Tidbits of the region’s media

Those who could tear themselves away from reading about Michael Jackson's death and his various artificial body parts got to talk about happenings on other constructed landscapes. The Maldives' Artificial Beach saw some real action, when a segregated group of demonstrators gathered to protest Minivan News's publication of articles on flogging, accusing them of being – oh the sting! – anti-lashing. The three flagged logs included statements by Amnesty International and government officials on a 100-whip punishment branded on an 18 year-old-woman for admitting to extramarital sex. The small group of protestors took their positions in pious segregation, whisking words with flagellating tongues. When a male protestor was approached by a female TV reporter not wearing a head scarf he reproached, "You are naked!" And the two un-clothed sinners stood before each other in shamed silence, borne of the sudden realisation of their nudity.

Here is media controversy before the fact. Nascent as the Bhutanese democracy is, discussions on transparency and accountability are already taking centre stage in the country. In late June, the country's upper house, the National Council, announced that all of its sessions would be broadcasted live on the BBS state-run television broadcaster. But this advance has been checked by the National Assembly, the lower house, which has refused to allow live broadcasts of its discussion, wary that this would set off the best-avoided closet-personas of MPs, be it the shy or the shameless. Efficiency is, undeniably, an issue. But the argument that a few TV cameras would grind the country to a halt is hardly convincing. Chhetria Patrakar sees continued exposure to the activities of the National Council as likely to embolden the people of Bhutan, leading them to demand greater transparency and accountability from their politicians. The National Assembly's cold-pressing would seem difficult to justify.

But maybe there is cause for concern when, in Bharat, BJP leader L K Advani feels it necessary to caution his party patriots not to run to the media-mama for every minor nose-itch. He admonished his colleagues against the "small temptation" of seeking vain snatches of fame from news outlets. With several BJP leaders having recently revealed details of the BJP's election failure and internal requests for the reconstitution of the party, Advani's remarks are understandable. Why would one want to reveal one's shortcomings to the very public that resolved to put them in their unpopular position? One would rather project optimistic calm – and maybe even delusional confidence, in the way of Advani's follow-up assurance that "the party has a bright future."

More on Delphic visionaries, astrologer Chandrasiri Bandara was recently put behind bars by the dear leader for predicting the demise of President Mahinda Rajapakse's regime come September/October. While the incident does concern violations of free speech, the journalist community has remained snootily silent on the sabotage. This may be because reporters worship the rational and the real, and themselves make a mockery of the pseudo-scientific projections of astrologers. But with much news based on dubious source-erers, the correspondent may just as well be a conjurer. President Rajapakse was being his Sagittarius self (a particularly knowledge-thirsty sign) when he seized the messenger for a thorough investigation of the evidence. CP wouldn't be surprised if, in the process, he decided to dispatch his now-idle army to outer space: who knows, maybe the Tamil Tigers made some kind of pact with the planets?

Talk of being two steps behind, it is perhaps a good thing that local Burmese don't have much contact with the outside world, given that they live in a time warp lagging two days behind lived reality. This in line with the country's Censorship Board's proviso that all local journals are required to send in their editorial content for scrutiny – a process that takes a full 48 hours! CP's usual misgivings aside, the silencers' recent decision to eliminate the hard copy, requiring that submissions be burned only onto a CD in PDF format, is admittedly commendable for its economic and environmental benefits. With a three-staged vetting process costing publishing houses up to 40,000 kyat (USD 6150), this is, believe it or not, a reason to rejoice. Kind of.

Keeping with the positivity, while the world's nations reformat their economies for more-fettered versions, the Nepali print media has been denying the trend – flourishing in an environment of unedited competition. A welcome newcomer to the broadsheet business is the Kathmandu Post's new Saturday special, replete with well-endowed reviews, analyses and feature stories. Even the astrology department got a reshuffle. With regards to the latter, though, CP worries the Post folks mistook a star-gazing teen-aged lover for an expert on the constellations, with the new rag including angsty horoscopes such as: "This week I am especially tormented" or "There goes your exaggerated respect for warped chunks of complications." But then again, "If I was your daddy, I'd buy you…" sounds more like it came from a pimp than a luminary of the skies. That aside, the Post should be commended for overall content and design: by using a header font that is strikingly similarly to that used by the New York Times Magazine, its no small secret in which direction the paper would like to be heading.

Honestly speaking, China might have just been better off not letting those foreign journalists walk all over the huge public-relations tumour growing on its south end, or just not trying so hard to please them. Instead, the four-day visit to Lhasa allowed 16 journalists ample reason to suspect that their catered tour – of empty monasteries, cleared-out streets and patrolling 'students' in their freshly fitted yellow-and-black tracksuits – was a spoof. Oddly, the journalists were treated like auditors of the sovereign nation, with Beijing doing everything short of bribing to get their human-rights stamp of approval. Given all the eagle eyes, CP is impressed that the guy from RTÉ Irish radio was able to hold a secret interview with a 30-year-old monk.

CP has been doing some Sino-style stalking too, but on more carefree things such as tweets and twirps. Of all the newly Twitter-savvy politicians, from Rahul Gandhi to Narendra Modi (!), not all have quite understood the phenomena. Afghan presidential candidate and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, for example, does not realise that people would rather read about how he gets down than where he gets around. Give us a personal touch and we'll love you for it, but don't hang your humour up to dry. Shashi Tharoor, meanwhile, seems to suffer the most from such Twitterhea, unable to silence, for instance, the urge to tell of Madeleine Albright's "slim and youthful" physique. Fashioning himself a connoisseur of decapitated and misspelled English, Tharoor has taken to infrmng of his dely bowel mvmnts in copius yt cndnsed txt.

Not as neglected as his Twitter page is Ashraf Ghani's flashy new website and YouTube page. Available in Pashto, Dari and English, the site hosts a blog, campaign news and donation portal. With patriotic greens, blacks and reds, cosy images and user-friendly options, Ghani seems to have the strategy and the resources to see the project through. Yet for a country where only 1.5 percent of the population have access to the Internet, this venture is likely to reach few voters in the hinterland, and more likely cater to the comfortably placed expatriate communities in the US, the UK and Europe. His "Hope for Change" campaign video is not only reminiscent of a recent presidential campaign in North America, but the change hoped for is probably of the penny not the afghani variety.

The tragedy that is the Sri Lankan media could do with some change, as well. When a story on Lanka News Web reported that Rajapakse junior, Namal, had faced ignominious stoning by the displaced in the Menik Farm camp, the website was swiftly banned from viewing by those on the island. Around the same time, a more-chilling revelation emerged from the mouth of Labour Minister Mervyn Silva. In his threat to a "fellow" competing in his electorate, he admitted that he would deal with him the way he did Lasantha Wickrematunge, the deceased editor of the Sunday Leader. Truly shocking.

In other clashes of religion, Airtel satellite dishes were almost banned from import into the Maldives because one of its channels, GOD TV was found to be encouraging Christianity and mocking Islam. In the end, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs retracted its original prohibition, once god's censors discovered that the blasphemous channel could be locked. Too bad – GOD TV is surely not the soul distributor of god's word on the atolls, but it might have been the only channel to have "God on demand".