Fed government consults businessmen, farmers to create employment

on 03/07/2020

Islamabad is having meetings with representatives of business and farming communities to pull them out of current economic situation.
Dr Hafeez Shaikh, the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue has assured them full support ensuring growers for a targeted disbursement of the Rs 50 billion agriculture package recently announced by the government for the farmers and crop growers.
The government has approved this package with a view to extending relief to the farmers community and its direct disbursement to the farmers and crop growers remains a key objective of the government, he said while chairing a meeting with a delegation of the Farmers Associates Pakistan (FAP) that met the Adviser and members of the government’s economic team in Islamabad.
Dr Shaikh welcomed various proposals and recommendations put forward by the delegation regarding extending direct relief to the farmers, including possible reduction of electricity tariff for tube-wells, reduction of import duty on fertilizers, reduction of mark-up and waiver of agricultural loans, deregulation of the import and export of agriculture products and livestock.
He said the government was open to considering any suggestion to further improve the disbursement criterion of the agriculture package of Rs 50 billion in view of the input and consultation of the stakeholders. Similarly, the government was also willing to extend further relief to the farmers as and when required and proposed by the Ministry of National Food Security & Research for the growth of agriculture and betterment of farmers.
The Adviser conceded that the agriculture sector had the potential in a post-COVID scenario to generate employment, boost growth, alleviate poverty and enhance food security. He asked the leadership of FAP and the concerned ministries to sit together in the coming days to further fine-tune and improve the disbursement mechanism of the agriculture package and put bring up any other suggestions or recommendations to further support the farming community and boost the agriculture sector. Meanwhile, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance & Revenue, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has also chaired a meeting here at the Finance Division with Siraj Kassaim Teli, chairman Businessmen community and representatives of Karachi Chambers of Commerce and Industry to discuss budget proposals from business community of Karachi.
The group requested the Adviser to look into the possibility of reducing the taxes and speeding up of income tax refunds for the businessmen. They asked the Adviser to take concrete measures to facilitate the business community for facilitating their business activities. The Adviser assured the representatives that the government is giving proper consideration to their proposals in the upcoming budget and will continue to cooperate with the business community to boost the businesses and generate employment and economic development in the country

Telehealth – Modern aspects of healthcare delivery

on 03/07/2020

Telehealth permits numerous, shifting orders to consolidate and convey a conceivably increasingly uniform degree of care, utilizing innovation.
As telehealth multiplies standard human services, it challenges ideas of customary medicinal services conveyance. A few populaces experience better quality, access and progressively customized human services.
Telehealth can likewise expand wellbeing advancement endeavors. These endeavors would now be able to be increasingly customized to the objective populace and experts can broaden their assistance into homes or private and safe situations in which patients of people can rehearse, ask and gain wellbeing data. Wellbeing advancement utilizing telehealth has gotten progressively mainstream in immature nations where there are exceptionally poor physical assets accessible. There has been a specific push toward mHealth applications the same number of territories, even immature ones have cell phone inclusion.
In created nations, wellbeing advancement endeavors utilizing telehealth have been met with some achievement. The Australian sans hands breastfeeding Google Glass application revealed promising outcomes in 2014. This application made in a joint effort with the Australian Breastfeeding Association and a tech startup called Small World Social, helped new moms figure out how to breastfeed. Breastfeeding is advantageous to baby wellbeing and maternal wellbeing and is prescribed by the World Health Organization and wellbeing associations everywhere throughout the world. Broad breastfeeding can forestall 820,000 newborn child passings all inclusive however the training is regularly halted rashly or aims to do are upset because of the absence of social help, know-how or different elements. While fundamental for deciding the impact of health care services look into intercessions, estimating the nature of care represents a few difficulties because of the set number of results that are quantifiable. Basic measures depict the suppliers’ capacity to give top-notch care, process measures portray the activities taken to keep up or improve network wellbeing, and result measures depict the effect of social insurance mediation. Moreover, because of severe guidelines set on wellbeing administrations examine, information sources are not constantly complete. Evaluation of health care services quality may happen on two distinct levels: that of the individual patient and that of populaces. At the degree of the individual patient, or small scale level, appraisal centers around administrations at the purpose of conveyance and its consequent impacts. At the populace level, or large scale level, appraisals of human services quality incorporate markers, for example, future, newborn child death rates, frequency, and predominance of certain wellbeing conditions. Quality appraisals measure these pointers against a set up standard. The measures can be hard to characterize in wellbeing care. Quality confirmation is particular from quality appraisal and depends on the standards of complete quality administration (TQM). It is a technique for utilizing quality appraisal quantifies in a framework wide way to convey top-notch care that is ceaselessly improving. Innovation additionally may influence patients’ impression of medicinal services quality. A 2015 overview of malignant growth patients shows that the individuals who have an increasingly uplifting demeanor towards the wellbeing data apparatuses from their suppliers utilize the instruments more and therefore have a higher seen care quality from their supplier. A similar review likewise shows that the individuals who accept their supplier demonstrations all the more safely and have a lower level of security concern are bound to have an uplifting disposition towards the wellbeing data apparatuses from their suppliers and in this manner a higher view of the consideration they got. Be that as it may, regardless of whether the standard of medicinal services quality is expanding is very begging to be proven wrong, with writing discrediting such cases. Research is progressively announcing that clinicians discover the procedure troublesome and complex to manage. Moreover, there are worries around educated assent, lawfulness issues just as authoritative issues

Balochistan’s PSDP brings MPAs on roads Allege CM not taking opposition into confidence

on 03/07/2020

The opposition in Balochistan has complaints that the government does not take it into confidence on the development program of the province.
This led opposition parties to stage a sit-in outside Chief Minister House last week. They alleged that Jam government was not taking them on board while finalizing the 2020-21 Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).
Members of the opposition parties in the Balochistan Assembly led by Opposition Leader Malik Sikandar Khan took out a protest.
Carrying placards and banners, hey marched on Zarghoon Road and gathered in front of the official residence of the chief minister. They chanted slogans against the provincial government and staged a sit-in there.
Malik Sikandar Khan claimed that the government had committed to taking the opposition on board for the development of Balochistan but despite promises, the coalition government led by Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani had not taken them into confidence while preparing PSDP 2020-21.
He said that provincial ministers and non-elected people belonging to the ruling party were interfering in their constituencies despite their protest.
Since the rally passed through the Red Zone, police and personnel of other law enforcement agencies had been deployed at the entrance of the zone area. However, the opposition MPAs entered the Red Zone and reached outside the CM House.
Another report said the opposition parties also alleged that the government had arrested MPAsAkhtar Hussain Langove, Malik Naseer Shahwani, and Ahmed Nawaz Baloch.
After hearing reports about the arrest of the three MPAs workers of the Balochistan National Party blocked Sariab Road, Qambrani Road, and Spiny Road putting barricades, burning tyres, chanting anti-government slogans, suspending traffic for hours.
A spokesman for Balochistan Government Liaquat Shahwani refuted the news of the arrests. Balochistan government didnt give any directive to arrest opposition members.
He further said the opposition violated Section-144 by attempting to barge inside the Red Zone but police spoke to them politely instead of using force to intercept them

A small warship for PN

on 03/07/2020

The steel-cutting ceremony of a Milgem class corvette or small warship, being constructed for the Pakistan Navy by Turkey was held at the Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works (KS&EW) last week.
The managing director of KS&EW, Rear Admiral Ather Saleem, was the chief guest on the occasion.
A contract for four Milgem class corvettes for Pakistan Navy with concurrent Transfer of Technology (ToT) was signed with ASFAT Inc, a Turkish state-owned defense contractor firm, in 2018.
The ToT entails the construction of two corvettes in Turkey and another two at KS&EW.
The steel-cutting ceremony held at the KS&EW on Tuesday was for the first Milgem class corvette being indigenously constructed at the Karachi Shipyard in collaboration with the Turkish defense firm.
The Milgem class corvettes will be state-of-the-art surface platforms equipped with a modern surface, subsurface and anti-air weapons, sensors, and a combat management system.
These ships will be among the most technologically advanced platforms of the Pakistan Navy and will significantly contribute to maintaining peace, stability and balance of power in the Indian Ocean region.
Speaking on the occasion, the general manager for shipbuilding, Commodore Mohammad Jahanzeb Ahsan, said that the technical support for the indigenous mega-project had been provided by ASFAT Inc.
He underscored the deep-rooted friendship with Turkey for joint collaboration in the field of indigenous warship construction with the Pakistan Navy and other organizations.
The ceremony was attended by officials of the Pakistan Navy as well as dignitaries and representatives of ASFAT Inc, Turkey

KP approves four new economic zones

on 03/07/2020

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Economic Zones Development and Management Company (EZDMC) has approved launching of four new economic zones across the province.
The statement EZDMC said the approval was given at the 36th meeting of the board of directors. The zones include in Ghazi, Chitral, Jalozai and extension of the Nowshera economic zone.
It merits mentioining that after official announcement of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), around 37 zones were proposed as “Special Economic Zones” in all provinces of Pakistan. Out of these 9 SEZs are prioritized to be established in each province and other federal areas of Pakistan.
A special economic zone (SEZ) is an area in which the business and trade laws are different from the rest of the country. SEZs are located within a country’s national borders, and their aims include increased trade balance, employment, increased investment, job creation and effective administration.
The Ghazi economic zone would be spread over an area of 89.9 acres, Chitral 40, Jalozai 257.5 and Nowshera 76.25 acres.
The statement said that EZDMC had possession of the strategically located land for the proposed economic zones and would soon complete formalities to initiate work on the projects.
The launching of the economic zones was a pivotal step that would not only create industrial growth and job opportunities for locals but also spur economic activity slowed down by Covid-19-induced lockdown.
The statement said that these zones would bring billions of rupees wohh of investments and provide job opportunities to over 25,000 people.
These zones will have electricity and a well-developed infrastructure which will facilitate investors looking forward to setting up their industries close to their base or near raw materials, it said.
CEO EZDMC Javed Khattak stated that this was a crucial step as the province needed to attract investment and boost economic activity.
With these new zones, economy of the region will flourish and job generation will be achieved which is one of the primary tasks of the company, Khattak said