PTI stages rally in Sialkot over ‘election rigging’

SIALKOT: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Saturday staged rally against alleged election rigging.

Addressing the participants of the rally, PTI chief Imran Khan said that his party would move courts and take out to streets as well against the poll rigging.

He claimed that the last general election was the historic fraud as Election Commission officials said amid the polling that they had failed to conduct transparent election.

Khan said that DPO of Hafizabad ran election campaign of his rival party. He also played an alleged tape of the DPO’s talk during the rally. He also criticized the government over the budget.

Bring proof of rigging or quit assemblies,

Says if Imran is right, KP govt is also product of rigging; path of agitation to cost PTI

LAHORE: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Pervaiz Rashid has said that the country cannot afford the politics of confrontation, and told PTI chief Imran Khan that if he had any proof of rigging in the elections, he should bring them on the floor of the Assembly.

In an interview, the information minister said that Imran Khan would suffer a lot if he proceeded on the path of the politics of agitation with the backing of Tahirul Qadri and Sheikh Rashid Ahmad.

Pervaiz Rashid said if according to Imran Khan, the elections were rigged, then his own party’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was also a product of rigging. In this situation, he said, Imran Khan and his party have no right to sit in the assemblies or run the KP government. He asked Imran Khan to resign from the KP government and assemblies and then fulfil his love for protests on the roads.

The minister was confident that Imran Khan would lose his case in the court of the people as he lost in the apex court. He said Imran Khan lost the rigging case in the court and his party’s candidate lost the seat to the PML-N candidate. In this way rigging was done against the PML-N and not the PTI, he argued.

He said Imran Khan has been pursuing the politics of negative tactics and that is why people rejected him in the general elections. He asked the PTI chief to wait for the appropriate time.

Pervaiz Rashid said the PML-N government has been formed with the backing of the people and not with the support of the PTI.

The minister said there is parliament in the country, an independent judiciary and all the institutions are gaining strength. “Instead of agitating on the roads, Imran should bring his case to parliament.” He said the bright future of the country is linked to democracy only.

PML-N, PPP, ANP assail Imran’s rigging charges

 

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP) have lashed out at Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan for his call to protest against the alleged rigging in last year’s general election.
Talking to ‘The News’ on Saturday, PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar said Imran Khan’s move to resort to protest the alleged rigging was incomprehensible after one year of the election.

The PPP leader said that it was the party’s formal stance that it will not become part of any protest rallies. “Though the PPP also has grievances about the May 11 results but despite its reservation on the results we accepted the May 11 elections,” he added.

According to sources, the PPP has decided to keep itself aloof from the PTI’s May 11 protest call saying that it will not become part of ‘protest politics’ that are aimed at derailing the democratic system.

According to sources, the PPP leaders held in-depth discussions on the protest politics of the PTI and ongoing rallies in the country aimed at destabilising the elected government. “Though we have serious reservations on the results of the election and rigging and even compiled a white paper in this regard that does not mean that we become a tool to destabilise the democratic set-up,” a senior PPP leader said.

Sources said the PPP has decided to continue to play its role as an active opposition in both houses of parliament rather than becoming a tool of others. “Parliament is a forum where the opposition can check any government move and make it accountable rather than adopting protest politics that may put the democratic system in danger,” the PPP leader said.

Opposition leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah in a press talk a few days back had already indicated that those who were used to bring out sponsored rallies in the past are now active and it is not a good omen for the country. These rallies are being sponsored and not being taken out on their own as those who are behind these rallies have their own agenda. However, he said the PPP will not become part of it.

Meanwhile, in a statement, the Awami National Party (ANP) leader Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that PTI chief Imran Khan should not indulge in the politics of opportunism.

He said according to Imran Khan, the sacked ministers belonging to the Sherpao group were corrupt while the ones from the PTI showed performance that wasn’t up to the mark.

INP adds from Lahore: PML-N leader and Punjab Minister for Law Rana Sanaullah on Saturday said that PTI Chairman Imran Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Tahirul Qadri have planned to launch an agitation movement on ‘someone’s’ directives.

Talking to newsmen here, he claimed that the people of the country fully support democracy and the PML-N-led federal government and the Imran-Qadri May 11 show will flop. He said Imran Khan was raising a hue and cry of rigging in the general elections and if he has any proof to support these allegations, he should bring it to light. He said that the democracy has no threats from anyone and the incumbent government will definitely complete its constitutional term.

He said protest is a democratic right of everyone and assured that the government will not resort to the arrest of leaders and activists to sabotage the May 11 agitation. He said Imran Khan was criticising the government only instead of improving the performance of the KP provincial government. He said the people are aware of the reality about Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri, and hoped that their joint venture will turn out to be a flop show like the previous ones.

The provincial law minister alleged that both are acting at the behest of ‘someone’ as they wanted to cause a dent to democracy.

Mumtaz Bhutto alleges rigging by PPP

ISLAMABAD: PML-N leader Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, whilst answering questions of party workers said that evidence of rigging by the PPP in the last elections is slowly beginning to surface. Each time the votes are recounted in any constituency, rigged votes by the PPP become apparent by the thousands, he said.

In the light of such conditions, all losing candidates are increasingly determined to have their results rechecked by the election tribunals but because many are unable to afford the fee of Rs10 per vote recounted, they remain silent, Bhutto added.

“This must be immediately taken notice of by the higher authorities as the burden of conducting free and fair elections lies with the government and not the candidate in question”, Bhutto held. Therefore recounting must be done free of charge as this is essential, as what good can be done in the national and provincial assemblies by such members who have entered those bodies by illicit means?, he questioned.

In reply to one question, Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto said that while Zardari is chanting the slogan “kadam barhao Nawaz Sharif hum tumarhay saat hain” his son on the other hand speaks against the Prime Minister. Whereas Zardari seeks reconciliation with the Taliban, Bilawal demands war with them. This raises the question of whether father and son do not see eye to eye, or is this just a new trick to deceive the nation? he concluded.

Samsung's Android 4.4 update reportedly puts an end to benchmark rigging

inShar

Last July, Samsung was caught in a bit of controversy when its flagship smartphone of the time, the Galaxy S4, was seen optimising its behaviour to score higher in commonly-used benchmarking apps.
According to the findings, the Samsung Galaxy S4 would expose higher-speed cores to certain applications like GLBenchmark 2.5.1, AnTuTu, Linpack, and Quadrant apps, while the power available to other apps would be capped at a lower speed, in an attempt to increase the battery life of the phone. This meant that the CPU power available to your typical apps was lesser than what you would expect based on the benchmarks score. Samsung allegedly did this 'optimisation' for GPU speeds as well.
However, it seems this practise has been put to an end with Samsung's Android 4.4 update for the Galaxy S4. According to a report by Ars Technica:

Moving to Android 4.4, that strange CPU activity stops happening. Every single benchmark we ran prompted variable-but-normal fluctuations in CPU speed based on actual activity. Speeds would ramp up for a couple of seconds while the app launched, but once it became idle, the speeds settled back down to where they would normally be.

Compare this to the behaviour in Android 4.3 "where all four cores go right to the maximum speed of 1.9GHz when a benchmark app is opened."
So has Samsung just hidden the new set of optimisations deeper in the code, or given up on the practice? Seems like it's the latter.
John Poole of Primate Labs, the developers of popular benchmarking app Geekbench told Ars, "I'm inclined to think that the change between 4.2.2 and 4.4.2 is due to Samsung tweaking the overall power and performance settings rather than a new harder-to-detect boost."
Similar optimisations were also noted in the Galaxy Note 3, so it would be interesting to see if a software update makes an impact on the phablet's performance in benchmarks as well.
To be fair to Samsung, it's not the only manufacturer that has been caught optimising its hardware for benchmarks. Anandtech noted last year that almost all manufacturers indulge in the practice. However, it seems that like almost everything else that it does, Samsung is (or at least was) better than others in this department as well.