Farooq Awan

ISLAMABAD: China has ensured the freedom of religious beliefs in Muslim majority area of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, with no restrictions of any sort by the government on routine religious activities by Muslims, or followers of any other religion, said Ma Pinyan, Research Fellow at the Institute of Religious Studies at Xinjiang Academy of Social […]

ISLAMABAD: The government on Friday unveiled Rs 2.113 trillion Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the fiscal year 2017-18, showing an increase of 26.14% as compared to Rs 1.675 trillion allocated during the last fiscal year. Out of the total allocation for PSDP, Rs 1.001 trillion have been set aside for the federal departments whereas […]

ISLAMABAD: Painting a rosy picture of country’s economy in the fourth year of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s five-year stint in power, the government on Thursday claimed that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 5.28% during the outgoing fiscal year 2016-17, the highest in 10 years despite ‘several internal and external challenges’. Though the GDP […]

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday categorically maintained that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) cannot annul death sentence awarded to Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav by a Field General Court Martial for involvement in espionage and sabotage activities in Karachi and Balochistan. “Kulbhushan Jhadav confessed before a magistrate and trial court that he was tasked by Indian […]

ISLAMABAD: In a first-of-its-kind investment in Pakistan’s troubled energy sector, Islamabad and Beijing on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop North Indus River Cascade with an estimated cost of US$ 50 billion that has the potential of generating approximately 40,000mw of hydroelectric power. Under the initiative, initially five huge dams will be […]

ISLAMABAD: Hours after a ‘fruitful’ meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa and subsequent issue of an ‘updated’ notification by the Interior Ministry on Wednesday, Pakistan Army ‘withdrew’ its April 29 tweet wherein it had ‘rejected’ directives of the Prime Minister’s Office on Dawn Leaks inquiry report, […]

  ISLAMABAD: A war of words between Pakistan and Iran escalated on Tuesday after Islamabad cautioned Tehran that a warning issued by the Iranian army chief a day earlier was against the ‘spirit of brotherly relations’ between two countries. And in Tehran, another senior military official warned that his country reserved the right to destroy […]

ISLAMABAD: A Chinese scholar on Thursday said China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has given a new dimension to already flourishing relations between the two countries. In a roundtable with a select group of journalists, Prof Dr Xing Guangcheng, Director at Institute of China’s Borderlands, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who is heading a six-member delegation of […]

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif summoned his close aides to Jati Umra in Raiwind on Sunday to thrash out a ‘damage control’ strategy following Pakistan Army’s curt rejection of a government notification in the Dawn Leaks issue. Sources said Senator Ishaq Dar, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar and Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Fawad Hassan Fawad […]

ISLAMABAD: The civilian and military establishments on Saturday virtually came face-to-face after Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), in a straightforward and curt statement, all together rejected a notification issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on controversy surrounding Dawn Leaks, terming it ‘incomplete and not in line with the recommendations of the inquiry board’. “Notification on Dawn […]