LAHORE: Last December, Pakistan’s passionate kite-flyers rejoiced when officials announced that the boisterous spring festival of Basant, banned almost a decade and a half ago, would be celebrated once more this February.
But their excitement was snuffed out last week when the government gave up on plans to organize the springtime celebration, admitting that it needed more time to clampdown on manufacturers who lace string with chemicals and glass that makes its deadly.
Ironically, it is Pakistan’s kite-makers who have lobbied the government not to lift the ban on the kite carnival.
Kite-flying has long been a passion in South Asia and for decades, Basant would transform Pakistan’s skies into a glittery kaleidoscope of hundreds of thousands of kites to commemorate the advent of spring. But in 2005, the Supreme Court banned the celebration after 19 people died from decapitation by stray strings. In that year alone, kites and string worth over Rs.1 billion were sold on Basant day just in the eastern city of Lahore, whose ancient walled enclave is the epicenter of the festival.
Many kite-flyers indulge in kite duels, flying with thick strings or razor-sharp ones reinforced with glass and chemicals so that they can better attack the opponent’s kites and slice their strings. Stray strings have been known to knock out power lines and in some cases tangle around a human neck or limb and cut it.
“The government came to me for recommendations about opening Basant and I told them that first there should be a crackdown against those who are producing the prohibited thread,” Muhammad Siddique Papa, who comes from a long line of famous kite-makers, told Arab News outside what used to be his kite shop in Lahore’s ancient Mochi Darwaza. The store is now a warehouse rented out to local businesses.
“This thread is unbreakable and cuts like a sword,” Papa said. “I had recommended that the government should not allow Basant unless the production of this dangerous thread can be controlled. That has so far proved very difficult.”
Mochi Darwaza used to be a block-long market of tiny kite shops but since 2005, many of the kite sellers have shut down their stores or moved to selling grocery and toys.
Imran Butt, a former kite maker who now owns a grocery store in the walled city, said he had also recommended to the government that the ban on the festival should not be lifted.
“The government cannot ban the killer strings because black sheep of the thread industry will keep producing it,” he said as he poured rice into a bag for a customer. “I would not want Basant to open for the next thousand years because the government can’t control string makers for the next thousand years. They don’t have the capacity.”
Punjab information Minister Fayyaz ul Hasan Chohan admitted that rogue string manufacturers were the problem and said they produced the dangerous string “underground” and were not easy to identify.
“Some incidents of throat-cutting by kite-flying have occurred in different parts of the province in recent weeks and we felt that we need to prepare well to celebrate Basant,” Chohan said. “Preparations require a comprehensive strategy including new legislation and further training of police, which would take months. That’s the reason we have shelved the plan of celebrating Basant this year.”
Last week, the government had announced that it needed at least four to six months to prepare for a “safe Basant” and develop a mechanism to register all kite and string manufacturers.
“Strict action is required against the use of chemical and metallic twine,” Aleem Khan, provincial minister for local government, had said during a press conference.
But thread manufacture Muhammad Munir defended his industry, saying thick thread was made for industrial purposes but some string-makers misused it.
“Most of them import nylon thread from China or develop it at their own small home-based factories,” he said, adding that the government needed to crackdown on manufacturers from the city of Faisalabad, a popular Basant destination, who produced the dangerous thread and supplied it to the rest of the country.
“We have arrested dozens of string producers, sellers and kite-flyers only during the last two months and burnt thousands of spools of the banned string and hundreds of kilograms of confiscated thread,” Rashid Mehmood, a senior police officer in the city of Faisalabad, said.
On Lahore’s famed Lawrence Road, Shahbaz Butt sat at the shop of his late father Pervaiz Ahmad Butt, a legendary kite-flyer who won the 1979 All Pakistan Kite-Flying Tournament at the iconic Minto Park. Every Friday for decades, the city’s kite aficionados would head to the park to see Butt duel his rivals from around the country, knocking their kites down to the ground by slicing through their string.
“After the government stopped kite-flying, my father became a victim of depression and anxiety; his food habits changed and he lived the rest of his life between his home and our store,” Butt’s son said. The sign-board outside the car battery shop is shaped like a kite. “I believe if kite-flying had not been banned,my father would have been alive today.”
Octogenarian Hafeez Butt, who flew kites for 55 years and won several contests, said it took him years to get over the Basant ban.
“Kite-flying is a sport but greedy traders and unprofessional flyers turned it into an ugly hobby,” he lamented. “String-sellers are a mafia and the government cannot do anything against them. They should go after them instead of depriving us. They need to lift this ban.”
But Khawaja Basharat, who used to be the president of the now disbanded Pakistan Kite-Sellers Association, said he was relieved the ban had been extended.
“Criminal elements producing thick and killer thread have given us [kite flyers and makers] a bad name,” he said.
“I welcome the government’s decision of not celebrating Basant until they can eliminate the thread mafia,” he added. “When the government contacted me for help in reviving Basant, I told them, ‘I am no longer in this business’.”
No-Kite-Fly Zone: Pakistan’s kite-makers pushed to have Basant canceled
No-Kite-Fly Zone: Pakistan’s kite-makers pushed to have Basant canceled
- Festival too dangerous until government can crackdown on manufacturers of knife-sharp strings, say kite-makers
- Basant was banned by the Supreme Court in 2005 after stray strings killed 19 people
Pakistan invites scientists, students to pitch experiments for mission to Chinese space station
- The country’s space agency has partnered with China to send first Pakistani astronaut to space
- The mission is expected take place by late 2026 following the completion of astronaut training
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s national space agency on Friday invited scientists, researchers and students to contribute to the country’s first-ever human spaceflight mission by submitting proposals for innovative experiments to be conducted aboard a Chinese space station.
Earlier this year in February, the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) signed a cooperation agreement with China, paving the way for a Pakistani astronaut to travel to the Tiangong space station.
The mission is expected to take place by the end of 2026 following the completion of astronaut training.
“As Pakistan’s first astronaut prepares to undertake a historic journey to the Chinese Space Station (CSS), the national space agency calls for proposals for innovative experiments to be conducted in the extreme thermal, complete vacuum and microgravity environment of the CSS to maximize the scientific impact of this mission,” SUPARCO said in an official statement.
“This is a significant chance for Pakistan’s scientific community and emerging scientists and engineers to contribute to the nation’s space journey and make a lasting impact on the future of space exploration,” it added.
The statement said the Chinese space station orbits the Earth at an altitude of around 380 kilometers, completing one revolution every 92 minutes at a speed of approximately 7.7 kilometers per second.
The space station features state-of-the-art facilities, including specialized experiment racks for research in life sciences, biotechnology, fundamental physics, fluid dynamics, material science and astrophysics.
The Pakistani agency particularly encouraged proposals in agriculture and medical sciences, noting the potential of microgravity to generate groundbreaking insights in those fields.
“Proposed experiments should be novel, cost-effective, lightweight and feasible within a week in microgravity,” it said. “Submissions must align with CSS research priorities, be unique, and support sustainable development goals.”
SUPARCO highlighted the selected experiments could lead to high-impact scientific publications, patents or commercial applications, emphasizing the project’s potential to contribute to socio-economic development.
The deadline to submit proposals is April 30.
Trafficking of NATO, Soviet arms continues in Afghanistan, Pakistan years after Taliban takeover — report
- While weapons management practices have improved over the past three years, their application remains inconsistent across Afghan provinces and communities, monitor says
- The statement comes months after Islamabad voiced ‘profound concern’ over the presence of advanced US weapons in Afghanistan amid a surge in militancy in Pakistan’s border areas
ISLAMABAD: Trafficking and illegal sale of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Soviet arms have continued in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s border regions more than three years after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul and their seizure of the previous regime’s stockpiles, a Geneva-based monitor Small Arms Survey has said in its recent report.
The report, titled “Documenting Arms Availability in Afghanistan,” said as of August 2021, Afghanistan had 258,300 rifles, including M4, M16 and AK-variants, 64,300 pistols, 63,000 sniper rifles, 56,155 light, medium and heavy machine guns, 31,000 grenade launchers, 9,115 shotguns, 1,845 rounds of 60-82mm, as well as hundreds of thousands of accessories and munitions.
The paper reviewed field investigations conducted from 2022 to 2024 into the availability and prices of small arms, light weapons, accessories, and ammunition at informal markets in the Afghanistan–Pakistan border areas. It found that cross-border trafficking was more of a “slow drip” than a flood, with both newer NATO- and older Soviet-pattern weapons still accessible in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces and Pakistan’s tribal districts.
While weapons management practices have improved over the past three years, their application remains inconsistent across provinces and communities, with institutional weaknesses, including limited technical capacity and reliance on paper-based systems, undermining the Taliban’s control efforts, according to the report. Diversion to illicit markets and the “deliberate provision of weapons to various non-state armed groups” remain significant concerns.
“More than three years after the Taliban’s takeover and their seizure of the previous regime’s weapons stockpiles, the de-facto authorities have strengthened control over commanders and restricted civilians’ and private businesses’ access to arms,” the report, published late last month, read.
“Arms trafficking has continued — likely with at least the tacit approval of low-level Taliban officials — and evidence suggests the continued arming of UN Security Council-designated terrorist groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al-Qaeda, alongside efforts to acquire conventional weapons systems on international markets.”
Many local commanders in Afghanistan view weapons obtained during the insurgency as personal property, or property of their respective fighting group, and therefore resist efforts to register and manage these arms centrally, according to the report.
Additionally, internal divisions within the Taliban, along with the personal networks of commanders, provide informal pathways to acquire weapons, bypassing formal approval processes. These challenges led to significant variations in control practices from province to province based on the influence of local commanders and their relationship with Afghan central authorities.
“When comparing prices in Pakistan with those in Afghan border provinces, US M4 rifles cost between USD3,325 and USD 3,700 in Pakistan, making them cheaper than in Khost and Nangarhar on the Afghan side but slightly more expensive than in Kunar, Paktia, and Paktika,” it read.
“In general, the wide variety in price is likely indicative of the condition of the weapons and their origin; sophisticated replicas may have also accounted for some of the lower-priced models. M16 rifles, however, are significantly less expensive in Pakistan, at an average price of between USD1,245 and USD1,400, compared to USD1,824–3,065 in Afghanistan... Conversely, Russian AK-pattern rifles are notably more expensive in Pakistan.”
In Jan. this year, Pakistan voiced “profound concern” over the presence of advanced US weapons in Afghanistan, which Washington has sought to be returned by Kabul’s Afghan Taliban rulers.
“The presence of US advance weapons in Afghanistan, left behind in the aftermath of the withdrawal of its troops in August 2021, has been an issue of profound concern for the safety and security of Pakistan and its citizens,” the Pakistani foreign office said in a statement.
“These weapons have been used by terrorist organizations, including the TTP [Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan], to carry out terrorist attacks in Pakistan.”
The statement came months after Pakistani security officials said custom authorities had seized a large cache of US-made weapons and ammunition worth approximately Rs35 million ($125,000) at a border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The weapons seized at the Torkham border crossing in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province included M4 rifles and magazines, security sources said in Oct. last year.
Pakistan has struggled to contain surging militancy in KP since a fragile truce between the Pakistani Taliban, or the TTP, and the state broke down in November 2022.
The TTP and other militant groups have frequently targeted security forces convoys and check-posts, besides targeted killings and kidnappings of law enforcers and government officials in recent months. In 2024 alone, the Pakistani military reported that 383 soldiers and 925 militants were killed in various clashes.
Islamabad has frequently blamed the surge in militancy on Afghanistan, accusing it of sheltering and supporting militant groups that launch cross-border attacks. Afghan officials deny involvement and insist that Pakistan’s security issues are an internal matter of Islamabad.
Pakistan stocks hit all-time intraday high after power tariff cuts, favorable IMF review
- A day ago, the South Asian country announced more than Rs7 cut in domestic and industrial power tariffs
- Pakistan last week reached a staff-level agreement with IMF for the first review of its $7 billion loan program
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) gained more than 1,800 points in an all-time high in intraday trade on Friday, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attributing the bullish sentiment to his government’s economic policies.
The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 1,855 points, or 1.56 percent, to reach 120,793 points at 10am on Friday, compared to the previous close of 118,938 points.
The development comes a day after Pakistan announced more than Rs7 cut in domestic and industrial power tariffs and nearly a week after it reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the first review of its $7 billion loan program secured last year.
“Positive trend in business at the Pakistan Stock Exchange reflects growing confidence of traders and investors in government’s economic policies,” PM Sharif said in a statement.
“A major reduction in electricity tariffs has been made, which will not only provide relief to domestic consumers, but it is also welcoming for the business community and industries.”
Ahsan Mehanti, chief executive officer of the Karachi-based Arif Habib Corporation brokerage house, said the industrial power tariff cut and the year-on-year drop in consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate to 0.7 in March, which has led to expectations of a policy rate cut, were key factors behind the bullish trend.
“Institutional support on the IMF deal and speculations over the government negotiations on [US President Donald] Trump tariff played a catalyst role in bullish activity at the PSX,” he said.
Raza Jafri, head of research at Intermarket Securities, said Pakistani equities have been performing well after the Eid Al-Fitr break, in sharp contrast to world markets, as the South Asian country appears to be better placed than competing textile exporters such as Bangladesh and Vietnam when it comes to reciprocal tariffs.
“[But] domestic developments such as the ongoing IMF program and cut in electricity tariffs seem to hold more importance for Pakistan which is relatively insulated from global developments and arguably a net beneficiary if the reduction in international oil prices more than offsets the impact on exports,” he added.
Pakistan Super League 10th edition tickets go up for sale online
- The Twenty-20 tournament is set to begin from Apr. 11 and will feature over 30 matches
- Online tickets can be collected from designated TCS pick-up centers or delivered to home
ISLAMABAD: Online sale of tickets for the 10th edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) began on Thursday, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said.
The 10th edition of the PSL beginning on Apr. 11 will host 34 matches in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Multan, with the final scheduled for May 18 at Lahore’s Qaddafi Stadium.
This season will feature top local and international players, following the usual format with group stages and knockout rounds, according to the PCB.
Tickets booked online can be collected from designated TCS pick-up centers or delivered directly to home.
“HBL PSL X tickets online sale has commenced from 3pm PKT today as the marquee event is all set to begin from Apr. 11,” the PCB said in a statement on Thursday.
Physical tickets for the tournament will go up for sale at designated TCS centers across the country at 4pm on Apr. 7 onwards, according to the board.
The stadium seating for each match is divided into four categories: General Enclosure, Premium, First-Class and VIP Stands, along with the exclusive HQSP PCB Gallery.
Ticket prices start at $2 (Rs650) for the general category. Regular match tickets can go up to $21 (Rs6,000) for VIP categories, while playoffs and finals may cost as much as $35 (Rs10,000) for VIP stands.
The PCB said it will also hold a ticket raffle at every match, with exciting prizes such as motorcycles, smartphones and gift hampers to enhance fan engagement and offer a unique match-day experience.
PM Sharif forms committee to probe Pakistan’s failure to utilize Hajj 2025 private quota
- Committee to probe why Kingdom’s Hajj policy was not implemented by Pakistan’s religion ministry through private Hajj operators
- Inquiry committee would also ‘fix the responsibility for this serious lapse, depriving thousands of Pakistani pilgrims from Hajj 2025’
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has formed a three-member inquiry committee to investigate why Pakistan had failed to utilize the private Hajj 2025 quota by not complying with certain requirements of the Kingdom’s Hajj policy, a notification by the Cabinet Division said on Thursday.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Hajj Agreement 2025 in January, according to which 179,210 Pakistanis were expected to perform the annual pilgrimage this year. The quota was divided equally between government and private schemes.
However, the South Asian country failed to fully avail the private Hajj quota and the inquiry committee, led by the Cabinet Division secretary, would investigate the reasons behind the lapse. The probe panel also includes the chairman of Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the Gilgit-Baltistan chief secretary.
“The Prime Minister, while taking serious notice for non-availing of the private Hajj quota for Hajj-2025 due to non-compliance of the requirements of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been pleased to constitute an inquiry committee on ‘Hajj Arrangements,’” the notification said, without specifying the number of private Hajj scheme seats that could not be filled.
It said the committee’s terms of reference would include inquiring why Saudi Arabia’s Hajj policy, revised in 2025, was not implemented by Pakistan’s Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony through private Hajj operators.
The notification said the committee would also probe the ministry’s efforts to get the pre-requisite formalities completed by private Hajj operators by the target date set by the Kingdom.
The committee would also “fix the responsibility for this serious lapse, depriving thousands of Pakistani pilgrims from Hajj 2025,” it added.
Speaking to a private news channel, Pakistan Ulema Council Chairman Tahir Ashrafi praised Sharif’s move, describing it as a “step in the right direction.”
“Due to this, matters related to private Hajj pilgrims will improve in future and the current situation will also come to light, as to what happened and why did the delay take place,” Ashrafi told Express News.
In January, the Pakistani prime minister had chaired a meeting to review Hajj 2025 preparations, during which he had warned officials the government would not tolerate any negligence in their duties related to the annual pilgrimage.
