Pakistan

Rs81b metro bus, e-buses plans to ease traffic woes

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Sales tax on services hits Rs23.26b in July-December

Ibadullah and Governor Kundi assess overall situation

Only 27 days of wheat stocks left; 20kg bag price jumps to Rs2,700

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, on Thursday, chaired the first meeting of the Committee on Economic Management Reforms.

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Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) 2024–25 on Thursday revealed the surge of up to 57 per cent in the individual internet users in Pakistan as household internet access rate increased from 34pc to 70pc. HIES — a yearly survey — conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) is focused on social and economic conditions of the country to provide data for policy making at the national and provincial levels. The PBS released the results of HIES during a ceremony at the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Islamabad, today. “The PBS has successfully completed and released the results of the Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) 2024–25, marking a major milestone in Pakistan’s national data ecosystem,“ a statement from the Press Information Department (PID) said. It further said that “the survey provides comprehensive insights to review the social and economic conditions of the country and serves as a key tool for evidence-based planning and policymaking.” PID said that “H...

On the first day of the new year, the Punjab government announced a major administrative overhaul by dissolving nine departments and merging them into a newly created Food Safety and Consumer Protection Department.

President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday expressed his profound sorrow over a devastating explosion and fire at the Crans-Montana resort in Switzerland, which caused multiple casualties.

Pakistan’s national literacy rate has reached 63 percent, reflecting a modest increase of three percentage points over the past five years, according to the latest Household Economic Survey released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Tahir Hussain Andrabi said on Thursday that Islamabad and New Delhi exchanged the lists of their respective nuclear installations, continuing the annual practice under an agreement signed between the two nations in 1988. Under the Agreement on the Prohibition of Atta­cks against Nuclear Insta­llations and Facilities, signed on December 31, 1988, both countries committed to annually share information about their nuclear installations and facilities. The agreement took effect from Jan 27, 1991, and the annual exchange has been taking place on the first day of every year since 1992. In continuation of the practice, the exchange took place today as well, Andrabi said during the FO’s weekly briefing. “A list of nuclear installations and facilities in Pakistan was officially handed over to the representative of the Indian High Commission in the Foreign Office today. “I understand that the Indian government is also sharing the list of Indian nuclear installations with our High Commis...

A total of 128 journalists were killed around the world in 2025, more than half of them in the Middle East, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said on Thursday. The grim toll, up from 2024, “is not just a statistic, it’s a global red alert for our colleagues,” IFJ general secretary Anthony Bellanger told AFP. The press group voiced particular alarm over the situation in the Palestinian territories, where it recorded 56 media professionals killed in 2025 as Israel’s war with Hamas ground on in Gaza. “We’ve never seen anything like this: so many deaths in such a short time, in such a small area,” Bellanger said. Journalists were also killed in Yemen, Ukraine, Sudan, Peru, India and elsewhere. Bellanger condemned what he called “impunity” for those behind the attacks. “Without justice, it allows the killers of journalists to thrive,” he warned. Meanwhile, the IFJ said that across the globe, 533 journalists were currently in prison – a figure that has more than doubled over the past half-decade. Ch...

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday said 446 lawmakers — including 125 members of the National Assembly — failed to submit their statements of assets and liabilities with the ECP by the due date — set at December 31. In a press release issued today, ECP notified the lawmakers who had missed the earlier deadline to submit their statements by January 15, and said that “as many as 446 lawmakers failed to submit their statements of assets and liabilities” with the ECP by the due date. Out of these, 125 lawmakers are members of the National Assembly, 26 Senators, 159 members of the Punjab Assembly, 62 members of the Sindh Assembly, 48 members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly and 26 members of the Balochistan Assembly. The commission said that members of the parliament and provincial assemblies were required to submit a copy of a statement of assets and liabilities by Dec 31, including assets and liabilities of their dependents. It stated that the submission was a mandatory requirement unde...

Pakistan’s consumer price inflation slowed to 5.6 per cent year-on-year in December, while prices fell every month, official data showed on Thursday. The data comes after the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) cut its key policy rate by 50 basis points to 10.5pc last month, breaking a four-meeting hold, in a move that surprised markets. All analysts polled by Reuters had expected rates to remain unchanged at the December meeting. Inflation eased from 6.1pc in November and marked a sharp slowdown from levels that peaked above 30pc in 2023, according to official data. Lower prices of perishable food items helped drive the monthly decline, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said, with food prices falling 1.7pc month-on-month in December, led by declines in both urban and rural areas. The finance ministry had said on Wednesday that inflation was expected to remain moderate at 5.5-6.5pc in December. The SBP has said that inflation stayed within its 5-7pc target range during the July-November period, but warned that...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has expressed deep sorrow over the tragic fire incident at a ski resort in Switzerland on New Year night.

ISLAMABAD: The PTI submitted a reference to the Senate chairperson on Thursday, seeking the disqualification of Senator Saifullah Abro for defecting from party line and voting in favour of the 27th Constitutional Amendment. PTI Senator Ali Zafar posted about the development on his X account, saying: “Saifullah Abro went against party line by voting in favour of the 27th Constitutional Amendment, for which a reference for his disqualification has been filed.” The reference, moved by Zafar, invoked Article 63-A of the Constitution, which deals with disqualification on grounds of defection. “The declaration is being submitted for onward reference to the chief election commissioner for laying the same before the election commission in accordance with the said Article 63-A,” the reference, dated January 1 and seen by Dawn, said. It added that a meeting of the PTI was convened before voting on the 27th Amendment, in which it was “explicitly decided and communicated to all PTI senators in writing” that they were to ...

A total of 21 monkeypox cases have been reported at Mayo Hospital, Lahore, over the past six months, according to hospital officials.

A US citizen has hunted a grey goral for the first time in Pakistan’s history under a trophy hunting permit, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife Department said on Thursday.

Every time I open my “For You” feed on Instagram, I’m ushered into a parallel classroom: informal, intimate, and oddly generous. Young girls and boys who look my age and live inside the same algorithmic present lean into their cameras, handing me bite-sized context to systemic injustices, climate disasters, and political upheavals. One tells me why women stay in abusive relationships long after the myth of “choice” collapses, unpacking trauma bonds and survival instincts with the precision of a psychology lecture delivered from a bedroom floor. Another explains the systematic oppression of women in Afghanistan and how bans on their work, movement, and education have collapsed into sanctioned violence, compressing years of repression into three lucid minutes of a GRWM (get ready with me) reel. I first learned the language of geopolitics and settler colonialism here as a lived, continuous process instead of an abstract academic concept. Someone casually recommended ‘Decolonisation is not a metaphor’ by Eve Tuck...