August 29, 2023

Proposals finalised by ministry of energy to be presented in today’s cabinet meeting n Info minister Murtaza Solangi says interim govt will explore ways to pass on relief to public without violating IMF programme n Lahore traders demand cut in power tariff n Jamaat-e-Islami announces nationwide strike on September 2. ISLAMABAD/KARACHI/LAHORE  –  A high-level meeting held at the Ministry of Energy where pro­posals were finalised on Monday on the issue of inflated electrici­ty bills. The protests against in­flated power bills spread to sever­al cities on Monday as the interim government is exploring options to provide some kind of relief to the electricity consumers without violating the conditions agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Citizens and traders shocked by inflated power bills took to the streets on Monday in several cities including Islamabad, Karachi, La­hore, Sargodha, Hafizabad, Vehari, Arifwala, Bahawalnagar, Hyder­abad, Gujrat, Multan, Chichawatni, Mandi Bahauddin, Rajanpur, Mu­zaffargarh, Pakpattan, Mansehra, Sahiwal, Rawalpindi, Lodhran and Sheikhupura. Information minister Murtaza Solangi said that the complete fo­cus of the government was on pro­viding relief to the masses in the electricity bills. “We are focus­ing on how to provide relief to the masses instead of looking into discussion that who is respon­sible for expensive electricity,” the minister said while talking to a private TV channel late Monday. He said the caretak­er government took the oath on August 17, and the con­sumers received inflated bills of the month of July. “These proposals will be presented in the federal cabinet meeting today (Tuesday) for a final de­cision, says a press release is­sued by the ministry on Mon­day. Also, Caretaker Minister for Information and Broad­casting Murtaza Solangi Mon­day said that the Ministry of Energy had finalised recom­mendations related to the in­flated electricity bills. Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar had tak­en notice of inflated electric­ity bills, Solangi said, adding, “We are responsible caretak­er government and cannot ig­nore the issue.” He said the is­sue would be taken up today by the federal cabinet which would explore the ways to pass on relief to the public without violating the Interna­tional Monetary Fund (IMF) programme. The minister re­solved that the cabinet would decide in favour of passing on the relief to the masses. He said the prime minister held a meeting with the rele­vant stakeholders on Monday as well. The media should in­form the masses about the reasons behind increase in electricity bills, he said while responding to a query. “Polit­ical temperature is already high in the country,” he said, stressing that there was no need to resort to debate that who was responsible for the bills. To another query, he said the caretaker govern­ment wanted to hold peace­ful and fair elections in col­laboration with all political parties as per the schedule of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The assis­tance to the electoral watch­dog would be provided by the government, he added. The ECP would decide about the tenure of the care­taker government, he said, adding the entire schedule of the delimitation exercise was uploaded on the watchdog’s website. In light of the deci­sions of the Council of Com­mon Interests, he said, the ECP issued its schedule under Article 51 of the Constitution. He said there was need to un­derstand difference between peaceful and violent protests. ‘SHUTTER DOWN STRIKE’ Hyderabad on Monday wit­nessed a shutter-down strike in various areas of the city, while shops remained closed in Market Tower, Sereghat, Shahi Bazar, Anaj Mandi, Ma­san Road, and Prince Road. The Chamber of Commerce announced a shutdown in a meeting of business organi­sations. Hundreds of people surrounded the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) office in Rawalpindi on Monday as protests trig­gered by inflated electricity bills continued in many parts of the country for the fourth day. The IESCO officials have called in the police for extra security as protesters shout­ed slogans against the electric utility company, demanding that the exorbitant charges be reduced or they would not pay their bills. Those attend­ing these demonstrations in­clude members of the civ­il society — both men and women — traders, farmers, and members of the legal and business fraternities. A similar situation was wit­nessed in Mansehra where all business centers across the district, including the city, re­mained closed. In other cities, protestors blocked main ar­teries, leading to traffic jams and disruptions. They held up placards and banners protest­ing what they term a “cruel” increase in the utility bill. “It was [already] difficult to af­ford two square meals a day, now where will we get money for extra electricity bill?” an elderly villager in Sargodha demanded during protests. A protestor in Bahawalpur lamented that his family had to sell their animals to pay off the bills last month, while women protesting in Multan asserted that they were al­ready struggling to make ends meet without the additional burden of power tariffs. NATIONWIDE STRIKE ON SEPTEMBER 2 In response to the Ja­maat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi’s call, over 100 protest demon­strations were staged in mar­kets across the city against the hike in power tariff. It was agreed in the joint hud­dle hosted by the JI for rep­resentatives of the civil so­ciety, lawyers, traders, labor unions, and other segments of the society that protests across the markets in the city will be staged on Monday. Meanwhile, JI Pakistan su­premo Sirajul Haq called for a nationwide strike on Septem­ber 2 against the electricity tariff hike. Earlier in the day, JI Karachi Ameer Engr Hafiz Naeemur Rehman addressed a protest demonstration held by traders at the Cooperative Market, Saddar in Karachi. Speaking on the occasion, he said that the ruling elite un­leashed a mafia named the K-Electric on Karachi to cone Karachiites. He further said that the KE itself was a de­faulter of Rs662 billion to the national grid alone. Similarly, the KE is a defaulter of heavy payments to several other or­ganizations. He said that the large scale protests across Karachi are a reflection of the future for the ruling regime. The caretaker government will have to reduce the elec­tricity tariff, eliminate the taxes and mitigate the infla­tion, he

France will ban schoolchildren from wearing abayas ahead of the upcoming academic year, the government has said, the latest in a series of contentious restrictions in the country on clothing associated with Muslims. French Education Minister Gabriel Attal said the long, robe-like garments often worn by Muslim women wouldn’t be permitted in the nation’s schools from the new term, which starts in September. “Schools of the Republic are built on very strong values and principles, especially laïcité,” he told TV network TF1 on Sunday, using a French term referring to the separation of state institutions and religions, but which some argue has been hijacked to justify anti-Islam positions. “For me, laïcité, when put in the framework of a school, is very clear: you enter a classroom and you must not be able to identify the religious identity of students just by looking at them,” Attal said. But the move was criticized by a number of opposition lawmakers. Danièle Obono, a prominent opposition politician, attacked the move as a “new Islamophobic campaign” on X, formerly known as Twitter. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left firebrand, who placed third in France’s 2022 presidential election, described his “sadness to see the return to school politically polarized by a new absurd entirely artificial religious war about a woman’s dress.” “When will there be civil peace and true secularism that unites instead of exasperating?” Mélenchon asked. France has pursued a series of controversial bans and restrictions on items of customarily Islamic dress in recent years, which have frequently drawn the ire of Muslim countries and international agencies. Last year lawmakers backed a ban on wearing the hijab and other “conspicuous religious symbols” in sports competitions. The amendment was proposed by the right-wing Les Républicains party, which argued the hijab could risk the safety of athletes wearing it while playing sports. France’s earlier ban on the niqab – full-face veils worn by some Muslim women – violated the human rights of those who wore it, the United Nations Human Rights Committee said in 2018. Muslim women are pictured in a shopping mall in Nanterre, France, in July. Romuald Meigneux/SIPA/Shutterstock “This type of policy stands in opposition to the liberal core of the 1905 Law on Separation of Church & State – a law we’ve been distorting and weaponizing since the ’90s,” Rim-Sarah Alouane, a French legal scholar and commentator, wrote of the latest abaya ban on X. “Such policies fuel the nation’s fractures,” she added. Attal was asked on TF1 whether guidelines on hijabs would be enforced in schools, but refrained from commenting on those garments, and instead continued to discuss abayas. Source:https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/28/europe/france-abayas-schools-ban-intl/index.html

Authorities in India have shut down a school days after footage of a teacher encouraging students to hit a Muslim pupil sparked outrage in the country. Tripta Tyagi, a teacher at the Neha Public School in Uttar Pradesh state’s Muzaffarnagar city, was heard asking other children to hit a Muslim child “harder” as he stood frozen before the class in tears. The teacher has been charged under several sections of India’s criminal code, and state officials told the Hindustan Times newspaper that the school has been shuttered temporarily, adding that they are seeking clarification its certification to function as an educational institute. The school in Uttar Pradesh, which is India’s most populated state, could still reopen once authorities clear the certification question, Shubham Shukla, an education official in Muzaffarnagar, told the outlet. “We have conducted an inquiry… We found that the school doesn’t meet the criteria of the department. We have issued a notice to the school to seal it and authorities are conducting an investigation to take further action. Notice has also been served to the teacher for hitting the child,” he told The Indian Express newspaper. “It’s an under-construction building and the teacher taught the students at her home,” one official told the outlet on the condition of anonymity. “There were no fans or lights for the children. There were no sections for classes 1 to 5. We have sealed it for now.” The official said the students, including the child of Muslim faith, would be given admission to a government school in Khabbupur village near Muzaffarnagar. “There is a government primary school in the village. Children who want to go there will be enrolled there. Students who wish to continue studying in the private school, can do so since they are already paying the fees. The formalities including transfer certificates (of the children) will be completed by the department so that the parents do not face any additional burden,” Mr Shukla was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. When Ms Tyagi’s family was approached for comment on the action by the authorities, they said they were “disturbed”, reported the Indian Express. However, in a separate video that later surfaced on social media, the teacher attempted to defend herself by saying that since she was disabled and could not get up to hit the child herself, she made her students do it. She said her actions did not have any religious bias. “I made a mistake by getting the child beaten up by the students. I am handicapped and could not get up,” Ms Tyagi said. She claimed the video of the incident was tampered with and only a portion of what she said was shown in it. But in another interview with Indian news channel NDTV, Ms Tyagi remained unapologetic about her actions, saying: “I am not ashamed. “I have served the people of this village as a teacher. They all are with me.” Defending her use of corporal punishment, Ms Tyagi said it was important to “control” the students at school. “This is how we tackle them,” she said. The teacher had previously dismissed the assault on the child as a “minor issue”. Local politicians on Saturday mediated a “compromise” between the family and the young boys at the centre of the incident. The father of the boy later told news channels there was no religious angle to the beatings, even though the teacher was heard in the video speaking about “Mohammedan (Muslim) children”. She told the police that what she meant was, that “the mothers of those Muslim children who do not pay attention to the studies of their wards, their academics get totally destroyed”, a senior official said. SOURCE:https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/muzaffarnagar-school-teacher-video-tripti-tyagi-b2400476.html