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  • ‘How could anyone be in favor of ending such a life’: Yashma Gill against euthanizing Noor Jehan

    Actor Yashma Gill shared a video clip of her visiting Karachi Zoo to see the facility’s ailing elephant Noor Jehan, whose condition is growing worse day by day.

    Karachi Zoo has been slammed by animal right activists for neglecting the animals under its care. Noor Jehan’s prolonged illness and mishandling of her ailment led to national outrage on social media.

    Gill discussed her experience of watching the elephant fight for her life:

    “As I stood before Noor Jehan, I couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of admiration for her unrelenting spirit. Despite her illness, she remains hopeful and determined, a true symbol of resilience. Her eyes hold a gentle yet unwavering gaze, a testament to her will to live. Her sheer strength and perseverance were truly inspiring, leaving me with a renewed sense of hope and optimism.”

    Gill rejected eeports that the elephant will be euthanized as her illness shows no improvement, asking authorities to keep fighting hard for Noor Jehan and give her the best possible chance at life:

    “For me, the answer is clear – we must do everything in our power to give her a chance to heal and recover. No matter how difficult the road ahead may be, we owe it to Noor Jehan to give her the best possible chance at life. After all, where there’s a will, there’s always a way.”

    Read her complete post here:

    Anoushay Ashraf had also joined the growing cry to shut down Karachi Zoo when she shared a clip of herself visiting elephant Noor Jehan and talking to the wildlife expert Maira over there.

    Celebrities like Hamza Ali Abbasi, Arooj Aftab and Ayesha Noor had joined the rallying cry to shut down zoos across Pakistan, by sharing how the animals suffering in cages are deprived of the natural habitat and are not given the proper facilities they need to survive:

    Arooj Aftab had re shared a clip of her interview with The Current, and in the caption she said that authorities could build much better entertainment facilities for children:

    The ‘Maula Jatt’ actor had shared pictures of the lions in Karachi Zoo, who were suffering from starvation and neglect, and demanded that authorities shut down the zoo and transport the animals to proper shelters.

  • Heist at Toronto Airport: thieves swipe $15 million worth of gold and valuables

    Heist at Toronto Airport: thieves swipe $15 million worth of gold and valuables

    In a theft of an unusually big scale, thieves have managed to steal CA $20 million (USD $15m) worth of gold from a cargo terminal at Toronto’s main international airport on Monday.


    This is the biggest gold heist since July 2019, when a theft of $30 million occurred at an airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil. According to Inspector Stephen Duivesteyn, the container carrying the gold arrived on a flight on Monday evening, but he did not disclose its origin.
    The cargo of the plane carrying the gold, was transferred to a holding facility. However, according to Inspector Duivesteyn, the container carrying the gold was unlawfully taken and reported as missing right after the unloading process.


    “An aircraft arrived here at the airport in the early evening. As per normal procedure, the aircraft was unloaded and cargo was transported from the aircraft to a holding cargo facility,” he said.

    It is uncertain whether the stolen gold is still within the country’s borders. According to The Ottawa Sun, the gold may have been transported from a mine in Northern Ontario to Toronto on behalf of one of the banks. The authorities have not confirmed whether the perpetrators were professional criminals or not, but the investigation is continuing.


    The Toronto Sun claimed that organized criminal gangs are suspected of being responsible for the heist.

  • Fear of operation at Zaman Park: Bushra Bibi writes letter to PM Shehbaz and interim CM Naqvi

    Former First Lady Bushra Bibi has written a letter to Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif and interim Chief Minister (CM) of Punjab Mohsin Naqvi.

    It is being reported that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s wife has sent the letter through her lawyers to the premier and caretaker CM due to fear of a government operation in Zaman Park on Eid.

    The letter states that a court order has been issued in the matter of the government conducting an operation at Imran’s Lahore residence. It further adds that a plan has been hatched to misinterpret the court order, while reminding the recipients that an operation has been conducted in the past despite court orders. The document warns that if an operation takes place in Zaman Park on Eid, then higher courts will be approached.

  • Nawaz Sharif, Maryam meet Saudi Crown Prince

    Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif along with his daughter Maryam Nawaz met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss bilateral relations and the current problems faced by Pakistan.

    The meeting was confirmed by Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, she said: “The leaders discussed further improving Saudi-Pak brotherly relations and solutions to the issues Pakistan is facing. Nawaz Sharif expressed his good wishes for the Saudi leadership.”

    Nawaz and his family are currently in Saudi Arabia, where they performed Umrah.

    The Sharif family reached Saudi Arabia on April 11 on the invitation of the royal family. The former Prime Minister (PM) is visiting Saudi Arabia after six years.

    According to media reports, Saudi’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz invited Nawaz — who is considered close to the royal family — and Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif to the kingdom as a gesture of goodwill.

    It is also speculated that Nawaz may come to Pakistan after winding up the tour of Saudi, however, there has been no official confirmation yet.

  • Oh, Punjab walon, Fawad Chaudhry suggests Buzdar can become chief minister again

    Oh, Punjab walon, Fawad Chaudhry suggests Buzdar can become chief minister again

    Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Fawad Chaudhry has said that he will be surprised to see Usman Buzdar as Chief Minister (CM) of Punjab again, however, he stressed that the decision will be up to the party chairman, Imran Khan.

    Talking to Journalist Kashif Abbasi on ARY News programme ‘Off the Record’, Fawad said: “What can I say,” when asked if Buzdar is the leading candidate for the slot. Chaudhry repeated himself again, saying that the decision will be made by Imran Khan.

    The PTI leader didn’t seem happy when asked that why he didn’t get a Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) party ticket from Imran Khan.

    It was revealed that senior leadership of the party, including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Hammad Azhar, and Fawad, didn’t get party tickets for the upcoming Punjab election although it was widely speculated that they wanted one. Meanwhile, according to Fawad, both former CMs of Punjab, Pervaiz Elahi and Usman Buzdar, were given a ticket.

    “We should have gotten them”, Fawad said when asked about tickets. He also agreed that there are many party members who want to apply for the Punjab CM candidacy including Hammad Azhar and Shah Mahmood.

    Shahbaz Gill, who also didn’t get a MPA ticket, said that he and other leaders including Fawad and Hammad submitted papers for the provincial assembly, however, Khan decided not to give them tickets.

    However, he accepted Khan’s decision wholeheartedly, saying “I am not with Khan for the ticket and not for the position.”

    Khan’s social media focal person Azhar Mashwani also came forward to reveal that “many former federal ministers and MNAs of PTI wanted to contest elections on the Punjab Assembly seats as well.”

    However, according to Azhar, Khan decided that the “federal team will remain in the federation.”

  • No more blue ticks for Twitter users who don’t pay for verification

    No more blue ticks for Twitter users who don’t pay for verification

    On Thursday, Elon Musk’s social media platform followed through on its promise to eliminate blue verification checks from accounts that don’t pay a monthly fee. The blue checks have been removed from the accounts of many prominent public figures and celebrities on Twitter, including Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Pope Francis, and Donald Trump.

    The purge came after Musk introduced Twitter Blue, a paid service that aims to democratize journalism and empower the people’s voice. Before Musk ended the verification system, roughly 300,000 users had the blue check mark, which helped differentiate real public figures from impostors and protected against fake news.

    https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1649147510525423626?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1649147510525423626%7Ctwgr%5Efd111cb04376c1fa1786e3bae2b128638b2d0a93%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dw.com%2Fen%2Ftwitter-puts-end-to-blue-tick-for-users-who-dont-pay%2Fa-65391446

    Following the change, some users, such as Stephen King, still have the blue check mark but claimed not to have paid for the new service. Musk responded to King’s tweet with “You’re welcome namaste” and revealed that he’s “personally paying for a few [accounts].” Musk has been attempting to increase Twitter’s revenue by offering subscription and premium services since buying the social media company for $44 billion last October. Musk previously described the system that assigned the check marks as “corrupt and nonsensical.”

    Twitter began tagging users with a blue check mark roughly 14 years ago. After Twitter Blue’s introduction, numerous fake accounts emerged, including some impersonating Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX. Twitter temporarily suspended the service days later. The cost to display the verified check mark under the new service ranges from $8 per month for individuals to $1,000 per month for organisations.

    Politicians and official bodies have also been affected by the Thursday purge, with concerns raised that the public will be unable to identify which Twitter accounts provide information about natural disasters. US Senator Brian Schatz tweeted, “There really ought to be a way for emergency managers to verify that they are real on this website or imposters will cause suffering and death.” According to digital intelligence platform Similarweb, only 116,000 accounts signed up for Twitter Blue last month.

  • Rising petrol prices and rupee devaluation push inflation to 47.23% in Pakistan ahead of Eid

    Rising petrol prices and rupee devaluation push inflation to 47.23% in Pakistan ahead of Eid

    According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), a steep increase in the prices of essential food items such as chicken and petrol has pushed weekly inflation to 47.23 per cent year-on-year for the week ending on April 19. Inflation has risen 0.51 per cent week-on-week, compared to a 0.60 per cent decrease in the previous week.

    The rising inflation has been attributed to the increase in sensitive price indicators such as LPG, potatoes, petrol, tea, gur, matchbox, bread, chicken, bananas, broken basmati rice, and rice irri-6/9. However, a major decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes, onions, garlic, sugar, wheat flour, mustard oil, cigarettes, and pulse gram.

    For the week under review, the SPI (Sensitive Price Index) was recorded at 251.83 points, against 250.56 points registered last week and 171.05 points recorded during the week ended April 21, 2022. Fahad Rauf, head of research at Ismail Iqbal Securities, said that SPI experienced an increase mainly driven by a 4 per cent and 2 per cent increase in the prices of petrol and chicken, respectively.

    During the week, the government raised petrol prices by Rs10 per litre, bringing the new price to Rs282 per litre, due to the impact of rising international oil prices and rupee devaluation. Chicken prices have also risen mainly due to increased seasonal demand in Ramadan and the arrival of Eid.

    Prices of commodities have risen significantly over the last year on account of devaluation as well as the massive floods that devastated food crops across most of the fertile plains of the country. Different weights are assigned to various commodities in the SPI basket, and prices of commodities have risen on a year-on-year basis. The PBS compiles the SPI by collecting prices of 51 essential items from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

    During the week under review, out of 51 items, prices of 29 (56.86 per cent) items increased, eight (15.69 per cent) items decreased, and prices of 14 (27.45 per cent) items remained unchanged. The PBS data attributed the year-on-year rise in SPI to the jump in the prices of goods such as cigarettes, wheat flour, gas charges for Q1, tea, diesel, potatoes, bananas, eggs, petrol, broken basmati rice, rice irri-6/9, pulse moong, and plain bread. However, a decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes and chilli powder.

  • Indian court acquits 69 people of murder of 11 Muslims in Gujarat massacre trial

    Indian court acquits 69 people of murder of 11 Muslims in Gujarat massacre trial

    A court in India has declared 69 people, which includes a former minister from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), not guilty of the killing of 11 Muslims during communal riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.


    The case pertains to the killing of 11 Muslims who died in February 2002 during communal riots in Ahmedabad, when Hindu mobs set their homes on fire and rampaged through the city. An investigation into the attack found that the Muslims received no assistance from the police and were left at the mercy of the attackers.


    The Gujarat riots erupted after a train carriage carrying Hindu pilgrims being set on fire. Suspecting that Muslims had carried out the attack, Hindu groups started retaliatory attacks, and the incident soon turned into one of the most severe outbreaks of religious violence in India’s history after independence. While the official death toll of the violence was approximately 1,000 people, with most of the victims being Muslims, non-governmental organizations argue that the actual number of casualties was much greate

  • ‘ELITE ordered from Daraz’: Trailer for ‘College Gate’ has the internet divided

    On Wednesday, Green Entertainment has released the trailer for ‘College Gate’, an upcoming series about a group of students. Starring Instagram influencers like Mamia Shajaffar and Khaqan Shahnawaz, the series explores the lives of a group of students and how they tackle parental pressure, love, dating and learn to rely on their friends during the tough moments of their lives.

    However, the trailer has divided the internet, with many users thinking that the series is just plagarised from hit Netflix shows like ‘Elite’ and ‘Class’.

    TBH we have the same question on our mind.

    Others pointed out that despite the fact that the trailer seemed a direct copy of a show about the lives of privileged kids, it did seem like a progressive step that Pakistani dramas were starting to focus on the lives of teenagers!

    We can also agree that it’s good for Pakistani dramas to tackle societal pressure and the anxieties of students growing up in this stage, rather than churn out another series focusing on saas bahu conflicts and the satti vs slutty savitri trope.

    So while we can agree with some folks on Twitter here that the storyline is completely unoriginal but lets not drop the ball so quickly? Pakistani dramas are in desperate need of some revival right now, and its good that some people with logical minds had actually thought about discussing what issues students are facing today.

  • Inflation hits Pakistanis hard as they prepare for Eid-ul-Fitr festivities

    Inflation hits Pakistanis hard as they prepare for Eid-ul-Fitr festivities

    Eid-ul-Fitr is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

    During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn until sunset and abstain from food, drink, and vices like gossip and lying. It is a period of self-reflection and a reminder to be charitable to the less fortunate.

    Observed first day of Shawwal, the tenth month of the Islamic calendar, Eid-ul-Fitr is a time for Muslims to come together with family and friends to offer prayers, exchange gifts, and share meals. It is also a way for Muslims to show their gratitude to Allah for giving them the strength to fast and to seek forgiveness for any sins committed during the year.

    However, in Pakistan, small shops and businesses are struggling to make ends meet during this year’s Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations. The high levels of inflation, which have hit their highest levels in decades, have left many businesses unable to make enough money to cover their monthly expenses, including rent and utility bills.

    For many small shops and businesses in Pakistan, the last days of Ramadan or before Eid-ul-Fitr used to be a guaranteed earner—a big-spending week that could match the take from the rest of the year. However, this year, many worry they will not even make enough to pay for their monthly expenses.

    A tailor in Canal Bank, Lahore, stated that each year, he was fully booked and had so many orders that he couldn’t take orders after the middle of the month of Ramzan. However, this year, he said, “For the first time, we are accepting orders in the last week of Ramzan as there is not much work.”

    Tailors in Lahore who used to charge Rs1,500 are now charging Rs2,500 or Rs2,200. Even well-known brands or shops are charging more, which is leaving consumers with no option but to go for cheap ready-made clothes or clothes that are available on sale.

    The South Asian country of more than 220 million people saw year-on-year inflation hit 35.4 per cent in March. Food prices surged more than 47 per cent in 12 months, with transport costs rising by 55 per cent.

    Pakistan is deeply in debt and needs to introduce tough reforms to unlock a tranche of a $6.5 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund in order to avoid default. The economy has been wrecked by years of financial mismanagement and political instability—a situation exacerbated by a global energy crisis and devastating floods that left a third of the country under water last year.

    An artificial jewelry shop owner in Anarkali, Lahore, Zaryab, said, “There is a significant difference between last year’s sales and this year’s. People come to our stall, see 3-4 necklaces or bangles, ask the price, and then leave.”

    The high inflation has significantly reduced the purchasing power of Pakistanis, and people are mostly focusing on fulfilling their essential needs. Noman Khan, an electrical engineer at ACE Pakistan, stated that this Eid, he has not been able to buy clothes for himself as he had to buy clothes for his two kids and wife. He added that “From artificial jewelry to kids’ clothes, everything is so expensive this year that I have no option but to wear old clothes. Although, I made sure that my kids and wife at least get what they want to wear this Eid.”

    In conclusion, the struggle for small businesses in Pakistan during Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations is a stark reminder of the country’s economic challenges. While many Pakistanis are still managing to celebrate the holiday, the high levels of inflation have made it difficult for many to enjoy the festivities.