ISLAMABAD: Pakistan smashed India’s record by forming the world’s largest human image of a waving flag in the eastern city of Lahore city, with over 10,000 students participating in the activity this week, state-run media reported on Thursday. 

The new world record was made during the Lahore Youth Festival, organized by the provincial Punjab government and currently underway at the Fortress Stadium in Lahore.

“Pakistan has set a new world record by making the largest human flag,” Radio Pakistan said. “The record was achieved by the students of Army Public School Lahore who participated in the formation of the flag.”

The Guinness World Record website showed that the record for the largest human image of a waving flag was last held by India where 7,368 students formed the flag in March this year in Sonipat. 

State media in Pakistan widely reported on Thursday that Pakistan had now broken India’s record, with over 10,000 students from the Army Public School in Lahore forming the image of the nation’s flag. 

The national flag of Pakistan, also known as the Flag of the Star and Crescent, is made up of a green field with a stylized tilted white descending crescent moon, and five-pointed star at its center, and a vertical white stripe at its hoist-end. It was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Aug. 11, 1947, and became the official flag of Pakistan on Aug. 14, following independence from the British Empire. 

The flag is referred to in the third verse of Pakistan’s national anthem and is widely flown on several important days of the year, including Republic Day, Independence Day and Defense Day. It is also hoisted every morning at schools, offices and government buildings to the playing of the national anthem and lowered again before sunset.

PESHAWAR: In an effort to document the economy and broaden the tax net, a Pakistani provincial chief minister has announced a novel scheme this week: whistleblowers who assist the government in identifying ‘benami,’ in which property purchases conceal the identity of the true buyer, will be rewarded with 40% of the value of the asset.

Benami properties, or assets registered under another person’s name to disguise the actual owner’s identity, are often used to conceal movable or immovable assets for tax evasion or other purposes.

Addressing a ceremony on Wednesday evening, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur outlined his plan to introduce a whistleblower law.

“We will give 40% [of the amount] to the person who identifies and informs us that this item belongs to Ali Amin and is registered under his driver’s name,” Gandapur said, explaining the scheme.

“When someone won’t be able to show the money trail, which we refer to as benami or nameless, it will be established through the transaction that this person doesn’t have the capability to own a fuel station, this property, this building or this vehicle. Either he will reveal who the culprit is or if he won’t tell, the government will seize it. But whoever will point it out, they will get 40% [value of the asset].”

The chief minister said public cooperation was crucial to the government, which could not advance in its tax collection targets without their support.

Pakistan’s tax collection body, the Federal Board of Revenue, announced in 2019 it would confiscate vehicles and properties with proxy ownership, as well as fictitious bank accounts.

Despite public resistance, Pakistan is pushing ahead with plans for new taxes in line with ambitious revenue targets adopted to clinch a staff-level deal on a 37-month IMF program this September. Pakistani authorities have recently taken stringent measures to broaden the country’s tax net, including blocking mobile phone connections of individuals and registering retailers.

Despite several donor-supported reform attempts, Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio continues to hover at around 10% of GDP. The inability to expand tax revenue contributes to significant public service delivery gaps: over 20 million people live without clean water, almost one in every three people do not have a decent toilet, and about 40% children under the age of five have stunted growth.