I read only the Economic Times during the week so I am spared the sensationalism of the tabloid press and can pay attention to what matters. Today, reading this paper made my blood boil. Not for the content but for the shocking news items. What is this country coming to?
Headlines: Foreign team visits will need MEA clearance. What was that again?
No organisation including private concerns can directly send delegates abroad. Here, now, everybody listen up. We now live in a regimented society. Big brother at South Block has to know who, why, where etc. Clearance also includes non-clearance. This will now be an added form of babu-raj. This will now be a new source of income for bureaucrats and politicians. Fill my pocket for putting files on top for clearance or to have a word in the ear of the self-appointed authority to affix a rubber stamp on your application. How can this country hope to develop if decisions cannot be taken by the private sector without having the permission of the government? Is this not total foolishness? Corporate decisions to send delegates or invite their counterparts are purely a business decision. The government has no business interfering in private enterprise. The only concern of the government with regard to private entities should be tax revenue. Beyond that let them decide for themselves. They have each more brains individually than the collective South block put together.
I-T may zoom in on those with Rs. 8-10 lakh income. Who do you think is in this income block? Mainly the salaried person who has TDS deducted as it is. In many countries, where income is mainly from salary there is no requirement to file a tax return. Here the government is going backwards. They want more and more details. We are all on our jolly way to the Animal Farm. Just watch. Instead of simplifying the tax structure, more and more complexities and taxes are added. Income tax, profession tax, service tax, capital gains tax, sales tax, value added tax, excise duty, customs duty, octroi, can you think of any more that I may have missed out? What is going on? Why not have a simple income tax and a goods and services tax that is a uniform percentage on all goods and services through out the country? Why can the Centre and State not devise a method of sharing tax revenue collected in that State by some formula? Is it necessary to complicate matters so no one understands them? Interpretation left to babudom, smart Alecs making hay with loopholes and the chase to plug those with more legislation? In a populous country like India where the average person can barely sign his name, why have such confusing tax rules? Throw them all out and revamp the whole system. But no, the self appointed pompous law makers will chase a well-salaried person (who definitely has would have both good education and talent to draw such a salary) until they decide to migrate and get out of the country.
Tucked away on Page 2 a column, UP minister seeks ‘Muslim Pradesh’. Azam Khan Minister for Urban development in UP seeks a Muslim Pradesh made out of West UP. Will someone please inform the Minister that such partitions were completed in 1947 and he can either go west to Pakistan or east to Bangladesh and this country is not an amoeba to keep breaking up into autonomous states or otherwise?
Worst of all, who was the Madhya Pradesh High Court judge who halved the prison sentence of a criminal who raped a 6 year old because he belonged to the SC/ST category? Rape itself is a heinous crime and a 6 year old victim at that. I have no words to describe this low-life. Such criminals should be buried alive. This MP High Court judge halved the sentence due to his belonging to SC/ST? Thankfully, the Supreme Court stepped in and reinstated the trial court sentence. Should the MP Judge not be questioned as to why this was done? How would the judge feel if the 6 year old belonged to his family? Are judges not made to take a test of logical reasoning or ethics before being appointed to their posts? If not, that should certainly be started now. Btw, I fervently hope child rapists in Indian prisons meet the same fate as those in Western prisons for similar crimes.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Hate the print media in this country, walk this way…
As a child, my father inculcated in me the ‘good habit’ of reading newspapers. He used to subscribe to the Indian Express, being a fan of Arun Shourie and of his defiance during the Emergency. At a tender age, I learnt to hero-worship those who stood up to the establishment when ethics and values were at stake. My father educated me on the politics of the day when kids in my class at school were not even aware of the name of the Prime Minister or President of the country. He helped me understand policies, albeit it was his view of the world. But I grew up to understand the role that newspapers play in a democracy.
When I was older, the IE did not hold me in the thrall that it did when I was a kid. The paper had changed into a tabloid and we moved on to the Times of India. It was a prestigious newspaper even twenty years ago, or so I thought. My southern cousins used to rib me about the choice of paper. They decreed that The Hindu was the best. I have read it when I have been down South. I must agree it is a good newspaper.
The Times of India carried a lot of news and views and slowly bulked up with supplements. These supplements carried lots of coloured pictures that were attractive and gossip that was delightful to a young adult. We could discuss very knowledgeably the goings on in the lives of the Mumbai socialites. Oh, we found the TOI really fun. Yes, the RK cartoons of my teenage years were not as interesting and the newspaper banner was even up for sale. Headlines were in larger print than the newspaper banner sometimes. But it was all fine with me at the time.
I moved on and spent a few years abroad. I had to read a number of newspapers and was able to compare the quality of the journalism, the language, the grammar, even the newsprint. Sadly, my favourite Indian newspaper could not hold candle to these. I switched over to the online version of the TOI to get the news from India. The first thing that loads online is a skimpily clad woman. How this is so newsworthy is beyond me. Living abroad, I am used to seeing women dress very casually on a daily basis. In India, the hoi-polloi is not used to this, so it seems the newspaper has decided to provide it. The leading Indian national newspaper has chosen to provide pictures like the Mid-day mate column in a Mumbai afternoon paper. Shame.
Further on my return now after a number of years, I find the quality of the news is rather questionable. Who are these people who are in charge? I came across the head-line news on the Rahul Mahajan “case” (?) – that too as boxed item – the newspaper crowing that they were laughing at the others because they got it right that it was heroin not cocaine. Now how can anyone be laughing here? Firstly, one person died. Secondly, whether the drugs were intentionally consumed or not, it is still a tragic incident in the person’s life. How can someone’s personal tragedy be so unashamedly put out in a newspaper and to top it all off, they say they are laughing that they got it right? It does say a lot about the culture of these people who thought it a good idea. They have no sense of respect for other individuals.
A good newspaper, if it got it right would have shut up and kept quiet. Are the readers so foolish that they cannot discern who got it right and who did not? Is the newspaper so arrogant as to think they have to flaunt this to their readers? To top it off, their own supplements the Bombay Times and Mumbai Mirror each carried a different version and details of drugs. So when the front page does not tally with their back pages or their supplements, what are they crowing about?
Next thing that assails me when I pick up the paper is the lack of grammar and such atrocious spellings, I could cry. I find it extremely strange that a paper can call itself an English language daily and have journalists or editors who are unable to do justice to the language. If these people are from backward castes, then I can forgive them for their deprived upbringing which shows in their poor quality of work. If not, these people have no excuse but to go back to school. All English language journalists and editors must be made to take a compulsory course in English or even the TOEFL. Afterall, you can Indianise the language by inserting words from the vernacular that cannot be easily translated but you cannot change the grammar.
I have moved on to the Economic Times hoping to read something more than a thrash mag. Hope the tabloid bug will not slowly infect this one too. Will someone please sit up and take note to bench mark themselves against other financial newspapers around the world and not go the way of the TOI.
How can some rich kid who OD ed on drugs be front and back page news for days on end but malnourished children dying in the city get only half a column on any one day?
Is the plight of the farmers who are committing suicides in Vidharbha not more important than whether it was heroin or cocaine that some rich kid was on? Why are the farmers lives relegated to a small column in the back pages?
How is the sorry condition of the roads in the city not more important than who kissed whom and how? Do we really care?
Why is it that sensational thrash and meaningless stories are going by the name of journalism in this country? Is it only what these people ‘think’ sells that counts and not what is right that counts? Do you think that people won’t buy this newspaper if you take out all the trash from it? How will this country survive when even its newspapers are not upholding moral and ethical values?
The TOI reported that Mumbai is the rudest city in the world according to Readers Digest survey. How can it be otherwise when the leading English language newspaper wants to crow that they got things right?
Where is the human sensitivity gone? It is not even in the collective consciousness of a newspaper that has so much history. Whoever is currently the head honcho is decidedly running the ethics and repute of this newspaper to the ground by allowing such state of affairs to continue.
Will someone please tell me what we can do to help restore the English language newspapers in this country to its once dignified existence?
When I was older, the IE did not hold me in the thrall that it did when I was a kid. The paper had changed into a tabloid and we moved on to the Times of India. It was a prestigious newspaper even twenty years ago, or so I thought. My southern cousins used to rib me about the choice of paper. They decreed that The Hindu was the best. I have read it when I have been down South. I must agree it is a good newspaper.
The Times of India carried a lot of news and views and slowly bulked up with supplements. These supplements carried lots of coloured pictures that were attractive and gossip that was delightful to a young adult. We could discuss very knowledgeably the goings on in the lives of the Mumbai socialites. Oh, we found the TOI really fun. Yes, the RK cartoons of my teenage years were not as interesting and the newspaper banner was even up for sale. Headlines were in larger print than the newspaper banner sometimes. But it was all fine with me at the time.
I moved on and spent a few years abroad. I had to read a number of newspapers and was able to compare the quality of the journalism, the language, the grammar, even the newsprint. Sadly, my favourite Indian newspaper could not hold candle to these. I switched over to the online version of the TOI to get the news from India. The first thing that loads online is a skimpily clad woman. How this is so newsworthy is beyond me. Living abroad, I am used to seeing women dress very casually on a daily basis. In India, the hoi-polloi is not used to this, so it seems the newspaper has decided to provide it. The leading Indian national newspaper has chosen to provide pictures like the Mid-day mate column in a Mumbai afternoon paper. Shame.
Further on my return now after a number of years, I find the quality of the news is rather questionable. Who are these people who are in charge? I came across the head-line news on the Rahul Mahajan “case” (?) – that too as boxed item – the newspaper crowing that they were laughing at the others because they got it right that it was heroin not cocaine. Now how can anyone be laughing here? Firstly, one person died. Secondly, whether the drugs were intentionally consumed or not, it is still a tragic incident in the person’s life. How can someone’s personal tragedy be so unashamedly put out in a newspaper and to top it all off, they say they are laughing that they got it right? It does say a lot about the culture of these people who thought it a good idea. They have no sense of respect for other individuals.
A good newspaper, if it got it right would have shut up and kept quiet. Are the readers so foolish that they cannot discern who got it right and who did not? Is the newspaper so arrogant as to think they have to flaunt this to their readers? To top it off, their own supplements the Bombay Times and Mumbai Mirror each carried a different version and details of drugs. So when the front page does not tally with their back pages or their supplements, what are they crowing about?
Next thing that assails me when I pick up the paper is the lack of grammar and such atrocious spellings, I could cry. I find it extremely strange that a paper can call itself an English language daily and have journalists or editors who are unable to do justice to the language. If these people are from backward castes, then I can forgive them for their deprived upbringing which shows in their poor quality of work. If not, these people have no excuse but to go back to school. All English language journalists and editors must be made to take a compulsory course in English or even the TOEFL. Afterall, you can Indianise the language by inserting words from the vernacular that cannot be easily translated but you cannot change the grammar.
I have moved on to the Economic Times hoping to read something more than a thrash mag. Hope the tabloid bug will not slowly infect this one too. Will someone please sit up and take note to bench mark themselves against other financial newspapers around the world and not go the way of the TOI.
How can some rich kid who OD ed on drugs be front and back page news for days on end but malnourished children dying in the city get only half a column on any one day?
Is the plight of the farmers who are committing suicides in Vidharbha not more important than whether it was heroin or cocaine that some rich kid was on? Why are the farmers lives relegated to a small column in the back pages?
How is the sorry condition of the roads in the city not more important than who kissed whom and how? Do we really care?
Why is it that sensational thrash and meaningless stories are going by the name of journalism in this country? Is it only what these people ‘think’ sells that counts and not what is right that counts? Do you think that people won’t buy this newspaper if you take out all the trash from it? How will this country survive when even its newspapers are not upholding moral and ethical values?
The TOI reported that Mumbai is the rudest city in the world according to Readers Digest survey. How can it be otherwise when the leading English language newspaper wants to crow that they got things right?
Where is the human sensitivity gone? It is not even in the collective consciousness of a newspaper that has so much history. Whoever is currently the head honcho is decidedly running the ethics and repute of this newspaper to the ground by allowing such state of affairs to continue.
Will someone please tell me what we can do to help restore the English language newspapers in this country to its once dignified existence?
