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Maldives Media
The major daily newspaper in Maldives is Haveeru
(North Side) in Male with a circulation of 2,500.
Aafathis, another daily in Dhivehi and English, has
a
circulation of 300. Maldives also has a number of weekly
and
monthly publications as well as several news agencies and
publishers.
Censorship exists in Maldives although on a smaller
scale
than before President Gayoom took office in 1978.
Nevertheless,
open dissent against the government is not tolerated. For
example, in early 1990 the Consultative Council discussed
freedom
of speech in the press. But when publications critical of
the
government appeared in the spring of 1990, all
publications that
lacked government sanction were banned. Also, leading
writers and
publishers have been arrested.
Hindi-language films, newspapers, and magazines from
India
are popular. For eleven hours each day, the government
radio
station Voice of Maldives, established in 1962, broadcasts
to the
entire country in Dhivehi and English. Maldivians in 1990
had
27,848 radio receivers to pick up such broadcasts. In 1978
government-run Television Maldives was established. During
the
week, its one channel broadcasts for five hours a day,
with an
extended weekend service. However, it can only be received
(by
the 6,591 Maldivians with television sets in 1992) within
a
thirty-kilometer radius of Male. Maldives also receives
broadcasts by the British Broadcasting Corporation, Radio
Australia, and Radio Beijing.
Given the censorship that exists, the media play only a
limited role in promoting greater democracy. A major
question
facing Maldives is the way in which democracy will be
defined in
view of the contrast between a South Asian kinship system
and its
egalitarian Western-style parliamentary elections.
* * *
The best recent work that provides a wealth of
information on
Maldives's physical environment is the relevant section of
Maldives and Islands of the East Indian Ocean, A Travel
Survival Kit, by Robert Willox. Additional insights
into
contemporary travel and ways of life in the outer islands
is
provided by Thor Heyerdahl in The Maldive Mystery.
Maldives's history is outlined according to official
governmental views in Maldives: A Historical
Overview.
More candid descriptions are provided by both the
above-mentioned
work by Heyerdahl and Clarence Maloney's People of the
Maldive
Islands. Maloney's work is also an excellent source
for
information on modern Maldivian society, based as it is on
the
fieldwork of an anthropologist. Additional sources of
information
on Maldivian society include the United Nations
Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report
Status
of Women: Maldives, and the official Maldives
publication
Maldives: Social Development. A wealth of
contemporary
data on all aspects of Maldives's social development can
be found
in "Maldives: Physical and Social Geography," in The
Far East
and Australasia, 1993.
The best source for a concise, yet scholarly
description of
the history and contemporary position of Islam in Maldives
may be
found in volume six of The Encyclopedia of Islam.
Both the
history and current situation of education in Maldives are
detailed in the UNESCO report, Innovation in Primary
School
Construction, by M. Luthfi and H. Zubair. The recent
series
of reports on health conditions and care in Maldives by
the World
Health Organization, such as the 1989 Twenty-Four
Monthly
Report on Technical Aspects of Programme
Implementation, is
an excellent source for the study of health.
The Maldivian economy is outlined in the official
Maldives: An Economic Brief, and Maldives: Year
Book
1988. Additional relevant data are contained in the
World
Factbook, 1994, and the Europa The Far East and
Australasia, 1994. Useful periodicals include the
Indian
Ocean Newsletter, Keesing's Contemporary
Achieves, and
Africa Research Bulletin. (For further information
and
complete citations, see Bibliography).
Data as of August 1994
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