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I am extremely amazed by the statements of Malik Muhammad Qayuum, the Attorney General of this country, on TV talk shows, particularly the one shown recently on Geo TV (The Great Debate). According to this gentleman, the show was a copy of American style debate on presidential elections, but the fact that the American debates are always held between presidential candidates has been overlooked by the programme's producers. What he meant to say is that, there should have been a ditto copy of American programmes, and the debates should have only been between presidential candidates, and no similar such programmes can ever be made on Pakistani or perhaps on any other TV. This is astonishing, particularly when this comes from the mouth of a person who happens to be the Attorney General of the country! (Unfortunately, we are living in such a country where we have to gulp such ignorant, abhorring and nonsensical words from the people of assumed authority.)
The gentleman further goes on to say that, the anchors of the programme were acting like judges and the programme was a "tamasha". Only a Pakistani "intellectual" siding with a myopic and failing leadership can say these things. I hope Pakistani media, forgetting the divide (this is too obvious even today, as media houses are trying their best to get better chunk of public attention and get the better of commercial benefits), would bring the worthy attorney general to the podium and educate him about programming needs keeping pace with general public's desire.
So far as the views of making programmes on scarcity of wheat instead of political turmoil are concerned, the media must uninhibitedly make it clear to all that, today for all Pakistanis the issue of sitting army chief's fighting for another dubious term as head of the state/government/ ruling party is main, high priority, burning issue, and all other issues are consequential and subservient to this main issue. Naturally, issues of wheat flour, of market prices, of drinking water, of electricity can now only be handled after the political engineering at the top are finalized and settled. The media has the duty, as well as moral authority, to "educate" all segment of society in this regards also
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