Aamir Khan receives award for 'Dangal', breaks 16-year streak of snubbing

Amir khan receives award for 'Dangal'

NEW DELHI: Indian super film star Aamir Khan, after over sixteen years of evading, attended the award ceremony where he was honored for his super hit 'Dangal' last year and recieved Master Dinanath Mangeshkar award in Mumbai from Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Aamir Khan, whose dissent from the awards ceremonies has been evident since he last appeared in Oscars when his 'Lagan' made it in the list of best foreign films, apparently couldn't turn down the invite from legendary Lata Mangeshkar.

"Today wherever I am, the credit goes to all the writers who have written my films. I am here because of the directors and writers for the wonderful work they've done. I thank all of them," Aamir Khan expressed having received the "Vishesh Puraskar".

Bhagwat, the chief guest, stated that the award winners inspire the nation and that their hardwork and dedication in their respective fields of work and help in nation building

Aamir Khan's "Dangal" in which he played wrestling legend Mahavir Phogat, depicting his remarkable journey of grooming her champion daughters Geeta and Babita, was one of the biggest hits of 2016.

Soon Aamir Khan will be seen playing in 'Secret Superstar' also on the other hand, Yash Raj's "Thugs of Hindostan" alongside Amitabh Bachchan.

China bails out Pakistan with $1.2bn loans: FT

ISLAMABAD: China helped Pakistan stave off a currency crisis with $1.2bn loans, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

State-backed Chinese banks have twice come to the rescue of the nuclear-armed state with $900m in 2016 and $300m in the first three months of this year, the newspaper quoted officials as saying.

The loans demonstrate the perilous fragility of Pakistan’s stocks of foreign currency, depleted in recent months by rising imports and falls in exports and remittances from Pakistanis abroad, it said.

Commenting on the geopolitical importance of the loan, the report said China’s financial help also underlines an increasingly close relationship at a time of strains between Pakistan and the US.

Beijing is preparing to invest at least $52bn in Pakistan to build a highway, energy pipelines, power-generation facilities and industrial parks from the western port of Gwadar on the Gulf to the Chinese border to the north.

‘But despite its expected benefits, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project is set to further deplete the foreign currency stocks, needed to pay contractors and suppliers.’

Figures from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) show the country had $17.1bn of net reserves at the end of February, down from $18.9bn at the end of October and a peak of $25bn several years ago.

This has forced the country to seek emergency loans from outside sources to repay older loans made in foreign currencies.

The report added: “Of the $1.2bn from the Chinese institutions, $600m came from the government-run China Development Bank and $600m from the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the only mainland bank with a branch in Pakistan. Policy banks such as CDB often act on behalf of the central bank”.

One Pakistani official told the FT: “China keeps a very close eye on our economic trends and they’re happy to come to our help wherever needed.”

But experts warn that Pakistan is likely to have to return to institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, to which it sought recourse in 2013, for further support.

Vaqar Ahmed, deputy executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, said: “Technically speaking we should have gone back to the IMF in January, but ministers are likely to try and wait until after the election [for parliament planned for 2018].”

One member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz told the Financial Times ministers were loath to turn to the IMF until after the election in an effort to limit the political fallout.

“The IMF is a politically volatile issue in our country. If we go to the IMF to deal with our needs, that will send a very negative political signal and the opposition [parties] will use that against the government,” the person said.

It was only last year that Pakistan cleared the IMF debt incurred in 2013, a repayment that led policymakers in Islamabad and abroad to express optimism about prospects for economic stability.

North Korea has been taunting the US for years. Is Trump taking the bait?

Washington (CNN) North Korea put on a muscle-flexing display of artillery power Tuesday to mark a national holiday and thumb its nose at US President Donald Trump's declaration that the country has "gotta behave."

Pyongyang staged the pounding display of large caliber guns used in land warfare -- perhaps a reminder that Seoul and its US military base lie within easy reach -- shortly after detaining an American teacher, the third US citizen held by the regime.

The US staged its own response, beginning joint naval drills in the region with South Korea and Japan as the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson moved toward the Korean Peninsula and one of the most powerful submarines in the American arsenal arrived in South Korea -- part of an "armada" the US was sending to the region, Trump told the Fox Business Network in mid-April.On Wednesday, the White House will hold an unusual briefing about the Hermit Kingdom, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis and other officials outlining the threat for the entire Senate. On Friday, Tillerson will host a meeting on North Korea at the UN. And on Monday, Trump called on visiting UN ambassadors to apply more sanctions on Pyongyang.

Donald Trump behaviour ‘showing a lot of signs’ of dangerous mental illness, says leading Yale psychiatrist

Donald Trump is “showing a lot of signs” of dangerous mental impairment and may be a threat to the survival of American society, a leading Yale psychiatrist has claimed.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Yale University’s Dr Bandy Lee said she had seen a “marked surge” in violence among her own patients since the day of Mr Trump’s election, blaming his strong rhetoric.

The lecturer, a former Harvard research fellow and chief resident at Massachusetts general hospital, was defending experts at an event she organised after they called the President “dangerous” and “delusional”.

The claim led one Republican politician to accuse them of “throwing ethical standards out the window because they cannot accept the election results”.

But Dr Lee insisted she and the panellists had people’s safety foremost in mind and that their judgement was not politically-motivated.

She told The Independent: “To say that there are mental health impairments in Mr Trump is not to make a moral judgement on him, and not to indict him in any way.

“It should not be used as a political weapon against him, but rather should be raised as a concern just like any medical issue that may impair an individual’s ability to function in office.

“I actually am afraid of politicisation of this. We wouldn’t make up that someone has cancer, or a disability. Mental health should be treated the same.

“One of the reasons why I think that this matter needs to be out in public discussion is because of the very special stigma that is attached to mental illness. That stigma is due to ignorance.

“It’s about the situation where the presence of mental instability in a person in a position of power [is] affecting the survival and safety, not just of our patients, but of our whole patient base, meaning it spills into our responsibility.

“As mental health professionals we are privy to specialised knowledge that most others may not have, or be able to perceive. That is how psychiatric or psychological dynamics can have public health consequences at large.

“Most of my patients are violent offenders. I’ve been treating them and designing programmes for them for over 20 years. Since the morning after Mr Trump’s election, there has been a marked surge in violence among my patients. They find justification for their violence in the rhetoric.”

Asked whether she had similar fears under Barack Obama’s presidency, she said: “No. None of us had this level of concern.”

Barack Obama returns to remind us how radically different he is from Donald Trump

Former President Barack Obama re-emerged into public life on Monday in Chicago and, in the process, offered a potent reminder of what a radical change in direction the country took in the 2016 election.

Obama sat in the middle of a group of young people -- all of whom shared their own personal stories about their involvement in public life and why more people their age didn't follow their lead. He spoke, briefly, at the start of the event about what drew him into community service and politics -- "this community taught me that ordinary people, when working together, can do extraordinary things" -- but spent most of the rest of the event serving as the moderator of the panel.

Obama asked questions here and there to prompt answers from the (nervous) panelists and occasionally would interject his own views, particularly about how the silo-ing of media consumption had created a culture where no one really listens to each other anymore.

But, generally speaking, Obama wasn't actually talking all that much. And, what he did talk about -- the importance of organizing, gerrymandering, the fracturing of the media -- weren't exactly red-meat talking points. It was a professor holding a discussion group with students.

Which, of course, makes sense. Obama's default position is professorial -- to the delight of his allies and the anger of his opponents.

After almost 100 days of Donald Trump, the contrast could not have been more striking.

Trump's first three-plus months in office have been largely defined by a flair for the dramatic and an absolute conviction that the course he is charting -- even if he changes course --- is the right one. There is very little in the way of philosophical conversation about what binds us -- and ails us -- as a country. It's full speed ahead at all times; no BS -- or navel-gazing -- allowed.

That isn't to say one style of leadership is better than the other (although public polling suggests Trump is significantly less popular at this stage of his four-year term than Obama was). It is to say that it's hard for me to imagine that the American public could have chosen two more opposite people to lead the country in consecutive elections.

Some of this has to do with the psychology of the voter. Most people tend to favor a clear change in leadership at the end of one president's eight years in the White House. They react to the qualities they dislike in the current president and seek out a new candidate who seems to embody the opposite of those traits.

So we went from the brilliant but scandal-plagued Bill Clinton to the solid and steady George W. Bush to the young dynamic leader in Obama. And then to to businessman and political outsider Donald Trump.

But this latest change isn't just par for the course. While Bush clearly represented a break from the negative aspects of the Clinton years, he and his predecessor were still on the same political continuum. Both had been governors. Both had spent years cultivating a political operation. Both were, at their root, orthodox politicians.

Trump is not only not an orthodox politician but was elected on his unorthodoxy. Given that, any Trump predecessor would show him as a major departure. But, Obama and Trump share nothing -- not background, not political view, not anything -- in common.

How could the public elect two men in consecutive elections who share so little in their beliefs about what's wrong with the country and how to fix it? I'm not sure. But my guess is ever-increasing political polarization coupled with a barely-voiced truth that many people aren't entirely sure what they want from their government has a lot to do with it.

زخمی فوجیوں کے بھیس میں طالبان مزار شریف مرکز داخل ہوئے

مزار شریف (ویب ڈیسک) مزار شریف میں افغان فوجی چھاﺅنی پر حملہ کرنے والے طالبان 2 فورڈ رینج فوجی گاڑیوں پر سوار ہوکر آئے تھے، جن کی تعداد 10 تھی اور ان میں سے ایک زخمی حالت میں نظر آرہا تھا۔ افغان اہلکاروں کے مطابق جب فوجی وردی میں ملبوس طالبان کی دونوں گاڑیوں کو پہلی چیک پوسٹ پر روکا گیا تو انہوں نے جعلی فوجی کارڈ دکھائے۔ اس کے ساتھ ہی پہلی گاڑی میں موجود خود کو زخمی فوجی ظاہر کرنے والے نے انہیں کہا کہ اسے ہنگامی طبی امداد کی ضرورت ہے، جس پر افغان فوجیوں نے بیریئر اٹھالیا۔ اسی طرح وہ دوسری چیک پوسٹ سے بھی گزرگئے، تاہم تیسری چیک پوسٹ پر جب ان سے گنیں حوالے کرنے کیلئے کہا گیا تو انہوں نے فائرنگ شروع کردی۔
ایک افغان فوجی نے امریکی نشریاتی ادارے کو بتایا کہ وہ یہ سمجھ رہے تھے کہ دونوں گاڑیوں میں موجود وردی میں ملبوس افراد قریبی صوبے فاریاب میں آپریشن کرکے لوٹ رہے ہیں اور ان کا ایک ساتھی شدید زخمی ہے۔ اگر اسے فوری طبی امداد نہ ملی تو وہ مرسکتا ہے، کیونکہ مذکورہ جعلی فوجی کا چہرہ خون آلود نظر آرہا تھا۔ افغان اہلکار کا کہنا تھا کہ بظاہر زخمی ساتھی کو دیکھ کر ہم نے سکیورٹی پروٹوکول میں نرمی دکھائی، جس کی بھاری قیمت ادا کرنی پڑی۔ تیسری چیک پوسٹ پر روکنے کے بعد دو حملہ آوروں نے خود کش دھماکے کردئیے جبکہ دیگر اندھا دھند فائرنگ کرنے لگے۔ اہلکار کا کہنا تھا کہ تیسری چیک پوسٹ کے بعد حساس علاقہ شروع ہوتا ہے، جہاں عام فوجیوں کو اسلحہ لیجانے کی اجازت نہیں ہوتی۔ اس لئے وہاں اہلکار غیر مسلح تھے، جو آسانی سے طالبان کا شکار بنتے گئے۔
ایک زخمی افغان فوجی افسر ذبیح اللہ کا کہنا تھا کہ ہمیں یہ سمجھ نہیں آرہی تھی کہ کون کس سے لڑرہا ہے، کیونکہ حملہ آور بھی فوجی وردی پہنے ہوئے تھے۔ ہم جیسے ہی مسجد سے باہر آئے، ہم نے ایک تیز رفتار گاڑی اپنی طرف آتے دیکھی، جس میں 4 افراد سوار تھے۔ ہم نے یہی سمجھا کہ یہ افغان فوجی ہیں۔ا سی اثناءمیں انہوں نے فائرنگ شروع کردی۔ ذبیح اللہ کا کہنا تھا کہ چھاﺅنی کی سکیورٹی بہت سخت ہوتی ہے اور فوجیوں کو بھی شناخت کی سخت چیکنگ کے بعد داخلے کی اجازت دی جاتی ہے۔ مجھے سمجھ نہیں آرہا کہ طالبان اندر کیسے داخل ہوگئے۔ افغان وزارت دفاع کے ترجمان جنرل محمد رمضان نے تصدیق کی ہے کہ حملہ آور اپنے ساتھ ایک جعلی زخمی فوجی بھی ساتھ لائے تھے۔

Prices of 450 items reduced at govt stores

SLAMABAD: The Util­ity Stores Corporation (USC) launched the second phase of Ramazan Relief Package on Monday by reducing the prices of more than 450 items by up to 10 per cent.

Earlier in the month, the USC reduced the prices of more than 700 items. How­ever, the prices of key edible items including sugar, gram flour, etc would be reduced just ahead of Ramazan.

Currently, sugar is selling at Rs62 per kg both at the Utility Stores and in the open market.

USC Spokesman Wajid Ali Khan said the prices of 450 items were reduced after negotiations with suppliers.

He added the new prices have been implemented with immediate effect and will continue up to the end of Ramazan.

Mr Khan said the price reduction more than a month ahead of Ramazan will help consumers to plan their kitchen budget in advance.

PAC recommends blocking identity cards of tax defaulters

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly on Tuesday recommended that the national identity cards of tax defaulters be blocked and an article to this effect be included in the new finance bill.

The committee also recommended blocking the identity cards of those who do not follow up on cases relating to tax fraud.

Head of the PAC Sardar Ashiq Hussain Gopang said that those who commit fraud should not be forgiven.

Present during the session of the PAC, Chairman of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Muhammad Irshad said legislation would be required in order block national identity cards, adding that only the National Database and Registration Authority is empowered to do so.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly on Tuesday recommended that the national identity cards of tax defaulters be blocked and an article to this effect be included in the new finance bill.

The committee also recommended blocking the identity cards of those who do not follow up on cases relating to tax fraud.

Head of the PAC Sardar Ashiq Hussain Gopang said that those who commit fraud should not be forgiven.

Present during the session of the PAC, Chairman of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Muhammad Irshad said legislation would be required in order block national identity cards, adding that only the National Database and Registration Authority is empowered to do so.

PAC member Pervaiz Malik inquired whether the FBR can block the national identity cards of the owners of tax defualting companies, to which Irshad replied that the FBR does not have this authority.

"If the PAC recommends it, we will include this an article relating to this in the new finance bill," Irshad said.

Malik noted that a group in Faisalabad had defaulted between Rs12bn and Rs13bn, adding that not only the national identity cards but also passports of the tax defaulters should be blocked.

The PAC had reviewed the FBR's Inland Revenue Audit Report 2013-2014 and discovered anomalies of Rs169.74 billion.

According to the report, 22 cases worth Rs26.27bn are pending in the courts. The FBR has so far recovered Rs20bn.

The FBR chairman said that attention has been paid to reforms in the legal department.

"Lawyers taking up cases worth billions of rupees were being paid only Rs20,000 or Rs30,000 a month.

"The PAC can form legislation in the parliament in relation to the pending cases," Irshad said, adding, "In order to have the pending cases resolved as soon as possible, the judiciary should be contacted through the attorney general."

The FBR chairman told the committee that PTCL, Southern Power, Liberty Power, Saba Power and Rosh Limited are amongst the biggest tax defaulters at the moment.