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March 05, 2022: National Current Affairs MCQs
1. Talks begin tomorrow to hammer out IMF deal
• The government will resume virtual talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on March 4, 2023 to finalise revenue and expenditure figures for the next four months, a senior government official told Dawn on Saturday.
• The IMF team, led by its Pakistan mission chief Nathan Porter, held talks with finance ministry officials for a couple of days, followed by a last meeting with tax officials on Friday to review the impact of prior actions in terms of revenue generation and their impact on bridging fiscal gaps.
• The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been tasked with collecting an additional Rs170bn in revenue to fill the gap, while the remaining amount will be abridged through other measures, such as removing subsidies and increasing gas and electricity prices
2. US, Pakistan anti-terrorism talks begin tomorrow
• A US delegation will arrive in Islamabad on Sunday (March 5, 2023) for counterterrorism talks, days after an official US report warned that terrorist groups were once again regrouping in the Pakistan Afghanistan region.
• `Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism Christopher Landberg will lead an interagency delegation to Pakistan [from] March 6-7 to participate in the Pakistan-US Counterterrorism Dialogue,` the US State Department announced.
• `The United States and Pakistan will discuss the shared terrorist threats facing our two countries and develop policy-oriented strategies regarding cooperation in critical areas such as border security and countering the financing of terrorism,` the statement added
3. Pakistan-India pact missed bus, but draft is ready
• An India-Pakistan peace pact was ready to be signed by past leaders before they lost power, but it remains alive after the Modi government vetted it, according to a book quoted in a review by Karan Thapar on March 4, 2023.
• `By the end of the second term of the UPA government and of Dr Manmohan Singh`s tenyear term, the draft agreement had been approved and was ready for signature,` former ambassador to Pakistan Satinder Lambah says in his book Pursuit of Peace, quoted in The Hindustan Times. It has been published posthumously as the diplomat died in June last year.
• `There were 36 meetings of the backchannel from May 2003 to March 2014,` a period spanning two leaders from each side. Gen Pervez Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif supported the backchannel from Pakistan, while Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh pressed on with it for India. Most of the agreement was concluded during Gen Musharraf`s time, the book says. Nothing much happened after he lost power, but then prime minister Nawaz Sharif `injected new momentum and urgency into the process`. Unfortunately, by then, `attention in India turned to the 2014 general elections`
4. Haj quota cut for locals, doubled for overseas pilgrims
• As it grapples with the US dollar shortage, the government decided in principle to increase the special Haj quota for overseas Pakistani nationals from 25 per cent to 50pc, as Finance Minister Ishaq Dar vowed that Haj operations of 2023 will not be affected by low forex reserves in the country.
• Though Mr Dar claimed that the pilgrimage will not be impacted despite the economic meltdown, there has been a 25pc reduction in Haj quota for citizens living in the country.
• The formal decisions to this effect was taken in a meeting of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar with Religious Affair Minister Abdul Shakoor.
• As per decisions, the overseas Pakistani will avail the 50pc quota in the government Haj scheme 2023 by doing payment in US dollars, in a bid to minimise out flows of dollars and minimise pressure on the already dwindling forex reserves of the country
5. GB govt demands increase in CSS quota
• The government of Gilgit-Baltistan, through a letter proposed the federal government to increase Central Superior Services (CSS) quota seats for candidates from GB.
• In 2020, CSS quota of GB has been reduced to 1 percent from the combined GB-Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) quota of 4pc.
• GB Chief Secretary Mohyuddin Ahmed Wani sent a letter in this regard to Zahoor Ahmed, the secretary (Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Islamabad). A copy of the letter was also sent to Dr Syed Taugir Shah, secretary to the prime minister of Pakistan, PM Secretariat Islamabad.
• The letter said that GB has a comparatively small public sector in which job opportunities are very few and far between
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