ISLAMABAD, Mar 4: Shehbaz Sharif on March 4 took the oath as Prime Minister of Pakistan, taking over the country’s reins for a second time since 2022, amidst staggering economic and security challenges.
President Arif Alvi administered the oath to the 72-year-old Mr. Shehbaz in a ceremony held at the Aiwan-i-Sadr, the presidential palace.
The ceremony was attended by the three services chiefs, senior officials, diplomats, leading business people, members of the civil society and media organisations. The caretaker premier Anwaarul Haq Kakar was also present.
The brief ceremony began with the recitation of the Holy Quran, followed by the oath-taking.
The ceremony was attended by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and other PML-N workers and Sindh chief minister Murad Ali Shah was also present on the occasion.
Mr. Shehbaz earlier served as Prime Minister of a coalition government from April 2022 to August 2023 before Parliament was dissolved to hold general elections last month.
The oath-taking ceremony comes days after the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Peoples Party agreed on a power-sharing deal to form a coalition government.
On Sunday, Mr. Shehbaz comfortably won a majority in the newly-elected Parliament amidst sloganeering by the Opposition.
Mr. Shehbaz, the consensus candidate of the PML-N and the PPP, received 201 votes in the 336-member Parliament. His challenger Omar Ayub Khan of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) secured 92 votes.
Mar 02,2024: Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, alleging the start-up betrayed its original promise of working to benefit humanity when it forged a multibillion-dollar alliance with Microsoft.
The lawsuit filed in San Francisco on Thursday said Altman and OpenAI’s co-founder Greg Brockman had initially pledged to make an open-source, non-profit company, and that its pursuit of profit constituted a breach of contract.
The company had kept the design of GPT-4, its most advanced AI model, “a complete secret”, said Musk’s lawyers.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but stepped down from its board in 2018. He also runs electric vehicle maker Tesla and rocket maker SpaceX, and bought Twitter for $44bn in October 2022.
Last year, entrepreneur Altman was fired by OpenAI’s former board which said it was trying to defend the company’s mission to develop AI that benefits humanity. A few days later, Altman returned to the company with a new initial board.
OpenAI is reportedly planning to appoint several new board members in March.
OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, became the fastest-growing software application in the world within six months of its launch in November 2022.
It also sparked the launch of rival chatbots from Microsoft, Alphabet and a bevvy of start-ups that tapped the hype to secure billions in funding.
New Delhi, February 29,2024: The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the proposal for Nutrient Based Subsidy rates for Kharif season 2024 on Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) fertilizers and inclusion of three new fertilizer grades under NBS scheme.
The tentative budgetary requirement for Kharif season (from April 1 to September 30) 2024 would be approximately Rs 24,420 crore.
Briefing about decisions of the union cabinet, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said availability of fertilizers to farmers at subsidized, affordable and reasonable prices will be ensured.
He said inclusion of three new grades in NBS will support in promoting balanced soil health and offer alternatives to the framers to choose fertilizers fortified with micro-nutrients as per the soil requirement.
The subsidy on P&K fertilizers will be provided based on approved rates for Kharif 2024 to ensure smooth availability of these fertilizers to the farmers at affordable prices.
The release said the government is making available 25 grades of P&K fertilizers to farmers at subsidized prices through fertilizer manufacturers or importers.
The subsidy on P&K fertilizers is governed by NBS Scheme with effect from April 1, 2010.
AMALLAH, Feb 27,2024: Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced his resignation on Monday, as the Palestinian Authority looks to build support for an expanded role following Israel’s war against the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.
The move comes amid growing U.S. pressure on President Mahmoud Abbas to shake up the Authority as international efforts intensify to stop the fighting in Gaza and begin work on a political structure to govern the enclave after the war.
Abbas accepted Shtayyeh’s resignation and asked him to stay on as caretaker until a permanent replacement is appointed.
The Palestinian Authority, created about 30 years ago as part of the interim Oslo peace accords, has been badly undermined by accusations of ineffectiveness and corruption and the prime minister holds little effective power.
But Shtayyeh’s departure marks a symbolic shift that underlines Abbas’ determination to ensure the Authority maintains its claim to leadership as international pressure grows for a revival of efforts to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Guwahati, Feb 24,2024: Assam cabinet on Friday decided to repeal an 89-year-old legislation involving the registration of marriages and divorces by Muslims residing in the state.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma chaired the meeting at Lok Sewa Bhawan in Dispur.
“This act contained provisions allowing marriage registration even if the bride and groom had not reached the legal ages of 18 and 21, as required by law. This move marks another significant step towards prohibiting child marriages in Assam.” Himanta Biswa Sarma said on X.
“District Commissioners and District Registrars will be authorised to take custody of registration records currently in the custody of 94 Muslim Marriage Registrars on repeal of the legislation under overall supervision, guidance, and control of the Inspector General of Registration, Assam, he added.
Cabinet approved the Assam Official Language (Amendment) Bill, 2024, to recognise Manipuri as an Associate Official Language in four districts of the state: Cachar, Karimganj, Hailakandi, and Hojai.
Cabinet approved guidelines for Mukhyamantri Mahila Udyamita Abhiyan-Nogoria, to be implemented by the Assam State Urban Livelihood Mission Society in phases for the promotion of women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) members as urban women entrepreneurs.
Cabinet sanctioned Rs 274 crore for infrastructure projects under the Assam Infrastructure Financing Authority (AIFA), out of the total allocated budget for FY 2023–24.
BEIJING, Feb 22,2024: As the annual meeting of China’s parliament approaches next month, its leaders are facing the greatest pressure in almost a decade to take bold policy decisions that safeguard the economy’s long-term growth potential.
The start of the year saw Chinese stocks tumbling to five-year lows on growth concerns and deflation deepening to levels unseen since the global financial crisis, prompting comparisons with the 2015 turmoil that forced policymakers into action.
“The last time the Chinese leadership faced this kind of pressure was in 2015,” said Tommy Wu, a senior China economist at Commerzbank, who added, “2024 is a crucial year for China to stabilize the economy.
“However, the current situation is a lot more complicated.”
China overcame the 2015 crisis by devaluing the yuan and tightening its capital account to prevent outflows, while pouring resources into property and infrastructure, and slashing interest rates by more than 100 basis points.
But that policy ammunition is now spent, bent or broken, limiting its options to fix a stuttering economy and find a way out of what threatens to become a self-feeding downward spiral in consumer and investor confidence and economic growth.
The property market has been in free fall since 2021 because of a series of defaults among developers after years of overleveraged, bad investments. Infrastructure spending is difficult to sustain because of high levels of local government debt.
China’s debt was 3 times the GDP in 2022
Further monetary policy easing risks a run on yuan assets due to a yawning interest rate gap with other economies and could exacerbate deflationary pressures as cheap credit flows into China’s industrial complex, ridden with overcapacity.
As China’s rubber stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), begins its annual meeting on March 5, there has been no indication of major stimulus or a grand reform plan in the making.
“It is widely underappreciated how constrained Beijing is at this point, in terms of options to stimulate the economy via fiscal policy, or through more rapid credit growth from banks,” said Logan Wright, a partner at Rhodium Group.
“There will be no policy bazookas unveiled at the NPC, in part because China has no good options to maintain growth via its traditional channels.”
China economy
‘STUCK BY CHOICE’
Fleeing investors have expressed frustration that authorities have not unveiled a clear roadmap to fixing structural issues laid bare last year when the Chinese economy failed to replicate the explosive recovery experienced by other economies after COVID-19.
Markets want clear, long-term plans for cleaning up the property sector, restructuring municipal debt, and switching to a more sustainable growth model that relies less on debt-fuelled investment excesses and more on household consumption.
The NPC is not the traditional venue for Chinese leaders to declare momentous policy shifts, which are usually reserved for events known as plenums, held by the ruling Communist Party between its once-every-five-year congresses.
One such plenum was initially expected in the final months of 2023, and while the meeting could still take place in the near future, the fact that it has not yet been scheduled has deepened investor concerns over policy inaction.
At the NPC, Premier Li Qiang is expected to deliver his annual work report and set the year’s economic targets, including steady growth for 2024 at around 5%, and a budget deficit of 3% of gross domestic product.
But setting a target similar to last year’s without new policies to redirect resources from infrastructure and manufacturing investment to households runs the risk of hurting confidence, rather than boosting it, analysts say.
Fathom Consulting estimates that every additional 10 yuan invested in the Chinese economy today generates 0.2 yuan in output, down from 2.1 yuan in 2002.
On the demand front, consumer confidence languishes at record lows more than a year after China ended its COVID lockdowns.