Central to this belief is the security of the people and their property. And nothing threatens life and property like a war. We are anti-war and have been promoting peace in the region and across the globe.
On Tuesday, February 26, Indian Air Force intruded into Pakistani airspace and conducted what it termed a ‘surgical strike’ on allegedly a training camp of outlawed militant organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed. Pakistan retaliated the next morning by first intruding into the Indian airspace and after drawing Indian warplanes into Azad Jammu & Kashmir, shot down two of them and captured the pilot of one, according to Director General of Pakistan army’s Inter-Services Public Relations department.
Abhinandan Varthaman, the captured Indian pilot, was handed back to India on Friday in a bid to de-escalate the tensions between the two countries. For the brief period when Pakistan and India violated the airspace of each other, technically at least, we were at war albeit undeclared.
In the heat of the moment, Naya Daur shared on its Twitter and Facebook pages content probably that some of our committed followers thought was ‘jingoistic’. To make things clear, first of all, it wasn’t jingoistic. We were reporting things as they happened. Admittedly, a few videos/memes shared on our social platforms could have been captioned differently, but we are confident that there was no warmongering from our side. In fact we called out jingoism within sections of Indian and Pakistani media.
On our Facebook page, we pinned a video elaborating the destruction that a nuclear war between the two South Asian neighbours could potentially entail for the region and the world. The video has had over 44,000 shares and has already been viewed by over 1 million people.
This reaffirms our belief that peace-lovers in any part of the world far outnumber those wanting war and devastation.
Naya Daur is committed to the ideal of objective reporting and unrestrained analysis on the issues of public importance.
And we shall continue to pursue this ideal.
Pakistan can progress only through securing peace, consolidating democracy and upholding of the freedoms of expression, assembly and movement. And above all, achieving social, economic and environmental justice.
All of this requires security of its citizens. In a situation where nuclear armed states are confronting each we must shun the idea of war and find ways to de-escalate tensions.
The survival of our future generations is at stake.