In the early '90s, there was this first Nepali electronic newsletter called The Nepal Digest (TND). It was started by Rajpal Singh in Illinois, and, for a time, was a widely circulated ONLY one electronic newsletter among Nepalis about Nepal.

Every week, TND came to your inbox as an email, filled with news about Nepal with occasional views/debates/discussions of fellow Nepalis from around the world (though for some reason, US-based Nepalis tended to be more vocal than Nepalis elsewhere).

TND started to lose its charm when The Kathmandu Post and other Nepali newspapers started putting up their Web sites. People started getting their news directly from
Nepal.

This led to a greater demand for news analyses as opposed to mere news reportage from electronic sources.

Soc.Culture.Nepal (SCN), a Usenet group, fulfilled that demand up to a point in the late 1990s. Unlike TND, which was an editor-collated product with its own weekly cycle,
SCN allowed users to post their comments and analyses and get almost-instant feedbacks from anyone wanting to respond to postings. This led to lively, if
occasionally acrimonious, exchanges of views.

One major practical downside of SCN was its totally unmoderated nature. Often Indians and Pakistanis would cross-post their various unrelated-to-Nepal jhagada on SCN.
And wading through their dross to get to Nepal-related stuff eventually became a boring and tiring chore for most SCN users.

Then came Sajha.com at the start of this century. It combined the best of SCN features
with loose moderation. This kept the Indian and Pakistani cross-posters out, and allowed pretty much Nepali-only to post their views.

Sajha's flagship section -- the kurakani section -- took off after the Royal Massacre of 2001. Later, easy-to-use chatrooms and word-of-mouth publicity helped bring in many other Nepalis to the site. A diversity of visitor's postings helped make the site interesting and 'sticky' (some say: addictive) for most visitors.

Now, in 2005, the electronic communication/info sharing process appears to have entered a new phase with the rise of Nepal-related blogs.

In the past few months, many excellent Nepal-related blogs have come up. Some of the blogs are group-blogs; some are sustained individually. Some have great fresh news contents. Others are well-written and well-presented. A few are merely entertaining. But altogether, they ARE siphoning attention -- the most precious commodity -- away from Sajha.

As a well-wisher of Sajha, I think the time has come for Sajha to redefine its mission and and differentiate itself from its 'competitors'.

What is Sajha for in these changing times?

For news?
For views?
For debates?
For announcing community events?
For sharing the photos of community events?
For social activism?

Other well-wishers of Sajha and San himself must start thinking ahead so that Sajha -- in these times of rapidly changing technologies -- does not suffer the fate of its predecessors.

Something to think about.

oohi
ashu

The RSS feed button was supposed to show up there, but did not, sorry. I guess Sajha does not digest HTML code.

Btw.

Looks like Kunda Dixit is in town on Saturday. Jackson Heights.

Kunda Dixit Sukunda Dixit. Who cares? Not I! I just want to be in my world - myopic if you will. That is manageable. Nepal's problem? Solving? Talking? That is just a talk, I tell you. And minus $7 dollars. I would rather go have lunch with that 7 dollars and read a book on a bench in a sunny afternoon.

Besides he is in your town not mine.

BTW your blog is boring. Same old George Bush stuf! :))

Do people even have the capacity to see yourself as others may see you? Geez!

Hell, I don't have to glorify my lifestyly. I don't need to. I HAVE a wonderful life. Do you want to compete? Let's see.

How about posting a pic of your dwelling and my mahal?
Our photos. Let's post pictureof ourselves. I bet I am far more beautiful than you in every category. How big is your bhundi from consuming nothing but chicken and beer?
Education. Let's post our transcirpts.
Jobs. Give the name. I bet I have far superior job than you.
Salary? Do we even need to go there?
Spouse. Category - job, look, salary.
Offspring category - intelligence. I can post the result from a reknown psychologist who did testing on my daughter. Behavioral and cognitive.
Car we drive.

How about posting a pic of your dwelling and my mahal?
Our photos. Let's post pictureof ourselves. I bet I am far more beautiful than you in every category. How big is your bhundi from consuming nothing but chicken and beer?
Education. Let's post our transcirpts.
Jobs. Give the name. I bet I have far superior job than you.
Salary? Do we even need to go there?
Spouse. Category - job, look, salary.
Offspring category - intelligence. I can post the result from a reknown psychologist who did testing on my daughter. Behavioral and cognitive.
Car we drive.

How about posting a pic of your dwelling and my mahal?
Our photos. Let's post pictureof ourselves. I bet I am far more beautiful than you in every category. How big is your bhundi from consuming nothing but chicken and beer?
Education. Let's post our transcirpts.
Jobs. Give the name. I bet I have far superior job than you.
Salary? Do we even need to go there?
Spouse. Category - job, look, salary.
Offspring category - intelligence. I can post the result from a reknown psychologist who did testing on my daughter. Behavioral and cognitive.
Car we drive.

I bet I am far more beautiful than you in every category.

Let's post our transcirpts.

How about posting a pic of your dwelling and my mahal?

I bet I have far superior job than you.

okay

i guess that will have to do.

Just could not help it!

Yawn....................


:)

har har har

qallu aka nepalikt? har har har. Funny, Funny, Funny. What's is your next awatar? Pallu? Gallu? Nallu? orrr CHALU? Still in Nepal? Let's meet if you are here.

Had it not been thugged out, you genius probably would not have figgered it out. But since you are so "in the know," why don't you try and get it right. it was "anepalikt!" :) And the word to note here is "was." Now it is qallu. It could be whatever next. It won't be you bidness.

And you are who now? Nemesis, re? Thats funny! Don't flatter yourself. And chalu? you wish!

lump

Nemesis, I am smarter than you and surely have higher IQ than your 40! I think my last test said I was a big 5-0! Lets post our IQ scores!

ha ha

I'd rather go have lunch with your seven dollars!

:-)

PS. That Bush photo attraction: it is called cowboy Bush.

This is one becoming one weird thread.
Watching MTV with sound off? Sounds like something Kurt Cobain did.
How does Paraminder's video fit into all this?
If NK and Qallu are each others' nemesis, who is Nemesis?
Which drug is bathroomcoffee taking?
When is San paying us dividends for our time investment?
Is the movie over yet?
Opportunist of the year award goes to Qallu.
Kalankisthan you need to get pissed sometimes katthi khit khit?

crypto, like i said, nothing's over until I say it's over. btw, there's an award waiting for you, too, at the podium.

San PAYING divident? He will ask YOU to PAY. My suggestion - Pretend you are not enjoying a whole lot!

के हो "एन के" ले त मलाई गाँठे गोटा तिनेक बर्ख घर खाएर माईत आकी पुल्पुलिएकी छोरी
सम्झाइन । मेरी बास्सै।

त्यस्तै ऊस्तैका बोली त गाँठे भुईँमा नझर्दै ड्याम की ड्याम भेटन थाले दनक।