Month: April 2020

The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub When bernie madoff owned up to a $65bn Ponzi scheme in December 2008, it was not out of guilt. He knew the game was up. Three months earlier Lehman Brothers had imploded. The market meltdown sent clients clamouring to withdraw from his funds, leaving them depleted with many investors still…

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The adverse effects of being glued to the television, newspapers and social media under the current lockdown is starting to show in the form of stress, strain and depression in many. But this may compromise the body leading to decrease in immunity to fight the coronavirus, it has emerged. “I have started trying new recipes and taken up baking,” says Aisha, a university student. “I am also attending online classes but still since I am home all the time, I have a lot of time. The downside of this is…

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Amid the row over capacity payments, the independent power producers (IPPs) have offered the government to carry out a forensic audit by hiring a renowned chartered accountancy firm. In a meeting held between representatives of the IPPs and government officials on Thursday, sources quoted the IPPs as saying that if the government felt that power producers were involved in malpractices, it should carry out a forensic audit by hiring a renowned chartered accountancy firm. They added that if any evidence of wrongdoing or fraud was found, such IPPs should be…

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ISLAMABAD: During the much-awaited talks with the independent power producers (IPPs), the government here on Thursday placed a set of demands for material changes in power purchase agreements (PPAs) paving way to reduce the tariff for domestic, commercial and industrial sectors asking to provide ease to the people and making industry stand on its feet, a senior official who was part of the meeting told The News. A set of eight demands from the government was put in place knowing the fact that it will be tantamount to negation of…

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The government is focusing on wrong policy initiatives due to which the circular debt is ever increasing. In fact the recoveries of past years have been shown as increased collection when the regulator adjusted and allowed prior year adjustments in the distribution tariff. The wrong focus is on the generation cost and rewriting of the contracts whereas the actual malaise lies in the transmission and distribution systems and their attendant problems of corruption, inefficiency and mismanagement. By this strategy we are alienating investment and crucially the foreign direct investment by…

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