But both girls said they want to be doctors and are going to continue their studies.

Time magazine selected her to be runner-up in this year's Person of the Year.

This year, Pakistan will observe Malala's 16th birthday as "Malala Day."

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown joined Ziauddin in the interview. Brown, now the United Nations special envoy on global education, has been pushing Pakistani authorities to follow through in meaningful, practical ways that will improve girls' access to quality education.

"I was there in Pakistan at the time [of Malala's shooting]," Brown said. "I think 2 million people have signed a petition calling for universal free education."

Brown met with Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, who had visited Malala in the hospital in the U.K. and vowed to stand up for girls' education and fight extremism.

Beyond Pakistan, Brown said there seems to be a new passion internationally for ensuring girls' rights.

Girls and women are saying, Brown believes, that they are not "prepared to take this anymore."

Brown noted the cultural complacency toward rape of women in India that was brought to light when a woman was gang-raped in New Delhi in December. She died of wounds from the attack. Demonstrators in Nepal are protesting the severely limited rights of women there, Brown said, and Bangladeshi girls have formed safe zones in which children will never be forced to marry adults, a common practice.

But inside Pakistan and other parts of the world, change comes slow.

"We thought we would have a 'Malala moment' but that never happened," said Pir Zubair Shah, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was a reporter for the New York Times in Pakistan, working in the Waziristan tribal area along the border with Afghanistan. Ziauddin hosted Shah when he wrote about Malala.

"No one has said, 'Let's slash the defense budget and allocate it to education,'" Shah said. "No one has been arrested in the attack on Malala. You have the girls' school who didn't want Malala's name."

He said he doesn't believe there's an heir-apparent for Malala in Pakistan and that safety concerns would make it impossible for her or her father to return.

"You need someone on the ground to lead social change," he said. "It's not the job of Brown or people sitting outside. You have to be there among the people. And right now there is no political leadership who can do that."

The military has failed to chase after militants, the journalist said.

And then there's the complex issue of Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban, he noted.

"The government had a chance, an opportunity [in the days after Malala's shooting]," he said. "I don't want to be pessimistic, but I'm afraid that chance is probably gone."