Junior Members' Meeting 2011

The annual Junior Members' meeting was held on Friday April 8th at the East India Club, St. James' Square. The meeting was chaired, and organised by Sophie Ibbotson. There were 66 people present, members and guests. This was the largest attendance at a Junior members' meeting and 50 could be classed as Junior with only 16 ordinary or older members/guests. This is a much greater percentage of younger members and guests than in previous years and hopefully is a trend that will continue.

There were three talks, two short, 15 minutes or so and one longer 35 minutes. Each talk was followed by questions and discussion.

Steve Dew-Jones spoke to the title:

"The rule of Thumb".

In his talk he described hitch-hiking from England to Malaysia in 2008. During this journey he never refused an offer of a lift and never paid for transport. He often travelled with one or two companions which didn't interfere with the chances of getting a lift. His trip was remarkably risk free and he clearly enjoyed it. He communicated his enthusiasm and the friendliness of almost all those he met. He has since written a book about his travels (The Rule of Thumb) and the few copies he had brought with him were sold quickly.

Susanna Hudson discussed;

"Driving in Iran"

She was driving from Nepal to Kyrgystan via Iran. In Iran her (male) companion was refused a visa so she had to carry on alone. She was driving an elderly Mercedes Unimog (not the smallest vehicle and in the UK. if seen, is often used in forestry work). She described how she persuaded various Iranians to act as guides and companions for her on her journey. As so often the case with travellers in Iran she found she had very little trouble and met with tremendous friendship and hospitality. She described the various towns and cities she went through including showing illustrations of the very impressive renovation going on at Bam which was virtually destroyed in an earthquake.

Arjit Sen was a Senior Special Correspondent for CNN-IBN, India's leading 24 hour news channel. The title of his talk was:

"Marginal on the Map: Hidden Wars and Hidden Media"

In this he described what was happening in North-eastern India and bordering regions. He had both reported from there and travelled in the region quite extensively. His talk started by covering the history and ethnography of the region, its lack of development and isolation from main stream Indian life. This included trade, culture, economics, development and politics. He outlined the rise of terrorist or resistance groups and what these did and how they were dealt with by civil and military authorities. He also discussed the problems that can arise as a result of laws giving almost complete impunity to actions of the army. Some of his slides illustrating events and casualties resulting from the conflict were very graphic and depressing. He then described the paucity of reporting of this conflict and the reasons why; poor access due to infrastructure and lack of permission coupled with lack of interest both nationally and internationally. Within the region access to media outlets, radio, television, satellites and email were remarkably limited. He demonstrated clearly that the number of casualties in this conflict far exceeded those in Kashmir and yet excited the limited interested mentioned above. Reasons for this include the lack of controversy over the borders of the state concerned, and lack so far of Hindu/Muslim clashes although he pointed out that many tribes are polytheist or Christian. His academic and practical knowledge of the region and subject were clear, detailed and greatly impressed the audience.

After the talks came the social part of the evening with discussions continuing about the talks. The evening finished at about a quarter to eleven.

Adrian Steger