Tidbits of the region’s media

While engaging in a favourite pastime, Chhetria Patrakar was even more entertained by all the fuss about idiots this past month, which took up even more ink than usual. Chetan Bhagat, whose book Five Point Someone is the basis of the Raju Hirani-directed film 3 Idiots, complained that he had gotten no credit for the "story". Evidently we Southasians are so taken with this feud that even officials at the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development felt compelled to comment, to the effect that the newest amendments to the Copyright Act, strengthening the rights of authors to collect royalties, might not bring relief to Bhagat. The latter will now also have to go after the Kathmandu weekly Nepali Times, which created its own version of the three idiots – Pushpa Kamal Dahal ('Prachanda') of the Maoists, Jhala Nath Khanal of the CPN (UML) and Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress – who have been collectively bumbling around the country's constitution-writing process like three bulls in a single china shop.

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In true filmi style, a bizarre crossborder deportation by the Pune police of a Nepali citizen studying at the Film and Television Institute of India, on apparently trumped-up charges of 'terrorism', got the media very interested indeed – more so because journalists were told to keep out. (Nothing raises journalistic hackles faster.) The student, Neetu Singh, who was allowed to return and continue her education on condition that she not speak to the media, has long been estranged from her husband Amresh Singh, a mercurial politician lately associated with the Nepali Congress but allegedly servicing all parties including the Maoists and the Indians. Not that the Indian police have not in the past delivered supposedly wayward adult daughters and sons to complaining families on flimsier pretences, but terrorism charges make this story all the more entertaining (and frightening). However, if Amresh thinks this is a far-fetched supposition, he has his own theory to explain the allegation: "This is an overall conspiracy by a group that doesn't want to see the completion of the peace process, and doesn't want to allow the drafting of the new constitution." Really? Really.

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24 January seemed to be a particularly auspicious date for media-related political activity. Sri Lanka's inspector-general of police, Mahinda Balasuriya, ordered the closure of all 'election propaganda offices' closed by midnight on that date. Apparently there were almost 9300 registered offices on the island at the time, with the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance accounting for the lion's share with some 6000. President Mahinda Rajapakse also led in the number of 'cut-outs', with 2070 presidential likenesses confiscated, versus 479 for his challenger, Sarath Fonseka.

Some other interesting numbers from the Lanka campaigns: Reporters without Borders reported that in a pre-election two-day period of 465 minutes and 25 seconds of news and current-affairs reporting on the state-owned TV stations, Fonseka and other opposition parties received just seven minutes and 50 seconds. But even that was subsequently set to dry up with the announcement, just days before the elections, that most journalists at state-run media houses were to be given holidays on 25-26 January.

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While many media orgs seemed to have been falling in line in Sri Lanka (albeit reluctantly, one hopes), artistes have always been notoriously difficult, and not only for their harassed handlers. For her refusal to join in a Rajapakse television promotion, actress Upeksha Swaranamali alleges that she was punished by having the shooting for her popular teledrama delayed during the election. Dramatists and directors also complained about censorship, with actors, directors and other creative types banding together to form what seems to have been a decidedly non-neutral group, The Forum for the Victory of General Sarath Fonseka. It should be said, though, that such arty folks could have come up with a less stodgy name, not to mention a catchier acronym than TFVGSF.

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It seems that if only Facebook users had voted in Sri Lanka's election, Fonseka would have trounced his opponent. Just prior to the election, the former general's official fan page had over 58,000 fans, versus Rajapakse's 47,000. We can only assume that these are not fans-under-duress, that this has been a free-and-fair 'friending'. After all, most Facebook users are familiar with the uncomfortable feeling of being friended by someone from their past with whom they might not want to reconnect – like editors to whom you have promised a story, for instance.

Or maybe the guards who oversaw you during your stint in CIA-administered detention centres? Brandan Neely, a former guard at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, like many new to Facebook, may have been guilty of over-friending when he decided to look up his former charges. Neely contacted Shafiq Rasul, a former detainee and British national who famously sued former President George W Bush. Neely, who is now president of the Houston chapter of Iraqi Veterans against the War, wanted to apologise for the treatment they had received. A reporter from the BBC subsequently got word of the story, and set up a meeting at which Neely apologised, in person. Of course, the meeting couldn't be all hugs and tears, and indeed only got off the ground after this awkward exchange: "You look different without your cap." "You look different in jumpsuits." Yikes!

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Despite ballooning social networking in the region, the big story about the Internet is undoubtedly Google in (or out of) China. The cyber-giant (Google, that is), in exchange for permission to work in China, had previously agreed to censor 'sensitive' material. By alerting its users that certain information had been censored, Google reasoned that it was remaining in line with general company policy of 'doing no evil' – and was getting access to a massive market, to boot! However, that policy was reconsidered recently when Google discovered sophisticated hacks originating from mainland China on Google email accounts targeting companies and known human-rights activists (particularly those dealing with Tibet-related issues). When Washington backed Google voicing its concern to the 'right to a free Internet', the row was raised to one of truly international proportions. And in bhai-bhai solidarity, India's former national-security adviser, M K Narayanan, was close behind, complaining of attacks on his office's computers, evidently via virus-laden PDFs. (Having recently stepped down from his position, Narayanan is now contemplating finding that rich Nigerian princess.)

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Although clearly bringing up a healthy crop of hackers, CP also notes that China has not given up on lower-fi methods of handling media of which it doesn't approve. Beijing recently sentenced Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen to six years in prison, after being held without charge since March 2008. That month, Wangchen, with a small camera, interviewed ordinary Tibetans about Chinese rule of the plateau, the Beijing Olympics and Tibetan life in general, eventually sending his tapes out of the country to be produced into a 25-minute film, Jigdrel (Leaving Fear Behind). (Most of the movie that so upset Beijing, by the by, can be found on Google-owned YouTube, which has also been blocked in China for months.) Elsewhere, Beijing has withdrawn two Chinese entries to the Palm Springs Festival in protest of an Indian entry to the festival on Tibet, and the festival's subsequent refusal to submit to Chinese pressure. The film, The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's struggle for freedom, features people freely speaking their minds, engaging in critical analysis and depicting some remarkably uncensored scenery.

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Thank goodness Mohammed Hanif is done with investigating exploding mangoes. This means he can contribute more to CP's favourite magazine west of Wagah, Newsline. Hanif's "The dumb decade" round-up of exciting happenings – from "How Maudoodi revived Pakistani cinema" to "General Kayani has been reading Zizek" – makes CP wish Newsline was available more easily to readers elsewhere desperately seeking humour from the Indus watershed. Alas, this vehicle for Hanif's delicious drollness suffers from the same ills of distribution as a certain Southasian magazine.