PIA Will be Forced to Shut Down if Flights Aren’t Resumed in a Couple of Months: Report

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is planning to shut down if flights for Saudi Arabia, China, Gulf, and Europe sectors are not resumed in a couple of months, reported a local media outlet.
The report quoted a source saying that the Finance Division has worked out three different scenarios to compute the net deficit of the national flag carrier after the complete suspension of flight operations to Saudi Arabia, China, Doha, Kuwait, and Milan due to coronavirus.
According to the report, PIA has incurred a revenue loss of over Rs 1.7 billion only on Saudi Arabia sector due to ban on the entry of Umrah pilgrims by the Saudi government for last 19 days and added that if this ban is not lifted, the loss will extend to around Rs. 3 billion till the end of March.
The report while quoting a source stated that if UAE, operating at 40 percent of normal schedule and rest of the international operating at 75 percent of the normal schedule, was also suspended along with Saudi Arabia, China, ..

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Shahid Afridi & Ravi Bopara Pick PSL 2020 Winner After Postponement Decision

Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2020 was recently brought to an end due to the coronavirus outbreak in the country. With teams like Multan Sultans and Lahore Qalandars making it to the semi-finals for the first time ever, it truly is a sad ending to a very competitive tournament.
While Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has said that the revised schedule will be conveyed in due time, it is highly unlikely that the coronavirus situation will be controlled anytime soon. What it means is that we might not get to see which team wins the 5th edition of the tournament.
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Former Pakistan cricketer and star all-rounder, Shahid Afridi has picked his winner. Guess what, it’s his own team, Multan Sultans. The legendary cricketer believes that the table-toppers – and that too by a fair margin – should be awarded the trophy.
In another interesting tweet, England and Multan player, Ravi Bopara has also decided the winner. No prizes for gue..

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Pakistan Cuts Interest Rates for the First Time in 4 Years

State Bank of Pakistan has cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in four years.
The Central Bank of Pakistan has cut its target policy rate by 75 basis points to 12.50% from 13.25%.
Bloomberg noted that Pakistan’s consumer price inflation slowed to 12.4% in February from 14.6% in the previous month, with gains in price-growth expected to ease further on account of lower global oil prices.
The committee adopted cautious approach on policy rates that will maintain the inflation rate while it can stir up economic activities to some extent.
The report stated that Tuesday’s decision marks a shift in monetary policy direction for Pakistan’s central bank, which had raised its target policy rate nine times since January 2018 despite a wave of global easing last year.
The easing will help boost credit demand in the economy, whose growth the World Bank sees decelerating to 2.4% in the year to June — the slowest pace in more than a decade.
Central banks across Asia-Pacific have..

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Ministry of Commerce Introduces E-Visa Facility for Businesses

The Ministry of Commerce, in collaboration with NADRA, has launched an e-Business Visa Invitation Letter System (E-BIL), another step towards easing business.
Chambers and Trade Associations can e-file applications for business visas on arrival for nationals of 190 countries. The applications will be processed in 48-78 hrs.
The Ministry of Commerce is now providing an E-Business visa facility, in collaboration with NADRA. All Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Pakistan and Trade Associations are connected to it for uploading visa invitation letters.
According to the Commerce Ministry, in the light of the Prime Minister’s vision, E-BIL is launched to facilitate all potential foreigners interested in exploring business opportunities in Pakistan.
Foreign nationals can apply for a business invitation letter (a required document for Pakistan’s business visa application) through E-BIL’s website.

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Tecno Launches Ultra-Clear Challenge With 6 KOLs

Tecno is committed to push the boundaries of mobile photography with the launch of Camon 15. Tecno came up with an exciting Ultra clear Challenge, with the collaboration of six famous Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs).
The first part of the challenge, ‘Ultra-high clear’, involved KOLs Saboor Aly, Mariyam Nafees, and Ukhano tested the picture quality and resolution of a picture taken from the highest altitude.
While in “Ultra Dark challenge”, the KOLs Anum Hakeem, Guddu Shani, and Bilal Munir (VideoWaliSarkar) tested the resolution and quality of a shot taken in low light. All the celebrities were amazed by the result and further invited Tecno fans to become a part of the same challenge and get a chance to win Camon 15.
General Manager of the brand, Mr. Creek Ma shared his views about upcoming Camon 15,
Tecno feels immense pleasure on inheriting the rich spirit of the Camon Series, this latest addition would give our valuable customers high creative possibilities allowing them to discover ..

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Leak Reveals Redmi K30 Pro Live Images and Official Launch Date

The Redmi K30 Pro is set to arrive this month, succeeding last year’s Redmi K30 Pro/Mi 9T Pro with top of the line specifications and similar design aspects.
We’ve only seen the device in mock-up renders so far and now, a few days ahead of its launch, the phone has appeared in a set of hands-on images that confirm the design leaks we saw before.
The device is encased in a design-concealing pre-production phone cover but it clearly shows some of its design elements. There is a circle-shaped quad-camera setup at the back right above the LED flash. The main camera on this setup is expected to be a 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor we saw on the base Redmi K30/Poco X2.
The pop-up selfie camera is on the left side and there also appears to be an infrared sensor on the right.
Redmi’s General Manager Lu Weibing shared a teaser on Weibo earlier that revealed that there is also going to be a “Redmi K30 Pro zoom version”.
There are no details on this yet, but we can expect an enhanced edition of the ..

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Coronavirus Cases in Pakistan Double in Just 24 Hours to 186: Live Updates

As more coronavirus cases are testing positive, that have more than doubled in just past 24 hours, the federal and provincial governments are fast becoming the target of mass criticism for the measures that were in place, despite an early warning and examples from other countries we had in advance.
Governments (both provincial and central) argue that these cases are mostly foreign returners and toll has risen rapidly only because results of clinical tests are now becoming available.
Not to mention, majority — more than two third of — cases are those who returned from Iran, while there are also cases that were Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Syria returners.
Despite all these new cases, no major lock-down is announced, for any of the cities in the country. However, with rising cases, a mass-scale lock-down seems imminent.
Here are the latest updates on Coronavius for the day:
9.20 amUAE Suspends Prayer in Mosques and All Houses of Worship UAE’s state news agency WAM reported that th..

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Jazz Announces Country-Wide “Work From Home” Policy for Two Weeks

Jazz has announced that it is implementing mandatory “Work from Home” policy for its country-wide operations, starting immediately.
Aamir Ibrahim, CEO Jazz, who is leading the coronavirus prevention drive at the company, announced this new policy in an email that’s sent to the entire company a while ago.
“I wanted to assure you that in these difficult times, your wellbeing is my foremost concern”, wrote Aamir in the email. But said that during this challenging time the company also has an obligation towards the nation for providing parallel cellular, banking and communication services.
Considering the best known measure to defeat coronavirus, Aamir announced:
Jazz will be moving to a mandatory work-from-home policy nationwide from March 17 to March 31, 2020
Given the size of Jazz, as a corporation and the scope of services it offers, the decision is massive. Not to mention, company has business continuity plan in place, meaning that customers will continue to avail Jazz and JazzCa..

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Pakistani Researchers Claim to Have Developed the Cheapest Coronavirus Testing Kit

The COVID-19 outbreak has already spread to over 130 countries and the number of patients continue to increase. Increasing cases are also creating a shortage of the expensive COVID-19 detection kits. Researchers across the world are trying to find ways to reduce the testing cost by devising cheaper kits.
Researchers from a Pakistani university have claimed to have produce a coronavirus kit that is even cheaper than any other iterations.
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Prof Dr. Muhammad Idrees and his team of students at the University of Punjab have managed to create a testing kit that will be able to diagnose coronavirus among patients and cost only $5, or 800 rupees.
This is much cheaper than kits that have been previously produced which cost around 3200 rupees.
While talking to the media, Professor of Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology Dr. Muhammad Idrees said that they had been working on the kit since January and were able to ..

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Syed Murad Ali Shah Explains the Coronavirus Situation in Sindh

Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah has revealed that 11 more suspected patients have tested positive for coronavirus. All of them were from the mandatory quarantine in Sukkar. While addressing a press conference in Karachi, Murad said that a total of 394 tests have been done in Sindh. Out of them, 27 people tested positive and are being treated.
About Sukkar Quarantine Facility He said that the pilgrims returning from the Taftan border were again quarantined in Sukkar, where their samples were retaken. Out of those, 50 people tested positive for the virus on Sunday, while 11 more positive confirmations arrived as he spoke, taking the provincial tally to 88. More results are expected later tonight, he added.
Speaking of the quarantine facility in Sukkar, CM Murad Ali Shah said that they had vacated the labor department’s flats.
We have 1024 flats of the labor department with two rooms each, so we had the capacity of 2048 individuals.
Exposing the Taftan Blunder Syed Murad Ali ..

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