PPP unveils 10-point welfare agenda as Pakistan gears up for national elections
PPP unveils 10-point welfare agenda as Pakistan gears up for national elections/node/2432721/pakistan
PPP unveils 10-point welfare agenda as Pakistan gears up for national elections
Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (R) addresses a public meeting at a general elections 2024 campaign on the death anniversary of his mother and slain former Pakistan’s premier Benazir Bhutto in the Garhi Khuda Bakhsh village, Larkana on December 27, 2023. (AFP)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Wednesday unveiled a 10-point welfare agenda that he said would help address pressing issues of poverty, unemployment and inflation if his party is voted to power in the upcoming national elections.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is recognized as one of Pakistan’s major political parties and has been elected to power consistently in the country’s southern Sindh province since 2008. The PPP, which won general elections in 2008 following former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in a gun-and-bomb attack in 2007, has since then failed to make inroads into Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province, and as a result, form its government at the center.
Bhutto-Zardari, 35, will be leading his party once again in its bid to defeat rivals Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in its bid to win the national elections again, when polling is held on Feb.8.
“If you provide an opportunity to the Peoples Party, then there are around 10 things which I want to do,” Bhutto-Zardari told supporters gathered to pay homage to his mother, Benazir Bhutto, in southern Pakistan’s Larkana district on her 16th death anniversary.
“These 10 points will be my priority, and if we implement all these 10 points, we will be able to address issues like inflation, poverty, unemployment to some extent.”
چیئرمین پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی بلاول بھٹو زرداری کا قوم کے نام پیغام
پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی حکومت بناکر
۱: تنخواہوں میں دوگنا اضافہ
۲: غریب ترین عوام کو 300 یونٹ تک مفت بجلی کی فراہمی
۳: ہر اضلاع میں گرین پارکس بناکر کم قیمت پر بجلی کی فراہمی
۴: عالمی طرز کے تعلیمی ادارے
۵: مفت… pic.twitter.com/jnIdrnP4YL
The Bhutto scion said doubling salaries of government employees would be on top of his government’s priorities if the PPP is voted to power in the coming elections.
Bhutto-Zardari promised to provide free solar energy of up to 300 units for economically disadvantaged people, saying his government would set up green energy parks in each district of Pakistan. He said provision of education for all would also rank among his government’s top priorities.
The PPP leader vowed to provide masses with free health facilities across the country and promised to build three million houses for people affected by the 2022 floods in Sindh, as well as individuals facing economic hardships.
Bhutto-Zardari said his government would expand the scope of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), a federal unconditional cash transfer poverty reduction program that the PPP introduced in 2008.
He promised that if voted to power, the PPP would introduce a ‘Youth Card’ for unemployed youngsters and launch programs to tackle hunger and food insecurity in the country.
The PPP leader took aim at his political rivals, saying his party would give a “befitting response” to its adversaries, especially in Punjab’s provincial capital of Lahore, when the masses take to the ballot box on Feb. 8.
Political activity is heating up across the country as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) this week started scrutinizing thousands of nomination papers filed by candidates last week.
Returning officers will scrutinize the papers till Dec. 30 during which they would either accept or reject the nominations. The ECP will allot election symbols to candidates on Jan. 13, with polling set for Feb. 8.
ISLAMABAD: For Pakistani traveler and writer Shueyb Gandapur, visiting India was less a sightseeing trip and more a journey into long-held curiosity, layered with red tape and quiet moments of recognition. On one hand, it was a chance to walk through the stories his grandfather once told him about the place, but on the other, it meant checking in at police stations 10 times in 16 days.
The journey took place in 2017, when Gandapur, a chartered accountant who has traveled to over 100 countries, secured an Indian visa via an invitation arranged through personal contacts.
His experiences are now the subject of a newly released travelogue titled Coming Back: The Odyssey of a Pakistani Through India, published in January 2025 in the United Kingdom and now available in Pakistan.
An undated file photo of Pakistani traveler and writer Shueyb Gandapur in India. (AN Photo via Shueyb Gandapu)
“India visas are restrictive,” he told Independent Urdu in a recent interview. “They list only specific cities you can visit, and you have to report to a police station when you arrive in each one, and again when you leave.”
“During my 16-day stay, I went to police stations 10 times,” he continued. “They’d pull out an old register from a shelf and write down my details. I often wondered how many names had filled those pages, and whether anyone ever looked at them again.”
Cross-border travel between Pakistan and India is closely monitored, particularly in recent years as diplomatic ties have deteriorated. But Gandapur’s book avoids political commentary, focusing instead on moments of human connection and cultural echoes that defy national divides.
In New Delhi’s bustling Paranthe Wali Gali, he recalled, a waiter greeted him with a strangely familiar tone: “It’s been a long time since you came by.”
Gandapur had never been there before.
An undated file photo of Pakistani traveler and writer Shueyb Gandapur in India. (AN Photo via Shueyb Gandapu)
“It was my first time,” he said. “But the welcome felt like I was coming back to a place I’d once known.”
As he traveled through cities like Agra, Jaipur and Varanasi, Gandapur began to notice traces of a shared past, with old shops and streets bearing names from present-day Pakistan.
In the Indian capital, he found schools named after Dera Ismail Khan, his hometown. The local D.I. Khan community, he learned, still publishes newsletters and preserves its identity generations after the Partition.
His literary enthusiasm led him to the graves of Urdu greats like Mirza Ghalib and Qurratulain Hyder.
“I wanted to see how Urdu lives on in India and what Indians think of our poets and writers,” he said.
Perhaps the most surprising encounters came with Pashto-speaking Hindus, descendants of communities that once lived in Pakistan’s northwest but remained in India after 1947.
“They call themselves Hindu Pashtuns,” Gandapur said. “They’ve been largely forgotten by history, but they’re still holding on to their language, their stories and a sense of who they are.”
While Coming Back is framed as a personal narrative, it also reads as an invitation to look past borders and bureaucracy and notice what endures.
Gandapur said he hoped to return to India one day, with Lucknow, Hyderabad and Mumbai on his list.
“There’s so much still to explore,” he said. “To really understand the culture we share, one journey isn’t enough.”
ISLAMABAD: Two hundred Chinese firms took part in the Health, Engineering and Minerals Show (HEMS) hosted by Pakistan in April, sealing trade and investment deals worth $375 million, Pakistani state media reported on Wednesday.
The HEMS 2025 was held in the eastern city of Lahore from Apr. 17-19, bringing together many global delegates to spotlight Pakistan’s strengths in key industries. The expo featured a dedicated Mineral Investment Pavilion and aimed to boost international trade, investment and industrial growth.
Pakistan aims to increase its economic partnership with China, with whom it also enjoys cordial ties. Chinese companies are collaborating with local Pakistani firms to establish joint ventures, with Beijing focusing on tapping Pakistan’s vast natural resources.
“Representatives from more than 150 Chinese companies engaged in a series of business-to-business meetings across health care, engineering, minerals and mining, resulting in the signing of 29 memorandums of understanding, letters of intent and contracts worth over $375 million,” the Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) said in a report.
“Key agreements included a $60 million quartz stone export deal (with a $10 million investment component), a $45 million joint venture in medical device manufacturing and an $80 million technology transfer contract in electric vehicles.”
The statement said Chinese delegations led by Pakistan’s Ambassador to China Khalil Hashmi also expressed interest in salt, copper, fluorite, gemstones, information technology, real estate and the branding of Pakistani products.
The report said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hosted a dinner for 800 delegates from 50 countries, during which he praised Ambassador Hashmi and his team for facilitating the largest-ever Chinese business delegation’s to visit Pakistan.
Pakistan is home to one of the world’s largest porphyry copper-gold mineral zones, while the Reko Diq mine in southwestern Balochistan province has an estimated 5.9 billion tons of ore. Barrick Gold, which owns a 50 percent stake in the Reko Diq mines, considers them one of the world’s largest underdeveloped copper-gold areas, and their development is expected to have a significant impact on Pakistan’s struggling economy.
Earlier in April, Pakistan also hosted a minerals summit aimed at attracting foreign investment in the country’s mining sector. It saw participation from major international companies including Canada-based Barrick Gold and government officials from the United States, Saudi Arabia, China, Turkiye, the United Kingdom, Azerbaijan and other nations.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani foreign affairs and defense analysts on Wednesday condemned Indian media’s “warmongering” over the recent attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, warning that any military action by New Delhi would compel Pakistan to respond and hence, endanger regional peace.
Twenty-six people were gunned down at a tourist site in Indian-administered Kashmir on Tuesday afternoon. The attack took place in Pahalgam, a popular resort town in the Anantnag district, where armed men emerged from forest cover and opened fire on crowds of mostly domestic tourists.
India’s defense minister reacted to the region’s deadliest attack on non-combatants in decades, vowing a “loud and clear” response will be given to those who carried out the attacks as well as those who planned it, while Pakistan expressed concern at the attack. A little-known militant group, the “Kashmir Resistance,” claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message, saying more than 85,000 “outsiders” had been settled in the region after arriving as tourists, vowing violence against such settlers.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan since 1947, which they both claim fully but rule in part, and has been plagued by years of insurgent violence that New Delhi says is supported by Islamabad. Pakistan denies the accusations, saying it only provides diplomatic support to Kashmiris in their struggle for self-determination.
Such attacks have historically strained ties between India and Pakistan. In 2019, a suicide bombing in Pulwama killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel and triggered cross-border air strikes, pushing the neighbors to the brink of war.
“Placing blame on Pakistan in a knee-jerk reaction, without investigation or evidence, and even engaging in warmongering is truly unfortunate,” Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhary, a former Pakistani foreign secretary, told Arab News.
He said the best course of action for India would be to probe the incident dispassionately, adding that Pakistan may even cooperate with the investigation.
“But they don’t talk to Pakistan at all, I think that would help us all reach the actual perpetrators who must be punished,” Chaudhary said.
Pakistan’s foreign office, government officials and the defense ministry did not respond to Arab News’ requests for comment.
Meanwhile, geopolitical and defense analyst Lt. Gen. (retired) Ghulam Mustafa described the attack as a “false flag operation,” alleging it was deliberately planned at a time when US Vice President JD Vance was in India.
He criticized the Indian media’s coverage of the incident.
“India has to do something because they have created significant hype around this issue,” Mustafa said. “And now they must address it, likely through some form of action against Pakistan along the Line of Control.”
Former diplomat Masood Khalid said it was a pity that the Indian media was in a state of frenzy and was accusing Pakistan without evidence.
“With over 700,000 Indian troops present in IoK [Indian occupied Kashmir], one wonders how the militants could make an ingress deep inside the occupied territory,” he questioned.
Khalid hoped India would address the grievances of the people of Kashmir, saying that they were waging a struggle for their right to self-determination.
Dr. Qamar Cheema, executive director of the Sanober Institute, a think tank that focuses on issues in Pakistan and South Asia, said there is a possibility that India may further downgrade relations with Pakistan given the sensitivity of the situation.
“Indian media, often echoing government views, can shape public sentiment that justifies military action against Pakistan,” Cheema explained. “Especially as the Indian defense minister has already met with service chiefs.”
’WILL NOT TAKE IT LYING LOW’
Chaudhary said that if India launched an attack anywhere in Pakistan, it would be “most irresponsible.”
“I mean Pakistan has the capacity to defend itself and would not really take it lying low; therefore, they [India] must not get into this otherwise it can be very costly for this whole region,” he said.
Khalid agreed.
“On its part, Pakistan will be fully prepared to respond to any aggressive move by India,” he said.
A security official who spoke on condition of anonymity said India was diverting attention from the episode when the TRF had already claimed responsibility for the attack.
“Have the consequences of this hysteria been weighed? Pakistan, will not remain passive in the face of any action across its borders and the consequences will disturb regional peace,” he said.
KARACHI: The president of Pakistan’s top trade body said on Wednesday that sit-in protests blocking highways in the southern Sindh province for the past six days are inflicting daily losses of $2 million in demurrages on traders, disrupting the country’s supply chain and hampering its exports.
Lawyers, civil society activists and nationalist parties have staged sit-in protests at the National Highway in Sindh since Friday. Protesters are demanding the federal government reverse its ambitious project that aims to build six canals at Indus River. The move has triggered protests in Sindh, where nationalist parties believe the initiative would cause water shortages for the province.
Television footage shows thousands of vehicles and containers with perishable and non-perishable items stranded at various points in Sukkur, Khairpur and Larkana districts of Sindh where hundreds have blocked the highway. The protest entered its sixth day on Wednesday.
“The traders are incurring more than $2 million daily losses in demurrages,” President of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Atif Ikram Sheikh said in a statement.
The FPCCI president said over 12,000 vehicles, including 2,500 oil tankers, were unable to reach their destination due to road blockades on the highway.
Sheikh said Pakistan may lose more than $50 million because of a weeklong delay in the shipment of its textile and seafood exports to the European and Middle Eastern markets.
Abdul Aleem, chief executive of the Overseas Investor Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), said the protest has halted local trade and industrial activity. He said it has also paralyzed supply chains throughout the country, sending shockwaves to the national economy.
“Over 3,500 vehicles remain stranded near Sukkur, many carrying export consignments, perishable items, and critical industrial inputs,” Aleem said in a statement.
The OICCI represents more than 200 leading foreign investors and multinational firms operating in Pakistan.
The losses are a blow to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government, which says it is focused on getting rid of Pakistan’s prolonged macroeconomic crisis.
“Industries across provinces are facing shutdown risks due to raw materials stuck at Karachi Port, while exporters are missing delivery deadlines further damaging Pakistan’s credibility as a reliable trading partner and threatening future contracts,” Aleem explained.
Jawed Bilwani, president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), criticized the government for neglecting the canals issue, which he said had damaged the entire country’s economy.
He said the highway in Sindh was a key route through which shipments traveled to Afghanistan and Central Asian countries.
“All the import and export activities have come to a halt,” Bilwani said. “The gates of the seaports (in Karachi) have been shut.”
Bilwani said he would write a letter to PM Sharif to invite his attention to the crisis.
“Pakistan will go bankrupt is this situation persisted for a long time,” he said. “The country will plunge into a balance of payment crisis and goods worth billions of rupees would perish.”
Pakistan desperately wants to increase its foreign exchange reserves, which have dropped to $10.6 billion as per latest figures. The cash-strapped nation is mainly relying on the International Monetary Fund’s loan disbursement to ensure the repayment of its soaring external debt obligations, which amount to $26 billion this year.
Syed Nazir Abbas Zaidi of the Oil Companies Advisory Council (OCAC) said as many as 1,000 lorries carrying petroleum products for Sindh and Punjab provinces were stuck due to the protests.
“This may disturb the supply chain in peak harvesting season,” Zaidi told Arab News.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called a meeting of the National Security Committee today, Thursday, after New Delhi announced a raft of measures to downgrade its ties with the neighbor following a deadly militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The shooting, the deadliest attack on non-combatants in Kashmir in decades, occurred Tuesday afternoon in Pahalgam, a popular resort town in the Anantnag district, where armed men emerged from forest cover and opened fire on crowds of mostly domestic tourists. A little-known militant group, the “Kashmir Resistance,” claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. Indian security agencies say Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, is a front for Pakistan-based militant organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told a media briefing that the cross-border linkages of the attack had been “brought out” at a special meeting of the security cabinet, after which it decided to act against Pakistan.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has convened the meeting of the National Security Committee on Thursday morning … to respond to the Indian government’s statement,” Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said on X.
Among the measures announced by Misri was the suspension with immediate effect of the Indus Waters Treaty that allows for sharing the waters of the Indus river system between the two countries. The defense advisers in the Pakistani high commission in New Delhi were declared persona non grata and asked to leave within a week, Misri said, adding that the overall strength of the Indian high commission in Islamabad would be reduced to 30 from 55.
A main border crossing check post between the two countries would be closed immediately and Pakistani nationals would not be allowed to travel to India under special visas, Misri said.
“Pakistani nationals will not be permitted to travel to India under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme visas,” the Indian foreign secretary said.
“Any SVES visas issued in the past to Pakistani nationals are deemed canceled. Any Pakistani national currently in India under SVAS visa has 48 hours to leave India.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who cut short a state visit to Saudi Arabia after the attack, called it an “heinous act” and pledged justice against the perpetrators.
The Pakistan army has not yet responded to the Indian measures.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri addresses a media briefing in New Delhi, India, on April 23, 2025. (MEA India/YT/Screengrab)
“RECKLESS”
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1947, which both claim fully but rule in part, and has been plagued by years of insurgent violence that New Delhi says is supported by Islamabad. Pakistan denies the accusations, saying it only provides diplomatic support to Kashmiris in their struggle for self-determination.
Such attacks have historically strained ties between India and Pakistan. In 2019, a suicide bombing in Pulwama that killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel triggered cross-border air strikes, pushing the neighbors to the brink of war.
“It is not appropriate to vent anger over terrorism on Pakistan,” Deputy PM Dar told Pakistan’s Geo News in an interview, saying the foreign office would present its recommendations at the national security meeting on how to respond to India’s measures.
“India has a habit of shifting the blame for its own problems onto Pakistan. If India has any evidence instead of mere accusations, it should present it,” he added, promising that Pakistan would give a “fitting response” to New Delhi’s actions.
Minister for Power Awais Leghari called India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty “reckless” and an “act of water warfare, a cowardly, illegal move.”
The Indus Water Treaty is a 1960 agreement between India and Pakistan that divides the water of the Indus River system between the two countries. It allocates the eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej) to India for unrestricted use, and the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab) to Pakistan, giving them a larger share of the total water flow. The treaty, brokered by the World Bank, has been a crucial factor in maintaining peace and cooperation between the two nations despite political tensions.
The suspension removes current restrictions, allowing India more freedom to control water flows from the western rivers.
“Every drop is ours by right, and we will defend it with full force, legally, politically, and globally,” Leghari said on the Indus Waters Treaty’s suspension.
HISTORY OF CONFLICT
A violent separatist insurgency has simmered in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir since the late 1980s, although militant violence had declined in recent years.
After partition of the subcontinent in 1947, Kashmir was expected to go to Pakistan, as other Muslim majority regions did. Its Hindu ruler wanted to stay independent but, faced with an invasion by Muslim tribesmen from Pakistan, acceded to India in October 1947 in return for help against the invaders.
Kashmir ended up divided among Hindu-majority India, which governs the Kashmir Valley, Jammu, and Ladakh; Muslim-majority Pakistan, which controls Azad Kashmir (“Free Kashmir“) and the Northern Areas, and China, which holds Aksai Chin.
Indian-administered Kashmir has a population of around 7 million, of whom nearly 70 percent are Muslim.
Article 370 of the Indian constitution which provided for partial autonomy for Jammu & Kashmir was drafted in 1947 by the then prime minister of the state, Sheikh Abdullah, and accepted by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Although intended as temporary, it was included in India’s Constitution in 1949 by the constituent assembly.
In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in a move it said would better integrate the region with the rest of the country. The state was reorganized into two federally administered union territories- Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Pakistan strongly objected, downgrading diplomatic ties with India and cutting off trade.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence, two of them over Kashmir, in 1947 and 1965. A third in 1971 led to the creation of Bangladesh. In 1999, they clashed again in the Kargil region in what was described as an undeclared war. A UN-brokered ceasefire line, the Line of Control, now divides the region.
Many Muslims in Indian Kashmir have long resented what they see as heavy-handed rule by India. In 1989, an insurgency by Muslim separatists began. India poured troops into the region and tens of thousands of people have been killed.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants, which Islamabad denies, saying it offers only moral and diplomatic support.
Modi says his 2019 decision brought normalcy to Kashmir after decades of bloodshed. Violence has tapered off in recent years, according to Indian officials, with fewer large-scale attacks and rising tourist arrivals. Targeted killings of civilians and security forces, however, continued to be reported.
In 2024, Jammu and Kashmir held its first local elections since the 2019 revocation of autonomy. Several newly elected lawmakers urged a partial restoration of Article 370. Key regional parties had boycotted or criticized the polls, saying the winners would not get any real political power.
