Nation’s cost

Eminent Indian economist S L Rao asks "...will the Wharton gang who got the university to disinvite Modi be consistent if it invites Manmohan Singh, Sonia or Rahul Gandhi, or other top Congressmen to speak at its forums? If Modi is guilty of Muslim deaths and uneven development, so are they. These people carry the blot of the Sikh killings in Delhi and the uneven, non-inclusive, unequal, and poor development of India. The University of Pennsylvania’s reaction was immature and unworthy of a great American university. It brings discredit to the university and the gang who made this happen, not to Modi. He did not deserve the insult of being invited and then having it withdrawn on the plea of a confused and attention-seeking junior teacher." I strongly recommend to read his article in full.

1729=125 and others

The 1729 and 125 Men!

"Certainly the media paid for and bought by the Antonia Maino Congress still have to go through the motions and talk down Modi’s stock to earn their living. Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Vir Sanhvi, Sagarika Ghose and the rest of the loathsome bunch have to do what they have to do to earn their keep which amounts to dumping on Modi."

Media folly of all kinds

Prof Kishwar has done a great job in profoundly analyzing the facts about Gujarat's Chief Minister Modi's recent speech in the State of Himachal Pradesh. It is worth to ponder over the below paras.

• "If Modi’s concern for reducing women’s drudgery is genuine, if he has actually delivered piped gas to seven lakh rural households and intends to cover all the rest, if every household in rural Gujarat is getting round the clock power supply, his frivolous remark against Sunanda Tharoor is not enough to damn him for being anti-women. Mere lip sympathy for women won’t do. I prefer politicians who care for women’s well-being in concrete ways.
• No politician dare marginalise the life concerns of the mass of our women as systematically as large sections of our media do, with their disproportionate attention to glamour dolls, film stars and the doings of the fashionable elite. It is easier to call monstrous politicians to account than media monsters."

How free are you in this age of corrupt kingdom of media in India?

Prof.Sen says: 

• Not only is access to the Internet and world opinion uncensored and unrestricted in India, a multitude of media present widely different points of view, often very critical of the government in office. India has a larger circulation of newspapers each day than any other country in the world. And the newspapers reflect contrasting political perspectives. Economic growth has helped—and this has certainly been a substantial gain—to expand the availability of radios and televisions across the country, including in rural areas, which very often are shared among many users. There are at least 360 independent television stations (and many are being established right now, judging from the licenses already issued) and their broadcasts reflect a remarkable variety of points of view. More than two hundred of these TV stations concentrate substantially or mainly on news, many of them around the clock. There is a sharp contrast here with the monolithic system of newscasting permitted by the state in China, with little variation of political perspectives on different channels. 

See Prof Ajay Shah post! here.

The buck does not stop at genius of ‘genuine politician’

Isn’t not so? Read what Prof.Mehta writes, yes quite lucid and profoundly:

• The state still has inordinate power over capital. Business is vulnerable at the hands of the state at so many levels: at every moment it is taxed, licensed, stamped, assessed, audited, authorised, given permission. Liberalisation and reform have helped alter the structure of corruption in some sectors. But the blunt truth is that the state has such an extraordinary ability to convert even basic procedural rights into discretionary entitlements that we should not be too sanguine about corruption disappearing on account of reform alone. But the one larger consequence of this is how timid Indian capital still is in relation to the state. The horror is not whether a particular industrialist was lobbying for a particular minister; the deeper horror is how the private sector is still so vulnerable, at every level, to the state. This is one reason why Indian capital has still not been able to act as a “class for itself” as it were; why it still cannot openly take on the political class. The picture that has emerged is not one of capital buying out the state, it is still one of capital in an abject state of dependence, where their very life depends upon getting politics right. But instead of focusing on this structural issue of power, all of us, including Ratan Tata, focused on the morality play.

• We still assume that some kind of public accounting in the full glare of the media reveals the truth. Indian media was under the illusion that it is the sunlight illuminating dark corners. Most politicians, and thankfully most voters, see it more as a spectator sport. There are two ways of dealing with this. One is to play along as most politicians do; the other is to maintain supreme detachment from it.

• Manmohan Singh, roundly ignores the media, engaging with it in a public space as infrequently as is possible. He concentrates singlemindedly on his choices and priorities, on that play of necessity and chance that defines politics. He has artfully free ridden on media’s simple-minded obsession with finding virtuous characters in a morality play; that part he fulfils beautifully by virtue of his stoic integrity. His supposed weakness, his refusal to take public responsibility for his government’s sins of omission or commission, has turned out to be an enormous political advantage in a climate where we don’t ask institutional and structural questions. He has most profoundly understood the deep truth of our times. All of us, the media or capital, may think we have the last word. But only a genuine politician has the last laugh.

Don't MISS!!

Listen to Barkha Dutt lobby for Congress?

Media apathy

There is a news saying “Commerce Minister Kamal Nath”. In this same newspaper few days back it was mentioned “Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath” this simple wrong information happens in almost every policy action under The State!

God had decided to place under a terrible rain shadow

Shekhar Gupta has two quite interesting article on new India and old election. In the first article he writes: 

“Chandrababu Naidu was once the darling of reformers, of free-market economists, the Indian and foreign media and of course the larger, liberal intellectual class. All of which, he now tells us over a multi-course and fiery coastal Andhra meal, were the reasons why he lost power. “I got so obsessed with praise from all of you, that I lost contact with people,” he says. And then goes on to explain with the sort of candour and articulateness you wouldn’t expect from an Indian politician, particularly a regional, third-front type: “I became a nationalist, a statesman, and got obsessed with that image. I forgot my villages, the voters, and I will never make that mistake again. Five years out of power have been terrible. I have really suffered and struggled.” He then unveils his modified “reform” thinking. Pro-market reforms, he says, must continue, but you can’t wait for trickle-down as “I did the last time.” Reform will create wealth, he says, but the state must distribute it immediately. His solution, however, is more immediate than you would have imagined: he carries an ATM machine with him and tells voters how he will give cards to all the poor so, once a month, all they need to do is push the card into the machine, and Rs 2,000 will come out, and this is how. At a fairly energetic campaign meeting in the heart of Nellore that has at least a dozen OB vans (all from local, Telugu channels; most of them owned by politicians) in attendance, he gets a response when he explains his cash transfer scheme. As he would, at least initially, from reform economists who have been asking for just this in place of the usual government schemes for years. Except he wants this to be in addition to all the rest, including NREGA. And from where will he get the money to finance these? Naidu has some ideas that come straight from hell. 

Chiranjeevi, whom we catch up with in Palakollu, his parents-in-law’s town, not far from coastal Rajahmundhry and one of the two constituencies he is contesting from. He invites us to dinner at one of his friends’ (a film producer) plush home but turns up himself only well past midnight, fresh and on-the-go as if another day’s work was just about to begin. He is too simple and uncomplicated to be a politician yet. Born Konidela Shiva Shankara Vara Prasad to a police constable, he says he changed his name to Chiranjeevi after a dream. Then, having spent more than two decades thrashing the baddies and inevitably destroying all evil, he has now jumped into politics, with pretty much the same intention. But he acknowledges real politics is not like the movies and the victory of “good” over “evil” is not pre-ordained. He admits he has not been able to build a real organisation, is not sure if his politics is anything like the Robin Hood socialism that many of his movies portrayed, but between Chandrababu Naidu and Rajasekhar Reddy he seems to know who is the greater “evil”, even if he won’t say so in so many words.”  

The second part is here.

India's newspaper reading culture

India's newspaper reading culture

Learning to Live with Bloggers

Salil Tripathi has a article on bloggers and media, it’s interesting.

Blind media….

In the business of reporting news many misreporting happens in all kinds of media. 

See today’s one in the rediff: 

• “In a surprise move, the 84-year-old Chief Minister drove to the memorial of late C N Annadurai early this morning and sat on a fast there demanding immediate ceasefire in the Sri Lankan army's offensive against the LTTE. 
  
• Pranab Mukherjee [Images] and AK Antony have been discussing this with their officials over phone. These two are busy in electioneering. Hence they may not be arriving before noon in Delhi. Doctors attending on DMK chief Minister Karunanidhi have expressed concerns over the health of 88-year-old politician.” 
  

This is only one example, think of every reporting persons do the same in some or other day.

The news items are already skewed, now again misreported means what sort of services these people are doing for The Society? 

Make to Works of Small Screen

This year January may be ended with a new version of induced CRITISIM of Newspapers-MINTLIVE, BUSINESS-STANDARD etc. Now it seems to me that the February wanted to end with “conspicuous presence” of small screen revolution in India. 

A veteran Sociologist Andre Beteille argues like was holding a stock of CRITISM in full stomach for years. For instance see the below paras: 

• “Not all the information provided on television is of significant value. Much of it is trivial and ephemeral. The analysis provided is sometimes acute and incisive, but often it is empty and vacuous. There is a strain towards the presentation of information in a striking and dramatic form. Much of what takes place in our public life is ordinary and humdrum, but with some effort even the most banal happenings can be given a portentous air. Television reporters and anchors habitually adopt a breathless manner, which even the most seasoned newspaper columnist or radio broadcaster cannot easily simulate. 
  
• Doordarshan held the field by itself, there was very little entertainment, and the information was bland and stereotyped. This has changed with the entry of private television channels into the field. Even Doordarshan is now less dull and stodgy than it used to be. Our newsreaders do not have to be grim faced as in China or Russia, and the women among them do not have to cover their heads as in Iran and Pakistan. It is good to see greater variety in dress and deportment although, personally, one regrets the passing of the sari.  
  
• The line between entertainment and information is in any case never clear and, where there is acute competition to hold the viewer's attention, it is easily crossed. Leaving aside the embarrassment and anguish caused to individuals and households, matters of public security and institutional propriety tend to be given short shrift. Newsreaders and analysts know how to simulate both grief and concern, but this loses something in credibility when their presentation is regularly interrupted by commercial advertisements that are anything but solemn or sorrowful. 
  
• What is worrying about private television is the cut-throat competition between rival channels. The competition affects the manner in which news is presented and, in the end, also its substance. It is natural that when an interesting or important story comes to light each channel should strive to be the first to present it to the public. It is also natural that it should wish to claim that its own story is exclusive. But such a claim serves mainly its own commercial interest rather than any identifiable public purpose. 
  
• Private television channels should not be blamed for seeking to augment their revenues, but they, on their side, should not cut too many corners. Nor should they be blamed for seeking credit for providing a useful service provided they do not make lofty moral claims about being the citizen's shield against the authorities. It should not be too difficult for the citizen to determine what they do in the public interest and what they do for profit and, further, to see that the two are not always convergent”. 
  

See the other post here

Good, bad, the worst newspapers in India

This January ends with two important changes in Indian print media. 

Vir Sanghvi says “the best was Business Standard where the irresponsibility of junior reporters was over-ruled by experienced senior journalists who double-checked every story and carried only the facts……….. the worst was Mint ---- ironic because I am a columnist ---- which managed to get basic details wrong, running biased and inaccurate reports and then following them up with a series of wildly speculative (always attributed to "a source close to the situation") stories which (long after I had left and other NewsX issues were being featured) nearly always demonstrated a total misunderstanding of the situation.” 

And Ashok V Desai says “different newspapers have been trying out different formulae for survival. Amongst financial newspapers, Economic Times tries to combine entertainment with news. Business Line compensates for its inadequate news coverage by having weightier editorial pages. Business Standard tries to cover company news, backed by systematic coverage of the stock market. Financial Express has not yet found its core strength. None of them has the comprehensive coverage or quality of Wall Street Journal or Financial Times”. 

If any one is reading with keen observation will find the above conclusion. 

Press is sun in Society to Report Facts not Fallacies by Chandra

First I heard several commentaries on press fallacies in reporting news in every day life.

There is lack of research and tactful analysis in India. In BS, TCA have written two important economic way of thinking article which is must read article to every citizen of this country.
The problem that is the media
The economics of bad media
But in USA, at least some or other economists are pressing the press fallacies in news reporting. Do read here the Dr. Arthur B. Laffer written a paper.