Michael Lohan has defended his daughter Lindsay Lohan’s “platonic” friendship with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman, reported The Independent.
According to editors at the New York Post’s tabloid Page Six, Lindsay was rumoured to have become close to Crown Prince, with the pair swapping regular texts and him flying the actor around in his private jet and showering her with presents — including a gift-wrapped credit card.
But according to dad Michael, while she does know the Saudi prince, he insisted their relationship is merely “platonic and respectful.”
“They are just friends, Lindsay has a lot of powerful friends in the Middle East, because she is huge out there,” he told the gossip column. “Lindsay met MBS (Mohammad bin Salman) because of the work she has been doing in the Middle East. She is working to help people in the region, particularly refugees,” he said. “Nobody writes about the good work Lindsay does in Syria, they just want to hear the bad stuff. She has a platonic and respectful relationship with MBS, nothing more.”
The Saudi crown prince stirred controversy after the murder of prominent Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. To this, Michael added, “None of that has proven to be true. Lindsay says he’s a good person. She feels safe, she has good people around her, and she knows how to conduct herself.”
His comments come after the Mean Girls star’s representative previously insisted to the publication that the pair met just once — at a Formula One Grand Prix race. The rep also denied that the prince gave her a credit card.
Dissident leaders from the Manipur state on Tuesday announced their separation from India claiming that they were speaking on behalf of Maharaja of Manipur High Highness the Leishemba Sanajaoba and announced the launch of an exiled government.
However, the question arises why did the leaders make the announcement. The state lies east of Myanmar, while on the north it is bordered by Indian state of Nagaland, Assam on the west and Mizoram on the south.
The formerly princely state had become part of India in 1949 after New Delhi gained independence, but the people of the state dispute the succession and have been waging a decades-long violent separatist campaign, reported Al Jazeera.
The last ruler of Manipur Bodhchandra Singh signed the instrument of accession after he feared that Burma (now Myanmar) will take over the state. This succession had been questioned by the people of Manipur.
Manipur, one of India's smallest states has a population of close to 2.8 million people. It is known as the one of the so-called "Seven Sisters" — a group of restive northeastern states.
According to India’s Centre for Development and Peace Studies, the emergence of the insurgency in Manipur traced to the emergence of the dissident group United National Liberation Front (UNLF) on November 24, 1964.
The reason for the insurgency was the forced merger of Manipur and the delay in the conferring of full-fledged statehood which was greatly resented by the people of Manipur.
Since then several other outfits, like the People's Liberation Army (PLA), founded on September 25, 1978, People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) set up on October 9, 1977 and the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) that came into being in April, 1980. All the groups have been demanding a separate independent Manipur.
According to the Indian think tank, these groups have a policy of not targeting the state police but have been fighting the Indian army and para-military troops in the region as they represent the Indian government.
As a response to the insurgency, Manipur has been declared a ‘disturbed area’ since 1980 and the Indian Armed Forces Special Power Act 1958 has been imposed in the state by the government. The people of the state continue to protest the use of such powers by the Indian government as it has led to many human rights violations in the state.
At a press conference in London on Tuesday, Chief Minister of Manipur State Council Yamben Biren and Minister of External Affairs and Defence of Manipur State Council Narengbam Samarjit announced to formally launch the exiled government – the Manipur State Council.
The exiled government will be based in Central London.
They produced a document showing that His Highness the Maharaja of Manipur had authorised them by the Order No. 12 of 2013 dated the March 15, 2013 to solve the political problems of the State of Manipur.
A study has revealed that the Indian brain on average is smaller in height, width and volume when compared to western and other eastern populations, reported The Times of India.
Researchers at the International Institute of Information Technology in the Indian city of Hyderabad created the first Indian Brain Atlas and revealed that the Indian brain is smaller compared to others – helping in early diagnosis of brain related illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s.
The Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) template used as the standard to study illnesses, was created using Caucasian brains. Researchers said that this template is not ideal to analyse brain differentiation in the Indian population.
“As Indian brains are smaller in size when compared to MNI, the difference in scans can look alarming and lead to misdiagnosis,” said a researcher, adding that the first-ever atlas created for the Indian brain involved 50 individuals.
She also noted that the differences are found even at the structural level, such as in the volume of the hippocampus.
She said her team is focusing on understanding the ageing process. “There are many changes that take place in a brain due to advancing age, with the most typical one being atrophy, shrinking of structures,” she said.
Pakistan and India signed the Kartarpur Corridor agreement at zero line, Pakistan-India Narowal border on Thursday.
"The corridor will be open from dawn to dusk. Pilgrims travelling in the morning will have to return on the same day," Dr Faisal said while addressing the media after the signing of the agreement.
“There will be a $20 per visitor per visit, as service charges. The corridor will be operational throughout the year,” Dr Faisal said, adding that the prime minister will inaugurate the corridor on November 9.
He added, India will send the list of pilgrims to Pakistan 10 days ahead of travel date, while pilgrims will be informed four days before the travel date.
The foreign office spokesperson added the signing of the agree
ment, despite many challenges indicates the resolve of Prime Minister Imran Khan to fulfill his commitment in line with the Islamic principles for respect of all religions and government's policy to promote interfaith harmony.
“It was difficult and tough negotiations with India given the history tense relations with the country,” Dr Faisal said.
Responding to a question, the spokesperson said Sikh pilgrims from other countries including Canada and European will also be facilitated to visit their sacred places in Pakistan.
He added elaborate security arrangements have also been put in place for the Yatrees.
According to details of the agreement between Islamabad and New Delhi, Indian pilgrims of all faiths and persons of Indian origin can use the corridor.\
Travel will be visa free; pilgrims need to carry only a valid passport. Persons of Indian origin need to carry Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card along with the passport of their country.
Furthermore, pilgrims will have a choice to visit as individuals or in groups
The inauguration of Kartarpur Corridor would coincide with the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of founder of Sikhism Baba Guru Nanak Sahib. "Pakistan is all set to open its doors to Sikhs from all across the globe," the PM wrote. "The world's largest Gurdwara will be visited by Sikhs from across India and other parts of the world," he said.
The prime minister said the Kartarpur Corridor will be a major religious hub for the Sikh community. "(It) will boost the local economy (and) result in earning foreign exchange for the country creating jobs in different sectors including travel and hospitality."
Pakistan handed the final draft of the proposed bilateral agreement over to India on October 11 and also accepted New Delhi’s demand to allow devotees of other faiths – Hindus, Christians, Zoroastrians etc – to visit Baba Guru Nanak Devji’s final resting place.
Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton are on a five-day visit to Pakistan these days. They arrived at the federal capital on Monday and since then are enjoying the tour to the country.
Last night, the royal couple attended a star-studded reception, held in their honour at the Pakistan Monument where a few of the Pakistani celebrities, including super stars Mahira Khan and Mehwish Hayat, and renowned singers Atif Aslam and Momina Mustehsin, were also present.
Mehwish Hayat was highly impressed by meeting with the royal personalities, especially Prince William as she said in a tweet about the memorable event.
“Was a real pleasure to meet with the royal visitors last night. William is a real life Prince Charming and was genuinely excited about being here. Hope that this visit helps show the world the real side of Pakistan and not what media has been showing," she stated in the tweet.
Jalila Haider, a Hazara woman from Pakistan, was on Wednesday named in the 100 women of 2019 list compiled by United Kingdom-based news outlet British Broadcasting Corporation.
Haider, who is a human rights lawyer, specialises in defending women's rights in Pakistan, and provides free legal services to women in poverty across the country.
She is also the founder of We the Humans, a non-profit organisation working with local communities to provide opportunities for vulnerable women and children.
According to the BBC, she is the first female lawyer from the Hazara community, and in 2018 she went on hunger strike demanding protection for her people.
Taking to social networking platform Twitter, Haider expressed profound joy at being being named in the list, and said it was an honour for her to represent Pakistan on the list.
"Wow, This is an honor for me that I am among the @BBC100women list 2019 from Paksitan. I want to congratulate Parveen Ahanger @_APDP also to be the among the list. More power to the brave women of Kashmir," she wrote on Twitter.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday went out for a stroll. However, the stroll turned into a strong PR strategy when a video of him collecting plastic bottles, plates and other garbage thrown on the beach went viral.
Clad in a black kurta-pajama, Modi was seen with a large plastic bag in hand during his early morning walk as he picked out plastic litter, water bottles strewn on the sands. The irony of it isn’t lost in us too.
Walking bare foot along the sea shore, he was seen picking up slippers from the sands normally given to guests staying at the five star property.
It became much worst, when Katie Hopkins decided to laud Modi for his ‘gentle heart of a giant leader’
Priya was 15 when a relative in Bangladesh tricked her with the promise of a dream job as a singer, drugged her, and trafficked her across the border into the sex trade in India.
After several failed attempts to escape the brothel in the eastern state of West Bengal where she was trapped for six years, Priya was rescued along with other girls from Bangladesh and India in a raid by police and anti-trafficking campaigners.
Heading home and pursuing her musical ambitions beckoned, or so she thought. But three years after her rescue, the prospects of making it back to her family appeared ever more distant.
For Priya, now 24, was one of about 180 Bangladeshi sex trafficking survivors stuck in shelters in West Bengal – with many having waited years for official clearance to go home due to complex and lengthy bureaucracy across the two countries.
“How long can I wait?”, said Priya, using her ‘brothel name’ to hide her identity for fear of being shamed in Bangladesh.
“Maybe I won’t go now even if they ask me to,” she said last month at a shelter, sitting in a room adorned with paper roses.
Victims wishing to return home must first gain approval from police, social workers, judges, border forces and bureaucrats at both state and federal level, a process that involves about 15 steps, analysis by the Thomson Reuters Foundation has revealed.
While the two nations are working towards faster returns, the long waits facing dozens of survivors could stymie their efforts to start life afresh back home and leave them vulnerable to being trafficked again, according to activists.
“Living in a shelter … can be traumatic,” said Tariqul Islam of Justice and Care, a charity that reintegrates victims in Bangladesh. “When they return after two years or more, it becomes hard for them to adjust to the changes and recover.”
“Traffickers often keep track of their victims even after they return home. When they notice that the girl does not have a job, or is finding it hard to adjust, they target her again.”
Thousands of Bangladeshis are trafficked to India each year – many of whom are sold into prostitution or domestic servitude – anti-slavery activists say, although official data is lacking.
In the last eight years, Bangladesh has brought home about 1,750 trafficking survivors from India, predominantly women and girls in West Bengal and the western state of Maharashtra.
However anti-slavery charities that help victims in India say most are kept in shelters for years – first awaiting the conclusion of court proceedings, then the repatriation process.
Justice is often slow and convictions are rare. One in four trafficking cases in India leads to conviction, while in Bangladesh, only 30 convictions have been secured under a 2012 law, with more than 4,000 cases still awaiting trial.
India and Bangladesh signed a partnership in 2015 to speed up repatriations, but how a victim is treated – whether it is their experience with the judiciary or the wait to go home – varies from one Indian state to another, according to activists.
A long-awaited deal aimed at streamlining the system is to be finalised soon, officials from the two governments said.
“At the moment it sometimes takes 18 to 22 months,” said Ferdousi Akhter, joint secretary with Bangladesh’s interior ministry. Yet charities say it can drag on for up to six years.
“A victim has to go through many layers to be repatriated from India,” Akhter added. “We are in talks to cut down these layers … victims can surely make faster returns.”
In a small house on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, mother-of-two Basiron remembered the call to say her missing daughters had been found in a brothel in India a year after they disappeared.
“When I heard the news, I screamed! I felt as though my heart was going to burst,” the 47-year-old single parent said.
The girls – now aged 16 and 17 – were rescued in 2017 from a brothel in West Bengal where they were held in one room, beaten, plied with drink and drugs until addicted, and repeatedly raped.
Two years on, they are still waiting to go home.
Former ‘untouchable’ Indian man attacked and detained by police after reporting wife’s gang-rape
Charges against the 16 people arrested in their trafficking case are yet to be filed in court, which refused them permission to return and testify from Bangladesh.
At a shelter for trafficking victims in a village in West Bengal, the two sisters showed off sketches of huts surrounded by trees and a river – their way of remembering home.
The younger girl, Neela, said she wanted to take out a loan and set up a beauty parlor when she finally returns home.
“The Indian girls who were rescued with us went back home in no time,” said Neela, whose right arm was covered with scars – evidence of self-harm during her time in the brothel.
“We feel happy for them. Maybe we too will go back one day.”
Basiron and her daughters stay in touch through occasional phone calls – they do not discuss the case but talk about meals and movies they have enjoyed – yet the mother is losing hope over their return and is increasingly worried for their safety.
“There are times when I see reports on the news about children getting kidnapped or killed … those nights are the hardest to sleep,” said Basiron, who works as a domestic helper.
“I haven’t seen them in three years. Not even a photo. I don’t know what they look like.”
West Bengal has a 21-week deadline for a rescued victim to be sent back home but it is rarely met, state officials said, due to lengthy court cases in India and the time it takes Bangladesh to confirm that a survivor is one of its citizens.
That is due to the high volume of cases, the fact that some victims do not share their home addresses for fear of reprisals against their families, and because relatives cannot always identify them easily after years apart.
To ensure faster returns, India has started sharing photos of victims with Bangladeshi officials over the past year, having previously just provided their name, sex and age.
Sitting at her desk, state government anti-trafficking consultant Madhumita Haldar showed two photos of a teenage Bangladeshi victim on her smartphone. In one she was wearing a headscarf, in the other her face was covered in garish make-up.
“But how is a parent supposed to recognise their child from this?” she asked, surrounded by victim case files stacked high.
More than 80 per cent of the 180 female trafficking victims in West Bengal waiting to go home still have not had their nationality verified by Bangladesh and some have been waiting for over a year, Haldar said.
A Bangladeshi officer who declined to be named said police never took more than six weeks to complete the process, despite some delays in verifying victims’ addresses.
Yet in one case, a teenage girl died of acute abdominal pain that shelter officials later linked to her withdrawal from alcohol and drugs as she waited for her repatriation order to be completed by Bangladesh, according to activist Tapoti Bhowmick.
“Within a day and a half (of her death), all the paperwork was completed and the clearances were in place,” said Bhowmick from Sanlaap, an anti-trafficking charity in West Bengal.
“Should these girls die to go back to their country?”
Priya’s story ends more happily.
Weeks after speaking to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the teenager returned to Bangladesh, having spent nearly nine years in India.
She is now in another shelter, being cared for by a charity, but is set to return to her family home in the coming weeks.
“It feels really good to finally return,” Priya said by phone from the shelter. “I have forgotten what my house looks like, but I know that I will be able to recognise once I see it.
“I just want to go home and see my family.”
Yashma Gill, after garnering much of the audience’s attention for being the star of the much talked about drama serial ‘Alif’, has stepped forth shedding light on her journey on how she returned to religion after losing faith.
During an interview with Samina Peerzada, the ‘Qurban’ actor opened up about how she renewed her faith in Islam after going through a rough patch with atheism.
“I used to over analyze everything, making sure not to offend anyone and being nice to everyone, but getting hurt myself regardless of that. It reached a point that I lost faith. I used to say to myself that ‘No, if there was someone up there then I wouldn’t be suffering so much’,” she said.
“When your iman (Faith) is weak, a veil falls shrouds your mind and, even if someone is answering your questions, you do not understand anything,” she added.
Treading ahead, she spoke about meeting a girl named Warda who turned her life around while Yashma was studying in Australia.
“She used to be a hijabi and when I saw her I thought that I am definitely not getting along with her because she is such a staunch Muslim, she will judge me. So I started ignoring her. But she was such a nice person, she never judged me. She understood me and my problems and started explaining things to me through my perspective,” she continued.
“She asked me to try one last thing to renew my faith, saying ‘Okay, just try this and, if your faith in God doesn’t return after this, then you can remain your atheist self’.”
Yashma Gill, the actor from 'Alif' opened up about how she renewed her faith in Islam after going through a rough patch.
“When Ramazan starts, you have to pray five times a day and fast regularly with all of your heart,’” she said, adding: “She asked me to pray and ask God to come closer to me and let me believe in him.”
She further explained how she took that up as a task and decided to give it her all, making sure she understood every verse she was reciting during the prayers.
She revealed further that she would jot down questions in her notes throughout the day and at the end, before going to sleep she would search for answers to those questions.
RELATED: Alif opens to massive applause racking up one million YouTube views within hours
“After doing everything and giving it my all, when the month was over, I went to Warda and told her that I gave my one hundred percent, but I haven’t received any revelations or any guidance whatsoever,” she said.
Merely two days later, at prayer time, she felt a missing piece in her routine. “There was some weird restlessness, this feeling of anxiety that used to happen to me and it started to come back.”
Yashma said she realised that during that one month of Ramazan, she had found her first job since she started living in Australia and also sorted out some family problems that had existed for a while.
“My life had become very happy and positive. But I hadn’t realised it at that time. I just kept on wondering what is missing. And then I realised that maybe all this time, the peace, the dependency, the happiness that I was in search of in other places, was actually over here,” she said.
“I went to Warda crying, and I told her how I was feeling. And then she told me that I should ask her about all the misunderstandings that I had at the back of my mind, and she explained all of that to me, giving references of a few lectures as well,” she further added.
“You won’t believe me but I used to never understand such things but for the first time, that day no contradictions to the answers I used to get before, came to my mind and I got this internal satisfaction.”
Yashma said that, while she was in search of sources to counter her depression and mental illnesses, the answer lay simply in trusting God.
Miley Cyrus has returned to the studio to record more music.
The 26-year-old singer admitted she feels "so f***ing inspired" at the moment, sparking speculation she is penning some break-up tunes following her split from Kaitlynn Carter, after a whirlwind six-week romance, and recent break-up with Liam Hemsworth after seven months of marriage.
Miley took to her Instagram Stories to share a picture of herself back in what appeared to be a recording studio and wrote: "Back in the yo! I am so f***ing inspired right now.
"Thank YOU. NEW MOON "
In May, 'The Climb' hitmaker released EP 'She Is Coming', which was due to be the first of three six-song EPs which would make up her seventh studio album 'She is Miley Cyrus'.
Teasing the first part of the project at the time, she wrote on Instagram: "SHE IS COMING 5/ 31 Pre Save now! Or live with regret for the rest of your existence"
But last month, it was claimed Miley had stepped back from the second and third releases for now to work on different tracks following her marriage break-up.
A source said: "Miley has been back in the studio recording new music because the other songs she had made are so far removed from who she is right now.
"A lot has changed in the past few months and it would be strange for her to release the EPs as they were.
"Now she's deciding whether to update the collections with new songs or to start something else."
Miley dropped her sixth studio album, 'Younger Now', in 2016.
No leader in Pakistan is so crazy for chair and power as Maulana is. However all te political leader try to come to power and hold key ministeries or PM ship but within some limits. But Fazal Rahman wants to be prime minister of Pakistan may be riding on the shoulders of Americans. Imran Khan did a minor mistake he should have given him any ministery without any task but full of perk privileges and protocol then Imran Khan would have been termed the greatest leader leader of the world by Maulana. Maula criticizes Khan that he has done nothing for Kashmir, there is something in human being called consciuus but maula has daed one. What Khan has done for Kasmiris with a month or so no leader of Pakistan could do within 70 years. Bilawal Zardari has aleady termed it an undemocratic protest. Shahbaz Sharif is not joining his march. Because all know this march is only for maulana;s personal benefits. All leaders know the nature of maulana. However. march has crashed before its forward step. Fazal Sahib, fear Allah, you are qualified religious scholar, no religious scolar os so hungry for power as you are.
A video clarification by a provincial minister over his controversial remarks about the doctors’ community of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has failed to soothe frayed tempers as doctors observed what they called ‘Pakora day’ on Wednesday.
Doctors, who are already on warpath with the provincial government over a new piece of legislation, shared on social media photos showing them eating Pakoras at their hospitals and clinics.
The novel protest came two days after Shaukat Yousafzai, the provincial information minister, apparently tried to belittle the doctors, who are boycotting duties at state-run hospitals.
We gave jobs to doctors, now they refuse to work: PTI K-P minister
“Doctors and engineers used to be jobless in the past and would sell Pakoras in Khyber Bazaar. It was the PTI government which gave them jobs,” the minister said at a news conference.
“Look, the credit of recruiting so many doctors also goes to PTI… before [our government] all were jobless. Weren’t they all used to sell Pakoras… don’t you know this? Weren’t they used to sell Pakoras in Khyber Bazar… engineers, doctors! By the grace of Almighty we gave jobs to four to five thousand doctors in one go after coming to power,” he can be heard saying in a video clip that went viral on social media.
The minister’s ‘Pakora slur’ triggered outrage among doctors who heaped scorn on Yousafzai on social media. Unnerved by the backlash, the minister later tried to clarify his statement in a video message on social media.
“I never wanted to disrespect doctors as they are extremely respectable to me. I call them ‘cream of the nation’ and my own son is doctor,” he said in the video statement posted on his Facebook wall.
Yousafzai said he was talking about unemployment of doctors, who used to sell Pakoras in protest and even burned their degrees at Khyber Bazaar. “I was talking in this context, but unfortunately a section of media presented my statement as if I wanted to insult doctors. This isn’t the case at all,” he said.
Opposition leaders also took strong exception to the minister’s remarks. Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Nighat Orakzai said the statement reflected Yousafzai’s myopic views. “The statement against doctors is a sign of his arrogance, which will soon be over,” she said. The lawmaker also demanded an apology from the minister.
The provincial government and the medical fraternity are at odds after Friday’s violent incident outside the Lady Reading Hospital.
Doctors were protesting against a new piece of legislation which, they apprehend, will give the authorities the power to dismiss medical practitioners with the stroke of a pen.
In a violent response, police roughed up and rounded up the protesting doctors and paramedics.
In a sign of deepening trouble, the medical community announced it will extend its strike across the province’s state-run hospitals while authorities in Peshawar shifted 15 doctors and paramedics it had arrested on Friday to Mardan Central Jail for one month.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) governor is quite hopeful that the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme will be the last one and Pakistan will not need to go back to the lender in future.
The recent structural reforms implemented under commitments made with the IMF had started providing much-needed support to the economy to enable it to stand on its own feet, he said.
“The goal is to have… foreign exchange reserves that are sufficiently high and with that we will not go back to the IMF for another programme,” Reza Baqir said at a lecture on “Pakistan Economy: Macroeconomic Challenges and Outlook” at IBA University of Karachi on Monday.
Talking about the economic outlook, he questioned whether “this will be the last IMF programme” and explained, “how Pakistan should not go back to the IMF after this programme.” Baqir said maintaining high reserves remained the most crucial challenge to the economy to get rid of the IMF in the future. The reforms introduced to determine the rupee-dollar exchange rate would help in maintaining the reserves at an optimal level, he added.
“Yes, we entrenched a market-based exchange rate system, which means the rate will be determined by the supply and demand (of dollars in the market)… which is perhaps one of the key institutional changes that have happened in the reform process,” he said.
Earlier, the central bank had control over the rupee-dollar exchange rate. It used to fix the rate but the practice caused depletion in the country’s foreign currency reserves almost every time after Islamabad completed the IMF loan programme since 1995. This forced Pakistan to return to the Fund time and again, he said. The central bank still has the option to intervene in the market to control exchange rate in case it finds market participants are involved in manipulating the market-based exchange rate.
He said the massive rupee devaluation of around 52% since December 2017 to Rs160.05 to the US dollar on June 30, 2019, had started reviving exports, mainly in volumetric terms. “The competition authority in the country needs to play its role to encourage local firms to become competitive at the global level in order to further increase the exports,” he said.
The demand and supply-based rupee-dollar exchange system have also helped in improving foreign currency reserves and helped the rupee recover 2.43% to Rs156.17 on Friday (September 27) compared to Rs160.05 on June 30.
The new system, among other measures, also caused a meaningful reduction in the current account deficit to around $650 million a month in the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year 2019-20 compared to $2 billion a month in FY18 and around $1 billion a month in FY19.
The end of volatility and return of stability to the exchange rate also invited renewed portfolio investment in debt and stock markets in the first two months of FY20, the SBP governor noted. The significant adjustment in the rupee against the dollar in the past two years, however, caused high inflation in the economy. The situation prompted the monetary policy committee of the central bank to increase the key interest rate to counter inflationary pressure.
The SBP committee increased the policy rate by 7.5% in a series of monetary policy statements since January 2018 to an eight-year high at 13.25%.
Baqir highlighted three key elements for running the economy independently, going forward. He talked extensively about having sufficiently high foreign currency reserves among the three to permanently quit the IMF.
“Whether this programme will be different from others is to answer the question of whether the reserves’ accumulation…will be the one that remains firmer,” he said.
The two other elements to avoid the IMF included maintaining the “fiscal discipline” through zero government borrowing from the central bank and raising domestic saving and investment rates. Government borrowing from the central bank causes inflation. The latest 39-month-long IMF loan programme formally started in July, when the lender released the first tranche of $991.4 million (SDR 716 million) of the total loan programme of $6 billion.
Baqir, who resigned from the IMF and joined the State Bank in May, once again reiterated that the country opted for the best available option by going back to the IMF in the recent past with the objective of improving its capacity to make international payments mainly in two areas – imports and debt repayment.
There is also a great need to increase the number of tax return filers and increase revenue collection.
