Indian vote buying scam and arrest of six lawmakers
National
February 10, 2021
LAHORE: Although incidents relating to the prevalence of electoral frauds, manipulation and rigging, etc are fairly common worldwide, and are perhaps as old as the history of ballot exercises with no end in sight, the cash-for-votes scandals involving parliamentarians themselves have been occurring relatively less frequently.
However, in countries like India, once such cash-for-votes scams involving legislators were exposed, they had serious consequences as the long arm of law immediately sprang into action, unlike Pakistan, where mere resignations have served the purpose till date. Research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network shows that in July 2008, a cash-for-votes scandal had rocked the Indian political system, not only leading to arrests of at least six lawmakers but Opposition parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had also demanded the resignation of the-then Congr
Farm unrest and ensuing global protests of peasants
National
February 6, 2021
LAHORE: It surely is a winter of discontent for India, where farmers representing about 250 million of country’s population are protesting against the Narendra Modi government since August 2020, though agriculturists in Lahore, Germany, Holland and France had also resorted to streets against their respective governments during 2019, research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network shows.
The United States has seen such turbulent times during the last 150 odd years on numerous occasions though. Internationally speaking, as the corporate-driven economic globalisation and runaway free trade policies have devastated rural communities around the world, farmers’ organisations are coming together around the rallying cry of food sovereignty.
Debate on foreign funding to political parties is global
National
January 23, 2021
LAHORE: When almost all mainstream political parties in Pakistan are accusing each other of receiving funds from prohibited foreign sources, a research by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network shows that fiery debates on this thorny issue have been going on everywhere in the world for years.
In India, where foreign funding to political parties remains illegal, the Delhi High Court, in 2014, had found both ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its key adversary, the Indian National Congress, guilty of receiving foreign funding.
In India, the conduct of elections to the Houses of Parliament and state legislatures is mainly regulated by the 1951 Representation of the People Act. Section 29B of the 1951 Act prohibits all political parties registered with the Election Commission from accepting any contribution from a “foreign source.”
National
January 8, 2021
LAHORE: The history of curfews in the United States dates back to 1690, when a law passed by the Connecticut Colony, which later became Connecticut state, forbade people of colour from being away from certain places where they had no business to justify their presence.
These people of colour, all slaves, had to secure a written pass from their respective owners to go to various forbidden or unauthorized places constituting the English Colony of Connecticut, an archival research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network shows.
The penalty of violating such an order included being openly whipped by the constable, not exceeding 10 stripes. Hence, the history of these curfews, mostly associated with sporadic violence and suppressing Black voices in the United States, is at least 330 years old.
Islamabad
December 31, 2020
LAHORE: The arrest of 71-year-old Khwaja Asif, a former federal minister and key PML-N leader, by NAB on Tuesday heightened the tensions between the Imran-led regime and his political adversaries.
The PML-N leadership also spent some anxious hours on Tuesday following misreporting by a section of the press that the PPP central executive committee had decided that its members would not resign from the assemblies. However, PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari later appeared on the television and refuted all such misleading reports.
A study conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network revealed that both the PML-N and the PPP have reached many need-based agreements since the signing of the much-trumpeted Charter of Democracy in London on May 14, 2006, though leaders of both political parties have been running a historic acrimony since 1988.