The Foreign Policy (FP) magazine published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington has shortlisted Pakistan's Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan among the world's top 100 Public Intellectuals.
Aitzaz Ahsan, who is lawyer, writer and human rights activist, is the only Pakistani cited among, according to the magazine, "some of the world's most introspective philosophers," several of them Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners.
FP states that its shortlist of the Top 100 is based on men and women who "have shown distinction in their particular field as well as an ability to influence wider debate, often far beyond the borders of their own country."
Ahsan has been counted among the "thinkers who are shaping the tenor of our time." The magazine cites Ahsan's academic works and his "leading role in opposing antidemocratic moves by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf" in its short biography of him.
The list also includes Pope Benedict XVI, Noam Chomsky, JM Coetzee, Richard Dawkins, Iran's Shirin Ebadi, Umberto Eco, Niall Ferguson, Thomas Friedman, Francis Fukuyama, Al Gore, Vaclav Havel, Christopher Hitchens, Samuel Huntington, Robert Kagan, Garry Kasparov, Rem Koolhaas, Paul Krugman, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, Steven Levitt, Bernard Lewis, Orhan Pamuk, US Centcom chief David Petraeus, Richard Posner, Salman Rushdie, Jeffrey Sachs, India's Amartya Sen, Wole Soyinka, Lawrence Summers, Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus and Fareed Zakaria.
The magazine will announce Top 5 Public Intellectuals after a world-wide voting in the July/August issue. Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan born on September 27, 1945 is a Barrister-at-Law and President, Supreme Court Bar Association. He is also a writer, human rights activist, politician, former federal minister for Law and Justice, Interior, Narcotics Control (1988-1990) and Education.
Elected to the Senate of Pakistan in 1994, he eventually succeeded as the leader of the House and the leader of the Opposition between 1996 and 1999. Aitzaz Ahsan was under arrest periodically in 2007 for leading the lawyers movement to restore Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry after General Pervez Musharraf suspended the constitution and subsequently removed Chief Justice Chaudhry from the bench.
In the wake of 9th March 2007 events in Pakistan, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan has become a sign of resistance to anti-democratic moves. His eloquent speeches and his command over Pakistani law make him one of the most recognisable politicians of today. Aitzaz Ahsan has been an active member of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) since 1975. He had first taste of jail at the age of 6 months when his mother was arrested for taking part in the Pakistan Movement.
Ahsan has the distinction of defending two former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto Shaheed and Mohammad Nawaz Sharif. However, he says winning Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry's case in the Supreme Court was his life time achievement.
LITERARY CONTRIBUTION:
He has also authored the book 'The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan' and its Urdu translation, Sindh Sagar Aur Qyam-e-Pakistan, which presents the cultural history of Pakistan. He has also co-authored the book Divided by Democracy with Lord Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics. He is also poet of Punjabi language.