Chief Justice (CJ) Umar Ata Bandial has approved a three-month summer vacation for all the judges in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
The holidays will start from June 15 and last till September 15.
However, the notification for the vacations said that urgent cases will continue to be heard during these holidays. In the last three years, important cases were heard during this period.
Currently, the apex court is hearing the matter of Punjab elections as the divide between judges becomes more apparent.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is leaving for India today to attend a moot of the Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) being held in Goa today (Thursday).
The foreign minister shared a video message on Twitter in which he said that his attendance in the meeting will give a clear message on how much importance Pakistan gives to SCO.
He added that he is looking forward to engaging bilaterally with the member countries.
On my way to Goa, India. Will be leading the Pakistan delegation at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization CFM. My decision to attend this meeting illustrates Pakistan’s strong commitment to the charter of SCO.
— Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (@BBhuttoZardari) May 4, 2023
Alongside the CFM meeting, the Foreign Minister will also hold meetings with counterparts from friendly nations. Pakistan became a member of SCO after joining the body in 2017.
Russia has accused Ukraine of trying to assassinate President Vladimir Putin by attacking Kremlin with drones.
The two countries are at war since February 2022.
In a statement, Russia said that Ukraine attempted to carry out a strike on the Kremlin residence of the President. Kremlin is a large government complex in central Moscow.
It said it regarded this “as a planned terrorist act and an assassination attempt on the president”.
Putin himself was not present at the location at the time.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky denied his country was behind it.
“We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities,” he said, speaking on a visit to Finland.
Meanwhile, senior Ukrainian Presidential official Mykhailo Podolyak said the reported incident indicates that “Russia is clearly preparing a large-scale terrorist attack”.
As for the drones over the Kremlin. It’s all predictable… Russia is clearly preparing a large-scale terrorist attack. That's why it first detains a large allegedly subversive group in Crimea. And then it demonstrates "drones over the Kremlin". First of all, Ukraine wages an…
Afghan Taliban have once again rejected international calls to lift the ban they imposed on women’s work and education, after the United Nations sanctions committee concluded in Doha without formally recognising the administration in Afghanistan.
Suhail Shaheen, head of the Taliban political office in Doha pointed out that the meeting’s decisions cannot be accepted or implemented when the government in Afghanistan is not part of the process.
In a meeting where over 20 countries’ representatives were present, the Taliban administration was not invited.
When asked by a journalist if there will ever be a situation when he will meet the Taliban directly, UN Chief António Guterres said: “If the time is right, I will not deny the possibility.”
Afghan Foreign Minister (FM) Amir Khan Muttaqi will reportedly visit Pakistan in a couple of days.
In a positive development, Pakistan’s press freedom ranking has improved, with the country moving up seven spots to number 150 on the list.
However, India’s position has slipped to 160 compared to last year’s stats when the country was placed at 150. China has been placed in the second last spot in the ranking list and North Korea has been put in the last.
May 3rd marks World Press Freedom Day, an opportunity to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom; to assess the state of press freedom throughout the world; to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
The World Press Freedom Index also revealed a shocking general slide, with an unprecedented 31 countries deemed to be in a “very serious situation”.
Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif took to Twitter to pay his tributes to all journalists across the world “for the commendable work they are doing to inform and educate the people.”
On World Press Freedom Day, I pay glowing tributes to journalists across the world, particularly those in Pakistan for the commendable work they are doing to inform & educate the people. The environment in which they work is often full of challenges & risks and yet they never…
Indian director Sudipto Sen’s upcoming film ‘The Kerala Story’ has attracted widespread backlash for claiming to represent the stories of 32,000 women from the state who were lured into converting to Islam by Muslim men and then taken to Afghanistan to join militant outfit Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The trailer for the movie debuted online on November 3 last year. It opens with the story of Fathima Ba (played by Adah Sharma), who is a Hindu Malayali nurse and claimed to be one of the 32,000 Hindu and Christian women who were abducted and sent to Afghanistan. Since then, the film has been criticized by Indian politicians such as Congress leader and Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan for spreading misinformation that would only further marginalise the Muslims living in India:
“The film is a bundle of lies. It says 32,000 women were converted and sent to Islamic State-held areas. Its trailer gave enough hints of its content. It is intended to defame the state and community and Sangh Parivar outfits are behind this.”
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan released a statement on 30 April where he slammed Sen for pushing the so-called claim of ‘love-jihad’ through the film, a conspiracy theory pushed by Hindutva members which alleges that Muslim men lure Hindu and Christian women through seduction or kidnapping to convert them into Islam. He further accused the filmmaker of threatening religious harmony by “sowing the seeds of communalism” through the debunked claim that 32,000 women were kidnapped from India and handed over to ISIS.
“In the movie trailer, we see a hoax that 32,000 women in Kerala were converted and became members of the Islamic State. This bogus story is a product of the Sangh Parivar’s lie factory.”
The central controversy surrounding the film was it’s claim that 32,000 women were forcibly converted to Islam in Kerala and were sent to ISIS, which has been debunked by several credible publications to be untrue. But speaking to India Today, the producer of the film, Vipul Shah, said that the focus was not the numbers, but the fact that forced conversions are still happening throughout India:
“We don’t want to get into the debate on the numbers, we want to talk about the issue. We want to bring notice to the human tragedy happening in Kerala and in India.”
Actor Adah Sharma also defended the movie’s false pretext, by telling India Today that she had spoken to the women who inspired the story:
“I spoke to some of these women. There will be testimony from those who will be brave enough to come in front of cameras.”
Politicians like Shashi Tharoor have also slammed the filmmakers for spreading misinformation regarding the 32,000 figure, and addressed it in a lengthy Twitter post where he also said that his 2021 tweet was not proof that the allegations of the filmmakers were real:
“Many are spreading this 2021 tweet of mine as if it undermines my present objections to the trailer & publicity for “The Kerala Story”. Yes, I was approached then by three Kerala mothers and was aware of a fourth, and I was open about my concerns about their daughters’ radicalisation. But four cases are a far cry from the 32,000 that the film-makers are alleging. If there really were so many ISIS female members from Kerala, that would mean double the number when you count their husbands, whereas even Western intelligence sources says the number of ALL Indians in ISIS does not approach three figures. This gross exaggeration and distortion of the Kerala reality is what I am objecting to.”
Many are spreading this 2021 tweet of mine as if it undermines my present objections to the trailer & publicity for "The Kerala Story". Yes, I was approached then by three Kerala mothers and was aware of a fourth, and I was open about my concerns about their daughters'… https://t.co/R8Vn1RsfpU
In a tweet posted on Monday, Tharoor offered Rs1 crore to anyone who would be able to prove that 32,000 women had been forcibly converted and sent to ISIS.
Now there’s an opportunity for all those hyping the alleged conversions of 32,000 women on Kerala to Islamism — to prove their case and make some money. Will they be up to the challenge or is there simply no proof because none exists? #NotOurKeralaStorypic.twitter.com/SrwaMx556H
ALT News, in an investigative piece, revealed that the director Sudipto Sen had first mentioned the figure on a Youtube channel ‘The Festival Of Bharat” where he talked about how he calculated the final number, with the help of a speech delivered by the former Kerala CM Oommen Chandy:
“In 2010, former Kerala CM Oommen Chandy put a report in front of Kerala assembly. In front of my camera, he denied that anything had happened. But in 2010, I documented a case where he (Chandy) said that every year approximately 2,800 to 3,200 girls were taking up Islam. Just calculate it for the following 10 years, and the number is around 32,000.”
When the publication spoke to Sen on the phone, the author Shinjinee Majumder writes, the director claimed that he picked the number up from an article published by ‘The Times Of India”:
“This figure (32,000) is not mine. It was a piece of news in The Times of India… one thing I can tell you is that Oommen Chandy, the chief minister of Kerala, had placed this number in the state assembly. So this is not my number, I have got all the documents with me.”
However, no publication quoting such a large number has come to light. But ALT News reports that in 2012, India Today reported the Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy informing the state minister about how 2,667 young women had converted to Islam between 2006 to 2012. Especially, Chandy had said that there was no evidence of forced conversions in the state, and the fears of ‘love jihad’ were baseless.
When ANI news shared this report with Sen, his response was:
“Let the intolerance reach a crescendo. I’ll share my data after the film is released. Why should I defeat the cause of my film?”
Similarly, Kerala Police had also refuted the claims that 32,000 women had been sent to Syria as “totally baseless”.
While a report published in 2020 by the United States Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism said that there were only 66 known Indian-origin fighters associated with ISIS in 2020, of which 34 terrorism cases were related to ISIS and NIA arrested 160 people by the end of September.
Moreover, The Hindu reported in June 2021 that four Indian women were traced in an Afghanistani prison, who had travelled with their husbands to join the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), and it was unlikely that they would come back to India.
As a response to the growing backlash, the film trailer has now changed the title description from 32,000 women to just three young girls, as shared by several Twitter users.
From 'Heartbreaking and gut-wrenching stories of 32000 females in Kerala! Coming Soon!' TO 'True story of 3 young girls from different parts of Kerala'. Propaganda Movie teaser has NOW changed the description of 'The Kerala Story' on YouTube. pic.twitter.com/GIUAomaX5i
With the film set to release on 5 May and despite calls to authorities to ban the film on grounds of hate speech and misinformation, NDTV reported today that the Indian Supreme Court had refused to entertain a petition to seek a stay on the release of ‘The Kerala Story’ because it had been cleared by the censor board:
“There are varieties of hate speeches. This film has got certification and has been cleared by the board. It’s not like a person getting on the podium and starts giving uncontrolled speech. If you want to challenge the release of the movie, you should challenge the certification and through appropriate forum”.
Former Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan along with his delegations spent more than Rs11 billion on foreign tours during his three-year term as the head of government.
The figure includes all foreign trips taken by Khan until March 2022. The total amount spent on these trips adds up to Rs11.15 billion.
During the first year of Imran Khan’s tenure, he and his delegation spent more than two billion while in the first year in government PM Shehbaz Sharif spent more than one billion.
The total budget allocation in the financial year 2022-23 for foreign tours is Rs2.86 billion.
In an effort to lessen animosity and differences between the superior judiciary, Chief Justice (CJ) Umar Ata Bandial on Monday hosted a dinner for his fellow senior Supreme Court (SC) judges.
All of the judges of the apex court attended the event except for the next CJ of Pakistan, Justice Qazi Faez Isa.
Justice Isa, a lawyer said, might have decided not to attend the dinner as the CJP has already reserved his decision on a government’s plea regarding withdrawal of its curative review petition against an apex court order dismissing a presidential reference against the said judge.
Earlier, a retired chief justice also reportedly tried to resolve the issues between Bandial and Isa but all in vain.
The SC is divided into two groups with eight judges on one side and seven on the other. Two positions in the Supreme Court have been lying vacant.
It is pertinent to mention that questions related to the supreme power given to CJP Bandial were raised when he took up election suo moto case despite opposition by many senior judges including Justice Qazi Faez. Since then the rift in the court has been widely speculated upon.
Former Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Pervaiz Elahi’s residence in Gujrat was searched thoroughly by the Punjab police and anti-corruption officials in the late hours of Monday.
Pervaiz’s son Moonis Elahi alleged that although the police did not have a search warrant to conduct the raid, he allowed them access to the premises.
According to media reports, police forcefully entered the premises when their knocking at the doors went unanswered.
After the episode, Elahi moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) to prevent his arrest, however, the court rejected his plea.
Prior to this, on Friday, the same officials’ squad used an armoured vehicle to break down the main gate of Elahi’s Gulberg residence in Lahore and entered the house.
Officials are trying to arrest Elahi in a corruption case, however, according to his lawyers, pre-arrest bail has already been taken from a court until May 6 in the particular case.
First Lady of Pakistan and bestselling author Tehmina Durrani attended former Prime Minister (PM) Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s granddaughter Fatima Bhutto’s wedding which took place in Karachi a few days ago.
While sharing a picture of herself with the newlyweds, Durrani wrote: “Fatima Bhutto and Gibran’s marriage is an important message of simplicity for the entire nation.”
Fatima Bhutto & Gibran’s marriage is an important msg of SIMPLICITY for the entire nation. The example set in ZAB’s historic library at 70 Clifton must become the new trend. 🤲Ameen pic.twitter.com/Kvfc5jOLuW
It is pertinent to mention that the history of ties between the Bhutto family and Tehmina goes way back to the 1970s when she was married to former Punjab Governor Ghulam Mustafa Khar, who was one of Bhutto’s closest confidants. However, after Tehmina got divorced from Khar, she remained in touch with Bhutto’s son Murtaza’s family.
Fatima Bhutto, who is also a famous writer, got married in an intimate ceremony at her family home in Karachi’s 70 Clifton on April 28, with the simple nuptials held in her grandfather’s library.
