My Short View

Nepal: A new beginning

2010-06-17T15:04:00.003-04:00

Al Jazeera's interesting report on the ongoing political struggle in Nepal.

Karnali Highway: Deadliest Journeys docu

2010-06-13T13:38:00.005-04:00

Nepalese are far too closely aware of the hellish condition of the Karnali region with no visible signs of civilization. We've seen their lives in drudgery and heard tales of survival. Deadliest Journeys visits Jumla, a place with about 10,000 people, and "virtually forgotten by the rest of civilization" that is accessible only by an "awful hellish and dangerous road." The documentary has compelling visuals of the most dangerous stretch of the road (Surkhet-Jumla) above 3,000 meters in the rugged Himalayas.

DEADLIEST JOURNEYS uncovers the world's most treacherous roads, skies and waterways, where intrepid travelers risk life and limb to reach their destinations.

US media goes gaga over 1-1 draw with England

2010-06-12T18:00:00.011-04:00

Within minutes of the unexpected 1-1 draw with England, online media in the US flooded their front screen with pictures of the terrible goof by the English goalie and narrated the US "victory" as if it was all in the making. I tried to get screengrabs of few popular sites of the moment...

(Click to enlarge the images.)

World Cup 2010: Round 16 predictions

2010-06-12T14:03:00.007-04:00

All the Group winners are the expected powerhouse in their own category. Except for Group G with Brazil and Portugal as FIFA World Rankings Top 10 teams, all other groups have one top-10 team from last year (sans Croatia). There are several high-powered matches I'm not going to miss -- such as today's England-USA, or Netherlands-Denmark, Brazil-Portugal, Spain-chile, even Italy-Paraguay. Since the top two in each group will move to Round 16, here's my prediction of who will move through: (Of course, you'll disagree!)

Group A
Mexico
Uruguay (France misses Zidane badly.)

Group B
Argentina (already ahead with 1-0 win over Nigeria)
South Korea (2-0 win over Greece is an impressive start)

Group C
England
USA (Unless Algeria does some miracle!)

Group D
Germany
Ghana (I'm betting on them this time.)

Group E
Netherlands
Cameroon (Just can't pick the Danes over them.)

Group F
Italy (Waka Waka Italia!)
Paraguay

Group G
Brazil (If anyone says they aren't going up to QF, it's blasphemy.)
Portugal

Group H
Spain
Chile

Round 16 rule: Group A winner plays Group B runner up, Group B winner plays Group A runner up, Group C winner vs. Group D runner up...and so on.

(A1) Mexico vs. (B2) South Korea

(B1) Argentina vs. (A2) Uruguay

(C1) England vs. (D2) Ghana

(D1) Germany vs. (C2) USA

(E1) Netherlands vs. (F2) Paraguay

(F1) Italy vs. (E2) Cameroon

(G1) Brazil vs. (H2) Chile

(H1) Spain vs. (G2) Portugal

More prediction to follow.....

Microsoft launches Office Web Apps

2010-06-10T19:11:00.018-04:00

Finally, Microsoft throws the gauntlet to Google to launch its own browser-based popular Office applications. Until now Google enjoyed some dominance with its own version of Docs while also rolling out features through its Labs. Now Microsoft played a good catch-up with its own Office Web Apps prior to the launch of Office 2010 next week. Since Zoho isn't very popular yet and the open-source OpenOffice.org might take a while to jump in the cloud-computing wagon, Microsoft's latest roar would be heard loud and wide.

How can you access Office Web Apps?

You'll need an account with Windows Live to access the online suite. (Your Hotmail account works.) Once you are logged in, go to the link "Office" on top. You can use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote almost like the desktop version. You can try other products if you download the trial version.

I tried using all applications on both PC and Mac and tried it on IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome and didn't really notice any difference. It was a seamless experience, except when I tried to use on IE it wanted me to download Silverlight for better performance. I haven't opened an IE browser for more than a year now!

But I think the biggest bonus of this online experience is the 25GB free online storage space on SkyDrive. You can park your files, share, sync and also download them to a local drive. However, you still need to get online to edit documents. If only this generous space could be used for all-purpose no-size-limit upload/download files, it would be better than Dropbox or ADrive or any other free online cloud drive.

These Office Web Apps are a good start for Web-based computing if you have good connectivity. Perhaps, Microsoft could also add some features of Google Wave, such as simultaneous editing and play back. As of now, I am not complaining.

Nepali Comedy: छोरी को बिहे (Daughter's marriage)

2010-06-06T14:19:00.006-04:00

A Nepali comedy by Shiva Hari Poudel and Niru Khadka. Video released after 50 days!

Oil Spill 4/20: An environmental 9/11?

2010-06-05T04:33:00.019-04:00

Already into the 46th day of the oil spill, more vitriol continues to pour even as BP struggles to plug the Deepwater Horizon well that gushes about 5,000 barrels (1 barrel = 42 US gal) of crude oil daily. But some have estimated the spill could have been as high as 100,000 barrels a day. That's equivalent to all the water in seven Olympic-size swimming pools!
(Paul Rademacher, engineering director of Google Maps, has put the spill into excellent geographical perspective by allowing users to compare the area of the spill to that of their home town or a city they are familiar with.)

If the loss is converted to money, then it's billions of dollars loss at $85 per barrel. BP has already spent $1 billion containing and cleaning up the oil. Since it owned the responsibility of the spill, the expense could be much higher. President Barack Obama's administration has sent its first bill of $69 million for the US government's efforts in managing the spill response. It's too early to say whether this incident will lead BP toward bankruptcy, but the CEO of the London-based company has assured its shareholders that the company has "considerable firepower" to cover the cost. Amidst this assurance comes the time for BP to disburse dividends about which Obama has shown open displeasure.

In his third visit to the affected region, Obama assailed BP's plans to spend $50 million on an ad campaign to salvage its image and another $10 million on dividends for shareholders.

"What I don't wanna hear is when they're spending that kind of money on their shareholders and spending that kind of money on TV advertising that they're nickel and diming fisherman," Obama said.

Obama's strong words still didn't match with any visible anger that the American people want to see in him. People want to see emotion and rage and finger wagging for some cathartic relief, perhaps much like the way during the AIG bonus saga. But he has acted cool so far.

In the latest Larry King Live interview he said he is "furious." That's it! But that's not enough for the American people who want to see an enraged president taking stern actions, even questioning the corporate as to why BP's CEO Tony Hayward still in charge.

Despite this terrible environmental mess and loss of 11 lives in the rig explosion, Hayward enjoys the confidence of the board. He was apologetic to the shareholders as he continued to assure them.

"We will work tirelessly to rebuild the confidence of the American people, and of the world, in BP," Hayward said in his first update to shareholders after the rig explosion of April 20.

But not everyone can be assured. Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group with its 80,000 members, has started a campaign to boycott BP's products. It has asked people to boycott BP for "at least three months."

On the Facebook wall of Boycott BP page Kristin Royce Barsell wrote, "I went to BPs channel on Youtube and Gave a thumbs down to every one of their videos. Then, I flagged them for being innapropriat. For stuff like sexual content, violence, and a bunch of other really funny stuff. I found it very therapeutic. You should do the same. It will make you feel much better."

As the Gulf of Mexico oil slick approached coastlines and threatened people's livelihoods and damaged the ecosystem, more and more people have shown frustration with the federal administration. The public anger is aggravated further as they see live video feed of the oil spewing from the well. All the major media have given prime coverage of the pictures of pelicans drenched in oil, or images of plumes of partly dissolved oil flowing in the deep ocean.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports, "the mainstream media devoted 38% of its newshole to the spill during the week of May 24-30."

Despite such extensive media coverage and the amount of environmental impact the spill will create, it is still not yet the "environmental 9/11" as Melinda Henneberger of the Politics Daily argues. The present disaster has surpassed the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, or is comparable in cleanup and response efforts to hurricane Katrina, but it is still not comparable to the 9/11 attack that not only took more lives but also pulled the rug of faith for a fellow human being.

The technology to overcome the present disaster is perhaps easier to devise sooner or later, but a soothing balm to heal the impact of 9/11 is difficult to create.

***

Here's a selection of media that have given dedicated coverage of the oil spill.

Online: White House, BP, PBS, Google News, Yahoo! News, HuffPost, The Daily Beast
Broadcast: CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, Al Jazeera, BBC, France24
Newspapers: NYTimes, WashPo, WSJ, LATimes, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, St. Petersburg, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Guardian

1. A brown pelican is seen on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on Thursday, June 3, 2010. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon has affected wildlife throughout the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
2. Fire boat crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon late Wednesday. (U.S. Coast Guard)
3. Boycott BP Petition logo
4. May 6. An aerial view of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. (Daniel Beltra-Reuters)
5. Screengrab of "Tracking the Oil Spill in the Gulf" from NYTimes.com Interactive

Images used without permission. Copyright infringement not intended.

Does the US encourage India's interference in South Asia?

2010-06-03T20:19:00.006-04:00

“As India looks east, its role in its immediate neighborhood obviously remains crucial. We have complementary interest on the subcontinent, and United States supports India’s leadership in encouraging the emergence of a stable democratic government in Bangladesh, easing tensions in Nepal and promoting peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. Neither of us intends [US and India] to outsource South Asia policy to the other, but more often than not our policy prescriptions converge.”

William J. Burns, U.S. Department of State's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs speaking at the CFR's General Meeting on India’s Rise and the Future of the U.S.-India Relationship on June 1, 2010.

Audio Source: Council on Foreign Relations (17:16)

What is Google Voice?

2010-05-27T19:12:00.010-04:00

Since I'm impressed with Google Voice, let me do some free marketing for them.

Google Voice is by invitation only for now. But students with .EDU account can request an invite.

But why do you need a Google Voice when you have your regular phone number? Well, it's just like the need to have a universal phone charger. Nobody wants to rummage through the drawers to pull out the right one only to be misplaced again!

If you have been worried about losing your phone number while you changed carriers, or worried about not being accessible when you are at different numbers, or have been frustrated to reach that particular phone to access voice messages, then you need a universal phone number that does it all for you.

If you are the one who uses more than one phone number, you should own a Google Voice number to solve your phone worries.

Here's how Google Voice works--

1. You create your own Google Voice number after Google approves your invitation. Request an invitation with your .EDU account.

2. Add phone numbers (cell, home, office, etc) to forward calls to. Remember, you can customize the way you want to receive these calls. Check out this YouTube video on how Google Voice works.

3. Choose the option to receive SMS of your voice mails (of course, it only transcribes standard English now!), or opt to receive email messages of all the voice mails to any of the phones you own.

4. Customize playback messages by creating groups.

5. You can buy credits to make international calls. (I prefer Skype or Raza for that.)

There are many other features you can explore on your own.

So, what is the biggest advantage of a Google Voice number????

Your Google Voice becomes your permanent number. When someone asks your phone number you give your Google number. That means even if you move from one phone to another or change phone numbers frequently, you don't need to send email messages or make Facebook status updates announcing your numbers have changed. Just go to the Google Voice settings and update your numbers. Others don't even need to know what numbers you own. Isn't that wonderful?

One word of caution: Choose your number judiciously in the first instance. If you don't like your number you can always change it, but you pay $10 each time you do that.

Try it out and let me know your experience about it.

CNN's excellent use of infographics

2010-05-05T07:40:00.006-04:00

Foreman makes a superb use of Google Maps to describe the events of the bomb scare at Times Square. His description is combined with camera movements that enhances the effect.

Changing America’s food landscape

2010-04-23T23:10:00.011-04:00

The season's finale of ABC's Food Revolution didn't end with the proverbial cliffhanger, but Jamie Oliver has created quite a hustle to bring his audience back next season.

Here you see a man who loves food as much as he loves to talk about food; but he doesn't quite talk the way other food celebrities on television do. Anthony Bourdain, Alton Brown, Robert Irvine, Andrew Zimmern , Rachel Ray, Ted Allen, Gordon Ramsay and many others all talk about pleasing the palate, the craft of cookery, the profession, or the adventures with food. But Oliver is quite unlike any other connoisseur. He is the food-pontiff on a mission to save America.

After attaining iconic status in the United Kingdom for reforming lunches in schools, Oliver travels to Huntington, W. Va., America’s “unhealthiest” city according to Centers for Disease Control. The show chronicles his mission to fix high school’s lunch program against the wishes of lunch bosses, vitriolic local radio show host, and fuzzy federal regulations.

Oliver wants a healthy America. He is not a proponent of no-meat diet or vegan-only food. His rants are mostly about the dangers of processed foods and the harmful effects of fast food on a person’s health. To encourage people, especially kids, to eat fresh vegetables and local produce, he wants to educate them first. The message that Huntington brings with its notoriety for being the fattest city is as disturbing as having one-third adult population in the country as obese and more than half considered overweight. The price? Direct or indirect annual spending of nearly $150 billion.

Have a look at America's expanding waistline

There is much to blame on America’s food culture and the ease of fast food. It’s not hard to predict whether a person will grab a quick burger or spend 15 minutes in the kitchen preparing a “healthy meal.” And it’s precisely this message that Oliver is emphasizing: Teach children to cook.

At the recent TED talk, he spoke about the importance of changing the "landscape of food around us" so that children of the future generation can live healthier and much longer lives. His focus on educating kids about good healthy food at school seems just right to set the tone toward future eating habits that could come either by integrating cooking classes in the school curriculum or learning to cook ten simple recipes before leaving high school. And he might just have achieved that in Huntington. At least, he won the bet (beer) and friendship of the local radio talk show host whose skepticism didn’t stop the community members to flock at Jamie’s Kitchen, and at the street in front, to toss pepper and spaghetti.

Food Revolution is a reality-TV-documentary that brings the right dose of message to address a killer issue. Oliver’s message is simple: If America does it, the rest of the world will follow. So?

Sign Jamie's petition to save cooking skills and improve school food

My favorite episode from Hulu.

See a recent Nielsen's survey

Bring changes to the tradition

2010-04-04T17:49:00.015-04:00

Nepalese revere the Kumari, the virgin deity, almost as much as the Mt. Everest. But once the girl is ceased to be worshiped as the living goddess after attaining puberty or loss of blood due to injury, she loses her divine status. Her life after that mostly remains in seclusion and in unproclaimed banishment for lack of social skills and education.

The Supreme Court in 2008 ruled in favor of the Kumaris for their right to education and other human rights. The Kumari of Bhaktapur was in news couple years ago when she created a furor in the conservative religious community after visiting the United States at the invitation of a documentary maker. She was even briefly stripped of her Kumari status. This year the Nepali media have happily reported about the 15-year-old Kumari of Patan who appeared in the school leaving certificate exams. Now there is news she wants to work in the financial sector.

These are signs that the Nepalese people are slowly showing tolerance toward religious symbols and practices that were so zealously guarded for centuries. By tutoring the Kumari at her home and giving her opportunities at par with other students, the Guthi Sansthan has earned more respect for its sensitivity toward the issue.

Nepalese society now needs to challenge the tradition of the Pashupati temple that bars non-Hindus from entering its premises. It is not just against the secular character of a nation but also against the tenets of the religion itself that touts equality. If a religion forbids a non-believer from entering its most sacred place, how can it be assumed that there is respect for all people no matter what?

The guardians of the Kumari tradition have taken a bold step, can the Hindus come out of their silos now?

Learn about the virgin goddess of Patan.

Response to Carol Christiano

2010-04-04T02:01:00.003-04:00

This is my response to Carol Christiano who considers Nepal to be a part of India when the Buddha was born.
----------
Carol: Thank you for allowing me to briefly educate you on the ancient history of the Indian subcontinent. What we now consider India or Nepal did not exist when Gautam Buddha was born. He was born in a principality whose capital was Kapilvastu. There were several small and large "kingdoms" during that time. The Maurya dynasty of the Magadh Empire gained prominence two hundred years after Buddha's death.

If you read the history of independent kingdoms during that time, you'll find reference to 16 flourishing empires known as "mahajanapad", or great countries. Some of them are Anga, Chedi, Gandhara, Kasi, Kosala, Kuru, Matsya, Magadha, Panchala etc. References to these independent kingdoms can also be found in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Some of the rulers of these kingdoms even resisted the conquest of Alexander. It is in one such small Shakya republic of the Kosala kingdom, Siddhartha Gautam was born. How can you then say he was born in India? Therefore, a correct reference is: He was born in present-day Nepal.

There's no denial that Siddhartha Gautam spend his life as a teacher in nearby kingdoms that are now in India. Most of the rulers of these empires became his followers. Ashoka was the most prominent ruler of the time of the Magadha Empire who was also an ardent follower of the Buddhist ideology. He officially patronized the religion and appointed "Rajukas" to see that dhamma was followed in his kingdom. Besides sending missionaries led by his own son and daughter, it is also believed that he ordered thousands of stupas to be build across his empire and beyond. It is this expansion that helped Buddhism to spread as a religion in India and other parts of Asia and China. But this attempt doesn't undermine the historical fact about his birth.

If you have time, please read "2500 years of Buddhism" whose foreword is by S. Radhakrishnan, a religious scholar and India's second president.

The question of what constitutes India as a nation became clear only in the last 150 years or so, and politically only in 1947 when India and Pakistan were carved out. When the East India Company came to "India" in 1600 AD, they came to the empires and principalities that were eventually colonized by the British Empire in the next 300 years to form the present-day Indian nation. This political unit is different than the narrative of "India" found in the historical texts that is generically used to refer to the all the empires that existed in the Indian subcontinent, sometimes even extending up to Southeast Asia.

However, you must be aware that the modern day territory of Nepal (that includes Kapilvastu) and the Siamese kingdom (modern day Thailand) are the only two countries in the region that have not been colonized and have remained independent. Therefore, you like many others, are absolutely wrong to say that Nepal was "considered" India at the time of the Buddha's birth.

I hope you'll appreciate the importance of updating your knowledge on this issue. And if you are not satisfied by my explanation, you are free to "investigate it for yourself" just as you've said in your previous post.

----------
The above response was prepared after Carol Christiano responded to my comments on "The Buddha" Facebook page.

This is what I wrote:
PBS must get its fact correct on the birth of the Buddha. The preview video repeatedly mentions he was born in India. You are WRONG! Please be aware of the UNESCO's listing on Lumbini, the Birthplace of the Lord Buddha.

Please don't drag Gautam Buddha to controversy.

Carol Christiano's response:
Sijan: Shakyamuni Buddha was born 2500 years ago in "modern day" Nepal. At the time of his birth it was considered India, so I don't believe it is incorrect to state his place of birth India. There was no Nepal in existence at that time.

India hijacks Lord Buddha from Nepal

2010-04-03T01:22:00.010-04:00

This time it's PBS that must face the Nepalese wrath over Lord Buddha's issue. David Grubin's 2-hour documentary that premieres on April 7 has ample references that will appropriately pique the Nepalese sentiments for calling Lord Buddha an Indian.

Narrated by Hollywood actor Richard Gere, "The Buddha" chronicles young Siddhartha's journey through artwork and animation. A peek into the documentary shows commentaries from the Dalai Lama, Pulitzer-prize winner poet W.S. Merwin and other prominent scholars and monastics.

John F. Wilson, PBS senior vice president and chief TV programming executive says, "By continuing our exploration of the world's religions, we are delighted to participate in broadening people's understanding of Buddhism today with David Grubin's moving portrait of the life of the Buddha."

Wilson's hope of creating an "understanding" doesn't seem to be reflected in the preview video posted on the Web nor on the description of the DVD put up for online sale. At the beginning of the preview video when the Buddha's birth is described, the narrator says, "The stories say that before his birth, his mother, the queen of a small Indian kingdom, had a dream."

This information is obviously wrong. During the time of the Buddha's birth 2,500 hundred years ago, there was no India or Nepal. But Siddhartha Gautam was born in Lumbini, the present-day Nepal. Archeological findings corroborate this fact that is endorsed by the UNESCO. But there seem to be deliberate efforts to either falsify or hide references of Nepal when it comes to the Buddha's birth.

Even if this documentary was made in collaboration with the Asia Society, the essay on The Origins of Buddhism on the Society's Web site mentioned the Buddha was born in North India. It was only after a reader's correction the reference to North India was removed, but even then the article falls short of mentioning Nepal as the birthplace of the Buddha.

While a long-term publicity and awareness campaign might rectify this error, for now we really need to complain PBS for distorting the historical facts. In fact, The Himalayan Voice wrote to the production company "to correct the information before the documentary is aired." In reply the David Gruber Productions claims that the film "explicitly" mentions that Buddha was born in southern Nepal. This is an exquisitely idiotic explanation. No sane person could accept that. How can one ignore the fact that in the 5-minute video preview Siddhartha's mother is called "the queen of a small Indian kingdom," in the blurb of the DVD version the Buddha is called "the Indian sage," and in the PBS TV schedule listing the Buddha's "northern India" affiliation is highlighted?

Certainly, the sage is beyond all disputes but the controversy is real and getting nastier.

PBS not only needs to purge the erroneous information but also owes a sincere apology with a commitment to participate in a publicity campaign to establish Nepal's position against all propaganda.

Raise your voice by commenting on PBS Facebook page and other social networking sites.

Cheesemaking in Nepal: Dairy farmers at the top of the world

2010-03-30T15:19:00.001-04:00

Mr. Driard settled in Nepal after working in 30 countries in three years as a wandering journalist. “Nepal was perfect for me: beautiful mountains, beautiful women, beautiful climate – but no cheese.... I knew I had to do something about this.”

Read More

Gateway to the Himalayas - 1954

2010-03-29T22:51:00.008-04:00

This video shot in 1954 is one of the earlier footages of Nepal when the country was opening up to foreigners in the 1950s. Nothing much has changed in the streets now in 2010 since what the video shows or what a National Geographic reporter wrote about the festivities in 1920: "Life in a Nepalese city seems to the uninitiated just one Mardi Gras after another. A dignitary's visit is the occasion of the special holiday, while there would be more red-ink dates than black were the festivals designated as on an occidental calendar."
White, J. C. (1920) “Nepal: a Little-Known Kingdom.” National Geographic, 38 (4), p. 245-283.

Nepalese Night - 2010 participation survey

2010-03-29T19:41:00.017-04:00

Ellen's princess visits Franklin Hall

2010-03-19T16:34:00.001-04:00

Kali Baba's self-immolation threat and religious discrimination in Nepal

2010-03-13T10:34:00.009-05:00

A popular Nepali godman Kali Baba is outrageously making statements of self-immolation if Nepal is not declared a Hindu state.

His threat of self-immolation has been reported by the news media in Nepal and India with equal interest since the notion itself flares up the emotion. Is that a reasonable act to pursue one’s cause?

The godman has been in limelight for his nine-day long sahasra rudrachandi akhanda mahayagya that aimed to restore Nepal as a Hindu country. He was visited at Bankali by the former king Gyanendra Shah along with his wife Komal. Shah is reported to have supported the cause. Other high-profile visitors to the yagna have equally surprised the political pundits because the yagna was more political than religious.

Kali Baba, like many other Nepalese, is frustrated at the political turn of events. He is upset that "vandals and vagabonds" are entering the temple premises and beating up the priests; he believes that secularism is not the people’s demand; and, he is disappointed that the Maoists “did nothing for the country” despite their promises.

Now what Kali Baba is trying to attempt is to rescue the failed politics by religion. His conviction that monarchy alone can unite the nation was booted out in a popular mass movement couple years ago. Though his question on whether the process to declare the country as secular still remains valid, it is an action most likely to be undone.

Kali Baba’s yagya might have a religious and cultural appeal, but it cannot undermine the aspiration of Jana Andolan II. But what Kali Baba is doing now is thwarting the peace process by striving to assert the supremacy of religion over state. Such orthodox mistakes in the past have dragged the nation to the present turmoil.

Historically, Nepal has favored a religion that promotes discrimination. After the completion of the official unification of the country in 1769, Prithvi Narayan Shah declared Nepal a "garland" of "char jat and chattis varna" based on Hindu caste system. When the Civil Code was enacted by Junga Bahadur Rana in 1854, the vedic system of discrimination was further strengthened by classifying people in descending order and separating the tagadharis, matwalis and sudras. In 1962 when the Panchayat constitution was adopted, Nepal was declared a Hindu kingdom once again reinforcing discrimination based on religion. And now comes Kali Baba’s yagya in 2010 that again wants to put the Nepali people in the loop of discrimination.

At a time when the nation is debating to be inclusive, Kali Baba’s action incites extremist feelings in one religious community. The Hindus form a majority in Nepal, but that doesn’t mean the religion should dominate the state. Most wars around the world are fought today because of religious reasons.

Luckily, Nepal has maintained an image of a tolerant society where Buddhists, Muslims and Christians have largely felt secure. But if the emotions of the Hindus are allowed to be played with in the name of religious rites to secure a political goal, we might soon witness discontentment in the streets expressed by other religious communities.

The issue of self-immolation is another sensitive matter. Self-immolation is a powerful tool to express the message of discontent. In recent decades there have been deliberate acts of self-immolation to highlight a cause.

On 11 June 1963 Thich Quang Duc self-immolated in a busy intersection in Saigon, Vietnam, protesting the persecution of the Buddhists by South Vietnam’s administration. The monk had written to the government and told the members of his Buddhist community about the religious oppression at the hands of Catholic Jean Baptiste Ngo Dinh Diem. Duc’s self-immolation captured the sentiment of the time for more political protests that ultimately changed the regime. Several other self-immolations followed the incident.

Other incidents in the sub-continent have sparked wide protests.

In 1990 a student from Delhi University attempted to self-immolate against the implementation of the Mandal Commission that recommended reservations and quotas for backward communities.

On 29 January 2009 K. Muthukumar self-immolated to protest the killing of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Some people of the Tamil origin around the world were inspired to follow suit. In fact, one person self-immolated in front of the United Nations Office in Geneva.

On 21 February 2010 Siripur Yadaiah self-immolated in Hyderabad shouting pro-Telangana slogans. A note found in his pocket revealed he was prepared to give up his life for the cause of a separate Telangana state.

There are numerous such gory incidences of self-immolation that have been planned and warned about. Kali Baba’s threat should be taken within this context.

Nepal is barely catching up to practice the basic democratic ideals. We should be cognizant of the fact that such threats and actions don’t impede our march toward the much sought after peace. There are other religious issues that Kali Baba or people of influence could work upon.

For instance, we ought to scrap the law that considers religious conversion an offense, or the slaughter of cows as punishable by 18 years in prison, or the rampant discrimination in the name of "untouchables.”

Other nuanced forms of discrimination that exist in our households also need to be stopped, such as promotion of fatalism, chaupadi, men-worship in Teej and Swasthani.

Religious leaders have tremendous tasks ahead to preserve the values of religion while at the same time weeding out practices that compromise equality. The influence of Kali Baba should be used to promote harmony and tolerance.

It is in the best interest of a nation to keep religion away from the state affairs.

Published on March 13, 2010 at newpalnews.com.
====================

Read how Kalidas Dahal tricked his way to be known as Kali Baba in Himal published on 28 Mar-13 Apr 2010 (१६-३१ चैत २०६६). Also visit his Web site here where he makes false claims about his age, education and his father's legacy.

Image of Kali Baba's bogus Web site.

The Art of Saving Money

2010-03-12T20:16:00.004-05:00

Here's an extreme example of how you can save a lot of money if you know how to use coupons in a real real real real real smart way. This CNN video shows an unbelievably insane way to shop. Good luck!

Nepal: Caught Between China and India

2010-03-02T19:37:00.003-05:00

Nepal may be most famous for its majestic Himalayan peaks, but much of the country is a vast stretch of plains, the terai, which have long been underdeveloped and largely ignored by the two powers on either side. No longer. India has just launched a plan to spend $361 million over the next several years on roads and rail links in the terai, announcing the grants just before Nepali President Ram Baran Yadav made his Feb. 15 official visit to New Delhi. China, meanwhile, recently increased its annual aid to Nepal by 50% to about $22 million.

Read more

Google Buzz Launch Event (video)

2010-02-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

Groups/Feeders outside Kathmandu valley

2010-01-28T03:11:00.019-05:00

Click on the image to zoom in.

Click here for Groups/Feeders INSIDE Kathmandu valley

Groups/Feeders inside Kathmandu valley

2010-01-28T01:50:00.020-05:00

Click on the image to zoom in.

Click here for Groups/Feeders OUTSIDE Kathmandu valley

नेपाल "लोडशेडिङ्ग" प्रधिकरणको नयाँ तालिका

2010-01-28T01:44:00.021-05:00

मिति २०६६/१०/१४ देखि लागु हुने गरी।

Click on the image to zoom in.

See list of Groups/Feeders-

INSIDE Kathmandu valley

OUTSIDE Kathmandu valley

Haiti: 360°

2010-01-23T20:14:00.002-05:00

Use your mouse to click and drag around the video to change the view. You can also zoom in and out. Pause and explore at any time by pressing the play/pause button under the video to stop and look around. The video below was shot on Monday, January 18, at 9:52 a.m. EST in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Urban Interns

2010-01-20T15:41:00.000-05:00

India, Pakistan and Kashmir: A brief history of the Kashmir conflict

2009-12-12T21:31:00.000-05:00

The top 100 books in English Wikipedia

2009-11-25T11:05:00.000-05:00

Top 100 Most-Frequenty Cited Books in the English Wikipedia
1.	2,122	Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles and Albums
2.	1,313	Andrews' Diseases of the Skin: Clinical Dermatology (James, Andrew's Disease of the Skin)
3.	1,231	Air Force Combat Units of World War II
4.	1,184	Jane's encyclopedia of aviation
5.	839	British parliamentary election results, 1918-1949
6.	764	The Ship of the Line: The Development of the Battlefleet, 1650-1850 (The Ship of the line)
7.	603	Handbook of British Chronology (Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, Volume 2)
8.	603	Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1860-1905
9.	591	The science-fantasy publishers: A critical and bibliographic history
10.	560	Civil War High Commands
11.	539	Wrestling Title Histories
12.	514	A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (2 volumes)
13.	504	The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature
14.	464	The Dinosauria
15.	463	The DC Comics Encyclopedia, Updated and Expanded Edition
16.	460	The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem
17.	452	The Canadian directory of Parliament, 1867-1967
18.	442	All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948
19.	419	Air Force combat wings : lineage and honors histories, 1947-1977
20.	415	The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Through 1968; Volume 1: Who's Who A-L
21.	414	The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
22.	406	Fields of Praise: Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union, 1881-1981
23.	403	Birmingham City
24.	398	The New Grove Dictionary of Opera : A-D
25.	377	Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments
26.	371	Fitzpatrick's Dermatology In General Medicine (Two Vol. Set)
27.	362	NFL 2001 Record and Fact Book
28.	356	The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Animals: A Comprehensive Color Guide to Over 500 Specie
29.	348	The Pimlico Chronology of British History: From 250, 000 BC to the Present Day
30.	347	Michigan Place Names (Great Lakes Books)
31.	345	The Directory of Railway Stations: Details Every Public and Private Passenger Station, Halt, Platform and Stopping Place
32.	342	The Oxford Companion to Wine, 3rd Edition
33.	341	Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand
34.	334	The Book of Sydney Suburbs
35.	331	The Men Who Made Gillingham Football Club
36.	331	Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990: Major Combatants
37.	315	Oregon Geographic Names
38.	305	日本写真家事典―東京都写真美術館所蔵作家 (東京都写真美術館叢書)
39.	296	U.S. Submarines Through 1945: An Illustrated Design History
40.	294	Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns
41.	289	The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Through 1968: A Bibliographic Survey of the Fields of Science Fiction, F
42.	281	Reed New Zealand Atlas
43.	277	Music in the Renaissance
44.	277	Ohio Atlas and Gazetteer (Atlas and Gazetteer)
45.	273	Enzyklopädie des deutschen Ligafußballs 7. Vereinslexikon
46.	271	The Text of the New Testament an Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual
47.	268	Blackpool (Complete Record)
48.	266	The PFA Premier & Football League players' records, 1946-2005
49.	261	The Oxford Companion to Chess
50.	259	Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
51.	256	A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica (Comstock Book)
52.	251	Saints!: Complete Record of Southampton Football Club, 1885-1987
53.	247	Cassell's Chronology of World History: Dates, Events and Ideas That Made History
54.	247	The Book of Golden Discs
55.	243	Squadrons of the Royal Air Force and Commonwealth, 1918-88
56.	236	Retreat to the Reich: The German Defeat in France, 1944
57.	236	RAF Squadrons: A Comprehensive Record of the Movement and Equipment of All RAF Squadrons and Their Antecedents Since 191
58.	231	Australian Chart Book 1970-1992
59.	231	The Phoenix Book of International Rugby Records
60.	228	Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945
61.	224	US Air Force Air Power Directory
62.	222	Handbook of Inorganic Chemicals
63.	221	Rough Guide to World Music Volume Two: Latin and North America, the Caribbean, Asia & the Pacific (Rough Guide Music Gui
64.	219	In the Nick of Time: Motion Picture Sound Serials
65.	215	A Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago
66.	212	Encyclopedia of Fishes, Second Edition (Natural World)
67.	208	The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World
68.	205	The Kentucky Encyclopedia
69.	205	Arsenal Who's Who
70.	205	Guia de Catalunya. Tots els pobles i totes les comarques
71.	204	Armor Battles of the Waffen SS, 1943-45 (Stackpole Military History Series)
72.	203	Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography
73.	203	Indie Hits: The Complete UK Independent Charts 1980-1989
74.	201	The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics
75.	201	The geographic atlas of New Zealand
76.	201	The International Rugby Championship 1883-1983
77.	200	The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae (Virgin Encyclopedias of Popular Music)
78.	199	Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide
79.	198	Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft
80.	196	Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906-1921 (Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, Vol 2)
81.	195	The fighting ships of the Rising Sun: The drama of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1895-1945
82.	192	Economics: Principles in Action
83.	191	New RHS Dictionary of Gardening
84.	190	Fungal Families of the World (Cabi Publishing)
85.	189	The Vertigo Encyclopedia
86.	188	Dermatology: 2-Volume Set
87.	187	The National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota: A Guide (Minnesota)
88.	187	Minding the House: A Biographical Guide to Prince Edward Island MLAs, 1873-1993
89.	186	Domesday Book: A Complete Translation (Alecto Historical Editions)
90.	186	The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile (3 Vol Set)
91.	185	Mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern : die höchstdekorierten Soldaten des Zweiten Weltkrieges
92.	184	The Mountains of England and Wales, Volume 1: Wales
93.	183	The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
94.	183	The Oxford Dictionary of Opera
95.	179	Generals in Blue Lives of the Union Commanders: Lives of the Union Commanders
96.	178	The Arkham House Companion: Fifty Years of Arkham House : A Bibliographical History and Collector's Price Guide to Arkha
97.	177	David and Charles Book of Castles
98.	175	Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music (Recent Releases)
99.	174	The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family
100.	171	Hot Dance/Disco 1974-2003
Source: LibraryThing.com

A Better Missile Defense for a Safer Europe

2009-09-20T08:52:00.000-04:00

By ROBERT M. GATES

THE future of missile defense in Europe is secure. This reality is contrary to what some critics have alleged about President Obama’s proposed shift in America’s missile-defense plans on the continent — and it is important to understand how and why.

First, to be clear, there is now no strategic missile defense in Europe. In December 2006, just days after becoming secretary of defense, I recommended to President George W. Bush that the United States place 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland and an advanced radar in the Czech Republic. This system was designed to identify and destroy up to about five long-range missiles potentially armed with nuclear warheads fired from the Middle East — the greatest and most likely danger being from Iran. At the time, it was the best plan based on the technology and threat assessment available.

That plan would have put the radar and interceptors in Central Europe by 2015 at the earliest. Delays in the Polish and Czech ratification process extended that schedule by at least two years. Which is to say, under the previous program, there would have been no missile-defense system able to protect against Iranian missiles until at least 2017 — and likely much later.

Last week, President Obama — on my recommendation and with the advice of his national-security team and the unanimous support of our senior military leadership — decided to discard that plan in favor of a vastly more suitable approach. In the first phase, to be completed by 2011, we will deploy proven, sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles — weapons that are growing in capability — in the areas where we see the greatest threat to Europe.

The second phase, which will become operational around 2015, will involve putting upgraded SM-3s on the ground in Southern and Central Europe. All told, every phase of this plan will include scores of SM-3 missiles, as opposed to the old plan of just 10 ground-based interceptors. This will be a far more effective defense should an enemy fire many missiles simultaneously — the kind of attack most likely to occur as Iran continues to build and deploy numerous short- and medium-range weapons. At the same time, plans to defend virtually all of Europe and enhance the missile defense of the United States will continue on about the same schedule as the earlier plan as we build this system over time, creating an increasingly greater zone of protection.

Steady technological advances in our missile defense program — from kill vehicles to the abilities to network radars and sensors — give us confidence in this plan. The SM-3 has had eight successful tests since 2007, and we will continue to develop it to give it the capacity to intercept long-range missiles like ICBMs. It is now more than able to deal with the threat from multiple short- and medium-range missiles — a very real threat to our allies and some 80,000 American troops based in Europe that was not addressed by the previous plan. Even so, our military will continue research and development on a two-stage ground-based interceptor, the kind that was planned to be put in Poland, as a back-up.

Moreover, a fixed radar site like the one previously envisioned for the Czech Republic would be far less adaptable than the airborne, space- and ground-based sensors we now plan to use. These systems provide much more accurate data, offer more early warning and tracking options, and have stronger networking capacity — a key factor in any system that relies on partner countries. This system can also better use radars that are already operating across the globe, like updated cold war-era installations, our newer arrays based on high-powered X-band radar, allied systems and possibly even Russian radars.

One criticism of this plan is that we are relying too much on new intelligence holding that Iran is focusing more on short- and medium-range weapons and not progressing on intercontinental missiles. Having spent most of my career at the C.I.A., I am all too familiar with the pitfalls of over-reliance on intelligence assessments that can become outdated. As Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a few days ago, we would be surprised if the assessments did not change because “the enemy gets a vote.”

The new approach to European missile defense actually provides us with greater flexibility to adapt as new threats develop and old ones recede. For example, the new proposal provides some antimissile capacity very soon — a hedge against Iran’s managing to field missiles much earlier than had been previously predicted. The old plan offered nothing for almost a decade.

Those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting what we are doing. This shift has even been distorted as some sort of concession to Russia, which has fiercely opposed the old plan. Russia’s attitude and possible reaction played no part in my recommendation to the president on this issue. Of course, considering Russia’s past hostility toward American missile defense in Europe, if Russia’s leaders embrace this plan, then that will be an unexpected — and welcome — change of policy on their part. But in any case the facts are clear: American missile defense on the continent will continue, and not just in Central Europe, the most likely location for future SM-3 sites, but, we hope, in other NATO countries as well.

This proposal is, simply put, a better way forward — as was recognized by Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland when he called it “a chance for strengthening Europe’s security.” It is a very real manifestation of our continued commitment to our NATO allies in Europe — iron-clad proof that the United States believes that the alliance must remain firm.

I am often characterized as “pragmatic.” I believe this is a very pragmatic proposal. I have found since taking this post that when it comes to missile defense, some hold a view bordering on theology that regards any change of plans or any cancellation of a program as abandonment or even breaking faith. I encountered this in the debate over the Defense Department’s budget for the fiscal year 2010 when I ended three programs: the airborne laser, the multiple-kill vehicle and the kinetic energy interceptor. All were plainly unworkable, prohibitively expensive and could never be practically deployed — but had nonetheless acquired a devoted following.

I have been a strong supporter of missile defense ever since President Ronald Reagan first proposed it in 1983. But I want to have real capacity as soon as possible, and to take maximum advantage of new technologies to combat future threats.

The bottom line is that there will be American missile defense in Europe to protect our troops there and our NATO allies. The new proposal provides needed capacity years earlier than the original plan, and will provide even more robust protection against longer-range threats on about the same timeline as the previous program. We are strengthening — not scrapping — missile defense in Europe.

Robert M. Gates is the secretary of defense.

Opportunity for Software Engineer

2009-09-17T19:47:00.000-04:00

Academia.edu wants to make their site the Facebook of the academic world. The company is looking for a Software Engineer. If you get this job, you might get some stocks in the company as well. Give it a try!

Click the link below for a full description of the position:

VACANCY FOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Last chance to change our behaviour

2009-09-16T00:17:00.000-04:00

David Hillyard

There is growing awareness of the damage we are doing to the planet and the natural resources on which we depend, says David Hillyard. Yet, he argues in this week's Green Room, we still carry on along the same track regardless, refusing to make much-needed changes to our behaviour.

"Climate change has helped put the global environmental crisis on the map; but it is time to stop considering it as a single issue"

More than half of the world's fisheries are fully exploited, putting 27 million jobs and $100bn of income at risk, UN data shows.

One sixth of the world's population relies on fish as their main or sole source of animal protein.

Yet despite considerable effort by many groups, unsustainable fishing continues apace on a global scale.

The Amazon rainforest pumps 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere each day, which drives global weather patterns and rainfall essential for people's survival.

Yet we continue to lose tropical forest cover and with that the services it provides, not least in the mitigation of droughts around the world.

However far removed from nature the human race may seem, we are inextricably linked to it.

The Earth's natural systems provide many essential goods and services that ensure our survival and enhance our lifestyles and well-being - such as food, medicines, building materials, climate regulation, flood defence and leisure opportunities.The ecosystems that provide these services are rapidly decaying to the point of collapse. Human-induced climate change, infrastructure development, the loss of forests and agricultural production are primary drivers of these losses.

The prevailing economic model that exacerbates these problems, rather than counteracts them, is fundamentally flawed.

"GDP is unfit to reflect many of today's challenges, such as climate change, public health, education and the environment," was the conclusion of Beyond GDP, an international conference on gross domestic product held in Brussels in November 2007.
Despite this recognition, governments have spent trillions of dollars around the world in the past year to get out of "recession" and get back to GDP growth at any cost, it seems.

Why? It seems as if the main goal is simply to maintain the current ailing market system and stimulate continued unsustainable consumption.

Slim pickings

The world's governments are meeting in Copenhagen in December to try and agree a global deal to combat climate change.

The chances of a sufficiently binding agreement that will meet the challenge of stabilising greenhouse gas emissions in a short enough timeframe to avoid "dangerous climate change" are slim.

But are we seeing the whole picture?

Climate change has helped put the global environmental crisis on the map; but it is time to stop considering it as a single issue.

Whilst we argue over the extent to which climate change is going to impact the planet, and while governments quibble over emissions targets, we are losing sight of the fact that ecosystem services provide the mechanisms needed to tackle climate change - such as capturing carbon, driving rainfall patterns and maintaining soil quality.

Maintaining the integrity and functionality of ecosystems is a real and present challenge for business, society and governments.

Without them, we have no hope of sustainably tackling climate change and we risk losing forever the natural environments that enable us to survive and sustain lives worth living.

Bridging the gap

Governments tend to be driven by nationalistic, short-term agendas - increasingly so, as natural resources become ever scarcer and they rush to "capture" as much "natural capital" as they can.

The need for systemic change and global solutions that transcend national boundaries

has never been greater.

“ We may invent new technologies at sufficient scale to capture and store carbon dioxide and control our carbon emissions, but are we missing the wider point? ”

At the same time, changing patterns of behaviour and consumption need to happen at an individual, local level.

So, what role does business have to play in tackling arguably the greatest challenge that our generation faces?

Business communities in both developing and developed economies are in a strong position to reach the individual at a local level and influence consumption patterns.

They can interact with and influence government at a national level, and can drive the international political agenda through bodies such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

Coalitions between business, informed experts, NGOs and governments are powerful platforms from which to explore and develop alternative business models.

These alliances could drive behavioural change both within companies and among consumers, encourage sustainable use of natural resources, allow communities to thrive and still allow the companies involved to satisfy shareholders' desire to generate profit.

The HSBC Climate Partnership - a collaboration between HSBC, Earthwatch, WWF, the Climate Group and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute - is one example of how such

collaborative programmes can support measures to protect biodiversity and enhance livelihoods whilst also changing the way that business operates.

Whilst there are certainly some forward thinking local and international enterprises out

there, the international business community needs to continue working closely with international

bodies, NGOs and governments to identify a collective vision and action plan of what a "post-GDP" world would look like; where value is not determined by levels of consumption or sales.

This would be a vision where quality is defined by a new set of rules which restores ecosystems rather than destroying them.

Governments may then be brave enough to set policy agendas accordingly and incent

ivise and regulate to support a new approach.

We have already embarked on a global climate change experiment that has unknown results.

We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically. We may invent new technologies at sufficient scale to capture and store carbon dioxide and control our carbon emissions, but are we missing the wider point?

We need more focus on maintaining functioning ecosystems and biodiversity that will regulate our climate and provide the other essential conditions we need to maintain human life on Earth.

In a world driven by a market economy, business has vital role to play in moving to this new future and can step up and play a leadership role in creating a sustainable future.

David Hillyard is the international director of partnerships for Earthwatch Institute, an environmental charity

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

Source: BBC News

Space shuttle Discovery landing

2009-09-12T01:12:00.000-04:00

Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary

2009-09-09T19:59:00.000-04:00

Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary

See methodology

Click on the image below to view "Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary - Full List"

Willard Wigan's micro sculptures

2009-08-28T16:48:00.000-04:00

Amazing artist who creates works that naked eye cannot see. Check out his presentation at TED. Click here.

Google's corporate culture

2009-08-23T08:19:00.000-04:00

Squirrelizing mania

2009-08-19T22:08:00.000-04:00

Amazing cycling stunts: European Junior Championship for indoor cycling

2009-08-19T15:30:00.000-04:00

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

Japan's Ramen Robot

2009-08-03T18:50:00.000-04:00

2009-07-11T09:16:00.000-04:00

When religion breeds hate in the name of creating awareness;
When diversity is shunned to preserve purity;
When tolerance is no longer the value of civility...

But I know , I know, I know, we have one world to live in.

Buzz Aldrin's Rocket Experience rap

2009-07-07T11:21:00.000-04:00

Making of Buzz Aldrin's Rocket Experience w/ Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli from Buzz Aldrin

Inside Jackson's Neverland ranch

2009-07-02T17:41:00.000-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Why Counting Carbon is a Key to Climate Change

2009-07-02T10:51:00.000-04:00

By Kevin Parker and Mindy Lubber

Behavioral economists will tell you that the simple act of placing an electricity consumption meter in plain view can substantially cut a home's energy use. The same goes for real-time miles-per-gallon meters in cars, which change the way we drive.

These findings tell us something about behavior:

When the price of costly activities isn't hidden from us, we're more likely to pursue those activities prudently.

For too long the free market's accounting system has disguised the cost of one of our most destructive activities: emitting pollution that is making the Earth warmer. It has done this by making the market price of emitting those pollutants zero: These costs have simply not figured into what we pay to power our factories, heat our homes and drive our cars.

Recently, outside of New York City's Madison Square Garden, Deutsche Bank unveiled in plain view a meter of sorts on human-caused climate change, the great challenge of our age. The bank activated a 67-by-32-foot electronic billboard -- where some 510,000 people see it daily -- monitoring the real-time, cumulative pollution humans are emitting into atmosphere.

This "Carbon Counter" is no gimmick. It's based on cutting-edge climate change science, with actual emissions being updated every tenth of a second by MIT's Global Climate Change Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Nor is its purpose a gimmick. The out-of-sight, out-of-mind illusion that polluting is free must end and it must end urgently, because the true cost of emitting greenhouse gases is far from zero. Peer-reviewed science from every corner of the globe brings daily proof of warming global temperatures already melting glaciers and ice sheets, raising sea levels, disrupting agricultural patterns and requiring increased emergency spending from more extreme weather such as stronger hurricanes and prolonged heat waves and drought. That's why inaction in curbing this pollution -- 800 tons of it are going into the atmosphere every second -- will be far more costly than acting now.

But that's where the good news starts: First, we have the capacity to act. Second, a bill taking action on climate and energy policy is moving through Congress. Third, we have time -- though scientists say we are moving perilously close to potentially severe climatic disruptions.

Deutsche Bank is part of a large wave of global businesses that understand both the bottom-line risks for business and the huge investing opportunity this challenge presents. A global transition to a clean energy economy is a tremendous opportunity to create millions of jobs, safeguard our health, build sustainable prosperity and energy security, and hand our children the planet they deserve.

This won't come without cost, so let's not muddle the picture with the false choices of minimizing or avoiding them: The only options now are between the price of investing in a safer future and far greater, far less productive spending on mitigation.

That's where investors and government come into play.

Investors need certainty and a level global playing field to act. They can get both from government through the clear market signal of establishing carbon-emission limits -- limits that place a price on carbon pollution. That price will bolster energy-efficiency programs, renewable-energy sources and other low-polluting technologies and products. With the price of carbon pollution factored in, clean-energy alternatives to fossil fuels will quite rightly become far more price-competitive.

And we shouldn't underestimate the challenge: The scale of investments needed to reduce CO2 emissions to the level scientists say is needed -- a level that will limit temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius -- is quite substantial. The International Energy Agency estimates that $550 billion a year needs to be invested in renewable energy, energy efficiency and other clean energy technologies alone over the next two decades to meet that goal. Current global investments on these activities are less than a third of that.

Legislation with strong incentives and clear market signals for renewable energy, energy efficiency and other low-carbon technologies will help catalyze needed clean-tech investments. In America that legislation now takes the form of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, sponsored by Congressmen Henry Waxman (D.-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D.-Mass.).

Comprehensive legislation will boost America's economy, health and competitive future. Equally important, it will greatly bolster our country's ability to credibly lead the world on climate change. A major international conference to write new rules on emissions will take place in Copenhagen in December: Other major carbon emitters, especially emerging-market giants like India and China, will be unlikely to act unless the richest nation and largest greenhouse-gas emitter shows its own strong commitment.

What gets measured gets prudently regulated. Starting last week a huge display at Penn Center reminds us that we have gone too long without accounting for a major cost of building our prosperity. An honest accounting -- honest with ourselves, our children, and our planet's fragile environment -- is an essential cornerstone of our future prosperity. The prospect of building tomorrow's strong economy while simultaneously slaying its greatest threat should fill us with excitement.

Kevin Parker is head of Deutsche Asset Management and a member of Deutsche Bank group's General Executive Committee. Mindy Lubber is president of the Ceres coalition of investors, environmentalists and public-interest groups and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/gwmCarbonEmissions/idUS229866026320090630

Bill Gates' Dad

2009-06-22T01:30:00.000-04:00

Obama kills a fly during CNBC interview

2009-06-17T10:21:00.000-04:00

First president to kill a fly on camera!

Children Learn What They Live

2009-05-26T20:19:00.001-04:00

If children live with criticism,

They learn to condemn.

If children live with hostility,

They learn to fight.

If children live with ridicule,

They learn to be shy.

If children live with shame,

They learn to feel guilty,

If children live with tolerance,

They learn to be patient.

If children live with encouragement,

They learn confidence.

If children live with praise,

They learn to appreciate.

If children live with fairness,

They learn justice.

If children live with security,

They learn to have faith.

If children live with approval,

They learn to like themselves.

If children live with acceptance and friendship,

They learn to find love in the world.

-Dorothy Law Nolte

Susan Boyle sings "Memories" at BGT semi-final

2009-05-24T21:51:00.001-04:00

Another sensational performace from Susan Boyle at the semi-final of Britain's Got Talent. But not really close to Elaine Page's performance.

My Sister's Story (Video)

2009-03-20T15:12:00.001-04:00

NBC's Peter Alexander shares the story of his sister who is diagnosed with a rare genetic disease (Usher syndrome) that will leave her blind and deaf soon.

This is a good example of how a reporter can cover stories about his own family member without being biased.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Heights Traveled to Subdue Tibet

2009-03-16T01:16:00.001-04:00

By Edward Wong, New York Times

MAQU, China — The paramilitary officer took our passports. It was close to midnight, and he and a half-dozen peers at the checkpoint stood around our car on the snowy mountain road. After five days, our travels in the Tibetan regions of western China had come to an abrupt end.

My colleagues and I waited for the police to arrive. We were to be escorted to the local police station, interrogated and put on a plane back to Beijing.

“This is for your own safety,” the paramilitary officer said.

The detention, two weeks ago, was not entirely unexpected: I was reporting on Tibet, one of the most delicate issues in the eyes of the Chinese government. And I was traveling through Tibetan areas of Qinghai and Gansu Provinces as the government was deploying thousands of troops to clamp down on any unrest.

Tibetans widely resent Chinese rule, and Chinese leaders fear that Tibetans could seize on this month, the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising, to carry out a wave of protests, similar to what took place a year ago. Part of the mission of the security forces is to evict foreigners so that whatever occurs will be kept hidden from the world.

That, of course, has always been part of the problem with Tibet. China’s lockdown this month is only the latest episode in a long history of both Tibetans and Chinese trying to keep the mountain kingdom closed to the outside world. News of Tibet has always been difficult to obtain because much of the region lies on a remote plateau above 15,000 feet that is ringed by mountains. Information becomes that much harder to get when governments padlock the gate.

Drawing a veil over Tibet has only encouraged outsiders to project their own imaginings and desires onto the hidden land, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

It happened in the 19th century, when Tibetan officials, seeing Britain and Russia jockey for influence in Central Asia during the Great Game, decided to close Tibet to foreigners. The very state of isolation spurred explorers, spies, missionaries, colonial officers and Buddhist devotees into quests to reach Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.

Britain shot its way to Lhasa during a brutal military invasion in 1904, then tried to keep other foreigners out. The Chinese Communist Party, after conquering Tibet in 1951, kept the region closed during decades of repression (and made it into a “hell on earth,” the Dalai Lama said on Tuesday).

China gradually opened Tibet to tourists, only to close it during each stirring of civil unrest.

“A large element of Tibet’s historical allure grew precisely out of its isolation, that it was untouched by the modern world and did not welcome incursions,” Orville Schell, author of “Virtual Tibet,” a book about the enduring Western fascination with Tibet, wrote in an e-mail message. “So, there is a certain irony in the fact that China, which had been successful in removing a good deal of the allure of the Tibet mystique to Westerners by making it so accessible, now once again feels obliged to ‘close’ it.”

The history of Western attempts to penetrate into Tibet in the 19th and early 20th centuries is recounted in “Trespassers on the Roof of the World,” by Peter Hopkirk. The travelers often braved blizzards, mountain passes and marauding bandits, only to be stopped short of Lhasa by armies of Tibetans led by high-ranking monks. Sometimes they were taken prisoner and tortured. (I didn’t have it quite as bad on that mountain road. Not only did the paramilitary officers not draw weapons on us, they offered us hot milk as we sat in our car.)

In 1879, Col. Nikolai Prejevalsky of the Imperial Russian Army set out with an escort of armed Cossacks for the Tibetan capital, only to be halted within 150 miles of Lhasa by Tibetan officials. He turned back.

Eighteen years later, a British adventurer named A. Henry Savage Landor was captured on his way to Lhasa, brought to a provincial governor and tortured, including being stretched on a rack for 24 hours. After his release, he returned to England and wrote a best-selling book about his captivity.

Those who did make it into Lhasa usually did so in disguise. A handful of Indian spies in the employ of the British Empire posed as holy men. A Japanese Buddhist named Ekai Kawaguchi pretended to be a Chinese physician. And a Frenchwoman fluent in Tibetan language and culture, Alexandra David-Néel, became the first Western woman to set foot in Lhasa when she entered dressed as a pilgrim in 1923.

By then, though, news of Tibet had been seeping out into the world. That began with the British military expedition of 1904, led by Sir Francis Younghusband. With Maxim guns and Enfield rifles, the soldiers killed thousands of Tibetans on their march from India. The Tibetans were forced to sign a treaty with the British, one of the terms being that the British could post trade agents within Tibet. The British then did all they could to keep other foreigners out.

The British had invaded Tibet thinking the Russians already had a foothold there, but they found no significant Russian influence. That was because until then, the 13th Dalai Lama had succeeded in sealing off Tibet. That very success had led the British to fill the void with their imaginings. They dreamed up Tsarist plots and proceeded, with great violence, to pry open Tibet in part because of those delusions.

Decades later, after ending Tibet’s self-rule in 1951, then destroying countless temples and persecuting monks and nuns in horrific campaigns, China began modernizing Tibet and opened it to foreign tourists. I first traveled to Tibetan regions of China in 1999, and spent five weeks in Lhasa and central Tibet in 2001, part of the time hiking between monasteries.

But now that I work in China as a journalist, it is much harder to get to Tibet. All foreign journalists need permission from the government to legally enter central Tibet, which is rarely granted. What’s more, since the uprising of March 2008, the government has, for months at a time, kept foreigners from entering any Tibetan area.

Chinese can travel to Tibet, but the land is far away. What little they know of Tibet comes from truly Orwellian government propaganda. The official line asserts, for example, that the Dalai Lama is “a jackal clad in Buddhist monk’s robes.”

One Chinese friend who worked in a Tibetan area of Qinghai Province told me he gets shocked looks from friends when he shows them photographs of himself with red-robed monks. “They get scared,” he said. “They say, ‘What are you doing? Who are these people?’ They don’t know how to react.”

That sense of confusion was echoed by a Chinese reader engaged in a discussion on Tibet last week on this newspaper’s Web site, nytimes.com.

“Even for me, a real Chinese, Tibet is such a remote and mysterious place,” wrote the reader, Cao Wei, of Shanghai. “I don’t have an idea what all these things are about.”

Source: The New York Times

UCLA and UC-Berkeley professors launch climate change blog

2009-03-13T13:58:00.000-04:00

Ann Carlson, faculty director of the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA and Dan Farber, director of Berkeley's environmental law program created www.legalplanet.wordpress.com to write about climate change, energy, environmental law and policy.

Check out latest blogs on removing the gray wolf from a list of endangered species ("Nobody's Perfect"), salmon crisis in California ("California's Salmon Crisis") or the attitude toward global warning issues ("Global warming still a partisan issue").

Iraqi shoe-thrower's message to the UN

2009-03-12T11:04:00.006-04:00

The Iraqi journalist from Al-Baghdadiya television who (in)famously threw his shoes at George Bush might serve jail term for assaulting a foreign head of state. Most Iraqis now consider him a hero for insulting a person who is largely responsible for more chaos in their country.

Muntazer al-Zaidi's first offense earned him a less severe verdict even though he pleaded non-guilty. He said, "Yes, my reaction was natural." He felt he was innocent and he merely represented the frustration felt by most Iraqis toward Bush, who is largely held responsible for the situation in Iraq. "It is the farewell kiss, you dog", shouted al-Zaidi when throwing both his shoes in less than 5 seconds before security forces pinned him on the floor.

Most of the family members feel it's a political decision and they will appeal.

This incident speaks glaringly about the image Bush and other aggressors have in Iraq and the middle-east. The outburst of emotion clearly sends a message to the international community that America's achievement is not the same as Iraq's perception of achievement. The former US president George W. Bush may have been standing next to Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki amidst tight security and might perhaps claim to have the support of the allied forces, but the Iraqis only consider him worthy of the sole of their feet for his role. That's so much to say about the anger toward a distant country whose soldiers are dying to bring some normalcy in a country that wouldn't have meant much had there been potato fields instead of oil wells.

Why isn't Bush's policies directed toward the military junta of Myanmar or the oppressions in Egypt? If this experiment in the middle-east succeeds, the actions of the United States will become even bolder despite the falsity of the statistics upon which it waged a war. The United Nations should play a decisive part in the world affairs. The US cannot dictate the roles of the UN just because it is one of the highest donor countries. Nobody wants an invasionist America today.

Perhaps the shoe-thrower would have felt otherwise if the UN had played a decisive role in his country.

Extreme Fishing: Not for Amateurs (Video)

2009-03-12T10:33:00.000-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Population growth, climate change sparking water crisis: UN

2009-03-12T09:35:00.000-04:00

PARIS (AFP) — Surging population growth, climate change, reckless irrigation and chronic waste are placing the world's water supplies at threat, according to a landmark UN report.

Compiled by 24 UN agencies, the 348-page document gave a grim assessment of the state of the planet's freshwater, especially in developing countries, and described the outlook for coming generations as deeply worrying.

Water is part of the complex web of factors that determine prosperity and stability, it said.

Lack of access to water helps drive poverty and deprivation and breeds the potential for unrest and conflict, it warned.

"Water is linked to the crises of climate change, energy and food supplies and prices, and troubled financial markets," the third World Water Development Report said.

"Unless their links with water are addressed and water crises around the world are resolved, these other crises may intensify and local water crises may worsen, converging into a global water crisis and leading to political insecurity at various levels."

The report pointed to a double squeeze on fresh water.

On one side was human impact. There were six billion humans in 2000, a tally that has already risen to 6.5 billion and could scale nine billion by 2050.

Population growth, especially in cities in poor countries, is driving explosive demand for water, prompting rivers in thirsty countries to be tapped for nearly every drop and driving governments to pump out so-called fossil water, the report said.

These are aquifers that are hundreds of thousands of years old and whose extraction is not being replenished by rainfall. Mining them for water today means depriving future generations of liquid treasure.

Fuelling this is misuse or abuse of water, through pollution, unbridled irrigation, pipe leakage and growing of water-craving crops in deserts.

Applying pressure from the other side is climate change, said the report.

Shifts to weather systems, unleashed by man-made global warming, will alter rainfall patterns and reduce snow melt, scientists say.

The water report was first issued in 2003 and is updated every three years. The latest issue, entitled "Water in a Changing World," is published ahead of the fifth World Water Forum, taking place in Istanbul from March 16 to 22.

The mammoth document made these points:

-- DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH is boosting water stress in developing countries, where hydrological resources are often meagre. The global population is growing by 80 million people a year, 90 percent of it in poorer countries. Demand for water is growing by 64 billion cubic metres (2.2 trillion cubic feet) per year, roughly equivalent to Egypt's annual water demand today.

-- In the past 50 years, EXTRACTION from rivers, lakes and aquifers has tripled to help meet population growth and demands for water-intensive food such as rice, cotton, dairy and meat products. Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of the withdrawals, a figure that reaches more than 90 percent in some developing countries.

-- ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION from water pollution and excessive extraction now costs many billions of dollars. Damage in the Middle East and North Africa, the world's most water-stressed region, amounts to some nine billion dollars a year, or between 2.1-7.4 percent of GDP.

-- The outlook is mixed for key UN MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS, which in 2000 set the deadline of 2015 for halving the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The target on drinking water is on track but the tally of people without improved sanitation will have decreased only slightly by 2015, from 2.5 billion to 2.4 billion.

-- Water stress, amplified by climate change, will pose a mounting SECURITY CHALLENGE. The struggle for water could threaten fragile states and drive regional rivalry.

"Conflicts about water can occur at all scales," the report warned, adding: "Hydrologic shocks that may occur through climate change increase the risk of major national and international security threats, especially in unstable areas."

-- Between 92.4 billion and 148 billion dollars are needed annually in INVESTMENT to build and maintain water supply systems, sanitation and irrigation. China and developed countries in Asia alone face financial needs of 38.2-51.4 billion dollars each year.

-- CONSERVATION and reuse of water, including recycled sewage, are the watchwords of the future. The report also stressed sustainable water management, with realistic PRICING to curb waste. It gave the example of India where free or almost-free water had led to huge waste in irrigation, causing soils to be waterlogged and salt-ridden.

Source: Google News

UN comes to Charles Sobhraj's rescue

2009-03-11T20:11:00.000-04:00

KATHMANDU: In a fresh twist to the six-year-old saga of Charles Sobhraj's arrest and murder conviction in Nepal, that electrified the world

almost three decades after his criminal career had ebbed, the UN has taken up cudgels on behalf of the 64-year-old, giving credence to his claim that he was the victim of fraud and injustice in the Himalayan republic.

After losing the battle for freedom in Kathmandu's district and appellate courts, which held him guilty of the murder of American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975, Sobhraj, a cult figure in the 70s with reports of his preying on western tourists and staging audacious jail breaks, approached the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva last November for "justice".

According to Sobhraj's lawyer in Paris, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, the only "evidence" police produced to prove that he had come to Nepal in 1975 – which he denies – werephotocopies of two guest registration cards. According to the prosecution, Sobhraj had visited Nepal in 1975 using the passport of a Dutch tourist and stayed in two upmarket hotels. The handwriting in the two hotel guest registration cards, they claim, matches Sobhraj's handwriting.

Sobhraj's lawyers have reject the cards, saying they are crude forgeries by police. More importantly, photocopies are not admissible in court as evidence, according to Nepal's laws. Though several judges asked police and the prosecutor to produce the actual cards, Coutant-Peyre pointed out to the UN office that they had failed to produce them in six years. She had also complained to the UN that Nepal's officials were deliberately delaying the trial.

Last week, Sobhraj's prayers were heard when Ibrahim Salama, chief of the Human Rights Treaties branch at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, informed his lawyer that the UN body is taking up his case. Salama also said that his office has asked the Maoist government of Nepal to send its reply to the complaints within six months.

A triumphant Coutant-Peyre said she was happy that the UN has taken up Sobhraj's case.

"Though a new republican political system has replaced absolute and arbitrary monarchy in Nepal, there is no progress in the judiciary, of whom Charles Sobhraj is a victim," she told TNN. "I hope Nepal will be severely condemned for these violations and the nightmare endured by Charles Sobhraj and his family for five and a half years will end soon."

Sobhraj, who has been stopped from meeting visitors in prison except his lawyers and fiancée, was upbeat at the news, his Nepali lawyers said.

The 64-year-old alleges that bribes were paid to secure a conviction against him. He also says once he is released, he will use the "incriminating tapes" and photographs in his possession in his new book on his trial and imprisonment in Nepal that will "expose" the "rampant corruption in police and judiciary".

Source: Times of India

Hub among 1,000 cities to turn out lights for climate change

2009-03-11T19:42:00.000-04:00

By Michele Richinick, Globe Correspondent

Lights on the famous Citgo sign, Zakim Bridge, Prudential Center, John Hancock Tower, and other local landmarks will "go dark" for one hour this month as Boston joins cities across the world in a climate-change campaign.

More than 1,000 cities in 80 countries are expected to participate in Earth Hour on March 28, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. World Wildlife Fund, the event's sponsor, is asking individuals, businesses, governments, and organizations to turn off their lights for one hour to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate commitment to finding solutions.

"We are asking people to vote with their light switch," said Dan Forman, a spokesman for World Wildlife Fund.

"For every light they turn off, it is in effect a vote for action on climate change."

Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced Boston's participation in the campaign yesterday at a news conference.

"We are very happy everyone in the mayor's office is fully on board," Forman said. "Boston has always been thought of as a progressive-thinking city. For them to come out and take action on climate change and rally the citizens behind this shows [Boston is] making a commitment to join a global deal when it comes to climate change."

Other participating US cities include Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas, Forman said. The town of Acton is also on the list, which Forman said grows "by leaps and bounds" each day. Universities, including Harvard, have signed up to campaign for the cause.

Two million people participated in the first Earth Hour in 2007, which began in Sydney.

Last year, the event went global, with more than 400 cities around the world participating. Lights on structures including the Golden Gate Bridge, Sydney Opera House, and Empire State Building also went dark last year, as well as the Google homepage.

Fifty million people around the world - 36 million in the United States - shut off their lights to raise awareness last year.

Source: The Boston Globe

Dalai Lama: Tibet 'hell on earth'

2009-03-10T10:08:00.000-04:00

Tibetans across the world are marking 50 years since a failed uprising against Chinese rule [AFP]

Tibet under Chinese rule has become a "hell on earth", the Dalai Lama has said, as he marked 50 years since a failed uprising against Chinese rule forced him to flee across the Himalayas to India.

"These 50 years have brought untold suffering and destruction to the land and people of Tibet," the region's spiritual leader told thousands of Tibetans in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala, the seat of Tibet's government-in-exile.

His comments came as Tibetan exiles and their supporters held rallies around the world while Chinese authorities imposed a lockdown in the Tibetan region in a bid to head off protests inside its borders.

"Having occupied Tibet, the Chinese communist government carried out a series of repressive and violent campaigns," the Dalai Lama said on Tuesday.

'Meaningful autonomy'

"These thrust Tibetans into such depths of suffering and hardship that they literally experienced hell on earth. The immediate result of these campaigns was the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans."

Tibet: Key dates

1950 Chinese forces invade Tibet

1959 Dalai Lama flees to exile in India after failed uprising against Chinese rule

1960s-70s Hundreds of monasteries destroyed during Chinese Cultural Revolution

1965 China announces creation of Tibet Autonomous Region

1989 Dalai Lama awarded Nobel Peace Prize for leading non-violent struggle for Tibet

2006 Opening of first rail line linking Tibet to rest of China

2008 Crackdown in Lhasa following anti-China protests to mark 1959 uprising

Lamenting that Tibetan culture and identity were "nearing extinction", he said "even today Tibetans in Tibet live in constant fear ... regarded like criminals, deserving to be put to death".

The 74-year-old leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile also repeated a demand for "legitimate and meaningful autonomy" for Tibet, not independence from China.

Beijing brands the Dalai Lama a "splittist" bent on separating Tibet from China, but he said that Tibetans were seeking "an arrangement that would enable Tibetans to live within the framework of the People's Republic of China".

The Dalai Lama fled from Lhasa on March 10, 1959 after Chinese forces crushed an uprising against its rule in the Himalayan region.

Tibet's government-in-exile says that more than 80,000 people died between March and October of 1959 alone and that at least 200 more were killed last year when Chinese security forces clamped down on protests marking the anniversary.

China denies that it used violence to stop anniversary commemorations last year, saying instead that rioters were responsible for nearly two dozen deaths.

In his speech on Tuesday, the Dalai Lama called for the use of peaceful means of achieving the Tibetan cause.

"I have no doubt that the justice of Tibetan cause will prevail if we continue to tread a path of truth and non-violence"

Dalai Lama

"I have no doubt that the justice of Tibetan cause will prevail if we continue to tread a path of truth and non-violence," he said.

In the run-up to the anniversary, China has ramped up security inside Tibet and in Tibetan areas of neighbouring Chinese provinces.

Chinese forces have set up checkpoints to seal off the region while foreign tourists as well as journalists were told to leave several weeks ago.

The government has also apparently stopped internet and text-messaging services - which helped spread word of last year's protests – in parts of the region.

Scuffles

Four protesters were arrested in Australia
but were later released [AFP]

Outside of China, however, Tibetan exiles and their supporters have been holding rallies calling for an end to Chinese rule over the region.

In Australia, scuffles broke out between protesters and police outside the Chinese embassy in Australia.

Police said four of about 300 protesters who marched from parliament in Canberra to the nearby embassy were arrested after they broke through fencing demarcating a designated protest area.

The four men were later released without charge, police said.

In Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, police said some 150 Tibetan exiles staged a protest marking the uprising's anniversary.

Protesters, including monks and school children, screamed "Stop the killing in Tibet" and "Long live the Dalai Lama," as they scuffled with riot police inside a monastery.

Around six protesters were bundled into a waiting police truck, the AFP news agency reported, but were released minutes later.

In the US, on Monday, hundreds of Tibetan exiles and their supporters rallied in front of the White House in Washington DC, with cries of "Free Tibet" and anti-China slogans before marching to the Chinese embassy.

Source: Al Jazeera

The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America

2009-03-10T01:25:00.001-04:00

By 24/7 WALL ST., TIME

Over the past few weeks, the U.S. newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline. The parent of the papers in Philadelphia declared bankruptcy, as did the Journal Register chain. The Rocky Mountain News closed, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, owned by Hearst, will almost certainly close or only publish online. Hearst has said it will also close the San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot make massive cuts. The most recent rumor is that the company will lay off half the editorial staff. Still, that action may not be enough to make the property profitable.

24/7 Wall St. has created a list of the 10 major daily papers that are most likely to fold or shutter their print operations and only publish online. The properties were chosen on the basis of the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition they face in their markets and industry information on how much money they are losing. Based on this analysis, it's possible that 8 of the nation's 50 largest daily newspapers could cease publication in the next 18 months. (Read "The Race for a Better Read.")

1. The Philadelphia Daily News. The smaller of the two papers owned by Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, which recently filed for bankruptcy. The company says it will make money this year, but with newspaper advertising still falling sharply, the city cannot support two papers, and the Daily News has a daily circulation of only about 100,000. The tabloid has a small staff, most of whom could probably stay on at Philly.com, the Web operation for both of the city dailies.

2. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has filed for Chapter 11. The paper may not make money this year, even without the costs of debt coverage. The company said it made $26 million last year, about half of what it made in 2007. The odds are that the Star Tribune will lose money this year if its ad revenue drops another 20%. There is no point for creditors to keep the paper open if it cannot generate cash. It could become an all-digital property, as supporting a daily circulation of more than 300,000 is too much of a burden. It could survive if its rival, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, folds. A grim race.

3. The Miami Herald, which has a daily circulation of about 220,000. It is owned by McClatchy, a publicly traded company that could be the next chain to file for Chapter 11. TheHerald has been on the market since December, but no serious bidders have emerged. Newspaper advertising has been especially hard-hit in Florida because of the tremendous loss in real estate advertising. The online version of the paper is already well read in the Miami area, Latin America and the Caribbean. The Herald has strong competition north of it, in Fort Lauderdale. There is a very small chance it could merge with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, but it is more likely that the Herald will go online-only with two editions, one for English-language readers and one for Spanish.

4. The Detroit News is one of two daily papers in the big U.S. city badly hit by the economic downturn. It is unlikely that it can merge with the larger Detroit Free Press, which is owned by Gannett. It is hard to see what would be in it for Gannett. And with the fortunes of Detroit getting worse each day, cutting back the number of days the paper is delivered would not save enough money to keep the paper open.

5. The Boston Globe is, based on several accounts, losing $1 million a week. One investment bank recently said the paper is worth only $20 million. The paper is the flagship of what theGlobe's parent, the New York Times, calls the New England Media Group. The Times has substantial financial problems of its own. Last year, ad revenue for the New England properties was down 18%. That is likely to continue or get worse this year. Supporting larger losses at the Globe will become nearly impossible. Boston.com, the online site that includes the digital aspects of the Globe, will probably be all that remains of the operation.

6. The San Francisco Chronicle. Parent company Hearst has already set a deadline for shuttering the paper if it cannot make tremendous cost cuts. The Chronicle lost as much as $70 million last year. Even if the company could lower its costs, the Northern California economy is in bad shape. The online version of the paper could be the only version by the middle of 2009.

7. The Chicago Sun-Times is the smaller of two newspapers in the city. Its parent company, Sun-Times Media Group, trades for 3 cents per share. Davidson Kempner, a large shareholder in the firm, has dumped the CEO and most of the board. The paper has no chance of competing with the Chicago Tribune.

8. The New York Daily News is one of several large papers fighting for circulation and advertising in the New York City area. Unlike the New York Times, the New York Post, Newsdayand Newark's Star-Ledger, the Daily News is not owned by a larger organization — real estate billionaire Mort Zuckerman owns the paper. Based on figures from other big dailies, it could easily lose $60 million or $70 million, and has no chance of recovering from that level.

9. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is another big daily that competes with a larger paper in a neighboring market — in this case, Dallas. The parent of the Dallas Morning News, Belo, is probably a stronger company than the Star-Telegram's parent, McClatchy. The Morning News has a circulation of about 350,000, while the Star-Telegram has just over 200,000. TheStar-Telegram will have to shut down or become an edition of its rival. Putting them together would save tens of millions of dollars a year.

10. The Cleveland Plain Dealer is in one of the economically weakest markets in the country. Its parent, Advance Publications, has already threatened to close its paper in Newark. Employees gave up enough in terms of concessions to keep the paper open. Advance, owned by the Newhouse family, is carrying the burden of its paper plus Condé Nast, its magazine group, which is losing advertising revenue. The Plain Dealer will be shut or go digital by the end of next year.

- Douglas A. McIntyre

Barack Obama's stem cell and climate change science is superstition

2009-03-10T01:22:00.001-04:00

By Gerald Warner, Telegraph

Barack Obama is earning plaudits from the "science" lobby, militant secularists and other usual suspects for his decision to lift the Bush administration's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research today. This is being hailed as a new Enlightenment and it is every bit as bogus as the first.

Embryonic stem cell research is a dead end. Embryonic stem cells have not been used successfully to treat any illness, despite inflated claims that one day they will supply revolutionary new treatments for illnesses ranging from diabetes to paralysis. Dr James L Sherley, a Senior Scientist at Boston Biomedical Research Institute in America, has said: "The promises of cures from cloned human embryonic stem cell research are indeed misguided. Whether extracted from IVF embryos or cloned embryos, embryonic stem cells are unable to mend tissues and organs. Only adult stem cells have this ability, and they possess it naturally."

In contrast to the failure of embryo experimentation, stem cells from umbilical cords and placental blood have already been employed successfully to treat leukaemia and anaemia, while adult stem cells have also worked in trials to treat severe heart failure. Most recently, teams of researchers in Britain and Canada have found a safe way of manufacturing stem cells from a patient's skin. The new technology obviates the need to use viruses, which created a risk of cancer, as well as allowing the transformational genes to be removed after performing their function, preventing them from causing any future damage.

By giving a fiscal boost to research that is both ethically controversial and scientifically futile, Barack Obama is directing science onto a negative course. His allocation of federal funds to embryo experimentation makes American taxpayers complicit in the destruction of days-old human beings. In tandem, his embrace of the "man-made" climate change lobby shows that his supposedly enlightened policy is just a new superstition. Presumably, like the Prince of Wales, he believes we have just 100 months to go before climatic Armageddon.

Obama claims that science, not political ideology, will guide his administration. That is transparently not so. This policy is, to the point of caricature, driven by the ideology of junk science, liberal hysteria, and the aggressive lobbying of interest groups hungry for taxpayers' money. Obama is a sucker, impressed by the white-coat pretensions of lobbyists who are the 21st-century equivalents of those seekers for the Philosopher's Stone who plucked importunately at the sleeves of medieval monarchs ("Sire, I have a project...").

This presidency is now firmly set on the road to political, fiscal, cultural and moral disaster. Change we need... Hope... Oh, yeah.

Source: Telegraph

Better Search Doesn’t Mean Beating Google

2009-03-10T00:37:00.001-04:00

By SAUL HANSELL, The New York Times

A headline that kicked around the blogosphere this weekend made no sense to me: “Wolfram Alpha Is Coming — and It Could Be as Important as Google.”

The post — written by Nova Spivack, the chief executive of Radar Networks — took a look at a new sort of search engine being cooked up in secret by Stephen Wolfram, a British mathematician.

Wolfram’s search engine, called Wolfram Alpha, is meant to be able to answer specific factual questions in a far more precise way than any search engine before it. For example, it will parse questions like “What is the location of Timbuktu?” or “How many protons are in a hydrogen atom?” to answer the questions rather than simply pull up sites that have the answer on them.

If it achieves its very ambitious goal, it could be quite useful and influential. (We won’t begin to know until the site opens to the public in May.)

But Mr. Spivack’s post has a critical logical flaw, one that too many people make: Google is a company, while Wolfram Alpha is a technology. They are very different. And it is Google’s success with users and advertisers that made it “important.”

First of all, companies constantly change their technologies. What would it mean if your operating system had a better file system or interface than Windows? Not much. Over 20 years, Microsoft has constantly evolved the technologies it uses to build its operating system products. If you are going to build a new one, you need to compete with what your rival will do in the future, not what it does now.

Similarly, it is a mistake to assume that the search engine used on Google today mainly uses PageRank, the algorithm that was the center of Google’s first product. Google doesn’t boast about it, but it already uses the latest trendy idea in search — “semantic” formulas that try to understand what the words in a query mean. For example, it not only takes into account that “Britney Spears” is a name, not two random words, but the name of a famous person. It will search for Britney pages differently than it will for a name of someone who is not so well known.

Mr. Spivack appears to assume that Google is sticking to its initial methodology and interface of simply presenting links to existing Web pages. He writes that “Google’s index is also incomplete, and always will be. Therefore Google does and always will contain gaps.”

For years, Google has blended hundreds of different algorithms and search methodologies to make a product it hopes will attract users. It already provides direct answers to some simple questions, like currency conversions. And it invites users to contribute information that is not already in its index, as in Knol and YouTube. Google may fail, but not as Mr. Spivack seems to imply, because it mindlessly sticks to one approach.

More important, successful companies succeed for many reasons in addition to the quality of their products. When a technology start-up begins to do well, it is like a snowball rolling downhill, as technology, packaging, marketing, sales, customers, developers, brand reputation and a lot of luck bind together to create momentum that then feeds on itself.

Back to Microsoft: There are lots of people who believe that there are better operating systems available today than Windows. The question is, how very much better do they have to be, and what else needs to happen, to unwind the self-reinforcing ecosystem that lets Microsoft dominate the PC business? Windows now is just one of Microsoft’s products.

Mr. Spivack wrote about Google, not simply Google’s search product. But even if that’s what he meant, you can’t really separate the product from the business. The company’s importance stems from the breadth and depth of its offerings, such as e-mail, maps, cloud computing and most important, advertising. The search engine itself draws money, technology, employees, attention and support from the Webmaster community in part because of Google’s momentum in all its other activities.

In addition, the factual queries that Wolfram Alpha is geared to answer aren’t the queries that make billions of dollars for Google. Google’s money comes from commercial questions like “Mother’s Day roses” and “Thai restaurants Philadelphia” that bring in the advertising dollars, some of which are used to improve results on all sorts of queries.

Wolfram Alpha may well have an idea about how to make money. It may not matter even if it doesn’t. Sergey Brin and Larry Page didn’t know how their nice little pellet of technology would roll downhill picking up one of the best business models and most powerful brands the world has ever seen.

I don’t want to be too hard on Mr. Spivack, who has done a great job breaking the news of what could well be a very interesting technology. But I think he, and so many others who write about technology, would be better off being clear that technologies are simply some of the raw material from which important companies are made.

Source: The New York Times

One Lucky Head

2008-12-08T17:34:00.003-05:00

Do not stare at their faces. Do not look at their dresses. Do not laugh. Do NOT try to talk to them. Just walk straight. Look far away. Do NOT laugh.

My mom repeated endless instructions as we planned to visit a local street market for the first time since my dad's transfer to Tizit, a remote village in Mon, the “backward” region in northeast India. His promotion as inspector in the state police earned him the transfer in a new duty station. The 6th Nagaland Armed Police Battalion in Tizit was a fairly new unit and the most unfavorable destination of all the six police units in Nagaland, and the most dangerous. The area was infested with separatist National Socialist Council of Nagaland rebels, popularly known as “the underground.” But this was also the land of the fierce dao-carrying tribes, the head-hunting Konyaks.

All of us carried some impressions about this tribe as we prepared to leave for the market. I was 11 years old. Boys in my neighborhood had filled my ears with bits of bizarre images about them.

They just wear a strip of cloth to cover their genitals. (Even women wore scantily on their top and covered their chest with heavy traditional ornaments.)
They have black teeth. (Because they chew katha-paan, a mix of wild red bark, beetle leave and raw beetle nut that perpetually made their teeth black)
They cut off your head if you laugh at them. (It was believed they hung human skulls around their houses to show off their valor and compete to become the village lord, gaonbura).
They drink opium flavored tea. (Tea mixed with opium, known as kani.)

As we were reaching the market I could see blur images of some nearly cloth-less men walking on the sides of the road. At that age I was already aware that walking naked was immensely obscene. My sense of decency mattered to me immensely. After all I was taught in school that a proper dress is the mark of civilization. Therefore, these scenes of half-clothed men resembled pictures in my history book that talked of Iron Age.

Dad’s driver pulled the Jeep near a huge mound of red soil through which passed a 2-lane state highway. As I got out from the back of the vehicle, I saw several pairs of walking buttocks of brown men who hung their flickering dao, a machete with a very short handle, on their backs. All walked barefoot. Their neatly trimmed head resembled a mushroom sprout. Some men wore necklace that had replicas of human skulls. Later, dad told me that the numbers of the head in this skull-necklace increased as they added human heads in their houses. Most adults had the tribal blue marks on their face with some dots in their chin. Their cheek bone rose prominently in sunken cheeks. One could count the neat shape of the muscle in their arms, thighs and back. I thought if they spread their arms sideways, they would become a perfect scarecrow. I whispered my thoughts to my mom. But she walked stone-faced. Perhaps any manifested humor would mean another head in the house of the tribe.

The market smelled raw vegetables near the street and smell of dried fish came at the other end. One tribal man wearing half-pants and vest had spread out large chunks of pork meat on the table. His hands were smeared with blood. Other men and women squatted on the floor with their produce. Some smoked bidi, unrefined tobacco wrapped in tendu leaf. They sold yams, wild shoots, michinga leaves, peppers, cucumbers, mustard leaves and many more roots and weeds whose names remain a mystery even today. In the interior portion of the market some makeshift shops were set up by the Biharis, Assamese, Marwaris. These were the plainmanus, people from the plains, or people from different states of the Indian union other than the hilly Nagaland.

Truly speaking, anyone from outside Nagaland was a plainmanu – an outsider. It was the obvious anthropological distinction. The Nagas, comprising Angami, Ao, Sema, Konyaks, Lotha, Rengma, and more than a dozen other tribes, were indigenous to the state who spoke their own tribal dialects of the Tibeto-Burman family. All others were plainmanus who spoke other Indian languages. The neighboring Assamese people influenced in the development of Nagamese, a pidgin with Assamese and Hindi vocabulary that became the lingua franca of the Nagas. We all spoke Nagamese. It is this language that binds the locals and the plainmanus. Underneath this bond, however, exists a tension that no plainmanu wants to ignite.

Plainmanus were denounced because they held jobs that locals would have held. They ran the administration, business, hospitals and schools since the 1950s when the Indian government brought in “outsiders” to run the state machinery. Some people came from nearby Nepal. Dad got enlisted in the early 1960s after working as an elephant-chaser in Bhutan as a boy, and later, working for a judge in Assam. Now after nearly 25 years in service, he spoke most of the Naga languages, but not Konyak, and knew how to deal with the locals and the undergrounds who were becoming more militant in demand of their rights. He would always keep several 750 ml. of XXX Rum for unexpected strangers. I was beginning to realize that when the rebels needed some revelry they would come to our house. When dad asked his orderly to carry couple XXX bottles, I knew there was someone in the market who had to be acknowledged. That was necessary for a plainmanu’s survival.

Of course, as a boy, I had heard it all and seen it all. In this market when my mom selectively chose to stop at shops run either by a plainmanu or less ornamental local women, the amorphous relationship shared by the locals and the outsiders made a tell-tale sign of the undefined antagonism that existed between them. Women like my mother only ventured into those comfort zones. But that’s not why I came to the market. Her routine did not seem romantic to me. When she stooped to ask for a price of an item, I would try to get a quick glimpse of the facial marks on the women’s faces. Some women had thrust the 6-inch hollow silver torch light in their ear lobe as an ornament. Even the women’s teeth were black. But by following my mom this way in the market, it was almost becoming certain that I would not get a chance to peek at a house that hung several human heads. Well, some boys had told me there was one such house near the market.

At a Marwari’s shop when mom paused to buy some lentils, I quietly crawled out of her attention to stroll in the market and to look for the skull-house. At that age nobody wants to become a mamma’s pet. What stories would I take to my boys? That I held my mamma’s pinkie throughout? That escape meant so much to save me from the disgrace to let the boys know of my great adventure to the house of skulls.

The escapade and the courage came with a sudden confusion. The snaking market corridors that I walked just a while ago now seemed a little strange, more frightful. It was only the walking buttocks that kept me amused. A little further toward the ridge of a nearby river, a group of men flocked at a Bihari’s tea stall. I wanted to know whether they bought kani-tea.

“Bhaiyya, kya ka chai hai?” I asked in Hindi. (What tea is this, brother?)

“Phika chai,” he said. (Raw tea.)

It was common for the locals to drink raw tea unlike plainmanu’s style of adding milk. But this cleared my doubt that the man did not prepare kani-tea, and so, he was uninteresting. I only enquired whether he knew of a skull-house nearby. He said he has never heard of it. Perhaps one didn’t exist today. But how could my boys go wrong? And why would all men carry a dao on their back? What purpose did it serve other than head-hunting?

Then, very boldly, I turned to the locals and asked them whether all had human heads in their house. One of the younger men suddenly stood up and grabbed my hands. He spoke fast in an unintelligible language as he dragged me a few steps and shook my innards. None other men spoke. His eyes bulged red, his breath smelled bidi. I looked at the Bihari whose eyes seemed unsympathetic. Other men spoke in Konyak and tried to pacify the young guy who was now reaching behind to grab his shining 20-inch dao. Every year during Dasain, the 10-day Hindu festival, we marveled at a similar weapon used for animal sacrifice in a temple. Now I felt like an animal whose head will gloriously hand among several unfortunate others. Customers who were buying something now looked the boy shrieking and shouting. The guy’s friends struggled to snatch the dao from his hand. I hadn’t even practiced screaming in the past, but now I shrieked loud.

In a flash, my dad appeared and grabbed the young guy’s hand. His police uniform and imposing built body froze the guy. I thought, brave dad. The guy blurted out something in Konyak, which I am sure was his best expletive. An angered Naga isn’t pacified by an apology. Dad just waved his hand to the men gesturing, ‘Go away.” Then, turning toward me, he gave a piercing look, and twisted my left ear so hard that I heard some cracking sound. I knew a sound beating waited for me at home.

Nobody spoke in the Jeep when returning home. But, I had enough stories for my boys.

A quest for home

2008-11-17T12:56:00.004-05:00

It's a tiny Himalayan Kingdom locked between India and China that locals call it the Land of the Thunder Dragon. It's a country that receives hardly 20,000 tourists annually through a controlled policy. Its pristine valleys resonate the bells from the Buddhist monasteries. It hasn't attracted any attention of the media either. But the expelled Bhutanese refugees who are now being resettled in third countries like the United States are bringing tales of lost homes and lost hopes amid the discrimination they faced at the hands of the Druk regime that they know it as "ethnic cleansing."

In 1992 Hemlal Subba, 43, walked two hours with his pregnant wife, their 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter to catch a truck to flee a land they thought that also belonged to them. They marched toward neighboring Nepal where thousands others have found shelters in one of the seven camps set up the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

"We were 28 people in the group. Four families, all relatives," recollects Sukmati, Subba's wife of the same age.

By mid-1992 nearly 90,000 people were expelled, mostly the inhabitants of southern Bhutan. These new settlers came in the late 19th century from neighboring Nepal when Bhutan opened up the settlement to increase cultivation.

There is no statistic that shows how many of these refugees actually came from Nepal and how many from northeast India. They settled in the sparsely populated temperate and semitropical zone in the south.

Subba's parents acquired citizenship in the 1958 citizenship act that legalized the entire population known as the Lhotshampas, the Nepali speaking Bhutanese.

The wealth in the southern belt brought prosperity among the migrant community some of whom went on to occupy positions in politics and bureaucracy. This became a threat to the political order dominated by the Ngalongs and the Sharchhops.

The modest lifestyle of many southerners like Subba came to a threat when in 1985 they were asked to provide evidence of their settlement in 1958 or risk being expelled.

It is that political decision that begins the story of nearly 110,000 refugees living in the impoverished camps. The King proclaimed that this action would boost the Gross National Happiness of the average Bhutanese. Subba is unaware of what Gross National Happiness is that Bhutan prides itself of, but he knows that India's business interests in water-resource rich country has much to do with unsolved refugee crises.

For 17 years Hemlal Subba lived with his family in a thatched roof in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal. It was their home. They guarded it zealously and prayed that the house be spared from the erratic fires in the camps. When his youngest daughter was born in the camp, he feared she would first be identified as a refugee and her identity will be questioned in a land where her ancestors once belonged to.

"Living in a camp is just survival," Subba says.

Even the thought of a modest living in a refugee camp is a luxury. The odds they encounter become a routine. A lifestyle.

Now Subba has a different routine. Almost a fictional lifestyle.

The fallout of 15-rounds of failed talks between the governments of Nepal and Bhutan spurred United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, UK to announce they would absorb all the refugees into their countries. Tek Nath Rizal, the leader of the refugees fighting for the right to return went on a hunger strike to pressurize Bhutan.

"It's now all about my children and a better life that I had hoped for them," says Subba. Though he agrees with Rizal, he knows a different future lay unfolded for him in the United States.

The transition from a stoned-roof, wooden house in Bhutan to about two decades of misery in the camps makes a stark contrast to a modest two-bedroom apartment in Akron.

"The government takes care of everything here for them until they become independent," said Goran Debelnogich, Director of the International Institute of Akron that facilitated the arrival of Subba's family.

Resettlement is not just a physical relocation, it's everything about settlement in a normal way. It's adjusting one's mindset to the environment. It's acceptance and searching for as sense of belongingness that has long been lost.

The International Institute gave the Subba's the power of speech by teaching them, and other settlers, to learn to speak English. But it's a slightly different story for the kids.

"They give food here in schools," says Kamala, the youngest daughter in grade 9.

With a new found hope and a secured legal status, Subba's soul seems to have rejuvenated to forgive the torture and humiliation he once faced.

"I had never dreamed I would own a car," he says talking about his first Kia possession that he bought by paying $3,200. Cash.

Happiness is about independence, being able to do what one wants.

It wasn't a new lifestyle he sought, neither did he seek a home in a developed world. His only subtle quest was to reaffirm his identity that he could proudly claim his own with an unalienable birthright.

Kent State woos students through social networking sites

2008-09-24T11:05:00.004-04:00

In a Web 2.0 environment where tech-savvy individuals consume every possible multimedia resource, universities are soon tapping into some of these resources to reach out their targeted audience.

With a large undergraduate population turning to numerous Web spaces, the need to communicate with this group through such sites has become a necessity. That’s the reason why Kent State launched its YouTube and Facebook pages recently.

Flo Cunningham, director of University Communications and Marketing, said such an effort is important as other universities have already begun using social networking sites.

“This is about connecting people,” she said.

The university’s UCM made the recommendations to use social networking sites as the Web is increasingly becoming the main source to obtain information. While the YouTube videos present the university’s academics and facilities, the Facebook pages have photo albums, announcements of upcoming events, stories from KentNewsNet.com through RSS feeds. UCM hopes that this will “allow future and current students to feel more connected to the school.”

comScore.com reported a surge in Facebook use last year with the maximum use from the age group of 18-24 years when it opened to addresses other than the .edu accounts. This college-going population use numerous sites that UCM plans to incorporate.

Lin Danes, electronic communication and Web content manager, believes that this initiative will also attract potential students though this is not used as a marketing tool.

“We don’t see this much as a recruitment tool so much than as an engagement tool,” she said.

Why social networking?

Many students who use such social networking sites see this as an opportunity to meet their peers and associate with their interests groups in the virtual world.

As a freshman Nick Allison, 18, Spanish major, joined Kent State’s network to find people he could go out with as he did not know anyone in the campus.

“Facebook helped me a lot. I met my best friend through Facebook,” he said.

Allison is a fan of Kent State’s page, but is unaware of the YouTube page.

Many students are unaware that these pages exist. The UCM has taken an integrated marketing plan to make these sites popular. Manager Danes said that if the UCM’s media team picked up something interesting, chances are that it will appear in the homepage, online magazine, and print magazine. There is an effort to tie these contents into the social media sites.

The social media ratings and report services, developerAnalytics, says more than 128 million people use Facebook in nearly 60,000 networks. Kent State network has more than 36,000 unique users including alums and part-time students. The university’s Facebook page is registering an average of 70 fans per week. The largest university in the state, Ohio State, has the highest number of fans with more than 10,500 people joining the page since its launch in December 2007. However, it has not enabled the Wall for comments much like the Ohio University.

University authorities seem very cautious at what type of contents to allow on such pages. Despite its large fan base, officials at Ohio State believe that they might not have enough control over the messages.

The cost of maintaining these pages is another factor why the university is reluctant to activate the Wall for more interactivity.

Ted Hattemer, director of New Media at Ohio State said, “At present we don’t have the resources to maintain social media sites.”

Like Bowling Green State University, even at Kent State, only content administrators have the option to post photos and videos as a separate unit of staff has not been assigned to manage the social networking site. Danes, who also moderates the Wall, hopes people will “respect the space.” The privilege to post also comes with a warning that comments will be edited for “profanity.” Since it’s too early to determine how people will abuse these pages, parameters on content management have not been formulated.

The university had banned the use of Facebook profiles in the past. Student-athletes were asked to withdraw their profiles in June 2006 as the university felt it compromised the university’s image.

UCM’s future plans

Corinne Galvan, 18, undecided major freshman, says there should be interactive features to visit these sites. Though she has been using Facebook for two years now, she was unaware of the university’s page. She believes the pages should have videos and pictures that reflect what it is to be like a student at Kent State.

“I’d like to see videos about campus life outside of the classroom,” she said after watching some of the YouTube videos and becoming a fan.

As the pages are template driven, manager Danes feels that the contents they produce should be more appealing than the page itself. All contents on YouTube and Facebook are now produced by UCM’s media team with some student support. Prior to launching these pages, UCM relied on its past research with high school students on what kind of contents appeal them, but the viability of social media pages have not been tested. Usability testing on social media sites, using the resources of the university, is planned for Spring-2009. Until then, UCM will continue to add other social networking sites such as MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Digg in an attempt to offer alternative platforms to both current students and non-students.

Danes said it may be too early to establish whether these sites actually help in the promotion of university and keep the student community vibrant on the Web space, but she is optimistic of the benefits.

“It’s very early in any kinds of return on investment with social media…but not trying getting into those niche areas would also be a pitfall,” she said.

First impressions in “America”

2008-09-12T19:48:00.002-04:00

“Look!” Pema grabbed her friend’s hand as she pointed toward the entrance of Save-a-Lot. Both girls giggled, and then they looked at each other and burst out in silent laughter.

Just by the entrance where the grocery carts were lined up, two adults were kissing, lip-on-lip. It was barely dark.

These exchange juniors from Nepal had seen such scenes in western movies, but for Pema this encounter was a little too early.

“Aren’t they both females?” Pema asked, startled.

The girls did a double-take at the couple unmindful of the people going in and coming out of the store. As they approached the entrance, their dying giggle died abruptly. Now their eyes watched their own steps – left right left right. They were like those firm steps of uniformed men marching in a ceremony. Quietly, they walked on the dark carpet. From the left corner of their eyes they saw the entrance door sliding open and from the right corner they saw four white feet. One wore sandal with strings the other had flip-flops.

Pema, 22, had been in “America” for just three weeks, and she was not impressed at all. She thought it was the country of tall buildings with “wide wide” roads. At least that’s what she thought she saw from the plane as it passed through the shimmering Chicago sky. Here in Kent, the tallest building she has seen is the university’s library, a mere 12- stories high. She regretted not being in a city that would have meant living in real America.

“Kent is not even like Kathmandu!”

Did those Hollywood movies lie? Where are those skyscrapers and the rush in the street? The yellow cabs, busy traffic, glass-caged mannequin wearing Lacoste or Nike – where are those images?

“Of course, I am not in New York, but people think we live in really tall buildings and eat only burgers.”

Her dad was not carried away by such American myths; he simply did not want Pema to go abroad as she already had good education in Nepal. But her mom knew education in a foreign land would do a lot better. Even when Pema’s elder sister went to the UK for her MBA, she wouldn’t want to go.

In fact, Pema had rarely gone out of Kathmandu, except while visiting some nearby cities like a tourist with a hotshot camera.

With three daughters in the family, Pema played the “boy” in the house. Now she has grown into that role and wants her parents to stay with her when two others go to their husband’s home after marriage.

“I came here only because the program is for less than two years.”

In the first week of her class she emailed her best friend --

“I hardly understand the teachers... I miss home.”

As she talks with her family and friends through free internet calls, she mentions what food she cooked or which new place she visited. With few close friends, that’s the only pastime she has for now.

“American students don’t develop friendship easily. They only smile for a second. You only have few friends here and not enough places to hang around.”

The formal atmosphere defies the instant possibility of building casual relationship among her peers. The only thing that impressed her instantly was how her mails arrived on time, how the garbage cans are cleaned daily, and how neatly people formed a line in the rush cafeteria.

“I also want Kathmandu to have some of the good things found here. But it will take 20-30 years to change. Nepal is only influenced by bad western culture.” Perhaps the openness in the street and in human body is what she refers to as “bad.”

In the segment of the city where she grew up, Buddhist monks in red robes would casually walk with strings of beads in their hand silently chanting Om mane peme houm. Elders would be called by the name of the relationship and not by their first name. Everyone who is not a friend is either an uncle or aunt or brother or sister or some in-law. Even plunging blouses are rarely seen, not even in Thamel, a tourist district in the capital city that flourished during the 1960s as western tourists bought cheap marijuana and introduced high culture.

When Pema saw those “uncomfortable” Hollywood scenes in Nepali theater, all taboos were demystified for a while. But she knows she will also change.

“I don’t know how I will be influenced. Maybe it will start with the clothes.” And she chuckles.

[Pema is not her real name.]

Dasain Sacrifice

2008-09-11T12:30:00.001-04:00

Some 200 people had gathered outside the temple. It was Navami, the ninth day of Dasahara. Another most important day in the 10-day Hindu festival when the victory of good over evil is celebrated. It was early morning. Probably around 8. A large group had made a circle around a place that had a wooden pole pierced to the ground. That placed was consecrated as holy. In early dusk, some apprentice priest had smeared cow dung around the pole. Actually, cow dung puts off the files.

People, mostly men, in sandals, boots, canvas stood waiting. Little kids with their muddy feet pushed their way to the inner circle. All waiting to see that ultimate moment.

A small crowd made their way toward the circle following a priest draped in white who carried a plate full of flowers and vermilion mixed with rice. A bundle of incense stick protruded out. Behind him was another man in white dhoti. Larger than everyone in the crowd. His chest was bare. In his right hand he carried a heavy machete that shone in the morning sun. Two strands of cloth, one in white and other in red were tied at the handle. Behind him, two men pulled a horn-less buffalo that marched quietly oblivious to its fate.

That was the beast everyone waited to appear. That was the beast that will represent this year's evil. That was the beast everyone will cheer when the large man will strike upon and separate its head with a swift stroke as the priest mumbles some obscure Sanskrit verses in praise of non-violence and peace.

Broadcast Beat Reporting: Legacy

2008-09-08T13:20:00.002-04:00

This "Legacy" was written for Gary Hanson's incoming class of Fall 08.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to this class! Relax and calm yourself. Because the soul of BBR settles only in a calm body. Did you just read ‘soul of BBR?’ Yes, you did! This class has a soul, a personality of its own that will become your part. And Gary will release bits of this soul into your life in a way a kangaroo rears its joey. Very soon, you will slip out of that BBR pouch and hop around on your own. Until then, stay in Gary’s pouch - fully protected, fully nourished as he shows you a glimpse of the broadcast world. He is the man who will teach you to stand just on your tail.

With a pack of legacy you also must have received a syllabus. Don’t be intimidated by its detail. You will get used to it eventually. But remember, the chunks of activities you see there are similar to the ways in which we compartmentalize our daily works. For this class the first thing you must learn is to chunk out your time for BBR so that you can fit other activities. Gary will tell you that you’ll spend at least 20 hours a week. In initial weeks, I spent 40!

Let me tell you three most important things you will need right from the start.

No. 1: Acquaint yourself with the basics of making a package. [A package is the actual story that you produce for TV2. You will find the story idea, write the script, do the shooting, and edit it. All by yourself!] Don’t be overwhelmed.

No. 2: Work on your script as much as you can.

No. 3: Learn to use your camera and practice getting stable shots.

As a reporter you are expected to know your beat well. Kent State has a lot of activities going around that you can cover. If you are short of any story ideas, ask one from a TV2 producer. Once you have the story, focus on how much information you can collect for your story. But remember, you may have wonderful stuff in your camera, but if you don’t use that, it means you didn’t have it. What comes out in the package is what matters.

[some parts deleted]

While covering your beats you will realize how difficult it is to get information. Keep the tape rolling and ask questions that you did not plan. If you planned three questions, ask ten. Get into conversation. That’s how you get good soundbites.

Sometimes you may have to follow up because you did not have the right shots. You may think why, after all, it’s a two-minute story. Why should you bother? No. it makes a difference. In broadcast, the right shot is called the ‘gold coin.’ If you have that, you made it.

When you do your Viewing Assignments, take notes. Observe carefully the packages produced by the giants. Identify the key production elements, like shots type, natural sound, and the use of those ‘gold coin’ moments. The earlier you can identify these elements, the sooner you will learn to use them.

Unlike print or radio, TV reporting depends mostly on visual support. For your package you must try to get as much visual cues as possible. This means that besides getting the interviews, you need b-rolls that speak for themselves. Shoot generic as well as specific stuff. Get a variety of shots. Wide, Medium, Close-up and very tight shots. This is a tough job. You will still learn to do this in a good way even when you are in your final packages. But as you work on your script, think of an audience who might be doing something else while keeping the TV switched on. Your script must have as much information for a person who cannot ‘watch’ the story without actually watching it.

Remember my kangaroo analogy at the beginning? As the joey dares to come out in the wild, the first thing it learns is to evade away from the enemies. Do you know what’s your biggest enemy in production? Shaky videos. A bad video is no video at all. Until you are absolutely stable without a tripod, always use it. Carry a bag that fits your camera and a tripod. If you are using a small camera (ZR800 Canon), you don’t need a heavy tripod.

Your survival also depends on getting the audio right. Toward the end of the semester we came to know about the concept of ‘Mic the dog.’ This means, if you want a good audio you need to have the mic as close and as always as possible.

As you critique your packages, see how successfully you have used these clues.

As a BBR student, you are automatically a TV2 reporter. Be proud that you are getting a chance to work for a station that has live newscasts. If you have any new ideas, you can have your own TV show. You will have a lot to learn while working for TV2.

This is great opportunity to work in a converged newsroom. Very soon you will realize you are working with a producer, videographer, graphics designer and others. Since the work you do will be used in the news, take this opportunity to do something that can be used in your own package. It may not always happen, but if you plan it out with your producer, it may work out. Get an opportunity to work either as a talent (people who do the newscasts) or as tech (people at the control room). That way you don’t just do the usual chores required by the course, but pick up skills in media in action.

You are in a great class with the most committed professor. Take advantage of it. Perhaps, one day you’ll learn to balance yourself on your tail like a kangaroo.

Good luck!

How realistic South Asian leaders could be

2008-07-30T14:32:00.001-04:00

South Asian leaders in Colombo are going to make another "historic" declaration at the 15th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit scheduled for 2-3 August. This year the Summit will be held amid two political uncertainties in the region: formation of a new government in Nepal and a week after Indian prime minister won the no-trust vote over the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. For two days leaders will try to hold off bilateral differences and focus on removing trade policy barriers in favor of intra-regional trade.

With the transition from SAARC Preferential Trading Agreement (SAPTA) to South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), the first step toward regional economic integration is complete. By 2012 the member-states, other than the four Least Developed Countries -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives and Nepal -- will reduce their duty to zero percent. These LDCs have until 2015 to fulfill this commitment.

India has a crucial role in realizing the SAARC ideals as it shares borders with all member-countries. A cordial bilateral relationship, especially between India and Pakistan, should build up trust toward regional cooperation. The current Indo-Pak trade under the Most Favored Nation status remains at below $2 billion, but experts talk of a $12 billion potential.

However, the ongoing hostility has thwarted prospects of any regional integration including cancellation of several summits.

India's considerable business interest in the region remains unexplored due to fragile political landscape in the sub-continent. Investors like the Tata Group are keen on setting up steel, fertilizer and power plants in Bangladesh that aims to bolster the economy of India's Northeastern states benefiting 40 million people. Such capital investments and enhanced commercial activities can bring down trade imbalance of $100 million exports and $2 billion imports.

Despite volatile political climate, Nepal opened up its market by recently awarding a 300 megawatt hydro-electric contract to GMR Energy, an Indian infrastructure company. However, the soon-to-be-formed government must create conducive environment for foreign investors. Two multinational subsidiaries, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive, closed their operation due to insecurity. Since SAFTA also does not accommodate Indo-US ventures, and is thus ineligible for duty-free access, the Summit has a serious business to do.

The Summit should work toward goodwill measures in the interest of the region by increasing people-to-people contact as promised in recent declarations. Increasing physical connectivity, liberalizing visas for education, media and medical purposes are as important as duty-free access to goods. More specific cooperation can be reached in the sub-regional "growth quadrangle" comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal for power and water sharing.

Another contentious issue is cross-border terrorism. While India does not want any categorization of terrorism, Pakistan maintains some acts are "freedom struggles." Since both the countries have rejected the role of the United Nations in dealing with the Kashmir issue, the call for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism among member- nations remains significant. India now seems to favor the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001) to deal with terrorism.

Although the difference in approach over terrorism exists between the two arch-rivals, other bilateral issues in the region should not build further acrimony. Only recently India provided a soft-loan of $1 billion to Sri Lanka to upgrade its defense capabilities, and the two nations may ink a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) on the margins of the Summit. India is further planning a multilateral cooperation to set up gas pipeline through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Therefore, a regional consensus to contain terrorism and violence is as much important for big countries as it is in the economic and social interest of the smaller nations.

In addition to goodwill achievements, such as setting up of the South Asian University and agreement on SAARC model village, the Summit has to work toward a functioning South Asian Customs Union and operationalization of the SAARC Development Fund. The Intergovernmental Agreement on establishing the SAARC Food Bank is a credible move in dealing with the food security. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also put this agenda at the forefront, besides climate and fuel crises.

SAARC observer-countries have shown immense interests in the development of the region. The Chinese proposal for a China-South Asia Business Forum and SAARC-Japan Special Fund could actually complement the intra-regional development vision. The Summit should be able to accommodate trans-SAARC issues beyond rhetoric.

To achieve all these, an effort in "building of trust and understanding" among member-states has been long due for the realization of a South Asian economic union.

Originally published on The Kathmandu Post.

Anticipating personality cult in Nepali Maoists

2008-06-11T14:08:00.005-04:00

Only a few factors can be combined to conclude why the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) rose to power in just a matter of a decade. The armed struggle that began in February 1996 culminated in the civil uprising of April 2006 placing the CPN-M as the most decisive factor in the political history of Nepal. The people who put forth the agenda of federalism were not only radical at the time but they also molded the belief of a large mass to unite against the age-old institution of monarchy.

With the success of the Constituent Assembly election, which the United Nations called it “a historic achievement,” the nation waits to see how the leaders who once believed in armed rebellion conduct through a parliamentary process. One of the biggest concerns today is what kind of character will the Maoists develop given their history of coercion and intimidation. Will Nepal eventually become a totalitarian state like most communist regimes in the past? What is the impact of charisma in communist leadership in the context of Nepal? Will the modest background of leaders like Pushpa Kama Dahal ‘Prachanda,’ Dr. Baburam Bhattarai and scores of others eventually evolve to become autocratic once they have the democratic mandate?

Another concern in Nepali politics is concluding the intention of the Maoists who often say that to achieve a ‘higher ideal’ they have accepted ‘bourgeois democracy’ for now. Therefore, the abolishment of monarchy is only the first step. The socialists interpretation of poverty among the proletariat is due the rise of capitalism. However, since the Maoists are not opposed to capitalism this ideological shift creates confusion.

Does this mean the CPN-M leadership has a secret plan that will thwart the present agreement in which the UN is directly involved? As the Maoists have not disclosed their plans for the federal restructuring of the state, does it mean they are open to discussions, agreements and compromise? And if yes, until when?

We ought to see transitional democracies with some skepticism, especially when radical communists become powerful.

Media Stereotype: What is normal and what is a type?

2008-05-20T10:49:00.010-04:00

Stereotype seems easy to define: an image that people hold about other people; but it is difficult to rationalize. When people have a "fixed mental image" that is applied to members of a group, it might seem justified because this image has been unconsciously approved by people who constantly use it.

At one level stereotype actually helps people to get a larger picture of the "other" who is different from the rest, and therefore, the general opinion is an economical way of viewing the world. So, can journalists also go by these stereotypes?

We see people using stereotypes in every culture. Some usage may be humorous while other can be negative and scathing.

The world of entertainment is replete with creative uses of stereotypes. In 2005, Screen Actors Guild commissioned a research on stereotypes that reported actors with disability faced “stereotypical” attitudes and were considered only for supporting roles. People with disabilities are rarely “allowed to develop into fully-rounded characters or shown as valuing and participating in typical activities like sports or fitness, thereby further reinforcing stereotypical views." This situation isn't likely to change in the next decade.

However, other groups of minority have had a favorable stereotype. For instance, in the United States Asians are considered as some sort of wiz-kids. In the 1960s, William Petersen wrote for the New York Times Magazine about the Japanese as the “model minority.” All immigrant communities in the US have some kind of stereotypes associated to them because stereotyping is deeply rooted in human nature.

In Bollywood movies, stereotypes of territorial regions or communities are predominant. For example, a south-Indian Tamil will be shown to be speaking a distorted version of Hindi, a north-Indian UPite is almost always a beetle-nut chewing bhaiyya (literally, a brother but used pejoratively), Pakistan is always India’s enemy, and a Nepali is always a baton-bearing Gurkha gatekeeper or night watchman who patrols the urban streets.

One such recent example of extreme stereotyping is the Hollywood blockbuster Borat. This movie outrageously ridicules Kazakhstan to the meanest degree. The humor in the movie comes from cynical portrayal of their habits and customs. I've talked to couple Kazakh nationals and they don't find this humorous at all. They felt it created an erroneous ethnic prejudice and created an unfair label about their people. The government of Kazakhstan objected to the movie for its misrepresentation of the country. Forbes.com reported about the “pernicious influence” of the movie and how government of Kazakhstan launched a massive ad campaign to salvage the country’s image.

An important question to answer is, does the entertainment industry reflect the characteristics of the society? If not, what ethical consideration should it make to create a better understanding of the ‘other’ culture? Can the media, both as journalism and creative arts, truly play a catalytic role? Do mass media have a responsibility to differentiate between reality and stereotype?

In the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, there is a clear guideline, “Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.” This guideline almost puts a journalist to perform a didactic role in an attempt to treat others with dignity. That is for journalists who strive for objectivity.

But how much is too much in the field of creative expression? Is there a line that one shouldn't cross? Well, that's another serious debate.

An onward march toward media professionalism in Nepal

2008-05-09T19:30:00.007-04:00

(This is an excerpt of my short analysis of the struggle between free press and professionalism after the restoration of Democracy in 1990.)

Nepal has been a democracy in the making for more than half a century now. Theoretically, all the four Constitutions since 1948 supported the ideals of liberalism and pluralism. In the democratization process, journalists claim to have played an important role in the “upliftment of Nepalese society” (FNJ, 2008). The first step toward professionalism was the establishment of the Press Commission in 1959. The formation of a 12-member Press Council in 1972 was the next important decision that aimed to develop “healthy journalism” (Press Council Nepal, 2008). However, the history of the press goes back to as early as 1851 when prime minister Jung Bahadur Rana started the Giddhe press. Fifty years later, Gorkhapatra, a state-owned newspaper came to the scene. But the press could not enjoy full freedom, especially after 1960 when the party less Panchayat system of government controlled the press. The Council was forced to follow the policies formulated by the government of the time.

Unlike the development of media in the region, Nepal was silently left out due to its internal political instability and little geo-political significance in the region. Constitutional guarantee of the press came to a complete halt when the King dismissed the elected government and assumed executive powers in 2005. The hope for free press is revived once again after the April 2008 Constituent Assembly election which is charged with the making of a new constitution. Until then, the Interim Constitution of Nepal-2007 continues to guarantee “full freedom of the press” (The Interim Constitution, 2008). To help the press function professionally, the Code of Journalistic Ethics has been revised and amended in 2008 (Press Council Nepal, 2008).

Present Issues of the media

Though the idea of free press was upheld by the rulers, it did not thrive as a profession until after the restoration of democracy in 1990. The history of Nepali journalism has been dominated more by the diktat of the political parties who had been fighting the autocratic rule in the nation. Since the media supported the democratic ideals, it tended to naturally align with the politics. In the past two decades, the media have been operating more or less independently, both as a profession and as business.

The two biggest challenges for the Nepali media are raising the professional standards and catching up with the pace of the technology, both in content generation and distribution. The use of New Media technology in communication is still a distant dream. Less than 2 percent of the total population has access to the Internet (Towards a Digital Future, 2004). Therefore, the Nepali media are still traditional as compared to media in the western world.

On one hand there are media organizations that are engaged in traditional journalistic enterprise, on the other hand there is a need to participate in global issues (UNESCO, 2004). In true essence, the Nepali media didn’t carry out the watch-dog role until the restoration of democracy in 1990. The development of media has been supported mainly by foreign sponsored agencies. The ideology of the nation that supports any project has influenced the development of the media. For instance, a German sponsored project run by FES-NEPAL states its preference to enhance media coverage in “issues pertaining to conflict management and strengthening media role in democratization process” (FES-NEPAL, 2003). Another program implemented by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives in 2006 focused on “transition to peace and democracy.” One of the objectives of the program was to “increase access to information and diversify public debate on issues critical to the political transition” (USAID/OTI, 2007). However, the program spent only 5 percent of the total $3.5 million budget.

Several international projects of similar nature are implemented in Nepal. But there are hardly any national or international strategies that focus on improving the overall quality of journalism. While there is a general agreement that journalists lack proper training and need specialized skills in reporting, partisan media have themselves been the biggest impediment in creating a value-based journalism. Since the development of journalism has been a fight for the freedom of press, the question of journalist integrity has received less attention.

For example, in June 6, 2001 a privately owned daily newspaper published an article by an underground Maoist rebel leader criticizing the king for masterminding the infamous royal massacre. The editor-in-chief and two executives were immediately arrested on sedition charges. The arrest led to worldwide condemnation and an appeal to release the journalists. Yubaraj Ghimire, the editor-in-chief, later said to the New York Times that his decision to publish the article was to present uncensored views of “person whose opinion is important to the nation” (Dugger, 2001, “Plot Thickens in Nepal”). The author of the article reacted to the incident after six months and wrote in the Monthly Review saying “Since a strict press censorship is imposed and the general public is subjected to one-sided royal military propaganda, the outside world is forced to buy the deliberately floated theory that the fight there is between ‘democracy’ and ‘terrorism’” (Bhattarai, 2002, “Birth Pangs of Democracy”).

Media Censorship

On February 1, 2005, King Gyanendra took absolute power by dismissing the government on charges of not holding the general election and the inability to restore peace. Immediately after he appeared on the television, telephone lines, cable and Internet connections were cut. The Army started patrolling the streets. Houses of prominent leaders were surrounded by the military. This was the second time he assumed political power after he became King in 2001 following the Narayanhiti Palace massacre that saw the death of 10 members of the royal family.

After the takeover, the fundamental rights of the citizens were curtailed. Military personnel were posted in media outlets and all news reports were monitored before they were published. There was a complete ban on FM stations that broadcast news. Equipments from stations were seized and journalists were beaten up. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in its 2006 report mentions that out of 1,066 cases of media censorship worldwide 567 alone were recorded in Nepal including two deaths. (Reporters Without Borders, 2006). Nepal was also placed in the list of “Enemies of the Internet” (p. 6). Even though the emergency was lifted on April 30, the independent media lived in great fear as a result they started imposing self-censorship. Even the state-run media faced some amount of censorship.

It was only when the press was facing such extreme censorship, Nepal got into the blogosphere. Views that could not be expressed in the mainstream media were now seen in blog sites like blog.com.np and mysansar.com. The educated Nepalese people craved not just for news but also waited for the censorship to be over so that they could see the media function the role of watch-dog, a role that was just beginning to be realized as an effective means in nation building process.

Brief history of Journalism in Nepal

The year 1950 marks the beginning of democracy in Nepal. With the end of Rana oligarchy and the return of King Tribhuvan B.B. Shah to Nepal from exile in India, democratic institutions were formed on the models of the Western countries, especially the UK. The freedom of the press has always been guaranteed with the promulgation of the constitutions in 1962, 1990 and 2006, but time and again the state has imposed restriction of some kind. There is hardly any historical record between the period of 1851 and 1960 with regards to the state of the media. When the state-run Radio Nepal was established in 1951, it had the characteristics of an Authoritarian model. But over the past decades the impressive development of community-radio stations has set a model even for commercial stations that broadcast in community-radio style. This transition from a strict control to following a Social Responsibility Model has not been that successful in the print media. The state-run Gorkhapatra that started as a weekly in 1901 was converted to a daily in 1960. However, even until today, the newspaper could not break away from the grip of the government, primarily because of the state control in appointing the management board.

The situation is similar in the state-run Nepal Television that was established in 1985. The total number of newspapers has increased by more than 60 percent since 2000. As of April 2007, a total of 4,600 newspapers have been registered, out of which 341 are daily newspapers and 1667 are weeklies. (Nepal Press Institute, 2008).

With the opening up of airwaves in 1995, commercial, cooperative and community-owned radio and television stations showed their independent presence. This breakaway from state-control and control from the political parties is the first step toward professionalism.

The community-owned FM radio stations are now networked to benefit from programs produced by other stations. In 2001 a project called Networking FM Radio Stations in Nepal (NFMRSN) was supported by Center for Advanced Media Prague and Panos Institute South Asia. The objective of this project was to “enable all radio stations in Nepal (FM/AM/SW) to benefit from shared program content by establishing a network that connects them through a mixture of internet, wireless and other new media technology” (PANOS South Asia, 2007). Nearly 50 FM stations currently run programs through such networks.

The most impressive feature of the growth is the spatial distribution of the stations across the nation ranging from lowlands to midland to remote areas. The initiative of the private sector is a breakaway from the state-centric model that was characteristic of the Southeast Asian political culture. Atkins (2002) mention that the idea of nation-building was tied to the media policy, and “television worked both to educate and promote national identification in the interests of national development and cohesion” (p. 14). Since the politics in the region has to accommodate a diverse culture, mass media was used to propagate messages that favored the ruling parties. Domestic media organizations were required to support state authorities by airing positive news about the government and ignoring the negative news of the opposition.

The idea that free media will disturb the social cohesion of a diverse society was a strong argument that leaders in Southeast Asia pursued for nearly half a century. However, the wave of liberalization in the 1990s, finally, paved a way toward free media enterprise that also influenced the scenario in Nepal significantly which brought professional interest in the practice of journalism.

(Write to me to read the complete paper. Thanks!)

Powerful Friendship Kills Professional Ethics

2008-04-28T12:22:00.003-04:00

When Kantipur, the most-widely read vernacular daily in Nepal, came in the scene two years after the restoration of democracy in 1990, people had high hopes toward independent media and other democratic institutions. In fact, Kantipur's early success was due its ability to fill the void that the state media had created. People needed to know more than one side of the story, and Kantipur told them without an agenda. That's what I thought what Kantipur was - a newspaper without it's own agenda, a newspaper that "served" the public - until the day when I met the chairman who told me and my friends why his newspaper would not publish the acts of nepotism of the Vice Chancellor of Kathmandu University where I worked. That was the day when I lost hope in Kantipur. This is the same daily that fought so bravely against the corrupt monarchy. It dared to publish articles by an underground Maoist leader for which the editor and two executives were locked up in 2001.

When we met the chairman of Kantipur Publications Pvt. Ltd., we gave him proof of how the VC had blatantly compromised all academic and professional values in the university. We gave him facts about all acts of nepotism, like appointing his brothers, daughter and close relatives in academic and administrative positions. We told him how he influenced the admission, examination and how he virtually controlled everything in the university. Besides his own act of nepotism, we gave sufficient proof of how other administrative heads are directly involved in policy-level corruption. We met the Chairman as members of a newly formed professors' association that was agitating to oust the VC.

(Please remember that the editors of Kantipur told us they cannot publish without the publisher's consent.)

After listening to everything that we had to say, he frankly told us, "The VC is my friend. I have known him for 20 years now. He has asked me not to publish anything against him. What you are saying is true. But I will not publish."

We had nothing to say after that. We did not argue. We did not rationalize. Later, we discussed how a poor country like ours is ruled by a bunch of corrupt people who thrive purely on such collusion.

How can we further the cause of democracy if universities and media don't function transparently? How can media serve the public if they have their own favorite agenda?

Later, we organized a series of protests against nepotism, corruption, and lack of transparency in the institution. We took the case even to the prime minister who heavily favored the VC. It was the biggest revolt in the history of the university. After our visit to the PM's office, one of the technical staff was called by the dean in his office and threatened to fire him if he went against the VC. Three days later, he committed suicide. No media reported it. The regional reporter from Kantipur had sent the story, but it was not published. The newspaper killed the story in favor of the VC. The wife of the deceased gave a testimony to the media that was sufficient to charge the dean with second-degree murder. But, we later heard that she was silenced with a job in a remote area. The media did not report. The media is least interested to go beyond the PR loop that successfully feeds the 'good image' of the VC who has been head of the institution ever since its establishment in 1991.

I think we have to go beyond write-what-you-see model of journalism to find-out-so-that-others-can-see model if we have to serve in the public interest.

(Originally written for JMC ethics blog.)

Creating Youth Identities in Digital Era (Book Review)

2008-04-08T14:34:00.001-04:00

Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Edited by David Buckingham. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. ix, 206 pp.

The period of youth is a time to define and redefine individual identities in relation to the environment around them. Creating these new definitions is influenced by the way people engage themselves in various socio-cultural and technological entities. Today, the use of technology is one such influence that affects the sense of self in creating an identity.
Unlike two decades ago, today young people are exposed to digital media almost as a natural part of their life. Interaction with digital media forms is becoming a casual routine that has grave implications on their experience as learners or consumers or members of the family. The book deals with the effect of digital media and how it impacts individual in the creation of their social identities.

Eleven authors contribute to explore the ways young people use digital media in their “networks.” The individual liberty in creating one’s own network is what determines the actual level of influence the media forms will have upon that individual. The authors discuss the roles media genres have in both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 settings and explore whether the digital environment actually is a true platform for social interaction.

As digital media become more and more pervasive in our daily lives, their roles “escaped the boundaries of professional and formal practice” which originally led to their development. This “non-institutionalized” use of digital media is best exemplified by the way youths have imbibed the technology in their daily lives almost as a granted phenomenon. The book discusses how learning takes place in such informal and non-institutional settings as digital media cuts across the formal educational settings.

The chapter by Sandra Weber deals with what will become of a “techno-newborn” who is instantly exposed to the multitude means of digital communication. She examines this question with case studies to “highlight the roles that digital media can assume in the construction of youth identities.” Because understanding the identity involves understanding the ways in which digital products are produced and consumed, scholars propose collapsing the two into one word, “prosumers.” This is one of the entry points that unravels the mystery in the construction and deconstruction of youth identity. She refers to how youths visit their Web sites to check the number of hits to understand how their self-created identity is faring in their own network.

Another significant feature discussed in the book is the tendency to break away from the formal educational setting once youth find opportunity to do so. Rebekah Willet discusses the engagement on the Internet within the context of commercial culture to “analyze online activities in ways which account for the power and influence of commercial industries, while at the same time recognizing how young people actively engage with the commodities these industries offer.” Her discussion focuses on the relationship between the “structures of consumerism and the agency of the young consumer/producer.”

Once when television was beginning to be accepted a part of the living room décor, older generation often complained at how the “idiot box” is waning away the creativity of a child. Nevertheless, later generations were born into the house where the TV was always on. The situation is similar today with a new breed of babies born not just with the digital technologies, but with the latest know-how to play with them. On one hand there is a large digital divide across the globe, on the other, there is generational divide – a divide between the older generation separated by youths who are more tech-savvy. Susan Herring’s “Questioning the Generational Divide: Technological Exoticism and Adult Constructions of Online Youth Identity” explores whether the present tech-generation will actually guide the future of the digital media, or whether “today’s young trendsetters become conservative technology users over time.”

In this interesting study, she speculates about the “dual consciousness” of youth perspective to “imagine what the first generation to be raised in a world in which Internet and mobile technologies are taken for granted by everyone will be like.” She concludes saying the “fascination” with technology will move away to focus more on the “communicative needs.” Such needs also function to show “commitments to community dialogue and social justice” as youths engage in social participation. Shelley Goldman and Angela Booker refer to this as “social and cultural technologies.”

Several authors touch upon the notion of “identity politics”- a concept that ties issues of social status. This is manifest in online expression, use of technologies by socially excluded groups. Since the book is about the digital experience of urban youth, there is no evidence how youths in rural areas seek identity with the minimum technology they are exposed to. A pertinent question is, do differing identities also share dissimilar characteristics of identity politics in disparate socio-technological environments? Or, how is individual identity made possible by digital technology?

In this regard, dana boyd analyzes use of social network sites from the perspective of creating “identity formation, status negotiation, and peer-to-peer sociality.” But the study is not clear whether these identities actually give empowerment and promote vibrant social relationship. Whether what is expressed online actually explains why youth engage in digital dialogue is another topic in the book. Because the phenomenon of cyber-bullying has caused deaths among teenagers, it would be worthwhile to understand the relationship between the content and the psychological impact it creates in the process of finding one’s identity. The book could have added a chapter that dealt primarily with theme of how being overwhelmed by the digital technology, youths lose their tendency to mold natural identity but instead mold vis-à-vis the technology around them. Though the chapter “Producing Sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship” tries to fill this gap, elaborate discussion is needed to explain the intricacies of making and breaking of youth identity.

Overall, the book examines identity and tries to explain how youth relate with the digital media. Since explaining an abstract concept in terms of empirical methods poses methodical difficulty, the book does some justice by using the available scholarship till now. I would recommend this book to those readers whose interests lie in media effects, especially to understanding the role of youth as primary actors.

Coverage of the Tibet crisis by CNN.com

2008-04-01T09:38:00.004-04:00

Allison Rupp writes the magnificent journey to Lhasa in his article The Sky Train on CNN.com only three days before the exiled Tibetans in India began their march to China to protest Beijing’s hosting of the Olympic Games. The March 10th protest coincided with the uprising against China that forced the Dalai Lama into exile in 1959. Protests in India and Nepal were marked with violence. News of unprecedented world-wide protests were reported all over the world. The Chinese government ignored the issue for couple days, but as the protests grew more violent, China reacted by saying that the whole episode was orchestrated by the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama has condemned China's statements and extreme actions.

Ever since the protests began, CNN.com has written more than 70 articles to date, and has posted nearly 140 videos on the Web site. This is a remarkable media coverage given the time span of just three weeks.

Let me briefly discuss how CNN.com reports present the Tibetan side of the story more positively or neutrally and the Chinese side of the story more neutrally and negatively. These reports cover violence in different parts of the world, mostly in India and Nepal. The write-up is based on my experience of reading and watching stories posted on the Web site over the period. I haven't employed any empirical methods to come to a conclusion, hence I must warn you the evaluation might seem subjective!

As violence continues across Lhasa and Nepal, the international community has appealed for peace. The European Union has appealed China to handle the Tibet crisis peacefully calling for respecting Tibet's cultural heritage and maintaining China’s integrity at the same time. The Dalai Lama has called this crisis a ‘cultural genocide’ and the Chinese government blames him for perpetuating violence deliberately.

In the CNN.com reports, what is most glaringly seen is the viewpoint of the Tibetans mostly and not that of the Chinese. The Tibetans have a human interest frame, whereas the Chinese have only the official version which is mostly the denunciation of the Dalai Lama. But as we go to alternative media like YouTube, there are several videos counteracting what the western media have been portraying about the protests. These response-videos and blogs have mostly targeted the western media for overweighing the Tibetan’s cause. In doing so, they have used this medium to put forth their own biased message. One of the YouTube videos shows why an independent Tibet is not acceptable to the Chinese.

The video attempts to expose the myth of the ‘crackdown’ in mainland China. It shows images that were actually taken in Nepal and printed by the western media, including the BBC, Bild Zeitung, CNN, Aljazeera, and others. Very clearly, this video itself presents a slant, but the international media haven’t been fair either in reporting the exact nature of violence that erupted in the streets of Lhasa or in Nepal, India or other parts of the world. This is an excellent example of how the gatekeepers control the message in the newsroom. The Tibet crisis also brings the question of whether international media have differing parameters in tackling issues of the Communist regimes like Russia, China, and some Latin American countries. The historical aspect of the country in the present crisis is completely ignored.

The history of how Tibet was a part of China during the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties until the making of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 is what is often referred. China ‘regained’ Tibet in 1950 when it was under the influence of the British Colonial Empire. Historians contest whether Tibet is a suzerain of China or an autonomous region. But the Chinese consider it as part of the territory, much like Taiwan and Hong Kong. While the relationship with Taiwan isn’t what the Chinese want to discuss, Tibet’s case has brought infamy to the Chinese. A majority of the Chinese believe the Dalai Lama is funded by the CIA ever since his exile in 1959. In the news covered by the CNN.com, there is no indication of any covert funding, but the US has sponsored a radio station and a Web site. The Chinese see this as signs of anti-China policy, and actually an instance of supporting the Tibetans cause in breaking away from China.

The media have, however, not reported the history behind the present crisis. News reports have merely focused on the event itself, and long form report that occasionally report the historical facts use most of their space talking about how the upcoming Olympics will be hurt.
Once I had an opportunity to talk to a Chinese student regarding this crisis. He candidly remarked that it’s the so-called ‘fair, western media’ that actually propagates ‘Free Tibet’ slogan more vociferously than the Tibetans themselves.

The Chinese model of authoritarian press doesn’t permit independent reporting. In China, you ought to support the state, and it’s the state’s interests that matters most. The press is the product of the regime.

When the only journalist from the western media -The Economist - was invited to visit Tibet, Chinese official had hoped a more positive coverage based on the subsidy granted. However, the nature of violence was too brutal to be ignored. The magazine reports that Lhasa television “broadcast over and over again, alternately in Tibetan and Chinese, a government statement accusing the “Dalai Lama clique” of being behind the violence by a ‘small number’ of rioters.”

Where can you find a truly objective media?

First impressions and the sanctuary debate

2008-03-11T15:18:00.000-04:00

My first impressions of the United States of America were developed through Western Comics. As a young boy I knew it as a country full of gun-wielding cowboys. Later, when my history teacher said it is one of the super-powers (the other was Soviet Union), I wondered how cowboys could do that. Yet later, most of what I knew about this country would come from television or other media. However, my old image lingers on as I experience a country that long forsook the wagon trains.

Ever since my nomination for a Fulbright award, I thought about ways to deal with the new situations, people and culture here. At the Gateway Orientation in New York, a speaker talked about reverse cultural shock. He said it’s not cultural shock that affects us most in an alien land, but what is more vexing is the reversecultural shock, a phenomenon of adjustment difficulty in home country after having lived here – or any foreign land.

After the NY orientation was over, I was going to my destination university. This event got me to know something odd about airplanes. After waiting for nearly an hour inside the airplane, we finally got the signal to prepare for take off at the J.F.Kennedy airport. As our aircraft slowly took the curves toward the runway, I saw more than 30 airplanes lined up in front of us – all waiting to fly. That meant another one hour wait before we hit the sky.

When I reached St. Paul, Minneapolis, to board my last flight, I found I had less than 10 minutes to get to the concourse where my plane was waiting. There was no way I could get there, not even on a sky-train. I frantically ran over the rolling floors, now cursing the legendary delays of the JFK airport. People run that fast only when chased by a raging bull. But when I got there, the boarding door was already closed. Even the attendants were gone. I had no idea what to do now. I waited at another counter for someone to show up. Shortly, a lady came in. I explained why I was late. I requested her to let me in as the plane was still there. But instead, she told me about the rules and wished me “Good Day!” handing my new ticket for the next flight along with a $10 complimentary lunch
coupon. And then, she went away.

I was now looking at my missed flight through the glass pane, waiting for it to go. But the aircraft didn’t move. Even after half an hour the plane didn’t go. I didn’t know what the problem was, but I thought, may be, just may be, I still had a chance. Luckily, the same lady came and told me I could check in if I wished.

“Definitely,” I said.

“But what’s the problem with the plane?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing. It has a flat tire,” she said it so casually as if she was talking of a hole in a bicycle tire.

This was an amusing discovery after coming to the US.

I arrived here in August 2007 to join a graduate program in journalism and mass communication. The school is surely the owner’s pride with latest state-of-theart technology. The TV or the radio studios of the school are much better than average commercial studios. As a student here, I take opportunities to let people know about Nepal. Not everyone knows where or what Nepal is, but they’ve heard about Mt. Everest and Lord Buddha. That’s where I usually
start at. People seem to show a great deal of interest about the culture. Whenever I talk about the Hindu festivals, it’s a spice. In certain occasions, I talk about how I want to generate resources for institutions in Nepal that teach mass media and also discuss scopes of development.

There are several interesting features of the society here. The most obvious is the respect for laws. There’s so much to appreciate when the road traffic comes to a complete halt as the easily recognizable yellow school bus is taking or dropping off the kids. Or, a salesperson will not sell alcohol if she suspects you are not 21. I was told a story about a child who dialed 911 because her parents were quarreling for too long in the house!

But what fascinated me most was the willingness of a church to allow the Nepali community celebrate Tihar in the church itself. For me, this gesture epitomizes the intermix of faith and secularism of this nation. I want to tell the presidential candidates for 2009 to stop debating that USA is actually becoming a sanctuary. It already is. Isn’t the much sought after peace a by-product of tolerance? Let’s talk of better ideals instead.

Originally published by USEF (the Fulbright Commission) Nepal.

Can BBC fail?

2008-02-19T01:55:00.004-05:00

Let me discuss whether a journalist's superficial knowledge about a particular event could undermine the credibility of a reputable news organization.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is unquestionably the most trusted name in the media when it comes to reporting. Its regional services have been expanded to several countries, including Nepal. These services have been providing international news in local languages. They have been equally resourceful in chronicling a local event and making it international. Local natives who work in the BBC newsroom act as an interface between the larger corporation and the smaller versions of the BBC.

Most times this relationship works, but at times it doesn’t work that well. This leads to not just misinformation but misrepresentation of an event. A case in point is how the BBC Web site in its recent story “Nepal strike hits petrol supplies” on 15 February reported by a BBC correspondent misrepresented facts about the event. It’s not that the news distorts the truth, but it does not tell the truth accurately.

There are two facets to this reporting:
1) Opinion of the reporter
2) Misrepresentation of the situation

While the news story is just a brief overview of the overall situation prevailing at that given time, the story somehow doesn’t correctly say the cause of the event which is the consequence of the larger scenario.

The event behind the news is acute fuel crises in the Kathmandu valley due to strikes in the terai (southern part of Nepal) by various political parties demanding equal representation in the forthcoming constituent assembly. The deck head hints at what the situation is and it is a correct representation of the event in itself. It says, “Nepalese petrol stations have been hit by severe fuel shortages, largely triggered by protesters blockading key roads in the south of the country.”

Being a landlocked country, Nepal is mostly dependent upon India for commerce. One of principle commodities that we import almost entirely is natural gas. But the BBC correspondent does not really investigate this fact. The news says, “Roughly 90% of Nepal's imports travel from India via the southern roads.” The truth is, it is almost 100 percent.

Such arm-chair reporting not only harms the credibility of the news organization but gives out false information. This could have been avoided if the reporters from the regional desks were consulted.

Similar misrepresentation of truth is exemplified by another example in the same story. Toward the end of the story it says, “BBC correspondents say the shortage has also been caused in part by Nepal's failure to pay its sole oil exporter, India, for outstanding fuel bills.”

In the statement above, the actual reason is not the non-payment of outstanding bills alone, but other management issues like leakage and artificial shortage created by dealers. These facts are not highlighted. Instead, the reporter is more interested in stating the fact that “almost half of Nepal's population lives in the impoverished, largely agricultural Madesh region.” Due to the reporter’s weak frame of reference objectivity in reporting is not achieved. Perhaps the news story is an outcome that merely fulfills the basic professional compulsion to cover the event.

Such reporting tactic diverts the readers’ attention from the actual event. Organizations like the BBC have a double responsibility toward its readers: First to say what is accurate, and secondly, say it in a balanced way.

Several questions arise with such reporting style.
1) Who is responsible to verify the information that comes from reporters?
2) Is the fact checked with the right sources?
3) In this case, is it proper to quote other BBC correspondents as sources for the news?
4) What purpose does it serve when a news report try to editorialize?

Since media messages have the potential to influence readers almost instantly, reporters must be careful enough in what they actually say. This is especially true in situations when nations that are poorly represented in the media are covered on the merit of an event that took place, like the fuel crises in Nepal.

What the audience expects to hear about an event should be distinguished from what the audience ought to know. It is this difference that separates good versus bad reporting.