Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had a familiar guest \u2013 President of Pakistan People\u2019s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Asif Ali Zardari \u2013 at the Prime Minister\u2019s House on Thursday night to discuss the government\u2019s next possible moves after President Dr Arif Alvi attempted to force elections on the ruling alliance in two provinces and the Supreme Court has taken up the matter while exercising its suo moto jurisdiction.
\nIn the meeting, the two bigwigs of the ruling alliance also discussed reducing the federal cabinet\u2019s size in line with its belt-tightening policy amid the financial crisis. According to an official statement, the PPPP president met the prime minister. Upon his arrival at the PM House, it said, the prime minister received Zardari, also the former president. The one-on-one meeting was followed by dinner.
\nSources in the ruling alliance said that the possible areas of discussion between the prime minister and the head of a key allied party included the decision of the federal cabinet empowering the prime minister to write a letter to President Dr Arif Alvi in connection with the president\u2019s step to unilaterally announce the date for the elections in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).
\nOn Wednesday, PM Shehbaz and his cabinet members said that the president\u2019s announcement of the election date in two the provinces was an unconstitutional move. Subsequently, the premier said he would write a letter to President Alvi on behalf of the cabinet condemning his action.
\nOn February 20, President Alvi\u2019s fixed April 9 as elections date in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) turned down his request of meeting called to discuss about the date for elections in the two provinces.
\nMeanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said that country\u2019s progress was linked to the success of the Youth Loan Program which besides supporting the unemployed youngsters also benefited the national economy.
\nThe prime minister, addressing a ceremony for cheque distribution among the beneficiaries of the Prime Minister Youth Loan Program, said if provided ample opportunities, Pakistan\u2019s youths would take the country to new heights.
\nHe said the loan scheme was the continuation of the PM Youth Loan scheme launched in 2013 by that time prime minister Nawaz Sharif and billions of rupees were disbursed among the entitled youth.
\nThe prime minister recalled that CM Youth Loan Scheme was also launched in Punjab and 75,000 youths were also given vehicles on loan.
\nHe said the recovery ratio of the youth loan scheme was around 99 percent which manifested the honesty of the country\u2019s youngsters.
\nPrime Minister Shehbaz said that the 99% recovery ratio of the youth and Kissan loan schemes falsified the misconception about the risks involved in the individual loans by the banks.
\n\u201cI am giving laptop, not Kalashnikov,\u201d the prime minister remarked who earlier distributed cheques among the beneficiaries of loan scheme besides launching a Freelancer Card.
\nMeanwhile, the prime minister highlighting the significance of long-standing cooperation between Pakistan and the United States underscored the need to make this partnership diverse and multidimensional.
\nHe underlined that parliamentary exchanges between the two countries, as vibrant democracies, were vital to promoting understanding of each others’ perspectives at the political level.
\nThe prime minister expressed these views while welcoming a six-member US Senate delegation from the Democratic Party, which led by Senate Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer called on him.
\nOther members of the delegation included Senators Maria Cantwell, Amy Klobuchar, Gary Peters, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Peter Welch.
\nThe prime minister urged the US Congress to play its due role in raising its voice for the rights of the Kashmiri people and against the rising wave of anti-Muslim extremism in India.
\nSenator Schumer, thanking the Prime Minister on behalf of the delegation, affirmed the desire to further strengthen Pakistan-US bilateral ties in various dimensions through continued engagement and wider co-operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had a familiar guest \u2013 President of Pakistan People\u2019s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Asif Ali Zardari \u2013 at the Prime Minister\u2019s House…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5001,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}