April 2012 - Page 2 of 2 - Voice from the rooftop

News and Statistics

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

There are people who criticize media for its coverage of events. They say media ignores real issues like poverty, price rise, illiteracy and unemployment and gives importance to trivia. Farmer suicides are ignored. Death of Dev Anand and retirement of Rahul Dravid get prominence.

Those critics do not know what news is. One person dying is news. Thousand persons dying is statistics. When farmers die every day it is not news. Terrorist strikes in Kashmir are not news. When Anna Hazare fasts it is news. Irom Sharmila fasting is not news.

Spoof of spook

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

On 4/4/2012 Indian Express had the headline on front page â€œThe January night Raisina Hill was spooked: Two key Army units moved towards Delhi without notifying Govt.â€

The report talked about central intelligence agencies. Were both RAW and IB involved in reporting the movement? RAW is supposed to gather intelligence abroad.

The report was the talking point on TV channels.

Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar and many former army officers and one former defence secretary said there is no protocol that requires army to notify defence ministry about troop movement.

Stop corporate debt restructuring

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

There is a conspiracy of silence about money lost to the people of India due to corporate debt restructuring (CDR). TV channels donâ€™t talk about CDR. Companies borrow crores of rupees from banks and financial institutions and when they say they are unable to pay the loan they are referred to CDR cell. Over the years more and more companies have defaulted on payments.

In F. Y. 2009-10, 256 companies defaulted on payment of 1,15,990 crores rupees, 215 of them got CDR for 1,04,299 crores rupees. In F. Y. 2010-11, 305 companies defaulted on payment of 1,41,158 crores rupees, 242 of them got CDR for 1,10,914 crores rupees. In F. Y. 2011-12, 389 companies defaulted on payment of 2,05,692 crores rupees, 286 of them got CDR for 1,50,286 crores rupees. CDR cell rejected requests of 56 companies for CDR of 19,589 crores rupees and decisions on requests of 47 companies for CDR of 35,878 crores rupees are pending. For three years CDR amount is 3,65,438 crore rupees which may go up to 4,01,316 crores rupees.