MxMIndia

Tag: Noosemaker

  • After sympathising with the media at his rally, the MNS leader's love for the media didn't last long. Now, it's directed against the Hindi news channels who he finds irresponsible

    Ranjona Banerji: On how Raj Thackeray finds Hindi news channels ‘irresponsible’

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    And once more, into the limelight, Shri Raj Thackeray of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena: having basked in a bit of public attention after his rally last month, why not milk it?

     

    After all, a police commissioner was shunted out soon after he made just that demand and some members of the media actually said that his speech at the rally was not that bad. Plus, he even pretended to sympathise with the media, since they suffered at the hands of protesters at the Raza Academy rally, which Thackeray’s rally was protesting against.

     

    Of course, this love for the media was not going to last long. And now, here it comes: the famous Thackeray rage directed at the media. In this instance, it’s just the Hindi media. (The English media is exempt from rage this time but not from contempt: it apparently operates from a different planet.)

     

    Thackeray has objected to the fact that many criminals in Mumbai are from Bihar (huh? Vijay Palande, anyone?). And then these criminals infiltrate (either to or from, I didn’t quite understand this) Nepal and Bangladesh. And the Bihar police must control its own criminals and stop them coming to Mumbai (which has criminals of its own).

     

    Then he got angry with Hindi news channels for reporting what he said. He said their reporting was irresponsible (irresponsibility is something that Raj Thackeray understands very well). Having himself started a Mumbai-versus-Bihar debate, Thackeray is angry with the Hindi media for taking it further.

     

    He is also angry with the Bihar police for objecting to the Mumbai police, which did not follow some procedures when it arrested people from Bihar. This is the same Mumbai police that Thackeray had slammed at his own rally but how dare Bihar criticise anything or anyone from Mumbai?

     

    Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is hopping mad and has called Thackeray insane.

     

    Thackeray meanwhile is not just protecting Mumbai from the evil Hindi media and Biharis, but also from singer Asha Bhosale and Pakistani singers. The borders of Maharashtra are to be kept safe from all such elements. Bhosale has refused to listen to Raj Thackeray even though she loves him very much. The Hindi media never listens to any criticism or they would have stopped news broadcasts about ghosts and alien landings long ago (although perhaps when they talk about alien landings, they mean the English media). Nitish Kumar is furious. And Thackeray is overjoyed that he’s back in the news again.

     

    Incidentally, in Tamil Nadu, chief minister J Jayalalitha is saving India from young Sri Lankan football players.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are her own.

     

  • Yes, panic can spread through a mass communication system but stopping the system will not stop the panic. Humans have been victims of mass panic as long as they've been human and will use whatever means possible

    Ranjona Banerji: Shooting the messenger

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    As usual, it was shoot-the-messenger time during a crisis. And this time, instead of the perennially wicked journalist, it was social media which was deemed the villain. Of course, the social media can be villainous or it can be sweet (if sickeningly sweet then it is a villain in my eyes anyway) or it can be bland, informative, helpful and so on. What I’m trying to suggest is that it can be as good or bad as the people who use it.

     

    Anyway, given all the horrors of people being killed and people running away in terror and inflammatory pictures and messages being spread around, it was decided that the medium of the information was responsible. As a result of all this human bad behaviour, Twitter and Facebook have been looked at askance, websites have been blocked and no one is allowed to send more than five text messages a day.

     

    This is not the first time this short-sighted method will be applied and it won’t be the last. Yes, panic can spread through a mass communication system but stopping the system will not stop the panic. Humans have been victims of mass panic as long as they’ve been human and will use whatever means possible. The same methods can be used to spread peace, love and good will as well (okay, that’s a stretch but technically it is possible).

     

    Anyway, the government of India went on its blame-the-messenger spree, TV anchors thundered for action against the culprits (stretched on the rack Torquemada style or stuck in the stocks so that village people can throw potatoes at them) and the rest of India put up with it. A few people tried to point out that in recent memory, rumours of a murderous monkey man caused panic in Ghaziabad in the pre-Twitter era and before that, the Ganesha-drinking-milk story sent people into a massive frenzy. No mobile phones and no internet in those days.

     

    But facts must never stand in the way of truth, as a Twitterer said to a journalist who dared to point out that figures in Assam do not match stories of recent mass migration of Muslims.

     

    And so it is on Twitter. And on the receiving end of the rage of the social media’s users was Sagarika Ghose of CNN IBN. She suggested in her tweets that the government needs to look at hate-spreaders on Twitter and Facebook as well. This may have been an emotional response but it was ill-thought-out and made her the brunt of enormous outrage. As is usual with the internet, the attacks were vicious, rude, cruel and far beyond the norms of accepted civilised behaviour. It is a fact that the anonymity of the internet prompts people to behave in ways they would not in normal social settings. At the same time, you also see how easily all our veneers of civilisation can be stripped away. Ghose’s tweets may be contestable but the attacks on her were unwarranted.

     

    Nature of the beast. The problem, though, is not the media. It’s the humans who use it. Now what to do?

     

  • The British feel that Indians only feel welcome when they see other Indians. In this case it backfired – as cultural determinism normally does

    Ranjona Banerji: Honey, you stole the show!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    It’s hard to choose the biggest noosemaker of last week. Was it Danny Boyle for his quirky, funny and very British opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games? Was it Madhura Nagendra aka Madhura Honey for gate-crashing India’s flag march in the parade of nations and not being colour coordinated at the same time? Or was it our old friends, the various members of Team Anna in their fight against corruption and the people of India who support them?

     

    This Honey or Nagendra person, depending on how affectionate you feel about her, has got no affection from the people of India – even less than they have for Anna Hazare. She smiled as she stole the show from our athletes but since then she has apparently even cancelled her Facebook page. The crime was double-fold: walking in the parade as if she belonged there, smiling away and then wearing bright red and turquoise which clashed horrible with the yellow of the Indian team. This is a rule which all gate-crashers must follow – at least attempt to blend in.

     

    Her daddy in Bangalore has tried to defend her (daddies are vital for the defence of all those connected with Indian sport as we discovered in the Bhupathi-Paes face off, especially daddies from Bangalore) and so funnily enough has Lord Sebastian Coe of the London Olympics. Nagendra got “over-excited” he said. She was supposed to be a performer which is why she was lurking about, but was not eventually selected which is why she had no business lurking about. Then there’s the other suspicion (mine) of the British propensity for cultural determinism. Someone put her there to make the Indians athletes feel welcome as they entered the arena, it was hinted at somewhere. This is because the British feel that Indians only feel welcome when they see other Indians. In this case it backfired – as cultural determinism normally does.

     

    So where does it leave Danny Boyle? Probably wishing he had selected Honey-Nagendra. What is this Honey thing anyway? The Indian press applauded the opening ceremony as did most of the world. Most even forgot that there was some speculation about AR Rahman being part of the show -which he wasn’t and no one cared.

     

    Mumbai Mirror’s headline “Tepid London Boyle’s Over” upset firstpost.com which pointed out that the headline and the body copy did not match.

     

    * * *

     

    That leads us to the latest fast by Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption crusaders. Last year over one lakh people supported him in Delhi and that was a lot and this year 6,000 people supported him and that was a lot. In Mumbai last year when 5,000 turned up in Bandra that was too little, and this year 2,000 people in VT is a lot.

     

    Thus proving that even mathematics is relative: If only my maths teacher had bought that argument when I was in school.

     

  • The award for Noosemaker/Whiner/Tantrum Thrower of the week is divided between PA Sangma and Sharad Pawar

    Ranjona Banerji: NCP ties itself for Whiner of the Week award

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The winner of the presidential election maybe Pranab Mukherjee but the award for Noosemaker/Whiner/Tantrum Thrower of the week is divided between PA Sangma and Sharad Pawar. One is former NCP, the other current NCP and both founders of the NCP.

     

    Pawar suddenly decided that he was very upset with the sort of musical chairs being played at Cabinet meetings. I quite sympathise because I never liked musical chairs as a kid at birthday parties. Today’s children will not understand, but in the olden days birthday parties were an elaborate form of torture for children, who were forced to compete with each other and make fools of themselves in order to get a slice of cake and a few chips. Sounds a bit like today’s political parties actually.

     

    Anyway, Pawar felt that every time the music stopped, he was forced to sit in another chair. Sometimes it was the second chair (first being the prime minister) and sometimes it was chair 3 or 4. This was clearly insulting. He might have only nine MPs but why should that other chap from a much smaller state holding a job that Pawar once did get the second chair?

     

    Later we were told he was not so petty to be worried about chairs. All he wanted was a coordination committee. Whatever.

     

    PA Sangma, former Lok Sabha speaker and the country’s best known Tribal and Christian – according to him – wanted to become President of India. This is a legitimate goal, but Sangma, one might say, went about it the wrong way. He approached, of all people, Naveen Patnaik and J Jayalalitha for help. However powerful they may be in their own states, they did not have the numbers to make Sangma President.

     

    Since Sangma was part of the UPA, he could have at least spoken to someone within the coalition. Instead he chose to go out of it. After much reluctance, the BJP decided to support him. The UPA and two NDA allies supported Pranab Mukherjee. Everyone except Sangma saw Mukherjee’s victory as a foregone conclusion. Not because Mukherjee is much loved or the greatest person ever but because the UPA had the numbers. Then Sangma and the BJP said he wanted to be the loser with the highest number of votes (this is a strange award category known only to Indian politicians).

     

    Then Sangma said that he had to win for India’s Tribals and Christians. Most Tribals and Christians were silent. (As it turned out, not all of their representatives voted for Sangma.) Then Sangma said that Mukherjee had used a comma where it was not needed in his nomination form and had not used the right kind of nib in his pen. Also, he did not stand on the right side of the table when submitting the form (unlike Sangma who seems to be heading quite firmly to the right). Since Sangma was by now advised by the world’s biggest litigator Subramaniam Swamy, the plan was to go straight to the Supreme Court with 1,000 public interest litigations. The Election Commission blocked that route.

     

    So now that Sangma has not become president, he is nibbling away at sour grapes. He should not, because he is now eligible for the Best Sore Loser and Most Ungracious Defeat speech awards, with a good chance of winning both. The Congress used bribery, extortion and threats to get Mukherjee to win and the North East states (which elected Mukherjee by the biggest margins) betrayed him.

     

    Boo hoo hoo.

     

  • We cannot fully assess if a politician is good or bad until a foreign journalist pops by, talks to a few taxi drivers and Indian journalists and then writes a complimentary (good) or scathing (bad) comment piece

    Ranjona Banerji: Foreign media is only credible observer of Indian politics

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There is now only one credible observer of Indian politics – the foreign media in India. We cannot fully assess if a politician is good or bad until a foreign journalist pops by, talks to a few taxi drivers and Indian journalists and then writes a complimentary (good) or scathing (bad) comment piece.

     

    Now, you’re thinking, aha, sour grapes but far from it. It is all a question of perspective. Indian journalists, especially in Delhi, are too close to the centres of power. They are so familiar with what’s going on and party to so many secrets that they now spend more time discussing whether the blue in Manmohan Singh’s turban has changed in the last eight years. (Some say yes, some say no and the rest are fence-sitters.)

     

    The foreign media however comes in from far away and has no clue about all this inner stuff. They attend a few parties (these are vital sources of information and political analysis, as those who read through the diplomatic cables made public by Wikileaks will know), meet a few Indian print journalists (bluer, paler, maybe both), they may meet a few TV journalists but that’s for entertainment since they have no political perspective, although I hear they throw really good dinner parties. And, obviously, the few taxi drivers. This is imperative as every traveller knows – one taxi driver can be equal to at least five other potential interviewees.

     

    Yesterday, I met a cabbie in Mumbai who told me that Indian politics turns on Uttar Pradesh. Now I know. If these foreign political commentators are really smart however, they will never even leave whichever country they come from (usually the USA or the UK). How else have I become a world renowned expert on Barack Obama and David Cameron? (Actually, by watching Comedy Central and Graham Norton.)

     

    Therefore we now know that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a poodle, useless, confused and steeped in doom and gloom. Everyone has said it from Time to the Economist to The New York Times to the Independent.

     

    The poodle reference can be translated in Indian terms to a puppet. Yes I know, Indian commentators have been saying that for years. But what do they know, eh? (On the other hand, their view has now been authenticated!) Meanwhile I must be off to watch a few more skits on Comedy Central so I can hone my analytical skills.

     

  • Although we are often accused of being jingoistic (by me), when it comes to football, it is the beauty of the game which gets us

    Ranjona Banerji: India’s great football triumph = Viva Espana!

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    So who was bigger this week? European football or the prime minister as the finance minister? In spite of how much we love the Indian economy and can now all speak knowingly about repo rates and supply side economics, actually it is the question of whether Spain is really the greatest sporting nation in the world or not that concerns us.

     

    Since everyone stayed up all night on Sunday to find out – all the newspapers that is, not me – we can now safely say that football is the second biggest sport in India, after cricket. In fact, sometimes newspapers do not stay up all night to bring us the results of late night cricket matches, especially where India is not playing, so…

     

    I point this out because the chances of India playing at the Euro Cup are, of course, zero but the chances of India playing football at the international level are also, er, zero.

     

    No one, however, cares. Although we are often accused of being jingoistic (by me), when it comes to football, it is the beauty of the game which gets us. All these European countries fighting each other as they chase a ball around a field affects us deeply. We take on loyalties that are deep and meaningful, we become close to all the players and we have no compunctions about fighting with our friends who support the wrong team. I see “we” in a generous sense that has nothing to do with me, since I don’t understand any of this.

     

    Funnily enough, we don’t even care that we can’t even make tenuous Indian connections which make us so happy at other times – the white mayor of Pigsknuckle, Arkansas once ate an Indian meal made by second-generation Indian immigrant Lucky Kohli, thus proving how great India is.

     

    Spain is now top country for India (I make this arbitrary judgment based on Twitter), even though I don’t think that Spain has many of the celebrity footballers who make the news the rest of the time when they play for clubs (Messi, Ronaldo, Rooney are the ones who pop up all the time for philistines like me). Also, once the World Cup arrives and the South American teams take part, all these loyalties will shift again.

     

    Indian TV news does devote some time to football but not as much as Indian newspapers which even sent correspondents to Poland and Ukraine. That is why newspapers are at the vanguard of identifying the sports which fascinate the new India.

     

    TV news is involved in saving India night after night so sport, unless it involves scandal, is not really that newsworthy. No?

     

    PS: The prime minister as finance minister? Boring!

     

  • What a fine example of India's famous familial feeling we have here – and dare we say it, India's long traditions of patriarchy

    Ranjona Banerji: Crazy, like a fool; what about Daddy Cool?

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    If you are an aging tennis star in India, one element vital for your success is a Daddy. Without a Daddy, you can win on the tennis courts. But as we all know, that is not where wars are won, that is where minor skirmishes are fought. The big fight is in the media. You need a Daddy to defend you, speak for you, put forward your point of view – do all the things you are incapable of or couldn’t be bothered to do yourself.

     

    Which is why in the fight between Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, it is the Daddies who have taken centre court. Why is Bhupathi behaving like such an ass? Out pops Daddy Bhupathi to explain. What is Leander actually going to do? Only Daddy Paes can attempt to answer that.

     

    There are plenty of theories put forward about how men and their fathers operate and many experts use the Oedipus tragedy (son kills father to marry mother) to explain the tension between sons and daddies. But not for the old men of Indian tennis, all this psychobabble poppycock. Compete with their Daddies? Whatever for, when their Daddies are their biggest allies, wiping their botties, filling up their juice bottles, putting on their bibs and interpreting their baby babble for the public.

     

    In women’s tennis, daddies are usually more famous for teaching their daughters some hubble-bubble tennis based on their own crackpot theories and then stealing all their money. Heaven forbid that the Daddies of India’s most famous male tennis players could ever be accused of such reprehensible behaviour. Instead, here they are, speaking up for their adult sons who threaten, bully and sulk their way to the Olympic Games – or not.

     

    What a fine example of India’s famous familial feeling we have here – and dare we say it, India’s long traditions of patriarchy. Birds you know are quite cruel to their babies and push them out of their nests so they can learn to fly. But these tennis Daddies are not wicked birdies – they love their sons and will do whatever the sons want.

     

    I know many daddies who would give such sons two put-puts on their large almost 40-year-old botties and make them fight their own battles. Er, maybe if we had such grown-up, speak-for-themselves tennis stars and less protective Daddies, we might not find ourselves in this Olympic mess?

     

  • The Union finance minister, perhaps inspired by incumbent Pratibha Patil’s wonderful lifestyle, wants a similar retirement plan for himself

    Ranjona Banerji: Will Pranab Mukherjee be our next President?

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Do we have a President of India at last in Pranab Mukherjee? The Union finance minister, perhaps inspired by incumbent Pratibha Patil’s wonderful lifestyle, wanted a similar retirement plan for himself. Lovely house and gardens, lots of fuss and protocol and nothing to do – perfect!

     

    This is hardly surprising since Mukherjee is the most hard-working man in the Universe. Not only is he the finance minister, a bad enough job, he is also the go-to man for both the government and the party. If the prime minister’s not there, Mukherjee’s in charge. If some ally is misbehaving, off goes Mukherjee to sort it out. If anything in the government is going wrong, Mukherjee to the rescue. If Parliament needs to be taught a lesson, up pops Mukherjee. Since he is 900 years old and has been part of every Parliament as long as anyone can remember, no one can contradict him. Earlier, in the 1970s, no one could contradict him because he always had a pipe in his mouth, so no one could understand him. Now he has got rid off the pipe but comprehension is still a prerequisite to contradiction. He also has a look in Parliament and if he gives you one, you quail and sit down quietly. This puts an end to the Opposition usually.

     

    In addition to this, he is head of some 8,000 Groups of Ministers and another 8,000 Empowered Groups of Ministers. (I really don’t know what these are but they sound important.) Effectively, this means the government will come to a standstill once Mukherjee moves to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Since we in a form of paralysis anyway, the government is hoping no one will notice.

     

    The main thorn in Mukherjee side is his “sister” Mamata Banerjee, also known as “I am a simple man”. The “simple man” does not want Mukherjee in the top chair. Bengali parochialism has still not recovered. This is akin to Bengalis supporting Kolkata Knight Riders instead of Pune Warriors. Oh, right, they’ve done that anyway. The TV channels are wondering how the man who everyone (except them) knew would get the job, eventually got it in spite of all their best efforts. India demands an answer here.

     

    The two comedy acts running on the sideline are PA Sangma and Arvind Kejriwal. The BJP is wondering whether or not to join this laughter challenge.

     

    The only person laughing all the way to the Mughal Gardens is Pranab Mukherjee!

     

  • Cartoons have caused incalculable damage in the recent past, writes Ranjona Banerji in 'Noosemaker'

    Ranjona Banerji: Cartoons as weapons of mass destruction!

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    All efforts are now being made to wipe out India’s most dangerous weapon of mass destruction: the political cartoon. This awful instrument of power, if it falls into the wrong hands (ie, cartoonists), can end up doing the most terrible damage to reputations, thin skin and “sentiments”.

     

    In recent times cartoons have caused incalculable damage. But strangely – and this is their enormous reach – the cartoons have emerged from the past where they had been lurking. It is not enough to imagine that because today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s sev puri wrapping, the power of the cartoon is diminished. It has an insidious way of reappearing in other forms – like those other lethal objects, books. And even worse, textbooks.

     

    Young minds, while they can easily absorb news of war and cruelty and indeed thrive on the vulgarity which passes for entertainment in India, would be irreparably tainted if faced with a political cartoon. And yet, by stealth for what else could it be, these cartoons have managed to inveigle themselves into textbooks.

     

    It started however with that other source of free expression, the Internet. Someone committed the most heinous act of forwarding a cartoon making fun of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. But in spite of the strict action taken against the transgressor, the cartoon has only got bolder.

     

    Soon after a cartoon from 1949 was discovered being satirical about the delays in putting the Constitution together. Not only did it show the Constituent Assembly as a snail but it showed Dr BR Ambedkar sitting on the snail, with a whip in hand and then Jawaharlal Nehru whipping the snail. This is wrong on so many levels and particularly to snails. What have these fat sluggish creatures done to deserve whips? They have no feet and they cannot move any faster. There are no records about the action taken against the cartoon in 1949 by the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals but one can only hope that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals will soon be holding a mass agitation at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi to increase awareness about this subjugation of snails. Good luck with getting hundreds of naked girls to agree to have snails crawling all over their bodies – a normal PETA method of agitprop. But protests there have been and there must be.

     

    And now we have a cartoon from 1968 implying that students in Tamil Nadu knew neither Hindi nor English. Now what could be more insulting to the education system of the past? Implying that students had been taught nothing is most unfair. How can the education system from 1968 possibly stand up for itself? It is therefore only right that the protests should happen in 2012.

     

    The other way of course is to put the cartoon on the endangered species list and wait for the World Wildlife Fund to step in…

     

  • Now that the IPL is over however, it will be interesting to see how our perpetual moaning machines in the media will fill up their time…

    [MJR] IPL symptomatic of the end of civilization

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There’s only one newsmaker this morning and that’s the IPL. As Manoj Tiwary hit a four over Chepauk stadium winning the title for the Kolkata Knight Riders, season five of a very successful Indian Premier League comes to an end.

     

    And what a season it has been – a film star team owner fights with a security guard, another film star team owner castigates a third umpire for being unfair to one of her players, a player assaults a woman at a party, five players are exposed for spot-fixing and the management is exposed for unfair processes in the buying and selling of players… have I left anything out?

     

    And then there’s been the cricket. The drama over Saurav Ganguly now being with the Pune Warriors, the expectation that Sachin Tendulkar would soon reach his 1000th Test century, the thrilling last ball finishes, the sentiment attached to Rahul Dravid and all the news finds.

     

    And of course, the media. For some, like the ultra-bore Boria Majumdar parked in the Times of India stable, the IPL is symptomatic of the end of civilisation. The erudite Ram Guha doesn’t like it either. A player misbehaves at a party and a couple of former players threaten to go on a hunger strike – which I don’t think happened. Or at least, everyone forgot soon after. The TV channels also decided that IPL was the thin end of the wedge before the human race sinks into an irreversible path of iniquity. I would say the same thing about TV news as far as the fate of the media in India is concerned but…

     

    Sharda Ugra in The Indian Express lauds the good things, hopes the BCCI will fix the bad things and then focuses on what was really wrong with the IPL – the terrible pre and post shows on Sony’s SET Max, Extra Innings. I think there may be an extra ‘a’ in there for some inexplicable reason. Having dispensed with the dispensable Mandira Bedi, we have had the unpalatable and hysterical Gaurav Kapoor and those two girls foisted on us. Isa Guha, since she understood cricket and took it seriously, was a rare breath of fresh air. Why those two badly dressed, screeching and oddly accented girls had to interview minor starlets on the grounds was not explained to us. The cheerleaders in the studio were the worst available. I cannot understand a word Navjot Singh Sidhu says so I was spared tearing my hair out. My only concern was that he needed to go on a diet. Ever since Harsha Bhogle had a hair transplant, I cannot but concentrate on his new fringe to the exclusion of his platitudinous and fatuous observations on cricket.

    Ugra, I have to confess, was not this nasty.

     

    Mid-Day’s headline “Ra.Won” is the winner of the day. The Hindustan Times gave us a sort of truncated report, obviously written in a hurry and the reporter clearly did not like Shah Rukh Khan. The Times of India had a better report – a real surprise since its sports coverage has sunk to new lows recently – but its reporter is clearly no fan of MS Dhoni’s and called him out for his “standard tricks”, in this instance, slow over rate towards the end of the match.

     

    Now that the IPL is over however, it will be interesting to see how our perpetual moaning machines in the media will fill up their time…

     

  • It has been clear to the protectors of both cricket and Indian society from year one that the IPL was BAD NEWS. The very fact that so many people were interested was proof enough

    [MJR] News TV declares IPL root of most evils

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Indian Premier League has now been declared responsible for all India’s problems. This has been unequivocally stated on our TV news channels, and is thus now the incontrovertible truth. This cricket tournament has destroyed our sense of morality, taken us down a road of sex, drugs, violence and betting, not to mention completely killed cricket. These evils, so far unknown and unseen in Indian society, will soon become widespread.

     

    Look at what the IPL has done:

    Item: Made a film star fight with a security guard (violence).

    Item: Made a cricketer molest a woman (sex).

    Item: Made two players go to a rave party (drugs).

    Item: Made five players work out spot-fixing deals with bookies (betting).

    Item: Made players restrict matches to 20 overs a side and then made this version popular with – shudder – cheerleaders (killing cricket).

     

    Against all these charges, the IPL does not stand a chance. It has been clear to the protectors of both cricket and Indian society from year one that the IPL was BAD NEWS. The very fact that so many people were interested was proof enough. And then, all those film stars, starlets, dancing girls, rich people, money, parties – my word, what is the world coming to?

     

    Each year, the IPL, our TV channels have found, has gotten bigger and thus by conclusion it has become worse.

     

    Just look, for instance, what it has done to Shah Rukh Khan: Forced him to fight with a security guard and with Mumbai Cricket Association officials. This is unacceptable behaviour and absolutely no way for film stars to behave. It is one thing to run over people, help gangsters bomb the city or beat up your wife (or even wives). For these crimes, if you’re unlucky, you will get a few newspaper editorials and maybe even go to jail but you will just be seen as a lovable rogue. But fighting with a security guard? That is the end of civilisation as we know it.

     

    It is hard to know what to do to save India after this. No doubt, the TV channels will tell us. A beginning has been made by former cricketers Kirti Azad and Bishen Singh Bedi, who have apparently gone on a hunger strike to save India from the IPL. The TV channels do not appear to have given this hunger strike the 24-hour coverage they granted to Anna Hazare’s hunger strike. But they do assiduously cover the cricket part of the IPL in their sports programmes. Come on, now, the whole country watches the IPL!

     

    * * *

     

    Having made it to the TIME magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most important people, West Bengal chief minister is now planning to top the list and every other list which will ever be made. This is the link to her latest dramatic act – storming out of a CNN-IBN audience meeting in Kolkata, leaving even the formidable Sagorika Ghose, TV anchor and event host, at a loss for words. The CM was furious because the students in the audience were “CPM cadre and Maoists”. That is, they asked questions she didn’t like.

     

    The other link is to the reply written by the erring student.

     

    Enjoy.

     

     

    http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/259724/question-time-didi-watch-the-show-that-mamata-walked-out-of.html

     

    http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120520/jsp/frontpage/story_15509625.jsp#.T7nCA1In3Vq

     

     

  • At a time when the Indian media is grappling with all sorts of issues and allegations, the Murdoch saga presents an interesting contrast

    [MJR] Pity the Poor Politician!

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    This week’s candidate for Noosemaker is our favourite whipping boy – the politician, both in India and abroad.

     

    This poor soul puts every bit of work he or she can into working for the people, but the people are ungrateful sods and show little appreciation. Take for instance, the politicians’ campaign to save the “father of the Indian Constitution” – Dr BR Ambedkar from a cartoonist. Instead of applauding politicians for this act of bravery – in the pursuit of which they even showed the courage to go against the freedom of expression which Ambedkar enshrined in the Constitution – our politicians had to face ridicule.

     

    Instead of congratulating them, people started pulling out facts about Ambedkar’s life, sense of humour, the importance of not disrupting Parliament, the Constitution and irrelevant stuff like that. What on earth, said these beleaguered politicians, have facts got to do with anything. We are saving Dr Ambedkar from a cartoon by Shankar which is part of a textbook. We don’t care if Ambedkar himself saw the cartoon when it first appeared in 1949 or not. We don’t care if Shankar was a famous cartoonist. We are only bothered that Ambedkar’s reputation has been damaged and for that, we’re willing to damage anything and anybody. Including, of course, the offices of one of the academics who decided to include the cartoon in the textbook.

     

    Meanwhile, other politicians got so bothered by the ruckus that the government just banned the textbook. This is probably a wise move as Class XI students will now have no political science textbooks, so if any of those students want to enter politics, they will be suitably ignorant about Ambedkar, the Constitution and so on. This is a necessary prerequisite for politicians.

     

    I would also advise young people to think carefully about becoming cartoonists. Dead or alive, cartoonists are public enemy number one for politicians, a dangerous breed giving to fostering humour, laughter and other subversive tendencies.

     

    * * *

     

    The other politicians in the spotlight are in the UK. They must now be careful when they send text messages to editors of newspaper. Because if those editors get involved in phone-hacking scandals and then get questioned by a media ethics inquiry, they can reveal damaging stuff. Now we know, for instance, that British prime minister David Cameron of the Conservative Party did not know the meaning of the short form “LOL”. He kept sending it to Rebekkah Brookes, former editor of The Sun and News of the World and boss of News Corp and now just a formidable person, thinking it meant “Lots of love”. She had to point out to him that it meant “Laugh Out Loud.”

     

    This has almost completely destroyed Cameron’s street cred and it is possible that because of his good friend and neighbour Brookes, he may lose his premiership.

    The Labour Party, by the way, cannot send anyone messages saying “ROFL” because they were well known for cosying up to News Corp as well.