Prominent Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and his manager Maroof were charged in India. Rahat was questioned by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials (DRI) for allegedly carrying USD 1.24 lakh (about Rs 60 lakh) of undeclared foreign currency under the FEMA and Customs Act of India.
The singer was detained on February 13 at Indira Gandhi International Airport. Besides Rahat, his manager Maroof, owner of an event management company Chitresh Shrivastava, and two employees of Mumbai-based Foreign Exchange firm were detained and have been questioned at length about …

Regarding the issue of Raymond Davis, former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Wednesday said while he was the foreign minister the US national did not enjoy full diplomatic immunity. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Qureshi said the foreign office had briefed him on January 31 that Davis did not enjoy the blanket immunity that the US was claiming for him.
Qureshi said that after studying the Vienna Conventions of 1961 and 1963 and Pakistan’s Diplomatic Law of 1972, one could conclude that “the blanket immunity as being demanded …

A RESOLUTION passed at a full-court meeting calling for the reappointment of Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday and fresh appointment of Justice (retd) Rahmat Hussain Jafferi as ad hoc judges of the Supreme Court cannot in earnest be termed a welcome move. There are several points to consider here. First, Article 182 of the constitution as altered by the 19th Amendment clearly sets out the procedure for the appointment of ad hoc judges to the SC: “If … it is necessary to increase temporarily the number of Judges of the Supreme …

Hours after police in Lahore submitted a preliminary investigation report in a court accusing American national Raymond Davis of killing two Pakistanis on a street in Lahore on Jan 27, US President Barack Obama urged Pakistan to abide by the Vienna Convention, treat Davis as a diplomat and release him. President Obama, while insisting that Pakistan must not prosecute Mr Davis, said he also was concerned about the loss of Pakistani lives in the incident. “Obviously we’re concerned about the loss of life,” Mr Obama said at a Washington …

“Davis has an official business visa, so why argue …. ?” Fauzia Wahab

DRI released Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, a day after he was detained for possessing illegal foreign currency.

Famous Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan was detained at the IGI airport by revenue intelligence sleuths for allegedly carrying a huge amount of undeclared foreign currency. Khan, who is a hit Bollywood playback singer, arrived on a flight from Karachi and was intercepted by personnel from Directorate of Revenue Intelligence acting on some prior information, official sources said.
They said the singer was carrying a huge amount of foreign currency which he did not declare to the immigration authorities. Two other persons accompanying him have also been detained, the …

Indian forces fired on protesters hurling stones at them in Indian-administered Kashmir on Monday, killing three people and wounding at least 17 other demonstrators, police said. For the last three months, the mostly Muslim Kashmir region has been roiled by demonstrations and clashes between protesters opposed to Indian rule and government forces. The deaths bring to 68 the number of people killed in the civil unrest.
Three people, including a 17-year-old boy, were killed when Indian forces fired live ammunition to disperse protesters in Palhalan, a village north of Srinagar, said …

A nationwide fund raising campaign in the United Arab Emirates UAE Red Crescent under the slogan “Your Help” has so far raised more than 20 million dollars of aid for Pakistan flood victims over its first four days. The fund raising campaign will carry on until August 30, 2010.
It said a live TV fund raising campaign was being run on several Emirati television channels. Pakistan has a close ties with the oil-rich Emirates, where hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis live and work, mostly laborers.
For nearly a month, torrential monsoon …

The sheer magnitude of the disaster makes providing relief to flood victims a monumental task. The challenges confronting the state are considerable and have overwhelmed Pakistan’s already fragile infrastructure. Yet just worrying about the problems will not ease the sufferings: the issues have to be identified and effective solutions need to be found and implemented.
Take the example of conditions at relief camps across the country. The major challenge is the provision of food, shelter and medical care. But as reports have made clear, even the provision of these basic needs …