On Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011, Pakistani journalist Umar Cheema (@umarcheema1) won an International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists (you can read his acceptance speech here). He was honored for his bravery after being kidnapped and beaten in September 2010 by unknown assailants. Instead of staying silent as he had been ordered to do, he spoke out about the culture of fear that journalists face in Pakistan. [The photo on the right was taken after his attack.]
The day after the awards ceremony, SAJA and CPJ hosted a conversation about the state of press freedom in Pakistan with Cheema and Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia director. You can listen to the conversation below.
Journalist receives death threat after "memogate" stories
Reporters Without Borders is concerned by a telephone death threat received three days ago by Mohammad Malick, editor of the Pakistani daily The News International, from a blocked number.
On Friday, Oct. 29, 2010, SAJA hosted a Newsmaker Conversation with Shashi Tharoor at Columbia Journalism School attended by more than 200 people from all over the city. The conversation was moderated by SAJA Board member and freelance writer Aseem Chhabra (@chhabs).
Tharoor, a long-time New Yorker and frequent SAJA speaker, is a member of India's Parliament and former minister; author of 12 books; former Under-Secretary General, United Nations. More on him at http://tharoor.in * his Twitter feed is @ShashiTharoor (he has the largest Twitter following in India)
In this rare return visit to NYC, he discussed his experiences in government, his take on Indo-US relations, his writing career and much more... You can see a video clip below, along with audio clips of the entire conversation.
Tharoor part 1_110210 Shashi Tharoor discusses his career at the United Nations. He also talks about India's role in the US-led war in the Middle East.
Tharoor part 2_110210 Shashi discusses how a strong relationship with the US serves India's pragmatic interests. He also speaks frankly about the experience of running as a politician in Kerala.
Tharoor part 3_110210 Since becoming a member of parliament in India, Shashi offers a light-hearted account of the difficult lessons he learned along the way, including the infamous "cattle class" statement that drew him national attention. Finally, we hear about why he is tweeting less these days.
Tharoor part 4_110210 Shashi talks about what it takes to be a successful politician in India, and some of his side projects.
A view of the Joseph Pulitzer World Room at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.
The civil war in Sri Lanka has attracted greater international scrutiny within the past week, with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay suggesting that both the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) may have committed war crimes:
Warning that the loss of life may reach "catastrophic levels," [Pillay] urged the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels
to halt hostilities to allow the evacuation of civilians trapped on the
northeastern coast.
Pillay said the government had repeatedly shelled the designated
"no-fire" zones for civilians and also cited reports the separatist
guerrillas were holding civilians as human shields and had shot some as
they tried to flee.
"Certain actions being undertaken by the Sri Lankan military and by
the LTTE may constitute violations of international human rights and
humanitarian law," Pillay said in a statement.
"The world today is ever sensitive about such acts that could
amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity," added the former
U.N. war crimes judge, who is a member of the Tamil ethnic group and
grew up in South Africa.
Pillay called on Sri Lanka's government to grant full access to
U.N. and other aid agencies to monitor human rights and humanitarian
conditions amid reports of "severe malnutrition" among those trapped. [link]
Pillay stated that as many as 2,800 civilians have been killed and over 7,000 injured since January, and that as many as 180,000 civilians may be trapped in the conflict zone.
Others in the international community have raised similar concerns. According to the International Committee for the Red Cross, the humanitarian situation faced by civilians in the conflict zone is "deteriorating by the day." Former special advisor to the UN Secretary General Lakhdar Brahimi says that the humanitarian crisis places Sri Lanka "on the brink of catastrophe." In a phone call to to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed "deep concern" about escalating civilian deaths and urged the Sri Lankan Army "not [to] fire into the civilian areas of the conflict zone." The European Union has also called for a cease fire to permit trapped civilians to escape the fighting.
Sri Lanka disputes the UN's figures — the LTTE, the government asserts, has "infiltrated certain personalities into these agencies" — and has rejected calls for a cease fire. More details are available in two stories from the BBC World Service's Evening Report, linked above (and here and here). However, according to the Christian Science Monitor:
[T]he sensitive data aired by Ms. Pillay were based on firsthand daily reporting by UN national staff and aid workers trapped in the no-fire zone. A copy of a recent UN briefing paper that was obtained by the Monitor listed similar casualty figures and described mounting casualties in the squalid, densely packed coastal strip. "Daily incoming artillery and mortar fire has caused large number of casualties with a noted increase since 26 Feb," it said.
The briefing paper said several weeks of food and medicine shortages had led to deaths from malnutrition and from preventable diseases. [link]
Meanwhile, SAJAer Angilee Shah has published a feature article in the Far Eastern Economic Review (which was reported from Colombo, Singapore, and Los Angeles with the support of a SAJA Reporting Fellowship) critically examining the consequences of the Rajapaksa government's aggressive approach to prosecuting the civil war:
President-elect Barack Obama's selection of conservative fundamentalist minister Rick Warren, who supported California's Proposition 8 in last month's elections, to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration has caused many of Obama's progressive supporters to feel a sense of "betrayal," as Neil Buchanan has written at Dorf on Law. Singer, songwriter, and Prop 8 opponent Melissa Etheridge, who is openly lesbian and has been a longtime activist for gay rights and other progressive causes, had much the same initial reaction. While she had never previously heard of Warren, she wondered whether Warren was a "hate spouting, money grabbing, bad hair televangelist like all the others," and whether she should boycott the inauguration on account of his selection.
Given the controversy, Etheridge was "stunned" to learn that Warren would be giving the keynote address at the Muslim Public Affairs Council's annual convention in California -- where Etheridge herself was scheduled to appear with Junoon's Salman Ahmad to perform "Ring The Bells," a song they had co-written "call[ing] for peace and unity in our world." (Since December, apparently, is "Using Music to Change the World Month," the MPAC performance was intended to initiate a broader "Ring the Bells for Peace" Campaign, which you can read more about here.)
Etheridge says that she initially contemplated canceling her appearance at MPAC on account of Warren's appearance. However, as she recounts at the Huffington Post, Etheridge ultimately decided on a different approach to the situation:
In an exclusive story this week, Shankar Vedantam, a staff writer and columnist ("Department of Human Behavior") for the Washington Post, was able to contribute to our collective understanding of Mahatma Gandhi.
According to Vedantam, only two speeches that Gandhi gave in English have been recorded. One was from the 1930s and, as described in "Saying His Peace":
Recently, however, the second speech surfaced in -- of all places -- downtown Washington. It had been lovingly preserved for 60 years by John Cosgrove, a former president of the National Press Club. Cosgrove's copy came from Alfred Wagg, a journalist who recorded the speech in New Delhi and produced four 78-rpm LPs that included both Gandhi's voice as well as Wagg's own commentary about the Indian independence leader. Cosgrove discovered the significance of the recording during a chance encounter with Rajmohan Gandhi, when the author came to the Press Club this past spring to promote his new biography.
Gandhi's speech -- made with the uneven diction of an elderly man who sounds as though he has lost most of his teeth -- had the same themes he visited over and over throughout his life: the importance of nonviolence, the eradication of the caste system in Hindu society, amity between South Asia's Hindus and Muslims, and a world united against violence and exploitation.
"A friend asked yesterday, did I believe in one world?" Gandhi says at one point in the speech. "Of course I believe in World One. And how can I possibly do otherwise? . . . You can redeliver that message now in this age of democracy, in the age of awakening of the poorest of the poor."
Read the rest of the piece here. You can listen to the recording below and then watch his grandson and biographer, Rajmohan Gandhi talk about the recording and about his grandfather.
Asked how get got this scoop, Vedantam told SAJAforum via e-mail: "Serendipity + luck. I happened to be at a dinner table with Rajmohan Gandhi when John Cosgrove came by to introduce himself." And the rest is a piece of recaptured history. Vedantam wrote a guest "On Faith" column for WP & Newsweek.com.
Back in April 2008, Dileepan Sivapathasundaram was thrust into the media spotlight when he was detained and then released in Zimbabwe at the same that that New York Times reporter Barry Bearak was arrested (he has since been released, too).
With all the news about Zimbabwe's mockery of an election today, we thought we'd remind you of a webcast we hosted with Sivapathasundaram on May 5, 2008, a month after his release. He discussed his work in Zimbabwe, analyzed the elections, talked about the future of that part of Africa, and much, much more.
Meet Dileepan Sivapathasundaram, a U.S. democracy worker who was arrested in Zimbabwe in April while helping local groups monitor the elections. We discussed his detention, how he was freed and his work as a democracy activist. Sivapathasundaram is a Sri Lankan-American who works for the National Democratic Institute ("a non-partisan, non-profit, non-governmental org that aims to support democratic values & practices in more than 60 countries").
Post your comments below. Journalists want to contact him can write to dileepansiva[at]gmail. Earlier on SAJAforum:
The hottest ticket among South Asia watchers on the day after Pakistan's Independence Day was the appearance at the Council on Foreign Affairs by former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. CFR.org has published the transcript and audio from her conversation with CFR president Richard Haass is on the site. After an opening statement, here's the first question:
HAASS: Let me begin with a -- in some ways it's a question that to me was
implicit in everything you said. You talk about the history of your
country over the last 60 years. What is it about Pakistan or Pakistanis
that accounts for the fact that, probably a majority of its history,
democracy has not prevailed. What's wrong?
BHUTTO: Well, we feel
that the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, died
very quickly, a year after Pakistan was founded, and so we didn't have
a national leader with the authority, the respect to help us develop
our democratic political institutions, whereas Nehru, in nearby India,
provided the leadership that could help a new nation strengthen its
democratic institutions.
Secondly, we also feel that Pakistan's
geostrategic position as a country -- you know, we -- Afghanistan was
the buffer state during the Cold War, and Pakistan was one side of the
buffer state -- so our geostrategic position as the bastion for the
free world also led to the international community dealing with whoever
was in power. So in a sense, the military dictatorships were able to
milk international support for suppressing democratic rights for
short-term strategic goals. But I am concerned that that policy is now
backfiring.
HAASS: Do you therefore actually wish that the United
States and others were putting more pressure on your government to
reinstall democracy?
All this week, Americans have been waking up to an extraordinary story about the Ganges/Ganga River. Actually, dozens of little stories -- and a fascinating cast of characters. NPR's "Morning Edition" has been running a series that ends this morning called "The Ganges: A Journey Into India." For the series, Philip Reeves traveled 1,500 miles from the source of the river in Devprayag in the Himalayas to where it ends, in the Bay of Bengal.
India's holy Ganges River travels 1,550 miles from the Himalayas and
across the plains of north India before spilling into the Bay of
Bengal. A five-part series explores life along the river: its extremes
of ancient and modern, rural and urban, and rich and poor. The Ganges provides sustenance to more people than the population of
the United States. She passes through India's most populous state, its
most lawless state, its holiest city and Calcutta, the country's
cultural capital and latest aspiring technology hub.
It's quite an journey and one well worth following. NPR.org has collected the entire audio and a series of diary entries from Reeves on its site, along with photos by Heathcliff O'Malley [ O'Malley's photos were also part of a London Telegraph series, "A Holy River: A Journey Down the Ganges" by Peter Foster.] Below are direct links to each day's reports. As many of you know, SAJA's own Madhulika Sikka is senior producer of "Morning Edition."
The building on the right is the Manhattan headquarters of Asia Society, the major U.S. home of all things Asian. From its founding in 1956, the nonprofit has grown into a real international force, with offices in various cities around the U.S. and abroad - including the opening of its India center in Mumbai a year ago. Like most big nonprofits, it has put a lot of energy and resources into its website so that it can reach audiences beyond this and other buildings. Actually, the society is more than just one site. It has several sites that extend its mission:
AsiaSource.org
Comprehensive resource with news updates, in-depth interviews on current
affairs, and country profiles.
AsiaFood.org
Resource on Asian cuisines featuring searchable databases of hundreds of
recipes and glossary terms.
AsiaSocietyMuseum.org
Access a database of masterworks from South, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, dating from 2000 B.C. to the 19th century.
InternationalEd.org
Online gateway to improving K-12 teaching and learning about all facets
of other world regions.
So I wasn't surprised to get an alert from Deanna Lee, VP of communications, that they have now launched a weekly podcast. In the first edition, which I just listened to, they pull together a short "newscast" about developments coming out of Asia (Dick Cheney's Pakistan visit; Starbucks and its move into India, an Oscar connection to Asia), as well as preview events coming at Asia Society.
This first effort includes a news roundup featuring interviews with Bernard Schwartz Fellow Pramit Chaudhuri and Betsy Williams, a "Heard At...Asia Society" section with a Lang Lang excerpt, and a "Coming Up" rundown of select events at AS centers this week.
Hosted by Lee, a former ABC producer, it's a great way for the Society to showcase its people and programming and experiment with technologies that allow them to reach a broader audience.
Some of Washington D.C.'s best-known journalists, including Leonard Downie, executive editor of
The Washington Post (right), were among the speakers at SAJA's first ever day-long conference outside New York. In fact, within the first two hours, five Pulitzer Prize-winners had already shared their ideas with the audience of more than 130 journalists. The theme of the conference, which was hosted by the National Press Club: "Journalism in the Nation's Capital: Navigating the Labyrinth."
Unearthing the Big Story: A discussion of some of Washington's biggest stories of the last year, from warrantless wiretapping to congressional scandals, featuring ABC News senior producer Rhonda Schwartz, Jerry Kammer and Marcus Stern of Copley News Service, and Eric Lichtblau and James Risen of The New York Times. Moderated by Chitra Ragavan of US News & World Report Download the mp3 (41MB) and listen to the full session.
The New Wave of New Media: John Harris, editor-in-chief of the brand-new The Politico (and former WP reporter), and Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief Nikhil Deogun talk with Washington Post assistant managing editor Rajiv Chandrasekaran about blogging, online video and the challenges of feeding new platforms. Read a report on the session by Priyanka Dayal. Download the mp3 (38MB) and listen to the full session.
Breaking into Washington Media: What does it take to make it in the nation's capital? Who
will give you a shot when you are starting out? What are editors
looking for in young journalists? Speakers: Dipka Bhambhani, Platts; Ed Foster-Simeon, USA TODAY; Amanda Long, Washington Business Journal; Amna Nawaz, NBC News. Moderator: Vandana Sinha, Washington Business Journal.
Read a report on the session by Priyanka Dayal.
South Asia's Imprint on Washington: Leading journalists representing South Asian and U.S. news outlets discuss how coverage of the region is evolving. Featuring Aziz Haniffa, India Abroad; Selig Harrison, Center for International Policy; Anwar Iqbal, Dawn; Moderated by Patti Tripathi, Tripath Media. Download the mp3 (19MB) and listen to the full session.
Don't forget: This year's SAJA Convention and Job Fair will take place over four days in New York City - July 12-15, 2007. Please mark your calendars and keep an eye on SAJA.org for details.
All this week, Americans have been waking up to an extraordinary story about the Ganges/Ganga River. Actually, dozens of little stories -- and a fascinating cast of characters. NPR's "Morning Edition" has been running a series that ends this morning called 
The building on the right is the Manhattan headquarters of 
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