Rashid announces Rs2.5m grant for MCD, KU
KARACHI – National conference on Urdu journalism has urged the government to free press from all sorts of restrictions so that it could function independently as the fourth pillar of the state.
The three-day national moot, organized by the Department of Mass Communication, University of Karachi, ended here on Wednesday with Federal Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed as chief guest. City Nazim Naimatullah Khan presided over the concluding session.
The recommendations, read out at conference, also stressed the government to undertake steps for providing freedom and access to information for the benefit of media men. The proposals also called for setting up of press councils by implementing the relevant laws already existing in the country.
The recommendations also reiterated demand of paying salaries to the newspaper employees according to the wage award so that prevailing anxiety and unrest among newspaper workers would come to an end.
A proposal called for taking stern action against those Urdu newspapers, which are engaged in promoting yellow journalism and have lost their credibility.
Setting up of ‘Pakistan Council of Mass Communication Education’ was also proposed by involving representative associations of newspaper owners, editors and journalists and departments of Mass Communication of universities. The proposed council would function on the lines of bar councils and Pakistan Medical & Dental Council for raising the standard of education of Mass Communication and drafting rules for determining pre-requisite qualifications and competence for the working journalists.
Addressing the concluding session, Sheikh Rashid said that owing to the geo-strategic situation of the region and consequent deployment of foreign military forces there Pakistan and region would become a focal point for the generation of news for international media.
He said that journalism had been enjoying unprecedented freedom in the country, which was not even available to the developed regional nations like Malaysia and Singapore.
He said the government had been implementing a media policy to permit TV channels in the private sector. He said that under this policy a tremendous growth in number of TV channels operating in the country would be seen in coming few months.
He said that seven TV channels were already operating in the private sector and 13 more were granted permission. Very soon this figure would cross one hundred due to the liberal and conducive policy and rules adopted by the government, he added.
Federal minister also announced a grant of Rs2.5 million on behalf of the prime minister for the under-construction Institute of Mass Communication at KU.
Speaking at the ceremony, City Nazim Naimatullah said the journalism should function for promoting the ideologies on whose basis the country was founded.
The Vice-Chancellor of the KU, Prof Dr. Pirzada Qasim said that he would present before the university statutory recommendations of the conference pertaining to the varsity education of Mass Communication.
Prof Dr. Tahir Masood, chairman of the KU’s Mass Communication Department, said that journalism in the country was free as government and other pressure groups were still influencing the newspapers.
Source: The News
Date:5/27/2004
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