Column

TALKING THOUGHTS

Irresponsible Journalism and Business Sector

- By Prateek Pradhan

Recently, thirteen different organizations related to tourism industry organized a press meet to draw flakes of the Indian Government and Indian Airlines for hampering the economy of the country. They were opposing the suspension of Indian Airlines flight to Nepal. On that same occasion former president of Hotel Association of Nepal and current president of Nepal Incentives and Convention Tourism, Yogendra Shakya, raised an issue which enticed this scribe to write a few lines.

Shakya, while highlighting the importance of having more airplanes to the national carrier, mentioned that the efforts of Royal Nepal Airlines has always been baffled by over exposition by the press. He wanted the press to be more responsible not to foil the bid of the national flag carrier to add few more planes.

Shakya’s effort to make the press responsible is certainly praiseworthy. But, when the issue of responsibility of journalists is raised, we always need to look at our own characters. Isn’t it always the businessman who acts in an irresponsible manner, and provides information to the press, because he himself lost the opportunity to supply the aircraft? It is always easy to ask others to be responsible, but virtually impossible to comply by yourself.

In RNAC’s case the plane suppliers are invariably business people. The one who offers hefty kickbacks to the government officials are business people, the one who teaches how the extra buck can be made are also business people. On top of that the party which manages to win the tender is also a business man and those who fail and use all their links to expose the case of corruption are also business people.

The Yogendra Shakya event is just an example. In fact whatsoever be the issue of corruption, irresponsible behavior, cheating etc. the culprit behind it is always the businessman. The tentacles of business have been so widely spread that no act of corruption can take place without their involvement. It is always in the businessmen and politicians nexus that germinates corruption and misappropriation of the country’s resources. Whenever a government changes, businessmen start running around to find a proper connection to resume or begin the game of money.

By saying so, I don’t mean to say that only our businessmen are responsible for all the ills of the society. In fact the corruption is so rooted in the society that there is no caste, creed, level or profession excluded from the act of cheating the country. However, it is still a fact that financial corruption always begins from nowhere but the business community.

So, when we talk of ending corruption in the society, it is not possible just to blame one sector of the society. We cannot only blame business people or for that matter the politicians or any other sector. We have, in fact, failed to fulfill our own responsibility. Until and unless all the players of the civil society start being honest themselves, it is virtually not possible to correct the social ills. And this is the situation when we start covering our mistakes and start blaming others.

So, journalism is also not the only sector which is so far clean. We should humbly accept that journalists are corrupt, inefficient and non-professional. And, it is a fact that none other than business people know how corrupt journalists are. Because they are the people who always try to lubricate the system and do it through illegitimate support of money.

If we keep on blaming each other, the country is certainly not going to progress. It is especially the business sector that has to start playing by the rules of the country. If they find corruption as the backdoor entry, the country is never going to develop.

Meeting George Soros

- By Shashank Kansal

Wow! What a great day that was, all set to meet one man who kept the Sterling high despite the rough waters in Europe and the pressure from EU on England to ensure that Sterling was away from the Euro as a unified currency. He was the man behind funds and investments of many well-known NASDAQ companies. He was none other than George Soros himself and I was wondering what to say or tell him about Nepal and how he would react to all that mentioned. Adrenaline was bursting out and running fast on the veins as the time was approaching.

I did not even realize how time passed from my friend’s apartment in Queens to downtown New York, changing subway at the crossover after the bridge for the office of probably the most powerful man in Investment Banking industry. I was basically thinking all the way as to how I would be able to convince him that Nepal has good potentials in Information and Communications Technology, to convince him that we have some real good brains and professionals that can do nothing less than anyone in other countries. All we need is some venture capital and the startup exposure. I was confident from the single fact that all the investors already know how quick-paying this industry is and also because the person who had introduced me was very optimistic about Nepal and shrugged the dilemma off my shoulder and prayed to almighty that this meeting be great, in order to bring about all those dreams true which I carried along with me from Kathmandu to The Big Apple.

Mr. Soros started the conversation, mentioning about how he was pretty much fond of Nepal, the country he always dreamt of coming to after hearing from friends who visited the country but never had a chance to do so himself. I thanked him for making this meeting possible.

We proceeded on and got down to talking about what Nepal’s potentials and real constraints were that kept our motherland among the poorest on the planet. We talked about many issues from industry to culture and finally wanted to narrow down to what could actually be achievable. We did agree that Nepal has lot of potentials and that this is one country in the world which still enjoys the respect in Asia equivalent to that of Switzerland in Europe.

We agreed that few of the industries had certainly huge potentials in terms of business and also bringing good social respect to the country. This was a lengthy meeting because Soros had delayed his lunch on the super support for this meeting provided by the good common friend of ours, thank God! The list was slowly soaring, hydro-power, tourism, adventure industry, carpets, garments, roads, highways, malls, floriculture etc. But what I was looking for was to get his attention on one industry and that was none other than Information Technology and Communications. This being something I excelled in, I started requesting his views on the same and he agreed immediately. Yes! This was what I was looking for and now I was all set. I briefly explained to him about the great telecom infrastructure we have in Nepal compared to the giants in the region and also how the government is positively supporting the private sector etc. We almost agreed that this is one industry that should be adopted with jet speed, this is one industry that fully utilizes the brains and fuels almost every sector in an economy. The best part was that the great exposure to the Internet had removed all barriers associated with a landlocked country like Nepal. Sure, we were on the verge of reaching consensus, after which I was expecting he would assign duties to someone to follow up, but to my surprise he had better plans.

He immediately called his colleague in the Asia Pacific and set up a trip to Kathmandu within next month. Time passed by pretty quickly and I frantically scheduled all the meetings, visits and seminar which would hopefully bring in the first seed capital fund pouring into the country. It was all like a dream and the meetings and seminars all went off well. The government and private sector joined hands to welcome him and by the time his team was preparing to leave, several Internauts and entrepreneurs were already planning their offices and hiring people with all the bullish market with this positive sign.

I was thanking Almighty for making this a reality and was already seeing big billboards rising all over the place as Kathmandu built up into a unique Technology City!

About a month later, it was a tiring day after talking to about 20 people during a 6 hour long meeting about a mesh of VSAT for an all service riding network. I was getting home to make a thanks phone call to my friend in the US who had made possible the fateful meeting with Soros. From the entrance I could hear the phone ringing and as I neared my room, the ring got louder and louder………..

… I was being awakened by my brother with the phone in his hand. I did not take too long to realize that I had been dreaming. I remembered I had slept last night reading the newspaper that carried the news where George Soros had mentioned about business and politics coming closer together which was actually taking a big toll on small start up ventures, specially in the third world. Probably that provoked the dream!

Kansal is an IT consultant & Senior Vice President of WorldLink Communication