mediaharsha

By Harsha Man Maharjan People were waiting with abated breath on 7 November 2007 at Martin Chautari discussion hall. What they only knew was some one was playing the role of prime minister of Nepal, Girija Prasad Koirala and BBC World Service Trust was supposed to this. Friends at MC had hoped for a simulation of parliament. Later during the program Narayan Shrestha, radio journalist who left Radio Sagarmatha for the BBC World Service Trust, told us that they were taking interview with the PM after few days and they were rehearsing that interview at MC. Copy Editor Sharad Chandra Wasti acted as the PM. Shrestha and Sushil Sharma, journalist related to BBC Nepali Service were grilling the PM. In radio jargon they were recording a dummy copy of the program, Sajha Sawal. BBC World Service Trust will air this program and UNDP supported it. Trust is going to air radio programs targeting Constituent Assembly. During the program organizer requested s to question the PM. They aired recorded qu...

Some called him Nepali Daniel Pal. He is Birendra Shah, a journalist killed by Maoist cadres. He was kidnapped on 5 October 2007 and killed on the same day. I never meet him. There is a chance. I might have heard his words on Nepal FM without knowing him. He was affiliated to Nepal FM, Avenues TV, Dristi weekly etc. Now it is clear that Maoist cadre was involved in Shah’s killing. Earlier the CPN (Maoist) had denied their involvement in the incident. Now all fact finding missions tell that Lal Bahadur Chaudhary, Kundan Faujdar , Ram Yekbal Sahani etc are responsible for shah’s killing. Chadhari was Maoist Area In-charge of Bara District. Other alleged people are also well known Maoist supporters. But Maoist top leaders are requesting not to take this accident as party’s policy and not to malign the party with this incident. This reminds me of Nagarkot incident of 14 December 2007. On that day a drunken army Basu Dev Thapa deputed at Nagarkot army barrack opened fired on the civilians a...

BY Harsha Man Maharjan It was not supposed to end like this. I had pinned hope on this. Hope that it would come up with ways of restructuring state media in Nepal. Nepali government formed a task force to materialize suggestions of High Level Media suggestion Commission about state media in December 2006. It was supposed to present its report to government in two months. And it has already handed its report to the government. There was no mention about this in media. The government has not made it public. When I asked about the report, Dhurba Hari Adhikari, a member of the task force informed me that the task force handed its report in his absence. He requested me to call Ministry of Information and communications.. There telephones always remained busy. So I called Badri Bahadur Karki, task force’s chair. Karki informed me that he handed its report in Asar that means about three months ago. He even requested me to knock the door of ministry of information and communication. Why this k...