Stories from 6 March 2007
South Asia: Holi, Wedding excess, Bollywood, Snow, Bus etiquette, ordination of children
Happy Holi to our readers. The Hindu Spring festival of colors is one of the most popular traditional festivals in India and Nepal. South Asia Biz reports that the Indian Cricket team, now in the Caribbean for the Cricket world cup celebrated Holi with the local Indian communities. We also...
Bahrain: Satan Worshippers Rock at Concerts
Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al Yousif goes on a rampage against a local newspaper for publishing an article on Satan worshipping amongst students who attend rock concerts, “based completely on unsubstantiated rumours, fear mongering, discriminatory allegations and all based on fourth hand accounts.” “What you and your editors have done to...
Bahrain: Journalist Fined
Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al Yousif is livid that a Bahraini journalist has been fined by a court for writing about a fight, without naming those involved in it. “If this is the motive behind these continuous harassing techniques by the public prosecution or the government in general, then let’s not...
India: The budget and the media
Ultrabrown on the depth and length of media coverage devoted to the Indian Budget exercise. “So the wall-to-wall media attention to the Indian budget last week struck me as bizarre. New Delhi released the budget last week to 20-page special sections in mainstream newspapers about taxes on gram and cement...
Arabisc: An Open letter to the Saudi Labour Minister
Saudi Arabian blogger Raed Al Saeed has written an open letter to his Labour Minister Dr Ghazi Al Gosaibi, who is also a distinguished writer and diplomat, and posted it online. The letter, whether it made it to Dr Al Gosaibi's office or not, is available on the worldwide web...
Sri Lanka: Children and Religion
Dilispeak responds to some bloggers by asserting that children taking to the religious order as monks is not entirely negative. “What i think both of them forgot is that there actually are little children who really actually do want to become monks from a very young age.Because they like what...
Pakistan: Kite Flying and Crimes
Light Within on those punished for breaking kite flying rules. “What is the point here? Whereas big guns can get way with almost anything, it is most dreadful for any poor to commit a crime. A nightmarish chain of even starts for the entire family when some one is caught...
Nepal: Going Abroad
Deepak's Diary on youth who go abroad to support themselves and their families. “Twenty four year old Chandra is leaving for Malaysia very soon. He is one of hundreds of Nepali youth who toil in the foreign soil, somewhat pompously called Diaspora.”
Bangladesh: On South Asia, Literature and Identity
black and gray in conversation with author Sikeena Karmali. “I do believe that English has become a part of the South Asian linguistic identity in that South Asians have very much taken the language and made it theirs so that today, the English of South Asia has its own distinct...
Haiti: Goat on a Plane
New Haiti-based Haitian blogger (and published author) Nancy Chapoteau of Notedor.com writes about her strange encounter with a strange plane fellow on a flight from Cap Haitian to Port-au-Prince [Fr]: “My son's reaction [to the billy-goat] was as funny as could be: ‘Was the goat wearing his seatbelt?’ Instead, the...
Malawian Musings: Diaspora, Internet-based Radio, Nigerian Movies, Stray Dogs, Silicon Valley dreams, and Muluzi’s comeback
The Malawian blogosphere has been abuzz with news of Malawian initiatives involving radio broadcasting and the Internet; Malawians in the diaspora; personal narratives about dislikes, trips and city issues; and the political comeback of former President Muluzi who is said to be planning a return to contest for another term...
Global Voices is seeking an Outreach Director
Global Voices is seeking a full-time Outreach Director. The outreach director will coordinate Global Voices's efforts in promoting blogging, podcasting, videocasting, photoblogging and other forms of citizen media throughout the world. This will include responsibility for managing a grants program that will support innovative outreach efforts with microgrants, compilation of...
Ukraine: “Pidmanula, Pidvela”
Ukraine List posts a comprehensive entry on the extremely popular Ukrainian folk song: Pidmanula, pidvela. Links to video and audio of the song's various performances, as well as the lyrics in English and Ukrainian, are included.
Ukraine: A-ba-ba-ga-la-ma-ga
Olechko writes about A-ba-ba-ga-la-ma-ga, a Ukrainian publishing house that produces wonderfully-illustrated books “for kids from 2 to 102″ years of age.
Ukraine: Yulia in the States; Re-privatization
Foreign Notes translates a piece on Yulia Tymoshenko's recent visit to the United States and writes about the possible re-privatization of the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant.
Russia: “Torture by Visa”
Darkness at Noon shares several near-horror stories on getting and maintaining a Russian visa: over the years, the purely bureaucratic beast tormenting the blogger has metamorphosed into “the academo-bureacratic beast.”
Russia: Moscow in FT
Sean's Russia Blog reads a piece by FT's Moscow correspondent, a Russian repat looking for “some semblance of his past” in today's Moscow.
China: spring travel photo essay
Lung have a photo essay on spring travel with rural migrant in China, telling the hard life of peasants (zh).
What Salvadoran bloggers are saying — about murders in Guatemala
Recent events involving the murder of four Salvadorans in Guatemala have dominated the blogosphere in El Salvador. On February 19, three members of the Central American parliament (PARLACEN) from El Salvador's ruling ARENA party were found murdered in Guatemala along with their driver. The group had been traveling to a...
China: different versions of Tianhou
Maryannodonnell explains the different versions (official and unofficial, urban and rural) of Tianhou's legend and cultural practice in Chiwan Tianhou Temple in Shenzhen.
China: please forget Lei Feng
Joel Martinsen from DANWEI points to survey about Chinese school-children's knowledge of Lei Feng; and translates Chi Li's article arguing that: If you truly want to do good works, please “forget Lei Feng”