Нажам Азиз Сети: Пакстандық журналист, кәсіпкер және крикет әкімшісінің өмірбаяны

Pakistani journalist and cricket administrator (born 1948)

Najam Aziz Sethi (Urdu, ; born 20 May 1948) is a Pakistani journalist, businessman and cricket administrator who formerly served as the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in three different tenures. He is also the founder of The Friday Times and Vanguard Books. He has served as a caretaker Federal Minister of Pakistan and Chief Minister of Punjab. As a journalist, he is a left leaning political commentator who serves as the editor in chief of The Friday Times and formerly served as the Chairman of the Pakistan Super League. He is currently the President of AAP Media Media Network / Indus News. Najam Sethi began his sociopolitical endeavours with the socialist movement working for the rights of Balochistan, leading to his arrest in 1975 before being discharged in 1978. He consequently left politics and established Vanguard Books, a progressive book publishing company. He took the oath on 27 March 2013, and left the office after the May 2013 elections on 6 June 2013.

According to Sethi, he first conceived of the idea for an independent Pakistani newspaper out of frustration: while briefly imprisoned in 1984 on trumped up copyright charges, no newspapers had protested his arrest. The following year, he and Mohsin applied for a publishing licence under Mohsin's name, since Sethi was "too notorious an offender" to be use the application, Mohsin told him that she intended to publish "a social chit chat thing, you know, with lots of pictures of parties and weddings". It was finally approved in 1987, but Mohsin requested a one year delay to avoid the first issue coming out during the dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq. The paper's first issue appeared in May 1989.

In early 1999, Sethi gave an interview to a team for the BBC television show Correspondent, which was planning to report on corruption in the Nawaz Sharif government. At the beginning of May, he was warned by contacts that his co operation with the team was being interpreted by the Nawaz Sharif government as an attempt to destabilize it and that officials were planning Sethi's arrest. According to Sethi's wife Mohsin, at least eight armed officers broke into the house, assaulting the family's security guards; when asked to produce a warrant, one of them threatened simply to shoot Sethi on the spot. Mohsin was tied up and left locked in another room. The US based Committee to Protect Journalists also sent a protest letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, noting the organisation's dismay "that the state continues its persecution of independent journalists",

On 19 May 1999, however—during Sethi's one month incommunicado detention—Durrani called a press conference to denounce him as having stolen all of her earnings from the book, stating that his actions were "an even bigger case of hypocrisy than my experience with the feudal system". Durrani sued Sethi for mental torture, and he countersued for defamation. An earlier dispute over the foreign rights had been settled out of court in 1992. A review of the contracts by the UK newspaper The Independent described Sethi as acting in good faith and described him and Mohsin as "the injured party".

Najam Sethi was appointed as the caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab on 26 March 2013, for the 2013 Pakistani general election, which were scheduled to be held on 11 May 2013. His name was presented by the opposition, PPP, and the governing party, PML(N) agreed on it. He was then chosen to be the caretaker Chief Minister. On 6 June 2013, he was replaced by the newly elected leader Shehbaz Sharif. PTI, the party that lost the 2013 elections, had accused Najam Sethi of fixing the elections in 35 constituencies and famously called them the 35 punctures.

Nawaz Sharif, the Prime minister at the time, appointed him as the acting chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board after the Islamabad High Court ordered the appointment of an interim chairman until a pending case on the serving chairman, Zaka Ashraf, was decided. Later, a two member bench of Islamabad high court cleared Zaka Ashraf and ordered his restoration as chairman PCB. Sethi then relinquished chairmanship.

In August 2017, Sethi was elected unanimously as PCB chairman for a second time after no other member of the Board of Governors stood for the position. After Imran Khan was elected into power after the 2018 general elections, Najam Sethi resigned as Chairman of PCB. Shortly after his resignation, Imran Khan announced that former ICC President Ehsan Mani would succeed Sethi.

After Imran Khan was ousted from government through a vote of no confidence in April 2022, Sethi was appointed the Chairman of the PCB Management Committee for a third term in December 2022, along with 13 board members by the new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif. They were given the task to restore the PCB's 2014 constitution, whilst scrapping the 2019 constitution set under Ehsan Mani, within four months. However in April 2023, the Management Committee was given a further two month extension. On 20 June 2023, Najam Sethi made an announcement via twitter expressing his unwillingness to continue pursuing the Chairmanship during his third term as Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Citing concerns over potential instability and uncertainty, Sethi decided not to be considered as a candidate for the position. He was succeeded by Zaka Ashraf as the 37th Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board on 5 July 2023.

Sethi is married to fellow journalist Jugnu Mohsin, the publisher of The Friday Times. Najam Sethi's daughter is a journalist and actress Mira Sethi.

In 1999, Sethi and Mohsin were both given the International Press Freedom Award of the US based Committee to Protect Journalists, which recognises journalists who show courage in defending press freedom despite facing attacks, threats, or imprisonment. Ten years later, he was awarded the 2009 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers. Hilal i Imtiaz Award in 2011 by the President of Pakistan.