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Leopard Poaching on the Rise, Group Warns

By BETTINA WASSENER

When it comes to the poaching of endangered species, elephants, tigers and rhinos tend to be in the limelight. But a new report sets out to plug the information gap on a different species that is imperiled by a tide of demand related to rising affluence in Asia: leopards.

In India alone, an average of at least four leopards have been poached each week over the last 10 years, according to Traffic, an organization that monitors the trade in endangered wildlife around the globe and issued the report. That's more than 2,000 in one decade.

The estimate is based on a review of seizures of spotted leopard skins and other body parts. While most of the items seized were skins, other body parts, particul arly bones, are prescribed as substitutes for tiger parts in traditional Asian medicine, Traffic said.

“Even though reports of illegal trade in leopard body parts are disturbingly frequent, the level of threat to leopards in the country has previously been unrecognized and has fallen into our collective ‘blind spot',” said Rashid Raza, the lead author of the report, which was released on Friday in New Delhi.

There are no reliable estimates of how many leopards exist in India. The animals are notoriously wary of humans and are spread out over large areas, so tracking their numbers is difficult.

Yet the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which categorizes leopards as “near threatened” on its so-called red list of species, says that leopard populations have become extinct in some parts of the world and dwindled to tiny numbers in others. Although they dwell widely in the forests of the Indian subcon tinent, Southeast Asia and China, they are “becoming increasingly rare outside protected areas,” the organization says.

Divyabhanusinh Chavda, president of the World Wildlife Fund's India chapter, said that concerted national action was needed. “Without an effective strategy to assess and tackle the threats posed by illegal trade, the danger is that leopard numbers may decline rapidly, as happened previously to the tiger,” he said.

Government estimates put the number of tigers in India at little more than 1,700.



Iranian News Agency Claims Onion Report It Ran by Mistake Is Essentially True

By ROBERT MACKEY

Iran's Fars News Agency admitted on Sunday that its report, “Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad To Obama,” was copied entirely from The Onion, a satirical American publication the editors in Tehran mistook for a news source.

An editor at the Iranian agency, which is close to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said in the long, somewhat grudging apology: “The news item was extracted from the satirical magazine, The Onion, by mistake and it was taken down” from the agency's English-language Web site within two hours.

The unnamed editor went on to argue that the premise of the Onion report - that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is more popular with white, rural Americans than President Obama - might even be accurate, if fictional. “Although it does not justify our mistake,” he said, “we do believe that if a free opinion poll is conducted in the U.S., a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside the U.S. political system to President Barack Obama.”

The editor made no mention of the fact that, as The Lede explained on Friday, Fars and at least two other Iranian news agencies also published Persian-language versions of the Onion's story before it appeared in English.

He also did not acknowledge that there was anything wrong with the agency copying text from other publications without attribution. Large chunks of the apology itself appear to have been copied word-for-word from American news sites.

One passage, which rec ounts in detail other instances of news organizations mistaking Onion parodies for the genuine article, begins with text lifted from an Associated Press report on the confusion at Fars on Friday:

It's not the first time a news outlet has been duped by The Onion…. In 2002, the Beijing Evening News, one of the Chinese capital's biggest newspapers, picked up a story from The Onion that claimed members of Congress were threatening to leave Washington unless the building underwent a makeover that included more bathrooms and a retractable dome

A whole paragraph of the Fars apology - on an illustration in The New York Times last year that accidentally included a photo from The Onion - is copied straight from a report by the Web site Mediaite on the newspaper's correction:

The New York Times admitted they made the mistake of treating a fake creation from The Onion as something legitimate. Last week the Times printed an article documenting the history of the squeaky-clean teen magazine Tiger Beat, and included a retrospective of past magazine covers. Unfortunately (or humorously depending on one's perspective), in the collection they also included a parody cover created by The Onion, which featured President Obama.

Another sentence - “In February, Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), deleted a Facebook post in which he linked to an Onion article about Planned Parenthood that he did not realize was satirical” - comes from a Politico report last Friday on the Fars mishap.

The rest of the Fars apology is a long recitation of “goofs” made by BBC News journalists, compiled by The Telegraph, although none of them involved mistaking fiction for fact.

As Kevin Fallon noted in The Daily Beast on Saturday, others who have mistaken Onion stories for real news reports include: the editors and readers of the Fox News site Fox Nation - who fell for “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation R ambling 75,000-Word Email” - and a tabloid in Bangladesh, which translated “Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked” into Bengali, but did at least have the decency to attribute the report to The Onion News Network. The paper's associate editor explained later to Agence France-Press, “We thought it was true, so we printed it without checking.”

The Web site Literally Unbelievable is dedicated to documenting instances of Onion parodies that are mistaken for real news on Facebook. As Glynnis MacNicol explained in a Mediaite report in 2010, a very large number of people expressed serious alarm about a YouTube clip headlined “Illuminati Warning: Martial Law Plans Revealed?” which appeared to show a Congressman describing dark plans for the American people during a speech. The video turned out to be from O-Span, The Onion's parody version of C-Span.

A YouTube copy of an Onion C-Span parody which alarmed some viewers.

Also on Sunday, a jury in Tehran found a Reuters editor guilty of anti-state propaganda, because a colleague incorrectly described a group of women studying the martial art of ninjutsu to stay in shape in a video report as potential “assassins” willing “to defend the Islamic Republic to the death.” The jury's finding is advisory and and a judge is expected to issue a final verdict in the case against the news agency's Iranian bureau chief, Parisa Hafezi, next month.

The Reuters bureau in Tehran has been closed since March, when the errors in the voice-over script for the television report on the female “ninjas” came to the attention of Iranian officials. Ms. Hafezi, an Iranian national, has been barred from leaving the country.

As Reuters explains, the bureau chief “formally leads Reuters' Iran operations, but is only responsible for the text stories written by the bureau, not the visuals, captions or scr ipts produced by the television journalists or photographers.” At Reuters and other television news agencies, the narration for television reports from many parts of the world is often added in London by relatively junior journalists.



Newswallah: Long Reads Edition

By NEHA THIRANI

In Tehelka, Sai Manish writes about the mismanagement of natural disasters in the northeastern state of Sikkim. One year after an earthquake wreaked havoc in the state, a deluge has caused landslides, landing yet another blow of devastation. The author argues that the lack of timely government intervention has intensified the effect of such disasters. He writes:

Even after three days of floods and landslides due to incessant rains, the chief minister had no clue that people were holding on to dear life waiting for a response from their government. Finally, on 24 September, Chief Secretary Karma Gyatso flew over destroyed hamlets and severed towns. When asked about the CM, Gyatso shot off: “ Why should the CM come? What is his need when I am here?”

Mr. Manish notes that the haphazard distribution of funds without properly maintained records means that those in trouble do not receive the aid they are entitled to, while the government bleeds money.  Public ire is quelled by a combination of coercion and bribery. The author writes: “The tragedy is not just about missing persons or the damage that has been caused. The bigger tragedy is the sheer apathy of the government towards its people who have been suffering since last year's earthquake that jolted their world forever.”

In the latest issue of Open magazine, Hartosh Singh Bal analyzes the impetus behind the recent economic reforms introduced by the Congress Party-led coalition government. In the article titled “The Rebirth of a Prime Minister,” Mr. Bal contends that there were many political factors that played into the timing of the announcement of reforms. He writes that with Palaniappan Chidambaram holding the finance portfolio the task became easier, adding that with Mr. Chidambaram's predecessor, Pranab Mukherjee, the “approach to the Finance Ministry virtually left no room for the Prime Minister.”

Mukherjee enjoyed the confidence of the party and he was seen as someone who brought political pragmatism to the Finance Ministry. But he seems not to have realised that the country had changed since the 1970s, when he was first appointed minister. Attempts at policymaking through bureaucratic tinkering during his tenure in the end yielded neither economic nor political benefits.

The author takes the example of opening up of multi-brand retail to foreign investors saying that it was unlikely to have any immediate impact on the economy. “It is at best a signal of the Government's intent.” Mr. Bal argues that the government was anxious that the recent Coalgate scandal exacerbated the worry about corruption . By linking the reform to “pro-poor” programs, he says, the current government will be able to re-establish its popularity with the electorate.

In the article entitled “In Search of a Dream” the Economist postulates that stalwarts who laid the foundation of the Indian democracy failed to articulate a vision for the economy, which has cost the country dearly. The article argues that economists and analysts broadly agree on the measures required to solve India's current economic problems, but the “political elite” resist them, because of the “risk of being tipped out of power.” The piece gives the example of countries such as Brazil, Sweden and Poland who have successfully pushed through difficult economic reforms despite being democracies.

If the country's voters are not sold on the idea of reform, it is because its politicians have presented it to them as unpleasant medicine necessary to fend off economic illness rather than as a mean s of fulfilling a dream.

The piece draws a parallel between India and the late 19th century America, and says that it needs “its own version of America's dream.”

It must commit itself not just to political and civic freedoms, but also to the economic liberalism that will allow it to build a productive, competitive and open economy, and give every Indian a greater chance of prosperity. That does not mean shrinking government everywhere, but it does mean that the state should pull out of sectors it has no business to be in. And where it is needed - to organise investment in infrastructure, for instance, and to regulate markets - it needs to become more open in its dealings.



Newswallah: Bharat Edition

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jammu and Kashmir: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah dismissed reports of a brewing “battle” between himself and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party over the issue of providing security to sarpanches, the elected heads of village councils, Kashmir Live reported. A group of  sarpanches from Kashmir met with Mr. Gandhi in New Delhi on Thursday to discuss security concerns after the killing of two village council heads in the Kashmir valley earlier this week.

Arunachal Pradesh: The state government on Thursday introduced a legislation to enhance protection of tigers, according to a report on Firstpost's Web site citing Press Trust of India.  The move came after a Royal Bengal tigress was killed in a zoo in Itanagar, the state capital.

West Bengal: The state legislature passed a resolution Thursday opposing the central  government's recent decision to allow foreign direct investment in retail, India Today reported. The resolution was introduced by the governing Trinamool Congress party, which walked out of the central governing coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, over the issue.

Jharkhand: Government employees on Friday protested the state's decision to privatize the distribution and maintenance of electricity in Ranchi, the state capital, and cities including Jamshedpur and Dhanbad, The Times of India reported.

Rajasthan: The state government has assigned an all-female task force to conduct sting operations in clinics suspected of conducting tests to determine the sex of a fetus, The Daily Bhaskar reported.  Such tests are illegal in India, where female fetuses are often aborted because of a widespread preferen ce for boys.   

Maharashtra: The state faced a week of political turmoil, with the deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar handing in his resignation on Tuesday, Firstpost reported. Nineteen state ministers said they would follow suit, “in what was widely seen as a show of strength,” according to the report.

Andhra Pradesh: Six activists supporting the formation of a separate state of Telangana were arrested Wednesday after chanting slogans against Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy outside his office, The New Indian Express reported. The activists were protesting Mr. Kumar's statement that the fate of Telangana would be decided by the majority of people in Andhra Pradesh.



Vidya Balan and Jairam Ramesh Team Up For Toilets

By SRUTHI GOTTIPATI

NEW DELHIâ€" A traveling village fair is scheduled to kick off next week in India, but instead of cotton candy and tchotchkes, it will sell an important message: Use soap to wash your hands, and don't defecate in the open.

India faces a severe sanitation crisis. More than half of all households have no toilet facilities, according to the latest census figures, a rate that has worsened in the last decade. Earlier this year, the government announced an ambitious goal to end open defecation in the country within 10 years. But it was only on Friday afternoon that the campaign got a bit of glamour: Vidya Balan, a popular actress, was introduced as something of a brand ambassador, to promote the distinctl y unglamorous issues of sanitation and hygiene.

“We have to inspire more and more people to make our country open-defecation-free,” she said, sparkling under the flash of cameras in the capital.

Starting next week, Ms. Balan will appear in radio and television advertisements in which she cajoles villagers to use toilets. In one ad, she notes that brides in India are too shy to lift their veils, much less to defecate in the open.

Ms. Balan said she was drawn to the cause after reading the statistics on sanitation. Advocacy groups say that open defecation has led to the deaths of more than 1,000 children from preventable diarrhea every day. It is also said to have caused a loss of 6.4 percent of G.D.P., due to higher health costs and lower productivity.

India has struggled with sanitation for decades. Critics of government policy contend that people decline to buy toilets not due to their price but because the government fails to supply running water.

Jairam Ramesh, the minister for sanitation and rural development, whose strategy has included raising awareness and pouring funds into village councils if they meet their toilet targets, acknowledged to India Ink on email that running water is a problem but said it wasn't the primary one.

“In India people always like to externalise the reasons for inaction,” he said. ”Behavioral change is of paramount importance.”

At the news conference Friday where Ms. Balan appeared, Mr. Ramesh said that for the next five years, his ministry of clean water and sanitation would have a budget of about $20 billion. “There's no shortage of funds,” he said. “If there's a shortage, it's of resolve.”

The traveling village fair â€" whose purpose, besides encouraging good hygiene, is to increase awareness and demand for sanitation facilities in rural areas â€" is being promoted and facilitated by Mr. Ramesh's ministry , but its funding comes from a host of organizations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which together raised a little more than $2 million for it.

The concept for the fair was developed by Quicksand, an Indian consultancy, and WASH United, a nongovernment organization that often uses sports stars as ambassadors to promote hygiene.

Organizers said they would use two Indian passions, cricket and Bollywood, to generate excitement about the awareness drive, with stars from both fields to join the fair. They will also use more standard village fair diversions, like a game in which players knock down cans that look like germs.

Ms. Balan promised to make an appearance during the fair, which is scheduled to travel through five states over 51 days. Called the Nirmal Bharat Yatra, which loosely translates as “Clean India Journey,” the fair will stop at a couple of places associated with in India's independence movement to make the point that India n ow needs to become free from poor sanitation.

The last stop will be Bettiah in the state of Bihar, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi's satyagraha, his tactic of nonviolent resistance. It's a fitting end. Gandhi himself often stressed the importance of sanitation.



Government Can Decide How to Allocate Natural Resources, Supreme Court Rules

By HARI KUMAR

NEW DELHIâ€"India's Supreme Court upheld the government's right to sell natural resources as it sees fit, saying it wasn't necessary for the administration to use auctions.

The ruling, which was issued Thursday, was prompted by the government's petition to clarify the Supreme Court's decision in February that canceled the government's sale of 122 telecommunications licenses, which were sold at below-market prices in 2008. The court ordered the government to sell the licenses through an auction, but the Indian president's office asked the court to rule on whether all sales of national assets had to be sold this way.

On Thursday, the court said that while the judges believed that it would be better if auctions were used, it was the government's prerogative to allocate resources as a policy decision and that the order for an auction applied only to the wireless spectrum case.

The court said that if the maximization of revenue was not the goal of the sale of a national asset, then the government could use whatever methods it wanted. The judges also said that the government didn't have to always seek the highest bid because “revenue maximization is not the only way in which the common good can be subserved.”

“This is what we were saying for last one and half years,” said Kapil Sibal, communications minister, who held a news conference in Delhi on Friday with Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and the law minister, Salman Khurshid.

Mr. Chidambaram said, “Revenue maximization may be the goal in one case, but may not be the goal in several other cases.”

Whether or not it resorts to auctions, Mr. Sibal said, the gove rnment was committed to transparency in its dealings and has never “defended irregularities and illegalities.” The auction of the wireless spectrum is scheduled to be held later this year.

“Now the government can start taking decisions without fearing that other constitutional authority will interfere,” said Mr. Sibal. “The judgment applies to all of us. It applies to us; it applies to courts; it applies to other constitutional authorities.”

The Congress-led government has been battling corruption scandals while it has been trying to shore up support for a ruling coalition. In August, the government was accused of losing nearly $40 billion by selling coal blocks through negotiated prices rather than through an auction.

Business associations in India called on the government to keep its transactions transparent. “Any method of allocating natural resources should be based on the principles of transparency and fairness,” Adi Godrej, president o f the Confederation of Indian Industry, said in a statement.



Iranian News Agency Plagiarizes The Onion

By ROBERT MACKEY

Apparently unaware of the unwritten rules of both ethical journalism and satire, an Iranian news agency published an edited copy of a report from The Onion on Friday, without crediting the original or acknowledging that it was fiction.

The Fars News Agency, which is close to Iran's powerful Republican Guard Corps, posted its version of the report (now removed) on its English-language Web site under the same headline used by The Onion for the original four days earlier: “Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad To Obama.”

Although the dateline for the news brief says that the reporting was done in Tehran by Fars, the first sentence is identical to the earlier Onion parody: “According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than U.S. president Barack Obama.”

The second sentence of the Fars report, however, changed the phrase “have a beer with Ahmadinejad,” to “have a drink with Ahmadinejad,” and entirely omitted The Onion's description of the Iranian president as “a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and has had numerous political prisoners executed.”

The final two sentences of the original Onion report, quoting a fictional voter in West Virginia who prefers Iran's president, were published unchanged by Fars:

“He takes national defense seriously, and he'd never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.” According to the same Gallup poll, 60 percent of rural whites said they at least respected that Ahmadinejad doesn't try to hide the fact that he's Muslim.

The only other difference between the two versions of the fake report is that The Onion used a more flattering photograph of Mr. Ahmadinejad, showing him with a broad smile.

For more than an hour after the error was noticed, and mocked, by bloggers including David Kenner, an editor for Foreign Policy in Cairo, the report remained on the home page of the Fars English-language site, where it was promoted as the day's third most important story.

The news agency has in the past copied an entire blog post from The Lede without attribution.

While it is unclear how Fars came across the fictional report, Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, who blogs about the Iranian press, first noticed on Wednesday that the main, Persian-language version of Fars Web site had mistaken The Onion report for real news. Mr, Sadeghi-Boroujerdi notes that report has now been removed by Fars, but was picked up by at least two other Iranian news sites, Hayat and Mehr.

The incident might also reflect how increasingly easy it is to come across information online that has been intentionally or accidentally denatured through copying as it is passed along from one site to another, or one social media user to another.

The Onion's has been criticized in the past for posting fake news updates on Twitter - where the text is divorced from contextual clues that make it easier to identify the reports as satire. As the Guardian editor Matt Wells wrote last year, when The Onion used Twitter to post fictional live updates on a hostage crisis that was also fictional, as information is passed from user to user on social networks, fiction can easily be mistaken for fact.

The viral way that information spreads online also makes it ea sy for errors to proliferate. To take a recent example, before a violent protest against an anti-Islam film took place in Cairo on Sept. 11, the United States Embassy released a statement condemning the makers of the film for abusing their right to free speech by promoting religious bigotry. After the protest turned violent, however, a version of that statement posted on Twitter was passed around by opponents of the Obama administration who mistakenly described it as an apology to the protesters, released after attack on the embassy. Within hours, Mitt Romney joined the chorus in repeating the false accusation that the statement was posted online after rather than before the protest.

Then too, Fars might have been more easily confused by The Onion's satirical report because competition from satirists and Internet news sites seems to have encouraged traditional news organizations to allow their journalists to lace their reports with comic elements.

A remarkable ca se study of the dangers of the new laughter-based news economy can be found in the great difficulty Reuters has had in correcting a flawed video report produced in Iran in February, on the popularity of the martial art of ninjutsu among Iranian women.

As my colleague David Goodman reported in March, Iran's government imposed a harsh sanction on Reuters journalists in Tehran, rescinding their press cards, in retaliation for errors in what was apparently intended to be a lighthearted video report distributed by the news agency under the headline, “Thousands of Female Ninjas Train as Iran's Assassins.”

Although Reuters issued a correction once the government pointed out that the women featured in the report were not studying the martial art of ninjutsu in a dojo outside Tehran with the intention of killing anyone, but simply to keep in shape, the agency has no control over what news organizations do with the material it provides to them, so several versions of t he story remain on the Web sites and YouTube channels of its clients.

While the corrected item is no longer available on the Reuters Web site, video reports repeating the false premise - that Iranian women who practice the sport primarily for exercise are a squad of trained killers - produced by the American networks CBS and MSNBC, the Saudi channel Al Arabiya, Britain's Channel 4 News, Japan's state broadcaster NHK and The Telegraph in London, can all still be viewed online.

Similarly, there is no correction attached to a version of the report, headlined “Iran Trains 3,000 Female Ninja Assassins,” which has been viewed more than 160,000 times on the YouTube channel of Britain's ITN since February.

A video report produced by Britain's ITN that called Iranian female martial arts students “assassins.”

The narration for that version seems to retain the jokey tone of the original Reuters script, mockin g the women's efforts to appear fierce even as the narrator makes the ominous-sounding claim that “these are Iran's ninja assassins and they are deadly serious. Some 3,000 women are being trained to defend the Islamic Republic to the death, with hand-to-hand combat, and evasion skills.” Interestingly, the ITN journalist who voice that report, Sam Datta-Paulin, explains on his personal Web site that he is “also a performing comedian.”

As Max Fisher explained in a post on The Atlantic's Web site in March, the Reuters report followed an initial report on the female ninjas broadcast on Jan. 29 by Press TV, an Iranian government satellite channel that exists to put Tehran's spin on the news. Four days after that broadcast, the Press TV report was posted on YouTube, where it quickly went viral. Thanks in large part to attention from Internet news outlets like The Daily, which detected some inadvertent comedy in the notion of Iranian female ninjas, the Press TV report has been viewed nearly a million times on YouTube.

Beyond the mocking tone of the Reuters report, Iranian officials seem to have been most angered by the fact that the initial script cast the efforts of the women to learn the martial art in terms of a potential conflict with Israel, despite the fact that the dojo has been in operation for more than two decades.

First on Twitter and then in a careful reconstruction of how the Press TV story spread and was then picked up by Reuters, Shiva Balaghi, an Iranian-American cultural historian who has lived in both countries, argued that journalists working in the era of The Daily Show had perhaps lost focus on what mattered about the story.

Ms. Balaghi suggested that something about the images of the young Iranian women wielding swords and running up walls struck journalists used to thinking of ninja moves as the stuff of action movies and video games as inherently funny. The drive to maximize that comedy then seemed to overwhelm more sober journalistic instincts, like factual accuracy and the need to place the images in context.

“Academics are often rightly accused of being too insular,” Ms. Balaghi wrote in the online journal Jadaliyya. “The same could be said of some journalists, especially those who work for so cial media sites. One wonders if there isn't too much pressure to get more ‘likes,' retweets, mentions, and followers. Brevity and witticism have become valued tools of the trade.”

At the end of her essay, she observed that a far more serious issue, the restrictions placed on women in Iran, was ignored in reports that sought to hype the comedic potential of the story:

Iran's women athletes remain caught in a web of government control within Iran while their modest Islamic attire makes them subject to prohibition by international sporting bodies.

And now some careless or unethical journalists made the women athletes in the Karaj dojo the butt of jokes or props in their jingoistic drum beating for war on Iran. More power to them for speaking out for themselves. Unfortunately, the whole sordid affair provided the Islamic Republic a handy excuse to withdraw Reuters' credentials, making it even harder for us to get accurate reporting from Iran at a critical time. Above all else, the story of Iranian women martial artists turns out to be a cautionary tale.

When the Reuters bureau in Tehran was first shut down, after the women featured in the report took the news agency to court, The National in Abu Dhabi explained that part of the context for the story was that state-owned Press TV has an axe to grind with Britain:

Press TV, which has spearheaded the blowback against Reuters, is viewed as Iran's propaganda mouthpiece in the West. Ofcom, Britain's independent media watchdog, revoked the channel's license in January for failing to pay a record £100,000 fine for broadcasting an interview with a prisoner obtained under duress.

Unlike Press TV, Reuters enjoys an excellent reputation for accuracy and impartiality. It had managed to maintain its bureau in Tehran after Iran's disputed presidential elections in June 2009 which was followed by a crackdown on Iranian journalists . Visas for western reporters have since been very hard to come by. The activities of those allowed in on rare visits are strictly monitored and curtailed.

In late July, Iran's official news agency reported comments from an Iranian offiical who said that after the lawsuit against Reuters in Iranian courts takes its course, the wire service's office in Tehran “is likely to be shut down for good.”



Image of the Day: Sept. 28

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

A Dangerous Gateway to Mount Everest

By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE

An aircraft full of trekkers headed to Mount Everest crashed in Nepal's capital, Katmandu, on Friday morning, killing all the 19 people on board. This accident is just the latest in a string of recent fatal airline accidents in Nepal, and has once-again raised questions about the safety of air travel to one of the most iconic tourist destinations in Asia.

Recent aircraft accidents in Nepal include:

  • Date: May 14, 2012

    “An Agni Air plane carrying Indian and Danish tourists crashed into a hill near a mountain airport in Nepal on Monday, killing 15 people, including the two pilots, ” a New York Times report said.

    • Sept. 25, 201 1
      “Nineteen people, including three Americans, died in a plane crash in Nepal on Sunday as they headed back to the capital, Katmandu, after a sightseeing tour of the mountains, including Mount Everest, officials said, ” The New York Times reported.
      “The 3-member crew died in the crash of the Buddha Air flight, as did 10 Indian citizens, 2 Nepalis and a Japanese citizen, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal at the Tribhuvan International Airport, which is not far from the crash site.”
    • 15, Dec. 2010
      A Twin Otter flying with 19 pilgrims “crashed in a forest in eastern Nepal, killing all on board, including the three crew members as well,” The Times of India reported.
    • Aug. 24, 2010
      “Fourteen people, including four Americans, died Tuesday in Nepal when their plane crashed in inclement weather, after a failed attempt to reach a popular destination for touring hikers near Mount Everest, according to Nepali officials,† The New York Times reported.
    • Oct. 8, 2008
      “A small airplane crashed and caught fire Wednesday as it tried to land in foggy weather at a tiny mountain airport near Mount Everest, killing 18 people, including 16 tourists from Germany, Australia and Nepal, officials said,” The Associated Press reported. “Only the pilot survived.”
    • March 3, 2008
      “A United Nations helicopter has crashed in stormy weather in Nepal, killing all 10 people on board, ” The Associated Press reported.
    • Sept. 23, 2006
      “Nepal ordered an investigation Tuesday into a helicopter crash that killed 24 people, including a cabinet minister and several top international conservationists,” a New York Times report said.
    • Aug. 22, 2002
      “A small plane carrying foreign tourists slammed into a mountain about 90 miles northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, killing all 18 people on board including 15 foreign tourists,† The New York Times reported.


India, Home of the Nonviolent Protest, Embraces More Extreme Dissent

By NEHA THIRANI

Gone are the days when picketing, candlelight vigils, marches or hunger strikes were enough to guarantee your cause a spot on prime-time television in India. No matter how grave or frivolous the cause, modern protesters employ far more creative tactics to draw attention.

On Wednesday, 1,500 villagers, including several children, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu buried themselves in the sand to their waists for six hours in the latest demonstration against the building of the Kudankulam nuclear plant. The protesters, who are from fishing families from the surrounding districts, are worried that once the plant is active it will contaminate the fish, ruining their livelihoods.

Extreme protests have been the mainstay of activists around the world for years, but in India, which popularized and perfected the nonviolent protest and the quietly powerful hunger strike, there has been a recent rush to embrace increasingly unusual forms of agitation. Some attribute their rise to the prevalence of new television channels and social media in India, other to deeper causes.

In South Asia today, “ordinary people are under serious stress,” said Ranjan Chakrabarti, vice chancellor of West Bengal's Vidyasagar University and a professor who specializes in the history of crime and protest in India. “They are under pressure and they have decided to register their protest in these novel forms,” he said.

Similar protests happened “during the first phase of industrialization in Europe and during the initial decades of British colonization in India,” he said.

In the case of the Tamil Nadu fishermen, they earlier tried more conventi onal tactics to gain the government's attention: picketing the central government offices in Kudankulam, occupying village cemeteries to symbolically solicit the guidance of their ancestors and using their fishing boats to block entry to the nearby harbor.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court warned  that it will suspend work at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant if safety concerns were not addressed. The court said this while hearing an appeal challenging the judgment of the Madras High Court to allow fuel loading in the plant.

On Sept. 10, the police used violence against the protestors at a rally at the plant, beating them with sticks, firing tear gas and arresting the protestors.  On Thursday, a fact-finding team berated the police for its abusive behavior.

The anti-nuclear activists have continued their protests, according to news reports.

The more recent attention-getting protests aren't always so physically demanding. On Sunday, a group of incense d teachers waved their slippers at the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar at a rally in the state, in a symbolic gesture of disdain. The teachers, who were on contract, demanded that their salaries be equal to those of regular teachers. However, the chief minister accused the opposition party of instigating the protests.

In Ghogalgaon village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, 51 villagers stood neck deep in water for 17 days, demanding that the government lower the water level in the nearby Omkareshwar dam on the Narmada River. The “jal satyagraha” or “peaceful water protest,” began on Aug. 25 when the water level in the dam was raised by two meters (6.5 feet). The villagers say that raising the level of the dam will further submerge their lands.

The images of the villagers standing in the water, their bodies shriveled and their skin peeling, was widely circulated on social networking sites. On Sept. 10, the chief minister of the state, Shivra j Singh Chouhan, gave into their demands and agreed to lower the water level and compensate the farmers for their land.

A similar protest in the water was carried out by 245 villagers near the Indira Sagar dam, in Madhya Pradesh, but without the positive outcome - police arrested the protesters. Villagers protesting against the Kudankulam power plant tried the same tactic, with hundreds of people forming a human chain in the water on Sept. 13, but they, too, were disbanded by police.

Unusual “funeral” marches have become another common theme for protests in India. As the government's announcement of a rise in the price of diesel and a cap on subsidized gas cylinders earlier this month unleashed protests throughout the nation, members of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party held a mock funeral procession of gas cylinders in Bhopal.

And earlier this month in Allahabad, activists opposed to an increase in a house tax staged a parody of a funeral processio n of the members of the municipal corporation administration.

Meanwhile, in a forest in Maharashtra, the Greenpeace activist Brikesh Singh is living in a tree for a month to protest coal mining's devastation of biodiversity and the displacement of forest communities. The protest, which includes gathering petitions from citizens to submit to the prime minister, attracted the attention of a Parliament member, Hansraj Ahir, who visited the activist.

“I wanted people in the city to wake up in the morning and when they are watching the news of television with a cup of a coffee, wonder why has this guy climbed a tree - and that would prompt them to find out about the issue,” said Mr. Singh, 32, who heads public engagement campaigns at Greenpeace India. “To draw people's attention, someone ordinary needs to go out and do something extraordinary.”



Starbucks Makes Long-Awaited India Entry in South Mumbai

By NEHA THIRANI

MUMBAIâ€"Starbucks will open its debut store in India by the end of October, the company said Friday.

The American chain's first shop here will be located in Mumbai's iconic Horniman Circle neighborhood, in South Mumbai's Fort district. The area is home to expensive shops, including a Hermes store, and numerous offices and bank headquarters as well as the Horniman Circle Gardens park, which hosts music and culture festivals.

“We're extremely excited about the opportunity that this location presents to establish the Starbucks brand here in the Indian market,” John Culver, president of Starbucks China and Asia Pacific, said during a press conference in Mumbai on Friday. “The plans to open in th e Indian market are right on track.”

The store will be located in the Elphinstone building, a heritage property owned by Tata Sons, part of the Tata Group conglomerate. Starbucks is partnering in India with Tata's Global Beverages, which describes itself as “Asia's largest coffee plantation company.”

In a first for the coffee chain, all the coffee sold in Starbucks stores across India will be locally sourced and roasted at a facility in India, executives said Friday.

Starbucks joins international fast food chains such as McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Dunkin Donuts, who have entered India because of a large demographic of young people with rising in income levels and international exposure. India has seen a rise in the coffee shop culture over the past few years as chains like Costa Coffee, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf have opened stores. The announcement comes at a time when the Indian government is pushing for more foreign i nvestment in the country.

Starbucks had initially planned to open its first stores in India in mid-2011, but there was a delay in acquiring real estate, executives said. In January, the company announced a 50-50 partnership with Tata Global Beverages, and said it would invest $80 million in India and open 50 stores by the end of the year. Mr. Culver did not provide more detail about the company's planned investment in India, but said that the business was “very well funded” and that the company was looking at the India market as long-term investment.

Avani Saglani Davda, 33, a Tata Group executive, will head the joint venture, the companies said Friday.

Like other international food chains entering India, Starbucks will alter its menu to suit Indian tastes. There will also be one unique dish available in each of the Starbucks stores in each city where it opens in India, executives said. “We are going to make a huge difference in the way that coffee ho uses are perceived in India,” said Ms. Davda.

Mr. Culver said the first store in New Delhi was planned for early next year, and that the company has hired and is currently training 60 people. “We're going to be very thoughtful on how we grow, but at the same time we're going to look at accelerating growth and capturing the opportunity that exists for us here in India,” he said.

India is the latest overseas market for the Seattle, Washington-based coffee chain. Starbucks has operated outside North America since 1996, when it opened in Tokyo, Japan, and today has more than 17,000 stores in 57 countries around the world. The company has been in mainland China for more than a decade, and now has more than 500 outlets there, but has courted controversy in some cases. A Starbucks outlet that opened in 2000 in Beijing's nearly 600-year-old Forbidden City was shuttered seven years later, after protestors said it was denigrating the historical site. Still, Starbucks said in April that it expects China will be its second-largest market by 2014, and that it plans to have 1,500 stores across China by 2015.

In Europe, Starbucks has struggled in some countries, particularly France. The chain started a multimillion dollar makeover this year in Europe to lure patrons raised on café culture into its stores, adding edgy architecture, stages for poetry readings and chandeliers, as well as changing its coffee roast.



Plane Going to Everest Region Crashes, Killing 19

Associated Press

People gathered at the site of a plane crash near Kathmandu, Nepal, early Friday. The plane crashed just after takeoff, killing the 19 people on board, officials said.

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - A plane carrying trekkers to the Everest region crashed and burned just after takeoff Friday morning in Nepal's capital, killing the 19 Nepali, British and Chinese people on board, authorities said.

The pilot of the domestic Sita Air flight reported trouble two minutes after takeoff, and Katmandu airport official Ratish Chandra Suman said the pilot appeared to have been trying to turn back. The crash site is only 500 meters (547 yards) from the airport, and the wrecked plane was pointing toward the airport area.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash and identify the bodies, and Suman said he could not confirm if the plane was already on fire before it crashed. Cellphone video shot by locals showed the front section of the plane was on fire when it first hit the ground and appeared the pilot had attempted to land the plane on open ground beside a river.

The fire quickly spread to the rear, but the tail was still in one piece at the scene near the Manohara River on the southwest edge of Katmandu. Villagers were unable to approach the plane because of the fire and it took some time for firefighters to reach the area and bring the fire under control.

Soldiers and police shifted through the crash wreckage looking for bodies and documents to help identify the victims. Seven passengers were British and five were Chinese; the other four passengers and the three crew members were from Nepal, authorities said.

Large number of local people and security forces gathered at the crash site. The charred bodies were taken by vans to the hospital morgue.

The weather in Katmandu and surrounding areas was clear on Friday morning, and it was one of the first flights to take off from Katmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport. Other flights reported no problems, and the airport operated normally.

The plane was heading for Lukla, the gateway to Mount Everest. Thousands of Westerners make treks in the region around the world's highest peak each year. Autumn is considered the best time to trek the foothills of the Himalayan peaks.

The crash follows an avalanche on another Nepal peak Sunday that killed seven foreign climbers and a Nepali guide.



Answers From Princeton\'s Dean of Admission

By JANET LAVINE RAPELYE
Higher EducationThe Choice on India Ink

Choice LogoGuidance on American college applications for readers in India from The Times's admissions blog.

This week, The Choice has invited Janet Lavin Rapelye, the dean of admission at Princeton University, to stop by our virtual Guidance Office and answer your questions about college admissions. Ms. Rapelye, who received a bachelor's degree from Williams College and a master's degree from Stanford University, has 30 years' experience in college admissions.

For this week's installment of The Choice on India Ink, we present some of her answers that may prove relevant for international students.

Some questions and answers below have been edited for length and style. - Tanya Abrams

Reviewing College Applications

Do applications go through a series of rounds (filtering)? If an application is strong, is it reviewed by multiple readers?

- Do

Princeton's process for reviewing undergraduate applications is extremely detailed and comprehensive.

As I've noted in an earlier post, when we say that the process is holistic, we mean it is designed to discover all the potential qualities of our applicants, qualities that we know cannot be assessed by evaluating just academic grades or standardized scores, although these are important components of an application.

Last year, Princeton received more than 26,000 applications. We thoroughly read every application twice before rendering a decision; some applications received three and four reviews. Almost 2,100 students received letters of admission. The entire process ensures the integrity and confidentiality of each application. Here's how it work s at Princeton:

When a student's file contains all the required materials, an admission officer begins a thorough first reading of the student's application. The staff member reads the file cover to cover, including teacher and guidance counselor recommendations, the student's essays, transcript, standardized test scores and any other supporting materials. The grades and the rigor of the student's course of study, as well as the extracurricular activities and summer experiences, are taken into consideration. In some cases, faculty members are engaged to review supplementary materials that the students submit.

After the admission officer summarizes the candidate's academic performance, achievements, talents and personal qualities, the file is read completely again by a senior admission officer who is knowledgeable about the high school and the region.

The application is then sent to a committee that includes admission officers, the director of the admission office and me.

Every candidate goes through the committee process, and the files with the most promise are discussed in the committee. It takes many weeks of very long days, evenings and weekends to conclude the work. In the committee meetings, the summaries prepared by the first and second readers are often read out loud and discussed. After deliberating, the committee votes on whether to admit, deny or, in the case of early admission, defer a student. During the regular admission cycle, we also vote to place students on the wait list.

As you might imagine, at each step there are moments for conversation and further discovery. We are always looking for reasons to admit students. The admission process is more of an art than a science, and we have developed it in a way that we believe assures all students the opportunity to present their best case.

Every year we receive applications from thousands more qualified candidates than we can accept. The consolation for us is that we know these are extraordinarily gifted students who will be excellent college students wherever they decide to go.

SAT Scores and the Importance of Standardized Tests

To what extent are SAT scores scrutinized? Is there a defined cutoff for the composite SAT score, or is it more about individual module? For example, would a composite score of 2130 that included a 780 math, 710 writing, and 640 critical reading scores be regarded in the same light as a 2130 composite score that included 700 math, 700 writing and 730 critical reading scores?

- Raj

Can you get into Princeton with a 1730 on the SAT?

- Joe Smith

Despite their biases, inaccuracies, limited ability to measure achievement or ability, and other flaws, why does such a world renown and highly accredited institution like Princeton University require applicants to take standardized tests? Is admission possible without it?

- Andre

To answer these questions , it is important to understand how admissions officers read an application. At Princeton, every application is given a holistic review. Because we look at the totality of your experience, there is no formula to the process.

We look first at the transcript that is sent by your secondary school, and we evaluate the rigor of your program and the grades you have received. If you are in our applicant pool, we expect that you have taken the most demanding academic program offered at your school. You will be challenged when you get to our campus, and we want to be sure you are well prepared to handle our college courses.

We are looking not just at your potential, but at your performance. If you had a slow start to your studies in high school, we hope to see academic improvement.

We then review the recommendation letters that are sent by your teachers and guidance counselor. We read your essay and assess your extracurricular activities, how you have spent your sum mers, if you have had a job or were engaged in community service, what you may have done outside of school, and any other supporting material.

Admission officers understand that standardized tests measure quantitative ability, critical reading, an understanding of some subject areas, and writing skills. Combined with your grades, they only partially predict first-year performance in college. They do not predict, however, other values we hold in high esteem at the college level, such as motivation, creativity, independent thought, intellectual curiosity and perseverance.

When we shape our class, we look for students who will continually challenge themselves and contribute to a lively exchange of knowledge and ideas in the classroom. We seek students whose interests are varied and who have a record of accomplishment in athletics or the arts. We look for qualities that will help them become leaders in their fields and in their communities.

If one test could me asure all these things, our jobs would be easy. Standardized test scores help us evaluate a student's likelihood of succeeding at Princeton, but by themselves are not accurate predictors. For all these reasons, we have no cutoffs in test scores, nor do we have cutoffs in grade point averages or class rank. We consider all of these measures within the context of each applicant's school and situation.

Although our most promising candidates tend to earn strong grades and have comparatively high scores on standardized tests, we look at other parts of the application, including essays, to learn more about the kind of student you are and how you approach learning.

The Essay

You hear admission officers and counselors talk about how important the essay is and how it shows that you are not just a test score. The importance, however, is still not clear. What exactly does an admission officer think as he goes about an applicant's essay? What does he look for? What w orks in the applicant's favor?

- Emiliano Lopez

Your ability to write well is critical to our decision because your writing reflects your thinking. No matter what question is asked on a college application, admission officers are looking to see how well you convey your ideas and express yourself in writing. It is our window to your world.

Your command of the English language, whether or not you are a native speaker, is important because you will be asked to write extensively when you get to our campuses.

The best applications come from students who have spent time writing their essays, editing their work, and refining their message.

It is important to answer the question that is asked by a specific school, and not just to “recycle” one essay. This is not the time to take an academic paper you have written for a high school course and edit it for the application essay. This is your moment to be authentic.

Let me suggest that you take th is opportunity to sit down and write about a topic you care about and know well. If you are stuck, you might begin with this question from the Common Application: “Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.”

Each of you has someone in your life who has played a role in your development, someone to whom you are grateful, and someone you could describe well. That person may be an adult, a child or a peer. Write a draft that you can put aside for a few days or weeks and edit later. Even if this is not the final essay you send to a college, it will get you started, and working from a draft is much easier than staring at a blank page with a blinking cursor.

Please resist the Web sites that give you access to college essays. This needs to be your own work. Your integrity in this process is paramount.

Finding the Right College Fit

How would you suggest a student determine the culture of a school and whet her or not it would be a good fit? Suggestions for both on-campus visits or schools that one cannot visit would be appreciated. I think this is a very hard decision for many 17-year-olds.

- Older and hopefully wiser

Determining culture and fit is indeed difficult for a high school student looking at colleges. If you are a parent, you want to do your best to support your son or daughter throughout this process.

On paper, a school might seem to meet all the right criteria: selectivity, number and choice of majors, resources, quality of faculty, student-faculty ratio, size, location, climate and extracurricular offerings, among others. Until your student has actually had a chance to visit, however, it is difficult to answer the all-important question, “Will I like it here?”

I have always been a strong proponent of the campus visit. Parents often marvel at how quickly a student can formulate a response to that question after a visit. For some student s, the reaction is visceral and immediate.

The visit is most valuable because it gives prospective students an opportunity to talk to undergraduates, meet with faculty or even sit in on a class.

Students, when you arrive at the school, it is important to let the college or university know you are on campus by signing in at the admission office, even if you are taking just the tour. As you are leaving the campus, jot down your impressions so you can remember the highlights of your visit.

If you are visiting a college or university that offers interviews on campus, take them up on their offer.

Be sure to read about the school before your trip so you can ask good questions in the interview, such as how students choose majors at that institution, or are freshmen allowed to participate in a particular program of interest in the first year.

We know, however, that a school visit is not always possible. Many schools are making investments in a variety o f visit proxies, everything from videos and virtual tours to online chats and blogs hosted by students, professors and administrators.

College Web sites can also be a valuable resource. Most are packed with information that can supplement the printed materials schools generate. We host off-campus information sessions around the country and the globe. These sessions give parents and students a chance to discuss whatever they wish with our admission officers.

College fairs at high schools and other nearby locations are useful resources, too.

Finally, person-to-person research should not be overlooked as an important research tool. Your college counselor may be the most important resource for you. Alumni and current students also can help parents and students determine if a school might be the right choice.

What Does It Take to Get In?

My husband and I both went to Ivy League schools and are keenly aware and appreciative of the remarkable educat ional and social opportunities they offer. We have not encouraged our own children to strive for the Ivy League, largely because it appears that perfection is now required for admission. In the old days, intelligence, success in high school courses and engagement in some interesting extracurriculars could get you there. Am I wrong? I hope you say that I am. I would like to think that smart, curious and engaged 17-year-olds with the occasional B have a shot at the outstanding educational opportunities that Princeton offers.

- Curious

In many of the questions and comments submitted to The Choice this week, I noticed that students and parents are seeking “guarantees” in the admission process. The reality is there are none.

If students are applying only to highly selective schools, they will encounter steep competition. Spreading a wide net in terms of the selectivity of the colleges where they apply will greatly enhance the number of admission choices the y will have in April.

I am often asked why the admission process is so much more competitive now than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago at our school. The qualities of being smart, curious and engaged as cited in the question above are still very much in demand. As I've mentioned several times in this forum, Princeton considers every applicant as an individual and takes into account many factors before making an admission decision.

Also, this country and the world have changed in the last few decades; demographic trends in the high school population play a major role in the way many admission offices do their work.

Consider United States high school graduation numbers as analyzed by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education report Knocking at the College Door. Since 1992, the projected number of high school graduates has grown by approximately one million students, from 2.2 million to 3.2 million graduates. The latest data collected by Wiche sugges ts that the number peaked in 2007-8 at about 3.3 million graduates and dipped slightly afterward. These same projections show that the next peak will be reached again in 2017-18 and that by 2021-22, the number of high school graduates will exceed the 2007-8 level.

Not all these students are college bound, but with about a million more students graduating from high school now than in the early 1990s, significantly more students are in the applicant pools of colleges that have a national pool.

At the same time, we are seeing interesting trends in international applications. According to the Institute of International Education, the United States has attracted a growing number of international students at the undergraduate level over the last few years. While international students still account for a small proportion of the total enrollment in U.S. higher education, the combination of demographic factors in the United States and interest from abroad has contributed to the record levels of applications at some colleges and universities. For example, in the last decade, applications to Princeton have almost doubled to more than 26,000. In the same period, the first-year class has grown by only 11 percent. However, not every college or university has seen this rate of growth in its applicant pool, and the subsequent drop in admission rates, and yet they are excellent institutions.

In the next few years we may see a flattening of application numbers, but it is unlikely the numbers will drop to pre-2000 levels. For parents, the take-home message is to support your daughter or son in their efforts, rather than encourage them to apply to the school you wish you had attended or even the school you did attend. Be realistic about the competition and set your son or daughter up for success in the process.

Ms. Rapelye is no longer taking questions. However, if you would like to further discuss college admissions, please feel free to s hare your thoughts in the comments box below.



Saudi Forces Kill Two in Manhunt in Eastern Province

By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Video said to show Saudi forces firing in the village of Awamiya.

Saudi Arabia's security forces killed a man who was wanted by the government, and also shot dead a youth who was with him, when they went to a house searching for the man in the country's restive eastern region of Qatif.

The Saudi Press Agency, the kingdom's official news agency, reported late on Wednesday that the forces shot dead Khaled Abdel-Karim Hassan Al-Labad, who had been placed on a list of 23 people that the government has accused of fomenting unrest in the area. The agency said the shooting erupted when Mr. Labad and other gunmen in Awamiya village opened fire on security f orces at a house there. Another person was also shot and killed, while two were injured and a third was captured, the agency said.

Activists on Facebook and Twitter and on Web sites posted reports, photographs and videos related to the operation. Rasid, an Arabic language Web site covering Shiite news in the kingdom, reported that troops “stormed” a house using machine guns aimed at people there including Mr. Labad, who it described as a rights activist having taken part in demonstrations for justice and equality.

The Saudi journalist and blogger Ahmed Al Omran drew attention to the differing accounts as to whether Mr. Labad and the others were armed as well as to the videos of the reported gunfight.

Saudi activists posted photographs of Mr. Labad after he died, showing what appeared to be bullet wounds, as well as a photograph of the youth, identified as 16-year old Mohammad Habib al-Munasif. The Rasid Arabic Web site also reported that three people were injured.

On its Facebook page, Qatifday showed a photograph of Mr. Labad's wrapped-up corpse identified with a hand-written placard. It posted calls for prayers for the injured and announced demonstrations on Friday in a day of anger to call for the release of detainees.

A video posted on YouTube by shababahrar, an account that has previously posted footage of unrest in the province, showed what it said were bloodstains left on the street from a man injured by gunfire.

A Saudi activist, Ahmed Al-Rebh, appeared to take note that the deaths coi ncided with the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week.

Another detail reported by Reuters and Al-Akhbar was of a third person killed in a car in Awamiya, but a government spokesman was quoted as saying that security forces suspect criminal activity. Several Twitter accounts that followed the news in Qatif posted a photograph of what appeared to be a teenager shot through the neck, head and upper torso.

My colleagues Robert Mackey and Michael Schwirtz have written about the killings of other protesters recently and clashes that erupted in their wake.

As my colleague Kareem Fahim wrote in July, the oil-rich Eastern Province is a stronghold of Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority, and it has long be en a focal point of anger at the Sunni monarchy and of Shiite complaints about discrimination.



Iranian Diplomat Harassed in New York

By ROBERT MACKEY and RICK GLADSTONE
Video shot by a witness appeared to show an Iranian diplomat being escorted away from a small group of protesters on Wednesday in New York.

A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry was harassed by a small group of protesters near the United Nations in New York on Wednesday, after an address to the international body by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Video posted online by witnesses showed the diplomat, Ramin Mehmanparast, being jostled and shouted at as he crossed a street, before police officers stepped in to protect him, ordering the protesters back. A spokesman for the New York City Police Department told The Associated Press that Mr. Mehmanparast was confronted on Second Avenue near East 48th Street.

Video of the incident obtained by the news agency from a documentary filmmaker showed that the protesters included a man wrapped in an old Iranian flag; another man in a yellow vest worn by supporters of the Mujahedeen Khalq, a powerful Iranian exile group known as the M.E.K. or M.K.O.; and a woman wearing the T-shirt of Ma Hastim, Persian for “We Are,” a rights group associated with the Iranian exile community in Los Angeles.

The Associated Press interviewed a documentary filmmaker who shot footage of an Iranian diplomat being harassed by protesters near the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

Iran's state-run satellite news channel, Press TV, blamed the attack on supporters of the Mujahedeen Khalq, identifying them as “anti-Iran M.K.O. terrorists.” As our colleague Scott Shane reported last week, Sec retary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to remove the Mujahedeen Khalq from the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, after an intense lobbying campaign on behalf of the group.

In an e-mail to The Times, Alireza Miryousefi, the press attaché for Iran's Mission to the United Nations, characterized the incident as “aggression by M.E.K. sect members” against Mr. Mehmanparast. He added that removing the “terrorist sect” from the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations “would be another wrong step by the U.S. administration.”

Another video clip, apparently recorded on the phone of a man shouting threats at Mr. Mehmanparast from very close range, showed police officers escorting the diplomat away from protesters screaming “terrorist!” At one point in the video, Mr. Mehmanparast walks past a pharmacy at the corner of 48th Street and Second Avenue.

Video shot b y one of the protesters who surrounded and verbally abused an Iranian diplomat in New York on Wednesday.

Iranian opposition video bloggers drew attention to a third clip that appeared to show the same incident from another angle, recorded from above the street, that has been copied and viewed more than 100,000 times on YouTube.

The incident came after Iranian exiles rallied outside the United Nations to protest Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech. Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the the Mujahedeen Khalq, which is described as a cult by some former members, addressed the rally from France by satellite. Patrick Kennedy, a former congressman from Rhode Island, who admitted on camera last year that he had been paid $25,000 to voice his support for the M.E.K. at a rally in Washington, also addressed Wednesday's protest.

Homeira Hesami, an M.E.K. organizer and Iranian expatriate who is a medical technician in Texas, told The Times that a group of Iranian officials, wi th police officer escorts, were walking west on 47th Street from the U.N. campus toward Second Avenue at around 1:30 when a number of protesters recognized Mr. Mehmanparast. Ms. Hesami was across the street. “I saw him walking by and of course we started chanting, ‘Get lost!' in Farsi,” she said. “People were angry at him and surrounded him. The presence of Ahmadinejad at the U.N. made people very emotional.”

She said the M.E.K. protesters were commingled with Syrians protesting the Assad government. “We suffer from the same pain,” she said. “We were side by side. It wasn't like they had their own thing and we had our own thing.”

A man who identified himself as Gregory Nelson boasted to The Daily News that he had managed to punch the Iranian diplomat in the stomach during the melee.

Mr. Nelson, who identified himself as a former soldier, said that he flew to New York from Fayetteville, Ark., to attend the anti-Ahmadinejad protest. After a rally in favor of the M.E.K. in Washington last year, Zaid Jilani and Ali Gharib of the liberal Web site ThinkProgress interviewed several people who were bused or flown in for the demonstration who seemed to know little about the group's past involvement in terrorist attacks. Three of the men were from Fayetteville, Ark.



Iranian Diplomat Harassed in New York

By ROBERT MACKEY and RICK GLADSTONE
Video shot by a witness appeared to show an Iranian diplomat being escorted away from a small group of protesters on Wednesday in New York.

A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry was harassed by a small group of protesters near the United Nations in New York on Wednesday, after an address to the international body by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Video posted online by witnesses showed the diplomat, Ramin Mehmanparast, being jostled and shouted at as he crossed a street, before police officers stepped in to protect him, ordering the protesters back. A spokesman for the New York City Police Department told The Associated Press that Mr. Mehmanparast was confronted on Second Avenue near East 48th Street.

Video of the incident obtained by the news agency from a documentary filmmaker showed that the protesters included a man wrapped in an old Iranian flag; another man in a yellow vest worn by supporters of the Mujahedeen Khalq, a powerful Iranian exile group known as the M.E.K. or M.K.O.; and a woman wearing the T-shirt of Ma Hastim, Persian for “We Are,” a rights group associated with the Iranian exile community in Los Angeles.

The Associated Press interviewed a documentary filmmaker who shot footage of an Iranian diplomat being harassed by protesters near the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

Iran's state-run satellite news channel, Press TV, blamed the attack on supporters of the Mujahedeen Khalq, identifying them as “anti-Iran M.K.O. terrorists.” As our colleague Scott Shane reported last week, Sec retary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to remove the Mujahedeen Khalq from the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, after an intense lobbying campaign on behalf of the group.

In an e-mail to The Times, Alireza Miryousefi, the press attaché for Iran's Mission to the United Nations, characterized the incident as “aggression by M.E.K. sect members” against Mr. Mehmanparast. He added that removing the “terrorist sect” from the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations “would be another wrong step by the U.S. administration.”

Another video clip, apparently recorded on the phone of a man shouting threats at Mr. Mehmanparast from very close range, showed police officers escorting the diplomat away from protesters screaming “terrorist!” At one point in the video, Mr. Mehmanparast walks past a pharmacy at the corner of 48th Street and Second Avenue.

Video shot b y one of the protesters who surrounded and verbally abused an Iranian diplomat in New York on Wednesday.

Iranian opposition video bloggers drew attention to a third clip that appeared to show the same incident from another angle, recorded from above the street, that has been copied and viewed more than 100,000 times on YouTube.

The incident came after Iranian exiles rallied outside the United Nations to protest Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech. Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the the Mujahedeen Khalq, which is described as a cult by some former members, addressed the rally from France by satellite. Patrick Kennedy, a former congressman from Rhode Island, who admitted on camera last year that he had been paid $25,000 to voice his support for the M.E.K. at a rally in Washington, also addressed Wednesday's protest.

Homeira Hesami, an M.E.K. organizer and Iranian expatriate who is a medical technician in Texas, told The Times that a group of Iranian officials, wi th police officer escorts, were walking west on 47th Street from the U.N. campus toward Second Avenue at around 1:30 when a number of protesters recognized Mr. Mehmanparast. Ms. Hesami was across the street. “I saw him walking by and of course we started chanting, ‘Get lost!' in Farsi,” she said. “People were angry at him and surrounded him. The presence of Ahmadinejad at the U.N. made people very emotional.”

She said the M.E.K. protesters were commingled with Syrians protesting the Assad government. “We suffer from the same pain,” she said. “We were side by side. It wasn't like they had their own thing and we had our own thing.”

A man who identified himself as Gregory Nelson boasted to The Daily News that he had managed to punch the Iranian diplomat in the stomach during the melee.

Mr. Nelson, who identified himself as a former soldier, said that he flew to New York from Fayetteville, Ark., to attend the anti-Ahmadinejad protest. After a rally in favor of the M.E.K. in Washington last year, Zaid Jilani and Ali Gharib of the liberal Web site ThinkProgress interviewed several people who were bused or flown in for the demonstration who seemed to know little about the group's past involvement in terrorist attacks. Three of the men were from Fayetteville, Ark.



Image of the Day: September 27

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Beware...the Curse of the IPL?

By PRASHANT AGRAWAL

After the failed auction of the Deccan Chargers, I can't help but notice an interesting trend: the stock prices of the owners of nearly all the Indian Premier League cricket teams have lost substantial value since the league was started four years ago.

It's not just Kingfisher Airlines and Deccan Chronicle, the corporate owners most often in the headlines now, that have suffered. The same holds true for GMR, Reliance and others.

Of the nine Indian Premier League teams, seven are owned by companies that have lost a combined $25 billion in market value since the league began in April 2008. While the Sensex index has also suffered during that time, returning just 15 percent before the rally connected to the government's recent economic policy changes, all seven stocks associated with the I.P.L., including India Cements, News Corporation and Bombay Dyeing and Manufacturing, have underperformed the Sensex.

The remaining two I.P.L. team owners, Shah Rukh Khan and Subrata Roy, do not have large listed companies, but Mr. Roy's Sahara Group is deeply troubled, having been recently ordered to pay $3 billion to investors. (At least Mr. Khan is still a king at the box office.)

Could the I.P.L. be cursed?

That may be overstatement. What's true in India appears to be true throughout the world. Let's call it the curse of the sports team, instead.

Guess which company owns the naming rights to the newest major sports stadium in the United States, the nearly $1 billion home of the Brooklyn Nets? Barclays - yes, the Barclays that agreed in June to pay $450 million to settle accusations that it tried to manipulate the benchmar k London interbank offered rate, or Libor. Barclays bought the naming rights in 2007, years before there was a hint of the Libor scandal.

Citigroup bought the naming rights to the New York Mets' new stadium in 2006. Two years later, as the global financial crisis erupted, Citigroup's stock plummeted.

But the steepest downfall in recent years of a company with a sports connection may have been that of Enron, which bought the naming rights to the Houston Astros' park in 1999. In December 2001, it was embroiled in one of the most spectacular bankruptcies in modern corporate history.

“Pro sports teams are a lot like works of art,” the author Malcolm Gladwell wrote last year on the sports-oriented Web site Grantland. He argues that buying a team, like buying a painting, is less about profit than about “psychic benefits,” that is, “the pleasure that someone gets from owning something - over and above economic returns.” Mr. Gladwell notes that sports t eams do go up in value in the United States because they are inherently so few of them. One day, the I.P.L. owners may see similar gains, but at least in the auction of the Deccan Chargers that wasn't the case.

It's not clear whether I.P.L. team owners make money from their franchises, because these numbers are not public, but they have certainly lost equity value on their main businesses. And the loss in equity value in the main businesses would dwarf any operating losses in running any I.P.L. team.

If any of India's banks buys a sports team, or the naming rights to a new stadium, perhaps the Reserve Bank of India should take notice.

There are some exceptions to the rule, at least in the United States. The technology entrepreneur Mark Cuban, for example, has done wonders with a once-moribund Dallas Mavericks, who won the N.B.A. championship in 2011, but he spends in an inordinate amount of time on the team. Similarly, the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York G iants have been profitably run by families who focus on the teams, rather than treating them as part-time occupations. Corporations that stray into sports often end up on the losing side.

In India, however, sports teams appear to be a distraction from the main business. And, for most I.P.L. owners, it has been a very expensive distraction indeed, given the amount of share market equity lost on their main businesses.



Waterlogged Northeast on Road to Recovery

By NEHA THIRANI

MUMBAI - The northeastern states of Sikkim and Assam, which have been inundated with flash floods and landslides in the past week, have begun the long road to recovery, officials said Thursday.

Flood waters are receding, damage is being evaluated and rescued villagers are being fed and reunited with their families, they said. Heavy rainfall has stopped in many areas, they said, allowing rescue workers to travel.

“In Assam, the situation is slowly improving,” Nandita Hazarika, deputy secretary of the state's disaster management department, said by telephone. Most of the state, apart from Majuli, a large, populated island in the Brahmaputra River, is now reachable b y road. In Assam, 18 people have died and 10 are still missing.

About three million people are estimated to have been affected by flooding and landslides over more than half of Assam, including nearly 2,600 villages. State officials have set up more than 1,000 relief camps housing more than 430,000 displaced people, Ms. Hazarika said. The Indian Army has been helping with relief efforts, using helicopters for rescue efforts and to drop food packages, she said.

Assam is home to several wildlife sanctuaries that have been affected by the flooding.  In Kaziranga National Park, a total of 22 protected animals have been killed, including four rhinos. Ninety percent of the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary, which is home to a large population of one-horned rhinos, is under water.

The weather has improved in Sikkim, and relief and rescue efforts are under way there, said S.B.S Bhadauria, the state relief commissioner. Sikkim has reported 29 deaths, with seven people st ill missing, he said. Helicopters are being used in the search efforts.  Road connectivity has been restored to some parts of the state, and normal power supply is expected to be restored by Friday, Mr. Bhadauria said.

Officials said there was no early indication that the flooding could have been prevented. “There is nothing you can do to avoid the flooding â€" how can you make it stop raining,” Ms. Hazarika said. “The flood warning system was done in time as well,” she said.



A Conversation With: Tinkle Magazine Editor Rajani Thindiath

By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE

Tinkle, India's first English-language comic book for children, published its 600th issue last month. Anant Pai, a former news executive known fondly to readers as Uncle Pai, introduced the magazine in April 1980.

Mr. Pai, who died last year, was best known as the creator of the popular comic book series Amar Chitra Katha, or Immortal Illustrated Stories; published since 1967, it retells quintessentially Indian stories, whether great epics, folk tales or biographies.

Tinkle, on the other hand, takes as its motto “Where Learning Meets Fun,” and its pages are filled with comic strips, facts about everything from sports to physics and a generous helping of quizzes and contests. Beloved by millions of Indians, the magazine has made many a tedious train journey more enjoyable for children (and the other passengers, too).

In 2007, the Amar Chitra Katha brand, including Tinkle, was sold to two entrepreneurs, who in turn sold a majority stake to the Future Group, a clothing and finance conglomerate, last year. The monthly circulation of Tinkle's print properties, which include the magazine and several digests, is now about 225,000, growing at 30 percent over the past two years, said Manas Mohan, chief operating officer at ACK Media.

India Ink recently caught up with Rajani Thindiath, Tinkle's editor, who joined the company four years ago armed with a degree in psychology and diplomas in animation and journalism. In an e-mail interview, Ms. Thindiath discussed the 600th issue of Tinkle, how Indian comics are different from those in other countries and the possible television debuts of some of Tinkle's most popular character s.

First things first. Why is Tinkle called “Tinkle”?

Subba Rao, who was the associate editor of Amar Chitra Katha, proposed the idea of a comic book for children to Anant Pai during a meeting. Mr Rao's idea was accepted, and the team began discussing a name for the magazine. Mr. Pai said he wanted a musical name-and that's when a call interrupted the meeting.

Mr. Rao, whose phone had rung, told the caller that he was busy and that he would give a “tinkle,” or call back, later in the day. Then, when he put the phone down, Mr. Rao proposed ‘Tinkle' as the name of the new magazine. Mr Pai liked the name and Tinkle was born.

Soon the ‘Tinkle Tinkle Little Star' campaigns started airing on radio and TV, based on the popular children's rhyme, to launch the new magazine.

You launched Tinkle's 600th edition last month; tell us about that and your Laugh-a-thon campaign.

Tinkle 600 is a “thank you” to everyone associated with the magazine. Since it is designed to be a collector's edition, we focused on the number six and had six famous storytellers from India writing for us â€" Samit Basu, Samhita Arni, Priya Kuriyan, Anushka Ravishankar, Vishwajyoti Ghosh and Roopa Pai.

Tinkle's motto “Where Learning Meets Fun” shapes the magazine. There is loads of learning to be done with loads of laughter. So we thought what better way to celebrate the 600th issue than to try and create a laughter record with our readers. That is how the Tinkle Tickles Laugh-a-thon was born. We asked readers to call us or log on to our Web site to record their laughter and help us create a laughter record.

Do you think comic book readership in India is limited to children, unlike in other countries? Is the content designed with that in mind?

We have gained because of the legacy of Uncle Pai. Children in India have grown up reading Tinkle and are very much used to having it in their lives. Right from the outs et he had decided to create a magazine for children in the age group 8 to 14 years. When we design the story, we keep that in mind, but like movies certified as “U” or for unrestricted public exhibition, it is more like family entertainment.

Children enjoy reading it with their parents and grandparents. This is something we always keep in mind while creating content; we do not portray unnecessary violence or allow abusive language.

As for comics in India, they have remained in a limbo till recently when there was an explosion in content, geared mainly for older readers. These are exciting times; there is so much exploration and experimentation going on. It's like we are hurrying to make up for lost time.

The superhero phenomenon does not seem to have caught on in India. Tinkle also focuses more on memorable characters than superheroes.

You know, I am glad. We seem to have blinders on when we think of comic characters. Generally when we ask someone to name his or her favorite comic character, it is invariably a superhero. At Tinkle, we've always had the space to explore different characters, all commonplace and relatable.

As for a truly Indian superhero, it would have been a success had the idea been good and the focus was on mass distribution. Subconsciously till now our superheroes have been inspired by Western superheroes, making them “wannabe” in a way.

But the superhero is not a Western concept; it has resonance in mythology as well. That is not to say we should focus only on mythological characters. I believe the superhero genre is immensely exciting simply because of the scope it offers. With comics becoming relevant again, I'm sure we'll soon see an upsurge in superhero comics as well.

Who is your favorite Tinkle character and why?

That's easy! The Defective Detectives. They are paranoid, they are melodramatic, they are absurd and they almost always get it wrong. It is super fun tak ing the ordinary and dreaming up conspiracy theories for the bungling duo. Rather like telling the lunatic inside me to go out and have a blast.

Why don't we see Tinkle characters on television or in movies?

Oh, but you soon will. ACK Animation's “Suppandi! Suppandi!” will be screened on Cartoon Network, possibly later this year, and there are plans for the other characters as well.

Some people believe that with the advent of cable television, Internet and the popularity of cinema specially for children, comic book readership has been affected.

There will be new technology and as a result, new media will emerge in each generation. But those who like to read will always read. Some just need that little push, and I think comics provide just that.

The medium is that perfect bridge between visual media like cinema and the written word, bringing alive what are essentially static words and images. Comics are an ideal crossover tool, with ready con tent for films and animation.

How has Tinkle adapted to the changing demands of today's readers?

Tinkle has stayed relevant because of the great connection it shares with its readers. We talk to them, take their feedback and involve them in every facet of our magazine, from stories and art to look and design. I'd say we have evolved with our readers, and the storytelling style and our characters match the pace and awareness of our readers, who are exposed to computer games, the Internet, special effects in the movies and a host of new-age technologies.

It is my desire to expose our readers to diverse storytelling and artwork styles so that their worldview, their sense of stories and art, is not limited.

Another wish is to urge children out of their comfort zones and push them to explore the world. We have already begun this in Tinkle through nonfiction sections such as Tinkle Spotlight, an interview feature with experts from various fields to help chi ldren discover diverse career options, and Mark Your Calendar, a monthly events segment that introduces readers to sports, festivals and cultural events from all over the globe.



A Conversation With: Tinkle Magazine Editor Rajani Thindiath

By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE

Tinkle, India's first English-language comic book for children, published its 600th issue last month. Anant Pai, a former news executive known fondly to readers as Uncle Pai, introduced the magazine in April 1980.

Mr. Pai, who died last year, was best known as the creator of the popular comic book series Amar Chitra Katha, or Immortal Illustrated Stories; published since 1967, it retells quintessentially Indian stories, whether great epics, folk tales or biographies.

Tinkle, on the other hand, takes as its motto “Where Learning Meets Fun,” and its pages are filled with comic strips, facts about everything from sports to physics and a generous helping of quizzes and contests. Beloved by millions of Indians, the magazine has made many a tedious train journey more enjoyable for children (and the other passengers, too).

In 2007, the Amar Chitra Katha brand, including Tinkle, was sold to two entrepreneurs, who in turn sold a majority stake to the Future Group, a clothing and finance conglomerate, last year. The monthly circulation of Tinkle's print properties, which include the magazine and several digests, is now about 225,000, growing at 30 percent over the past two years, said Manas Mohan, chief operating officer at ACK Media.

India Ink recently caught up with Rajani Thindiath, Tinkle's editor, who joined the company four years ago armed with a degree in psychology and diplomas in animation and journalism. In an e-mail interview, Ms. Thindiath discussed the 600th issue of Tinkle, how Indian comics are different from those in other countries and the possible television debuts of some of Tinkle's most popular character s.

First things first. Why is Tinkle called “Tinkle”?

Subba Rao, who was the associate editor of Amar Chitra Katha, proposed the idea of a comic book for children to Anant Pai during a meeting. Mr Rao's idea was accepted, and the team began discussing a name for the magazine. Mr. Pai said he wanted a musical name-and that's when a call interrupted the meeting.

Mr. Rao, whose phone had rung, told the caller that he was busy and that he would give a “tinkle,” or call back, later in the day. Then, when he put the phone down, Mr. Rao proposed ‘Tinkle' as the name of the new magazine. Mr Pai liked the name and Tinkle was born.

Soon the ‘Tinkle Tinkle Little Star' campaigns started airing on radio and TV, based on the popular children's rhyme, to launch the new magazine.

You launched Tinkle's 600th edition last month; tell us about that and your Laugh-a-thon campaign.

Tinkle 600 is a “thank you” to everyone associated with the magazine. Since it is designed to be a collector's edition, we focused on the number six and had six famous storytellers from India writing for us â€" Samit Basu, Samhita Arni, Priya Kuriyan, Anushka Ravishankar, Vishwajyoti Ghosh and Roopa Pai.

Tinkle's motto “Where Learning Meets Fun” shapes the magazine. There is loads of learning to be done with loads of laughter. So we thought what better way to celebrate the 600th issue than to try and create a laughter record with our readers. That is how the Tinkle Tickles Laugh-a-thon was born. We asked readers to call us or log on to our Web site to record their laughter and help us create a laughter record.

Do you think comic book readership in India is limited to children, unlike in other countries? Is the content designed with that in mind?

We have gained because of the legacy of Uncle Pai. Children in India have grown up reading Tinkle and are very much used to having it in their lives. Right from the outs et he had decided to create a magazine for children in the age group 8 to 14 years. When we design the story, we keep that in mind, but like movies certified as “U” or for unrestricted public exhibition, it is more like family entertainment.

Children enjoy reading it with their parents and grandparents. This is something we always keep in mind while creating content; we do not portray unnecessary violence or allow abusive language.

As for comics in India, they have remained in a limbo till recently when there was an explosion in content, geared mainly for older readers. These are exciting times; there is so much exploration and experimentation going on. It's like we are hurrying to make up for lost time.

The superhero phenomenon does not seem to have caught on in India. Tinkle also focuses more on memorable characters than superheroes.

You know, I am glad. We seem to have blinders on when we think of comic characters. Generally when we ask someone to name his or her favorite comic character, it is invariably a superhero. At Tinkle, we've always had the space to explore different characters, all commonplace and relatable.

As for a truly Indian superhero, it would have been a success had the idea been good and the focus was on mass distribution. Subconsciously till now our superheroes have been inspired by Western superheroes, making them “wannabe” in a way.

But the superhero is not a Western concept; it has resonance in mythology as well. That is not to say we should focus only on mythological characters. I believe the superhero genre is immensely exciting simply because of the scope it offers. With comics becoming relevant again, I'm sure we'll soon see an upsurge in superhero comics as well.

Who is your favorite Tinkle character and why?

That's easy! The Defective Detectives. They are paranoid, they are melodramatic, they are absurd and they almost always get it wrong. It is super fun tak ing the ordinary and dreaming up conspiracy theories for the bungling duo. Rather like telling the lunatic inside me to go out and have a blast.

Why don't we see Tinkle characters on television or in movies?

Oh, but you soon will. ACK Animation's “Suppandi! Suppandi!” will be screened on Cartoon Network, possibly later this year, and there are plans for the other characters as well.

Some people believe that with the advent of cable television, Internet and the popularity of cinema specially for children, comic book readership has been affected.

There will be new technology and as a result, new media will emerge in each generation. But those who like to read will always read. Some just need that little push, and I think comics provide just that.

The medium is that perfect bridge between visual media like cinema and the written word, bringing alive what are essentially static words and images. Comics are an ideal crossover tool, with ready con tent for films and animation.

How has Tinkle adapted to the changing demands of today's readers?

Tinkle has stayed relevant because of the great connection it shares with its readers. We talk to them, take their feedback and involve them in every facet of our magazine, from stories and art to look and design. I'd say we have evolved with our readers, and the storytelling style and our characters match the pace and awareness of our readers, who are exposed to computer games, the Internet, special effects in the movies and a host of new-age technologies.

It is my desire to expose our readers to diverse storytelling and artwork styles so that their worldview, their sense of stories and art, is not limited.

Another wish is to urge children out of their comfort zones and push them to explore the world. We have already begun this in Tinkle through nonfiction sections such as Tinkle Spotlight, an interview feature with experts from various fields to help chi ldren discover diverse career options, and Mark Your Calendar, a monthly events segment that introduces readers to sports, festivals and cultural events from all over the globe.