The government on Wednesday faced an embarrassing situation in the Senate when no federal minister was present to respond to supplementary questions of the members and calling attention notices.
At the outset of the question hour, treasury as well as opposition senators challenged the seriousness of the government to run the House business, with Zahid Khan suggesting the government to disband the House if it was not interested in its affairs. Senators, including Azam Swati, Prof Khurshid Ahmad, Tariq Azeem, Haseeb Khan and Tahir Hussain Mashhadi were of the view that ministers’ presence in the House was a must, particularly during the question hour. Prof Khurshid said senators were being compelled to take extreme steps by not showing seriousness in the House business by the government members.
However, Makhdoom Amin Faheem entered the House just as Deputy Chairman Jan Jamali was about to suspend the question hour, saying ministers were busy in the federal cabinet meeting.
Senators belonging to FATA staged a token walkout from the House over the continued drone strikes and non-release of funds from the annual development programme for the Tribal Areas. Members from JI and JUI-F also participated in the walkout to express solidarity with FATA members. The FATA members said they would stage token walkouts from the House in every session until their grievances were addressed. However, Leader of the House Nayyar Bukhari assured the House that he would talk to the finance minister over the issue.
To the concerns of Prof Khurshid and others regarding the agreement between Pakistan Television Limited (PTV) and Ten Sports, Information Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan clarified that the agreement was aimed at only promoting and broadcasting sports events on state-run channel and not to promote any Indian content. The minister said PTV would also launch its own sports channel by December. She said the state-run TV channel won the agreement through international bidding and the other private channel which was a party in the bidding launched a malafide campaign against PTV after failing to secure the rights.
About foreign contents being promoted on private channels, Firdous said certain channels were involved in promoting Indian content and strict action, including 652 applications and show-cause notices, had been issued to such channels. She said efforts were underway to enforce PEMRA rules in letter and spirit and help the electronic channels to play a positive role under the code of conduct.
The Senate chairman announced to constitute a House committee that would seek consent of the provinces for legislation on health issues under Article 144, involving the establishment of Drug Regulatory Authority (DRA) and other issues.
Under the said article, If two or more provincial assemblies pass resolutions to the effect that parliament may by law regulate any matter not enumerated in the Federal Legislative List in the Fourth Schedule, it shall be lawful for parliament to pass an act for regulating that matter accordingly, but any act so passed may, as respects any province to which it applies, be amended or repealed by an act of the assembly of that province. Earlier, the senators through a calling attention notices raised the issue of allocation of functions of the DRA to the cabinet division, which, they said, was violation of the existing provisions of the constitution.