Pakistan

The 75th meeting of the Board of Advanced Studies and Research (BASR) was held at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), during which 12 PhD and 87 MPhil research scholars from the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities & the Faculty of Sciences defended their research synopses.

The educational institutions across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will observe black day on December 16 to commemorate the victims of the tragic Army Public School (APS) attack, one of the most painful incidents in Pakistan’s history.

The constitutional bench of the Sindh High Court has issued bailable arrest warrants for the Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) after he failed to comply with a court order directing the payment of pension to a retired officer.

Claims circulated by Israeli, Indian, and Afghan-linked media accusing Pakistan of involvement in a recent terrorist attack near Sydney have been debunked by official records and statements.

Islamabad High Court (IHC) Justice Tariq Jahangiri on Monday expressed a lack of confidence in the bench headed by Chief Justice Sardar Sarfraz Dogar hearing a case related to his academic degree and requested that the matter be transferred to another bench.

Haan, so yesterday, I said to Kulchoo, “Congratulations, beta.” “What for?” “For Basant,” I said. “What’s that?” he asked. Haw, look at him! Doesn’t know Basant even. He’s become a foreigner. I tau fully blame Kick Cock and all this social media shedia. He’s so busy looking at hurry canes in Thailand and football matches in Milan that he’s forgotten about our own culture. Next, he’ll be asking me kay what is Holloween? So, I said to him, very gently, very sweetly, “Beta, Basant is kite flying festival in February. In not so olden days, Lahore was famous for it. On that day, everyone wore yellow and climbed on to rooftops to fly kites. Lots of rooftop parties happened and gaana bajana also and much halla gulla. Foreigners used to come from Isloo to take part and Karachiites who, poor things, never had anything like it, used to come from Karachi. Even some Indians from India came. When there was still aana jaana and uthna baithna between us. Whole weekend was non-stop fun.” “Before my time,” said Kulchoo. “So, ...

Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri appeared before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday, presenting arguments in his defence against challenges to the legitimacy of his law degree and appointment as a judge while also raising objections over the division bench hearing the case. The controversy surrounding the IHC judge’s law degree originated from a letter that began circulating last year on social media, purportedly from the University of Karachi’s (KU) controller of examinations. Subsequently, a complaint pertaining to his allegedly fake degree was submitted to the Supreme Judicial Council — the top forum for judicial accountability that probes allegations of misconduct against judges — last year in July and a petition challenging his appointment was also filed in the IHC earlier this year by lawyer Mian Dawood. A two-member IHC bench, led by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and also comprising Justice Muhammad Azam Khan, took up the matter on Monday in a packed courtroom. The same bench had dec...

Dear Auntie, I am a 19-year-old girl who just cleared her Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) and, luckily, secured a seat in a government medical college in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. I consider myself extremely lucky to have gotten into a government college, considering the tough competition in our province. However, now that I am in my post-MDCAT phase, strangely, I am questioning my career choice. Do I really want to do this? What about the saturation in this field? What if I am jobless after all the hard work and extensive studies? Is pursuing this field in a country with a faltering economy the right career choice? These questions are popping up in my head every now and then. My dream was to clear the MDCAT and I really put in all my efforts to achieve it. Now, after I am done with it, I am actually clueless. I am wondering if I really wanted to become a doctor or was it just the craze of clearing the MDCAT and proving myself to people. Or is it just the poor situation of doctors these days in ou...

The night the last full Heer was sung in a village in Jaranwala, the moon was so bright that old men swore Ranjha himself had returned to listen. Three brothers — Ghulam Haider, Allah Ditta and Mohammad Bakhsh — all past 90, sat on a cracked mud platform beneath a single bulb. They began after maghrib [sunset] and finished only at the fajr azaan [call to prayer at dawn]. That night, they moved through the old qissay [tales] — Heer Ranjha, Mirza Sahiban and others — without missing a single couplet. Twelve unbroken hours, thousands of couplets, not one repeated. When Sahiban begged Mirza to shoot her first, even the village dogs fell silent. The youngest listener was 63. No child was present. That was 2003. Today, the platform sells motorcycle parts, the bulb is gone and the brothers rest in the village graveyard. A THOUSAND YEARS IN MEMORY For a thousand years, the memory of Punjab lived in breath and melody rather than ink. From the salt hills of Soon Valley to the barley fields of Sargodha, every village on...

A Pakistan-origin man living in Sydney has said he had received death threats and was “terrified” to leave his home after his photo was widely shared online as the gunman responsible for the Bondi Beach shooting, it emerged on Monday. Two gunmen on Sunday had opened fire at a Hanukkah gathering in Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 in Australia’s worst incident of gun violence since 1996. Police have not yet disclosed the names of the suspects, who happen to be father and son, or their motives. However, various news outlets identified them as Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, respectively. The father first came to Australia in 1998 on a student visa, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told reporters on Monday. He was killed at the scene. His son — an Australian-born citizen according to the home affairs minister — is critically injured and being treated in a Sydney hospital bed under police guard. Photos of a beaming man in a green Pakistan cricket jersey had subsequently pinged across social media. Some of the posts...

“From Plato to Nato, the history of command in war consists of an endless quest for certainty…historical commanders have always faced the choice between two basic ways of coping with uncertainty…to construct an army of automatons following the orders of a single man, allowed to do only that which could be controlled; the other, to design organisations and operations in such a way as to enable the former to carry out the latter without the need for continuous control. …the second of these methods has, by and large, proved more successful than the first…” — Martin van Creveld quoted by William Lind in Manoeuvre Warfare Handbook “He plunged past with his bayonet towards the green hedge,  King, honour, human dignity, etcetera  Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm  To get out of that blue crackling air  His terror’s touchy dynamite.” — The Bayonet Charge by Ted Hughes SITUATING THE ISSUE Among other changes brought in by the 27th Constitutional Amendment, one relates to the creation of the office of Chief of D...

A Lahore district and sessions court on Monday granted interim pre-arrest bail to YouTuber Rajab Butt and TikToker Nadeem Mubarak in a case related to the alleged promotion of gambling apps. The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) has registered cases against several YouTubers on charges of promoting and encouraging a gambling application, including Butt and Mubarak. Both social media influencers appeared in front of Additional District and Sessions Judge Mansoor Ahmed Qureshi on Monday. Their lawyers contended that the two wanted to join the investigation against them to prove their innocence. The judge granted pre-arrest bail to Butt and Mubarak, restraining the NCCIA from arresting them till January 6. The judge also directed both suspects to join the investigation before the next date of hearing. The development comes days after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) granted 10-day protective bail to the social media influencers in response to a petition filed by Butt and Mubarak’s relatives, who ha...

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is set to announce its new monetary policy today (Monday) and expected to keep the policy rate unchanged.

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday declared null and void 80 decisions issued by the provincial ombudsperson under the Women’s Inheritance Protection Law, ruling that the authority had exceeded its legal mandate.

A local court on Monday granted interim bail to TikTokers Rajab Butt and Nadeem Mubarak, also known as Nadeem Naniwala, in cases related to the alleged promotion of a gambling application.

The last nationwide polio campaign of 2025 began on Monday, with the aim of vaccinating 45.5 million children across the country, state-run Radio Pakistan reported. The week-long polio drive is set to run until December 21. Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic. So far, the country has recorded 30 polio cases, with the highest number of cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at 19. According to the National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC), more than 400,000 frontline polio workers will take part in the campaign. More than 23m children will be immunised in Punjab, over 16m in Sindh, more than 7.2m in KP and over 2.6m in Balochistan. In Islamabad, the campaign aims to vaccinate over 400,000 children. In Sindh, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah inaugurated the polio campaign in Karachi by administering polio drops to children. “Over 10.6m children will be vaccinated across 30 districts and 1,345 union councils, with 80,000+ frontline workers & 21,000 cops d...

Pakistan on Monday launched its final nationwide anti-polio campaign for 2025, with the seven-day drive set to continue until December 21, targeting more than 45 million children across the country.

The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday condemned the “heinous” attack which claimed the lives of six United Nations (UN) peacekeepers from Bangladesh in Sudan’s Kadugli, calling for holding those responsible accountable. At least six Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed and eight wounded in a drone attack on a UN base on Saturday in the disputed Abyei region between Sudan and South Sudan, according to Bangladesh’s armed forces. In a statement released on Monday, the FO said, “Pakistan condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the heinous attack against UN peacekeepers in Kadugli, Sudan, which has resulted in the tragic deaths of six peacekeepers from Bangladesh serving with the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (Unisfa), and injuries to several others.” It expressed Pakistan’s deepest condolences to the government and people of Bangladesh on the lives lost, adding that Pakistan stood in solidarity with the bereaved families. “UN peacekeepers remain at the forefront of international efforts to preven...

Two alleged gunmen who killed 15 people at a Jewish celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach were a father and son, police said on Monday, as Australia began mourning victims of its worst gun violence in almost 30 years. The father, a 50-year-old, was killed at the scene, taking the number of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in a critical condition in hospital, police said at a press conference on Monday. The father and son were identified as Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, respectively, by state broadcaster ABC and other local media outlets. Officials have described Sunday’s shooting as a targeted anti-Semitic attack. Forty people remain in hospital following the attack, including two police officers who are in a serious but stable condition, police said. The victims were aged between 10 and 87. Witnesses said the attack at the famed beach, which was packed on a hot evening, lasted about 10 minutes, sending hundreds of people scattering along the sand and into nearby streets. Police said around 1,000 peopl...

Hong Kong’s High Court on Monday found tycoon and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai guilty of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in the city’s highest-profile trial under a China-imposed national security law that could see him jailed for life. The landmark case has drawn international scrutiny of Hong Kong’s judicial independence amid a years-long crackdown on rights and freedoms in the global financial hub after 2019 pro-democracy protests that Beijing saw as a challenge to its rule. While 78-year-old Lai’s supporters see him as a freedom fighter, Beijing sees him as a mastermind of the protests and a conspirator advocating for US sanctions against Hong Kong and the mainland. Chinese authorities have rejected accusations of eroding the city’s rule of law. “There is no doubt” that Lai “had harboured his resentment and hatred of” China for many of his adult years, Judge Esther Toh told a packed courtroom as the tycoon, wearing a pale green jumper and a grey jacket, sat with his arms folded. The two ot...