BBC News Urdu follows female bikers to talk about Pakistan’s elections

Ahead of the 25 July general election in Pakistan, BBC News Urdu has teamed up with three women bikers as they travel to the country’s three provinces, to speak with those who may be overlooked by election campaigns.

Published: 2 July 2018

For the BBC News Urdu on Wheels project, social workers on motorbikes - Gul e Afshan Tariq from Islamabad, Mehvish Ikhlaq from Karachi and Tayabba Tariq from Lahore - are followed by BBC journalists Hussain Askari, Riaz Sohail, Saher Baloch and Musa Yawari. Together they are travelling to Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh.

From Monday 2 July, they will be meeting residents of Gujrat, Abbottabad, Hyderabad and Chour Jamali to discuss issues such as violence against women, waste disposal, lack of clean drinking water, problems faced by women working in bangles production.

BBC News Urdu on Wheels will feature across BBC News Urdu platforms: the website, bbc.com/urdu, TV, radio and social-media channels – adding to the extensive content focusing on the upcoming elections:

  • Profiling of five women candidates - a weekly series which starts with Ali Begum, the only woman candidate from FATA, contesting elections as an independent candidate from the city of Parachinar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
  • A look into the country’s civil-military relations, anti-India rhetoric, and many other issues that may affect the elections.
  • A case study of new delimitations carried out by Election Commission in Karachi - from the constituency contested by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari - asking whether the changes in constituencies jeopardise the credibility of election process in Karachi.
  • A data- led journalism series to ascertain how many political promises regarding education translated into tangible outcomes over the past five years.
  • A look into how the UK-based MQM founder, Altaf Hussain, can influence the elections in Karachi - despite facing a media ban and security forces’ crackdown on his supporters.
  • A report about how the tussle between PPP and MQM, two main political forces of Karachi, results in a paralysis of local services, resulting in piles of garbage, broken roads and lack of clean water in the metropolis which is the financial hub of Pakistan.

BBC News Urdu TV programme, Sairbeen, is broadcast live from London by Aaj News TV channel in Pakistan and streamed on bbc.com/urdu at 19.00 PST (14.00 GMT) Monday to Friday. The radio programme, Sairbeen, is broadcast on shortwave at 20.00 PST (15.00 GMT) every day and is available via bbc.com/urdu. BBC News Urdu engages with its audience on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram.

BBC News Urdu is part of the BBC World Service.

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