Tidbits from the Southasian region

Pervez Musharraf these days must be fantasising about going back to a world without the Internet. Banning newspapers and television certainly ain't what it used to be. Barely had the general clamped down on the media, soon after declaring a state of emergency in early November, before the Internet went suddenly abuzz with the current happenings. After cable operators were prohibited from broadcasting private news channels, not only did several independent channels, such as Geo TV and ARY One, upload audio and video clips for those without access to satellite television, but websites outside of Pakistan also rose to the occasion. For instance, the site pkpolitics.com, which had a modest 6000 hits during its first four months, touched the half-million mark the weekend after Gen Musharraf's self-coup. The site's owner even had to procure extra bandwidth to prevent the site from crashing – an excellent use of bandwidth indeed!
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Journalists in Pakistan, of course, had to worry about various objects crashing onto their heads, what with police officers lathi-chasing journalists and breaking up peaceful rallies with undue force. Perhaps the renaming of the street in Karachi where the Jang Group of Publications is located – it is now called Azadi – was too much for the police to bear. And the sight of bouquets of flowers pouring in, even from overseas, in support of the shut-down Geo TV, may have likewise provoked violent reactions. Geo, of course, has vowed that it will not go "silently into the night", even after pressure was brought to bear on the Dubai government to prevent Geo and ARY One from transmitting from there. Geo, meanwhile, is rumoured to be looking for a new home, and Chhetria Patrakar hopes it gets one soon. If not the news, Pakistanis should at least be allowed to watch cricket!
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That is, those Pakistanis who are not watching Youtube and its fascinating collection of parody. Since there is no point in crying over the state of chaos, those worried about Pakistan might as well laugh a bit in the interim. Soon after the declaration of emergency, CP was perusing Youtube and found a Benazir look-alike lamenting that she had been left in the lurch by her political allies. But she need not have worried: there was a Musharraf double, assuring her that he would stick by her, singing "Main hoon na" and dancing the number from the Shahrukh starrer. (Though CP thinks SRK is the better dancer.)
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Over in Sri Lanka, journalists are accustomed to attacks from every quarter. This time, it was the Leader Publications' printing house that was visited by masked, armed men, in the third week of November. During the printing of the weekly Morning Leader, the gang reportedly forced around 25 employees to hand over their mobile phones and kneel down. They were then blindfolded, after which the invaders doused the printing presses with petrol and threw a homemade bomb at them. The damage from the explosion and resulting fire is estimated at some USD 2 million. This is the second attack in as many years. Will that stop the Leader from being critical of the government? CP somehow doubts it.
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Thanks to the generalissimo's actions, the media community is currently witnessing an unprecedented unity. As far as public memory goes, this is the first time that journalists, editors, newspaper owners, broadcasters and unionists have held a joint meeting of the type that took place on 21 November. The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), the Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE), the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and the Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) all thrashed out strategies to lobby for press freedoms and democracy. Meanwhile, Mazhar Abbas, general secretary of the PFUJ, was in New York as one of the four recipients of the Committee to Protect Journalists' annual International Press Freedom Award. He certainly deserved it, and Chhetria Patrakar hopes the good people of America were glued to their television sets as he gave a brief summary of the repression unleashed by Gen Musharraf, George W Bush's favourite ally in this part of the world.
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November was a sad month for Nepali journalists. The death of a colleague is always hard to take, and still more so when it comes as a result of mindless violence. After weeks of rising protest, Maoist leaders in November admitted that Birendra Sah, 34, had been killed on the very day he had been abducted, in early October. Party cadres were the culprits behind the kidnapping of the Bara-based journalist, who worked for the privately-owned Nepal FM radio, as well as Dristi Weekly and Avenues TV. The offenders are still at large, and no amount of compensation is going to bring Sah back home. Close on the heels of this revelation came news that was not so surprising. An investigation by the Federation of Nepalese Journalists found that cadres of the Maoist's youth wing, the Young Communist League, had abducted journalist Prakash Singh Thakuri from his home in Mahendranagar on 5 July. Are the Maoist leaders going to step forward and apologise, take disciplinary action on their cadre, and ensure that they are brought to justice?
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Cyclone Sidr certainly hit Bangladeshi villages, but made little splash in the global headlines, at least not for more than a day or two. Perhaps the numbers of dead were too low? Perhaps so, judging from the aid packages on offer to Bangladesh. An e-mail circulating has this to say: "During Hurricane Katrina, Bangladesh (population: 140 million; size: state of Wisconsin) offered to send $1 million to help New Orleans. After Cyclone Sidr, USA (population: 300 million) offered to send $2 million to help southern Bangladesh. Saudi Arabia offered $100 million. [Dhaka's] middle class wonders why the Saudis have so much influence here."
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In late October, Sri Lankan authorities blinked and retracted the gazette notification that was to prohibit news reporting on proposed military operations in the country. The notification had been issued under emergency regulations, and was called the "Prohibition on publication and transmission of sensitive military information". The gazette would have made it illegal to report on material "which pertains to any proposed operations or military activity as well as plans to buy equipment for security forces or the police." Under the terms of those regulations, editors could have been jailed for up to five years for breaking the censorship. President Mahinda Rajapakse apparently cancelled the abhorrent notification because he"trusts the media will report responsibly". But if there was so much trust flowing, why the notification in the first place?
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The Burmese media has been coming in for its share of censorship, too. What is Southasia without a clampdown on media, anyway? The Rangoon-based weekly Snapshot News was stopped from publishing its 23 November issue, according to sources in the literary community. As with many events in Burma, the reasons behind the banning were far from clear. The Snapshot News journal's editor, after all, is said to be close to the junta, so the publishing of anti-junta news items is unlikely to have been the reason for the halt. Perhaps this is just overflow from a regime that is generally petrified of the country's internal press.
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When are the Mandi House mandarins going to loosen up and allow for the tapping of the potential of low-power radio in India? Although the government, in December 2006, had liberalised the country's policy on community radio to allow for greater participation by the civil society on issues of development and social change, some enthusiasts are unwilling to wait for the glacial pace of a total opening-up of the airwaves. For two years now, the teenage son of a private tutor in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, has been reaching out to villages within a radius of 200 metres, with an improvised short-wave transmitter that he has named Radio Reotipur. Local news and film songs form the staples of his broadcasts. He wants to expand to a radius of 15 km, but is constrained due to lack of funds. His family is naturally anxious about this "illegal activity", but the Ghazipur District magistrate has promised to help out with getting a free-of-cost community-radio licence from the government. Great going, young man and magistrate alike!

~ Chhetria Patraka