MxMIndia

Tag: VK Singh

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare in the morning papers and the nightly news. And sometimes the afternooners, the newsmags and all that's on the Web

    Ranjona Banerji: Is the media fickle, or just having fun

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Television is, of course, very worried about the next President of India, but newspapers have given it the treatment it deserved – reporting on the news rather than trying to create it.

     

    Which means that Friday morning saw the straining of the ties between the UPA and Trinamool Congress get full play in the papers, although Mamata Banerjee’s mocking of the prime minister seems to have got a muted response.

     

    There has been a distinct movement to belittle Manmohan Singh and the media now appears to have been taken along for the ride. It seems a bit odd that rather take a non-partisan stand, the media has been party to this campaign. Or maybe it is not odd and I am not surprised.

     

    The downside for Team Anna is that Mamata Banerjee has stolen their limelight. Of particular interest is her declaration in today’s Times of India that she is a “simple man”. Indeed.

     

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    Mumbai’s newspapers have focused this week on the extraordinary behaviour of the Mumbai police, with its raids on bars and restaurants and treatment of customers. On Thursday, The Times of India, Mid-Day and Hindustan Times dedicated pages to the police’s highhanded methods and its reliance on archaic laws to harass people. Vasant Dhoble, the assistant commissioner of police who conducted most of the raids, was also targeted. Pritish Nandy has written an impassioned article on the destruction of civil liberties in Mumbai over the years in TOI.

     

    Some of this concerted media focus has prodded the minister of state for home to ask the police to exercise some restraint. There has also been some discussion to re-look at all these old and pointless laws.

     

    Friday’s Mid-Day has a story on how the protests against Dhoble and the police which started on cyber space are now entering real life as well. And, according to the paper the city’s “young leaders” like Milind Deora and Poonam Mahajan have also asked the police not to harass the innocent.

     

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    The unfortunate ego battle between Indian tennis stars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi has now got full media attention, especially as it affects India’s Olympic media chances. Here too, the media is divided between the two and as Bhupathi is better at building media relations, his case is being viewed with more sympathy. This is, in spite, of the fact that Bhupathi is the one putting up terms and conditions and refusing to play with Paes and also that Paes has bigger dibs on the Indian Olympic team because of his higher ranking.

     

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    The News Corp noose around British prime minister David Cameron gets closer and closer. Testifying in front of the Brian Leveson Inquiry into media ethics, Cameron tried to stand his ground that he had done no wrong but was hard-pressed to explain a text message from former News Corp CEP Rebekkah Brooks which said “we’re definitely in this together” just before the general election which the Conservative Party and Cameron won.

     

    The nexus between Britain’s political classes and the Murdoch organisation is no secret but its tentacles appear to have poisoned British polity, the establishment and the media itself.

     

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    Interesting to see after all the hoopla over former army chief VK Singh and all that bombastic media support, suddenly the media focus seems to have shifted to his detractors!

     

    Fickle or just having fun?

     

  • 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.

     

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on primetime news and in the papers.

    Journalism, a very intriguing career choice

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Economic Times has an interesting story on how High Street brands record higher sales atDelhiairport than any mall inIndia. While recording lots of facts and figures and quotes from retailers, the article nowhere suggests one possible reason: delayed flights and trapped passengers. Conspiracy theorists have the chance to build up a case here.

     

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    Is Salman Rushdie coming toIndiaor not? The Times of India set the cat among the pigeons saying that he is not coming or has been de-invited or that the Rajasthan government was playing chicken. Today’s Hindustan Times says he is coming but then doesn’t either corroborate or provide further information. The upshot seems to be that the Jaipur Literary Festival is being neither brave nor cowardly but nothing at all. The newspapers haven’t done enough homework and the TV channels are looking for bogeymen and monsters around every corner and under every bed.

     

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    While television appears to be all in favour of army chief VK Singh and his defiance of the government, newspapers have presented a more balanced view of the date of birth controversy. Indeed, it might even be gleaned from various articles and opinions that newspapers have been a wee bit critical. It is interesting to see that television news anchors and reporters are unable to exercise any objectivity where the armed forces are concerned – it is as if worship has been ingrained since childhood. This makes journalism a very intriguing career choice.

     

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    Vice-president Hamid Ansari’s speech at the Ramnath Goenka journalism awards is the main edit page piece in the Indian Express. Excerpts were quoted in yesterday’s Freaking News. It makes some points which are worthy of discussion – editors being coerced by management, better professional training for journalists and the role of the media in a democracy.

     

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    Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey’s visit toIndiahas actually inspired less hysteria than I thought it would. Perhaps much as she “loves”India, she has decided to orchestrate the TV hoopla herself.

     

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    The Hindustan Times has picked the women’s finals at the Australian Open as their “no television” day. They must be crazy if they think someone like me will even pay attention!