MANSEHRA: Chairman of the Datta village council Assad Ali Shah on Saturday demanded an investigation by the National Accountability Bureau into the alleged irregularities during the recent procurement of wheat in the district. “The anti-corruption watchdogs tasked with checking financial irregularities in government departments should hold an investigation into the anomalies allegedly committed in wheat procurement,” Mr Shah told reporters here. Accompanied by Datta religious leader Maulana Altaf, the council chairman said the government had formed committees to assess the quality of wheat supplied by Punjab’s growers before deciding whether or not to purchase it at the government’s rate. He…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance is projected to win a majority in the general election that concluded on Saturday, an exit poll summary by the NDTV news channel said. The summary of two exit polls projected the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could win more than 350 seats in the 543-member lower house of parliament, where 272 is needed for a simple majority. The NDA won 353 in the 2019 election. The opposition “India” alliance led by the Congress party was projected to win more than 120 seats. Exit polls have a patchy record in India as they have often…
PARIS: A climate activist was arrested on Saturday for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global warming, a police source said. The action by the woman, a member of “Riposte Alimentaire” (Food Response) — a group of environmental activists and defenders of sustainable food production — is the latest in a string of protests aimed at drawing attention to global warming by defacing art. In a video posted on X, the woman — introducing herself as a “concerned citizen” — is seen placing a blood-red poster over the…
NEW DELHI: A record temperature registered this week for the capital New Delhi of 52.9 degrees Celsius was too high by three °C, the Indian government said on Saturday, blaming a weather sensor error. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had investigated Wednesday’s reading by the weather station at Mungeshpur, a densely packed corner of Delhi, “and found a 3C sensor error”, Earth Sciences Minister Kiren Rijiju said. “Corrective measures are now in place,” the minister said, sharing the conclusion of a draft report about the all-time high reading on social media platform X. He did not give a corrected figure for Wednesday’s temperature.…
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s campaign said on Friday it had raised nearly $53 million in online small-dollar donations after he was convicted in his New York hush money trial, boasting that the verdict had galvanised his support “like never before.” The record haul was equivalent to more than $2 million raised per hour, it said. Senior campaign aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in statements that more than a third of the total came from new donors to the campaign and hailed an “outpouring of support from patriots across our country.” Calling the Thursday court decision a “sham trial verdict”…
KABUL: Taliban authorities in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday revised the death toll of a boat accident down to eight after earlier reporting 20 people had drowned in a river crossing. “Eight people were killed and two people are still missing after a boat sank in Basawul area of Momand Dara district of Nangarhar province,” provincial information department head Quraishi Badloon said in a post on X. Badloon, the governor’s office and other Nangarhar officials initially said 20 people, including women and children, were killed on Saturday morning when a motorboat sank during a river crossing. In his post later on Saturday, Badloon…
SEOUL: North Korea again sent trash-carrying balloons into the South on Saturday, the South Korean military said, a day after Seoul warned of countermeasures against such activity. Earlier this week, North Korea sent around 260 balloons carrying bags of trash, including waste batteries, cigarette butts and what appeared to be manure, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. Authorities in Seoul condemned that act as “low-class”, and the South Korean unification ministry warned that the government would take countermeasures if Pyongyang did not cease such “irrational” provocations. North Korea is “once again floating balloons carrying waste toward the…
RAFAH: Israeli forces hammered Rafah in southern Gaza with tanks and artillery on Saturday, hours after US President Joe Biden said Israel was offering a new roadmap towards a full ceasefire. Residents reported tank fire in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in west Rafah, while witnesses in the east and centre of Rafah described intense shelling. “From the early hours of the night until this morning, the aerial and artillery bombardment has not stopped for a single moment”, a resident from west Rafah told AFP on condition of anonymity. “There are a number of occupation (Israeli) snipers in high-rise buildings overseeing all areas…
DUBAI: US-sanctioned former Revolutionary Guards commander Vahid Haghanian was among candidates who registered on Saturday to run for election as Iran’s president after Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash, state media reported. Haghanian, a close aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told reporters after registering that his qualifications were based on “experience from serving 45 years in the presidency and the leader’s office”. The US Treasury designated Haghanian in 2019 among nine individuals in Khamenei’s inner circle responsible for “advancing … domestic and foreign oppression”. Iran says most US sanctions are prompted by baseless accusations. Former parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani,…
At least 33 Indian polling staff died on the last day of voting from heatstroke in just one state, a top election official said on Sunday, after scorching temperatures gripped swathes of the country. While there have been reports of multiple deaths from the intense heatwave — with temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in many places — the dozens of staff dying in one day marks an especially grim toll. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said temperatures at Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh reached 46.9°C (116°F). Navdeep Rinwa, chief electoral officer for the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where voting in the…
