MxMIndia

Tag: Anna Hazare

  • It's very clear by now that, drunk on the TV media's fan-like support, members of the team have become arrogant and Dubya-like in their attitude. The 'my way or the highway' deal. How healthy is that approach for democracy, we all know quite well.

    Anil Thakraney: Cut the Anna crusade

    By Anil Thakraney

     

    It is fashionable to credit the social media for Team Anna’s stupendous run. They have managed to hilao the government big-time, and it is often said their oxygen is the support provided by tweeters and facebookers. I totally disagree.

     

    The real fuel for Anna’s campaign comes from the television media. It is they who, in their childlike enthusiasm, have converted the saint from Ralegaon Siddhi into a god-like cult figure. And quite frankly, I am not surprised. It’s our TV media’s belief that any story that generates ratings must be given liberal play, even if it demolishes every tenet of good journalism. From no angle can you justify the role played by the assorted news channels as crusaders and poster boys for Team Anna. When the social media does that, it becomes understandable. Because the virtual world consists of individuals fed up of corruption… dudes who don’t really comprehend the complexities of the Lokpal bill, and are basically venting steam. That’s fine. But for professional journalists to become recruitment agents for Anna is simply an appalling situation.

     

    Anyway, what’s done is done. Team Anna is threatening Hunger Strike Part 2, this time from the ‘salubrious’ Mumbai. At least this time around the news channels must respect the principles of journalism and desist from going over-the-top on the coverage. Because it’s very clear by now that, drunk on the TV media’s fan-like support, members of the team have become arrogant and Dubya-like in their attitude. The ‘my way or the highway’ deal. How healthy is that approach for democracy, we all know quite well.

     

    Bottom-line: Let Team Anna fight its own battles. Report the story, like any other story, and no more. There are other interesting ways to get good ratings. Try village horror stories. At least they don’t threaten Indian democracy.

     

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    PS: Wieden + Kennedy’s London office has found a charming way to wish you this season. The agency has set up a window outside their office, from where passers-by can take part in the celebrations. Lovely idea.

     

    Link: http://achoirofyou.com/

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on prime time news and the morning papers

    It’s the economy, stupid

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Perhaps appropriately, the problems of the Indian economy have taken centre-stage. Some newspapers are concentrating on the falling rupee while others are concerned about the falling industrial growth rate. Both seem to be legitimate headlines. The general consensus seems to be lack of governance and the general drift of UPA II. Says The Times of India in its editorial on Wednesday, “If the political class needs a crisis to see that policy gridlock is strangling our economy, then that crisis is upon us… But the onus is also on the opposition to forego bloody-minded politics which makes the government’s job harder.”

     

    The Indian Express in its editorial concentrates on decline on the Index of Industrial Production and comments, “Unfortunately the slowdown has hit us at a time when real interest rates are negative.” However it cautions the Reserve Bank to wait and watch before “taking action”. It also brings up the valid point of many students coming out of management institutes being unable to find jobs if industrial and services growth on a downward spiral.

     

    The Deccan Chronicle in its editorial looks at how Indian companies are now looking abroad to invest their money, given the situation in India. “What India and the economy urgently needs to grow at this point is low inflation, low interest rates, immediate implementation of the new manufacturing and procurement policy, and a business-friendly transparent environment to unleash India’s unmatched entrepreneurial strengths.”

     

    The Economic Times carries a feature on the rupee crisis headlined “India Inc sends an SoS to RBI’. A Subba Rao of the GMR group is quoted as saying, “It’s like a natural calamity, like a tsunami… with the rupee falling so fast and so sharply, there is only so much you can do.”

     

    A discussion on Times Now on Tuesday had FICCI chairman Rajiv Kumar practically begging politicians to sort our their problems and prevent a further downslide in the economy. His predictions were dire unlike Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s somewhat sanguine assurances that things were not so bad.

     

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    Given our current obsession with corruption, two stories in Wednesday’s newspapers deserve attention. The Telegraph, Calcutta, has a story on how the Jyoti Basu government handed the AMRI hospital land in the Dhakuria area of Kolkata between 1994 and 1998 at rates that will remain frozen till at least 2024. Unlike other such deals, there are apparently no provisions for revision of the rental rates. The state government has, according to the report, acquired the land in 1991 to provide affordable healthcare.

     

    The Indian Express’s flyer story looks at the various irregularities in the Noida farmhouse allotments, from which a key member of the Anna Hazare-Jan Lokpal movement also benefited – Shanti Bhushan and his son Jayant. The Express report provides details of various transgressions and concessions, many of which appear to be inexplicable.

     

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    Even as TV continues to be the chief champion of Anna Hazare and his campaign for his Jan Lokpal Bill, the print media conversely continues to question. The Economic Times in its second editorial on Wednesday says, ‘Anna Hazare has displaced the my-way-or-highway sort of undemocratic attitude reminiscent of authoritarianism and a vigilante-style notion of justice and that is part of the problem.” It cautions against actions which will lead to anarchy.

     

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  • Mail Today celebrates its fourth anniversary today in a year with 104-page edition

    Mail Today celebrates 4th anniversary

    By Akash Raha

     

    Mail Today celebrates its fourth anniversary today in a year that has seen overwhelming change. The daily compact will celebrate the milestone by putting together a 56-page section dedicated to the ‘The Game Changers’. This section accompanied the main edition of 48 pages today.

     

    In the pages of the anniversary edition, the Mail Today team of reporters and editors across the country will profile a diverse lot of people. From Anna Hazare, who has reset the country’s political agenda, to Mamata Banerjee, whose gale force swept away the Left bastion in West Bengal, from the Supreme Court of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, which has turned the constitution into a force for change, to Subramaniam Swamy, the unraveller of the 2G spectrum scam, these change agents have given us reasons for hope even in the nation’s darkest moments.

     

    Speaking about the anniversary issue and the way ahead, Rahul Thappa, COO, Mail today said “Mail Today in its own inimitable way has been a harbinger of change in the newspaper industry over the last four years. Our fearless content and often irreverent voice has offered the new Indian an intelligent option to the content they otherwise had be contented with. We have grown from strength to strength over the last four years and in doing so have defied conventional thinking. We have made a significant dent in the Delhi/NCR market and shall continue to consolidate our strength in the High Net Worth homes of the region. Growth is the only imperative for us and we shall be a harbinger of change to in other parts of the country as well. In our fifth year we plan to continue to delight our readers and surprise our competition and in doing so cement our positioning as the voice of the new Indian.”

    Even though corruption may have dominated the news headlines, but these harbingers of change drivers, in their own ways, have redefined the rules of engagement in their chosen fields and made stellar (and sometime debatable) contributions to our lives and lifestyle. These men and women have changed the way we relate to politics, business, sports, films, fashion, cars, books, gadgets and gizmos, and the arts. The anniversary edition hereby celebrates the inevitable fact of contemporary India.

    The anniversary issue celebrates the achievements of many remarkable Indians too who have catalyzed change without getting the media attention they deserve. People such as Kumar Mangalam Birla, who has refused to pay ‘facilitation money’ despite losing out on project, or Suneet Singh Kohli, the creator of the world’s cheapest tablet, or the UP Lokayukta Justice (Retd) N.K. Mehrotra, who has got Mayawati to suspend four of her corrupt ministers, or Mahaveer Golechha, the AIIMS scientist who has invented a candidate drug for the cure of Alzheimer’s Disease, or even the farmers of Bhatta Parsaul, who at a tremendous personal loss took on the state government and a powerful lobby of builders to make land acquisition at just rates a national issue.

    The game changers in politics, government and business aren’t the only ones who have given us our moments of celebration. We’ve had Ekta Kapoor venture into territories where no film production company had gone before and Sameer Gaur pull off this year’s biggest international sporting spectacle — the F1; we’ve seen the hitherto unknown Abhinay Deo push the creative envelope with Delhi Belly and Kalki Koechlin become the unlikeliest of Bollywood success stories; we have celebrated Prabal Gurung’s designs being worn by Michelle Obama and the elevation of fashion designer Manish Arora as the creative director of the Franco-Spanish design house Paco Rabanne, making him the first Indian to head the creative side of a leading international high-street fashion label.

    Mail Today was launched on November 16, 2007 in Delhi by the India Today group, in collaboration with Associated Newspaper of the UK (publishers of Daily Mail). As per the IRS 2011 Q2 figures, Mail Today showed a growth in readership and is firmly placed in the number three position in Delhi market.

  • When our hysteria-obsessed TV channels realised that a natural calamity was more newsworthy than a man-made one

    Why democracy can so easily be an ‘obstacle’

    Four days of a severe throat infection meant little TV news and or newspapers. This I thought would save me from minute by minute updates on the condition of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s fast for amity or goodwill or whatever he called it. But as it turned out, I was wrong. The fast may have been covered but Modi’s condition was left out of it. So unlike with Anna Hazare, whose weight, blood pressure and such were reported in detail, we were given few clues on how much weight Modi had shed. Also, since the earthquake struck Sikkim on Sunday evening, even our hysteria-obsessed TV channels realised that a natural calamity was more newsworthy than a man-made one.

    Unfortunately, not only is our knowledge about the North-East of India decidedly dim, so is our television coverage as few channels have correspondents or camera crew stationed close by or even perhaps adequate arrangements with local channels. Thus we had to depend on telephone reports and as usual it is not till you get the next day’s paper that you really know what’s going on. Also given our India-obsession, our channels behaved as if the earthquake only affected Sikkim, pretty much ignoring the damage in neighbouring Nepal and Tibet. This is, one assumes, a form of patriotism.

    The damage which obsessive TV – with regard to the coverage of the Anna Hazare movement in particular — can do was brought home to me quite severely while addressing students of a media course at a Mumbai college on Saturday , when one wanted to know how we can get around an obstacle like democracy when it comes to reducing corruption!

    Changes made to the Board of Control for Cricket in India were examined threadbare on television and with many anchors palpably upset that there had been no public executions or floggings after India’s losses in England. It becomes clearer every minute you watch TV news why democracy can so easily be an “obstacle”.

     

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    Newspapers covered Modi’s fast as well but with far more scepticism, many choosing to concentrate on the fissures within both the BJP and the NDA. The Telegraph, Calcutta, has a story with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) making it clear than Modi was not a suitable prime ministerial candidate. Of course, all this jumping the gun a bit since the next general election is in 2014 and it is unlikely that Modi will be fasting all the way up to then, amity or no amity.

    Tuesday’s Hindustan Times underlined its scepticism of Modi’s amity fast with an editorial, a lead edit page piece by Sitaram Yechury as well as a column by its senior political analyst Vinod Sharma.

    The Times of India reduced Modi to a second edit, ‘Strange Sadbhavna’. The front page concentrated on its Social Impact Awards, to honour people who make India a better place. The Times of India has fine-tuned the knack of being all things to all people, greedy, socially conscientious, middle of the road and of course as with Times Now, decidedly rightwing.

    Also expectedly, newspapers concentrated on the devastation and death toll in all the quake-affected areas and not just on Indian casualties. Clearly, whatever the sure signs of degradation of standards in the Indian media, some of the better practices still manage to rise about the sludge.

    Most mainline daily choose to downplay or ignore US president Barack Obama’s plan to increase taxes to cut down the country’s budget deficit. The pink papers however could not. And weeks after Warren Buffett wrote an impassioned column in the New York Times on how he and his rich friends did not mind paying more tax, Indian papers picked up on it. Of course, this was because of a throwaway line in Obama’s speech – but since the speech was telecast live by all international and business channels, you could not escape it. Indian newspapers and channels seem to have one mantra down pat – never upset rich people. Obama apparently – and the New York Times for that matter – has no such qualms.

     

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    We need someone to explain our country’s nuclear policy to us cogently and intelligently as ever since the Japan tsunami there have been very real fears and very strong protests. Indian television goes overboard and Indian newspapers play it down. Help?!