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• Adiala superintendent claims counsel deliberately avoided collecting signed ‘power of attorney’ document, accuses them of ‘misleading’ court
• Daughter seeks action against jail staff for ‘mistreating’ Bushra Bibi

ISLAMABAD: As political tensions deescalate in parliament, PTI interim chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and Secretary General Salman Akram were among lawyers whose names had been shared with the Adiala jail administration for a meeting with former prime minister Imran Khan, who has been in jail on multiple charges since 2023.

The list submitted by Awais Younas Chaudhry Advocate included the names of Barrister Gohar, Salman Akram Raja, Ali Zaman, Haider Majeed, Imran Khan Orakzai and Shamsa Kiyani. The jail administration was requested to allow them to meet the incarcerated party chief on Tuesday in line with the court orders.

The list containing the names of Barrister Gohar and Salman Raja came after the PTI interim chairman said in parliament that he hoped that the recent handshake between opposition leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif would improve the relationship between the treasury and the opposition benches, and hopefully pave the way for a meeting with Imran Khan.

On the other hand, Aleema Khan and other sisters of Imran Khan were also expected to visit Adiala for their meeting, as the Islamabad High Court in its earlier order had allowed family and lawyers to meet Imran every Tuesday.

Aleema announced a 10,000-strong protest outside the prison last Tuesday, but the demonstration did not materialise because barely 1,000 supporters turned up. The PTI leaders blamed NA Opposition Leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who heads the Tehreek-i-Tahaffuz-i-Ayeen-i-Pakistan alliance, for the failure — an allegation rejected by the alliance spokesperson.

‘Court misled’

The Adiala superintendent informed the Islamabad High Court that the counsel for the PTI founder and his wife Bushra Bibi attempted to mislead the court regarding the signing of the power of attorney in the Al Qadir Trust corruption case.

In a response submitted to the IHC, the superintendent stated that the power of attorney was ready after being signed on June 16, and Barrister Salman Safdar was informed through a text message on the same day. A screenshot of the message has also been attached to the court submission.

“The lawyers of the founder and Bushra Bibi deliberately did not obtain the power of attorney before the hearing on June 18,” the response said.

It may be noted that the court has been repeatedly informed by the defence counsel that the power of attorney could not be obtained due to procedural delays. Barrister Safdar had sought adjournments on multiple occasions, citing his inability to meet his clients at the jail.

The IHC bench, comprising Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Asif, had earlier warned the defence counsel that if arguments were not presented at the next hearing, the court would proceed with the case based on available records.

Meanwhile, Bushra Bibi’s daughter, Mubashra Khawar Maneka, has lodged a formal complaint with the Punjab home department, alleging criminal negligence and inhuman treatment by jail staff toward her mother at the Adiala jail.

In a letter addressed to the provincial home secretary, Maneka said her mother, Bushra Bibi, had been suffering from a retinal disease that required surgery, but the jail staff ignored her complaints for weeks. According to the complaint, it was only in mid-April that the matter was communicated to the relevant jail authorities, leading to a medical examination and immediate surgery at Al Shifa Eye Hospital in Rawalpindi.

The letter blamed a particular jail employee for negligence and also accused her of “consistently abusive, rude and disrespectful behaviour during routine jail interactions”. Maneka requested strict disciplinary action against the staff member and her removal from the present assignment involving control over her mother.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2026

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ISLAMABAD: The chairman of the National Assembly’s (NA) Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir, Rana Muhammad Qasim Noon, has requested NA Opposition Leader Mahmood Khan Achakzai to spare the time for a meeting discussing the situation in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), it emerged on Monday.

The regional administration and the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) remain at odds over various issues, most notably the committee’s demand to abolish the 12 seats in the region’s Legislative Assembly that are reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947.

In a letter addressed to Achakzai, Qasim wished to meet him at the earliest, citing the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) leader’s role in Pakistan’s political landscape and his continued engagement on matters of national importance.

He stated that the proposed meeting would focus on the Kashmir dispute, the prevailing volatile situation in the region, and ways to strengthen Pakistan’s diplomatic, parliamentary, and international efforts in support of the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination.

Qasim emphasised that Achakzai’s experience, leadership, and insights on foreign policy issues would be valuable in developing a coordinated national strategy to highlight the Kashmir issue at the regional and international levels.

He requested that a suitable date and time for the meeting be communicated to his office at the earliest.

Tehreek-i-Tahaffuz-i-Ayin-i-Pakistan (TTAP) spokesperson Akhunzada Hussain Ahmad Yousufzai, while talking to Dawn, said that Achakzai had decided to discuss the meeting’s matter with opposition parties, particularly the TTAP.

“After getting input from the parties, a collective decision will be made regarding a meeting with Rana Muhammad Qasim Noon,” he said.

The correspondence shows that the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir has been making efforts across party lines to highlight the issue of Kashmir.

Ahead of the July 27 elections in AJK, the JAAC had called for widespread protests demanding the abolition of 12 seats in the region’s Legislative Assembly reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947.

Elections for these seats are held separately from the 33 general seats in AJK, with refugees registered in 12 constituencies across Pakistan voting for their representatives. The seats have long been politically sensitive due to disputes over voter lists, delimitation, and constitutional amendments.

On June 5, the JAAC was declared a proscribed organisation by the regional government and placed under the First Schedule of the region’s anti-terrorism act. A day later, AJK authorities launched a crackdown on the JAAC, arresting scores of its leaders and activists from different areas.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has urged the committee to let the people of the region decide whether the 12 refugee seats should be abolished.

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India, once the world’s second-largest sugar exporter, is expected to have little surplus for export for at least three more seasons as El Niño weather conditions threaten cane production and rising ethanol demand squeezes supply.

The twin pressures are poised to keep millions of tonnes of sugar off the world market, tightening supplies for importers across Asia, Africa and the Middle East and supporting benchmark prices in London and New York.

A prolonged absence by India from export markets would remove a key balancing supplier as weather risks and biofuel policies reshape global sugar trade flows.

Interviews with over a dozen trade and industry executives, government sources and farmers show that lower cane availability and rising ethanol demand will leave little for exports for several years, prompting dealers at global houses to warn head offices of shrinking opportunities in India, trade sources said.

Government expected to curb imports season by season

Sugar is politically sensitive in global top consumer India, where sweets are highly popular and many poorer households rely on it as a cheap source of calories.

“Supplies are already tight in India, and now El Niño is emerging as a major risk,” said Rahil Shaikh, managing director of MEIR Commodities India, a Mumbai-based trader.

“If rains disappoint as forecast, cane planting will suffer and this will keep India out of the sugar export market for at least three years, while Brazil and Thailand could also see their crops affected by El Niño.”

Top exporter Brazil is also diverting more cane for ethanol. Thailand, another major exporter, could also have its output hit by El Niño-curtailed rains.

India exported 6.8 million metric tonnes of sugar annually on average in the five seasons through 2022-23 — about 10 per cent of global shipments. This year, after exporting around 800,000 tonnes, India banned shipments until September 30, the end of the season.

Mills need government approval to export sugar, and New Delhi is likely to withhold export permissions each season rather than announce a multiyear ban, government and industry sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Last month, a top minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government told mills to prioritise domestic availability and not lobby for exports, the sources said on condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential.

India’s Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs did not respond to a request for comment on the prospects for exports or its restrictions on exports.

El Niño cloud canes outlook

El Niño conditions are forecast to weaken India’s monsoon rains this year to their lowest in 11 years.

Below-average rains, coupled with June precipitation running more than 40pc below average, have prompted farmers to delay planting.

“I had planned to plant long-duration cane varieties in June, but since everyone is talking about lower rains, I decided to put that plan on hold,” said Sambhaji Patil, who decided to grow soybeans instead on 2 acres (0.8 hectares) in Sangli district of the western state of Maharashtra.

Nursery owner Suraj Chavan said demand for cane seedlings had fallen sharply in recent weeks.

Farmers are likely to switch to less water-intensive crops, which could drag down cane acreage and availability in the 2027-28 season, said Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories.

Local authorities have started promoting alternative crops such as soybeans, pigeon peas and other pulse varieties in most sugar-growing regions and have restricted water supplies for irrigation.

India was expected to produce 30.95m tonnes of sugar this season, but output is now forecast at 27.9m tonnes, below annual consumption of about 28.5m tonnes, according to industry estimates.

As a result, inventories with mills at the start of the season on October 1 are likely to fall to about 3.5m tonnes, the lowest in more than three decades, said MEIR’s Shaikh.

At the same time, India is pushing for higher ethanol blending with petrol and wider adoption of flex-fuel vehicles to cut dependence on expensive imported crude.

Ethanol demand could more than double to some 30bn litres (8bn gallons) by 2039-40 from the current 12bn to 13bn litres as higher ethanol blending in petrol and adoption of flex-fuel vehicles gather pace, industry estimates suggest.

Sugar imports possible for first time in decade

“The trajectory for ethanol demand is incredibly strong,” said Samir Somaiya, chairman and managing director of Godavari Biorefineries. “The next phase of demand evolution will be driven by the commercial rollout of flex-fuel vehicles.”

Top Indian carmaker Maruti Suzuki this month launched the nation’s first flex-fuel passenger vehicle, while Hero MotoCorp launched a flex-fuel motorcycle.

India this month eliminated the production tax on petrol blended with higher levels of ethanol and launched fuel with up to 85pc ethanol to support the adoption of flex-fuel vehicles.

Future government policies will likely support ethanol production over sugar exports, said BB Thombare, managing director of Natural Sugar in Maharashtra state.

India could eventually be forced to import sugar if El Niño-related weather disruptions sharply cut cane cultivation area and output, the government sources and industry officials said, with traders warning that supplies could tighten further in the 2027-28 season.

India last imported sugar in 2016-17 and 2017-18 after an El Niño-induced drought in 2015 cut cane planting. In 2009 and 2010, India’s heavy purchases helped push global prices to nearly three times their previous levels.

“Because of a severe El Niño and rising demand for ethanol, not only would exports from India be wiped out, but imports into India in the coming years could also become necessary,” said Mohan Narang, director of KS Commodities, a trading house in New Delhi.

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Every Punjab budget in recent years has followed the same script: bigger numbers and the same line items inflated to keep pace with political optics. Education gets more, health gets more, the development programme gets a headline figure, and a finance minister stands up in the assembly to call it historic.

This year’s Rs5.9 trillion budget does more or less the same. But buried in it is something the province’s budgets have not really attempted before: an actual strategy for what Punjab’s economy is supposed to become. The strategy called PIVOT — or Punjab Innovation for Value, Opportunity and Transformation — is the one part that makes this budget more than a routine fiscal housekeeping exercise.

PIVOT is structured as a three-year plan through FY29 worth close to Rs2tr, split between roughly Rs1.1tr in public investment and upward of Rs905 billion the government expects to leverage from the private sector. Within that, Rs193bn has been set aside as subsidised financing for specific industrial schemes, which the government projects will create 162,000 new jobs, $6.8bn in incremental export potential, and a skilled workforce of more than 850,000 people.

Those are projections, not results, and provincial governments in Pakistan have a long history of announcing ambitious multi-year programmes that quietly lose momentum once the budget cycle that launches them ends. But the scale of the commitment and the fact that it spans agriculture, industry, services, livestock, tourism, and technology rather than a single sector suggest this was designed as more than a budget speech line.

Punjab Innovation for Value, Opportunity and Transformation is the one part that makes this budget more than a routine fiscal housekeeping exercise

What makes PIVOT different from past development chapters is its underlying premise. Punjab generates more than half of Pakistan’s GDP, yet provincial budgets have historically treated that fact as a given rather than something to actively build on. The province collects its share of federal transfers, spends on the usual heads, and calls it a year.

PIVOT reads as an attempt to stop taking that economic weight for granted and instead ask: what is the province actually leaving on the table, and what would it take to capture it? Industrial financing, agro-processing parks, export-oriented job targets and private capital mobilisation are not new ideas. Packaging them into a single, costed, three-year initiative with explicit job and export targets is the part that’s new for Punjab.

The plan’s central premise is that Punjab “produces at scale” but doesn’t yet “capture value at scale”; it contributes 55.7 per cent of Pakistan’s national GDP, has a population of 127.7 million (53pc of the country) and an employed workforce of 35.8m, with even higher shares in value-chain integration, skills mismatched to market demand, and private-sector credit at just 7.3pc of provincial GDP, far below global practices.

PIVOT adds roughly 100 basis points to Punjab’s three-year average GDP growth, lifting overall provincial growth with industry seeing the largest relative boost. The plan organises everything around six interlocking pillars: value addition and export-led value chains, international compliance and standardisation, cluster-based infrastructure, a competitive workforce, long-term financing and Public-Private Partnership (PPPs), and economic governance reform.

PIVOT’s spending pattern reflects where the government believes the bottlenecks actually are. The single largest allocation of over Rs750bn goes to shared industrial infrastructure: effluent treatment, energy reliability, connectivity and regulatory streamlining that every exporter needs regardless of their industry. Agriculture and livestock together draw more than Rs500bn in investment, aimed at processing raw output into higher-value goods for export.

Tourism is built around PPP-run circuits across the province’s heritage and natural sites. Smaller, sector-specific funds target the export industries — textiles, leather, pharma, sports goods — where Punjab already has production capacity but lacks the certifications needed to access regulated foreign markets.

Two pillars round out the strategy: a workforce push aimed at closing the gap between what manufacturing actually needs and what the labour market currently supplies, including an overseas-employment track meant to grow remittances, and a parallel bet on tech and frontier skills training. Underneath all of this sits a governance layer — consolidating overlapping inspection regimes, revising decades-old laws, and restructuring industrial land leases — that doesn’t show up as a budget line but is arguably what determines whether any of the rest of it works.

The document closes with a stakeholder-by-stakeholder promise: jobs and incomes for citizens, better returns for farmers, employment-linked training for youth, financing and predictable rules for businesses, international market access for exporters, a PPP pipeline for investors, and outcome-based delivery for government.

However, it arrives at an odd moment fiscally. The same budget slashes the provincial annual development programme by nearly 40pc, from Rs1.24tr to Rs752bn, largely to contribute Rs546bn to federal expenditures and meet another Rs910bn cash surplus target tied to the province’s fiscal arrangement under the International Monetary Fund programme.

Thus, the plan doesn’t fully add up: a government cutting overall development spending while simultaneously launching its most ambitious growth programme in years. Whether PIVOT survives that contradiction or gets quietly squeezed in the months ahead is the question. This will determine whether PIVOT is remembered as the moment Punjab got its groove back in terms of its economic potential, or as another well-funded launch that couldn’t outlast its first year.

For now, though, credit where it is due. A budget that mostly does more of the same has, for once, included something that looks like a plan.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 22nd, 2026

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Belgium were held to a scoreless draw by Iran in a frustrating encounter Sunday that saw the Red Devils reduced to 10 men and facing the possibility of group-stage elimination for a second straight World Cup.

A star-studded though ageing lineup including Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku was if anything fortunate to leave Los Angeles with a point, controlling possession yet ceding the game’s best chances to a resolute Iran team.

Iran’s Mehdi Taremi had the ball in the net from a well-worked first-half free kick that was overturned for offside by VAR, while Nathan Ngoy was sent off after the break for hauling down the striker after a badly mis-hit backpass.

The result means all three games so far in Group G have ended in draws.

Stuck on two points, Belgium at least have the comfort of playing the tournament’s lowest-ranked team, New Zealand, in their final group game.

Iran will also need at least a point against Egypt next Friday.

Having been frustrated by visa issues as they travel from their base camp in Mexico to games in the US, Team Melli will hope to focus on the football as travel restrictions are reportedly eased for their crucial trip to Seattle.

For the second Iran game running, protesters from Los Angeles’ large Persian exile community gathered at the stadium to chant against the country’s incumbent regime.

Inside the stadium, Iran’s anthem again drew a chorus of boos and whistles – a reception at odds with the response to the players themselves, who were loudly cheered.

Having switched to a back five, Iran sat deep in the first half, allowing Belgium to dominate possession and to play hundreds of passes around their penalty area without creating any clear-cut opportunities.

Target man Lukaku, back in the starting lineup after making an impact from the bench in Belgium’s 1-1 draw with Egpyt, managed a solitary headed effort in the 36th minute, which sailed over the bar.

Iran had the first half’s two best chances, entirely against the run of play. Hossein Kanani’s low shot after a long throw was well saved by an outstretched Thibaut Courtois.

And Iran’s star striker Taremi had the ball in the net midway through the half after a cleverly worked free kick, but it was ruled offside.

The former Inter Milan man span away from Belgium’s wall, swiveled and buried the ball, before VAR overruled the effort, to the dismay of a vocally pro-Iran crowd.

After the break, Belgium continued to huff and puff while Taremi again nearly scored at the other end. Courtois did well to save after Kanani had flicked on a long throw to the Iran forward.

Belgium coach Rudi Garcia made a triple substitution around the hour mark and his side immediately came close, Maxim De Cuyper’s point-blank effort from De Bruyne’s cut-back well saved.

Substitute Hans Vanaken blasted a shot from a rebound well over the bar moments later, as the Red Devils finally began to knock on Iran’s door in earnest.

But disaster struck for Belgium as Ngoy was sent off. The center-back had badly underhit a pass back to Courtois, and raised his arm into Taremi as the striker raced through on goal.

The game settled into a nervous, scrappy stalemate, though De Cuyper again came close with a low effort from just outside the box.

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Qatar’s interior ministry said an explosion resulting from a “technical accident” occurred on Sunday at a factory in Ras Laffan, an industrial city north of the capital Doha and site of the country’s core LNG processing operations.

It said several injuries were reported but no leak that “threatens safety”.

The ministry did not give the exact location of the explosion.

But, QatarEnergy confirmed that the operational incident during the start-up of operations at Ras Laffan Industrial City, saying it resulted in an explosion at its Barzan gas supply facility.

QatarEnergy said fire at the factory was under control after the deployment of emergency response teams to contain the blaze.

From 20 kilometres south of Ras Laffan on Qatar’s north coast, an AFP journalist saw flames illuminating the night sky and a plume of smoke rising from the area, home to the world’s largest liquefied natural gas hub.

Pakistan’s embassy in Qatar expressed concern over the incident, saying it “stands in solidarity with Qatar”.

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ISLAMABAD: The opposition alliance Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayin-i-Pakistan (TTAP) on Sunday demanded the removal of Minister of IT and Telecom Shaza Fatima Khawaja over a controversial telecommunication bill and sought representation in an inquiry committee investigating the matter “to ensure impartiality”.

The Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) (Amendment) Bill 2026, which seeks changes to a 1996 act and was tabled by the IT minister, was approved by the National Assembly (NA) on June 11 by a majority vote. It is currently pending before the Senate Standing Committee on IT and Telecommunication, where it was referred on June 15.

The proposed changes have been the subject of discussion on social media, with some users voicing concerns over provisions relating to the use of private property for infrastructure such as telecom towers.

TTAP spokesperson Akhunzada Hussain Ahmad Yousufzai said the bill — presented in Senate for final approval after passage through the cabinet and National Assembly — was stopped due to the “timely intervention by the Senate committee chairperson, who objected to the anti-people legislation”.

He alleged that the bill would have enabled telecom operators to legally install cellphone towers on private properties anywhere in Pakistan.

“The private owner of the property would have no right to object to it, and if the property owner refused to comply, the owner would have been punished with a fine of Rs50 million regardless of the value of the property,” he claimed.

“We oppose this draconian law as it breaches the fundamental right of the citizen as envisaged in our constitution. It restricts constitutional property rights and it encroaches upon the privacy of a citizen,” he said.

Yousufzai claimed that bill was initiated and passed by the NA without any of the meaningful consultation required for such important legislation.

The TTAP spokesperson alleged that the IT minister had accepted a misstep in proceeding without proper scrutiny of the bill, adding that the move “clearly demonstrates the incompetence, unprofessionalism and total indifference given to matters directly affecting the people of Pakistan”.

He claimed that some journalists had also raised concerns of corruption involved in the matter, insisting that the issue was too serious to be ignored.

“TTAP therefore demands that the prime minister should immediately remove the IT minister,” he said.

Additionally, the spokesperson highlighted that PM Shehbaz’s decision to set up an inquiry committee to review the proposed legislation was “in itself an acknowledgment of the poor legislation”.

He noted that the committee consisted only of government representatives, and insisted that “in order to ensure impartiality, the committee should include members from the opposition as well”.

Concerns about the intentions behind the amendment have intensified due to the timing of the government’s attempt to secure its passage through both houses of parliament.

The bill to amend the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act of 1996 proposes redefining some terms, replacing Section 27A on Right of Way (ROW), and inserting a Section 27B about its enforcement.

‘Right of Way’ itself — previously defined under Section 2qb as simply a right to “pass over land or property of other person to provide telecom licence services” — becomes ‘access by licensee for telecommunication infrastructure’.

Notably, the new definition introduces the right to enter or use premises, rather than simply passing over the land.

However, the IT ministry on Saturday stated that the new ROW provisions in the bill “do not permit telecom operators to enter individual private property without the owner’s permission or due legal process, and do not authorise compulsory acquisition of private land”.

It stressed that the ROW provisions are “designed to accelerate telecom infrastructure deployment, improve connectivity for citizens, and establish a transparent legal framework while fully safeguarding private property rights”.

The IT ministry asserted that the proposed amendments aim to address challenges hindering fiberisation and investment in telecom infrastructure. It drove home the importance of the latter in the wake of the recent 5G spectrum auction earlier this year, in which 480 megahertz were sold for $507 million.

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