On a day of high drama, Pakistan’s national assembly speaker Asad Qaiser and Deputy speaker Qasim Suri resigned ob Saturday night with minutes left for the Supreme Court directed deadline to hold a no-trust vote against prime minister Imran Khan’s government.
The crucial session of the house began at 10:30 am with speaker Asad Qaiser, a senior member of the Imran Khan’s party in chair.
Since then, the session was adjourned four times for the one reason or another.
The voting on no-confidence motion had started just before the end of deadline.
The house was chaired by Ayaz sadiq of the Nawaz sharif’s party PMLN.
# Vaccine prices
Pharma majors Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech on Saturday announced a steep reduction in prices of their Covid-19 vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin.
Union health ministry also capped the service charges for the precautionary doses at ₹150.
Serum Institute of India has decided to revise the price of Covishield vaccine for private hospitals from ₹600 to ₹225 per dose.
Bharat biotech has decided to revise the prices of Covaxin from ₹1200 to ₹225 per dose.
# Home ministry
The Union home ministry has designated Hafiz talha saeed, son of Hajiz Mohammed saaed, chief of the Pakistan based terror outfit Lashkar-e-taiba, as a terrorist under the Unlawful activities prevention act.
So far, 32 people have been designated as the terrorist in the country.
The LeT chief was the first among the four to be so designated under the amended UAPA in 2019.
The 1967 act, amended in 2019, empowered the ministry to designate individuals as terrorists.
# Sugar output
The Indian sugar mills association (ISMA) estimates sugar production this season, which will end in September, to be 350 lakh tonnes.
Production till march 31,2022 since October 1 was 310 lakh tonnes.