Tag: Media and responsibility

Tuesday the 11th Terrorist strikes

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

There are people who oppose death penalty to a terrorist even when the terrorist does not challenge his conviction and does not file a mercy petition. The jailor refuses to execute court’s order to hang him. The state government files a mercy petition.

Imagine a situation. A terrorist enters the studio of NDTV when We the people is telecast live. He shoots Barkha Dutt, Colin Gonsalves, K. C. Singh, Praveen Swami, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Ram Jethmalani, Majeed Memon, Naresh Gujral and so on. The terrorist goes to Kashmir, kills Governor, MLAs and High Court judges. The terrorist goes to Assam, kills Governor, MLAs and High Court judges. The terrorist goes to Tamil Nadu, kills Governor, MLAs and High Court judges. The terrorist goes to Punjab, kills Governor, MLAs and High Court judges. When MLAs are killed chief minister and other ministers are killed.

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News and Statistics

Posted on 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.

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Spoof of spook

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

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

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.

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SBI and Hotel Leela

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

SBI did not get back the loan it gave to Kingfisher. Kingfisher was bailed out by converting the loan into shares. Now comes the news that SBI has referred 4,300 crore rupees loan taken by Hotel Leela to corporate debt restructuring (CDR). It is said that Hotel Leela has not defaulted. It wants interest rate reduced from 14% to 11% and longer schedule for payment. Perhaps the owner of Hotel Leela thinks he can default and get away just like Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher did.

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Salman Rushdie controversy

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 made news for controversy surrounding Salman Rushdie. The festival started on 20/1/2012 and ended on 24/1/2012. Over the years Salman Rushdie had come and gone. He had attended one Jaipur Literature Festival. He had attended one seminar in Delhi. The events had passed off peacefully.

This time TV channels gave wide publicity to statements of some Muslim leaders, some clerics and some politicians. The statements began in UP where elections are going on and spread to other parts. No party wanted to offend Muslims and lose their votes. If the TV channels had ignored the statements there would have been no controversy. Once those leaders demanded Salman Rushdie should not be given a visa and it was widely telecast the controversy began. Salman Rushdie tweeted he did not need a visa to come to India. Being a Person of Indian Origin he had Indian Overseas Citizen card and could come to India anytime. If he had kept quiet the Muslim leaders would have thought he would not get a visa and stopped the protests. The Muslim leaders continued the protests and demanded he should be stopped from attending the festival. The organizers said the invitation stands. Ashok Gehlot, Rajasthan’s chief minister went to Delhi. Law Minister Salman Khurshid told him Salman Rushdie cannot be stopped from coming to India. Ashok Gehlot met P. Chidambaram and returned to Rajasthan.

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Censorship of web sites

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

One man went to court against 21 web sites. He claims to be a journalist. When he appeared on English TV channels for discussions he spoke in Hindi. If he does not know English does he understand what is in web sites? If he knows English he should speak in English on English channels and anchors must make sure of that. Many people have no doubt that he is a government agent. The petitioner gave the example of cartoons of Islam’s founder. The petitioner’s name suggests he is not a Muslim. If Muslims get offended due to something it is for them to approach the court. Muslims are either unaware of the cartoons or do not care. Who appointed him to argue on behalf of Muslims? How much the petitioner is paying to his lawyer?

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Cheat the Nation

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Once I found Manish Tewari and Ajit Singh on CNN-IBN and Times Now at the same time on what were supposed to be live discussions. I wondered how it could be. I had heard or read about the saints having the gift of bilocation but it was more than that. It was bilocation plus bilocution. Not only people were present on two different places at the same time they were also saying different words at the same time.

Sometimes I found panelists on three channels at the same time. Finding on two channels had become common. It was obvious someone had recorded with some people before and using the footage. No channel disclosed someone was interviewed before the programme except once when Amitabh Revi on NDTV 24×7 said Kiran Bedi was interviewed before.

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Gang of Four

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Gang of Four originally meant Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan who were powerful during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in China. Anna Hazare spoke of Gang of Four in UPA government without mentioning names. One of them is P. Chidambaram. Second is likely to be Kapil Sibal. Who are the other two? Some talk of Digvijay Singh and Manish Tewari but they are not ministers.

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Resolution on death penalty

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Tamil Nadu is a fit case for imposition of President’s Rule as it is not run as per constitution and its Legislative Assembly passed a resolution asking for mercy to criminals whose petitions had been rejected by the President. Omar Abdullah was right in questioning whether the reaction would have been as muted if Jammu & Kashmir had passed a similar resolution in favour of Afzal Guru. In that case BJP and many other parties would have gone ballistic. There is hypocrisy in Tamil Nadu. Some years back Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly had passed a resolution favouring death penalty for the criminals. Parties headed by Karunanidhi and Vaiko were part of NDA which rejected mercy petitions. Ram Jethmalani was member of BJP and did not oppose death penalty then. Madras High Court should not have entertained the petitions and stayed the executions for eight weeks and when that happened Supreme Court should have intervened and vacated the stay. If waiting for death penalty is cruel why extend it by eight weeks? That shows the falsehood of the claim that waiting for death penalty is cruel and an excuse to get death penalty commuted to life imprisonment. What happens in India puts banana republics to shame and there should be a new phrase to describe India.

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2G accused and bail

Posted on by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

There is a campaign in the media that 2G accused should get bail. I see a lobbyist behind it.

Radia tapes revealed a lobbyist connected to politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and journalists. In an Anil Ambani versus Mukesh Ambani case when the judgment went in favour of Anil Ambani she asked Vir Sanghvi to write an article attacking the judge. Barkha Dutt was ready to do her bidding.

The campaign began with Jaswant Singh appearing on CNN-IBN and saying the 2G accused should get bail. TV discussions followed. Ex-CJI Vishwanath Khare and Ex-SG Harish Salve sent unsolicited legal opinions to CBI. On 6/7/2011 the Supreme Court told CBI lawyer K. K. Venugopal “Don’t take these legal opinions into consideration. You reject them outright.”

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