Current Final

Tag: Punjab

  • Naya Pakistan: Matric pass PTI MPA becomes new chairperson of Punjab Education Foundation

    The recent “election” of the new chairperson of the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) has attracted widespread social media attention after it was revealed that he himself holds only a matriculation or secondary school certificate.

    Established in 1991, PEF is an autonomous statutory body to encourage and promote education on non-commercial/non-profit basis. Since then, it has come a long way to arrange free quality education for the deserving children at their doorsteps.

    On July 27, the first meeting of the newly-constituted Board of Governors (BoG) of the PEF was held in which the members, through consensus, elected Sardar Aftab Akbar as the new chairperson.

    According to the Punjab Assembly’s official website, the academic qualification of Akbar, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MPA from PP-23 (Chakwal-III), is matriculation. He has served as the tehsil nazim in Chakwal from 2005 to 2010, while still serves as a member of the Primary and Secondary Healthcare as well as Committee on Privileges of the Punjab Assembly.

    It is pertinent to mention here that the PEF has been in the limelight these days for non-payment to its partner schools across Punjab. The owners and teaching and non-teaching staff of PEF partner schools had protested recently outside the Punjab Assembly and the Governor House. They had even tried to reach Zaman Park over the non-payment issue that has made them unable to pay salaries to teaching and non-teaching staff besides clearing building rents and utility bills etc.

    Punjab School Education Minister Dr Murad Raas, with regard to non-payments, says that PEF had already paid 50 per cent of the payment to the schools and remaining payment would be made only after verification of the students enrolled in these schools. He said previously some 250,000 fake enrolments were detected at many PEF partner schools and since millions of rupees were to be paid to the schools, verification of students was a must.

    The minister said many PEF partner schools were in fact beneficiaries of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the government would not waste public money on fake enrolments. He said the PEF initiative was aimed to bring out of school children into schools and not to financially support fake enrolments. Dr Muard Raas further said he had also apprised Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan about the issue in a recent meeting who had assured full support.

  • Banning books

    Banning books

    German poet Heinrich Heine once warned, “Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people.”

    In Pakistan’s case, we may not be burning books, but we are banning them. From banning online apps to games, from media censorship to censoring books, Pakistan is on a downward spiral. According to Geo, the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) banned a hundred school books in a single day for containing content deemed “anti-national” and “blasphemous”.

    “We are currently examining over 10,000 books being taught in private schools,” said PCTB Managing Director Rai Manzoor Hussain Nasir. “So the banned textbooks could be in thousands once we are done.”

    Rai is taking these steps under the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board Act, 2015, which was passed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government. It seems that both the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the PML-N do not value critical thinking and fundamental freedom.

    This policy is a complete disaster. We saw what happened under the Zia regime back in the 1980s when our curriculum was infused with extremist ideology. It changed our society and led to intolerance. Now we are seeing a repetition of something along the same lines. Rai Manzoor has a problem with a book of mathematics where counting concepts were explained to the young students showing pictures of pigs. He also has a problem with Gandhi’s quotes being taught in another book. Gandhi was India’s founding father but he fought for the rights of Muslims in India and was consequently killed by an RSS extremist for propagating peaceful co-existence with the Muslim minority. Are we demonising someone just because we want to see him from the prism of animosity towards India?

    If we want to keep our children isolated in a globalised world by teaching them only about ourselves, and not any non-Pakistanis, the solution was not to ban books with Gandhi’s quotes but probably to add more quotes from Pakistani historical figures. Do we not want to teach our children about the struggles of Nelson Mandela, who is quite often quoted by Prime Minister Imran Khan? Banning books or taking out quotes of non-Pakistanis is ridiculous at best and dangerous in the long term. The path we are taking today will impact our coming generations.

    The power of deciding curriculum and books is a grave power. For it to be in the hands of someone who is no Chomsky or any other learned figure, we must raise our voice at this grave injustice that is being inflicted upon our future generations. Our national interests are not so weak that they will be endangered by some quotes from non-Pakistanis. But it seems that we want to ban critical thinking. We want to ban the foundation of learning, i.e. asking questions and being inquisitive. We want to produce robots instead of intelligent human beings. We must resist this type of indoctrination. Closed minds cannot lead this country to progress. Stifling freedom of expression and censoring books will push Pakistan back by decades. Let us not go down this dark path. 

  • Punjab govt launches app for online purchase of sacrificial animals

    Punjab govt launches app for online purchase of sacrificial animals

    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.

    Read More – Eid ul Adha: Cattle markets to operate from 6 am to 7 pm

    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.

  • Police arrest man who allegedly gang-raped TikTok friend

    Police arrest man who allegedly gang-raped TikTok friend

    The Lahore Police has arrested a man who allegedly gang-raped a girl with his two accomplices. The two reportedly became friends at a popular video-sharing app, TikTok.

    According to reports, the victim girl filed a complaint at Millat Park police station in Lahore in which she accused three men of gang-raping her.

    In her complaint, the girl stated that she became friends with a boy, Shiraz, through the TikTok app 20 days ago. Shiraz then called her to come to the Samanabad area on June 13. When she reached there, Shiraz asked her to sit in his car. Two men were already sitting in the vehicle.

    The girl said that she was gang-raped by all three men on gunpoint inside the car.

  • Govt considers reopening marriage halls in Punjab from September

    Govt considers reopening marriage halls in Punjab from September

    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.

    https://twitter.com/GOPunjabPK/status/1283036958575517700?s=20
  • Man’s fourth wife beats him for marrying a minor for fifth time

    Man’s fourth wife beats him for marrying a minor for fifth time

    A resident of Okara allegedly married a minor after which he was mishandled by his previous wife in public.

    According to reports, the man named Jamal was getting married for the fifth time to a 13-year-old girl. He had already married and divorced four women in the past. The woman who assaulted Jamal claimed that she was his fourth wife.

    The fourth wife had brought along marriage and divorce documents of Jamal’s previous marriages.

    She said that the man has had a history of such short-term marriages and had a reputation for marrying and divorcing women after a few days.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtCHlBcmaWA
  • 105-year-old Pakistani man recovers from COVID-19

    105-year-old Pakistani man recovers from COVID-19

    A 105-year-old man in Punjab has been discharged from hospital after successfully fighting against COVID-19.

    According to reports, the recovered man has served in the Pakistan Army. Fazal Rauf was tested positive and had been isolated in the hospital since then.

    Rauf was tested for the virus again on Thursday and test results came out negative. He was shifted back to his home on Friday and his condition is stable.

    The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases are 234,482 so far in the country.

  • Punjab Police wants to ban PUBG after 2 suicides

    Punjab Police wants to ban PUBG after 2 suicides

    Punjab Police wants to ban the popular video game ‘Players Unknown’s Battlegrounds’ (PUBG) after two young people in Lahore committed suicide over the game.

    According to reports, a 16-year-old boy took his own life on Tuesday when his parents stopped him from playing PUBG. His parents called the Hanjarwal police in Gulshan-e-Abbas’s Phase 2 when they found his body.

    The parents refused to allow a post-mortem autopsy. Police have registered this as a case of suicide and further investigation is in process.

    In a similar incident, another 20-year-old boy also committed suicide in Saddar Bazaar in North Cantonment when his parents told him to stop playing the online game.

    As per reports, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police (Operations Wing) Lahore, Ashfaq Khan has decided to write a letter to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to ban PUBG.

    PUBG is a battle royale game developed by a South Korean company. The game involves multiple players that are connected online as they face off and kill each other to become the last survivor.

  • PTI MPA removed from Punjab information body after ‘leaked calls discussing PM, his wife, others’

    PTI MPA removed from Punjab information body after ‘leaked calls discussing PM, his wife, others’

    Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MPA Uzma Kardar, who had earlier made headlines for her mention in Reham Khan’s notorious book, was on Monday removed from an information body of the Punjab government hours after she was allegedly heard discussing Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, First Lady Bushra Bibi, Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Usman Buzdar, Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak among others in a series of leaked phone calls.

    According to a notification issued by Punjab Information Minister Fayazul Hasan Chohan, Kardar was removed from the provincial government’s Media Strategy Committee. No reason was, however, given in the notification, a copy of which is available with The Current.

    The sacking comes hours after journalist Mansoor Ali Khan said a call recording of someone from the present government could surface very soon and become very embarrassing for the PTI government.

    It was followed by audio clips doing rounds over the internet.

    While Kardar could allegedly be heard discussing PM Imran and the first lady in one recording, she allegedly made outrageous claims regarding Buzdar, Khattak, Punjab Child Protection Bureau Chairperson Sarah Ahmad, “dirty politics” inside the PTI, Punjab Info Minister Fayazul Hasan Chohan and PTI’s allied Pakistan Muslim League (PML), in other leaked audio clips.

    The Current does not endorse any of the recordings or other content available when the above-embedded links are accessed but is committed to keeping our followers aware of whatever is going on.

    While the PTI lawmaker was not available for a comment, the audio has drawn mixed reactions as many question the motive behind the leaks.

    Among others, Mansoor has also questioned who recorded the phone calls and why.

    Meanwhile, reports claim that legal action will also soon be initiated against the PTI lawmaker.

  • Sale banned as Punjab govt mulls using Actemra to treat COVID-19

    Sale banned as Punjab govt mulls using Actemra to treat COVID-19

    The provincial authorities in Punjab have imposed a complete ban on the sale of Actemra injection in the open market as they mull treating critical COVID-19 patients with it.

    The Corona Experts Advisory Group has issued standard operating procedures (SOPs) with regard to the use of the Actemra injection.

    According to the SOPs, Actemra injection will be used on trial basis at some hospitals, initially for 500 critically ill patients admitted in ICUs.

    The experts advisory group will approve the hospitals that will treat patients with Actemra injection. The group will witness the trial of the injection in government hospitals.

    The Punjab Healthcare Commission will monitor the use of the injection at private hospitals and a committee of the hospital will approve the use of Actemra injection.

    A private company will issue this injection after approval of a specific profarma, sources said. The needy patients will be issued this injection 24 hours. The hospital and the company will keep the record of the use of injection.

    The data of recoveries and deaths after use of Actemra injection will also be compiled, sources said.

    The Punjab Healthcare Commission will be competent authority to audit the company and the hospital over usage of the injection. And this record will be submitted to the experts advisory group.

    The Punjab government has recently approved the use of Actemra, a life-saving drug, for treating critically ill Covid-19 patients in the wake of a sudden rise in the death rate reported by state-run hospitals across the province.

    The 400mg injectable drug — an interleukin-6 inhibitor which goes by the generic name of tocilizumab — will be prescribed to patients who develop lung complications and an abnormal level of IL-6 in the blood. The IL-6 is an endogenous chemical which causes inflammation.

    Actemra injections had reportedly given encouraging results in highly critical coronavirus patients.