Month: May 2018

The National Assembly on Thursday passed a constitutional amendment seeking the much-awaited merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) with a 229-1 vote in favour. Lawmakers from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) and the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chose to walk out from the assembly ahead of the vote. Dawar Kundi from the PTI was the sole dissenting vote in the final count. A session of the Senate has been called on Friday (tomorrow) to review the bill and give assent. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas represent…

4 The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday published the final electoral rolls ahead of General Elections 2018. According to the rolls, 105.96 million voters will be able to cast their vote in the upcoming elections. Of these, 59.22m are male and 46.73m are females, with the gender gap between male and female rising to around 12.5m. According to the figures, 55.9 per cent of the registered voters in Pakistan are males while only 44.1pc are females. The numbers are approximately 23 per cent higher than the figures for…

In accordance with the orders of the apex court, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has launched a formal probe against Bahria Town Karachi, Bahria Town Lahore and Bahria Town Rawalpindi, according to a press release issued by the watchdog on Monday. NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal has directed the relevant directors general to complete their investigation within three months, in line with the court’s directions. On May 4, the Supreme Court, in three hard-hitting verdicts against the real estate empire, had declared the procurement of land by Bahria Town for its housing projects…

Sabika Sheikh, a 17-year-old Pakistani scholar participating in the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) programme in the US, was one of the 10 people killed when a teenage classmate armed with a shotgun and a revolver opened fire in the Santa Fe High School in Texas yesterday. “We found out about the shooting from a local TV channel and tried, but failed to contact Sabika and her friends,” said Sabika’s father Abdul Aziz, while adding that they then contacted the YES programme coordinator, who confirmed the news of their daughter’s death,…

Four people, including three children, were killed while 10 were injured in unprovoked ceasefire violations across the Working Boundary (WB) by India on Friday, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) press release said. According to the army’s media wing, the Punjab Rangers are responding to Indian fire and targeting Indian posts which initiated fire in the Sialkot sector as intermittent fire continues. The Foreign Office said that the violations took place in Pukhlian, Cahprar, Harpal, Charwah and Shakargarh sectors and identified the deceased as a woman, Kalsoom, and her three children…

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday petitioned the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to declare as null and void the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) March 12 decision ordering the formation of a committee to scrutinise the minutiae of the PTI’s sources of funding. Dissident founder member of the PTI and the petitioner in the case, Akbar S. Babar, had filed the case before the ECP in 2014 after he developed differences with Imran Khan over internal corruption and abuse of laws governing political funding. The petitioner had alleged…