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Pakistan approves India as ‘Most Favoured’ nation
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MIAN ABRAR
n a major confidence-building measure to normalise relations with India, Pakistan’s federal cabinet on Wednesday unanimously endorsed granting Most Favoured nation (MFn) status to its nuclear-armed neighbour, subject to the approval of parliament. Another important decision the federal cabinet took to bring the Baloch rebels to the table for a dialogue to bring peace to the troubled province was to contact the family of nawab Akbar Bugti to seek their opinion, asking them if they were satisfied with the High Court Commission or if they wanted a Supreme Court Commission to probe the killing of the Baloch leader. Briefing reporters on the cabinet decisions, Information Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said the cabinet had endorsed the MFn status for India after all stakeholders, including the country’s security establishment and the business community, were taken on board. Defending the government’s decision to grant MFn status to India, the information minister said the cabinet had a candid discussion on the issue and admitted that most of the cabinet ministers had expressed concerns on the government’s decision. She said all their doubts were cleared by the commerce minister and commerce secretary. “Prior to reaching this accord, we took on board all stakeholders, including the defence-related institutions.
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Decision subject to parliament’s nod Cabinet briefed on implementation status of Aghaz-e-Huqooq-eBalochistan Package
Moreover, all chambers of commerce and other trading bodies were also consulted… We have decided to follow the vision of Quaid-eAzam and this is why the federal cabinet unanimously endorsed the MFn status to India. Prior to this, Pakistan has already assigned MFn status to over 100 countries,” she said. The minister said relations between Pakistan and India were discussed at length during the meeting and ministers from all coalition parties had unanimously endorsed the decision. Responding to strong questions raised by the media, the information minister and Commerce Secretary Zafar Mehmood shifted the onus of the decision to Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, with the minister stating that soon after the partition and despite the war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir in 1948, Continued on page 04
india ‘appreCiates positive gesture’ | page 24
thursday, 3 november, 2011 Zul-Haj 6, 1432
SC suspicious of multi-billion dollar RPP deal
Three-day gas outages after Eid ISLAMABAD: After a lengthy debate, the Petroleum Ministry and stakeholders agreed on a makeshift agreement, under which gas supply to CnG and the industrial sectors would be cut off for three days a week in Punjab during the
ISLAMABAD MAsood RehMAN
Suspecting foul play in the multi-billion dollar deal of rental power projects (RPPs), the Supreme Court on Wednesday observed that rental power companies committed sheer negligence by not importing the required machinery per agreement and it was beyond understanding how these companies were paid huge mobilisation advances without import of power producing apparatus. A two-member Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain made the observation while hearing a suo motu case coupled with two identical petitions filed by Minister for Housing and Works Faisal Saleh Hayat and PML-n MnA Khawaja Asif involving allegations of massive corruption in RPP contracts. The chief justice noted that some companies started production after the court took notice of the matter. He said it seemed as if the companies were taking high rent for used machinery. Ali Zafar, counsel for Gulf Power Company, told the court that the government made agreement with his client after examining its performance
and after that the company shifted all its machinery to Pakistan. He said his client was still not paid the mobilisation advance. He said the machinery lying at the site was going waste and was less than 10 years old, adding that the Gulf Company was owned by Gulf and Saudi investors, who loved Pakistan. The CJP said investors invested to make profit, not for the love of some country. Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, counsel for Reshma Rental Power and Techno E Power, said his clients entered into the agreement after completing due process and then they were paid mobilisation advance. He said the report produced before the court by the counsel for Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) Continued on page 04
month of november. Petroleum Secretary Ejaz Chaudhry told reporters that the meeting decided that the shortage of natural gas would be equally shared by all sectors, adding that there would be no gas load shedding for CnG stations from november 4 to 11 during the Eidul Adha holidays in Punjab. After Eid, gas supply to CnG and industrial sectors would be cut for three days every week in the rest of the month. The meeting decided to continue supply of gas on rotational basis to two of the four fertilizer plants operating in Punjab. Similarly two IPPs would also get gas supply while the other two would have to use diesel for power generation. The APTMA chairman agreed to the three-days-a-week gas load management schedule in view of the current gas shortage. The CnG association expressed reservations over the proposed plan but agreed to conduct meetings with the SnGPL to examine the situation. STAff REPoRT