Tit bits from Southasian region

The March 2007 issue of Critique, a review of Indian journalism, is dedicated to Sham Lal, the veteran editor and literary critic who died on 23 February. Writes the Nagpur-based editor Alok Tiwari: "When the editor Sham Lal died many journalist also saw their own death in that process … There was no editor like him, and there would never be another one in the same league. Sham Lal's demise leaves the heavily de-intellectualised journalistic world [in India] much poorer." Writes Outlook editor Vinod Mehta in the same issue: "What is the difference between the [Indian] editor of the 1970s and 2007? Simple yet profound. The 1970s editor clocked in at 10 and clocked out at 6.30. He read voraciously, talked to like-minded friends and scholars, furiously debated issues, checked and re-checked information for veracity and poured out the distilled wisdom onto the Edit Page. He did not make speeches at seminars, anchor TV shows, visit cocktail parties, take part in book discussions, judge fashion shows, wear sharp clothes. The editor was not yet a celebrity. He was neither seen nor heard. He was just read." All Chhetria Patrakar can say is, ya khuda.
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Here's a course in Urdu journalism that can be accessed by anyone throughout Southasia, because it is a correspondence course. Run by the National Institute of Journalism in Islamabad, the course runs for 16 weeks, at a cost of PKR 3000. It is directed at "newcomers to media", journalists, as well as public-relations officers and marketing managers. But can non-Pakistanis apply? Don't see why not. If you would like to do Urdu journalism, simply apply, sahib or sahiba!
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Speaking of public relations, Thukten Yeshi, the managing director of Aesthetic Bhutan Tours, sure knows how to milk the bejeezus out of one's country's exotification. He offers research-based tours in order to "build a new image of Bhutan as a progressive nation guided by profound wisdom … [its] root philosophies and concepts, which make Bhutan a unique nation in the world." Mr Yeshi gets more profuse as he goes along: "Bhutan is an oasis of pristine environment, rich culture and tradition, and peace and harmony in the twenty first century world characterized by environment-degradation, culture-erosion, militancy, and people's alienation, anxiety, fear, and restlessness." All of which, predictably, leads to that old chestnut of age-old wisdom translated into a modern development concept, Gross National Happiness – thereby making "Bhutan one of the most spiritually progressive nations in the world".
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Ref the Urdu nuke notice astride. Some radioactive material seems to have been lost in Pakistan, otherwise why would the authorities put out an advert in the major Urdu papers appealing for those who locate said material to report it? Even while the ad was out there in print, staring you in your face, government officials sought to reassure the media that no radioactive material had actually "been stolen, lost or gone missing", reports the BBC. So, then, why those notices? Officials claim, lamely, that there is a need to heighten public awareness of nuclear issues. Zaheer Ayub Baig, spokesman of the Nuclear Regulatory Authority, in a letter to the BBC, wrote that there could be decades-old nuclear material lying about. "This could have been before the creation of Pakistan, and may relate to nuclear material that could not be taken under our charge." He also said that there may be material out there that has been used in hospitals and industrial plants. "There is nothing to worry about," Mr Baig said. Uh-huh. CP is not convinced, and believes that, as they say, daal may kuch kala hei. Because at this very moment, we are A Q Khan sahib.
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Bravo, Dr Agnes Callamard, executive director of ARTICLE 19! You have lambasted the UN Human Rights Council for its resolution of 30 March, for having violated international standards on freedom of expression. The resolution was sponsored by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and passed by 24 council members (14 voted against the measure, and nine more abstained). Dr Callamard subsequently decried this undermining of the freedom of expression – the most effective protection against human-rights abuse – on the excuse of "human rights destruction waged by President Bush's version of America". It is important to read her diatribe in full. She continues: "Religious believers have a right not to be discriminated against on the basis of their beliefs, but they cannot expect their religion to be set free from criticism, even in its harshest or most sarcastic form. The equality of all ideas and convictions before the law and the right to debate them freely is the keystone of democracy. As international human rights courts have stressed, freedom of expression is applicable not only to 'information' or 'ideas' that are favourably received but also to those that may offend, shock or disturb any or all of us. In many ways, the Human Rights Council resolution is in keeping with a trend that has resurfaced with great strength in our post 9/11 world: protecting the belief at the expense of the believers, of all believers … [Proponents of the resolution] chose to focus their efforts on protecting religion itself: NOT the believers and NOT freedom of religion."
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Twenty years after the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) shot dead 40 Muslim men from Hashimpura, in Meerut District, and threw their bodies into the Upper Ganga canal, the families of the victims are still pursuing justice. Following a transfer order by the Supreme Court, it was only in 2006 that a Delhi Court finally framed murder charges against all the 19 PAC members accused. On 22 May 2007, to mark the anniversary of one of the worst communal killings in police custody in independent India, as many as 615 applications under the Right to Information Act were filed by the victims' families, challenging the impunity of the PAC and seeking accountability. For the first time in India's history, victims are asking the state to tell them why the accused have not been suspended from service even while they are facing prosecution; what disciplinary action has been initiated against them; and why the chargesheeting took almost a decade. Maybe the victims also want to know why there is such silence in the mainstream media on Hashimpura and other forgotten mass crimes.
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Hats off to Mizzima News! The Burmese news agency, started in 1998 by a small group of Burmese journalists in exile, is this year's winner of the International Press Institute's Free Media Pioneer Award. That Mizzima exists at all has been no small feat, considering the wrath it has faced from the Burmese junta – which also recently got the Indian authorities to raid this intrepid watchdog's head office in Delhi.
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The family feud in one of Tamil Nadu's leading political families has proved costly, not only for the dashing Dayanidhi Maran, who lost his job as Union Minister for Information and Technology as a result, but more so for employees of the Tamil daily Dinakaran. On 9 May, two computer-service engineers and a watchman were killed after a petrol-bomb attack on the newspaper's Madurai office (see photo), owned by Kalanidhi Maran. The attack, allegedly by supporters of DMK leader M K Azhagiri, elder son of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, was in response to the publication of a recent survey by Dinakaran and A C Nielsen. The report put the electoral chances for M K Stalin, the second son of Karunanidhi, at 70 percent, but gave just two percent to Azhagiri, who controls party cadres in the southern districts. Dinakaran was bought two years ago by Karunanidhi's grand-nephew, Kalanidhi Maran. Since its acquisition by Maran, the paper has launched an aggressive price war, which reportedly boosted it from third to first place in state-wide readership in Tamil Nadu. Maran also owns the Sun TV network, the dominant private television network in South India. Readers may note that his brother, in his previous job, had oversight jurisdiction over the allocation of the broadcast spectrum. Not surprisingly, an opinion poll in Dinakaran rated Dayanidhi Maran as the "best" Union Minister from Tamil Nadu. But Karunanidhi was not amused, and saw to it that his grand–nephew was removed from his ministerial post – disregarding Dayanidhi's avowals that he was born a "party man", and would be one until his last breath. – Chhetria Patrakar
      
 
 
 

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