Lahore: In an unusual step, the Punjab government has appointed Professor Dr. Shazia Bashir as the Acting Vice-Chancellor of Government College University (GCU), Lahore.

According to the media report, Professor Dr. Shazia Bashir has been serving in GCU Lahore since 1996. Before that, she was the Dean of Mathematics and Physical Sciences Department. He did M.Phil from University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore and PhD from Technical University of Vienna, Austria.

As Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Physics and Institute of Physics and Chairperson of the Department of Physics, she has contributed significantly to research in the field, with over 150 research papers published in reputed international journals.

She has been appointed by Governor Punjab Baligh-ur-Rehman for a period of four months or till appointment of regular Vice Chancellor. Faculty, staff and students have welcomed this historic appointment.

However, the appointment comes at a time when there is a leadership crisis in Punjab's public sector universities, with at least 29 institutions currently functioning without permanent vice-chancellors, leading to many academic and administrative problems.

The Higher Education Department (HED) looks after the affairs of 34 government universities of the province. The term of permanent vice-chancellors in 22 universities is expiring 1.5 years early and the term of four others is ending about six months before, while the Vice chancellors are also to be appointed in three new government universities.

The lack of permanent leadership has raised concerns among academic staff associations of universities, who believe that the absence of permanent vice-chancellors is affecting the quality of teaching and research in universities.

In many universities of the province, the most important posts including vice chancellors, registrars, treasurers and controllers of examinations are lying vacant.

Islamabad: The federal finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said that Pakistan stock market is at the highest level in history, which has increased in foreign exchange reserves. This market has not increased by date stocks, but by market operations.

Addressing an event in Islamabad, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb stated that foreign exchange reserves will reach 9 to 10 billion dollars by June.

He added that the final installment by International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be released later this week. If there is an IMF loan program, there is no plan B.

The finance minister continued to say that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of agriculture is increasing by 5% and we have also produced more crops.

He further said that they want to stabilize the economy, the tax share in the economy is nine percent, which is the lowest in the region. There is a need for reforms in the energy sector, serious efforts must be made to reduce energy losses.

The Federal Minister also stated that it is a good place where we are now, the financial institution is called 'Lender of the Last Resort' for a reason, this program has helped in creating macroeconomic stability.

Mohammad Aurangzeb further added: ‘We requested the IMF to issue a long-term program because the first reason was that we wanted to maintain macroeconomic stability and the second was the implementation of the structural reform agenda. The country does not need a policy, we don't need to know why or what, but we need to work on it and be resilient’.

The federal minister said that the government's job is not to do business, therefore he asked all the ministries to take the government institutions towards privatization. Adding non-tax payers or low tax payers to the net, which is the implementation aspect is very important, we have to get the implementation components right.

“As a country, it is important to take timely decisions and implement them. Someone told me that why don't you talk to the Chief Justice, I will talk to him when it is his matter, but this matter is for the executive. We have requested the tribunals to decide in the next 3-4 months and we will also replace the people in these tribunals,” stated the minister.

He also said that we will have to go in consultation with the provinces to bring people into the tax net. We will try to get their help in this regard, we want to speed up privatization. It is known that what they are going to do now, they are not going to do anything, this is Pakistan's program, nobody is doing anything to us.

He said that we had very good discussions in Washington, the nature of the new program will be discussed when the mission comes to Pakistan, we hope that we will make an agreement at the end of June or July.

Lahore: Pakistani cricketer Shaheen Shah Afridi has termed renowned cricketer Muhammad Rizwan as Bradman of T20 cricket.

According to the details, Shaheen Shah Afridi posted a message on social media platform regarding Muhammad Rizwan that he broke the record of Babar Azam and Virat Kohli by making a new one of fastest runs of 3,000.

He stated that Pakistan cricket’s superman crossed an important milestone. The style of play changed the effects of his performance. He suggested Muhammad Rizwan to keep it up.

Shaheen said that Rizwan is an example for others and also a champion. Muhammad Rizwan thanked the Pakistani team’s stars for celebrating his success in this way. He also showed gratitude towards his fans.