MxMIndia

Category: MxM JOURNALISM REVIEW

  • Most reviewers, were not as scathing as they were sorrowful that a filmmaker of RGV's early potential has just lost it and created such an unmitigated disaster

    Reviewing the Reviews: A max of 2.5 stars for Satya 2 if the critic was generous

    By Deepa Gahlot

     

    Satya 2

    Director: Ram Gopal Varma

    Starring: Puneet Singh Ratn, Sharvanand, Anaika Soti

     

    After the genre-busting Satya (1998), Ram Gopal Varma’s career just never reached that high again, even though there were intermittent successes like Sarkar. His obsession for the underworld seems to have smothered his film-making skills because Satya 2 has hit a nadir in the director’s filmography which already has horrors like RGV Ki Aag (popularly voted as the worst film ever) and The Attacks of 26/11.

     

    Satya 2 got as little as 0 and 1/2 stars and a maximum of 2.5 if the critic was generous. Even the Times if India stopped at 2 this time, which is a rarity. Most reviewers, were not as scathing as they were sorrowful that a filmmaker of RGV’s early potential has just lost it and created such an unmitigated disaster.

     

    Shubhra Gupta of the Indian Express wrote, “By calling his hood’s company, ‘Company’, is RGV being meta? Or just smirking? You can draw parallels from this maverick director’s film trajectory, which has yo-yoed between the very good and the very bad and some indifferent stuff, to this Satya Number Two’s ‘Company’, which, in his words, is more a ‘soch’ (thought) than anything else. You want to ask RGV: what was he thinking? Or has he abandoned it altogether now?  ‘Satya’ was a gamechanger. ‘Satya 2’ is not even in the game. ‘Goli maar bheje mein’.”

     

    Nandini Ramnath of Mint analysed, “Not very long ago, Varma too was the insider-outsider, an intelligent and gifted loose cannon who influenced film-making style and production methods by unearthing new talent outside the family-run circles that govern the movie trade. Satya 2 does have academic value, as a study of a director’s systematic attempts to demolish his legacy and bury one of his most enduring creations-the Man With No Background who represented the dreams and nightmares of Mumbai in the 1990s. How Varma has become his own worst enemy, and how he insists on sharing his very public decline with audiences, one film at a time, is itself a subject of a movie. Perhaps there is no better person to make such a movie than Varma himself.”

     

    Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN commented, “Cinema has the power to shock you, but Ram Gopal Varma takes that quite literally in ‘Satya 2’. In one particularly gruesome scene, a burkha-clad woman wielding an electric drill directs the weapon towards a rapist’s crotch, and blood splatters everywhere. This is Varma’s idea of the new underworld, where citizens play vigilantes, forming an anonymous ‘company’ that strikes fear in the hearts of the rich and the powerful. The mastermind behind this nameless crime enterprise is Satya (newcomer Puneet Singh Ratn), a man who deliberately keeps his background a secret so he cannot be caught.”

     

    Vinayak Chakravorty of India Today wrote, “Satya 2 is erratic in the way the film has been edited and loud in the way its background score assaults your ears, neither of which offset the problem that the script has nothing new to offer. Too many underworld sagas have come and gone between 1998 and now. The world of bhais with its violence, angst and camaraderie seem all too familiar now to invoke fresh curiosity as Satya did in its time. You fail to notice any attempt on the part of RGV to add a new dimension.”

     

    Paloma Sharma writing for Rediff.com ranted, “The film is categorised as an action thriller. But there is very little action. Characters spend most of their time talking, brokering deals and playing the “dimag ka khel”. As for the thriller part of it, there’s not much there either unless you enjoy the way the camera voyeuristically pans to Chitra’s naval or Special’s scantily clothed form. Ram Gopal Verma attempts to make a film about the underworld but at points he turns it into a Yash Raj production where the hero and heroine are dancing with Kashmir/idyllic village in the backdrop.”

     

    Karan Anshuman of Mumbai Mirror wrote, “Satya 2 didn’t need to be called Satya 2. There’s no connection to the original Satya whatsoever. If anything, christening this film Satya 2 is a sign of Ram Gopal Verma’s despair; trying to cash in on the film that made him a true force, a distinctive voice in Bollywood that heralded change in the mainstream, indeed created a genre. RGV’s hankering to stay distinctive remains. But the means have all but deserted him.”

     

    According to Tushar Joshi of DNA, “Satya 2’s biggest flaw lies in its basic concept of raising a one man army against the powerful pillars of law and order. Even if we look at the film in solitary without making any comparisons to its inspiration, there isn’t much material to sift through. As Satya, Puneet Singh Ratn seems a miscast. He might look serious, brooding and intense, but that soon becomes a rut and a trap for his  character to die a slow painful death.  Songs serve as a distraction from the gritty plot, but their editing needed to be sharper.  Background score is loud and grating to the point where it drowns out the main action. Satya 2 might have an interesting premise, but the execution and poor casting kills any chance of the film coming off as a decent entertainer.

     

    Shubha Shetty Saha of Mid-day rued, “A few years back there was an outrage when Ram Gopal Varma attempted a horror – a remake of the classic movie Sholay. As if to atone for that sin, this time RGV massacres his own best film Satya with a horrendous sequel in the form of Satya 2. All that went right with the original Satya released about a decade and half ago has gone wrong with its sequel. The raw and gritty Satya is replaced by the shady, badly written, half-hearted attempt of a movie, Even if we stop comparing this movie to the original Satya, which was unarguably the best underworld movie in Bollywood, it becomes simply unbearable after a point of time.”

     

    Pratim D. Gupta of Kolkata’s The Telegraph wrote, “Now with Satya 2 arriving a good 15 years later, Mumbai underworld today spells ‘tedious’ on screen with so many movies having already shredded the subject to bits. Varma himself has made a dozen under different one-word titles. In the turkey-delivering department RGV’s business is, of coursing, booming. And so this time too, very few will turn up in the first couple of weeks, but Satya 2 is unlikely to do any damage at the box office and definitely not become a benchmark of any sort. The unknown faces in the lead will remain unknown and it will not inspire any young dreamer. But will it all end with Satya 2?”

     

  • Kicking off our series on the Master & the Media, Ranjona Banerji writes on why it's tough to imagine how the media will survive once Tendulkar has retired

    Why the media will miss Tendulkar much

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Is the media going needlessly gaga over Sachin Tendulkar’s impeding retirement? Or is this in the natural course of events, given the great cricketer’s tremendous influence on Indian life?

     

    In fact, it is hard to imagine how the media will survive once Tendulkar has retired. At least one week will be very difficult, given the range of our collective memory.

     

    1. The most upset will be those writers and journalists who have made a career out of slamming Sachin Tendulkar. Some have had the good sense to quickly bring out books on the subject before his retirement so they can make a little money from sales for at least three days. Although they had been calling for Tendulkar’s retirement for at least 10 years, it would actually have served their cause if Tendulkar had kept playing till he was about 53 or indeed, never retired at all.

     

    2. The secondmost upset will be those who have made a career out of Tendulkar memories. I saw him first, I recognised him first – well, those one can understand. And then there are spin-offs like I saw him last but I still knew he was great and so on. However, it is likely that these writers will manage to get leverage a little longer than the anti-Tendulkar brigade. Because nostalgia gives everything a nice rosy colour: many more books will be written about My Times with Tendulkar than How I Wish Tendulkar Had Retired At 53 So I Could Keep Bitching For Another Thirteen Years.

     

    3. Cricket statisticians will find themselves temporarily jobless as many records will remain unbroken or unchallenged for a while. There are only so many times you can mention “This is XX’s first Test match”. Actually, you can say that only once. Unless of course some other player decides to keep playing till they’re 53 or at least 40. Then the Anti-Tendulkar brigade can also jump on to that bandwagon and get some reflected glory. This ploy works best if the next player you target will be the one you had supported against Tendulkar. Like life coming full circle or a helicopter shot.

     

    4. Advertisers and sponsors will now have to find some other sure-shot selling smile, squeaky to non-squeaky voice, curly hair to non-curly and back. I would suggest that tennis sports goods, fast cars and rock bands can continue to use Tendulkar as a celebrity endorser. His large fan base (larger than the anti-Tendulkar base, much to their own disgust) will keep the cash registers clinking and chi-chinking away. Sports channels though can keep making programmes on Tendulkar. Retired sports greats make excellent fillers in between cars going round and round or people pretending to bash each other up.

     

    5. The band of Bengali sports writers who feel that Sourav Ganguly was done badly by Tendulkar in the Greg Chappell as coach days will now largely be out of sorts. They have to find someone else to feed their persecution mania. Since Ganguly has established himself as a very good commentator in English and Hindi, their best bet to feed their rage is in case Tendulkar becomes a commentator too.

     

  • Two things that upset Ranjona Banerji this Friday, the 11th: Why didn't The Times of India ask a staffer to write the front-page story on Sachin Tendulkar. And: the job of the ombudsman is to protect the viewer from the channel and not the other way around

    Ranjona Banerji: Same old same old on Sachin

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Sachin Tendulkar announced his retirement from cricket on Thursday and hardly surprisingly it shook the world and the media. Although the announcement has been anticipated, it was a still a moment of sorrow if not shock. Almost every newspaper led with it and most tried to outdo the other with a catchy headline. The Economic Times said “India will never be the same again”, The Times of India went for “God Bye”, Mid-Day took a bold decision to dedicate the whole paper to the great cricketer, Hindustan Times said, ‘There will never be another you” and The Indian Express went poignantly simple with “The Void”.

     

    The articles inside were a mix of rehashes of old comments by former cricketers and old interviews as well as some new writing. Plus all the facts we did and did not know about Tendulkar. (Yes, I did know that he was a big John McEnroe fan as a kid, so there!) The problem is that so much has already been said about Sachin Tendulkar, good, bad, indifferent. However, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s recollections of his first meetings with his idol in TOI were moving. If only TOI had found someone other than the dull and cliché-ridden Boria Majumdar to write its front page piece on Tendulkar. India has a vast collection of excellent cricket writers, some of them within the TOI stables. Why go to an outsider? Why not ask your national sports editor Bobilli Vijay Kumar? This is the easiest way to demoralise your own staff.

     

    News channels must have all gone gaga on Tendulkar but I could not watch the same old same old. They have all already had innumerable debates on when will Sachin go, why doesn’t Sachin go, who will make Sachin go, to make any discussions they have from now on seem like a bunch of hypocritical hooey.

     

    **

     

    This week, MxM editor Pradyuman Maheshwari wrote about communications he had with NDTV’s new ombudsman eminent jurist Soli Sorabjee. It is clear from the exchange that the role of an ombudsman is still muddy as far as India is concerned. Sorabjee’s responses were those of a lawyer rather than someone who had been appointed to act as the viewer or reader’s representative when it comes to grievances against a news outlet. A similar confusion can be observed in the manner in which Markandey Katju treated his earlier days as chairman of the Press Council of India.

     

    Much as everybody thinks that they can be a journalist, life as a newsperson is neither that simple nor apparent at face value. That old saying “it’s not rocket science” is deceptive – anything that you don’t know enough about can be as confusing as rocket science to a lay person. So yes, journalism is rocket science to an outsider and it is definitely not the same as law.

     

    The Hindu is the only newspaper which has taken the idea of an ombudsman seriously, where complaints against the paper are printed and addressed. The Mumbai edition of Hindustan Times used to have a reader’s editor but not any longer after the person who did it quit.

     

    As for NDTV, it is laudable that they have an ombudsman and such a well-respected one at that. However the job of the ombudsman is to protect the viewer from the channel and not the other way around. Also, it would help if the NDTV website told you how to reach the ombudsman. The Complaints Redressal section took me to this:http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/new/Complaint.aspx

     

     

  • Most critics praised the visual quality and performances, but also panned the excessive 'over-the-topness' of everything in Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela, notes Deepa Gahlot

    Reviewing the Reviews: Critics praise quality & performances in Ram-Leela, pan over-the-topness

    By Deepa Gaholot

     

    Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela

    Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali

    Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Krishna Singh Bisht, others

     

    This is a rare film that gets crazily mixed reviews from 1 star by rediff.com to 5 stars by Times of India and every combination in between.

     

    Most critics praised the visual quality and performances, but also panned the excessive ‘over-the-topness’ of everything.

     

    Raja Sen of rediff.com ripped it apart, calling in an over-plotted bloody mess. “Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela — an acronym of which unfailingly reminds me of Greater Kailash Residential associations — is a monstrously excessive film with a riot of colours, a girl who looks very pretty indeed and a daft hero, but despite that being the warning on the tin whenever you attempt (foolhardily) to buy into a Bhansali product, this can’t be what you bargained for. GKRR is an overplotted, bloody mess.”

     

    Meena Iyer’s review didn’t match its 5 star rave. “What new can a filmmaker do with William Shakespeare’s classic love story Romeo and Juliet? The answer is, if you are Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who is technically sound and artistically astute as far as art and craft go, you just become impudent, set the story in Gujarat, sign Bollywood’s currently best actress Deepika Padukone (Leela), team her up with `I’ve-got-fire-in-my-loins’ actor Ranveer Singh (Ram) and then let them loose on one another.”

     

    Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN was mostly rave. “Bhansali brings all his tropes to the table – unabashed melodrama, stunning visuals, elaborately choreographed dance numbers. Yet, it’s the firecracker chemistry between his leads, and the genuine feeling he infuses into the film that separates Ram Leela from previously disappointing outings, particularly Saawariya and Guzaarish, that were weighed down by shameless manipulation and pretentious, heavy-handed filmmaking.”

     

    Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express was mostly rant “Bhansali’s ‘Ram-Leela’ is mounted as pure spectacle, no surprises there, because that is his style. The setting is the Rann, in Gujarat. The warring clans, the Gujju versions of the Montagues and Capulets, are attired in costumes where not one thread is out of place. Each scene is meticulously designed: the desert, the havelis, the swirling ghagras, the spurting of the blood. It gets to the point where you start feeling breathless, and that is exactly what Bhansali intends, for you to get encircled by his universe. And in that he succeeds. I was swept up by the way he builds up the love story, between Ram (Ranveer Singh) and Leela (Deepika Padukone). Where he fails– his old failing– is in the insistence on every little thing being perfectly choreographed: a messy love story requires messy emotions, and Bhansali doesn’t ever let his gorgeous Leela’s tears streak down her cheeks. No leaky nose, no hiccups, just back-lit loveliness, which becomes too perfect to be real.”

     

    Sudhish Kamath of The Hindu wrote, “Bhansali has figured out that he does not need to look far West for inspiration. Okay, it might have loosely borrowed a few things from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet but diegetically, it’s Indian in form.

     

    So yes, the havelis from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam are back. So are the chandeliers from Devdas and the folksy refrains from the former. In fact, the backdrop is not only picture perfect, the production design is so rich that you can rarely tell where location ends and set design begins. This is home turf and Bhansali knows the world in and out. While he has always had an eye for aesthetics and sensual shot taking, the director had also kept it contained. In Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, he lets it loose. This is certainly his most uninhibited film with raw sexual energy and explosive chemistry between the two of the best looking people in the country.”

     

    Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV.com was scathing. “The film doles out super large helpings of everything under its grandiose narrative canopy – be it the oft-repeated story of star-crossed lovers, the garish sets, the musical score, the choreography, the costumes, the pitch of the acting, the delineation of the principal characters or the saturated colour palette. Even on the rare occasion where he gives minimalism an attempted shot, as when he lets the characters articulate themselves only through physical gestures and facial expressions, SLB does not pipe down one bit. He goes for broke every which way. It all adds up to a somewhat disorienting sensory assault mounted by a filmmaker who believes that excess makes excellent sense. Goliyon ki Raasleela Ram-Leela is composed of such a riot of colours that the hues often bleed into each other, leaving behind blobs and blurs. ”

     

    Finally, seeing it from the point of view of an outsider, unaffected by the hype. David Chute of Variety summed it up well. “”Ram-Leela,” a gorgeous, boisterous, ultimately ineffective new Bollywood adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet,” does accomplish one thing that is quite unusual: it manages to keep you in suspense about the outcome almost to the last frame. Not a bad trick for a re-telling of one of the most familiar narratives in world literature. In fact, this points to a central weakness of writer-director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film, which for much of its length is such a brightly-colored song-and-dance entertainment that auds may wonder if it’s working towards a revised, happy Bollywood ending. (Some may even hope as much, as the movie doesn’t seem serious enough to merit a tragic one).”

     

  • Gori Tere Pyaar Mein, a typical romcom from the Dharma Productions banner, directed by Punit Malhotra, left most critics yawning with boredom, notes Deepa Gahlot

    Reviewing the Reviews: Gori Tere Pyaar Mein leaves most critics yawning

    By Deepa Gahlot

     

    Gori Tere Pyaar Mein

    Director: Punit Malhotra

    Starring: Imran Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Anupam Kher etc

     

    Gori Tere Pyaar Mein, a typical romcom from the Dharma Productions banner, directed by Punit Malhotra,  left most critics yawning with boredom. Superficiality was the biggest flaw, as ratings went from 1/2 (half) in Indian Express to the expectedly generous 3.5 in the Times of India. Other went by 2 or 3.

     

    The film about two opposites falling in love is marred by the non-linear storytelling, stereotyped characters and total ignorance of ground realities in India, plus the dumbest lead characters ever– attractive looking but not too likable. He is self-absorbed, she has an NGO heart that bleeds all over the place. But in Bollywood, the twain can and often does meet, and that’s no spoiler.

     

    Shubhra Gupta of the Indian Express grumbled, “Let’s just say you should be grateful Karan Johar doesn’t see an India beyond the metros more often. For when a Johar production heads to a village, as Gori Tere Pyaar Mein! does, it is the sort of village where people dressed in tie-and-dyes hang around in the fringes to fawn over the city slicks who will deliver them from a Collector.  Yes, in this fake Gujarat village with its charmingly innocent and clueless people, the Collector is an offshoot of the Bollywood moneylenders of yore, with nary a concession for the fact that he is after all a government official, bound by some rules if not many. Here he operates from presumably his home, with lackeys doing padicures and messaging him as he slaps people around.”

     

    Nandini Ramnath Live Mint sneered, “Malhotra’s desire to engage with the issues that matter seems to be a response to criticism that Bollywood needs to move out of la-la land and in the direction of realistic cinema, but Gori Tere Pyaar Mein! is proof that this journey is not for everybody.”

     

    Vinayak Chakravorty of India Today commented, “Director Punit Malhotra and his co-writer Arshad Syed operate with minimum script that barely holds any surprise. The idea would still click if there were the magic moments to trigger off chemistry between the lead pair. You hardly spot any. For a rom-com, Gori Tere Pyaar Mein! runs low on the ‘rom’ quotient, still lower on the ‘com’ factor.”

     

    Paloma Sharma of rediff.com ranted, “Gori Tere Pyaar Mein is two hours and 28 minutes long and follows a non-linear narrative. This was absolutely unneeded. Despite all the flashbacks, the story was predictable and the first half could have been cut down significantly. This film is a case of shoddy editing, writing and direction. Gori Tere Pyaar Mein‘s saving grace is that it is a love story and the second half will manage to melt your heart, if only slightly. It’s the classic opposites attract story and hey, if you’re into that kind of thing, this might be your kind of film.”

     

    Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN seemed to hate the film too. “Opposites attract, but it’s hard to figure out what draws this pair to each other. Then snotty Sriram’s love is tested when he follows Diya to a remote village in Gujarat, and volunteers to build a bridge that will help the lives of the locals.You expect rom-coms to be frothy, escapist fluff, but Gori Teri Pyaar Mein specializes in a brand of emptiness that struggles to hold your attention. In one scene, Diya tells Sriram, “Don’t be so shallow” and that sentiment sums up this film in a nutshell.”

     

    Sarita Tanwar of DNA was much kinder,”Gori Tere Pyaar Mein belongs to the rom-com genre, so really you know the kind of film you have come to watch. You know the path it will follow. Girl meets boy, love happens, they separate and they come back together. But other than that, it is different. For starters this one isn’t set in a college nor is it an office romance. Neither the characters nor the situations are the usual cliches. A romantic film is nothing without moments and this one has really sweet ones.”

     

    Shubha Shetty Saha of Mid-day didn’t seem to have problems with it either and saw merits that passed everyone else by. “First of all, the intention of the film seems right. The story refreshingly and subtly talks about how consumerism is eating away our souls and how each of are becoming more and more self-centred. How take is more acceptable than give in this fast-paced world where each lives for his or her own. In a rather casual manner, befitting a romantic comedy, the film touches upon certain sensitive issues and taboos. For starters, the girl being many years senior to the boy she is in love with is casually mentioned in the passing and not made a big deal out of. That speaks of the maturity of the thought behind this film.”

     

    What can you say about Madhureeta Mukherjee’s rave, except that the TOI seldom goes under 3 stars. “ Punit’s ‘GTPM’, is a sweet, breezy romcom with likeable characters presented in glossy, lavish, true Karan Johar (producer) style. In the second half, the ‘the bridge over troubled waters’ project is a bit stretched, and you wish thegaonwallahs would leave the pair to romance instead. Music (Vishal-Shekhar) is peppy and pleasing. This isn’t the most rousing romance (second-half lacks ‘rom’), but has its feel-good moments. Chew it up with some ‘Chingam’ and a cute date.”

     

  • Neither Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury can inspire confidence, either as leaders of an organisation or from an editorial perspective, writes Ranjona Banerji. If Tehelka is to maintain its motto of being fearless, frank and so on then it needs new management, she says.

    Ranjona Banerji: Time for both Tejpal and Shoma to quit Tehelka

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Sexual harassment of young females by senior male editors is one of the Indian media’s worst-kept secrets. Everybody knows several stories of young women being propositioned, coerced and threatened by men in positions of power far above them in the pecking order. And everyone also knows that those that complain usually lose their jobs. And yet, for all its moral posturing about problems elsewhere, the Indian media has been satisfied with doing little but some private outraging.

     

    Will the Tehelka story change all that? At first glance, it seems that Tehelka tried to follow the old path of cover up and forget about it, after a young female reporter accused the magazine’s editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal of sexually assaulting her. The responses from managing editor Shoma Chaudhury suggest that the top management decided to close ranks with their boss. Tejpal himself “recused” himself from the magazine in an extremely ill-judged letter in florid prose full of Biblical and religious overtones. He talked of atonement, penance and laceration all of which would be significantly poetic if it wasn’t so vomit-inducing.

     

    The story broke through the social media after news emerged that Tejpal had stepped down for six months. But it was soon clear that this stepping down or atonement was nothing but smoke and mirrors. Tejpal’s letter talked of misreading a situation and taking responsibility for an unfortunate incident. Had he looked leeringly at a young girl and asked her to come up and look at his etchings, “misreading” might perhaps apply. But what Tejpal did – according the young woman’s complaints doing the rounds on the Internet – was sexual assault and could be construed as rape.

     

    This makes Chaudhury’s responses to the media even more inexplicable if not inexcusable. What happened is not an “internal” matter and a questioning media cannot be dismissed as being more upset than the “aggrieved party”. Indeed, Chaudhury’s statement that the “aggrieved party” is satisfied was countered by the complainant telling news channels that she was far from satisfied and she was angry that her complaint had not been circulated internally the way Tejpal’s was.

     

    There has been some discussion that Chaudhury being female should have stood by her staffer and understood her pain. However history demonstrates that the sisterhood has not really stood up for itself within media organisations. The Network of Women in Media has become stronger over the years but it is an outside organisation. Loyalties within are another matter. Having said all this, it is still astounding that Chaudhury was not moved by the young woman’s complaint which talks of a very grievous assault and then an appalling attempt at flirtation which turned into threats.

     

    Instead, Chaudhury wrote an email to the staff, filled with the most sanctimonious hifalutin nonsense: “We have also believed that when there is a mistake or lapse of any kind, one can only respond with right thought and action. In keeping with this stated principle, and the collective values we live by, Tarun will be stepping down for the period mentioned”.

     

    What is “right thought and action” and what are these “collective values” one may well ask.

     

    However, without getting as sanctimonious and self-righteous and morally reprobate as Tehelka, the outraged media must turn now that spotlight on itself. NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan said on TV that her channel has followed the Vishaka guidelines of the Supreme Court on sexual harassment. Sachin Kalbag, editor of Mid-Day, also said that Mid-Day is Vishaka compliant in a tweet. What is the story with other media organisations? How do they handle complaints of sexual harassment? How have perpetrators been punished? What sort of a future can the complainant look forward to in the organisation? It must be mentioned that the victims need not only be women and that the perpetrators need not always be men. But even while being politically correct and upholding gender equality, the sad truth is that it is women who usually bear the brunt.

     

    That the entire media has come out in support of the victim is heartening and might even suggest that a few small changes may happen… Poor Rahul Singh who tried to defend Tehelka’s track record as an investigative magazine got short shrift on Times Now. As several participants pointed out, it was Tehelka’s founder Tejpal who had damaged his own magazine’s reputation. In a side note, because politicians were not invited to primetime news debates on the subject, discussions on the Tehelka issue were conducted with some decorum and minus the high-decibel pyrotechnics viewers are normally subjected to.

     

    The correct thing would be for both Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury to quit Tehelka. Neither can inspire confidence, either as leaders of an organisation or from an editorial perspective. If Tehelka is to maintain its motto of being fearless, frank and so on then it needs new management.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Do the people who come on television news channel discussion ever watch themselves on re-runs, asks Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Do news channel panellists know how awful they look and sound?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Was the biggest story of last week Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from cricket? Possibly yes. Was it the only story of the week? Definitely not. But for television channels ducking out of covering the expose on snooping charges against the Gujarat government this was the explanation: “Saturday was Sachin’s day”. But these are 24 hour news channels. To fill up 24 hours only with Sachin Tendulkar is not just impossible, it is downright foolish.

     

    The immediate allegations on social media were that the news channels were too frightened of Narendra Modi to cover the Cobrapost.com and Gulail story. (Incidentally, news channels are usually called “paid Congress agents”, an accusation which shows how divided social media is politically.) It certainly was curious that this story was ignored. After all, what Cobrapost.com and Gulail had exposed was that Amit Shah, then home minister of Gujarat, had asked the Gujarat police to tail and record all the activities of a young woman on the instructions of “Saheb”. That “Saheb” was Narendra Modi was confirmed by the woman’s father and BJP president Rajnath Singh. The taped conversations were part of the evidence provided by IPS officer GL Singhal to the CBI, as part of his own defence after being arrested in the Ishrat Jehan case, alleged to have been killed in a controversial “fake” encounter. Cobrapost.com and Gulail said that they could not verify the authenticity of the tapes.

     

    Even so, it makes for a story and every newspaper in the country thought as much. TV woke up a day late – after the story had front-paged practically every newspaper in the country. And of course, they jumped straight into “debate” mode which saves them the cost of newsgathering, once the bulwark on which journalism rested. I have to confess that I did not watch any of these “debates” but I have heard that Anniruddha Bahal of Cobrapost.com did not get a chance to speak in between all the yelling and screaming of the representatives of political parties.

     

    While BJP followers have long claimed that the entire English media is on the payroll of the Congress party, is there now a good case to made that the entire English television media is on the payroll of Narendra Modi and the BJP? While Cobrapost.com and Gulail were announcing their story at a press conference, news channels were showing the world one more speech by Narendra Modi, Gujarat chief minister and prime ministerial hopeful.

     

    **

     

    Dare one suggest that this primetime screaming contest that we have all got used to in India, looks very unseemly in an international context? The Australian Broadcasting Corporation brought its lively Q&A programme to India this week (I get ABC from my cable operator but this episode was also shown on DD). Panellists included Karan Thapar, Shashi Tharoor, Swapan Dasgupta and Shoma Choudhury. The idea was to increase India-Australia communication and attack stereotypes. Half the panellists demonstrated just how irritatingly self-righteously smug we are in India.

     

    But most unedifying of all were the spats that Swapan Dasgupta got into with panellists over Narendra Modi (sigh, him again). Karan Thapar dealt with him with that razor-sharp firmness he uses on The Last Word. But Shoma Choudhury succumbed and the two, seating next to each other, proceeded to have wonderfully absurd verbal pyrotechnics. Do these people ever watch themselves on reruns? Do they know how awful they look and sound?

     

    **

     

    After the revelations of Cobrapost.com and Gulail story, many pro-Modi fans brought up the case of Rahul Gandhi being accused of kidnapping and raping a woman called Sukanya Devi as defence of the Gujarat chief minister. As it happens, the case against Rahul Gandhi was first thrown out by the Allahabad High Court as being “malicious” and later by the Supreme Court as well.  But an internet search on the matter leads to the Firstpost.com website which carried a video with the headline: “Rahul Gandhi raped Sukanya Devi”. I do not quite understand the technicalities of the internet, but Firstpost.com perhaps need to look into being associated to this piece of slander.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • In her review of the news media, Ranjona Banerji scans the coverage on Sachin Tendulkar's farewell match and the Campa Cola building controversy

    Ranjona Banerji: Not much imagination in the Tendulkar coverage

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Is it going to be all about Sachin Tendulkar’s farewell series or the Campa Cola compound? Either way, Mumbai dominates the news this week, making this a rare exception from all the endless political tamasha that we have been subjected to in recent times.

     

    Tendulkar’s retirement has been everywhere and it takes a very brave Indian Express to not run with the first day’s play on Page 1 of the Mumbai edition, bar a photograph. The rest of the newspapers knew what people were interested in and went with that. With everyone jumping on to the bandwagon though there is a range of Sachin nostalgia writing to pick your way through from the mundane to the sublime. Ayaz Memon’s piece in Mumbai Mirror on Thursday was filled with delightful nostalgic nuggets, based on his long experience covering cricket and as an editor. Clayton Murzello, sports editor of Mid-Day, showed why he is one of the best repositories of Mumbai’s (and India’s) cricket history today. The Times of India dedicated pages to Tendulkar’s retirement but could surely have expended more effort and dipped further into its formidable 175 year archives. The Hindustan Times was adequate but is often better at sports not called cricket. The Economic Times new sports page is still dismal and needs plenty more work.

     

    Cricket writing was once considered an art form but somehow that talent is not showing through enough in the new breed of sports journalists. It does not help that others have jumped on to the bandwagon but not every academic can write like Ramachandra Guha and not every former cricketer can write like Ed Smith. Given that most of the big celebrity names writing on cricket are sponsored and the cash registers can never be silenced, some more effort to nurture in-house writing talent may have good long-term effects.

     

    Of course, the Sachin Tendulkar story is not yet over so quite likely we shall see some more during the day. One thought on the Star Sports coverage and commentary: The discussion show on Tendulkar and cricket called Sachiiin Sachiiin is far more interesting and in-depth than the non-stop cliché-ridden jabber in the commentary boxes, particularly the Hindi ones. You feel that Navjot Singh Sidhu now has competition from Kapil Dev in how to never stop to take a breath between inanities. A little birdie tells me that apparently those who tune into Hindi commentary need cricket to be explained to them all the while and abhor silence. Sounds a bit… condescending?

     

    **

     

    The story of the apartment blocks with illegal floors in the Worli area of Mumbai has not unnaturally been covered by city newspapers. But it was a surprise to see the Campa Cola compound make it to national television on Monday, as the dramatic story of residents fighting to save their homes played out. There was misery, hope, politics and illegality on plenty of levels making for a great spectacle.

     

    The next day saw the effect of the media at work. Apparently the Supreme Court judge who had ordered that the residents vacate their homes on November 11 watched the media coverage, was deeply distressed and could not sleep all night. The next morning, he ordered a stay on the demolition of the illegal floors and gave residents till May next year to move out.

     

    In between all this were several comments from senior journalists about how because the Campa Cola residents were middle class they got media attention, which slum dwellers don’t get. Undoubtedly there is truth in that remark. But it is also true that the Campa Cola case revealed one more instance of developer-municipality-politician culpability, which affects slum dwellers and the middle class both. Any exposure is therefore not to be sneezed at.

     

    And just to push the point further, I have actually read about slum demolition in newspapers and seen it on TV. How far it has made Supreme Court judges lose sleep I do not know. Room for improvement everywhere perhaps.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Perhaps now Star Sports and all its channels will only buy rights to tournaments that they can actually show us, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Star Sports network is welcome, but no unannounced switchovers please

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The international media is very taken with India’s Mars Orbiter Mission.

     

    Andrew North, BBC’s South Asia correspondent, on the BBC website, wrote from the scene of the launch at Sriharikota, “No one was interested here in questions about India’s priorities.”

     

    Which is a bit disingenuous. Since there have been a number of questions on whether ISRO needed to send this PSLV-C25 to orbit Mars as well as on the Rs 460 crore spent. Perhaps no journalist on the scene discussed the issue of priorities with North but they certainly did it elsewhere. Al Jazeera was more matter of fact on its website, restricting itself to details of the launch on the website. CNN’s Tom Hume saw the launch as a “symbolic coup as China steps up its ambitions in space”. In a nuanced story, the criticism came from Indian commentators, academic-activists like Jean Dreze and former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair.

     

    The Telegraph UK, normally very critical of India, had a nuts and bolts story by Dean Nelson of the launch, picking up a tweet from columnist Tavleen Singh about how India cannot provide drinking water to its people. However, plenty of scientists quoted talked about inspiration for young Indians and so on.

     

    DNA’s website had an IANS story for the main piece on the Mars Mission while Indian Express’s website had PTI. The Times of India had three people sharing a byline, one of which is Srinivas Laxman who has covered aeronautics and space-related events for the paper for many years.

     

    **

     

    Star Sports has Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni telling us to “believe”. This is part of a massive media blitz to launch its new face and its new channels (some of which used to be ESPN). Star Sports now has four regular channels and two HD channels. This is welcome news indeed for sports fans. Today’s Times of India in Hyderabad had Star Sports on the front jacket and the front page was all sports-related stories and the regular front page followed it. Good planning to launch on the first day of the penultimate Test match featuring Sachin Tendulkar. Since most of the faux front page stories were about Tendulkar, including columns by Brian Lara and Sourav Ganguly and comments from Roger Federer.

     

    One can only hope that Star Sports can fulfil the dreams of all sports fans with all its channels and not switch mid-tournament in one discipline to showing another at random – the way it has been doing regularly so far. Us tennis fans have thus suffered because of football, Formula 1 and of course cricket. Perhaps now they will only buy rights to tournaments that they can actually show us. This may be some pipe dream, but still.

     

    But to be fair to Star Sports, it is not the only transgressor. The normally reliable Ten Sports decided on Tuesday night to stop showing the ATP World Tour Finals in London – which it did on Monday night and Tuesday evening – and switch to football without so much as a by your leave. Star Sports HD 2 did show it however. Ah well.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Both journalism and professionalism undoubtedly take a bit of a beating when a much-admired newspaper like The Hindu falls back in time, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Flip-flop take ‘Hindu’ back in time

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    One more shake-up at The Hindu has the media a bit, well, shook up. Overturning what was a controversial decision two years ago, the Hindu board has now removed Siddharth Varadarajan as editor of the paper and Arun Anant as CEO. Interestingly, it was N Ram who fought with his brothers and sisters and the board and bulldozed his way to make sure Varadarajan got the job and The Hindu its first professional (non-family) editor in 50 years. And now it is N Ram who has sacked Varadarajan, a very well-respected journalist.

     

    The allegations against Varadarajan tilt on the bizarre side: that he had diverged from the “core values” of the paper, that there was “editorialisation in the guise of news and manipulation of news coverage.” Anant has been accused of ruining industrial relations and of having a “communal” approach at times. There are hints that a PIL filed by Subramaniam Swamy over Varadarajan’s US citizenship may have had some role to play here – it comes up for hearing this week.

     

    Also strange is the fact the six board members have opposed this move by N Ram to remove Varadarajan. When Varadarajan was appointed in 2011, the board had been against all the moves by Ram to professionalise the editorship of The Hindu. Ram had referenced other family-owned groups like The Times of India at the time, where family members do not hold controlling editorial posts.

     

    In many ways, this new flip-flop takes The Hindu back in time. For what it’s worth, The Hindu has been a very respected newspaper in India and the world and is looked by many to be a sort of gold standard for its fair investigations and its Constitutional stance and the fact that it did not appear to bow down to corporate interests. But the family saga which keeps playing out in the background means that every professional journalist and potential CEO will be even more wary about taking up an offer from The Hindu.

     

    Varadarajan, rather than accepting being kept on as a contributing editor and “senior columnist” resigned immediately, making the announcement on twitter – as seems to be the norm these days. His tweet which was put up at 5.28 pm on October 21 says, “With The Hindu’s owners deciding to revert to being a family run and edited newspaper, I am resigning from The Hindu with immediate effect.”

     

    All those who resigned when Varadarajan was appointed in 2011 are now back – N Ravi, Malini Parthasarathy and Nirmala Lakshman – at the top as is N Ram.

     

    The obvious implication is that the family could not bear to be away from the editorial decisions of their newspaper and have therefore buried their differences – however bitter they may have been. It also may mean that the somewhat more contemporary feel of The Hindu will now revert to its early fuddy-duddy days.

     

    Anant, the former CEO, has been accused of forcing permanent employees towards the contract system and this could well have been a major thorn for the board. The Hindu is well known for allowing people to stay in positions until eternity regardless of ability – a strategy most other newspapers have long since abandoned. Although heartening for employees ensured of permanent employment disconnected with their output and a welcome change from the new hire and fire policies rampant elsewhere, it is also true that running a professional newspaper with excessive deadwood can be counterproductive if not impossible.

     

    Whatever the reasons for these changes, both journalism and professionalism undoubtedly take a bit of a beating when a much-admired newspaper like The Hindu falls back in time.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • Is corporate investment in mainstream media a big danger for even a semblance of free and fair journalism, asks Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Slippery slope of big biz-funded media

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Supreme Court has taken the media back to one of its most shameful episodes: the exposures against senior journalists in the Niira Radia tapes. For those who have been living on Mars since 2010, here goes. The transcripts of the conversations between corporate lobbyist and various people including several journalists were leaked by Outlook and Open magazines. Radia’s phones had been tapped by the Income Tax department after allegations of financial irregularities by a former associate. But the tapping led to enormous breakthroughs in the 2G spectrum scam case.

     

    Radia, employed by the Ambanis, the Tatas and Mittals, was heard talking to various journalists asking them to help ensure that A Raja became telecom minister in the 2009 UPA Cabinet. She said she was speaking on behalf of Kanimozhi of the DMK. Of the journalists she spoke to, Barkha Dutt of NDTV sounded the most helpful as also did Vir Sanghvi, then editorial director and columnist with Hindustan Times. Sanghvi and Radia also discussed how Sanghvi’s columns could be used to project Mukesh Ambani’s point of view as far as the KG Basin gas project was concerned.

     

    There was an understandable uproar after the tapes were made public and Sanghvi lost his once very well-respected column but that was about it. Dutt remained defiant, putting down her comments as regular journalistic practices. In an incredible TV show, she told several senior journalists who questioned her that they knew little about how journalism in New Delhi functioned and moreover that she didn’t think there was anything remarkable in a corporate lobbyist who represented people with telecom interests calling journalists to influence Cabinet selections.

     

    Indeed, if that is what passes for standard practice for journalists in Delhi, it is tragic as far as Indian journalism is concerned. This new Supreme Court directive will lead to the tapes being examined again and perhaps Indian journalists and media houses will be under the scanner again for several nefarious practices. Too much has been allowed already in the name of making money. Nothing wrong with profit at all: we all know it is vital for survival of our system. But for people who spend all day pointing fingers at other people to bend the rules when it comes to themselves is unacceptable.

     

    There is a tangential discussion possible here on the inroads which the public relations industry has made into journalism but that is for another day. The onus here is on the journalists – all very senior and powerful – that Radia spoke to. Interestingly, not one thought that there was a story in the fact that the Tatas and the Mittals wanted Raja to be telecom minister and not Dayanidhi Maran or that the DMK insisted on retaining telecom or indeed on the divisions within Karunanidhi’s family made apparent by Radia’s requests. At face value, this looked like a great story to the rest of us.

     

    **

     

    If journalistic integrity needs to be examined again, so does the problem of paid news and corporate interests in the media. The big story for the last couple of days for almost every newspaper, journal and news channel has been the FIR lodged by the CBI against Kumar Mangalam Birla for his company’s involvement in the coal allocation scam. However, there are allegations and insinuations that the story has either not been covered or has been downplayed by Hindustan Times and by Headlines Today. The Hindustan Times is a Birla company owned by Kumar Mangalam’s cousin Shobhana Bhartia and Kumar Mangalam Birla has invested heavily in the India Today group.

     

    From what I have checked, Hindustan Times on October 16 of its Mumbai edition did not carry the story as lead, unlike every other paper. The story appeared on page 10, a nation page, below the fold. I cannot confirm the Headlines Today accusation because I did not track the channel after the story broke.

     

    However, there can be little doubt that this is how corporate investment is a potential danger for even a semblance of free and fair journalism: conflict of interest. Is it possible to keep burying such a story? Conversely, how would it look if these journals or news channels tried to support KM Birla? Indrajit Hazra, a columnist with Hindustan Times, has written this rather scathing piece for newslaundry.com on this “lapse”: http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/10/canaries-in-the-mine-shaft/

     

    R Sukumar, editor of Mint, also from the Hindustan Times group, has this perspective to offer in Mint: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/F7R4IYn8nJp2Kj5C5RwtaN/Edspace–The-Kumarmangalam-Birla-story.html

     

    It’s a slippery slope and we’re all falling down it as far as I can see…

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own

     

  • If 26/11 was the making of Times Now, it was also a battleground for newspapers, writes Ranjona Banerji. For journalists, it was the story of the decade playing out in front of one's eyes

    Ranjona Banerji: 26/11 – battleground news channels and newspapers

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Like many others in Mumbai, I also got a phone call from friends asking me to switch on the TV on the night of November 26, 2008. And then all night, I watched the surreal events being played out in front of millions. The first suspicions were of a drug gang shootout in Colaba – an area known for the unsavoury characters that emerge once the sun sets. But as the focus shifted from Colaba to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (also known as VT) and then to Mumbai’s most iconic hotels, the Taj and the Trident (still called the Oberoi) it was clear that something far more sinister was going on.

     

    Images of the young and gleeful Ajmal Kasab began to flash on TV screens, evil intent apparent in his glittering eyes – or so it seemed to us. There was news of the best and the brightest of Mumbai’s police force being killed in the attacks. There was fear for friends who were out in the area – and never have mobile phones been more useful. There was immense sorrow as news of those missing began to emerge. In my case, it was an old school friend who I had known since we were both five.

     

    But in all this, you had also to look at the events as a journalist. You were not just a voyeur. You were a trained professional with what is in media terms the story of the decade playing out in front of your eyes. The first drum beat roll therefore has to go to television. Many brave young reporters stood out there for three days telling the world what was happening inside the hotels and Nariman House which were under siege for three days after the first attacks on Cafe Leopold and CST on the night of November 26 ended. By Thursday morning Kasab – the only surviving terrorist of the 10 – had been captured.

     

    Much as this was a seminal moment for television, it was a particular turning point for Times Now. It emerged as the best channel covering the events and Arnab Goswami – for a long time playing catch up with TV stars and his former colleagues Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai – emerged as a national figure. Dutt and Sardesai made two rookie mistakes – they jumped into the fray and tried to get in front of the cameras instead of being the conductor in the studio. This meant that they could only give viewers impressions. All the ground information still had to come from reporters.

     

    Goswami by contrast stayed in the studio, letting his reporters do their jobs. Editors of newspapers very rarely jump into ground coverage. Not just because they are lazy fat cats but because they know that they have beat reporters trained to do their jobs and it is hard to beat them for information. An editor can go out there to see what’s happening. He or she can provide colour copy. But editors are far more valuable in the newsroom orchestrating coverage. Times Now’s other advantage is that it is Mumbai-based unlike other TV channels which are situated in Delhi.

     

    There have been complaints against Goswami and Dutt that they gave away vital information about the locations of guests to the terrorists. In the case of Goswami, he acknowledged the error and then stopped that line of questioning. The same cannot be said for Dutt.

     

    There were also complaints that the media concentrated on the five star hotels because it is anti-poor. This argument is ludicrous. The attacks moved to the five star hotels and stayed there as commandos fought a deadly battle with the terrorists. There were no terrorists at CST from Thursday onwards. Also, as events unfolded as fast as they did, it is unfair to expect the media to have a foolproof coverage plan. For a long time, no one had a clue what was going on, least of all the authorities.

     

    If 26/11 was the making of Times Now, it was also a battleground for newspapers. The Times of India was at the spot and that gave it a massive advantage. But even though I was working there at the time, I have to give a big shout-out to DNA. I had watched in horror as DNA was paralysed during the July 2006 serial bomb blasts in the train service. I could not believe that I had just joined a newspaper which fell to pieces during a crisis like this – when it should in fact have claimed it as its own, as a new entrant to the Mumbai market.

     

    DNA redeemed itself during the November 2008 terror attacks. In one of those remarkable miracles – which I had seen once before in The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition during the Gujarat 2002 riots – the newsroom rose as one. Internal conflicts and politics were put aside and everyone assumed responsibility. It was a stupendous effort and it showed in print. The other newspapers could not match us – for that time at least.

     

    The tragedy at the personal level remained however. Old friend and fellow journalist Sabina Sehgal did indeed die in the attacks on the Taj. And in another note, none of the promises made to Mumbai at that time have materialised.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona. The views here are her own