Imran Khan’s party decides to boycott upcoming by-elections in Pakistan
Islamabad (PTI): Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party has decided to boycott the upcoming by-elections for national and provincial assemblies, in line with the opinion of its founder.
Several seats of the national and provincial assemblies became vacant last month after the conviction of leaders of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for their involvement in the May 9, 2023 riots.
The decision to boycott the by-elections was taken by the party’s political committee, which met to consider Khan’s input following a meeting with his legal team at Adiala Jail on Tuesday, The Dawn newspaper reported.
Earlier in the day, Khan’s message was relayed to the media by his sister, Aleema Khan, who also met the 72-year-old cricketer-turned-politician in prison.
She was flanked by PTI secretary general Salman Akram Raja — whose resignation was reportedly turned down by Khan.
Denying reports of a bitter exchange with Raja, she said the lawyer was “like family” to them.
She said her brother had asked the party’s political committee to hold another meeting on the by-election issue based on his instructions.
Later on Tuesday night, PTI lawmaker Amir Dogar confirmed that the political committee had endorsed Khan’s opinion on not contesting the by-elections, adding that party lawmakers would also start quitting parliamentary bodies soon.
A day earlier, the party’s political committee had voted 12-9 to take part in the by-elections.
PTI’s information secretary Sheikh Waqqas Akram had even posted on social media that candidates would be given Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) tickets to avoid the chances of their being declared ‘independents’.
Talking to Dawn, former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser confirmed that in Khan’s opinion, the party should not go into by-elections, and that its lawmakers should leave all parliamentary standing committees, including the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
“Parliament has already been made a rubber stamp, as the voice of the opposition members has been suppressed by not telecasting their remarks on the floor of the house,” he said.
“Khan was of the view that the government will not let the PTI candidate win by-elections… [and] if [we] take part in the elections, it will legitimise the government’s illegal action of de-seating PTI legislators,” he added.
Political analyst Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said it was quite unfortunate that the decision taken by the party’s political committee to contest by-elections was reversed by Khan.
The PTI is more of a “one-man show” than any other political party, he said.
Last week, Pakistan’s two major political parties in the current ruling dispensation — the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — announced to jointly contest the upcoming by-elections.
As per the schedule issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the by-elections will be held on September 18 for the NA-66 Wazirabad, NA-129 Lahore-XIII, and PP-87 Mianwali-III constituencies.
It would be followed by elections in NA-143 Sahiwal-lll, NA-185, DG Khan-ll, PP-203 Sahiwal-Vl, NA-96 Faisalabad-II, NA-104 Faisalabad-X, and PP-98 Faisalabad-l on October 5, the ECP said.
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Ambani, Adani pledge USD 210 bn for India's AI push
New Delhi (PTI): Conglomerates run by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani committed USD 210 billion investment to creating infrastructure that will help India emerge as an AI development hub.
At the India AI Impact Summit, Ambani announced a Rs 10 lakh crore (about USD 110 billion) investment in artificial intelligence over the next seven years in gigawatt-scale AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar, leveraging up to 10 GW of green power surplus, and a nationwide edge-compute layer integrated with telecom and digital operator Jio's networks to deliver low-latency AI across India.
"Our resolve is clear: make intelligence as ubiquitous as connectivity," he said. "When compute becomes infrastructure, innovation will become inevitable."
Adani, on the other hand, unveiled a USD 100-billion investment to develop renewable-energy-powered, hyperscale AI-ready data centres by 2035 -- one of the world's largest integrated energy-compute commitments.
The initiative is expected to catalyse an additional USD 150 billion across server manufacturing, cloud platforms, and supporting industries, creating a projected USD 250 billion AI infrastructure ecosystem in India.
India must architect its own artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure rather than rely on imports, Adani Group executive director Jeet Adani said on Thursday, warning that AI will redefine national sovereignty.
Other major investments announced at the Summit included USD 50 billion commitment by Microsoft by the end of the decade to expand artificial intelligence access across the Global South. "India, not surprisingly, is one of the largest," its vice chair and president, Brad Smith, said.
The firm had unveiled USD 17.5 billion investment in AI investments in India last year.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new subsea cable initiative to boost AI connectivity between India, the US and other locations, alongside partnerships for cloud infrastructure platform support to over 20 million public servants across 800 districts.
Yotta Data Services, backed by a real estate group headed by Niranjan Hiranandani, announced over USD 2 billion spend on Nvidia's latest chips in an artificial intelligence computing hub it is setting up just outside the national capital.
While Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) signed up ChatGPT parent OpenAI as its first customer for its data centre unit under the global AI infrastructure initiative Stargate, infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro announced a proposed venture with Nvidia to build AI-ready data centre infrastructure, advanced computing platforms, and ecosystem enablement required to support large-scale AI workloads.
