4/11/2012
by Ujjwal Acharya
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A Leap to Peace

Nepal Army took the chain of control on Maoist combatants in a important development of Nepal’s peace process. However, the wounds of war will only be healed by truth reconciliation.

Cartoon by Rajesh KC/Republica (Reproduced with permission)

For the record, on April 10, 2012, Nepal Army took control of the weapons and the chain of command of the Maoist’s People’s Liberation Army. This officially makes United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) a civilian party without weapons and combatants; and the change marks an important achievement in Nepal’s peace process after the end of Maoist’s 10-year-long People’s War. Continue Reading →

3/30/2012
by Ujjwal Acharya
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Media Illiteracy Weakens Journalism

[During a conference in the University of Connecticut, I was asked to speak on media literacy in Nepal. What could I say? I studied journalism and mass communication at Tribhuvan University for seven years completing more than 15 annual subjects on media. None of them focused on media literacy. I have gone through media courses of other universities of Nepal and I found media literary in none of them.

I also studied English language and literature during my university days. There were courses on critical thinking but they didn’t deal with media texts. Continue Reading →

3/25/2012
by Ujjwal Acharya
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Theorizing tfcNepal’s success

On March 24, Tweet for Cause Nepal (@tfcNepal) celebrated its first anniversary. tfcNepal is a small social media initiative for social change that aims to bring smiles on the faces of the underprivileged by providing them little support. In a year, the initiative succeeded in running five projects (a project = a support worth around Rs. 30,000), including one outside Kathmandu. The initiative is based on the donation provided by its self-declared members.

I am one of around 1,400 proud members of the initiative who provide occasional donation (any amount of my choice). And, it’s relatively successful in crowd-funding its projects and keeping things tied together.

Continue Reading →

1/28/2012
by Ujjwal Acharya
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Proposed Media Policy: Bad Timing

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MoIC) has thrown out a draft of Media Policy 2012 urging stakeholders to send feedback that it said will be incorporated before finalizing it. A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) has published front-page advertisements urging all concerned organization and people to send the feedback to their email. The NGO also held three consultation meetings, including one in Kathmandu, to discuss the proposed media policy.

The proposed policy is prepared by a committee headed by MoIC joint secretary under a project funded by Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA). The ‘Project for Promoting Peace Building and Democratization through the Capacity Development of the Media Sector in Nepal’ (or Media for Peace Project) aims to achieve two targets: first, functioning of Radio Nepal as a public service broadcasting (PSB) and second, revision of media policy, acts, regulations and guidelines. Continue Reading →

1/16/2012
by Ujjwal Acharya
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The Ebbing Himal (news magazine)

Yesterday, I tweeted about new layout design of Himal Khabarpatrika – a fortnightly news magazine published by Kanak Mani Dixit (@kanakmanidixit) for Himalmedia Private Limited. The tweet was a summary of a small text placed in the magazine’s new issue saying that the particular issue onward the magazine has changed the size and layout.

I put a second line myself saying that the market has gone down for the magazine. It was my experience based more or less on my interpretation of some of the answers by Dixit in an in-house discussion published in its 300th issue (Deshko Mag – Nepali text).  Continue Reading →