The federal government has finally issued a permit to transfer Pakistan’s only Asian elephant, Kaavan, to Cambodia. Kaavan, the 35-year-old bull elephant was brought in Pakistan back in 1985 as a gift from Sri Lanka when he was one-year-old. However, after international condemnation due to the woeful state of Islamabad’s zoo, all animals were ordered to be moved.
A short film about a Pakistani construction worker at the Dasu Dam in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has won an award at the second Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Short Video Competition in China. The contest aims to share the stories of builders and communities involved in BRI — Beijing’s multibillion dollar push to develop geopolitical ties through infrastructure and ports.
Four genius students of the Usman Institute of Technology’s (UIT) electrical engineering department have designed an equipment can generate power from storm water drains. The project can significantly help alleviate Karachi’s power woes by sharing the burden of K-Electric, the city’s sole power supplier. The cost-effective, low-maintenance electricity generation and distribution equipment, or their final-year project, is named Burraq.
The Education Ministry of Pakistan signed an MOU for the launch of the country’s first radio school. A joint venture of the government and Radio Pakistan, the radio school will help educate over eight million children across the country. It will run educational programmes for four hours every day from 10am to 12pm.
The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has said that the disposal of used contraceptives, such as condoms, in gutters has been causing sewerage problems in Karachi. According to KWSB officials, Karachi’s sewerage system has almost choked in all districts as a result of irresponsible dumping. The gutters keep overflowing, causing potholes and craters to appear on the roads, leading to further problems.
The Ministry of Education has proposed to shut down educational institutions in the country from November 24 to January 31. Amid a second wave of coronavirus infections in Pakistan, primary schools will be closed from November 24, middle schools from December 2 and higher secondary schools be closed from December 15, the ministry proposed in its letter to the provinces.
The United Arab Emirates has temporarily suspended issuance of visit visas to Pakistan and eleven other countries, until further notice. The decision is “believed to be related to the second wave of Covid-19”. The suspension will not apply to visas that have already been issued. It was not immediately clear how many categories of visas would be affected by the suspension.
Pakistani student from Lahore has been declared the global winner by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) for scoring the highest marks among students from all over the world. Muhammad Abdullah appeared in the ACCA’s Strategic Business Reporting (SBR) examination in September. Abdullah is currently taking an ACCA-embedded BSc. in Accounting and Finance program at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).
Three professors from the University of Punjab have made it to the list of the world’s top 2% scientists compiled by Standford University. The teachers, Dr Khalid, Dr Muhammad Akram and Dr Muhammad Sharif, are the deans of the management sciences, mathematics and science departments. The teachers’ names are added to the list after a review of their published work.
The Foreign Office (FO) has rejected as “fabrication” reports quoting Prime Minister Imran Khan as saying Pakistan was facing pressure from the United States to recognise Israel in the wake of peace deals between several Arab states and Tel Aviv. A day earlier, a report quoted the premier as saying that pressure to recognise Israel was “extraordinary during the Trump stint”.