Tidbits of the region’s media

It seems that the financial situation at the BBC is even direr than earlier presumed. In early November, Chhetria Patrakar was baffled and dismayed – still is – to find that the 'South Asia' section had disappeared from the BBC's news site; instead, the news from the region was found hidden under the broad rubric of 'Asia'. According to a post by the world editor, the decision to lump news from the regions 'Asia-Pacific' and 'South Asia' under one heading was taken because – here is the wacky bit – the BBC's geographically challenged readers had been complaining that they could not understand the earlier headings. Bollocks! And here CP had regarded the BBC as an upfront news site unafraid of calling a downsizing a downsizing. How these changes will 'increase … coverage' on the region and make the site 'more relevant' to users is beyond CP. Hopefully the subsections that currently include 'Asia Business' and 'China', and which will later display 'India' as well, will slowly be expanded to include all the 56 countries listed in Asia, including Australia and New Zealand (!). (Also, BBC-wallahs: ashmita does not mean 'very tough', as mentioned in a piece on renaming unwanted girls, but 'pride', which can be very tough.)

Although India might have been favoured by the BBC for being one of the most populous countries in the world, it is the Maldives that has won the race (oh, there's a race alright!) in the region for having the largest percentage of population online. According to recently released World Bank statistics, some 28.4 percent of Maldivians are wired to the web through broadband connections, more than twice the number of Pakistanis (second, at 12 percent). The numbers continue to plummet from there: Sri Lanka (8.6), Bhutan (7), India (5.3), Afghanistan (3), Nepal (2.1) and Bangladeshis (0.4). All in all, pretty dismal. As a whole, Internet use in Southasia has increased over the past decade, from 0.5 percent in 2001 to 5.5 percent in 2009, but this still remains the least impressive such figure around the globe. Even Sub-Saharan Africa (to which the Subcontinent often, and unfairly, gets compared) now has 8.8 percent of its population happily Facebooking.

Since early November, the 8.6 percent of Sri Lankans connected to the Internet have not been able to access a few news websites (lankaenews.com, srilankamirror.com, lankawaynews.com) because some of the stories on these sites allegedly insulted President Mahinda Rajapakse and senior officials – aka, his family members. Such censorship is nothing new for the island, of course; that's what happens when, as lankawaynews indicated on its site, 'tyrants rule…' But what really frightens CP is the persistence of this government. In late October, the exasperated Sunday Leader came out with an editorial entitled 'They continue to come for us', 'they' meaning the constant death threats under which the weekly operates.

Of course, CP wishes the scenario was otherwise, but here is a sunny side to the story: Desperate measures are the last resort of desperate despots. Perhaps the rumours about fractures in the ruling family (and the party) are true. Perhaps the Rajapakses are nervous about the potential damage that documents published by WikiLeaks can do: reportedly, two of their own, Gotabhaya and Basil Rajapakse, had admitted to US embassy officials that the war was not clean. Who knows, the war report that the Lankan government will publish in late November might well show that at least one civilian died at the hands of the government forces.

In late October, a group of hackers – which calls itself Team Swastika and prefers the tag 'freedom fighters' – from Nepal created uproar in the web world after it reportedly hacked 10,000 Facebook accounts and posted the username and password combinations in Pastebin, a popular code-sharing site. Soon after, Pastebin deleted the data; a spokesperson for Facebook denied the claim, saying that the provided information was not linked to any live Facebook accounts, and that it was most likely obtained through phishing scams. Although debate rages on over whether Facebook's security walls were really breached, this three-member team hacking for 'love' and 'light', among other things, has now moved on to sites based in Bhutan, India and China, as well as Nepal. As for Team Swastika's own Facebook page, fans can 'like' it, but expect no posts or updates. Facebook has blocked the group. Ha!

In a clear move to appease Beijing, the Indian Censor Board has directed the director of Rockstar, Imtiaz Ali, to blur images of Tibetan flags and Free Tibet signs in the song 'Sadda Haq Itthe Rakh', ironically meaning 'our rights right here'. Actor Ranbir Kapoor's middle finger, however, will go up in the air as previously scheduled, at the end of the song. Reportedly, the Censor Board had also objected to the frequent use of the word bastard in the movie. The much-hyped film has nothing to do with the Free Tibet movement, though the Tibetan exile community was hoping to spread word of their cause through the scene. Evidently, the censors took the decision to maintain 'friendly relations' with India's mighty neighbour, especially as New Delhi seeks to increase its trade with said neighbour. Now, pushing for Bollywood's unhassled entry into China is certainly commendable, but trading in freedom of speech to facilitate it is plain cowardice.

Burma's Press Censorship and Registration Division (PCRD), on the other hand, has decided to loosen its grip on Burmese publishing houses, by allowing exile voices to be published in the local media. It began with the publication of an interview with The Irrawaddy editor Aung Zaw, followed by interviews with Democratic Voice of Burma's chief editor Aye Chan Naing and Mizzima's managing editor Sein Win. The move has already received widespread, albeit cautious, praise, with some saying that the Burmese government was testing how exiles feel about some of the recent reforms. Although the Burmese government has to be thanked for doling out sweet-enough biscuits, the fact that the interviews had to be 'allowed' to be published in journals believed to be controlled by people close to the government suggests that press freedom still has a long way to go. A good first step: do away with the PCRD altogether.

In October, one after the other, India and Bangladesh launched two new gadgets – the Aakash tablet (India) and Doel laptop (Bangladesh) – to help poor students reap digital benefits (and bring up that percentage of Internet users). While Aakash (meaning 'sky') touchpads are priced at USD 35 (!), Doel netbooks (named after Bangladesh's national bird) are a bit pricey at USD 131. Neither of these computers, running on the open-source Android operating system, are the next iPad, but their governments are extremely proud of the 'made in motherland' stickers. With the infrastructure for Internet connections lagging throughout the region, though, CP wonders whether these countries are building roofs without walls, as it were – all very commendable, but a tad out of touch with current reality. Kind of like the South Korean construction company Booyoung donating 5000 digital pianos, each worth USD 1000, to public schools in Bangladesh when these schools lack proper benches and toilets – true story!

Protests from Hindutva fanatics have led to Delhi University dropping A K Ramanujan's essay 'Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation' from its history curriculum. Reportedly, the protestors felt that the essay, which talks about different versions and interpretations of the Ramayana, distorted the revered text. Oof! What is really surprising, however, is that the university's Academic Council abjectly caved to the pressure, even after an expert committee formed upon orders from the Supreme Court voted in favour of keeping the essay in the syllabus. He Ram! Come save secularism!

The Tehelka 'think fest' in Goa in November attracted lots of attention and consumed reams of newsprint and acres of web space – though mainly for all the wrong reasons, at least from Tehelka's point of view. There were allegations of the stalwart magazine having sold out to mining companies, killing an expose on mining in Goa (and leveraging this suppression to extract support from the Goa government for the Stink Fest), and even giving mining-related stories a favourable spin. Denials, counter-accusations and threats of legal action for defamation have since been flying thick and fast, and the whole slugfest appears to have degenerated into a contest over who is the most self-righteous of all. Come on, people, where is the 'pure' money to be found, and how do you expect us journos to survive without advertising, given the pathetic price you pay for your newspapers and magazines? Of course, Tehelka's Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Choudhury did themselves few favours by repeatedly invoking their rag's self-proclaimed pro-people track record – though what this had to do with the issues on hand was unclear, especially given that their denials of having killed the Goa mining expose were far from convincing.

The most hilarious episode of all was when activists in Goa took umbrage over a remark by Tejpal along the lines of 'Now you are in Goa, drink as much as you want … eat and sleep well with anyone you think of.' Pretty innocuous stuff, CP would think, given that Tejpal's debut novel was full of purple prose – and earned him a nomination for the Guardian Bad Sex Award to boot. But the remark apparently played into stereotypes about Goa, tarnished its image, lowered the reputation of Goan women, etc, etc, etc. Tehelka has certainly come a long way from the time it would assemble sundry activists and the 'voiceless', and generally function in protest mode. At the think fest, on the other hand, there were various movers and shakers, corporate honchos, Bollywood stars – and, yes, a token sprinkling of activists. Over the three days of the fest, they yakked about … well, frankly, when the sideshow is so entertaining, who gives a toss?