National Oct 28: The tehsils of Duki and Surab in Balochistan were upgraded to the level of districts. Oct 28: The Pakistan Council of Research on Water Resources (PCRWR) declared 11 brands of mineral water unsafe for drinking due to chemical contamination. Highlights Well Care, Siiz Cool, Pacific Pure and Aqua National have comparatively high levels of Arsenic ranging from …

By Wajid Shamsul Hasan Terrorists have once again struck Quetta — perhaps our law enforcers’ Achilles heel. In August Balochistan Bar Association’s former president was killed followed by scores of other lawyers in bomb attack. Despite heavy presence of the assortment of security agencies including army, Frontier Constabulary, police, levis and all brands of intelligence agencies infesting the nook and …

By Babar Sattar The loss of five-dozen police cadets in Quetta in a terror attack remained of interest to the news cycle for a sum total of one day. How can a nation with a soul be so nonchalant about indiscriminate murder of citizens? How can a state with qualms be so pigheaded about policies that continue to require placing …

By Amir Hussain “Borrowed notions of development at times distort the essence of [the] local wisdom of social transformation”. This was elegantly articulated by a development worker in Chitral recently during a roundtable conference organised by the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF). This local development worker gave the gist of the dilemma of development in Pakistan. The uncritical and piecemeal …

By Faisal Kutty A complaint of discrimination and harassment against a Sun columnist and former editor was dismissed by a UK press watchdog, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), earlier this month. The complaint was filed against Kelvin MacKenzie after he accused Channel 4 News of “editorial stupidity” for allowing reporter Fatimah Manji to wear a hijab when “there had …

National Oct 27: Pakistan declared an official of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, Surjeet Singh, as persona non grata and asked him to leave the country after the same treatment was meted out by India to a staffer of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, Mehmood Akhtar. What happened? Pakistan staffer Mehmood Akhtar was arrested outside the gates …

Shahid M Amin FOR the last three months, thousands of Kashmiris have been coming out in the streets daily to protest against Indian rule. Discontent with Indian occupation has been there all along in Kashmir, ever since 1947, but the present popular uprising is on an unprecedented scale. There is a virtual shutdown in the valley and other areas, and …

By: Amna Ejaz Rafi PRIME Minister Narendra Modi’s Pakistan bashing on BRICS forum signifies what? Indian obsession with Pakistan? Or how important is Pakistan for India? that the latter employs every regional/international platform to isolate Pakistan. Like the election campaign, Pakistan is the top most agenda for the BJP. The approach to diplomatically isolate Pakistan seems to be the prime …

Among the recent developments, Iran and Afghanistan have expressed their desire to join CPEC. Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Dr. Omar Zakhilwal said that CPEC is a great project which is equally relevant to Afghanistan, like Pakistan. Moreover, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UNGA session has also expressed the …

Pakistan and India will have to pay heavy price if they engage themselves in a Nuclear-war and the war will be never confined to Pakistani or Indian territory. More than 20m people will be killed immediately, and approximately half of Ozone layer of the world would be affected with the vast monsoons and agricultural worldwide changes, if Pakistan and India …