By Our Staff Reporter

KARACHI, Feb 21: The Sindh Assembly repealed on Thursday the ‘Sindh People’s Local Government Act, 2012’ and revived the ‘Sindh Local Government Ordinance, 1979’, amid noisy protests by MQM legislators and jubilant cheers by PPP members.

It was not immediately clear how the move will affect the anti-government campaign, centred on the now repealed local government law, of the combined opposition comprising the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, PML-Likeminded, PML-Q, the National People’s Party and the Awami National Party...

By Baqir Sajjad Syed

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The army emphatically denied on Thursday that it maintained links with the banned terror outfit Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) which has unleashed Shia killing spree in Balochistan and other parts of the country.

“The armed forces were not in contact with any militant organisation, including Lashkar-i-Jhangvi,” ISPR chief Maj-Gen Asim Bajwa said at a specially-arranged media briefing...

By Nasir Iqbal

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The Supreme Court has described a report of the Intelligence Bureau on the recent Quetta carnage as an eye-opener and said that lack of protection for people always turned democratic order into disorder.

“This is not possible for intelligence agencies to provide exact date or time of an eventuality, rather information has to be put together on your own,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry observed on Thursday while pointing towards members of the Balochistan administration during hearing of a case about the Feb 16 Quetta massacre...

By Khaleeq Kiani

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The State Bank will provide updated lists of loan defaulters to the Election Commission of Pakistan on Monday for scrutiny of nomination papers of candidates for the coming election.

SBP Governor Yaseen Anwar informed the Senate Standing Committee on Finance on Thursday that all banks had been asked to provide updated Credit Information Bureau reports which would be forwarded to the ECP...

By Our Correspondent

NEW DELHI, Feb 21: At least 11 people were killed and scores injured in two blasts in India’s Hyderabad city on Thursday night, police said. Unconfirmed reports said there was a third blast too.

“It appears to be a terrorist attack, though we have not yet got full information of the incident. At least 10 are dead,” DGP V. Dinesh Reddy told The Hindu...

By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: Pakistan asked Afghanistan on Thursday to hand over senior Pakistani Taliban ‘commander’ Maulvi Faqir Mohammad.

“We hope that he would be handed over to Pakistan as soon as possible because he has the blood of many innocent Pakistanis on his hands,” Foreign Office spokesman Moazzam Khan said at the weekly media briefing...

KARACHI / SUKKUR, Feb 21: The Commanding Officer of the Airport Security Force (ASF) in Nawabshah, Tanweer Ahmed Khan, died after being hit at the Sukkur airport by the propeller of an aircraft of the PIA Training Academy on Thursday. He had traveled by the aircraft from Nawabshah.

The Civil Aviation Authority launched an investigation into the accident...

By Iftikhar A. Khan

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: Senator Raza Rabbani, a PPP leader and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, has warned against creation of a new province and has said that taking such a step without national dialogue is a recipe for destabilisation.

In a note of dissent on the 24th constitution amendment bill as a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice, he said creation of a province would aggravate the national, ethnic and linguistic issues on the question of natural resources...

By Our Correspondent

NEW DELHI, Feb 21: India sees progress in ties with Pakistan in spite of recent hiccups on the Line of Control in Kashmir, President Pranab Mukherjee said on Thursday.

In his address to the joint sitting of Parliament at the start of its budget session, he said: “With Pakistan, we have made progress towards normalisation of relations, strengthening mechanism for bilateral trade and facilitating greater people-to-people contact.”...