August 30, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-us-Saani 20, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 29: The info-portal has been developed to counter Indian propaganda, put Pakistan on the electronic global map, earn friends for the country, bring investment and boost exports.

The information minister, Nisar A Memon, said here on Thursday at the launching of the info-portal of the government of Pakistan. He said the cyber wing was developed under the instructions of President Gen Pervez Musharraf, who wanted to bring reforms in the media to make it second to none in the world.

He said the cyber wing was conceptualized in June and was approved in the same month. “We are soft launching the portal because it is incomplete and after running it for eight months a hard launching will be made by the president himself,” he said.

During a presentation there, the audience were told that the Hub of the cyber wing would be electronically linked with the more established arms of the ministry that would receive daily dosage of adequate informative and publicity materials, including publicity material, daily press summary from PID, daily overseas press summary from EP Wing, monitoring reports from PBC and news from APP.

These information which will be summarized further, will be put on the WEB and e-mailed to a galaxy of people around the world.

It was informed that soon the Cyber Hub would extend its direct reach to the provincial capital and further to the city governments and later to the districts. In this way, it will provide un-assailable and unparalleled impetus to the government’s most pivotal of devolution plan.

A slide show was also presented during the ceremony depicting how the overall flow of information to and from the central hub of the entire setup takes place which after receiving all information from PTV, PBC, APP and from the Internet, PID will analyze and then disseminate. The Cyber wing will also send feed back to the president and the National Security Council (NSC).

Another slide showed Cyber information management for the domestic users and for the users of the website abroad to be used by Pakistan missions, both ambassadors and press officers, key Pakistani nationals settled abroad, congressmen, government offices and state departments, human rights organizations, think tanks, European Union, Commonwealth, multilateral financial institutions and international opinion makers.

APP adds: The minister announced that a 100 KW radio station for Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, would be inaugurated soon, another 100 KW radio station will be built in the Northern Areas to counter the propaganda unleashed by India by its recently setup three stations at Leh, Kargil and Srinagar, besides installing a radio booster for Skardu.

He said Pakistan Television and Associated Press of Pakistan had been directed to set up their news bureaux.