of livelihoods, it is too early to predict what 2021 would hold for Pakistan with vaccines rolling out but also the discovery of a new strand of the virus.
Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said the pilots of the Karachi-bound PK8308 flight of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) from Lahore were distracted while talking about coronavirus.
The passenger plane came down on houses in Karachi with only two survivors. Subsequent investigations into the licenses of Pakistani pilots led to the grounding of hundreds across the globe and the imposition of a temporary ban on PIA flights to Europe and the United States (US).
While blame games continued as authorities hesitated to take responsibility for the misery of people of the country’s largest city, the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said it wanted all stakeholders to contribute to ameliorating the situation instead of politicising a “pure natural disaster”.
The situation was improved after the intervention of the federal government and a military-aided rescue operation.
Opposition Alliance
The year also witnessed a rather common sight in Pakistan when opposition parties put their differences aside in an attempt to oust the PTI government.
After a round of meetings, almost all opposition parties, including PPP, PML-N, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl), Awami National Party, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Balochistan National Party among others, launched a series of countrywide protests.
The foremost demand of the 11-party alliance, named Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), is the resignation of “selected” Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan. It has threatened to march to Islamabad if the premier doesn’t resign before midnight on December 31 (today).
While the opposition seems satisfied with its anti-government campaign, the government is confident of cracks emerging within PDM ranks before it could pose an actual threat.
Khadim Rizvi’s Death
Renowned cleric and Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi passed away on November 19.
Earlier it was reported that he was suffering from high-grade fever for the past couple of days, which had led to speculations if he was suffering from COVID-19.
While the cause of his sudden death was not determined, his funeral prayers in Lahore were attended by hundreds of thousands of supporters from across the globe, adding to COVID-19 superspreader event fears.
Rizvi, who had returned from a sit-in protest against French president’s take on blasphemy a day before his death, was known for his aggressive speeches besides promotion of extremist element in the religio-political landscape of the country.
Karachi police helpline received 34,941,33 calls on Madadgar-15 in 2020, out of which about 798,000 turned out to be either bogus or prank calls.
According to an annual report of the police helpline, the Karachi police acting on 27,265,00 complaints arrested 474 suspects, captured 127 pistols, recovered 138 stolen and snatched bikes, 26 four-wheelers, 65 cell phones, 78,000 wristwatches, jewellery and other valuables.
It said the police’s average time of responding to calls on Madadgar-15 reduced to seven minutes from 40 minutes after the helpline’s revival.
A police official advised people to make calls to the helpline only in case of any emergency.
The Karachi traffic police has announced a traffic plan for New Year’s Eve.
According to the route prepared by the traffic police, no main roads will be closed for traffic this year. However, traffic from Sea View McDonald’s to Village Hotel will be one-way, while parking will be not allowed on Sea View, Shah-Ra-e-Faisal, Abdullah Haroon Road and Ziaud Din Ahmed Road. Parking will also be banned on Mai Kolachi Road, Korangi and MT Khan Road.
The traffic police added that if anyone rides a motorcycle without a silencer, they will be handed over to police. Aerial firing is also banned and people can send video complaints of aerial firing via WhatsApp on 0343 -5142770.
The police will be appointed in all areas of Karachi from 8 pm today to 3am tomorrow.
Earlier, it was reported that a ban will be imposed on aerial firing in the city and restaurants and commercial centers can only remain open till 8 pm on New Year’s Eve.
On December 30, it was reported that Karachi Commissioner Navid Ahmed Shaikh instructed the police to keep Sea View and surrounding areas open for the public on the day with better traffic and security arrangements.
The directives came amid the current pandemic while checking the security and traffic plan and other arrangements for December 31.
Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar has refused to admit that his controversial remarks that accused the Pakistani pilots of having fake licences caused massive losses to the national airlines and resulted in a ban on its flights in Europe.
In a show with Geo’s Shahzeb Khanzada, the minister said he didn’t say anything wrong and that his honesty must be “appreciated” and that the entire sector was facing losses due to COVID-19, not just the national carrier.
After a deadly plane crash in May 2020, the minister on the floor of parliament had claimed 262 pilots had fake licences. His statement created an uproar, resulting in a ban on Pakistani pilots. The ban in Europe still persists.
Also, investigations had reportedly revealed that 182 out of the 262 pilots have valid credentials.
However, the minister said despite all the bans his steps should be lauded because he was pushing for transparency.“Should we not have taken any action? You should appreciate that someone is taking initiative. Our transparency should be appreciated,” he said in the show.
He further said that the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had a satisfactory score of “97.6%” which was considered “great”. At this, the host retorted that the EU ban on the PIA still remains, no matter the score, because of the statement made by the minister.
But, Ghulam Sarwar insisted that his steps should be appreciated despite the fact that PM Imran Khan and the attorney general had already said that the PIA issue was mishandled.
According to a report in July, the PIA was likely to incur losses over Rs100 billion due to suspension of international flights amid the fake licences controversy and the coronavirus pandemic.
