ISLAMABAD, June 20 (DNA): Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, Minister for Economic
Affairs witnessed the signing of two project agreements amounting to USD
359 million between the Government of Pakistan and the Asian Development
Bank at Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Noor Ahmed, Secretary, Economic Affairs Division and Ms. Xiaohong Yang,
Country Director, Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a financing
agreement of USD$ 284 million for Karachi BRT Project (Red Line) between
the Government of Pakistan and the Asian Development Bank.

ADB has committed to provide USD 235 million as loan while Green Climate
Fund (GCF) will provide US$ 37.2 million as loan and US$ 11.8 million as
grant for this project. Karachi is Pakistan’s largest city and the
country’s primary financial and economic hub. Under this financing
agreement, the Government of Sindh will prioritize inclusive and
sustainable growth by improving the quality of life for its citizens.

The main objectives of the project are to reduce overall traffic volume
on the roads, thereby saving vehicle operating costs; improve the
overall quality of air through reduced carbon emissions; and an
innovative waste-to-fuel scheme for bettering public health and
mitigating the effects of climate change on citizens.

Economic Affairs Division and Asian Development Bank (ADB) also signed a
loan agreement of USD$ 75 million for “Sindh Secondary Education
Improvement Project.” Under this financing agreement, school
infrastructure, institutional capacity building and reforms in the
secondary education in the Province of Sindh will be strengthened.

The project will be implemented by Education & Literacy Department,
Government of Sindh, to construct new secondary school blocks in 10
districts across southern Sindh and improve the teaching capacity of
instructors in five (5) key subjects i.e. English, Mathematics, Biology,
Chemistry and Physics).

The project is aligned with, and will support the implementation of the
Sindh Education Sector Plan (2019 – 2023). Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar,
Minister for Economic Affairs expressed his deep appreciation and
thanked the Asian Development Bank for their financial support towards
improving urban transport, traffic management and access to secondary
education in Pakistan.

The Minister reiterated the Government’s commitment to work tirelessly
towards achieving sustainable cities and communities, in line with the
Sustainable Development Goals and highlighted the importance of
promoting secondary education, especially for girls. It reflects the
federal government’s strong commitment to support all the provinces for
achieving inclusive growth and sustainable development, he added. Ms.
Xiaohong Yang, Country Director stated that ADB is one of the leading
development partners of Pakistan.

ADB is providing its support to Pakistan for policy reforms and project
financing in the key priority areas. ADB financial support will
strengthen Pakistan’s economy and reduce the risk of external economic
shocks, she added. DNA

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ISLAMABAD, JUNE 20 / DNA / = Pakistan strongly condemns the unabated extra-judicial killings of Kashmiri youth by the Indian occupation forces in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K).

More than 110 innocent Kashmiris have been martyred by the Indian occupation forces during the past 5 months in fake “encounters” and so-called “cordon-and-search” operations. In the last two days alone, another 8 Kashmiris have been martyred in Pulwama and Shopian.

The BJP leadership must realize that it is directly responsible for these politically-motivated, arbitrary killings of Kashmiris by the Indian security forces. The international law prohibits the arbitrary deprivation of life and extra-judicial killings. This norm is codified in every major human rights treaty and convention. No illegal Act, such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), can sanctify or provide legal cover to a crime recognized as such by international law.

The international community must take immediate cognizance of the persistent reports of arbitrary and extra-judicial killings in IOJ&K, falsely labelled as having been the result of “encounters” or as having occurred in “cross-fire.” The virtual impunity of the Indian occupation forces must end and the perpetrators must be held accountable for such heinous crimes against the Kashmiri people. India fully comply with its international legal obligations.

A flock of thousands of locusts attacked fields in multiple parts of Sindh and Balochistan Saturday afternoon. The insects attacked fields of cotton, sugarcane, corn, apples, grapes and multiple other fruits and vegetables in Khairpur, Khanpur and Dadu.

The only weapon farmers had to defend their fields was drumming with steel utensils.

On the other hand, Balochistan’s Qila Abdullah, Chaman, Harnai and Pishin were attacked by swarms of locusts too.

Harvesters have warned that if the government does not promptly take action against these insects, it can affect the agriculture industry severely leading to a food shortage across the country.

Additionally, Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam has said that another locust attack is expected to hit the country through Oman, Africa and Iran.

“Internationally, all those people who have expertise over this matter, we will collaborate with them and take on this issue as a national cause,” he said at a meeting of the National Locusts Control Centre.

The National Disaster Management Authority has set up a hotline 051-111-222-999 to register complaints of locust attacks.

The PTI government has given preference to development over health at a time when we are fighting a pandemic, said PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari while addressing a press conference on Saturday.

The government said that is going to spend Rs70 billion on fighting the coronavirus but if you read the fine print, you will see that the amount has been kept as “slush funds” for PTI MNAs, he claimed.

The PPP chairperson said his party had raised this issue in the National Assembly. The government should be working on increasing the health facilities and provide relief to the people. “During a pandemic, the government is more interested in repairing roads.”

The federal government should have announced a health or COVID-19 package for every province in the budget, he said, adding that the country has to increase its healthcare and testing capacity. “This support, however, was not provided to us,” he remarked.

The government even slashed the budgets of the provinces and expects us to fight a pandemic on our own, he said. “Sindh’s budget has been slashed by Rs229 billion and Punjab’s by Rs400 billion.” This was the time to support the provincial governments as we have never faced a challenge this big before, said Bilawal.

The PTI should have allocated funds to transfer cash to people belonging to the working class and lower-middle class, believed Bilal, adding that they need our support. The government won’t be spending any money on health or food security, he added.

Pakistan is facing the worst form of locust invasion in 25 years. We have known about it for a year now, he said. “We appeal to them to take it seriously and help our farmers. This is a difficult situation.”

Pakistan has a lot more fault lines than the US, the PPP chairperson said. The PTI should be glad that they have such an active opposition, he said. The PPP decided to postpone all political activities because of the pandemic, including marking founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s death anniversary.

The PTI, however, repaid us by making the COVID-19 outbreak political, said Bilawal. Their leaders keep criticising the Sindh CM and the party is trying to away our hospitals too, he said. “I challenge the government to show me one government hospital that is offering the same quality treatment as the NICVD,” he said.

Bilawal said that the NFC Award will be discussed with other opposition parties during an All Parties Conference. “A statement on it will be issued after that.”

On the Justice Qazi Faez Isa reference, he said that the government will have to stop investigating ‘revenge cases’ if it wants to end corruption.

A second year student was found dead in his room Saturday afternoon, the Lahore police confirmed. The police said that the 20-year-old took his own life after his family members stopped him from playing PUBG, an online multiplayer battle royale game.

He had a fight with his father last night after which he went to his room and locked it. His family members knocked on his door in the morning but when he didn’t answer they broke it and found his body inside. They then called the police.

The family said that they don’t want to conduct a postmortem examination of the body after which it was handed over to them.

Here’s what you should do if someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide:

• Do not leave the person alone.

• Remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt.

• Take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional

• You can get in touch with the following mental health helplines and speak to them.

• Mind Organisation 042 35761999
• Umang 0317 4288665
• Talk2me.pk 0333 4065139
• Baat Karo 0335 5743344
• Taskeen 0332 5267936
• Rooh 0333 3337664
• Rozan 0800-22444
• OpenCounseling 042 35761999

ISLAMABAD, JUNE 20 / DNA / =  Capital Development Authority (CDA) is continuously operating against encroachments in the city with full vigor.

Enforcement directorate of CDA conducted a major operation against encroachments in area of Bari Imam on Friday and demolished around 20 rooms along with allied constructions including kitchens and bath rooms. The illegal constructions emerged during lock down period and Enforcement Directorate demolished all of them.

The operation was conducted with the help of heavy machinery including wheel dozers. A large number of Enforcement Directorate staff with the help of local police and administration conducted the operation. Enforcement Directorate of CDA is conducting operations against encroachments around the city, following directions of CDA administration regarding zero tolerance for encroachments.

In another operation against encroachments in the city on Friday, Enforcement Directorate demolished three under construction rooms in street 27 of sector G-6/2. This operation was in addition to the earlier one conducted on the same day, in Gol Market in sector G-7/4 and sector G-6/2.

Similarly, Enforcement Directorate of CDA with the help of staff of Directorate of Estate Management-II conducted operation against encroachments on Kahuta Road Islamabad. During the operation a bid to construct encroachments on State land was foiled by demolishing the construction on plot No. 64 & 65, Poultry and Vegetable Scheme Kahuta Road.

On Friday, CDA had suspended the services of two officers of the Enforcement Directorate after a report of emergence of encroachments in G-7.

LAHORE, JUN 20 (DNA) – A University of Health Science (UHS) has decided to launch a pilot project with Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) to detect coronavirus in sewage.

UHS vice-chancellor Prof Javed Akram said that UHS, in collaboration with WASA, is going to launch a scientific study to detect coronavirus in wastewater.

According to details, sewage samples from 30 areas of Lahore will be collected to test viral load. The RT-PCR test of samples will show the extent of virus transmission in the neighborhood.

Vice-Chancellor (VC) of University of Health Sciences has said that during the current smart lockdown, rate of tests conducted was low in context to the size of population and people also have reservations over sealing of specific areas during the smart lockdown.

The government of Punjab has also been informed about the scientific study, he added. It may be noted that sewage sampling would be able to estimate the approximate number of people infected in a geographic area without having to test every person.

Earlier, Punjab recorded 2,538 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of infections across the province to 64,216, according to the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department.

A spokesperson for the department said, 82 more people died from coronavirus in the previous 24 hours, taking the total number of fatalities to 1,347 in the province. The number of people recovering from the disease has risen to 17,964, said the spokesperson. =DNA

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KARACHI, JUN 20 (DNA) – Sindh government has challenged the Sindh High Court (SHC) decision of making public the joint investigation team (JIT) report of the Lyari gangster Uzair Jan Baloch in Supreme Court, media reported on Saturday.

A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, will hear the provincial government’s appeal on June 26.

In January, the SHC had directed the chief secretary Sindh to make the JIT reports of Uzair Jan Baloch, the Baldia factory fire incident and former chairman of the Fishermen Cooperative Society Nisar Morai public, on a petition filed in 2017 by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Syed Ali Zaidi, who is now a federal minister.

The high court had put the provincial chief secretary on notice for June 23 on a petition seeking contempt of court proceedings against him for not making public these high profile cases’ JIT reports. The provincial government in its appeal has also made federal minister Ali Zaidi a party.

Ali Zaidi had filed a petition before the SHC and asked the court to initiate contempt proceedings against the chief secretary for not complying with the Jan 28 judgement of the SHC.

The PTI leader in a petition in SHC in 2017 and submitted that these JIT reports had made startling disclosures about the involvement of politicians in heinous crimes. =DNA

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