HYDERABAD (India), Dec 1 Najam Sethi, editor-in-chief of the Friday Times and the former editor of Daily Times, was given the 2009 Golden Pen of Freedom award by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) on Tuesday.

Accepting the award at the WAN's annual conference, Sethi, who is a long-time advocate of a substantial peace dialogue between South Asian nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, said the media in both countries were “entrapped by a narrow nationalism” that provided a powerful barrier to government-to-government contact.