Day: November 3, 2021

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Pakistan Railway in Negotiation With China for Another Loan Under CPEC

Pakistan Railways on Wednesday revealed that negotiation for a Chinese loan for the ML-I project under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is in progress and the tentative date for the groundbreaking of package-I of the project would be July 2022.

The 24th meeting of the Standing Committee on Railways was held under the chairmanship of MNA Muhammad Mueen Wattoo.

The Committee slammed the Railways department, saying there was no ground progress on the project. Railways informed the Committee at the beginning of 2020 that the Chinese loan has been approved and the groundbreaking of the project would be launched, however, it never took place, the Committee lamented.

The Chief Executive Officer informed the Committee that all the technical issues related to the ML-I project have been settled. Preliminary design of the project and tender documents of package-I for the hiring of the contractor are ready. He briefed that negotiation for a Chinese loan about package-I is in progress and it will be finalized in December 2021. The tentative time for the groundbreaking of package-I of the project would be July 2022.

The CEO informed that CCTV cameras are installed to watch the auction process and weighing of auction material for the contractor. He informed that Committee can be invited to observe the auction process as and when the auction tender is floated by Pakistan Railways. The Committee agreed to nominate one or two Members to look into the auction process. Later, the Committee discussed the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project.

The meeting was attended by Muhammad Basheer Khan, Sheikh Rashid Shafique, Aftab Jehangir, Nusrat Wahid, Engr. Sabir Hussain Kaim Khani, Ch. Muhammad Hamid Hameed, Muhammad Khan Daha, and Abdul Wasay. The senior officers from the Ministry of Railways, Pakistan Railways, and Railways Police were also present in the meeting.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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WhatsApp May Increase the Time Limit for Deleting Messages for Everyone

WhatsApp has been working on major features for the chatting app for a long time, but there may be some quality of life changes coming soon. The latest beta version of WhatsApp reveals that we may get a new feature for user convenience.

According to the latest report from WABetaInfo, WhatsApp may increase the time window you have for deleting messages for everyone. Currently, you can only delete messages for everyone in a chat within a limited time frame, but this limit may be extended soon.

The screenshot from WABetaInfo shows that a message from more than two months ago is still deletable, which is something you couldn’t do before. It is unclear how long the new time limit for deleting messages will be, but it will certainly be longer than two months.

It is also possible that WhatsApp is completely removing the time limit, but that seems unlikely. We will have to wait and see until the stable update is released. It is also unclear whether messages before the update will be deletable or only the ones after it.

Speaking of the update, it will likely be released soon as it is a small feature only, unlike multi-device support which has been in the works for ages. It will roll out to beta testers first before becoming public.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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Tiktok Ban to Remain Intact: PTA

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) would consider withdrawing the ban on TikTok in Pakistan if the social media application develops an acceptable mechanism for content moderation in line with local laws and societal norms.

This was revealed by senior government officials while talking to a correspondent here on Wednesday. The officials confirmed that the ban on Tik Tok would remain intact till the video-sharing platform comes up with an acceptable solution for content moderation.

TikTok Head of Public Policy-Emerging Markets and Head of Global CSR, Helena Lersch, along with her team visited PTA Headquarters. The team held a detailed meeting with Chairman PTA in order to have meaningful engagement with PTA with respect to content moderation in line with local laws and societal norms. Sources said that PTA conveyed its concerns while observing that with rapid spread, the violations of local norms and laws of the land was increasing.

During the meeting, TikTok senior representative highlighted various initiatives being taken along with future strategy and investment in the local market for ensuring safe, productive, informative, and legitimate content to Pakistani users.

Chairman PTA, while acknowledging the efforts of TikTok, assured to continue engagement with TikTok to reach a mutually acceptable mechanism for the provision of safe, lawful, and productive internet experience to the users in Pakistan.

Sources said that the visit was due for the last over one year but delayed due to COVID-19 and some other matters, however, PTA appreciated the TikTok leadership visit to Pakistan and discussed the outstanding matters.

The video-sharing platform is currently blocked in Pakistan. The first time the app was banned in Pakistan was in October 2020. According to the telecom regulator, the decision was taken over complaints regarding indecent and immoral content.

In July, the PTA had again blocked access to TikTok for its failure to take down inappropriate content.

TikTok has stated that Pakistan ranked second in the world for the largest volume of videos (9,851,404) taken down for violating community guidelines in the second quarter of the current year.

TikTok stated the latest Community Guidelines Report demonstrates that 93 percent of videos were removed within 24 hours of being posted for violating Community Guidelines and 94.1 percent before a user reported them

With 9,851,404 videos removed, Pakistan ranked second in the world for the largest volume of videos taken down for Community Guidelines violations in Q2 2021

TikTok also introduced enhanced mute settings for comments and questions during live streams, where creators can temporarily mute select viewers for a few seconds or the entire LIVE duration.

Looking more closely at the findings, 73.3 percent of content promoting harassment and bullying videos and 72.9 percent focused on hateful behavior videos were removed prior to being reported, a significant increase from the 66.2 percent and 67 percent respectively, from the first quarter of this year. The improvement stems from the pioneering combination of technology and content moderation by a dedicated investigations team used to identify videos that violate policies. To better enforce these policies, moderators also receive regular training to identify content featuring reappropriation, slurs, and bullying.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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TikTok’s Parent Company is Splitting into 6 Units

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is going through its biggest organizational restructuring in history. The Chinese conglomerate will split into 6 different business units as CFO Shou Zi Chew is stepping down from his role to solely focus on being TikTok’s CEO.

The news comes from an internal memo the company shared with Reuters.

These six business units will include TikTok, Douyin (Chinese variant of TikTok), Nuverse (video game publisher), Lark (work tool), BytePlus (business services), and Dali Education (Chinese education app).

The TikTok unit, as the name says, will work on the operations of the social media platform and its expansion into the global e-commerce market. Meanwhile, the company’s video streaming platform Xigua and the news aggregator Toutiao will become a part of the Douyin business unit.

As mentioned earlier, this is the biggest reshuffle in ByteDance’s history ever since the co-founder and former CEO Zhang Yiming stepped down in May this year.

Zhang will remain the chairman of the company with 50% of the voting rights but former CFO Shou Zi Chew will be taking his role as the new TikTok CEO in December. According to ByteDance, this new business model should improve the internal workings of the company with different teams working on different business units.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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HEC Extends Application Deadline for Commonwealth PhD Scholarships

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has extended the last date for application submission for HEC Commonwealth Scholarship Program by a week.

Previously, 1 November 2021 was the last date to apply for the scholarship, which has now been extended till 7 November 2021.

Students who aspire to study in the United Kingdom (UK) can grab this opportunity provided under the Commonwealth Scholarships for Masters and PhD programs.

While announcing the extension of the deadline, HEC advised aspiring candidates to submit their applications at the earliest without waiting for the last day.

Funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) in September 2021, the PhD scholarship allows talented and motivated students who could not otherwise afford to study abroad, get a chance to pursue their higher studies in UK universities.

Programs Offered

The official website of the program says that the scholarships are offered in the following areas:

Science and technology for development

Strengthening health systems and capacity

Promoting global prosperity

Strengthening global peace, security, and governance

Strengthening resilience and response to crises

Access, inclusion, and opportunity

Eligibility criteria

According to the official website, aspirants for a Master’s degree in the UK need to fulfill these requirements:

Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person

Be a permanent resident of an eligible Commonwealth country

Be available to start your academic studies in the UK by the start of the academic year in September 2022

By September 2022, hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) honors standard, or a second class degree (2:2) and relevant postgraduate qualification (usually a Master’s degree). The CSC would not typically fund a second UK Master’s degree. If you are applying for a second UK Master’s degree, you will need to justify why you wish to undertake this study

NOT be registered for a Ph.D., or an MPhil leading to a Ph.D., at a UK university or in your home country before September/October 2022

Be unable to afford to study in the UK without this scholarship

Have provided all supporting documentation in the required format

How to Apply for Master’s and PhD programs

The Commonwealth Scholarships do not accept direct applications. Therefore, interested students may visit the following bodies for applying for the scholarships:

National nominating agencies – this is the main route of application

Selected universities/university bodies, which can nominate their own academic staff

Selected non-governmental organizations and charitable bodies

Applicants must check with the nominating body for their specific advice and application rules, their own eligibility criteria, and further details to complete the process.

Deadline to apply: 07 November 2021

For further details, you can visit the official website of the Commonwealth Scholarship program.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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PMC Ordered to Blacklist the Company Which Conducted MDCAT

The National Assembly Standing Committee on National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination has directed Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) to blacklist the testing firm that conducted the Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) 2021 and re-conduct the test through renowned universities.

The NA panel meeting, held with Khalid Hussain Magsi in the chair on Wednesday, discussed the prevailing issues of PMC and MDCAT in detail. The committee was of the view that the irregularities were reported in the MDCAT test conducted by the firm which had no past experience.

Out of 196,000 students, only 68,000 passed the test, and 20,000 seats were available in the private and public sector medical colleges, the committee was informed.

The committee considered “The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill, 2020″ (Private Members Bill). It was informed that the Bill was referred by the Senate and, after completing the 90 days period, the Bill lapsed, while it was now considered in the joint sitting of the Parliament.

The committee deferred “The Islamabad Injured Persons Compulsory Treatment Bill, 2021” (Private Members Bill) and “The Drug Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021” (Private Members Bill) due to the absence of their movers. It also deferred discussion on the problems of admission faced by the medical students of erstwhile FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas).

MNAs Nasir Khan Musa Zai, Jai Parkash, Dr. Nousheen Hamid, Fozia Behram, Dr. Seemi Bukhari, Dr. Nisar Ahmed Cheema, Dr. Samina Matloob. Dr. Darshan, Mahesh Kumar Malani, Ramesh Lal, Dr. Shazia Sobia Aslam, Shams-un-Nisa, and Mohsin Dawar attended the meeting.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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Two Pakistani Universities Rank Among Top 100 in Asia

The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asia University Rankings for 2022 are out, and 29 Pakistani universities have made it to the top 500 in Asia.

The National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST) retained the first position for the 5th consecutive year among the 47 Pakistani universities included in the list.

With an overall score of 51.3, NUST moved two positions up from its previous 76th to 74th, landing amongst the top 11 percent of universities in Asia. Overall, the varsity jumped 17 spots since 2018 when it was at 91st position in Asian rankings. This is the fastest progress by any Pakistani university during this period.

Quaid-i-Azam University, with a score of 46.8, is the second-best Pakistani university on the list and 94th overall in Asia.

They are followed by Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), COMSATS University Islamabad, and the University of Punjab at the third, fourth, and fifth spots.

The list of Pakistani universities included in the top Asian universities is as follows:

Source: Pro Pakistani

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Pakistan, Nigeria agree to extend cooperation in diverse fields

Nigerian High Commissioner Abioye Mohammed Bello met Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar in Lahore on Wednesday.

Matters of mutual interest, promotion of bilateral relations and cooperation in various sectors were discussed during the meeting.

They agreed to extend cooperation in agriculture, information technology, tourism, textile, sports goods and in pharmaceutical sectors.

Source: Radio Pakistan

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