Mediafile

Kuensel, from Thimphu, reports a Dr Ross McDonald from the University of Auckland suggesting at a media conference in early July that "Bhutan should consider banning all advertising." Ummm, okay, nice idea. The argument that jobs would be lost if advertising was limited did not apply to Bhutan, a predominantly non-industrialised society, said the doctor. "With the national policy to maximise happiness among people, advertising is a destructive force … And while Buddhist culture in Bhutan aims to undo the desire and control it, ads inflame the desires to maximum degree." The Kiwi doc has obviously gotten carried away with Bhutan-as-utopia, otherwise why would he propose something that is so palpably impossible?! Well, we can always hope, and Chettria Patrakar would not mind if Druk Yul were advertisement- and commercial-less. Ahem, does that include overseas advertising for Bhutani tourism?     One had expected better sense from the gentlemen of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), who have protested the allegedly negative depiction of business-India in Madhur Bhandarkar's Bollywood film Corporate. The problem, says the body's Secretary General D S Rawat, is that the film portrays the "industrial houses as ruthless, heartless and hand-in-glove with corrupt politicians." India Inc, he says "has some of the most respectable leaders to boast", and, "The India growth story would not have been possible but for the contribution of a host of corporate leaders", trotting out the names of N R Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji and Lakshmi Mittal Steel. Come on Secretary General, you do protest too much. Going by your standards, no film would ever be made in the world. Next, you will have agrarian feudal lords, bureaucrats, politicians and – why not – underworld dons following the ASSOCHAM lead and putting out press releases against Bollywood productions.         Rinku Dutta is a never-say-die Bengali transported by marriage to Lahore, who is a fine chronicler of fine moments and contradictions in her adopted land (she also writes for Himal, see her piece in this issue). She recently wrote an article in Karachi's Newsline magazine about a Kali temple in the village of Saidpur, near Islamabad, from where all the Hindus have evacuated since Partition. Dutta discovered that the Capital Development Authority had decided to spend extensively in developing Saidpur as a tourist village, and that the finely preserved temple, with its ochre sikhara roof, was to be converted into a restaurant. Wrote she: "In these promising days of Indo-Pak peace, has the CDA considered the cultural implications of its gustatory dreams for the Kali temple at Saidpur? … With changing state ideologies, the tides of memory and forgetting leave their mark not just on shelved government documents but also on the yaadgaar monuments built by the state. Often the museum that is created to remember also becomes a place of forgetting." Well written, and Chettria Patrakar is glad to report that, following this article, the director of the Lahore Museum has persuaded the CDA chairman to abandon the temple-to-restaurant plans.     Egg in the face of the Indian Ministry of Communications, as well as Internet service providers (ISPs) all over the country. The Ministry was inept all right in its initial request for the blocking of 17 websites and blogs preaching religious zealotry. But then the ISPs responded to the call by simply blocking access to internationally respected domains such as Google's Blogspot and Yahoo's Geocities, through which users would have gotten to the offending sites. The bureaucrats in the communications ministry left the response to the public outcry in the hands of a lowly officer, and the Secretary for Telecommunications simply hung up on reporters. Minister of Communications Dayanidhi Maran was keeping a low profile while on a visit to San Francisco. The world has changed underneath our feet, and our bureaucrats and ministers would not even know it!     This is probably not the way to protect and promote the local film industry, but Colombo filmmakers have hailed a decision taken by the government to impose a levy on imported films and docudramas shown on television. It is said that this will be a boost to the local film industry because, previously, the airtime and sponsors were all monopolised by foreign productions. And so the government will be levying a tax of LKR 75,000 for every half hour of feature films and docudramas. However, films with Tamil-language content are exempted because Sri Lanka has very little Tamil production. Foreign commercials aired on television stations will now be taxed a whopping million rupees. All this must have local producers ecstatic, but the question is whether the viewing public has been cheated in the process. We shall see, depending on how the quality of Lankan production improves in the next few years.     There were some journalists, as well as many other supposedly public individuals, who believed that, when Gyanendra the king took over on 1 February 2006, Nepali society was in for the long haul. If, as with the case of Gyanendra's father Mahendra's takeover of 1960, this occupation were to last for three full decades, then it was important to start making compromises with the state. Which meant pandering to the royal regime, and also taking some of the largess that was liberally spread around by the royal minister for information and communication. So essentially, there were journalists who were on the dole from the king. Little did the poor souls expect that the regime would be overturned by a massive People's Tsunami in April, and lo-and-behold the list of journos on the take was made public by the ministry. Do we feel sorry for these guys (and a couple of gals), or do we applaud their comeuppance?         Some 'desi' students from the University of Maryland who had decided to take up speaking Sanskrit in daily life have banded together to promote the language via the Internet. The group is called 'umd_sanskritam', and on 11 July, the day when Hindu chelas pay respects to their gurus, it launched its website at www.speaksanskrit.org ("The one-stop Sanskrit place"). In addition to coordinating the Sanskrit activities in the Washington DC area, the website aims to function as a repository of Sanskrit resources, link together Sanskrit activities around the world "and also promote Sanskrit through fun, and such activities as blogging and forums." The website already has mp3 versions of stories, songs, conversations and videos of skits performed during various Sanskrit workshops. The group's motto is a mite all-encompassing – but then everything in Sanskrit is slightly ebullient and grandiose wouldn't you say? – "Rachayema Samskrita Bhuvanam" (We shall create a Sanskrit world).     If one went by the coverage in the New Delhi media, it would be impossible to know that Bangladesh is in the midst of political turmoil. There has not been a single story in the main papers or television channels, let alone any sustained coverage of the systemic crisis that has engulfed the Dhaka polity. Esteemed editors seem to pay attention to Bangladesh only if the story is related to the exodus of migrants, the ISI network and the rise of 'Islamic fundamentalism'. As a result, most Indians have little clue about the impending elections in Bangladesh, the distortions that have crept into the system of caretaker government, or even the nature of the religious rightwing. When will Delhi journalists break out of their insularity, and not merely descend on regional capitals after a crisis erupts? Chettria Patrakar sees little reason for optimism there, if the disproportionate space given to fashion weeks – not to mention the neglect of the periphery within India itself – is anything to go by.     Who says death will be my end? A river I am, into the sea I shall flow. Nice lines to remember Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Urdu poet and a 'remnant' of the Progressive Writers' Movement of 1930s Lahore, who passed away recently. – Chettria Patrakar