Sacred Cows

BBC World Service gutted...drinks are on the UK Foreign Office

The BBC World Service is facing massive cuts and the shutting down of several language services, as part of budget cuts by the British government. In order to keep its foreign and commonwealth office budget intact (soirees and all)... as well as to EXPAND its international aid budget (really, does India need British aid??).... the government has taken the easy way out: cut the world's most unique, impartial and truly global news service.

If you value listening to the BBC World Service, please please take a moment to sign this petition.

Here is what the cuts mean for millions of listeners around the world:

• BBC Hindi service goes online - even though most of its tens of millions of listeners don't have electricity, never mind internet.

• BBC Russian service is being axed.

• The closure of five language services; Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa and Serbian, as well as the English for the Caribbean regional service.

• The end of radio programmes in seven languages, focusing those services on online and new media content and distribution. These include: Azeri, Mandarin Chinese (note that Cantonese radio programming continues), Russian (some programmes will be distributed online only), Spanish for Cuba, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian.

• Reduction of most short-wave and medium-wave distribution.

• In World Service English, the schedule will become simpler and some programmes, Europe Today and Politics UK will be decommissioned. There are other changes to the schedule.

Here's the SOS BBC World Service's Facebook public page. Please join!

Corporate women - benchmark for progress?

~By Anu Anand Hall

I have a major objection to the way India is covered in the international news media (I have a real problem with domestic Indian news too, but that's entirely a different story!) Nearly every story sings the praises of India's booming economy... few can be bothered to qualify those impressive figures with a dose of reality. The biggest culprit, in my view, has been the Economist, though reporting recently has changed for the better... and the biggest hero (ie overall best, balanced coverage) is The New York Times, which consistently devotes many column inches to a wide variety of aspects of Indian life.

    But I have to take issue with a recent column in the NYT. The Female Factor, by Nilanjana S. Roy, appeared in December in the paper's sister publication, The International Herald Tribune. While I agree with its overall premise (that the current crop of female corporate bosses in India are the products of immense privilege and connections) ... I do wonder why the news media seems to equate corporate success with progress for women? Does selling Pepsi (or Coke or shoes or pizzas) really represent the pinnacle of achievement? I'm sure it does to some degree, but why aren't we more often reading about women in other walks of life who are celebrated as objects of emulation and envy?

So I'd like to propose an alternative list of inspiring Indian women (hopefully some whom you've never heard of). This is by no means a complete or exhaustive list!! And I've purposely left out the likes of Ela Bhatt and Arundhati Roy (love her or hate her, she has the courage to speak up) since they're already so well-known: