I was invited in New York to speak at the annual convention of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) in a panel discussion about the perils of reporting in Pakistan. The panel discussion was moderated by Vikas Bajaj, the Mumbai correspondent of The New York Times while the panelists included, besides me, distinguished Pakistani journalist, … Read more
By Malik Siraj Akbar The killing of Baloch political activists, journalists and human rights champions in Balochistan by the government-backed groups is no longer a secret. These killings take place so frequently that it has almost made it difficult to keep track of all those who get killed. On the top of it, their murders … Read more
By Malik Siraj Akbar Terrorist factions in Pakistan with growing firepower and connections inside the nation’s military and intelligence communities have increased their capability to capture a nuclear weapon, according to a new report by the Federation of American Scientists. The FAS report says Pakistan militants now pose a greater threat to nuclear installations because … Read more
By Malik Siraj Akbar The American adage “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is equally applicable to Balochistan. No matter how many bullet-riddled dead bodies of missing persons are recovered in a single week or how many liberal professors are systematically assassinated, the news from Balochistan barely makes front page headlines in the mainstream … Read more
Malik Siraj Akbar appeared on Al-Jazeera’s popular show, The Stream, to speak about the ongoing Baloch insurgency in Balochistan and its impact on the regional politics. The show was titled as “Balochistan’s fight for its rights“. Given below are the videos of the interviews.
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar on June 28, 2011 · 1 Comment
Dr. Stephen Philip Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, Washington DC, is a respected authority on the Pakistani army and the country’s politics. His book The Pakistan Army was published in 1998 and was translated into Urdu and Chinese. In 2004, he published another book The Idea of Pakistan. In an exclusive interview … Read more
Is it still possible to reach out to the radical nationalist elements and salvage the situation? Editor Baloch Hal believes it is By Beena Sarwar Does one laugh or cry at the answers given by people on the streets of Lahore when asked what they know about Balochistan? Most can’t even name a city in … Read more
By Malik Siraj Akbar On May 29, Sayed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan bureau chief for the Asia Times, headed to a television studio to be interviewed. He had just written a story linking the Pakistani military with terrorists believed to have orchestrated a recent raid on a Navy base. He never arrived. Two days later, … Read more
By Malik Siraj Akbar Saturday, June 4 12:03 pm EST The disillusioned community of journalists in Pakistan is directly blaming the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI), a spy agency of the Pakistan army, for the killing of a renowned investigative reporter, Syed Saleem Shahzad, who worked as the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times. The reputed correspondent … Read more
There is renewed anger across Balochistan over the dreadful assassination of one of the most popular icons of Balochi literature and civil society, Dr. Saba Dashtiyari. A professor of Islamic studies at the University of Balochistan, the fifty-eight-year old university educator was gunned down when he was taking a walk in Quetta on Wednesday night. … Read more
