Global Voices Online

Stories

South Asia: Initial reactions to the Earthquake

lingua → zhs · zht

An earthquake of 7.6 magnitude on the Richter scale hit South Asia today morning, with Kashmir as the epicentre. Saleem India Blog has a collection of personal experiences through the earthquake. Mubeen's Blog on the terrifying experience through the earthquake.

Metroblogging Lahore talks of a Saturday morning broken by tremors. More on the reports of casualties, continuing tremors and the extremely scary experience. A prayer for Islamabad. Brian has thoughts on praying for those affected despite differences over cultural beliefs. Links to images at The Sea Eat Blog.

0 comments · read »

South Asian blog roundup

Rezwan · 06:17 · South Asia

Bangladesh:

- Subhan shares some typical & unique Bangladeshi styles from personal observations in a post called “You know you are Bangladeshi when*@#!!”

- Arafat of ‘Anthology' analyses a news about “the first Muslim gay marriage in Pakistan” in the light of a previous discussion on the subject which reveals:

“In sharp contrast to Christianity, which considers homosexuality to be a pathological character defect and homosexuals to be abnormal, perverted individuals, Islamic jurisprudence adopts a more restrained attitude, according to which attraction towards members of one's own sex is viewed as entirely normal and natural.”

- Asif explores the possibility whether a Dhaka-centric FM-Radio-Channel transmitting live commentary of the Dhaka traffic be established on the basis of the visual display of the traffic using GPS technology.

- Sadiq tells about the power of chanting in his blog “Inspirations and Creative Thoughts” and posts a beautiful ‘prayer for Ramadan'.

India:

- Neha is angry at the Delhi High Court's ruling that the marriage of 15 year old minor girls are valid.

- Nitin of “The Acorn” tells us about a new Indian online craze “PublicGyan” - (The public knowledge exchage ), which is an online prediction futures market. He links to the plugins for Blogger, MovableType and WordPress — that enable bloggers to display their PublicGyan profile on their blogs.

- Kamla Bhat provides podcasting of headline news from India regularly.

- Charu has details of the festival of nine nights and ten days.

-Abhi of Sepia Mutiny analyses the notion - “Do arranged marriages contribute to terrorism?”

Maldives:

- Iruvaihudhu claims that the Maldives president Mamun A. Gayoom's son Ghassan is his chosen successor.

Nepal:

- Samudaya.org has the latest on the political turmoil Nepal is facing.

- United We Blog posts an experience of a Nepali Gay.

Pakistan:

-Via a Pakistani girl's blog we get the news of a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Islamabad and Rawalpindi extending to New Delhi in India, Sri Nagar in Kashmir, Peshawar and Lahore in Pakistan.

- Sepoy of “Chapaty Mystery” discusses six different views often heard in the West.

- Shirazi of “Light Within” explains Ramadan.

Sri Lanka:

- Colombo goes crazy over books!

- The Magic of Music from ‘One One Things'.

- Fear… Its causes and result in the Sri Lankan Context via Komisiripala.

- Nittewa has thoughts on being Sri Lankan.

4 comments · read »

The Turkish Blogs- A Drop in the Ocean

Deborah Ann Dilley · 04:25 · Middle East & North Africa

Turkey and the Turkish blogs have been a seldom explored venue on Global Voices. I must say that for a while I was under the impression that there were no Turkish blogs at all out there in the wild world wide web….I was wrong…so very very wrong. In fact on a site entitled Blog Kardesligi (Turkish), literally meaning “the fraternity of blogs” over 700 Turkish blogs are currently listed; obviously the listing is not a comprehensive listing of all Turkish blogs out there, but the number that it has listed is representative of a huge population of bloggers just waiting to be heard. The majority of the listed blogs on Blog Kardesligi are written in Turkish, but there is a growing number of English language blogs as well. The goal for this new weekly is give you a glimpse of these Turkish language blogs.

Here is glimpse of the Turkish Blogosphere…however it is only a drop in the ocean….

The two top issues that have been appearing in the Turkish blogs have been the recent EU Membership Talks and the beginning of Ramadan. Turkey has been attempting to enter into the EU for over a decade and has many changes in its law codes in order to begin the negotiation talks with the European Union. On October 4th, it was announced that Turkey will enter into official negotiations with the EU. To many this annoucement is long overdue, however it is predicted that it will take at least 10 years before membership could be achieved for Turkey. Murt Ulas from Metroblogging:Istanbul predicts that EU membership would have very little impact on large cities such as Istanbul. As in the rest of the Muslim world, the beginning of Ramadan is a happy event. Idil from Ignore Me If You Can sends Ramadan greetings to all. Metroblogging:Istanbul also announced community Iftar meals being given in the Uskadar District of Istanbul.

If you are interesting in more culinary matters there is an excellent blog called Yogurt Land which posts recipes in both English and Turkish, the accompanying pictures are simply mouthwatering!

16 comments · read »