In Pakistan, the Voice of America Speaks Pashto
April 6, 2009 |13:39 | Others By : Team X
In “Radio-Free Swat Valley” (Op-Ed, March 30), Douglas J. Feith and Justin Polin call on the United States government to communicate quickly and effectively with millions of Pashto speakers in Pakistan along the Afghanistan border.
That’s what Voice of America, financed by the American government, has been doing daily since September 2006 with its popular Deewa Radio. Deewa, with 13 staff members in Washington and 23 stringers throughout Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas, covers local, national and international news and engages with its listeners seven days a week.
Mr. Feith and Mr. Polin say it was a “costly failing” that the American government could not communicate with Pashtuns after the March 5 bombing of the shrine of Rahman Baba, a revered Sufi poet. Actually, Deewa had three reporters at the scene, devoted cultural shows to Rahman Baba’s poetry and interviewed Pashtun literary figures condemning the bombing.
Besides Deewa, V.O.A. has a popular Urdu service, which reaches nearly 12 percent of Urdu-speaking adults in Pakistan by television or radio. V.O.A. and its sister station, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, also broadcast in Dari and Pashto to Afghanistan.
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July 8, 2009 |06:34
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