Latest news with #nationalpolicy
Arab News
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Pakistan says formulating national policy to counter India's ‘water aggression'
ISLAMABAD: Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal announced this week that Islamabad was formulating a comprehensive national policy to counter India's move to suspend a decades-old water-sharing treaty with Pakistan, stressing that it aims to safeguard the country's water resources. India announced its decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty, signed between the two countries in 1960, after Delhi blamed Islamabad for being involved in an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people on April 22. Islamabad denied involvement in the incident. Pakistan has warned Delhi's move to suspend the treaty that guarantees water access for 80 percent of Pakistan's farms, can trigger a nuclear war between the two countries. 'Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal says a comprehensive national policy is being formulated in consultation with all four provinces to counter Indian water aggression,' state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported on Sunday. Iqbal said the policy aims to safeguard Pakistan's water resources in the face of ongoing regional challenges, referring to India's move to hold the treaty in abeyance. 'The minister announced to establish a special technical committee comprising water experts and engineers to provide technically sound recommendations to address water disputes and related challenges,' the report said. TREATY'S HISTORY The Indus Waters Treaty took effect on April 1, 1960, and was officially signed on September 19, 1960, in Karachi by Pakistan's then President Ayub Khan and India's then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. As per the treaty, Pakistan has rights to the western rivers— Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab— for irrigation, drinking, and non-consumptive uses like hydropower. India controls the eastern rivers— Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej— for unrestricted use but must not significantly alter their flow. India can use the western rivers for limited purposes such as power generation and irrigation, without storing or diverting large volumes. Experts, like Hassaan F. Khan from Tufts University, argue that India lacks the infrastructure to divert large amounts of Indus waters. The treaty also created a permanent Indus Commission and a dispute resolution framework, and despite wars and decades of tensions between Pakistan and India, it remains one of the world's most resilient water-sharing agreements. There is no provision in the treaty for either country to unilaterally suspend or terminate the pact, which has clear dispute resolution systems. The April 22 attack triggered a days-long conflict between India and Pakistan in early May, raising fears of a nuclear war before US President Donald Trump intervened and brokered a ceasefire on May 10. The conflict killed over 70 people on both sides of the border, with both countries claiming victory over the other. Pakistan and India both dispatched delegations to world capitals in June to defend their stances regarding the conflict. India and Pakistan have fought two out of three wars in the past seven decades over the disputed Himalayan Kashmir territory. Both sides claim the valley in full but administer only parts of it.
Bloomberg
08-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Congress Is Addicted to Megabills — Despite Their Risks
Extraordinarily narrow and unstable House and Senate majorities have become routine in modern American politics. The frantic, final maneuvering last week before Congress approved President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act shows why that's likely to persist for some time. And that means business, local governments, non-profits and ordinary Americans need to buckle up for more hairpin turns in national policy that make it almost impossible to plan for the long term. Political parity has become a defining feature of our times. Neither party has won a House majority greater than ten seats in each of the past three congressional sessions. That hasn't happened since the formation of the modern party system in 1828. Likewise, one or the other party has reached 55 or more Senate seats in only three of the 13 congressional sessions since 2000, compared to 17 of the final 20 sessions of the 20th century.
Times of Oman
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Times of Oman
Shura Council's panel discusses Draft Law on Geospatial Data
Muscat: The Services and Public Utilities Committee of the Shura Council hosted specialists from the National Survey and Geospatial Information Authority to discuss the Draft National Geospatial Data and Information Law referred to the Council by the Government for review. The meeting began with a presentation of the rationale and objectives of the draft law. According to the Authority's representatives, the law seeks to establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for setting national policies, standards, and technical specifications governing the collection, production, exchange, and dissemination of national geospatial data and information. It further aims to unify the mechanisms for geospatial data production across both the public and private sectors in support of sustainable development plans and national infrastructure, and to enhance institutional integration among the relevant entities. The meeting included extensive discussions on the articles of the draft law and explored potential mechanisms for its implementation by various state institutions. The deliberations also assessed the law's alignment with existing national legislation and regulations, as well as its consistency with international agreements to which the Sultanate of Oman is a party in this domain. The Council held its eighth meeting for the second annual session (2024–2025) of the tenth term on Wednesday, under the chairmanship of Hamoud Ahmed Al Yahyaei, Head of the Committee, in the presence of Committee members. It is worth noting that as part of its study of the draft law, the Committee had previously hosted a number of academic experts from Sultan Qaboos University to seek their input on various technical and scientific aspects of the legislation. On another note, the Committee also reviewed its report on the assessment of the annual report of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, in accordance with Article (55) of the Law of the Council of Oman, which stipulates: "Service Ministers shall submit to the Shura Council an annual report on the stages of implementation of the projects pertaining to the ministries they head. The Council may summon any of them to present a statement on specific matters within the scope of their respective ministries and to discuss such matters with them."
Wall Street Journal
03-06-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Will District Judges Now Run the Government?
The Supreme Court may soon apply reasonable guardrails on the ability of a single federal district court judge to decide national policy, and not a moment too soon. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley flags another case of judicial overreach that has inspired the Trump administration to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Specifically a judge in the Northern District of California thwarted administration efforts to manage the federal bureaucracy nationwide. The professor writes: But of course this is the Trump administration, not the Clinton administration, so a double standard seems to apply. Mr. Turley has more of the particulars:
