With the airways now dominated by firebrand hardline mullahs, the state-owned Radio Pakistan seems to have finally realised that it simply has to buck it up. In a move the Daily Times is calling "revolutionary" – but, really, just seems to be common sense – the station is giving itself a makeover. Two much-needed reforms are now in the pipeline. First, in what is being pegged as "community broadcasting", shows in local languages are to make up 70 percent of the content, with only 30 percent in Urdu. Second, a 'radio schools' programme is in the works, targeting out-of-school children, especially in the troubled NWFP, along with a general Educational Channel with a wider reach. But this laudable vision aside, considering Islamabad's tendency to cut off information when things heat up (something that happens all too regularly in Pakistan), Chhetria Patrakar wonders who will actually rely on Radio Pakistan for information.
Take what happened in March, for instance. As the showdown between Asif Ali Zardari, Nawaz Sharif and the country's lawyers looked set to be massive, the democratic government cut off access to the private television channel Geo in the major cities. Whatever else the president's office may lack, it has bravado in abundance. Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar boldly told journalists that no section of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had ordered the block. He was lying, of course, and proof came from within the party's own ranks: Information Minister Sherry Rehman handed in her resignation to protest the media clampdown. The news doing the rounds is that Rehman quit after a heated argument with President Zardari during a meeting – Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, senior party leaders and the federal ministers were all in attendance – where she apparently told the big man that the media could not be "switched on and off like a light bulb". Go Sherry!
A similar, though smaller, case of online whodunit emerged after officials in the Maldives blocked raajjeislam.com, a website that carries prayers and articles on Islam. The site was blocked immediately after it put up a clip of an imam from the island of Foakaidhoo, in the northern Shaviyani atoll, accusing Islamic Affairs Minister Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed of intimidation. The imam had been teaching the Witr Qunoot prayer, which is not sanctioned by the ministry (there is a dispute among scholars about whether it should be recited). Legally speaking, sites espousing views contrary to Islam can be blocked, but only after Parliament has approved such a move – which, in this case, it has not done. The Islamic Affairs Ministry says it did not issue the censorship order. Which brings the mystery full circle: who-dun-it?
Busy times in Bhutan, where Sherubtse College, in the eastern town of Trashigang, is preparing to get the country's first university FM radio station started. Though the broadcasts will only be able to be heard by those on campus, it will be run exclusively by the students. Coupled with the mass-communication courses at the state-run Royal University of Bhutan about to get off the ground, the station is likely to be a ripe training ground for aspiring journalists, all set to start sniffing around Druk Yul.