22 Nov. I knew that my students -on their media tour- reached Hyderabad. I myself had arranged their stay. So naturally, I had to call the host to find out about their arrival and safety. But after that no news! I was worried, without knowing where they were, and how they were.
Suddenly -this late morning- I get a call from Bangalore, from them! It is to inform that their accompanying staff cannot continue her travel with them to Goa due to ill health.
How could I go? External examiners are in town to value the odd-semester answer scripts! Tuesday, an all-important meeting. Some reciprocation on Monday and Wednesday (other universities for the examination favours they do to us!) Then, I leave for Mumbai for a conference.
To my anxiety, the students are leaving for Goa without their accompanying lecturer. Lucky if the students vindicate the faith reposed in them…
Will I know their whereabouts in Goa? Will I know how life treats each of them…? And they: one another?

22 Nov. It was expected to rain. It did. Just at 6pm – the scheduled time of Melwyn Peris’ 75th musical nite! Almost all the audiences were seated. And then it rained – though rather sparingly. I wondered, why just now! The entire day was there. Not a drop of rain. And now! So many regrets at St Aloysius College grounds and outside! People scattered helter skelter.
But just 30-35 minutes. And the rain stopped. The Nite started just 40 minutes behind schedule. And releasing of CDs and books …
Thanks to my residence in the campus: even as VIPs speeches were going on, I came to update the blog…
Bravo Melwyn…

21 Nov. http://www.radioandmusic.com/content/editorial/news/community-radio-stations-welcome-mibs-davp-plans
http://www.radioandmusic.com/content/editorial/news/community-radio-stations-welcome-mibs-davp-plans#story

22 Nov. I was delighted when Dr Sandra told me she is coming. She is keen to be a part of this musical evening. Though Dr Sandra has been in the U.S. for the last few years, her love for her mother tongue (Konkani) and pride in it makes me feel really good.
Since she is a regular visitor to my blog, she happen to come to know of this musical bonanza. In my previous post, I have missed to mention the time. She reminded me to include the time of the Peris Nite this evening. It is 6.00pm. So, all you music and Konkani lovers, be there at 6.00pm.

A word about Melwyn: As mentioned earlier, Melwyn is a very polite guy. So simple, that you will wonder if he is the star of 75 musical nites, 40 musical CDs/ Cassettes (25+15)!
Melwyn had come to Community Radio SARANG 107.8MHz, some 12 days ago. I wanted to interview him. Initially he was hesitant; but he gave in to my insistence. He liked our Community-oriented initiative so much, he gave all his songs free of royalty to be broadcast in our daily Konkani broadcasts (as and when we deem it fit)! That was the generosity of Melwyn.
During the interview, Melwyn was honest, polite, sincere, articulate, to-the-point, … Whenever I asked him of his “firsts”, “bests”, “mosts”, “memorables”, etc, he was spontaneous in singing those (a few lines, for the benefit of Radio SARANG 107.8MHz.
Our program executive Roshan (though a greenhorn at broadcast), edited the interview, mixing some of Melwyn’s popular songs. Total duration of the broadcast was 30 minutes.
Our listeners liked the interview so much, many messaged/ telephoned me requesting ,it to be rebroadcast. We did that on Friday-Saturday.

Last few days, rain and thunder-lightening have been threatening Mangalore. But when Melwyn came for the interview, he was faith personified: he said that it would not rain during his musical show, no matter where it rains, when it rains! He quoted a few instances when he has such deeply personal experiences of Grace!
Here is hoping his faith be rewarded, and the musical show go on well. All success, Melwyn!

21 Nov. The platinum Peris Nite by singer Melwyn Peris is round the corner. Sunday 22 November is the D-Day, so to say. So much of preparation is going on. The St Aloysius College ground is getting ready for the music show.
But I don’t see much enthusiasm among music fans. May be that is the way Konkani audiences respond! Neither hot nor cold! Who knows – there could be houseful boards tomorrow!
I want to attend. In any case, I would be listening to Melwyn.
Melwyn is a humble, down-to-earth guy. He celebrated his golden birthday on Thursday. He will be singing at his 75th Musical Nite tomorrow; we will be releasing 25th song book and 25 Konkani audio CD tomorrow. So much for his single-handed achievements!
For his livelihood, Melwyn works in an insurance firm! That’s why I admire Konkani writers, singers, musicians! Here is wishing well to Melwyn for his momentous occasion…Bravo, Melwyn…

20 Nov. St Aloysius College (Autonomous) is gearing itself for the Reaccreditation by the University Grants Commission’s National Assessment and Accreditation Council in December. The ratings are extremely important for the future of the students and the college. That rating will convey in a single letter what the college’s prestige value is!
For this there needs to be a lot of spade work to be done. The report has been submitted. And the NAAC has told us that they will come for inspection in December.
Now the College staff needs to know exactly what is the consolidated view of the College NAAC Report preparation committee. Some staff members gave a briefing
I heard some other staff members grumbling during presentation by a few other staff: sitting for long hours, listening to such lectures!

Well, I did not feel them too boring. But I understand the students’ feelings! There is much room for improvement. Ultimately, each one of us takes responsibility. If we understand the question well, if we prepare well, if we articulate well…. we can be interesting teachers!

The gains from masking reality
Mrinal Pande

How can a media hawking editorial space to politicians and their parties for personal use, capture the reality for its readers and analyse it with sensitivity and honesty?

To most of the smart whiz-kid managers planning to reinvent the print media as a lucrative multi-language business, the small-town market today is by and large an autonomous phenomenon, somewhat constrained by politics but not reducible to it. This theory has the genius of appearing to bow humbly before the reciprocal issue of how the vernacular media affect and shape local society and vice versa, while actually planning to straddle it, whip in hand.

The vernacular media establishment needs to watch out for such perfect-sounding inventions that never actually do what their labels claim, like diet pills or hair restoring substances. Attractive as the managerial dreams may look, the Hindi media themselves have so far not negotiated on their own terms the actual relationship between the uppity new investor and the class-specific vernacular readership. They lack a specific and clear system that can effectively firewall editorial in case the deal goes sour after an initial positive showing.

Many recent steps redefining news and its dissemination in the newspapers were taken hastily after bypassing the editorial department. They may have introduced lethal and invisible viruses within the system that may corrode and finally kill the newspaper. The vernacular media may be feeling cocky, having pulled themselves out of physical poverty under their own steam, but they have yet to learn how to deal firmly and decisively with another kind of poverty — that of the professional, ethical kind.

One is not being paranoid here. Not too long ago, some major dailies introduced a devilishly cunning scheme of offering what was innocently labelled ‘Ad for Equity.’ This met with loud applause from many managerial bosses all over. But before long the realty, aviation and automobile sectors went into a tailspin, and the scheme left the companies that had adopted it red-faced and holding bags of (economy class) air tickets, empty flats, unsold cars and so on.

A little later, during some of the Assembly elections in 2008, the local editions of several multi-edition Hindi dailies started displaying laudatory and frequently contradictory news items on their front pages about specific candidates contesting from the respective areas. With zero news value, none of these items merited such display, but through the election period the front pages and op-ed pages of some dailies continued to carry the mug-shots of particular candidates, even predicting a record win for him or her.

The dailies may or may not have collected some Rs.200 crore with this little duplicitous exercise in psephology, but a new idea of what has now come to be called ‘political advertising’ was planted across the country, triggering a trend. And soon one heard that the marketing and media marketing managers at several media houses were getting ‘creatives’ prepared about what was on offer, in time for the general elections. Several party functionaries who manned party ‘war rooms’ during the period, when quizzed, confessed to having been shown ‘impressive’ PowerPoint presentations by major newspapers, and in turn professing an interest in the offerings.

The hard copy version of one such offering made on behalf of one Hindi daily published from a rich western Indian State blatantly delineates the phenomenon. The script claims that some 36 Lok Sabha seats in two major cities in the State, including the State capital and the surrounding areas, were ‘feeded’ by the daily. The proposal then lays down a clear sequential map of activities it can spearhead to promote the party or individual candidates, quoting prices. At the local level it addresses the candidate, his or her supporters and well-wishers, the district-level party office, the local MLA or MLC or corporator, other local political leaders, the local advertising agency and the guardian Minister of the ruling party. At the State level it is the State political party office, Cabinet Minister and State-level political leaders, businessmen and industrialists and a State-level advertising agency. At the national level it addresses the central offices of political parties (media cells), national-level political leaders and Central Ministers from the State.

The working modalities include putting in place dedicated teams each day, comprising political or city reporters and correspondents, sub-editors, area advertisement managers and area sales managers, to do the needful. Fifteen days’ general coverage is priced at Rs.20 lakh, while seven days of exclusive coverage is pegged at Rs.25 lakh. Along with this, specially prepared four-page supplements in colour, exclusive interviews, positive views of the voters, positive editorial analysis, “only positive coverage” and “no negative publicity of opposition candidate or party,” and extra copies of the newspaper on payment basis, are on offer — at a price, of course. There is flexibility in making the payment: 50 per cent can be paid in cash and 50 per cent by cheque. The last frame in the presentation, ironically titled The Way Ahead, suggests that the daily would be willing to offer publicity on ‘other occasions’ also, apart from the election-time offer.

What a complex trade! Vernacular media readers are getting younger and more volatile and more demanding. But they mostly sit in small towns where an elegant bank with an ATM stands in the middle of shanties and huts with TV antennae, where after leaving the railway station or the airport one almost always plunges into the darkness of a grim, squalid, pot-holed road, where in the marketplace besides the glittering shop windows with Dior watches and Mont Blanc pens, the unlit windows of local shops lie empty. Private capital that has arrived in small towns, piggy-back riding the Hindi dailies, has only built shining sanctuaries for the rich. The Hindi readership has neither the means nor the intention to develop the rest of the city or ‘cusbah’. Its children cling to dreams of escaping to a big city and making it big there.

How can a media hawking inviolable editorial space to politicians and their parties for personal use during elections, capture this reality for its readers and analyse it with any degree of sensitivity or honesty? To read many marketing-driven Hindi dailies today is increasingly like entering a mind with multiple personality disorders, where endless, fierce and frantic discussions continue over everything from Beijing’s beastliness to Bt brinjal and Raj Babbar, next to cloyingly hagiographic accounts of how Rahul ‘Baba’ alone led his party to triumph in the byelections. Actually there are too many people now in the industry whose answer to the question, “what are the media for?” is, “to make money.”

Certainly there is nothing wrong in a restructuring of the industry, making it more productive and vibrant. The Janata Party government began the process and the BJP and the Congress have all continued to support this process. The government-controlled audiovisual media were certainly too big and lumbering and arrogant and were easily pushed to the margins by the leaner and more efficient private players. But why have the hugely successful Hindi print media that have always been in private hands and quite free professionally, begun to trivialise their own base and con their readership for piffling short-term gains? If this trend continues, the readers will react, and the next round of closures will have more serious implications, not just for those who will lose their jobs but also for the readers’ understanding of where they live and how their reality is inviolable and a part of the nation’s reality.

Hindi newspapers inspired by the capitulation of their big brothers in the media business may dent the case for India’s vernacular press, but cannot demolish it. When it does its job, a professionally run vernacular paper, funded jointly by advertising and paid-for-circulation, remains the best bet as a scrutineer of democracy and the best guard for the inviolable reality of our public spaces.

(Mrinal Pande is a senior Hindi journalist and writer. This is the second of a two-part article. The first part was published yesterday.)
http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/19/stories/2009111952420800.htm

Hindi media and an unreal discourse
Mrinal Pande

The Hindi media have seen humongous growth, but seem perilously close to entering a phase of ‘refeudalisation.’

“Far too many people — especially those with great expertise in one area — are contemptuous of knowledge in other areas, or believe that being bright is a substitute for knowledge. But taking pride in their ignorance is self-defeating,” wrote Peter Drucker.

Drucker is a guru to many who run businesses in India, including the Indian language media which constitute a fast-growing sector. But almost all of India’s print media mandarins, trained at top business schools and hired at salaries that far exceed those paid to editors, hardly try to familiarise themselves with the socio-economic intricacies of the Indian markets through vernacular publications. They would rather put their faith entirely on reports prepared by foreign rating agencies, to which the Hindi belt is the largest homogenised market in the country, period. These, 11 of India’s most populous States, from the central Himalayan States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand to Bihar and Jharkhand in the east, involve many variables. They face many pulls and pressures, and have cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity. But these are seldom factored into media-planning exercises. This is but hubris.

India’s earliest English language dailies, some of them closely modelled on their British counterparts, were launched for the “cultured” classes. For most of the readers and the editorial decision-makers of many of these English dailies, the only reality was the city, and the only viable working systems were those created by the British media. When India won its freedom, all eminent politicians, from Congressmen to the Muslim ‘Leaguees’ to the Communists, were united by the English language despite the love for Gandhiji and the people’s languages most of them professed. After 1947, in both India and Pakistan, the English newspapers began to be referred to as the ‘national’ dailies, despite the fact that they often catered to less than 10 per cent of the population. For over half a century the branding helped them collect the largest shares of advertising revenues.

The growth of the vernacular press, especially the Hindi press, in India was to follow another, somewhat Habermasian trajectory. In 1845, Raja Shiv Prasad Sitara-e-Hind, the ruler of Varanasi, launched the Hindi daily Banaras Akhbar. It was soon followed by Raja Lakshman Singh’s Praja Hitaishi (1861), Raja Rampal Singh’s (of Kalakankar) Hindusthan (1883), and Maharaja Srilal Baldev Singh Joo’s (of Rewa) Bharat Bhrata (1887). Raja Rampal Singh chose a bright young law student by name Madan Mohan Malviya to head his paper, but ensured that his name (Atra Bhavan Sada Samar Vijayi, Maharaja Ram Singh Joo) was printed below the masthead as that of the Chief Editor. Malviya quit two years later, angered by the unprofessional conduct of the Raja who was mostly vacationing in London.

By the early 20th century, change was in the air. In 1920, the Hindi daily Rajasthan Kesri was banned in Udaipur state after it sharply criticised the feudal classes for their lavish lifestyles that contrasted with the poverty of their subjects. And by 1936, Madan Mohan Malviya, who had had a nasty run-in with the feudal press earlier, emerged as a notable follower of Gandhiji. He prevailed upon the owners of Hindustan Times to launch a Hindi daily to serve the common man. This kick-started a second phase — that of a gradual democratisation of the Hindi media.

Rupert Murdoch once said that it is incredibly hard to make oneself believe that other people exist in the same way that we do. The greatest challenge before journalism in any democracy is to convince people of this fundamental truth. During the phase that began in the 1940s, editors and journalists of the vernacular press, mostly recruited from small towns and semi-rural areas, had somehow grasped this fact instinctively. Together with their avid new readers, the Hindi journalists underwent a unique expansion of the heart and mind as they began to report and write and absorb the fascinating reality of India beyond its big cities and the party headquarters offices. Their writings may have been less polished, their dailies less well-produced, but it was as though India had at last learnt to speak for itself. It is this aspect of the vernacular media, including in Hindi, which one finds the most beautiful and endearingly human. And with this, the Hindi newspapers, as in the case of their Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Bengali counterparts, managed to create a republic for the humblest readers sitting far away in Samastipur or Farrukhabad or Almora.

As the idea of the inviolable human dignity of news became central, a new public language for democratic discourse was created effortlessly. And when in 1979 the first National Readership Survey revealed that the vernacular papers, particularly those in Hindi, now commanded several times the readership of the English newspapers, it did not surprise the readers or journalists of the vernacular press.

Between 2002 and 2005, a new Cinderella story was written. Readership in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand recorded a phenomenal annual growth of 14 per cent. Over two-thirds of these readers were based in small towns and rural areas. Despite continuous political turbulence, poverty, rise in crime and a near-breakdown of law and order, or perhaps because of these, the poor but news-hungry readers in Bihar were ready to spend Rs. 5 a copy for a slim Hindi newspaper, almost three times the price of the (considerably fatter) English dailies.

Today, according to the Indian Readership Survey, 2009 (Round 1), the list of India’s top 10 dailies has only Indian language newspapers, and six of them are in Hindi. India’s largest-selling English daily, The Times of India, now stands outside of the Big 10, at No. 11. And, according to IRS 2008 (Round 2), its total sales (133.4 lakh copies a day) is but a fraction of the vast numbers sold by the top four Hindi dailies: Dainik Jagran (557.4 lakh), Dainik Bhaskar (338.3 lakh), Amar Ujala (293.8 lakh) and Hindustan (266.3 lakh).

But ironically, with such humongous growth the Hindi media seem perilously close to entering the Habermasian third phase of ‘refeudalisation.’ During this phase, Habermas had predicted, the state and the corporates would seize control of the lucrative media businesses and the public sphere would degenerate — till the media become a mass ‘product’ and the reader a mindless consumer driven by advertisers’ choices, not his or her own. This is not a very pleasant thought. But given India’s half-open markets, the vernacular media’s wide readership base, and the fact that journalists are also informed consumers, perhaps we will ultimately have an unfinished revolution of sorts where the informed consumers and the system will beat back the predatory market forces again and again. In the Habermasian Kali Yuga, do not be surprised to see print media readers being subtly assisted by the state when they demand a more professional dissemination of news.

There are two reasons for this: one, the print media are infinitely less of a threat to the ruling class compared to the increasingly ratings-driven, ‘breaking news’-seeking, visual media. And since your enemy’s enemy is your best friend, the ruling class will not allow market forces to starve the print media at the expense of the visual media.

The second reason has rather insidious implications. Over the last few years, as disposable incomes in small-town India have risen, the wall that stood between English and vernacular publications has begun to crumble. After almost all the editors of English dailies, like the Hindi media barons before them, have turned owner-editors, they have quickly sensed the advantage in forming protective guilds across regions. Unbelievably, new bands of brotherhood are being formed by the marketing managers in order to formulate strategies, sign ‘no poaching’ pacts, and share information about the best clients and the cleverest (although they are often the most unprofessional) practices. Media barons are no longer dismissive of their vernacular publications, and the Hindi owner-editors are also coming out of their small, simple and static world and sending their sons to Wharton or the Indian Institutes of Management. The vernacular readers may have grown up on a diet of only language papers, but they now send their children to English-medium schools. The brave new bi-lingual households of the future are the new focus area. That is where the action is.

(Mrinal Pande is a senior Hindi journalist and writer. This is the first of a two-part article.)
http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/18/stories/2009111854990800.htm

18 Nov. A church in Bidar (North Karnataka) was vandalised and desecrated by some miscreants on Tuesday late night/ Wednesday wee hours.
Humnabad taluka in Bidar district, is on the border areas of Andra Pradesh. Vasant Kumar is the priest there: the people on Wednesday morning found the Cross desecrated, and windows and glasses broken!
Another attack on weaker sections of society! Soft targets. The miscreants should be brought to justice! In the strictest ways.

18 Nov. The students of Mass Communication and Media Studies left for Chennai with Dr Celine. They have taken a long route… sure they would enjoy the scenery. It’s fun to be in a group, that too during a train journey!
Last year, I remember, we had lots of fun: playing Tom, Dick or Harry (“who am I?”) – oh! what fun it was! You become one with group…
This year too many reasons why I could not go… Media tour and those movements… I would have benefited much from interaction with the media industry. I have always enjoyed meeting some great media personality.
More specially I will miss IFFI (though not the best film fest in India!)… I will miss it.
Last year, we -15 of us- hired a small flat… it was compact! We cooked our food, washed our dishes, cleaned our house… then ran for the shows… returned late in the night: prepared food & ate (whatever it tasted like!) It was so much of fun… it brought the group together.
And then: we had the post mortem of the day: long and detailed analysis of films watched by all of us: sharing and analysis – going past 12 or 1 a.m.!
I would miss it… I chose to miss it: for the greater good.
To those who are traveling: Happy and safe journey.

17 Nov. Komu Sauharda Vedeke – Communal Harmony Forum organised a press conference to condemn the vigilante attack on three muslim boys for travelling (for sports) with two hindu girls. The boys are admitted to a city hospital.
In the meantime, there has been some tension in some parts of Mangalore. Bantwal was tense; police seen in action.
Sudhakar, one of the miscreants of bajrang dal who attacked the muslim sportsmen (representing the college), was arrested with four others; he has escaped from the hospital! Can you smell a rat?

17 Nov. As the dawn of 18 November dawns, MCMS students from St Aloysius College will start on a media tour cum international film festival of India, (IFFI) Goa.
How I wished to go! But the examination work and “reciprocation” keeps me back! Just then, the Community Radio conference has cropped up in Mumbai. I am to present a paper.
I will miss media tour. Not happy. Not sad. Last year IFFI memories crop up thick and fast!
With all that is going on, probably I would not enjoy it either!
Sour grapes!
Good wishes to the mass communication students.

17 Nov. It’s a gloomy day. Clouds hovering over the city. An air of uncertainty.
St Aloysius PU College has its annual sports day. The entire Gonzaga ground is an ocean of humanity. Students and students!
Our radio staff is busy with program finalising. In the meantime come Melwyn Peris: he has his musical nite on Sunday. We recorded his voice for a promo. Then come two girls to RJ today’s programs – one Bengali another Konkani.
I arrange for the day’s works, thinking of the week ahead and my Mumbai conference and a few University visits… I come back… Alex calls me saying he will come at 2pm to discuss the College website… I was planning to prepare for a press conference at that time! Both are important…
Come to the room… say hello to my Ajji… and look at my watch… it is time… I peep out.. it is gloomy… It may rain… it may thunder … there may be severe lightening…May God protect us!

A journalists meeting:
1. http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=broadcast&broadcastid=155576
2. http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=68399&n_tit=Mangalore%3A+Konkani+Journalists+Meet+at+Bishop%92s+House+on+World+Communications+Day

16 Nov. Mangalore has witnessed some tensions! Three Muslim boys of Vivekananda Junior College, Yedapadavu (between Mangalore-Kaikamba & Moodbidri) were attacked by some miscreants, posing to be cultural/ religious police.
The three Muslim students were travelling in a bus to Mangalore for a sports meet, in the company of two Hindu girls. All sports persons representing the college. Their sports teacher had gone to the railway station to book train tickets! and these anti-social elements thought they were greater than the college which deputed the students to represent it!
The three boys are injured and are being treated in a private hospital.
The attackers are suspected to be bajrang dal activists, though no one has owned up responsibility. It is time for the police (headed by the good Mr Gopal Hosur, Mr Amith Singh, and Dr S. Rao, along with conscientious Mr Ponnuraj – our DC) to reign in these anti social elements. They are in-charge of the district.
We also pray that at least now on, there won’t be political interference, after the government drew so much of flack for its carelessness and even connivance in nurturing such elements.

Shekhar comes to rescue of his clan
By Our Reporter<strong> (Shillong Times)

Shillong: An old Shillong hand Shekhar Gupta, Editor in Chief of the Indian Express, on Saturday saved the day for the journalists. Four from the North East- an Editor from Imphal, a T V reporter based in Guwahati, and two local print media journalists had been pronounced “guilty” at the programme – Media on Trial – by a jury after the cross examination by the seasoned Delhi-based journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and also by a discerning audience.

The style of ‘cross examination’ of the journalists by Thakurta, who had the floor to himself, was somewhat anecdotal. He put the questions to the four interspersed with facts about Indian Journalism, its functioning in the present day scenario, its short comings and also some plus points. Being a member of the Press Council he talked about its working as well. The audience was select and specially invited not only to witness the “trial” but also put their questions at the Banquet Hall of the Pinewood Hotel.

That the hall was packed and that it remained so all through the programme showed the interest the people have in the media notwithstanding that they are also quick to debunk it. Among the audience were politicians, police officers, former journalists, retired officials and a keen bunch of local students of journalism.

The charges were framed by Thakurta to the four in the dock – that they were willing to be on the receiving end revealed their sporting spirit. They no doubt faced many uncomfortable questions. After going through the replies to the questions by Thakurta and the audience- – the jury came to a unanimous verdict “guilty”.

Thakurta initiated the trial with strong animal imagery particularly that of a dog. What type of dogs are journalists – watchdog, lap dog, barking or a biting dog, much to the delight of the audience. It could be said that the four in dock came out competently out of a difficult proposition though the house seemed keen to punish them and were evidently happy over the verdict pronounced by the eminent jury.

After the four had been debunked in strong words, it was Shekhar Gupta who came to the rescue of his own clan- the journalists. He said that it was a “mis-trial”.

According to him, the four were not exactly “qualified” to answer some of questions they faced. It would have been better directed to the owners of the organization rather than state level correspondents. Defending the present day journalist the Express Editor in Chief said that the present day journalists were better equipped and more hard working that those of the past.

On a personal note Shekhar, in his summing-up remarks, was nostalgic about the years spent in Shillong in the early eighties. He fondly remembered that the Assam type cottage of the early eighties he lived in had now turned into a four storied concrete “monster”. But the Express editor was also appreciative of the audeince who he described as ‘genteel’ and thanked them for listening patiently to the proceedings. “It is so different from the Delhi culture where people register their presence and leave the venue to attend something else”. Shekhar Gupta also placed on record his appreciation for Pradip Phanjoubam, Editor Imphal Free Press for courageously and consistently pursuing good journalistic practices despite the pressures he faces from militants, corrupt politicians, and the goverment.

Brittle plastic chairs
Amidst the engrossing media trial, the silence in the hall was intermittently broken by the crash of the plastic chairs that were placed in the hall to accomodate the audience. This happened on three occasions. Each time somebody landed on their backs. Dr David Syiemlieh of NEHU stood up and lifted the broken chair in disgust, stating that he has never before seen plastic chairs so brittle.

Jury convicts media of failing to bring social transformation
By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Media has presently failed to perform their duty especially in bringing about consciousness for social transformation was the verdict passed by an eminent jury of five during a “Media on Trial” here on Saturday.

Organised by the Media Sub-Committee of Late PN Chaudhuri Centenary Celebration Committee which is part of the programme to commemorate the birth centenary of the former Editor of The Shillong Times late PN Chaudhuri at Hotel Pinewood. Eminent TV journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta conducted the trial where prominent media personalities from the North East, Pradeep Phanjoubam, Editor of The Imphal Free Press, Kishalay Bhattacharya correspondent, NDTV 24×7, Manosh Das, correspondent, The Times of India and David Laitphlang chief of bureau, Eastern Chronicle were put on the docks to acquit themselves of the series of allegations leveled against them for their alleged failure to carry out their duties with objectivity and responsibility.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta launched off his allegations on behalf of the audience by asking the panellists if they were watchdogs, lap dogs of people in power or guide dogs. To this allegation all the panellists said they were performing their duties as watchdogs albeit without tails. They pleaded ‘not guilty to the charge that they had become lap dogs. “We are investigating charges of corruption but when corruption is everywhere and staring us in the face there is little need to investigate,” said Manosh Das. To the query as to whether the media has lost all sensitivity while projecting women who are stripped naked or who strip themselves to draw attention to their problem, Pradip Phanjoubam said he did not see any harm in publishing the naked photographs if those could shake the conscience of those in authority. To the charge that media persons do not spend enough time to get views from the subjects of their report, Phanjoubam remarked that in a conflict situation journalists have to adopt a moral balance and take the side of the victim against the perpetrator of violence.

Kishalay Bhattacharya pleaded guilty to the charge that electronic media was only chasing TRP ratings and indulging in the ‘breaking news’ syndrome. However, he blamed the Television Rating Points (TRPs) which are based on a very small sample but which make television channels get at each others throats.

David Laitphlang said the trial was ceremonial since it did not include publishers and owners who often killed stories filed by reporters because of their cosy relationships with powerful people and advertisers.

Pronouncing the jury’s unanimous verdict that media is guilty in not discharging its duties as expected in a democracy, Bro EV Miranda also castigated the media for its lack of objectivity and for not following up on stories.

Another jury member Dr Manorama Sharma, Department of History, North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) said that media is expected to carry out their job as a mission and they should buck the trend of gender stereotyping in their reports. Vice Chancellor, Martin Luther Christian University Dr Glen Kharkongor who also had a stint with the Times of India, observed that it is easy to criticise but difficult to be constructive. He blamed the viewers for watching trash such as those televised by certain television channels which are based on superstitions.

Mr GP Wahlang Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) the fourth jury member criticised the media for sensationalising crimes but never reporting about the punishment that follows such crimes. If people are aware of the punishment they might refrain from committing similar crimes. He also blamed the media of doctoring press releases and giving their own spin to them.

Noted musician, Pauline Warjri who was also a jury member wondered how the media could maintain their objectivity if they relied so heavily on advertisements.

Defending the sorority, Editor in chief of The Indian Express Shekhar Gupta said that journalism in India has now improved tremendously and that journalists are more hardworking and professional now than ever before.

“Journalism should be objective and should never be a mission. Anything that is a mission cannot be objective,” Mr Gupta clarified, adding that journalists should adopt a clinical approach to their work.

Expressing their views the audience rued that journalists in this part of the world have failed to adequately present the North East in the ‘mainstream’ media. Some in the audience said that the region only finds mention in the national media because of its stereotypical stories of conflict, militancy, violence at al. The national media was castigated for being New Delhi and metro-centric..

Members of the audience included prominent personalities of the city, students of journalism from different institutes and teachers, government officials, police officers, activists and other media watchers.

14 Nov. It is Children’s Day in India. The birthday of our former & first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
Our life is filled with children. Children are a nice way to start people. Today’s Radio SARANG 107.8MHz program is anchored by a 3rd standard child! What a confident child! Listen to it at 5.30pm (IST) today and 6.30 am tomorrow (15th Nov), IST.
Happy Children’s Day.

13 Nov. Today it is the birthday of one of my “kem che?” friends. While wishing, docomo ditched me! with cheap rates come cheap services also!
Then, I had to hurry up to Fr Alfie Ben’s talk on Radio Vatican. The video on the 75th anniversary of Radio Vatican is well done; I liked it for more than one reason: history of radio, for one.
Tomorrow Fr Alfie Ben is visiting Community Radio SARANG 107.8MHz. Gonna have some brain storming on program production. Would be nice to have his views.
Thanks to Capt John Prasad, we had a sumptuous dinner – both for mind and for heart (should I specifically tell about body?)

13 Nov. As children’s day approaches, ‘big’ children get a break! At least most at St Aloysius College. Many post graduate students completed their odd-semester students completed their exams today, whereas a few of those who started a bit late, will continue to battle it out.
MCMS (mass communication and media studies) students finished it all! In the meantime, operation valuation has begun. Most of it will be completed when they are out, though.

11 Nov. I liked this one: SMS by one of our students!
Cyclone Phyan was not allowed to enter Mumbai by the MNS activists because it was named in Marathi!
——–
(I hope nobody will forget the notorious MNS – of Maharashtra and its goonda-raj)!

11 Nov. Since 7th November, it has been raining in many places, including Mangalore. But the last three days’ rain, thunder, lightening … Well, last evening and this morning’s lightening and rain were too much! Just too much! Not even in June-July we had so much!
When I returned from PG exam duty this afternoon, my room was filled with water – the only thing lacking was a boat to sail! Savia, Roshan, Edwin and others were busy clearing the mess from my room. In the bargain, many of my books -which were kept in card board boxes are wet, thanks to the administrator!

Here are further reflections on journalism for sale during the 2009 General Elections issue:. It is from the Reader’s Editor – Online & Offline column by The Hindu’s Reader’s Editor S. .Viswanathan:
Reader responses to last week’s column on media-related malpractices during elections throw further light on this serious issue, which is now before the Press Council of India. Some of them contend that the alleged malpractices were neither new nor confined to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. No less shocking than the “coverage package” of Maharashtra or the “cash transfer scheme” of Andhra Pradesh is the “power of extraction” that allegedly played a role during the 2009 Lok Sabha election in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore constituency.

K. Ramasubramanian, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate in the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency, stated the following in an email to the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu that has been forwarded to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for its information. Traditionally, money power and muscle power had been “two inseparable and fearful factors of Indian elections.” However in the recent parliamentary elections the media unleashed the “power of extraction” on a “selective basis” against “a few underprivileged candidates like me.” Mr. Ramasubramanian contended that the media, considered the fourth estate and a watchdog of democracy, were “partial in covering the elections” by giving “good news coverage” only to parties that “favoured” them. A section of the media, particularly some influential Tamil dailies he named, published election-related news “according to their whims and fancies without giving a fair chance to candidates from smaller parties.”
“Strange scheme”

He alleged that when he took up the problem with the relevant newspapers, he was assured of “due publicity” provided he shelled out about Rs.4,00,000 to Rs 5,00,000 over a period of 15 to 20 days under a “special scheme” of the managements of these newspapers. He was also “enlightened” by the management of one of these papers that if he released advertisements soliciting votes in newspapers, he would be accountable to the ECI, which was monitoring the election expenses of candidates. If, on the other hand, the message appeared as an editorial piece, it would help the candidate conceal the expense incurred.

This “strange scheme”, Mr. Ramasubramanian asserted, offered immunity to candidates who made a lump-sum payment and also ensured good publicity for them. If the candidate insisted on a receipt, it would be made out to a third party and not necessarily to the contestant. “This was an obnoxious and strongly objectionable scheme and was totally opposed to democratic principles and media ethics,” he said. Apart from encouraging unfair means, the “scheme”, also shook the very foundation of democracy and made it a mockery. “Obviously, as I was against the principle of buying editorial space by availing myself of ‘special packages’ offered by most of the regional newspapers, I failed in garnering adequate visibility in the mass media,”

Mr. Ramasubramanian wants the Election Commission and the Press Council to take a serious view of this corrupt practice and initiate stringent measures to stem the rot before it was too late. “Only then the right thinking and educated people would repose their trust in true democracy.” His appeal to these two bodies certainly deserves the support of the champions of true democracy and fair media.
Not restricted to election time

Pisipati Sriram of Hyderabad, also in an e-mail, said media greed was not restricted to election time. As one with long experience in journalism, his letter dealt with the circumstances under which journalism had reached such a low. The rot had set in much earlier, he felt. “To be precise, ever since editorial departments were taken over by market-men, editorial staffers, generally perceived as knowledgeable and scholarly persons, were reduced to cut-and-paste page-makers drawing wages that are peanuts in many news organisations.” In Mr. Sriram’s opinion, “standards of journalism have never been as low as I find them these days.”

The reader wondered what kind of professional standards and ethics one could expect when journalists in many Indian and English language dailies scrambled for favours from the establishment. He added cuttingly that a journalist who obtained benefits from the government such as a house site would only serve the establishment needs and at best was “only a dictation clerk to the powers of the day.” Such journalists would only file reports that show their benefactors in a good light. “Managements, for their own reasons, would seem to prefer such sycophants, drummers and trumpeters.”

The conclusion drawn by Mr. Sriram is that under such circumstances, “professional, impartial, dispassionate journalism gives way to narrow-minded, self-serving destructive journalism.”

A highly competitive media industry cannot afford to underrate the role of hyper-commercialisation driven by the conditions created by a fast-growing market-driven economy. Vice-President and chairman of the Rajya Sabha Hamid M. Ansari called attention to this challenge, which is actually a dilemma, in his inaugural speech at a recent New Delhi workshop on Parliament and Media: “the explosive growth in the media industry has highlighted the fact that the Fourth Estate is the only one among the pillars of democracy that has an identifiable professional, commercial and explicitly for-profit persona. While the primary duty of media organisations is to their readership for keeping them informed and appraised with news, views and ideas, the commercial logic brings in a new set of stakeholders …” Now more than ever before in India, there is a great need for checks and balances to ensure the primacy of editorial values and functions in the news media. This in clearly in the larger interest of protecting their integrity, independence, and fairness.

I can say that based on my journalistic experience, I am cautiously optimistic that maintaining a balance in order to “resurrect the professional and ethnical dimension of journalism” (to use the Vice-President’s words) is possible.
Courtesy: http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/09/stories/2009110955360900.htm

8 Nov. Thought I disappeared? No updates for two days! Eh?
Not exactly! I am in Bangalore. When in the state capital, I get disconnected for a while!!!
Reached Bangalore on Saturday. Whatever be that ‘confidential’ work, I had a break too. No laptop for two full days! And very little of mobile! The two tech-boons can make life unbearable! A break like this helps!
In the meantime, I have been following the political developments very closely! For the first time in almost a decade, I watched non-stop television: news channels. Even those channels which I don’t get to watch in Mangalore: NewsX. Glanced through other channels in the news like Colours, News9, Neo, etc.
Should I add, I watched the pathetic show by the BCCI’s cricket team? What is more appropriate nomenclature: BCCI team or Dhoni’s team? You tell me.
[To call it "Indian Team" is an insult to us! None of us have elected that team. There is no national interest involved in it. It does not represent any nation or state. It is not Indian team.]

8 Nov. Finally, Yeddyurappa gets an apparent breather. For now, his troubles are ’sorted out’ after the rebel Reddy brothers met their “mother” Sushma Swaraj in Delhi.
The defiant Reddy Brothers (Janardhana and Karunakara, along with Sriramulu) had a huge clout of MLAs who supported their demand.
The mining lords from Bellary are an extremely powerful lobby, who are responsible for installing the BJP government in Karnataka, sheerly on the power of their money. It may be noted that that the present BJP dispensation was the single largest party in Karnataka state polls in May 2008. But they ran short of three MLAs. The Reddy brothers had helped the Yeddyurappa group to buy independent MLAs and install the government for the first time in the South.

Later the BJP government, under the “Operation Lotus” banner shamelessly bought MLAs elected under the Congress and JD(S) banner, thus forcing another by-election on the electorate. Though the entire nation decried this mockery of the Constitution, then entire saffron brigade supported the move.

This move finally came to haunt Yeddyurappa when the Reddy brothers challenged him on various counts (though the real issue was proposed tax on iron ore trucks – which would have cost them Rs. 1000 crore!) like the self-styled rulers in Rural Development minister Shobha Karandlaje (who wields enormous influence on the CM), CM’s principal secretary V.P. Baligar, and CM’s style of functioning, etc.

The rebels asked for the CM’s head. Egos clashed when power was at stake. One faction wanting to control the state policies to suit their illegal business interests, another man to save his chair (this he openly admitted on 7 Nov. during an interview with Suvarna TV channel, while shedding crocodile tears!). And the people of North Karnataka continued to suffer post-floods! They continued to suffer. Power games deviated the nation’s attention to the warring political factions! What a misfortune! These are the contradictions of a democracy.

And finally the day came: crisis is solved. The demands of the rebels will be met in a phased manner. But how long will this artificial patch up last? I am not optimistic. It is a question of just a few months: and the Reddys will bounce back to hold the state and crying-CM the to ransom. The handle has been handed over into their hands. For now: status quo will continue. Reddys have won. The state and its people have lost.

6 Nov. It’s finally over! One big job. But there are some more waiting! Bigger ones, more complicated!
Happy for what is completed.

6 Nov. Here is a write from livemint.com. In terms of statistics (specially on Community Radios) there are glitches. But the message is quite clear.
http://www.livemint.com/2009/11/05223740/The-power-of-community-radio.html?h=B

5 Nov. www.radioandmusic.com has been with us ever since we signed GOPA in February, giving us good coverage, spreading the good work we do. This time, once again:
http://www.radioandmusic.com/content/editorial/news/radio-sarang-launches-legal-show

5 Nov. Finally the beaters are beaten up! On 4 November some bajrang dal activists assaulted Suhail of Government College in Car Street, Mangalore. Suhail’s fault: he -a Muslim boy- talked to a Hindu girl! The miscreants then entered the principal’s office, who engaged them in some negotiations in (another) room. In the meantime, word went to the police about the self-style policing.
When the police arrived on the scene, the unwanted activists were still arguing with the principal. The police, led by the young and energetic ASP Mr Amit Singh, beat up the attackers black and blue! Cases have been registered against them one of whom was a culprit caught in the attack on women in a pub!

India’s cultural pluralism its best defence
By Malini Parthasarathy

To question the patriotism of the Muslim community on the ground that it refuses to “worship” India as a concept is to make a mockery of the real meaning of patriotism and national loyalty.
for more:…
http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/05/05hdline.htm

He transformed western world’s outlook of “primitive” societies
Vaiju Naravane

Claude Levi-Strauss sometimes expressed disgust with the West and what he called its ‘own filth, thrown in the face of mankind.’

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS: Towering intellectual. —

Claude Levi-Strauss, the father of modern anthropology and one of France’s most revered and influential intellectuals died in Paris a few weeks short of his 101st birthday.

Mr. Levi-Strauss’ field work and writings transformed the way the western world looked at so called “primitive” societies and was to have an enduring influence on related sciences like sociology, psychology, ethnology, ethnography, philosophy, archaeology and social anthropology.

During his long life Mr. Levi-Strauss taught at various universities across the globe and held the coveted Chair in Social Anthropology at the College de France. He was covered with honours that included doctorates from Harvard, Yale and Oxford Universities and in 1973 was elected to France’s prestigious Academie Francaise, the circle of writers and intellectuals known as the “immortals,” created in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu.

The fact that Mr. Levi-Strauss’ death has received massive media coverage and that ordinary persons have flooded the blogosphere and radio waves with anecdotes, tributes and remembrances is an apt comment on France’s everlasting love for affairs of the mind, despite the advent of President Sarkozy and his acolytes who have displayed a real preference for the material over the intellectual.

Mr. Levi-Strauss was the author of such well known classics as Tristes Tropiques (1955), The Savage Mind (1963) and The Raw and the Cooked (1964). In fact when Tristes Tropiques was published, members of the jury of the Goncourt Prize, France’s pre-eminent award for fiction announced they regretted not being able to honour the writer because the book was not a novel. Essentially a memoir detailing his time as a French expatriate throughout the 1930s, the book combined dazzling prose with audacious philosophical meditation and ethnographic analysis of the Amazonian peoples. The essence of Claude Levi-Strauss’ work pertained to theories about commonalities between tribal and industrial societies.

A towering intellectual who was astonishingly erudite, Mr. Levi-Strauss reshaped the field of anthropology, introducing structuralism — concepts about common patterns of behaviour and thought, especially myths, in a wide range of human societies. Defined as the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity, structuralism compared the formal relationships among elements in any given system.

Mr. Levi Strauss died on Saturday but his death was announced in Paris by his publishing house Plon on Tuesday. His son Laurent, a soft-spoken international civil servant said his father had died of “cardiac arrest” and that he had been buried in a small, intimate ceremony in the village of Lignerolles south east of Paris where he had a country house on the edge of a forest. “He had expressed the wish to have a discreet and sober funeral, with his family, in his country house. He was attached to this place; he liked to take walks in the forest, and the cemetery where he is now buried is just on the edge of this forest,” The New York Times quoted Laurent Levi-Strauss as saying.

Mr. Levi Strauss’ tetralogy, collectively entitled Mythologiques relates to the structure of mythologies and “is a seminal work on how to interpret customs and cultures in order to draw universal parallels,” said Catherine Clement, a former student and life-long collaborator. Ms Clement was posted in India as head of the French Cultural Centre at the same time as her husband, André Lewin who was France’s Ambassador to India.

Ms Clement who counts a biography of Mahatma Gandhi among her many books on India said in an interview: “Unlike other philosophers and political thinkers of his time, Claude Levi-Strauss placed a distance between himself and active politics, except in his early years when he was a militant socialist. He was not like Sartre, Camus or Bourdieu who felt they had to plunge into the hurly burly of political engagement. In 1968 during the student uprising when I told him of my political commitment, he said: ‘You and your friends would do better to go away somewhere, a monastery perhaps, where it is calm, and spend the next two years thinking.’”

Mr. Levi-Strauss came from a distinguished Jewish family where the atmosphere was bookish, intellectual and musical. One of his uncles was a minor but respected composer and Mr. Levi-Strauss said often he would have preferred to be an orchestra conductor or a composer rather than a writer. A book that had a profound influence on him was Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. “I was fascinated by the giants hidden by the windmills. It made me realise that one had to get behind appearances to discover reality and that is what I have tried to do all my life.”

When Mr. Levi-Strauss turned 100 on November 28 last year, the Quai Branly Museum, devoted to native cultures and societies, organised a series of events, exhibitions and seminars. “I was astonished by the clarity and agility of his mind, his simplicity, humility and childlike curiosity,” said sociologist Annie Lavergne who attended the seminars.

“He felt he was out of touch with this century. He did not like what he saw — globalisation, the destruction of cultures and tribes and he was convinced that small, well-preserved tribal societies were bound to vanish one day soon, to be swallowed up by what he called the ‘mass civilization,’ of a modern ‘monoculture.’ He sometimes expressed disgust with the West and what he called its ‘own filth, thrown in the face of mankind.’ I think he felt he was living in a world where he no longer belonged. Not so long ago, he said to me: ‘I am not of this world.’ In his mind he had already moved on,” says Catherine Clement.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/05/stories/2009110554840900.htm

4 Nov. It was a nice day to spend – after hectic (should I say boring?) valuation & exam-duty coordination and anxiety-filled Radio SARANG 107.8MHz live phone-in program, I went to Milagres for the 12th anniversary Mass of Edwin Lobo (Dr Sandra’s father). Sandra lost her cousin Ashok last week. That was also there in my mind.

Leading the worship was a special experience – to be with the family to remember its dear one. That I lost my mother two years ago is at the back of my mind, too. … And to recall these precious memories, to be united in spiritual communion, and to vibrate with the family’s feelings is a special moment of grace.

My regret: Meal is another special moment of communion. I could not share in it; had to return to close the Radio SARANG 107.8MHz. But am happy to have participated in this Eucharist, to praise God for His graces to the bereaved families, to pray for the dear departed, to be with them… it is at these moments that someone like me feels ‘after all we all share one human family’, ‘we are all one’. So we are! So be it.

4 Nov. One of our visitors asks if the attacks are reported in any newspapers? And if ‘yes’, if I could upload the links.
Have any newspapers? Sure, all newspapers and media agencies have carried the news”story”! Sadly, most of them don’t have these stories on the online page. Eg: Mangalore pages of The Hindu has 5-10 stories in print edition, but today’s e-version carries only four stories! This is true of every newspaper!
Sure, you will get these copies in libraries of Mangalore.

4 Nov. The BJP government in Karnataka is in trouble, and the “diversion” game has begun! Even as Yeddyurappa is battling for his survival, the miscreants of the bajrang dal have started targeting minorities.

Mr Vincent and Ashalatha were attacked on 3rd Nov in Mangalore at their residence. The goons attackers alleged Vincent is involved in conversions!
If conversion-bogey be true, there is a simple lesson: lodge a police complaint! Don’t take law into your own hands. Any one who takes law into his/ her own hands is an anti-Indian since nationalism means loving and respecting the nation and its goals. It means abiding by the Constitution of the nation. Let the law take its own course!
If the attack is an attempt to divert the nation’s attention from the deep trouble BJP government is in, then this is an age-old strategy, which is bound back-fire.

3 Nov. The more you give, the more you are given.
The more you ask, the more you are asked.
Strange? But true.

Here is an email forward sent me by one of my media-critic friends. It is written by Paul Nixon, as he comments on this blog. It’s worth the read! Dont miss it.
Here’s how the NDTV news channel — would report the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. All names (except those of Jack and Jill), are fictitious.
Prashant - TV Anchor
Two persons have been injured in a freak climbing accident. Jack and his companion Jill had gone up a hill to fetch a pail of water when Jack fell down and broke his crown. Jill came tumbling after. Live from the hill, our reporter, Amrita Shah, takes up the story.

Amrita Shah: Thank you Prashant. Well, as you say, two persons – Jack and Jill – had gone up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Suddenly, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Prashant.

Prashant:Thank you Amrita. What do we know about the hill?

Amrita: Not too much. Jack was going up the hill to fetch a pail of water when he fell down and broke his crown. Jill came tumbling after.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “hill breaks crown of pail-boy Jack”]
Prashant: What news of Jack and Jill?

Amrita: Prashant, it seems that Jack had gone up the hill to fetch a pail of water. We know nothing about the pail, or how heavy it was but it seems that Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. I have here with me, an eyewitness to the accident, Mr Shahid Trivedi. Mr Shahid, tell us what you saw.

Shahid Trivedi: Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “Boy and girl tumble down hill. Water spilled”]

Amrita: Jack and Jill. What do we know about them? Are they brother and sister? Are they married? Just what were they doing on the hill together?

Shahid Trivedi: Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail a water.

Amrita: And what happened next?
Shahid Trivedi: Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail a water.

Amrita: And what happened next?

Shahid Trivedi: Jack fell down and broke his crown

Amrita: Go on.

Shahid Trivedi: And Jill came tumbling after.

Amrita: Prashant, there you have it. Two people innocently going about their business to fetch a pail of water when one of them falls down, breaks his crown, and the other comes tumbling after. Back to you in the studio Prashant.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “Water errand ends in tragedy”]

Prashant: I have with me in the studio now, Professor Chandrashekar Belagare from the Indian Institute of Applied Hill Sciences. Professor: a hill; Jack; Jill; a pail of water. A tragedy waiting to happen?

Professor:Well that depends on the hill, the two persons, the object they were carrying and the conditions underfoot. Let us look at the evidence so far.

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

Clearly, one would suspect that if Jack’s fall was severe enough to break his crown then the surface of the hill must have been slippery or unstable. But I think we’re overlooking something quite fundamental here. Who was carrying the pail? Jack fell down and broke his crown and – this is the key – Jill came tumbling after. If Jack and Jill had been carrying the pail together, would they not have fallen at the same time? The fact that Jill came tumbling after suggests that Jack lost his footing first and perhaps knocked Jill over as he slipped.

Prashant: Professor thank you very much. So there we have it, two persons – Jack and Jill – went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Later in the programme, Osama bin Laden captured in Afghanistan, President Bush says rent-boy menage-a-trois was “just a brief lapse of judgement”, and Pakistan launches nuclear warheads against key Indian cities. But next up, join us after the break for a studio discussion about hills, boys and girls and whether water-fetching trips should be supervised. We’ll be right back…..

2 Nov.It’s over a month since the floods caused havoc in North Karnataka and nearly destroyed the lives of a huge majority of people. Our leaders whom we elected shed a lot of tears. And they also demanded Rs 20,000 crores from the Central Government. Our Chief Minister collected good many crores of rupees walking many a town. But what has happened since then?
Fight for power!
Bellary’s mining lords and the incumbent chief minister are fighting for power – for a game of one upmanship! Bellary’s mining lords want a change of leader in Karnataka (they want J. Shettar), and thus humiliate B.S. Yeddyurappa. The latter simply does not want to give up power for the sake of people. He says ‘no compromise’!
In the meantime, many of the MLAs are enjoying a “break” in Goa and Hyederabad’s resorts!
All – Bellary’s powerful MLAs, J Shettar, Yeddyurappa and all the MLAs- have forgotten the thousands of people waiting for relief in the aftermath of the floods!
God save our state and its political leaders!

2 Nov. Electoral malpractices such as bribing voters, impersonation, intimidation of voters by the goons of rival candidates, tampering with vote lists, and manipulating the location of polling booths to suit the needs of particular contestants have been as old as the Indian Republic.

Many of these complaints were heard in the first General Election, held in 1952. Every subsequent election saw new additions to this list of improprieties, which included abuse of power by bureaucrats and the police in support of the ruling group.

The 1970s saw a spurt in electoral violence, large-scale rigging of polls, booth capturing, ballot stuffing, and the mass removal of the names of voters from the electoral rolls. That has been checked, to a large extent, by the various measures adopted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to clean up the electoral process.

But the ECI has completely failed in one area, that is, in curbing the corruption of elections through money power. The 2009 elections witnessed the worst in this regard.

Truly shocking was what happened during the run-up to the Maharashtra Assembly elections in mid-October 2009 and the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh earlier in the year. In both cases, the authors and chief perpetrators of the election-related malpractices are sadly from the media — which ought to have been, and actually were in the not-so-distant past, in the forefront of the campaign for free, fair, clean, and violence-free elections.
Selling news space

In both States, influential sections of both the print and broadcast media sold their news space or news slots to electoral candidates or their parties, throwing to the wind all professional and ethical norms and probably violating the law as well. In both States, the media, mostly Indian language newspapers and TV channels reportedly made hundreds of crores of rupees in these deals. The transactions enabled the contestants to buy space and publish all they wanted to project themselves in favourable light to the electorate. Those who refused to purchase the “coverage packages” were reported to have been denied publicity.

While P. Sainath exposed this shockingly extensive malpractice witnessed in Maharashtra in his edit page article, “The medium, message and the money” (The Hindu, October 26, 2009), the “cash transfer scheme” in Andhra Pradesh involving influential sections of the media, was actually brought to light in May this year by the Press Academy of Andhra Pradesh and the Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists based at Hyderabad. But somehow this failed to get wider attention.

Thanks to the efforts of the two organisations, the Press Council of India (PCI) is looking into the matter. It has constituted a two-member committee to go into the phenomenon of “paid news.” The Press Council’s intervention followed a representation to its Chairman, Justice G.N. Ray from a group of senior journalists, who included Kuldip Nayar, Ajit Bhattacharjee, and Harivansh.

Many journalists have expressed their anguish over the “selling of news space,” which would jeopardise public trust in the media and lower credibility. The Council expressed serious concern over the phenomenon of paid news. It could cause double jeopardy to Indian democracy through a damaging influence on press functioning as well as on the free and fair election process. There was an urgent need to protect the public’s right to information so that it was not misled in deciding the selection quotient of the candidates in the fray, the Council said. PCI Chairman Ray described the media “scheme [of] paid news” as “nefarious.”
In Maharashtra

As for Maharashtra, the Election Commission is yet to take any initiative in going after this malpractice. Towards the end of his article Sainath appreciates the “fine job” done by the Commission in curbing “rigging, booth capturing and ballot stuffing” through its “interventions and activism.” However, he comments: “On the money power front … and the media’s packaging of big money interests as ‘news’ … it is hard to find a single instance of rigorous or deterrent action. These too, after all, are serious threats. More structured, much more insidious than crude ballot stuffing. Far more threatening to the basics of not just elections, but democracy itself.”

The intervention of the Press Council of India and hopefully of the Election Commission can go some way in reiterating the responsibility of the media in putting its house in order, not to speak of its role in ensuring that the play of money power in one of its crudest forms is exposed and curbed.

However, the issue needs to be taken beyond this. This may entail taking a fresh look at the functioning of the self-regulating mechanism in the media. More truths have to be brought to light, for instance, the role of journalists in such shameless media misadventures and how far they can be used for or forced into such questionable assignments. Do journalistic ethics concern only journalists? Do they relate solely to the news and editorial functions of the media or also to their business side?

These and many other questions may surface in the months and years ahead if such tendencies continue and spread to more sections of the media. The strengthening of the self-regulatory system of the media is certainly an urgent imperative.

Courtesy: http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/02/stories/2009110255070900.htm
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

Krishna Pradeep was my student of Journalism at St Aloysius College. He was one of the finest secretaries of Al-Madhyam, our media forum. After his journalism at St Aloysius College, he did a year’s diploma in video production at St Xavier’s College Mumbai. Then he joined news media at TV9 – jumped to Aajtak & Worldspace – now with Suvarna group of TV Channels.
He has made this video on Karnataka State Festival (Nov. 1). Lyrics, editing-direction are KP’s. My another illustrious student (Samvartha) was kind enough to share it with his dear ones, over the net. I got back to KP sharing a few of my thoughts. He was quick to address them & re-upload the video.

It is good. Watch it and enjoy! I only wish KP had given subtitles for the international audiences!

‘Sangham Radio’, India’s first community radio station, celebrated its first anniversary on 15 October, 2009. For those of us who were unable to share the moment with General, Algole, Satheesh and the women of Pastapur, here’s a report from today’s Deccan Herald.

“Radioing friends over airwaves”
R Akhileshwari, Deccan Herald, 1 Nov 2009

The amphitheatre in Machnoor village of Zaheerabad mandal in Medak district was recently buzzing with women who had turned out in their finery: wearing brightly coloured, inexpensive but new sarees and their traditional necklace of ‘gundlu’ and ear-rings called ‘genteelu’ with flowers in their hair, the women of nearby villages turned out for an occasion that was as historic as their own. Their ‘Sangam Radio’ had turned all of one year.

Sangam Radio is India’s first community radio, entirely owned and run by members of women’s groups or Sangams as they are known. These Sangams are supported by the Deccan Development Society that has been working for the poorest, landless, Dalit women of Zaheerabad for the past 25 years helping them reclaim their lives from the relentless forces of globalisation. This was achieved through regaining their control over food production, seeds, natural resources and management, the market and finally over the media.

Setting up the community radio was part of the efforts to shake off the grip of a centralised media that alienates the communities from their own roots that lie in their culture, traditions and language. Most importantly, the radio became the voice of the community as it highlights problems which afflict their crops, livestock and families as also the solutions that are thrashed out on air and solutions shared.

As Bidekanne Sammamma said: “Our radio is our friend. When we come home after a day’s hard work our minds are full of problems we switch on our radio and are revived..with the radio by my side I feel my dost is there at home,’’ she said. Sangam Radio had its beginnings in the idea that the media should be an expression of the community, articulated in its own language unique to the region; that it should be a mirror of their identities and traditions; that it should be a platform for day-to-day problems and issues of their lives and livelihoods; it should be an outlet of their joys and woes, of their creativity, of their music and songs, of their crops and food. The idea was to reaffirm their strengths rather than be swamped by an alien media propagating an alien culture.

It was to take pride in them rather than be persuaded by a media that they were somehow lesser beings for being themselves. Sangam Radio started in 1998 with UNESCO’s help. Half a dozen women from Dalit, poor, landless families were trained in all aspects of radio programming. They produced a few hundred hours of programming and since the stiff rules of broadcasting would not be relaxed, Sangam Radio ‘narrowcast’ their programmes, playing the tapes in the weekly meetings of the Sangam.

However following the revolutionary judgement of Justice P B Sawant in the Supreme Court that airwaves were public property, Sangam Radio went on air on October 15, 2008. It is on air daily between 7 and 9 pm. The programme content is a mix of interviews, discussions, songs, folk tales and plays. According to a study, 80 per cent of the participants are women and Dalits. Elders are particularly encouraged to participate as they are seen as valuable repositories of knowledge.

Sangam Radio has discarded the traditional top-down development approach and focuses on creating awareness in the community, based on the premise that critical information will trickle down and they will absorb information important to them. Instead the participatory approach has been adopted where the community makes the decisions about what is important to their lives.

Importantly, the community owns the radio. Out of the 5000 women members of the Sangam (that are active in about 75 villages), at least 2000 are ‘active’ members, each contributing Rs 5 per month which takes care of the expenses of the radio station and its staff. Thus, the community ensures that the radio like the mainstream media does not depend on advertising which comes with its own set of strings attached.

This model of community shareholding is unique in the country and which apart from financial sustainability, ensures social sustainability with a strong sense of ownership and identification of the community with the Radio.

Another unique feature of the Sangam radio station is that the community members are not mere listeners but active participants. The radio station keeps its doors open for people to come and record their talk, songs or share their problems or knowledge. This promotes not just informality but a sense of belonging like we don’t need to take an appointment to get into our home! People from different villages are encouraged to visit the station once a month to take part in various programmes. Sangam Radio is not just an experiment but a valuable lesson on democratisation of the media and a huge step towards demystifying it!

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/33475/radioing-friends-over-airwaves.html

31 Oct. It was the last day of examinations at St Aloysius College (Autonomous) Mangalore. That is the beauty of Autonomy; you are in time, and then back into academic year. Mangalore University and its affiliate colleges will have their exams in December.
Just as the Under Graduates go into vacation mood, Post Graduates get into examination mood! Their day begins on Monday (2 Nov). Good wishes!

31. Oct. Journalism for sale

India’s elections, which in mid-2009 brought 415 million voters to the 1.18 million ballot units in 834,944 polling stations and were mostly peaceful, may be one of the wonders of the world. But it is widely understood that in 2009 the free, fair, and democratic attributes of these elections have been compromised as never before by the large-scale, illegal, and scandalous use of money power — which, to a considerable extent, involved recycled dirty money garnered through corruption in executive and legislative office. The role of the Election Commission of India in curbing booth capturing, intimidation of voters, and some other kinds of electoral fraud has won public appreciation. But as P. Sainath points out in his article, “The medium, message and the money,” published in The Hindu on October 26, 2009, “it is hard to find a single instance of rigorous or deterrent action” by the ECI in the face of such a serious danger to the democratic process. That is a large question that needs to be addressed in depth and in all its complexity by the various players in the political system.

The new shame is the extensive and brazen participation of not insignificant sections of the news media, notably large-circulation Indian language newspapers in two of India’s largest States, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, in this genre of corruption — which a politician speaking at a Hyderabad media seminar memorably characterised as a “Cash Transfer Scheme” from politicians to journalists. Sainath’s article exposes the phenomenon of “coverage packages” exploding across India’s most industrialised State during the recent Assembly election. Candidates paid newspapers different rates for well-differentiated and streamlined packages of news coverage. Those who could not or would not pay for the packages tended to be blacked out. The Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists has, on the basis of a sample survey conducted in West Godavari district, estimated that newspapers across the State netted Rs. 350 crore to Rs. 400 crore through editorial coverage sold to candidates during the 2009 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Some candidates even recorded the expenditure incurred in purchasing editorial coverage in their official accounts submitted to the ECI. With some senior journalists drawing its attention to this new-fangled cash transfer scheme in Andhra Pradesh, the Press Council of India has constituted a two-member committee to inquire into the matter. What to do about such a shocking breach of readers’ trust (which is unlikely to be confined to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra) by the so-called Fourth Estate will form the subject of a follow-up editorial.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/10/31/stories/2009103153620800.htm

29 Oct. Cases against Christians will be withdrawn, promised Dr V.S. Acharya, Karnataka Home Minister.
It may be recalled hundreds of cases were filed against Christians arbitrarily in the wake of attack on Christian places of worship on 14 September 2008.
Police, in stead of providing protection to Churches and Christians, supported the miscreants and went on the rampage, besides filing hundreds of cases, both during the days of tension, and many months after that tensions!
Many Christian leaders had tried to convince the government of the Christians’ innocence. But to no avail. But -today- after a delegation of Christians (including a good friend of mine!) met the Home Minister, the latter promised to withdraw all the cases.

28 Oct. Often I wonder if people value sincerity and truthfulness! I really wonder.

It may feel awkward coming from me. Personally I believe, no matter what others say or do, one needs to live by openness, sincerity, and one’s convictions.

What do you do, if you are pushed to corner again and again? And consciously and willfully? How would you take it if ‘your own’ gang up against you?

Two random thoughts come to my mind:
1. If you don’t stand for truth you don’t stand at all!
2. Once again some news from political circles: Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi has been denied visa by the Oman Government for his role in Gujarat Pogrom 2001! What do you think – after USA refused to admit Modi to USA, should he have tried to gain legality from an Arab country? Well, he keeps asking for it; and gets rapped on his knuckles everytime! Justice has its way of reigning supreme!
I believe in truth & justice! Truth and justice will triumph: someday! They will.

27 Oct. Bad news again. B S Yeddyurappa government in Karnataka seems to be neck-deep in trouble.

Bellary’s mining lords (BJP MLAs – kingpins of BJP rule in Karnataka) are unhappy over many things : levy on iron ore transport trucks, BSY’s interference in every ministry, Shobha Karandlaje’s proximity to BSY & her consequent dominance in state politics, etc are a few of the accusations against BSY by some of the disgruntled ministers. These grouses have been there for a long time, though!

There have been meetings and rebel-meetings. Days and nights are loaded with meetings and pacification. All to keep power in one’s own hands and to grab power.

That is at a time when Karnataka is facing one of its worst disasters – havoc caused by floods in North Karnataka.

Even as the flood relief work is going on at a snails pace and along petty lines in North Karnataka, politicians are busy bargaining for power!

This political crisis comes at a very bad stage for the people of Karnataka.

In the meantime, the RSS – the parent organisation of the BJP- has opened its mouth, and the BJP is clueless as to what is going to happen to them! The RSS chief says BJP should decide what is wants: surgery, medicine or chemotherapy!
One reporter asked Rajnath (BJP national president) about this treatment. Rajnath was unaware of RSS comment. The president said, ‘It’s crazy!’

Journalists have a way of playing spoilsport between two friends / partners – like Narada! And the fun has just begun… But for Karnataka’s poor, it is only misery.

26 Oct.
The medium, message and the money

P. Sainath

The Assembly elections saw the culture of “coverage packages” explode across Maharashtra. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any coverage at all. …
All you have to do is copy & paste these URLs in your URL bar.
1. “The medium, message and the money” hindu.com/2009/10/26/stories/2009102651900800.htm

2. “Deepavali fireworks and media’s social responsibility”
hindu.com/2009/10/26/stories/2009102651960900.htm

26 Oct. It’s a special moment. The blog has recorded 1,00,000 hits.
I was eager to SEE the 1,00,000th hit. It happened just as I was online. But within two minutes the visitor counter jumped from 99,995 to 1,00,005.
I know at least two of my friends waiting to be the 100,000th visitor; one I know for sure – missed!
That’s fun! Feels good!
Now hoping for the multiples of this landmark!

26 Oct. Even as I woke up this morning, there was some shocking news: Ashok Pereira, met with an accident.
Ashok is Fr Anand Pereira (Jesuit)’s elder brother. They are the sons of Mr Charles Pereira & Mrs Janet Pereira (former teacher and Principal of St Aloysius Primary School). Ignatius Pereira (the famous Inaasaam of Inaas Pereira’s Hotel in Hampankatta) is a close relative of theirs.
[corrigendum: Ashok and my friends Fr Anand and Sandra are grand children of Mr Ignatius Pereira / Inaasaam]
Ashok settled down in Canada; he had his own food business. According to the news we received he succumbed to a traffic accident. It was an on-the-spot-death. His brother and my Jesuit companion Fr Anand Pereira SJ is studying in Creighton University in Nebraska. My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family. May the departed soul of Ashok rest in peace; may the bereaved family experience solace and peace!
Ashok is survived with his wife and two kids.

25 Oct. It was another round of auditions for our Community Radio SARANG 107.8MHz. We could not manage to accommodate all aspirants in last Sunday’s audition.
Today we had 17 aspirants – once again from students and professionals! One of them was a 9th standard student! A Nawayathi Konkani! The interest SARANG 107.8MHz has generated is immense. And the pool of talent is incredible!
Thanks to our Mass Communication (MCMS) students who made it a point to make a big success out of this.

‘Translation enables us to make sense of the world’
Special Correspondent

[photo cut-line] Making a point: T.R.S. Sharma, translator and former professor of English, speaking at the inauguration of a seminar in Shimoga on Friday.

SHIMOGA: T.R.S. Sharma, translator and former professor of English, has said that translation “enables us to make sense of the world”.

He was speaking after inaugurating a two-day seminar on “Methodology of translation of pre-modern Indian texts” organised by “Shabdana” – Centre for Translation, a project of the Central Sahitya Akademi, in association with the Kamala Nehru National College for Women here on Friday.

Mr. Sharma said, “There is also an intriguing aspect to translation. It is collaboration between the original author and the ‘secondary’ translator which results in the erasure of the source and its re-inscription in the receiving language.”

“There is an inherent asymmetry at the core of translation as every act of translation is a one-way traffic,” he said and added, “we cannot get the original by translating back from the received language”.

Secretary of the National Education Society S.V. Thimmaiah, who released The Tale of the Twin Warriors, an English translation by S.N.D. Poojary of the Tulu Koti Channaih by Bannanje Babu Ameen, said it was possible to widen the horizon of knowledge through translated literary works.

Prof. Poojary said that Tulu, a culturally rich language, was being protected and promoted by people who had not formal education.

The former president of the Karnataka Sangh K.G. Subramanya, who presided over the programme, said there could be no regimented methodology for translation as each translator followed his own methodology. He said that there was a need to take up translation of popular literary works of other Indian regional languages into Kannada.

Earlier, T. Venkatesha Murthy, Honorary Director of “Shabdana” (Southern Region), welcomed the gathering. Fourteen experts in various languages will present their papers on the methodologies of translation of literary works in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi and Urdu at the seminar.

http://www.hindu.com/2009/10/24/stories/2009102460080300.htm