district, but was navigable for local boats throughout its course of . Bannu Jirga (1947) On 21 June 1947 in Bannu, a jirga was held by Pashtun leaders including Bacha Khan, his brother Chief Minister Dr Khan Sahib, the Khudai Khidmatgars, members of the Provincial Assembly, Mirzali Khan (Faqir of Ipi), and other tribal chiefs, just seven weeks before the Partition of India. The jirga declared the Bannu Resolution, which demanded that the Pashtuns be given a choice to have an independent state of Pashtunistan composing all Pashtun territories of British India, instead of being made to join either India or Pakistan. However, the British Raj refused to comply with the demand of this resolution, in response to which the Khudai Khidmatgars boycotted the 1947 North-West Frontier Province referendum for merging the province into Pakistan. Pashtun National Jirga (2022) On 11-14 March 2022, the Pashtun National Jirga was held at Mirakhel in Bannu District in order to defend the rights of the Pashtun people in the country. The critical issues which were faced by the Pashtuns were discussed during the jirga in a bid to suggest solutions to them. Administrative subdivisions Bannu District is divided into 6 Tehsils and 46 union councils. Bannu Tehsil Domel Tehsil Kakki Tehsil Baka Khel Tehsil Meryan Tehsil Wazir Tehsil Gumatti (formerly Frontier Region Bannu) Provincial and National Assembly Seats The district has 4 Provincial Seats in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly while it has 1 seat in National Assembly. National Assembly NA-39 (Bannu) Provincial Assembly Demographics At the time of the 2017 census the district had a population of 1,210,183, of which 614,911 were males and 595,248 females. Rural population was 1,160,235 (95.87%) while the urban population was 49,948 (4.13%). The literacy rate was 46.55% - the male literacy rate was 66.84% while the female literacy rate was 26.26%. Pashto was the predominant language, spoken by 98.20% of the population. Religion Universities in Bannu District Bannu has two Universities with one i.e University of Science & Technology, Bannu (USTB), founded in 2005 by Mr. Akram Khan Durrani, the then Chief Minister, has a full degree awarding status and another one as a campus of the University of Engineering & Technology (UET), Peshawar. USTB offers a wide variety of courses in Science, Engineering and Arts subjects at Bachelors, Master and PhD level. These universities host students from District Bannu, the neighboring districts of Lakki Marwat, Karak, Waziristan