Beena Sarwar

Last updated

Beena Sarwar
Nationality Pakistani
EducationBA, MA
Alma mater Brown University, Harvard University
Occupation(s)Journalist, Peace Activist, Artist, Filmmaker
Employer(s) Aman ki Asha, Southasia Peace Action Network, Sapan News Network, Emerson College
Website beenasarwar.com

Beena Sarwar is a Pakistani journalist, artist and filmmaker focusing on human rights, media and peace.

Contents

She resides in Boston and is currently the editor of the Aman ki Asha (Hope for Peace) initiative, that aims to develop peace between the countries of India and Pakistan. [1] [2] [3]

The initiative is jointly sponsored by the Jang group in Pakistan and the Times of India across the border. [4]

In March 2021, she founded the Southasia Peace Action Network or SAPAN along with other peace activists from across South Asia. [5] In August 2022, SAPAN informally launched Sapan News Network, a news and features syndicated service in the making. She is its founding editor. [6] [7]

Education and career

Prior to her current position, Beena has worked as an Assistant Editor at The Star, as Features editor at The Frontier Post, and was the founding editor of The News on Sunday in 1993. [4] She has also produced television shows for Geo TV and served as Op-ed Editor for The News International. She holds a BA degree in Art and Literature from Brown University in 1986, [4] an MA degree in TV documentary from Goldsmiths College, London in 2001. [4] She also wrote a popular monthly column titled 'Personal Political' which was published by Hard News, in India. [4]

In 1998, Sarwar created an informal email newsletter on personal and political issues. In 2002, Sarwar started a Yahoo! group, beena-issues. Sarwar has a personal blog, "Journeys to Democracy," which she started in 2009. She was named Teabreak.pk's Featured Blogger in March 2010. [8] Her blog has also been named "Best Blog From a Journalist" at the Pakistan Blog Awards in 2011. [9]

She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2006, and a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School 2007. [4] Before joining Emerson College as a faculty in 2017, she taught journalism at Princeton University, Brown University, and Harvard Summer School. [10]

She contributes news and commentary to media outlets around the world including New York Times, Guardian, Boston Globe, Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, VOA, and NPR. She has published essays in several nonfiction anthologies and is Editor of Aman ki Asha (hope for peace), a platform launched jointly by the two largest media groups of Pakistan and India respectively. She leads the South Asia Peace Action Network or SAPAN, a cross-border, inter-generational coalition launched in March 2021. In August 2022, SAPAN informally launched Sapan News Network, a news and features syndicated service in the making. [11]

Filmography

Sarwar was the director/producer in the following selected documentaries:

Published chapters in edited anthologies

Related Research Articles

<i>Daily Jang</i> Daily Urdu-language newspaper published from Pakistan

The Daily Jang is an Urdu language newspaper headquartered in Karachi, Pakistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hina Jilani</span> Pakistani human rights activist

Hina Jilani is a lawyer on the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a human rights activist from Lahore, Punjab. She is the co-founder of Pakistan's first all-women law firm, Pakistan's first legal aid center, and the Women's Action Forum.

Chowk.com was a website with a focus on the current affairs, politics and cultural aspects of India and Pakistan. Its stated goal is to provoke readers go beyond soundbites and uncover the truth, however uncomfortable. It was also a magazine that aimed to promote discourse between people of the subcontinent on various issues which affected their lives. The site appeared to become stale in March 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sherry Rehman</span> Pakistani politician

Sherry Rehman is a Pakistani politician, journalist and former diplomat who has been the member of the Senate of Pakistan since 2015. She was the first female Leader of the Opposition in the Senate from March to August 2018 and served as Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2013. She is currently serving as the Federal Minister for the Ministry of Climate Change.

Ziauddin Ahmad Suleri, best known as Z. A. Suleri, was a Pakistani political journalist, conservative writer, author, and Pakistan Movement activist. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of print journalism in Pakistan, and authored various history and political books on Pakistan as well as Islam in the South Asian subcontinent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazia Hassan</span> Pakistani singer

Nazia Hassan was a Pakistani singer-songwriter, lawyer and social activist. Referred to as the Queen of South Asian Pop, she is considered one of the most influential singers in Pakistan and India as well. Starting in the 1980s, as part of the duo Nazia and Zoheb, she and her brother Zoheb Hassan, have sold over 65 million records worldwide.

Kishwar Naheed is a feminist Urdu poet and writer from Pakistan. She has written several poetry books. She has also received awards including Sitara-e-Imtiaz for her literary contribution to Urdu literature.

Neville Anthony Mascarenhas was a Pakistani journalist and author. His works include exposés on the brutality of Pakistan's military during the 1971 independence movement of Bangladesh, The Rape of Bangla Desh (1971) and Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood (1986). In 1971, he wrote the article titled Genocide, published by the Sunday Times, which has been dubbed as an article that "changed history", and recognized as "one of the most influential pieces of South Asian journalism of the past half century"

<i>The Express Tribune</i> Pakistani English-language newspaper launched in 2010

The Express Tribune is a daily English-language newspaper based in Pakistan. It is the flagship publication of the Daily Express media group. It is Pakistan's only internationally affiliated newspaper in a partnership with the International New York Times, the global edition of The New York Times. Headquartered in Karachi, it also prints copy from offices in Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zulfiqar Shah</span>

Zulfiqar Shah is a civil rights activist, journalist and writer of Sindhi origin. He was forced by the Pakistan Army to unlawfully leave the country and close down The Institute for Social Movements, Pakistan in May 2012. He resettled in Nepal, where the UNHCR approved him for refugee status. In Kathmandu, he began freelancing with newspapers and websites on the issues of Pakistan, particularly concerning Sindh and the restive province of Balochistan. He was insurrected in his house in Kathmandu and was given heavy metal poison by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI with local facilitation; however he was rescued by local doctors. He was forced to leave Nepal, thus he left for Pakistan in December 2013. In Pakistan, he again was persecuted and threatened to be killed. He went India for medical treatment on 11 February 2013, where he was not only denied appropriate health treatment at the behest of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, but was also harassed by high commission officials. He, along his wife Fatima Shah, gave a protest sit-in for 285 days near the Parliament of the Republic of India in defiance of the threats against his life committed by the Pakistan High Commission and its facilitation by the Indian authorities.

Kadambari Murali Wade the former sports journalist and former editor-in-chief of Sports Illustrated India, is the only woman to have held that post at the Hindustan Times. She joined SI India in November 2010, to direct the revamp of the monthly magazine beginning with its January 2011 issue. Her articles largely focus on cricket. She is the youngest national editor of a major news outlet. The first ever winner of the Sports Journalists Federation of India's Cricket Writer of the Year award in 2006, in August 2007, She also broke the story of the formation of the Indian cricket board's (BCCI) plans to create what would later be called the Indian Premier League (IPL) for cricket.

Wajahat Saeed Khan, is a Pakistani journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K. A. Beena</span> Malayalam-language Indian writer

K. A. Beena (കെ.എ.ബീന) is an Indian author, journalist, and columnist who writes in Malayalam on a variety of topics, particularly social issues affecting women. Her publications include memoirs, magazine articles, travelogues, children's books, essay collections, short stories, and history books about journalism and media. She is currently the assistant director for the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's Bureau of Outreach and Communication.

Rukhsana Ahmad is a Pakistani writer of novels, short stories, poetry, plays, and a translator, who after marriage migrated to England for further studies and pursue a career in writing. She has campaigned for Asian writers, particularly women.

Razia Bhatti was a Pakistani journalist who served as editor of the Herald and Newsline magazines. When she died at the age of 52, the Pakistan Press Foundation called it "end of a golden chapter of journalism in Pakistan." Bhatti founded staff-owned Newsline magazine with the help of other female journalists after leaving Herald magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheema Kermani</span> Pakistani actress

Sheema Kermani is a Pakistani classical dancer and social activist. She is the founder of Tehrik-e-Niswan Cultural Action Group. She is also an exponent of Bharatanatyam dance. Kermani is known as a renowned classical dancer, choreographer, dance guru, theatre practitioner, performer, director, producer, and TV actor based in Karachi, Pakistan. She advocates on culture, women's rights, and peace issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nighat Chaudhry</span> Pakistani actress

Nighat Chaudhry was born on 24 February, in Lahore, Pakistan. She moved to London with her parents when she was one year old. She is a trained Sufi & Mystique Kathak classical dancer. She started her journey from London and has been active as a professional Kathak dancer for over three decades. She studied ballet and contemporary dance. She met Nahid Siddiqui aged 14, regarded as one of the greatest Kathak dancers, and trained under her guidance. Inspired to learn the classical forms of her own culture, she abandoned ballet to understand and absorb the nuances of the style. This required her to be closer to its origins and she moved back to Pakistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sameera Aziz</span> Saudi journalist, poet, writer, filmmaker, and activist

Sameera Aziz is a Saudi media personality, social worker, radio host, and businesswoman. She is a Jeddah-based Saudi national. Her companies are Sameera Aziz Group and Sameera Aziz Entertainment, the latter of which was the first Saudi production house in India. Aziz is the first Saudi female director in Bollywood. Her events company holds a Guinness World Record for making world's largest human-picture mosaic in 2017.

Afia Salam is a Pakistani journalist and a media development specialist by profession. She is known for being the first female cricket journalist in Pakistan. She has also remained a member of Pakistan's first batch of air traffic controllers and a member of The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ).

Zofreen T. Ebrahim is an independent freelance journalist based in Karachi, Pakistan. She was an editor of the magazine, Woman's Own and is the current editor for The Third Pole; a platform dedicated to promoting information about the Himalayan watershed and the rivers that originate there.

References

  1. "Frank Islam speaks with Beena Sarwar (Boston-based Pakistani journalist-activist)". South Asia Monitor. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
  2. "Interview: Beena Sarwar on Journalism and Safety in Pakistan". Asia Society. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  3. Sarwar, Beena (20 February 2023). "Zia Mohyeddin: One of a kind". Hard News. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Beena Sarwar profile". Chowk.com website. Archived from the original on 7 April 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  5. "About Sapan". Southasia Peace Action Network. 17 June 2021. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
  6. "Southasia Peace Action Network" . Retrieved 28 December 2022.
  7. "Sapan News" . Retrieved 18 March 2023.
  8. "About | Journeys to democracy". Beenasarwar.wordpress.com. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  9. "Awards | Pakistan Blog Awards". Archived from the original on 9 November 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  10. "Beena Sarwar". Emerson College. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
  11. "Beena Sarwar". Emerson.edu. Retrieved 28 December 2021.