AJL appoints Zafar Agha as Editor-in-Chief of Qaumi Awaz

The Associated Journals Limited (AJL), a company founded in 1937 by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, announced its plans to resume publication of its Urdu newspaper Qaumi Awaz along with its digital version. Qaumi Awaz, one of the pioneers of post-Independence daily Urdu-journalism, had temporarily suspended publication in 2008. “Its absence was felt by Urdu readers across the country and we hope to fill the vacuum that this had left behind,” according to a press release.

The Company appointed veteran journalist Zafar Agha as Editor-in-Chief for its Urdu newspaper Qaumi Awaz and the digital property with immediate effect. He will be responsible for building and leading the team of Qaumi Awaz and its digital and related assets.

The Associated Journals Limited, launched the beta version of its English website — www.nationalheraldindia.com — in 2016 spearheaded by Neelabh Mishra as the Editor-in-Chief for its Hindi and English newspapers as well as digital properties.

Zafar Agha, a senior journalist and a well-known columnist with nearly three decades of print and electronic experience, started his career in 1980 with the first Indian news magazine, Link. In a span of a little over two decades, he pursued his dream with passion, working for many leading newspapers including The Business and Political Observer, India Today and The Patriot. He has been writing columns both for national and foreign newspapers. His TV programme Guftagu on ETV (Urdu) was widely seen and perceived as the most watched programme in Urdu.

The spirit of the forthcoming publication of The Associated Journals Limited, a not for profit company, is captured by National Herald’s tagline ‘Freedom is in Peril, Defend it with All Your Might’. “The publication and digital website shall follow the same editorial vision and principles as that of our Founder, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It shall seek to give voice to the vision of Pandit Nehru and continue to occupy a liberal, progressive, secular space, furthering the best values of the Freedom Movement—that of building a modern, democratic, just, equitable, liberal and socially harmonious nation, free of sectarian strife,” said the press release.

Launched in 1938 as a daily newspaper in English, National Herald was in the vanguard of the Indian Freedom Movement. During its halcyon days and even in the decades after Independence, the National Herald group of newspapers, including Navjivan in Hindi and Qaumi Awaz in Urdu, lent their influential voice to the efforts of building a peaceful, liberal and democratic nation imbued with rationality and scientific temper that their Founder had inculcated.