Mahesh Malani first Hindu to win Pak National Assembly seat

July 28, 2018

Islamabad, Jul 28: Mahesh Kumar Malani of the Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) has become the first Hindu candidate to win a National Assembly seat, 16 years after non-Muslims got the right to vote and contest on general seats in the country.

Malani contested and won the National Assembly (NA-222) Tharparkar-II seat in southern Sindh province, after defeating 14 candidates, the Dawn reported.

He received 1,06,630 votes while his opponent, Arbab Zakaullah of the Grand Democratic Alliance, garnered 87,251 votes.

Malani, a Pakistani Hindu Rajasthani Pushkarna Brahamin politician, was a member of parliament from 2003-08 on a reserved seat, nominated by the PPP.

In 2013, Malani became the first non-Muslim Member of the Provincial Assembly after winning the Tharparkar-III general seat of the Sindh Assembly.

He had served as the chairperson of the Sindh Assembly's Standing Committee on Food, apart from being members of various standing committees during the last government's tenure.

Non-Muslims got the right to vote and contest on general seats of the parliament and provincial assemblies in 2002 after the then president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf made amendments in the Constitution.

They also have reserved seats in the Senate, national and provincial assemblies.

Ten seats are reserved for minorities in the National Assembly, which are allotted to parties on the basis of the number of seats they have in the parliament.

Women and non-Muslims in Pakistan get two opportunities to become a lawmaker: first by contesting elections on 272 general seats from anywhere and after getting the nomination from a party having representation in the National Assembly.

In March this year, PPP's Krishna Kumari from Tharparkar became the first Hindu woman to be elected to the Senate. She was elected to a reserved seat for women from Sindh.

Comments

Anwar
 - 
Saturday, 28 Jul 2018

Your Headline is wrong.

 

He is not the first Hindu in Pak National Assembly.There are many Hindus in their NA....Hindus have reserved seats in Pak National Assembly.

He is the first Hindu to win from a General seat where Muslims are majority.

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News Network
May 24,2020

New Delhi, May 24: Overwhelmed by the donations that poured in from the society for his help, Phool Mia, the fruit seller in north Delhi's Jagatpuri area whose mangoes were looted by the ordinary people, said that those who helped him have made his "Eid" and have shown that "humanity is still alive".

Video footage that went viral on social media, shows that scores of passers-by looted the unattended crates of mangoes of a fruit seller after a fight broke out in the neighbourhood. The incident took place on Wednesday.

"My stock of mangoes worth Rs 30,000 was kept there. Some persons were fighting with each other fearing which I left the place to avoid any sort of altercation. When I returned, I saw that they were looting the mangoes kept there. There were 50-100 people who were involved in this act," Phool Mia, narrated the ordeal.

"A video got viral about the incident after which people donated to me on a portal. They empathised with me when I was ruined. I thank the media and all those people who have donated from the bottom of my heart as they made my Eid. Now, I would be able to celebrate Eid with my children. This shows humanity is still alive," he added.

However, four people have been arrested on the basis of video footage, Delhi Police said.

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News Network
May 18,2020

Washington, May 18: US President Donald Trump on Sunday called his predecessor Barak Obama a ‘grossly incompetent president’.

The Trump’s reaction came after Obama on Saturday criticised the US authorities' response to the coronavirus outbreak.

“He (Obama) was an incompetent president. That’s all I can say. Grossly incompetent,” Trump told reporters at the White House on his arrival from Camp David.

Trump was responding to a question on the virtual commencement address by Obama a day earlier.

In his address to college graduates, Obama had said that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the American leadership.

“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” Obama said without naming officials.

“A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge,” he added.

There was no immediate response from the office of the former president on the remarks made by Trump.

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News Network
June 9,2020

New Delhi, Jun 9: Petrol price on Tuesday was hiked by 54 paise per litre and diesel by 58 paise a litre - the third straight daily increase in rates after oil PSUs ended an 82-day hiatus in rate revision.

Petrol price in Delhi was hiked to Rs 73.00 per litre from 72.46, while diesel rates were increased to Rs 71.17 a litre from Rs 70.59, according to a price notification of state oil marketing companies.

This is the third daily increase in rates in a row. Oil companies had on Sunday restarted revising prices in line with costs, after ending an 82-day hiatus.

Prices were raised by 60 paise per litre each on both petrol and diesel on Sunday as well as on Monday. In all, petrol price has gone up by Rs 1.74 per litre and diesel by Rs 1.78 a litre in three days.

Oil PSUs - Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) - had put daily price revisions on hold soon after the government on March 14, hiked excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 3 per litre each.

Oil companies did not pass on that excise duty hike, as well as the May 6 increase in tax on petrol by Rs 10 per litre and Rs 13 a litre hike on diesel by setting them off against the decline in retail prices that should have effected to reflect international oil rates falling to two-decade low.

International rates have since rebounded and oil companies having exhausted all the margin are now passing on the increase to customers, an industry official said.

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