Nepali Media in the Post Conflict Situation: Some Trends

By Harsha Man Maharjan

These days I am in London under a project between Martin Chautari and SOAS. This visit gave me an opportunity to think about the post conflict situation of Nepali media. This short article is my understanding of the situation:

Post conflict is a transitional phase where both old and new forces tried to exert their influences and it is the period where a society involves in debates, discussions on various issues. Many people believe that Nepal is going through this phase. Academicians are writing on different aspects of the post conflict situation from security to tourism. But very few articles and papers have discussed about Nepali media in Post Conflict situation.

Only article, I encountered was from the discipline of Public Administration. In 2008 a faculty from Public Administration Campus, Kathmandu had written this paper with the title, Media Situation in Post Conflict Nepal: An analysis. But this paper’s concern is narrow. It deals the post conflict situation through the angle of the safety of journalists. This is a journalistic perspective to see the Post Conflict Nepali media.

I think that we have to see the situation of Post Conflict in Nepali media beyond this perspective. One way to see this is inclusiveness of media. Nepali media are becoming more and more inclusive. It is a plus point that Government press media, Gorkhapatra started to publish specials page on different languages of ethnic groups and communities called Naya Nepal.

Second way is the mainstreaming of labour issues inside Nepali media. Only after 2006, this issue got space in Nepali media. Earlier journalists and media owners paid no attention to it.

Third is the diversity of media. In 2006, we saw the rise of Maoist media. There is growth in Maoist magazines. About 60 titles of these magazines were published in the post conflict. I think these media have helped in making Nepali media more diverse.

The fourth is some NGOs are working on media for peace building. They are preparing radio contents for this.

A Death of Copy Left ! Are You Kidding ?

By Harsha Man Maharjan

London, 18 February

One of my colleagues at Martin Chautari sent me an email yesterday to confirm about the assassination of library.nu. This is a sad news for me. I have benefited a
lot from this site for more than a year. For me, it was a big library where I could find almost all books.During research and teaching, I used many books from this website

This is not an obituary.I believe that the library.nu or gigapedia will never die and no one can kill it. That means it will definitely reincarnate in other forms. I hope that day will come soon.

Here are some of comments on facebook:
Imperial S Storm · Top Commenter
Library.nu is closed on registration. I have no control over this. Main reason is Library.nu ranked 7th in the world for usage of its type. Now they have legal maters to deal with. They are trimming back there usage by closing registration. However this has not only happening to Library.nu. Its happening all over the web. SOPA and collages are trying to shut down free software sites. SOPA never passed, But is being done under stealth. Next few months you will see less and less of the web free. Government of the United States is after file sharing host. Passing DNS blocks on many countries. The ending goal is the end of the internet as we know it. A move to a internet 2 type system ran by governments of the world. Once there is more using internet 2 and all major search providers switch.(Google, Bing, Aol, Yahoo, Facebook and twi...See More
Reply · 85 · Like · Follow Post · January 16 at 10:49pm

Christine Por
sad to see this happens...... People abuse and we suffer.
Reply · 6 · Like · January 23 at 3:48pm

Shafiullah Khan · University of Karachi
plx sir open registration
Reply · 2 · Like · February 4 at 2:36am

Mao Shunjie · Lancaster University
too late to know this website.....
Reply · 1 · Like · February 5 at 2:11pm
View 15 more

Veena Yadav · University of Delhi
how I can register in library.nu.
Reply · 17 · Like · Follow Post · January 10 at 11:00pm

Nikhilesh Chitre · Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
sadly,you can't. its closed now. you can try other websites,but none is as good as library.nu.Feeling very sad that the site is closed.:-(
Reply · 3 · Like · February 8 at 9:38pm

Keni Lynch
Nikhilesh Chitre wow, this sucks... I wish SOPA will get every Free Speech law thrown at them.. we should all protest. where would we be without free open sourced information.. some off-line libraries actually charge large fees now.. so all of us will be poor and uneducated.. well, won't this come to a 'revolution' in the end? I mean it's just obvious. This is how the French Revolution started. There was a bunch of rich folk who never paid their bills (hence, no money for the craftsmen and women, and laborers to fend for themselves or their families, forget about an education.. in the end, the rich got their heads chopped off, didn't they... and all because they wouldn't allow the access that people depended on..(i.e. money) for food, clothing, education.. it seems our new government officials are rolling back the clock, steadily returning to a rehashed model of the aristocratic past..alas, if they only studied history, they would know their laws won't last last the time it takes to write them down..
Reply · 7 · Like · February 9 at 12:14am

http://sopastrike.com/

for freedom of speech and information
January 18th is going to be amazing. Sites are striking in all different ways, but they are united by this: do the biggest thing you possibly can, and drive contacts to Congress. Put this on your site or automate it by putting this JS into your header, which will start the blackout at 8AM EST and end at 8PM EST.

Price Hiking Consensus among Three Nepali Dailies: Its Effect in Nepali Media

By Harsha Man Maharjan

The very newspapers which always criticized the government for back-breaking price-hike in fuel and other goods increased its price cent percentage. On 13 December 2011, three Nepali dailies Kantipur, Annapurna Post and Nagarik declared through the publisher’s note that they had increased their price from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10. It was unprecedented in the history of news media in Nepal.

In 2003, some of them were fighting to reduce their price. At that time there was a price war between The Himalayan Times (related to Annapurna Post) and The Kathmandu Post (related to Kantipur). When The Himalayan Times (THT) started to sell in Rs. 2, The Kathmandu Post made its price Rs. 1.50.

All three newspapers argued that they had no other option than to increase the price because there was price-hike in newsprint and prices of everything in increasing in Nepal. Annapurna Post even claimed that newspapers in Nepal were the cheapest in South Asia. All of three newspapers had assured that they would try to improve their content.

I think we have to see this hike as these media’s strategy to cope with increasing onslaught of online media. Day by day the users of internet are increasing, and online are available on mobile phone. Many content of these newspapers are available online, so these newspapers want to reduce the circulation of newspapers. But many readers were surprised to see the huge increase in price. I know friend who have stopped buying these newspapers due to this hike. They think the price as cartelling of some big media houses in print media.

But it is interesting to see other dailies like Gorkhapatra, Samacharpatra, Rajdhani, Nayapatrika, etc have not increased their prices. Why is so ? An online newsportal: onlinekhabar.com has claimed that the exercise for the hike was going on from one month, and these three newspapers could not convinced other publishers. A friend from Kantipur publication informed me that they heard about this hike 45 days before.

Will the others also follow these three newspapers’ path? Only future will show.

About price war:

http://www.nepalitimes.com/issue/2004/01/23/StrictlyBusiness/4885

Reds: Nice cinema on First World War and Its Aftermath

By Harsha Man Maharjan

I am interested in the cold War period. That's why i watched this movie. More than this, it presents pictures of US and USSR, the main actors of the Cold War. People believe this as the story of a writer and journalist,John Reeds. I had same misconception before i watched it. What i think is this movie is actually a saga on the rise of left movement in the US and feminism, which broached the idea of free sex and independent thinking. Please watch this movie, if you are more interested in Emma Goldman's life. It is a nice movie to know about the first world war and its aftermath. I disagree with some reviews who blame for its length-it is 196 minutes.I believe that only due to this length, it could portray lives of its actors in detail.

source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082979/reviews-114

Film Critic: Journalist and Audience

By Harsha Man Maharjan

Who is a film critic? Better to put this questions as: who can be a film critic ?

This issue evolved with a review of Nepali film, Break Fail by Manoj Pandit, film director and critic. On 25 September 2011, Nepali daily Nagarik reported that police summoned Manoj on a complaint from actress Richa Ghimire. According to the reporting, Richa blame Manoj of character assassination through a review of her film, Break Fail and affecting international market of the film. In that review he has opined that she was not worth being an actress in the film, which she took as a personal matter. I don’t think so. Going through the review I have come to a conclusion that Richa was wrong. Being a film critic, Manoj had rights to comment on Ghimire's acting.

If what Nagarik wrote was correct, Richa had some misconceptions. She said reviews have to promote Nepali cinema industry without criticizing it. More than she opined that only journalists with cards from FNJ should have rights to write film reviews.

What I think is any film viewer has rights to be a film reviewer. Journalists have no monopoly on this business. Nepali film industry must show courage to hear criticism.

Links:

Manoj’s review:

http://www.merocinema.com/fullnews.php?newsid=2498&newsof=3

about the news:

http://nepal24hours.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7883:richa-drags-manoj-to-police-station&catid=70:entertainment&Itemid=67

IAMHIST or International Association of Media History and Me

By Harsha Man Maharjan
This is the association I came to know through internet, and now this is the organization, of which I have become a member. Hats off to the technology for bridging time and space it made people easily reachable as if people from different countries are only neighbors next to my home.
IAMHIST provided me an opportunity to present a paper on Nepali cinema in its 24th conference under the theme, ‘Media History and Cultural Memory’ that took place in Copenhagen. For this it also supported me financially and morally, without which this participation was impossible for me.

Reaching Denmark was difficult and tiring, but having a chance to participate in the program and meet likeminded people compelled me to forget about those difficult moments. And now what I remember is only moments of discussion, contemplation and imagination during the conference. The boring and nerve-raking 17 hours waiting I had to experience at Indira Gandi Airport was nothing to what I have learned from the conference.

It gave me a realization that there is a bunch of people who are interested in media history and who are thinking about it, just like me. And just like me, they are endeavoring to come up with some interesting arguments out of achieves never accessed by others or by rereading the same old achieves. It also reassured me that some of topics related to cinema, propaganda, television, etc which I was thinking to study in future, were worth undertaking, as others are doing them in the context of other countries. With information of these ongoing studies, I even got idea about the people whom I should consult for comments and feedback while studying those topics.
Thanks IAMHIST. Please see some of pixs related to the program.