LAKKI MARWAT, Jan 20: Federal Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Salim Saifullah Khan has said the media were enjoying unprecedented freedom in the country because of the government’s policies of openness.

Addressing a large public gathering in the Sarai Naurang area on Saturday, the minister claimed that the government believed in freedom of the press and had taken bold steps in this regard.

He said that during previous governments, different measures were taken to gag the press on one pretext or the other, but the present government had removed them.

The minister thanked President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for approving development funds for the southern districts of the NWFP.

He said that projects like supply of gas, roads and construction of roads would usher in a new

era of development in these areas.—APP