Meera has requested Rs 40 million from the Punjab Government under the Artist Support Fund, launched by the Punjab Information and Cultural Department, claiming that she is in financial trouble. However, the department denied her request, adding that they can only offer her Rs 5000-10,000 at this point.
In other news, Punjab Information and Culture department has declined actor Meera's application for financial assistance. She had asked for 40million Rs to help her through the pandemic but officials say they can at max giver her 10k or so. So yes, this happened!
According to reports, a meeting was held at the Alhamra Arts Council after the actor appealed to senior officials for financial support. In the meeting, it was unanimously decided that the department cannot give the actor more than ten thousand rupees. Moreso, it was also decided that an artist should have a monthly income of less than Rs 15,000 and be above the age of 50 in order to receive aid from the fund.
Meanwhile MPA Sadia Sohail Rana, who supervised the meeting said that she was surprised with Meera’s request.
“I am surprised why Meera applied for the help as in this situation she herself should be supporting other poor artists,” said Rana. “Meera should understand that everything is not a joke. Artists of her stature should set aside funds for difficult times when they earn large amounts.”
However, Meera said that she had no choice because her shows in USA and Canada had been cancelled due to the pandemic because of which she had to suffer financially.
“I suffered a loss of around $100,000. I have to pay back a loan I took in Dubai. I am forced to apply for financial support,” said the actor.
Meera added that she intends on taking up the matter with the Federal Government also.
Earlier, Meera had also appealed to the government to assist her journey back home when she was stranded in New York due to the COVID-19 lockdowns across the world.
With rumours of Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Usman Buzdar’s removal going rife, information ministries of both Centre and Punjab have jumped in to defend the chief executive of Pakistan’s most populous province.
Reports, after a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and attended by Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa among others, had earlier this week claimed that Buzdar’s removal was on cards.
While it wasn’t the first time such claims were made regarding the fate of CM Buzdar, the rumour has been shot down by Federal Information Minister Shibli Faraz as well as Punjab Information Minister Fayazul Hasan Chohan.
In a tweet, the federal minister said the Punjab CM wasn’t going anywhere.
Chief Minister Punjab, Usman Buzdar is going nowhere. All speculations regarding his departure are Mala fide and baseless
Meanwhile, Chohan, who has been vocal even against senior leaders of his own party for criticising Buzdar, said that the Punjab CM would complete his tenure.
In a statement, he said that Buzdar was not going anywhere and those involved in looting people were spreading such rumours in failed attempts to affect the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
Defending his boss, who has recently come under criticism for his “below-par” performance, Chohan said that Buzdar had been delivering on his responsibilities with ease.
“Usman Buzdar is serving the people at his own pace without making any decisions in a hasty manner,” he was quoted as saying.
Earlier, a few members of the opposition had claimed that the Punjab government had failed in fulfilling its promises to the people and that PM Imran was looking for Buzdar’s replacement.
Senior journalists had also claimed that Punjab was on the verge of “getting a new CM”.
However, the information ministers’ statements suggest that the premier’s faith in Buzdar has restored if it had ever taken a blow at all.
The Punjab government has launched an application ‘Bakra Mandi Online’ for the online purchase of the sacrificial animals for Eid-ul-Azha amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The application can be used to buy sacrificial animals without visiting the cattle markets that are set by the government in the province under strict COVID-19 SOPs.
The application has all the details (age, weight, and race) and images of the animals.
The Punjab government on July 04 issued the standard operating procedures for the establishment of cattle markets for Eid ul Azha.
According to the notification issued by Punjab health ministry, cattle markets should be established 2-5 kilometers outside the city area. The markets should have large parking lots with separate entry and exit points, the notification read.
The elderly and children will not be allowed to visit the markets.
“People experiencing symptoms like fever, the cough should avoid visiting cattle markets,” the notification added.
The Punjab government has considered reopening marriage halls in the province from the first week of September after country-wide protests by halls association against continuous closure of businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to reports, the Marriage Halls Association on Monday threatened to march towards the Chief Minister House in Karachi if they were not allowed to restart their businesses under suggested coronavirus SOPs.
Head of the Marriage Halls Association Rana Raees said that wedding halls remained closed till date due to the coronavirus spread.
“The government has allowed other businesses to reopen under devised SOPs. However they remain reluctant to allow marriage halls to operate,” he said.
He said that they had given a sample to the government to reopen marriage halls while following the SOPs.
“We have gone bankrupt due to the ongoing financial crisis amid the pandemic,” said Raees and demanded the government to allow halls to resume their work under SOPs.
He also warned that if the ban will continue then they could extend the scope of their protest and could march towards the chief minister’s house for the fulfilment of their demands.
Following the protests, the Punjab government announced that the marriage halls will be allowed to operate in the province from the first week of September if the coronavirus situation improves in the province.
Provincial Minister for Commerce Mian Aslam Iqbal reached out to the protesting owners of the wedding halls outside the Punjab Assembly.
“You will be allowed to arrange wedding functions from the first week of September,” he said adding that he would meet their representatives for outsourcing functions after two days.
The protestors, however, refused to accept his offer and demanded to immediately reopen activities of the marriage halls.
The Punjab Mass-Transit Authority’s (PMA) deficit has reached Rs375 million due to the closure of the metro bus service for 105 days while officials believe that a single-day shutdown of metro bus causes a loss of Rs3.6 million, Pakistan Today reported.
According to reports, while no decision has been taken to restore the service by the government so far, the Punjab government had earlier also cut subsidy of PMA by Rs1 billion and the fourth quarter’s funds were not fully released in the last fiscal year (2019-2020).
“Due to non-issuance of funds, there have been problems in payment to contractors,” reports quoted officials as saying.
They lamented that the government’s policies were beyond understanding as it had allowed intra-city and inter-city transport to operate but had not yet restored the metro bus service since after the first coronavirus lockdown.
“An average of 130,000 commuters were benefiting from the metro bus service daily. The authority is currently facing the worst financial crisis. No strategy has been formulated to restore the financial damages nor has it been decided how the foreign company which is operating the metro bus will be supported.”
Due to the outbreak of coronavirus, the Punjab government had decided to close Lahore, Rawalpindi and Multan metro bus service in March. However, local transporters were later allowed to operate inter and intra-bus service while following certain guidelines.
The report also quoted sources in the Punjab government as claiming that the metro bus service was a white elephant. “The service had been subsidised by the previous government but it is very difficult for the present government to subsidise the bus service further.”
PMA General Manager (Operations) Uzair Shah said the decision to reactivate the bus service would be taken by the Punjab government whereas no order had so far come from the government. “The authority is facing problems due to non-receipt of subsidy,” he added while also requesting the government to release funds.
Senior journalist and analyst Kamran Khan has claimed that Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Sardar Usman Buzdar “skipped a scheduled interview with him after some tough questions were shared with Buzdar’s team beforehand”, drawing a strong reaction from the government as officials explained the “real story” behind the postponement.
“CM Usman Buzdar wanted me to interview him and it was scheduled for today. Moments before the recording, he and his team disappeared. They had sought the topics [to be discussed during the interview] beforehand, which were shared, and we even told them the questions,” the journalist tweeted while also sharing the questions that he said Buzdar “couldn’t deal with”.
آج عثمان بزدار کی خواہش پر ان کا انٹرویو کرنا تھا کہ ریکارڈنگ سے ذرا پہلے وزیر اعلی ٹیم سمیت اچانک غائب اس سے قبل موضوعات پوچھے بتائے حتی کے سوالات بھی بتا دئے پھر ایسے غائب ڈھونڈے نا ملے آخری لمحات میں 90 منٹ کے شو کے لئے مختص 60 منٹ غائب وہ سوالات جو بزدار برداشت نا کرسکے!😂 pic.twitter.com/9zBg0ed6dr
Kamran, who is visibly irritated ever since he was ditched, also tweeted a video likening Buzdar to “the student with whom all questions are shared before the exam and is even promised grace marks for every right answer but still cuts and runs from the examination hall”.
عمران خان خدارا عثمان بزدار choice پر نظرثانی کریں بزدار کی میرٹ اس student سے زیادہ نہیں جسے امتحان سے پہلے ایک ایک سوال بتادیا جائے صحیح جواب پر دس فیصد گریس نمبر ز کا بھی وعدہ ہو مگر پھر بھی وہ کمرہ امتحان سے بھاگ جائے کل بزدار نے ایسا ہی کیا! pic.twitter.com/o6s3414Yk8
But the journalist’s claims did not sit very well with officials of the Punjab government.
“Both you and your producer were called at 5:40 pm today and requested to reschedule the interview because CM Buzdar had to chair an emergency law and order meeting. Rescheduling an interview is not that big a deal,” Focal Person to Punjab CM on Digital Media Azhar Mashwani tweeted in response to Kamran’s claims on Monday.
آج 5 بجکر چالیس منٹ پر آپ کو بھی اور آپ کے پروڈیوسر کو کال کی گئی اور انٹرویو reschedule کرنے کی درخواست کی گئی کیونکہ وزیراعلیٰ @UsmanAKBuzdar کو ایمرجنسی لاء اینڈ آرڈر کی میٹنگ لینی پڑ گئی تھی
انٹرویو reschedule کرنا کوئی انہونی نہیں، اسے ایسے انا کا مسئلہ نہیں بنانا چاہیے https://t.co/UfaVQZhtGp
He went on to say that CM Buzdar had addressed dozens of press conferences wherein he had dealt with all sorts of difficult questions. “This overreaction on a rescheduling request is beyond my understanding.”
وزیراعلیٰ @UsmanAKBuzdar نے درجنوں پریس کانفرنسز کی ہیں جن میں ہر طرح کے مشکل ترین سوالات کیے جاتے ہیں
انٹرویو دوبارہ reschedule کرنے کی درخواست پر اتنا اوور ری ایکشن سمجھ سے باہر ہے
Kamran, however, hit back with the screenshot of a message that was sent to Buzdar’s team around 6:30 pm on Monday.
بزدار انٹرویو کے کئے پنجاب کے اعلی ترین official مجھ سے سنیچر شب سے رابطے میں تھے پیر صبح سے بزدار گزارشات مجھ تک تحریری طورپہنچنی شروع ہوئیں7:30 انٹرویو طے ہوا اور پھر اچانک تمام رابطے منقطع میرا 6:34 کا (بیچارے افسر کا نام مٹا رہا ہوں) آخری Whatsapp میسج ساری کہانی سنا رہا ہے pic.twitter.com/MUrEyMyWpQ
The Punjab government has spent Rs8.6 million in 16 months — from August 2018 till November 2019 — on the helicopter flights of Chief Minister (CM) Sardar Usman Buzdar, including 14 flights to his hometown and constituency, Punjab Information Commission has revealed.
According to data released by the commission, CM Buzdar made his first visit to Mian Channu and Pakpattan from Lahore on August 28, 2018, on his official helicopter soon after assuming the office.
In September 2018, the helicopter was used twice for local flying in Lahore. Interestingly, the helicopter was used five times in October out of which Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan used it thrice to visit Punjab Governor’s House during his visits to the provincial capital.
In November 2018, the official helicopter was used 14 times — thrice to Dera Ghazi Khan, which is also the constituency of the Punjab CM. The official chopper was used to visit Taunsa Sharif, the hometown of the provincial chief executive, during the same month.
In February 2019, Buzdar paid a visit to Multan, Rajanpur and DG Khan while in the same month he also went to Taunsa via helicopter.
In April 2019, the Punjab CM made 28 trips on his official helicopter of which five were made to Taunsa. In May 2019, he made 27 visits, eight in July, 13 in August, 10 in September, 14 in October, and 11 in November, of which two trips were to DG Khan.
He also made several visits to Pakpattan on board his official helicopter during this period.
The Punjab government helicopter made a total of 164 flights and remained air borne for 119 hours and 30 minutes during this period.
Minister for Industries Punjab, Mian Aslam Iqbal has approved a 40% fee reduction for technical education students.
He chaired a meeting to allocate the annual budget for the provincial Board of Technical Education that has been approved.
According to reports, a 13 point agenda was presented by the board on which all the members of the meeting agreed.
A decision was taken that students who have been promoted without a formal examination this year due to the coronavirus pandemic in the country will be given 40% relief in tuition fees.
The fee reduction is only for the students of Diploma for Associate Engineering (DAE), commerce, Matric (tech) and Matric (vocational).
Punjab government has finally once again sealed worst-hit areas of Lahore for at least two weeks despite which the number of coronavirus infections in Punjab rose to 71,987 on Friday.
The development came days after Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid slammed the people of Lahore for not taking precautionary measures against COVID-19 and held them responsible for the surge in the number of infections in the country’s most populous province.
“Lahoris are weird creatures. For them, everything is a joke. They are so ignorant… they do not listen and don’t care. No other nation is more ignorant and stupid than Pakistanis,” she had said.
WATCH VIDEO:
Lahoris are a weird creature, for them everything is a joke, they are so Jaahil they dont listen and dont care; no other nation is bigger in jahaalet and stupidity than Pakistanis; Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid says #CoronaVirusPakistanpic.twitter.com/YND8NULp5w
Seven COVID-19-affected areas have been sealed in Lahore over the past week. These include Gulberg, Model Town, Faisal Town, Garden Town, Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Gulshane Ravi and the Walled City.
A complete ban has been imposed on transportation and businesses in the sealed areas where 3,606 cases have so far been reported. The actual number of cases is likely to be way more than official figures that are as follows:
DHA
Gulberg
Model Town
Faisal Town
Garden Town
Gulshan-e- Ravi
Walled city
1,403
736
659
188
238
212
170
Government guidelines were issued before re-opening business ahead of Eidul Fitr, under which shopkeepers were told not to let people gather at their stores, social distancing was stressed, availability of sanitisers for general public’s use was to be ensured and wearing gloves with masks was made necessary in most spaces.
However, none of the SOPs [standard operating procedures] were followed by most Lahoris, resulting in the provincial capital of Punjab becoming the epicenter of COVID-19 in the province.
At present, there are 71,191 coronavirus cases in Punjab while 35,582 cases (about 49.98 per cent of the total number of infections) are in Lahore alone with the local spread in the city standing at 69.4 per cent.
Despite a lockdown being put in place again, government SOPs are still not being followed by people as many believe that coronavirus “does not even exist”, and throng to markets, destroying social distancing among other guidelines.
A look at stats of police actions against violators of SOPs amid the government’s “smart” lockdown, also proves the same.
According to Lahore police stats from June 16 to June 24, almost 238,400 citizens violating coronavirus guidelines were warned and sent back home. As many as 8,251 motorcycles and vehicles were confiscated while 4,599 citizens submitted surety bonds for not unnecessarily leave their homes again.
During the ongoing lockdown, 8,927 cases have been registered and 1,888 shops have also been sealed for violating SOPs in Lahore.
“Rest in peace Khalid Sherdil. You are loved beyond measure, and we will miss you terribly.”
They say things happen for a reason. There wasn’t a reason why on Friday, May 22, I felt the need to check if Khalid had reached Karachi. Strange that my phone buzzed in my hand the exact moment I wanted to check his whereabouts. I had received a text message from a friend that something was not quite right; Khalid’s plane had bumped on the runaway a few times and taken off again. In those few moments, I knew something was wrong.
Moments later, flight PK-8303 crashed. My first thought: this is not happening. The plane was too close to the runway. Khalid will be okay. He had to be okay. You can’t joke with a person the night before their flight and not have them be alright. It didn’t work that way.
Khalid at Altit Fort in Hunza in October 2019.
The day worked its way, getting ready to deliver the knockout punch that Khalid was gone. People gathered, wept and stayed with us. I remember the quiet, the horrid gut-wrenching silence when people run out of words.
Strangely no one from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) ever came. Everyone who was anyone in the bureaucratic machinery reached out to help us, to somehow get Khalid’s body back to us. For days we didn’t even know if there was a body. Would we get one back? If we did, would it be Khalid’s? Worst still, what if someone had mistakenly claimed his body? These questions, nauseatingly real and unimaginable, simultaneously ate through my family.
“Khalid was all around us and yet I knew that the Almighty had played His final hand and he was gone. We were awash with grief, the kind that gnaws inside bones and never leaves.”
For days we didn’t have Khalid’s body and yet we had so much of him around us. I sat every day in his room, looking at the feature stone wall which he had put up with so much love. He had sent photos of the tiles to everyone in the family to see if we approved. Outside his giant, floor to ceiling window lay the sprawling lawn where he played endless hours of soccer with my children. If it wasn’t soccer, it would be chess or games that Khalid invented with their own hilarious rules. Even the house cat had some role to play in his playtime with the children. I was waiting for the moment that Khalid would walk in, chapstick in hand and start some silly game.
Khalid was in a hurry to get someplace all the time. He had boundless energy and the soul of an adventurer. He loved his bold and beautiful belts, his colourful sunglasses and chocolate. I’ve never met a kinder soul than his, his smile always saying more than his words. Khalid was kind, magnanimous, spirited and gentle beyond belief. He helped others without ever thinking about it. Khalid even helped me find a new home for my dog because he knew I just couldn’t give it away to anybody. You’d never think a man in that dark suit would know how to love so much.
Khalid at Khunjerab National Park in October 2019.
Khalid was all around us and yet I knew that the Almighty had played His final hand and he was gone. We were awash with grief, the kind that gnaws inside bones and never leaves.
Grief, as it so happens, at least according to the Kubler-Ross Cycle, has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Thanks to PIA, which incidentally offered no assistance to locate Khalid’s body or help in the least in any humane way, my husband’s grief cycle jumped straight to acceptance. There was no room for denial or anger as he got down to the business of getting his brother home.
“I can only hope for the best but somehow I’m reminded of a famous quote at the conclusion of The Shawshank Redemption, where Andy Dufresne says to his friend, ‘Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.’”
It wasn’t easy. Four days later, Khalid’s DNA matched and he was on his way home. PIA was still absent, behaving like a child who throws away a toy after it’s broken.
As an on-again-off-again writer, I like to get to the bottom of things. I wanted to distill all the information in my wrecked brain and re-create what happened that day. PIA didn’t even bother to have a press briefing as to what may have happened to flight PK-8303. A grieving mind will settle for any information that provides closure. I watched video after video on YouTube to make sense of what might have happened. And still, silence from the airline that could make sense of it all.
Adventurous, determined and committed to helping humanity.
They say the smallest coffins are the heaviest. After receiving Khalid’s coffin draped in our national flag, it could not have been heavier. Khalid loved wearing the Pakistani national flag lapel pin on his suit collar, and as fate would have it, he was buried with our flag. Khalid was a true patriot and he loved his country. His friends, fellow Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) officers and family helped bring him home. An airline bearing our national flag perished with 97 souls on board and all the PIA could offer was a compensation cheque after everything was done. Keep your money PIA; don’t use it as a means to absolve yourself of guilt.
As days pass by, my friends and family offer words of comfort. I can only hope for the best but somehow I’m reminded of a famous quote at the conclusion of The Shawshank Redemption, where Andy Dufresne says to his friend, “Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” Something pure and good died on flight PK-8303.
Rest in peace Khalid Sherdil. You are loved beyond measure, and we will miss you terribly.
