Apps and Games

Village and city: enriching and impoverishing What do scholars tell us about the history of village in Punjab? Village is older than Harappa, one can assume.      It’s in fact older than that. It’s linked with the rise of agriculture. Harappa city didn’t come out of thin air. It owed its existence to an evolutionary transformation of village. City usually stands tall on the top of village it appropriated but keeps it hidden in its innards. Village devoured and digested emerges as a new organism called city. City produces all the things innovative and creative which are taken as hallmarks of civilisation but it doesn’t produce one thing that is an absolute must: food.  Cerebral activity makes city what it is. But city’s survival cannot be ensured by cerebral activity alone which consumes calories. Calories are provided by food. And food comes from agricultural lands managed by growers. It was food that Baba Farid, the pioneer of Punjabi lit...

PPP’s Nasser Bagh protest: Sharifs targeted for ‘power fiasco, Indian connection’ LAHORE: Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Khurshid Shah lashed out at the rulers for what he said hurting national interest and democracy for their personal gains as the Pakistan People’s Party set up a protest camp against loadshedding here on Thursday . The prime minister secretly met Indian business tycoon Sajjan Jindal, while Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar publicly “overreacted to a minor issue” in his Wah Cantonment press conference, Shah said while speaking at the camp and earlier at the residence of a PPP leader. “You’ll have to tell the nation what transpired in the secret meeting with Jindal. You conspired against Pakistani institutions just for wealth!” he said and urged the masses to donate Re1 daily “to satiate the lust of the Sharifs for wealth.” Questioning the N...

Bribe allegation: Shahbaz serves notice on Imran   LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has served a legal notice on Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan for levelling a “baseless” allegation of offering him bribe of Rs10 billion to remain silent on Panama case.   “The chief minister has served a legal notice on him (Imran Khan) which he will receive in a couple of days,” Punjab government spokesman Malik Muhammad Ahmed told a press conference here on Thursday. Mr Khan has recently claimed that a “common friend” made an offer of Rs10bn to him on behalf of Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz. Criticising the PPP for holding a protest camp at Nasser Bagh against loadshedding, Malik Ahmed said: “Ours [protest camp] at Minar-i-Pakistan was different from PPP’s because we were protesting against non-delivery [of PPP regime] and PPP is doing so on our delivery. There has been no comparison of loadshedding between the PPP’s and PML-N’s govern...

Unusual police report against PM   RAWALPINDI: In an unusual development, police have registered a report against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for provoking people against the Pakistan Army and creating hatred against the armed forces.   It is worth noting that the report registered by the police is not a First Information Report or FIR. It is a report registered in the police diary, known in local parlance as roznamcha. The one-page report was lodged by Advocate Ishtiaq Ahmed Mirza, chairman of the I.M. Pakistan, a political party which he claimed was registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan. Mr Ahmed in his complaint said he was sitting at his office at the district courts when he received a WhatsApp clip at 12.47pm which showed a man making a speech. He said it was visible that the man delivering the speech was Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister, who was allegedly provoking people and creating hatred against the armed forces.  The com...

Civilian killed, 17 injured in firing from Afghan side in Chaman   At least one civilian was killed and 17 others were injured in cross-border shelling and firing from the Afghan side in Balochistan's Chaman area early Friday, police said. Security forces said Pakistani border forces retaliated to Afghan light and heavy weapons firing on Pakistani checkposts in Kali Luqman and Kali Jahangir areas of Chaman. The exchange of fire is still ongoing, area sources said. During the cross-border "attack", mortar shells fired from the Afghan side hit houses in a village of Kali Luqman, leaving one person dead and 17 others injured, Station House Officer (SHO) Chaman Maqsood said. At least three children are among the injured. He said the injured were shifted to the Civil Hospital Chaman, where an emergency has been imposed. Four of the injured are said to be in critical condition. The slain man has been identified as 17-year-old Mohammad Ashraf. As a res...

                                        ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has decided to forward the names of all of its 291 officials of grade 18 and above to the Supreme Court for selection of one of them as a member of the joint investigation team (JIT) to investigate allegations against the prime minister and his family stemming from the Panama Papers. This was said by SECP chairman Zafar Hijazi while briefing a meeting of the Senate standing committee on finance here on Thursday. Chairman of the committee Senator Saleem Mandviwalla had inquired about the issue and asked Mr Hijazi to brief the meeting on it. “We want to know the reasons why the names forwarded by the SECP and the State Bank have been rejected by the court,” he said. The ...