Identity fraud in SIM registration process is one of the major problem that is in the scenario since the arrival of telecom companies in Pakistan, I believe telecom companies, government & the users itself are responsible for it, First it is the responsibility of telecom companies to allow only the authorized sales points for the sales & registration of there SIMs (subscribers identity module). They are required to actively monitor the sale points & ensure fair registration from the users. However we can expect them unfair at this, because every company likes to have more subscribers to gain more revenue. So ultimately for achieving this they can try every possible sales channel without caring about the consequence.

Ok! Now turning towards the government which holds a major responsibility in this regard, unfortunatly it seems me that the government was finding it difficult to direct the telecom operators with a fair & strict policy regarding the registration of new SIMs, Before the serious involvement of PTA (Pakistan telecom authority) the sales & registration process of telecom subscribers are not fair, SIMs of different companies were selling without the requirements of proper identity document, that is as easy as finding classifieds from Craigslist. Even a kid can purchase these SIMs from any retailor.

Franchises & the retailors are the great contributors in the occurrence of fake entries, every franchise owner gets a good profit margin on every SIM that is registered & sold in a defined region. They make fake entries for their sales in most of the cases when a buyer didn’t submit their original CNIC with the purchase. Similar is the case with retailers, they get Rs 20 to 30 on each registration form they submit to the franchise for registration, they attach anonymous CNIC with the registration forms that resulted in the fake entry for a particular mobile number. However, PTA has make these things easier now. you can register your SIM directly by calling them from your mobile phone.

I think what makes print media alive in a long run is the trust & believe of readers. i have seen many people, specially those who born before 80s. they uses all the print, electronic & web for news updates & the bottom line of their perception only agreed with the reports taken from print media editorials. so in this case, internet can be described as a good medium for information but not journalism. you get information in bulk & raw shape from the internet & you interpret it after checking it on some other sources of news.

But however, the graph of internet journalism & its effectiveness will be higher then any other source in a long run. all the reliable & trusted news providers are working to establish a smooth & successful setup at which the online readers of their news website will be charged for monthly subscriptions. they are also focusing at online social media tools such as the facebook & twitter to use for news purposes in order to boost up the readership. so will you pay for the online news content?

As a matter of fact a new education policy is implemented this year. Education policy 2009 is implemented with a focus to increase the literacy rate in tribal areas of Pakistan, which was & still is the major ground for terrorist people since many years. The objective of this policy is to seek a steady increase in literacy rate in that part of the country, by achieving the target of 86 per cent overall literacy rate, according to the policy Grades 11 and 12 of the college will be merged into the school education in near future.the higher education sector will also be raised by existing 4.7 per cent to 15 per cent by 2020.

While revealing the challenges Pakistan has in its education sector is a lengthy story. The first 10 years of academic life is very important for students. However the schools run by private entities are good in providing quality education with qualified teachers & where English is considered as the medium of instruction. But that school are limited to rich families. We are here to talk about general public. The big problem in the state run education system is English. Yet the policy makers have to accept that learning more about English is very necessary at primary level of education. We are living in an era where if we didn’t get command over English we cant expect big improvement in the quality of education.

Yes I admit that we are the unconditional slaves of English language. The reason is obvious; the epoch, in which we are living, I can testify that it is now the Americans who identify worthwhile educational & development ideas. The super powers & the global media empire chant in English. Most of books related to different fields of the world are available in English over the internet. The growth of English language courses in england & other countries of Europe & Asia is the example of how English is dominance among all other languages. yes it is after all the lingo of global empire.

A couple of weeks ago, I was traveling from my home town (tarbela) to Islamabad, the above photo is taken soon after when i leave burhan interchange. It is about 80 Km journey. Most of the time i use the route of motorway from burhan. Yet no other choice. although it’s been 1.5 years when the motorway was opened for traffic from Peshawar to Islamabad but the chuch interchange that connect hazro & tarbela to M1 is still not open for traffic.. We are really unfortunate in this case when an interchange that directly link tarbela to motorway is not yet constructed. the authority claims that the local community are making hurdles in the construction, all the people living in the near surroundings are sane people, i wouldn’t agree with the argument that they can stop this development at there own area. Now it’s the failure of authority or what ever, this dilemma need to be resolved now.

E- Tag is the electronic toll system at motorway in Pakistan in which the tool tax is automatically deducted from the chip that is stick on the screen of the vehicle. It makes an hassle free entry & exits from motorway interchanges & you don’t need to stay in lines to pay the tool fee physically.. E-Tag is free of cost, it’s like a pre-pay billing, you just pay for tool as much you want at the booth provided at most of the big interchanges like Islamabad, Peshawar & Lahore. they need your vehicle no & NIC no to provide you a chip sticker for your vehicle wind screen. but here the E-tag got few one negative point that it is not yet available at all interchanges of motorway. you can use this facility at selected interchanges that includes, peshawar, islamabad, lahore, faisalabad, mardan & burhan.

Music has the relation with human that is very old. It is also found in the roots of ancient civilizations. from prehistoric music to the current digitally lyrics of music, it exists with us at every age, however the tools of music has been altered with the passage of time. currently the pop music culture is all about what we called digital music with computer generated lyrics & voice alteration. yet i like it both classical & pop, but pop mostly because the lyrics made by guitar is stunning, one of my friend plays guitar well, I wounder how he learn it in a little time. but lately when i found some Guitar instruction dvds in the market i got the answer. I concluded here that now we are in the era where access to entertainment & social networking is quite easy but it is digitalized, we rarely meet people in real life, but can communicate with them using digital tools like phone & internet. Listning to music is no deal today but the real jolly of life exists in old music & warmth social interactions.

The reason I didn’t choose journalism as a full time profession after getting a degree in mass communication is still not revealed in this blog. So let me put some facts in front of you. It is however worth saying that electronic media in the recent few years got extensive boom & a number of TV channels entered Pakistani media circle. But however on the other hand majority practicle journalists is still unable to get the fruit of this development. I personally witness many of my talented batch fellows who after getting 1st class masters degree & junior English courses can’t even managed to cover their own expenditures while working as a reporter at well known English daily. Infect this is the great mockery with graduates that when they join their careers, simultaneously they face problems regarding compensation. It is truth that a large number of journalist in Pakistan are predominantly unpaid, the main problem that journalist community face is financial. On the other hand job insecurity & lack of freedom to report & publish information makes this profession more difficult for fresh graduates. So the output is they prefer to do any other job in the market.

Now the question is how many of the unpaid or low paid journalist meets their expenses? This is the question no body can answer exactly but i can make an orgument about it. Infact there is a silent group of people (Politicians, industralists, foreign spys etc) who exist behind the journalist community, they bribe them time to time & make them use for their own deeds. This un balanced & premature media often present biased facts, this is obvious in situations when there are corruptions at different levels. So i concluded here that in one hand the journalist in pakistan didn’t have any job security & financial strength when it came to compensation, while on the other hand he can enjoy a portfolio with the power to make or destroy images & can made mansion from their undisclosed income if they want.

The information flow in our society has become so much fast that people now don’t need to wait for the newspapers. It is also worthy to mention that with the physical growth of the mass media its role in the society has also increased. Now it’s the foremost responsibility of media to guide the masses in positive direction and inform the people about the real ground situation. The good example in this context is the 2005 earth quake disaster where thousands of people lost their lives. The credit goes to the media who integrated the society and create sympathies in the hearts of billions of people.  

 Media has great impacts on the society, some of these impacts are positive while some are negative. The dark side of media in Pakistan is they just give coverage to the events but later on when these events become an issue then they don’t give the desired coverage to it and they don’t explain the background of such complex issues. The very best example of it is Lal Masjid issue, in which a lot of people lost their lives when Pakistan army was doing an operation against them. Although media gave bullet to bullet coverage to it but no media organization focused on to explain that how it was possible to bring such kind of heavy explosives and weapons to the mosque?

On the other hand the dramas produced by our television channels are the evident examples of it where every story starts with love and it also ends with same theme. The traditions which is showed in these serials does not match our norms and values.

As far as economic impact of media is considered now a day in Pakistan it has been developed in the form of strong industry. Majority of the young graduates have formed their place in it. They are earning handsome amount of salaries from it. On the other hand we can also claim that media may have guided the government to take some positives steps for the economic betterment of the people but over all in  Pakistan regional press has remained   very much weak as majority of the prominent newspapers and TV channels are working from the prominent cities so the issues and problems of these cities are always highlighted and the government also pays an equal attention to it but the problems of other cites are never explored and some times one issue given rise to another issue.So keeping all these hard realities we can say that media may have developed quantity wise in our county but to act in more professional way and to develop itself in quality wise it’s a big challenge but still media in Pakistan is in grooming stage and it is learning from their own mistakes and day by day it is showing responsibility and maturity in their programs.

NOTE: The writer is Amir Hamza Bangash.Lecturer at the department of Journalism and Mass Communication,Peshawar University.” thanks for your exclusive contribution sir”

Talking about the history of yellow journslism, it got fame in late 1880’s in america when industrial revolution was in full boom in the west. however after going by the history & relating it to the current situatoin. it is still not clear that what comes under the definition of “yellow journalism” and what are excluded form it. but however some aspects are clear that yellow journalism is somewhat with no sense of decency and respect for the rights of citizens, either public or private.the practice of yellow journalism involved sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images for the sole purpose of boosting newspaper sales. but here the question arises that did all modern newspapers hold the conons of yellow journalism? the answer is surely NO. therefore it will be convenient to devide the newpapers into three categories such as “quality press” “popular press” and “gutter press” or yello press.

Thus all those newspapers which knows the difference of hard and soft news and maintain this difference as a rule on its papers are quality newspapers. for example if a newpapers is turning a story about sex or crime into a sydney sheldon novel, then surely we can trem it folowing the yardstick of yellow journalism. but on the other hand if the same story is published just for the sake of information and education as a hard news then it shows the features of a quality press. similarly if this story is published for the sake of information with stress in very minute details on different dimensions then it is the attribute of popular press.