Thursday, March 18, 2010

Top Ten Political Talk Shows of Pakistani Television Channels

Political Talk shows on different Pakistani TV Channels like Geo News, Express News, Dawn News, ARY, Dunya News etc are very popular and everyday, political talk shows aired from these TV channels get millions of views from Pakistan and outside Pakistan.
Based on a survey conducted on the common people of Pakistan; following are the Top 10 Political talk shows of Pakistani Urdu Channels:
  1. Capital Talk
Host: Hamid Mir
Channel: Geo News
Details: Capital Talk is the most popular political talk show of Pakistan which is aired from Geo News at 8:05PM  from Monday to Friday. In Capital Talk, Hamid Mir invites renowned political figures from different political parties of Pakistan and various national and international level issues are discussed in this TV show. Capital Talk is the longest run TV show in Pakistan's electronic media history. 

2. Aapas Ke Bat

Host: Najam Sethi
Channel: Geo News
 Details: Najam Sethi is a well known political analyst, known for his valuable political analyses. In this program Aapas Ke bat Najam Sethi analyzes political happenings, political parties activities and various other political aspects in his own way. This program is very popular among public and people give due weightiness to his views.


3. Off The Record
Host: Kashif Abbasi
Channel: ARY News
Details: Kashif Abbasi is an anchor person on ARY News and his program Off the Record is known because of his bold steps and unbiased approach. Kashif Abbasi invites key politicians from various parties in his show and discusses political situation in the country and all around the world with his guests.


4. Bolta Pakistan
Host: Nusrat Javed, Mushtaq Minhas
Channel: Aaj TV
Details: Bolta Pakistan is a popular program aired from Aaj TV in which two well known analysts--Nusrat Javed and Mushtaq Minhas discuss socio-political issues. However, Nusrat Javed is not much liked by public due to his negative and biased views for some of the political leaders.


5. Aaj Kamran Khan K sath
Host: Kamran Khan
Channel: Geo News

Details: Kamran Khan is perhaps the best analyst of Pakistan's politics who hosts the program Aaj Kamran Khan K sath, every night at 11PM and throws a light on all current political happenings in a very decent manner. He is known for his unbiased and decent political analyses.


6. Khari Bat with Mubashar Luqman
Host: Mubashar Luqman
Channel: Dunya News
Details: Mubashar Luqman, who was in Express News earlier with the program Point Blank with Luqman, now hosts a political talk show on Dunya News with the name Khari Bat With Mubashar Luqman. He is known for his straight forward and frank approach. He often asks very tough and hard questions to his guests.
3. Jawab dey
Host: Muhammad Iftikhar
Channel: Geo News

7. Kal Tak
Host: Javed Chaudhry
Channel: Express News
Details: Kal Tak is a political talk show aired from Express News, hosted by a well known anchor and columnist Javed Chaudhry. Javed Chaudhry has a very good grip on political situation of Pakistan and in his talk show, he asks very interesting and great questions to his guests. His program is very popular among public.

8. Crossfire with Mehr Bukhari
Host: Mehr Bukhari
Channel: Dunya News

9. In Session
Host: Asma Chaudhry
Channel: Dunya News

10. 11th Hour with Waseem Badami
Host: Waseem Badami
Channel: ARY News
Details: Waseem Badami's program is aired from ARY News at 11PM.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Analysis of Pakistani Newspaper Columnists

It's old saying that "Pen is mightier than sword" and the people having power of pen can really bring a great change and a peaceful revolution in the society. News paper's columnists are considered to be widely read, followed and accepted by the people of Pakistan and their words play an important role in setting the minds and thoughts of the people of Pakistan.
The prominent Urdu writers whose words are highly weighed by the readers are Javed Chaudhry, Irfan Siddiqi, Haroon-Ur-Rasheed, Abbas Athar, Hasan Nisar, Nazir Naji and Abdullah Tariq Sohail.
Javed Chaudhry who is also anchor of Express TV program Kal Tak is a well known columnist of Daily Express and writes on different socio political issues. He is basically a "Rightist" and touches the heart of the common people by writing not only hot political issues, but also on the problems of the masses. One of the great trait of this young columnist is that he has never bowed his head in front of rulers and his pen has always exposed the culprits and spoken the words of poor people. Javed Chaudhry has a very good eye on the current affairs and is also equipped with the ability of linking the current situations with the historical events and great historical people.

Irfan Siddiqui a renowned political analyst who was formerly writing in Daily Nawa i Waqt is now providing his services for Daily Jang is also considered a mature seasoned analyst with a hawk eye on the socio economic issues of the country. Irfan Siddiqui is famous for his nicely structured articles augmented with very nicely selected words and phrases. However he is not considered a neutral analyst and from his columns, one can easily understand that he speaks the language of Mian Nawaz Sharif and some people even criticize him with the views that he works on payroll of PML-N. Irrespective of this that how much truth this view holds, one thing is known to the public that Irfan Siddiqui was a direct supported of PML-N in the last elections.

Haroon-Ur-Rasheed is a popular well versed columnist of Daily Jang known as a right wing writer who is mainly known for his anti-American patriotic writings. He has openly supported Imran Khan in his columns and considers Imran Khan a great social worker and the only true honest politician in the current set up. He is also a good vocal person on electronic media.

Hasan Nisar is a senior columnist of Daily Jang and also the host of Geo News Program Choraha and is considered a liberal left wing columnist. Hasan Nisar is a highly critical analyst who is mainly known for his criticizing negative style comments who wastes no chance to throw mud on politicians and religious scholars. He is pro-American and against any religious dominance in the country.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Army Operations in Swat and Waziristan and its outcomes

After about one year long operation in Swat and many months long heavy operation in Waziristan, Pakistan government and armed officials were claiming that the backbone of terrorists have been broken and now they have totally dispersed and dis-united. However their claims went into drain after a day long serial bomb blasts in Punjab capital Lahore in which a large number of innocents lost their lives. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan took the responsibility of these blasts threatening for more similar attacks.
After the heavy pressure from America against any type of dialog with Taliban and forcing Pakistani government to tackle this issue of Talibanization with force, our army plunged into operations in last year but it seems that all these operations are not going to be fruitful and peace is not prevailing even after using full force and losing hundreds of army men in this never ending battle. Although government was successful to gain support of a large number of public for these operations; yet some elements in the country and some political forces like Jamat-e-islami and Tehreek-e-Insaf are against the military operations and asking for a diplomatic peaceful solution to all issues via dialogs. They are of the view that peace can never be brought with army operations and this type of operations are increasing support and sympathy for Taliban in Tribal regions which may have counter effect in future.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

NA-123 election Results and future predictions

In Bye elections of NA-123 Lahore at 10 March, PML-N candidate Pervez Malik has won with a clear margin securing 45889 votes while Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Candidate Mian Hamid Miraj stood runner up grabbing 9440 votes. Big boasting candidate of Jamat-e-Islami Hafiz Salman Butt could get only 2900 votes and stood third in the contest.
Success of PML-N candidate in this bye election is not very surprising as this region is considered a strong hold of Nawaz League for a long time and also because of the fact that PML-N is sitting government in the Province and fully used Government machinery in the election process. The campaign of Malik Pervez was run and directed by party top leadership and it's stated that some ministers also played their role in this campaign.
Surprising thing is this election is very poor performance of JI candidate who is even badly defeated by PTI candidate Hamid Miraj. Around 10,000 votes of Hamid Miraj of PTI should raise the eye brows of political analysts and they should realize that now people are considering PTI as an alternative to two old ruling parties and in future Imran Khan will b getting more support from the masses. Imran Khan and his party has gained great popularity in the public in the recent past due to his just and fair stand on different national and intrenational issues.
JI which couldn't get even 3000 votes in spite of the support of PML-Q should now know that nation can't be deceived now by hollow slogans and on the name of Islam. Nation knows that JI enjoyed government in N.W.F.P. in last tenure but couldn't deliver to the public and also couldn't do any thing for Islam in his reign.
Hopefully NA-123 election will have a great impact on the overall politics of the country.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Rana Sana Ullah and Maulana Ahmad Ludhyanvi Meeting and allegations on Rana Sana Ullah

In connection with Bye elections in PP-82 Jhang, a few days back Punjab Law minister Rana Sana Ullah visited Jhang and met Maulana Ahmad Ludhyanvi--Leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (an organization banned by General Musharraf). Rana Sana Ullah met him to get his support for PML-N candidate but few parliamentarians and media persons starting a hue and cry over this meeting saying that Rana Sana Ullah has links with terrorist organization.
MNA from Jhang Sheikh Waqas Akram--a traditional rival of SSP in Jhang elections is leading this blame game and trying to gain some political scores over this issue. He is trying his best to give it sectarian touch and putting allegations on PML-N of supporting banned organizations for a few votes. Law minister has strongly rejected such allegations saying that he had a meeting with a Religious scholar and not a terrorist. He said that terrorists are found in jails and can't contest elections under law but Maulana Ludhyanvi contested last general election against Sheikh Waqas and got more than 45000 votes.
Talking to a TV channel, Molana Ludhyanvi said that the case of SSP is in process in LHC and it's illegal to declare a party as banned before court's decision. He said that his party has never supported terrorism. He also made it clear that if PML-Q can ask to Maulana Azam Tariq for his vote to elect Zafrullah Jamali as prime minister in 2002 then why PML-N can't ask them for vote?