The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) suspended membership of 318 lawmakers for not meeting the deadline to submit their assets details. A total of 70 MNAs, 12 senators, 115 Punjab MPAs, 60 MPAs from khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 40 Sindh MPAs and 21 from Balochistan were suspended by the ECP. Under the law, all the legislatures are required every year by December 31 to file the related documents. On non compliance, the ECP bars them for performing their duties as legislators.
An additional and sessions court in Quetta has issued the arrest warrants for Senator Sarfaraz Bugti in a kidnapping case. The judge dismissed the senators application for an extension in his interim bail and ordered issuance of arrest warrants immediately. While Bugti said that he is being dragged into someone else’s family matters by his political rivals and will approach the high court for bail.
Over 4,000 cameras belonging to the Lahore Safe City project are no longer working after a dispute between the project administration and the Chinese company managing the cameras. The dispute has arisen over Rs1 billion in dues not being paid. When the Chinese company didn’t receive the money, it shut down the cameras. The project uses CCTV cameras across Lahore to monitor crime and traffic violations.
Real estate tycoon Malik Riaz has been booked by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for illegal allotment of an amenity plot in Karachi’s Clifton area where the Bahria Town built Pakistan’s tallest building, Bahria Icon Tower. It is the first reference in which Malik Riaz, the chairman of the Bahria Town, is nominated in an offshoot of the fake accounts case.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) minister Faisal Vawda’s ‘boot stunt’ on live TV has not only landed him in hot waters but has also resulted in a ban on Kashif Abbasi and his show. Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has banned the broadcast of anchorperson Kashif Abbasi’s programme ‘Off the Record’ for 60 days, for a “very unethical act” by the panelist.
According to the latest survey by Numbeo, Lahore has improved its ranking by 56 points, to become safer than Paris, New York, Berlin and Chicago on the World Crime Index (WCI). Lahore was ranked 230th out of a total 374 cities of the world in the Numbeo’s survey for Jan 2020. An increase in a city’s ranking means a drop in its crime rate.
PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah’s name has been added to the Exit Control List (ECL). Due to this, he will not be able to travel abroad. But Sanaullah said it didn’t make a difference to him as he had no plans of leaving the country. A day earlier, the federal government added the names of PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz and former senator Waqar Ahmed to the no-fly list.
AirSial – a new domestic airline – is all set to launch in the country after getting approval from the federal cabinet. The domestic carrier – owned by the businessmen of Sialkot will run flight operations on all major domestic airports, with three A-320 Airbus aircraft. The flight operations will be based in Karachi mainly and will connect the port city with the provincial capitals of the country, as well as Sialkot and Islamabad.
Dr. Faisal Shafait, a researcher from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) becomes the the first Muslim scientist to win the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) Young Scientist Award for 2019. Dr Faisal, currently serving in the Department of Computing at School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS) is known for his outstanding contribution to document image analysis and computational forensics.
A junior officer of the Indian army posted in occupied Kashmir accidentally ‘slipped’ in heavy snow and landed across the border into Pakistan last week, Khaleej Times has reported. The officer, identified as Havildar Rajendra Singh Negi, was on patrol duty in the Gulmarg area of Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK) when the ‘accident’ occurred and Negi went missing.