Mumbai: Zakia Wardak, the Afghan Consul-General in Mumbai, India, on Sunday resigned from her position following allegations of gold smuggling, media sources report. Wardak confirmed her resignation via her official channel, expressing regret over stepping away from her role effective May 5, 2024.

According to Indian media, Wardak and her son were detained by financial intelligence authorities at Mumbai airport last month upon arrival from Dubai. They were found in possession of 25 kilograms of gold, valued at approximately $1.9 million. Although Wardak benefited from diplomatic immunity and was not arrested, the gold was confiscated.

With Wardak's resignation, thousands of Afghan nationals, including students and businessmen, are left without consular representation in India.

 Currently, the Taliban authorities control several Afghan embassies abroad, while others operate with a hybrid system in which embassy staff continue routine consular tasks despite the absence of an ambassador.

Following the Taliban's takeover of Kabul in August 2021, most countries evacuated their missions from Afghanistan. However, a few embassies, including those of Pakistan, China, and Russia, remained operational with ambassadors still stationed in Kabul.

Lahore: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz said that they wanted to benefit from Korean technology for industrial development.

“We will welcome Korean partnership in electronics, automobiles and information technology,” said Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz during her interaction with the ambassador of Republic of Korea to Pakistan Park Kijun,.

The both sides discussed the possible avenues of mutual cooperation in different fields.

Maryam Nawaz emphasized on the need to promote bilateral cooperation.

She said that Punjab also had a huge investment potential in agriculture and mining.

“We intend to learn from Korean expertise in agriculture to increase our per acre crop yield,” said the Punjab CM, adding that  the bilateral trade volume with Korea should also increase further, as they had great export opportunities in woven cotton and cotton yarn textile.

The Korean Ambassador congratulated Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on assuming charge of office as the first female Chief Minister of the Punjab.

Lahore: Pakistan Railways has achieved an unprecedented earning of Rs 66 billion in the first nine months of the current financial year 2023-24, despite facing a financial crisis due to floods in the monsoon season.

“The department is expecting to generate revenues up to Rs 80 billion by the end of this financial year through the consistent efforts and hard work of the Railway workers,” official sources in the Ministry said on Sunday.

They said that during the first nine months of the last financial year (2022-23), the department earned around Rs 39 billion, a historic increase in revenue during the same period of the current financial year (2023-24).

According to the data, they said that out of the revenue of Rs 66 billion, revenue was derived from passenger and freight trains while other sectors of the department also contributed to the total revenue.

At present, they said that Pakistan Railways is operating around 96 passenger trains, up from the previous year when 86 trains were running. Similarly, during the previous year, on average it operated 3.75 freight trains while the number reached seven freight trains this year.

The sources said the department emphasized that the issue of delay in payment of salaries to employees has now been resolved and things will be more streamlined, once work on the Mainline-I (ML-I) project kicks off.

To a question, they said that Pakistan Railways has beefed up precautionary measures to reduce passenger train accidents and only six minor accidents with no causality took place on the entire railway network in the country during the last three months.

The drastic decrease in accidents has been witnessed due to the efforts being undertaken to reduce trespassing at unmanned level crossings and unauthorized locations, they added.

“Our staff is continuously monitoring the railway tracks across the country and conducting thorough inspection of the trains as the safety of the passengers is the top priority of the department,” the sources said.