Karachi: The Pakistani expatriates in UK have distanced their children from Urdu language with the result that they have no knowledge of Urdu literature and journalism and do not show any interest in learning, reading and writing Urdu, as they consider it economically useless, Asif Jilani, a senior journalist from UK, said.
“The youngsters of expatriates are unaware of even the Urdu Ghazals and Qawalis,” he said as guest speaker at a seminar organized by mass communication department of Federal Urdu University of Science & Technology, Karachi on Tuesday.
“Urdu is becoming an alien language in UK,” he remarked and called upon the young generation to safeguard and promote Urdu language.
Asif Jilani opined that the newspapers used to promote Urdu literature in the past but the newspapers of today were distorting the Urdu language. “There is dearth of quality journalism in Pakistan and massacre of proverbs continues unabated,” he said noting that entire news story is given in headings with increasing trend of running the rest of story on inner pages to torment the reader.
He further stated that Internet and other social media have affected the importance of newspapers.
Talking about journalism ethics, Asif Jilani said UK government is considering taking further steps for protecting ones private life. “The concept that media should perform duty within certain limits and avoiding interfering ones private life is fast growing there,” he told.
Chairman, Department of Mass Communication, Dr. Tauseef Ahmed also spoke.