LAHORE: The newly-elected office-bearers of the Akhbar Farosh Union Lahore were administered oath here on Wednesday at Alhamra Art Centre.

The new body comprises President Chaudhry Nazir Ahmed, Senior Vice President Malik Imtiaz Ahmed, Vice President Sajjad Azeem, General Secretary Muhammad Ilyas, Joint Secretary Rana Maqsood Ahmed, Information Secretary Sheikh Umar Yaseen, Office Secretary Owais Qureshi and Finance Secretary Malik Tanveer Ahmed.

Addressing the ceremony, Chaudhry Nazir said the print media was a strong pillar of the state and the government should take measures to protect it. He also lauded newspaper hawkers for performing their duty at odd hours.

Punjab Minister for Information and Culture Fayyazul Hassan Chohan, who was the chief guest on the occasion, said newspaper hawkers were an important pillar of the industry. He criticised the media for “creating an impression” that there was a crisis within the industry.

He said the government would soon introduce an advertisement policy, adding that his ministry was regulating issuance of advertisements to the media.

Patron-in-chief of the union’s election board, Rafique Mughal, thanked the journalist community, friends, newspaper hawkers and managers of circulation departments of various newspapers for attending the ceremony.

General secretary Muhammad Ilyas urged the minister to take measures to save print media from decline.

Khwaja Kaleem from Karachi thanked the newspaper hawkers, saying that without them the distribution of newspapers was not possible.

Others who spoke on the occasion included journalist Zia Shahid, Irshad Arif, Mohsin Goraya, Naveed Chaudhry and Dawn newspaper’s Director Operations (North)Kashif Saeed.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2018