MT. SAGARAMATHA, 'CYBER MAYHEM' AND AN APOLOGY TO A SCHOLAR

[Now coming to the point here - should you be googling  and hitting simply  two words - ‘cyber mayhem’ on the web, you may  encounter scores of  links  wherein you would be forced to read some eye-catching phrases that The Himalayan Voice “has unleashed cyber mayhem in the name of Mt. Everest, with the victims including Nepal's prime minister, the Indian ambassador to Nepal, major embassies in Kathmandu and media around the world” and which,  The Himalayan Voice would like to flatly dismiss. It is not true. The current prime minister  of Nepal  and others mentioned used to receive or are receiving post-link emails on Nepal’s fragile political life, democracy and disadvantaged peoples since sometime long and which we do not have to deny.]

By B. K. Rana

Today debating the world’s highest peak: Mt. Sagaramatha 8848 M again,  we post here on the top, an apology to Prof. S. Kalyanraman, a renowned South Asian Archaeologist, for  having been emailed in reply, by a sender from Kathmandu  in the list which, we categorically do not own,  that “you missed your geography knowledge back in high school or must have in event matriculated into the wrong alma mater”, a Kathmandu based Indian reporter, Sudeshna Sarkar’s phraseology  ‘unleashed cyber mayhem’  and a brief note on our own weblog, in other words: ‘The Himalayan Voice' also ! Prof. S. Kalyanraman  seemed  blissfully unaware of the world’s highest peak Mt. Sagaramatha and the other peak Mt. Gauri-Shanker also. That was a rude email by any standard of which we should all be ashamed. Some people sometime  write about areas of research which they  aren't very  familiar with. Place names come in a specialized  field of historical linguistics. 

Now coming to the point here - should you be googling  and hitting simply  two words - ‘cyber mayhem’ on the web, you may  encounter scores of  links  wherein you would be forced to read some eye-catching phrases that The Himalayan Voice “has unleashed cyber mayhem in the name of Mt. Everest, with the victims including Nepal's prime minister, the Indian ambassador to Nepal, major embassies in Kathmandu and media around the world” and which,  The Himalayan Voice would like to flatly dismiss. It is not true. The current prime minister  of Nepal  and others mentioned used to receive or are receiving post-link emails on Nepal’s fragile political life, democracy and disadvantaged peoples since sometime long and which we do not have to deny.

Writing this way to the Former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal also on May 13, 2010 within the hours he received a High-Level Task Force Report on Indigenous Peoples of Nepal, we had asked him not to make the faulty report public at any cost. The report is not in favour of the indigenous peoples, who are the majority folks and disadvantaged ones in the country. The nearly 10 million rupee ( Rs.10,000,000.00, झन्डै एक करोड रुपैयाँ)  report is in limbo now. So, whoever is there in public office in Kathmandu or elsewhere for the Nepalese people’s concerns or entire Himalayan region including Sri-Lanka, we have been updating them with what we post. This kind of post should  not victimize anyone including those who crushed the Tamils with brute force.  

We must write here that the current Prime Minister Jhal Nath Khanal has become The Himalayan Voice's Facebook friend  since sometime already. So he can’t be labeled a victim by any means. We regularly post him and President Barak Obama also in the Facebook on Nepal and other Himalayan issues down here from Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States of America. So, what is wrong about sending some links that are for the cause of people in general ? In fact,  the list was received from some other media outlet some two years ago and being used by concerned people and entities like the National Archives of India and Archaeological Survey of India also. We have some readers in India also who have sent huge bulk of email list but which we have not utilized yet. We don’t think we should use it now.

Until September last year, the said reporter was unknown to us frankly. She came into  our notice only when one of our readers from Kathmandu sent us a link wherein we found her short  news-report on  Sino-Nepal relations, which we also posted and informed her sending an email message in the list. This is how she came in our notice and  we knew she is an Indian reporter based in Kathmandu, Nepal, which is fine. 

We write here a few sentences on this weblog  The Himalayan Voice also. It was founded on February 01, 2010  for the issues of the Himalayan region and beyond also. Over a period of one year and some, it has offered forum to those also who have apparently not found outlets for voicing their concerns. Last year the Himalayan region saw an unprecedented uproar in the Nepali Parliament and also from the  Nepalese people around the world on  the Buddha being falsely written as 'an Indian', meaning 'he was born in India' by an India-born American writer Fareed Zakaria who, without taking slightest of  the notes of scholars like D. C. Sircar, has written so in his book The Post-American World  ! We debated the issue that the Buddha was born in Nepal’s Lumbini with people from different parts of the world, including the writer himself in a group email list which was already there on the web. Further to it, the National Archives of India replied to us " that the desired information is not available in the record holdings of National Archives of India" in our question whether, as claimed by some Orissan scholars,  they had any record on the Buddha being born in Kapileshowr of  Orissa ?

But to our astonishment, more regrettably however, The Himalayan Voice has come under cyber attacks for some unknown reasons from unspecified locations already. Few months ago, again on May 5, 2011 one of its log-in accounts was accessed unauthorized five times from United Kingdom only, after which Google alerted  us sending details and blocked all other accounts also citing violation of terms and conditions specified therein. It has been hacked many times.

It is yes, we have posted articles such as: The Rise of 'Hindu Taliban' In India ?  and Hindu Militancy, Islamic Terror Groups and The Maoists, Lessons of Hate at Islamic Schools in London and few more others of similar type, sometime last year. These articles have drawn  some kind of  discord like  this one we are writing on here today.  There were  some unhealthful personal attacks also. But copying an email containing a link to the said reporter about  ‘Radhanath Sikdar’, the Indian national who discovered Mt. Sagaramatha and  Prof. Kamal Prakash Malla’s reply was a must ( Please check the use of vocabulary in her comment).  The Himalayan Voice doesn’t believe in any religious fundamentalism. Prof. Malla has corrected it and ‘Sikandar’ as the said reporter writes an Islamic word,  is virtually a Greek  word after Alexander, who was well  before the birth of Islam.

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PAKISTAN HEIGHTENS SCRUTINY OF FOREIGNERS, U.S. AND HUMANITARIAN AID OFFICIALS SAY

[The widely publicized episodes in Peshawar threaten to become another flash point in a frayed bilateral relationship that U.S. officials had hoped was improving, after fatal shootings by a CIA contractor and the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden. International aid groups say the fallout from those incidents, which sparked debate about the presence of Americans in Pakistan, has prompted scrutiny of all foreigners that could imperil humanitarian work in zones recovering from conflict and floods.]

By Karin Brulliard, 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani authorities are increasingly monitoring and restricting the movements of foreigners working in this country, according to U.S. and international aid officials, some of whom said they believe the changes represent a backlash against U.S. actions in Pakistan that have enraged the government and the public.

The added restraints include four police refusals to allow U.S. Embassy employees to enter the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar over the past 10 days. Embassy officials said the employees were making routine trips to attend meetings or to fill in for workers at the U.S. Consulate there. Those incidents came after months of what international aid organizations said are growing requirements for federal permits to travel in areas that had been easily accessible, as well as deportations of workers whose visas have expired while their extension applications languished in bureaucracy.

The widely publicized episodes in Peshawar threaten to become another flash point in a frayed bilateral relationship that U.S. officials had hoped was improving, after fatal shootings by a CIA contractor and the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden. International aid groups say the fallout from those incidents, which sparked debate about the presence of Americans in Pakistan, has prompted scrutiny of all foreigners that could imperil humanitarian work in zones recovering from conflict and floods.

“It has the potential to cause serious delays, especially because some of this donor money is time-sensitive and emergency-related,” said Jack Byrne, country representative for Catholic Relief Services and chairman of an umbrella group of international humanitarian organizations in Pakistan.

The heightened restrictions mostly apply in the northwest region bordering the militant-riddled tribal belt, and several Pakistani officials said they are designed to ensure foreigners’ safety. But security in Peshawar and its province has generally improved in the past year, and one provincial official said the restrictions also reflect concerns that foreigners have too much latitude in Pakistan.

That sentiment has grown since CIA contractor Raymond A. Davis was arrested after killing two Pakistanis in January, sparking a diplomatic row.

“That incident shook the mutual trust of both governments. We don’t want a repeat,” said the provincial official, Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain. “In no country are the foreign diplomats freely roaming without informing the government. But when we do this, there is a hue and cry.”

In each of the recent incidents, U.S. officials said the embassy followed a long-standing routine of notifying Peshawar police that employees were driving from the capital, Islamabad, so police could escort them from a highway tollbooth into the city.

On those occasions, the employees were turned away at the tollbooth for lacking permits known as “No Objection Certificates,” or NOCs, which are issued by the federal Interior Ministry but can also involve approvals from the military or intelligence agencies.

U.S. officials said that those permits had not been required before and that there has long been an agreement that diplomats can travel between embassy and consular posts without them, in part because obtaining NOCs can take more than a week.

Security and government officials in northwest Pakistan countered that the requirement has always existed and that it applies to all foreigners.

U.S. officials said they were unsure whether the Peshawar incidents amounted to a systematic effort to thwart the movements of Americans — whose consulate in the city is widely viewed here as a front for CIA operations — or whether they were done for show. Each time U.S. vehicles were turned away from tollbooths, television cameras were there.

Whatever the reason, a U.S. official said, “to us, this is not a constructive way to rebuild the relationship.”

Officials at Pakistan’s Foreign and Interior ministries did not respond to numerous calls for comment.

Foreigners, particularly Americans, have long faced scrutiny in Pakistan. In 2009, U.S. officials complained about what they described as harassment, including vehicle searches and visa delays so extreme that sections of the embassy were barely staffed.

Those delays were mostly resolved as relations warmed last year. But the alliance foundered again following the Davis incident, after which Pakistani intelligence vowed to crack down on what they described as a network of CIA agents roaming the nation.

This year, Pakistan expelled more than 100 U.S. Special Operations trainers. The United States responded by deciding to withhold $800 million in military aid and reimbursement. Pakistan recently approved visas for 87 CIA officers, but U.S. officials say visa extensions — to allow recently arrived diplomats to stay past 90 days — are processed so slowly that some diplomats are forced to return to Washington.

International aid organizations say the fallout from strained U.S.-Pakistan ties has extended to their employees, exacerbating what they call a “shrinking space” for humanitarian work, already hampered by insurgents. Aid officials said NOCs are required for foreigners traveling in areas where they had not been required previously, such as the Kohistan and Shangla districts in the northwest, as well as in parts of the flood zones of northern Sindh province.

Aid officials said the slow permitting process has delayed projects and led in some cases to understaffing. In one example, an American employee of Catholic Relief Services whose visa expired while he awaited an extension was jailed last month for nine days in Sindh, then deported.

Benoit de Gryse, the local mission head for Doctors Without Borders, said that in recent months, Pakistani intelligence agents have begun to “knock on our doors once a week” at project sites in the northwest. They are not hostile, he said.

The heightened suspicions were understandable after the Davis and bin Laden episodes, said Michael O’Brien, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross. But he said the restrictions could undermine the organization’s programs, particularly in Peshawar, where 80 percent of its foreign staff is based.

“The bottom line is, this is not our country,” O’Brien said. “But definitely there needs to be some balance between the work done by people to provide assistance and the arrangements to monitor where people are going.”

Special correspondent Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.

@ The Washington Post