Our friend, like all stringers, would send Lucknow a lot of stories but all would go waste. A story a month, at the most, just a thousand bucks. Something interesting, get something interesting, the input editor on the other side of the mobile phone would say. Continue reading How ‘news’ became ‘interesting’
Category Archives: Media politics
Slumdog as aesthetic
The Oscars have passed us by, leaving us with moments that op-ed writers could possibly only dream up: bollywood dancers on an Oscar stage; two of the three nominees for Best Song being sung in a language nearly the entire audience couldn’t even identify let alone speak; the English-speaking of the bevy of ‘India’s children’ translating the English questions into Marathi for the ‘kid from an actual slum’ in a we’re-all-one-across-the-ocean-moment; and, of course, the most harmonious moment of India-is-England-is-India convergence since the founding of the East India Company. It’s an embarrassment of riches.
So what does any of this have to do with slums? Let me be clear: this is not a tirade against the movie in any way. It actually isn’t about the movie at all. It is though about the one thing that the movie has brought back into our attention but that, somehow, no one actually seems to be talking about – that thing called the slum. Slumdog and the debates, protests, and celebrations around it, in equal measure, seem to beg a question: how do we, as Indians who are not Danny Boyle, think about the slum? How should we? Can Slumdog teach us a trick or two about our own backyards?
Bloggers and Defamation
Justice Balakrishnan, in refusing to quash criminal proceedings against a nineteen year old blogger, says that any blogger posting material on the web should be aware of the reach of the internet and hence also be willing to face the consequences of such action. This sounds fair enough, and it would seem that if bloggers are exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression, then they should be subject to the same norms as a newspaper or magazine would, including the possibility of legal action being taken against them.
This sentiment reminds me of Anatole France’s famous statement that the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. The quick equation of an individual blogger with the might of a newspaper or a magazine is a little troubling. Individuals do not have the same kind of power, money or reach to be able to defend themselves in the way that newspapers may be capable of. Continue reading Bloggers and Defamation
Valentine’s day and protest in Bangalore, 2009
A friend said that last week in Bangalore and the drama(s) around Valentine’s Day would make a wonderful PhD thesis if one had the time and the distance. Two things are of relevance here.
One, the spread of communal politics that is inherently violent and divisive is not new to our country. Moral policing forming a major part of it and translating primarily into the control of the everyday lives of women, control over the institutions that could keep the regressive ideas around religion and caste in place such as marriage have been the standard points of attack in many parts of the world and in India. To maintain the notion of the ‘other’ that these divisive forces base their politics and everyday activities, we should never meet or get to know the ‘other’. And thus the attacks on young people who had friends across communities. It is these incidents that have sometimes spiraled into well-planned, thoroughly executed, state-sponsored carnage of people from certain communities, namely the imaginary ‘other’. Continue reading Valentine’s day and protest in Bangalore, 2009
Pharmaceutical ad
PeppersprayProductions.org
Somebody make an Indian version please?
India’s Terror Dossier. Further Evidence of a Conspiracy: Raveena Hansa
This guest post has been sent to us by RAVEENA HANSA
On 5 January 2009, the Indian government handed a 69-page dossier of material stemming from the ongoing investigation into the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 26-29 November 2008 to the Pakistani government. This was subsequently made accessible to the public, so it is possible for us to examine it.
The most striking point about the dossier is its vague and unprofessional character. Enormous reliance is placed on the interrogation of the captured terrorist, Mohammed Amir Kasab, despite the fact that there is an abundance of other evidence – eyewitness accounts, CCTV and TV footage, forensic evidence, etc. – which could have been called upon to establish when, where, and what exactly happened during the attacks. This gives rise to the suspicion that the interrogation is being used as a substitute for real investigation because it can be influenced by intimidation or torture, whereas other sources of evidence cannot be influenced in the same way.
Continue reading India’s Terror Dossier. Further Evidence of a Conspiracy: Raveena Hansa
On moral policing
Some people are trying to organise creative protests against moral policing on Valentine’s Day. You may want to join them. Continue reading On moral policing
“Why?”
(Uma Singh, a journalist with Radio Today in the southern town of Janakpur in Nepal, was killed on 11th January 2009. The Federation of Nepali Journalists has mounted a campaign asking for immediate action against Uma’a killers and a firm commitment by the government to the freedom of press. Uma’s killinng comes in the wake of attacks on different media houses in Kathmandu. Like Lasantha Wickrematunge in Sri Lanka, Uma was killed for writing and speaking fearlessly at the other end of Southasia.)
Janakpur: It was impossible to believe that Uma Singh at Ganga Sagar Ghat on Tuesday morning – an FNJ flag draped over her still body, face bandaged all across, the cuts on the head visible – was the same Uma I had met two months ago.
Uma’s looks were deceptive, for the tiny frame contained abundant energy. By the time I strolled into Radio Today’s studio at 6 am in mid-November, Uma had wrapped up her morning bulletin. She was running around the office and passing instructions in a matter-of-fact professional way
She briefed me on the format of Janakpur’s most popular Maithili political discussion show, Garma garam chai. I still remember how Uma said to both her co-anchor and me, “Please avoid English words. The programme is meant for people in villages.” I nodded, a little ashamed my Maithili was not as fluent. Continue reading “Why?”
Speech and silencing on the Right and Left
Lasantha Wickrematunge, the courageous editor of Sunday Leader, a weekly newspaper from Sri Lanka, was recently assasinated by the Sri Lankan state. Relentless in exposing corruption and human rights abuses, he was fully aware of the price he would have to pay. In a stunning editorial that he appears to have written for publication in the event of precisely such an eventuality, and which was published after his death, he directly accuses the government of killing him:
“It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.”
His words of farewell are defiant:
“If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.”
Meanwhile, in Nepal, the premises of Himal media were attacked by people identified as Maoist activists. Today the ‘bourgeois’ media, tomorrow – dissenting Left voices…?
One small question about Scam Satyam
Everyone’s blaming everyone for Scam Satyam.
What were the auditors (the hallowed PwC) doing?
What was SEBI doing?
What was India Inc doing?
What were Satyam’s ‘independent’ directors doing?
Not surprisingly, politicians are also being blamed.
Even the ‘greedy investors‘ are being blamed.
But is it only me or are there others asking: what was the Continue reading One small question about Scam Satyam
Child prodigies and television news scripts… aaaw!
Families and Dynasties, Lettered and Unlettered – Monobina Gupta
Guest Post by MONOBINA GUPTA
It is jarring, to put it mildly, that Times of India, a leading daily, engaged in a high-profile ‘Teach India’ campaign should publish a front page story mocking the unlettered. This story exhibits a strange callousness in its reporting about the very constituency of people the campaign is hoping to address…or ‘uplift’…
The story published in the TOI on December 20, smacks of arrogance as it speaks disdainfully of an unlettered woman legislator recently elected in Rajasthan’s assembly elections. Golma Devi, elected from the Mahuwa constituency is the butt of ridicule and lament in this article authored by P J Joychen. The author, it seems, cannot get over the fact that an unlettered person like Golma Devi has been elevated to the rank of a minister in the Ashok Gehlot government.
No, she is not a history sheeter; nor does she have a scam hot on her heels. She is nevertheless an offender – in the sense of ‘offending’ your ‘sensibilities’ – in the supercilious eye of the media; an object of ridicule. Her offense: her of lack of reading and writing skills.
Continue reading Families and Dynasties, Lettered and Unlettered – Monobina Gupta
“I wish I’d had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back!”
Alas, the video has been removed fromYouTube.
The press freedom bogey
…is raised every time there’s talk of a law “regulating” TV News channels in India. A rajya Sabha committee now says self-regulation is not enough, the media needs a set of rules from the government. I think that one shoudn’t necessarily view the idea of a law, or regulation, with suspicion. After the despicable 26/11 coverage and even before, many channels have lost the right to hide their TRP-driven sensationalism behind the free speech bogey.
That may sound self-contradictory, but see what the committee has concluded on the subject:
The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Need For a Thorough Investigation: RH
This guest post comes from a friend who wishes to be known as RH
In all the confusion and horror generated by the ghastly terrorist attacks in Bombay, a dimension which has not received the attention it deserves is the circumstances surrounding the death of Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare and two of his colleagues, encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte. The major pattern of operations involved well-organised attacks on a few high-profile sites in Colaba – the Taj, Oberoi and Trident Hotels, and the less-known Nariman House – while a parallel set of operations was centred on Victoria Terminus or VT (now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus or CST) station, Cama Hospital and the Metro cinema, in the middle of which is the police headquarters where Karkare worked. The latter is an area where foreigners are much less likely to be found.
Why is a Proper Investigation Crucial?
Continue reading The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Need For a Thorough Investigation: RH
The Battle of Mumbai
Guest post by BALMURLI NATRAJAN, a member of the South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI)
The Battle of Mumbai did not begin on November 26, 2008. There was no clear beginning, regardless of what somnambulists who have just woken up, or saber-rattlers who have been sharpening their tools for a while, pronounce. Like all modern wars, it burst into public view over the internet, unannounced and in full-swing. Continue reading The Battle of Mumbai
Sandra Samuel, Faces and the ‘Nouveau’ Media – Monobina Gupta
Guest post by MONOBINA GUPTA
“The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of a cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalistic industry, along plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good die like dogs, for no good reason.”
– Hunter Thompson in Generation of Swine
We, in the business of media, are running a trade in ‘faces;’ swapping ordinary ones for the attractive, distorting news coverage and not really giving a damn about it. But the craft of journalism was not always so warped. We made it so.
Continue reading Sandra Samuel, Faces and the ‘Nouveau’ Media – Monobina Gupta
Mr Friedman’s Demagoguery
Guest post by SAADIA TOOR and BALMURLI NATARAJAN of the South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI)
A response to his op-ed piece in The New York Times, December 3, 2008.
Among Mr. Friedman’s long list of talents seems to be the ability to directly access the minds of dead people. After all, how else could he know that the real attackers in the Mumbai shootings shared the same set of intentions and motivations as the fictional characters he creates who murder an imam and his wife purely for being Sunni? Maybe his short sojourns in South Asia through airports and the plush suites of the Marriot and the Taj Mahal Hotel do not allow him to imagine any other kind of Muslim than a unidimensional protestor of xenophobic cartoon images (produced, distributed and hotly defended, incidentally, by the enlightened West). Maybe this talent comes from the same well of wisdom that made him the biggest promoter of the “innovative genius” of Wall Street bankers not too long ago, a position that he now has some trouble justifying, except by calling them “stupid”. Or just maybe, he has simply made it a habit to promote views and policies that have no basis in fact and do not stand up to the slightest scrutiny. After all, those are the perks that come with a regular column in a major newspaper and a guaranteed readership just waiting for one to provide the ‘expert’ fuel to their fire. Continue reading Mr Friedman’s Demagoguery
Thinking Through the Debris of Terror: After Bombay
Last week’s terror attacks on Bombay/Mumbai, for which there can be no justification whatsoever, have targetted railway stations, restaurants, hospitals, places of worship, streets and hotels. These are the places in which people gather. where the anonymous flux of urban life finds refuge and sustenance on an everyday basis. By attacking such sites, the tactics of the recent terror attack (like all its predecessors) echo the tropes of conventional warfare as it developed in the twentieth century. These tactics valued the objective of the escalation of terror and panic amongst civilians higher than they viewed the neutralization of strictly military or strategic targets. In a war without end, (which is one way of looking at the twentieth century and its legacy) panic is the key weapon and the most important objective.
Continue reading Thinking Through the Debris of Terror: After Bombay
Hotel Taj: Icon of whose India? Gnani Sankaran
Gnani Sankaran is a noted Tamil writer who lives in Chennai.
Watching at least four English news channels surfing from one to another during the last 60 hours of terror strike made me feel a terror of another kind. The terror of assaulting one’s mind and sensitivity with cameras, sound bites and non-stop blabbers. All these channels have been trying to manufacture my consent for a big lie called – Hotel Taj the icon of India.
Witnessing Madness 24/7
What is happening? The Taj is burning, gunmen are shooting, the police is storming, the Oberoi is burning, the army is descending, people are running; bleeding; dying. Barkha Dutt is talking, Rajdeep Sardesai is talking, Srinivasan Jain is talking, Vilas Rao Deshmukh is talking, L.K Advani is talking, Manmohan Singh is talking, Vikram Chandra is talking, an eye-witness is talking, the army chief is talking, the naval chief is talking, an ex-hostage is talking, the terrorist is talking, Javed Jaffery is talking, Arnab Goswami is talking, is anyone even listening, is everyone listening—But what is happening?
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
