mediaharsha

By Harsha Man Maharjan According to an amendment in  Motion Picture (Production, Exhibition and Distribution) Rules, 2057 (2000 A.D.) in 2010,  Nepal Film Censor Board has to rate movies in four categories Universal (U), Parental Guide (PG), Special (S) and Adult (A), but the board is still scissoring scenes and showing paternalistic attitude to film makers. This is evident from the list of ratings this board gave to movies both Nepali and foreign during few months (15 june-6 September 2012). This is the first time that the Ministry of Information and Communication has made public such kind of information. This is good for public and the board. I think it makes decisions of the board transparent. And this is good symptom for future. But it has helped us to judge the rating system. The list contains ratings of 45 movies and informs about the cuts in movies. These ratings show that the board has shown concern on ‘vulgarity’. Two examples are interesting. The boa...

By Harsha Man Maharjan  Do Nepali media need social media guidelines ? This became a topic in an interaction program organized by Martin Chautari on 13 September 2012 about ‘How are Nepali Journalists Using Social Media ?’ According to Tilak Pathak journalist and member of Centre for Media Research-Nepal and pundit of this program, “Nepali media have started to feel a need of these guidelines but none has created one”.  This problem arises when a journalist who is employed in media break news from his/her blog or facebook or twitter. Pathak informed that there is no incident where a journalist has been taken action for breaking news in social media. It seems to me that it is right time that Nepali media prepare their social media guideline. This would make easy for journalists.

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 situa...

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 ...

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.