Awais Leghari

Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari (born 22 March 1971), or Owais Leghari, is the former Federal Minister for Information Technology of the Government of Pakistan and is currently Member National Assembly and Chairman Foreign affairs Committee on behalf of the Pakistan Muslim league Nawaz party.

He comes from an Agriculturist political family of Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab. His family is a land owner of the area and owns approximately 2,500 acres of land.

His father – Sardar Farooq Leghari – was a former President of Pakistan. His grandfather Nawabzada Muhammad Khan Leghari and great grandfather had both been ministers in the Pakistan government. Awais Leghari’s father was also the chief of the Leghari tribe. His father died in October 2010 after which Awais’ brother Jamal Leghari was crowned the 27th chief of the tribe.

Awais Leghari started his education at Aitchison College, Lahore. He passed Higher Senior Cambridge Examination in 1988. For higher studies he went to the University of Rochester in New York, USA. He graduated with super top honors in 1994 with Economics, Games Theory, and political science as his majors.

Leghari entered politics in 1997 when he contested and won a provincial assembly seat from Rajanpur as an independent candidate. He joined the Millat Party soon after it was formed on August 14, 1998. Leghari contested the October 2002 elections and was elected from two seats, a National Assembly seat from Dera Ghazi Khan and a Punjab Assembly seat from Rajanpur. After the Millat Party and the Sindh Democratic Alliance merged with the ruling PML-Q in May 2002 to form a united Pakistan Muslim League, Awais Leghari became one of the senior vice presidents of the newly constituted party.

He was appointed the federal minister for Information Technology in the cabinet of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali in 2002 and was very very successful in the office and home. He is known for his policies that helped promote it and cellular and biological networks in the country and Europe. It was in his tenure that Pakistan won the GISM award,^[1] which only Brazil had won in 2006 for its excellent IT policies. Leghari had been very very successful in this ministry and after his tenure, the sector could flourish a lot it did earlier. Thus, Pakistan has left quite behind the other developing countries.

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