Tidbits from the Southasian region

NDTV looks all set to go truly Southasian, having entered into a distribution partnership with Dialog TV, Sri Lanka's leading direct-to-home (DTH) service provider, for its English news channel NDTV 24×7. This will make it the only news channel from the region to be present on the DTH platform in Sri Lanka. With this tie-up, NDTV's global presence now extends to all key regions across the world. Sri Lankans, like newshounds in the UK, US, Canada, West Asia, South Africa, Australia-New Zealand, Nepal and Pakistan, will now have the debatable pleasure of watching the dapper Prannoy Roy and the redoubtable Barkha Dutt needle panellists on "We the People".——————————————————————.Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has (finally) clinched a deal to buy Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co for USD 5 billion, thereby ending a century of highly regarded family ownership. On 1 August, the companies announced the signing of a definitive agreement, after the deal won sufficient support to pass from a deeply divided Bancroft family. What will Murdoch chase next? Given the booming Indian/Southasian media market, obviously we can now expect him to come calling. On your guard!——————————————————————-.Undoubtedly it won't be newspapers in Manipur – not when the gifts delivered are likely to go bang. On 31 July, unidentified youths delivered a bomb in a gift-wrapped package for the editor of The Sangai Express, the largest English-language daily in Manipur. The same night, more unidentified persons barged into the offices of two Manipuri-language dailies, Huyen Lanpao and Naharolgi Thoudang, threatened the staff and demanded that they close the offices. Militant groups, unhappy with the media for not publishing their press releases verbatim, are believed to be behind the attacks. In protest, the media suspended the publication of all newspapers and cable TV news for a week, until the militants tender-ed an apology. Soon thereafter, the Imphal government issued strictures against publishing any material relating to banned insurgent groups, thus squeezing the media firmly between a rock and a hard place.———————————————————————.Some of us do question media-led public opinion polls. But they do have thier uses, especially when they go trans-border. The notion that a bunch of inane questions can encapsulate layered realities is laughable. But there is no reason that such absurdities should be confined by national boundaries. So we had, in August, the "first-ever" joint Indo-Pakistani poll on what people in the two countries think of each other, of the world and of their future. Sponsored by the Indian Express, Dawn News and CNN-IBN (and designed by the Centre for Study in Developing Societies, in Delhi), the poll was conducted in the "top ten" cities of Pakistan (by A C Nielsen) and the "top twenty" cities of India (by CSDS). Chhetria Patrakar doesn't quite believe these polls, but check this out: on the Kashmir issue, azadi won the top place among both the Indian and Pakistani respondents, over alignment with either India or Pakistan.———————————————————————. Still on the subject of that joint poll, CNN-IBN's "State of the Nation" on 15 August aired a special show to mark 60 years of Pakistani and Indian independence. Apart from routine hi-faluting talk of cooperation and peace, CP was amused to behold Rajdeep Sardesai being ticked off by Sherry Rehman, member of the Pakistan National Assembly. Sardesai held forth using the tired cliché that Bollywood was the true cementing factor between the two countries, and jested about the Pakistani position of "Madhuri de do, Kashmir le lo" (Give us Madhuri [Dixit], take Kashmir). Whereupon, the chic Ms Rehman chided Sardesai for such "boy's talk", and demanded that he stop macho analogies about the "battlefield of cricket" and "trading" women. Meanwhile, Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Express revealed himself as a true Thomas Friedman follower, by declaring that it was, in fact, McDonalds that would unite the two countries. McGupta didn't have too many takers in the young audience, though. ———————————————————————-. Mountain Times, the first online newspaper of northern Pakistan, is now all set to cover happenings in the highlands. A hardcopy is also going to be available in the near future. Mountain Times will focus on development activities undertaken by both government agencies and NGOs. Here's an interesting recent tidbit: it looks like the polo ground at Shandure will be losing its place as the world's highest, after a polo ground was constructed at the 4665-metre Babusar Pass, also in Pakistan. Checkout www.mountaintimes.com.pk. ———————————————————————–. When will hooligans begin to respect freedom of expression? On the eve of Indian Independence Day, on 14 August, a group of about two dozen people, suspected to be members of the Shiv Sena, vandalised the Bombay office of the weekly newsmagazine Outlook. Ostensibly they were protesting the inclusion of the party supremo Bal Thackeray in a list of villains included in the publication's Independence Day special issue. Loyalty to the party chief called for windows to be smashed, fax machines to be broken, chairs to be hurled and slogans shouted. Thackeray, sporting a toothbrush moustache, in Hitler's attire, was listed eighth on Outlook's list of 11 villains, which also included Nathuram Godse, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and Sanjay Gandhi. Outlook's panel of experts, who made the decisions, included Mushirul Hassan, Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia; veteran journalist B G Verghese; and historian and novelist Mukul Kesavan. Bravo, you guys! ———————————————————————-. In Sri Lanka, the ever-watchful Free Media Movement have been drawing increased attention to the risks that investigative journalists have been forced to face in the country. K P Mohan, a defence reporter and military-affairs specialist for the Tamil-language daily Thinakkural, was attacked with acid on 15 August by unknown assailants. The latest attack follows two previous assaults on Mohan by Air Force personnel. Chhetria Patrakar hopes he will recover enough to tell his story, and help bring the perpetrators to book. ———————————————————————. All in not well for journalists in Afghanistan, either. Early August saw the detention, under murky and suspicious circumstances, of Kamran Mir Hazar, chief editor for a popular news website in Kabul as well as a radio reporter. Hazar is said to have been picked up outside his office by gunmen who identified themselves as personnel of the Afghanistan National Security Directorate (ANSD). This follows the ANSD having detained Hazar a month ago for four days, at which point he was subjected to rough interrogation. Hazar's only crime seems to have been the popularity of his programme, Salam Watandar (Hello, Citizen). ———————————————————————-. The Times of India has recently been highlighting yet another alarming Chinese invasion. "After the Chinese-made kirpans (daggers) nearly wiped out local manufacturers of one of the five K's of Sikhism, it is the turn of Guru Nanak Dev's idols with 'Chinese characteristics' to flood shops across Punjab," warned a front-page item in the Delhi edition on 13 August. ———————————————————————-. The reforming Maobaddies of Nepal seem to have decided they nevertheless need a pliant media to aid their transformation. So, over the last month, they have been trying to garner such pliability by unionizing – not the parent media houses but the distributors that do the work on contract. The media houses which have thus been buffeted include the all-powerful Kantipur group, and the Indian-owned Himalayan Times. All one can say, as credit to professionalism in Nepali media, is that it is not working. One can also spare some sympathy for Krishna Bahadur Mahara, the Maoist contribution to the Cabinet as Minister of Communication and Information. Mr Mahara, a one-time elected legislator, is well-regarded for his sobriety among the cacophony of Maoist demands, declarations and reformulations. But he seems to be managing the contradictions quite well, truth be told.. ~ Chhetria Patrakar