Farooq Paracha
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Farooq Paracha is a respected Pakistani print and television journalist. He is also the father of famous Pakistani music critic and short story writer, Nadeem F. Paracha. Farooq Paracha was a staunch supporter of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in the late sixties and seventies and was blacklisted by the dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq when Zia toppled the populist PPP leader and Prime Minister in a 1977 military coup. Farooq Paracha spend much of the eighties as an advertising concept-writer before returning to journalism after Zia's death in 1988. Though already known as a fiery left-wing journalist, Farooq Paracha became famous as a TV journalist as well when he became General Manager Special Programs at Pakistan's first private TV channel, NTM. His political and social talk shows for the channel dealt with thorny issues and some of them were also attacked by religious lobbies and business interests. Farooq Paracha was again banned (this time unofficially) when in 1997 Nawaz Sharif's PML (N) swept the elections against Benazir Bhutto's PPP. Today Farooq Paracha lives a semi-retired life and is believed to have been busy writing a book on his experiences as a journalist from 1964 till 2000.
