Five people were killed and 15 others injured on Saturday when a bomb went off near a secular political party's election office in Karachi, hours after thousands of Pakistanis began voting in a landmark general election. The blast occurred near an election office of the Awami National Party in Landhi area of Karachi.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday clinched a stunning hat-trick win in Haryana overcoming anti-incumbency and dashing Congress' hopes of a comeback while the National Conference-Congress combine pulled off a spectacular victory in maiden elections in Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.
The Pakistan People's Party on Tuesday nominated 51-year-old Mirza, a medical graduate, and Faisal Karim Kundi as its candidates for the posts of speaker and deputy speaker respectively of the Lower House of Parliament. The two candidates are expected to win as the Pakistan People's Party and its allies -- Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Awami National Party and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam -- have a majority in the National Assembly.
Three new victors -- the Pakistan People's Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Awami National Party have shown their majority many days ago, but President Pervez Musharraf is playing delaying games and using secret agencies to break the majority party PPP from the PML faction of Nawaz Sharif.
Hafiz Saeed-backed Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek (AAT) had fielded 265 candidates -- including 13 women -- countrywide.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will be accompanied by ex-premier Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and several of his cabinet colleagues, including Interior Minister Rehman Malik, for his visit to Mohali on Wednesday to watch the World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan, a media report has said.
Bangladesh is in turmoil, which is not good news for India, which shares a porous 4000 km border with it. There is a danger of fundamentalism growing there, and India has to move in to reset its ties with the new dispensation before China and Pakistan make capital out of it, alerts Ramesh Menon.
A resolution introduced in Pakistan's parliament on Friday sought support for the beleaguered government, currently facing its worst crisis since coming to power nearly four years ago due to a standoff with the judiciary and the military.
A Pakistani parliamentarian has demanded that Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha should resign following the claims that he travelled to Arab countries to discuss a move to oust President Asif Ali Zardari.
As news of Hasina's departure spread, hundreds broke into Hasina's residence, vandalising and looting the interiors, providing dramatic expression to the anti-government protests that have killed more than 100 people in the last two days. At the centre of people anger is the Hasina government's controversial quota system reserving 30 per cent jobs for families of veterans who fought the 1971 liberation war. With volatile crowds taking to the streets -- some clambering on Hasina's father and Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's statue and smashing it with hammers in a lasting image underscoring the fickleness of history -- Army chief General Waqar-uz-Zaman announced that the 76-year-old prime minister has resigned.
Pressing for Musharraf's ouster, Mohammad Hasham Babar, the secretary general of the party which is a part of the Pakistan People's Party-led ruling coalition, said the president has destroyed almost all the institutions in the country, including the judiciary, during his dictatorship. He has to go out. We do not want him. Whether he goes out of the country or he is prosecuted in the country, there are only two options," Babar told PTI in Delhi.
Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh's interim government, has said that former prime minister Sheikh Hasina making political remarks from India is an 'unfriendly gesture', asserting that she must remain silent to prevent the discomfort to both countries until Dhaka requests her extradition.
Lashing out at Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, Rashid on Wednesday alleged that they have "destroyed" Kashmir.
A Bangladeshi court on Tuesday denied bail to prominent Hindu leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, arrested on alleged 'sedition' charges, and sent him to prison, amid protests by community members in the capital Dhaka and the port city of Chattogram.
In the first such meeting after his sudden return from Dubai, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari reviewed the political situation in Pakistan with premier Yousuf Raza Gilani, even as the government dismissed as "speculative" reports that he planned to travel to London.
The Awami National Party has threatened that if the Pakistani government executed the Kalabagh dam project, it would take up the matter with international agencies.
Violence and arson once again returned to Karachi with 11 persons being killed and 16 others injured following the murder of Awami National Party office bearer Ubaidullah Yousufzai.
A suicide bomber on Monday struck a political gathering of North Western Frontier Province's ruling Awami National Party to celebrate the renaming of the Pushtun dominated province as Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, killing 25 people and leaving nearly 100 others injured in Timergara in Lower Dir.The bomber detonated his lethal explosives at an open air gathering in the main town of insurgency-infested Lower Dir. Twenty five people were killed and nearly 100 others were injured.
At least 14 people were killed and 40 others injured on Saturday as violence flared up in Karachi in the run-up to a tense by-election in one of the most sensitive and ethnically divided areas of the city. The violence flared up after one of the contesting parties in the by-polls the Awami National Party announced it was boycotting the election.
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
'Everyone is unhappy with the lieutenant governor's administration, which is ignorant, high-handed, and inaccessible.'
A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud considered the pleas in chambers and dismissed applications for listing of the review petition in open Court.
Sheikh Hasina was on Thursday sworn in as the prime minister of Bangladesh for the fifth term, days after her Awami League won an overwhelming majority in the general elections boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies.
With the People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) scheduled to meet Tuesday, intra-party consultations in Jammu and Kashmir continued for a second day Monday to discuss the Centre's invitation for an all-party meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 24.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday secured a record fourth straight term as her Awami League party won two-thirds of the seats in the general elections marred by sporadic violence and a boycott by the main opposition BNP and its allies.
"I will not be contesting for the post of president any longer. The elections for the post will be held on December 5. It is time for the new generation to take over the responsibilities," Abdullah told PTI.
Several Hindu temples, households and businesses have been vandalised, and at least two Hindu leaders affiliated with former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party have been killed in the violence since Monday, when Hasina resigned and fled to India.
Masoodi said all the participants are against giving voting rights to non-locals as "it will be tantamount to the disenfranchisement of the local voters."
A bomb blast on Wednesday injured a provincial legislator and two others in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, which has witnessed a series of terror attacks in recent weeks.
A Pakistani legislator was killed in a suicide attack in the northwestern Swat valley on Tuesday. Details awaited.
Ten people were killed on Monday when militants attacked the home of a provincial legislator's brother in Pakistan's restive north-western Swat valley even as the government banned the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. Taliban militants fired a rocket at the home of the brother of Awami National Party legislator Waqar Ahmed Khan in Kabal sub-district, killing his brother, two nephews and seven security guards.
After decades of bloodbath in the name of jihad or holy war, terrorists are changing gear and indulging in qattal, an act by which they kill even their own people, a top Pakistan leader said. "Terrorists are now replacing the term jihad with the Islamic term qattal for their acts," Hasham Baber, additional secretary general of Pakistan's Awami National Party said.
Muhammad Yunus urged the people to "exercise patience" before judging his government's role.
The clashes broke out this morning when protesters attending a non-cooperation programme to demand the government's resignation faced opposition from the supporters of the Awami League, Chhatra League, and Jubo League activists.
He also said that there is improvement in the law and order situation in the country.
Asif Ali Zardari was overwhelmingly elected as the 14th President of Pakistan on Saturday, becoming the only civilian President of the coup-prone country for a second time.
While there are some new faces in the cabinet, leaders such as BJP president JP Nadda and Jual Oram have returned as ministers.
Nearly 650 people have been killed in the recent unrest in Bangladesh between July 16 and August 11, the United Nations Human Rights Office has said in a preliminary report, suggesting a thorough, impartial and transparent investigation into reports of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions.
Bangladesh descended into chaos on Monday as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina surreptitiously resigned and fled the country in a military aircraft while the Army stepped in to fill the power vacuum.
'The army has neither any role in the country's electoral process nor has it any desire to do so,' he said.
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