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Both the National Assembly (NA) and the Senate publish separate verbatim records of daily proceedings. They are called 'Debates'. However, the Senate takes 24 hours to publish the 'Debates', but the NA takes three months to do it.
The 'Debates' of each House are bilingual publications containing honest transcript of the daily speeches/utterances by Members in English and Urdu.
The publication of daily reports of proceedings is considered an essential pillar to achieve transparency in Parliament record keeping of honest transcript of speeches made by Members--without interpolation or editing--to represent the citizens. In the Senate, the feat is achieved with the help of a college of 15 reporters to transcribe the speeches in shorthand.
Tradition makes it absolutely necessary to transcribe speeches by parliamentary reporters--and not with the aid of recording equipment--though that, too, is done as an additional implement to keep up with modern usage. Since every spoken word is to be reported, and published, the bilingual reporters are trained both in English and Urdu shorthand.
In addition to taking down verbatim notes, these reporters may use audio tape recorders, to fill in words here and there, in case they have missed or not understood the nuance or tone of some words.
A reporter sits in the House for very short periods, say some 10 minutes, and then he goes up to type them on computers. Thereafter, he transfers the manuscript to another set of five editors, who examine and edit the pages and prepare them, using desktop printing.
Difficulty was faced at one time in publishing the 'Debates' because of different sets of separate reporters for two languages. English reporters would take down notes only of English speeches but when a Member would start speaking in Urdu and then suddenly switch to English and would go back to English, again, it would make difficult for the reporter to collate and co-ordinate the speech in two languages. The result would be a long gap in the publication of the Debates.
The Senate Secretariat got over the difficulty by offering inducement, and training facilities, to reporters, who achieved proficiency in transcribing speeches in both languages. In this way, it achieved results in making the publication up-to-date.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2007

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