The last time Arif Nizami was in Delhi—which was about 10 years ago—the only cars he encountered on the streets of Delhi were the good-old Ambassadors. Today, the owner-editor of The Nation from the influential Nawa-i-Waqt Group of Publications, Nizami feels Delhi has done well for itself. ‘‘There are all kinds of cars and the pollution level has gone down. It is quite like Lahore if you discount the Hindi on the signboards,’’ he says, attempting to praise the pace of reforms but adds his spin when he says there is a lesson to be learnt in the BJP’s India Shining campaign. ‘‘Till the sun shines for the real stakeholders and not the few rich, the job is half done,’’ says Nizami and proceeds to tell an apocryphal story.It was at a pre-budget discussion hosted by his group that Nizami made a wry comment about how, if India could have an economist as Prime Minister, Pakistan too could have Shaukat Aziz—then with Citibank—as its Prime Minister. ‘‘He became one after fighting a tough election and now he has to prove he is a good prime minister quite similar to Manmohan Singh,’’ says Nizami.‘‘To begin with, their constituents are not bankers but the ordinary man on the street. Both are men of impeccable integrity and understand the problems of the country, unlike politicians. But they have to carve out a niche for themselves,’’ he concludes.The Nation was in the news when it faced the Government’s wrath this year after Government advertisments were suspended for 10 months for its series of critical editorials on Kashmir and for its perceived proximity to former PM Nawaz Sharief.‘‘I think the whole business of having an Information Ministry, which sets the rules for news, is absurd. If there has to be a ministry, then its coercive arm should be dismantled,’’ says Nizami. Recently elected president of the Standing Committee of Council of Pakistan Newspapers’ Editors and the All Pakistan Newspapers Society, among his various assignments, says Nizami, will be to work toward a Freedom of Information Bill and a Press Council to deal with the problems of the press and esnure their independence is ensured.‘‘Our paper has only one agenda: To interpret and analyse and comment on the Government and keep a balance. We don’t consider ourselves an opposition paper,’’ says Nizami.But under relentless pressure from television, his paper, in search of circulation, has dabbled in the non-serious like the rest. ‘‘We too, have the Nation Plus—a tabloid like you have in some publications here. But I don’t read it,’’ says Nizami who describes himself as a hands-on editor whose passion for news matches his love for films.
