Dr. Yan Myo Thein is a political commentator who resides in Yangon/Rangoon, Myanmar. He has been a political commentator for more than 20 years and has even been detained for his position as a leader of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions in 1989. First I would like to say that the tweet is in Burmese so some key information may or may not be missing. I used three different ways to translate it to get more than one translation.

In Dr. Yan Myo Thein’s tweet he criticizes The National Counseling Office and the State Counselor, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, for using English on an officials Burmese government document. Due to this there was apparently parts of the English version that didn’t line up with the Burmese version, so there was a loss in translation. This is causing some people to be unsure as to which version is actually correct. He also states that the The National Counseling Office/Aung San Suu Kyi should provide a clear definition due to this discrepancy. I am assuming that since the tweet is relatively recent (November 20th) that the subject is something to do with some document related to the Gambia vs. Myanmar ICJ genocide charges. Therefore, I think is is safe to assume that she wanted said document translated because it would be presented before the ICJ. The official languages used within the ICJ are English and French so this would make a lot of sense. Since it is such an important matter a slight difference in the language used could be interpreted much differently. This makes me wonder how they translated the document. If they used a translator then that kind of falls on them, but if they used forms of online computer translation (ex. google translate) then that would be interesting. These online translators are often accurate for individual words, but fall short sometimes when it comes to sentences which is why I used multiple translators. I doubt that they would use a translation application due to their flaws, but if they did it shows that our current level of translation technology is not good enough for legal means.

မြန်မာဘာသာပြန်တဲ့​နေရာမှာ အနည်းငယ်လွဲ​ချော်​နေတယ်လို့ ထင်မိပါတယ်။ နိုင်ငံ​တော်အတိုင်ပင်ခံပုဂ္ဂိုလ် ကိုယ်တိုင်
သွား​ရောက်မယ်လို့ English version အရ နားလည်လို့
မရနိုင်ပါ။ ဘယ်ဗားရှင်းက Original လည်းသိဖို့လိုပါမယ်။
နိုင်ငံ​တော်အတိုင်ပင်ခံရုံးကလည်း တရား၀င် တိတိကျကျ
ရှင်းလင်းသင့်ပါတယ်။

— Dr. Yan Myo Thein (@Yanmyothein) November 20, 2019

Help Received : https://www.linkedin.com/in/yan-myo-thein-46a18022

http://imtranslator.net/translation/myanmar-burmese/to-english/translation/

Google translate

Built in Twitter tweet translation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice

Tweet Link: https://twitter.com/Yanmyothein/status/1197153529707814916

Ethan Watts

This tweet is actually very uplifting compared to most the content we’ve covered on South Asia. Essentailly, recently the Pakistani senate authorized scholarships for woman in underddeveloped areas of Pakistan. This is huge because traditionally in South Asia and particularly Muslim culture, women are looked over to say the least. Enacting the “Ehsas Program”, will empower women and also pressure other countries in the region to give women what they deserve. Though this is a good step in the right direction the fight for women’s equality is far from over.

One thing that worries me about this Ehsas program is who will regulated the distribution of funds? As we know, South Asia has a corruption problem, and in the back of my head I can not help thinking that some will take advantage of this program to steal money from the women it was intended for.

Senate standing committee initiates the scholarship program for female students of Underdeveloped areas of #Pakistan & it has turned into reality. Out of 50k scholarshipssena in #Ehsas Program 25k are for females around 2500 scholarships would be awarded to less developed area. pic.twitter.com/xQL4j8avAb

— Senator Shahzaib Durrani (@Shahzeb_Durrani) December 10, 2019

This tweet by the Sri Lankan Prime Minister Wickremesinghe came at the end of the 2018 Sri Lankan Constitutional Crisis. A month earlier, the President of Sri Lanka, without any prior notice, on live television elected Rajapaksa who was the former President of Sri Lanka, to be his Prime Minister. This happened without the sitting Prime Minister, Wickremesinghe, being formally removed in any way. This move was unconstitutional and created lots of political upheaval in Sri Lanka. Eventually Rajapaksa resigned, and Wickremesinghe was reinstated as the PM.

I think Wickremesinghe was correct in stating that this was a win for Sri Lankan democratic insitutions and not just himself or his party. This is because it showed that the institutions of Parliament and the Supreme Court were able to do their jobs and prevent against a autonomous leader from taking over and things getting out of control.

Today marks a victory not for myself or for the UNP. It is a victory for Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions and the sovereignty of our citizens. I thank everyone who stood firm in defending the constitution and ensuring the triumph of democracy.

— Ranil Wickremesinghe (@RW_UNP) December 16, 2018

President Ram Nath Kovind has said that the Internet and technology have played a great role in transforming India. He says technology has transformed India from a poor nation at the time of independence into one of the “fastest and biggest economies of the world.” He says new forms of knowledge from technology have also bettered the lives of people on the margins of society. President Kovind had talked about technology and its effects on India in November and he proceeded to make this tweet on December 7, 2019. Prime Minister Modi is also an advocate of media in today’s society. Modi believes technology is a bridge between government and governance. Modi has a plan to maximize digital technology for social benefits.

If President Kovind and Prime Minister Modi are so adamant about building the technology on the Internet, why are journalists so censored with the articles they publish?

 

https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/technology-played-key-role-in-transforming-india-president-kovind-119113000711_1.html

Imran Khan late in November responded to a news article where the Indian military proposed an Israeli like approach to handling its border tension with Pakistan. He then describes the recent tensions in Kashmir as a brutal violation of human rights. While there is a mixed perspective on the morality of both sides fighting over Kashmir, it is well within Khan’s right to be upset at this statement when you consider that the Israeli military approach to their rivals is controversial, to say the least. The question must be asked if India will actually adopt a more aggressive military strategy in the months to come along the border or if the statement was just a way to respond to increasing tensions without actually taking action.

https://twitter.com/ImranKhanPTI?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Pakistan Makes an appearance at COP25 (the 25th climate change conference). The country announced they are taking up the lofty goal of planting 10 billion trees in their country and have coopted the 10 billion tree tsunami hashtag on twitter. This is interesting when you consider that Pakistan is one of the top 12 most pollutant countries in the world.  The question this begs is whether Aslam’s tweets and actions are to lessen international attention or a genuine attempt to improve matters.

https://twitter.com/aminattock?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Daniel Breslin

Dr. Heuer

Tweet Analysis

4 December 2019

 

Tweet #1:

This tweet is referencing the shutting down of the Internet in Kashmir and the detainment of political leaders in the region. It has been four months since both of these events happened, and it seems that nothing is getting done. The user who tweeted about this originally is Yogita Limaye, who simply stated “Four months today since internet was shut down in #Kashmir and political leaders detained.” In response to this tweet, user Rohit Khilnani wrote that these events were “Unbelievable . . . About time they get Internet back, which is a basic requirement for everything including internet banking, communication, studies etc.” Khilnani also questioned the length of time that the politicians have been detained for with no action taken. It seems that people are becoming impatient with the actions taken, since the citizens are being affected more and more as the time passes and the politicians are still being held against their will. I think that the longer this situation is dragged out, the more likely it is that a group of affected citizens will organize some sort of demonstration.

 

Link: https://twitter.com/rohitkhilnani/status/1202418061443248128

Daniel Breslin

Dr. Heuer

Blog Analysis Make-up

4 December 2019

*Had to rewrite my analysis but I was able to use the same article as my first attempt*

Indian Man Single-handedly Plants an Entire Forest

Since the age of 16, Jadav Payeng has been planting trees on what used to be a deserted sandbar in Assam, where he was born. A native of the Mishing tribe in his hometown, Payeng returned from school to a river island on the Brahmaputra, where he found hundreds of snakes stranded on the small island made of sand. After asking the elders in his town what would happen to everyone if they all died like that one day, he decided that he needed to do what he could “to make the planet greener.” Other villagers in his town offered 50 seeds and 25 bamboo plants, which he took great care of and sowed each plant. Fast forward 36-years later, and he has created an entire forest on the very same island that once could not even inhabit snakes. The Molai forest, named after Payeng’s nickname, encompasses nearly 1,400 acres and took intense work from Payeng. He even went as far as to relocate red ants from his village so that they could live in the new ecosystem. The Molai forest is now home to some endangered animals, like the one-horned rhino and the Royal Bengal Tiger, which is an amazing feat in itself.

To be able to accomplish this feat alone is an amazing accomplishment in itself, as it helps not only the ecosystem that it encompasses, but also everything that lives inside. It also has a large impact on the quality of air in the surrounding area, and it provides for natural resources to the nearby civilizations. Something I cannot help but wonder is if this man’s progress could’ve been expedited if he received some sort of grant or sponsorship, or maybe even direct help from a company based in the Western hemisphere. Some sort of help at all would certainly help him increase his impact on the region, and it would have a larger effect on society as a whole. I think this is a very impressive and amazing thing for someone to do, and more things like this need to be covered in the news in the Western hemisphere, where a lot of negative news seems to get more spotlight than positive news.

 

Link:

https://yourstory.com/2018/10/jadav-payeng-planted-entire-forest

https://twitter.com/albd1971/status/1199945965718904832

“#France to continue its support for #Bangladesh on #Rohingya issue.”

This tweet was made by the Awami League and features a picture of Sheikh Hasina, the current Bangladesh Prime Minister. When contextualizing the tweet, it is important that viewers understand the current refugee issue in Bangladesh. Within recent months, a huge flood of refugees migrated from Burma/Myanmar to Bangladesh in order to escape the genocide that was occurring in their own country. After Bangladesh took in the massive amounts of refugees, they experienced slight issues with drug trafficking, and now an overpopulated Rohingya camp that hosts them. Within the camp, there have been other news posts about how the Bangladesh government temporarily shut off the internet in the camp from 5pm to 5am. This act from the government makes me concerned whether or not France has said anything about this to Bangladesh because of their involvement. The reason why France is important to the post is because of their cooperation with Bangladesh to host refugees. This is important to the relationship between Southeast Asian and European countries, and the Awami League did a great job using the tweet to represent the growing relationship that is being molded between the two regions. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future due to France being much further away from Burma/Myanmar, and how they may feel that they are having less of an impact because of their distance. Whereas Bangladesh is so close, they can have a much larger impact because of the shorter migrating distance between the two countries. If more Twitter users of varying countries continue to make this event more popular by tweeting about it, we should see more countries from around the world become aware of the issue and contribute more resources to the cause. 

 

This tweet was posted by Narendra Modi, India’s current Prime Minister. He has been serving in office since 2014 and is working on cleaning up the country. He tweeted this after his government completed six months in office. He believes in this six month period there has been momentous reform and he is only hoping for more. This tweet is saying that the government has had to make numerous decisions for the country’s development over the past six months and these decisions have “accelerated social empowerment and enhanced unity.” Some of these decisions have included a move towards a more transparent policy on natural resources and efforts to make India more welcoming to foreign relationships. Modi has also attempted to make a mass movement of cleanliness throughout India to benefit the population’s health. He used the hashtag #6MonthsOfIndiaFirst which has been used by the BJP official Twitter account, journalists, and other public figures. There are also articles with this link that say India is projected to become a 5 trillion economy by 2024 and corporate taxes will continue to decrease. This hashtag represents the “unity” he mentions because it connects citizens as well as public officials on Twitter’s platform. Modi says he aspires to do even more which means making more decisions and continuing to stay connected with citizens of India. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come up with a “six-step plan” to progress “New India” but what comes after this plan? What happens if not all six steps are achievable? 

During the last six months, we have taken numerous decisions that have furthered development, accelerated social empowerment and enhanced India’s unity. We aspire to do even more in the times to come, so that we create a prosperous and progressive New India. #6MonthsOfIndiaFirst

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 30, 2019