Tidbits of the region’s media
Do you know this man, seen here shaking hands with P Chidambaran, India's finance minister? Keep an eye on him, for he may have a role in your life without you having the faintest knowledge of it. He is Praful Patel, Regional Vice President of the World Bank – in essence, the satrap of Southasia. While the various regional governments may lend an ear to the Europeans or the Scandinavians or the Japanese, it is actually the World Bank (as well as its slightly poorer cousin, the Asian Development Bank) to which all finance ministers from Colombo to Dhaka to Kathmandu look to for the big money. And besides foisting the Washington Consensus on all recipients, the World Bank is also known to elbow other, more 'politically correct' lenders to create some space. Overbearing, if you will – though Mr Patel seems a nice enough guy in the photograph. He wants to expand loan assistance to India from the current annual average of USD 2.5 billion to USD 4 billon over the next three years. He currently doles out around USD 3.8 billion annually to all of Southasia.
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Mohammad Yunus Dada! As with a lot of bhodrolok and commoners alike, Chhetria Patrakar frets for thee. You had wanted the Nobel for long, and you got it. Southasia is proud. Now you want to use this space in the limelight – not just the Nobel, but your own luminous presence – to help make things right in a country where politics has become a bad word. Hosannahs for daring to take the plunge. In your open letter to the Bangladeshi public you wrote, "I know that joining politics is to become controversial. I am ready to take the risk." In Calcutta, you told reporters that you are keen "to create a new brand of politics".
| Image: New Age |
Okay on all counts. But, sir, please note that henceforth you will be a politician rather than a service provider involved in 'social business'. Good politicians make compromises for the sake of the long-term; they develop a rhino's hide to protect themselves from the vilest of attacks, which they take as a given. Politicians are disliked – more than judges, generals and civil-society gadflies – because they are the most accountable, through both the ballot and continuous public scrutiny. CP is glad that you have chosen to float your own party rather than join an existing one – not only because they all seem equally distasteful, but because you would have had to fend off too many claimants for your lateral entry. You obviously have your Nobel kitty to finance the party, so the funding problem will not be there at first. Rather, you will immediately have to confront political reality by answering the hard questions. You will have to develop positions that you may not have had to till date (apologies if you already have a position on these, but we were not able to confirm by Googling).
Sir, what about human-rights abuse, and the summary justice conducted by the RAB? And the Biharis, should they be sent back? And what about the record of the Bangladeshi state in the Chittagong Hill Tracts? Do you want to take Bangladesh back to being a secular state? How about the Indian claim that there are Bodo and ULFA training camps in Bangladeshi territory? What do you say about river-linking projects? And natural gas, sir – should Bangladesh export natural gas to India? Is it true or not that Bangladeshi migrants travel (as they should) to India, something that all politicians cravenly deny?
Professor Yunus, how well, courageously, tactfully and 'nationalistically' you answer these questions will make you a politician different from all those who came before you. Otherwise, however, you will be just another politician – and they are found a dime for a dozen along the Buriganga.
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Fakir S Ayazuddin is an interesting, intemperate columnist for The News of Karachi/Lahore/Islamabad. Always worth a read for the fine challenges he places before both the state machinery of Pakistan and the fundamentalist forces. In his latest column, titled "Abject Surrender", he spews venom at Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Ijaz ul-Haq, for having succumbed to the dictates of the mullahs who would "put up a mosque by way of mischief and infidelity". The minister has apparently "redrawn the map of the tribal areas (where the laws of Pakistan did not apply) to include parts of Islamabad, the Federal Capital of Pakistan. His abject surrender to the Mullahs now gives them the right to stop any searching of their premises, and stockpile any manner of weapons within striking distance of the Presidency itself." Justifiably livid, the columnist refers to the recent attacks on the Marriott Hotel, at the very heart of the capital, and the blast at the airport, and states: "Yet with all the threats and acts of suicide bombers, an impenetrable madressah was allowed to dictate its own terms, and succeeded in forcing the government to condone an illegality. Religion is to be respected, always, but not when it is used to bludgeon the law of the land into submission. When it also flouts the words of the Holy Quran itself then we have a serious administrative problem. The Minister should be put out to pasture, perhaps as an ambassador to a faraway land where he should not be able to damage cast or creed." The rest of Southasia needs columnists such as this – sharp with the pen, but also with a point of view that is humanitarian and principled.
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| Image: MP motherhood rally |
Blogs are fast catching on in Madhya Pradesh, as a platform for activists to voice concern on social issues such as safe motherhood. Check out, for example, www.safemotherhood.blogspot.com. Or mpchildinfo.blogspot.com, which deals with infant mortality and low nutrition levels among children. Meanwhile, madhyapradesh.blogspot.com is meant for those who want to discuss issues relating to the state. Anil Gulati, known as the "Blogman of Bhopal", says the blogs help to "bring out issues from the districts which rarely find a place in the state-level media."
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The Indian Express reports that M K Gandhi the journalist began his writing career "in the early 1920s, writing letters to the editor of a newspaper in Durban. He actually started his penmanship when an English daily reported about him wearing a turban in the court, and called him an 'unwanted guest'." As a journalist, Gandhi went on to become editor of the newspapers Young India, Indian Opinion and Navjeevan. Reminiscing about Gandhi the pen-pusher recently was Narayan Desai, son of Gandhi's long-time associate and secretary, Mahadev Desai. Pointing out how Gandhi was a stickler for both details and deadlines, Desai said: "Gandhi would insist that reporting be done from the point of the affected party, and that the writing should be simple in a language which could be understood by the readers."
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The Free Media Movement of Sri Lanka has criticised President Mahinda Rajapakse for providing TV and radio licences to the formerly insurgent JVP party as a way of recognising the support it rendered to him in the presidential election campaign. Says the FMM in a press advisory, "Regrettably, it is the practice of successive governments to show partisan favour in the provision of TV and radio licences to businessmen and political parties that supported them in elections, with scant regard for the ethics of such practices, or the serious implications on media regulations that are in place in part to ensure that such practices are kept at bay. The question now arises as to how many other political parties are entitled to claim a TV and radio licence given their support to the incumbent President and his government. This nepotism and political favouritism is detrimental to the development of free media."
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Everyone likes to advise the media, most of all former journalists. The most recent in the line of media advisors is the media advisor to Manmohan Singh, Sanjaya Baru, an economist from the University of Hyderabad (Deccan) who turned to journalism before donning his present pajamas. Held forth Mr Baru before an international conference on media and governance: "Journalists cannot play a proper, meaningful role in the society and evolve unless there is an internal professional code of conduct for journalists … Increasingly, media has become a commercial enterprise. One knows media needs commercial viability but it should not alter the shape of journalism and the role journalists can play. The perception of the fourth estate must change. The time has come for the media to introspect and look closely at the issue of governance in media." Chhetria Patrakar is all for a code of conduct, and is against the commercial enterprisation of media. S/he does not know, though, whether the time has come to look closely at "the issue of governance in media" – especially when it is an advisor to the prime minister who is thus advising.
– Chhetria Patrakar