The present government is very loud in taking credit for giving freedom to press and media. Our media people are also obsequiously eager to buy the government's claim.

But it astonishes me very much. There is nothing to take credit of. Rather the government and the government functionaries should be ashamed of lack of that freedom. Instead of trumpeting the so-called "giving of freedom" to press and media, these functionaries should hide their face in shame looking around themselves, looking around their country.

Pakistan was in utterly despicable condition vis-à-vis all other countries including India and its own former part Bangladesh, excluding of course the iron-curtained communist/socialist regimes. If the government has allowed any freedom, it has only rectified the past ignoble folly of its own doings, and nothing else. So, there is nothing to trumpet about. If you have washed your dirty linen, please keep this hidden or in low profile; don't make yourself a laughing stock.

Freedom of press, or political freedom in already a free country, is not like gaining freedom from any foreign power, so there is nothing for the authorities to rejoice. If anyone deserves to be rejoiced, it is the press and media itself, it is the people in the media. It is because, after long and arduous efforts and "˜struggle' they have earned today the independence in whatever shape and quantity.

I hope, today's media people, instead of being carried away by government's and government's worthless functionaries like mad durrani and sheikh rashid's claim that it has given freedom, they would register their claim that they have earned the freedom.