Category: 1. Pakistan

KARACHI: In a significant move, K-Electric has officially announced that key business areas will have load-shedding exemption in Karachi, including, Jama Cloth Market and Burns Road, ARY News reported.

This would be major milestone in the K-Electric’s aim to make Karachi 90 percent load-shedding-free by 2030.

According to K-Electric’s spokesperson, this loadshedding exemption in Karachi comes as a result of joint efforts between the company and consumers. He highlighted that the improvement in bills’ recovery and a reduction in line losses were main factors to get to this stage. He stated, “Our collaboration with the consumers has resulted in the exemption of these areas. Due to timely bill payments and reduced electricity theft have made nonstop power supply possible,”

Already, K-Electric has given 70 percent exemption of loadshedding to its service territory, as part of its ongoing quarterly reviews and smart surveillance systems.

The company is actively fighting against electricity theft, having removed over 330,000 kilograms of illegal connections (kundas) in the current fiscal year alone.

K-Electric’s strategy showcases a comprehensive approach to transform Karachi’s power infrastructure by 2030.

The company also aims to completely eliminate load shedding from the city. Additionally, the comprehensive strategy highlights continued investment in smart grid technologies and infrastructure enhancements to foster efficiency and reliability across the network.

K-Electric’s spokesperson reaffirmed that areas which have improvement in bill payments and reduction in electricity theft will continue to have loadshedding exemption in Karachi, or reduction. On the other hand, areas who fail to pay dues in time, and their electricity theft ratio remains stagnant or increased may face increased outages.

Read More: K-Electric introduces new consumer-friendly electricity bill layout

Earlier, K-Electric has unveiled a redesigned electricity bill format aimed at making it more user-friendly, according to the company’s spokesperson.

The updated bill layout consolidates calculations and information in one place for easier understanding by consumers.

The K-Electric spokesperson clarified that no changes have been made to the tariff or slab structure.

Customers can also view details of the new layout on the company’s official website.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday inaugurated the Challenge Group Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and welcomed a $100 million investment by the Chinese garments giant, Challenge Fashion Private Limited, aimed at boosting Pakistan’s textile exports and industrial capacity, Radio Pakistan reported.

Speaking during a meeting with a delegation from the Chinese group, led by Chairman Huwang Weiguo, he expressed Pakistan’s commitment to elevating its strategic and economic partnership with China to greater heights.

“Pakistan and China enjoy a time-tested friendship that has stood resilient through every challenge,” PM Shehbaz said. “We are pleased to see our economic relations grow stronger, and we welcome more Chinese industries to set up operations in Pakistan,” he added.

Also Read: Torrential rains claim 146 lives in K-P, five die in rescue helicopter crash

Sharif lauded the Chinese firm’s continued confidence in the Pakistani market, noting that Challenge Fashion Group has already invested $17 million in the country since 2014. The new Special Economic Zone, he said, will serve as a model for sustainable industrial development, facilitating technology transfer, skill enhancement, and job creation.

He directed relevant authorities to extend all necessary support to ensure the swift operationalisation of the SEZ and reaffirmed the government’s focus on advancing the industrial dimension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The PM also highlighted Pakistan’s keen interest in learning from China’s expertise in the textile sector and announced that a China-Pakistan Business-to-Business Conference would soon be held in China to encourage private sector collaboration.

Briefing the premier, the Challenge Group delegation shared that the $100 million investment over the next five years is expected to generate textile exports worth $400 million. Chairman Weiguo thanked the PM for the warm reception and hospitality, saying the group was committed to deepening its engagement with Pakistan’s growing textile sector.

A massive cloudburst has triggered flash floods in north-west Pakistan, killing at least 157 people, as rescuers continued to search for people missing after floods in neighbouring India.

Mohammad Suhail, a provincial emergency services spokesperson, said 78 bodies were recovered from various parts of Buner district in the north-west province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by noon on Friday, and a further 79 were pulled later from the rubble of collapsed homes and flooded villages.

“The death toll may rise as we are still looking for dozens of missing people,” Suhail said.

The latest fatalities bring to 556 the total number of rain-related deaths in Pakistan since 26 June, according to disaster management officials.

In Bajaur district, in the same province, a helicopter carrying relief supplies crashed on Friday owing to bad weather, killing all five people onboard, a government statement said.

Sudden, intense downpours over small areas known as cloudbursts are increasingly common in India’s Himalayan regions and Pakistan’s northern areas, both of which are prone to flash floods and landslides. Cloudbursts have the potential to wreak havoc by causing intense flooding and landslides, affecting thousands of people in the mountainous regions.

Experts say these intense downpours have become more frequent in recent years, partly owing to the climate crisis, and that the damage caused has also increased because of unplanned development in mountain regions.

Dozens were injured as the deluge destroyed homes in villages in Buner, where authorities declared a state of emergency. Ambulances have transported 56 bodies to local hospitals, according to a government statement.

Rescuers backed by boats and helicopters worked to reach stranded residents. Dozens of villagers were still missing and the death toll was likely to rise, said Kashif Qayyum, a Buner government administrator.

Deaths were reported from different parts of Pakistan on Thursday. Bilal Faizi, a emergency service spokesperson in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said rescuers worked for hours to save 1,300 tourists after they were trapped by flash flooding and landslides in the Siran valley in Mansehra district on Thursday.

The Gilgit-Baltistan region has been hit by multiple floods since July, sparking landslides along the Karakoram Highway, a key trade and travel route linking Pakistan and China that is used by tourists. The region is home to scenic glaciers that provide 75% of Pakistan’s stored water supply .

Despite repeated government warnings about landslides and flash floods, many people still visited popular resorts in flood-hit areas in north and north-west Pakistan. A study released this week by World Weather Attribution, a network of international scientists, found rainfall from 24 June to 23 July was 10% to 15% heavier in Pakistan because of global heating. In 2022, the country’s worst monsoon season on record killed more than 1,700 people and caused an estimated $40bn (£29.5bn) in damage.

In Indian-administered Kashmir, rescuers searched for missing people in the remote Himalayan village of Chositi on Friday after 60 people died in flash floods, officials said. Scores of people are missing.

At least 300 people were rescued on Thursday after a powerful cloudburst sparked floods and landslides, but the operation was halted overnight. Officials said many missing people were believed to have been washed away.

At least 50 seriously injured people were treated in local hospitals, many of them rescued from a stream filled with mud and debris. A disaster management official, Mohammed Irshad, said the number of missing people could increase.

Meanwhile, more heavy rain is forecast for the area and is expected to cause flooding.

Chositi in Kishtwar district is the last village accessible to motor vehicles on the route of an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountainous shrine. Officials said the pilgrimage, which began on 25 Julyand was scheduled to end on 5 September, was suspended.

Flood waters swept away the main community kitchen set up for the pilgrims, as well as dozens of vehicles and motorbikes. More than 200 pilgrims were in the kitchen at the time of the flood, which also damaged or washed away many of the homes clustered in the foothills, officials said.

Sneha, who gave only one name, said her husband and a daughter were swept away as flood water came down the mountain. Her husband and daughter were having meals at the community kitchen while she and her son were nearby. The family had come for the pilgrimage, she said.

Photographs and videos on social media showed extensive damage, with household goods strewn next to damaged vehicles and homes in the village. Authorities made makeshift bridges on Friday to help stranded pilgrims cross a muddy water channel, and used dozens of earthmovers to shift boulders, uproot trees and electricity poles and remove other debris.

Throughout Friday, authorities evacuated almost 4,000 pilgrims stranded in various parts of the forested area, officials said. Kishtwar district is home to multiple hydroelectric power projects, which experts have long warned pose a threat to the area’s fragile ecosystem.

At least 194 people have died in the last 24 hours in heavy monsoon floods and landslides in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Most of the deaths, 180, were recorded by disaster authorities in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in north-west Pakistan. At least 30 homes were destroyed and a rescue helicopter crashed during operations, killing its five crew.

Nine more people were killed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while five died in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, it said.

Government forecasters said heavy rainfall was expected until 21 August in the northwest of the country, where several areas have been declared disaster zones.

In Buner, one survivor told AFP the floods arrived like “doomsday”.

“I heard a loud noise as if the mountain was sliding. I rushed outside and saw the entire area shaking, like it was the end of the world,” said Azizullah.

“The ground was trembling due to the force of the water, and it felt like death was staring me in the face.”

The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gadapur, said that the M-17 helicopter crashed due to bad weather while flying to Bajaur, a region bordering Afghanistan.

In Bajaur, a crowd amassed around an excavator trawling a mud-soaked hill, AFP photos showed. Funeral prayers began in a paddock nearby, with people grieving in front of several bodies covered by blankets.

In the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, rescuers pulled bodies from mud and rubble on Friday after a flood crashed through a Himalayan village, killing at least 60 people and washing away dozens more.

Monsoon rains between June and September deliver about three-quarters of South Asia’s annual rainfall. Landslides and flooding are common and than 300 people have died in this year’s season.

In July, Punjab, home to nearly half of Pakistan’s 255 million people, recorded 73% more rainfall than the previous year and more deaths than in the entire previous monsoon.

Scientists say that climate change has made weather events more extreme and more frequent.

A rescue mission in monsoon-hit northern Pakistan ended in tragedy on Friday when a provincial government helicopter crashed in bad weather, killing all five crew members on board.An MI-17 helicopter of the provincial government, carrying relief goods for rain-affected areas of Bajaur, crashed in the Pandiyali area of Mohmand district due to bad weather, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur said in a statement.“Five crew members, including two pilots, were killed,” AFP cited the ministerThe helicopter had taken off from Peshawar bound for Bajaur but lost contact over Mohmand tribal district, according to initial reports.Chief secretary of the province, Shahab Ali Shah, told PTI that poor weather conditions led to the crash, though authorities said it remains to be determined whether any other factors were involved.The aircraft went down in Changi Banda, where two pilots and three others involved in rescue operations were confirmed dead. Rescue teams have been dispatched to the site, and the deceased will be laid to rest with full state honours.The crash comes as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reels from days of torrential rain that has triggered flash floods and landslides, mainly in Bajaur and Buner districts. More than 100 people have been killed, with many others injured or missing.Expressing deep sorrow, Gandapur announced a day of mourning across the province on Saturday. “We share the grief of the bereaved families,” he said. “The helicopter crew sacrificed their lives to save others — they are our true heroes, and their sacrifice will be remembered in golden words in history.”The provincial government’s second helicopter remains engaged in rescue operations in Buner district.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi is facing criticism after Supreme Court (SC) committee minutes revealed that he ignored a majority decision last year to form a full court to hear petitions challenging the 26th Constitutional Amendment.

The three-member committee, operating under the Supreme Court Practice and Procedure Act 2023 to form regular benches, was chaired by CJP Afridi in late October last year, with Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Munib Akhtar as members. The majority — Justices Shah and Munib — had ordered the petitions be fixed before a full court on November 4, 2024.

According to the minutes, CJP Afridi argued the committee lacked legal authority to direct the formation of a full court. He also consulted all judges individually and nine of the 13 supported the formation of a constitutional bench to hear the case.

Now that the CJP’s justification for the non-formation of a full court is in public domain, lawyers are questioning his conduct by asking who will determine how many judges had opposed and what question was placed before each judge.

“How could judges have been consulted on a matter which, according to the statute, was not within their jurisdiction? Why every week all 23 are not consulted?” asked a lawyer, speaking to The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity. 

Likewise, advocate Abdul Moiz Jaferii said he failed to understand why an informal poll of other judges was taken by the CJP after the practice and procedure committee – as it then was – had made a majority decision.

“I similarly fail to understand why such a determination, if it was needed after the committee decision, was not taken in a formal full court meeting. I also fail to understand why the CJP was willing to interpret the 26th Amendment in favour of the executive’s influence, and reluctant to have the Amendment’s constitutionality first tested by a full sitting of his peers,” said advocate Jaferii.

Read: SC judges urge CJP to call full court on 26th Amendment pleas

Meanwhile, advocate Asad Rahim Khan said that the job of the chief justice, before everything else, is to preserve the independence of the judiciary; not to accept its subordination by the executive.

“Should [former] chief justice Nasirul Mulk have put off a full court from hearing the challenge to the 21st Amendment, by arguing that Article 175(3) had already been amended, and there was nothing left for the Court to do about it? For or against, the judges decided according to their consciences, and the law was settled. Again, that was their job,” said the advocate. 

He further said that the greatest judicial regression in 30 years – where the amendment’s very passage is under a cloud – can’t be treated as a fait accompli. “Going by this logic, if the Constitution were subverted through a [provisional constitutional order] PCO or some other unlawful means tomorrow, that wouldn’t be heard either, as it would be [illegally] protected in the text of the Constitution,” he added.

The longer the amendment is undecided, the longer its automatic acceptance, and, as a result, the longer the judiciary’s corrosion. Another senior lawyer opined that paragraph three of the CJP’s response was bizarre.

“It indicates that SC does not believe in transparency and fears criticism. Public comment is the best form of accountability. Avoiding a full court meeting at that time shows the intent. The matter should have been discussed in Full Court meeting because opinion of majority of members of committee was binding. The law was violated by the CJP,” said the senior lawyer, speaking on the condition of anonymity. 

He asked how one member could violate the decision of a statutory committee empowered to decide how and which cases were to be fixed. The statute did not give power to one member to overrule the majority decision. The other judges were not relevant and seeking their informal individual opinion was illegal and in out right violation of law, he said. 

Since November last year, the constitutional bench is unable to decide the fate of 26th Constitutional Amendment. In January, the constitutional bench took up the matter and adjourned the hearing for three weeks. Later, the bench did not hear the case. Interestingly, the creation of constitutional bench itself is under challenge. Questions are being raised as to how the beneficiaries of 26th Constitutional Amendment can decide about their future.

Read more: Judicial reforms shape SC’s first constitutional bench

Now the situation has changed in the apex court. Eight new judges are elevated to the apex court since February. Even most of them are included in the constitutional benches.

Last November, SC judges Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Munib Akhtar urged the CJP to immediately fix hearings for the pleas challenging the 26th Constitutional Amendment.

In their letter, the two judges, who are part of the committee responsible for fixing cases and forming benches under the Supreme Court Practice and Procedure Act (2023), stated that the committee has decided to hear these constitutional petitions in a full court, with the initial hearing date set for November 4.

The dispute began on October 31, when Justices Shah and Akhtar formally addressed a letter to CJP Afridi, urging him to hold a meeting under the Supreme Court Practice and Procedure Act 2023.

With no response from the CJP, Justices Shah and Akhtar held an independent meeting in the latter’s chambers to determine the next steps.

Following this private session, the two justices decided by majority vote to bring the amendment petitions before a full court on November 4.

They then sent a second letter to CJP Afridi, expressing their concerns over the postponement. According to the letter, the judges had previously informed the registrar of their decision on October 31 and instructed the registrar to publish the decision on the Supreme Court’s official website.

They argued that the petitions challenging the amendment demand a comprehensive review by the full court, as this matter involves constitutional implications that go beyond standard judicial concerns.

By refraining from convening a full court, the chief justice had, according to some experts, signaled a cautious approach to the handling of such cases, potentially seeking to avoid judicial overreach or political entanglements.