Category: RANJONA BANERJI

By Ranjona Banerji

 

I saw in The Times of India the other day a headline which said that “a rowdy” had been arrested in the Ghatkopar area of Mumbai. This is an interesting use of an adjective which is normally only seen in South Indian newspapers. In fact, I think some states even have a “Rowdy Act” and I remember a film called “Rangoon Rowdy”. This makes some interesting cross-cultural sharing which enriches the language. I suppose I should not be a whiny in this instance and if Americans can make verbs into nouns every other due, the rest of us have full licence to switch grammatical uses into any way we feel is appropriate. I tried to write that sentence breaking all the rules but I have clearly failed. I promise to try harder next time.

 

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I made a commitment to watch TV news when I started writing this column for MxMIndia. But I have lately taken a break from that commitment, largely for my own piece of mind. The lack of depth in reporting, the insane repetition of every bit of information by reporter and anchor, the trivial editorialising and the nightly ritual melodrama have not added substantially to my life as a TV viewer except to increase my blood pressure. For instance, just yesterday I saw a young anchor frothing at the mouth that the Central Bureau of Investigation had said they could not work on media reports in the Agusta-Westland case. The TV journalist was horrified perhaps that journalistic effort was not picked up by the authorities and codified as gospel. Should a government agency be allowed to get so cheeky with journalistic effort? Shocking!

 

My understanding of the media I have to say has much increased and there is little doubt in my mind that the print and television operate in two parallel universes. Since I’m nit-picking about grammar today, let’s look at the word “should”. How often do you see the word in headlines in print journals? Should the prime minister always wear a blue turban? Should Amitabh Bachchan be brand ambassador for Gujarat tourism? Should the earth revolve round the sun or do we deserve a better star? This endless judgemental self-righteous frenzy can work sometimes but it does get tiresome surely?

 

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Just to be perverse, I have a “should” question: Shouldn’t the media do more for the three minor sisters kidnapped, gangraped and murdered in the Bhandara district of Maharashtra? Having done such a wonderful job after the gangrape in Delhi on December 16, 2012, the media might consider the other women who are brutalised everyday in India. The police have made no breakthrough in the case although the girls disappeared on February 14 and their bodies were found on February 16. The media attention on that particular case did make a difference and certainly turned a much-needed spotlight on crimes against women. Even sending a few reporters to the area would be enough…

 

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A few more spoofy programmes about the news media would be a good idea. The Week That Wasn’t does a superb job spoofing the news, no doubt about it. But it has to be constrained by the fact that it appears on CNN-IBN and therefore famous TV journalists appear to be out of bounds (though did I see Cyrus Broacha almost do an Arnab Goswami the other night?). It cannot have the same freedom as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for instance or even sketches on Saturday Night Live, which we get to see on Comedy Central. Fox News and CNN are common targets. In fact, the Comedy Central spoof of an angry journalist in the promos for its new show Anger Management is quite spot on… Arnab again, I reckon…

 

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A short break to advertising: is it just me who is tired of seeing Anushka Sharma’s “fearer” underarms? And why does Cadbury Silk have to sell us its chocolate by smearing it all over the face of the model?

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The world of twitter was abuzz with the Wharton India Economic Forum and Narendra Modi. As the day progressed, Wharton withdrew the invitation to the Gujarat chief minister and the event’s main sponsor, the Adani group, also backed out. The war of words between Modi fans and Modi detractors on social media got some extra fillip and as usual soon deteriorated into insults and name-calling.

 

I also learned from Twitter that Union finance minister P Chidambaram did a Google Hangout, taking questions on the budget. The choice of technology/forum was discussed on Twitter with most thinking that the Congress was late to the social media party and had chosen the wrong platform. The UPA has been neglectful and a bit North Korean about the internet and if it wants to earn brownie points from netizens, it can start by getting rid of section 66A of the Information Technology Act.

 

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Modi continued to be the topic of conversation on television over both his speech at the BJP meeting – televised live on Sunday – and the Wharton drama. On Karan Thapar’s Last Word on CNN-IBN, N Ram, Kumar Ketkar, Swapan Dasgupta and Najeeb Jung discussed Modi’s speech and his prime ministerial prospects. Ram, Ketkar and Jung were unimpressed and Dasgupta tried to tailor his remarks to the argument. He did not for instance launch into an expected defence when both Ram and Ketkar discussed Modi’s intemperate language towards the prime minister, although Thapar felt that personal criticism was par for the course in politics and Ram pointed out that the Congress/UPA had to be taken to task for its misdemeanours. All three non-BJP commentators discussed the many contenders for the top job within the BJP and how Modi was not a sure shot, his speech notwithstanding. The BJP’s lack of geographical footprint was also discussed. Again, Dasgupta seemed a bit downcast.

 

On Times Now – which I only watched for a few seconds – Dasgupta seemed to have regained some spirit and was arguing with far more vigour over Wharton’s behaviour. The day on television however was consumed with the resignation of Raja Bhaiya in UP over the murder of a police officer and his imminent arrest.

 

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The media failed with the rapes and murders of three sisters in Bhandara, Maharashtra – although kudos must go to Mid-Day for correcting that, sending staff to the area and rigorously following up on the story.

 

The other story which is not getting enough play is the ongoing unrest in Bangladesh. The country is in turmoil over war crimes trials for those who supported Pakistan in the 1971 war for independence. Like in Tahrir Square, young people gathered in Shahbagh in Dhaka demanded justice and the death penalty for Jamaat-e-Islami leaders who were against the freedom movement. The blogger Rajib Haider who spearheaded the movement on social media was murdered. The courts gave in to public pressure and handed out death penalties to Jamaat and other leaders. The Jamaat hit back but the Shahbagh protestors and civil society have not backed down.

 

In all this, to mainly concentrate on president Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to his in-laws’ village is bad journalism. One understands that the current zeitgeist is to only get an India angle on every single story for readers who are so jingoistic that they cannot apparently digest news any other way. In which case, I might like to remind our media that India had a significant role to play in Bangladesh’s separation Pakistan.

 

Although CNN-IBN did send a correspondent to Bangladesh the coverage was sparse. In newspapers, most of the coverage has been limited to the edit and opinion pages.

 

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The Economic Times has an interesting story on how celebrity advertising is working in India – a subject which has interested me lately. Apparently, in spite of what the gossip pages say, Shah Rukh Khan is still on top. I was just happy that the ads which annoy me the most – Priyanka Chopra for Garnier, Anoushka Sharma for “fearer underarms for Nivea, Bipasha Basu for McVitie’s and Sakshi Talwar for Kellogg’s were not mentioned at the top of any lists! http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/18804798.cms

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The death of one of the accused in the Delhi December 16 gang-rape case sent news channels into a frenzy. Ram Singh was found hanging in his cell on Monday morning and it is not yet clear whether it is murder or suicide. The concern of news channels for Ram Singh’s well-being in jail is both heartening from a presumption of innocence point of view and confusing from any remotely logical or sensible point of view. After the gang-rape, viewers may remember, most news channels seemed quite willing to bypass a trial altogether and set up a gallows in their TV studios. On Monday it seemed as if TV channels were feeling the pain of Singh’s weeping parents – shown to us again and again – as they outraged over the “mysterious” death of Singh.

 

Custodial deaths are indeed a shame and they happen all over India all the time. Often – as in the Khwaja Yunus case in Maharashtra – the police themselves are responsible. I suppose one must now feel grateful that TV journalists have discovered this shocking occurrence and perhaps all their self-appointed kangaroo courts will help make a difference to the criminal justice system in India. I have to agree with Hindustan Times journalist Madhavan Narayan here as he bemoaned this “public prosecutor” style of journalism on twitter.

 

Most newspapers led with the story but also gave readers perspective. However the little box on the front page of The Times of India was intriguing to say the least – it told us how the international media also led with this story on Monday. I could not tell whether the paper was rejoicing at how the world was paying attention to us (yaaay!!!) or feeling ashamed that this sort of story was getting international attention (boo hoo…).

 

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If indeed Times Now is responsible for getting rape convict Bitti Mohanty re-arrested after he jumped parole in 2006, well done to them. This is a story worthy of plenty of journalistic effort and seems like a movie script or an episode of a TV crime serial. Orissa (now Odisha) director general of police’s son convicted for raping a German friend is convicted by a Jaipur court and sentenced to seven years in prison. He gets permission to go home to meet his ailing mother and then vanishes. His family say they have no idea where he is. He turns up seven years later working in a bank in Kerala under an assumed name, after an anonymous phone call tipped off his employers and the authorities.

 

When you consider the fact the Mohanty’s father was an influential and powerful man at the time, it is not hard to imagine just how family and friends managed to hide and protect “Bitti”. Just another day in India where the system is easily manipulated by those who have access and know-how? If the coverage of the case by Times Now indeed helped to nab Mohanty again, nothing like it!

 

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Well done Mid-day for remembering that March 12 is the anniversary of the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993. For those of us who were there, it seems like yesterday and just for the record, the blasts followed the riots.

 

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The sacking of four Australian cricketers just before the third Test against India at Mohali was the subject of much hilarity in twitter. Here’s a compilation of all the tweets of the day by espncricinfo: http://www.espncricinfo.com/page2/content/story/624547.html

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The Uttar Pradesh government celebrated its first anniversary with front page jackets for all major newspapers. As far as Mumbai is concerned, was this a little dig at Raj Thackeray and his anti-North Indian campaign do you think? Okay, I’m kidding. But still this need of the Samajwadi Party to reach out to the English newspaper reading public in such a big way is intriguing. Poor iphone/ Apple had to play second fiddle to UP, as The Times of India made it the second jacket. Let us not discuss whether the reader benefits from wading through pages of ads for a newspaper which has no front page…

 

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When you eventually reach the front page, our collective national pride is still upset by the insult handed out to us by the Italian government. The issue of the two marines on trial for murder who are not coming back still rankles. In that is tied up the breach of the Supreme Court’s good faith and the fact that Sonia Gandhi is of Italian origin. Of course, to any sane person there is no connection between those two apposite arguments but when has sanity played a role in our national discourse recently?

 

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As a result, the “mysterious” death of rape and murder accused Ram Singh in Tihar jail no longer fuels or consumes television media’s incessant demand for more scandal and sensation. Confused by its own motivations, the fact that the death appeared to have been a suicide and that the man lacked some basic qualifications to be a national hero, the story has died with a whimper.

 

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The big story though is the sting operation conducted on three large Indian banks by Cobrapost.com, run by irrepressible Aniriddha Bahal, he of the cricket and other stings which made Tehelka famous. Officers of HDFC, ICICI and Axis banks are on tape merrily telling the undercover reporter that they would happily convert his “politician boss’s” black money into white. They also explain how, which is a neat ready reckoner for anyone else so inclined.

 

So far TV and print media have run with the story but it will be interesting to see how far they take it or whether it just becomes more grist to the nightly tamasha mill.

 

There is something disquieting for the regular practice of journalism if the only basis for a story being important is how much drama you can milk out of it. At the risk of being a spoilsport, the drought in Maharashtra certainly needs more attention and kudos to CNN-IBN for focusing on it.

 

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TV news in India has not really yet come to grips with the feature or the news feature – trend stories are almost non-existent and life style stories are limited to Bollywood. Since Bollywood is only forthcoming when it requires a PR exercise, we are still waiting for a coming of age.

 

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Markandey Katju, chairman of the Press Council of India, has decided that there needs to be a minimum qualification to become a journalist. If indeed the venerable former judge had bothered to speak to any journalists, he might have got some very different feedback. A lot of the problems which bother people about journalists today originate precisely from the fact that most new recruits come from journalism schools, almost all of which are substandard. In the good old days (sigh, nostalgia) when journalism was a vocation and not a career (bad salaries, terrible working conditions and no public adulation) there were many more committed people around. The corporatision of the media has meant that brainless and clueless “Human Resources” departments have taken over recruitment and they do with that they think is the obvious route – rubbish “BMM” and other such courses. I have yet to meet a journalism undergrad who knew or understood anything at all. And because they have no real college education either, their knowledge base – essential for a journalist – is non-existent or stuck at school level.

 

We have lost a lot by succumbing to those courses for our resource base. Some of the best older journalists around came from other professions and some did not even have college degrees but those who were successful had a burning passion for journalism. A nose for news and language skill is all that is required. Neither can be taught.

 

Katju has since decided to apparently take on the journalism schools themselves. Now that makes sense.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

An interview with lawyer Harish Salve on Karan Thapar’s Devil’s Advocate on Sunday night underlined once more why the media better serves its purpose by taking a balanced and objective view on issues. Salve was lawyer for the two Italian marines accused of shooting two Indian fishermen. They left for Italy to vote promising to come back; the Italian government now says they won’t.

 

As usual, we have whipped ourselves into a patriotic frenzy with people almost going as far as boycotting their daily dose of peejo and pasta but I suspect it won’t quite come to that. Connections have been made between Sonia Gandhi, Mussolini, Finmeccanica, Quattrochi, leaving out so far Machiavelli, the Borgias, Leonardo da Vinci and Dante Alighieri.

 

Salve however explained matters in a sober and non-hysterical manner which did not absolve the Italians of shooting the fishermen but pointed out how international law worked. There can be little doubt that television-induced madness has afflicted our nation. Strangely, anyone at any time could have looked at the matter coldly and dispassionately and explained it to the reader and viewer. But where’s the fun in that, eh?

 

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The Pew Research Centre’s State of the Media report has some disquieting news for the American media but it applies to journalism and journalists everywhere. Cost-cutting in news rooms has affected the quality of journalism everywhere. Coverage of live events by premier news channels has dropped by 30 per cent since 2007 and interviews – which require fewer resources – have risen by a corresponding 31 per cent. Story lengths are down and subjects like sports, weather and traffic which are easier to cover have gone up.

 

In the print media, algorithms have replaced journalists in some instances. The report says, “This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands.” The report was scathing about events like presidential elections, observing that campaign reporters act more like “megaphones than investigators”.

 

As beats drop, organisations and companies are using social media to bypass the traditional media and speak to the general public. In a sense, then by cutting news-gathering and journalism costs, the news media has worked to remove itself from the market. This cannot be worthwhile in the long run.

 

There is one additional fear which Pew has expressed – that as more companies use “native” advertising with embedded messaging, readers and viewers will be confused about “sponsored” content as opposed to news content.

 

This of course is something that we are well aware of in India and yet have managed to do nothing about. Paid news, Medianet and its variations are rife. In fact, “medianet” has practically become a generic term for unethical journalism and is no longer even seen as a Times of India or Bennett Coleman brand – almost everyone does it one way or another.

 

The news media in the West has fallen under threat since the economic downturn. The problem is that while the economy may improve at some point, the damage done to journalism by cutting standards will be irreparable. The inability to understand and effectively use the digital space has also hurt traditional journalists and news organisations. This means that skill sets have been lost and the primary goal of journalism – to inform and make aware – is under threat.

 

The lessons for India are no less real. The increasing corporatisation of the media has meant that the profit structure has taken precedence over everything else. While the need to be financially viable is non-negotiable, when cost-cutting attacks your core competency you are indeed cutting off your nose to spite your face. The only thing that achieves is to open the door to unscrupulous cosmetic surgeons and charlatans. Welcome to the new media.

 

http://mashable.com/2013/03/18/newsroom-cutbacks-hurting-journalism-pew-study/

 

Ranjona Banerji’s Twitter handle is @ranjona

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

As expected the whole news cycle became about film star Sanjay Dutt after the Supreme Court ruled on the sentences handed out in the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts case. Never mind that 257 people died in the serial blasts or that over 700 were injured or that this was the worst such attack the country had ever seen until then or that the blasts were a reaction to the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the riots that followed. What can all that matter when a film star’s conviction was upheld?

 

There was little new there either – Dutt had been given six years by the TADA court in 2006 which was upheld by the Bombay High Court and now the SC had reduced it to five years. The chance of a pardon was slim given the enormity of the entire case. But did our esteemed TV colleagues care? Having spent an hour or so cursorily examining the death sentence to main accused Yakub Memon, it soon became all about Dutt with Bollywood celebs weeping and bemoaning their fate. It took film critic Rajeev Masand to put things in perspective on CNN-IBN: “Bollywood does not think logically”. Indeed.

 

Many channels also ran retrospectives of Dutt’s life in the movies and pulled out old interviews with him, including with Arnab Goswami being so sweet and nice on Times Now unlike the fire-breathing dragon he turned into last night. Odd, because Goswami’s interview with Dutt was also after the star had been convicted…

 

Kudos to Headlines Today for digging into the Living Media archives and pulling out a video interview with Yakub Memon in the days before Headlines Today or indeed private TV was invented in India. Some excellent news sense on display there and a break from the boo-hooing over Dutt.

 

What does one make of Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju’s letter to the Maharashtra governor begging for clemency for Dutt? Katju thinks that since Dutt quoted Mahatma Gandhi in his “Munnabhai” series of films, he deserves the sort of mercy described by Portia in Merchant of Venice. Even I who knows nothing about Bollywood might venture that it was the film-maker who came up with the famous “Gandhigiri” concept. Still, here it is: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/katju-seeks-pardon-for-sanjay-dutt/article4535084.ece

 

Also as expected, most newspapers barring The Times of India’s Mumbai edition fell short. The reason in simple — most newspapers in India have done away with institutional memory and got rid of (or refused to higher) anyone above the age of 45. This means that few staffers were around when the bomb blasts happened 20 years ago and for all I know their best source of reference is the film Black Friday. I have worked with these bright young people with no more than about seven years experience in journalism in 2006 when the TADA court pronounced its sentences, many of whom have tried to teach me about the events based on viewing the film. I hasten to add that I was in Bombay on March 12, 1993 and I did cover the aftermath for Mid-Day. And I haven’t seen the film. I reckon most people incharge today were either being fed Farex in their mummies’ laps or drinking Bournvita on their way to school when the blasts happen. TOI for all its faults and unlike the rest usually hangs on to some old fogeys.

 

I was surprised to see that the Indian Express also led with the Dutt saga. Also, I would have thought that someone would have pulled out Bollywood reporters of yore to recount all the exciting love drama that happened around Dutt at the time. Possibly all those oldies have also been put out to pasture.

 

Almost no one mentioned the mysterious circumstances under which Yakub Memon returned to India, which did cause much comment at the time.

 

Well, you can’t have everything and when it comes to the Indian media, usually you won’t.

 

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Siddharth Vardarajan, editor of The Hindu, has gone where (almost) no man or woman has gone before. He has directly taken on Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM for falsely using an advertorial article as an endorsement. The clarification states that IIPM paid for material which was put into a special supplement marked “advertorial”. It then used the so-called article in an ad, claiming that the Hindu had called the institute a “B-school with a human face”. Vardarajan contends that this article was written by IIPM and therefore Hindu had nothing to do with it. The clarification ends with these words: “The Hindu hereby would like to make it clear to current and prospective students of IIPM that it has not made any such editorial endorsement of the institution. We have now formally written to IIPM asking it to refrain from repeating the claim, and putting it on notice of our intent to proceed suitably against it if it persists in doing so.”

 

It is well-known that because IIPM advertises heavily in the media, most media organizations are wary of criticising owner Chaudhuri. There have been several instances where editorial has been forced to hold back articles and comments. Chaudhuri also has the habit of filing cases against media houses and journalists all over the country to harass them.

 

It will be interesting to see whether this clarification will mean that Vardarajan spends a lot of time now in Sikkim! http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/iipms-claim-on-the-hindu-a-clarification/article4530742.ece

 

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The Mumbai Press Club has for some time now been at the forefront of several journalistic initiatives and is setting itself up as an institution of some repute and meaning – beyond the excellent cheap booze!

 

The talk by editor-in-chief of The Guardian Alan Rusbridger on journalism in the digital age on Tuesday was an eyeopener for the Indian media on how the online world has to be embraced and enhanced by mainstream journalists and organisations. As a result of its ground-breaking efforts, The Guardian which is the seventh or eighth most read paper in the UK is the third most read paper online (in the world that is) fast catching up on the New York Times. It also gets some 25 per cent of its revenue from its digital efforts. Rusbridger’s speech was witty, informative and revelatory. And a warning for the Indian media of getting lost in the wilderness if it keeps snoring in the digital space for much longer.

 

Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are own. You can post your messages below or reach her directly via Twitter at @ranjona

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju has now been making the rounds of TV studios to explain his stand on Sanjay Dutt. The former judge thinks that the film star has been punished enough for his transgressions during the Bombay bomb blasts of 1993 and needs to be pardoned rather than being made to endure his jail sentence. On Times Now’s News Hour with Arnab Goswam, Katju and Mahesh Jethmalani were supposedly engaged in a “debate”. But it wasn’t much of a debate since Katju said he was a kind-hearted man who was willing to plead for mercy for all kinds of people not just celebrities and Jethamalani also said Katju was a kind-hearted man but then said that he had appeared for Dutt in the early days and then said Dutt should acknowledge what he had done.

 

It made for a very dismal debate since no arguments happened and Katju never veered from his set three lines and Jethmalani seemed a bit wary of offending the former judge thus ensuring there were no fireworks. Indeed, no illuminating or enthralling argument either and nothing to be gained. It is true that those yelling matches can become tedious but a boring discussion is well, a boring discussion.

 

But rather than take on Katju over his kind heart, the media needs to understand Katju’s stand on the media. The Press Council chairman may or may not be right when he says that 90 per cent of Indians are idiots; there are times when one is inclined to agree with him. But when he says that a special kind of educational qualification is needed for journalists, one wonders at the advice he is being given.

 

If there is a problem at this moment it is with the abysmal quality of journalism schools and courses in the country and the fact that HR departments are in charge of hiring since they cannot see beyond their noses. A journalist among other things needs to have a grasp of language and a wide range of interests and a sense of curiosity. By doing a journalism degree after school, a prospective journalist misses out on that mind-widening experience of delving into subjects without the restrictions imposed by the school system. That is why several senior journalists have argued that those who have studied in the school of life are better suited to the job than those with bogus journalism degrees.

 

Here is Katju’s defence on his stand, which seems a bit plaintive, but he has still not understood the issue and why journalists are angry: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/how-not-to-be-a-journalist/1092798/0 I am unaware of how far the brief of the Press Council stretches in this regard and how much power media houses want to give it. But Katju seems to be an influential and intelligent man. In which case, he needs to broaden his base of advisers and listen to more journalists from all over the country rather than limit himself to a few influence-pushers in Delhi.

 

And then of course, there’s the biggest problem facing the media which Katju could do something about: paid news. Here the culprits are owners and managers and perhaps the Press Council might want to negotiate with the Indian Newspaper Society and the Editors Guild to try and understand the issue.

 

The chairman’s heart may well be in the right place but right now it’s beating for the wrong reasons

 

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The Indian Express’s lead story on Thursday was the winner of the day: “Global media investigation finds 612 Indians among thousands with firms in tax havens”. The Express was one of 38 international media organisations which collaborated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to work on a 15 month investigation into offshore tax havens. The Guardian and the BBC, the Washington Post, Le Monde and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation were some of the other organisations in the collaboration.

 

This is one of those times when journalists can legitimately take a little time to pat each other on the back. The investigation involved 250 GB of data in 2.5 million secret files with details of over 1.2 lakh offshore firms/trusts, 12,000 agents spread over 170 countries and territories. This effort involved 86 journalists from 38 media organisations in 46 countries.

 

It is a mind-boggling effort and shows how much can be achieved through cooperation and common goals. It also reiterates that all journalism need not be about negotiating the minefield of owners and advertisers.

 

For those who do not read Indian Express (shame on you!), here are links to the story. Will be interesting to see if the rest of the Indian media pick up on the business people mentioned in the exposure or just allow them to get away with it and keep on pretending as if politicians are the only scourge in our society…

 

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/global-media-investigation-finds-612-indian-firms-in-tax-havens/1097501/0

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/an-indian-expressicij-investigation-vijay-mallya-ravikant-ruia-others-in-tax-havens/1097494/

 

And this is how the story unfolded:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/an-indian-expressicij-investigation-vijay-mallya-ravikant-ruia-others-in-tax-havens/1097494/

 

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The possible maybe I don’t know boss Congress candidate as the next prime minister of India spoke to a bunch of Confederation of Indian Industry members. This is the latest trend for the media to follow mainly because most of them were not alive when we had to sit through interminable Films Division of India documentaries about politicians inaugurating coal-based power plants. So every time a politician makes a speech at a school, college, chamber of commerce, park or shower we have to be there.

 

And so it was with Rahul Gandhi, who was also referred to as Rajiv Gandhi but we’ll forgive that. As he spoke about an inclusive India which has poor people and compassion was required, twitter exploded with laughter at the irony of saying all this to industrialists and business people.

 

Intriguingly, as just about every news channels was focused on Rahul Gandhi, Times Now was busy patrolling the Mumbai coastline where it found a suspicious ship and took it into custody thus most effectively saving the nation. Also, Headlines Today showed a speech by Narendra Modi but it did not specify where this speech was taking place or whether it was old or new footage.

 

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West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her now expected callous remarks about the death of a student protestor got the usual amount of flak from the media. She and her close associates however continue to brazen it out as they take West Bengal down some specially chosen perilous path. Even Shri Goswami seems at a loss to ask what Bengal wants to know.

 

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For those who want a break from our respected news anchors might take a remote trip to Comedy Central where they will meet Rajbeep Mardesai and Ornob Goswimming who discuss pressing issues of the moment: Is Comedy Central this funny or is Comedy Central that funny. Worth a few giggles.

 

By Ranjona Banerji

 

The television news cycle through Monday was consumed partly by the speeches of Narendra Modi and then by death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Both have some similarities – Thatcher was a strong, dictatorial leader and so is Modi. However it remains to be seen whether Modi’s legacy will be quite as lasting as Thatcher’s.

 

The Modi speeches were amusing for the battle of the hashtags (#) that was played out on Twitter and by the capitulation of the news channels. The internet and social media in India are usually dominated by the rightwing and the controversial chief minister has a massive online fan club. For perhaps the first time – though one is loath to make pat statements like that – the anti-Modi brigade managed to pull one over his supporters. The hashtag #Feku – signifying someone who’s talk is all fake – was top of the Twitter “trending” worldwide list while the #ModistormsFICCI hashtag was at a lowly five, although it later climbed up. Kudos to firstpost.com for picking up the trend and putting out this story: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/on-twitter-anti-modi-feku-beats-modistormsficci-690166.html

 

**

 

The news channels were straight on the messiah has arrived route after Modi’s speeches to the women’s wing of the business/commerce/industry organisation FICCI and later at a conclave organised by TV18 (which owns CNN-IBN, firstpost.com and other media outlets). Wit, charm, wonder and so on were the adjectives used.

 

The waffling and the long-drawn-out examples were glossed over. Although The Times of India in all its genuflecting did carry a piece dissecting the FICCI speech from a feminist point of view and found it lacking. The Indian Express was quick to point out that while lauding women entrepreneurship in cottage industries, Modi did not mention Ela Bhatt and Sewa, surely the most remarkable success from Gujarat and also that he laid claim to the success of the Lijjat Papad cooperative which as everyone should know started in Mumbai. If Markandey Katju, chairman of the Press Council of India is listening, he might work on a way to ensure cynicism and scepticism as the first hiring requirements for a journalist…

 

Some newspapers did mention the fact that these speeches – Modi’s and Rahul Gandhi’s to CII earlier – amount to little in our democratic system. But so enamoured is the Indian media of what they see of the presidential form of government as practised in the US (is civics taught in school any more in India?) that they imagine little Barack Obamas everywhere.

 

**

 

The Goafest is over and has been much talked and written about – including on mxmindia.com. I caught an episode of Brand Equity on ET Now which discussed scam ads made for awards in light of the Ford Figo JWT scandal. I discovered that not only are scam ads now called “proactive work” but was slightly dismayed to find that the advertising industry was dissembling on the issue. Everyone seemed to acknowledge there was a problem but banning the practice of making ads only to win awards seemed out of the question.

 

The fact that the essence of advertising is to sell a product or service successfully has been sidestepped in this rush to get awards. But ads that are never seen by the public winning awards for successful selling – that’s bogus in the extreme!

 

The sexism inherent in the Ford Figo ads is another worrying factor – and what caused the controversy — but that seems to have taken a back seat to “proactive work”!