Media Ethics In Nepal

Ethics is a set of moral principles that concerns itself with good or bad conduct. It defines what is good for the individual and society and establishes the nature of duties that people owe to themselves and one another. This nature of ethics makes it particularly useful to be adopted by organisations and institutions to regulate the behaviour of their members and uphold a certain standard. Many professional associations release ethical codes, often in the form of codes of conduct, to outline what...

A Well Intentioned Advice

Mend or end! A not-so-subtle word of caution from journalist Zhou Shengping about the fate that awaits Nepal if the country’s leaders do not change their ways. Zhou has been in Kathmandu as the bureau chief of Xinhua News Agency since 2012 and, in that capacity, has met top leaders of all the major political parties. His warning ‘Mend or End’ is based on his observations and experiences from these meetings and interactions and his nearly decade-long stay in Nepal. Nepal is waiting a transformation...

Media Power

We often think of media as just another industry – providing services in exchange for money. And they are if you look at things from purely an economic point of view. But when you add social, cultural and political dimensions to the mix, then it becomes clear just how different media is from other commercial enterprises. For starters, media differs in the commodity it sells. It does not sell material products or physical services like other businesses, it sells thoughts, ideas, emotions and cultural...

Knowing Cha Dhoka

Many of us in the Kathmandu Valley have seen Cha Dhoka of Patan or at least heard of it. If you are a resident of Patan, then you have almost certainly passed through this monument. This is not a hidden or overlooked structure in a back alley somewhere. No, it stands prominently in one of the busiest streets of the city. We, no doubt, know of it, but do we know about it? The great white gate standing in Kotlachhi with its three passages, tw

Tackle Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is mainly understood as the buying and selling of people and while that is not wrong, it does not cover the entire scope of the crime. As defined by the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, human trafficking, in its entirety, includes the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat, use of force or coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or of giving...

At least three people killed, three injured

At least three people were killed and three others injured by monsoon-triggered disasters on Saturday. The National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Authority informed in its daily update that the three killed were residents of Chauhan, Hupsekot Rural Municipality–4, Nawalpur. They were members of local Hasta Bahadur Pulami’s family who were swept away by a landslide on Friday. Their dead bodies were discovered on Saturday.

Media Codification

The codification of meanings of objects in any form of communication is known as semiotics. Semiotics is a study of how meaning is created and how meaning is communicated. Our actions and thoughts are governed by a complex set of cultural messages and conventions and dependent on our ability to interpret them instinctively and instantly. These messages are known as signs, which can be text, audio or video.

Patan’s ‘journey of lights’ limited to symbolism this year

If it were not for the COVID-19 pandemic, Tuesday would have been a festive day in Patan. Hundreds would have marched around the city with candles, rice and other items of religious offering, accompanied by musical bands and merrymakers dressed as colourful characters. Patanites would have celebrated the day – the third day of the dark fortnight of Shrawan – as Mataya. But this year, because of the health risks posed by the coronavirus and the possibility of a third wave of the pandemic hitting...

Twitter’s Identity Perspective

Hardly any of us are unfamiliar with Twitter. Many also know of its impact on people’s psyche and behaviour. But do we know that it also impacts our identity? Sounds far-fetched but Twitter has an “identity perspective” that shapes and moulds how we and others perceive us. The first way Twitter impacts our identity is by making us

Night-shift workers feel the pinch of vehicle restrictions

It was 8 o’clock in the evening and Krishna Chhetri was getting dressed for office. His shift starts at 10 pm but he was hurrying to leave because he has to walk five kilometres from his home in Sorakhutte, Kathmandu to his workplace in Chuchchepati, something that takes him around an hour and five minutes.