News Desk |
Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) should persuade Pakistan’s Urdu TV channels to also have a few English programs [may be] late at night to help Pakistan present its point of view to the international community, the famous defense analyst Amjad Shuaib argued.
He made these comments while talking to the prominent anchor-person Dr. Moeed Pirzada in his Prime-time Show “live with Moeed Pirzada” at GNN television on Tuesday, January 8th.
Dr. Pirzada argued that most people across the world, including western media, think tanks and also even intellectuals in Pakistan have come to believe that Kashmir cause is a dead issue. Since India is a big power, its status-quo can neither be dislodged nor can it be compelled to come to the negotiation table.
However, the anchor contended that after the martyrdom of Burhan Muzafar Wani in 2016, there appears to be a self-sustaining movement increasing itself on the streets and this movement through sacrifice of blood and lives is driving the attention of Human rights Commission (HRC) of UN and international media; the movement that has also being helped by PTI-led government, as Prime Minister
Imran Khan tries to highlight the Kashmir cause at every forum where ever it is possible for him.
Dr. Pirzada also mentioned the recent meeting between Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which the joined declaration that was issued from Ankara reasserts that Kashmir problem has to be resolved through sustainable dialogue in accordance with the security council and subsequently Prime Minister Khan also participated in a discussion with Turkish television TRT and highlighted the Kashmir issue. “We are trying to have friendly relations with India and offered the neighboring country negotiations many times in the recent past, but India refused to talk,” PM Khan had said.
The General Shuaib was of the opinion that the despondency on the Kashmir issue exists because the Government of Pakistan and its media are unable to portray the sacrifices of Kashmiri people in the world. One of the problems, he said, is Pakistan’s political debate and discourse takes place in the Urdu language, which the world cannot understand.
The anchor then pointed out that all Pakistani experiments of English TV channels have not been successful, he mentioned Dawn TV and Geo TV. Although English news channels like Express 24/7 TV and PTV World exist, they do not have much of an impact across the world that keeps on talking about Kashmir. “So what is the solution?” asked Dr. Pirzada.
Mr. Amjad Shuaib said that the solution does not lie in creating new channels because of their huge expenses; instead, PEMRA should compel the existing mainstream TV channels to also have some limited programming in English, to which the anchor also agreed and said such monogramming can take place after midnight and the Pakistani mainstream channels do have the logistics and the human resource capability to produce this programming and it’s a simple solution that the Government of Pakistan and PEMRA need to consider.