By Uzma Zafar
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said the government was giving priority to the uplift of common man by providing them financial relief.
The prime minister expressed these views while chairing a meeting of his economic team here that discussed ways to reduce prices of essential items and steps to provide relief to general public.
Imran Khan said poor and underprivileged segments of the society were most affected by financial difficulties, particularly the direct taxation. He stressed on reducing the direct taxes to facilitate the common man.
He also directed his economic team to give proposals on reduction in taxes of imported food items. The meeting was attended by federal ministers Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Asad Umar, Makhdoom Khusrau Bakhtiar, Advisers Abdul Razzak Dawood and Dr Ishrat Hussain; Governor State Bank Dr Reza Baqir, and PM’s Special Assistants Dr Waqar Masood, Nadeem Babar, Tabish Gauhar and senior officials.
The meeting discussed ways to provide targeted subsidy to deserving families under Ehsaas socio-welfare programme.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Imran Khan said in his address Monday as chief guest in Ulema and Mashaikh Conference that Islamic scholars played historic role in the making of Pakistan which is conceived in the name of Islam. We have set ourselves on the endeavor of transforming our society into the welfare state of Madina where people would revert to Islam looking at how Muslims lived, the PM reassured of his resolve in the conference. The religious scholars struggled alongside the father of our nation Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and their contribution was substantial, PM Khan acknowledged.
However, the PM went further to regret how terrorism was then linked with Islam and admitted he is sorry no Islamic leader stood up to resist the propaganda. It is a sorry state of affairs, lamented PM Khan, that no Muslim country leaders reacted to a systematic rise and spread of Islamophobia and noted Islam and terrorism are not the same. When terrorism was being misattributed to Islam, it was upon the leader of Islamic world to negate this propaganda and come clean, he said. The act of suicide attacks was prevalent in Sri Lanka before nine-11 perpetrated by Hindu Tamil forces but nobody said Hinduism was a religion of terrorism and the same goes with Japanese suicide attacks on American jets but their religion, too, was never blamed. He noted that it’s time the Islamic world helped West acknowledge terrorism has nothing to do with Islam and counter Islamophobia and speedy popularity of propaganda against Islam.
It is in the West that people celebrate caricatures of religious figures to offend masses, and justify it in the name of free speech rights, He said, and added that freedom of speech could never be interpreted as a tool to further inter-religion hate and dissonance.
If you criticize beliefs and claims of Jew people, the freedom of speech law doesn’t apply there and you’ll be liable to punishment but if a religious woman observes hijab or man maintains beard, they can be made fun of. Separately in the same address, the PM also reiterated on his struggle to have supremacy of law in hte country restored in the country, where there’s a unifrom law for both the rich and the poor, for which he said, “Imran Khan alone cannot do everything and I need support of my people.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan is set to achieve one billion tree plantation target of its Ten Billion Tree Tsunami initiative by the middle of the current year, a meeting of the Committee on Climate Change chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan was informed on Monday. The meeting was also informed that emission growth was nine percent below Business as Usual baseline and also below the NDC (Nationally Determined Commitments).
Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Minister for Planning Asad Umar, Minister for Power Omar Ayub Khan, Minister for Water Resources Muhammad Faisal Vawda, Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar, Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan, Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Kamal Khan, SAPM Malik Amin Aslam, Minister of State Zartaj Gul, SAPM Dr. Moeed Yousaf, and senior officials were present during the meeting.
Prime Minister Imran Khan while appreciating the efforts of Ministry of Climate Change directed to actively look into the possibility of net zero emissions for Pakistan which may become possible with enhancement of the carbon sequestration potential.
Underscoring the need for putting in place Early Warning System to mitigate impacts of erratic climate change, the Prime Minister also stressed upon the need for water treatment plants to purify contaminated surface water of the rivers. The Prime Minister expressed satisfaction over the progress of phase wise Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme and directed for ensuring complete transparency, including actively engaging SUPARCO, for satellite imagery in the execution of Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme across the country.
The meeting reviewed the latest inventory reserves of Green House Gases (GHG) and progress made on Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme. It was informed that the climate friendly shift had been made possible due to increased forest cover as a result of successful Billion Tree Tsunami project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the ongoing Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme across the country.
SAPM on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam informed the meeting that the deforestation rate had significantly been reduced from 12000 hectares/year to 8000 ha/y from 2012-2016 and will further fall with 10BTT success.
The meeting was informed that Pakistan was contributing less than one percent in global emission. The overall ranking of the country vis-à-vis total emissions has shifted from 135 in 2015 to 133 in 2018 on Per Capita ranking. Highlighting other successes, SAPM informed the meeting that Pakistan has increased its mangrove cover by 300 percent during 1990-2020 which is a strong carbon sequestering tool.
