Pakistan is facing gas outages as demand has exceeded supply following an abrupt drop in temperature in different parts of the country. The situation resulted in long queues outside tandoors due to low gas pressure at residences and prompted Karachi-based Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) to suddenly suspend supplies to CNG fuel stations in Sindh and Balochistan to keep supplies to households normal on Tuesday.
According to a report, titled “Global Gender Gap Report 2020” published by the World Economic Forum examining gender equality around the globe, Pakistan was ranked third-lowest in the world. Pakistan being at 151st position out of 153 countries. The Global Gender Gap Report measures the progress of a country’s gender equality in four areas; economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The federal government is planning to complete the extension of Metro Bus from Peshawar Morr to New Islamabad International Airport within 3 months. While briefing the committee, Secretary Planning said that two parts of the new Metro route have been completed and work on the remaining two is in progress which will be completed by March 2020.
The Buddhist trail will be developed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Azad Jammu Kashmir; giving way to the Buddhist pilgrims from all across the world to visit Pakistan. Pakistan will be working towards the preservation and restoration of Buddhist cultural heritage, to further facilitate the Buddhist trail. One of the oldest Buddhist monument lies just 60 kilometres away from Islamabad, on the grassy hill of Haripur.
Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) is ready to increase gas prices for the first half of 2020 in order to meet the revenue shortfall. People have already experienced an increase in petrol and gas prices several times till now and once again the domestic users will incur an increase of 191 paisas while for the commercial users there will be a hike of 31 paisas.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blocked/processed a total of 933,775 URLs so far. The URLs were related to objectionable or pornographic images, texts and videos on the internet including blasphemy, pornography, judiciary, hats speech etc. PTA has established a directorate “Web Analysis Directorate” to evaluate complaints received from different quarters and the general public and block objectionable material over the internet.
European group, EU DisinfoLab, has exposed over 200 ‘fake’ news outlets managed by an Indian network to influence the European Union and the United Nations with content critical of Pakistan. During the investigation, the DisinfoLab found that the news outlets were managed by Indian stakeholders, with ties to a large network of think tanks, NGOs, and companies from the Srivastava Group.
Pakistan’s top court has declared that the tenure and other service terms of the post of chief of army staff (COAS) shall be determined through simple legislation (act of parliament). The current status of the COAS is to continue for a period of six months after which a fresh legislation (act of the parliament) shall determine his tenure and other terms of his service.
For the first time in the nation’s history, a special court has sentenced former military dictator General (retd) Pervez Musharraf to death in high treason case. The verdict was split 2-1 and the detailed judgement will be issued with in the next two days. The former military ruler is currently residing and under treatment in Dubai.
To promote tourism in the country, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has approved Rs. 5 billion for construction of roads and new tourism spots across the province. The budget will be used to build fourteen roads in Hazara and Malakand Divisions. On the directives of the provincial Minister for Tourism Atif Khan, the construction work will start this week.