THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

The information gap | Oped | ekantipur.com FEB 14 - On a recent consultation between donors and grassroots groups, in which I was a participant, it was interesting to note that the tenor of the conversation hadn’t changed much in the last ten to fifteen years I’ve been involved in Nepal’s development world. The donors still said they were giving a significant amount of money to government (20 percent of the budget at last count), and the grassroots and community groups continued to claim that very little was reaching them. Where, then is the gap? Is it the fault of the government, ridden with inefficiencies and corruption? Is it the lack of monitoring and evaluation on the part of donors, who hand out large grants to government and organisations without a great deal of track-back information? Is it the fault, perhaps, of civil society, which should have (but hasn’t) demanded greater transparency and accountability from government and NGOs? How can people in Humla or Dolpo know what gr...

SUSHMA JOSHI The Kathmandu Post , 2010/02/07 I was slouching along the road one day, my face swollen with a root canal treatment, my articles unwritten, when I came upon the ever-inspiring poet Manjul. “Here is one of our beloved writers!” said Manjul enthusiastically to his friend. Reeling from a family party in which I had been attacked over my writing the night before, I grouched: “You don’t know how popular. You should read the hate mail I get.” Manjul Dai, who used to teach at the Campus of International Languages during the time my mother worked there, and who is kind of an uncle figure, proceeded to give me a pep talk. “When people give you that sort of response, that means you are making an impact. When people tell you your writing is nice, it’s good, that doesn’t mean as much as when they yell at you. Abuse is a sign people take you seriously.” Maybe, I conceded, slightly mollified. Manjul then proceeded, in his usual poetic way, to tell me: “The power of the pen is mi...

Himal South Asia Guest Blogger Sushma Joshi Kancha Iiliah, writer of “Why I am not a Hindu,” talks about how Dalits are not just outcastes, they are “outwriters.” Their literature is not seen to be valid, people are not interested to read what they write. People ask and say: Can there be such a thing as Dalit literature? If there can be Vedic literature, and Bhakti literature, and Marxist literature, and Gandhian literature, why can’t there be Dalit literature, asks Iiliah. Om Prakash Valmiki also picks up on the same thread: “We are not Hindus, we are Dalits.” The violence still faced by the majority of Dalits in India and other parts of the subcontinent is directly caused by Hindu thought. God cannot be touched by the untouchables in Hinduism, and this, says Kancha Iiliah, is spiritual fascism. From the Current issue: L. Brueck on Dalit Literature Art by Rumen Dragostinov P.Sivakami, a Dalit female writer who shook up her community with her critiques of patriarchy within the Dalit c...

HIMAL SOUTH ASIA BLOG I eat god, I drink god, I sleep on god… It is the first day of the Jaipur Literature Festival and Girish Karnad, who is supposed to give the keynote lecture, along with heavyweights like Wole Soyinka and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., are missing in action. They are possibly lost in the Delhi fog, or the traffic, or maybe they didn’t even depart their home cities and countries in the first place. The roads, you know, says one of the organizers. Apparently this is a good enough explanation and the crowd asks no questions and asks for no explanations—we start off the day with a remarkably serene and unhurried shift to readings of Kabir instead. The day is beautiful, the sky is blue, there are long runners in pink, yellow and orange fabrics above our head and two dhol-players are causing a tremendous ruckus and making us all feel invigorated. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra is on stage and goes from Kabir to Arun Kolatkar with effortless ease. And that is why, instead of a lecture ...

Friday, January 29th, 2010 by Guest Blogger Sushma Joshi Why are people willing to trade freedom for prosperity and material comfort, asked John Kampfner. His book, Freedom for Sale, looks at eight countries as examples of places which have traded in freedom for material security and prosperity. He was born in Singapore and lived in China and Russia—where except for a group of “fearless troublemakers,” most people have bowed down to the imperatives of prosperity in exchange for public freedoms. The UAE and Dubai have a Disney quality about them, says Kampfner, where everyone is trading freedoms for other things, including slave labor. In India, pollution is the tradeoff, while in Italy, Berlosconi has dismantled the independent judiciary and media. In the UK, the ascent of the Left has dismantled civil liberties, and in the USA, self-censorship after 2001 is at an all time high, with people trading in public freedoms for public security. Niall Ferguson tried to play the Oxford don and ...

ART REALLY DOES MATTER | Oped | ekantipur.com ART REALLY DOES MATTER SUSHMA JOSHI JAN 02 - I admit it—I’m a culture hound. That’s why I may have been asked to do this roundup for the year’s arts and culture by The Kathmandu Post. Despite my desire to attend every programme and be everywhere, that’s simply not been possible, so I’ll focus myself on the arts I do know best—literature (fiction, more than poetry or non-fiction), cinema (independent more than commercial), and modern visual arts, with a little bit of theatre. For the vast world of music you better ask somebody else. On dance I’m clueless. I pontificate about architecture but am zero when it comes to real knowledge, so please ask the experts. I know nothing about sculpture, or traditional arts like thangkas, brass and bronze, and wood or stone carvings. So do not expect this to be comprehensive. A week or so ago, I taught two workshops to a group of young people. The workshops on fiction and non-fiction writing was organised...

France 24 asked its observers what the most significant event of 2009 was, in their opinion. My answer: "Coming from Nepal, the Copenhagen climate change talks were very important to us because 65% of Nepali people are farmers and for many of them the lack of rain for the past three winters along with the very meagre monsoon we had this year really affected the amount of food they could grow. For many of these people, the food they grow is all they have to eat; they don't have a job. Despite the fact that the Copenhagen talks faced many obstacles in coming together in agreement, at least they brought global attention to this issue from all fronts." Watch Sushma's submission at France 24 .