LAHORE: Northern’s top-order batter Zeeshan Malik has completed a three-month suspension from all cricket on Jan 13 and now he will start the rehabilitation process to be cleared for resuming competitive cricket, the PCB said on Saturday. Right-handed Zeeshan was suspended on Oct 14, 2021, for breaching the PCB Anti-Corruption Code. On Nov 18, 2021, he was issued a notice of charge under Article 2.4.4* of the PCB Anti-Corruption Code, while on the same day he pleaded guilty as charged. “On Dec 31, 2021, both the PCB and Zeeshan, in accordance with PCB Anti-Corruption Code Article 5.1.12**, reached consensus on…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
After only two years in, Javeria Khan thought her international cricket career was all but over. At age 20, the off-spinner was banned for having an illegal bowling action, days after it was reported suspect by umpires in Pakistan’s 2010 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup match against Sri Lanka in St. Kitts. Devastated, Javeria might have quit cricket altogether, had it not been for her mother’s reminder to her of why she’d got into the game in the first place. It wasn’t for this that Javeria gave up her ambition of becoming a chartered accountant, her mother insisted. It wasn’t…
NEW DELHI: India is likely to set aside about 3 trillion Indian rupees ($40 billion) on food and fertiliser subsidies in its budget next week for 2022-23, officials said, roughly the same amount the government budgeted for the fiscal year ending in March. India’s subsidy bills have spiralled due to pandemic relief measures for the poor and a sharp rise in global prices of chemicals. New Delhi has already raised fertiliser subsidies twice in this fiscal year, and sources said that its pay-outs for 2021/22 could be its highest yet. In the budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is due to…
LAHORE: The test run of two 900MW power plants—Lucky and Thar Energy Ltd—has paved the way for the launch of their commercial operations within a month or so. With the addition of these plants, the total generation in the southern region corridor will reach 5,530MW. It will further surge to 5,830MW after Jamshoro Power Plant starts commercial operation by end of this year, Dawn has learnt. According to a letter issued by the National Power Control Centre (System Operations)—a department of the National Transmission and Despatch Company—both the plants are passing through the test run process before commencing commercial operations. “In the…
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sacked the head of the state statistics agency, according to a decree published on Saturday, after releasing data showing last year’s inflation rate hit a 19-year high of 36.1 per cent. Sait Erdal Dincer was just the latest in a series of economic dismissals by Erdogan, who has sacked three central bank governors since July 2019. Erdogan has railed against high interest rates, which he believes cause inflation. The 2021 inflation figure released by Dincer angered both the pro-government and opposition camps. Since July 2019, the Turkish leader has fired three central bank governors The…
KARACHI: Trading on the Pakistan Stock Exchange started in the outgoing week on a negative note as investors worried about a hike in the policy rate by the central bank. The stock market celebrated with the benchmark index sliding up to the green territory after the central bank kept the interest rate unchanged. But the decision failed to sustain the positive momentum for long, thanks to the rise of international oil prices to a seven-year high, according to Arif Habib Ltd. “Moreover, rising (number of) Covid-19 cases and the postponement of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) review kept the market range-bound,”…
OTTAWA: Trucks rolled into Canada’s capital Ottawa on Saturday to stage what police say will be a massive protest against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Covid-19 vaccine mandates in front of parliament on a frigid winter day. The so-called “Freedom Convoy” — coming from east and west — started out as a rally against a vaccine requirement for cross-border truckers, but has turned into a demonstration against government overreach during the pandemic with a strong anti-vaccination streak. “It’s not just about the vaccines. It’s about stopping the public health mandates altogether,” said Daniel Bazinet, owner of Valley Flatbed & Transportation in…
ISLAMABAD: A new World Bank report says that repurposing current agricultural public policies could deliver multiple benefits for people, the planet and the economy. It further adds that climate change is not a distant threat and is already adversely affecting agriculture. The report titled “Repurposing Agricultural Policies and Support: Options to Transform Agriculture and Food Systems for Better Health of People, Economies and Health”, issued the other day, revealed that investing in climate-smart innovations that both increase agricultural productivity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These could reduce overall emissions from agriculture by more than 40 per cent, restore 105 million hectares of…
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sacked the head of the state statistics agency, according to a decree published on Saturday, after releasing data showing last year’s inflation rate hit a 19-year high of 36.1 per cent. Sait Erdal Dincer was just the latest in a series of economic dismissals by Erdogan, who has sacked three central bank governors since July 2019. Erdogan has railed against high interest rates, which he believes cause inflation. The 2021 inflation figure released by Dincer angered both the pro-government and opposition camps. Since July 2019, the Turkish leader has fired three central bank governors The…
MOSCOW: Russia’s daily coronavirus cases exceeded 100,000 on Saturday for the first time since the pandemic began. The daily count of new infections actually topped 110,000 as the highly contagious omicron variant raced through the vast country. The state coronavirus task force reported 113,122 new infections over the past 24 hours, which is an all-time high and a sevenfold increase from early in the month, when daily case counts were about 15,000. The task force said 668 people died of Covid-19 in the past day, bringing Russia’s total fatality count for the pandemic to 330,111, by far the deadliest toll…
