Meet Sky News presenter who confronted Pakistan ministers with uncomfortable questions

The Pahalgam terror attack and the resultant India-Pakistan conflict have once again brought focus on Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism—and one journalist and TV presenter has recently stood out for confronting Pakistani ministers with some uncomfortable questions.

Yalda Hakim, Afghanistan-born journalist, now anchoring ‘The World with Yalda Hakim’ on Sky News, has gone viral for her hard-hitting interviews with top Pakistani ministers, challenging their long-standing denials about promoting terrorism.

In a widely shared interview on April 24, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had admitted on the 41-year-old Hakim’s show that Pakistan has supported, trained and funded terrorist organisations. He shifted the blame to the West, calling it their “dirty work” that Pakistan had been doing.

Hakim confronted Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar in her follow-up interviews. Tarar denied the existence of terrorist camps in Pakistan, only for Hakim to counter him with references to his own defence minister’s admission in the earlier interview, the 2018 suspension of US aid under President Donald Trump, and statements by Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto.

From Kabul to global spotlight

Yalda was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and fled to Australia as a refugee during childhood. She began her journalism career with SBS World News Australia, later joining the BBC World News in 2012. She gained international attention for her coverage of conflict zones including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iraq and Gaza.

Hakim came to be known in 2021 when she got a call for conducting a live television interview with Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen. It was a time when Afghan President Ashaf Ghani was fleeing the country as Taliban prepared to capture Kabul, and Hakim used her chance to “hold the Taliban to account” by asking tough questions.

A voice for the voiceless

Hakim is also a philanthropist and women’s rights advocate. In 2018, she launched the Yalda Hakim Foundation, which offers scholarships and educational opportunities to Afghan women, in partnership with institutions like Oxford University.

Multilingual and deeply informed on South Asian geopolitics, she speaks English, Dari, Urdu, Hindi, Persian and Pashto, and is learning Mandarin.