Megalomaniac

The proposal has come in for criticism from Opposition, journalists and rights groups On Tuesday, the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information, Firdous Ashiq Awan, announced the Pakistan government’s plan to establish special media tribunals or ‘media courts’, which would deal with all media-related cases. These courts would be bound to deal with the cases within 90 days. Ms. Awan said the government would get a law passed in Parliament to establish the tribunals. At present, media-related cases (mostly against journalists and media-houses) are being dealt with by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) and the Press Council of Pakistan. But once the media courts are established, PEMRA would refer such cases to them, said Ms. Awan. The announcement has kicked up a storm with Opposition politicians, journalists and rights groups slamming the government for attempts to curb media freedom. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said it is...

Can the U.S. play a role in bringing India and Pakistan to the negotiating table? U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month once again brought up the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) issue, offering ‘help’ to India and Pakistan. “I get along with both countries very well. I am willing to help them if they want, they know that is out there,” he told reporters. This marked a departure from Mr. Trump’s earlier offer to ‘mediate’ between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, made in July when he met Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House. India had not taken kindly to the statement. Moeed Yusuf, associate vice-president of the Asia centre at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and author of Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments: U.S. Crisis Management in South Asia said he considered Mr. Trump’s statement “a mellowing down of that [earlier] position”, which he said was “not the U.S. policy position to begin with”. Mr. Yusuf also said that at the end of the day, Mr. Trump does genuinely...

No more concessions to India, says Pakistan Aviation Minister. Federal Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said on Saturday that Pakistan denied President Ram Nath Kovind the use of Pakistani airspace for his flight to Iceland this month because of India’s continued aggression against and oppression of the Kashmiri people. “We got India’s request for their President’s flight. It was discussed with all relevant quarters and decided that enough is enough, no more concessions for India,” he told The Hindu . Mr. Khan said that while Pakistan allowed Prime Minister Narendra Modi to use the Pakistani airspace for his visit to France in August as a goodwill gesture, India continued to flout international laws and the Modi government was least bothered about its “reprehensible” conduct in Kashmir. “Different options are under consideration at the moment regarding Pakistani airspace’s use for Indian flights. Apart from VVIP flights, we are considering not to allow Indian Airlines to use ...

Nigeria marked three years since its last case of polio last month — an important step towards being declared free of the crippling disease. The two other polio-endemic nations — Pakistan and Afghanistan — have, however, not shown much progress. Polio cases in Pakistan have rather increased in recent years. Recently, Prime Minister Imran Khan held a high-level emergency meeting regarding the alarming situation in the country and directed government officials to start awareness and immunisation campaigns. Mr. Khan is also scheduled to lead the polio programme from November. Babar Bin Atta, the Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio, told The Hindu that polio eradication was, in fact, very simple. “If we vaccinate enough children in a given area, then poliovirus has nowhere to hide and disappears from that area. In Pakistan, we have not yet managed to reach this target, but we are determined to do whatever it takes to make this happen.” This year has proven challenging for Pakist...