For my money, the U.S. media’s coverage of South Asia has improved a lot in recent years. I often hear complaints about the New York Times’ Somini Sengupta (and on occasion I’ve had my criticisms too), but overall the quality of South Asia coverage at the Times has been consistently high in my estimation.

Periodically, however, major American media sources seem to lose their focus a little. First up, witness today’s article on Widows at Cnn.com. How is this a “fresh” story? Why is it the lede at CNN, exactly? (For several hours on Thursday afternoon, this was the leading story on Cnn.com’s website.) While Indian widows face real problems — and we’ve talked about them at SM before — the superficial style of coverage in this particular CNN story smacks of sensationalism. There is so much happening in the world — the siege of the Red Mosque in Pakistan, and the derailment of the commuter train in London might be two examples. I’m not sure why or how this is judged “leading news.”

And then there’s the unusual New York Times story about the woman in Karnataka who’s started a blog to raise awareness of her husband’s whistle-blowing activities. By getting public attention she’s trying to avoid having his fate resemble that of other government workers engaged in fighting corruption in the past few years — two of whom were assasinated.

I do wish M. N. Vijayakumar and J. N. Jayashree well, and there is something rather smart about this approach: the best way to fight lack of information transparency is to aim for hyper-transparency (“wiki-giri”, perhaps). But a visit to the “Fighting Corruption” blog is a little less than inspiring; from my attempted navigation, it was actually a bit difficult to pin down the specific cases where Vijayakumar has attempted to make interventions. And my bigger concern is the danger that this strategy might only work in exceptional instances. It’s fine if 1 or 5 or 10 whistle-blowers are keeping blogs; people will pay attention. But what about 1000, or 10,000? Since a single blog can hardly clean up corruption single-handedly, to me this story falls under “novelty,” not so much “news.” What’s your view? Continue reading →

A tipster named Shireen alerted us to the unusual situation of 11 year old Nikita Rau, who had earned entry into a “gifted and talented” school in Brooklyn, called the Mark Twain School, or IS 239. Nikita was denied admission to the school based on the school’s archaic racial quotas, established in 1974, which require that exactly 60% of the school be white, and 40% be composed of minorities. At the time, the quota reflected the demographics of the area; today, minorities comprise more than 40% of the local population — and have little trouble getting the test scores to earn admission to the school. The 40% minimum has, over time, become a maximum quota.

The New York Post covered the story yesterday in sensationalistic terms: “NOT WHITE ENOUGH: Brilliant Girl Cheated By School Quota.” And today they follow up with a story on the Chancellor of Schools, Joel Klein, who has indicated that he supports Nikita Rau’s right to study at IS 239. (They also have a colorfully written editorial on the subject, entitled, “Cockamamie Quota”.)

Despite his opposition to the quota, Chancellor Klein has thus far declined to act, mainly because the Supreme Court is about to rule on two major desegregation cases elsewhere in the country, which could potentially vitiate federal programs aimed at achieving racial balance or diversity in primary and secondary schools. If government-enforced racial diversity is thrown out (and many commentators think it will be, given the current conservative leaning of the Supreme Court), it will be relatively straightforward to throw out the old quota in Coney Island.

Of course, one could argue that the quota at this school should just be thrown out irrespective of what the Supreme Court decides in the cases in Seattle and Louisville — simply because excluding Nikita Rau was never the intention of the judge who made the 1974 ruling that set up the quota in the first place.

Finally, it does strike me as an interesting irony that at the college level, East and South Asians are not considered “underrepresented minorities,” while in this case, Nikita Rau is clearly being defined as a “minority” student.

I’m curious to hear where readers are on this issue of quotas, desegregation, and diversity, specifically with regard to how it affects South Asian students in primary and secondary schools (K-12).

[I should also link to a couple of earlier SM posts on Affirmative Action, here and here] Continue reading →