Views On News 07 March 2016

JNU IMBROGLIO

VIEWS ON NEWSMARCH 07, 2016 `50

THE CRITICAL EYE

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Ode to Urdu Jashn-e-Rekhta showed its universal appeal 38

EducationGirls first in Bihar 50

SMALL SCREEN Flop script of film awards 42

TMM SPECIAL Negative news on TV channels 22

Split Wide Open12

GROUND ZERO There’s a leopard in my school! 30

111111111112222222222222222Why the arrest of a student leader has created a vertical divide in the nation’s politics and media Ajith Pillai 12

SPOTLIGHT How print covers farmers’ distress 24

Governance

Kanhaiya Kumar after his arrest

I HAVE BEEN watching with helpless horror, mingledwith deep sadness, the events which have been sorapidly unfolding since the arrest, on sedition char-ges, of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar after thecampus crackdown by Delhi police following a flurryof what appear to be hate speeches against the unityand integrity of the Indian nation.

Our cover story, written by veteran Ajith Pillai,renowned for his balanced approach to news andits ramifications, focuses on how and why this hasturned into a national politico-media event which hasalso caught worldwide attention. The role of the me-dia—particularly social media—becomes a vital el-ement in this new saga of polarization of publicopinion. There is no need to recount here the eventsdescribed in our story or the vivid TV images of vi-olence and unruly behavior by lawyers which was aclear insult to the Indian judiciary. What is at the

heart of the matter—whichwas missing as an impor-tant analytical element inthe media coverage of thisstory—is the idea and def-inition of India and whetherthe state should persecutethose who challenge tradi-tional or politically-moti-vated characterizations thr-ough peaceful discourse.

In the chaos and hulla-balloo that marked theelectronic media space, lit-tle attention was paid to theactual speech made byKanhaiya. The purpose ofthis column is neither toagree nor disagree with his

detractors or the state apparatus which swung intoaction against him. Suffice it to say that the law ofthe land will be breathing heavily down the necks ofall transgressors.

But Kanhaiya, the son of an anganwaadi worker,did draw the ideological battle line against the rulingparty more clearly than most of its political oppo-nents. He said: “We are of this country and love thesoil of India. We fight for 80 percent of the poor of this country. For us this is desh bhakti …If any-body lifts a finger against this country’s Constitu-tion—the Sanghis or anyone else—we won’ttolerate it. But we have no faith in the Constitutionthat is taught at Jhandewalan and Nagpur. We haveno faith in Manusmriti.”

What the media has missed in its coverage ofthe ugly episodes that have led to a conflagrationacross the nation’s campuses and political partiesis a deeper analysis of the real constitutional issuesinvolved. What the student comrade was sayingneeded calm-headed analysis rather than hot-headed confrontation. Instead of manufacturing na-tionalist outrage, perhaps the speech should haveprompted people to examine the elements that con-stitute real love for the nation and its values ratherthan take to the streets with jingoistic sloganeeringreinforced by paranoia.

This is not to suggest, as Kanhaiya does, thatthe Hindutva concept of Sangh-inspired nationalismbased on ancient Indian philosophical concepts of

HOOLIGANISM ISNOT NATIONALISM

EDIT

OR

’S N

OTE

Are Kanhaiya’s utterances truly“seditious”? And what exactly doesthat mean? The media should educate viewers and readers onthese finer points of discussion.

4 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2016

dharma shastras and sutras, and the Nehru-Ambed-kar European liberal concepts embedded in the con-stitution are irreconcilable. Perhaps they are, andthat’s worthy of discussion.

But given the media’s penchant for chasing high-decibel, provocative visuals, there is little or nospace for this discussion even though it is clear thatthe political battle now being waged in the countryis more ideologically delineated than ever before.

Are Kanhaiya’s utterances truly “seditious”? Andwhat exactly does that mean? These are the finerpoints of discussion towards which the mediashould guide and educate viewers and readersrather than focusing on confrontation—the outermanifestation of the clash of deeply held philosoph-ical beliefs and biases.

True, Section 124A of the IPC is a stronglyworded law against sedition. But as Fali Nariman

points out, it is tempered by Article 19(1)(a) of theconstitution which guarantees freedom of expres-sion. Also, as Nariman notes, in Article 19(2) whichdecrees that free speech is not absolute, “seditionhas been designedly excluded by the framers of theConstitution only because the founding fathers hadsaid ‘sedition is not made an offence in order to min-ister to the wounded vanity of governments’”.

These issues are worthy of public discussion.Did the JNU student leader attack the nation or thegovernment, and to what extent and degree, if notconducive and followed by violence, are such at-tacks tolerable?

While all this is subject to debate and discussion,one thing is not: Hooliganism is not Nationalism.

RALLYING AROUND(Left) Kanhaiya Kumar has drawn the ideological battle against the ruling party; (Above) A protest rally by JNU students, teachers and others in Delhi against the JNU student leader’s arrest

Anil Shakya

5VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2016

C O N LEDE

Media and Nationalism The coverage of the JNU row has split the media. While some are on the side of

the government, others have raised uncomfortable questions. AJITH PILLAI

Editor Rajshri Rai

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Misguided ForcesDriven by the need to appear revolutionary, JNU's student leaders have, in

the past, been using rhetoric and baseless arguments to mislead followers.

TANU PATNI MORDIA

18


Anil Shakya

Governance

T E N T S

R E G U L A R SEdit..................................................04Grapevine.......................................08Quotes....................................10Media-Go-Round...........................11As the World Turns.........................21TMM Research..............................22Web-Crawler....................................37Breaking News...............................46Design Review................................48Vonderful English............................54

Conspiracy ofSilence 34The TERI case explains why women em-

ployees often delay filing sexual harass-

ment complaints. APARNA JAIN

Jashn-e-Rekhta was an

attempt to stem the

declining popularity of

Urdu in India and saw

intellectuals reveling in

its beauty. SHAILAJA

PARAMATHMA

FESTIVAL

38

30News stories by the media on wildlife

killings and sightings have fueled

important research on solving the

man-animal conflict. DINESH C SHARMA

A Wild SuccessGROUND ZERO

EDITORS’ PICK

42

Cover design: Anthony Lawrence Cover Photo: Getty Images

50A unique program in this state called

Girls First is empowering and teaching

them the ills of child marriage and

other societal evils.

MURALI KRISHNAN

Please-AllPropositionHave Bollywood award shows

ceased to acknowledge and honor

the best in the film industry?

SONAL GERA

Ode to a Language

Bihar’s Own“Powerpuff” Girls

SMALL SCREEN

24

As farmers were beset by one misfortune

after another last year, the English media

displayed an unusual sensitivity to their

plight. VIVIAN FERNANDES

Farmers’ Gloom & Doom

SPOTLIGHT



Grapevine

Spiritual leaders arecompeting heavily on

the FMCG platform. FirstBaba Ramdev took onMNCs with Patanjali noodles, toothpastes, oils,honey, biscuits, henna andall that could be infiltratedas everyday items into ourhomes. He was raking ingood moolah, so copycatswere bound to emerge.

The latest to join theFMCG bandwagon isGurmeet Ram RahimSingh of MSG fame. Hehas launched his brandwith about 150 products,including rice, pickles,honey, bottled water, andnoodles! However, we alsoknow at least one personnot too keen to taste theMSG products, and that isactor Kiku Sharda of theComedy Nights fame, whowas arrested for mimick-ing the godman.

Competing FMCG Gurus

Prashant Kishore,king maker, the man

behind the stupendoussuccess of NarendraModi and NitishKumar’s poll campaigns,has taken a break. Hehas returned to homestate Bihar as advisor tothe CM in the rank of aminister. This is a smart

move. Had the nextgamble in king makingfailed, stocks would havefallen. It is learnt thatAssam Chief MinisterTarun Gogoi sought hishelp, but Kishore’s assessment was that theCongress’s prospectswith Gogoi at the helmlooked bleak. So hebacked off, and landed ingreener pastures.

Karnataka politicians arelocked in a heated debate

over Chief Minister Siddarama-iah’s diamond watch. A guessing game is on regardingthe price of the watch. Formerchief minister HD Kumaraswamy claims thatthe pro-poor CM wears a watch

worth ` 50 lakh and sunglassesworth ` 2 lakh, while the CMhas offered to “sell the watch toanyone for `10 lakh” including Kumaraswamy. The latter says he does notdeal with second-hand goods. It seems all this hullabaloo now is for the upcoming bypollsto three assembly segments, and for the panchayat elections.

Wait and Watch

Greener Pastures


Hey Ram!

All for a Laugh

While many in AAP pro-vide comic relief, the

party has three professionalcomedians viz GurpreetGhuggi and MPs BhagwantMann and Javed Jaffrey. Nowonder AAP’s brand of humoris on the rise.

Pehle AAP

As per the latest news, theBJP and the Akali Dal

have once again joined handsto contest the assembly polls.This, it is understood, is thebest way they can counter thestrong AAP wave. Theprospect of victory of the pres-ent incumbents look drearyagainst a volatile AAP cam-paign. The buzz is that themuffler man might emerge asthe chief ministerial candidatethere too! Not that he will takedual charge, but in the hope ofoccupying the PM’s seat in2019, the AAP leader isgrooming deputies to takecharge of states where AAPemerges winner.

What did the vigilance officersfind when they examined an

Air India cabin crew’s suitcase? Milkcartons, coffee pouches, juicebottles, whiskey bottles, in-flight

meal packets—practically anythingshe could lay her hands on! It seemsher household was running on AirIndia leftovers. The case, however, isnot unique. It is learnt that Air Indiahas time and again informed parlia-ment about such pilferages.

Somehow, the highest number ofsuch incidents happen on VVIPflights which are extremely wellstocked.

APakistani lawyer, Jawaid IqbalJafree, has filed a petition seek-

ing the return of the Kohinoor fromthe queen to Pakistan. He says itwas stolen from King Duleep Singh,of the erstwhile Punjab province,part of which is in present-day Pak-istan. The Kohinoor which has beencasting its shadow over Indo-Britishrelations for the last 150 years, isnow set to cast its spell over Pak-istan too. Who said that a diamond

is only a girl’s best friend?! TheKohinoor, according to Jafree Saab,“was a cultural heritage of Punjabprovince and its citizen owned it in fact”.

—Illustrations: UdayShankar—Compiled by Roshni Seth

Air India’s Incredible Mess

Acomplaint has been filed by alawyer against Lord Ram for

banishing his wife Sita to the jun-gles without a suitable justificationand for no fault of hers. The casehas been filed in the court of theChief Judicial Magistrate of Sita-marhi in UP, and the CJM hasagreed to take up the matter forhearing. Even gods cannot relax inpeace. They should think twice before banishing others to jungles now!

Whose Noor?

U O T E S

Suhasini Haidar,diplomatic editor,CNN-IBN Amidst the chaos, name-callingand citizenship certification,leave it to the cartoonists to savethe day :)

Ramachandra Guha,historian Journalists attacked again by BJPgoons in a Delhi court today.Doubtless Arnab Goswami willsay these “anti-nationals”deserved it.

Rajdeep Sardesai,consulting editorIndia Today groupSo 2 news channels boycottprotests by journalists against attacks on fellow journalists.Time to name/shame them?

Sonakshi Sinha,actor My respect for doodh and dab-bawalas has gone up 10 foldafter cycling on the streets ofMumbai this morning. Ouch.

Tavleen Singh,columnist, The Indian ExpressThe Home Minister's ‘sedition’stupidity has sadly shifted attention away from the PM's excellent Make In India Week.

Kiran Bedi, formersuper-cop, BJPleader Excessively stretched Police Services and over burdenedCourts has emboldened lawbreakers and made it easy for external saboteurs to enter.

India is blessed with three Ds:Democracy, Demography andDemand. To this we haveadded another D-deregulation.

—PM Narendra Modi at the launch ofthe Make In India Week in Mumbai

Everyone should be allowed to have an opinion— whether it’s good, bad or ugly, especially in a

country like India. We are the world’s biggestdemocracy and a secular nation.

—Actor Sonam Kapoor, on why she comments on various issues like intolerance, Section 377,

etc, in Hindustan Times

Sedition charge is misused in our country. Therefore our basic demand isto scrap this clause. All kinds of protestscan be clamped down under this clauseand all freedoms can be curbed.This is

no longer JNU’s struggle alone, but awider struggle as all the rights given

under the constitution are under attack ...

—CPM leader Prakash Karat, while addressing agathering of students in JNU

The problem is not that Indians haveturned intolerant. In fact, to the contrary,we have been much too tolerant of intolerance.

— Dr Amartya Sen, while delivering the RajendraMathur Memorial Lecture organized by the

Editors Guild of India in New Delhi


EDIA-GO-ROUND

Agroup of students, allegedly affiliated withthe Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad

(ABVP), staged a protest against film star ShahRukh Khan when he visited Hansraj College inNew Delhi to collect his graduation degree and

launch a song from his movie Fan on February16. The students shouted slogans against him,asking him to go back.

On February 14 too, members of theVishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) threw stones at a parking lot of a luxury hotel in Ahmedabadand damaged his car.

He wasn’t there at the time of the attack,which was reportedly against his remarks onintolerance.

In November 2015, Khan had sparked acontroversy, when during an interview he saidthat there was “growing intolerance” in India.

Facebook India’s MD quits

Facebook India’s Managing Direc-tor Kirthiga Reddy has quit to re-

locate to Facebook’s headquarters atMenlo Park, California. “I have alsobegun to explore new opportunities atFacebook, back at Menlo Park,”Reddy announced in a Facebook poston February 12. She wrote that shewould be relocating to the United

States in the next 6-12 months.Reddy joined Facebook in 2010 asits first employee in India.

However, Facebook has said thatReddy’s stepping down has nothingto do with the Free Basics contro-versy, which ended with the serv-ice getting shut down in Indiaafter TRAI ruled against it.

Kasturi and Sons, the parentcompany of The Hindu

newspaper, has run into arough patch.

According to a report bymedia watchdog website The

Hoot, while senior staffturnover is at an all-timehigh—the Delhi bureau hasseen an almost 90 percentturnover of staff. The companyhas ceased to be profitable asper the 2014 financial yearrecords. These show that thecompany incurred a loss ofmore than `42 crore, thanks toan over 24 percent increase inwage bill and a rise in costs ofnewsprint and overheads. Between 2012 and 2013, thecirculation of The Hindu

declined by 10.7 percent.

British newspaper The In-

dependent will go backto using Bombay rather thanMumbai when referring toIndia’s financial capital. Edi-tor Amol Rajan said themove was a stand against

what he said was theclosed-minded view of theHindu nationalists.

“If you call it what Hindunationalists want you to callit, you essentially do theirwork for them,” Rajan was

quoted as saying toBBC Radio. The citywas officially renamedMumbai in 1995, achange that wasforced through by theShiv Sena.

Police have arrested five peo-ple in connection with the ab-

duction of 24-year-old Snapdealemployee Dipti Sarna, who re-turned unharmed after a massivemanhunt on social media.

“It is just like a case por-

trayed in Bollywood movieDarr, where Shah Rukh Khanwas involved in a one-sidedaffair. The prime accusedwas like a psycho,” Ghazi-abad senior superintendentof police was quoted in Hin-

dustan Times. The accused,Devender Singh, told the po-

lice that he fell in love with Diptiwhen he first saw her, andplanned the abduction.Dipti re-turned home 36 hours afterbeing allegedly abducted from anauto in Ghaziabad.

The Independentdares “Hindu nationalists”

Movie inspiredSnapdeal employee’s abduction

—Compiled by Sonal Gera

No respite forShah Rukh Khan

Hard times forThe Hindu


The coverage of the JNU row and “anti-national” speeches there has splintered the media. While some were openly supportive of the government, others raised uncomfortable questions BY AJITH PILLAI

Lede JNU ImbroglioMedia Reaction


SplitWide Open

HEN the Jawaharlal Nehru

University (JNU) contro-

versy broke on February 9,

no one knew that a clash

between two student uni-

ons would prove to be a na-

tional issue and an imm-

ense challenge before the Indian media. A challenge which

would compel it to address issues related to freedom of

speech, India’s democratic traditions and the dangers of

overreach on the part of the government and the police

while interfering in campus politics. This has further

stirred dangerous communal passions and sowed the seeds

of discord.

The entire issue, which should have been sorted out in

the campus, was further complicated when new dimensions

were added along the way. On February 12, the police ar-

rested the president of the JNU Students Union (JNUSU),

Kanhaiya Kumar, on charges of sedition and criminal con-

spiracy. Soon, Union home minister Rajnath Singh

WSTRATEGIC MOVE?(Left) Protestors shouting slogansagainst the allegedanti-national activityoutside its campus

(Inset) The February 9meeting was held tomark the third anniversary of the execution of Afzal Guru


CHARGED FOR SEDITIONJNUSU president

Kanhaiya Kumar beingtaken to the Patiala

House Courts

stepped in and linked an “anti-national” event on

the campus as having the backing of Hafiz Saeed,

the Pakistan-based terrorist who masterminded

the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai. The minister re-

portedly based his serious allegation on an al-

leged fake tweet sent by Saeed.

PARTISAN POLICE

Then, on February 15, journalists covering pro-

ceedings at Delhi’s Patiala House courts were at-

tacked by lawyers and others who accused the

press for being sympathetic towards “anti-nation-

als”. The police bore silent witness to the assaults

which were caught on video. Among the guilty

who were identified was Delhi BJP MLA OP

Sharma. Yet no action was taken.

Two days later, journalists and students were

attacked at the same venue by a mob led by a

lawyer involved in the earlier incident. Inciden-

tally, both took place ahead of Kanhaiya Kumar

being produced in court. On the second day,

Kumar was also assaulted despite being under po-

lice protection. The Supreme Court has taken

strong note of the incident as it had earlier pre-

scribed stepping up security at Patiala House to

prevent any violence. The police obviously failed

to implement its directive.

So what transpired at JNU that triggered a na-

tional furor?

On the surface, it looked like a simplistic story

with a familiar ring to it—a clash between stu-

dents of rivaling ideologies at the University. The

trigger was a protest meeting on February 9 to

mark the third anniversary of the execution of

Afzal Guru, one of those involved in the 2001

parliament attack.

The BJP’s student wing, the ABVP, had ob-

jected to the event and JNU authorities withdrew

permission for it at the last minute. The organiz-

ers—some students and former members of the

ultra-left Democratic Students’ Union—however

went ahead with the program, during which anti-

India slogans were allegedly shouted by some stu-

dents and outsiders. The ABVP protested and a

fight broke out between its activists and those

present at the meeting.

JNUSU as well as Left-backed student groups

like the All India Students Association (AISA),

the All India Students Federation (AISF) and the

Students Federation of India (SFI) distanced

themselves from those who indulged in “anti-na-

tional” sloganeering. They attacked the ABVP for

maligning the image of JNU and its democratic

traditions. At the same time, the government was

accused of hyping the incident and roping in sec-

tions of the media to milk political capital out

of it.

MANY QUESTIONS

Once the controversy acquired momentum, the

media was confronted by the following questions:

�Was the incident as serious an issue as projected

by the government and the BJP?

�Did sloganeering by a few among the partici-

pants amount to an act of sedition and high trea-

son? Would the case against Kanhaiya Kumar

stand up before a court of law? His speech was

critical of the RSS and the government but did

that amount to anti-national activity?



HYPED COVERAGE?

It is the over-the-top and hyper coverage of the

JNU row that has led media analyst Sevanti

Ninan to pen a column on Arnab Goswami

(Times Now) and the art of manufacturing na-

tional outrage. She has this telling observation:

“How seriously should one take the bluster? TV

news informs little, it could be ignored if it did

not influence. But his (Aranab’s) rants against free

speech advocates cheerfully distort facts, and who

is to protest? ...Tabloid television and nationalism

is a deadly combination. Who will counter it?”

Adds Abhinandan Sekri in the media watch

website Newslaundry: “The crazy frenzy with

which Times Now and NewsX drummed up hys-

teria (in the JNU controversy) would have

�Must the media ignore attacks on journalists

and the labelling of some of them as anti-national

sympathizers?

�Should the media toe the government/BJP/RSS

line and fan nationalistic passions as well as build

up a consensus against students who are anti-es-

tablishment?

The print media in the main chose to be ob-

jective and some were critical of the government’s

handling of the incident in the JNU campus. It

looked at the legal issues involved and the politics

being unleashed by vested interests. As for TV

channels, excluding Zee TV, Times Now and

NewsX which joined the government chorus, they

chose to show restraint. Some like India Today

TV (Karan Thapar and Rajdeep Sardesai) raised

particularly relevant and uncomfortable ques-

tions related to the arrest of the JNU student

union president.

That there was a move by the BJP/government

sympathizers to solicit media support has been

revealed by senior staffers in two media organi-

zations. A journalist in a leading TV channel told

VoN: “We were promised exclusive video footage

and full cooperation and told to play up a story

of great national interest and hold sensational de-

bates and discussions. We later discovered that

the exclusive material was sent to all channels.”

Three office-bearers of the ABVP in JNU—

Pradeep, Rahul Yadav and Ankit Hans—have

reportedly resigned from their posts to protest

over the JNU controversy. In an open letter on

Facebook, they said that they cannot be the

“mouthpiece of a government that has unleashed

oppression on the student community” and has

“legitimized the action of right wing fascist forces

either in Patiala House Courts or in front of JNU

north gate. Every day we see people assemble at

the front gate with the Indian flag to beat JNU

students...this is hooliganism not nationalism,

you can’t do anything in the name of nation,

there is a difference between nationalism and

hooliganism”.

They said they were also upset by what hap-

pened at the Hyderabad Central University which

led to the suicide of Rohith Vemula and added

that the time had come to save JNU. “Today we all

must stand together to save JNU which has given

us identity, we need to come across party lines to

save the reputation of this institution, to save the

future of JNUites as more than 80 percent of stu-

dents don’t belong to any political party so let’s

unite to save this JNU culture,” the letter stated.

However, they condemned the anti-national

slogans that were mouthed by some students.

“Anti-national slogans on February 9 in university

campus were very unfortunate and heart-break-

ing. Whosoever is responsible for that act must be

punished as per the law but the way the NDA

government is tackling the whole issue, the op-

pression on professors, repeated lawyer attacks

on media and Kanhaiya Kumar in court premises

is unjustifiable and we think there is a difference

between interrogation and crushing ideology and

branding entire left as anti-national.”

At the time of going to the press, the ABVP

said it was yet to receive the resignation letter.

LAWYER OUTRAGELawyers of Patiala HouseCourts raising slogansafter a scuffle with JNUstudents

Divided they stand


been unbelievable had I not seen it myself. I have

seen nothing as ridiculous as it, both in presen-

tation and in the confused point they were mak-

ing (or not making). It was the arms race of

the absurd.”

According to sources in the BJP, some in the

party saw the JNU issue as a nationalist one

which could be exploited to divert attention from

the looming economic crisis, the fall in the stock

markets, inflation and the agrarian crisis. It could

also be used to paint the Left in a poor light in the

assembly elections in West Bengal and Kerala.

One reading was that JNU is a much-disliked in-

stitution and that the middle class would applaud

any attack on that “Leftist bastion”.

That the university is much reviled by right-

wingers is well-known. As soon as the contro-

versy broke, social media went viral about JNU

being a colossal drain on the taxpayer’s money.

Questions have been raised in the past about gov-

ernment funding of JNU. However, equally sharp

views were never as forthcoming about the lakhs

spent on IIT students who end up marketing

soaps and shampoos which have nothing to

do with the engineering they have studied at pub-

lic expense.

DISTORTED INFORMATION

Thanks to ABP News we know that what was put

out on the largesse shown to JNU and widely cir-

culated in the public domain was disinformation.

We were told that JNU students pay hostel fees of

`11 per month; `219 as tuition fee and are fed

highly subsidized food at the mess. ABP News

found out that students at JNU pay `100 per

month for hostel and ̀ 2,000 as mess charges. This

compares with most other central universities. So

does the tuition fees charged.

But there were enough voices to run down

JNU. BJP Rajya Sabha MP Chandan Mitra has

this suggestion: “The self-destructive agitation at

JNU has given the government the best opportu-

nity to shut it down forever, cut its financial

BRAZEN VIOLENCEBJP MLA OP Sharma(right) was caught oncamera beating a CPI

activist AmeequeJamai (left) at the

Patiala House courtcomplex


“I wonder who is funding you to de-stroy the rich heritage of the real Leftmovements of India….We in Indiaallow diverse views. We also havebeen students but it is cowards whopromote separatism. You are thegreatest threat to the Left movement.You are secessionists.”

“The tragedy in our country is a solder—Hanumanthappa—isbattling for his life. We are proud of him and we are ashamed ofthese anti-national elements. You don’t have the decency to keepquiet when I am talking about Hanumanthappa. I HAVE RUNOUT OF PATIENCE WITH YOU (reaches a shrill). Don’t you darespeak over me when I am speaking of Hanumanthappa. You takethe patience of the people of India for granted….You sit on theJNU campus and you will work hard till you destroy India.”

—Arnab Goswami to JNU student leaders on Newshour


fence only if the words, spoken or written, are ac-

companied by disorder and violence and/or in-

citement to disorder and violence. Mere

hooliganism, disorder and other forms of vio-

lence, though punishable under other provisions

of the penal code and under other laws, are not

punishable under Section 124A of the penal code.

Likewise, mere expressions of hate, and even con-

tempt for one’s government, are not sedition.

When a person is dubbed ‘anti-Indian’, it is dis-

tasteful to India’s citizenry, but then to be ‘anti-

Indian’ is not a criminal offence, and it is

definitely not ‘sedition’.”

For those who wished to make capital of the

incident, Project JNU, have not quite achieved the

desired results. However, it has brewed tensions

in several university campuses across the country.

But it has also rallied considerable support for the

students of JNU because there is the realization

that it is not about them but about freedom of

speech and upholding democratic values.

The last word on this must certainly go to

economist Swaminathan Aiyar: “Patriotism is the

last refuge of the scoundrel. The current rant aga-

inst ‘anti-national’ slogans at Jawaharlal Nehru

University (JNU) highlights the abundance of

scoundrels among Indian politicians and televi-

sion anchors. The notion that there can be only

one concept of what constitutes a nation, and that

every other view is anti-national, is intellectually

empty at best and authoritarian at worst.”

losses, and get rid of a factory that produces only

spongers and malcontents.” Some in his party

would not quite agree with this radical view.

Communications and information technology

minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had this to say to

the media after a cabinet meeting on February 17:

“JNU is a very premier institution of India, widely

respected also. It has produced outstanding civil

servants, great academicians and also well-known

public figures. Its faculty and students also excel

well. We all think that there is also a very elo-

quent, powerful and constructive alternative

voice in JNU. The country is equally eager to hear

that voice.”

As for the attack on the media, there is all-

round condemnation. Finance minister Arun

Jaitley was in a placatory mood when he made

this point: “The media has an unhindered right

to report. The attack on mediapersons is highly

improper and condemnable.” Former Chief Jus-

tice of India VN Khare has been very critical of

lawyers involved in the attack: “Every institution

has its own people nowadays who think they own

the place. But these are all public institutions,

meant for the service of the common man. A

lawyer’s duty is to defend a person and serve the

public, not to create ruckus.”

Regarding the charges of sedition against Kan-

haiya Kumar, many experts believe that the police

has a rather weak case. In any case, news reports

seem to indicate that the police filed its complaint

based on an alleged morphed footage from a TV

channel as the police officer sent to JNU on the

day of the protest program on February 9 did not

report anything untoward. Kanhaiya Kumar’s

name only finds one mention in the FIR as lead-

ing a mob shouting anti-national slogans.

WHAT IS SEDITION?

This does not amount to sedition. As noted con-

stitutional jurist Fali Nariman explained in a

signed article in The Indian Express: “...sedition in

India is not unconstitutional, it remains an of-

WHIPPING UP PASSIONS?(L-R) Home Minister RajnathSingh said that JNU event hadthe backing of Hafiz Saeed

Karan Thapar of India TodayTV raised relevant questionson the matter


quent and passionate speeches by student leaders

made our blood boil and the slogans raised by

union members were loud and forceful. The feeling

of being wronged was very strong.

CLUELESS LOT

I think we were all bound to each other less by be-

liefs and philosophy and more by a sense of belong-

ing to our university. We, along with hundreds

more, reached the barricaded venue, sat down and

started singing songs and shouting slogans. After

inciting us, the leaders and the teachers disap-

peared. And we were left alone with no clue about

what was happening. The police tried to stop us

with barriers and water cannons and even lathi-

charged us. In the evening, at Ganga Dhaba, the

student body gathered again. JNUSU members

showed their injuries and delivered speeches about

police atrocities.

t was a morning like any other in a

hosteller’s life. I picked up my bag

and ran down the steps for class. En

route, we were stopped by a group of

self-proclaimed leaders who derived

their authority from an elected union leader among

them. They appeared agitated and were asking

everyone to get inside buses. They did not feel the

need to take our consent. Our ever-readiness to ac-

cept all their requests and follow them during

protests was always taken for granted. We were a

group of freshers trying to understand all that was

going on around us and deciphering where we

stood in the Left-Centrist-Right continuum.

We all got into the buses parked near the hostel

bus stop and left for a demonstration near the

prime minister’s residence. Clad in khadi kurtas

and jeans and wearing the look of intellectuals, stu-

dents and teachers, all were present there. The elo-

I

LedeMy Space

CRY,My

Beloved In an anguished plea, a former JNU student

asks its leaders to give up their vested interests and shepherd their

followers to the right pathBY TANU PATNI MORDIA

JNU!


This was way back in 1996. Twenty years later,

political activists who were student leaders then are

still taking an active interest in JNU politics. These

demagogues can be seen on television screens in-

citing students in every discussion, interview and

footage, emphasizing their right to free expression

and violating all the norms of language, loyalty and

commitment expected from an Indian citizen.

They are least bothered that law and order gets dis-

turbed due to their actions, the complications they

create for Indian diplomacy while shouting anti-

India slogans and the edge they give to neighboring

countries with conflicting interests. I wonder if this

is just a game for them or if they are actually playing

into the hands of anti-national groups. As I am an

old student of JNU, I think the former is more cor-

rect. And immature student leaders propose it in

order to appear different and novel. The remaining

students, in their zest and under peer pressure, sim-

ply follow him. It is fun and this is university life,

after all. They don’t possess enough maturity and

understanding about the ramifications of their

baseless arguments in favor of a proven terrorist like

Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt.

For alumni like me, the events of the past few

days and media coverage have hit hard. While it has

brought disrepute to JNU, for us, whose hearts and

minds are emotionally attached to the university

which molded and shaped us, it is a time of deep

anguish and hurt. We know that barring a few aber-

rations, most students do not carry even an iota of

anti-national feelings. Most are dumb and blind fol-

lowers without any opinion of their own.

WHERE IS PATRIOTISM?

Even a small child is full of idealism and stands up

when the National Anthem is being sung and takes

pride in being an Indian. He wants to do some-

For alumni likeme, the eventsof the past fewdays and mediacoverage havehit hard. Whileit has broughtdisrepute toJNU, for uswhose heartsand minds areemotionally attached to theuniversitywhich moldedand shaped us,it is a time ofdeep anguishand hurt.

SONG AND DANCEStudent leadersat JNU haveevolved a culturewhich prizes pontification overcontribution


Photos:Anil Shakya

pus. But there have been exceptions. It is time the

students, irrespective of their political affiliations,

got together and helped the police throw out those

who support causes which are anti-national. The

Supreme Court is the highest court in our country.

Interviews of Afzal Guru also show him as guilty.

One may be a Leftist or a Rightist but one should

be a nationalist. How can we allow a few students

to rake up anti-national feelings for the sake of their

political agenda? Every individual whose involve-

ment in anti-national propaganda is verifiable

should be expelled from the university and the law

should take its course. We are here to support na-

tion-builders, not traitors. We need to remember

that at all costs.

LEADERS’ CONTRIBUTION

I also want to make an appeal to all students of JNU.

The nine jawans who along with Lance Naik Hanu-

manthappa laid down their lives in Siachen under

the most difficult circumstances were not as privi-

leged as the students who got admission to this

prestigious university where fees and boarding are

subsidized by the government. The burden indi-

rectly comes on the Indian taxpayer. It is natural

that they will ask what contribution has been made

by these student leaders. Apart from writing or

making statements about so-called revolutionary

ideas, they seem to be living in an illusionary world.

They seem incapable of manual labor like our poor

farmers or contributing to the GDP through any

other means.

These student leaders have evolved a culture of

their own. Drinking numerous cups of tea, they

spend their time either criticizing, philosophizing

or sermonizing. They may take time to unlearn

their way of thinking and changing. But the stu-

dents who follow them blindly also need to have an

independent thinking of their own. Please don’t let

such petty politicians ruin the name of our es-

teemed university.

The writer is a media professional and a former

JNUSU office-bearer

thing for the nation. He is happy when India wins

a cricket match and there is an emotional cord that

binds him to the rest of the country. But in the case

of these particular student leaders, it appears that

they have become over critical and less patriotic.

Every successive degree and qualification seems to

change them. They call it being modern, rational

and reasonable. They love using terms against India

such as Brahmanical, feudal and oppressive state.

They use such derogatory and fanciful words while

criticizing India that one feels ashamed of studying

with them. Wearing intellectual expressions, they

seem to have crossed all limits. They have put to

shame the rest of us and aren’t

even capable of the same patri-

otic feelings as a child singing

Vande Mataram and holding

the National Flag with great

awe and respect.

If merely an admission

into JNU gets a student labeled

as an anti-national, then what is

the role of family, upbringing,

schooling and education? This

would also mean that an Arnab

Goswami, a Hanumanthappa or

the Delhi police commissioner would

automatically become anti-national if

they were JNU students. But that is not

true and as individuals are inher-

ently different, we cannot and

should not blame an entire uni-

versity for the unreasonable and

irrational actions of some of its

students.

Action should certainly

be taken against those in-

volved and found guilty and

JNU students should themselves

come out in the open against them in-

stead of supporting them. Over the

years, it has become an unwritten rule

that the police will not enter the cam-

IMAGINEUtopian ideals and the

desire to be heard makeprotests a frequent

phenomenon at JNU

LedeMy Space


S THE WORLD TURNS

—Compiled by Tithi Mukherjee

After the roaring success of theHarry Potter franchise since

1997, writer JK Rowling has an-nounced a grand, new venturescheduled for the summer of 2016.A play, Harry Potter and the Cursed

Child, the eighth instalment of theseries, is set to hit the Palace The-atre in London’s West End, on July30. Written by BAFTA award winnerJack Thorne and directed by JohnTiffany, winner of the Tony andOlivier awards, the play is in collabo-

ration with JK Rowling. She con-firmed the news through the interac-tive Pottermore website. The storycontinues from the “Epilogue” in theseventh book, Harry Potter and the

Deathly Hallows and explores thelives of the three main characters,Harry, Ron and Hermione, 19 years later. Rowling has also confirmed the simultaneous releaseof the play as a two-part book, pub-lished by The Little Brown BookGroup, on July 31, 2016.

New Potter play in July

In a historic statement, Ebgeny Lebe-dev, owner of ESI media, proclaimed

the discontinuation of The Independent’s

print edition. One of Britain’s leadingnewspapers since its inception in 1986,The Independent’s last print edition is tobe published on Sunday, March 20,2016. Lebedev confirmed the shutdown

along with the news of selling its briefingdaily i newspaper to Johnston Press for£24 million. He has reported that theshutdown stems from a decline in printand print advertising revenue. According to the BBC, Lebedev has also hinted at possible lay-offs of editorial employees.

Stars dazzle at the Grammys

The 58th annual Grammy awards saw a number oftributes to artists like David Bowie and Lionel Richie.

Lady Gaga performed an elaborate set of Bowie’sbiggest hits including, “Let’s Dance” and “Heroes”. Shewas seen with a Bowie like bolt of lightning splashedacross her face as a tribute to the recently deceasedartist. Lionel Richie was honored for his life’s works andJohn Legend performed Richie’s song “Easy”. TheAlbum of the Year was won by Taylor Swift for heralbum, “1989” whilst Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge’s“Thinking Out Loud” won Song of the Year.

The Independent to shut down

New Yorker takes a shot at Sanders

Bernie Sanders, the other Democratrunning for president of the United

States of America, has reportedly beensnubbed by the The New Yorker. In acomment piece titled, “Should Millenni-als Get Over Bernie Sanders?” Alexan-dra Schwartz questions Sanders’concern for economic reforms by alleg-ing his political rhetoric to be “stirring

and necessary” but also “old even in2012”. This attack by The New Yorker

adds to various other attacks onSanders on the basis of his polemicalquestions on the distribution of wealthand income. According to economistDean Baker, the rebuffs for Sanders result from his being a “fringe candi-date” as opposed to Hilary Clinton.


Media MonitoringTMM Survey

The past month was marred by incidents of violence in Malda, communaltension in Dhar, agitation by JNU students and their leader’s arrest anddebate on dissidence. A TMM survey on the coverage of these issues

JNU Hogs NegativeNews on TV


.05%

Inflammatory issues that hogged the limelight

0.00%.40%

Media footage of politiciansduring the JNU agitation

Arvind Kejriwal

Rahul Gandhi

Rajnath Singh

OP Sharma

Smriti Irani

SAR Geelani

Other politicians

Azam Khan claiming the PM met Dawood in Lahore

Tension at Bhoj Shala in Dhar

Beef controversy (Anil Vij’s statement)

Malda riots

JNU agitation

Times Now India Today Zee News Aaj Tak

What politicians said on the JNU issue

Smriti Irani, HRD minister“Nation won’t tolerate insults to Mother India.”

Rahul Gandhi, vice-president, Congress“The BJP and the RSS are following theagenda of divide and hatred, as can be seenfrom the recent developments in JNU.”

Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi“Modiji wants to terrorize everyone throughpolice.”

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

.50%

.90%7.20%

17.50%

.40%

7.20%

16.20%

.03%

.05%

.04%

9.40%

18.20%

.05%.04%

.06%

6.20%

15.50%

.05%

Rajnath Singh, home minister“I want to make it clear that JNU has the support of LeT chief Hafeez Saeed.”

16%

15%

17%

20%

6%

4%

22%


AST year was a particularly

bad year for agriculture. Th-

ankfully, farmers were not ig-

nored by the English media

based in metros. There is no-

thing like negative news to

grab the attention of readers and viewers and the

farming sector had more than its share of it as one

bad weather event followed another.

Hard-nosed journalists believe that if the news is

positive, it must be advertising. They tend to qualify

good news with caveats so as to not come across as

gushing. The negative tends to be regarded as objec-

tive. Besides, reporting rural distress is good for the

soul: it has the patina of care and earnestness. And to

a media smarting at being bypassed by a government

that directly talks to people, it provides an anti-estab-

lishment stick to beat with. And deservedly so, be-

cause this government has been pre-occupied with

the promotion of manufacturing and “Make in India”.

That could have happened on parallel tracks without

neglecting agriculture.

The year began with a slump in cotton prices as

SpotlightAgriculture

Media Coverage

It is heartening that theEnglish media highlightedthe dire plight of farmerslast year as they were besetby various misfortunes.Nothing, it seems, succeedslike bad newsBY VIVIAN FERNANDES

L

BitterHarvest


BAD NEWS SELLSRural distress as a resultof scanty rain made for agood copy in media

China, which is India’s biggest buyer, not only stayed

away but liquidated its own stocks. The 21-year-

old son of a farmer set himself ablaze in a cotton sub-

yard in Rajkot, Gujarat’s cotton hub, the previous

month and the media amplified the ripples which

continued into January as farmers pressed for relief

from the government.

Unseasonal and heavy rains in March across

north, central and western India hit a variety of crops.

The onion harvest in Maharashtra, which accounts

for a third of the state’s annual production, was badly

affected. Varied headlines spoke of “`1,000-cr agri-

cultural loss due to unseasonal rains”, the destruction

of “10 lakh hectares of standing crop” resulting in a

likely increase in prices and “Nashik farmers being

worried”. The rains also damaged the mustard crop

in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

In Jalandhar, Agra and Banaskantha (in


Gujarat), rains damaged harvested potatoes. Farmers

stared at rotting spuds in the fields. About a tenth of

the vegetable had been affected, the headlines said,

but it had little impact on crashing prices because of

a glut. Farmers in West Bengal, Gujarat, Uttar

Pradesh and Punjab had rushed to tuber cultivation,

attracted by high prices the previous year.

In agriculture, a boom-bust cycle operates. Addi-

tional acreages brought under the crop had created

excess supply. Prices crashed from `8 a kg the previ-

ous year to less than `2. Kilometer-long queues of

trucks, tractors and trolleys outside cold storages in

West Bengal, a big producer of potatoes, were hard

to ignore. Headlines said it all: “Potato glut and price

slump drives eight farmers to suicide”, “Potato crisis

deepens in Bengal: state to seek centre’s help” and

“Spud is dud: glut, price slump hits potato farmers”.

Quite a dire picture, indeed.

BAD LUCK

Very soon, it was the turn of Mathura in Uttar

Pradesh to face the fury of nature as hailstones rained,

damaging standing wheat crop ready for harvesting.

The event lasted less than an hour but left a trail of

destruction. There were reports of suicides among

farmers—rare in this irrigated region. For media

houses in Delhi, given to counting their newsgather-

ing pennies, this was an inexpensive sky-sent oppor-

tunity to flaunt their reporting credentials. Farmers

told a credulous media they were hit by rocks of ice

as heavy as “800 grams to one kilogram”, the size and

weight increasing with every re-telling. The damage

was real; the embellishment perhaps meant to move

a cold bureaucracy into generosity. The wall-to-wall

reportage of distress had the desired effect: the central

government hiked calamity relief by 50 percent, the

state government hiked its contribution, and quality

norms were diluted so farmers could sell damaged

wheat to the government, which it admitted, was fit

only for cattle.

Heavy rainfall around March-end flattened the

pigeon-pea (arhar) crop in the Kanpur Dehat area,

which had endured a downpour the previous August

followed by a long dry spell. Pigeon-pea prices

crossed levels never breached before. Prices of pulses

were the chief contributor to food inflation which

never went off the media’s radar. This was not only

because it deprived the poor of their daily katori of

watery dal but also because it dissuaded the Reserve

Bank from cutting interest rates which the industry

and the finance ministry sought in order to stimu-

late economic growth. With retail prices of pigeon-

pea shooting past `200 a kg, stocking limits being

imposed, imports being eased and police action

against hoarders, pulses remained on the front pages

of newspapers through the year.

Monsoons are a fixture in the media calendar. In

an agricultural country, deficiency of rainfall has im-

plications for the prices of commodities, equity

stocks and bonds. The Indian Met Department

(IMD) usually errs on the side of political caution.

But this time, it predicted the season’s precipitation

would be 93 percent of the long period average

(LPA). This was later revised to 88 percent of LPA.

The Met department got it bang on: the season’s

average was 86 percent of LPA. This was the second

year of deficient rainfall and even the previous year,

the Met department had got it right.

Excitement was provided by Skymet Weather

Services, established by Jatin Singh, a former jour-


Media Coverage

Ashok Gulati,former

chairman,Commission on

AgriculturalCosts and

Prices, provided an

expert’s insight in his

columns.


nalist of Aaj Tak and Sahara Samay, predicting nor-

mal rainfall at 102 percent of the LPA. The inaccuracy

drew a public explanation from Singh, who wrote a

piece in The Indian Express in October on “Why

Skymet Went Wrong”. It was an admission of error

that companies rarely make voluntarily.

UNSEASONAL RAINFALL

But the deficiency was not as benign as the averages

conveyed. Eight districts of Marathwada, a dry and

rain-dependent area in Maharashtra, got 39 percent

less rainfall. There were a few days of intense rainfall,

and long, dry intervals, especially in the month of

July, which is crucial for crops. The

soybean crop withered away and the

cotton crop was stunted, triggering

mass migration of people to Mumbai

and western Maharashtra. Drinking

water had to be supplied in tankers to

many villages and there was an acute

shortage of fodder. An epidemic of

suicides followed.

A thousand people had killed

themselves, the government told the

Bombay High Court. The govern-

ment, seen as not doing enough, drew

censure from the media. Actors—

Nana Patekar and Akshay Kumar—reached out to

the bereaved families with cash. Celebrity attention

on rural distress kept the issue in the public glare till

the sudden reappearance of rain in the second half

of August.

In Punjab, it was the whitefly outbreak on cotton

that grabbed eyeballs. A combination of factors was

responsible: late sowing owing to delayed harvesting

of the wheat crop and late release of water in canals

in the belt adjoining the Pakistan border. Humid

weather in May and less-than-scorching summer

advanced the infestation of the sap-sucking pest by

two months. Add to this a government numbed

VICIOUS CIRCLE OF POVERTY(Clockwise from left) Unseasonal and torrential rains destroyed crops across largeswathes of the country in March-April; desperation has driven thousands of farmers inVidarbha to suicide; actor Nana Patekar has provided cash relief to bereaved families


Despite receptivity to the plight of the farming

sector, there was little expert commentary from

those engaged in research and extension. Agricul-

tural scientists seem to be sworn to secrecy. There

are a few exceptions though like Ashok Gulati, for-

mer chairman of the Commission on Agricultural

Costs and Prices, who kept prodding the govern-

ment with his column.

We need more agricultural coverage in the

media. It should capture the vibrancy of the coun-

tryside created by enterprising farmers finding in-

novative ways to stay above the odds. Such coverage

is important as it galvanizes the administration into

saving the lives of those driven to despondency.

Good agricultural practices that have positive

implications for soil health, environment and pro-

ductivity do not get amplified. Few people know that

conservation agriculture being demonstrated by the

Borlaug Institute for South Asia at its field station in

Ludhiana can end paddy straw burning, which is al-

leged to be responsible for rising pollution levels in

Delhi and its neighborhood.

Genetic engineering technology, which has

tremendously boosted US farm productivity, is

much maligned in India’s media despite Bt technol-

ogy boosting India’s cotton productivity from the

annual average of 1.7 percent between 1980 and

2002 to 8.7 percent between 2003 and 2012.

Anyone who visits the countrywide will know

there is a shortage of agricultural labor because of

the bunching of demand during sowing and har-

vesting and consequent rise in wages which pushes

up the cost of cultivation. Farmers are demanding

weedicide-resistant varieties but in the absence of

media pressure, states like Maharashtra continue to

hold up field trials for ideological reasons. There is

little focus on the government program launched in

2010 to bring Green Revolution to eastern India,

which if properly implemented, will shore-up the

country’s food security and bring prosperity to an

area bogged down by poverty.

—Vivian Fernandes is editor of

www.smartindianagriculture.in

by incompetence and corruption and all the ingre-

dients were in place for the disaster that happened.

Farmers in the entire Malwa belt not only lost the cot-

ton crop but also money which they had invested in

it. The countryside was in rage and on railways tracks,

blocking traffic to the state on six days. The blockade

got prime-time on TV and space in newspapers.

But there were other crises that did not get the

media attention they deserved. These included the

prolonged drought in Bundelkhand region running

into the fourth year and the rash of suicides among

cane farmers in Karnataka owing to delayed pay-

ments of cane arrears.

ECOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS

But most coverage was episodic, media attention

being focused on the crisis and not the underlying

causes. Marathwada, for instance, is no stranger to

drought but a shift to higher paying crops like soy-

bean which can withstand dry spells but are not as

resilient as traditionally grown millets or oilseeds ag-

gravated the impact. The message nature conveyed

was that economic aspirations could not run ahead

of ecological limitations. Meanwhile, in Punjab, the

emphasis on horticulture (citrus) provided the white-

fly a leafy habitat to migrate to after feeding on the

cotton crop. Inadequate cold storage capacity and

policy uncertainty about contract farming arrange-

ments in West Bengal aggravated the price risk that

potato growers faced in the state.


Media Coverage

Media attention was

focused on thecrisis and not

the underlyingcauses. Therewas also little

expert commentary

from those engaged in

research andextension.

VAGARIES OF NATUREThe cotton crop of

Punjab was ravaged due to

whitefly outbreak


Vivian Fernandes

A Year inIMAGES


The World Press Photo Foundation, Amsterdam, announced the World Press Photo Awards for 2016. The awards, in their59th edition, saw 5,775 photographers from128 countries participating. The winning photographs were selected from 82,951 photos. The humanitarian crisis in Syria dominated much of the subject matter. The winners in some of the categories were:

NATURE, 1st prize, singles: A sunbather is oblivious tothe ominous shelf cloud approaching Bondi beach onNovember 6, 2015. A massive cloud looms over Sydney in a spectacular weather event seen only a fewtimes a year. The enormous cloud rolled in from the sea,turning the sky almost black and bringing violent thunderstorms in its wake

GENERAL NEWS, 1st prize, stories: Migrants and refugeesarrive by boat in November 2015 near the village of Skalaon the Greek island of Lesbos. Under Europe’s system ofopen internal borders, the island’s thinly patrolled, easilyaccessible coastline, within sight of the Turkish coast,might as well be the frontier of France, Germany or Sweden

SPOT NEWS, 2nd prize, singles: A demonstration against terrorism in Paris on January 11, 2015, after a series of attacksoccurred across the Ile-de-France region, beginning at the headquarters of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo

SPORTS, 1st prize, singles: Ondrej Bank of Czech Republic crashes during the downhill race at the FIS World Championships 2015 in BeaverCreek in the US on February 8, 2015

Photography

Courtesy http://www.worldpressphoto.org

T is an old saying that “journal-

ism is history in a hurry”.

Going by recent findings of

wildlife researchers from Kar-

nataka, it seems “journalism is

also wildlife research in a

hurry”. In a unique research effort, scientists have

used media reports as a major input to arrive at

some important findings about wildlife manage-

ment and human-animal conflict in India.

Man-animal “conflicts” in many states are on

the rise and are often reported in newspapers and

local television channels. Most of them involve

leopards and elephants who “stray” into human

habitats. Wildlife experts, however, say that these

are actually not cases of animals straying into fields

and villages but cases of wildlife corridors and habi-

tats being encroached upon by human habitations

and development projects like roads and factories.

This is also reflected in several studies about

man-animal conflict in some states. However, such

IThe recent citing of a leopard at a

Bengaluru school brought into focus theissue of man-animal conflicts. News

stories on sightings of wild animals likeleopards in human habitats have helped researchers arrive at important findings

on these conflicts. In Karnataka, the presshas played a key role in collating data

BY DINESH C SHARMA

Spotted inthe News

Ground ZeroEnvironment Reportage


information about wildlife presence in landscapes

being used by humans across a relatively large geo-

graphic area, where other conventional methods

such as camera-trap surveys are not feasible.

The content of media reports was further ana-

lyzed and segregated into direct sightings of leop-

ards, accidental leopard captures in snares, wells

and buildings, leopard mortalities (both natural

and human-induced), leopard attacks on livestock

and humans, leopard capture or removal by wildlife

managers for captivity or translocation. Informa-

tion such as names of reported village, sub-district

and district were plotted for each category.

Data points emerging from the detailed analysis

of the media reports were integrated with a statis-

tical “occupancy model” for mapping distribution

patterns of leopards and in identifying hotspots of

their interaction with livestock and humans.

This analysis has yielded some surprising find-

ings. Leopards occupy around 84,000 square kilo-

meter or 47 percent of Karnataka’s geographic area

outside designated national parks and wildlife sanc-

tuaries. This is a large area where there is wildlife

presence. The presence of leopards is facilitated by

extent of vegetative cover including irrigated

studies are often handicapped due to lack of proper

data about man-animal interface and resulting con-

flicts. Researchers at the Wildlife Conservation So-

ciety-India Program used a novel approach to

collect data about these conflicts. They used the

very newspaper reports about wild animals straying

into human habitat—which experts often complain

about—as a major source of collecting data.

Media reports about leopard sightings were col-

lected and analyzed covering a period of 14

months, from March 2013 to April 2014. Six Eng-

lish language and five Kannada newspapers were

identified based on their readership in the state

comprising 175 talukas.

Analysis of these reports showed that there

were 245 unique cases of human-leopard

interactions in the state during 14 mon-

ths. Multiple reports of the same incident were

combined and treated as one unique record. These

media reports gave an idea about where these inte-

ractions were taking place.

Since only reports of leopard-related incidents

outside national parks and wildlife sanctuaries were

included, this method helped researchers to obtain

English: The Hindu,

Deccan Herald, The Times

of India, Deccan Chronicle,

The New Indian Express,

Bangalore Mirror

Kannada: Kannada

Prabha, Vijayavani,

Prajavani, Udayavani

and Vijaya Karnataka

Newspaperscovered


croplands and rocky escarpments, as well as a prey

base in the form of feral and free-ranging dogs. Sur-

prisingly, leopard presence is not so much linked

with livestock density as often believed.

Talukas along the Western Ghats, the south-

western and south-central regions of the state had

highest probabilities of leopard presence. The study

also showed presence of resident, breeding leopards

in areas used or occupied by humans. The presence

of leopard cubs indicated breeding.

The study results have been published in sci-

entific journal, PLoS One. The paper titled

“Spotted in the news: Using media reports

to examine leopard distribution, depredation, and

management practices outside protected areas in

southern India”, has been co-authored by Vidya R

Athreya, Arjun Srivathsa, Mahi Puri, Krithi Kar-

anth, Samba Kumar and Ullas Karanth.

During the 14-month survey, most reports of

leopard-human interactions, frequently referred to

as “conflicts” in media reports, involved livestock

depredation in as many as 83 percent cases. Of the

32 attacks on humans recorded during this period,

three led to human deaths. On the other hand, 34

cases of leopard deaths were reported. Of these, 26

percent was attributed to poaching, where leopard

carcasses had evident signs like snares or gunshot

wounds . There were an equal number of reports

(26 percent) in which cause of death could not be

determined reliably. Road accidents accounted for

24 percent of leopard deaths. (see the table below).

Wildlife authorities have little data about the

distribution of wild animals outside sanctuaries and

parks, and their management strategies for animals

found outside protected areas is often faulty,

researchers have pointed out. Capture and translo-

cation are often used to remove leopards. Of 56

cases of leopard removals reported, 91 percent did

not involve human attacks, but only livestock pre-

Media reports about leopard sightingswere collected and analyzed covering aperiod of 14 months. Analysis of these

reports revealed 245 unique cases ofhuman-leopard interactions.

Ground ZeroEnvironment Reportage

26%24%

9%

6%

Causes of leopard deaths

PoachingNot determinedRoad accidents Other accidentsPhysical capture by theForest Department

26%

Retaliatory killing bylocal peopleNatural deaths

6%

3%

A leopard which strayed

into a Bengaluru school

(below) hit national head-

lines this February. It

injured five people, includ-

ing a camera-person,

before being tranquilized

and being put in the Ban-

nerghatta Zoological Park.

Strangely, the big cat es-

caped from its cage and

had not been traced back

at the time of this report

being filed.

Lessons in animal behavior


dation or just sighting of leopards.

“The lack of knowledge on leopard ecology

in human-use areas has resulted in unscientific

interventions, which could aggravate the problem

rather than mitigating it. Our results establish the

presence of resident, breeding leopards in human-

use areas. That’s why we suggest a shift in manage-

ment focus, from current reactive practices like

removal and translocation of leopards, to proactive

measures that ensure safety of human lives and

livelihoods,” summed up Vidya R Athreya, lead

author of the study.

“There are many wildlife species that occur out-

side Protected Areas as they do not follow or un-

derstand man-made boundaries. Because these

areas are also high human density areas, it is hard

to use traditional methods of assessment. The areas

are so large that we thought we could use occu-

pancy approach using media reports to understand

where leopards occur over a much larger wider

landscape. Reports on leopard occurrence (trap-

ping, presence, livestock loss etc.) are very common

in media reports.”

“We have not analyzed the quality of news re-

ports but it is generally seen that media heightens

the perception of fear by largely reporting negative

incidents (livestock loss etc) and rarely positive

incidents (such as “farmer saw the leopard and was

not disturbed by it”). This could have serious con-

servation implications for both wildlife and safety

of people as it pressurizes the forest department to

take unscientific steps such as capture of leopards.

This is a phenomenon generally seen across the

world,” Athreya adds.

While the study has important pointers for

wildlife managers in Karnataka as well as other

states where man-animal interface are on the rise,

media reporting of wildlife also needs to be more

informed and balanced. Often television channels

portray “straying” animals as predators, while being

silent on real reasons behind the rise of such inci-

dents. Media reports shape attitude of people

towards animals and even authorities. Informed

reporting can save both humans and animals.

—The writer is Fellow, Centre for

Media Studies

CROSSING THEIRPATHRoad constructionand tourist trafficoften violate thenatural habitat ofanimals

Researchers used the very newspaper reports about wild animals straying intohuman habitat, which experts often complain about, as a major source of collecting data.

Kalyan Verma


can’t remember the last time I was

so infuriated. I had just heard the

news of RK Pachauri being rein-

stated as executive vice chairman of

TERI by its governing council. He

has subsequently gone on indefinite leave. It was

even more galling because the message that was

being sent out to women in the corporate world

was this: No matter what an internal prevention

of sexual harassment committee finds, we will

protect the accused. The safety of women in the

corporate workplace is not a priority.

With this callous action, the governing coun-

cil of TERI has reinforced what most women in

Corporate India have been told for years: If you

want a decently remunerated career, you will have

to put up with whatever we dole out, everything

from bias to bullying to full-scale harassment.

I have spent the past 18 months interviewing

over 170 women for a book on the experiences of

women in the workplace in Corporate India

called Own It, and almost everyone had a story

to tell, relating to everything from discrimination

to verbal harassment and sexual transgressions.

And yet, despite the pervasive incidents, these

I

Editors’ PickAparna Jain

Why Women Delay Harassment Complaints

VON brings in each issue the best written commentaryon any subject. The followingwrite-up from Firstpost hasbeen picked by our team ofeditors and reproduced forour readers as the best in the fortnight.

RK Pachauri’s reinstatement as TERI executivevice-chairman sent out only one message to

corporate employees: Sexual violence against women will be condoned

TOO LITTLE TOO LATEUnder mounting pressure, RK Pachaurihas been sent on indefinite leave from TERI


stories were narrated under a shroud of silence,

with my firm reassurance that I would not

name them.

That in itself was telling.

Many women had complained — only to be

told to move departments where “things would

be easier” or that things would improve after a

“chat” with the offender. When I asked women

why they did not use the internal harassment

machinery and committees to complain, they

laughed, saying the committees were an eye-

wash, in existence only because of mandatory

laws. They served the interests of the company,

of the rainmakers, of the senior executives and

not of the complainants.

One woman was approached by a large MNC

to be on their internal committee as the external

person for a specific case. But she was groomed

and given a backstory about how the company

felt about it. In other words, she was being qui-

etly informed about how the complaint had to

go: Unsurprisingly, in favour of the senior

male leader.

Another woman was offered a large sum of

money to keep quiet and leave quietly. With EMIs

to pay and being clear that no resolution would

be reached internally, she took the money.

This is why I was so infuriated.

The governing council among which are stal-

warts like Naina Lal-Kidwai and Deepak Parekh

condoned Pachauri’s actions by reinstating him.

Why? Why have they not commented on what

made them take this action? What was their mo-

tivation? Why was the complainant not pro-

tected? Why did they choose to succumb to

external motivation and not adhere to the ruling

of the internal sexual harassment committee that

proclaimed Pachauri guilty?

I can only imagine the platitudes. A greater

good? Much more complex than what it seems?

Reputations and business? External pressure?

What’s more, for months, no one in the media has

asked tough questions of the governing council

members. The standard answer has been:

“No Comment”.

I know how dogged our media can be when

they want a story.

We have powerful editors who can pick up a

phone and speak to these council members to get

to the truth. These are important explanations

that need to be heard. But no one has done this,

as far as I know. The reasons are obvious. How

can editors afford to ruffle their feathers? What

will it mean for media organizations in terms of

corporate patronage? I was appalled when I

brought up this case with a well-reputed feminist

who dismissed this saying the case was just an

“old man thinking he was in love and getting car-

ried away”.

How quickly we make peace with those

old men.

The governing council which has stalwartslike Naina Lal-Kidwai and Deepak Parekhdid not adhere to the ruling of the internalcomplaints committee that proclaimedPachauri guilty.

Every second woman I know has a

story to tell about how they were touched

or harassed in their childhood or young

adulthood by a person of power: A parent,

a relative, a teacher, a neighbour. And what

were they taught? Keep quiet, because no

one will believe you. Or in many cases, the

perpetrator is said to be important and the

family needs to stay in his good books. So

child, hold on to your pain, hide it away

and move on. The shame hangs with you.

And the perpetrator carries on.

It is this very attitude that moves seam-

lessly into Corporate India. The shame is

for the complainant. Let us find ways to

brush damaging reports under the plush expen-

sive carpets that line our offices.

It takes conscious and committed leadership to

lead a company that is not influenced by norms

that exist in our society as a whole and to create

more gentle productive work spaces — for all. I

haven’t seen a single instance of it yet. I hope work-

places have the gumption to tear up their plush

carpets and to confront whatever is hidden there.

And for every person who passes judgement

on women who keep quiet, remember the

Pachauri case.

For everyone who asks why women move on

quietly and sometimes accept payoffs, remember

the Pachauri case.

For every person who questions why women

delay complaints to a committee, remember the

Pachauri case.

For every woman who has evidence and is yet

condemned to leave the company, remember the

Pachauri case.

It is a case that encapsulates so many of our

complicit silences.

—The author is a leadership coach who works

with corporates, and the author of OWN It:

Leadership Lessons from Women Who

Do (HarperCollins 2016)

Why do we get caught up in the bigger picture

when the core of it is simple? A 75-year-old man

harasses a girl young enough to be his daughter.

Evidence piles up. Women in the organization re-

sign. Murmurs about Pachauri float far and wide.

Yet the man has the gumption and ease of confi-

dence to enter clubs and entertain foreign guests

unflinchingly.

The woman who complained, however, has

been branded a troublemaker and, of course, it

will be very difficult for her to find a job else-

where. Here, responsibility lies at the feet of the

people who reinstated Pachauri. But it also rests

in the complicit silence of everyone who does not

stand for the complainant, everyone who per-

ceives a complainant as a troublemaker, and who

is not willing to hire someone who has made a

complaint to a committee.

Our society has always laid the onus of the

responsibility on the victim.

Editors’ PickAparna Jain

Every second woman I know has a story to tellabout how they were harassed in childhood oryoung adulthood by a person of power: A dad,

a relative, a neighbour. What were they taught?Keep quiet, because no one will believe you.

WHITHER EQUALITY?It takes committed leadership

to run a company not influenced by entrenched

sexism and misogyny


Satiricalwebsite a hit!

Asatirical website offering “tokenminorities” for hire — to ostensi-

bly sprinkle diversity into marketingmaterial or a conference panel— hasamused thousands online.

Rent-A-Minority has been set upby Arwa Mahdawi who works for anadvertising firm in New York. OfPalestinian descent herself, Mahdawicreated the site as she was tired ofseeing firms making superficial ges-tures to promote diversity. On itsninth day, the site had been liked andshared over 25,000 times on Face-

book and tweeted more than 3,000times. A Twitter user described it asa spoof which “is so close to resembling the real thing, it hurts”.

Web Crawler What Went Viral

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has stirred the prover-bial hornet’s nest by uploading a controversial poster on

his Twitter account. It depicts Hanuman reporting back toPrime Minister Narendra Modi after setting JawaharlalNehru University ablaze. “Done sir, all attention is on JNU,”reads the speech bubble assigned to the monkey god.

Kejriwal, who earlier ordered a magisterial probe into the JNUsloganeering incident, has come under attack for this tweet. “IfHanuman burned JNU on orders of Modi, does that mean JNU is

Ravan’s Lanka and Modi is Lord Ram?” tweeted a detractor whileanother wrote, “#KejriwalinsultsHanuman utter shame that this manis not leaving gods also to defame Modi. Pathetic. Mindset.” Quite atweet storm indeed!

—Compiled by Sucheta Dasgupta

Allegations of sexual harassment at anIranian TV station are emboldening

Iranian women to break their silenceonline.

Sheena Shirani, a newsreaderat Press TV, has spoken out aboutsexual harassment that she report-edly endured from two of her man-agers over a long period of time.She has posted online a recordingof a phone conversation inwhich a voice believedto be that of her boss,

Hamid Reza Emadi, asks her for sexual fa-vors repeatedly. Shirani quit her job and

left the country. She later uploadedthe audio file, which has been lis-tened to over 120,000 times. Shehas also shared a screengrab froma text exchange in which Emadiasked her to take the audio down.

Meanwhile, Press TV has announced it has suspended two

unnamed staffers and that it is investigating the allegations.

Iranian woman protestsworkplace harassment

Wikipedia deploys AI

Kejriwal “insults Hanuman”

Wikipedia has deployed a new artificialintelligence engine to spot bad edits.

The AI, called Objective Revision EvaluationService, scours newly submitted revisions

for additions that look like trollers’ inputs orare just plain spam.

Created by Wikimedia Foundation, it issaid to function “like a pair of X-ray specs”.Anything that is suspect is set aside for“human editors”. If the editors decide thatthe content needs to be pulled down, thecontributor will be notified. It promises tobe an improvement on the current system,where suspect submissions are deletedwithout explanation.

Sheena Shirani


year, the event saw footfalls of more than

20,000 people.

While the elite mingled freely with

eminent poets from India and the sub-continent,

Gulzar was the favorite and as was evident,

he was mobbed by the crowd. At 81,

Gulzar’s presence at a program still attracts the

most spectators.

He spoke in eloquent Urdu about technology:

“Jo shaamein unki sohbat mein kata karti thi, ab

aksar guzar jaati hain computer ke pardoun par.

Kitabein maangne, girne, uthane ke bahaane, jo

rishte bante the ab unka kya hoga (The evenings

that used to be spent in its company, nowadays are

RDU in all its beauty, cadence

and lyricism was in evidence at

a festival—Jashn-e-Rekhta—

held in Delhi recently. The festi-

val was, as its moderator, Moin

Shadab, said: “Urdu zubaan ka jashn, uss se judi

bato ka jashn (A festival of Urdu language, a

festival of things connected to it).” Into its second

U

A recent Urdu festival was an attempt to stemthe declining popularity of this language in

India and saw many connoisseurs of it reveling in its beauty and elegance

BY SHAILAJA PARAMATHMA

FestivalJashn-e-Rekhta

A Lyrical Evening Photos: Anil Shakya


usually spent in front of a computer screen. The

relationships that would develop around book bor-

rowing, picking them or dropping them, what will

happen to them now).”

Also present was Javed Akhtar who spoke of

the relationship between love and poetry. When a

visitor asked him how important it was to be in

love to write poetry, Akhtar wittily said: “Aap ba-

hane matt banaiye, jo karna hai kariye (Do not

make excuses, do what you must do),” Akhtar, who

has publically claimed to be an atheist, went on to

say that Urdu was the only language which was

secular from its inception.

He added that poets wrote in Urdu not to

in Delhi RIVETING PERFORMANCES(Clockwise from far left) The play ‘Dara Shikoh’ in progress; Dastangoiartist Darain Shahidi mesmerizing the audience with his storytelling;Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar in the romantic saga ‘Kaifi aur main.’


eulogize god but to mark themselves as anti-be-

lievers. His words were met with loud cheers.

AWARENESS OF URDU

The festival is aimed at becoming a platform for

Urdu literature and culture. Its founder, Sanjiv

Saraf, said: “Through Jashn-e-Rekhta we want to

create a much-required awareness and apprecia-

tion for Urdu and its lyrical beauty and eloquence.”

He added: “The core idea is to bring Urdu to the

mainstream consciousness and to a much wider

audience via performances, panel discussions, in-

teractive sessions and various forms of Urdu.”

Last year, the foundation invited intellectuals

MASTER WORDSMITHSBelow: (L-R)

Poet and lyricist Gulzar,poet Assad Mohammad

Khan and Urdu poet fromPakistan Anwar Masood

from Pakistan like Zia Moheyeddin and Intizaar

Hussain. Plays, mushairas, qawwalis, ghazals, dis-

cussions, calligraphy workshops and food festivals

are part of this event. This year, the event was at

four venues and different programs took place si-

multaneously. While there was Pakistani poet

Anwar Maqsood in one venue, there was a book

launch by Gulzar in another, a discussion on fa-

mous Pakistani writer Saadat Hasan Manto in a

third and a play of Tom Alter’s in the fourth.

So gripping was some of the poetry that when

Assad Mohammad Khan, a poet and writer from

Pakistan, who holds the prestigious Tamgha-e-Im-

tiaz award, read passages from his short story, Ba-

sawday ki Maryam, people cried. Then, there was

Anwar Masood, a Punjabi and Urdu poet also

from Pakistan, whose humorous rendition of a

woman fixing her breakfast cracked up the audi-

ence. He asked: “Chacha-ji mein twanu unda bana

diyan? Nahi puttar tu mainu banda he rehn de.

(Uncle, shall I make you an egg ? No child, pray let

me remain a human being) ” He also took a swipe

at organized Islam: “Masjid ka ye mike jo utha laye

ho Anwar, kya janiye kis waqt azaan dene lage.

(This mike from the mosque that you have brought

here Anwar, wonder when

it might call for prayer)”.

Anwar Maqsood,

another Pakistani poet

and scriptwriter, lyrically

spoke about a friend who

asked him what he was

taking to Delhi. Maqsood

said: “Maine kaha ek kaali

polish ki dibiya saath le jaa

raha hun taki kisi ko

zehmat na uthani pade. (I

am taking along a box of

black shoe polish, so that

no one has to take the

pains).” Rajesh Reddy, an-

other poet, spoke about

life: “Jaane kitni udaan

FestivalJashn-e-Rekhta

While on the one hand festivals like Jashn-e-Rekhta are organized to give a boost to Urdu,

on the other, some governments have been cracking down on this language.

Recently, the BJP government in Rajasthan removed chapters with Urdu

words in the Hindi textbook of Class VIII. “Most of the Hindi chapters

that were dropped were loaded with Urdu words, which were difficult

for the students to understand,” a member of the textbook committee

told the media. “We were also directed to strike out those chapters

whose theme revolved around a particular faith.”

Crackdown on Urdu


versity, came with her lawyer husband to the event.

Hailing from a traditional Muslim family in

Daryaganj, she bemoaned the slow erosion and

disappearance of Urdu from the public domain.

But she also admitted that she herself was guilty of

not teaching Urdu to her son as she had sent him

to an English-medium school.

Then there was Madhavi, a civil servant,

who came from Chandigarh for the second time

specially to attend the festival. As her childhood

was spent in Abohar, Punjab, close to the Pakistani

border, she grew up hearing Urdu on Pakistani TV.

When she went to university, she realized her

dream of learning Urdu. However, it was during an

advanced course that she realized how few takers

there were for this language—she was the lone stu-

dent in the class.

The event also attracted foreigners such as

Tammy Pham, Lawrence Walker and Roushon

Talcott, American students living in Jaipur, where

they are studying Urdu and Hindi in a flagship

program of the University of Texas.

By the end of the three-day event, many would

have carried home memories of a time spent

ensconced in the elegance and sophistication of a

beautiful language. And that makes it all the more

imperative to keep it going.

baki hai, iss parinde mein jaan baki hai. Sar kalam

honge kal yahan unke, jinke muh mein zubaan baki

hai (Wonder how many flights are still left in this

bird, it still is alive. They will be beheaded, those

who still speak their minds).” Darain Shahidi, a cel-

ebrated Dastangoi (16th-century Urdu oral story-

telling art form) artist, spoke of past times and

present circumstances: “Manto pe case chalte the

obscenity par jaise aaj kal chalte hain sedition par

(Manto used to be sued for obscenity the way it

happens nowadays for sedition).”

ELITE CROWD

The festival attracted connoisseurs of Urdu culture

and those who knew how to appreciate it. Nawabi

tehzeeb and “adabs” permeated the air as people

spoke softly, making one forget that this event was

being held in Delhi, known for its relative lack of

sensibility. The elite mingled freely, dressed in

silken anarkalis, flowing palazzos, sherwanis,

kurta-pyjamas and Nehru jackets.

Apart from the cultural elements, there was

also a food festival with Awadhi, Kashmiri, Dec-

cani, Sindhi, Banjaara, Punjabi and Mughlai deli-

cacies. However, it was the chaat corner from

Chandni Chowk called Imli that had the longest

line, evident that Delhi’s belly is satiated mainly by

street food.

The audience was an eclectic mix. Major BS

Gill, a confirmed Urdu aficionado, had flown in

from Mumbai and was heard finishing the shers of

poets on stage.

He said it was during his years in remote post-

ings in the army that he had taught himself Urdu.

Inspired by Mir Taki Mir and moved by Manto,

today he lives and breathes Urdu.

Then, there was Mohammad Farooque Azam,

who is pursuing a PhD from JNU, on “The Critical

Studies of Manto’s Non-fiction Prose” and came

here to savor the language. His in-depth knowl-

edge and appreciation of Urdu poetry made one

realize the richness of the language.

Afifa Begum, a PhD in Urdu from Delhi Uni-

GENTEEL ALLUREAmerican students of Urdulanguage from the Universityof Texas.

The festival attracted connoisseursof Urdu culture andnawabitehzeeb and“adabs” permeated theair as peoplespoke softly.


Twitter Pic

Small ScreenBollywood Award Shows

T’S the season for film awards

and with many of them being

aired on TV in quick succession,

it is difficult to remember who is

holding them and for what. This,

naturally, has taken a toll on their

credibility. With business interests taking over

these awards, even the jury members are hardly

stalwarts in the field.

Critically acclaimed actor Irrfan Khan, a regu-

lar at award shows this year due to his films Piku

I

FailedFormula?

Bollywood’s numerousaward shows are boringand repetitive and far from honoring deserving artists,end up pandering to various coteriesBY SONAL GERA

COMMON TEMPLATERanveer Singh’s dance

sequence from Bajirao Mastani became apredictable feature at this

year’s award shows

and Talvar, was quoted as saying: “In the West,

Academy awards or Golden Globes have a lot

of significance. If someone wins an award there,

their graph goes up. They get better movies, and

obviously the money also shoots up. Par yahan

aath-aath award jeet lete hain, aur uska kuch asar

nahi hota (nothing changes despite your winning

eight awards).”

So has the formula for Bollywood awards gone

wrong? Most of them have been shot keeping in

mind television audiences and are more about the


TRPs they garner. Also, these shows often overlap

each other in terms of dance performances, hosts,

award categories and winners, leaving the viewer

quite befuddled.

There are numerous award shows in Holly-

wood too—Oscars, Golden Globes,

Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild,

Grammy, People’s Choice, Critics’ Choice, etc. But

among these, only the Oscars, also known as Acad-

emy Awards and the Golden Globes are similar to

each other in terms of award categories. The others

honor artists and films from different streams of

entertainment. While the Grammys honor the best

in music, Independent Spirit Awards recognize in-

dependent films and actors. Various Guild Awards

crown the best in their mentioned categories.

In India, the main awards are Big Star Enter-

tainment, Cine, Screen, Stardust, Producers Guild,

Filmfare and IIFA (International Indian Film

Academy). While the IIFA awards will be held in

April-May, the others have already been

shot and televised. With so many award

functions, one would assume that it is the

deserving artists and films that are hon-

ored. Instead, most of them seem to

be entertainment-oriented, interspersed

with the appearance of stars who agree to

show up. Recently, actor Rishi Kapoor was quoted

as saying: “I use trophies as doorstops in my home.

What they have done to film awards is extremely

tragic. Agar sabko khush karna hai toh phir awards

ka matlab kya hua (if the motive is to keep every-

one happy, what is the point of giving awards)?”

The sad state of affairs is because these award

shows try to please everyone, especially those who

are a part of a coterie. Several actors have alleged

that award shows work on a quid-pro-quo basis.

Masaan, for example, which created a stir at

Cannes, or Margarita With A Straw that left an im-

pact at the Busan International Film Festival , were

ignored at all award shows. Baby, featuring Akshay

Kumar, and Ajay Devgn’s Drishyam met the same

fate despite critical acclaim. Let’s take a look at

some of the award functions:

Big Star Entertainment Awards (on Star Plus)

The event was the first to be televised in Decem-

ber. It honored movies and artists in every

TIME FOR TEARS (Left) An emotionalDeepika Padukone receiving the FilmfareAward for best actress

(Above) All cameraspanned to Rekha asshe hugged JayaBachchan at theScreen Awards


law, Amitabh Bachchan’s face when Rekha pre-

sented her the trophy. Not surprising.

Actor Riteish Deshmukh and choreographer-

turned-director Farah Khan were the hosts.

Barring some funny one-liners, the whole script

lacked punch. Even the dance performances were

repetitive and dull. The channel definitely needs

a new editing team; one couldn’t help but notice

that the same expressions on the same people

were repeated at different times during the show.

Screen Awards (on Star Plus)

Karan Johar makes sure that whenever he hosts a

show, he cracks some gay jokes. The filmmaker’s

self-deprecating humor was complemented by

comedian Kapil Sharma’s usual repertoire of

jokes. Interestingly, this show even had three sub-

categories for some categories. For instance, for

best actor category, there were four winners—

Amitabh Bachchan and Ranveer Singh (Best

Actor in a Leading Role-Male), Irrfan Khan (Crit-

ics Award) and Shah Rukh Khan (Popular

genre—drama, comedy, social, thriller, romance—

while repeating the nominations and winners

several times. Salman Khan was the brand ambas-

sador for it and hence, his movie, Prem Ratan

Dhan Payo, which was ignored at other award

shows, led the winners’ list, followed by Piku.

Stardust Awards (on Colors)

Parineeti Chopra received an award for losing

weight and in her acceptance speech, she said: “I

was tired of hearing that I can only act good, and

not look good.” What a state of affairs.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was awarded for

Jazbaa and the cameras panned to her father-in-

Masaan (above), which created a stir at theCannes Film Festival or Margarita With AStraw (facing page) that wowed audiences

at many international film festivals wereignored at all award shows in India.

Small ScreenBollywood Award Shows


Most award shows have been shot keeping inmind television audiences and are moreabout the TRPs they garner. Also, theseoften overlap each other in terms of danceperformances, hosts and award categories.

Award). This ensured that

more people were kept

pleased. TV cameramen viv-

idly captured the moment

when Rekha hugged Ami-

tabh’s wife, Jaya, when he re-

ceived his award.

TV and Film Producers’

Guild Awards (on Sony)

There was little to differentiate

between this award and

Screen Awards. Kapil Sharma

was back as host and there

were the same jokes and

dances. Akshay Kumar’s

movie Airlift was also pro-

moted. Strange, considering

that this was an award show

and not a reality show pro-

moting movies and actors.

Filmfare Awards (on Sony)

Filmfare awards are seen as the most illustrious,,

coming as it does from The Times of India stable

and also because it’s the oldest one. It was, there-

fore, understandable when Deepika Padukone and

Ranveer Singh shed tears of joy while receiving

their awards. However, while accepting the award,

Deepika read out a six-minute-long emotional let-

ter from her father, former badminton champion

Prakash Padukone. If she had been in Hollywood

accepting an Oscar, she would have been asked to

provide a list of people she wanted to thank ahead

of the announcement. Then the list would have

been rolled as a TV screen ticker and she would

have had to finish her speech in a mere 45 seconds.

Why can’t Bollywood follow this formula?

Coming back to the Filmfare Awards, it was the

same pattern of awards, hosts, jokes and even

performances as other shows. This didn’t help the

show retain its supremacy over others. Masaan,

Margarita With A Straw and films of the same ilk

were completely ignored. Worse, the dances were

badly rehearsed. Though Kapil Sharma hosted

this one too along with Shah Rukh Khan, his

quips were bland. Irrfan Khan and Alia Bhatt in-

dulged in a verbal duel with SRK, trying to make

the audience believe it was impromptu. It was not.

The mediocrity of these shows stems from cel-

ebrating personal achievements rather than hon-

oring the best in the film industry. This is unlike

the structured format of Oscars and other Holly-

wood awards. Neither do Hollywood award

shows invent a category just to please people, nor

do they shoot the whole event just for TV.

Obviously, Bollywood has a lot to learn from

the West as far as award shows go.


NEWSDATE NEWS CHANNEL TIME

6/2/16

8/2/16

8/2/16

8/2/16

9/2/16

9/2/16

Anandiben Patel’s daughter Anar answers Congress charges; says herfamily has nothing to do with the company under cloud.

Headley testifies in 26/11. First video-conferencing testimony. Headley speaksfrom Chicago; testimony heard in a specialcourt in Mumbai.

Urdu poet and lyricist Nida Fazli dies ofheart attack. He wrote lyrics for films likeAap to Aise Na The, Is Raat Ki SubahNahin, among others.

Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid meets PMModi; the two discuss ISIS, AMU andthe other important issues.

9/2/16

7:24 AM7:22 AM7:21AM

2:17 PM2:16 PM

5:49 PM 5:50 PM

2:18 PM 2:19 PM

5:50 PM 5:55 PM

2:10 PM

7:23 AM

2:09PM 2:10 PM 2:18 PM

6/2/16 PM Modi, President Pranab Mukherjeeat fleet review in Vizag.

9:25 AM 9:25 AM 9:25 AM 9:25 AM

Lance Naik Hanumanthappa found alivein Siachen. He had been buried under 30feet of slow six days ago. Nine jawanskilled in avalanche. 8:02 AM 8:03 AM 8:03 AM 8:04 AM

Emergency landing of Union MinisterKiran Rijiju’s chopper at Hindon. Theminister was on way to Uttarkashi. 1:12 PM1:11PM 1:13 PM 1:13 PM

Haryana Health Minister Anil Viz’scomment on beef controversy: “Beef isdangerous to health”.

9:05 AM9:00 AM 9:00 AM 9:07 AM


Here are some of the major news items aired on television channels, recorded by our unique 24x7 dedicated media monitoring unit that scrutinizes more than 130 TV channels in different Indian languages and looks at who breaks the news first.

DATE NEWS CHANNEL TIMENEWS

12/2/16

12/2/16

12/2/16

17/2/16

Snapdeal employee Dipti Sarna tracedback. Talks to her family. Had beenabducted from Vaishali Metro Station. 8:02 AM 8:03 AM 8:05 AM 8:06 AM

9:30 AM 9:32 AM

Bhojshala Utsav Samiti upset, performshawan outside Bhojshala. Tension overSaraswati puja and Friday prayers day atthe same time. 9:33 AM 9:44 AM

Anyone who raises anti-India slogans ortries to put a question mark on nation’sunity and integrity will not be spared:Home Minister Rajnath Singh 10:00 AM 10:01 AM 10:01 AM10:00 AM

11:32 AM 11:34 AM 11:35 AM 11:35 AM

1:52 PM

Lawyers beat up journos outside PatialaHouse again.

17/2/16JNU leader Kanhaiya gives his statement tothe police, claims the atmosphere wastense even before the event.

16/2/16 Delhi MLA OP Sharma accused of beatingup CPI leader outside Patiala House court.

1:52 PM1:49 PM 1:51PM

16/2/16Ex-DU professor SAR Geelani to bepresented in court today. Chargedwith raising anti-India slogans.

11:21AM11:20 AM

13/2/16 Punjab Police nab an ISI agent. Sajjad Hussain arrested from Surankot in Jammu.

10:53 AM 10:54 AM10:51 AM

11:18 AM

10:54 AM

11:17 AM

8:09 AM8:07 AM 8:08 AM8:08 AM


DESIGNS THAT MADE IMAGINATIVEUSE OF PHOTOGRAPHS, FONTS,

COLOR AND WHITE SPACES TOLEAVE AN IMPRESSION

By ANTHONY LAWRENCE

Design

Simple and emotive! Why ruin the impact withmore words?

This one is quite offensive. Surely conferences forwomen can’t be just about charming smiles and frivolous talk.

Black is beautiful as this cover of Ebony strongly conveys.


This installation in Denmark titled “The Infinity” gives the impression of the interiorof a bee-hive. But artist Yayoi Kusama hascreated such polka dot installations in othercolor combinations too. You want a wall or even a room in red and white? He has it for you. Talk about realizing childhoodfantasies!

Artist Marie Jonsson-Harrison hasperhaps got the title wrong. In thispleasing painting of the waterworld, titled “Halloween & ‘Witchesfrom Sweden’”, she has broughtout his love for all things brightand beautiful.

Watches, which are a testimony to the passing of time, have beenfixed on a tortoise shaped installation by Japanese sculptor NatsumiHonda. Tortoises are known to live the longest. What a way to depicttimelessness!


education, inequality of the sexes…. Now even

young boys are told about these so as to change

their outlook. A typical lesson combines 20-30

minutes of skill-building, followed by group dis-

cussions and problem-solving.

CHANGED AMBITIONS

VoN visited one of these sessions, where the girls

are giggly, jostling with excitement. Tanya Kau-

shaf, 13, is happy she went through this program

which she finished last year. “I have learnt to

speak up and to speak my mind. I couldn't do

this earlier, I was scared. But not any more. Ear-

lier, I did not like studying. Now my ambitions

have changed. I have a goal in life,” she asserted.

Child marriages, early pregnancies and their

complications and premature babies are not un-

common among girls here. Most of them are

married off early and seldom get an education.

Like Tanya, Komal Kumari, a Class X student,

too believes she has benefitted from the program.

GIRL!Way to Go,

N a cold wintry morning in

January, school kids, mainly

girls from 12 to 14 years, have

lined up for assembly in a gov-

ernment-run school in Maner,

some 35 kms from Patna. The

school is a decrepit building but attendance is

high despite the biting cold. After class, they are

part of peer support groups led by female teach-

ers or women from their community, which are

held twice a week, sometimes more.

This unique program is called Girls First and

is conducted by CorStone, an NGO, which has

been running it in six Bihar districts for over two

years. Here, women talk about the problems be-

setting girls in this state—child marriage, lack of

O

A unique program in Bihar called Girls Firstis inspiring confidence and spreading

knowledge about the ills of child marriage,early pregnancies and gender discrimination

BY MURALI KRISHNAN IN PATNA

Bihar

“Their listening power has increased andthey now talk assertively. And they resolvetheir problems in their peer supportgroups. There is a friendly environment....And they are able to talk to boys.”

—Madhulika Mani, an instructor in Girls First

EducationGirls

overnanceG


ing my daughter blossom, I now hope she gets a

good job.”

PLIGHT OF GIRL CHILD

This program is part of an attempt to change the

life of the girl child in rural India, where she is

often subjected to gender-based discrimination.

Girls are often denied education and forced into

early marriages and child-bearing even before

they outgrow their teen years. Investing in their

education can be one of the most potent weapons

to fight for greater social justice.

Currently, there are 70 million child brides in

the world, according to the US-based Inter-

national Center for Research on Women.

And in Bihar, child marriages constitute 60

percent of all marriages. This is the highest

in India.

Manoj Verma, director of the Patna-ba-

sed Integrated Development Foundation,

which is also a partner in the program, said:

“It is important to empower girls by giving

them knowledge about sexual and repro-

ductive health and provide them education

and livelihood opportunities. It is impor-

tant to build family and community sup-

port and promote an equitable relationship

between men and women.”

He added that by attending the sessions,

the girls have started questioning and par-

ticipating in the teaching process. “This is

a positive sign—all the girls start asking

questions from the teachers…articulating

and fighting against child marriages.”

The organizers are concentrating on

“Earlier, my mother would scold me and I would

keep quiet. But now things have changed. She

does not shout anymore. Ever since I got into this

program, I have changed. Now, I am sure that I

want to be a teacher.”

Her mother, Poonam Devi, is proud of her

daughter’s transformation. “I feel so happy that

Komal has become a tough person. I stitch

clothes and do odd jobs to make a living. But see-

“I have learnt to speak up and to speak mymind. I couldn’t do this earlier, I wasscared. Earlier, I did not like studying.Now I have a goal in life.”

— Tanya Kaushaf (left), 13, finished the Girls First program last year

FUTURE PERFECT(Left) The Girls First program endeavorsto change the life of the girl child in Bihar


Photos: Murali Krishnan

adolescent girls for now.

Kumkum Kumari, an instructor, has been

teaching girls for over a year and says she sees a

distinct change in them as they have become

more confident. “What this program has taught

girls is that they are no less capable…that they

are as strong as boys. It has taught them to surge

ahead and think of goals. The lessons they learn

here have influenced their parents, many of

whom are illiterate.”

The girls’ growing confidence, laughter and

joy in learning makes Gracy Andrew, director of

the India chapter of CorStone, proud. “Bihar is

one of the states where you find early marriages,

which is a big problem. In most families here,

girls are discriminated against. But at the same

time, the state government is giving them a lot of

NEW HOPE?School girls walk

through a waterlogged street

in Patna

opportunities. There is transition happening

in Bihar.”

POSITIVE RESULTS

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Girls

First was done in 2013-14 involving 3,500 girls

and 74 community women facilitators in 76 sch-

ools in rural Bihar. The results showed that the

program had a significant impact on mental and

physical health, school performance, engage-

ment, self-advocacy, social skills and relation-

ships. The RCT was conducted in partnership

with the Bihar Education Project Council and

David & Lucile Packard Foundation.

In another school in Beta, about 40 kms from

Patna, a round-table session is in progress where

20 girls talk about conquering their fears when

accosted by hostile boys or facing a drunken fa-

ther. Many adolescent girls have stories about

eve-teasing or safety concerns. Madhulika Mani,

an instructor, is positive. “Their listening power

has increased and they now talk assertively. And

they resolve their problems in their peer support

groups. There is a friendly environment and they

are creating the same for others too. And they are

able to talk to boys."

On a more positive note, they also have the

power to change their parents’ behavior as well.

Upon completing the program, many parents

said that their children gave them a more posi-

tive outlook about the future.

For Steve Levental, the executive director of

the program, this is a shot in the arm. The chil-

dren are proving to be agents of change, he said.

“The most important thing in this work is to

start with where you are, not where you wish you

were. In some cases, the baseline may be low

considering what your hopes or aspirations are.

But what is exciting is that we see the impact on

the girls really quickly. The takeaway is that it is

not difficult to change,” he maintained.

Bihar could well show the way for other states

in the way it treats the girl child.

There are 70 million child brides in theworld, according to the International

Center for Research on Women. In Bihar,child marriages constitute 60 percent of all

marriages. This is the highest in India.

BiharEducationGirls

overnanceG


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-ISE OR –IZE?WHEN YOU ARE ANNOYED

NONSENSE WORDS CONFUSABLE PAIRS

SMS LINGO

RED-HOT PHRASES

English is one of modern India’s 22 official languages, and is widely learnt as the second language in most countries. Enjoy it and avoid falling into some common error traps. BY MAHESH TRIVEDI

�advertise, advise �chastise, clockwise, comprise, com-promise�despise, devise, disguise �enterprise, excise, exercise,expertise �franchise �improvise

�merchandise�otherwise �promise �revise �supervise and surprise �Also, analyse, catalyse and paralyseretain the ‘s’ (except in the US,wherethey take the -yze ending).

�Misogamist = marriage hater�Misogynist = woman hater

�Luxuriant = profuse�Luxurious = costly, ornate

�Inhuman = savage�Inhumane = lacking in human kindness

�Desert = arid region/if verb, to abandon�Dessert = course at end of meal

�Ingenious = clever�Ingenuous = candid

�Be/go/turn as red as a beetroot – go red in the facewith embarrassment/anger/shame�A red herring – an unimportant or irrelevant matter introduced into adiscussion to divert attention from the main subject, the truth, etc.�A red-letter day – an important or joyful occasion whichone looks forward to or remembers with pleasure�See red – suddenly become very angry, lose one’s temper�Like a red rag to a bull – certain to make someone extremely angry�On red alert – ready for and expecting danger

�Would you stop that?�You are really trying my patience!�That's driving me nuts!�That's really bugging me.�That's getting on my nerves!�That's grating on my nerves!�Go blow.�Go fry an egg.�Go suck a lemon.�Go climb a tree!�Buzz off !�Bug off!

�Gizmo�Thingy�Widget�Thingamajig�Thingummy�Whatnot

�Whosis�Whatsisname�Whatchamacallit�Hootenanny�Dohickey�Diddlebob

�HAGN – Have a good night.�HAND – Have a nice day.�HHOK – Ha ha! Only kidding!�H&K – Hugs and kisses.�ICCL – I couldn’t care less.�IMTNG – I am in a meeting.�ITSF8 – It’s fate.�J4F – Just for fun.�JFK – Just for the kicks.�JMO – Just my opinion.�JK – Just kidding.

Try these expressions when a beggar, salesman, yournagging wife, a chatterbox friend, etc, annoy you:

Americans insist on -ize. Traditionally, UK usage prefers -ise, but theOxford English Dictionary now also suggests -ize. Indeed, you can useeither as long as you do so consistently. The -ize ending is the moreglobally accepted form on the web.But the following words MUST take the -ise ending:

Call them “nonsense” words but they cometo your rescue when you forget the exactword for a device, term, person or the kind:


Views On News 07 March 2016

News & Politics

Transcript of Views On News 07 March 2016