ISLAMABAD: Ahead of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s maiden visit to China on November 3, a private company said on Tuesday that it will launch a bus service connecting the two countries on the same date.
The North South Transport Network (NSTN) is undertaking the initiative under the flagship of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
The service, which commences on November 3, will be operational from Pakistan’s second largest city of Lahore to Kashgar in China. The journey itself is expected to clock 30 hours while providing a picturesque view of Pakistan's northern areas along the way.
While a one-way will cost commuters Rs13,000, a return ticket is priced at Rs23,000, according to state-run Radio Pakistan. According to the NSTN, passengers will be provided with meals, refreshment beverages, tea and snacks and free internet.
Pakistan and China are linked through a land route which is used for both trade and travel. In 2015, the two countries launched the CPEC, a flagship project worth $60 billion.
Both the countries maintain traditionally-close, cooperative and friendly ties in diverse fields. As part of his visit, PM Khan is expected to participate in the First China International Import Expo, in Shanghai, where Pakistan is exhibiting a wide range of export products.
Pakistan-China bus service to start from November
Pakistan-China bus service to start from November
- Luxury transport facility will take commuters from Lahore to Kashgar
- PM Khan to embark on his first trip to Beijing in less than a week
Excavations resume at Mohenjo-Daro to study early Harappan city wall
- A joint Pakistani-US team probes multi-phase wall dating to around 2800 BC
- Research remains limited despite Mohenjo-Daro’s archaeological importance
ISLAMABAD: Archaeologists working at the ancient site of Mohenjo-Daro have resumed excavations aimed at better understanding the city’s early development, including the structure and chronology of a massive perimeter wall first identified more than seven decades ago, officials said on Saturday.
The latest excavation season, launched in late December, is part of a joint Pakistani-US research effort approved by the Technical Consultative Committee of the National Fund for Mohenjo-Daro, which met at the site this week to review conservation and research priorities. The work focuses on reassessing the city’s defensive architecture and early occupation layers through controlled excavation and carbon dating.
Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, a senior archaeologist involved in the project, told the committee that the excavation targets a section of the city wall originally uncovered by British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler in 1950.
“This wall was over seven meters wide and built in multiple phases, reaching a height of approximately seven meters,” Kenoyer said, according to an official statement circulated after the meeting. “The lowest part of the wall appears to have been constructed during the early Harappan period, around 2800 BC.”
Organic material recovered from different excavation levels is being analyzed for carbon dating to establish a clearer timeline of the site’s development, the statement continued, adding that the findings would be published after detailed study.
The committee noted that despite Mohenjo-Daro’s status as one of the world’s earliest and largest urban centers, systematic research at the site has remained limited in recent decades. Its members agreed to expand archaeological studies and invited new research proposals to help formulate a long-term strategy for the site.
The committee also approved the continuation of conservation work on previously excavated material, including dry core drilling data, and reviewed progress on preserving a coin hoard discovered at the site in 2023, the results of which are expected to be published after conservation is completed.
Mohenjo-Daro, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Pakistan’s Sindh province, was a major center of the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished more than 4,000 years ago.
