All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) urges government to promulgate PPRO immediately | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) urges government to promulgate PPRO immediately

KARACHI- The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) has strongly urged upon the federal government to promulgate the Publications and Press Registration Ordinance without further delay as there existed no press laws in the country, stated a press release of the APNS.

Kazi Asad Abid, Secretary-General APNS, announcing the decisions taken at the Executive Committee meeting of the Society held here under the chairmanship of Acting President, Zia Shahid, stated that the members from across the country, noted with concern that after the lapse of RPPO, there was a void of press laws, governing the industry.

The Ministry of Information was handed over the final draft of the ordinance agreed upon by the APNS & CPNE with the Ministry in March 2001 and the APNS was informed that the Council of Islamic Ideology had already cleared the draft ordinance.

The Secretary Information, Anwar Mehmood, had assured that the ordinance would be enacted by the end of September.

The members regretted that despite the assurances, the ordinance has not yet been issued. The Executive Committee in a resolution, directed the APNS Acting President and Secretary General to devise an action plan, if the government fails to promulgate the ordinance by October 15, 2001.

The APNS Executive Committee noted that the Punjab information was following an unjust and discriminative policy of releasing ads to publications.

The ads are being released on the personal whims and wishes of officials and many genuine publications were being ignored, whereas some dummy newspapers were being issued enormous quantum.

The members also noted that the bills of SPL ads of the departments of Punjab Government were long over due and despite several representations the dues have not yet been cleared.

The Executive Committee formed a committee of Zia Shahid, Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami and Jamil Athar to take up the issue with the governor, Punjab.

The Executive Committee also noted that the Sindh Government has also not cleared the dues of member publications amounting to Rs 100 million outstanding for last five years.

The members flayed the role of the Sindh Information, which has failed to help the newspapers solve their problems and instead was releasing the advertisements of black-listed and defaulter government departments in non-member and dummy publications.

The Executive Committee advised the Secretary General to take up the issue with the higher authorities in the province.

The Executive Committee approved the follow up of the decisions taken by the Extra-Ordinary General Council and advised the Secretariat to initiate the process of registration of Media Buying Houses and enlistment of non-accredited agencies.

The members reviewed the Workshop on Small & Medium Size Newspapers and Periodicals held at Karachi on August 31, 2001 and were satisfied that the workshop was, a remarkable event and achieved its objectives successfully.

The members appreciated the efforts of the President APNS, Mr Hameed Haroon in this regard and decided to hold such events in other centers of the industry.

The Executive Committee also considered the reports of the Regional Press Committee and decided to finalize its recommendation on the issues faced by the regional publications in a full dressed discussion in the next meeting to be held in Peshawar.

The Executive Committee also considered the report of the Secretary General on May-June clearance period and directed the Secretariat to take appropriate action in recovery of the reported dues of member publications.

It was noted that the advertising agencies though deduct income tax from the bills of member publications, but do not provide the challans in this regard.

It was decided that the nonprovision of challans would be considered as short payment. The members considered the applications for associate membership and decided to grant associate membership to Daily Inaaf Lahore, Daily Asas Lahore, Daily Soorat-e-Hal Faisalabad, Monthly Lehran Lahore, Monthly Khofnak Digest Lahore, Daily Maidan Peshawar, Daily Azadi Swat, Daily Shamaal Abbottabad and Daily Dopahar Islamabad.

The members expressed their grief over the said demise of veteran journalists Mr Akhater Ali Shah, Editor Daily Pasban Hyderabad, Maulana Ismail Zabih and Mr Nayyar Alvi and resolved that their contribution to the newspapers industry and journalism would he long remembered. The members offered Fateha for the departed souls. The members also expressed their condolence on the demise of the father of Ghazi Salahuddin.

The meeting was attended by Zia Shahid Acting President, (D/Khabrain), Pir Sufaid Shah Hamdard, Vice President, (D/Wehdat), Kazi Asad Abid, Secretary General, (Ibrat), Muhammad Aslam Kazi, Joint Secretary, (Kawish), Mushtaq A, Qureshi, Finance Secretary, (Naey Ufaq), Mumtaz A. Tahir (Aftab), Dr. Jabbar Khattak (Awami Awaz), Anwar Farooqi (Aghaz), Syed Fasih lqbal (Balochistan Times), Arshad A. Zuberi, (Business Recorder), Abdul Rashid Ghazi (Business Report), Syed Sarmad Ali (Jang), Sharif Farooq (Jihad), Javed Mehr Shamsi, (Kaleem), Aamir Mahmood (Kiran), Mustansar Javed (Mashriq) Quetta, Syed Sajjad Bokhari (Musawat), Arif Nizami (Nawa-e-Waqt), Samina Ibrahim (Newsline), Mujeeb-ar-Rehman Shami(Pakistan), S.M. Munir Gillani (Paigham), llyas Shakir (Qaumi Akhbar), Waqar Yousuf Azeemi (Roohani Digest), Kushnood Ali Khan (Sahafat), Jamil Ather (Tijarat), Riaz A. Mansoori (The Cricketer), Mustafa Sadiq (Wifaq) and Masood Hamid(Dawn).

Source: The News
Date:10/3/2001