Malik Siraj Akbar

Balochistan remains home to more than 100,000 refugees

By Malik Siraj Akbar QUETTA: Seventeen thousand, one hundred and fifty-one Afghan refugees, sheltering in the well known Jungle Pir Alizai refugee camp in Qila Abdullah, a district of Balochistan, have not registered with the Pakistani government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Currently, there are 113,655 unregistered Afghan refugees in Balochistan. … Read more

Baloch not getting due share of radio jobs

By Malik Siraj Akbar QUETTA: The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) is moving its Balochistan-based posts to other radio stations across the country and appointing non-locals to these posts, Daily Times learnt on Sunday. Following an official order issued on April 24 by Muhammad Tufail, PBC Islamabad administrative manager (personnel), the PBC promoted 45 sub engineers … Read more

Managing dissent in Balochistan: frozen accounts and exit control

The body in that coffin was not my father’s: Jamil Bugti

You didn’t care for us … so we won’t for you

By Malik Siraj Akbar QUETTA: While Chief Justice-turned-crowed-puller Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has overnight emerged as an icon of resistance against dictatorship across the country, his popularity among the Baloch population in the country’s largest province remains as high as that of General Pervez Musharraf. Despite the strident hullabaloo in the principal cities of the country … Read more

Baloch nationalists reject Musharraf’s talks offer

By Malik Siraj Akbar QUETTA: Baloch nationalist leaders on Thursday rejected President Pervez Musharraf’s ‘offer’ of talks on the Balochistan issue. President Musharraf invited Baloch leaders to talks on issues facing the province during his visit to Dera Bugti and Sui districts earlier on Thursday, but Baloch leaders said the offer was “fraudulent and insincere”. … Read more

Hussain – a beacon of hope for troubled Balochistan

By Malik Siraj Akbar Ravaged by a low-level insurgency and several decades of negligence, Balochistan still houses a few motivated change-makers. Individuals count provided they are taken seriously. Take 37-year-old Zahir Hussain, for instance, of western border town of Panjgur. He has been striving for the promotion of education, particularly that of women’s in a … Read more

‘Journalists can’t change the world’

REPORTER’S DIARY: By Malik Siraj Akbar CHENNAI: “We journalists believe we can change the world. We can’t,” said veteran Indian journalist Nehal Singh during a two-week long media forum, ‘The Summer Academy’, organised by the German-based International Institute of Journalism (IIJ) from April 16 till April 28. “Why did I become a journalist and what … Read more