Pakistan's first transgender newscaster appears on TV screen

A local broadcaster has hired a transgender news caster for the first time in Pakistan's history, said a senior journalist on Twitter on Sunday.

The journalist posted  a picture of Maavia Malik and wrote "Pakistan's first news caster on screen now-Maavia Malik."

Shiraz Hassan, who is associated with BBC, didn't give further details.

Pakistan's Senate, the upper house of country's parliament, recently approved a bill for the protection of transgender persons, empowering them to determine their own gender identity

The report of a transgender person appearing on TV as a newscaster  received positive response on Twitter, with a  senior blogger and a female TV anchor expressing best wishes for her.

Country's  transgender population, according to the census carried out last year , stands at 10,418 — 0.005 percent of the total population of over 207 million.

Last year a court ruled that transgender people would be counted in the national census for the first time.