FAISALABAD: Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) on Saturday announced that it would launch new water supply and sewerage projects with financial assistant from the World Bank in Faisalabad. In this connection, a special Citizen Liaison Cell is being set up at the Wasa Office comprising representatives of Wasa Urban Unit, Punjab government and the civil society.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2013. 

QUETTA: The offices of the Election Commission in Balochistan will remain open during holidays. In a statement issued on Saturday, Provincial Election Commissioner Balochistan Sultan Bayazeed said that the commission has been utilising all available resources for ensuring smooth elections. He said that the offices would remain open during holidays in order to facilitate candidates to submit their applications. It said that candidates will also be able to file in their nomination papers on the weekends.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2013. 

QUETTA: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Balochistan president Nawab Sanaullah Zehri said on Saturday that there was no competition with BNP-M chief Akhtar Mengal for the position of chief minister in Balochistan. He stated this while addressing a press conference, during which Mir Faeq Ali Jamali announced to join the PML-N. “We wholeheartedly welcome Mengal on his return and his decision to contest the elections; however, top slot in Balochistan would go to a person purely on the basis of majority of the house,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2013. 

The event is being organised by Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) in collaboration with the Walkabout Films, a film production company of the country that focuses on extreme sports events, wildlife and natural heritage.

The event is a unique one as Heli-skiers from around the globe will be skiing in the Karakoram mountain range, said an official.

Briefing the media, Director General ISPR Major-General Asim Saleem Bajwa said that the purpose of the event was to showcase the spectacular beauty, challenging peaks and potential of extreme sports in Northern Areas of the country.

“The spin-off for the event is to restore mountain tourism for international tourists in Pakistan and also bring peace and stability in the region,” he said.

The skiers belong to six different countries including France, Canada, Russia, Serbia, Ireland and Switzerland.

Bajwa said that the skiing event would be organised every year on a regular basis. He also invited country’s youth to participate in the event.

Samyra Rashid, is the only Pakistani, who is going to ski with the team.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2013. 

For transport and communication sector, the committee approved Rs318.29 million for up-gradation of the 12 kilometre (km) Kotli-Palandri road, Rs251.108 million for improvement of the 25.57km patch of Lakarmandi to Paintra TehsilBarnala District Bhimber and Rs367 million for different link roads in Muzaffarabad Division.

The committee allocated Rs372 million for the four-megawatt (MW) Jari hydropower project, Rs227.85 million for the 1MW-Bheri Doba hydropower project, Rs399.78 million for the 3.2MW-Sharian hydropower project and Rs2.62 billion for the electrification of remaining areas of districts Havali, Hattian, Neelum, Bagh, Sudhnoti, Bhimber, Mirpur, Muzaffarabad and Poonch.

For the education sector the AJK govt approved Rs392.40 million. About Rs225.31million was approved for plantation of trees and wood production.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2013.

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ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Saturday relaxed the conditions of opening a new bank account for the prospective election candidates to justify the election expenditures within the announced limits.

According to a notification issued by the ECP on Saturday, the authority has decided that all the prospective candidates who would file nomination papers on March 31, 2013 can either provide the number of their existing account in any bank, if any, or open new bank account and provide that number to the Returning Officers concerned on the day of scrutiny of their nomination papers.

The statement added that the decision was taken after a number of prospective candidates called the ECP and told them that it was not possible to open new bank accounts on  March 31, 2013 given banks are closed on Sunday.

The candidates argued that since an account won’t be opened in time, they could not indicate an account number in the relevant column.

ECP Balochistan offices to open on holidays

The offices of Election Commission Balochistan will remain open in holidays.

In a statement issued here on Saturday, the Provincial Election Commissioner Balochistan Sultan Bayazeed said that offices would remain open in holidays in order to facilitate candidates to submit their nomination forms.

The candidates can also submit their nomination forms during weekly off days, he said.

KARACHI / ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan’s website was reportedly attacked by an Indian hacker on Friday. The website is currently down.

The attacker has defaced the home page and has possibly compromised its availability to visitors, according to a cyber expert.

The cyber attack on ECP’s website is being discussed across various internet forums with people complaining about being unable to visit the site. The attack came at a time when the traffic on the website increased ahead of the general elections.

As the cyber attack entered its second day on Saturday, the election commission decided to shift its website on another server, reported Geo News.

According to the report, the ECP has stated that all its data is secure despite the attack and the website would be restored after being shifted to another server. Sources also told Geo News that the nomination papers of candidates will be uploaded on the website within the next few days.

The hacker, who identified himself as NIGh7 F0x, seemed to have hacked the website first then defaced its homepage and eventually compromised its availability, according to Rafay Baloch, a professional white hat – the term used for hackers who, against quick paybacks, assist world’s leading websites against possible cyber attacks by exposing their vulnerabilities.

The availability of any site is usually compromised through a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack but this is too early to say if it was one, Baloch said. The other possibility could be the impact of the Spamhaus attack, the largest DDoS attack in the world’s history that has mainly affected North America and Europe and slowed down internet globally.

The Spamhaus attack could also compromise the availability of ECP’s website, Baloch said, because its host server is in the US.

The official government sites are at risk of such attacks because their host server PKNIC is vulnerable to basic-level cyber attacks, Baloch added. PKNIC is a shared registry system that manages the .pk domain name space (DNS) for Pakistani websites.

Indian black hats are targeting Pakistani websites almost on a daily basis with the Federal Investigation Agency being aware of the issue, according to Baloch.

Despite being attacked twice this year, PKNIC has not fixed those vulnerabilities, Baloch said.

ECP to shift website to new server

The Election Commission of Pakistan on Saturday acknowledged that its website had been hacked and said that it would be restored soon.

A spokesperson of ECP said that the authority has decided to shift its website on to another server and to employ enhanced security features.

“ECP’s website remained out of reach under a deliberate strategy to avoid loss of data and ensure security,” he said.

To a question, he said all the data of the Election Commission on the website was safe.

Nomination papers of the candidates would be uploaded on the website within next few days, he added.

The SPI for the week under review for the above mentioned group was recorded at 187.94 points against 187.02 points registered in the previous week, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

The SPI for combined groups was up by 0.49%; up from 191.97 points in the previous week to 192.17 points this week. Compared to the corresponding week last year, the SPI for combined groups inflated 6.13%.

During the week, average prices of indexed items changed as follows: 13 items registered a decrease, 17 items increased and 23 items’ prices remained unchanged.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2013.

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The new interface is designed with the principle of categorization of information and its presentation in a simple manner with the objective of maximum facilitation for the user and easy access to required information.

For the ease of taxpayers, and if someone is more comfortable with the earlier layout of information, FBR’s previous website is also accessible from the same portal. Taxpayers, stakeholders and general public are encouraged to give online feedback and suggestions through the same portal.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2013.

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ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has received nomination papers of 1,402 candidates from across the country so far. Of these, 203 have been scrutinised.

According to the ECP spokesperson, around 40 candidates, hailing from different political parties, have so far submitted their nomination papers for two constituencies of federal capital.

It is expected that more candidates will submit their nomination papers during the two days before the deadline expires.

The scrutiny cell established by ECP has completed the scrutiny of 203 nomination papers, says ECP spokesperson.

Besides ECP, the scrutiny cell consists of the representatives of National Database and Registration Authority, Federal Board of Revenue, State Bank of Pakistan and National Accountability Bureau.

The ECP has also set up 400 teams to monitor election expenses of candidates and parties.

Senior voters

Around 188,552 voters aged above 90 years, comprising 141,409 male and 87,143 female, are eligible to cast their votes in upcoming general elections.

According to the voters list compiled by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) till March 20, among the old-aged voters, who would use their right to vote, include some who are above 100 years of age. There are 3,844 people above the age of 100 who are eligible to vote. Of these, 1,852 are male and 1992 are female.