By yesterday, the former Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani had emerged as the strong contender to become the interim prime minister among other contenders which also included the former Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh.
Daska’s political significance
April 12, 2021
Daska’s election has its own political significance not merely the victory of the main opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Nawaz).
It has come at a time when some of the political pundits and analysts had predicted end to the party s popularity after former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s controversial speeches which led to the blackout in the media. NA-75 result proved otherwise.
Daska’s victory has put new life in the PML(N) after its recent differences with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Though symbolic but the PPP’s decision to support PML(N) in the by-election may defuse the ongoing tension between the two parties.
Trade ties with India resume
ECC allows import of sugar, cotton via land, sea routes
Federal Finance Minister Hammad Azhar addressing a presser at the Press Information Department (PID) in Islamabad on March 31, 2021. SCREENGRAB
ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan on Wednesday resumed trade with India as part of an understanding to gradually normalise bilateral relations and ensure food security of the country that is bracing for shortages of wheat, sugar and cotton.
The country had suspended bilateral trade with India on August 9, 2019 after “the Indian government’s unilateral action to change the status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir”.
In the first place, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet, immediately allowed the import of 500,000 metric tons of sugar and unspecified quantity of cotton and yarn from India to bridge the nearly three million shortfalls.
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The Senate defeat
March 11, 2021
The PM has taken a vote of confidence from the National Assembly with 178 members reposing confidence. Out of this total, there were 16 members, who according to the PM himself, had sold their votes in favour of Yousaf Raza Gilani during the Senate elections.
If you exclude these 16, as surely one should, the PM is heading a minority government. With more than two and a half years still to go, is it really worth heading a minority government? More than anything else, will it even be possible to effectively govern?
The PM has clearly lost the mandate of the people as reflected in the recently held by-elections. The significance of the losses is even more when one considers that the ruling party lost in all four – provinces - Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and even in its stronghold Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Nowshera is the hometown of Defence Minister Pervez Khattak and losing a by-election from there is an extraordinary event.