MxMIndia

Tag: Noosemaker

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

    [MJR] The mighty Murdoch empire wobbles

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The cycle of life and death is such a wicked thing, sparing no one, especially not the high and mighty (Thank god, really, for us who are not only low and but are also tiny – I’m speaking metaphorically here). And so the mighty Murdoch empire wobbles.

     

    The Leveson inquiry into media ethics last month and the British parliamentary committee report after an inquiry into Rupert Murdoch’s companies released last week after last year’s inquiry commission both highlight that fall. The parliamentary report indeed calls Murdoch senior “unfit” to run his companies, although the Conservative party members of the commission would not endorse that. The irony for British politicians is that both the Labour and Conservative parties can be accused of getting too close to the Murdochs and their editors.

     

    From the time he bought the Sun and then venerable Times, Murdoch has been a figure of controversy. His disdain for journalists and senior editors was applauded by media moghuls elsewhere as a fine way to treat employees (India’s journalists have also suffered from the Murdoch effect). Murdoch sacked, moved and reduced journalists everywhere to paid hacks, only capable of doing what he assigned them.

     

    At the end, that became hacking into the voice mails of a murdered child’s mobile phone in order to sell more copies of a newspaper.

     

    Murdoch has said he is sorry – inasmuch as he remembers anything at all. Although he does appear to recall a bit more than his son who saw and heard (and read) apparently almost nothing all the while that he ran the European branch of daddy’s company.

     

    At a time when the Indian media is grappling with all sorts of issues and allegations, the Murdoch saga presents an interesting contrast. That Murdoch’s editors bent the rules and ignored media ethics is a certainty but it presents almost the exact opposite of the way that the Indian media operates. Can you imagine any Indian reporter – especially one involved in the glamour world – going to such depths to get a story? Hiring private investigators, bribing police officers – all this shows a commitment to newsgathering that most Indian newspapers had given up and many journalists would faint at the idea of so much hard work. (So much easier to let the PR person write the story which his client has paid the marketing department for.) I am not sure how many would object to the ethical problems raised since we have our own monsters to deal with.

     

    Meanwhile it’ll be interesting to watch as the vultures start circling around.

     

  • The problem is that much worse has happened since the Bofors scandal and the grand sum of Rs64 crore – the bribe amount – seems quite teeny-weeny compared to the giant figures we've become used to

    [MJR] The Bofors scandal will never die

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There it is, after quarter of a century, back to plague us. Or has it? The Bofors gun, once the symbol of corruption in government, and which apparently led to the death of one prime minister and the fall of another, is in the news again.

     

    For those who can’t remember anything about it, there were allegations of kickbacks in the purchase of the howitzer (the word sounds better than gun) from the Swedish company Bofors. Last week, a Swedish police officer who had spoken secretly to journalist Chitra Subramaniam all those years ago, came out in the open – to Subramanian, who had covered the story extensively in the olden days.

     

    The problem is that much worse has happened since the Bofors scandal and the grand sum of Rs64 crore – the bribe amount – seems quite teeny-weeny compared to the giant figures we’ve become used to. Also, after years and years of investigation and allegation, nothing really happened.

     

    Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated, Rajiv Gandhi lost an election and was also assassinated. Meanwhile Martin Ardbo, president of Bofors at the time, whose diary had many leads about money that went from one letter of the alphabet to another, mainly the mysterious middleman Q, also died and so did Win Chadha the Bofors contact for India.

     

    Under successive governments (including non-Congress ones), the CBI floundered all over the place, as it muffed procedures, forgot to send the right letters (not of the alphabet, the other type, probably because neither the CBO nor anyone else in India could understand what a “letter rogatory” was. It’s not ‘R’, that was another alphabet in Ardbo’s diary) and couldn’t conclusively get to Q. Everyone knew who Q was – an Italian middleman who was a friend of Sonia Gandhi’s. Of course, every Italian is a friend of Sonia Gandhi’s because she is Italian. Like all Indians are friends of mine or maybe not since I am not remotely as important as Sonia Gandhi. Anyway, after some time, the CBI gave up on Q.

     

    The story, by the way, was broken by Swedish radio in 1987 and not in India. Amitabh Bachchan was also included in the deal by the Swedish newspaper Daagens Nyheter, and not the Indian media. He successfully sued them and the CBI and everyone else, (except maybe the mysterious Q?) agrees he was not involved.

     

    Meanwhile, everyone says that the Bofors field howitzer is a nice gun or tank or whatever it is. It was very useful in Kargil.

     

    The Bofors  scandal we know will never die. But as time passes, the alphabet will get weaker and weaker…

     

  • The biggest problem for the President of India, as far as I can see, is whether they can stand for hours, saluting, during the Republic Day parade

    [MJR] Who will guard the Republic?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The last week has been singularly dull as far as the news is concerned. No one jumped up and dominated the headlines as normal life (disaster, death, chaos, catastrophe, cricket, celebrities) continued on its normal course. But one question has been burning up the cyber waves and some print and hot air space: who will be the next President of India?

     

    Since many who live in neo-India believe that we already have and definitely should have an American-style presidential system (this justifying the large quantities of hamburgers and cupcakes which their progeny consume), the person who will assume this titular post is very important. The biggest problem for the President of India, as far as I can see, is whether they can stand for hours, saluting, during the Republic Day parade.

     

    But for neo-India, it is somebody who can represent India abroad and presumably, likes hamburgers and cupcakes. Even veggie hamburgers will do.

     

    The current incumbent, Pratibha Patil, has upset everyone in the ongoing battle of the Patils. The fact that she is building a house on army land has deeply upset a retired Lt Col, Suresh Patil. The fact that some rules were tweaked to build a very large house has got our hot air experts, our cyber warriors and large brigades of the generally self-righteous exceedingly upset. Anyway, she goes away in July.

     

    So then what?

     

    Some want the schoolchild-obsessed APJ Abdul Kalam to come back since he was popular though why we need a popular president beats me. Others think it is time Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was helped up the stairs to a ceremonious post. Still others think it should be Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who gets the privilege. Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar’s name is up there in the mix. Former Lok Sabha Speaker PA Sangma (he was a popular speaker, now!) was suggested but party boss Sharad Pawar has shot that one down.

     

    The most unimpeachable candidate seems to be the venerable Dr Karan Singh, but he may well be too erudite and well-spoken for neo-India to appreciate.

    The twitterati, as puerile as they are pliable, think that porn star Sunny Leone is a good choice.

    I leave you to chew over these choices, none of which we will make.

    You have until July.

     

  • We still don't know how the President acquired this army land for herself. Did she use her position as commander and chief of the armed forces, revenge for those hours of standing in the Republic Day parade with her hand to her forehead? Or did someone do all this for her?

    [MJR] Women on top: A caricature and a cartoon

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    This week, we have to share the honours between two very important women. First – this is not because she is more important but because she sort of is, in an official kind of way – the President of India, Pratibha Patil.

     

    According to a group of ex-soldiers (you know the lot, formerly noble and so on and now a bit, well, suspect) have claimed that 2.6 lakh acres of army land in Pune, meant for housing jawans, has been taken over by the President to build her retirement home. If that wasn’t bad enough, two colonial-era bungalows have been broken down in the process.

     

    Now everyone knows, especially since Adarsh, that no one – not the army, not the government – actually wants to build anything for jawans. Since Adarsh, we also know that senior defence personnel, bureaucrats and politicians will happily take any government land cheap and make luxury homes for themselves and their families.

     

    Given Pune’s proximity to Mumbai, it is possible that the President was inspired by the Adarsh adarsh (that’s a pun by the way. It is clear, I make this clear, as we approach the next noosemaker, because it is possible that I will find my own neck in a noose. Jokes are verboten you see).

     

    Still, in all the fire and outrage – now an essential ingredient to any dish in modern India – we still don’t know how the President acquired this army land for herself. Did she ride in on silver, flashing her firearms? Did she use her position as commander and chief of the armed forces, revenge for those hours of standing in the Republic Day parade with her hand to her forehead? Or did someone do all this for her?

     

    * * *

     

    And then we reach the Great Supreme Leader who is incapable of staying out of the noose and the news. The indomitable Mamata Banerjee, crusader against communists and cartoonists. Ambikesh Mahapatra, a chemistry professor at Jadavpur University, apparently a hotbed of dangerous anti-Didi-ists, forwarded a cartoon which used dialogues from Satyajit Ray’s film Sonar Kellato poke a little gentle fun at the removal of Dinesh Trivedi as railway minister.

     

    Mahapatra and a neighbour were, therefore, arrested and kept in jail for one night for not only forwarding this hurtful and nasty cartoon but also outraging the modesty of a woman. They were also beaten up by members of the Trinamool Congress for the same crimes. The police, also upset at this mocking of the Great Supreme Didi, made a mockery of the justice system.

     

    In all this fun and games, could Didi be far behind? She promptly piped up saying those who commit crimes will be punished. Quite right.

     

    It goes without saying that Mahapatra’s act of forwarding the cartoon showed him to be a communist and therefore deserving of every punishment meted out to him. It also proves that West Bengal or Poschim Bongo or whatever it’s called, has to stop these illegal acts of laughing, giggling, sniggering, smirking at Didi’s expense. Is it any wonder that Dada has left the Kolkata Knight Riders and joined Pratibha Patil in Pune?

     

  • You can tear down old and revered institutions, you can gossip about anyone you please but you cannot, cannot, cannot ever say anything negative about the Indian armed forces.

    Glory Be, Shekhar Gupta dared to criticise the Indian Army!

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The one way to annoy the journalistic community (I’m being generous and including TV-wallahs in this) is to write something uncomplimentary about the armed forces. As Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of Indian Express, has discovered, ever since he wrote a front page story about inexplicable troop movements towards New Delhi on January 16.

     

    The story suggested that some in the government were worried about the army chief’s intentions especially since that was the day that VK Singh moved the Supreme Court over his age issue. There were questions raised about why the two divisions were abruptly sent back on ministry of defence instructions and why several protocols about moving towards the national capital had not been followed.

     

    Outrage and condemnation burst out across the media. What, the Indian armed forces, the most glorious institution in the world had been accused of maybe, perhaps attempting a coup or at best acting in a suspicious manner or at the least not following the rules? Impossible. For 7 lakh years (I’m using the BJP’s Saraswati civilisation timeline here because jingoism always reminds me of the right wing) the Indian armed forces have been perfect, never set a foot wrong.

     

    And now, to be accused of this, blah blah blah. I wonder what today’s media would have done to Emperor Ashoka when he decided to abjure violence after the Kalinga war. Can you imagine Ashoka being raked over the coals by Arnab Goswami, for daring to suggest that there had been too much bloodshed thanks to his soldiers?

     

    Anyway, Gupta has now become the whipping boy of the media. In Mumbai, there’s a term for this media anger: “khunnas”. Hmmm, that is, a teeny bit of jealousy that no one else had interpreted the facts quite like that. But there’s also all that patriotic anger – when it comes to the armed forces, objectivity flies out the window. Meanwhile gossip is flying around – Gupta is a Congress stooge, he is not in the VK Singh camp, he wanted to make hay out of an old story, he never thought it would boomerang like this and so on.

     

    Goswami on Times Now told us over and over again that some journalists with an “over-active imagination” had concocted this story. (Something TV can never be accused of possessing, oh no!) Several retired generals with large moustaches bristled with anger (how come we have so many of them, retired generals I mean, not moustaches?).

     

    Newspapers wrote editorials against the Express story. Some pointed out that half the information had first appeared on rediff.com. Others said that the conclusions were a bit far-fetched. Not a single journalist bothered to investigate the two questions raised: one, if the troop movement was innocent, why did the divisions turn back and two, why were the protocols not followed and tangentially, is VK Singh as angelic as he is being made out to be?

     

    Whatever it is, Gupta has learned one lesson. You can question God, you can tear down old and revered institutions and you can gossip about anyone you please but you cannot, cannot, cannot ever say anything negative about the Indian armed forces. Be warned, because otherwise, the wrath of Indian TV will fall on your head. Add all the anchors together and that’s quite a heavy burden to bear.

     

  • On and on VK Singh whined about when he was born, and on and on went the media about great patriots and martyrs being ill-treated, until the Supreme Court turned down his plea

    [MJR] A man chasing his date of birth

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    First they told us he was a victim of an evil government, working overtime to throw him out of his job a year too early. Then he said that it wasn’t the government really but the army which was doing that – even though he was chief of army staff. Then he took the government, not the army, to court, saying he was younger than he said he was (Note to young people whose eyes glaze over when they come across anyone born before 1979: he is very old on both dates).

     

    Half the media then decided that VK Singh had gone too far while the other half decided that a decided patriot was being used as target practice by an evil government. This could be because many of the daddies and uncles of mediapersons under the age of 40 and holding bog jobs in television are in the armed forces. Those of us over the age of 40, most of whom have been put out to pasture, no one ever cared about our mummies, daddies, uncles, aunties and so on.

     

    Gosh, I sound just like the army chief, sorry.

     

    On and on Singh whined about when he was born and on, and on went the media about great patriots and martyrs (I’m not going there) being ill-treated, until the Supreme Court turned down the general’s plea and said he had to now be older than he wanted to be (don’t we all!).

     

    And so the tide turned. Half the media (maybe I exaggerated a tiny bit about so many uncles and daddies in the army having given birth to journalists, although even the army chief has a journalist for a daughter I hear) turned against the general and now he did a bad thing by fighting for his “honour”. Now we hear that whole date of birth fight was not a good thing, brought embarrassment to the army and so on.

     

    The general wasn’t done though. He licked his wounds inflicted by the Supreme Court, not some usual cross-border enemy and as he did that, he got quite cross. So, with a couple of months left till retirement, he started a tandav nritya, flinging accusations of bribery left and right.

     

    This means gloves off time for the media and a free-for-all amongst higher-ups is the best journalistic cannon fodder ever. Patriots, martyrs, cynics, sceptics, haters and baiters, yellers and screamers all joined in and everyone’s now bashing everyone else all day. The army chief remains at the middle of it all, putting his left in and his right leg out, doing the boogie-woogie, ‘cos that’s what it’s all about.

     

    Disclosure: My daddy and uncles are not and never have been in the army and I am well over 40 (closer to the other figure actually) though I am not as old as the general who is not sure how old he is.

     

  • This time, in its final report, the Planning Commission lowered the number of poor people by lowering the numbers. This has led to a dramatic reduction in poor people.

    [Noosemaker] It doesn’t add up for poor Monty

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    I suppose, if you add it up, you have to feel sorry for Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of India. Of course, it is important to remember that I cannot add and neither, it seems, can Ahluwalia. He can however subtract. That is, if you have so many poor people and you want to reduce their numbers, you just reduce the numbers that make them poor. This is an effective tool but sadly no one in this country, except business journalists (the same ones who see any schemes for the poor as burdens on the exchequer), agree with Ahluwalia. Most people find subtraction a heinous and reprehensible method especially since people seem to be multiplying.

     

    About here is where I run out of mathematical analogies. Because everything sounds like those school maths problems now – if a train is running at 100 km an hour and Peter has six apples, how many oranges does John deserve? For all I know, Ahluwalia also subscribes to my version of mathematics.

     

    Anyway, where were we? Ah, yes, how many poor people in India? A few months ago, Ahluwalia and the Planning Commsion (subtraction department) told us that if you could live on Rs 32 a day in a city and Rs 28 in a village, then you were above the poverty line. Faced with universal outrage – where many tried to live on that amount and couldn’t last more than 10 minutes – Ahluwalia huffed and hawed in his very good accent and told us that his figures have nothing to do with whether these magician-like poor people were eligible for benefits or not. The Planning Commission, it seemed, just needed these figures to help them in some way or the other.

     

    So now we know in which way: to reduce the number of poor people in India. This time, in its final report, the Planning Commission lowered the number of poor people by lowering the numbers. Instead of Rs 32 in a city, now you are poor if you manage on Rs 28. In villages, the figure is down to Rs 22. This has led to a dramatic reduction in poor people.

     

    Sadly for Ahluwalia, no one bought it this time either – except business journalists. The prime minister just quietly dumped the Planning Commission’s number and decided that someone else would start counting. Hopefully, it will be someone who can add, subtract, multiply and divide. Even fractions might help – the way business journalists and the rest of the tribe appear at times.

     

  • Little did the prince know that the damsel would be vanquished not by him but by another putative heir – one who blindsided him with a cycle

    Noosemaker: The fable of Rahul Gandhi & the other chap

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Pity poor Rahul Gandhi. There he was riding around Uttar Pradesh on his white charger, eating with a Dalit family here, saving a Dalit village there, quite the prince of India, promising deliverance from the evil dragon. In the strange twists that best illustrate fairy tales, the dragon was a damsel – but contrarily, a damsel who was causing distress.

     

    The media sometimes liked the young prince and sometimes it didn’t. The opposition all hated the young prince. And the Congress Party tried every sycophantic trick to woo the young prince. The prince himself was so involved in saving the state from the damsel that he paid no attention. The queen and the princess were clear that the prince was only interested in helping and wanted nothing for himself. The biggest advantage that the prince had was that he was better looking than most of his courtiers or indeed than the upstart wannabe princelings, who belonged to other, lesser parties.

     

    Little did the prince know that the damsel would be vanquished not by him but by another putative heir – one who blindsided him with a cycle which was obviously more effective than his horse as a dragon-slaying device. Suddenly everyone counted. The prince of India travelled so many thousand km and delivered so many speeches. But his quiet rival did more of everything. Had the prince failed? Was he a hoax? Had he missed the woods for the trees? Did he have any dragon-slaying and state-saving abilities at all? Would he ever become king emperor?

     

    After all, the other chap has been made chief minister of Uttar Pradesh by his grateful father and the sulking dragon has retreated behind a statue.

     

    In India, it must be noted that while sons may replace fathers and daughters may take over from mothers, there is only one dynasty. So the prince of India did what he did best. He dimpled his apology to the people of India and his mother, the queen, said they would live to fight another day.

     

    Awwww, said the people, that’s so noble and sweet.

     

    Damn said the white horse, no rest for me.

     

  • Behold the Solitary Change-Maker as she charges into the Valley of Death – cannons to the left of her, to the left of her, to the left of her

    [MxM Journalism Review] Mamata, the lone change-maker

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Behold the lonely change-maker! She stands there victorious, having defeated the sinister dragon. She is righteous and she is also always right. But will that damn dragon let her do her job? In insidious and terrible ways, it hampers the change-maker’s progress.

     

    What option does Mamata Banerjee have but to blame the erstwhile Left Front government and its remnants for everything that goes wrong in West Bengal? Oh sorry, I think the state has a new name but it is so like the old one that I’ve forgotten it.

     

    So when infants die in a state hospital, you have to blame the Left Front government because the children were conceived during the Left’s reign. This is a little-known scientific fact which only the solitary change-maker has fully grasped. Your future is determined by where you were conceived (one more reason to blame your parents for whatever goes wrong in your life). Evidently, if you were conceived during a Left Front government’s rule, long life under someone else’s rule is inconceivable.

     

    Then there’s rape. This is an awful thing – but only if it really happens. What if every rape in West Bengal is actually a conspiracy by the Left to malign the Solitary Change-Maker (if the Left deserves upper/lower case, surely so does she)? Therefore, if a woman gets gang-raped after leaving a pub, not only does one have to discuss her antecedents, behaviour and so on but also make it clear that the rape was not on the victim but an attempt to victimise the Government of Change.

     

    Just after the Park Street Rape is the Burdwan Train Rape. This is even more conspiratorial. The so-called victim who claims to have been gang-raped in a train was a widow – whose now-deceased husband used to be a member of a Left party. If that is not an outright strategy to discredit the new government, then what is?

     

    If rape is not bad enough, there’s murder. A member of one of those Left parties is hacked to death allegedly by members of the Party of Change. Oh, come on. Even those aliens buried in America are more believable than this theory.

     

    The only possible taint on the Grand SC-M can come from the evil nephew who keeps going to botanical gardens after they’ve closed and demanding he be let in. Or driving on the wrong side of the road and then slapping a policeman who stops him. This nephew exists. But it is also possible that he will soon become a construct of the Communist imagination.

     

    Behold the Solitary Change-Maker as she charges into the Valley of Death – cannons to the left of her, to the left of her, to the left of her.

     

  • The media has just 'sensationalised' the whole issue of Kingfisher's troubles, we are to glean from Mallya's letter.

    [MJR] Noosemakers: The life and letters of Dr Vijay Mallya

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    “The Indian media and the ‘paid’ media that even the Prime Minister referred to are unscrupulous and they will do whatever it takes, part fact or fiction, true or untrue to achieve their sensationalist objectives.”

     

    These lines are from the opening paragraphs of Vijay Mallya’s letter to the employees of Kingfisher Airlines, promising them that he is making arrangements to pay their salaries. He also says that he intends to pay his taxes.

     

    It is heartening, however, to note that the media, paid and not paid (unpaid would refer to a Kingfisher staffer) have not been responsible for denying Kingfisher employees their salaries. Or indeed, that it is because of the media that Kingfisher could not pay so many taxes.

     

    The media has, therefore, just “sensationalised” the whole issue of Kingfisher’s troubles, we are to glean from Mallya’s letter and concentrated on one airline when the whole aviation sector is in trouble. (Again, thankfully, the media is not responsible here for the woes of civil aviation (at least I think not), just for talking about it.

     

    Except, he points out, the one airline which is not in trouble but even that could be true or untrue according to Mallya. I am not sure the media had any role to play here… does the media have the power to make just one airline in a sick industry successful?Indiawants to know.

     

    I don’t want to point fingers at anyone here, but I think Mallya should also blame passengers, especially his “guests” who paid but were then un-boarded and un-flown. These guests kept blabbing to the media about how they had been inconvenienced by Kingfisher Airlines. I think Mallya should have blamed them too.

     

    And all the pilots who upped and left to work for that one airline “that defies the odds and claims to be profitable, however unlikely that may be”. I’m guessing that they were paid rather than unpaid by that other airline with its bizarre claims.

     

    Many years ago, a person kept calling newspapers (there was not much TV those days, it was that long ago) and claimed to be Vijay Mallya’s PR person. She would talk about his latest horse or yacht or holiday destination. We could never determine if she was paid or unpaid, part fact or fiction, true or untrue. Somehow I feel that Mallya needs someone like her all over again. Might be better if he pays her this time and I know Niira Radia’s out of a job but maybe not her…?

     

    Here’s the text of the letter:

    http://www.ndtv.com/article/business/vijay-mallya-writes-to-kingfisher-employees-read-letter-180222

     

    Photograph: Fotocorp