Encounter killings: Middle-class India doesn't care about either blue-collar workers or Muslims
The media accepts a certain level of police abuse, so long as it doesn't concern its target group of readers or viewers.
"South Carolina officer gets murder charge in man's death." This was The New York Times's lead story on April 8 about a police officer who shot an unarmed black man in the back. Many such reports, always concerning single black men, often with a criminal record, being shot by white policemen have anguished the United States and its media in the last few months as many readers will know.
"Watch it! Multiplexes must screen Marathi films at 6 pm." The Times of India's lead story in Mumbai the same day (in Delhi, Hindustan Times led with 'Diesel vehicles get 10-year limit').
This came after news on Tuesday that police in Andhra Pradesh murdered 20 men, most of them Tamils, for stealing trees. The same day police in Telangana murdered five men who were in their custody, handcuffed and being driven to court. Neither of these stories was lead-worthy for the editors of India's two largest English papers, and perhaps rightly so.
The truth is that middle class and anglicised India doesn't care about either blue collar workers (tree choppers) or Muslims (encounter victims) being dealt with outside the framework of the law.
Extreme prejudice and callousness
It doesn't concern us, and indeed if we were to read the comments under these stories online – the encounter did not even make the front pages as a single column in print – the majority of comments agree with the police's action. And they are full of hatred for the victims who are judged to have deserved being punished without trial. Even the media reported the stories with extreme prejudice and callousness. The Indian Express, usually a responsible newspaper, broke the story under the headline "5 SIMI activists shot dead on way to court in Telangana." The paper's correspondent wrote that "among the dead is Vikaruddin Ahmed, who killed two cops and terrorised them in Hyderabad by targeting them whenever possible." It is remarkable that such editorialising, casual assertions and loose language is allowed by a national daily, but this being India, it's not only possible but the norm.
The police told the Indian Express that "Vikaruddin and his associates, continuously incited the armed escort by spitting at them, taunting and abusing them as soon as they started from Warangal. The four others dead are Mohammed Zakir, Sayed Hashmat, Izhar Khan and Sulaiman. They all have several aliases."
The report then said that Vikaruddin was "a former SIMI activist and member of the radical social outfit Darsgah Jehad O Shahadat Vikaruddin made some daring attacks on police pickets on the anniversaries of Babri Masjid and Mecca Masjid blast. In December 2008, he opened fire and injured three policemen manning a picket near Santoshinagar. On May 18, 2009, he shot dead a Home Guard while on May 14, 2010, he shot dead a constable at Shah Ali Banda."
Had he been found guilty by a judge for these? Probably not, since he was attending court as an undertrial, but that didn't stop the paper from concluding that he had done it.
The demonisation continued:
"Vikaruddin had started a fringe fundamentalist organization calling itself Tehreek Galba E Islam that has ties with DJS. Police had announced a reward of Rs lakhs for any information on him. He was arrested in July 2010 from the house Dr Mohd Hanif, a sympathizer. Based on information given by him, his brother Sulaiman and three others, who belonged to his organization and helped him in his operations, were arrested."
If 25 black men had been executed illegally in the US in one day, the government would have fallen and the population would have rallied to the victims. In India, those of us who did not applaud the police only yawned.
Encounter after encounter
The media has long bowed to its readership/viewership and accepted a certain level of police abuse, so long as it doesn't concern our target group of readers or viewers. On Tuesday night, middle-class hero Arnab Goswami's show on Times Now discussed the politics of the beef ban, and indulged in the usual scaremongering over "terrorism" (ie, Muslim).
When I was editor of a newspaper in Mumbai 20 years ago, the encounter culture had just come to our cities, from Punjab and the Northeast, where such killing is now actually lawful. There are more Indians who support that law, and its critics are seen on TV debates automatically as traitors.
Mumbai's police killed off the gangs who were surviving through extortion of builders and Bollywood producers and financiers. Those newspaper editors who chose to question the illegal police action came under attack from the management and from readers. The belief was that, given the failure of the state to enforce law, through convictions, it was all right for the government to enforce order, through eradicating criminals without due process. This produced those cowardly police officers, each with dozens of kills to their name, who were glorified as encounter specialists, decorated and on whom movies were made. Their act of bravery being to open fire at handcuffed men. At that time I thought that this would end at some point, but of course I was wrong, With the public's focus elsewhere, the state is free to brutalise the citizen and to demonise and dehumanise people though the media after criminally executing them.
http://scroll.in/article/719338/Encount ... or-Muslims
The Rot That Is Indian Media.
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ghulam muhammed
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Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
The Modi media mystery
Among the many advantages that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has enjoyed during his term in office so far is a press that has fawned over him and his government. With the notable exception of Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani, the mysterious target of numerous hit-pieces -– some of them in very poor taste -– most of his ministers, too, have been showered with the accolades, and praised for their honesty, transparency, vision and efficiency, even when they have not exactly demonstrated one or all of those virtues. Modi himself has enjoyed wall-to-wall coverage, almost all of it adoring. Aside from that one occasion with that suit – which, I think we can all agree, he brought on himself – there has not been barely a challenge in the mainstream print or electronic media, forget about disrespect or mockery. When compared how the Delhi press has behaved in the five years previous to his arrival, Modi has little to complain about.
Let us be clear: the media has given the PM and his government a far easier time than it probably deserves. The PM’s desire for spectacle, his knack for showmanship, fits right in with a media that has been desperate for a little glamour after the grey depression of the later Manmohan Singh years.
Consider how breathlessly we have covered his many foreign trips, taking all his assertions about their success at face value. He came back from France and took credit for a nuclear deal, and that was mostly reported without it being pointed out how completely inaccurate it was, and that Singh had signed the agreement with Sarkozy in 2010. He came back from Germany and declared that the Hannover trade fair had been a rousing success for ‘Make in India’. As far as I can tell, only one journalist, Suhasini Haidar of The Hindu, pointed out that in 2006, the last time India partnered the Hannover Fair, $1.3 billion was generated through dozens of agreements; this year, amid all the glitz, just nine agreements were signed, and each for a paltry few million. That should have been the worried headline in the press: instead we got “Modi unleashes ‘Make in India’ at Hannover” and the like.
Other examples abound. The coal auctions finished weeks ago, and the government and its partisans continue to brandish a “Rs 2 lakh crore” figure about with Vinod Rai-like brazenness. But as an investigation by Nitin Sethi and Ishan Bakshi by this newspaper has shown, there are real questions about this figure. Yet most of the media has chosen to faithfully report the government’s talking points, and little else.
If, in spite of this, the PM feels the government still doesn’t get as much rah-rah coverage as he has come to expect, he should realise this may be because there is simply not enough substance to talk about. If he does more, instead of talking more, the press may have more to report and analyse. Speeches and slogans get boring for those not delivering them.
Modi needs to get out of his bunker. Times have changed. He spent much of his energy as chief minister fighting off those, including many in the media, who believed that liberal principles of accountability meant that he should have no place in our politics after the 2002 riots. That argument has been rendered moot by the 2014 elections. (Not lost, for sheer numbers can never win such arguments.) In the face of such power, the press will forget anything.
And so the media covers Modi like a much-loved celebrity now. It gives his government the benefit of the doubt — although it gets nothing in return. There is no official media advisor; most ministers and secretaries are unwilling to talk; the PM himself rarely gives interviews and when he does they have the stilted quality of written-down answers; and the government consistently and carefully releases important news too late in the day for proper analysis before the next day’s edition or prime time. And yet the media treats this government, its endlessly-speechifying head and its hit-and-miss ministers, with kid gloves and the exaggerated deference born of fear and of greed. Fear of what the powerful or their rabid fans could do or say — and avarice because who knows whom the king will turn to as his town crier?
Already, criticism of the government is being called unpatriotic, and the media is being accused of not reporting sufficiently positively. Like the NGOs that the government is currently attacking and trying to choke off, the media could soon be accused of holding up development — especially if it begins to report on troubles in India’s rural heartland as prices stagnate and the rain turns unpredictable.
If things turn bad -– and say, the government does not deliver as much as it has promised -– it will be said that the media is to blame. Surely, then, in the interests of new India, should we not control those in the media blocking or distracting from development at the behest of anti-India interests? This is what the government is already doing with NGOs, after all (and let’s not forget that Mint wrote an editorial backing such government action, in the national interest).
http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 816_1.html
Among the many advantages that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has enjoyed during his term in office so far is a press that has fawned over him and his government. With the notable exception of Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani, the mysterious target of numerous hit-pieces -– some of them in very poor taste -– most of his ministers, too, have been showered with the accolades, and praised for their honesty, transparency, vision and efficiency, even when they have not exactly demonstrated one or all of those virtues. Modi himself has enjoyed wall-to-wall coverage, almost all of it adoring. Aside from that one occasion with that suit – which, I think we can all agree, he brought on himself – there has not been barely a challenge in the mainstream print or electronic media, forget about disrespect or mockery. When compared how the Delhi press has behaved in the five years previous to his arrival, Modi has little to complain about.
Let us be clear: the media has given the PM and his government a far easier time than it probably deserves. The PM’s desire for spectacle, his knack for showmanship, fits right in with a media that has been desperate for a little glamour after the grey depression of the later Manmohan Singh years.
Consider how breathlessly we have covered his many foreign trips, taking all his assertions about their success at face value. He came back from France and took credit for a nuclear deal, and that was mostly reported without it being pointed out how completely inaccurate it was, and that Singh had signed the agreement with Sarkozy in 2010. He came back from Germany and declared that the Hannover trade fair had been a rousing success for ‘Make in India’. As far as I can tell, only one journalist, Suhasini Haidar of The Hindu, pointed out that in 2006, the last time India partnered the Hannover Fair, $1.3 billion was generated through dozens of agreements; this year, amid all the glitz, just nine agreements were signed, and each for a paltry few million. That should have been the worried headline in the press: instead we got “Modi unleashes ‘Make in India’ at Hannover” and the like.
Other examples abound. The coal auctions finished weeks ago, and the government and its partisans continue to brandish a “Rs 2 lakh crore” figure about with Vinod Rai-like brazenness. But as an investigation by Nitin Sethi and Ishan Bakshi by this newspaper has shown, there are real questions about this figure. Yet most of the media has chosen to faithfully report the government’s talking points, and little else.
If, in spite of this, the PM feels the government still doesn’t get as much rah-rah coverage as he has come to expect, he should realise this may be because there is simply not enough substance to talk about. If he does more, instead of talking more, the press may have more to report and analyse. Speeches and slogans get boring for those not delivering them.
Modi needs to get out of his bunker. Times have changed. He spent much of his energy as chief minister fighting off those, including many in the media, who believed that liberal principles of accountability meant that he should have no place in our politics after the 2002 riots. That argument has been rendered moot by the 2014 elections. (Not lost, for sheer numbers can never win such arguments.) In the face of such power, the press will forget anything.
And so the media covers Modi like a much-loved celebrity now. It gives his government the benefit of the doubt — although it gets nothing in return. There is no official media advisor; most ministers and secretaries are unwilling to talk; the PM himself rarely gives interviews and when he does they have the stilted quality of written-down answers; and the government consistently and carefully releases important news too late in the day for proper analysis before the next day’s edition or prime time. And yet the media treats this government, its endlessly-speechifying head and its hit-and-miss ministers, with kid gloves and the exaggerated deference born of fear and of greed. Fear of what the powerful or their rabid fans could do or say — and avarice because who knows whom the king will turn to as his town crier?
Already, criticism of the government is being called unpatriotic, and the media is being accused of not reporting sufficiently positively. Like the NGOs that the government is currently attacking and trying to choke off, the media could soon be accused of holding up development — especially if it begins to report on troubles in India’s rural heartland as prices stagnate and the rain turns unpredictable.
If things turn bad -– and say, the government does not deliver as much as it has promised -– it will be said that the media is to blame. Surely, then, in the interests of new India, should we not control those in the media blocking or distracting from development at the behest of anti-India interests? This is what the government is already doing with NGOs, after all (and let’s not forget that Mint wrote an editorial backing such government action, in the national interest).
http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 816_1.html
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ghulam muhammed
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Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Hyping the Islamist Threat: Stenographers at Work Again: A response from JTSA
Following is the text of the letter by Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (JTSA) sent to Indian Express in response to the story, “First Islamic State ‘Module’”. An edited version of the letter was carried by the newspaper in the letters section today.
Dear Editors,
We are writing in response to the front-page sensational story about the busting of the “First Islamic State ‘Module’” in India (Indian Express, 6th May 2015). Except for the names of the accused and their alleged links to IS, it is a typical agency-fed story with vague details. Such are the ‘facts’ offered by this story: the accused visited Dubai in search of employment, but remained unsuccessful; that the accused joined an Islamic proselytizing and charitable group and was frustrated by its “quietism”. Even the story admits that these details are from a disclosure made to police, which is inadmissible under law. ISIS_EXpress
The rest is of course filled in with inputs from friendly security agencies. If one were to run a simple google search on the line “they were planning strikes in India, highly placed police and intelligence sources said”, it would emerge as the single most used line in terror reporting. This, combined with the same unnamed sources revealing the dark and dangerous contents of the computers seized from the accused have now become the staple of so-called investigative reporting. It will no doubt be useful for getting extended police remands on the plea that forensic investigation is going on and the accused are required to be questioned.
The story speaks about “increasing numbers” of Indians joining the ranks of IS. Really? How many? Half a dozen? Ten? It’s a typical ruse to hype a threat. One can be sure that the reporters’ assertion about “fears more [IS modules] could be forming elsewhere” will be borne out by more arrests in the near future. Breathless reporting and commentary is bound to follow. We have seen in the past narratives about ‘terror organizations’ congealing in a similar manner, where IB dossiers and news reports feed into each other.
Years down the line, when the cases come to fruition, these investigative journalists will not bother to re-visit their own news story. We have seen this being played out in scores of so-called SIMI, HUJI, LeT cases around the country. In any case, guilt or innocence is not important, what matters is that “IS in India” becomes part of our commonsense. For some reason, Indian Mujahideen seems to have gone out of favour, and SIMI remains too mofussil for an international angle.
Its just disturbing that Indian Express should offer itself up for this.
Sd/-
Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association
http://www.indiaresists.com/hyping-the- ... from-jtsa/
Following is the text of the letter by Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (JTSA) sent to Indian Express in response to the story, “First Islamic State ‘Module’”. An edited version of the letter was carried by the newspaper in the letters section today.
Dear Editors,
We are writing in response to the front-page sensational story about the busting of the “First Islamic State ‘Module’” in India (Indian Express, 6th May 2015). Except for the names of the accused and their alleged links to IS, it is a typical agency-fed story with vague details. Such are the ‘facts’ offered by this story: the accused visited Dubai in search of employment, but remained unsuccessful; that the accused joined an Islamic proselytizing and charitable group and was frustrated by its “quietism”. Even the story admits that these details are from a disclosure made to police, which is inadmissible under law. ISIS_EXpress
The rest is of course filled in with inputs from friendly security agencies. If one were to run a simple google search on the line “they were planning strikes in India, highly placed police and intelligence sources said”, it would emerge as the single most used line in terror reporting. This, combined with the same unnamed sources revealing the dark and dangerous contents of the computers seized from the accused have now become the staple of so-called investigative reporting. It will no doubt be useful for getting extended police remands on the plea that forensic investigation is going on and the accused are required to be questioned.
The story speaks about “increasing numbers” of Indians joining the ranks of IS. Really? How many? Half a dozen? Ten? It’s a typical ruse to hype a threat. One can be sure that the reporters’ assertion about “fears more [IS modules] could be forming elsewhere” will be borne out by more arrests in the near future. Breathless reporting and commentary is bound to follow. We have seen in the past narratives about ‘terror organizations’ congealing in a similar manner, where IB dossiers and news reports feed into each other.
Years down the line, when the cases come to fruition, these investigative journalists will not bother to re-visit their own news story. We have seen this being played out in scores of so-called SIMI, HUJI, LeT cases around the country. In any case, guilt or innocence is not important, what matters is that “IS in India” becomes part of our commonsense. For some reason, Indian Mujahideen seems to have gone out of favour, and SIMI remains too mofussil for an international angle.
Its just disturbing that Indian Express should offer itself up for this.
Sd/-
Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association
http://www.indiaresists.com/hyping-the- ... from-jtsa/
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ghulam muhammed
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Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Who Really Owns NDTV?
In 2009, a Mukesh Ambani group entity took control of NDTV under the guise of a loan agreement. The plan was to find a buyer in “three to five years”. No buyer has been found so far and effectively, NDTV is controlled by the Ambanis
NDTV’s promoters can do almost nothing without the consent of the Ambanis. Curiously, none of this is known to the public or to the shareholders and stock exchanges. While SEBI has recently imposed a fine of Rs2 crore on NDTV for a disclosure lapse of I-T notice, the non-disclosure of what it has signed in this loan document appears far more serious.
The iron-clad agreement signed by RRPR and the Roys with Vishvapradhan Commercial in 2009 make it clear that the Ambanis have had complete control over this group.
http://www.moneylife.in/article/who-rea ... 42206.html
In 2009, a Mukesh Ambani group entity took control of NDTV under the guise of a loan agreement. The plan was to find a buyer in “three to five years”. No buyer has been found so far and effectively, NDTV is controlled by the Ambanis
NDTV’s promoters can do almost nothing without the consent of the Ambanis. Curiously, none of this is known to the public or to the shareholders and stock exchanges. While SEBI has recently imposed a fine of Rs2 crore on NDTV for a disclosure lapse of I-T notice, the non-disclosure of what it has signed in this loan document appears far more serious.
The iron-clad agreement signed by RRPR and the Roys with Vishvapradhan Commercial in 2009 make it clear that the Ambanis have had complete control over this group.
http://www.moneylife.in/article/who-rea ... 42206.html
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ghulam muhammed
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Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Why is Firstpost Being Asked to Refrain from Criticising Three Top Leaders from the BJP?
On 2 August 2015, Firstpost—an Indian news website that comes under the Network18 group, the Reliance Industries-owned media conglomerate—removed an article written by the website’s editor-in-chief R Jagannathan, titled,"GST, Land Bill on Hold: Modi May Have to Rethink Jaitley as Finance Minister."
A senior official, who has been employed with Network18 for several years and was aware of the recent developments at Firstpost, told me that this directive stated that the website could not carry any criticism of “the big three” in the BJP. No story published on Firstpost could upset the BJP’s troika. On 30 July, a little after this meeting took place, Chaudhry decided to resign from her position at Firstpost.
While Chaudhry, who had been with the website since January 2011, did not reveal the identity of the BJP leaders that this directive concerns, she did tell me that she considered it impossible to run a news website if certain political figures were considered “off-bound.” She said, “I couldn’t have done my job. So I decided to quit. It was a terribly painful decision to make—after four-and-a-half years of hard work—but it had to be made.”
When Reliance Industries acquired Network18 group in May 2014, the takeover was surrounded by a prevailing sense of anxiety about the editorial independence that publications under the media group would be able to exercise. However, according to Chaudhry there were no instances of censorship before this one. “It had been a very hands-off relationship since the takeover; I was never asked to publish this or remove that,” she said, before adding, “but when it did come, it was not negotiable.”
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/w ... eaders-bjp
On 2 August 2015, Firstpost—an Indian news website that comes under the Network18 group, the Reliance Industries-owned media conglomerate—removed an article written by the website’s editor-in-chief R Jagannathan, titled,"GST, Land Bill on Hold: Modi May Have to Rethink Jaitley as Finance Minister."
A senior official, who has been employed with Network18 for several years and was aware of the recent developments at Firstpost, told me that this directive stated that the website could not carry any criticism of “the big three” in the BJP. No story published on Firstpost could upset the BJP’s troika. On 30 July, a little after this meeting took place, Chaudhry decided to resign from her position at Firstpost.
While Chaudhry, who had been with the website since January 2011, did not reveal the identity of the BJP leaders that this directive concerns, she did tell me that she considered it impossible to run a news website if certain political figures were considered “off-bound.” She said, “I couldn’t have done my job. So I decided to quit. It was a terribly painful decision to make—after four-and-a-half years of hard work—but it had to be made.”
When Reliance Industries acquired Network18 group in May 2014, the takeover was surrounded by a prevailing sense of anxiety about the editorial independence that publications under the media group would be able to exercise. However, according to Chaudhry there were no instances of censorship before this one. “It had been a very hands-off relationship since the takeover; I was never asked to publish this or remove that,” she said, before adding, “but when it did come, it was not negotiable.”
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/w ... eaders-bjp
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ghulam muhammed
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Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
“Journalism largely consists in saying "Lord Jones is dead" to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.”
- G.K. Chesterton
- G.K. Chesterton
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ghulam muhammed
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Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
The Reluctant Fundamentalists: How News Channels in India Are Manufacturing the Muslim Identity
On 3 January 2016, the Anjuman Ahle Sunnatul Jamaat (ASJ), an Islamist organisation, conducted a meeting at Kaliachak in south Malda, West Bengal, to protest a derogatory statement allegedly made by Uttar Pradesh Hindu Mahasabha leader Kamlesh Tiwari, against Muhammad, considered a prophet in Islamic faith. This demonstration soon turned violent. The protestors set fire to around two dozen vehicles and attacked the Kailachak police station. As soon as news of the violence broke, most reports suggested that it was the result of the community’s collective rage over the statements that Tiwari—who has since been disowned by the Mahasabha—had made. But, as The Hindu reported, the outbreak was probably linked to the local dynamics of the area, where workers of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) are suspected of being involved in opium and cattle smuggling. According to the web publication The Wire, it is also being pitched as a battle between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the TMC as they attempt to carve out the old Congress party bastion of Malda in the run-up to the assembly elections, to be held later this year.
India’s news channels, however, had their own exclusive take.
On The Newshour, Times Now’s nightly debate show, which was most recently referred to as “Fox News on steroids,” the editor-in-chief of the channel, Arnab Goswami, summoned all the lung power he could muster to ask, “Where is the secular ‘Award wapsi’ brigade?” Goswami also declared, “There is a communal angle to the killing of [Mohammed] Iqlakh [who was killed by a mob in Dadri on the suspicion that he had beef in his house] and there is a communal angle to what happened in Kaliachak!” A little before the show, a dramatically packaged news story played out on the channel with the hashtag #MaldaCoverup. This news report, accompanied by a voiceover that promised to tell the viewers “the story the Mamata government does not want you to know,” questioned the Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s claims that the violence in Malda was a localised clash involving the Border Security Force. Last year, in September, the same channel had played host to Goswami as he dismissed the communal nature of the killing in Dadri by branding it a failure of law and order on the part of the state government.
It wasn’t just Times Now. News X, that inevitably imitates the “most widely watched network”, also panned Mamata for not going to Kaliachak while having the time to attend the Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali’s concert. Rahul Shivshankar, the editor-in-chief of News X, berated the chief minister for hobnobbing with the “cultural ambassador of a country that has made its national mission to bleed India by a thousand cuts.” In stark contrast, the channel did not seem to mind that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Karnataka, tweeting away homilies from the International Yoga Conference even as the attack on the air base in Pathankot was underway. Needless to say, News X wasn’t alone in this regard. No news channel deemed Modi’s faux pas worthy of coverage.
The overall context can hardly be missed. With the Modi government under greater scrutiny than ever before, his devotees in the media have become more strident.
However, the problem runs deeper, and is related to the manner in which news content is generated. It is no longer dependent on field reports by reporters or morning newsroom editorial meetings but on what Twitter says. It is to the Twitterati that most networks seem to be pandering to. It is a self-contained media ecosystem that relies, at most, on generic visuals—buses burning, women crying, or shots of arson—to tell a story. News that is driven by Twitter works in this manner—the lack of a proportionate “sickular” response to the Malda incident as opposed to the national outrage over Dadri is pronounced anti-Hindu online, following which Hindutva trolls work overtime towards making this sentiment trend, in some cases, even posting photo-shopped pictures to inflame passions. This train of thought is soon picked up by an articulate right-wing commentator such as Swapan Dasgupta and from here, the specious binary finds its way into prime time discussion. Those anchors, editors or journalists not falling in line are harassed and abused. The Twitterati serve as the new measure for Television Rating Points (TRP) in town.
This modus operandi can be easily observed through a quick glance at the Twitter timeline of Sudhir Chaudhary, the editor of Zee News. Chaudhury frequently retweets the compliments he gets from his viewers. Most recent among these accolades is the lavish praise that he has been receiving for “exposing the Malda riots” and for his “brave reporting.” In the aftermath of the violence in Malda, on his show Daily News and Analysis, Chaudhury had declared that news channels in India were attempting to cover up the incident. He went on to insinuate that the attacks had been pre-planned.
When it comes to thriving on stereotypes, the spectacle of prime time news television is no different from the make-believe world of Bollywood. Central to this caricature of communities, is the search for “Muslim-looking” and “speaking” guests to aggressively counter the Hindutva trolls-turned-studio guests word for word, rhetoric for rhetoric. An amalgam of sorts of what the Swiss linguist Ferdinand De Saussure calls the “signifier”—the language—and the “signified”—the image the language evokes.
As is evident by now, prime time television is based on manufacturing endless binaries. These include but are not restricted to: the Congress versus the BJP and its infinite variations; the left versus the right; Nehru versus Patel; Nehru versus Bose; Pakistan versus India; and the massacre of 1984 versus the communal violence of 2002. The haste with which these channels have displayed in pitting Malda versus Dadri comes as no surprise.
The visually “Hindu-looking” and “speaking” guests—such as the Hindu Mahasabha president and TV studio regular Swami Chakrapani—complete with a saffron outfit, beads, long hair and forehead smeared with holy ash, belonging to unheard-of religious organisations, are available dime a dozen. However, the visually “Muslim-looking” panellists—such as Maulana Maqsood-ul-Hasan Qasmi, a member of the Imam Council—with a flowing beard, a Turkish fez or a skull cap, and conversant in Hindustani that is laced with Urdu, have been loath to speak as radicals despite provocative anchors.
This has thrown a spanner in the works. How should “Hindu” excesses such as Dadri be framed without a shouting talking head from the Muslim camp? Similarly, how does a prime time debate relating to the Islamist militant attack in Paris last year play out in a country in which stories about the Islamic State are largely, if not entirely, Intelligence Bureau fantasies that have been planted on obliging beat reporters?
Barkha Dutt, the consulting editor of New Delhi Television (NDTV), recently showed how this was possible on her show, The Buck Stops Here. Since no Muslim “looking” guest would defend the mass killings in Paris, a stray comment made by senior Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan at a rally was used as an entry point for the discussion moderated by Dutt. Khan, while condemning the terror attack, had said that it could have been a “reaction to the killing of innocents in Arab countries by the superpowers.” Dutt opened the show by saying that Khan’s comment “almost rationalises the act of the Islamic State.” This declaration was accompanied by a full-screen graphic of Khan’s face, followed by a display of the question,“Azam Khan a terror apologist?” The posturing of Dutt’s statement immediately put Khan in the same league as the perpetrators of the attacks in Paris. While I hold no brief for Khan, it is important to note that he only represented a stance that has been spoken of widely in liberal sections of western media. The timing of his intervention and his choice of words, it could be argued of course, were in utterly bad taste.
Barkha’s loaded question was a sufficient cue for Dasgupta, who sealed the debate in its twenty-seventh minute by declaring that Khan’s statement was a reiteration of the Islamic State’s perception of Muslim victimhood. Such statements, he further inveighed, have led the Islamic State to declare a war that amounts to a modern day re-enactment of medieval crusades on the West. There was little clarity on how either Dutt or Dasgupta established the link between Azam Khan—a sub-regional Muslim leader from Uttar Pradesh who largely represents the Muslims of Rohillkhand, Rampur and Bareilly—and the Paris killings. Even more dubious were the grounds on which he was projected as a leader representing India’s 172 million Muslims.
This could be an effect of aping the market leader, Times Now. The channel and Goswami have transformed Khan into India’s definitve archetype of a Muslim, and the Samajwadi Party into a party of Islamic fanatics. Whenever prime time television has to entertain its viewers with some Muslim bashing, Khan, Gaurav Bhatia—the spokesperson of the SP—or sundry “Muslim looking” figures are hung out to dry. When Iqlakh was lynched by a mob in September last year, Goswami began The Newshour by putting the SP in the dock and asking, “Why is the state government subjecting the meat recovered from Iqlakh’s refrigerator to a forensic test?” It was a curious question to ask on the day the lynching had been reported for the first time in the national media—especially in the backdrop of the heightened Muslim bashing by rampant elements of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Even if one were to take a leap of faith and assume that this was a “newsier” peg, Goswami was not clueless about the nature of the meat—which was conclusively proven to be goat and not beef in December last year. Ten minutes into the show, a window opened up on the television screen to reveal two people. One of them was Iqlakh’s sister, who said, “It wasn’t beef. It was goat’s meat.” By pitching the story as a “failure of law and order” Goswami ensured that the discourse during his show was focused entirely on the culpability of the government. Soon after, Siddharth Nath Singh from the BJP latched on to the cue and asserted, once again, that the state government’s failure to maintain law and order had resulted in the killing. Coincidentally, this position also became the BJP’s official party line.
But Khan is not the only one news channels have tried to pin the stereotypical Muslim identity on. Unsuccessful attempts have also been made to force-fit the President of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi, into a militant, even Jihadi, frame. A number of Owaisi’s speeches tend to be shared widely on social media. One such speech from 31 May 2014 gained traction online for his reference to Modi as a dog. He made this comment after the prime minister—in 2013, a year before the BJP was elected to power—responded to a question on the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat that occurred during his tenure as chief minister of the state, by saying that when “someone else is driving a car and we’re sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course it is. If I’m a chief minister or not, I’m a human being. If something bad happens anywhere, it is natural to be sad.”
In November 2014, the news channel India TV’s owner and editor, Rajat Sharma, brought up Owaisi’s comment on his show Aap Ki Adalat. Owaisi cited Modi’s original remarks in the interview, without taking his name. It would be foolish to deny that Owaisi is given to rabble-rousing, just as the prime minister is, as was clear when the prime minister thundered at an election rally in Bihar recently. Modi waxed eloquent about the presence of the terror-mongering “Darbhanga Module” in the state and effectively damned the entire population of Muslims belonging to a district in Bihar.
Barkha Dutt has not been far behind in writing off an entire community since Modi’s accession to power either. This tendency is best exemplified in an open editorial that she wrote for the Hindustan Times in October last year. Dutt identified Owaisi’s Hyderabad-based organisation AIMIM as “the precursor of Muslim League” that attempts to “ghettoise Muslims.” Dutt appeared to have overlooked the fact that the AIMIM won 25 seats in the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation election held earlier that year based on a declared Dalit-Muslim combination. Her slanted piece tellingly appeared on the same day on which she proudly clicked a selfie with the prime minister.
The selfie is a powerful indictment—albeit symbolic—of how those representing television media and Modi are increasingly framed together. Several minorties in India—not just Muslims—appear distant and even marginalised. Those who dare to speak, are silenced, as actors Shah Rukh Khan and Amir Khan were, last year
This frozen image of Muslims as essentially Jihadists, is at best a caricature and at worst a denial of citizenship rights to India’s largest minority. The editorial push to manufacture a Jihadi in the absence of one conveys a reckless desire to privilege debating format over content. It also appropriates the dominant global discourse spawned by a combination of journalists, academia and security wonks, that was first identified by literary theoretician Edward Said more than three decades ago in his seminal work, Covering Islam. This approach is then combined with myths and prejudices propagated by the Sangh and its ideologues about Hinduism—which is itself a product of what Said termed “Orientalism,” the frame through which the West sees the Orient.
Muslims are far more likely to be radicalised because of the injustices meted out in Malegaon, the Akshardham terror case, and in Telangana where five Muslim youths were shot dead in cold blood early this year. It is difficult to remember when, if at all, electronic or the print media—barring The Indian Express—interrogated the excesses of the state on the minorities as a campaign, as was done with reportage on the rape case in December 2012. The new-age Twitter driven television content is based on anger, hate, unreal binaries, and banal stereotypes. It is merely re-enforcing cultural prejudices that now enjoy the ideological backing of a state that appears to be shaping itself as a Hindu Rashtra.
- See more at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/n ... XOWjB.dpuf
On 3 January 2016, the Anjuman Ahle Sunnatul Jamaat (ASJ), an Islamist organisation, conducted a meeting at Kaliachak in south Malda, West Bengal, to protest a derogatory statement allegedly made by Uttar Pradesh Hindu Mahasabha leader Kamlesh Tiwari, against Muhammad, considered a prophet in Islamic faith. This demonstration soon turned violent. The protestors set fire to around two dozen vehicles and attacked the Kailachak police station. As soon as news of the violence broke, most reports suggested that it was the result of the community’s collective rage over the statements that Tiwari—who has since been disowned by the Mahasabha—had made. But, as The Hindu reported, the outbreak was probably linked to the local dynamics of the area, where workers of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) are suspected of being involved in opium and cattle smuggling. According to the web publication The Wire, it is also being pitched as a battle between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the TMC as they attempt to carve out the old Congress party bastion of Malda in the run-up to the assembly elections, to be held later this year.
India’s news channels, however, had their own exclusive take.
On The Newshour, Times Now’s nightly debate show, which was most recently referred to as “Fox News on steroids,” the editor-in-chief of the channel, Arnab Goswami, summoned all the lung power he could muster to ask, “Where is the secular ‘Award wapsi’ brigade?” Goswami also declared, “There is a communal angle to the killing of [Mohammed] Iqlakh [who was killed by a mob in Dadri on the suspicion that he had beef in his house] and there is a communal angle to what happened in Kaliachak!” A little before the show, a dramatically packaged news story played out on the channel with the hashtag #MaldaCoverup. This news report, accompanied by a voiceover that promised to tell the viewers “the story the Mamata government does not want you to know,” questioned the Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s claims that the violence in Malda was a localised clash involving the Border Security Force. Last year, in September, the same channel had played host to Goswami as he dismissed the communal nature of the killing in Dadri by branding it a failure of law and order on the part of the state government.
It wasn’t just Times Now. News X, that inevitably imitates the “most widely watched network”, also panned Mamata for not going to Kaliachak while having the time to attend the Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali’s concert. Rahul Shivshankar, the editor-in-chief of News X, berated the chief minister for hobnobbing with the “cultural ambassador of a country that has made its national mission to bleed India by a thousand cuts.” In stark contrast, the channel did not seem to mind that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Karnataka, tweeting away homilies from the International Yoga Conference even as the attack on the air base in Pathankot was underway. Needless to say, News X wasn’t alone in this regard. No news channel deemed Modi’s faux pas worthy of coverage.
The overall context can hardly be missed. With the Modi government under greater scrutiny than ever before, his devotees in the media have become more strident.
However, the problem runs deeper, and is related to the manner in which news content is generated. It is no longer dependent on field reports by reporters or morning newsroom editorial meetings but on what Twitter says. It is to the Twitterati that most networks seem to be pandering to. It is a self-contained media ecosystem that relies, at most, on generic visuals—buses burning, women crying, or shots of arson—to tell a story. News that is driven by Twitter works in this manner—the lack of a proportionate “sickular” response to the Malda incident as opposed to the national outrage over Dadri is pronounced anti-Hindu online, following which Hindutva trolls work overtime towards making this sentiment trend, in some cases, even posting photo-shopped pictures to inflame passions. This train of thought is soon picked up by an articulate right-wing commentator such as Swapan Dasgupta and from here, the specious binary finds its way into prime time discussion. Those anchors, editors or journalists not falling in line are harassed and abused. The Twitterati serve as the new measure for Television Rating Points (TRP) in town.
This modus operandi can be easily observed through a quick glance at the Twitter timeline of Sudhir Chaudhary, the editor of Zee News. Chaudhury frequently retweets the compliments he gets from his viewers. Most recent among these accolades is the lavish praise that he has been receiving for “exposing the Malda riots” and for his “brave reporting.” In the aftermath of the violence in Malda, on his show Daily News and Analysis, Chaudhury had declared that news channels in India were attempting to cover up the incident. He went on to insinuate that the attacks had been pre-planned.
When it comes to thriving on stereotypes, the spectacle of prime time news television is no different from the make-believe world of Bollywood. Central to this caricature of communities, is the search for “Muslim-looking” and “speaking” guests to aggressively counter the Hindutva trolls-turned-studio guests word for word, rhetoric for rhetoric. An amalgam of sorts of what the Swiss linguist Ferdinand De Saussure calls the “signifier”—the language—and the “signified”—the image the language evokes.
As is evident by now, prime time television is based on manufacturing endless binaries. These include but are not restricted to: the Congress versus the BJP and its infinite variations; the left versus the right; Nehru versus Patel; Nehru versus Bose; Pakistan versus India; and the massacre of 1984 versus the communal violence of 2002. The haste with which these channels have displayed in pitting Malda versus Dadri comes as no surprise.
The visually “Hindu-looking” and “speaking” guests—such as the Hindu Mahasabha president and TV studio regular Swami Chakrapani—complete with a saffron outfit, beads, long hair and forehead smeared with holy ash, belonging to unheard-of religious organisations, are available dime a dozen. However, the visually “Muslim-looking” panellists—such as Maulana Maqsood-ul-Hasan Qasmi, a member of the Imam Council—with a flowing beard, a Turkish fez or a skull cap, and conversant in Hindustani that is laced with Urdu, have been loath to speak as radicals despite provocative anchors.
This has thrown a spanner in the works. How should “Hindu” excesses such as Dadri be framed without a shouting talking head from the Muslim camp? Similarly, how does a prime time debate relating to the Islamist militant attack in Paris last year play out in a country in which stories about the Islamic State are largely, if not entirely, Intelligence Bureau fantasies that have been planted on obliging beat reporters?
Barkha Dutt, the consulting editor of New Delhi Television (NDTV), recently showed how this was possible on her show, The Buck Stops Here. Since no Muslim “looking” guest would defend the mass killings in Paris, a stray comment made by senior Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan at a rally was used as an entry point for the discussion moderated by Dutt. Khan, while condemning the terror attack, had said that it could have been a “reaction to the killing of innocents in Arab countries by the superpowers.” Dutt opened the show by saying that Khan’s comment “almost rationalises the act of the Islamic State.” This declaration was accompanied by a full-screen graphic of Khan’s face, followed by a display of the question,“Azam Khan a terror apologist?” The posturing of Dutt’s statement immediately put Khan in the same league as the perpetrators of the attacks in Paris. While I hold no brief for Khan, it is important to note that he only represented a stance that has been spoken of widely in liberal sections of western media. The timing of his intervention and his choice of words, it could be argued of course, were in utterly bad taste.
Barkha’s loaded question was a sufficient cue for Dasgupta, who sealed the debate in its twenty-seventh minute by declaring that Khan’s statement was a reiteration of the Islamic State’s perception of Muslim victimhood. Such statements, he further inveighed, have led the Islamic State to declare a war that amounts to a modern day re-enactment of medieval crusades on the West. There was little clarity on how either Dutt or Dasgupta established the link between Azam Khan—a sub-regional Muslim leader from Uttar Pradesh who largely represents the Muslims of Rohillkhand, Rampur and Bareilly—and the Paris killings. Even more dubious were the grounds on which he was projected as a leader representing India’s 172 million Muslims.
This could be an effect of aping the market leader, Times Now. The channel and Goswami have transformed Khan into India’s definitve archetype of a Muslim, and the Samajwadi Party into a party of Islamic fanatics. Whenever prime time television has to entertain its viewers with some Muslim bashing, Khan, Gaurav Bhatia—the spokesperson of the SP—or sundry “Muslim looking” figures are hung out to dry. When Iqlakh was lynched by a mob in September last year, Goswami began The Newshour by putting the SP in the dock and asking, “Why is the state government subjecting the meat recovered from Iqlakh’s refrigerator to a forensic test?” It was a curious question to ask on the day the lynching had been reported for the first time in the national media—especially in the backdrop of the heightened Muslim bashing by rampant elements of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Even if one were to take a leap of faith and assume that this was a “newsier” peg, Goswami was not clueless about the nature of the meat—which was conclusively proven to be goat and not beef in December last year. Ten minutes into the show, a window opened up on the television screen to reveal two people. One of them was Iqlakh’s sister, who said, “It wasn’t beef. It was goat’s meat.” By pitching the story as a “failure of law and order” Goswami ensured that the discourse during his show was focused entirely on the culpability of the government. Soon after, Siddharth Nath Singh from the BJP latched on to the cue and asserted, once again, that the state government’s failure to maintain law and order had resulted in the killing. Coincidentally, this position also became the BJP’s official party line.
But Khan is not the only one news channels have tried to pin the stereotypical Muslim identity on. Unsuccessful attempts have also been made to force-fit the President of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi, into a militant, even Jihadi, frame. A number of Owaisi’s speeches tend to be shared widely on social media. One such speech from 31 May 2014 gained traction online for his reference to Modi as a dog. He made this comment after the prime minister—in 2013, a year before the BJP was elected to power—responded to a question on the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat that occurred during his tenure as chief minister of the state, by saying that when “someone else is driving a car and we’re sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course it is. If I’m a chief minister or not, I’m a human being. If something bad happens anywhere, it is natural to be sad.”
In November 2014, the news channel India TV’s owner and editor, Rajat Sharma, brought up Owaisi’s comment on his show Aap Ki Adalat. Owaisi cited Modi’s original remarks in the interview, without taking his name. It would be foolish to deny that Owaisi is given to rabble-rousing, just as the prime minister is, as was clear when the prime minister thundered at an election rally in Bihar recently. Modi waxed eloquent about the presence of the terror-mongering “Darbhanga Module” in the state and effectively damned the entire population of Muslims belonging to a district in Bihar.
Barkha Dutt has not been far behind in writing off an entire community since Modi’s accession to power either. This tendency is best exemplified in an open editorial that she wrote for the Hindustan Times in October last year. Dutt identified Owaisi’s Hyderabad-based organisation AIMIM as “the precursor of Muslim League” that attempts to “ghettoise Muslims.” Dutt appeared to have overlooked the fact that the AIMIM won 25 seats in the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation election held earlier that year based on a declared Dalit-Muslim combination. Her slanted piece tellingly appeared on the same day on which she proudly clicked a selfie with the prime minister.
The selfie is a powerful indictment—albeit symbolic—of how those representing television media and Modi are increasingly framed together. Several minorties in India—not just Muslims—appear distant and even marginalised. Those who dare to speak, are silenced, as actors Shah Rukh Khan and Amir Khan were, last year
This frozen image of Muslims as essentially Jihadists, is at best a caricature and at worst a denial of citizenship rights to India’s largest minority. The editorial push to manufacture a Jihadi in the absence of one conveys a reckless desire to privilege debating format over content. It also appropriates the dominant global discourse spawned by a combination of journalists, academia and security wonks, that was first identified by literary theoretician Edward Said more than three decades ago in his seminal work, Covering Islam. This approach is then combined with myths and prejudices propagated by the Sangh and its ideologues about Hinduism—which is itself a product of what Said termed “Orientalism,” the frame through which the West sees the Orient.
Muslims are far more likely to be radicalised because of the injustices meted out in Malegaon, the Akshardham terror case, and in Telangana where five Muslim youths were shot dead in cold blood early this year. It is difficult to remember when, if at all, electronic or the print media—barring The Indian Express—interrogated the excesses of the state on the minorities as a campaign, as was done with reportage on the rape case in December 2012. The new-age Twitter driven television content is based on anger, hate, unreal binaries, and banal stereotypes. It is merely re-enforcing cultural prejudices that now enjoy the ideological backing of a state that appears to be shaping itself as a Hindu Rashtra.
- See more at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/n ... XOWjB.dpuf
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
For national media, a Muslim arrested is a Muslim convicted until time proves otherwise
You may not know too much about Abdul Sami, except that he is alleged to be an Al-Qaeda operative caught from Mewat on Sunday. But if you had read Dainik Jagran, the Hindi Daily on Monday, you would be aware of where his retired father lives on rent for the past two years. Even the flat number has been mentioned. Prabhat Khabar has done one better; it has published a picture of the building too with the address, just in case you might need a picture. Just in case you feel like visiting him. Maybe one could ask him the question no father wants to hear: is your son a terrorist? A traitor?
The entire story is based on “information” received, but there are no counter arguments. Never.
It is not just the reporting that can be questioned here: more than that, the supposed tactics of Al-Qaeda need to be looked at also. If a decade ago, luring young, talented, suave, educated Muslims to become terrorists was the ultimate aim of Al-Qaeda and its sister organisations, the Al-Qaeda in Indian Sub-continent (AQIS) seems to have now taken particular interest in hiring uneducated, small-town residents who barely make ends meet as their top officials. Sample this: Mohammed Asif was so broke at the time of his arrest that he had to stop his son’s education, leave an unfinished house to move to a smaller place on rent and had a sever back problem. Zafar Masood was unemployed and spent most of his time at home, Sami was unemployed who spent most of his time at home, and of late, had been attending the meetings of Tableeghi Jamaat. Asif’s family can barely make ends meet; Masood’s family is in a similar situation, and Sami’s father is retired. None of these families can even pay for a lawyer, let alone fight a case for years.
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
http://twocircles.net/2016jan22/1453461 ... qVEf5p97IU
You may not know too much about Abdul Sami, except that he is alleged to be an Al-Qaeda operative caught from Mewat on Sunday. But if you had read Dainik Jagran, the Hindi Daily on Monday, you would be aware of where his retired father lives on rent for the past two years. Even the flat number has been mentioned. Prabhat Khabar has done one better; it has published a picture of the building too with the address, just in case you might need a picture. Just in case you feel like visiting him. Maybe one could ask him the question no father wants to hear: is your son a terrorist? A traitor?
The entire story is based on “information” received, but there are no counter arguments. Never.
It is not just the reporting that can be questioned here: more than that, the supposed tactics of Al-Qaeda need to be looked at also. If a decade ago, luring young, talented, suave, educated Muslims to become terrorists was the ultimate aim of Al-Qaeda and its sister organisations, the Al-Qaeda in Indian Sub-continent (AQIS) seems to have now taken particular interest in hiring uneducated, small-town residents who barely make ends meet as their top officials. Sample this: Mohammed Asif was so broke at the time of his arrest that he had to stop his son’s education, leave an unfinished house to move to a smaller place on rent and had a sever back problem. Zafar Masood was unemployed and spent most of his time at home, Sami was unemployed who spent most of his time at home, and of late, had been attending the meetings of Tableeghi Jamaat. Asif’s family can barely make ends meet; Masood’s family is in a similar situation, and Sami’s father is retired. None of these families can even pay for a lawyer, let alone fight a case for years.
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
http://twocircles.net/2016jan22/1453461 ... qVEf5p97IU
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Facts of the Ishrat Jahan case for some enraged ‘nationalist’ journalists
Dear Arnab Goswami, Rahul Shivshankar, Rahul Kanwal, Gaurav Sawant, Shiv Aroor and assorted ‘journalists’, here are some facts of the Ishrat Jahaan encounter.
1) The ballistics report said that the cartridges don’t match the gun.
Here’s an extract from the FIR (bearing no. DCB PS I CR No. 8 of 2004) filed by the SIT team that was constituted by the High Court of Gujarat which tells you the story of the bullets and cartridges that were recovered.
''Para 8.4: Eight empty cartridge cases of 9mm ammunition recovered from the Indica car do not match with the two pistols recovered from the Indica car. These empties of 9 mm do not also match with the two police weapons of 9 mm caliber used in the encounter. This shows the police version of hearing gunshots from inside the Indica car is untrue, and also there is some fabrication to justify the FIR theory.
2) The forensics report by the forensics lab in Gandhinagar, few kms away from CM’s bungalow, said that the yellow powder found in the trunk of the car was non-explosive in nature.
Here’s an extract from the FIR (bearing no. DCB PS I CR No. 8 of 2004) filed by the SIT team that was constituted by the High Court of Gujarat.
''Para 8.5: A gunny bag containing 17 kg of yellow powder was seized from the Indica car. It was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by the DFS (Directorate of Forensic Science), Gandhinagar and the Deputy Chief Controller of Explosives, Vadodra and it was subsequently opined that the subject chemical mixture is not an explosive mixture.
3) The bullet trajectories were all in downward direction matching close range firing with only a single bullet in upward direction. Gujarat Police’s claim was that they were firing from the side of the road in a lying position.
Here’s an extract from the FIR (bearing no. DCB PS I CR No. 8 of 2004) filed by the SIT team that was constituted by the High Court of Gujarat.
''According to the Police FIR version undersigned by Mr Singhal himself, Shri Singhal’s team and Shri Amin’s team were at 66 feet and 33 feet respectively from the Indica car. Shri Singhal’s team (66 feet away) was positioned in depressed land and Shri Amin’s team (33 feet away) had taken lying position behind the Maruti Gypsy. If at all, the bulk of police firing was from these positions, the firing trajectories from such positions on the Indica car would have an upward angle. However there is only one entry hole in the Indica car with an upward trajectory and that bullet could not have hit any of the occupants.
Further more:
''All other bullet entry holes on the Indica car show downwardly inclined trajectories at 5 to 10 degrees downward angle, which are possible only from a position much near the Indica car.
I extend an open invitation to all the ‘journalists’ to come to Ahmedabad so that I can show you the location of the encounter in Ahmedabad. This will also give you an opportunity to step out of your ‘news’ studio.
4) Since you’ve been shouting about affidavits, there’s also a sting phone call between accused GL Singhal and former accused PP Pandey, both senior IPS officers of Gujarat cadre, where they discuss how High Court judgeship could be offered to one Advocate Abhichandani if the affidavit which shows Ishrat as a terrorist is filed. If there was so much truth in the affidavit you’ve been dancing upon, why offer judgeship to a advocate for merely filing an affidavit? Here’s the english transcript of the call.
''G.L. Singhal: Sir, Namaskar
P.P. Pandey: Are you in meeting?
G.L. Singhal: Yes Sir, Now I have come out.
P.P. Pandey: That order for Abhichandani is done?
G.L. Singhal: Ji, Ji, Sir
P.P. Pandey: Tomorrow, some one is coming ,Under Secretary from Delhi, for signing affidavit.
G.L. Singhal: Right, Right, Sir, Right Sir
P.P. Pandey: Tell Abhichandani, if he does properly, we may try to make him High Court Judge.
G.L. Singhal: Right, Right, Sir, will explain – Ji, ji Sir. I will explain him. I have understood.
The soundcloud link to the audio conversation is available here:
5) Here’s a picture of the AK47 Magazines that were recovered from the car. Do you see how spotless and squeaky clean they are while rest of the car is bathed in blood? The blood somehow magically missed the magazines, right?
Those who aren’t driven by an agenda would logically conclude that the magazines were planted. Not sure about you ‘journalists’ though.
So if bullets don’t match the gun, explosives are non-explosive, how do you reckon Ishrat and 3 others were going to kill the great Narendra Modi? Probably make him sit through an episode of News Hour?
Do come to Ahmedabad, my mother and I can host you all ‘journalists’ and show you the entire list of phone call records besides taking you to the spot of the encounter.
http://www.truthofgujarat.com/facts-of- ... urnalists/
Dear Arnab Goswami, Rahul Shivshankar, Rahul Kanwal, Gaurav Sawant, Shiv Aroor and assorted ‘journalists’, here are some facts of the Ishrat Jahaan encounter.
1) The ballistics report said that the cartridges don’t match the gun.
Here’s an extract from the FIR (bearing no. DCB PS I CR No. 8 of 2004) filed by the SIT team that was constituted by the High Court of Gujarat which tells you the story of the bullets and cartridges that were recovered.
''Para 8.4: Eight empty cartridge cases of 9mm ammunition recovered from the Indica car do not match with the two pistols recovered from the Indica car. These empties of 9 mm do not also match with the two police weapons of 9 mm caliber used in the encounter. This shows the police version of hearing gunshots from inside the Indica car is untrue, and also there is some fabrication to justify the FIR theory.
2) The forensics report by the forensics lab in Gandhinagar, few kms away from CM’s bungalow, said that the yellow powder found in the trunk of the car was non-explosive in nature.
Here’s an extract from the FIR (bearing no. DCB PS I CR No. 8 of 2004) filed by the SIT team that was constituted by the High Court of Gujarat.
''Para 8.5: A gunny bag containing 17 kg of yellow powder was seized from the Indica car. It was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by the DFS (Directorate of Forensic Science), Gandhinagar and the Deputy Chief Controller of Explosives, Vadodra and it was subsequently opined that the subject chemical mixture is not an explosive mixture.
3) The bullet trajectories were all in downward direction matching close range firing with only a single bullet in upward direction. Gujarat Police’s claim was that they were firing from the side of the road in a lying position.
Here’s an extract from the FIR (bearing no. DCB PS I CR No. 8 of 2004) filed by the SIT team that was constituted by the High Court of Gujarat.
''According to the Police FIR version undersigned by Mr Singhal himself, Shri Singhal’s team and Shri Amin’s team were at 66 feet and 33 feet respectively from the Indica car. Shri Singhal’s team (66 feet away) was positioned in depressed land and Shri Amin’s team (33 feet away) had taken lying position behind the Maruti Gypsy. If at all, the bulk of police firing was from these positions, the firing trajectories from such positions on the Indica car would have an upward angle. However there is only one entry hole in the Indica car with an upward trajectory and that bullet could not have hit any of the occupants.
Further more:
''All other bullet entry holes on the Indica car show downwardly inclined trajectories at 5 to 10 degrees downward angle, which are possible only from a position much near the Indica car.
I extend an open invitation to all the ‘journalists’ to come to Ahmedabad so that I can show you the location of the encounter in Ahmedabad. This will also give you an opportunity to step out of your ‘news’ studio.
4) Since you’ve been shouting about affidavits, there’s also a sting phone call between accused GL Singhal and former accused PP Pandey, both senior IPS officers of Gujarat cadre, where they discuss how High Court judgeship could be offered to one Advocate Abhichandani if the affidavit which shows Ishrat as a terrorist is filed. If there was so much truth in the affidavit you’ve been dancing upon, why offer judgeship to a advocate for merely filing an affidavit? Here’s the english transcript of the call.
''G.L. Singhal: Sir, Namaskar
P.P. Pandey: Are you in meeting?
G.L. Singhal: Yes Sir, Now I have come out.
P.P. Pandey: That order for Abhichandani is done?
G.L. Singhal: Ji, Ji, Sir
P.P. Pandey: Tomorrow, some one is coming ,Under Secretary from Delhi, for signing affidavit.
G.L. Singhal: Right, Right, Sir, Right Sir
P.P. Pandey: Tell Abhichandani, if he does properly, we may try to make him High Court Judge.
G.L. Singhal: Right, Right, Sir, will explain – Ji, ji Sir. I will explain him. I have understood.
The soundcloud link to the audio conversation is available here:
5) Here’s a picture of the AK47 Magazines that were recovered from the car. Do you see how spotless and squeaky clean they are while rest of the car is bathed in blood? The blood somehow magically missed the magazines, right?
Those who aren’t driven by an agenda would logically conclude that the magazines were planted. Not sure about you ‘journalists’ though.
So if bullets don’t match the gun, explosives are non-explosive, how do you reckon Ishrat and 3 others were going to kill the great Narendra Modi? Probably make him sit through an episode of News Hour?
Do come to Ahmedabad, my mother and I can host you all ‘journalists’ and show you the entire list of phone call records besides taking you to the spot of the encounter.
http://www.truthofgujarat.com/facts-of- ... urnalists/
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
How television media uncritically reproduced the Sangh’s narrative of “nationalist” versus “anti-nationalist”
Over the course of this month, as the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), have been in combat with the government, a separate battle has raged within the media. This battle, fuelled by allegedly manufactured footage which suggested that some JNU students shouted pro-Pakistan slogans more than a fortnight ago, will be remembered for several firsts.
Ironically, it is this footage that reportedly resulted in the Delhi police’s FIR against the students that has created a national crisis, leaving the Modi government clueless. The question to ask is whether Subhash Chandra, chairman of the Zee network, and his editor Sudhir Chaudhary—both of whom are named in the Delhi Police FIR in the alleged Rs 100 crore extortion charges slapped by Congress MP and steel magnate Naveen Jindal—are ingratiating themselves with the investigators. The tide has already turned for Chaudhary, who spent 20 days in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in 2012 because of the alleged extortion case. The Modi government has rewarded him with X category security citing “threat perceptions” that appear to have arisen out of the very same extortion case. Chandra is now a card-holding member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who has also unsuccessfully sought tickets from the party for the Hissar Lok Sabha and the Assembly seat twice. In his book The Z Factor, Chandra speaks of his long standing association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and his frosty relations with former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee because Brajesh Mishra—India’s first National Security Advisor, who passed away in 2012—and Ranjan Bhattacharya—who is married to Vajpayee’s foster daughter—did not like his proximity “to the top brass of the RSS.” Chandra also blamed Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress, for conspiring to frame him in the extortion case. Chandra’s book seemed to find favour with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who unveiled the autobiography in January this year.
- See more at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/m ... vYs7q.dpuf
Over the course of this month, as the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), have been in combat with the government, a separate battle has raged within the media. This battle, fuelled by allegedly manufactured footage which suggested that some JNU students shouted pro-Pakistan slogans more than a fortnight ago, will be remembered for several firsts.
Ironically, it is this footage that reportedly resulted in the Delhi police’s FIR against the students that has created a national crisis, leaving the Modi government clueless. The question to ask is whether Subhash Chandra, chairman of the Zee network, and his editor Sudhir Chaudhary—both of whom are named in the Delhi Police FIR in the alleged Rs 100 crore extortion charges slapped by Congress MP and steel magnate Naveen Jindal—are ingratiating themselves with the investigators. The tide has already turned for Chaudhary, who spent 20 days in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in 2012 because of the alleged extortion case. The Modi government has rewarded him with X category security citing “threat perceptions” that appear to have arisen out of the very same extortion case. Chandra is now a card-holding member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who has also unsuccessfully sought tickets from the party for the Hissar Lok Sabha and the Assembly seat twice. In his book The Z Factor, Chandra speaks of his long standing association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and his frosty relations with former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee because Brajesh Mishra—India’s first National Security Advisor, who passed away in 2012—and Ranjan Bhattacharya—who is married to Vajpayee’s foster daughter—did not like his proximity “to the top brass of the RSS.” Chandra also blamed Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress, for conspiring to frame him in the extortion case. Chandra’s book seemed to find favour with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who unveiled the autobiography in January this year.
- See more at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/m ... vYs7q.dpuf
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Academicians, activists ask Press council to act against Zee News
About 250 academics have appealed to the Press Council of India and the Broadcast Association to take necessary action against Zee News for carrying a negative campaign against well-known academicians.
Over the past week, Nivedita Menon -- a feminist political scientist, writer, and translator -- and most recently, Gauhar Raza -- scientist, poet, film maker-- have been labeled as ‘desh drohi’ ‘anti-national’ by the channel. Gauhar Raza, was portrayed as part of what it terms in derogatory and unethical language the ‘Afzal-loving poets' gang’.
The statement, which also asked Zee News to apologise over the matter, said, “In both cases, decontextualised video clippings of these individuals’ appearances in public events have been aired and their names repeatedly flashed through evening bulletins.”
“Singling out of individuals and creating a mass-frenzy against them, using the medium of TV is a dangerous trend. Zee TV initiated this defamatory exercise in the case of the students of the JNU also, and these doctored videos have become the basis of arrest and harassment of Kanhaiya, Umar and Anirban,” the statement said.
“We call upon the Press Council of India and the Broadcast Association to take note of this criminality and initiate necessary action against the channel. We also appeal to the governments of Delhi and the centre to initiate criminal proceeding against the channel for putting a citizen's life under threat,” the statement added.
http://twocircles.net/2016mar10/1457623 ... udBUX197IU
About 250 academics have appealed to the Press Council of India and the Broadcast Association to take necessary action against Zee News for carrying a negative campaign against well-known academicians.
Over the past week, Nivedita Menon -- a feminist political scientist, writer, and translator -- and most recently, Gauhar Raza -- scientist, poet, film maker-- have been labeled as ‘desh drohi’ ‘anti-national’ by the channel. Gauhar Raza, was portrayed as part of what it terms in derogatory and unethical language the ‘Afzal-loving poets' gang’.
The statement, which also asked Zee News to apologise over the matter, said, “In both cases, decontextualised video clippings of these individuals’ appearances in public events have been aired and their names repeatedly flashed through evening bulletins.”
“Singling out of individuals and creating a mass-frenzy against them, using the medium of TV is a dangerous trend. Zee TV initiated this defamatory exercise in the case of the students of the JNU also, and these doctored videos have become the basis of arrest and harassment of Kanhaiya, Umar and Anirban,” the statement said.
“We call upon the Press Council of India and the Broadcast Association to take note of this criminality and initiate necessary action against the channel. We also appeal to the governments of Delhi and the centre to initiate criminal proceeding against the channel for putting a citizen's life under threat,” the statement added.
http://twocircles.net/2016mar10/1457623 ... udBUX197IU
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qutub_mamajiwala
- Posts: 1052
- Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:17 am
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
nivedita menon is a staunch communist and has openly supported mass destruction of people who are opposed to its ideology
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
A very interesting article..... Please read !
Mukesh Ambani could own every journalist in the next five years
In the last 25-30 years the concentration of media ownership has taken place rapidly and massively. Take the case of the largest network: Network 18. It is owned by Mukesh Ambani. All of you know the many channels of the ETV network. How many of you know that except the Telugu channel, all others are also owned by Mukesh Ambani just as he owns many other channels across the country?
If we all remain in journalism for five more years, we could all be owned by him. He does not know the names of all the channels he owns. Yet he could issue a fatwa stating that Aam Aadmi Party will not be covered during elections and it will be done.
The commercial interests of these channels represent the commercial interests of the largest corporations of the country. So you are going to have extreme tightening and control of content.
In the last 20 odd years, the owners of the corporations that own and control media have been the biggest beneficiaries of neoliberalism and privatisation of public resources. Everyone seems to forget that Manmohan Singh was treated like a god for the first five years. All those great anchors in 2009 had said this victory was not of the Congress party but is Manmohan Singh’s victory, that it is the victory of economic reforms.
Now keep watch, the next round of privatization is on the anvil. And who would gain from these? If mining is being privatised - the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis, Adanis all of them will be the big beneficiaries. When natural gas is privatised, Essar and Ambanis will benefit. And from the Spectrum - Tatas, Ambanis, Birlas. Your media owners are poised to be the biggest beneficiaries of policies of the privatisation of public resources. They will get into the banks as well when those are privatised.
Now here's the bite. They invested a few years in building up a fuehrer like figure called Narendra Modi, reducing all his rivals to dust consigned to the dustbin of Gujarat and Delhi. But he has not been able to deliver. And they don’t know what to do. He has not been able to push his land acquisition bill. He has not been able to do a lot of things you have been salivating for.
They are angry with Modi but they don't have a replacement. What do they do? So finally we are seeing some amount of leeway in the media, a little bit of whining now and then. I say again that the Indian media is politically free but imprisoned by profit. That is the character of Indian media.
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
Read more at: http://www.sify.com/news/mukesh-ambani- ... fbgae.html
Mukesh Ambani could own every journalist in the next five years
In the last 25-30 years the concentration of media ownership has taken place rapidly and massively. Take the case of the largest network: Network 18. It is owned by Mukesh Ambani. All of you know the many channels of the ETV network. How many of you know that except the Telugu channel, all others are also owned by Mukesh Ambani just as he owns many other channels across the country?
If we all remain in journalism for five more years, we could all be owned by him. He does not know the names of all the channels he owns. Yet he could issue a fatwa stating that Aam Aadmi Party will not be covered during elections and it will be done.
The commercial interests of these channels represent the commercial interests of the largest corporations of the country. So you are going to have extreme tightening and control of content.
In the last 20 odd years, the owners of the corporations that own and control media have been the biggest beneficiaries of neoliberalism and privatisation of public resources. Everyone seems to forget that Manmohan Singh was treated like a god for the first five years. All those great anchors in 2009 had said this victory was not of the Congress party but is Manmohan Singh’s victory, that it is the victory of economic reforms.
Now keep watch, the next round of privatization is on the anvil. And who would gain from these? If mining is being privatised - the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis, Adanis all of them will be the big beneficiaries. When natural gas is privatised, Essar and Ambanis will benefit. And from the Spectrum - Tatas, Ambanis, Birlas. Your media owners are poised to be the biggest beneficiaries of policies of the privatisation of public resources. They will get into the banks as well when those are privatised.
Now here's the bite. They invested a few years in building up a fuehrer like figure called Narendra Modi, reducing all his rivals to dust consigned to the dustbin of Gujarat and Delhi. But he has not been able to deliver. And they don’t know what to do. He has not been able to push his land acquisition bill. He has not been able to do a lot of things you have been salivating for.
They are angry with Modi but they don't have a replacement. What do they do? So finally we are seeing some amount of leeway in the media, a little bit of whining now and then. I say again that the Indian media is politically free but imprisoned by profit. That is the character of Indian media.
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
Read more at: http://www.sify.com/news/mukesh-ambani- ... fbgae.html
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Media parrots the BJP in Aligarh
Muzaffanagar, Kairana, Aligarh…….why do leading newspapers spread the false stories of ‘a forced Hindu exodus’ concocted by the BJP?
On July 24, two leading English dailies, The Indian Express and the Times of India reported on how, in Aligarh, Hindu families are packing their bags because they are worried about the “honour” of their women and are considering a Kairana-like “exodus” ( BJP politician Hukum Singh claimed in June that 346 Hindus had left Kairana in UP owing to threats from Muslim criminals).
Within hours of these two reports, several news portals including Zee News and Firstpost, among others, also published the rehashed version of the report calling it an “exodus” but without bothering to check the facts on the ground.
Shakuntala Bharti has gained notoriety in Aligarh for making outrageous claims. She appears to take a cue from some of her senior party colleagues and makes unsubstantiated statements targeting Muslims directly or indirectly to grab media attention, perhaps keeping an eye on the upcoming UP assembly elections. Earlier, Bharti made a big fuss about beef being served in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) (although buffalo and not cow meat is served) and even accused the AMU administration of razing a temple.
It would be pertinent to mention here that it was the same Dainik Jagran which kept on writing extremely exaggerated accounts of “Kairana turning into Kashmir” for one week in June after which Zee News picked it up and gave oxygen to its agenda of “Hindu victimhood”. The report of a widespread “exodus of Hindus from Kairana” under duress from Muslim muscle-men was later found to be untrue.
In fact, it later emerged that the largest chunk of those whose names BJP MLA Hukum Singh mentioned in the list of "Hindu exodus" from Kairana were essentially baniyas who were old time RSS/BJP workers and had moved from Kairana/ Kandhla to Delhi/Ghaziabad/ Panipat long ago in search of better economic prospects.
Fear-mongering over women’s honour is old Hindutva trope in which Muslim men are projected as sexual predators. The same narrative resulted in a communal frenzy in the run up to the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013. Yet the media is blindly parroting a similar narrative and creating a scare about a Hindu ‘exodus’
After reaping political benefits from the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, the Hindutva forces are attempting to turn Western Uttar Pradesh into a tinder box. There have already been several reports by even The Indian Express of how different political parties are trying to vitiate the atmosphere in the run up to the 2017 assembly elections.
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.thehoot.org/media-watch/medi ... igarh-9524
Muzaffanagar, Kairana, Aligarh…….why do leading newspapers spread the false stories of ‘a forced Hindu exodus’ concocted by the BJP?
On July 24, two leading English dailies, The Indian Express and the Times of India reported on how, in Aligarh, Hindu families are packing their bags because they are worried about the “honour” of their women and are considering a Kairana-like “exodus” ( BJP politician Hukum Singh claimed in June that 346 Hindus had left Kairana in UP owing to threats from Muslim criminals).
Within hours of these two reports, several news portals including Zee News and Firstpost, among others, also published the rehashed version of the report calling it an “exodus” but without bothering to check the facts on the ground.
Shakuntala Bharti has gained notoriety in Aligarh for making outrageous claims. She appears to take a cue from some of her senior party colleagues and makes unsubstantiated statements targeting Muslims directly or indirectly to grab media attention, perhaps keeping an eye on the upcoming UP assembly elections. Earlier, Bharti made a big fuss about beef being served in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) (although buffalo and not cow meat is served) and even accused the AMU administration of razing a temple.
It would be pertinent to mention here that it was the same Dainik Jagran which kept on writing extremely exaggerated accounts of “Kairana turning into Kashmir” for one week in June after which Zee News picked it up and gave oxygen to its agenda of “Hindu victimhood”. The report of a widespread “exodus of Hindus from Kairana” under duress from Muslim muscle-men was later found to be untrue.
In fact, it later emerged that the largest chunk of those whose names BJP MLA Hukum Singh mentioned in the list of "Hindu exodus" from Kairana were essentially baniyas who were old time RSS/BJP workers and had moved from Kairana/ Kandhla to Delhi/Ghaziabad/ Panipat long ago in search of better economic prospects.
Fear-mongering over women’s honour is old Hindutva trope in which Muslim men are projected as sexual predators. The same narrative resulted in a communal frenzy in the run up to the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013. Yet the media is blindly parroting a similar narrative and creating a scare about a Hindu ‘exodus’
After reaping political benefits from the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, the Hindutva forces are attempting to turn Western Uttar Pradesh into a tinder box. There have already been several reports by even The Indian Express of how different political parties are trying to vitiate the atmosphere in the run up to the 2017 assembly elections.
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.thehoot.org/media-watch/medi ... igarh-9524
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Indian Prime Time News Saga
On most Indian news channels at prime time, one may find comedy, drama, action, political propaganda, advertisements, war rhetoric and what not. Be it ‘Comedy Nights With Kapil’, dramas of Star Plus or Colours, dance shows like ‘Natch baliye’ etc, Bollywood gossip, funny news like presence of ghosts or treasures somewhere, noise of pseudo analysts, furious debates (where most anchors are not ready to listen for more than 15 seconds) etc, all such stuff is news for Indian electronic media but not the plight of Kashmiries. “52 days long continuous curfew, 72 days continuous protests, extreme suppression, 86 deaths, around 13000 injured, around 800 hit in eyes, thousands jailed, political chocking, night raids, deserted days, wailing mothers, worried fathers, angry brothers, fearful sisters and anxious children”, does not find any place on Indian prime time news.
Although ‘Kashmir’ is being debated from time to time but not for the sake of understanding of the issue or empathy with Kashmiries but with the objective to make the common people of India believe, that whatever is happening in Kashmir, is Pak sponsored and all those talking about the right of Kashmiries for self determination, are enemies, traitors and antinational. Most of the so called patriotic and nationalistic Indian news channels either go for selective, biased and pro-government reporting of events here or tend to ignore Kashmir completely. Any debate or discussion regarding Kashmir on Indian media seem less for enlightenment, understanding or information and more for so called nationalism. The debates are conducted in such a manner as if an ‘on air’ war is being fought and the enemy has to be defeated. Most of the anchors on Indian news channels do not want to listen to any dissenting voice on Kashmir. They adopt a well defined strategy on such topics. First of all, more than adequate number of panellists is invited and their number is always tilted towards Indian nationalism. Then they tend to ask ‘leading questions’ to panellists in order to take the show in the direction they want to. Further, the panellists discussing Kashmir are mostly non-Kashmiries. Many instances are there when a panellist from Kashmir was invited though, but then, directed beforehand not to make a pro-freedom and anti India statement. Whenever the nationalistic anchors find anyone expressing a dissenting opinion, they frequently interrupt him/her or let other panellists to interrupt him/her or tend to give that person very less time or simply mute his/her voice. Many times the news anchors tend to raise a counter issue in order to neutralise the Kashmir issue. Chemical sciences claim that acids tend to neutralise bases and bases tend to neutralise acids, but it must be understood that the same cannot be applied to international conflicts. The human rights violations in Baluchistan cannot neutralise the human rights violations in Kashmir. India is responsible for it’s deeds in Kashmir and Pakistan is responsible for it’s deeds in Baluchistan. The two issues are not similar or equal in any way and cannot neutralise each other.
Indian media needs to understand that every “Prime Time Show” regarding Kashmir generates further resentment in the hearts of Kashmiries. Such “Shows” make us believe that India does not feel our pain, is not concerned about our sufferings, does not respect our rights, does not want to fulfil it’s promises, and is not committed to bring peace, provide free and democratic environment to the people of Kashmir. Such media is discriminative, aggressive, immoral and unethical and should be considered equally responsible for the present situation in Kashmir.
There are certain facts with regard to Kashmir which Indian media cannot escape from. The facts may be uncomfortable for them, but then facts need to be accepted honestly. Denial and distortion of facts will help nobody. People cannot be kept in dark for long. Media should not act as drum beaters only but it also needs to help in the solution of problems. Though being pro-government may help the business of certain news channels but media has a huge responsibility with regard to both society and humanity. Nationalism does mean love and patriotic feelings for one’s nation, but it certainly does not mean hatred for other nations or inhumane suppression of people struggling for freedom or being a mute spectator to such suppression. Above all justifying such suppression is criminal. What is unfortunate is that being one of the pillars of democracy, Indian media (particularly electronic media) has become an agent of propaganda, appeasement of government, politics, advertisement, war rhetoric and what not. Media is also an important agent of social change and thus it needs to work towards making the world a better place to live. That is only possible when it will convey the truth, even if that truth may be bitter. Media has to be the voice of voiceless and oppressed and not that of oppressor.
Only selfless, honest, unbiased, ethical and humanistic journalism can help in the solution of regional and world conflicts and thus pave a way for peaceful and prosperous South Asia and World at large. Before being nationalistic, Indian media needs to be humanistic. Any nationalism cannot exceed humanism.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/ ... news-saga/
On most Indian news channels at prime time, one may find comedy, drama, action, political propaganda, advertisements, war rhetoric and what not. Be it ‘Comedy Nights With Kapil’, dramas of Star Plus or Colours, dance shows like ‘Natch baliye’ etc, Bollywood gossip, funny news like presence of ghosts or treasures somewhere, noise of pseudo analysts, furious debates (where most anchors are not ready to listen for more than 15 seconds) etc, all such stuff is news for Indian electronic media but not the plight of Kashmiries. “52 days long continuous curfew, 72 days continuous protests, extreme suppression, 86 deaths, around 13000 injured, around 800 hit in eyes, thousands jailed, political chocking, night raids, deserted days, wailing mothers, worried fathers, angry brothers, fearful sisters and anxious children”, does not find any place on Indian prime time news.
Although ‘Kashmir’ is being debated from time to time but not for the sake of understanding of the issue or empathy with Kashmiries but with the objective to make the common people of India believe, that whatever is happening in Kashmir, is Pak sponsored and all those talking about the right of Kashmiries for self determination, are enemies, traitors and antinational. Most of the so called patriotic and nationalistic Indian news channels either go for selective, biased and pro-government reporting of events here or tend to ignore Kashmir completely. Any debate or discussion regarding Kashmir on Indian media seem less for enlightenment, understanding or information and more for so called nationalism. The debates are conducted in such a manner as if an ‘on air’ war is being fought and the enemy has to be defeated. Most of the anchors on Indian news channels do not want to listen to any dissenting voice on Kashmir. They adopt a well defined strategy on such topics. First of all, more than adequate number of panellists is invited and their number is always tilted towards Indian nationalism. Then they tend to ask ‘leading questions’ to panellists in order to take the show in the direction they want to. Further, the panellists discussing Kashmir are mostly non-Kashmiries. Many instances are there when a panellist from Kashmir was invited though, but then, directed beforehand not to make a pro-freedom and anti India statement. Whenever the nationalistic anchors find anyone expressing a dissenting opinion, they frequently interrupt him/her or let other panellists to interrupt him/her or tend to give that person very less time or simply mute his/her voice. Many times the news anchors tend to raise a counter issue in order to neutralise the Kashmir issue. Chemical sciences claim that acids tend to neutralise bases and bases tend to neutralise acids, but it must be understood that the same cannot be applied to international conflicts. The human rights violations in Baluchistan cannot neutralise the human rights violations in Kashmir. India is responsible for it’s deeds in Kashmir and Pakistan is responsible for it’s deeds in Baluchistan. The two issues are not similar or equal in any way and cannot neutralise each other.
Indian media needs to understand that every “Prime Time Show” regarding Kashmir generates further resentment in the hearts of Kashmiries. Such “Shows” make us believe that India does not feel our pain, is not concerned about our sufferings, does not respect our rights, does not want to fulfil it’s promises, and is not committed to bring peace, provide free and democratic environment to the people of Kashmir. Such media is discriminative, aggressive, immoral and unethical and should be considered equally responsible for the present situation in Kashmir.
There are certain facts with regard to Kashmir which Indian media cannot escape from. The facts may be uncomfortable for them, but then facts need to be accepted honestly. Denial and distortion of facts will help nobody. People cannot be kept in dark for long. Media should not act as drum beaters only but it also needs to help in the solution of problems. Though being pro-government may help the business of certain news channels but media has a huge responsibility with regard to both society and humanity. Nationalism does mean love and patriotic feelings for one’s nation, but it certainly does not mean hatred for other nations or inhumane suppression of people struggling for freedom or being a mute spectator to such suppression. Above all justifying such suppression is criminal. What is unfortunate is that being one of the pillars of democracy, Indian media (particularly electronic media) has become an agent of propaganda, appeasement of government, politics, advertisement, war rhetoric and what not. Media is also an important agent of social change and thus it needs to work towards making the world a better place to live. That is only possible when it will convey the truth, even if that truth may be bitter. Media has to be the voice of voiceless and oppressed and not that of oppressor.
Only selfless, honest, unbiased, ethical and humanistic journalism can help in the solution of regional and world conflicts and thus pave a way for peaceful and prosperous South Asia and World at large. Before being nationalistic, Indian media needs to be humanistic. Any nationalism cannot exceed humanism.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/09/ ... news-saga/
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Calling Arnab Goswami a ‘joker’, Katju questions his ‘Y’ category security cover
Katju wrote on his facebook page,” This joker who has nothing in his head except his arrogance will get 20 guards night and day by the Govt. for his security. "
Justice Markandey Katju, the retired judge of the Supreme Court known for his unsparing remarks against people or things he does not like, targeted on Monday Arnab Goswami, the editor-in- chief of English news channel Times Now . Calling Arnab a ‘joker’ he asked why should he be provided ‘Y’ category of government security.
Katju wrote on his facebook page in his usual contemptuous tone about the media celebrity ,” This joker who has nothing in his head except his arrogance will get 20 guards night and day by the Govt. for his security. Hari Om”
“Why should Arnab Goswami be provided Govt. security, and that too of the Y category, which means 20 guards will be with him day and night. Who will pay the salaries of these guards ? It will be the government, which really means the public because these salaries come from the taxes we pay. So we will have to pay for Arnab's security.”
Katju said that Arnab Goswami should pay from his pocket for the security as he is getting a huge salary. He wrote, “ Arnab is surely getting a huge salary from his employer. Why should he not pay for his security from his own pocket ? There are many private security agencies which provide armed guards. Why did Arnab not hire them? Or else his employer, which is a very affluent business house, could have done so.”
“I believe some other media persons who toe the govt.line have also been provided similar security by the Govt. Is this not deplorable? Must the public pay for these hired 'tattoos' and buffoons ?”
According to media reports, Goswami is being given security on the basis of a threat-perception analysis by the IB. MHA officials said that the IB inputs indicate threats to him from Pakistan-based terrorist groups due to his comments against them on his channel Times Now in his prime time show ‘News Hour’.
Besides Arnab Goswami, Zee News’s Sudhir Chaudhary (X category), Samachar Plus’s Umesh Kumar (Y category) and Ashwini Kumar Chopra (Z Plus category) have been provided security by the government.
http://www.indiasamvad.co.in/special-st ... over-17142
Katju wrote on his facebook page,” This joker who has nothing in his head except his arrogance will get 20 guards night and day by the Govt. for his security. "
Justice Markandey Katju, the retired judge of the Supreme Court known for his unsparing remarks against people or things he does not like, targeted on Monday Arnab Goswami, the editor-in- chief of English news channel Times Now . Calling Arnab a ‘joker’ he asked why should he be provided ‘Y’ category of government security.
Katju wrote on his facebook page in his usual contemptuous tone about the media celebrity ,” This joker who has nothing in his head except his arrogance will get 20 guards night and day by the Govt. for his security. Hari Om”
“Why should Arnab Goswami be provided Govt. security, and that too of the Y category, which means 20 guards will be with him day and night. Who will pay the salaries of these guards ? It will be the government, which really means the public because these salaries come from the taxes we pay. So we will have to pay for Arnab's security.”
Katju said that Arnab Goswami should pay from his pocket for the security as he is getting a huge salary. He wrote, “ Arnab is surely getting a huge salary from his employer. Why should he not pay for his security from his own pocket ? There are many private security agencies which provide armed guards. Why did Arnab not hire them? Or else his employer, which is a very affluent business house, could have done so.”
“I believe some other media persons who toe the govt.line have also been provided similar security by the Govt. Is this not deplorable? Must the public pay for these hired 'tattoos' and buffoons ?”
According to media reports, Goswami is being given security on the basis of a threat-perception analysis by the IB. MHA officials said that the IB inputs indicate threats to him from Pakistan-based terrorist groups due to his comments against them on his channel Times Now in his prime time show ‘News Hour’.
Besides Arnab Goswami, Zee News’s Sudhir Chaudhary (X category), Samachar Plus’s Umesh Kumar (Y category) and Ashwini Kumar Chopra (Z Plus category) have been provided security by the government.
http://www.indiasamvad.co.in/special-st ... over-17142
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
Bijnor violence: How Dainik Jagran & HT wrongly blamed Muslims
Three people died and several others were injured in a clash between Muslims and Jats in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district on Friday.
Besides the violence itself, the most disturbing aspect of the entire incident was the spread of misinformation by leading national dailies and right wing websites.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
Catch was among the first to speak to the Bijnor Police on Friday. This is what the officials said:
"A Muslim girl was harassed by boys belonging to the Jat community. It led to a clash after which members of the Jat community fired bullets, killing 3 people. Twelve more suffered injuries and are recovering" - Umesh Kumar Srivastav, Superintendent of Police, Bijnor
This version was corroborated by the Circle Officer, Bijnor City police station as well as a number of villagers.
Late on Friday night, Bijnor Police issued a press release which said that "In Peda village, a girl belonging to the Muslim community was eve-teased. This led to an altercation between the girl's brothers and the eve-teasers."
According to a police official, after the girl's family protested, Jat men took positions on the roofs of their homes and began firing bullets killing three people. They are said to have been members of the girl's family who had protested the molestation.
Read the full story: Bijnor: 3 killed as Jats and Muslims clash over eve-teasing incident
WHAT WAS REPORTED
Uttar Pradesh's leading daily Dainik Jagran, published a different story, insinuating that Muslim youngsters harassed a Jat girl.
"Girls from the Kachhpura and Naya villages in Bijnor take buses from the Peda village to go to school. People from the village claim that men belonging to the minority community have been harassing schoolgirls for some days now. On Friday morning, an incident of eve-teasing led to an altercation. This blew out of control leading to stone pelting and firing," the Dainik Jagran story read.
A later update by Jagran, however gave the correct details.
A story published in Hindustan Times was equally misleading.
"According to the police, some girls from Nayagaon told people in their village that boys from Peda harassed them when they went to board a bus for school in Bijnor. A group of male residents from the village then escorted the girls and beat up a boy named Talib after he was reportedly found harassing one of the girls.
Talib, however, called more people from his village who attacked the Nayagaon inhabitants. The injured boys managed to escape to their village where they narrated the incident. Following this, a group from Nayagaon and a neighbouring village reached Peda armed with guns and wooden staffs and attacked the villagers. Both the sides exchanged fire and pelted stones at each other."
These stories are misleading on numerous counts. First, if the SP of Bijnor has said on record that men belonging to the Jat community molested a Muslim school girl, where did Talib (clearly a Muslim) come from? It turns out that Talib is the brother of the girl who was molested.
Secondly, UP DGP Javeed Ahmed told NDTV in an interview that the Muslim men were killed in an act of "unprovoked firing". There was no retaliatory firing by Muslims, contrary to the "firing from both sides" that has been claimed. Also, if the firing from the Jat side was unprovoked as the DGP has said, the entire narrative of "Talib" and his Muslim supporters attacking Jat villagers would be false.
HINDU RIGHT WINGERS DO THE REST
The Jagran story was promptly spiced up and posted on Hindu right wing websites.
This is how hindupost.in completely turned the entire incident on its head, presenting it as a case of Hindu girls being harassed by Muslim youth and the girls' family members confronting the offenders in retaliation.
"A molestation bid on Hindu girl students has spiraled into communal violence leaving 4 people dead and several injured today in Paida village, Bijnore district, Western UP.
According to a report in Dainik Jagran, the violence broke out after Hindu girls on the way to school were harassed by Muslim youth. Angry family members of the girls confronted the offenders and soon firing and stone pelting broke out....4 Muslims from the village have died in the clash. A crowd has blocked the Najibabad road, and started targeting Hindu homes, burning one hut and bike. In front of the police force, they were heard chanting 'khoon ka badla khoon se lengey" (we will avenge blood with blood)".
The story is not only grossly inaccurate, it seems a mischievous attempt at creating tensions.
Another right wing website, hinduexistence.org, which is known to for content against Muslims and Christians, also posted a similar report.
Right wing trolls also tweeted a story by Amar Ujala giving it a distinctly anti-Muslim spin, even though the story itself was a balanced one and did not mention either of the two communities.
The fact that these tweets are absolutely identical indicates that this was part of an organised attempt to spread misinformation.
The cyber warfare by the right wing brigade didn't end with this. Mediavigil.com a Hindi website which flags right wing mischief, was hacked on Saturday afternoon. They had earlier in the day written on Dainik Jagran's misleading report
A REPEAT OF MUZAFFARNAGAR
This is not the first time the media has published misleading or provocative content during riot situations in Uttar Pradesh.
After the murder of Sachin and Gaurav in Kawal near Muzaffarnagar in 2013, Dainik Jagran gave an emotionally charged headline 'Seeney par chadke kaati saanso ki dor' (They sat on the chest to slit their throats) and went on to narrate in gory detail how the duo were slaughtered.
On 21 August, 2014, in the run-up to the anniversary of the Kawal double murder, Dainik Jagran ran a story with the headline"Kawal se guzre to bura anjam hoga" (The consequences will be deadly if anybody passes through Kawal). On 24 August, it said: 'Kawal ka maarg LoC nahin hai' (The road through Kawal is not the Line of Control between India and Pakistan)
Around the same time, Dainik Jagran and Hindustan published elaborate reports on alleged cases of love jihad in Western UP. This coincided with BJP leader Yogi Adityanath raising the love jihad issue in the run-up to the bypolls in the state. This almost brought Western UP to the brink of another Muzaffarnagar-like riot.
If the Jagran headlines during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots weren't incendiary enough, right wing trolls morphed the daily's headlines and circulated the images on WhatsApp, that further fuelled tensions.
The problem is that it isn't just anonymous trolls who are circulating incendiary content. BJP MLA Sangeet Som is accused of sharing a fake YouTube video during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. Another BJP leader, Suresh Rana, has admitted in a sting operation, that he fabricated rape charges against Muslim boys "to teach them a lesson".
There seems to be a clear attempt to incite violence by spreading wrong information. The Muzaffarnagar experiment may be replicated more times in the days to come.
http://www.catchnews.com/india-news/bij ... l/fullview
Three people died and several others were injured in a clash between Muslims and Jats in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district on Friday.
Besides the violence itself, the most disturbing aspect of the entire incident was the spread of misinformation by leading national dailies and right wing websites.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
Catch was among the first to speak to the Bijnor Police on Friday. This is what the officials said:
"A Muslim girl was harassed by boys belonging to the Jat community. It led to a clash after which members of the Jat community fired bullets, killing 3 people. Twelve more suffered injuries and are recovering" - Umesh Kumar Srivastav, Superintendent of Police, Bijnor
This version was corroborated by the Circle Officer, Bijnor City police station as well as a number of villagers.
Late on Friday night, Bijnor Police issued a press release which said that "In Peda village, a girl belonging to the Muslim community was eve-teased. This led to an altercation between the girl's brothers and the eve-teasers."
According to a police official, after the girl's family protested, Jat men took positions on the roofs of their homes and began firing bullets killing three people. They are said to have been members of the girl's family who had protested the molestation.
Read the full story: Bijnor: 3 killed as Jats and Muslims clash over eve-teasing incident
WHAT WAS REPORTED
Uttar Pradesh's leading daily Dainik Jagran, published a different story, insinuating that Muslim youngsters harassed a Jat girl.
"Girls from the Kachhpura and Naya villages in Bijnor take buses from the Peda village to go to school. People from the village claim that men belonging to the minority community have been harassing schoolgirls for some days now. On Friday morning, an incident of eve-teasing led to an altercation. This blew out of control leading to stone pelting and firing," the Dainik Jagran story read.
A later update by Jagran, however gave the correct details.
A story published in Hindustan Times was equally misleading.
"According to the police, some girls from Nayagaon told people in their village that boys from Peda harassed them when they went to board a bus for school in Bijnor. A group of male residents from the village then escorted the girls and beat up a boy named Talib after he was reportedly found harassing one of the girls.
Talib, however, called more people from his village who attacked the Nayagaon inhabitants. The injured boys managed to escape to their village where they narrated the incident. Following this, a group from Nayagaon and a neighbouring village reached Peda armed with guns and wooden staffs and attacked the villagers. Both the sides exchanged fire and pelted stones at each other."
These stories are misleading on numerous counts. First, if the SP of Bijnor has said on record that men belonging to the Jat community molested a Muslim school girl, where did Talib (clearly a Muslim) come from? It turns out that Talib is the brother of the girl who was molested.
Secondly, UP DGP Javeed Ahmed told NDTV in an interview that the Muslim men were killed in an act of "unprovoked firing". There was no retaliatory firing by Muslims, contrary to the "firing from both sides" that has been claimed. Also, if the firing from the Jat side was unprovoked as the DGP has said, the entire narrative of "Talib" and his Muslim supporters attacking Jat villagers would be false.
HINDU RIGHT WINGERS DO THE REST
The Jagran story was promptly spiced up and posted on Hindu right wing websites.
This is how hindupost.in completely turned the entire incident on its head, presenting it as a case of Hindu girls being harassed by Muslim youth and the girls' family members confronting the offenders in retaliation.
"A molestation bid on Hindu girl students has spiraled into communal violence leaving 4 people dead and several injured today in Paida village, Bijnore district, Western UP.
According to a report in Dainik Jagran, the violence broke out after Hindu girls on the way to school were harassed by Muslim youth. Angry family members of the girls confronted the offenders and soon firing and stone pelting broke out....4 Muslims from the village have died in the clash. A crowd has blocked the Najibabad road, and started targeting Hindu homes, burning one hut and bike. In front of the police force, they were heard chanting 'khoon ka badla khoon se lengey" (we will avenge blood with blood)".
The story is not only grossly inaccurate, it seems a mischievous attempt at creating tensions.
Another right wing website, hinduexistence.org, which is known to for content against Muslims and Christians, also posted a similar report.
Right wing trolls also tweeted a story by Amar Ujala giving it a distinctly anti-Muslim spin, even though the story itself was a balanced one and did not mention either of the two communities.
The fact that these tweets are absolutely identical indicates that this was part of an organised attempt to spread misinformation.
The cyber warfare by the right wing brigade didn't end with this. Mediavigil.com a Hindi website which flags right wing mischief, was hacked on Saturday afternoon. They had earlier in the day written on Dainik Jagran's misleading report
A REPEAT OF MUZAFFARNAGAR
This is not the first time the media has published misleading or provocative content during riot situations in Uttar Pradesh.
After the murder of Sachin and Gaurav in Kawal near Muzaffarnagar in 2013, Dainik Jagran gave an emotionally charged headline 'Seeney par chadke kaati saanso ki dor' (They sat on the chest to slit their throats) and went on to narrate in gory detail how the duo were slaughtered.
On 21 August, 2014, in the run-up to the anniversary of the Kawal double murder, Dainik Jagran ran a story with the headline"Kawal se guzre to bura anjam hoga" (The consequences will be deadly if anybody passes through Kawal). On 24 August, it said: 'Kawal ka maarg LoC nahin hai' (The road through Kawal is not the Line of Control between India and Pakistan)
Around the same time, Dainik Jagran and Hindustan published elaborate reports on alleged cases of love jihad in Western UP. This coincided with BJP leader Yogi Adityanath raising the love jihad issue in the run-up to the bypolls in the state. This almost brought Western UP to the brink of another Muzaffarnagar-like riot.
If the Jagran headlines during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots weren't incendiary enough, right wing trolls morphed the daily's headlines and circulated the images on WhatsApp, that further fuelled tensions.
The problem is that it isn't just anonymous trolls who are circulating incendiary content. BJP MLA Sangeet Som is accused of sharing a fake YouTube video during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. Another BJP leader, Suresh Rana, has admitted in a sting operation, that he fabricated rape charges against Muslim boys "to teach them a lesson".
There seems to be a clear attempt to incite violence by spreading wrong information. The Muzaffarnagar experiment may be replicated more times in the days to come.
http://www.catchnews.com/india-news/bij ... l/fullview
-
qutub_mamajiwala
- Posts: 1052
- Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:17 am
Re: The Rot That Is Indian Media.
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