NepaliVoices is now online.
As promised, today is Oct 1 – a historic date. It is a historic day because on the same day two years ago, United We Blog! – the pioneering blog was established by Dinesh Wagle and Ujjwal Acharya.
NepaliVoices will be a voice for all Nepali bloggers.
Behind me is Malaysia’s famous twin towers.
Malaysia is amazing! Its clean and well-developed. I am enjoying my stay in Kuala Lumpur because of its beauty and ACC Trophy 2006 being hosted here.
As the second tour this year, I am going to Malaysia (yea, once again the South East Asia country) for two weeks. I will be covering ACC Trophy 2006, the biggest international event Nepal plays, and hoping that Nepal will win the trophy for the first time. I will be updating scores and news at NepalCricket.com and also writing for The Kathmandu Post (off course!). I will be at Kuala Lumpur. I am flying Nepal Airlines at 11:15 PM today and coming back on August 27.
Rethinking About Media Sources
Yesterday saw an event that needs to me considered by the media personnel. A group of people protested in front of Kantipur Complex, the building that houses the biggest daily Kantipur and Kantipur TV among others and curtailed it for more than four hours. Only after Kantipur TV representative read an apology and promised fair coverage, the crisis ended.
The case: Kantipur TV broadcasted news about death of a karate player wrongly. A police official shot him dead. The policeman said he was trying to loot him while the family and others were simply denying believing that version. Kantipur TV broadcasted news as they got it from police.
I am not going into who was right. I am neutral (meaning I don’t have sufficient proof to believe any story). The only thing I am considering on the case is use of sources by the media.
Traditionally, reports on crime are published as they are received from police. That is natural because they have more authentic information aided by the expert investigation. Same happens in many fields – in sports we believe what an official will say or more than that we believe players.
Theoretically, journalists should confirm any information they receive and the simplest way to do that is talk to the involved parties. If an office bearer says his officer is doing wrong, then we talk to his officer.
Police are neutral party and expert (that is UNLESS they are involved in the incident). In this case, the simple mistake done was that the journalists failed to understand that the police was one party involved in the case and in that case there may be biasness. As a journalist, it would have been great for everybody if the report was balanced (by using at least a quote from the second party – in this case the family of deceased).
That wasn’t done and that created the problem.
Kantipur Representative apologies. Photo via MeroSansar
Let Free Media Grow
Wrong! Wrong!! I have no other word to say about the incident. How fair it was to block a media house and restricting movement of the journalists in and out from the media house. Its not for the first time that Kantipur was targeted (it was vandalized during the Royal Regime) and this time too the chief reporter of Kantipur claims at least two of the people involved were royalists.
Kantipur is the biggest media house (being biggest isn’t easy). As a journalist working in other daily before I moved to The Kathmandu Post, I always got angry when the organizer would wait for a Kantipur reporter. That has probably gone down these days but there are still a lot of people who dislike Kantipur. For the leading role it played against Royal Regime, royalists are angrier than anybody else and they would look for any opportunity for planning out something against it.
For other, (who may be being used for wrong cause), let media be free and there are ways to get something out of media. Even talking to the media boss sometimes is good idea; if not then a delegation. Free media always looks for fair reports (they won’t tolerate anything against their freedom) but for other things they will go for truth.
Free media is power for freedom and democracy (already proved) so let free media grow.
(That’s what you are probably thinking after the completion of the World Cup. Here is the story that I wrote for today’s The Kathmandu Post)
After 31 nights of football fever, Nepali football fans now clamor for a good night’s sleep, but they will of course find time for World Cup gossip and analysis.
Although joy over the fierce battle of the ball kept them awake most of those nights, it wasn’t easy living with sore eyes. “I watched the matches, for I enjoyed them,” athletics star Rajendra Bhandari said. “But it was tough and tiring.”
The Asian All Star gold medalist is preparing for the South Asian Games (SAG) scheduled for next month. “I would sleep well today as I don’t feel like I could train,” the Tribhuvan Army Club (TAC) player added. “I couldn’t have missed it since it comes only in four years.”
The World Cup games, most of which began 45 minutes after mid-night in Nepal, even changed people’s daily schedules and their brain clock. “It was difficult to stay awake for the matches in the early stages,” Manju Lata Aryal, a BBA final semester student at Nobel Academy, said. “I felt tired in the morning, but later on it was easy to stay up for the matches but the days became tough then.”
The low turn-out for morning classes at many colleges was part of the impact of the World Cup. Students at Shepherd College of Media Technologies, Chabahil didn’t turn up Monday morning, making the day an undeclared holiday, as was the case at many other colleges.
The World Cup not only brought football, but it also brought business to many – especially shopkeepers selling jerseys. “Many would come to us requesting the printing of names and numbers on the jerseys,” Bijay Shahi of Attsh, a t-shirt house at Khichapokhari, said. “We had to work hard all day, despite the fact that we were awake in the night to watch the matches.”
For football-crazy people like Shahi, the World Cup wasn’t something to miss. “No sleep? That was fine. But missing the game was out of question,”he said.
As the mega-event is now over, the t-shirt business should see a slump, at least temporarily. “Now, we can afford to recover lost sleep,” he said.
For more hardcore fans, the end of the World Cup is just the completion of yet another event. “Now, I look forward to watching English Premier League and other leagues,” Prabin Karki, a third-year student at People’s Dental College said. “The quality of football is better in the league than in the World Cup.”
After watching the final at Basantpur, where they had put up a big projection screen, Karki was satisfied with the result. “I am happy because it was France that beat my favorite team (Brazil) in the quarters,” he added, recalling the favorite’s 1-0 loss to the eventual runner-up.
The SLC results for this year is going to be published today. Results SLC or School Leaving Certificate examination or so-called Iron Gate is something that everybody in Nepal is interested in. For a few more days, everybody would be found talking about it.
SLC results traditionally used to be published in Gorkhapatra, the state-owned paper, and it wouldn’t be until late morning it would come out in the morning. I remember when my own SLC results was published, I rushed to Gorkhapatra Corporation early in the morning, paid Rs. 10 for the paper that would have normally cost half of that. We were four of us and all we passed in first division (there was not distinction then) and that was enough for our celebration.
In the heavy rainfall, we walked through roads for half an hour, and couldn’t gulp more than quarter cup of tea when an aunty of our friend offered us. We were so excited and decided to come back home in a taxi despite not having enough money for the fare. That was probably the first time we took a taxi despite being healthy.
And I also remember another incident when I went there for a result. I was a teacher then and wanted to see how the students did. It was not until 11 that it came out. From the morning, there was huge crowd and the policemen were forced to use their latthis. I got my new umbrella hit by one of them and had to throw it away.
Now, everything has changed. The SLC results wouldn’t only be published in Gorkhapatra but also on various internet sites, and it could also be obtained through automated phone service. This year’s addition is SMS service – in both Mero Mobile and NTC mobile.
It was published in at least four sites – soce.gov.np, doe.gov.np, moe.gov.np and slc.ntc.net.np and within a few minutes of that at least half-a-dozen other sites will copy the results to them.
It has been a lot easier than it used to be but in the same way, the excitement is lost. You won’t find students happily walking in heavy rain or those waiting eagerly outside the Gorkhapatra Corporation. All, because the results will be one click away.
Wow! Technology!
It has been long since I wrote anything. The World Cup was taking my toll and I fell ill for a few days – thanks to unlimited food during one of the late-night match.
Sadly, my favorite team is out. Argentina lost to Germany despite dominating the whole game. I felt sad – more when everyone I met since the day after is accusing referee for the loss. There were a few ‘controversial decisions’. My favorite team played well and thank god, I don’t have to print ‘Still Argentina Fan’ as of 2002.
And, as a true fan, I believe, next year, Argentina will be come well with Lionel Messi, Pablo Aimar, Carlos Tevez and others matured with experience.
On the other side, after a long time, I got enough time to analyze my RSS reader of Nepali blogs. It was good to see a few like Zaded blogging regularly while sad not to get some bloggers, like my good friend Deepak, absent during the time.
I have always felt once the crisis is over – well I believe it is still there in the country – it would be quite difficult for some bloggers like me to get back to blog on issues long forgotten for blogs. We have been so long blogging on political matters that most of us have more a news site than a blog.
But I also believe that it won’t remain long and bloggers would start going traditional blogging on various issues. I have found a few new blogs by Nepali and will be adding them to the directory soon.
The biggest football event of the world, the World Cup, is coming and like in every other country it is gripping Nepal. Everywhere you go you will find something that would remind you of the event. Every small and big companies, shops and business is brainstorming to find out a way to cash the passion.
It was probably because television broadcasting came to Nepa during 1986 World Cup (for me 1990 World Cup was the first), a good number of Nepali are fans to Maradona, thus Argentina. So is the case with me.
I am wearing Argentine jersey for a few days now. It is an old one, from 2002 World Cup when Argentina made exit from the first round. Since a lot of people teasingly asked me to stop supporting Argentina, I printed the back of it with ‘Still Argentina Fan‘.
Yesterday, when I was returning from ATTSH where I inquired for a new jersey, a motorcyclist horned me and when I looked towards him, he thumbed up me saying ‘nice t-shirt’. It would be only natural to see a waving hand from an Argentine fan for next month with the white-blue stripes on my body.
I desperately hope Argentina will win the World Cup this time thus getting the new generation into its fandom. The next month is going to buzzing one for Nepali football fans as the World Cup will, no wonder, be the biggest talk of the town. I am eagerly awaiting for the World Cup though it would eat a lot of good night sleep.
I have come to Kathmandu after 12-day tour.
Yesterday, after day-long walk we reached Lukla for a night stay before we finally leave for Kathmandu. The story yesterday was same as it was all tiring walk from Namche to Lukla after attending the prize-distribution ceremony.
For dinner, we bought two cocks and Bikash cooked it for us. It felt good waiting for the morning which would bring a plane that we would use to go to Kathmandu.
Epilogue
(added more than week later)
The next day, we found that the weather wasn’t good and it’s not likely that the plane would come. Only one place arrived this morning and took off. We waited till 11:00 AM when finally another plane came and we boarded on it. It would not before four days later that another plane would land at sloppy Lukla Airport.
It was a long tiring day yesterday.
Early morning yesterday, I woke up and drank a cup of tea with Chhitiz. Bikash rose a little late and joined us. We just sat at the dinning hall of Ama Dablam Lodge chatting how slow the life moves in those areas.
At 8:15 AM, Bikash and I went a little bit farther waiting for the marathoner ready with our cameras. To my surprise, Deepak Rai came at 8:30 AM – 110 minutes after the start and was running like he has just started.
At 10:00 AM, we started our journey towards Tengboche filming the runners who would overtake us on the way. It was a long journey but when we finally reached there, Bhaswor and Deep were there. We stayed almost half-an-hour before moving out at around noon for our journey towards Namche.
It was amazing to see Nepali runners, untrained and raw leading and foreigners, who were most probably running their one of many marathons just finding it gruesome. At a stage, the cook who was probably 50 was strolling with a cigrette on a hand and a foreigner was trying to overtake him. He stood a few minutes to talk to us letting the foreigner to go ahead.
Its also amazing that the event created a stir in otherwise peaceful country life in the villages. Everyone seemed to either be running or watching the runners. One of our two porters, Bik Raj Tamang, ran and placed fourteenth. There were a few parent-siblings combination in the event.
We arrived at Namche at 4:00 PM. We took a room and went up to the finishing line. I tried to locate the winner there but it wasn’t official till then. I came back to the hotel where the results were confirmed. The ladies’ winner and runners-up were at the dinning hall, so I talked with them. I filed a story without quote of the winner as I feared the power down.
Later, I found a local boy who ran me five minutes to Misling to find the winner sitting quitely in a tavern with friends. He wasn’t drinking and also didn’t look like the man who had just won a prestigious, the world’s highest attitude marathon. I talked to him and came back to file his quotes from a cyber cafe. I also called office and home and talked with my wife.
Late in the evening, I was at Cafe Danfe for the official reception. I drank a bottle of Fanta but managed to grab two cans of beers which I fizzed out over my dancing friends. It was nice and after almost three years I found myself dancing. The last was in Bangladesh when I attended a marriage there.
The cafe was almost like a disco with everybody, more foreigners than Nepali, dancing on the tune of hit songs. At the cafe, I met Pakistani Ambassador and had a pleasant talk with him about cricket.
I returned to hotel at around half past eleven without my room key which Bikash misplaced somewhere. I broke the lock and found the key inside. Bikash came immediately after mid-night and we found that we were without quilts. We managed to grab a sleeping bag from next room which we used a quilt and slept on the floor.
