Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Altaf Hussain, media and Imran Khan's PTI

By Shuja Saleem
Over the next few months, I’ll be covering a series of posts on the political friction that has taken the news media by storm, and anchors and channel hosts are coming up with controversial subjects that have nothing to do with the betterment of Pakistan. These posts aren’t intended as an introduction for our political class who obviously don’t really know anything about how to give a better life to the public— if that’s what we are looking for, you should read Javed Chauhdry's coloumns and Doctor Shahid Masood's sensational talk shows or even worse Mubashir Luqman's never-ending rants on ARY News. This is enough I guess. 

Last night, I happened to watch a news TV show where Ataf Hussain, leader of MQM, sounded as furious as ever and he was expressing his anger over Imran Khan. The media is happy to sell sensationalism, and when it comes to drawing attention, nobody beats Altaf Hussain and things related to MQM (though it is a Sindh-based party having limited vote support in the country, yet still they get the most air-time and get away with everything they do).

The news is worth discussing and we can spend hours talking about what made Altaf bhai furious and what the media can do to calm him down. Sitting in London and listening to the abuse is tough for Altaf Hussain and lately he has developed a habit of listening to criticism without blowing his top, hasn't he? He still flips now and then and the last victim was Kahsif Abbasi who was brazen enough to argue about why some of the Rabta Committee members don't bother to visit the channels' office to attend talk shows, even though they are invited multiple times. Lol. 

Arguments over who owns Karachi and who is enemy of peace tend to be highly contentious, and MQM has long been able to get enough support from the very political parties that usually blame it for terrorism and crime in the Karachi. 

The media, nowadays, has found a new topic to talk about: Yemen crisis and offensive led by Saudi Arabia. On one side, advocates of Saudi operation clean-up againdt Houthi rebels warn that we are at risk of a “widespread sectarian clashes” in which the entire Middle East, Iran and Pakistan could be sucked in and their economy seriously hurt by battles and money spent on weapons and other resources.

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