Posts published in March 2015

MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) High Court directed the government on Friday to appoint Election Commissioner for Local Bodies within a month and hold LB elections across the country within five months. The directive was issued by Justice M. Tabassum Aftab Alvi, on a writ petition filed by Raja Sajjad Ahmed, a former vice chairman of the AJK Bar Council. The petitioner-lawyer contended that the AJK Legislative Assembly had enacted the AJK Local…

Considering the current government came to power on the back of promises to solve the power crisis that has gripped the country for the last many years, it has been laggardly in getting the Diamer-Bhasha Dam project to the starting line. The project has been dogged by innumerable difficulties from the outset, and although the federal government on March 2 finally approved Rs101 billion for land acquisition, we remain many years away from any watts…

By Shahbaz Rana in The Express Tribune, March 3rd, 2015. ISLAMABAD: After months of foot-dragging and delays, the federal government on Monday finally approved Rs101 billion for land acquisition for the construction of Diamer-Bhasha dam as well as the rehabilitation of people who would be displaced, clearing one of the biggest hurdles to completing the $14 billion, 4,500-megawatt hydroelectric power plant, the largest infrastructure project in Pakistan since the construction of the Tarbela dam in…

By Shabbir Mir in The Express Tribune, March 4th, 2015. GILGIT: In 2013, inmate Oleg Topalov at Matrosskaya Tishina, a maximum-security facility in Moscow, used an innocuous spoon to dig a hole into the ceiling and make his way out. On February 27, 2015, four prisoners attempted to break out of Gilgit Jail, after digging a similar hole—in a wall—before making their ‘great’ escape. As Interim Chief Minister of Gilgit-Baltistan Sher Jehan Mir and other…

GILGIT: Pakistan People`s Party and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf have decided to launch a protest movement against the appointment of Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Chaudhry Birjis Tahir as the governor of Gilgit-Baltistan. The two political parties are planning to give a call for a complete shutter down in the region and hold protest rallies on March 6, the day when the federal minister is scheduled to visit to the region after assuming charge of…

GILGIT: Initial investigations into the jailbreak in Gilgit have revealed that the inmates had carried out the daring act with help from the prison`s security staff. Danyor Station House Officer Ghulaam Muhammad and one of the runaway prisoners were injured after police encircled them in Minwar town, 13km from the jail, but the fugitives still managed to escape. Gilgit-Baltistan police chief Zaffar Iqbal Awan told Dawn that police and other security forces had launched a…

In the past few years our prisons seem to have become increasingly porous. The escape of two suspects on trial for the 2013 massacre of 10 foreign climbers and their guide who were on a trip to scale Nanga Parbat comes as the latest setback in our fight against militancy. Obviously, if those held for the most heinous crimes are able to get away from jails, others gain encouragement from their ability to flee punishment.…

ISLAMABAD: While billions are being spent on the perks, privileges and protocol of country’s elite, the authorities are reluctant to provide meagre Rs25 million required to enrol 10,000 out of school children in a Gilgit-Balistan district within a span of few weeks. Ghizer, the district in Gilgit-Baltistan, is the only such region in the whole of the country where the administration has complete data of out of schools children. The data has been collected by…