Pakistan PM Bans Red Carpets At Official Events: Report

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed authorities to impose a ban on the use of red carpets at official events, ARY News reported.

Expressing dissatisfaction with the practice of laying out red carpets during the visits of federal ministers and senior officials, the Prime Minister made his stance clear.

According to the Cabinet Division, the ban on red carpets has been enforced in line with the Prime Minister’s instructions, as reported by ARY News.

The notification stated that red carpets would now be exclusively reserved for diplomatic receptions.

In a recent development, PM Shehbaz Sharif and members of the federal cabinet have collectively decided to forgo their salaries and perks as part of the government’s austerity drive.

Last month, PM Shehbaz stressed the paramount importance of austerity measures for the government.

Earlier, President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari had declined to accept his salary and perks, citing the economic challenges facing the nation, ARY News reported.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said that Pakistan faced one of the worst economic crises in its history in 2023, with poverty, inflation and unemployment soaring, jeopardising millions of people’s rights to health, food and an adequate standard of living, Dawn newspaper reported.

In its 740-page ‘World Report 2024’, made available on Friday, the HRW reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries, and observed that the insistence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on austerity and the removal of subsidies without adequate compensatory measures resulted in additional hardship for low-income groups in Pakistan.

Pakistan remained exceedingly vulnerable to climate change and faced rates of warming considerably above the global average, making extreme climate events more frequent and intense, according to the report.