LATEST STORIES
In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi which is also the melting pot of about 16 million dwellers and is politically known for one ethnic community: the Urdu speaking migrants originally hailing from different Indian states. This section of population is essentially the migrants of not just the 1947 partition of the sub-continent but the 1971 creation of Bangladesh as well. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Tamil Nadu, India where the government has announced plans to set up an exclusive vaccine park in the South Indian state with public-private partnership. The plant is slated to become operational by 2011; the vaccine requirement till then is to be procured from private players. This move towards privatisation may signal the onset of a public health crisis steered by profit-hungry MNCs. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to meet Nepali migrant workers working at a McDonald's outlet. Unlike most migrant workers who arrive here with no jobs or are given difficult jobs in palm plantations, the workers at McDonald's are relatively better off. But they still feel cheated, mostly by agents who brought them to this Southeast Asian country promising them a job at an "American restaurant" and an "American salary". (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to India where the government is all set to invest Rs. 363 crores to promote organic farming in 23 states across the country. Plans are afoot to set up organic food parks and to streamline the agro-infrastructure with modern facilities. But it's too early to predict if the new initiative will tempt marginal farmers to switch to organic. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we travel 254 kilometers southeast from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Bibile in Moneragala District of the Uva Province where the government is promoting a controversial Bibile Sugar Project amid massive protests to take away fertile and protected land, some of which falls under reserve forest area. The government has already decided to transfer 65,000 acres of land to the British firm Booker Tate to cultivate sugarcane and run a sugar factory there. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we discuss the final draft of an HIV/AIDS Bill that is waiting to be cleared by the Indian Parliament. India is home to 2.5 million people affected by HIV/AIDS; this includes nearly 80,000 children below the age of 14, according to the National Aids Control Organisation's figures at the end of 2005. The new legislation is likely to give some respite to thousands of "positive" people, who have lost jobs, been thrown out of homes and refused treatment at hospitals. Their only crime: they are HIV positive. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we examine the politics and science of relocating the petrochemical industry hub, originally proposed for Nandigram, to the Nayachar Island in the Hooghly River. The state government in West Bengal had burnt its fingers badly in trying to forcibly acquire land in Nandigram. The uninhabited island, Nayachar must have seemed the safest alternative for the red-in-the-face Left government. This story is but one example of the desperation of state governments across the political spectrum to lure foreign capital at any cost. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we focus on the escalating attacks on media houses and journalists in Sri Lanka. Intimidation of journalists is not new in Sri Lanka. But current trends are alarming. Journalists disappear without a trace. They are often arrested without charges, abducted or found dead. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope we go to Phulbari, a small hamlet in north Bangladesh where, for the past several years, local residents have been resisting a coal-mining project that threatens to displace thousands of people. The controversy revolves around a clandestine deal between the erstwhile Bangladesh government and a British coal company called Asia Energy. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to India, to track a retail boom, brought upon by its accelerated economic growth and consumerism. The entry of multinational brands has lent color and choice to the consumer, no doubt...! But the grim reality of displacing millions of small, unorganized voiceless vendors and shopkeepers looms large... (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Pakistan where the Polio eradication campaign has been on since 1994. Despite political uncertainty and frequent change in governments, this campaign has remained on track, with the country having immunization rounds against Polio, every six weeks... but, its children are still getting infected by the crippling virus. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad where the army surrounded the Lal Masjid or the Red Mosque for over a week in July and eventually launched "Operation Silence" to crush the pro-Taliban militants holed up inside the mosque and seminary complex for months. The army claims they killed 75 people... but the number of parents searching for their children, who were all students, make the numbers seem heavily underplayed. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Orissa in India to get behind the popular unrest against the Korean steel giant Pohang Steel Company (POSCO)’s proposal to build India’s largest steel plant. POSCO has already acquired one thousand one hundred and thirty five acres of land in the face of a stiff local opposition. However, the debate over the project’s stated economic gains and its projected social and environmental cost refuses to die down. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Uttar Pradesh in North India, where the Bahujan Samaj Party that came into being to assert the rights of Dalits or "untouchables" of India is in power, led by a 51-year-old woman leader - Mayawati. Mayawati's electoral experiment brings together a hitherto unusual alliance, between Dalits and Brahmins – considered the nadir and the zenith in Hindu caste hierarchy. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to North Chennai in South India, where dumping of obsolete electronic goods from across the world is bringing about an acute environmental crisis. We also hear a worker who is earning his living by extracting metals dangerously from electronic scrap. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Puttalam on the western coast of Sri Lanka, where thousands of Sri Lankan Muslims languish in I-D-P camps after being displaced by years of civil conflict. We'll also hear Jehan Parera of the Colombo based National Peace Council express his views on a negotiated peace settlement in Sri Lanka. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Pakistan where a constitutional crisis which began with President Musharraf's suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Choudhry on March 9 on charges of misconduct has become a struggle for the restoration of democracy in the country. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to the Indian state of West Bengal where thousands of farmers continue to protest forcible acquisition of prime agricultural land for Special Economic Zones or S-E-Zs. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, where we meet Anisa Wahab, one of Afghanistan's best loved actors and radio personalities and a staunch supporter of UNICEF's Advance Afghanistan Campaign. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we have three guests with us in our studio. Deepak Thapa is a Kathmandu-based journalist, Sumitra Manandhar Gurung is an academic turned activist, and Gopal Krishna Siwakoti is a human rights activist. They will discuss Nepal's upcoming Constituent Assembly elections. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Mannar on the western coast of Sri Lanka where local fishermen have expressed concerns on the adverse effects a 152 kilometer long shipping lane called the Sethusamudram Canal will have on their livelihoods. We also hear A. S. Panneerselvan, a journalist, who looks at the missing pieces of the Sethusamudram controversy. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we go to Dhaka - the bustling capital of Bangladesh where thousands of rickshaws, those jauntily decorated three wheelers, jostle for space with cars, pedestrians, trucks, tempos and bicycles. Yet the migrant population that man these vehicles around the city often remain faceless, swelling the ranks of Dhaka’s urban poor. We also hear Mostafa Kamal Majumder, a Dhaka-based journalist, speak about the migration and marginalization of rickshaw wallahs – the men who keep Dhaka on the move. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we listen to a soldier from Nepal's Maoist People's Liberation Army speak of her experience as a legislator in Nepal's interim parliament. We also hear Sanam Anderlini, an expert on the Security Council U-N Resolution Article 1325, speak of how the U-N resolution on Women, Peace, and Security relates to Nepal especially in the context of the ongoing peace process. In this edition, we also hear Prof. Yash Ghai, a constitutional expert with the U-N, stress the importance of having a very representative constituent assembly. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope, we listen to how increasing water scarcity in the region affects lives. In the rugged and mountainous region of Balochistan in southwestern Pakistan, the burden of water, as in other parts of South Asia, falls mainly on women. In another feature, as the demand for water outstrips supply in Nepal's urban capital Kathmandu, some of the city's residents rely on ancient stone taps as a continuous water source. (15:00)
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In this edition of Panoscope we have three guests with us in our studio. Mandira Sharma is a human rights lawyer from Nepal, Tapan Bose is a human rights activist from India, and Vasuki Nesiah is a Sri Lankan scholar. All three have worked extensively in the field of transitional justice in their respective countries. Panoscope caught up with them in Kathmandu at a recent conference on Transitional Justice in South Asia. (15:00)
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In this edition, we hear how local radio initiatives in India and Nepal have benefited communities and helped improve lives. In Budikote village in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, locals benefit from programs on agriculture, banking, health, and governance broadcast by a community cable audio network. And in Palpa, a small hill town in western Nepal, school children catch up with classes with a little bit of help from their community radio. (15:00)
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In this edition, we hear M-S-Ms, an abbreviation for men who have sex with men, in the Nepali capital Kathmandu speak about H-I-V AIDS, and about being a sexual minority in Nepal. We also hear Sunil Pant of Blue Diamond Society speak about H-I-V and AIDS concerns regarding Nepal's M-S-M population and the challenges the organisation faces as it tests traditional notions about gender identity and sexual behavior. (15:00)
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In this episode, we hear how some 60,000 sex workers in the Indian state of West Bengal are empowering themselves as a result of which they can promote safer sex. We also hear how some twelve thousand people living with H-I-V and AIDS in Pakistan are in need of anti-retroviral therapy, yet only two percent can afford it and that too at a high cost. (15:00)
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In this episode, we hear the testimony of Ganesh Bhandari a former Maoist student activist who is presently working in Qatar in the Gulf. We also hear some workers in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where an estimated 150,000 Nepalis work - many who are unskilled and are often compelled to take on dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs to fulfill their dreams. This is the fifth in a six-part series on the Nepal conflict. (15:00)
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In this episode, have two journalists with us in our studio. Amit Dhakal is the news editor of The Kathmandu Post and Kanak Mani Dixit is the editor of Himal Southasian magazine. Both have written extensively on Nepal's ten-year-old Maoist conflict and the current peace process. Here they discuss the pressing issue of arms management - a key to bringing the Maoist Party into mainstream politics and ensuring peace in Nepal. This is the final in a six-part series on the Nepal conflict. (15:00)
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In this episode, we hear the testimonies of two Nepali women closely affected by the ten-year-old Maoist conflict. First, Kamala BK's husband disappeared five years ago by security forces in her remote village of Rukum. Second, Pampha Budhakothi, a political activist, and her family fled their village in the Nepali hinterland when she became the target of Maoist excesses. (15:00)