Pakistan Goes on High Alert After Israel Explodes Phone Batteries Remotely in Lebanon
Wire desk byline Sourced from Xinhua, Dawn, Arab News, Anadolu and Minute Mirror. Translated and abridged by the GSRRA Desk.
The Senate Standing Committee for Science and Technology Wednesday demanded the federal government present a full briefing on mobile phone testing protocols in the next session following recent terror attacks in Lebanon which saw Israel detonate batteries of wireless devices (hand-held communication devices).
Chairman committee Kamil Ali Agha and other senators expressed their fears about the possibility of similar dangers to Pakistan given the increasing volume of unregulated mobile phone imports in the country.
The chairman questioned whether Pakistan has adequate mobile phone testing facilities and demanded the Ministry of Science & Technology to give assurances that the devices available in the country are safe. These are not mobile phones but bombs that we keep close to our chests, the chairman lamented.
Besides mobile phones, the committee briefly discussed the domestic cement sector. Senator Shibli Faraz informed the session that the industry owes billions of rupees and recommended that the matter be addressed in the Supreme Court or possibly the Public Accounts Committee.
The committee summoned officials from the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) to provide detailed records on the arrears in the next meeting. The chairman committee grilled the PSQCA for ineffective monitoring and lack of progress despite its 10 percent revenue growth this year.
The committee also discussed that the Ministry of Science & Technology is under review by a Right-Sizing Committee and may undergo extensive restructuring if necessary.
Reference Link:- https://propakistani.pk/2024/09/25/pakistan-goes-on-high-alert-after-israel-explodes-phone-batteries-remotely-in-lebanon/
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
