Hindu Press International <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: April 14,
2007
Uganda Promises Security After Riots Target Indians
Poverty Tourism - Exploration or Exploitation?
Online Game Karma Tycoon Out To Incubate Generosity In Teens
1. Uganda Promises Security After Riots Target Indians
www.hindustantimes.com
KAMPALA, UGANDA, April 13, 2007: Uganda's government assured Kampala
residents of their safety on Friday, a day after rioters targeting Asians (as
Indians are called in Uganda) stoned one man to death during a protest over
plans by an Indian firm to develop part of a rainforest reserve. Soldiers
patrolled the capital where police fired tear gas and bullets on Thursday to
scatter hundreds of people demonstrating against a proposal to axe nearly a
third of one of Uganda's last natural forests to make way for growing
sugarcane. "The government will not allow any group of persons ... to abuse the
hard-earned freedoms of Ugandans and plunge the country into lawlessness and
anarchy," Information Minister Kirunda Kivejinja said in a statement. "The
government reassures all the people living in Uganda of their security and full
protection."
Scenes of Asian men dragged off motorbikes and beaten while others cowered in
besieged city centre shops and a Hind u temple brought back bitter memories of
1972, when Uganda's late former dictator Idi Amin expelled the country's 75,000
Asians. Several thousand have since returned, but are viewed with suspicion by
some Ugandans who resent their domination of many businesses, particularly
small scale retailing. Many of Thursday's demonstrators carried placards
telling Indians to leave Uganda, and as the protest turned bloody armed police
had to rescue more than 100 Asian men. "I was sitting in class when people
gathered outside making signs through the window that they were going to kill
us," said a 20-year-old Asian student, Prakash. "We could see one Indian guy
getting beaten really badly. It was terrible."
The latest controversy began last year when President Yoweri Museveni ordered a
study into whether to slash 7,000 hectares (17,000 acres), or nearly a third,
of Mabira Forest to expand the sugar plantations of the Indian-owned Mehta
Group. Mabira, which lies about 50 km (30 miles) east of Kampala, has been a
nature reserve since 1932. Critics say cutting part of Mabira would have grave
ecological consequences, from increased soil erosion to the drying up of rivers
and rainfall, and the removal of a buffer against polluting nearby Lake
Victoria. Museveni says conservation is a luxury not afforded by poor countries
seeking economic development. On Thursday he said he would not be swayed by
conservationists "shouting on the radio."
"I cannot be intimidated," he said. "The future of all countries lies in
processing (goods)... I shall not be deterred by people who do not see where
the future of Africa lies." Dozens of people were arrested on Thursday and at
least two rioters were shot dead, apparently by private security guards. Kumara
Vithal, a 52-year-old Asian businessman who was born in Uganda, said his family
fled to Kenya in the Amin years but came back in 2000 after Museveni encouraged
Asians to return. Since then life had been peaceful, he told the agency, and he
urged Mehta Group not to push ahead with its Mabira proposal. "They should not
go into the forest, not just for us but for the country at large," Vithal said.
"People fear they will be targeted again if this plan goes ahead."
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2. Poverty Tourism - Exploration or Exploitation?
www.smithsonianmagazine.com
MUMBAI, INDIA, April 14, 2007: The Dharavi squatter settlement in Mumbai is
often described as the biggest slum in Asia. It sits between two rail lines in
the northern part of the city, on a creek that once sustained a thriving
fishery. The creek is now a sump of sewage and industrial waste, and the air
above Dharavi is foul. By one estimate, the slum is home to 10,000 small
factories, almost all of them illegal and unregulated. The factories provide
sustenance of a sort to the million or so people who are thought to live in
Dharavi, which at 432 acres is barely half the size of New York City's Central
Park. There is no discernible garbage pickup, and only one toilet for every
1,440 people. It is a vision of urban hell. It is also one of India's newest
tourist attractions. Since January of last year, a young British entrepreneur,
Christopher Way, and his Indian business partner, Krishna Poojari, have been
selling walking tours of Dharavi as if it were Jerus alem's walled
city or the byways of Dickens' London. There seems to be a market for this
sort of thing: almost every day during the recent December holidays, small
groups of foreign travelers, accompanied by Poojari or another guide, tramped
through Dharavi's fetid alleys in a stoic quest for...What? Enlightenment?
Authenticity? The three-hour excursions are slated for mention in a forthcoming
Lonely Planet guide, and they cost about $6.75 a head--more if you want to go
to Dharavi by air-conditioned car.
Poverty tourism--sometimes known as "poorism"--did not originate in Mumbai
(formerly Bombay). For years, tour operators have been escorting foreign
visitors through Rio de Janeiro's infamous favelas (Latin American poor
enclaves, ghettos), with their drug gangs and ocean views, and the vast
townships outside Cape Town and Johannesburg, where tourists are invited to mix
with South Africans at one of the illicit beer halls known as shebeens. A
nonprofit group in New Delhi charges tourists for guided walks through the
railway station, to raise money for the street children who haunt its
platforms. But the Dharavi tours have been especially controversial. In a
lengthy report last September, the Indian English-language Times Now television
channel attacked them as an exercise in voyeurism and a sleazy bid to "cash in
on the Opoor-India' image." That report was followed by a panel discussion in
which the moderator all but accused Pujari of crimes against humanity. "If you
were
living in Dharavi, in that slum, would you like a foreign tourist coming and
walking all over you?" he sputtered. "This kind of slum tourism, it is a clear
invasion of somebody's privacy....You are treating humans like animals." A
tourism official on the panel called the tour operators "parasites [who] need
to be investigated and put behind bars," and a state lawmaker has threatened to
shut them down.
---------------------------------
3. Online Game Karma Tycoon Out To Incubate Generosity In Teens
www.msnbc.msn.com
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, April 12, 2007: A New York-based nonprofit is hoping to
strike a philanthropic spark with Karma Tycoon, a new online game that aims to
entertain teens while also giving them an appreciation for the business side of
charitable works. The game is the creation of DoSomething.org, a not-for-profit
that aims to inspire younger generations to embrace volunteerism, which worked
with the JP Morgan Chase Foundation to develop it and get it to market. The
idea behind Karma Tycoon was to put a twist on popular video and computer games
in which players try to maximize profit in order to amass wealth. "Why not
create a game that maximizes karma in order to make the world a better place?"
Aria Finger, who is in charge of building corporate partnerships for Do
Something, recalls of the brainstorming that led to the game. Teenager Nikki
Mayer, an avid player, says that there is keen demand for entertainment with an
optimistic message. "Not all teenagers are really
interested in killing people or racing cars," she says.
Karma Tycoon, which was officially launched with the ringing of the bell at the
NSDAQ stock exchange on Dec. 21, empowers teens to get involved in
philanthropic endeavors by giving them freedom to choose how they want to
contribute, said Finger. Players who register at the site can pick the type of
nonprofit they would like to administer, such as an animal shelter or a
homeless shelter, and establish their virtual organization in one of 12 major
U.S. cities. Kimberly Davis, president of the JP Morgan Chase Foundation, says
that in addition to generating interest in charitable deeds, the game helps
players become money-wise. "The game sort of sneaks up on you, and I think
that's the way it has to become intuitive for kids," she says. "They don't
realize that by playing this game that they are doing math and setting up
budgets."
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