Pakistan Today

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government has approved a grant of Rs150 million for the welfare of religious minorities out of which Rs100m would be spent in seven tribal districts of the province. According to the details, the funds will be released by the KP Department of Minority Affairs will provide grants to minorities' youth, widows and the physically challenged persons...

NEW DELHI: India is considering a plan to build a 10 gigawatts (GW) hydropower project in a remote eastern state, an Indian official said on Tuesday, following reports that China could construct dams on a section of the Brahmaputra river. The river, also known as the Yarlung Tsangbo in China, flows from Tibet into India’s Arunachal Pradesh state and down...

BEIJING: China Southern Airlines has launched a direct flight linking the central Chinese city of Wuhan with Islamabad, according to the airline’s local branch in Hubei Province. In this regard, the first flight operated by a Boeing 787 departed with 143 passengers on Monday, carrying 12 tonnes of goods including communication devices and medical equipment, according to a spokesperson of...

PARIS: The outlook for the global economy is improving despite a second wave of coronavirus outbreaks in many countries as vaccines emerge and a Chinese-led recovery takes hold, the OECD said on Tuesday. The global economy will grow 4.2% next year and ease to 3.7% in 2022, after shrinking 4.2% this year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said...

FRANKFURT: Pfizer Inc and BioNTech have applied to the European drugs regulator for conditional authorization of their COVID-19 vaccine, following similar steps in the United States and Britain, the companies said on Tuesday. The application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) comes after the companies applied for U.S. approval on Nov. 20, taking them a step closer to launching their...

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd may discontinue its premium Galaxy Note phone next year, sources with knowledge of the matter said, a move that would reflect the sharp drop in demand for high-end smartphones due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Galaxy Note, known for its large screen and a stylus for note-taking, is one of two Samsung premium phone series...

LONDON: British department store retailer Debenhams is to start a liquidation process that will see its stores close and the potential loss of 12,000 jobs, dealing another hammer blow to the country’s retail sector during the Covid-19 pandemic. Debenhams administrators FRP Advisory said on Tuesday the decision to wind-down Debenhams followed its failure to find a buyer. JD Sports Fashion confirmed...

LAHORE: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the government of Punjab have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to jointly promote public-private partnership (PPP) projects in Punjab’s healthcare sector through ADB’s transaction advisory services. The MOU was signed by the Head of Public-Private Partnership Cell of Planning and Development Board of Punjab Dr Farrukh Naveed and ADB Country Director for...

LAHORE: With more than 20,000 graduates entering the workforce each year in the technology sector and a prevailing pool of more than 300,000 IT engineers in the world’s fourth fastest growing freelance market, Pakistan’s technology exports have the potential to reach $10 billion from the present $1.2 billion in the next 10 years. A recent report on Pakistan’s IT sector...

The government has decided to leave the prices of petrol, kerosene, and light diesel unchanged till December 15, a notification issued by the Finance Division on Monday read. "The Government of Pakistan in its endeavor to provide maximum relief to the public has decided to absorb most of the increase in international prices of petroleum products," the notification said. The notification,...

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue has achieved its tax collection target for the first five months (July-Nov) of the current fiscal year (FY21). According to sources, the tax department collected Rs1.690 trillion during the July-Nov FY21, which was Rs17bn more than the target set for the period. The overall collection could further increase to Ra1.694 billion after book adjustment,...

021Disrupt, Pakistan’s premier technology and entrepreneurship conference by The Nest I/O, is all set to take place virtually from November 30th - December 5th. Running in its 4th year, the upcoming edition will host over 5,000 disruptors in the entrepreneurial, technology, and digital ecosystem of Pakistan. This year, 021Disrupt is virtual that brings the opportunity to expand the horizons of this...

ISLAMABAD: Power Division Minister Omar Ayub Khan has said that the previous government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had signed expensive energy agreements to generate costly electricity to fill its pockets and ignored refurbishing of the transmission lines. Talking to the media persons along with Special Assistant of the Prime Minister on Petroleum Division Nadeem Babar in Islamabad on Monday,...

DUBAI/LONDON/MOSCOW: OPEC members have reached a consensus on the need to extend existing oil production cuts for three months from January and will work on convincing their allies in the wider OPEC+ group to support such a move, Algeria’s minister said on Monday. Algerian Energy Minister Abdelmadjid Attar, holder of OPEC’s rotating presidency, was speaking shortly before OPEC ministers began...

ISLAMABAD: The 5th meeting of Pakistan China Joint Working Group (JWG) on Gwadar has finalized deliverable projects which would be placed before the next Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) of CPEC. The JWG meeting, held through a video link in Islamabad on Monday, was co-chaired by Ministry of Planning, Development, & Special Initiatives Secretary Mathar Niaz Rana and National Development and...