WHAT is a Pakistani life worth in the eyes of the state? Clearly not enough, if one were to draw a comparison with Canada, which has thought nothing of jeopardising its relations with New Delhi as it takes a stand for the rights of an adopted citizen. Soon after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly held […]
How free will the media be, especially during the coverage of the general election-2023? When the media is told ‘what to do and what not to’ it loses editorial control and freedom. The press and media freedom is nothing but a myth. It was during the 2008 elections when Pakistani electronic media received the following […]
A new report released by the advocacy organisation, Bytes for All, revealed that Pakistan is one of the world’s worst performers in regard to internet access and digital governance. On top of this, those who do have the privilege of using the internet have to bear extremely slow speeds and a lack of consistency in […]
The Supreme Court delivered a loadstar judgement on last Wednesday’. Hearing a petition filed by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) against a private TV channel for broadcasting a drama serial with content allegedly immoral and against cultural values, a two-member bench, comprising justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and justice Ayesha A. Malik, established […]
WHEN I was employed at this newspaper and working on these pages in the mid-2000s, a colleague and I would call each other following a violent incident in the city to alert each other about routes to take to keep us safe. Later, we would discuss the incident in terms of where we thought the […]
In Pakistan, the right to freedom of expression is often suppressed by labeling it as “obscene,” “vulgar,” or “anti-social.” Recently, the Supreme Court declared that the freedom of expression and the right to information apply not only to widely accepted ideas but also to those that may offend or shock others. This landmark judgment, delivered […]
AFTER years of litigation, redrafts and deliberations with the relevant stakeholders and bureaucracy, Punjab finally enacted the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Act in December 2022. This did not come easy, though. In 2017, my friend (advocate Ali Chughtai) and I reunited at a well-known eatery in Lahore. The experience would have been great, but […]
A REGULATOR that is supposed to be independent continues to play its biased role of censoring political voices that fall out of favour with the establishment. Whereas the role of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority is to regulate media independently under the Pemra Ordinance 2002 as amended by the Pemra Amendment Act 2007, what […]
IN ‘Whitney vs California’, 1927, justice Brandeis of the US supreme court said “… in … government, deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary; … freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery … of political truth”. Recently, Pemra, the electronic media regulator, imposed a […]
In the past five years, since the launch of 3G internet in Pakistan, the media landscape has undergone a paradigm change. The media market both on the demand side (media consumers) as well as on the supply side (media producers/channels) has had a huge transformation. First, among the bouquet of media, internet and social media […]
While there are exceptions, too often both the Israeli and Arab press fail miserably when it comes to reporting on violent acts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Already this year, there have been dozens of murderous assaults by Israeli forces into Palestinian populated areas and deadly Palestinian attacks against Israelis. Aspects of the press coverage of […]
Mode of connectivity to reach out to the larger audience; be seen and be heard. Where every “nobody” is “somebody” and “anybody” can be “nobody”: Such is the life on social media. A place where people hide behind their fake identities while sometimes they are too real for the world. This magical world has brought […]
The courts in Islamabad frequently welcome a four-year-old petitioner who appears in front of judges in search of his missing father, journalist Mudassar Naru who has been missing since 2018. Given such stark optics, it is hardly surprising to learn that Pakistan is one of the most unsafe places for journalists. According to a recent […]
A year end report by Reporters without Borders sheds light on the dark reality of working as a journalist in countries where press freedom is constantly under threat. Spanning two decades, the report says 1,668 journalists have been killed across the world. Around 80pc of these deaths have taken place in 15 countries. Tragically, Pakistan […]
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