Islamabad: Pakistan Railways is offering a 50 percent discount on tickets for persons with disabilities for all express and passenger trains except for the Green Line, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan said on Tuesday.
Persons with disabilities can avail the discount after presenting their Computerized National Identity Cards (CNIC) that bear the disability logo, a railways ministry official told the state-run media.
“He said that a 50 percent discount is also offered to the attendant accompanying visually impaired persons,” Radio Pakistan said, adding that wheelchairs are available at all major stations to assist persons with disabilities.
Pakistan Railways has also dedicated exclusive reservation and booking counters for persons with disabilities at its reservation offices, he said.
“The free-of-cost access to executive washrooms and restrooms has been provided at a few major stations for special persons,” the report said.
Railway is an essential mode of intercity traveling, especially among middle- and lower-income groups, with a network of tracks across Pakistan. However, carriages are often overcrowded, and many trains are said to be in poor condition.
The official said Pakistan Railways was operating 98 trains daily with 1,180 serviceable coaches. Pakistan Railways owns 1,680 passenger coaches out of which 72 percent of coaches have surpassed their useful life, the state media said.
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Muhammad Aurangzeb on Tuesday expressed optimism about the approval of the $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program, expected tomorrow, Wednesday, when the board of the global lending agency meets.
The government reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF in July, though the approval for the 37-month program has been pending since.
Pakistan’s last $3 billion IMF program helped avert a sovereign default in 2023 amid a sharp decline in foreign exchange reserves, currency depreciation and record inflation.
“We have the IMF board meeting tomorrow in the US,” the minister said while addressing an online banking seminar from the US. “We are very hopeful that the board will approve the 37-month, $7 billion program under which we are very committed to do structural reforms.”
Assuring that the country would stay its current economic course, Aurangzeb pointed out that macroeconomic stability was the “basic foundation” of any economy.
“You have to grow and build from a stable base,” he added. “We have reached that level now. Now, we can say that we have a good foundation on which we can build from here.”
“Now we need to move forward and stay with the reform agenda whether it’s on the taxation or energy side [or] on the state-owned enterprises or privatization side.”
The finance minister said it was important that the KIBOR, or Karachi Interbank Offered Rate, used as a benchmark interest rate in Pakistan, was also coming down, which positively affects the industry. He added that the government was in “no desperation” to borrow money.
“If we want to borrow domestically, we will at our terms,” he said.
Aurangzeb said it was about time the banking sector started lending to the private sector.
Pakistan has struggled with boom-and-bust cycles for decades, leading to 22 IMF bailouts since 1958.
The latest economic crisis has been the most prolonged one, with the highest levels of inflation, pushing the country to the brink of a sovereign default last summer before the IMF loan.
The conditions of the IMF programs have become tougher in recent years, requiring the government to impose higher tariffs and remove subsidies. The latest bailout is aimed at cementing stability and inclusive growth in the crisis-plagued South Asian country, according to the IMF.
The latest IMF staff-level deal is subject to approval by its executive board and the confirmation of necessary financing assurances from Pakistan’s development and bilateral partners.
KARACHI: A Pakistani artist, who last week spotted his long-lost painting in a popular television show, on Tuesday said he was disappointed over a government inquiry that concluded the painting had not “gone missing” from an exhibition, observing that the artist had shown “no interest” in reclaiming it.
Artist Safdar Ali Soomro, from the Ghotki district of the southern Sindh province, last week told Arab News he had submitted two paintings to the Frere Hall gallery in 2017 for display. The paintings were part of his final-year thesis in art and design at Sindh University. He said he was later informed that both paintings had “gone missing” along with those by other artists.
Seven years later, Soomro spotted one of his missing paintings in the background of an ARY Television drama ‘Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum’ and took to Facebook to share the discovery. But a report of the inquiry ordered by Sindh Culture Minister Zulfiqar Ali Shah said both of Soomro’s paintings had been present in Sadequain Gallery of Frere Hall, where the drama was shot and they were not returned because the artist showed no interest.
“I clearly stated that I was informed the ‘painting had gone missing’. I also noted in my written response [to a query by the inquiry committee] that I deserve the royalties because my painting has not only been kept from me, but has also been used by the hall to generate revenue,” Soomro told Arab News.
“I expected justice to be served — not only the return of my paintings and payment of royalties, but also punishment for those who cheated me. Instead, I have been blamed as the victim, which is extremely disappointing.”
The inquiry report confirmed the hit TV show was shot in the same Sadequain Gallery of Frere Hall, where Soomro’s paintings had been kept.
“It was found that paintings of the artist are available at the Frere Hall since 2017 and have never gone missing,” the report read.
Soomro said the painting was dear to him “like a child” and criticized the inquiry as “one-sided,” saying the committee did not consider his perspective.
“It is a lie to claim that I showed no interest in reclaiming my paintings,” Soomro told Arab News. “Why would anyone not want to recover their property and allow others to use it?”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said on Tuesday India’s demand to add more permanent members to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) would increase the likelihood of “paralysis” for the world body which already finds it difficult to efficiently deal with longstanding global disputes, the state media reported.
The minister made the remarks at the Summit of the Future on its concluding day, as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his entourage arrived in New York to attend the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
One of the six principal organs of the UN, the UNSC comprises powerful countries as its permanent members who are tasked with maintaining international peace and security. The Council also comprises 10 non-permanent members who are elected for a two-year term by the UNGA.
Currently, Russia, China, the UK, the US and France are the five permanent council members. India has been at the forefront of a years-long struggle to reform the most powerful international body, saying that it deserves a place among its permanent members. However, Pakistan is among the countries that has opposed India’s bid, saying adding more permanent members would increase the concentration of global power among a few countries and seeking more democratic and equitable UNSC reform.
“Referring to the UN Security Council’s frequent failure, the defense minister said that adding more permanent members — as demanded by India and its allies — will multiply the prospects of its paralysis,” APP reported on Tuesday.
The statement quoted him as saying that the council “should be adequately enlarged and made more representative by adding more non-permanent elected members to the council.”
Relations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have been fraught for years, making visits by senior officials of the two countries to each other’s nations rare. The two neighbors have fought three wars, two of them over the Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.
Asif also highlighted that the “panoply of measures envisaged in the UN Charter must be activated to resolve new and old disputes, including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.”
He emphasized the need to ease power tensions throughout the world and build a new consensus to promote nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and conventional arms control.
The minister warned during his remarks that no sustainable development could take place in the world till tragedies like Gaza are perpetuated by the developed world.a
ISLAMABAD: The Punjab Police have registered a case against Ali Amin Gandapur, Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 for inciting violence while en route to a public rally organized by former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Lahore on Saturday.
Thousands of people had arrived in the city from various parts of Pakistan to attend the rally, which demanded Khan’s release, as he has been imprisoned on multiple charges for over a year. By the time Gandapur, who is also a close aide to the ex-premier, arrived at the rally’s venue, PTI leaders had been asked to wind up since the designated time for the public gathering had expired.
However, people in the KP chief minister’s convoy reportedly engaged in violence at one of the toll plazas and threatened the police officers deployed there.
According to a police report, his convoy broke traffic rules by using the wrong side of the road due to congestion while approaching the toll plaza near the Sialkot Interchange.
“On Ali Amin’s orders, an armed group began smashing the windows of the toll plaza cabins, the barriers used to stop vehicles and the CCTV cameras,” the police complaint said.
It maintained the people accompanying the chief minister also targeted the private vehicles at waiting to cross the toll plaza and broke their windows.
When the police officials jumped into action, the vehicles driven by the group sped toward them “with the intent to kill.”
“But we managed to save ourselves by jumping to the sides,” the police complaint continued, adding the armed individuals also “pointed their AK-47 rifles at us with the intent to take our lives.”
Gandapur faces charges in Punjab, where the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is in power, while his province is governed by Khan’s PTI.
Both parties are at political odds, with PTI in opposition at the federal level and PML-N leading the central government.
QUETTA: Ali Gohar fished in the pencil case for several minutes, looking for the right tool to sketch on a black chart paper spread out on the ground below him. He then picked out a small pencil and started scribbling — with his feet.
Tragedy struck Gohar in 2015 when, as a nine-year-old in Pakistan’s southwestern Quetta city, the kite he was flying got stuck in a high voltage electricity transmission tower as it started to rain. Gohar was electrocuted and was subsequently treated for over two weeks in Quetta and Karachi before doctors recommended amputating both his arms.
The tragedy, though it made his life difficult in many respects, also helped him acquire an extraordinary dexterity of his feet and learn to sketch and paint with them.
“Before losing my arms, I was not good at drawing at my school,” Gohar, 19, told Arab News. “But after that incident, when I started using my mobile phone with my feet, my sister helped me hold a paintbrush and pencil between my feet’s big toe and index toe.”
Pakistani artist Ali Gohar (right) is seen holding a pencil with his foot in Quetta, Pakistan, on September 22, 2024. (AN photo)
And the rest is history. Art has since become Gohar’s outlet, and he has finished about 25-30 paintings in the last four years, often taking months to complete a single work of art.
“In sketching, I create images. I also do conceptual art, which reflects my thoughts,” Gohar explained, saying art helped best put his thoughts and feelings onto a canvas and make sense of a “life full of tragedies.”
“I have seen a lot of agony in my life and have gone through an accident, and I want to show that to people,” he said.
And his work has gained recognition. According to Gohar, he has participated in three local art competitions held in Marriabad and Hazara town neighborhoods in Quetta between 2021 to 2023 and secured the first position in all three.
Gohar also has an intermediate qualification in computer sciences from a local college in Quetta and now wants to go to university to study software engineering.
“My focus is on computers, and artwork is a hobby,” he said.
But it wasn’t easy getting here. Gohar’s mother and other family members help him out with daily tasks such as eating and wearing clothes. When his studies resumed following the amputation, Gohar still hadn’t learned how to write. While other students gave written exams, he had no choice but to give his answers orally till the eighth standard, when Gohar finally learned how to write with his feet.
“After writing with my feet, I remained a bright student in my class with the highest marks in all exams,” he said.
Shazia Batool, Gohar’s first art teacher who also has a disability that requires her to use a wheelchair, described him as a “brilliant” student who had developed “astonishing skills” in a short time due to his determination.
“During the initial days, it was difficult for Gohar to hold a pencil with his feet because he was afraid of using his feet for artwork but I taught him how to use his feet on the canvas, shaping and lining,” Batool said.
“Anyone else might have gotten nervous and said, ‘I can’t do it.’ But I saw Gohar, and he did it. He didn’t have that ‘I can’t do it’ mindset.”
Pakistani artist Ali Gohar (right) talks with his teacher Shazia Batool in Quetta, Pakistan, on September 22, 2024. (AN photo)
Gohar has considered prosthetic arms but says his family cannot afford them.
“There is a surgery of hand transplantation which is yet to be introduced in Pakistan,” he said. “But I am very much looking for hand transplantation from abroad.”
Gohar said he gets his strength from the belief that God blesses everyone with the skills and talents they need to survive.
“Yes, I may not have hands, but I have a skill that I can perform with my feet,” he said. “Perhaps those who work with their hands cannot do it with their feet, and that’s why I don’t lose hope.”
