Bangladeshi blogger and journalist Tasneem Khalil has been arrested by the joint forces tonight. One of his colleagues (also a renowned blogger) broke the news requesting anonymity. They are afraid to speak out. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Tasneem Khalil (26) is an editorial assistant of the Daily Star , a popular news daily in Bangladesh. He is also the representative of CNN and Human Rights Watch in Bangladesh. His recent articles concentrated on the extra judicial killings in Bangladesh by the joint forces and other human rights issues. After the declaration of the state of emergency in January 11, it is apparent that army is behind the Care taker (interim) Government in Bangladesh. There is an emergency act in place in the country curtailing civil rights which gives power to the authority to arrest any person without conviction. He was called in for questioning by military intelligence last week.

I think to a certain extent in India, it’s so easy for us to be cynical about blogs. Be dismissive. Because there’s a relatively greater degree of freedom of the press. But if you look closely at countries where press freedom is severely curtailed, blogs offer so much freedom to journalists to express and articulate opinions, which wouldn’t otherwise be published by the press. That aside, the interim government also appears to have poor PR skills. In the last three weeks, an ex-prime minister (who has better PR skills) isn’t initially allowed back into the country and now a journalist is arrested. Not to mention, election dates that are nowhere in sight.

Update – He’s no longer in custody. Yay!

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To understand his stories, you have to understand the world he was coming from, and how it made him understand the one he suddenly found himself in. He was young, so young, and had lied about his age at the army recruiting station so he could be accepted. Like most of his regiment, he had never before left home. Never travelled outside of the city of his birth. Australia in the 1940s was provincial and quiet, and still saw itself very much as a distant outpost of the British Empire. The White Australia Policy- restricting immigration of people from outside Britain- was resolutely in place. He would have seen very few people in his whole life who spoke a different language, or had dark skin.
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There are photos in the foyer of the Galle Face Hotel, framed sepias of the building in its grounds throughout the past. It stands alone, at first, wide and white between the sea and a single palm, one rickshaw ambling past. I scan them all for a glimpse of my grandfather’s city, but the images stop in the 1930s. Still, walking through the ballrooms and the bar, I can imagine him here on day leave, almost. Thin and dapper in his uniform, drinking gin and ginger beer with his mates, as the band played The White Cliffs of Dover; songs of a motherland that really wasn’t his. But even this must be fiction.

On some days, you come across such sheer brilliance – this overlapping of self with history, of cities with wars, of images with memory, and suddenly realize that this is what perhaps good blogging, or even writing supposed to do to you. Make you, for some time, sink into someone else’s life.

Have an opinion on Corporate Social Responsibility? Necessary or not? Viable, irrelevant or pointless?

From Global Voices

On Thursday November 9th, at 6:30pm EST (23:30 GMT / 05:00am Friday in India), Reuters will be hosting a live conversation about corporate social responsibility at its New York headquarters. …

According to the special web page built for the event: “Corporate responsibility is increasingly important in today’s global landscape, with companies taking a greater role in developing communities, working to reduce poverty and addressing the health of our planet.”

But are companies – multinational as well as local – making nearly enough effort to be socially responsible? You, our dear readers and community members, likely have a few opinions on this subject.

We hope you will express your views on your own blog (please tag your posts with CSR for “corporate social responsibility” in Technorati) or let us know what you think in the comments section of this post. We will be feeding relevant blog posts into a special section of the event page. …

Your participation is especially important because if you click on the event web page, you will see that the panel of speakers is, well, not exactly the most geographically, economically, or ethnically diverse panel we’ve ever seen – to put it mildly. [Link to the Live Chat during the session where you can login and participate - and even pose questions.]

If you’d like, please help us spread the word and get more friends to participate by putting a badge for the event on your blog [Badge code available at GV page]

Yemen (149th) slipped four places, mainly because of the arrest of several journalists and closure of newspapers that reprinted the cartoons. Journalists were harassed for the same reason in Algeria (126th), Jordan (109th), Indonesia (103rd) and India (105th).

Some trouble spots identified here. Needless to say the levels of conflict in a country have a negative influence on the rank, it means the government gets more tight fisted about what gets printed.

Things are much the same in Sri Lanka, which ranked 51st in 2002, when there was peace, but has now sunk to 141st because fighting between government and rebel forces has resumed in earnest. Dozens of Tamil journalists have been physically attacked after being accused by one side or the other of being biased against them.

As far as Nepal goes, the political turmoil which resulted in clamping down on the press, and then consequent freedom of expression means the country is at 159. Pakistan is at 157. Bangladesh is at 137. It’s pretty interesting that South Asia (excluding India) is pretty much in the same range (137 to 159).

RSF has an article on how the index was compiled, along with the questionnaire used to compile the data.

It is based solely on events between 1 September 2005 and 1 September 2006. It does not look at human rights violations in general, just press freedom violations.

Reporters Without Borders compiled a questionnaire with 50 criteria for assessing the state of press freedom in each country. It includes every kind of violation directly affecting journalists (such as murders, imprisonment, physical attacks and threats) and news media (censorship, confiscation of issues, searches and harassment).

While it is nice to note that India’s rank has improved over the last three to four years, it might have something to do with the situation worsening in some countries, as opposed to the situation improving within a country. Further, the absolute rank for countries may be higher as some countries appear to share the score.

I wonder if there is a similar index for comparing Press Freedom in different states and regions. It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between degree of economic freedom, level of conflict and freedom of press. Further, one wonders how many instances of violation actually get reported in many parts of India. Plus, can one actually measure arm-twisting of the Media? What about instances of corruption within Media at the level of institutions, where decisions are taken about not reporting events, manipulating reports etc. and this knowledge may never reach the public domain anyway.

Their Sunday ritual was a delight. It was the day when Sardarji washed his hair. (I am sure he washed his hair more frequently, but being a school going kid I missed the other instances.) The washing of his long, black and thick hair seemed to be the focal point of the day. Looking sleepy and delighted, he would stand over the balcony with his tresses to dry in the sun. Not for too long though, there’s a rule somewhere that says you shouldn’t appear in public without tying up your hair. But even better was the washing of the turban. The cloth used to tie the turban is rather long. and it was folded in triple to dry on the clothesline. But not before husband and wife went to the road and slapped the water out of the turban to rid of extra water. Oh, and nothing is cuter than little Sikh boys, with their hair tied into cute little buns on top of their head. As a child, I had frequent tonsures (what better way to celebrate summer vacations), and was sometimes mildly jealous of the little boy upstairs.

Not to mention the sonorous Gurbani. Old men with with white flowy hair reciting the Granth Sahib. I’ve never come across a community more willing to laugh at themselves. If anyone tells a good Sardar joke, it is a Sardar himself. In recent years though, it’s harder to spot Sikh men with turbans in Delhi.

Outlook has an article on the trend of young Sikh boys choosing to shave their locks.

But, across Punjab, and more so in the countryside, young members of the community are giving up the most visible religious symbol of Sikh identity—long hair and the turban. The trend, which has been growing in the last four to five years, has reached “epidemic” proportions and now has the Sikh religious leadership worried. So much so that desperate campaigns have been launched to revive the use of the turban.

When Outlook began examining this trend, Sikh organisations engaged in saving the turban estimated that about 80 per cent of the Sikh youth in rural Punjab have cut their hair and discarded their headgear. An exaggeration, one thought. But president of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), the highest decision-making body for the Sikhs, Avtar Singh Makkar, confirms this trend.

I think I spot more Sikh gentlemen here than I do in Delhi or Bombay these days. I was trying to hunt for some essays on Sikhism, Sikh identity and the contemporary world or Diaspora. Get references to books, but nothing substantial online. Though there seem to be plenty of sites devoted to discussing Sikh philosophy, theology etc. Must dig some more.

Some wonderful photographs at flickr in the Sikhism and Sikhs clusters.

The allegations are potentially embarrassing for Tesco, which has prided itself on its strict policy on ethical trading. The supermarket giant is one of the founding members of Ethical Trading Initiative, an organisation that promotes codes of practice governing working conditions for suppliers making products which will be sold in the UK.

Under the ETI code, suppliers are banned from employing children under the age of 15. They must also ensure staff are paid “living wages” and do not work excessively long hours.

It’s also interesting how they look at Tesco here by the way. At one point everyone cries themselves hoarse about saving smaller shops, but who doesn’t want cheaper milk and toilet paper? In fact I think the rule about curbing retail activity on the high street on Sundays here has something to do with protecting smaller shops and little to do with the Christian day-off. I feel bad for the likes of Tesco really. No matter what they do, the media loves to pick on them. Also has something to do with the fact that big departmental stores source their wares from outside the UK. But what really caught my eye today was how reporting can get shoddy. Sample this,

Why does the headline say something about Tesco using child labour in India? Isn’t the report about Bangladesh. Hhmm – Someone hand them a political map of South Asia. Be sure to clearly mark Bangladesh as a country adjacent to India, not inside India please! Even as Channel 4 gets all excited about uncovering how unethical South Asia is when it comes to data handling and children, it might be interesting to read this

As a result, garment employers dismissed about three-quarters of all children employed in the industry. With no access to education and few skills, the children had few alternatives to escape their crushing poverty. Many went looking for new jobs in stone-crushing, street hustling and prostitution – all more hazardous and exploitative than garment making. Recognizing the need for action, UNICEF and the Ipec programme of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) began talks with industry leaders in 1993 to find a solution.

Update – More links

A discussion at the The Argus Forum which sort of underlines that it is Tesco’s responsibility to know where they are sourcing their products from and who makes them. Channel 4′s story and the link to video here. (May not play if accessed outside of the UK).

My guess is that most people in developed countries do not understand the distinction between working in a hazardous industry and other industries. Where exactly does Child Labour end? Even if say a company like Tesco decides to buy clothes only made in the UK or from factories that are declared Child Labour free, will they manage to trace which bale of cotton came from a farm that uses Child Labour? Products are not plucked off factories. The primary sector world over largely uses cheap labour which translates to child labour. You cannot yank a child off his or her livelihood. There is a reason why children work – their parents cannot support them or the child is trying to support him/herself because it would mean abuse at home. Education is not a guarantee in these countries. In the absence of a state that is able to provide a minimum level of education, comfort and safety, a child can only strive to support his or her own self.

Not that any of it justifies child labour – it just underlines how hard it is to say some product is child labour free. Cutting and running would plunge these children into hardship far worse than they are in now. Not that Tesco is bound to consider any of this – but it just calls for rethinking the Ethical Trading Initiative.

This gets even more interesting. Tesco now looks at Channel4 with strange eyes. Because Channel4 could have prevented further exploitation of these children by reporting it months earlier instead of waiting for so long.

It also said that two of the factories involved had not been authorised to produce Tesco clothing, and this had now ceased. Authorised factories, which have age checks in place, had been visited in the last week and no evidence of child labour was found, a Tesco spokesman said.

“We are very disappointed that Channel 4 has waited three months to bring this matter to our attention and, despite repeated requests, did not allow us to see any evidence of their claims before broadcast,” he added.

“We abhor child labour and feel that Channel 4 had a duty to alert us earlier if these allegations are true.

“It’s like my two eyes. Which do you love more? That is the way I feel about India and America,” Sadananda, 58 and petite, said while sitting on her sofa in Springfield one recent morning. Two stuffed suitcases sat on the white carpet, prepped for her return to India. “I have the best of both worlds.”

Some of the comfort probably has to do with ethnic identity having become slightly cool in many quarters. The realities for ethnic groups in the US and UK are probably quite different however. Take for instance the large number of people who came to the UK in the 60s and 70s from East Africa. When I was doing the research project on patters of charity giving, the question of identity and affiliations kept coming up and was a big part of understanding why people choose specific charities or causes. The stronger the Diaspora (region-specific) community is, more likely you successfully recreate a mini-India. For those who came from East Africa, returning to India in terms of living in the country is a fond thought but uproots them from their community in the UK.

It’s the young professional crowd that gets more interesting. They earn well and survive on Desi networks, but rarely break into the larger Diaspora. More than pop-patriotism, it is a practical decision to return. Better job opportunities, a more comfortable life in India make for good reasons. But buying a house and settling into a mortgage might set-back the return plans. For charities, they are a niche market who don’t want to give to the usual causes and like to instead explore giving to micro-finance based initiatives etc. There is a definite difference in the way the “Old Diaspora” looks at charity as opposed to the “Professional Expat”. Which speaks volumes about how they perceive themselves in the wider fabric of the country they live in. The article in the WP is interesting but highly anecdotal – I wonder if there’s some (qualitative) research on the actual patterns. Besides, there’s a huge gap between nostalgia and return.

Watch out for the Big Bash next year as they celebrate 60 years of Indian Independence here. I wonder if the guilt of Imperialism has vanished.