Time’s Person of the Year: You

Time’s magazine has elected YOU as person of the year.
‘…for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you’, says the magazine.

This quiet Web 2.0 revolution (see What Is Web 2.0, an explanation by Tim O’Reilly who is said to have coined the term) is clearly changing the face of the world. Social networking is absolutely fab! Of course, as says the article, ‘Sure, it’s a mistake to romanticize all this any more than is strictly necessary. Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom.’

(also posted on UoM-Communication Studies)

Review of 2006 on HardTalk show (TopFM)

As announced in yesterday’s post, I was on the TopFM’s HardTalk show hosted by Habid Mosaheb with Kiran Ramsahye as the other guest.

We were supposed to review the main events in 2006. Both of us agreed that the constant decline in people’s buying power is the main feature of 2006. Inevitably, we discussed a lot about the local political landscape, the opposition’s ‘mauvais cinéma’, the people feeling betrayed by the government, the difficulties faced by our economic pillars, free transport, the mounting feeling of insecurity, corruption, etc.

We had a small disagreement over the free transport issue. Following one of the listeners’ statement about the fact that the people felt betrayed by the govt (he felt they had not respected their promises), I argued that the govt had in fact respected its promises but the feeling of betrayal stemmed from the fact that it had also made a series of decisions which had never been evoked in their manifesto. I also argued that, given the very difficult economic situation, it is ridiculous to maintain free transport for all and that this was a promise that could easily be reviewed. Kiran Ramsahye felt very passionately about this that promises should not be broken, that this was similar to SSR’s brave patriotic decision to provide free education to all…

I think he was also rather annoyed at the fact that another listener phoned in to say that Ramsahye is pro-Labour and is defending the govt at all costs…

Anywayz, I felt it was an interesting discussion (dunno about the listeners’ point of view though) although we did not have much time to cover all important events and issues of 2006. We probably spent a bit too much time on politics.. but at the same time as goes the saying ‘politics are the favourite pastime of Mauritians’. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with us: politics is a pastime, a game, not dealt with seriously and responsibly

On HardTalk (TopFM) this afternoon

I shall be on the HardTalk show on TopFM this afternoon as from 5.30 p.m. The show is hosted by Habib Mosaheb as usual and the other guest is Kiran Ramsahye (chief editor of Le Matinal).

Today’s show is devoted to the year 2006 main news. Tune in if you’re interested. Listeners can also phone in their questions.

I will of course post about the show tomorrow.