ISLAMABAD: National Assembly’s Standing Committee for defence on Thursday approved a defence budget of more than Rs.500 billion for 2011-2012.

The Standing Committee meeting was held at the Parliament House and was chaired by Azra Fazal. Secretary defence and concerned officials participated in the meeting and informed the committee about the defence budget needs.

Upon the pressure of the defence ministry, the media was kept out of the meeting. Later, the committee’s chairperson informed the media that an 18 per cent increase in the defence budget has been approved for the next fiscal year. She stated that the increase was taken into account due to the price hikes in the country.

She stated that the Army and other security agencies were spending a large amount of resources on the war against terrorism and security measures.
Eighteen per cent increase in defence budget announced | Latest-News | DAWN.COM



That is how we are going to run our country.Unfortunately,such kind of decisions aren't taken by Parliamentarians.They are just used to endorse ''already taken decisions''.Now,Pakistan Armed forces would be getting 500 billion plus,which almost equals province punjab budget.
Apart of Military,Police is also spending huge amount on war on terror,but unfortunately this department is taken other wise.AIG Finance Punjab had demanded 1.5 billion rupees for training/Ammunition purposes from govt.But,his request was denied and only 140 million rupees were allocated to Punjab Police.I am sure if same amount had been demanded by Military,the govt could have never refused.

in a country where education sector has been given a blow by dissolving the most prestigious HEC, the military budget is increasing day by day.... i am just unable to understand what this Govt.. is up to and what they really want from us.... Allah bless my country because its inhabitants are sleeping

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Don't judge my path... for you haven't walked my journey...

our hatred and unwillingness to resolve our issues with neighboring countries has devastating effects on our economy. The money which will be spent on lethal weapons to institutionalize the hatred can be spend on the educational and public welfare projects. Our National prosperity and welfare would ensure our strong position in the region . These weapons are giving us nothing but more demoralization , antagonism and bitterness in society coz of lack of basic necessities for lay man . The democratic forces in our country must realize the importance of proper and equal distribution of public money in all sectors to ensure the supremacy of parliament and public votes.

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Sangdil Riwajoon ki ya Imart-e-Kohna Toot bhi Tou Skti hay
Yeh Aseer Sehzadi Choot bhi tou Skti hay

one can criticize the use (or illegal use) of money that we put into the defence sector but

to criticize(as done by a lot of critics) the increase in defence budget on the basis of comparison between education sector and defence sector and etc basis is not understandable to me.

i think the critics in increase in the defence budget are overlooking the defence budget of our neighbouring ountries e.g china,india,russia,iran,north and south korea and yes an unstable afghanistan border with american forces.already what we allocate to defence is not sufficient.(not to forget that we are fighting a war)

yesterday on t.v some official on a news channel(may be the railway minister himself) was telling that indian "RAILWAY" department has requested 12 billion dollars from their govt and we here are of the view that our "DEFENCE" department is not entitled to even half of what our enemy(competitor etc whatever you like) is demanding for its railway.

yes i know very well that we are passing through difficult times but if govt. can allocate money to defence then we should not be having any objection on it.

lastly i am of the view that these are not the arms or sophisticated weapon systems that gurantees the freedom and progress of a nation rather it is the pen and paper that we should rely on for the aforementioned objectives.but that does not mean to start speaking against the raise in the budget of defence.

and this is a sort of phobia that whenever there is some increase in budget of defence, people(i have watched it o lot on news channels) always come up with the comparison between education sector and defence.even if we want to allocate the budget of some other sector to education than it should better be from developmebt sector etc.afterall educating people is the real development

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Puppet,Slave,Lover

sometimes it seems that we r living in a fool's paradise, always expect good things to happen but things are going worse with the passage of time. when ineligible persons become the leaders they always destroy the nations. same is happening with us. we can only hope for the best......

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Don't judge my path... for you haven't walked my journey...

what i think is, that this step is taken just to make the army happy, so that they wont take any action against this democratic party i.e Marshal Law... because HEC dissolution isnt a good step, which any body can understand...and this step can demolish this Govt easily...and the only force which can harm this so called democratic party is an Army, and to make them happy their budget is increased...lets see what happened...but one thing is very much clear that none of the democratic government can or could do good for this country...lets hope for the best...

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Regards,
~ Riz ~