PTV, CCTV sign MoU to enable Chinese television to get landing rights in Pakistan

MD PTC Muhammad Malick and Vice President of CCTV Zhu Tong signing an MoU that will allow CCTV landing rights in Pakistan. PHOTO: PID

The Chinese Central Television (CCTV) and Pakistan Television Corporation Ltd., signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on mutual cooperation in the field of Broadcasting in Islamabad on Saturday that would enable China Central Television (CCTV) News and the CCTV 9 documentary channel landing rights in Pakistan.

The MoU was inked by Vice President of CCTV Zhu Tong and Managing Director of Pakistan Television Muhammad Malick. Ambassador Masood Khalid also witnessed the signing ceremony held at the CCTV headquarters.

Malick in his remarks following the signing ceremony said that the premier had taken special interest in fostering institutional media cooperation, had directed Pakistan media authorities to facilitate CCTV to commence its transmission into Pakistan at the earliest by enabling it to secure landing rights in Pakistan.

Both television networks will also be sharing programming content including that on dubbed entertainment as well as Chinese language learning on a regular and reciprocal basis. Malick explained that a formal agreement will soon follow the MoU.

Zhu Tong said that he was excited seeing media and broadcasting cooperation moving from strength to strength and he looked forward to seeing mutual exchange of programs increasing rapidly in the near future.

China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly  abbreviated as  CCTV, is the predominant state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 45 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers.

Analysis: The controversial stock-broker Amit Shah

Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s most trusted aide and former stock-broker Amit Shah. PHOTO: REUTERS

DELHI: 

When it comes to making speeches during the election campaign, Indian politicians never miss the chance to make them inflammatory and incite hate and anger, sometimes on the basis of caste but mostly on religion.

Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s most trusted aide and former stock-broker Amit Shah has done it this time: Shah has been issued a notice from the Election Commission over his recent hate speech in the town of Bijnore in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

While addressing a gathering, Shah asked the Jat community to avenge ‘insult’, referring to the previous year’s communal riots in Muzaffarnagar.

Shah, the lieutenant of Narendra Modi, has always been a controversial figure; his name first figured in 2005 for his role in hatching a conspiracy to kill alleged terrorist Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi. He was charged with what federal agencies claim was a staged encounter to eliminate Sohrabuddin.

In 2010, CBI charged Shah with murder, extortion, destruction of evidence and criminal conspiracy in the ‘fake’ Sohrabuddin encounter. Shah pleaded innocence and resigned from his post of Gujarat home minister.

In September 2013, a former top Gujarat policeman, DG Vanzara, released an explosive letter from prison accusing Shah of using dirty tactics in Gujarat.

In November 2013, Shah was also implicated in a scandal dubbed ‘stalkergate’, in which he purportedly ordered police officers to trail a woman, ordering them to report her every move.

Currently on bail, Shah is said to be a close confidant of Narendra Modi.

Amidst all these controversies surrounding Shah, last year he was appointed as chief strategist for Uttar Pradesh.

The Muzzafarnagar communal riots in September last year saw many parties jumping into the fray and attempting to polarise the votes. Shah was on this bandwagon, where BJP fielded two candidates linked to the Muzaffarnagar riots.

Once again BJP threw the dice back to the old policies of religion-based politics and that too just before when BJP released its manifesto talking of bringing back the issue of Ram Mandir, which was largely missing in the election campaigns.

Syrian regime, rebels trade blame over 'poison' attack on town

Regime planes bombed Kafr Zita with explosive barrels that produced thick smoke and odours and led to cases of suffocation and poisoning. PHOTO: AFP

BEIRUT: Syrian state television and medical sources in central Hama province swapped accusations on Saturday over an attack that reportedly caused “suffocation and poisoning” of residents.

Medics quoted by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights NGO said people choking from poisoning had been hospitalised after air raids with barrel bombs on Friday on the town of Kafr Zita.

“Regime planes bombed Kafr Zita with explosive barrels that produced thick smoke and odours and led to cases of suffocation and poisoning,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

But state television reported that al Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front had released chlorine gas in a deadly attack on the town.

“There is information that the terrorist Al-Nusra Front released toxic chorine… leading to the death of two people and causing more than 100 people to suffer from suffocation,” it said.

“There is information that Al-Nusra Front is preparing to hit Wadi Deif in Idlib province and Morek in Hama province with toxic chorine or sarin,” the state broadcaster added.

There was no independent verification of either of the claims, which come after a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus last year.

The opposition and much of the international community blamed that attack, which reportedly killed as many as 1,400 people, on the Syrian regime.

The regime denied responsibility, in turn blaming rebels, but agreed under threat of US military action to turn over its chemical weapons stockpile for destruction.

Most stylish politician in history was Jinnah: Ayushmann

As kids, we often wrote imaginative pieces on what would we do if we became the prime minister, in order to encourage debates and explore innovative ideas. Taking a cue from that practice and in the wake of the Lok Sabha elections, when asked Ayushmann Khurrana, “Which politician is most well-dressed?

In the history, the most stylish politician has been Muhammad Ali Jinnah whose westerns always stood out. And of course, the Nehru jackets worn by Jawaharlal Nehru. They have been style icons. In today’s era, Shashi Tharoor is well-dressed.

Economy watch: Govt reluctant to release below-expectations growth

Economists fear that the government may force the PBS to manipulate the figures to get the desired results. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: 

The pace of economic growth, which the government claimed had picked in the first quarter of the current fiscal, has slipped below 4% in the second quarter, leaving the federal authorities wondering whether or not to officially release synopsis of the economy.

Sources in the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) – the official body responsible to collect data – revealed that the rate of economic growth in October-December was below 4%. Due to these unexpected results the federal government is reluctant to release the data in violation of a decision of the PBS’s Governing Council, they added.

The PBS Governing Council, headed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, had decided that the quarterly GDP figures would be released within three months of the quarter. Thus, the PBS was bound to release the figure of the second quarter by March 31.

The delay in releasing the data also puts a question mark over the official claims of giving administrative autonomy to the PBS. While announcing the results of the first quarter in December last year, the finance minister had stated that the decision to release the quarterly GDP growth figures within three months would ensure independence of the PBS.

Sources said one of the reasons behind delaying the announcement was that the government wanted to avoid adverse impact of slowing economy in its bid to sell Eurobonds to international investors. The timing of releasing the growth figures was coinciding with the road shows held to auction the Eurobonds.

The government has completed the auction this week but paid a very high price for raising $2 billion from international markets.

“The growth number has not yet been finalised and it will be premature to speculate,” said PBS’s Chief Statistician Asif Bajwa. He did not give any reason for the delay but said it was always complicated to work out quarterly GDP growth figures, particularly at a time when the authorities were doing it for the first time.

Sources said according to provisional results complied by the PBS, the slowdown was across all sectors. They said the overall growth figure was coming in the range of 3.6% to 3.7%. In the first quarter the government had claimed that the economy grew at a rate of 5% and declared an early victory.

Economists fear that the government may force the PBS to manipulate the figures to get the desired results.

“Without manipulation the growth rate should be in the range of 3.5% to 4% and with manipulation it could be 4% to 4.5%,” said Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, a former economic adviser to the ministry of finance.

In the first quarter, the agriculture sector grew 2.5% against the target of 3.8%. The industrial sector grew 5.2% against the target of 4.5% and services sector grew 5.7% against target of 4.5%

According to a report of the Institute for Policy Reforms – an independent think tank – with corrections in the second quarter of the current fiscal, the growth in the first six months was expected around 4%. The report is prepared by former finance minister Dr Hafiz Pasha.

For the current financial year, the government’s growth target is 4.4% while international financial institutions, excluding World Bank, are projecting the growth in the range of 3.1% to 3.4%.

Probably knowing the outcomes, Dar in a recent statement said: “This year growth is expected to be 4%”. He gave this statement during his ongoing visit to Washington. His latest statement was in contradiction to his earlier statements.

Ease restrictions on used cars’ import, urges APMDA

All three local car assemblers have always been quick in raising prices on any depreciation of the rupee against the dollar and the yen. PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI: All Pakistan Motor Dealers Association (APMDA) Chairman H M Shahzad has urged the government to ease restrictions on the import of used cars in to the country.

In a letter written to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, he said that local car assemblers are not fully passing on the benefits of rupee appreciation to the customers.

All three local car assemblers have always been quick in raising prices on any depreciation of the rupee against the dollar and the yen. However, it seems that the rupee appreciation against the dollar is of no result when it comes to fixation of car prices.

If the rupee value is the determining factor, car prices should have been reduced by 6%, he claimed. In actual, all the three companies have reduced their prices by just 0.5% to 3%.

Take, for example, the recent price reduction by Pak Suzuki. Suzuki Mehran prices have been reduced by Rs5,000 which actually should have been reduced by Rs36,000.

Furthermore, there is no consistency in the way prices have been reduced. The price of Liana and Swift is almost the same but the former’s has been reduced Rs100,000, while the latter by only Rs20,000. All this shows that they have just carried out an exercise in marketing rationalisation and has no bearing on the rupee value.

Same is the case with Indus Motor – the makers of Toyota Corolla – and Honda Atlas cars who have reduced the prices from Rs15,000 to Rs70,000. Also, the higher reduction is on slow moving products. It may also be that this reduction is inclusive of taxes that would also put a dent in the government’s earnings in the form of taxes.

It may be remembered that these companies have been raising their prices three to five times in a year, mentioning rupee devaluation as a reason. The prices of cars have almost doubled in the last four to five years. If they are at all serious, they should at least have reversed the prices they increased in 2013.

We are of the opinion that no matter what happens, these car companies are not going to give any relief to the consumers as they have a monopoly in the business, the letter said.

The only way to bring some sanity in their dealings is through competition in the form of used cars. Unfortunately, at present they do not pose any threat to them as only three-year-old cars are allowed to be brought in the country — that too with a depreciation allowance of only 24% which has practically rendered this import unfeasible

Way clear: Afghanistan drops objection to Dasu Dam

The Suki Kinari hydropower project will be completed in 2020 and inject 3,081 million clean, reliable and affordable units of electricity each year into the national grid and will be of great help in meeting future electricity needs. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: 

Afghanistan has withdrawn its objection to 4,300-megawatt Dasu dam and power project as it is going to be set up on the river that is entirely in Pakistan’s territory.

Federal Minister of Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif stated this here on Friday while speaking at a ceremony marking the signing of an implementation agreement between the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) and SK Hydro (Private) Limited.

Under the deal, the two sides will develop the 870-megawatt Suki Kinari hydropower project at a cost of $1.8 billion in Mansehra district, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The ground-breaking ceremony of the project will be held on May 15. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will kick off the construction work.

PPIB Managing Director NA Zuberi and SK Hydro CEO Haseeb Khan inked the implementation agreement on behalf of their respective sides. Water and Power Secretary Saifullah Chattha and senior PPIB officials were present.

Talking to the media, Asif said the government was taking all possible steps to generate cheap electricity from domestic resources like coal, wind, solar and hydel.

He said the public sector was setting up the Dasu Dam and had also arranged necessary financing.
The World Bank is likely to approve a loan of $4.5 billion for the
project in a meeting to be held on May 29.

Responding to a question about the setting up of two power projects in the public sector, he said the response of investors to the Gadani Power Park was very encouraging and now the government was considering establishing all 10 projects of 660MW each in the private sector.

Asif pointed out that China was keen to set up power projects of 20,000MW capacity in Pakistan and after completion of all projects, load-shedding would come to an end.

He was of the view that because of the policies of the government and encouraging response of the international community to the Eurobonds floated by Pakistan, the government would not face financing problems while implementing Bhasha, Bunji and Thakot power projects.

The Suki Kinari hydropower project will be completed in 2020 and inject 3,081 million clean, reliable and affordable units of electricity each year into the national grid and will be of great help in meeting future electricity needs.

Furthermore, the government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa will earn approximately Rs470 million per annum on account of water charges. After 30 years of operation, the project will be transferred to the province without any cost.