Saturday, July 30 2005 14:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (July 30, 2005) narrated a tale involving the late Pakistani dictator Ayub Khan to drive home the importance of the freedom of the press.

Ayub Khan, he said, had confessed in an interview when he was no longer at the helm of affairs that the one thing he would not do if given another chance at the top job was "not to gag the press".

"That time, I had closed my eyes and believed what the bureaucracy said and was cut off from reality", Khan had told a Pakistani student in the interview which had appeared in the London School of Economics Journal.

The story was narrated by the Prime Minister when he departed from his prepared speech at a function here (New Delhi) at which he received the first copy of English newspaper "Daily News and Analysis" which was launched in Mumbai today (July 30, 2005).

He received the copy from Union Minister for civil aviation Praful Patel in the presence of Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy and Subhash Chandra of Zee and Bharat Agarwal of Bhaskar group, who have jointly launched the paper.