Hypocrisy at its best

TOI reported today that ‘Speaker’ Somnath Chatterjee and his colleagues had to spend extra time circling because a southern China flight took more time to clear the runway. After Mumbai attacks, the same damn TOI complaint of high VIP security for MP’s and MLA’s. Now the same TOI is reporting about little extra that a VIP had to waste because of some technical snag. Common men including me face similar situation so many times, those are not reported. It is by reporting such incidents that media enhances the VIP image of a person.

Mumbai Terror Mubai Terror Mumbai Terror Mumbai Terror Mumbai Terror

That’s what is happening all around us everyday, right? In today’s TOI, caption of marathon foto on front page is ‘mumbai runs against terror’
My question is for how long? The so called 26/11 took place on Nov 26 last year. Of course I do not want people to just forget and take no lessons from the tragedy. But at the same time, I do not want this tragedy to be felt sad about FOREVER. And more importantly, it’s gross to see media – print or otherwise – deriving fodder out of this tragic incident. Their work is to inform citizens, and not influence their opinion or keep things alive in people’s memory.

But what irks me even more is the hypocrisy. After this article , I might be accused of indifference to the sorrow of terror victims but what should the media guys be accused of when they did not give even half as much coverage to guwahati blasts (which took place more recently ) as they are doing even to this day to Mumbai attacks. Guwahati and other north eastern cities suffered from blasts last year too. And they too suffer huge casualty. But these are reported for a day. And then forgotten. Why will not people form north-east complain of feeling detached from India? No wonder entire region is inflicted with insurgency. Why entire nation cried, Mumbai we are with you? Has one ever read, “itanagar, we are with you” ?

No wonder people coming from guwahati to delhi sometimes say they are coming to India!

Crusade against print media.. continued

Few weeks rather months back, I wrote to The Hindustan Times for giving some coverage to non-south-Delhi areas too. The report gave information on plantation drive during monsoons in Delhi.

Here's what he wrote.
"First of all, the story had many points. The major point was the booming business of nurseries due to early monsoons as the first sentence corroborates.
The second important was voluntariness of youngsters who could be called to give a helping hand as their vacations were on when monsoon had hit.

Plantation drives do happen. there's nothing new in it.
It was only early monsoon which made Hindustan Times publish this story. Focussing on plantation drives was not our focus.

You should read the story again!

As far as other areas are concerned. Check this sentence..
.....Gautam Pandey, who is spearheading a campaign named Hands For Trees (HFT) around
Chirag Delhi, Vasant Vihar, Dhaula Kuan and some areas in east and north Delhi......

Anyways thanks for your feedback..
We always welcome our readers to give their valuable responses.
"

Then I shot back with:
"
Well I read the story quite nicely first time itself. I am not trying to deny your first major focus and second major focus. I am concerned about the examples you took for your focus, which were mainly from south Delhi. I don’t understand why you wrote about early monsoon and plantation drive stuff, I nowhere , in my mail, doubted the reason you published the article. Hence I will rather encourage you to read the mail again!

And as you yourself pointed out in your reply here, “some areas in east and north Delhi...... ”, why ‘some areas’, when you can write chirag delhi – vasant vihar , you could also give some examples of those ‘some areas’ as well. I am sure the picture that was attached in that article was also not from those ‘some areas’ but from south Delhi only.

Anyways, thanks for your reply. I have wrote a couple of times to columnists of HT Brunch, only to find no response. It was heartening to see that your cared to reply.
"


That was the end, no more communications. My further correspondences to even other columnists or reporters are met with no reply. Looks like they have directed my mails to spam!!

Letter to West Delhi Plus of TOI

I am regular reader of the TOI, and WDP. I have noted that you always give news about conditions of areas like Punjabi Bagh, Dwarka, Rajouri Garden, Janka Puri etc.. You describe achievements of people in these localities. But I would like to bring to your knowledge (in case you are not aware already), that in west Delhi, there are other areas too like Sagar Pur, Uttam Nagar, Raghu Nagar. The TOI main paper anyway does not give any news from these areas, unless some serious mishap takes place and they are kind of forced to come here. But West Delhi Plus is supplement particularly about western part of the city, so at least once in a while, you can direct your cameras to our areas too, which our mostly pointed towards organized colonies. I am a resident of Sagar Pur, I have been here for the past decade or more. I hardly read anything about our area. You report about water, sanitation, road problems of Dwarka or Janak Puri. But what about Sagar Pur, where there is no public park, where in such huge colony, there’s just one post box for the past 10 years or so, where there’s no charcoal road, where no public servant comes to clean sewage, which often leads to mixing of normal water with sewage water. If no one respects our colony, why do even form a constituency and we are urged to vote. You report achievements of kids and youngsters and about malls of Rajouri Garden. I want you to know that there are genius kids in our areas too. Who makes one area posh and other down market – you guys only, the media. I am myself 2007 pass out IIT Guwahati (Computer Science), and I have been to all those *hip-hop* areas, I clearly understand all the pages - page3 and page10. This is to request you to respect all localities, that’s what true journalism is. And I hope you wouldn’t reply by telling about your reporting of some slums in west Delhi, I really request you to stay sometime in middle too, not always on the extremes.

Anonymity – Ambiguous.. why is everyone so coward!!

TOI reported today:
NEW YORK: Former Pakistani army officials trained the terrorists who went on rampage last week in Mumbai , The New York Times said on Wednesday quoting unnamed Pentagon officials.

I don’t understand why new papers even report the statements of people (officials) who don’t have the balls to stand by what they speak. After Mumbai Attacks, I have been reading and hearing from all corners, about pak-link of terrorists. There has been no *solid* evidence. Those who claim to have it, say that wouldn’t share it now. Many of those who allege pak-terrorists are anonymous officials, be it those babus in external affairs ministry, be it some diplomat, or the so called reports of CIA, no body comes out in open and speaks without fear. Strangest part is that most pak-link newspaper reports are reported by The Observer, The Guardian, and NYT. Where are the TOI’s and HT’s of India? In Indian print media, like the photos of events in India, which are almost always clicked by Agency, or Reuters or AFP, now even intelligence reports of terror attacks are also out sourced from foreign press!

TOI bashing.... again

This is the text of a news article on the front page of The Times of India paper dated few weeks back.

Sanjay Dutt was busy speaking to someone on his phone. He looked into us as though the glass wall that separated the bar from his living room never existed. After a few minutes, he walked out of his bar and strode into his living room to greet us. He stood besides us donning a white floral short kurta that gracefully gave way to show his twin layer of white and golden beads, a chain with golden coin of Lord Balaji of Tirupati inscribed, on his neck. He was a wearing a pale blue gunshot jeans that would have made John Travolta think a thousand times 20 years back. A huge golden Rolex with a green dial and a black bezel kept time on his left wrist while his left hand clutched a pack of cigarettes. He radiated the combined grace and elegance of his parents, Nargis and Sanjay Dutt, as he firmly shook hands with warmth.

He sat in the corner of a black and soft-grey leather sofa with prominent black cross-stitches on its edges. Majestic, at ease, his right leg at right angle to his left and his right hand on the arm of the sofa, his left hand sliding over his pointed black and brown triangle-patterned leather shoes, he fielded questions with outright honesty and without a whiff of pretension. “No I have not read Gandhiji’s My Experiments with Truth” he said during the interview.

Well, what brilliantly important details on the front page!

India in the western veil

These days ,Indian companies make it a point that they have pics of non-Indians in their advertisements,billboards, posters etc.. One can only speculate their intentions behind this non sense. They may be doin this to attract people, thinking that Indians have always been attracted to fair skin or to foreigners (coz some of them are Africans or American blacks as well), so this will make their ads eye catching. But they often say that that they want to show off some kinda diversity in their employees and clients, that they are serving people from all over the globe , that a substantial percentage of people working in their company are non-Indians. But those guys forget that majority of them are Indians. The Times of India and the Economic Times always ensure that their articles somehow contain a pic of non Indian thing even if that thing has got almost zero relevance to that article. I am not chauvinism or xenophobic, but I am Indian. Globlalisation is indeed the order of the day , but forceful globalisation and blind aping and appeasement is not.

Does India remember it's a sovereign country?

The Indian constitution declares India to be a sovereign state. But every time Pakistan fiddles with India, India turns its poor face to west(read America) craving for a certificate certifying that what Pakistan did was incorrect. Then Indian 'national dailies' give headlines- 'America condemns acts of terror and shows solidarity with India'. I have rather started hating the word 'condemnation'. Just 'SPEAKING' against the terrorism will not end it. We've gotta 'ACT' against it. Did not US give an answer to Iraq after 9/11? Did he ask for anyone's opinion in that? If President Bush says that Pakistan should stop terrorism, will that bring back the lives of people killed in the Mumbai blasts. Why is The Times of India celebrating PM manmohan singh's 'success' at G8 summit? All those countries have paid a lip service to PM Singh. What is so big to be happy for? It's only natural to say we hate terrorism. Even Pakistan will also say that they blasts were heinous crime and they are also sending condolence message. But what good is all this for ? For how long should we continue to suffer because of weak government international policies. India is investing millions of dollars in defense. Can not that defense power be used to save our countrymen from the terror of blasts? How long should India exchange dialogues with Pakistan. Can we not give a befitting reply to that country once n for all. If an eye for an eye leaves every one blind, then two eyes for an eye can save our other eye. It's high time that India should shed off it's softness and show some symbol of strength rather than showing impotency when faced with terror strikes.

Now security is being beefed up in Maharashtra and other places in India. The cry will be silent in few days. The main page news will slowly fade away in darkness. Case against suspected criminals will be kept pending in the wonderful courts of India. And again another series of blasts can injure another city then. Why the hell this beefed up security not the normal level of security in India? Why we take actions (that too weaker ones) only after casualties?

Times of India

Believe it or not. The Times Group in general and The Times of India newspaper in particular is a big piece of crap. They have nothing original in them. They know how to copy west. And that also results in an inferior imitation. The Mumbai attacks are being referred to as 7/11. These assholes are trying to create 9/11 effect. But these guys don't undersand that 9/11 on being googled gives plenty of results and their 7/11 does not. In India, date syatem is dd/mm/yy. But the times group consists of several useless people. They are copying the western (may be American)style of mm/dd. Why did they not call Gujarat Earthquake of January 26, 2001, as "1/26"? Coz they did not know of such style. All this paper knows is to hype things out of proportion.

But one thing is worth noting. Wikipedia does mention Mumbai Blasts when u search for July 11. Though it doesn't talk about London blasts (July 11, 2005).

London Blasts

Today was a day full of irony and stark contrasts. In the morning only i read aboout London's victory in bidding for 2012 olympics and hardly 12 hrs later i read about these horrible London blasts. Actually, we human beings have become so much habitual of the casualities that we don't take any tragedy seriously unless the number of casualities runs into thousands.









Photos courtesy BBC and The New York Times

The casualities were barely 33, till the time I am writing this blog, but this event has sent several important signals and lessons to be learnt. Firstly, we must notice that whole of the London is united in this hour of crisis. Even the politicians, whether from conservatives or democrats, all were pledging the to keep London united, and their first priority was to help the people reach to safety.Now compare this with the Indian scenario. Some 2-3 days back, Ayodhya was attacked. This became so big a matter, that on the BBC site, only news under the section ,'South Asia' , was "More Ayodhya protests". This was too much. I mean in our case, when hardly any casualty concerning any civilian was reported, and all the 6 terrorists have been gunned down, why this bruhaha now over such a petty matter. In India, whenever such thing happpens, first thing we hear form political leaders other than those beonging to treasury is that X should resign and Y should resign. I guess it's high time that we the Indians should learn to behave in a matured manner and show the world that we are also united when it comes to the threat to the security of the nation is concerned rather than politicising the issues to make them the front page headlines of BBC.
Probably that's why BBC doesn't write much good things in the profile of India. It begins describing India by the word ," a nuclear weapon state". But in that case BBC is also discriminating. And strangest thing is that it gives a link for the national anthem of Pakistan on it's profile page(that's a different matter that it didn't work , atleast I could'n't open it), but not a link of Jana-gana-mana on the profile page of India.

But situation of london is really strange at the moment. In one hand , he's carrying the victory of securing London as the venue for 2012 olympics, on the other hand, it has these blasts.

I really feel sorry for Mr. Blair, who's concerned with , apart from these 2 issues, the G-8 summit also. There also, supporters of African nations are giving tough times to the leaders of highly developed nations, including Mr. Blair.

God bless London