Dedicated to Daniel Pearl

It was the moment of exhileration, curiosity and trepidation on April 21, when two dozen Nepali bloggers congregated in Kathmandu.  The second time participant, I was exhilerated because I noticed that the bloggers were bracing to establish their identity as Nepali bloggers. I was at the same time much curious to meet those faces, which were in my imagination through their blogs. And there was a sense of trepidation in me because I knew that the bloggers, who tend to entertain more freedom than a journalist, were discussing to make themselves chained by registering themselves under an NGO. Mincing no words, it was indeed a wonderful gathering. The Nepali bloggers were discussing to make the Nepali society; especially youths much aware about blogs. This is something much commendable as the successive generations are likely to rely more on internet than any other measures. Bloggers in this perspective have a bigger role in sensitizing society. I am saying it’s bigger role than journalists because bloggers naturally enjoy more freedom than the journalists. Journalists are associated with an organization and the journalists have to keep themselves within the tight code of conduct of the organization. More explicitly, it can be said that a journalist’s freedom shouldn’ t hit the nose of his publisher. And the journalists’ freedom is also many times determined by the government, as his organization is already under an umbrella of the government agency. But bloggers don’t fall under these categories.

I was also much pleased to notice some six female bloggers in the BLOGAN meeting. It’s a good sign that the female are shining in Nepal. We must appreciate Ujjwal Acharya, a blogger of the Nepali Voices for his initiative in making the gathering a big success. The bloggers rightfully discussed releasing a book of Nepali bloggers soon. It’s indeed a strong means to introduce to Nepali society about blog. But I also sensed that we were driven more by a sense of seeking identity than maintaining our freedom. Majority bloggers, including my respected blogger Budhi Narayan Shrestha, were strongly pleading to register BLOGAN as an NGO. But I still feel that we will lose our freedom in our desperate attempt for seeking identity. 

Identity is an elusive idea. A person has diverse identities. Just suppose, our Ujjwal is a blogger, a journalist, a cricketer, a non-vegetarian, a Masters’ in journalism, a Sports coordinator, a husband, a male, a married person, a teacher and etc. Seeking a singular identity is a divisive idea and it in fact confines our identity. My point is, the bloggers during the meeting of the BLOGAN were conspicuously trying to establish their identity as Nepali bloggers. But I think we are already blogger, which doesn’t need further identity. One point, the bloggers, advocating for registering BLOGAN as an NGO, strongly raised is that the BLOGAN must be registered to receive assistance from various organizations, who are really willing to do so. For example, they raised a point that an organization may want to provide some books to BLOGAN and it will be difficult to accept the kind if we aren’t registered. But I think BLOGAN itself is an organization, which doesn’t need registration and BLOGAN can do and accept anything without being registered. I would say BLOGAN can do alot more without being registered than being registered. Once it’s registered, all the Nepali bloggers won’t be any different from journalists and other NGO activists. As I was not with the idea of majority bloggers, I protested the idea of registering the BLOGAN during the meeting. And this idea was pushed further for the next BLOGAN meeting.

But it was an interesting discussion because everybody tried to justify their points. However, some of the bloggers seemingly presented themselves as very immatured fellow. I was lot surprised to hear Salik saying that we (Bloggers) should stop, once the government compels us to follow its norms and values after we are registered as an NGO. He didn’t have idea that you are already an NGO, once you are registered. And it makes no difference whether you stop or not but you have to follow the government’s instructions, what other NGOs do once you are regigstered as an NGO. He was also not clear on what he was saying. Anyway, I appreciate his participation; a young energetic, anxious and a very nice boy. 

I strongly hold the view that BLOGAN can do anything without being registered. We don’t need to get registered. Some bloggers like KP and others also said that it is urgent to register BLOGAN, as there is a fear looming that anybody might try to register it in their name. Yes, it is a genuine fear. But I think we can continue functioning under this name until we get registered, even after any organization is already registered in this name.

I haven’t been convinced why do we need to get registered? Are there anything what the BLOGAN can’t do without being registered? And we dont’ function like an NGO. NGO needs to set up its networks around the country. It needs to formulate specific policies, strategies for its day to day operations. But we are bloggers and our main motive is to blog and if we can manage time is to make more and more population aware about blogs and blogging. The next task, we may venture is to publish an annual book on blogs, again if we can manage time. Similarly, we may award the best blogger to further encourage him or her to continue blogging. We at the same time may conduct a sort of workshop for non-blogger to make them aware about blogs and blogging.

Do we need to get registered to perform all these tasks?

MY fear is also that we not only will loose our freedom but will also fall into a list of the NGOs, which are notoriously known for milking money in Nepal. I wonder whether we are planning to expand our networks around the country, establishing blog offices in every district, appointing office secretaries, meeting every week and taking to the streets against the government or any other authorities for the rights of the blogs. Are we then different from Insec, HURPES, HURON, CVIT, Blue Diamond….and many dozen NGOs? I dont’ mean that these NGOs are dirty. Of course, they might have done alot better for our society. But my point is why don’t we try to remain as bloggers…not any organzation?

Yes, we can form a committee, which will function as a loose network. The committee will take initiative in organizing meetins, workshops and others. The commitee also can select other high level committees to award a blogger. So far the money for organizing workshops are concerned, any office will happily provide us rooms. And the BLOGAN should tell the participants to bring tea, biscuits on their own. I am also sure that any organization will help us in publishing our literatures, which we can distribute to the participants.

Let’s not be more ambitious. And be pleased for being a blogger. Singular identity is a divisive concept.

Oh, I appreciate KP, Umesh for posting such beautiful pix. The silent but strongly moving feeling among some bloggers, I sensed is to put a point who conceptualized the BLOGAN.  Indeed, conceptualizing anything is tantamount to giving a birth to a baby. But it doesn’t hold much water once it is conceptualized. So let’s not plead who conceptualized the BLOGAN, but be affirmed with the BLOGAN and feel proud to be a member of the BLOGAN. Otherwise, I am scared that the race to establish one’s credit may mar the entire concept of the BLOGAN.

Jay BLOGAN. 

Finally, the Election Commission in Nepal on Friday cleared the hazy cloud on Constituent Assembly elections and said it can’t conduct the CA polls on June 20. Chief Election Commissioner Bhojraj Pokharel in fact made it easy for the political parties to postpone the elections. It was already known to all that elections can’t be held at such situation. Maoists haven’t yet changed their behavior, they are still continuing extortion, intimidation and abduction across the country. The election commission has over a dozen tasks pending. It has to prepare number of things for the polls like setting up of its offices around the country for elections, it will also have to provide necessary training to those officers who are deployed for elections.  CEC  Pokharel is justified in saying that the commission can’t conduct on June 20 because the party registration process alone hasn’t been completed. It may take some one week more for the parties to register themselves for CA polls. The entire process is sure to push the possibility of holding the polls.

The most important thing I feel is that the voters should be prepared for elections. Almost all voters in Nepal aren’t prepared for elections. There is not the election atmosphere in villages. The parties need some two months to make the people ready for the polls. Considering all the pending tasks, I think it will be better to announce the polls for Kartik or Mangsir; some five to six months later.

The father of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was executed in Pakistan by Muslim terrorists in 2002, discussed Muslim-Jewish relations last night with a former Pakistani diplomat.

Judea Pearl, who is Jewish, and Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani high commissioner to Great Britain, expanded their exchange to include the state of the world before a packed house of 400 at the University of Richmond.

Sitting in easy chairs, Pearl and Ahmed portrayed themselves as two grandfathers concerned about the dangerous world their grandchildren are inheriting.

But the larger implications of their discussion was not lost on religious leaders representing both Jewish and Muslim interests, nor on audience members from a variety of faiths and points of view. Read more

Five years after the kidnapping and murder of a Wall Street Journal reporter in Karachi, Pakistan, a group of Georgetown students will take on the task of uncovering what really happened.

This fall, the School of Continuing Studies will offer a seminar on investigative journalism that will give students the opportunity to look into who actually killed Daniel Pearl. Pearl was murdered in 2002 while doing investigative work for an article on Richard Reid, who attempted to blow up a plane the year before using explosives hidden in his shoe.

Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted last month to Pearl�s murder during a U.S. military tribunal hearing at Guantanamo Bay. According to Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who was a close friend and colleague of Pearl, Pearl�s father has doubts about that being true, and she believes that a further investigation is still necessary. Read more

I don’t know whether it’s really urgent. But you will be surprised to see thousands of Nepalese people queued on Friday to get pre-paid cell phones. The Nepal Tele Communication distributed pre-paid cell phones on Friday as its second phase. The NTC distributed 70,000 pre-paid cards on Friday and it has planned to distribute 150,000 in its second phase. 

But the NTC seems to have ignored the fact that the cell-phone useres are tired of making calls as the cell phones never get connected for at least three times. And many times, you may lose your temper when you get disconnected while talking on the cell phone. I don’t understand why the NTC has been distributing so many cell phones without making its service much better.

Look at the photos below:

Read the news briefs around the world…

1.  Nepal’s PM Girija Prasad Koirala in the Indian Capital, New Delhi on Thursday said his party Nepali Congress will decide on the issue of king before holding the Constituent Assembly polls, schuduled for June 20, 2007.

2.The 15 UK military personnel, detained by Iran two weeks ago for allegedly trespassing into Iranian waters arrived at London’s Heathrow airport on Thursday after being pardoned by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

3. Three men arrested by police last month in Londong will be charged in the July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks on London’s transit system that killed 52 people, London police said Thursday.

4. United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia’s lack of female politicians with Saudi government officials on the last stop of her Mideast tour.

5. Some armed personnel of Indian Seema Surakshya Bal (SSB) Wednesday misbehaved with Nepali locals at the village of Bardanga, which shares border with India, in Morang district.

6. Some teachers are held responsible in leaking the School Leaving Certificate examination question papers in Nepal. They were caught red-handed in selling the papers at Rs. 10,000 per question paper in Bhaktapur, an old city in Nepal.

It’s an interesting coincidence that the Maoists destroyed about 80 physical infrastructure during their armed insurgency against the state. They had the romantic Mao phylosophy of destroying all the existing infrastructure to begin with a new one. In course of the 10-year insurgency, which was launched in 1996, the Maoists destroyed police posts, schools, government offices and even hospitals. Interestingly, they have received the Physical Development and Local Development ministries which are meant for development and reconstruction. And the Maoist ministers Hisila Yami, who heads the Physical Development Ministry and Dev Gurung who heads the Local Development ministry will soon begin reconstructing all the infrastructure, which they destroyed during their insurgency. The Maoists had a rhetoric that the existing infrastructures were the symbols of burgeouise culture and the feudalism and they wanted to start proletarian society by destroying them in the past. And I don’t understand what sort of culture and ..ism, they will construct once they will start undoning their own past. Anyway, I want to wish a best of luck to the Maoists for the reconstruction. Oh yes, they have also received the Forest ministry. It’s also another coincidence because they seem to have had huge affection on forest. They lived in forest in the past and many of them were involved in smuggling timber. They now have to responsibility to protect the forest also. How tough job for the Maoists…after all they have also entered the society, system and culture, which they always critcized as burgeoise and feudal.

There is a proverb in Nepal; Chor ko haatma Sacho dinu parchha (A thief should be given a key), to stop theft.  

By Ghanashyam Ojha

Today morning, I was reading a sports page of Kantipur daily and one news item stole my attention. It was about Pakistan’s former cricket coach Bob Ulmer, who was mysteriously murdered in West Indies. I was more surprised to find that Pakistan’s police officer Jubir Mohammad will lead a Pakistan police team to investigate the death of Ulmer. Mohammad was the lead investigator of the team, which carried the probe on the death of Daniel Pearl, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, who was abducted and killed in Pakistan by terrorists in 2002. The news took me to those days, when I was watching a documentary prepared by HBO in New York. The HBO has prepared the documentary on how Pearl was abducted and it has also included some of the terrible footages of how Pearl was slit by terrorists. I broke down into tears while I was watching the documentary with my Pakistani colleague Sahid Shah. The documentary vividly shows how much Pearl was expecting to be released one day so that he will be able to meet his pregnant wife and the parents. A young, humorous and confident Pearl, however couldn’t win the heart of those in fact heartless terrorists and they killed him in a very barbaric manner.

Today I was much moved when I read the news and I am also much frustrated to feel that the Pakistani government hasn’t yet punished those terrorists who were involved in the murder of Pearl. Although a kingpin of the murder was arrested, I heard he has been under the protection of the Pakistani government. I think it’s much common in the country, where there is no democracy and human rights has no value. Although Mohammad probed the murder and held some terrorists accountable for the murder, the government just ignored it and the terrorists are futher encouraged in Pakistan. How much enthusiastic can Mohammad be, who couldn’t push the government for the action of those terrorists or the government ignored his report. I wish Mohammad find out the real culpril in Ulmer’s murder but, in case any terrorist is involved in it and the country like Pakistan protects the terrorist, how will the people react. Ultimately, the wound is same and it pains equally to all whether it’s Pearl family or Ulmer’s. An independent and strong probe with commitment from the government is required before proceeding for the investigation. 

After a long wait and perspiration, eight political parties in Nepal formed a 22-member interim government. The interim government inducted five former Maoist rebels as the ministers. Interestingly, the Maoists, who had launched an armed insurgency against the state in 1996 became a part of the state from Sunday. Maoist’s leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who has been appointed as the minister for Information and Communication in the interim government, also said the state security forces will take care of the Maoist ministers.

Oh yes, another major decision of the political parties is to hold the Constituent Assembly poll on June 20. I don’t know how they will make it possible but there is very very short period to meet the deadline. The political parties also decided to put a provision that a two third majority of the parliament can dismiss the monarchy, in case the king tries to obstruct the CA poll.

I salute Girija Prasad Koirala for this success. The towering personality of Koirala brought uniformity among the eight political parties to reach the consensus. 

With the induction of Maoist in the government and the current unity among the political parties, I hope we will see a new Nepal in near future. The violence will stop, parties will act responsibly and we are proceeding towards bright and prosperous Nepal.

Interestingly, the Maoists who destroyed all the infrastructure during a decade of insurgency in the past, have got the portfolio of physical development. We are eager to see how the Maoist ministers will start reconstructing the infrastructure which they destroyed in the past. So the maoist ministers will visit various districts and will reconstruct those police posts, VDC, DDC offices, schools and even hospitals, which they had destroyed in the past.

I am really excited to see this!

I also wish Koirala a big success in the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in India. Koirala will feel proud while speaking at the regional conference in April 3. He has done a great job.