Jugnu Mohsin
Jugnu Mohsin is a Pakistani publisher and editor of the Lahore-based The Friday Times, Pakistan's first English-language independent newsweekly.
[edit] Background
Born of a well-known business family, Jugnu Mohsin is a Lahore-based journalist. Her father and brother run a family-owned leading food company [1]. Her maternal uncle, Babar Ali, is a businessman who helped start up LUMS, now Pakistan's most prestigious management sciences university. She is a first cousin of Syeda Abida Hussain, former ambassador to the United States, and Syed Fakhar Imam, former speaker of the National Assembly. Jugnu was inspired by husband Najam Sethi to combine her financial resources and cutting wit for civic purposes. She regards herself as holding "the establishment" accountable. In 1984, Najam had been arrested under martial law for releasing books with his book publishing firm Vanguard Books. [2] The press hardly took notice and the couple decided to set up their own newspaper.
Jugnu received her LLB degree from Cambridge University. Before partnering her husband professionally, Jugnu was a practicing lawyer and member of the Women's Action Forum.
In 1989, the couple realized their ambition, establishing Pakistan’s first independent English-language weekly newsmagazine [3] The Friday Times, which has since been subjecting successive governments to its outspoken equal opportunity criticism. The Friday Times was launched on May 25, 1989.
This, allies would maintain, is what led to one eventful May 1999 when Sethi was dragged from his bedroom in the middle of the night and held in custody for 25 days. Sethi’s piercing criticism of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, it is alleged, what the root cause – making the matter a freedom of press issue.[4]
Jugnu rallied up support from Western allies - Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, World Bank President James Wolfensohn, and US State Department spokesman, James Rubin – to exert pressure on the Sharif government for the immediate release of her husband. The sedition charges were finally dropped on June 2, but not without further government harassment, including calls for Sethi to be stripped of his status as a Muslim and have his name taken off voter lists.
In 1999, the couple wee recognized for their bold contributions to journalism and both were recipients of the Committee to Protect Journalists' International Press Freedom award. [5]
In addition to being the managing editor and publisher of The Friday Times, Jugnu Mohsin launched GoodTimes [6] as its publisher and editor in January 2005.
Jugnu’s witty satirical pieces at the back page of The Friday Times in the form of spoofs of incumbent administration and the opposition figures. Her current spoof columns "Ittefaq Nama" and "Howzzat" poke fun at former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.
She will be soon publishing a collection of the profiles of Pakistani luminaries that she wrote for The Friday Times in a book. The husband-wife duo are also set to launch a TV network broadcasting from Dubai to the subcontinent.
Jugnu is a trustee of the Mohsin Trust, which runs 26 schools for boys and girls in Punjab's district Okara, teaching some 3,500 children. The trust also runs a teacher training centre, preparing local graduates to join the profession and run the trust's schools. It also runs a dispensary in the town of Shergarh, district Okara, where up to 100 patients are treated daily. The trust is preparing to adopt and rebuild a hospital for the population of 30,000 people in Shergarh, that does not currently have a functional hospital.
She is greatly interested in the history and culture of her ancestral village Shergarh, which predates the Mughal rule. It is about 115 kilometres south-west of Lahore. She has restored the family's 18th century haveli with the help of local craftsmen and artisans, using traditional building materials.
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