Tag: Year

LONDON - Sachin Tendulkar has been named Wisden's Cricketer of the Year for 2010, crowning a golden month for "the little master" which also saw him play a starring role in India's World Cup triumph. Tendulkar's honour from the cricketing bible means India has won the accolade three years running following the back-to-back awards for Virender Sehwag in each of the previous two years.
It follows another prolific run-scoring year for the 37-year-old, who rattled off more than

LONDON - Sachin Tendulkar has been named Wisden's Cricketer of the Year for 2010, crowning a golden month for "the little master" which also saw him play a starring role in India's World Cup triumph.
Tendulkar's honour from the cricketing bible means India has won the accolade three years running following the back-to-back awards for Virender Sehwag in each of the previous two years.
It follows another prolific run-scoring year for the 37-year-old, who rattled off more than

LAHORE - PIA's misery continued in 2010, as it incurred a loss (after tax) of Rs 20 billion, raising the total tally of losses to Rs 92 billion at the year-end. The past six years have been dreadful for the National Airline, undergoing persistent losses, despite tall claims that the most turbulent period of the airline's history has marked an end.
The Report indicated that, during the three year tenure of Captain Aijaz Haroon as Managing Director, the airline incurred an

LAHORE - Even with decreased river inflows in the catchment areas of Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs, water storage in the country this year is still far better, as 472,000 acre feet of water is available in the reservoirs for irrigation today compared with only 185,000 acre feet of water on April 10 last year.
According to details, water elevation in Mangla reservoir is 1087.1 feet above mean sea level (AMSL) today against 1067.6 feet last year. Water level in Chashma reservoir is

LONDON - The Wisden Cricketers' Almanack has broken with tradition and named only four cricketers of the year for its 2011 edition because of the Pakistan spot-fixing scandal, editor Scyld Berry said on Friday.
The publication has named five players since 1926 but this year only Bangladesh's Tamim Iqbal and England's Eoin Morgan, Chris Read and Jonathan Trott made the shortened list.
Three Pakistan players Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt were banned for a

SANGLA HILL - PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has said that it was clear that 2012 would be the year of elections and elimination of dictatorship from the country forever. During a telephonic conversation with MNA Bargis Tahir on Thursday, Nawaz said elections in 2012 would bring astonishing results and PML-N would again be on the top.
He said the nation was fed up with dictatorships and longing for rule of democracy and prosperity. Nawaz said those who took "our nobility as weakness"

LONDON - Oil prices stayed near a two and a half year peak supported by widespread unrest in the Middle East and North Africa and dollar weakness ahead of Europe's central bank rate decision on Thursday.
Brent crude traded above $122 a barrel with US crude at $108.5 a barrel and broadly flat. The European central bank is expected to raise interest rates by 0.25 percent on Thursday in the first hike since the 2008 financial crisis. The expectations have propelled the euro to a

ISLAMABAD - A total of 179,256 Pakistanis will perform haj this year under the government and private quotas at an expense ranging from Rs 200,847 to Rs 222,047.
Applications for haj would be invited in the running month of April. While giving briefing on the Draft Haj Policy for 2011, Ministry of Religious Affairs Secretary Shaukat Hayat Durrani told the Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs on Wednesday that the ministry has introduced two categories of accommodation

ISLAMABAD - National Assembly achieved an output rate of 33 percent in legislation during the third parliamentary year, which is better than the 25 percent output rate registered during the second parliamentary year, FAFEN's Preliminary Report of the Annual Appraisal of the National Assembly said on Tuesday.
According to the report, the attendance of members in majority of the sittings was observed to be low. Since the National Assembly secretariat does not provide information to

ISLAMABAD - Bumper Kharif crops are expected this year as the Advisory Committee of the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) on Thursday concluded that there was no likely shortage of irrigation water during the April 1 to September 30 period and total water availability would remain around 118 million acre feet (MAF).
Briefing reporters, IRSA Chairman Rao Irshad Ali Khan said provinces would get water releases as per the water accord, as the season was to start with a carry

HONG KONG - The world's highest hotel opened its doors in Hong Kong on Tuesday, housed in the city's tallest skyscraper and offering unrivalled panoramic views of the world famous Victoria Harbour.
Towering some 490 metres (1,600 feet) above the bustling, chaotic streets of the Southern Chinese city, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel is making a grand comeback after temporarily closing in 2008.
Visitors peered out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the 118th floor of the International

ISLAMABAD - Because of the rainy spell earlier this year, the inhabitants of Islamabad are facing an intense pollen season. Usually allergy patients suffer from the middle to the end of March, however this year the rains delayed the shedding of paper mulberry pollens, which intensified the problem. With the advent of spring in the federal capital, the number of pollen allergy patients visiting the city's hospitals and clinics increased significantly.
Pakistan Institute of

ISLAMABAD - President Asif Ali Zardari has summoned the Senate to meet at the Parliament House on March 28 (Monday). The session starting at 4pm would be the Upper House of the Parliament's first in the new parliamentary calendar year and 69th in the total. An official in the Senate Secretariat said the Senate would discuss the presidential address to the joint sitting of the Parliament in detail.
Earlier, Senate was supposed to remain in session for 90 days in a calendar year

ISLAMABAD - The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) has brazenly acceded its failure to resolve the resettlement issues with people affected by the Mangla Dam's upraising and the dam would be filled up to 1210 feet again this year, amounting to a loss of two million acre feet (MAF) of water in the Kharif season.
WAPDA made the revelation at a meeting of the technical committee of Indus River System Authority (IRSA) that was convened on Friday to assess the water

LAHORE - The Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT) produces 500 graduates every year and 17 faculty members are doing PhDs from national and international varsities, PUCIT Principal Dr Mansoor Sarwar said on Thursday. He was talking to journalists at the Old Campus. Sarwar said that the varsity administration was trying to have an 80 percent PhD faculty. He said that research papers have increased by five times and 60 papers of the college's faculty have been

KARACHI - Bad debts of the country's banks and development financial institutions (DFIs) have increased by Rs 54 billion to Rs 562.404 billion in second quarter of the current fiscal year, ranging from October 1 to December 31, 2010-11. Bankers and analysts believe that such an exorbitant growth in NPLs is likely to hurt the country's businesses. "This is not good. They should keep it (NPLs) below five percent - between three to four percent of their net loans," viewed former State

WASHINGTON - Johnny Depp has been crowned "hat person of the year," beating out other celebrity hat-wearers including US singer Gwen Stefani and Australian actor Hugh Jackman, the US Headwear Association said Tuesday.
Nearly four in 10 visitors to the Headwear Association's website voted in the annual poll for "Pirates of the Caribbean" star Depp and his wide-brimmed fedoras, helping him to roundly beat Stefani and Jackman who garnered 17 percent and 16 percent of votes cast,