SAJAforum

MEDIA WATCH: Gay Rights and the Indian Press

On June 29, hundreds of people in Delhi, Bangalore and Calcutta joined an ebullient rainbow of slogan-chanting marchers demanding more rights for gay people in India. (Jyoti Gupta, my colleague on SAJAforum, covered the coverage; flag graphic from here)

For several years, I have been trying to gauge attitudes in the Indian media towards gay issues and to draw some general conclusions. Although one often hears that Indian society as a whole is not welcoming towards gay people — whether it is conservatives or gay rights activists making the claim — the Indian media, and indeed the Western media reporting on India, are full of gay-themed stories. The question is not whether there is coverage of gay people and the issues that concern them, but rather how they are portrayed.

[Note that whenever I say “gay” in this piece, I mean Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT), and whatever other sexual and gender identities people choose for themselves. I am not a fan of acronyms that try to be all-inclusive because they end up excluding people. The term "queer," a convenient catch-all, is often eschewed by journalists because although it is a word that has been reclaimed by the gay community as a positive label, in some contexts it retains its original derogatory sense.]

All the Indian newspapers whose coverage I regularly follow reported on the marches: The Times of India, the Hindustan Times, and Express India (before and after, actually) as well as NDTV, where it is a “most read” story. It received wide coverage in the West, and I read articles about it in The Guardian, AFP, the BBC, The Washington Post, and even in Gulf News (Dubai) and The Scotsman. Newsweek and Time also had pieces. Notably absent was The New York Times, but their correspondent seems to have been tied up with writing a hard-hitting piece on the stalled nuclear deal.

I found Western and Indian coverage of the event largely indistinguishable, which was surprising because there often is quite a difference. The articles said what happened--several hundred people gathered in Delhi, Bangalore and Calcutta and marched--why it was important for the marchers (because homosexuality, or as the Indian Penal Code colorfully states it “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” is illegal in India and they want this changed) and who opposes it (among others, the BJP, which is the main party of the Hindu Right).

AFGHANISTAN: The Trouble with Translators

Without translators, foreign troops in Afghanistan would only be able to communicate with locals by pointing to simple pictures on brightly colored cartoon cards. Translators are indispensable, and yet they rarely appear in media coverage of the conflict.

A remarkable 8-minute video report by John D McHugh on The Guardian’s website, "Afghanistan: Lost in Translation," highlights the extent of the problem by following some American soldiers whose work is hampered and whose lives are in danger because their Afghan interpreter literally lies to them. [Readers should be warned that the soldiers’ language is a bit salty.] As McHugh notes, “The translators have become unexpected powerbrokers…, and sometimes they just don’t translate everything they hear.” [photo by John D McHugh]

Of course, the media have often pointed out the fact that there aren’t enough trained interpreters who know the languages spoken in Afghanistan, but this 8 minute long report breaks new ground by showing what the stakes are for a soldier in a battlezone to be able to communicate with local people. This is my summary of the video:

An American position in Khost Province is hit by rockets launched from somewhere near a village. Soldiers from Charlie Company of the 173^rd Airborne Division go to the village to find out if the inhabitants know anything about the attack. They arrive to find the place deserted—“This is just like every other town, everybody disappeared,” says the American commander.

A lone, frightened-looking man carrying a shovel appears on the road. The translator asks where the elders are. The conversation is a bit confused but the man seems to be saying that they are in their houses. Here it becomes clear that the translator himself does not speak particularly good English. The commander snaps at the translator. “They’re in their house? Are they sick? What did he just say?” The translator tells the man to fetch the elders but he walks off seemingly in the wrong direction. Time passes.

WARFARE: India and Pakistan (and US) won't sign cluster bomb treaty

Over a hundred countries signed a UN treaty banning cluster bombs, and although the US, India and Pakistan didn't attend the talks, some observers say the stigma against using them is so great that even non-signatories will honor the treaty. Khalid Hassan reported for the Daily Times of Pakistan:

As many as 111 nations formally adopted the historic pact (Convention on Cluster Munitions) banning cluster bombs on Friday in Dublin after calls to the weapons’ biggest manufacturers and users, the United States, to join in failed. The five countries that have opted out are Pakistan, India, Russia, China and the United States.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged every nation to sign the pact “without delay”.

The treaty requires states that have signed not to use cluster bombs, to destroy existing stockpiles within eight years and finance programmes to clear old battlefields of dud bombs. Formal signing of the treaty will take place in Oslo in December, while it would take effect in mid-2009.

Human Rights Watch says the treaty will save thousands of lives, "with key treaty provisions stronger than even some of its staunchest supporters had expected."

“This treaty will make the world a safer place for millions of people,” said Steve Goose, director of the Arms division at Human Rights Watch. “Cluster munitions have been tossed on the ash heap of history. No nation will ever be able to use them again without provoking the immediate revulsion and disapproval of most countries in the world.” 

Cluster munitions typically explode in the air and send dozens, even hundreds of tiny bomblets over an area the size of a football field. Used in urban areas, they invariably kill and injure civilians. Used in any circumstance, they can harm civilians even decades after the war is over, as “duds” on the ground act like landmines, exploding on contact.

Watch this video from Human Rights Watch, explaining the impact of cluster bombs.

PHOTO FORUM: Nepal Elections - Prachanda, the Fierce One, by Sumit Dayal

The SAJA Photo Forum presents the work of photographers covering South Asia and its global diasporas in order to highlight important but often overlooked stories.

Nepal Elections - Prachanda, the Fierce One

Text and photographs © Sumit Dayal

Nepalese women wait outside Laxmi secondary school situated in Lanku, Bharatpur to cast their votes.

With Nepal's historic elections of April 10, 2008, for its 27 million people it is a time like no other.  Maoists are set to sweep the elections, giving their leader, Prachanda, once the most-wanted man in the country, a chance to become the first-ever president of Nepal.

Former Nepalese rebel leader and present chairman of the Nepalese Communist Party (Maoist), Pushpa Kamal Daha is also known as “Prachanda,” which means “the fierce one.”

Born in 1954 Prachanda spent much of his childhood in the Chitwan District in Nepal. His family are reported to have been Brahmins of modest means.  He received a bachelor of science degree in agriculture from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science in Rampur, Chitwan.

Former Nepalese rebel leader and present chairman of the Nepalese Communist Party (Maoist) arrives at Laxmi Seondary school in Lanku, Bharatpur to cast his vote.

Under his leadership, CPN (M) launched the Nepalese People’s War on February 13, 1996, when Nepal had just restored multi-party democracy after 30 years of direct rule by the king. 13,000 Nepalis were killed during the rebellion.

Prachanda lived underground even after the restoration of democracy in 1990. Until then a little-known figure, he controlled the clandestine wing of the party. Since 1996, Prachanda has become internationally known as the leader of the CPN (M) military wing and its overall leader.

Former Maoist comrades wait in line to cast their vote inside UN administered Shaktikhor Cantonment in Nuwakot.

In 2006 Sumit Dayal graduated from the Documentary & Photo Journalism program at the International Center of Photography in New York.  He is based out of New York & New Delhi.

See his full feature on Prachanda and the Nepal Elections.  See more of his work at his archive.  See his Postcard from Bhutan at Time magazine.

SRI LANKA: Looking at two Boston Globe editorials

The Boston Globe has an editorial about Sri Lanka this week, one of the only Lanka editorials in a major U.S. daily that I have seen in months. It reminded me of another editorial, from 17 months ago. Turns out that, too, was an unsigned editorial in the Globe. I have posted both side by side below, in case any of you of would like to compare the pieces and comment on the changes, or lack thereof, over the last year-and-a-half. Post your comments below.

GLOBE EDITORIAL Sri Lanka's recurring fever March 17, 2008 ALL TOO many regions of the contemporary world are afflicted with recurring outbreaks of warfare between nation-states and ethnic or sectarian minorities. One of the worst has been festering for the past quarter-century in Sri Lanka, where 70,000 people have perished in intermittent fighting between a government dominated by a Sinhalese Buddhist majority and minority Tamils, who are mostly Hindu.

GLOBE EDITORIAL Sri Lanka's Unending War October 22, 2006 SRI LANKA'S intermittent war between successive governments and the secessionist movement known as the Tamil Tigers has been going on for nearly a quarter century and has taken 65,000 lives. It is one of the most vicious and intractable conflicts in theworld, but receives less attention than other wars that involve American interests more directly.

CURRENT AFFAIRS: Sharia law to destroy Britain?

In the cinematic release of Disney’s Aladdin, a Bedouin peddler sings that Arabia is “where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home." After many complaints, the lines were changed in the video release to something dull but at least not so offensive.

Last Thursday the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, said in an interview on the BBC and at a lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice that some kind of official provision for Sharia law (traditional Islamic law) in the UK “seems unavoidable” (read an earlier SAJAforum post on the matter). Predictably, the interview provoked a glut of angry editorials and comments, and the debate was never about what the Archbishop said or meant but was instead a proxy war of words about the “Islamization of Britain.” There is fear in the land, as I argued in a previous SAJAforum post.

I am thinking about Aladdin because for many in the West, Sharia still seems to be nothing more than a justification for a kind of theater of barbarism that portrayals like the Disney film exaggerate and yet present with naive earnestness. (The Guardian addresses this question in an audio feature.) The fact that most Western legal principles are already contained in Sharia, that it is similar to Jewish law, that it is already widely applied by Muslims in finance and personal life, that under some interpretations it treats women and other oppressed groups very well—none of these things will matter in the firestorm of the debate.

Members of the three major political parties in Parliament immediately, reflexively condemned the Archbishop’s words. Newspapers clambered to write the most bombastic things. The Sun has a “Bash the Bishop” campaign, which claims that 15,000 readers have sent messages in favor of removing Dr. Williams. The Times (London) has on its website a photograph of a veiled Muslim woman in a column labeled "Islamic Law" next to a photograph of the Archbishop looking haggard. (It leads me to believe that newspapers file away unflattering photos of public figures to pull out at times like this.) The Daily Mail has a page of quotations from various public figures, including Dr. Williams’ predecessor Lord Carey (who advises a thinktank that I believe to be xenophobic), shivering at the thought of Islamic law in Britain. On the BBC’s website, a headline screamed “The End of One Law for All?” In contrast, The Guardian, whose coverage has avoided the temptation to scaremonger, has done a good job of cataloging the reactions, and their commentator Madeleine Bunting writes that the issue unleashed “a perfect media storm,” for which journalists should be ashamed.

TECH: A broken cable brings India's Internet to a crawl

The Internet feels elemental, omnipresent.  It is easy to forget that there is a physical reality to it until something mundane but hugely disruptive happens.

On Wednesday an Indian-owned cable in the Mediterranean Sea, just off the Egyptian coast near Alexandria, was damaged by an unknown cause and millions of Internet users across the Middle East and South Asia were affected. More from Reuters:

"India also reported serious disruptions to its services and Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India, told Reuters: "There has been a 50 to 60 percent cut in bandwidth."   

"Chharia told the Headlines Today news channel that a "degraded" service would be up and running by Wednesday night, but full restoration would take 10 to 15 days."

According to The Guardian, the enormous cable runs from Germany all the way to Australia and Japan. At Palermo, Italy, it becomes a submarine cable and reemerges at Alexandria. The Economic Times reports that the cable is the FLAG cable, which is owned by Reliance. (Incidentally, if it is the FLAG then The Guardian has its geography slightly wrong - see this map of the cable's transcontinental route)

BREAKING NEWS: 100 Nepali migrant workers missing in Alabama

This post has been updated after we found that WAAY-TV had misreported the story. The workers were under no contract. While some workers have left Cinram, some are still working there. READ AN UPDATED POST HERE.

Originial Post:

Here is breaking news from Huntsville, Alabama, that I can't seem to get my head around.

About 100 Nepali migrant workers are missing from a DVD manufacturing plant and nobody seems to know where they went or what happened. But there is plenty speculation.

About 100 people who came from Nepal to work at a north Alabama factory seemingly vanished from a pair of apartment buildings, along with a lot of furniture and appliances, and can't be located, officials said Tuesday.    

Immigration agents are trying to determine what happened to the Nepalese workers, among hundreds brought to the United States to work at a DVD factory operated by Cinram Inc., said Lauren Bethune, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Homeland Security.

These workers were hired to work 12-hour shifts for $8/hour.

WAAY-TV, which first reported on this, said the group of workers from Nepal simply disappeared without any warning, creating a potential security risk.

Before leaving, some of the Nepalese allegedly stole furniture and television sets from their furnished apartments. Cinram spokeswoman Lyne Fisher says the missing workers do not pose a security threat. <snip>

Officials at Cinram and Blair Staffing Agency said they believe most of these workers got homesick and went back to Nepal. That has not been verified by the tracking system that Homeland Security officials use. 

WORLD AFFAIRS: Parag Khanna's NYT Magazine cover story

[UPDATE, Feb. 5, 2008: WSJ's Bret Stephens critiques this essay]

Today's New York Times Magazine has a provocative cover image and essay by Parag Khanna, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation (headed by Steve Coll, former WashPost managing editor and South Asia expert). "Who Shrank the Superpower" says:

Just  a few years ago, America's hold on global power seemed unshakeable. But a lot has changed while we've been Iraq - and the next president is going to be dealing with not only triumphant China and a retooled Europe but also the quiet rise of a "second world."

[Am trying to recall the last South Asian byline on the cover of this magazine - anyone know? saja[at]columbia.edu, please)

The essay is adapted from Khanna's book, “The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order,” to be published by Random House in March.

Khanna is director of the New America Foundation's Global Governance Initiative, leading "an effort to find innovative strategies for governmental, corporate, and civil society collaboration to resolve pressing global problems and redefine diplomacy for the 21st century."

Other details from his bio:

Parag Khanna is an expert on geopolitics, global governance, and Asian and European affairs, and was most recently the Global Governance Fellow at The Brookings Institution. He has worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, where he specialized in scenario and risk planning, and at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he conducted research on terrorism and conflict resolution. He holds bachelors and masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and is completing his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He speaks German, Hindi, French, Spanish, and basic Arabic. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Harper’s Magazine, Policy Review, Foreign Policy, Prospect (U.K.), Slate, and Survival (U.K.), and he has been featured on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera International, National Public Radio, and Doordarshan.
E-mail: khanna[at]newamerica.net

Some highlights that have South Asia connections in Khanna's piece, which opens with a future scenario:

SAJA EVENT: Imran Khan talks about Musharaff, upcoming elections at Asia Society

[ See SAJA Resources about the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and its Aftermath ]

Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan spoke to a full house of about 250 New Yorkers this morning at a joint Asia Society-SAJA event moderated by Kiran Khalid, SAJA board member (and director of "We Are Not Free," a film about media censorship in Pakistan). PHOTO: Paresh Gandhi/India Abroad.

“I heard you hosted the envoys of Musharaff,” Khan, said, referring to an earlier event at the same venue. “I hope Asia Society gave them a suitable reception.”

He cited a statement he had received from the Pakistani Interior Ministry, which said that all political leaders must look after their own security.

“That was reassuring,” he said.

His criticisms of President Pervez Musharaff were plenty, though not overbearing, as most of them came with a tinge of humor.

Generals believe in bombing. If weak, bomb them, if strong…retreat.

If he gets away with the election, we are doomed to another dictatorship. Pakistan can’t have five more years of Musharraf.

Someone who could fake sincerity like that, he’s brilliant at it. I fell for it.

The one that got the most applause from audience was:

They don’t have a vision to run a country. Generals should be given projects…like, Go capture that hill!

Khan spent a major portion of his time talking about the inefficient ways in which Musharaff government was fighting extremism in Pakistan. Personally, I thought his knowledge about the problems underlying the tribal regions in Waziristan and Swat were very impressive. Not only did he outline the chronology of problems in these tribal regions, he also gave some ramifications of the way Musharaff government is handling this issue. "Unless a different strategy is acquired, we are going to be in serious trouble," he said.

Listening to Khan talk with ease and confidence about history, economics, world affairs and more, it's easy to forget that he is sort of the Michael Jordan of Pakistani cricket. I can't imagine Jordan or any major American sports figure being able to do anything like this.

He said that the upcoming elections on Feb. 18 would witness “the mother of all rigging.”

CURRENT AFFAIRS: Nicolas Sarkozy and Les liasons indienne

UPDATE: Jan. 25, 2008 - Sarkozy arrived in India today, accompanied by a 300-member delegation but without Carla Bruni. So it looks like policy is going to be the story rather than affairs of the heart.

Original post, Jan. 20:

When French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives in Delhi as a guest at the Republic Day celebrations on January 26th, there is a danger that he will set off an international incident, according to the BBC.

As everyone who has looked at a grocery store magazine rack in the past few months knows, Sarkozy divorced his wife of 11 years, Cecilia, last October and is now engaged to former supermodel Carla Bruni. So if Bruni accompanies President Sarkozy to Delhi and if they are not married by then, how should she be treated according to diplomatic protocol? Like a First Lady? Like any other guest of honor? Should she not go at all?

BURMA/MYANMAR: India policy towards Burma should change, suggests HRW researcher

A lot has been written about India's military policy towards neighboring country of Pakistan. But in a recent article published in openDemocracy, Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch (and former Time South Asia correspondent for many years), says that doing the right thing in Burma, could be the beginning for India to take leadership role in global politics.

This is an opportunity for India to show leadership. Under pressure from the international community, India has suspended military assistance to Burma. India should insist to the generals that they show flexibility and begin serious negotiations for a return to civilian rule. The regime has allowed the United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari and human-rights envoy Paulo Pinheiro to visit Burma. But these tightly controlled visits will mean little for a regime that is determined to consolidate its repressive rule. 

India can no longer afford embarrassing friendships. It should say that without tangible progress on democracy, release of political prisoners and accountability for violations in recent crackdown, all business deals (and not just military sales) will be put on hold. Given the massive poverty in Burma - remember, the spark for the protests was a sharp rise in fuel prices that meant that many were paying more than half of their daily wage just to take the bus to work - and the plundering of the country's wealth by the country's leaders, it should be clear that doing business with Burma is not helping average Burmese. Instead, it is lining the pockets of the elite.

Ganguly writes that while little is expected of China and Thailand in terms of attempt to change military policy in Burma, it is unusual to see India continue to do business as usual.

MEDIA: "Man marries Dog" and other strange tales from India

Serious news organizations often run stories that have no impact on world affairs but merely showcase some of the zany things happening in far-flung corners of the earth. It’s fun to read about the man who was forced to marry a goat in Sudan — a somewhat tragic story since his goat-wife apparently died soon after when she choked on a piece of plastic — but when a Western media organization reports on the odd happenings in parts of the developing world, is there an implicit moral judgment?

India with its vast rural population is a source for many of these stories. Recently the BBC ran an article entitled “Man 'marries' dog to beat curse.” As promised, it celebrates the marriage of one P Selvakumar, a 33-year-old man, to a dog called Selvi in a village in Tamil Nadu. The marriage is intended to cure the groom of paralysis, which the villagers believe has resulted from his having killed dogs. And lest we forget, the Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai allegedly married a peepal tree and a banana tree in order to keep the faults in her horoscope from afflicting her human husband, actor Abhishek Bachchan. Furious feminists brought a lawsuit against Rai, claiming that tree-marriage is against the Indian constitution and that by assenting to such a “primitive” practice, Rai is holding back the cause of women’s rights in India.

PAKISTAN: More TV channels taken off the air

Press censorship in Pakistan has struck a new emotional chord as Geo TV and ARY, two popular independent news and opinion channels have been forced to end their Dubai-based satellite broadcasts by the United Arab Emirates Information Ministry. Shortly before midnight Pakistan time, Geo’s anchors choked up as they said the channel would be going dark. Because cable and terrestrial broadcasting in Pakistan is controlled by the government, satellite was the last opportunity to watch the channels, which have been unavailable domestically for about two weeks.

Geo’s website, www.geo.tv, is currently running a single story: “Musharraf Shuts Down Geo TV” (The text of the statement is also available from the Hindu.) It says that “informed sources” have stated that Gen. Pervez Musharraf himself had a role in shutting down Geo’s satellite broadcast and claims that "Geo News was shut down because it had refused to budge." According the statement, the government stopped advertising on Geo and pressured other advertisers to do the same, leading to 1 billion rupees (around 16 million US dollars) in losses for the channel. Despite the tremendous pressure, Geo never compromised its principles, it claims, and so the government had to act by taking it off the air entirely. The Pakistani government apparently asked authorities in Dubai to intervene, which they did.

PAKISTAN: A Primer on This Weekend's Elections

There will only be about a thousand people voting in Pakistan’s much anticipated presidential election this Saturday. Since most of the electors are from Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s ruling coalition, the odds that he will not be re-elected are roughly the same as the chance that he will be struck by a meteor between now and then. What is interesting is not the pre-determined outcome of the election but the unusually harsh light being thrown on the shady world of Pakistani politics.

The main issue on the table is whether Gen. Musharaff will give up his position as the head of the military to rule as a civilian. He seems to have headed in this direction by appointing a new Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, to replace him as head of the military once he is re-elected President. It is galling to his critics that he is standing for office while still in uniform.

Pakistan is officially a federal republic but the very limited participation of the people in choosing leaders and the enthusiasm of the military to intervene make it difficult to call Pakistan democratic. The 342 members of the lower house of Parliament, the National Assembly, are elected by the people for a term of no more than five years, and the people also elect the members of the four provincial parliaments. But that’s where democracy stops: The 100 members of the upper house of Parliament, the Senate, are chosen by the provincial parliaments with the President dictating how eight federal seats are filled. The President is chosen by an electoral college consisting of the members of the Senate, the National Assembly and the four Provincial Assemblies. In contrast to most parliamentary systems, the President has the real power rather than the Prime Minister. Furthermore, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI), which is the military intelligence service, is deeply involved in politics.

BURMA: A South(east) Asian crisis, and India's muted response

Burma is one of those sleepy, business-as-usual dictatorships that no one in the West pays much attention to until something exceptionally horrible happens, such as the violence inflicted on anti-government protesters this past week. Pakistan and India have both commemorated their 60th anniversaries this year as states freed from the British Empire and we should not forget that Burma, which is in others way so very different, will celebrate that same milestone in 2008.

Burma, or rather Myanmar — we’ll come to that in a moment — is not usually considered part of South Asia, according to the Asia Society, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and many other organizations. However, it comes very close: Burma shares a long border with India and Bangladesh and is set along a once-lucrative trade route between India and China. During the centuries when Indian culture and trade dominated Southeast Asia, Burma was geographically at the center of things and as a result, Buddhism remains the most common religion in the country. (In a truly surreal twist, the military junta justifies its brutal rule with the claim that it is protecting Buddhism.) India still has a significant interest in trade with Burma, including in petroleum, which is comparatively scarce in India, and this has been suggested as the key reason India has maintained silence over the Burmese regime’s abuses. India sees itself in competition with China over the Burmese energy sector, as the Hindu reported in 2005.

Though they are now split by the magical line dividing South Asia from Southeast Asia, India and Burma were amalgamated in the 19th century thanks to colonialism. The history is a bit complicated but basically Burma was absorbed into India as the British fought three wars of conquest against Burmese rulers between 1824 and 1885. George Orwell spent time as a civil servant in Burma and he famously hated it. It inspired Rudyard Kipling to write one his worst poems. In short, Burma was just the eastern frontier of British India.

INDIA: Pratibha Patil Becomes First Woman President of India

Pratibha Patil has been elected the first woman president of India on Saturday, July 21, 2007, after several weeks of confusion and controversy. I was in India when her nomination was brought up and the most common reaction among journalists and everyday folks: "Pratibha who?" Well, now we know the answer: Pratibha Patil, Madam President. Yes, the position is largely symbolic (Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, runs the country; and at present, Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and head of the ruling Congress Party, is considered the most influential behind-the-scenes person).

Here's how the story played in the U.S. media, with the lead sentences:

• WP, by Emily Wax: "Lawmakers elected India's first female president, officials announced Saturday, in a vote seen as a step forward for hundreds of millions of Indian women and girls who face bitter discrimination in everyday life."
  
• LAT, by Henry Chu: "India named its first female president Saturday after weeks of acrimonious campaigning that touched on sensitive issues such as political corruption, partisan gamesman ship and women's rights."
• Reuters: India elected its first female president on Saturday, official results showed, in what supporters called a boost for the rights of millions of downtrodden women, despite a bitter campaign marked by scandal.
• AP, by Gavin Rabinowitz: "India chose its first female president Saturday in an election hailed as a victory for women in a country where gender discrimination is deep-rooted and widespread."
• As of Sunday morning, the NYT had only run the AP story in the paper and online.

Over at the SAJA Discussion List, moderator and SAJA Board member John Laxmi says:

For over 24 hours, visitors to Drudge Report's home page, www.drudgereport.com, have been greeted by a colorful photograph of Mrs. Pratibha Patil (waving a "V" sign") with a link to an AP article titled, "India names first female president."  The Drudge Report site visitor count [10 million+ in the last 24 hours] has been controversial with some critics claiming that Matt Drudge manipulates the statistics. Still, it is a very popular site and has been giving lots of publicity to President Patil.

Post your comments below.

PAKISTAN: William Dalrymple's New Yorker Essay

William Dalrymple, the well-known British historian and writer (see NYT review of his latest book, "The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty"), has a piece of current-day reporting in the latest New Yorker. In the same issue that features Dr. Atul Gawande's piece on "Sicko," Dalrymple has a 6,500-word essay from Pakistan. "Days of Rage: Challenges for the nation's future" opens with crowd of protestors in Islamabad and then explores the forces that are trying to break the country apart and those trying to hold it together.

"All this upheaval," Dalrymple says, "would have been unimaginable even six months ago. Islamabad has long been viewed as a dull city where lobbyists and industrialists bribed politicians, and civil servants shuffled papers and wove great cocoons of red tape amid huge concrete courthouses, ministries, and palaces—a sort of Islamized version of the center of Washington, D.C., air-dropped into the foothills of the Himalayas."

Read the entire piece here and post your comments below.

See all postings in the Pakistan category.

CRIME: Satendar Singh, Hate Crime Victim, Dies in California

On July 1, 2007, Satender Singh, a 26-year-old Fiji-Indian immigrant, was viciously beaten in a hate crime in Sacramento, California's capital. Last week, he was removed from life support. On Friday, July 13, the Sacramento Bee began its story about the memorial service that day:

Today, those who knew Satender Singh will gather at a Sacramento mortuary to mourn a young man whose life ended too soon, in a flash of violence his friends say was fueled by bigotry and fear.

They will come together to remember the 26-year-old, a Fijian immigrant, as meticulously dressed, always sharing a smile and a loud, melodic laugh that infused a room with joy.

Many who didn't know Singh will be there as well. In death, he has emerged as a symbol of wounds that have festered for some time between Sacramento's gay community and members of the Slavic evangelical community, a thousands-strong group that has become a vocal force denouncing gay rights. It is that rhetoric, some contend, that fueled the attack on Singh earlier this month at Lake Natoma.

See a press release below from the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, condemning the violence (Singh was of Sikh descent). Post your comments below.

PAKISTAN: Fareed Zakaria says U.S. shouldn't bail on Musharraf

Fareed Zakaria has a column in the latest Newsweek - "The Real Problem with Pakistan" - pegged to the upcoming release of "A Mighty Heart," the Daniel Pearl movie starring Angelina Jolie (see our earlier posting, "Media Hubbub over Angelina Jolie and 'A Mighty Heart'). In the piece, Zakaria gives a thumbs-up to the film but focuses on the political situation in Pakistan, under General Pervez Musharraf. He looks at the problems and Musharraf's over-reaching, but concludes that...

Musharraf may be doomed—though were he to choose between the presidency and his Army post, and reach out to the mainstream opposition, he might well survive. Still, it does the United States no good to be seen forcing him out. We cannot achieve our goals—or help Pakistan gain stability—by turning our back on the military.

Zakaria (who is Indian-American) says that Musharraf has "gone several steps too far," but considers him a modernizing force for Pakistan. Ultimately, he thinks that with or without Musharraf, the military will continue to rule Pakistan.

The only institution that works in Pakistan is the military. The Army is mostly professional and competent. It is also vast, swallowing up approximately 39 percent of the government's budget. In a book published last month, author Ayesha Siddiqa details the vast holdings of Pakistan's "military economy"—including banks, foundations, universities and companies worth as much as $10 billion.

He also says that Pakistan's military may keep its links to the Taliban as a way of maintaining strategic balance.

One explanation for why the military has retained some ties to the Taliban is because they want to keep a "post-American" option to constrain what they see as a pro-Indian government in Kabul. If Washington were to dump Musharraf, the Pakistani military could easily sabotage American policy against Al Qaeda and throughout the region.

EARLIER ON SAJAforum:

• POLITICS: Fareed Zakaria for Secy of State? (again)
• HISTORY: Krauthammer, Zakaria, Hitchens debate Iraq
• 9/11: SAJA Q&A with Fareed Zakaria
• US-INDIA AFFAIRS:  The Indian Mango Arrives in the U.S.

IMMIGRATION: Reforms will have a "devastating impact" on South Asians, says SAALT

The massive immigration reform bill is making its way through Congress and today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he'd give it more time so it can pick up more support from Republicans - he wants the president to push them harder. The bill failed a procedural vote but is up for another one tomorrow - Reid told the AP that with another failure, "The bill's over with."

As per a release from SAALT - South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow - the reforms will have "a devastating impact on the South Asian community." The measure, the group says, will be damaging by doing all of the following:

• Eliminate certain family-based visa categories; places a cap on visas for parents of U.S. citizens; and will throw out many family-based immigration applications currently pending. In 2005, over 22,000 South Asians entered the U.S. through a family-based category.
• Replace the current green-card application process with a merit-based point system that heavily favors employment and education criteria, preventing many South Asian immigrants from adjusting their status.
• Establish an unworkable legalization program with hefty fees and fines as well as a requirement that undocumented workers return to their home country before getting permanent legal status. It also excludes many from the legalization process. The fastest growing and fourth largest undocumented population in the country comes from India, jumping from 120,000 to 280,000 from 2000 to 2005.

ECONOMICS: India at Davos

UPDATE: Here's an NYT piece from Davos, by Floyd Norris: "Fearing Protectionism, in India"

Original Post:

India is a major topic of discussion at the mother-of-all-shmoozathons, the World Economic Forum, which is being held in Davos this week.

The overall theme is "The Shifting Power Equation," and that seems to be borne out on the Davos blog - it seems like every third blogger is Indian. Nandan Nilekani is supposedly one of the 'top bloggers' at the forum. Arianna Huffington's also blogging.

Ashok Vemuri of Infosys blogged on corporations and their role in managing global climate change. And here's a video interview with Aditya Mittal, the CFO of arcelor Mittal (the caption says "by far the #1 steel company in the world"). Aditya looks about 19 - I wonder if he worked any connections to get the job.

The Web Outreach Coordinator at the World Bank has directed us to its extensive list of resources on the event:

• Economics: New drivers
• Business: Leading in a Connected World
• The City: Managing Rapid Urbanization in Developing Economies
• Empowering Individuals

Coverage:

Forbes has a video interview with Wipro Chairman Azim Premji: "What's on the Mind of Asia's New Business Giants."

AFX: "India needs to improve infrastructure, training - CEO's"

NDTV: "India benefits from Davos"

Daily News and Analysis: "India Inc rocks the night at Davos"

IANS: "Ahluwalia kicks off Davos meet with happy India story"

BANGLADESH: A Democracy in Crisis

Bangladesh is in the midst of a full-blown political crisis. With the announcement of the president's resignation earlier today, SAJAforum.org turned to Naeem Mohaiemen, the well-known artist and filmmaker (and SAJA member) for his thoughts on what's going on there right now. His note sent out via e-mail today is below.

Meanwhile: CPJ reacts to the censorship unleashed by the crisis and here's Yahoo's Full Coverage.

From Naeem Mohaiemen, nmohaiemen[at]mac.com

[ DAILY STAR just printed this op-ed of mine. It was not meant to be published on the first day of the State of Emergency, but the timing is eerily appropriate.
Wonded Nation, Still the Dreamer ]

Bangladesh: Come See the Game
[The Title comes from Shishir Bhattacharjee's painting series during the 1981-91 military junta "Khela Dekhe Jan Babu" (Mister, Come And See The Game)]

This is my take on unfolding events.  As I'm not a journalist, I didn't try to be "neutral". Hopefully others will correct/add/etc.  I posted it here, and will update as events proceed:
http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/2007/01/11/quick-summary/

MORE LINKS

http://drishtipat.org/blog
one of the most active human rights/politics blogs.

http://thedailystar.net
best english paper and also the most liberal. has consistently spoken
out against the islamists and army. their sister paper in bengali
(http://prothom-alo.com) has come under attack from islamists.
however, both servers are now down which could be as part of the
press blackout the army has called.

http://bdnews24.com
biggest online news source. still up, but as their servers are in
dhaka, they may come down to.

OTHER POSTS

ISLAMISTS: Hasina's Ulu Dhoni Moment

ISLAMISTS: When Pets Attack
http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/2006/12/24/when-pets-attack/

VIDEO: Can Democracy Deliver (BBC Round Table)
http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/2006/10/05/can-democracy-deliver-the-
debate/
http://www.drishtipat.org/