Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has been requested to be the chief guest at the 17th APNS Awards Ceremony scheduled to be held in the first week of December, according to a press release.
The Executive Committee of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) which met under the chairmanship of its President Arif Nizami decided to hold the 17th APNS Awards Ceremony in the first week of December 2004 at Karachi.
The APNS executive committee has finalised the categories of the awards and the panel of judges for the journalists and advertising awards. The entries are being invited for the awards from the contestant journalists and advertising agencies.
The APNS executive committee noted with concern that despite the announcement of Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed to lift the ban on government advertisements imposed on Nawa-i-Waqt/The Nation and other newspapers, the Press Information Department and the DGPR Punjab are not following the announcement. The publications are being issued just token and nominal advertisements and the routine flow of advertisements has not been restored.
The Committee observed that the policy to use advertisement as a lever to suppress and victimise the dissenting press should now be abandoned, as it is contrary to the policy announcement of the information minister of the Shaukat Aziz government.
The APNS executive committee members urged the Sindh government to restore provincial government advertisements to Daily Millet, Daily Financial Post, Daily Aghaz, Daily Action and Daily Nawa-e-Nawabshah as assured by Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim to the delegation of the APNS provincial committee.
The Committee also noted that despite the assurances by Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the Punjab government has not yet cleared the dues of APNS member publications relating to special supplements. It was informed that the Punjab information department is not releasing normal payments against advertisement bills, and these payments are being delayed for months.
The Committee noted that Monthly Shahrag-e-Pakistan, Lahore, is continuously being denied its due share of government advertisements by the DGPR Punjab. The Committee requested the Punjab chief minister to advise the department concerned to redress the grievances of the Punjab-based publications at the earliest.
The meeting was attended by the following: APNS President Arif Nizami, Vice-President Mumtaz A. Tahir, Secretary General Muhammad Aslam Kazi, Joint Secretary Mushtaq Ahmed Qureshi, Finance Secretary Waqar Yousuf Azeemi, Anwar Farooqui (Aghaz), Mehtab Khan (Daily Ausaf), Wasim Ahmed (Daily Awam, Quetta), Dr Jabber Khattak (Awami Awaz), Arshad A. Zuberi (Business Recorder), Abdul Rashid Ghazi (Daily Business Report, Faisalabad), Masood Hamid (Dawn), Najamuddin Sheikh (Deyanat), Riaz A. Mansuri (The Cricketer), Ms Qudsia Khan (Financial Post), Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah (Kainat), Zia Shahid (Khabrain), Syed Sarmad Ali (Jang), Aamir Mahmood (Kiran), Inquilab Matri (Millat Gujrati), Khushnood Ali Khan (Sahafat, Ibd), Qutubuddin (Pakistan), Ilyas Shakir (Qaumi Akhbar), Khalid Mahmood Shah (Shahrag-e-Pakistan), and Umer Afridi (Wahdat).
Abid Abdullah (Daily Express) and Maqsood Hussarn Shah (Daily Nawa-i-Waqt) also attended as observer.-PR