Below the line

With the dramatic takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, international media organisations across the world are scrambling to evacuate their Afghan journalists, translators, and other support staff. Earlier this week, leading American newspapers — Washington Post , New York Times and Wall Street Journal — urged the US government to help evacuate 204 people including Afghan journalists, support staff, and families to safety.

On August 19, NYT said it managed to evacuate a group of Afghan colleagues and their families. In Germany too, the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers along with other German media organisations such as DW, Die Zeit , Der Spiegel and Reporters Without Borders have written an open letter calling on the German government to set up an emergency visa programme for their Afghan staff. Media organisations have expressed serious concerns about the safety of Afghan freelance journalists who worked for Western media organisations.

RBI economists tried to make the ‘State of the Economy’ article interesting by referring to the historical calendar era, John Keats’ poem and the traditional Hindu calendar month.

They observed that this edition of the ‘State of the Economy’ coincides with the fourth month of the Shalivahana Shaka — the Indian national calendar — when the south-west monsoon stretches its embrace across India. It is a time of sacrifice and fasting, and of the celebration of material creations, especially water.

It is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, its music drowning out the songs of spring (adapted from the John Keats poem To Autumn )... Sravana 2021 is also a time of the year when the Reserve Bank connects with the transcendental calm within. Submersed in this inner stillness, it looked beyond the dilemmas and trade-offs in the here and now to contemplate the world of tomorrow.

The Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, had a word of praise for Manipal and the role played by it in shaping his future. In a media interaction in Mangaluru recently, he said Manipal is the place where he became a computer engineer.

He is an old student of Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT). Stating that he has spent 35 years in technology, the Minister said he learnt technology in Manipal.

Recalling his Manipal days, he said there was a small ‘DCM Spectrum 7’ computer at MIT, probably the first computer in Dakshina Kannada district (then Udupi and Manipal were part of Dakshina Kannada), during those days. “My future was shaped in that in a lot of ways. That is why I have a special connection with the region,” he said.

Our Bureaus

COMMENT NOW