Govt may allow 100 TV channels, says Rashid | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Govt may allow 100 TV channels, says Rashid

KARACHI: An exhibition, featuring 100 rarely-seen photographs of Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, was inaugurated here on Sunday by Minister for Information & Broadcasting Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

The exhibition, opened here at the Arts Council, has been organised as the last leg of the exhibition arranged by the Directorate General of Films and Publications, Ministry for Information, to commemorate the Madr-e-Millat year. Earlier, the exhibition was held at Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta under a decision of the ministry to hold the event in the federal capital as well as in four provincial capitals.

Mian Shafuiddin, Director General of the Films and Publications Department, informed the audience that the exhibition contained around 60 photographs of Madr-e-Millat at the time of its launching and the number had now risen to 100 owing to ensuing collection of photos from various official and private sources.

Sheikh Rashid while referring to Madr-e-Millat’s defeat in Presidential Elections against Muhammad Ayub Khan said that Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah had reached to a status, especially among the hearts of masses, where she had won in real terms even after losing the elections.

Sheikh Rashid said that he felt very proud of serving as an activist of Muslim Students’ Federation (MSF) in his early days in politics and in this capacity he led the pro-Pakistani processions emerged from the universities of Dhaka and Kholna in East Pakistan in that tumultuous times.

He said: ” Even today I’m used to sitting with the public in a very genuine manner free of any pretensions and under this gesture I have been engaged in the practice of sitting with the common man in my constituency to listen to their grievances for two hours daily.”

The minister informed the audience that the government while believing in the policy of giving greater freedom to media had allowed the already existing strong print media in the country to open their own TV channels. ” Such kind of freedom is providing the permission to strong print media to venture into operating TV channels is not even available in the most developed Western countries like the USA and Britain,” he added.

He said that the government in this regard had already given permission for the launching of seven TV channels in the private sector while 13 more such channels were now in the pipeline.

He said the PTV, under the same policy of expanding the horizon of electronic media, was in the process of opening seven channels in all and in this connection another PTV channel on Azad Jammu & Kashmir would be launched on February 5 next year.

Rashid informed the audience that under the state’s policy of liberalising the electronic media, a bouquet of 100 TV channels would be launched ultimately in the country and one channel among this bouquet would be dedicated to the projection of personalities like Madr-e-Millat.

He said that gone the days when the nation could be stopped by the governments from progressing into the fields of media and satellite technology.

Salahuddin Haider, Sindh chief minister’s advisor on Information, paid tributes to Fatima Jinnah for showing unprecedented zeal and courage while contesting presidential elections against Ayub Khan.

He said that after the demise of Quaid-e-Azam, she practically detached herself from taking part in the active politics but she decided to stage a comeback in the arena through presidential elections when there was no body left to lead the nation.

Earlier, welcoming the audience, Director General of Films and Publications Department, informed the audience that the department had developed a repository of precious and rare photographs of all important leaders of the nation, including Madr-e-Millat. The department had already launched an album containing 200 to 250 pictures and a book on Fatima Jinnah, he said.

Source: The News
Date:12/22/2003