About Look and Gaze

The Look and Gaze is a blog maintained by KR Sigdel, who works with The Kathmandu Post daily. Comments/news/articles are welcome online. Alternatively, the scribe can be contacted in person or phone at the said newspaper [+977 1 4480100]. Postal address: GPO BOX 8978 CPC 58, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Pondering the Mumbai attacks

Pondering the Mumbai attacks
By: Kamal Raj Sigdel
Posted: 12/8/08
Last week, the world witnessed another deadly terrorist attack. This time it was Mumbai, the "financial nerve-centre" and commercial capital of India. This attack differs from any other terrorist attacks in the past, not because it was well coordinated, but because everything sounded weird and at times, hilarious.

Reportedly, 10 terrorists set sail from Karachi and approached the Indian coast, sneaking onto a fishing boat then attacking the Taj Hotel and other targets, killing more than 150 people.

India has the world's third-largest military, well-trained police with special anti-terror commands and internationally-acclaimed intelligence services. A handful of terrorists rocked the whole city for more than 24 hours. A week after the incident, everyone knew that investigations were underway, like usual, and nobody knows more than that. What is wrong with this picture?

Home Minister for the Indian state of Maharashtra. RR Patil's first reaction to the massacre was more than weird, "In a big city like this, these small things happen. We could have lost 5,000 people instead of 200." The public outcry from this amazing comment forced him to resign.

Soon after, the Indian officials started pointing fingers at Pakistan, as is the routine. No breaks or intervals, the old pantomime show starts on both sides of the border. The media fuels the fire and the curtain shadows one after another. The world watched with its eyes wide open, most of the scenes obscure and weird.

Shadows of the Pakistani leaders, panicked by the unprecedented international pressure to hunt down terrorists operating from their land, hold meetings and press conferences. Pakistani President Zardari commits to help India investigate into the attack by sending the head of Pakistani intelligence to India. The world, watching all this, claps in approval.

After a couple of hours, someone whispers something in his left ear and Zardari decides to pull the Intelligence chief back from India, derailing the planned cooperation. Disoriented and dispirited, the Chief changes his dress and goes to take a nap.

In what they call All-Party Conference (APC), the provoked Pakistani political parties gather for the first time to discuss how they could "cooperate" with India.

While others are making mediocre comments on Indian official's blame-game, one of the participants, a retired military general, stands upright and claims the attackers are in fact, brave patriots! As reported by the Dawn, the military officer speaking at a press conference says, "… the Taliban are in fact, patriotic and the problems that existed between these Taliban and the Pakistani state are actually based on miscommunication and misunderstanding."
Subsequently, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a Pakistani terrorist group, made a statement swearing allegiance to the Pakistani state. Bizarre, isn't it?

Then Obama is quoted that any country is free to bombard any other country to protect her sovereignty, and thus reported to have sanctioned the bombing of training camps in Pakistan.

In the mean time, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee warns Pakistan that the "military option is open."

This sends Washington more than enough warning signals. The outgoing Bush administration, by virtue of being the initiator of the global war on terror, dispatches Condoleezza Rice to New Delhi to stop the possible war between the two archenemies.

However, this brings to us one more absolute irony - Rice visiting India and arguing against Indian military raids on Pakistan when the United States regularly launches its own attacks on suspected Al Qaeda camps along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. At any cost, the US has to stop India from opting for the military option. The idea is to keep Pakistani shoulders engaged in the western Pakistani frontiers to fight Al Qaeda.

Despite all these misgivings, misinterpretations, media war, anger and chaos, things have not gone as planned by the terrorists. Theoretically, India should have jumped into war against Pakistan by now, and that was the game plan of the terrorists. Let us hope our wise leaders rise above petty politics, steer their countries out of the chaotic situation and do not move in the path as planned by the "smarter" terrorists.
(Sigdel, a Nepalese journalist, is Asia Pacific Leadership Program fellow at the East West Center.)
© Copyright 2008 Ka Leo O Hawaii

Red Dragon rising: The modern, confident China

Red Dragon rising: The modern, confident China
By: Kamal Raj Sigdel
[The article was published in Ka Leo on 12/4/08]
It is undisputed that China is in the spotlight today, especially after the U.S. financial crisis. China, unlike other democracies, is not an open country; its central policy and budgets are still secretive, and a single party, the Communist Party of China, rules the country. This has been one of the main reasons why the world is so curious about China.

I, too, was curious. Despite the fact that my home country, Nepal, shares borders with China, I had very few chances to understand it. The Asia Pacific Leadership Program, which brought together 38 young and mid-career professionals and students from 21 countries at the East-West Center, provided this opportunity to explore China.

During November, the group traveled all across China to figure out the future of the world through a Chinese lens. Given the rising panic among Western intelligentsia over what they call the "Chinese hard landing," I had a couple of questions in mind. Why is the West so scared of and critical about China? And is the image of China, which the Western media has created, real?

After our visit, we found out that China is much different than what we had in our minds and what appears in the international media. An outsider is indeed overwhelmed by the negative images about China. What we get through the media is sensationalism that reinforces the stereotype of China as a mysterious and angry dragon. Though these caricatures dominate our mindset, they do not portray the broader reality.

Just a week ago, before departing for China, I followed the newspapers like The Economist, The Washington Post, The New York Times and others to get updated on current affairs in China, but what I saw was only negative.

When I first landed at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Nov. 6, all I saw was progress. Beijing was in no way lesser than other world cities. The city was booming; construction was going on everywhere. Beijing was just an entry point.

We traveled to other major cities such as Chongqing, Hechuan and Chengdu. In all these cities, we saw exemplary efforts for pollution control and environmental conservation. The municipal governments have promoted bicycles, electric vehicles (two-, three- and four-wheelers), electric public transportation (trolleys, buses and subways) and solar-powered street lamps.

I read an article in The New York Times titled "In rural China a bomb is ticking." So we wanted to see how the "bomb" looked. It is true that China has a rural-urban gap where rural Chinese have not benefited from recent economic growth the way city dwellers have. But with the recent reforms on rural development, rural China is much more optimistic about the future.

That's not to say there aren't valid concerns. We met a farmer whose land had been confiscated by the government, though he is being relocated to a 20-story apartment building for free.

In one of the meetings in Beijing, Xiao Geng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, said that China dealt far better with the earthquake crisis than the U.S. dealt with Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, the visit has changed my perspective on China.

There is still, of course, plenty of room for improvement, such as in press freedom, democracy and the rural-urban gap, but China has made some real achievements too. What I see now is a confident, modern China, not an angry dragon.

Sigdel, a Nepalese journalist, is an Asia Pacific Leadership Program fellow at the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
© Copyright 2008 Ka Leo O Hawai

Changed Perspectives and New Insights into China by Kamal Raj Sigdel

By Kamal Raj Sigdel

BEIJING, 6 December 2008 - The foggy street in front of the Ping An Fu hotel, Beijing made an impression of an early morning at some remote harbor. The three of us: Kamal (myself), Derek and Huma set our sail for the adventure and left the harbor. The place we were heading was an uncharted land for us. The trip was going to be adventurous, especially because we didn't know anyone there; none of us could speak Chinese, and we didn't have any special arrangements and booking for our lodging and flooding.

The challenges emerged as we left the hotel and most of the times they were about communicating with the Chinese speaking general public. One of the Chinese friends we met on the subway the other day had told us a joke, "If you're lost and don't know Mandarin, find a young Chinese person wearing glasses. They will explain whatever you need in English." 

Interestingly, the joke turned out to be no longer a joke. Whenever we felt like we were lost, we searched for someone wearing glasses and we would get the right answer in English. We reached the Military Museum by the subway but after that we had to ask someone our way to the train station. The formula worked and we reached the Beijing Train Station on time. We had enough time before the train would leave. We thought of having some food.

Whenever we thought of having food, we had problems. As a Hindu, I would not eat beef at all, Huma, a Muslim, would not eat pork and Derek, a Christian, would eat everything. Just to make sure that the food we wanted to order does not contain beef or pork, we had no alternative but to either draw a picture of a cow and a pig and cross them out, or act out in all fours a cow and a pig, make some noise like a pig and cow would do and waive our hands vigorously saying 'NOT THIS'.

We entered into the KFC fast-food restaurant by the train station and shared a table with a stranger, as there were no vacant seats. We tried to gather some information about our first destination (Chongching) while we eat. Huma asked the KFC girl if they are mix pork in the chicken burger to make sure she is not inadvertently eating pork. I asked about beef. Derek just sat laughing at us. 

We started breaking ice with the young person sharing our table. But this young person would not speak English. He called his girlfriend in Chongcing to help us find a place to stay in Chongqing. His girl friend, Gong Jiang, over the phone, gave us a phone number of one of her friends in Chongqing. She also said he will  help us when we reach Chongqing. How nice! How welcoming! That would have been unthinkable elsewhere, I believe. We then headed back to the train.

The train station was one testimony that China is really a big country with huge population. We had to really push ourselves hard through the huge crowd, which  hosted all sorts of people. People with sacks on their backs, people with beddings, people who don't look as 'elite' or 'urban' as the ones we saw in the Beijing Capital International Airport. This also indicated the rapid migration taking place in the country.

We had already stuffed our bags with some food packets. The train pulled away slowly at first then faster and faster. The view of rural China through the train window was panoramic. The motor road seen on the other side of the train track would sometime fly very high over the villagers' roofs making it impossible for them to use the road. Unlike the roads in Nepal, the road would not bother climbing down a mountain in a serpentine route. It would just fly from one mountain top to another over a bridge overlooking swaths of green fields and villages underneath. 

The passangers in the train were unexpectedly friendly. We made many good friends during the 26-hour journey from Beijing to Chongqing. There were interesting ways to make friends. The Chinese took interest when we would try to speak broken Mandarin. We would ask their name: Ni Jau samma min cha? 

The card magic tricks and games helped make few more friends. Derek knew quite a number of card tricks and some of the youngsters came up with really interesting card games. We stayed late night playing cards with other Chinese passengers. We also met a young kid friend, who was really cute - we communicated well in gestures. When we speak Mandarin everyone would laugh and that's what we liked the most. We concluded that the degree of hospitality among the Chinese and their friendly behavior will attract more and more foreigners and tourists into their country. We all agreed to go and try to fall asleep in our respective upper bunk beds. 

When we woke up early in the morning the train was still pulling southward, and in full speed. The view outside the window was one of a typical cold and misty December morning. We were still hours of trainride before Chongqing. What we could see through the train window was very interesting. Almost everywhere, we could see huge constructions going on: highways and bridges being built, high rise buildings under construction, cranes atop most of the skyscrapers, factories and chimneys and the likes. Somewhere we could see a whole new city under construction. We wondered: whom are these buildings for? Most probably for the 900 million rural Chinese who have not benefited from the recent economic growth in comparison to their urban counterparts. One of the new friends, You Jhi, who was also in the same cabin, said that the Chinese government wants to attract foreign investment in these cities and therefore it is focusing on building the infrastructure first. It sounded opposite to what urban planners were talking back in Hawaii: we need to have seizable population first and think of a city plan. 

We reached Chongqing Train Station at 4:00pm. We ranged the new friend from Chongqing. He was requested to receive us at the Chongqing Train Station (take note of this). As we had expected, he arrived there in about 30 minutes. We then went into McDonalds for coffee. One of the staff at the restaurant suggested us to go to Youth International Hostel for accommodation, which she said was really cheap. The new friend's name was Xian. We left for the hotel together. 

We checked in at the Youth Hostel, we took few minutes to refresh ourselves. And we went out for the nights expedition. We were all craving for food, some Asian spicy food.

We had to again draw a couple of pictures of a cow and a pig. We were able to get some very spicy and hot food items. The day was already gone. We had to sleep for a fresher morning.

The train journey from Beijing to Chongqing also explains a lot about Chinese hospitality. They are all friendly people who are peaceful and harmonious in real sense of the term.

Something weird happened that night at the hotel. We heard some scary noises coming from the bathrooms. There was a continuous tapping sound and sounds like someone is flushing the toilet. But every time when we woke up to check what was going on, it would stop. Derek and I wanted to check. Huma confirmed she also hared the same noise. She ran toward the lobby in fear. We looked inside the bathrooms and there was nothing.

The day's trip revealed us two major issues: one is the fact that there is no other country in the world where so much of construction is going on at such an accelerating rate, and the other is China's confidence to take on the leadership role is rising like anything. If we are to avert future conflicts among world's major powers (old or new), the world must respect the modern China, the center of the world.

[In my core team traveling form US to China, I had Huma, a Kashmiri Indian and Patry Derek Pan, a Cambodian American. This piece was also part of our group report we presented to the bigger group led by our US professors. Not all of us had the same conclusion, however. When I came back to Hawaii, US, I could not stop writing about it for a newspaper.

Interestingly, the day before we left for this exploratory visit inside China, under the East West Center fellowship, the ASEM meeting had just concluded in Beijing with a call for a more transparent and inclusive international monitory and financial system, which in a way was also a call for new Bretton Woods after the US financial crisis that was at its worst by the end of 2008. It was a great time to be in Beijing to witness the booming economy and when i was back in Hawaii, I wrote an article covering this new "call" from a new rising power [China] and it was published in Ka Leo Weekly, Hawaii, USA. Read the article here: "Call for a New Bretton Woods"

https://www.manoanow.org/global-economic-restructuring-a-new-bretton-woods/article_3100b37d-fe19-5c01-b89b-6efb18786071.html 

Naturally Nepal

By Hitesh Karki

It goes without saying that it sounds all too clichéd to harp about endless power cuts. But no, it did not sound that way. There's no electricity for 6 hrs a day and to compound the problem I am just back from standing in a line to get some fuel, I was sure she would not understand petrol, for almost an hour and did not manage to get even a gallon for my vehicle, I was sure she would not understand liters either. 'Amazing! Isn't that great?'

This happens to be the reaction when I had narrated the current state of affairs of mine to a colleague far off in the eastern coast of the US. It appeared as if she could not control her excitement when she instantly reacted by saying 'I am sure it must feel nice to have all your dinners under the candle light. You lucky guy!'

I just didn't feel like saying anything more. I had already described the hills and mountains; had even presented her with Everest postcards and posters, and exaggerated a bit as to how I brush my teeth every morning staring at the tallest mountain ranges of the world. And you know when someone genuinely thinks, like the way she was doing, that it's all too amazing you don't feel like pulling the strings any further. I then realized what more adjectives she would have come up with had I mentioned that there was no cooking gas either. And when I heard her say how much she would love to come to visit my place all the way from the other corner of the world, my imaginations, quite naturally, began to run wild.

I then remembered going to Harvard Square just in front of the gates of the great Harvard University, where getting a parking space is not only a rarity but almost impossible if the day happens to coincide with a holiday. She had got into this parking space and just about when she was to do this parallel thing in the parking, a bunch of men, she said they were the guys from MIT even though there was nothing I could find in their appearance to suggest so, screeched in and tried parking their BMW while she was preparing to park her own Toyota 1999.

Jumping out of the car, she just marched or should I say barged ahead to the driver and gave him her piece of mind. The guys or men, albeit with complete reluctance, obliged. The parking space eventually welcomed the Toyota. Now that she had said she would love to visit my place, I just failed to comprehend a scene of taking her around the tour of the city and its traffic. The little tiny vehicles, of course by her American standards, and stopping anywhere they want, the bikers zooming past from either side of you, I knew she would definitely go crazy. What I do not know is, to what extent! And then the thought of taking her around the tour of the country got into me, leaving me absolutely disturbed.

You name anything that moves and you will find them taking a stroll in the highway or some even treating as if it were their playground. And god forbid if we were to brush anything during the course of the drive, in a flash of second we would not only have to ready ourselves to sign a check, the minimum I believe is somewhere around one million according to current 'market compensation rates', but also bring the life line of the entire nation into a complete standstill. Boy, she sure would feel all too powerful!

Even if the 'dust' of garbage has now settled you never know when the issue will resurface again, YCL or no YCL! The thought of taking her across the heritage sites standing along side heaps of garbage and both of our eyes falling over the poster in nearby shop with the word Shangri-La' printed in bold, I am not sure how would she react but the thing I know for sure is expression on my face will be nothing less than a 'Kodak moment', the one worth having a look at.

And on Chitwan safari I could take her to the headquarters of the reserve and show her what weapons are being used to poach the rhinos rather than showing the one horned beasts themselves. That could be quite a fun. If at all she gets amused by the easy availability of the arms and ammunition, I am sure my answer would take a swim in any of the rivers of this filthy water rich nation of ours and, fish or no fish, at least a .303 is guaranteed. All I hope is, at the end of her sojourn she manages to get and grasp a different perspective to Tourism Board's advert, Naturally Nepal. (The Kathmandu Post, March 18, 2007)

In defense of "loose" women

The latest crisis on college campuses

By Meghan O'Rourke

It is the time-honored duty of the adolescent to alarm adults (parents, in particular) by having wild and often idiotic fun--e.g., streaking naked across campus, playing drinking games, throwing things out windows, hooking up with an acquaintance or a friend who, in a flush of late-night hormones, suddenly looks kind of hot. I went to college in the early days of the "hookup" culture, as it is now called, and my recollection, through the haze of years, was that the whole point of hookups was that they were pleasurable--a little embarrassing, sometimes, but mostly, well, fun. Either I was self-deluded, or things have gotten a lot worse. According to Laura Sessions Stepp, author of Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both, sex on campuses for young women today is a series of joyless encounters engaged in without either short-term pleasure or long-term reward. This pointless hedonism, in Stepp's view, turns young women into jaded depressives unable to trust or love anyone, secretly wishing Mr. Right would show up on their doorstep with flowers and a fraternity pin.

Unhooked purports to be a sweeping look at "hookup" culture on college campuses and several high schools, but, in fact, it is largely limited to a study of Duke University and George Washington University. ("Hooking up," if you've never heard the phrase, is an intentionally vague term that signifies sexual contact, ranging from a kiss to sex.) Stepp, a Washington Post reporter, interviewed "dozens" of young women about their sex lives. The resulting book is the story of nine girls followed over the course of a year. It is heavy on anecdote and generalization and short on information, since, as Stepp herself points out, there is a dearth of reliable evidence about the subject. What she discovered on college campuses troubled her: "Relationships have been replaced by the casual sexual encounters known as hookups. Love, while desired by some, is being put on hold or seen as impossible," she observes. "Some girls can handle this; others … are exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually by it." Like a good mother, Unhooked strives to be less polemical than concerned. But just below its surface lurk the usual naked (and prurient) fears about girls and sex: Girls who put out are going to get hurt. Instead, Stepp argues, they should admit "the bar scene is a guy thing" and stay home to "bake cookies, brownies, muffins"--after all, guys, she confides, will do "anything" for homemade treats. (Who wants chlamydia when he can have cake?)

Certainly, the scene Stepp evokes can seem grim. She watches as packs of girls go out to bars and snap cell-phone pics to remind them who they went home with, then get so drunk they pass out. A lot of the hooking up is motivated not by debauchery but by status: One high-school girl told Stepp that it was "all about getting/hooking up with the hottest, most well-known guys, and girls will spend a lot of time strategizing and manipulating their way into getting those guys." Sorority life is also a factor. In one case, a sorority event leads to consensual sex the young woman in question doesn't remember; in another, to what the woman calls "gray rape." In a shift from victim-oriented 1980s campus culture, these women see themselves as equal or at least responsible partners in the sticky sexual situations their liberated outlook gets them into.

Unhooked is suffused with the vague anxiety that is symptomatic of the teens-in-crisis genre, offset only by a handful of concrete ideas about the damage done by hookup culture: specifically, that young women involved in it are more likely to contract sexual diseases (doctors note rising rates of STDs among young women); that they often feel "awkward" and "hurt" as well as "strong, desirable, and sexy," leading to depression and poor grades; that loveless sex fails to teach women the lessons of intimacy they need for marriage. Some of Stepp's analysis is supported by students' testimonies, but, as with all anecdotal journalism, one detects self-selection and data contamination at work. One problem is that Stepp cites no longitudinal work on the subject--these girls are still in college--which means a lot of predictive doom and gloom with little to buttress it. When girls and psychologists defend hooking up--or argue that she's overemphasizing its downsides--she responds with rhetorical insinuations. After one girl who enjoyed noncommitted sex enthuses, "If sex was that good with Nicholas, imagine what it will be like with my husband," Stepp responds, "But how would she find that husband?" In the 1950s, parents got concerned when girls "went steady" instead of playing the field, but Stepp is convinced this "new" habit of playing the field will warp girls' hearts and make it impossible for them to settle down when the time comes. "It's as if young women are practicing sprints while planning to run a marathon," she worries.

That metaphor of practice for a grueling competition says a lot about both the phenomenon Stepp is describing and her blinkered perspective. What her own reporting suggests, but she doesn't seem to see, is that if there is a problem, it isn't that young women are separating love and sex. It's that they are blurring sex and work: The hookup culture is part of a wider ethos of status-seeking achievement. As one girl puts it: "Dating is a drain on energy and intellect, and we are overwhelmed, overprogrammed and overcommitted just trying to get into grad school." So they throw themselves into erotic liaisons with the same competitive zeal they bring to résumé-building: "If you mention you think a guy is hot, your friend may be, 'Oh, he is hot. I'm gonna go get with him,' " Anna, a high-school student, reveals. The combination of postfeminist liberation and pressure from parents to "do it all"--as one kid puts it--has led girls to confuse the need to be independent (which they associate with success) with the need to be invulnerable. Thus, they frame their seemingly explorative sex lives in rigid, instrumental terms, believing that vulnerability of any sort signals a confusing dependence. The result? Shying away from relationships that can hurt them--which includes even fleeting obsessions that can knock them off balance.

If this is true, the last thing young women need is more assignments from those who view relationships as yet another arena in which they better "win." In that sense, Unhooked is part of the very problem it's trying to offset. While noting that a fear of "failing" makes college girls insist that they've got matters under control when they don't, Stepp offers up the same prescriptive diagnoses that get in the way of young women asking themselves what they--as individuals--might really want: "I hope to encourage girls to think hard about whether they're 'getting it right,' " Stepp says. At the same time, young men get away without such cautionary lessons: Stepp follows a long pattern of leaving them out of the picture. From at least the 1920s (when everyone thought flappers were destroying manners) on through the 1980s (when teen pregnancy rates had everyone alarmed), girls have been hearing that their sex lives are the symbol of generational decadence.

The truth is that even the sex-as-work ethic has an upside--one Stepp fails to see. For the first time in ages, young women are actually concentrating, in some fashion, more on their work and on their female friendships than on love and sex, and many do feel empowered by this. One of the studies Stepp cites found that young women feel less pressured to engage in sex than their male peers do. If some have a tough time figuring out what romantic or sexual pleasure is, they are nonetheless hardheaded about their status as pioneers in a new sexual landscape. "If there's one thing that I know about adults, it's that they pounce on adolescent sexuality with zeal," says Alicia, a student at Duke, aptly pinpointing the adult impulse to scold. Stepp couldn't resist the impulse herself. Buying into alarmism about women, Unhooked makes sex into a bigger, scarier, and more dangerous thing than it already is. The fact is, love is a messy arena, and in it most of us make both wise and foolish choices. C'est la vie, if not l'amour.

Slate

Divorced for money

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t/ o:tf klt–kTgL ;DaGwljR5]b ug{ cbfnt cfpg 5f8]sf 5}gg\ . ;/sf/n] hUufdf xbaGbL nufpg] xNnf rn]kl5 klt–kTgLx¿n] cbfntdf ;DaGwljR5]bsf d'2f btf{ u/fpg yfn]sf x'g\ . klt–kTgLsf] ;'dw'/ ;DaGw sfod} eP klg d'2fdf s'6lk6 u/]sf] cf/f]k nufpFb} kTgLn] nf]Ug]af6 c+z;lxt ;DaGwljR5]bsf] dfu u5{g\ . o:tf] dfu ug]{x¿df ev{/} ljjfxaGwgdf afFlwPsf hf]8L klg 5g\ . xbaGbL nfUg] 8/n] kf/kfr's] ug{ cbfnt cfpg]x¿ w]/}h;f] x'g]vfg] kl/jf/sf 5g\, h;sf] hUuf ;Defljt xbaGbLeGbf a9L 5 .

afFs] lhNnf cbfntdf ;fpgdf Ps ;ftfleq ;DaGwljR5]bsf o:tf $% d'2f k/] . d'2f lbg]df Ps} kl/jf/sf % hgf;Dd 5g\ . a]nef/sf Ps} kl/jf/sf kfFr bDktLn] cbfntdf ;DaGwljR5]bsf] d'2f bfo/ u/]sf lyP .

sfg'gL k|wfgeGbf cfkm\gf] O:nflds ;+:sf/ / k/Dk/fnfO{ s8fO;fy dfGg] d'l:ndx¿;d]t tnfssf] ;f6f] ;DaGwljR5]bsf] d'2f lnP/ cbfnt k'u]sf 5g\ . pgLx¿n] klg ;DklQsf nflu dlxnfnfO{ hfg pS;fP . hUuf w]/} x'g] kl/jf/n] s[lqd ;DaGwljR5]bsf oL d'2fdf GofofnonfO{ 9fF6]sf 5g\ . ufpF3/df uP/ jf:tljstf ga'emL ;DaGwljR5]bsf] km};nf x'g] xF'bf o:tf] ljs[lt b]vfk/]sf] xf] . dlxnfn] c+z glnO{ ;DaGwljR5]bsf] dfu u/]sf 5g\ . lhNnf cbfntsf ;|]:t]bf/ kf]tk|;fb cof{n eG5g\, ækl5 nf]Ug]n] csf]{ ljjfx u/] s] ug'{x'G5 eGbf s'/f rkfpF5g\ .Æ

alb{of cbfntdf ;DaGwljR5]bsf] d'2f lbg] bDktLsf] ;ª\Vof ylkFb}5 . ;fpgsf] bf];|f] ;ftf @% eGbf a9L d'2f btf{ eP . nfUg]af6 ;DaGwljR5]b u/]/ a:bf 5'6\6} c+z kfpg] ePsfn] ;DaGwljR5]bsf] sfg'gL k|fjwfgsf] b'?kof]u x'g yfn]sf] sfg'g Joj;foLx¿ atfpF5g\ .

hUuf hf]ufpg cfk;L ;xdltdf ePsf] ;DaGwljR5]b dlxnf / k'?if b'j}sf nflu 3fts x'g;S5 . æTo;kl5 ;uf]ndf a:bf ;d:of cfpg ;S5,Æ clwjQmf ;'lgtf zdf{ elG5g\, æs]6Ln] bf];|f] ljjfx u/] ;DklQ lkmtf{ xF'b}g .Æ s]6fn] bf];|f] ljjfx u/] ph''/L nfUb}g . æ;DaGwljR5]bkl5 hGdg] ;Gtfgsf] gftf sfoddf klg afwf kg{ ;S5,Æ pgn] elgg\, æ;dembf/L lalu|of] eg] @ ;o &@ lbgkl5 hGdg] ;Gtfgsf] afa'sf] gftf sfod ug{ ;Dej x'Fb}g .Æ

gjljjflxtx¿ a9L ;ª\s6df b]lvG5g\ . pgLx¿df ;DaGwljR5]bn] zf/Ll/s;Dks{df afwf kfg]{, hGdg] ;GtfgnfO{ sfg'gL dfGotf lbg ;s] klg ;dfhn]]] x]g]{ b[li6sf]0f / dfGotfdf kl/jt{g cfpg] 8/ 5 . gfd pNn]v ug{ grfxg] Ps dlxnfn] elgg\, æljjfx ePsf] # dlxgf dfq x'Fb}5, xlgd'g dgfpg gkfpFb} ;DaGw tf]l8of], kl5 wf]sf kfOg] xf] ls <Æ

nf]Ug]n] x]/rfx gu/]sf], vfg–nfpg glbPsf], s'6lk6, oftgf lbPsf], cGo dlxnf;Fu ;DaGw /fv]sf]h:tf sf/0f b]vfP dlxnfn] nfUg]l;t c+z lnO{ ;DaGwljR5]b ug{ kfpg] sfg'gL k|fjwfg 5 . plNnlvt sf/0flagf of] k|fjwfgsf] k|of]u ug{ k'?ifn] dlxnfnfO{ pS;fPsf 5g\ . lsgls k'?ifn] ;DaGwljR5]b ubf{ nfdf] k|lqmof ckgfpg'k5{ . ;lhnf] pkfo ePsfn] cbfntx¿df dlxnfaf6 o:tf d'2f btf{ ePsf] sfg'g Joj;foLx¿ atfpF5g\ .

e"ld;'wf/dGqL k|e'gf/fo0f rf}w/Ln] c;f/sf] clGtd ;ftf /fhwfgLdf ;/sf/n] l5§} hUufsf] xbaGbL] nufpg] cleJolQm lbPkl5 of] nx/ /fhwfgL xF'b} t/fO{sf w]/}h;f] lhNnfdf k'u]sf] xf] . ;a}eGbf lzlIft dflg; a;f]af; ug]{ 7fpFd} sfg'gL k|fjwfgsf] b'?kof]u b]lvPsf] 5 . t/fO{sf afFs], alb{of, s}nfnL, sGrgk'/, bfª, slknj:t', ¿kGb]xL, lrtjg, af/f, k;f{, /f}tx6, l;/fxf, ;Kt/L, df]/ªnufotsf lhNnfdf ;DaGwljR5]b ug]{ qmd a9\bf] 5 .

o;sf] ;sf/fTds kIf klg 5 . 5f]/LnfO{ c+z lbg grfxg] kl/jf/n] 5f]/Lsf gfddf hUuf btf{ ul/lbPsf 5g\, sltn] as;kq;d]t lbPsf 5g\ .

xbaGbLaf6 hUuf hf]ufpg afFs]df )%( ;fndf Ps lbgdf ! ;oeGbf a9L ;DaGwljR5]bsf d'2f btf{ ePsf lyP . ;DklQ n'sfpg of] jif{ ;fpg dlxgfdf *#, ebf}df !@, c;f]hdf $, sflQsdf %, dª\l;/df * / k';df Pp6f ;DaGwljR5]bsf] d'2fdf km};nf ePsf] 5 . Tolta]nf hUufs} nflu afFs]sf k"j{;f+;b zflGtzdz]/ /f0ffn] ;d]t kTgLl;t gftf tf]8]sf lyP .

æb'O{–tLg d'2f dfq jf:tljs xf]nfg\, afFsL ;a} sfNklgs x'g\,Æ clwjQmf cAb'n clhh d';ndfg eG5g\, æcbfntdf gftf tf]8] klg ;a} klt–kTgL ;uf]ndf 5g\ .Æ

klt–kTgLaLr dfq xf]Og kl/jf/sf ;b:oaLrdf klg s[lqd ljjfb l;h{gf u/L c+zj08fsf] d'2f bfo/ ul/Psf 5g\ . ;fpgdf %$, ebf}df @%, c;f]hdf !$, sflQsdf (, dª\l;/df @! / k';df !) c+z d'2f cbfntdf bfo/ eP .

(The writer is one of the most talented and prolific journalists working actively in the issues pertaining to gender, development and the overall media.)