Brian mentions me as an intern, though I don’t know that I can claim that formal a relationship with WNYC; I used to help with their website and some online efforts on a volunteer basis  when I lived in New York in the late ’90s. 

The South Asian Journalists Association presents an online panel discussion among some of the best-known names in the South Asian blogosphere. They will discuss the state of the blogosphere (South Asian and otherwise) and how it is affecting how news and information about South Asia and the diaspora is gathered and shared. Sabahat Ashraf of iFaqeer; Anil Dash of AnilDash.com; Karthik of Uberdesi.com; Maria Giovanna of Filmiholic.com; Arun Venugopal of SAJAforum.org

Apologies for the late update, but I recently got the chance to moderate an event at the San Jose Peace Center with Dr. Safdar Sarki organized by one of my primary activist commitments, the Friends of South Asia. [I was not able to provide advance notice because I wasn’t originally scheduled to moderate the event; but Ijaz Syed Saahab had to make an out-of-town trip at short notice.]

You can read the event notice here, and see pictures and a brief write up at Cemendtaur’s  “Karachi Photo Blog”.

This also gave me the chance to continue my effort to help improve coverage of South Asian  issues on the Wikipedia by contributing one of the pictures from that event (taken by Farhan Shahid using my iPhone, actually) to that database. You can see it at right, or as part of the article on him.

I have been a contributor to the Wikipedia for a while and made what are hopefully significant contributions. You can read more on my User page on that site. Though I am basically what I have often called “a text kinda guy”, along the way I have also contributed some graphics to that database, and one thing I realized recently is that the “official” picture of Benazir Bhutto (at right), the one that is often used in articles about her on the Wikipedia, Wikinews, and other sites that draw their content from those two and the Wikimedia database.

Hussain Haqqani’s photo on the Wikipedia

I recently realized that the article on Hussain Haqqani, the journalist, scholar, and then-Ambassador-Designate of Pakistan to the US did not have a picture on it. I tried to get one myself during the recent annual convention of the Organization of Pakistani Enterpreneurs (OPEN) in Silicon Valley, but–being that “text kinda guy”–wasn’t able to. However, a young and dynamic lady, Zainab Jeewanjee, has stepped in as a life saver and I just also contributed a picture she sent me (at left) to the Wikipedia, and which now appears in the article on him.

• BBC Urdu’s Reba ki Diary, covers WikiPakistan work in a recent edition.
  
• Press Trust of India is carrying a story about my work on WikiPakistan related to the situation in Pakistan. (They misidentify it as “a page on the Wikipedia, but hey! what can one do?! No such thing as bad publicity, right?)
• IPS News story quoted me extensively about online activism
• SAJA Forum, the South Asian Journalists’ Association’s blog quotes me about optimism and pride.
• WNYC, New York Public Radio’s Brian Lehrer show invited me on the air the morning after the Proclamation of Emergency/Imposition of Martial Law
• WireTap Magazine carried a piece on American Muslims Reimagined, discussing my work as a Progressive Muslim activist as one of three profiles.
  
• The South Asian has carried my work. The first installment can be seen here, and, apropos to the news right now, discusses Pakistani politicians.