SAARC summit

The much-delayed eleventh SAARC summit could be held early in January, barring unforeseen developments. The dates are more or less confirmed. Much has happened in the region and beyond since the last summit and another periodic get together of the heads of state or government of the SAARC Seven would provide a timely opportunity to take a collective look at the changed scenario. Such collective exercises are indeed part of the raison d’etre of regional groupings, quite apart from their formal charters and objectives and agendas spelled out in black and white. For this and other reasons, one earnestly hopes the summit does materialize this time. Having said that one must hasten to add that the summit, when it comes, should not be used by any one country as a platform for its own propaganda pitch. The discussions should be substantive, serious, constructive and well worth the expenses that the whole SAARC exercise entails for its members. This membership has often been described as a poor man’s club. In this connection it should be recalled that the preparations that Nepal had made for the summit at its originally scheduled date turned out to be a waste when India saw fit to scuttle that the event because it did not like to confer any legitimacy, however tangentially, on General Musharraf by sitting together with him at the same conference table. Those expenses should be compensated in some fashion or other.

Now that a SAARC summit is clearly on the cards, it should be reiterated that it should take place for all the right reasons. It should bring together the top leaders of the region to make further strides for the common regional good. Apart from the collective look at regional and international developments mentioned above, they will have much on their plate, including progress on the development of a free trade area, a common approach to the World Trade Organisation, the issue of genetically modified foodstuff, the scourge of aids, trafficking in drugs and arms, trafficking in humans, and yes terrorism, among others. Some of these issues would also be covered by a social charter, another area of SAARC concern. SAARC has been criticized for lacking a single central theme to bind it together, such as anti-communism for ASEAN and a common market for the European Community (at least in their formative stages). A better track record of delivering on the promises would help allay some of that criticism. SAARC summits, like other regional and international summits, also offer the chance for casual but nonetheless vital contacts on the sidelines. Such contacts at bilateral level are especially important in the context of SAARC whose charter explicitly forbids the raising of bilateral issues among its members. One hopes a Kathmandu summit will see some of this bilateral mileage also. Allied to this is the hope that India, the dominant player in the region, is not using a regional summit merely as a back-up arrangement for a casual meeting between its prime minister and the Pakistani president. Similar arrangements at the venue of the UN General Assembly in New York have been on and off since the summit between the two South Asian leaders that took place in the Indian city of Agra. Not that any meeting between Messrs Vajpayee and Musharraf is not welcome, wherever it takes place. But putting together a SAARC summit as a thin cover for such happentence would be a mockery of SAARC itself and a bad precedent.

Communications and HIV/AIDS awareness campaign

By Praksah Khanal

No man is an island. Famous English scholar and poet Dante did not say it for nothing. Many of us have understood the significance of communication in our life. However, there are still millions of people who do not know the value of communication and there are also those who do not have access to information, something that communication is all about. Indeed, no man is an island - cut off from rest of the world. Only communication links the people from one state to those of another. Communication is an integral part of our daily activity.

Communication means dissemination or sharing of information which could be about a sea of things, from politics to police, or from food to sex. Things revolving around us. Things happening in our lives, our of families and societies. One of the major strengths of people in developed countries is their access to information, their capability to analyse this information and make decisions. This is something which is still missing in developing countries.

Efforts are underway in many developing countries to make people scientifically literate about things that matter in their lives. Illiteracy has been a major obstacle in many developing countries in Asia and Africa where efforts to alleviate poverty and raise health awareness have failed miserably due to lack of awareness and education. Humanity has had faced many crises during the history of their development. But gradually human intelligence defeated them and moved onto another generation.

The case of Human Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune-deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has been a bit different. Merely thinking of HIV/AIDS creates goose primes on our skin and sends a chilling shiver into our heart. We close our eyes and pray that no one contracts this dreadful killer disease. Alas, our prayers merely remain prayers, and numerous people continue to succumb to this killer disease. Never before in the history of development of modern medicine scientists faced so much challenge as they do today. Medicine and vaccine for curing HIV/AIDS are still a distant dream.

It is difficult to tell exactly how many people have already succumbed to HIV/AIDS in Asia and Africa. In Asia the number of infected and dying people continues to change from zero to thousands within a very short span. The picture is entirely different in Africa. In some countries, the percentage of population infected with HIV/AIDS goes as high as over 50 percent of the entire population. The number of orphans continues to rise sharply in these countries.

It is estimated that 36.1 million people are living with AIDS today, and 21.8 million have already died. It is estimated that currently 1.4 million children are living with HIV/AIDS and more than 13 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Children living with HIV/AIDS in South Asia amounts to more than 160,000. Researchers say that 2 persons in South Asia get infected every five minute and that 14 new infections occur in Nepal every day. Death toll continues to rise, and figures are becoming less and less important as they continue to represent our helplessness in fight against HIV/AIDS.

One of the prime reasons for the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in the world is the explicit sexual behaviour, the openness about sex. Talking about sex is a taboo in many societies in Nepal, but there are also those groups and ethnicities which are relatively open towards sex. Although we know that sex is not the only cause of the HIV/AIDS infection, but to a great extent, it has been recognized as an infectious disease spreading primarily due to sexual promiscuity. Failing to change one's sexual behaviour, lack of knowledge about personal hygiene and a common belief that HIV/AIDS is a disease of foreigners alone are the main culprits. The case of Nepal is even worse. In the coming decade, HIV/AIDS will be the number one killer of young people.

Scenario is not any different in Asia-Pacific region. What is different is their educational and economic standards, a determining factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS. Once the spread of HIV/AIDS threatened the adult productive population in the West and European nations, but they were able to contain the spread of this disease by devising proper communication and information campaigns through print and electronic media and by including sex education in their school curricula. The result is decline in teenage pregnancies and HIV/AIDS infection.

There are countries like Nepal which continues to slide down the socio-economic ladder. The politicians are busy accusing each other of bribery, of institutionalizing corruption and of having failed to provide good governance. Ordinary people are the only victims as they continue to be crushed under grinding poverty. The case of Nepal is unique. People fall sick and die not only because of a monstrous disease like HIV/AIDS, but also due to pneumonia, tuberculosis, jaundice and typhoid. Malaria is coming back vigorously, and it is difficult to tell how many more will die due to drug resistance.

Besides creating a good health care system for the people infected with HIV/AIDS, the government should take advantage of the development of print and electronic media. People planning information campaigns in Nepal must keep in mind that the literacy figure might have crossed 60 percent in books, thanks to the ministers and political leaders, but the reality is entirely different. In reality, it is far low and ineffective. Illiteracy severely limits the scope of media campaigns to print media. That leaves us the choice to tap the phenomenal development of electronic media in Nepal such as Radio Nepal, which covers the whole country through its Medium Wave and Short Wave transmissions, FM radio stations and television channels.

In the last few years, the purchase of radio or television has increased. The availability of cheap, good and powerful radio and television sets has encouraged a large number of people to listen to radio broadcasts. However, the literacy level and distribution of newspapers limits the scope of print media, whereas the same does not apply to radio and television broadcasting. Surveys conducted by different research organizations have revealed that the number of those owning a radio set in Nepal is increasing day by day.

The people and organizations, engaged in developing plans and programmes to fight against HIV/AIDS, must consider utilizing mass media. After the establishment of multiparty democracy, the one positive thing that has happened in Nepal is the growing readership and radio listening habit among the ordinary people, and this has greatly contributed to political awareness. The number of newspapers registered at the Department of Information has increased to over 2700, of which around 300 are regularly published. Similarly, the number of FM radio stations has increased to over eight in Kathmandu valley, and their number continues to grow outside the valley.

Given such an encouraging situation, what we need at present is the broadcasting of carefully planned information packages on radio and television, as well as publication of interesting and well-researched write-ups in print media.

Travel blues

By Pragya Karki

Overjoyed and excited to celebrate this year’s Dashain with our grandparents, away from this concrete - jungle, me and my sister caught a day-bus to reach our destination. In fact, the ticket was booked 15 days earlier. Travelling on a long-distance-bound, we get a good chance to come across people from different walks of life. Well, I can’t remember all of them, but I can’t forget a few of them either.

When the bus was about to roll its wheels, I was a witness to a verbal fighting which in no time turned into a live wrestling match. The war was over the same ticket being sold to two individuals, which I guess, is a common practice during festival times. Just as Dashain is an appropriate and much-awaited time for business people to create an environment of artificial crisis of the most essential commodities, it is also a peak time for brokers to make money by selling the same tickets to two or more passengers who were eager to reach their destination on time. In the above incident, the conductor adjusted a small stool for one of the guys, bearing the same ticket for the same 2x2 folding seat. The poor guy, who was cheated, had to sit on the stool!

Silence reigned inside the moving bus, but it did not last for a long time. The manly voices of two guys, who were sitting right behind our seat, drew my attention. From their conversation, it was apparent that they were reporters from one of the reputed daily newspapers. They were a real chatter-box. I still remember a joke cracked by them. In one of the exams they had appeared, they were asked about the similarity between Mahatma Gandhi and Gautam Buddha, and one of their pals had answered that both of them were ‘males’!

As I was enjoying their lively chitchat, all of a sudden our bus stopped to a screeching halt. A handful of energetic youths were ready to block the highway just because the bus ahead of ours refused to let them inside the bus, as it was not a local bus. The policemen from the nearby village were quick enough to stop them from blocking the busy highway. The conductor with a broad grin narrated us that the villagers didn't have to come up with a convincing cause to block the
highway. "When there is a quarrel between a husband and a wife, the easiest thing to do is cut down a tree, place it across the middle of the road and play the game of highway blocking!" The passengers burst into laughter after hearing this, and the bus moved on again.

On the way, I saw buses loaded with people on their rooftops. I wondered why neither the Trishuli River, that runs parallel to the road, nor the narrow winding twists and turns of the road could frighten the drivers and the adventurous passengers. It may be that they had left behind their road sense in the capital before embarking on the bus.

Seeing the soothing as well as not-so-soothing scenes, I finally reached my destination. How can we forget time’s winged chariot? Soon it was time to return to the concrete-jungle where I was born and grew up. On my way back, I did not get a chance to witness fisticuffs, but more buses overloaded with passengers dominated the scene. A pang of fear chilled my heart. I shut down my eyes, and hoped that no road accidents would occur.

India’s unofficial anthem

By Jug Suraiya

Twenty-four years after I was first asked it, I’ve finally found the answer to the question that has been put to me most often: Why did JS magazine close down? JS — which I helped to start in 1967 and which discontinued publication in 1977 — has left an indelible impression on an entire generation of readers. People keep asking me why it was allowed to fold up. Wasn’t it widely and enthusiastically read? It was. Wasn’t it a profit-making venture? It was. Why stop it then?

Over the years I’ve thought up a number of responses to that query: It was a product ahead of its time: it lacked the appropriate managerial base, etc. Such answers have never satisfied anyone, least of all me. Then I hit upon the perfect comeback to this catechism. Why did JS have to go? Because we are like that only. And my interrogator goes away perfectly happy with the irrefutable logic of this ultimate proposition.

The other day my wife, Bunny, and I went to buy a packet of pre-fab soup from the local grocer. The man had tomato soup, mushroom soup, mixed vegetable soup, spinach soup, mutton soup and other soups too various to inventory. But no chicken and noodle soup, the one we wanted. "Why no chicken and noodle soup?" asked Bunny. "No supplies coming," the grocer said apologetically. "Not making anymore."

"Why not making anymore?" asked Bunny in her best Punjlish, or Punjabi English. "No demand, or what?"

"Oh, very big demand, madame!" said the grocer brightly. "Then why have they stopped making it?" Asked Bunny, forgetting her Punjlish in the heat of escalating debate. The shopkeeper shrugged: "What to do, madame. You are knowing that we are like that only."

The unofficial anthem of the nation: We are like that only. In those five words lie the unity in the diversity of our woes, big and small. If, despite the much tom tommed consumer boom, you can no longer get the flavour of soup you’ve got used to; if, despite the global revolution in telecommunications, you find that Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd has unilaterally cut off your International Subscriber Dialing (ISD) facility in order to protect you from its potential ‘misuse’; if, despite threats of privatisation, the electricity supply people turn the power off and on at whim; if, despite claims of liberalisation and the streamlining of official procedure, die-hard bureaucracy maintains its stranglehold on day-do-day inactivity, what to do? We know that we are like that only.

I’m told it’s a question of our marketing philosophy, our ceaseless battle to maintain brand inequity. We are suspicious of success, and as soon as a brand begins to go down well with the public — be it chicken and noodle soup, ISD or economic reforms — we discontinue the product line or have it transferred to obscurity. Like it or not, we are like that only.

According to some, the we-are-like-that-only scheme of things hinges on the principle of imperfect demand creating its own imperfect supply. This goes beyond mere economic or practical considerations and achieves a metaphysical sanction, based on the laws of karmic kickback. Who are we, expiating past misdeeds of omission and commission, to demand satisfaction in the here and now? Far better to defer gratification, thereby earning brownie points for the next spin of the karmic wheel. And the suppliers, those who give us this day our daily dread in the form of disaffection with goods and services, show commendable zeal in helping us achieve our goal of post-dated consumer benefit; always jam tomorrow, never jam today. As a bonus, those who help maintain the tantalising elusiveness of jam can take credit for giving us a step-up on the spiral staircase to nirvana by doing us a disservice which is really a service in disguise.

This might explain why brands in popular demand are so often summarily discontinued or indefinitely shelved in favour of undesirable or unpopular brands which no one particularly seems to
want and yet which everyone must nonetheless subscribe to. A case in current point is the mega-brand known as the Indian System, which subsumes all other brands.

Launched as a premier brand 54 years ago with Independence, the System today is almost universally acknowledged to have outlived its product life. In fact, it has become synonymous with inefficiency, corruption, deceit, dissension, unbridled greed, rank opportunism and downright criminality. So why don’t we change, switch over to a new, improved System containing a hitherto undisclosed secret ingredient X in its formulation, as has often been suggested in the past and has now been mooted once again? Not a chance, no bloody fear.

And what we’re afraid of is not that the new System won’t work, but that it just possibly will, and by doing so put us in the unacceptable position of having to live up to our brands instead of having our brands live down to us.

Such fears are groundless. For given our innate genius to not just reinvent the wheel but to uninvent it every time it comes around we’d soon see to it that any new System went the way of the old. How can we be sure of that? Because we are like that only. Aren’t we?