Download - Final views on news 07 april 2015 single pages smallest

VIEWS ON NEWSAPRIL 7, 2015 `100

THE CRITICAL EYE

www.viewsonnewsonline.com

Media Trials: When social posts hamper justice 18

Goodbye to Lucknow Boy 26

Advertising and films: White is right 36

VIDARBHA: INDIA STOPS SHINING , WIDOWS WAIT FOR RELIEF 42

ANANDIBEN: TAKING THE LEGACY FORWARD 46

Governance Section

India Today’s southern editions bite the dust 12

GONE

WINDWITH THE

Aroon Purie

IN EVERY ISSUE of Views On News (VON) we now carry

a page titled “Editors’ Pick”. Our team scans the net, the

blogosphere, newspapers and magazines and settles on

a story, column or editorial which we believe represents

the best in what has appeared in the Indian media during

the fortnight that was.

The judgments we arrive at are strictly subjective. We

don’t follow any set rules, parameters or criteria—only

our instincts. And we normally arrive at a consensus. This

is because I believe VON is now a self-confident maga-

zine, read not only in the media world but also by impor-

tant decision-makers and policy movers and shakers in

every field since we added a new section on governance

and the bureaucracy.

I believe that the core idea of VON—coverage of

trends, developments, and personalities in the media—

jells adequately with the subject of governance. Admin-

istrative efficiency and reform, economic agendas and

their implementation, the performance of min-

istries, corruption are topics that should form

a part of the media’s daily business. What we

have done, in addition to reviewing how the

media covers this subject, is to cover

developments directly and hold our own

mirror to governance as well as exclusive tid-

bits that trickle out. Readers have been appre-

ciative, which is a great source of solace to

me personally.

Now back to this issue’s “Editors’ Pick”.

The item was what we call a “boxed column”

within a larger cover story in the latest edition

of Outlook featuring the controversial Times

Now anchor Arnab Goswami. It’s a must read

story because it explores, through examples

and a hailstorm of quotes, how the Goswami

phenomenon has impacted what most people

once referred to as “news”, “fairplay”, “de-

cency” and so on. Juxtaposed with that article is an obit

on Vinod Mehta, one of the finest journalists of our times,

who was also the founding editor of Outlook. This issue

of the magazine should be a collector’s item because it

is a searing and soul-searching commentary on what is

becoming of the Indian media.

Writer Satish Padmanabhan’s commentary was titled,

“Chuck The News, Give Me Yack Yack”. I think this crafty

headline is enough reason to figure out why we chose this

as “Editors’ Pick”, (even though I would have made a

slight modification and changed “Yack Yack” to “Yuk

Yuk”.) The thought-stirring piece, written with barely con-

trolled outrage, is a scathing indictment of how news

rooms have changed and how Gen Next journos, led by

their editors, are increasingly yielding to the temptation of

throwing ethics and news judgment to the winds in favor

of tasteless tamashas which fail the basic purpose of

journalism and newsgathering—to inform, to enlighten

and to serve as a bedrock of democracy. The late critic

EJ Lieblings’s profound prognostication seems to be

coming true: “The press is the weakest slat in the bed

of democracy.”

Read Padmanabhan’s piece for yourself to get the full

flavor. But I am tempted to quote the last para which is a

beauty: “The big plusses of TV—taking the viewer to

Dimapur or Singrauli, of which they have only heard, to

bring the voice of the victims and uncover the face of the

oppressor, to show the colour, smell and texture of news

as it happens in a frenetic country like ours—has been

thrown out of prime time. These days 9 o’clock looks

more and more like the kind of stuff we’d talk about after

the bulletin is over—at a pub.”

THE WEAKEST SLAT

EDIT

OR

’S N

OTE

3VIEWS ON NEWS April 7, 2015

C O N Editor-in-Chief Rajshri Rai

Managing EditorRamesh Menon

Deputy Managing EditorShobha JohnSenior EditorVishwas Kumar

Associate EditorMeha Mathur

Deputy EditorsPrabir Biswas

Niti SinghAssistant Editor

Somi DasArt Director

Anthony LawrenceSenior Visualizer

Amitava SenGraphic Designer

Lalit KhitoliyaPhotographer

Anil ShakyaNews Coordinator/Photo Researcher

Kh Manglembi DeviProduction

Pawan Kumar

OWNED BY E. N. COMMUNICATIONS PVT. LTD.

NOIDA HEAD OFFICE: A -9, Sector-68, Gautam Buddh Nagar, NOIDA (U.P.) - 201309 Phone: +9 1-0120-2471400- 432 ; FFax: + 91- 0120-2471411

e-mail: [email protected], wwebsite: www.viewsonnewsonline.comMUMBAI : Arshie Complex, B-3 & B4, Yari Road, Versova, Andheri, Mumbai- 400058

RANCHI : House No. 130/C, Vidyalaya Marg, Ashoknagar, Ranchi-834002.LUCKNOW : First floor, 21/32, A, West View, Tilak Marg, Hazratganj, Lucknow-226001.

PATNA : Sukh Vihar Apartment, West Boring Canal Road, New Punaichak, Opposite Lalita Hotel, Patna-800023.

ALLAHABAD : Leader Press, 9-A, Edmonston Road, Civil Lines, Allahabad-211 001.

For advertising & subscription [email protected]

VOLUME. VIII ISSUE. 13

Published by Prof Baldev Raj Gupta on behalf of E N Communications Pvt Ltdand printed at Amar Ujala Publications Ltd., C-21&22, Sector-59, Noida.

(UP)- 201 301 (India) All rights reserved. Reproduction or translation in anylanguage in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Requests forpermission should be directed to E N Communications Pvt Ltd . Opinions of

writers in the magazine are not necessarily endorsed by E N Communica-tions Pvt Ltd . The Publisher assumes no responsibility for the return of

unsolicited material or for material lost or damaged in transit. All correspon-dence should be addressed to E N Communications Pvt Ltd .

Chief Editorial AdvisorInderjit Badhwar

CFOAnand Raj Singh

VP (HR & General Administration)Lokesh C Sharma

Circulation ManagerRS Tiwari

LEDE

Gone with the wind

Hung by a post

12India Today shuts down its southern

editions, writes

R RAMASUBRAMANIAN

Social media misfitA septuagenarian vendor finds the spotlight of social media onhim galling as it unleashes a host of domestic problems. He nowpines for the life he once lived, writes ZEESHAN KHAN

NEW MEDIA

18In their hurry to comment, social media users forget that the finalarbitrator is the courts and their comments could harm theaccused, writes AISHWARYA RAMESH

20

4 VIEWS ON NEWS April 7 , 2015

T E N T S

EDITORS’ PICK

Chuck the news,gimme yack yackField reporting is passe, chat showshave come to rule the programmingroost, writes SATISH PADMANABHAN

29

She walks tall inModi’s shoes 46

SPECIAL REPORT

Gone in a fluff 42

R E G U L A R SEdit...............................................03

Media-go-round............................06

As the world turns.........................07

Quotes..........................................08

Vox Populi.....................................10

Expertspeak..................................11

Grapevine.....................................50

Vinod Mehta was an iconic editorwith a refreshing appetite for riskand a liberal-thinking that shapedOutlook, the magazine which gaveIndia Today a run for its money ,writes SHANTANU GUHA RAY

While the deaths of cotton farmershave often made news, most oftheir families don’t get the compensation promised by the government on one pretext or theother, writes AJITH PILLAI

ADVERTISING AND FILMS

Pigment and Prejudice 36BIKRAM VOHRA writes that if theadvertising world is to be believed, everyone wants to be fair.

Cover design: Anthony LawrenceCover Photo: Getty Images

TRENDS

Make It Snappy! 22Smartphones and othertechnology have made the life ofthe insta-gen faster and quicker.However, along with this, patienceis diminishing, writes PALLAVI DEWAN

Steeped in history, MP’s Museum of Newspapers is a treasure house of oldnewspapers, rare documents and encyclopedias, writes RAKESH DIXIT

Pilgrim’s Progress 30

OBITUARY

Goodbye, Mr Chips 26

Anandiben Patel had an unenviable task when she tookover as CM of Gujarat from acolossus. But Patel has carved aniche for herself through her unas-suming manner and her open administration, writes RK MISRA

Governance

PROFILE

HUMAN INTEREST


FOR THE FIRST time, the prestigiousChameli Devi Jain award, for excel-lence in journalism has gone to a webjournalist. Scroll.in’s Supriya Sharmahas been adjudged the winner by thejury for her “well-crafted reportage”which focused not only on the “ne-glected and the marginalized but alsoon contemporary issues”. Sharma isthe first online journalist to win theprize, which is named after freedomfighter Chameli Devi Jain. The awardhas been recognizing women journal-

ists who have upheld standards of ex-cellence for 35 years. Sharma hasbeen consistently doing some solid reporting-based articles and series forthe news and opinion website. Sheproved her reporting skills with the“window seat” election series in 2014.She undertook a rigorous journey of2,500-km by train from Assam toKashmir to cull out stories about theaspirations of the electorate and its expectation from the new government.The series won her many accolades.

TOP BOLLYWOOD ACTORS and direc-tors met Minister of State for Informa-tion & Broadcasting, RajyavardhanRathore, in New Delhi and sought PahlajNihalani’s ouster as the Censor Boardchief. Mukesh Bhatt, president of Film &

TV Producers Guild of India, AnuragKashyap, Ekta Kapoor, Karan Johar,Ritesh Sidhwani, Vidya Balan,Deepika Padukone, Ramesh Sippy,Shabana Azmi, Gulzar, Aamir Khanand Vishal Bharadwaj were amongthose who met the minister. The demand for Nihalani’s resignationcomes in the wake of a series of un-wanted cuts in some recently released films like Dum Laga ke

Haisha and NH10. Nihalani had recentlyissued a list of words that should not beused in films. The film fraternity feels, hehas created a hostile environment that iscurbing artistic freedom.

M

THERE IS OFTEN tremendous pressure onwomen to dress well and look presentableto please others. Often, a woman is un-fairly judged for her dressing sense.Stand-up comic and columnist RadhikaVaz has joined hands with online shoppingportal FabAlley in a campaign, “#unfol-low”, to ease this pressure off women. Ina powerful video, Vaz goes all nude tobring home the frustration that women gothrough to conform to fashion trends. Thevideo shows her delivering a stand-up actwithout any clothes on. She says: “So thereason I am always in a bad mood is Ihave to start my day with a question that Idon’t have an answer for: what the f**k towear…the pressure is f****ing exhaust-ing. So you know what, f**k the pressure,expectation and the fashion police. Ichoose to be uncliched, to be unnormaland to be unboring. I choose to unfollow.”

Web journo awarded

Viral memes:#AdarshLiberal vs#AdarshBhaktTHERE IS A raging online war betweenideal liberals and ideal bhakts. Theweapons the two camps are hurling ateach other are two viral memes spellingout the characteristics of a liberal and abhakt. So who is an #AdarshLiberal? Thememes say, one who goes on expensiveholidays, eats beef, supports naxals,etc.On the other hand, the qualities of an#AdarshBhakt are —he worships Modi

and Godse, eats beef secretly but opposes it in public, joins RSS instead ofthe Army, etc. Some prominent namesjoined in this fun slur. Attacking #Adarsh-Liberals author Chetan Bhagat tweeted:#AdarshLiberal speaks on behalf of marginalised, but doesn't actually believein empowering them.”

Campaignagainst fashion police

B-town wants Nihalani to be sacked

EDIA-GO-ROUND


AFTER BEING SUSPENDED by the BBC,

journalist and Top Gear presenter JeremyClarkson has hinted that he might resign.Clarkson has been suspended by the BBCafter he reportedly got into a fracas with aTop Gear producer, Oisin Tymon, at a York-shire hotel. In his column in The Sun, hesaid that he is a “dinosour” and the timehas come to say goodbye to the “mon-sters”, hinting that he might resign.

He allegedly “smacked” Tymon, 36,after being offered a “cold platter”. BBC’sinternal inquiry on the issue is underway. Allthe parties involved in the Yorkshire incident

will be questioned by BBC’s Scotland direc-tor, Ken MacQuarrie.

The Telegraph, in a report quotedsources from within the BBC as saying thatClarkson’s behaviour was a result of thesupport he enjoys from high connections,including Prime Minister David Cameron.However, Clarkson has received huge support from his fans and well-wishers.“Bring Back Clarkson” petition has got 800,000-plus online signatures. Accordingto The Telegraph, BBC's decision to cancelTop Gear while it investigates Clarkson,resulted in a loss of four million viewers.

A FRENCH REPORTER, Anna Erelle, is liv-ing under the constant threat of ISIS. Erellais being targeted by the Islamic terroristgroup for “betraying” one of their com-manders. The threats began after she re-cently published her book, In the Skin of a

Jihadist, where she documents her experi-ence and conversation with a senior ISIScommander, Abou-Bilel, as a undercoverreporter. To understandwhy young Muslims,both men and women,are attracted to ISIS andtravel to Syria to jointheir jihad, she createda fake profile on theMuslim online commu-

nity. Soon, she attracted the attention ofAbou-Bilel. According to New York Post, hefell in love with her and invited her to joinhim in the caliphate in Syria. It was throughher conversation with Bilel that she under-stood the life in ISIS camps and what luresyoung men and women to that life. Shesays: “They say they reject the West, thatthey are anti-capitalist, but they love luxury

and designer labels, it’sall Nike trainers and Ray-Ban sunglasses withtheir military clothes. It’sanother way of luring inkids, of saying, ‘I wasonce poor like you butlook at me now’.”

S THE WORLD TURNSABBC’s Jeremy Clarkson may resign

French journo’s ISIS boyfriend

WITH INCREASING NUMBER of requests for taking down onlinecontent, Facebook has issued a new set of guidelines on what canbe removed and what cannot be. The new community standards now include a separate section on"dangerous organisations" and give more details about what typesof nudity Facebook allows to be posted. Speaking to the BBC,

Monika Bicket, Facebook's global head of content policy, said therevamping was intended to address confusion about why sometakedown requests were rejected.

New takedown guidelinesfrom Facebook

Lebanesetold to “shut up”

A LEBANESE ANCHOR, Rima Karaki,has earned world-wide support forstanding up against the sexist remarks ofa London-based Islamist, Hani Al-Seba'i.In a video that has gone viral, the Al Ja-

heed anchor is seen interviewing Seba’ion reports of Christians joining Islamicgroups such as ISIS in the Middle East.Instead of answering her question di-rectly, the guest goes onto explain thehistorical aspect of the issue. WhenKaraki tries to interrupt and ask him tofocus on the issue, Seba’l says: “Shutup so I can talk...It's beneath me to be in-terviewed by you. You are a woman.” Tothis Karaki retorted: “There is mutual re-spect, or this conversation is over.”


U O T E SQAnupam Kher, actorRahul Gandhi's snooping (if at all)may ultimately help him. He mayget to know who he is:)

Gaurav Sawant,editor, Strategic Affairs,HeadlinesTodayInstead of maulvis if some obscure

Muthalik type had banned womenplaying football in Bengal, the outrage industry would be in overdrive.

Omar Abdullah, former J&K CMSo either Alam has turned a newleaf & done a deal with Mufti Syedor he will go back to organisingtrouble in the valley. Time will tell.

Tushar A Gandhi, author, columnist Beef ban in Maharashtra &Haryana is a message to Dalits,Christian, Parsis, Jews & Muslims,in BJP's India they are 3rdclass citizens.

Harish Salve,Supreme Courtlawyer In the world of spy satellites, wiretap and the like, wonder whethervisit by a cop with a questionnaireshould cause concern or amusement.

Sanjay Jha, Congressspokesperson Attacks on churches in Pakistan. Attacks on churches in India.UnderCongress,we aspired for China'sgrowth. Under Modi, we imitate Pakistan.

People who commitsuch crimes are not

humans. Our sentiments are with

the victim, who is likeour mother. The

culprits are a disgraceto society.

—West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee

on gangrape of a nun in the state

Your god is dark like RaviShankar Prasad (BJPleader), but your matrimonial ads insist onwhite-skinned brides… Thewomen of the south aredark but they are as beautiful as their bod-ies...We don't see it here.They know dance. — JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav inparliament, during a debate onthe insurance bill

Kejriwal was nothing but asmall single city leader. Hewas getting far more coverage than he deservedas compared to other moreestablished opposition partyleaders. So why spend timeeven ignoring someone?

—Narendra Modi's reaction afterArvind Kejriwal announced his candidature for the Lok Sabha

polls from Varanasi, in "TheModi Effect: Inside Narendra

Modi’s Campaign to Transform India”


I can leave tennis for mydaughter, any day.

— Tennis star Leander Paeson what he feels about his

daughter Aiyana, in HT City

In Arnab’s theatre,

journalists like me havea prescribed role. We arecalled upon to endorseArnab’s opinion.

—Columnist HartoshSingh Bal, in Outlook

After interacting withRahul Gandhi, I am confident that RahulGandhi has the necessaryqualities to lead theparty...We have no option but to go along

with him. The Congresshas no other pan-Indianleader.

— Former Chhattisgarh chiefminister Ajit Jogi in an interview

to scroll.in

Gandhi was objectively aBritish agent who did greatharm to India…. He

furthered the British policy ofdivide and rule.

— Press Council chairman JusticeMarkandey Katju in his personal

blog post

People compare me to ViratKohli which is not right becausehe bats higher up the order.

—Pakistan batsman Umar Akmal currently playing in World Cup 2015, in

Indiatoday.in

A mosque is nota religious place.It is just a build-ing and it can be

demolished anytime... I got this information from

people of Saudi Arabia.—BJP leader Subramanian

Swamy in Guwahati, in The IndianExpress


OX POPULI

Cricket MANIA

V

It is the World Cup season and news channels aredevoting a lot of airtime to cricket. VON asks a cross-sec-tion of people if there is an overdose of cricket coverage?

No, there isn’t. It is likeasking whether there is an

overdose of religion orpolitics in our society.

There can't be enough ofcricket as there are alwaysmore takers available, like

Americans can't haveenough of basketball or

Europeans of football.

— Ashwini Bhatnagar, editor-in-chief,

www.writeconnectindia.com

This is a country of cricketobsessed people waiting toconsume any piece ofinformation that is directlyor indirectly related to thesport. There are so manyother significant issues tobe talked about. I’m notanti-cricket and usuallyenjoy a match. But therehas to be a limit.

— Anurag Gupta, copywriter,Isobar India

I am a football fan but I watchthat on sports channels. Newschannels don’t have much onfootball, it’s only cricket there.But that’s justified givenIndia’s craziness. If news chan-nels don’t show cricket, howwill they keep their viewershappy?

— Arunabh Mathur, AmitySchool student

There is an overdose ofcricket news on TV

channels. Keeping in mindthe popularity of the sport,

the channels want to ensurethat they don't disappoint

cricket fans by not covering enough!

— Akriti, Hindu College student

There is definitely anoverdose of cricketcoverage. After thematch against Pak-istan, TV reporterswere seen talking tochildren who wereneighbors of ViratKohli and ShikharDhawan; after Gayle’s200, there was an in-terview with the manwho made Gayle’s bat.All of this adds novalue to the sport. Atthe same time, manyimportant stories receive considerablyless resources andtherefore less coverage,a case in point beingthe leftist agitations following Pansare'sdeath in Mumbai.

— Ranjan Crasta, script-writer and producer

I don’t think there is an overdose of cricket news.One must not forget the popularity that the gameenjoys. Cricket is religion and cricketers are stars

here. Being the most popularsport in the country, it de-

serves media attention, espe-cially at a time when the

Indian team is playing itsbiggest event, i.e. the WorldCup, and we also happen to

be the defending champions.

— Avinash Sharma, media professional


What do you feel about the quality of sportcoverage in India? Just like political, foreign affairs or business coverages,

some of it is excellent, some average and some poor.

What may not be be acceptable to me might be fine with

another segment of viewers or readers. Each publica-

tion/website/TV station has its own method and its own

audience to appeal to. I work at ESPN Cricinfo, the

world's largest single sports digital platform, and take

great pride in the high standards that are followed here.

Often, cricket is branded as the sports that's

killing other games. Is that a valid accusation? No. Over the last few years, there has been a visible in-

crease in coverage of other sports. You can notice this

across platforms. India is producing many world-class

athletes and sportmen, across tennis, badminton, shoot-

ing and other Olympic disciplines. This trend is being

reflected strongly in media. Some of India's most pop-

ular sportspersons now are not cricketers.

How much of a role

does media cover-

age play in increas-

ing the popularity of

a sport? Media coverage plays an

important role. It is in

some ways a chicken and

egg situation. Stories of

success find greater trac-

tion and in recent times,

there have been many

more of those to report in

India. For instance, even

in the middle of a cricket

World Cup, Saina Ne-

hwal's final at the All-England badminton championships

was hugely followed. The media has played only a small

role in elevating her to iconic status; she has accomplished

it mostly by her own feats.

Sometimes cricket coverage in India canborder on the ridiculous. Just a few days back,an English news channel was doing a show onhow their reporter is enjoying bungee-jumpingin Australia. Don’t you think such reports are acolossal waste of airtime and resources of achannel? You many consider this to be ridiculous but please re-

member the audience is not a monolith. They are inter-

ested in various kinds of coverage. Australia and New

Zealand are countries that attract curiosity and I see noth-

ing wrong with a reporter showing more than just the

usual run-of-the-mill stories to his viewers. I believe there

is space for light material of this kind on a channel.

Who are your favorite sports journalists?

Me! (Just kidding). My favorite cricket writer was the late

Peter Roebuck. Forgive me for the bias but I have always

admired ESPN Cricinfo’s editor Sambit Bal, even before I

started working with him for what he has achieved with

the website. I have great regard for Pradeep Magazine of

Hindustan Times.

“THERE’S BEEN AVISIBLE INCREASE

IN COVERAGE OFOTHER SPORTS”

VON speaks to GAURAV KALRA, senior

editor at ESPN Cricinfo, to understand the quality of

sports coverage in India andwhether the media focusestoo much on cricket at the

cost of other sports

Expertspeak Gaurav Kalra


THE WINDGONE WITH

LedeIndia Today language editions

India Today’s southern editions bite the dust


ONTHE

EBRUARY 13, 2015, will be

marked forever in the mem-

ory of all those who were as-

sociated with the Tamil,

Telugu and the Malayalam is-

sues of the flagship India

Today magazine. The entire team, comprising the

editorial, production, administration and the IT de-

partments, met at a mass farewell following the de-

cision to close down the three language editions, 25

years after they had been launched. The news

spread fast, and over a dozen former employees vol-

untarily came to the office, to discuss the chequered

journey of the three editions, that had been pep-

pered by hot zeal and enthusiasm at one time.

“Old-timers came in to show their emotional at-

tachment with the organization,” a security guard at

the 9,000 sq ft office building observed.

The routine photo-opportunities on the last day

helped to lighten the mood. “You are all sacked and

still you are busy taking pictures?” remarked PG

Sekaran, one of Chennai’s leading television an-

chors, dryly.

SUDDEN DECISIONOn February 9, the Group CEO, Ashish Bagga,

along with a team of HR officials arrived in Chen-

nai, and iafterc a closed-door meeting with the staff,

announced the closure of the three editions. He said

the magazines had been incurring losses for 20 years

and the company could not bear them any longer.

“The last edition, that will hit the stands on Feb-

ruary 15, will announce the closure. The staff will

be compensated adequately,” he said.

Later, editor-in-chief and proprietor Aroon

Purie, in an internal e-mail, informed the staff about

the decision. Purie said that by April 30, the south-

ern office of the Group would function from a

smaller space of 6,500 sq ft, in the same premises.

The smaller office would have a small editorial bu-

reau and a marketing and sales team.

F

Proprietor Aroon Purie, in an internalemail, informed the staff about the closure. Earlier, the approval for Delhiwas a must for even a small news note.

The signals had been there since September

2013, when after an editorial meeting in Chennai,

attended by the magazine’s top brass, it was an-

nounced that the three regional editions were bleed-

ing. The plan, to convert the Malayalam and the

Telugu editions into monthlies, was shelved by Purie

till the general elections in May 2014.

However, again in September 2014, after a

Delhi-level editorial meeting, it was announced that

efforts were on to convert the Telugu and the Malay-

alam magazines into monthlies. On both the occa-

sions, it was said that there was no need to convert

the Tamil magazine into a monthly. Therefore,

the news of the closure of the Tamil issue,

on February 9, came as an

unexpected jolt.

ADVENTUROUS JOURNEY It had been a long and exciting jour-

ney. The first issue of the Tamil mag-

azine was published on September

1989. A year later, the Malayalam and

the Telugu issues were launched.

“Those were the good old days. We

were fully and emotionally involved with

the magazines. After two dummy issues, we

launched the first issue which featured the

feud between Nusli Wadia and

Dhirubhai Ambani on the

cover. There were set

rules for each story,

whether it was con-

cerning VP Singh,

BY R RAMASUBRAMANIAN


OLD ASSOCIATION (From left) Aazhi

Senthilnathan, a formerassociate editor and

S Nana, a senior designer, of the

Tamil edition

of the IK Gujral government and the ascendency of

the BJP were great feasts for the readers. “Raj Chen-

gappa’s war reporting and Shekhar Gupta’s coverage

of the collapse of the Soviet Union gave a feeling to

the reader in Tamil Nadu that he too was a part of

these historic world events,” says Nana.

In Tamil Nadu’s politics too, these were interest-

ing times. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, J Jay-

alalithaa’s downfall and arrest, Rajnikanth chasing

great heights in cinema, the split in the DMK—all

provided great fodder for the magazine.

The Tamil Nadu edition was the pioneer in

structuring cover stories, using data for analysis, di-

agrams, boxes, factoids, photo essays, and so on.

Other Tamil magazines later started following the

same format.

There were teething problems. “Covering local

issues was a problem. The first two editors—S

Malan and Vaasanthi—were from a literature back-

ground and were not hardcore journalists. Though

this had its advantages, the disadvantages were

many since it was a political news magazine. It was

not localized properly—and I would blame Delhi

Rajiv Gandhi or Amitabh Bachchan. This uniformity

created a rhythm in the production quality and in the

layouts,” says S Nana, a senior designer, who designed

both the first issue in 1989, as well as the last issue on

February 2015.

In keeping with the trend in Delhi, the fortnightly

magazines were made weeklies in the late nineties.

The initial days were full of struggle. “The selec-

tion of Tamil fonts was difficult. The layouts were im-

perfect. But both the content and the printing were

rich. The biggest challenge was the transformation.

A six-page story from New Delhi would be squeezed

into four pages for the Tamil edition. We lost in lay-

outs and in the translations, but the situation im-

proved over time,” adds Nana.

As is usual with weeklies, sometimes both the

production and the editorial had to race against time

because on Thursdays and Fridays, 40 pages had to

be completed with inadequate staff strength.

The period from 1989 to 2000 was exciting. The

debacle of Rajiv Gandhi, the Gulf War, the collapse

of the Soviet Union, the unleashing of the economic

reforms, the Jain Commission report leaks, the fall

“A few companiesthat wanted to

advertise in theTamil edition were

chased out afterenormous pressure

was exerted onthem to advertise inthe English edition

as well. It was a cal-culated, well-de-

signed andpurposeful

carnage.—An India Today insider.



MARKING THE CUT(Below) Group CEOAshish Bagga

for this. The problem worsened in the later stages

as the magazine failed miserably to evolve a robust

culture in generating local stories at par with na-

tional standards,” says Aazhi Senthilnathan, a for-

mer associate editor of India Today’s Tamil edition.

“The magazine had a pan-India character. The

news stories in those days were full of depth and

360 degrees’ perception. The concept of specialists

writing columns in Tamil journalism was intro-

duced by India Today,” adds Senthilnathan.

DELHI-CENTRIC APPROACHIndia Today injected professionalism in news jour-

nalism but the lack of localization created a peculiar

situation for the Tamil issue wherein it was looked

upon as an alien in the eyes of its readers. For every

story, including small news notes, approval from

Delhi was a must.

Some old-timers say that there was an attempt

in 2002 to change the situation after Anand Natara-

jan took over as executive editor. He concentrated

on local stories and tried to introduce some new

sections. Unfortunately, the lack of support from

Delhi and Natarajan’s inherent weaknesses as a

journalist destroyed the attempts.

Most observers agree that the Delhi-centric ap-

proach was the cause of the collapse. The result was

that the Tamil issue, that was selling 2.75 lakh

copies at one time came down to 24,000.

Another factor for the downslide was the lack

of interest shown by the marketing, advertising,

sales and distribution departments. Says an insider

on the condition of anonymity: “If anyone from

Chennai, for example, a big textile brand, wanted

to advertise in India Today Tamil, the office would

get a call from New Delhi and be given sermons

about the space in the magazine. The tone

and tenor would be such that the

advertiser dropped the plan alto-

gether. This destroyed the adver-

tising market for the

regional editions.”

He adds: “A few companies

that wanted to advertise in the

Tamil edition were chased out

after enormous pressure was ex-

erted on them to advertise in

the English edition as well. It

was a calculated, well-designed

and purposeful carnage.”

Senthilnathan agrees: “They

didn’t have a regional space-selling

program. Except Aroon Purie, no one in

the organization had any interest.” He says

this is a classic example of the saying that

“the fish rots from the head.”

Senthilnathan further says that he had an

inkling of the magazine’s jeopardized future

A senior executive says Purie’s son, who iscontrolling Thompson Press in Chennai,wants to sell the property. “ThompsonPress is functioning from 18 acres of land.It is worth nearly Rs 160 crore,” he says.


inevitable decision,” says

a senior executive of the

company who did not

want to be named.

The situation got

worse after the Birla

Group took 26 percent of

shares in the company.

“The pressure of Birlas is

one of the reasons but not

the only one. The Purie

siblings have started los-

ing interest in the re-

gional market,” the

source adds.

Another senior executive says that Purie’s son,

Ankur Purie, who is controlling Thompson Press

at Maraimalai Nagar near Chennai, is not inter-

ested as he wants to sell the property. “Thompson

Press is functioning from 18 acres of land. It is

worth nearly Rs 160 crore. They are not taking

any new orders. The argument that it has to be

maintained for printing the southern editions of

India Today is not cutting any ice with Purie’s son;

he says that the English edition has a print order

of just 40,000 copies for the entire South Indian

region; he does not need to keep such a big prop-

erty for that pittance,” he says. Real estate, it

seems, has taken precedence over journalism.

Today, there is a huge vacuum for quality

Tamil magazines. Despite all its shortcomings,

India Today can fill the gap. “Yes, even if they

restart after six months or after a year, they will

capture the market, because there is no competi-

tor, who can match their quality,” says Nana.

Probably this was the reason why old-timers

visited the Chennai office on the last day; there is

a longing for good regional journalism.

(The author was a principal correspondent with

India Today’s Tamil edition.)

when the Chennai of-

fice was being moved to

a rented space in March

2012. “While shifting, they wanted to get rid of their

earlier copies, spanning 23 years. I was flabbergasted.

They were finally given away to a library. The old

copies of India Today, all the data and the record they

carried, which spoke volumes about India’s politics

and other subjects, would have earned Rs 50 crore

from Google or Microsoft. Alas, they decided to do-

nate it to a library.”

Senthilnathan says that India Today’s refusal to go

for technological upgradation was also a problem.

The Tamil, Telugu and the Malayalam editions did

not even have websites. It’s a pity that at a time when

the media segment is moving towards digitalization,

India Today which had 25 years of market leadership,

decided to dispense with it for its local editions.

REAL ESTATE DRAWInsiders at the Delhi office say that the next genera-

tion is not interested in the business. “Aroon Purie

had a passion for regional language editions. These

three were his pet projects. Unfortunately neither his

daughters nor his son have any love for the regional

editions. Purie is getting old and he cannot resist the

pressure from his family members from taking the


NEWSMAKERS(Left) Actor

Rajnikanths’s legendary rise and

(right) AIADMKsupremo

J Jayalalithaa’s chequered political

career providedenough fodder to the

regional editions ofIndia Today

Anil Shakya


Views On News (VON) is India’s premier fortnightly magazine that covers the wide spectrum of modern communication loosely known as “the media”. Its racy, news and analysis oriented story-telling encompasses current global and Indian developments, trends, future projections encompassing policy and business drifts, the latest from inside the print and electronic newsrooms, the exciting developments in ever-expanding digital space, trending matters in the social media, advertising, entertainment and books.

EVERY FORTNIGHT VIEWS ON NEWS WILL BRING YOU TELL-ALL NEWS, ANALYSES AND OPINION FROM THE SHARPEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS AND MOST INCISIVE MINDS IN THE NATION

An ENC PublicationIf the media is leaving you behind, stay ahead of it by picking up yesterday’s Views On News!

VIEWS ON NEWSDon’t miss a single issue of this stimulating, unbiased, entertaining new fortnightly magazine and get special discounts for yourself and your friends

E. N. COMMUNICATION PVT. LTD.A -9, Sector-68, Gautam Buddh Nagar, NOIDA (U.P.) Pin : 201309. Phone: + 91–0120–2471400–432 / Fax: + 91–0120–[email protected] / [email protected] / www.encnetwork.in

ESSAR LEAKS

MARCH 22, 2015 `100VIEWS ON NEWSTHE CRITICAL EYEwww.viewsonnewsonline.com

Raj Kamal Jha’s book shows the

highs and lows of metro life 30

P Sainath:

Still an idealist 26

EESSAR LEAKS

Corporate-Press

interplay

BUDGET: TAME FARE 38

WHO’S WHO OF AAP’S

STING-AND-TELL

ESCAPADE 44

WHY IS MEDIA

SILENT ON MODI

GOVT? 46

Governance Section

P Sainath:P Sainath:

Still an idea

HE emergence of new media has

thrown up a host of problems, one of

which is trial by media. Due procedure

of law dictates that a criminal be tried in

a court of law and appropriate punish-

ment be awarded. However, increas-

ingly, popular media has taken the trial into its own hands,

passing judgments and pronouncing people guilty, mostly with-

out evidence or proof. In most cases, media’s implication of guilt

may have an adverse effect on the outcome of the case, which

is why comments on public forums should be made judiciously.

In order to avoid trials by media, the Press Council of India

(PCI) has laid down guidelines for reporting cases. PCI warns

journalists not to give excessive publicity to victims, witnesses,

suspects and the accused as it amounts to invasion of privacy.

It is commonly understood that the identification of witnesses

T

New mediaUnwanted verdicts


Hung by a post

In their hurry to comment, socialmedia users forget that the finalarbitrator is the courts and theircomments could harm the accusedBY AISHWARYA RAMESH

CHECK FACTSIn the race to make comments, facts and

evidence are given short shrift. The re-

ality is that a social media user has the

same access to facts and fig-

ures that a journalist

has. What differenti-

ates the two is that the

social media user may not

do extensive research before putting across

data. “People are too quick to judge on social

media,” says Rohan Jagan, a journalist with the

Sakaal media group. “Take the case of the Dimapur

mob lynching the rapist. Many people on my FB

timeline agreed that this is how a rapist must be

punished. No one bothered to let the law take its

natural course,” he says. “Similar was the case with

the BBC documentary. Many of those who ex-

pressed anger against its ban, might not have even

seen it,” he says.

Debdatta Sengupta, a journalism student at

Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communications,

Pune, would like to tread cautiously. “There have

been instances where people in power have targeted

social media users for expressing their viewpoints,

so I make it a point to be cautious,” she says. On the

other hand, Shamir Reuben, her batchmate, says:

“Truth is bitter, but it needs to be heard.”

But the point is, who decides the truth?

may endanger their lives and force them to turn

hostile. However, media trials still happen brazenly,

with social media giving people a platform to voice

their opinion. Also, the hashtag trend ensures that

people keep commenting on issues that

interest them.

DEEP REPERCUSSIONS“People get influenced by comments circulating on

social media forums. So ultimately, if the court’s ver-

dict is not the same as theirs, there might be

protests,” says Roshni Karthikeyan, social media ed-

itor, The New Indian Express.

This also has deep repercussions on the victim.

“He (the accused) will have no clue as to what his

situation will be. He will have mixed feelings about

the court’s judgment versus people’s judgment and

be scared to step out of the prison if and when re-

leased,” she adds.

Whether it is voicing opinions about the beef

ban in some states, or the Nirbhaya rape-accused

Mukesh Singh’s comments on BBC’s banned docu-

mentary India’s Daughter or India losing a match

against Pakistan, social media users are taking full

advantage of the availability (and anonymity) of the

platform to voice their opinion. A single tweet, a

wall post or an image has the potential to go viral.

The issue keeps trending till the news becomes stale,

or till the next piece of news hits the internet.


Instances of trial by social media: �On November 19, 2012, two girls, ShaheenDadha and Renu Srinivasan were arrested by thePalghar police in Thane. Shaheen had posted herviews on Bal Thackeray’s death, stating that“people like [Bal] Thackeray are born and die dailyand one should not observe a bandh for that. Weshould remember Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev, twomartyrs of India’s independence struggle”. �People’s Union of Civil Liberties leader Jaya Vin-dhyala was arrested at her residence in Secunder-

abad for posting objectionable content on a socialnetworking site. She was arrested under Section66 of the Information Technology Act which isnon-bailable.�Sanjay Chowdhary, a resident of Dayalbagh, anAgra suburb, was arrested on February 5, 2013,for putting “communal and inflammatory”comments on Facebook about Prime MinisterManmohan Singh, ex-telecom minister Kapil Sibaland Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.A senior officer said he was arrested to prevent

communal flare-up.�Kanwal Bharti, a poet, was arrested forquestioning the arrest of civil servant DurgaShakti Nagpal on social media. Durga Nagpal wassuspended for demolition of a wall which was apart of the mosque. �Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested by theMumbai police in September 2012 for putting upbanners mocking the constitution. He has alsobeen charged with posting seditious and obscenecontent on his website, which has been blocked.

Insta Fame

New Mediasociety and change

A septuagenarian vendor finds the spotlight of social media onhim galling as it unleashes a host of domestic problems. He nowpines for the life he once livedBY ZEESHAN KHAN

QUEAK! SQUEAK!” This is the

familiar sound that grabs people’s

attention as they hurry between

Gate No 7 and 8 of Rajiv Chowk

Metro Station, bang in the middle

of New Delhi. Amidst the hustle

and bustle, 77-year-old PV Saar occupies a bench,

opposite the Van Heusen showroom, along with

colorful handbags, floating ducks, incense sticks

and a brown travelling bag. He periodically raises

his puppets, and makes them squeak.

Saar, a retired bank manager, spent all his sav-

ings on his son’s study. Unfortunately, the son is

no more. His pension went into the marriage of

his three children. He is now reduced to selling on

the pavement.

He usually wears a shirt tucked in his high-

waist trousers, has a pair of thick glasses and a

walking stick. He stays in Bahadurgarh, Haryana,

and travels 150 km every day. He lives with his

wife, who is suffering from asthma, while one of

his married daughters stays in Delhi. He leaves for

work at 3 pm every day, taking a shared taxi from

his house till Peeragadhi, from where he takes the

metro to come to Rajiv Chowk.

UNEXPECTED MEDIA GAZEFor the past few months, he is being visited by

“fans”. “Uncleji aapka video dekha tha Facebook pe.

Bohot khushi hue aapse mil ke. (Uncle, I saw your

Social media misfit

S


BRAVEHEART(Above) PV Saarwith his toys at hisbench inConnaught Place,Delhi; (facingpage) theFacebook imagethat went viral andtriggered acampaign

from a woman in the US, went missing. Saar was

later informed about it by the father of

the woman.

He has now decided to keep mum and requests

people not to write about him, though he appre-

ciates the help. “Abhi kuch din pehle do ladkiyan

aayin aur mujhse kaha ke hum aapki madat karna

chahte hain. Maine kaha bilkul keejiye. Unhone na

jaane kya kiya, ek ghante mein sab bik gaya. Bohot

pyaari bachhiyan thi. Bhagwaan unein khoob

tarakki de. (A few days back, two girls came and

volunteered to help me. I asked them to do it if

they wanted. They sold out everything I had in an

hour. I pray that they succeed in their lives).”

He yearns for a life of anonymity. “One day,

they’ll find something else to talk about, and it’ll

all be forgotten. I just wish that my family lives in

peace,” he says.

video on Facebook. I am glad to meet you),” people

tell him.

Saar’s popularity began with a Facebook post

by the Rashtriya Shiv Sena on June 4, 2014. “Salute

and Respect”, read the caption below his photo-

graph. It soon started trending and within weeks,

his image was “liked” by over 1.5 lakh people. On

June 20, 2014, a YouTube video of Saar’s interview

by an aspiring actor went viral. Within a week, Rs

1,51,600 had been collected and donated to him.

Once he came under the media glare, reporters

and documentary filmmakers started digging

deeper into his life. However, what came along

with the sudden, unsolicited attention, were a se-

ries of domestic issues. Saar’s relatives were un-

aware that he was a puppet-seller; he preferred it

that way. With the sudden hype, he became a vic-

tim of social ridicule. Since street vendors are

among the lowest strata of society, finding one’s

relative or neighbor in the same boat unleashes

unease. The limelight that Saar never asked for

was costing him his peace of mind.

FORCED TO LEAVE HOMEAs Saar’s personal space shrank, troubles at home

reached a new low and forced him to leave Rohtak

and move in with his brother in Bahadurgarh.

“Video banana, photo kheechna who bhi bina

bataye, chalo who bhi theek hai. Par jab log mujhe

bina jaane mere bare mein ulta-sulta likhte hain

toh bohot afsos hota hai. Mujhe ek din kisi ne

bataya ke kisi ne Facebook wale photo pe comment

kiya, ‘This is new age begging’. Ek newspaper ne

kuch likha mujh par aur headline di, ‘Apno ka saath

choda, khilauno se nata joda’. Taqleef hoti hai par

abb kya karein? (It hurts when people without

knowing me say anything they wish. Someone

told me that somebody commented on Facebook

that ‘This is new age begging’. A newspaper article

headline read: ‘Abandoned by dear ones, made

friends with toys’. It hurts, but what can be

done?),” he asks helplessly.

Incidentally, a donation of $25,000, collected

Since street vendors are among the loweststrata of society, finding one’s relative inthe same boat unleashes a lot of unrest.Saar realized that the limelight he hadnever asked for was costing him heavily.

Zeeshan Khan


Trends Technology overdrive

That’s what the insta-generation would like to tell everyone. Afterall, smartphones and other technology have made their lifefaster and quicker. Along with this, patience is diminishing anddeep thought missingBY PALLAVI DEWAN

STAYED without my phone for a week! I

should be rewarded!” exclaimed Arunima

Gaikwad, a 25-year-old photographer

from Pune, waiting to get her smartphone

back from the Samsung service centre, and

making no attempt to veil her disgust at

the delay. The rapid advances in new technology have made

the new generation accustomed to getting anything they want

in a jiffy. Why wait for a movie’s DVD to come out if you can

watch it on Netflix? Why stand in long queues to book tickets

when it can be done on your smartphone? Why think when

you can Google? The present generation has seen both sides

of the coin; it has evolved from a Sony Walkman to an Apple

Isnappy! Make it


WANT A DATE?IT professionalAmit Sharma, whoregularly uses thedating app Tinder

these have brought people closer and this is all the

result of fast-speed internet,” says Nohar Kumar

Chona, a 21-year-old political science student

from Delhi University.

HANDY ORGANIZERWith mobile applications (apps) readily available

for almost every minute function, life has become

quick and convenient. Aunum Mehta, a 24-year-

old professional from Mumbai, uses her iPhone to

organize her life on the go. “I check my phone

every five minutes. From booking movie tickets

to paying my electricity bill and shopping for the

most basic utilities as well as cosmetics, from web-

sites like Flipkart and Big Basket, the phone comes

handy for everything,” she says. She feels handi-

capped without her phone and can barely sur-

iPod, from a simple T9 keypad phone to multi-

tasking smartphones like OnePlus and iPhones,

from animation games like Mario to Assassin’s

Creed, from dial-up to 4G speed internet.

Gone are the days when a video would take an

hour to buffer, or a movie would take four hours

to download. The waiting time has been steadily

decreasing with advancements in technology. “I

recently upgraded my internet pack from 15mbps

to 20mbps for the same price. It’s great to down-

load a movie in 10 minutes,” says Anish Sharma,

a 27-year-old-software engineer from Pune.

Consumers now deem it their right to derive

instant appeasement. It is imperative to stay con-

nected, at all times. Everything should be readily

available in this age of instant coffees, instant pho-

tographs, instant recharge, instant chocolate, in-

stant payments, instant banking, insta-glow,

instant loans, instant information, instant online

dating; the list is endless.

“Sending snaps of a meal I’m eating, a new

place I’ve visited, a party I’ve gone to or the sport

I am playing, on my Snapchat or Instagram is the

‘done’ thing. Technology and applications like

It becomes “breaking news” ifFacebook statuses aren’t updating, orWhatsApp servers are down. Is itthe end of the world if you don’t postwhat you’re eating?


ier.” Human relationships have become conven-

ience-based and the very spirit of sharing warm

and close ties is missing.

THE CONSThere is, however, a dark side to this desire for

fast gratification. Inadvertently, the insta-gen is

paying a huge price without even realizing it—

and this is impatience. According to The Inde-

pendent, in a conversation with a student, Adaeze

Uyanwah from California, physicist and author

Stephen Hawking, said that the “aggressive na-

ture” of the people around will “destroy us all”.

In fact, patience and tolerance are no longer

part of the new generation’s vocabulary. It be-

comes “breaking news” if Facebook statuses aren’t

updating or WhatsApp and Instagram servers are

down for an hour. Is it the end of the world if your

friends do not know what you’re eating for lunch?

vivea day without it. “On my phone, I have apps

like Paytm (for bill payments), HDFC Bank for on-

line transactions, Bookmyshow, Cleartrip and

Zomato to help me make my bookings, sans the

hassle of physically doing the same work,” she adds.

For the insta-gen, another spin-off has been

that it has become extremely accessible and hassle-

free to meet new people and stay in touch with

them. Users flock to dating sites for this purpose.

Amit Sharma, a 24-year-old IT professional from

New Delhi, who regularly uses the dating app Tin-

der says: “Tinder has

its perks. It helps find

people who are close-

by, which makes it

easy to hook up. Talk-

ing to people on the

phone or Skype makes

communication eas-

In a conversation with astudent, physicist and author

Stephen Hawking said the“aggressive nature” of people

will “destroy us all”.

Trends Technology overdrive


INSTANT CONNECTIVITYThe lure of helpful apps

makes users addictedto smartphones

SMITTEN BY SPEED(Clockwise from topleft) Nohar KumarChona likes the concept of next-day deliveries; HarshKataria admits his patience runs outfast; Robina likes thefast pace; and AnishSharma downloadsmovies fast with thehelp of his app

Waiting for a few extra seconds for a video to

buffer or a page to load feels like an eternity. “My

patience starts to run out after 15-20 seconds,

even if I’m not doing anything important,” says

Harsh Kataria, a 21-year-old engineering student

from Gurgaon.

E-COMMERCE WINDFALLE-commerce firms like Amazon, Myntra and Flip-

kart are capitalizing on this impatience of their

target audiences, by introducing features like

next-day delivery and same-day delivery. Flipkart

has introduced the Flipkart First Subscription for

Rs 500 a year where customers get privileges like

premium access, free next-day delivery and dis-

counted same-day delivery. A leading UK-based

clothing label, ASOS, has introduced a premium

membership for £9.95 a year, where the cus-

tomers can avail similar privileges. An increasing

number of shoppers do not mind paying extra

cash to receive their products faster as they don’t

want to wait at all. “There is a lot of competition

in the market and with companies like Snapdeal

and Flipkart offering next day deliveries, it makes

sense to get the product faster at an additional

cost rather than ordering it from a website that

will take longer in delivering,” adds Nohar.

This impatience is also visible in how quickly

members of the insta-generation want their ca-

reers to escalate. Switching jobs has become a ris-

ing trend among the working youth. Hard-work

and perseverance is the least of the qualities that

the youth possess. Robina, a 29-year-old fashion

merchandiser in Delhi, who has switched three

jobs in the last five years, says: “I don’t want to

wait until my hair turns white to get where I want

to be. Life is short and the pace is fast so we have

to gear up, move ahead and switch jobs faster. I

do all this so that I am ahead of all and even ahead

of myself.”

But this instant appeasement is taking a toll


on the attention span of the average

individual. With multi-tasking with

multiple tabs on laptops and smart-

phones, it has become tough to de-

vote undivided attention to any one

thing at a time. The need for constant stimulation

also hampers the time that can be given to retro-

spection and deep critical thinking.

Wi-Fi connections are becoming faster while

human connections are becoming feeble; phones

are becoming smarter, whereas people are be-

coming callous; virtual lives on Facebook and In-

stagram are becoming more active than reality. It

is time for the insta-gen to get out of the web of

technology before they are left reeling under it. It

is time to start filtering your words and thoughts

before you filter your photographs and start living

your life rather than scrolling through it.

ObituaryVinod Mehta

The boy from Lucknowwas an iconic editor witha refreshing appetite forrisk and a liberalthinking that shapedOutlook, the magazinewhich gave India Today arun for its money BY SHANTANU GUHA RAY

n a balmy afternoon,

staffers at Outlook

crowded their news-

room to mourn the

death of founder-editor,

Vinod Mehta, India’s an-

swer to Benjamin C Bradlee, the iconic editor

of Washington Post. In hushed tones, the

journalists, led by the magazine’s current ed-

itor, Krishna Prasad, remembered Mehta and

how his charismatic personality, good looks

—he was once called Goldie, brother of film-

star Dev Anand—zest for journalism and for

life dominated and shaped Outlook as India’s

trend-setter magazine.

O

GOODBYE,MR CHIPS


BOLD MOVEIn Indian journalism, it was almost like a check-

mate chessboard move. Almost two decades after

India Today had made a resounding impact with

its first edition in December 1-15, 1975, the flood-

gates of classy journalism had once again opened.

Indians stopped talking about Mehta’s days in

newspapers, they waited every Sunday for Out-

look. Such was the impact of the magazine that

hawkers of Outlook and India Today often clashed

across India.

Mehta brought “breaking news” into magazine

journalism. Outlook got cricket’s biggest scoop,

the match-fixing by Indian and international

cricketers. The magazine also managed a block-

buster on how a clique within the PMO led by AB

Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law, Ranjan Bhat-

Two years after it was launched in October

1995 by Mehta with cash from Mumbai builder

Rajan Raheja—synonymous at cocktail parties

with Bollywood-style white suites—a Faculty of

Management Studies study showed how Outlook

(it was Mehta, stupid) forced the much-stronger

and cash-rich India Today to change its fortnightly

format to weekly.

ENDURING IMPACTMehta, who had earlier edited Debonair, The Sun-

day Observer, Indian Post, Independent and Pio-

neer, made his biggest and lasting impact with

Outlook because unlike the other publications he

edited, it had a pan-Indian readership.

He had with him Tarun Tejpal—one of India’s

finest editors who was called “the Che Guevara of

Indian journalism” by Aroon Purie, editor-in-

chief and owner of India Today. He also had

Deepak Shourie, the brother of editor-turned-

politician Arun Shourie, who was among the best

bets for advertising and publishing.

Mehta also had a group of editors, reporters

and camera persons, who made up his band of

brothers in shaping the weekly with compelling

news features based on aggressive reporting and

engaging back-of-the-book features. Readers

often wondered where to start, back or front.

Almost like Samir Jain, the legendary pub-

lisher of The Times of India, Mehta loved “the first

impact”. He remembered how Jain stole the thun-

der from the Ambanis—then Dhirubhai was alive

and kicking—by turning The Economic Times

pink from white and calling it The Pink Edge even

before the Ambanis could turn their Business and

Political Observer into the same color.

The inaugural issue of Outlook, printed in Oc-

tober 1995, had India’s first political poll on Kash-

mir where 70 percent said there was no solution

within the Indian constitution. The magazine also

had on its cover a cracker of a political exclusive

by Sagarika Ghose: excerpts from Prime Minister

PV Narasimha Rao’s novel, The Insider.

“He was not very earthy, but he realizedIndia’s sympathies were with its poor.Vinod was a presence, a force. He wasnot a doubter, not a skeptic like some ofthe other editors.” – Tarun Tejpal, Mehta’s protege


editor of his era, Mehta also dressed

in style, wearing bright, papaya-yel-

low and red shirts with classy

footwear. He styled his hair to

match that of Gregory Peck and

bought glasses exactly like those

worn by the Hollywood star. Ex-

cept, craggy-faced Mehta never

buttoned his collars.

Brutally honest Mehta, who

often chased reporters out of the

next-door coffee shop into the

newsroom, considered journalism

more than a profession—he called

it a public good, vital to India’s

democracy. Mehta, who had set a

standard for honest, objective and

meticulous reporting, was—ex-

pectedly—crestfallen when he saw

journalists peddling up as power-brokers as evi-

dent in the Radia tapes.

LIBERAL THINKING Tejpal, Mehta’s best protégé, called him the last of

the “liberal editors with great integrity”. “He was

not very earthy, but he realized India’s sympathies

were with its poor. Vinod was a presence, a force.

He was not a doubter, not a skeptic like some of

the other editors. He encouraged exciting copy,

though sometimes he had the tendency to get

swayed by a bit of shallow gossip (typical of

Mumbai),” he said.

Mehta gave journalism a six-letter word —Im-

pact—in Delhi, a city synonymous with the four-

letter word: F***k. In the long run, it helped

Mehta, and his notoriously short attention span.

But it never bothered him. At work, Mehta rarely

dug into the details of a news feature himself,

leaving that to the people he had hired.

The newsroom he once filled with a lethal

combo of intellect and viscera and loads

of fun, continues to flourish with a

5,00,000-plus circulation.

tacharya, and the PM’s top advisor, Brajesh Mishra,

was operating with corporate India. The news fea-

ture had government agencies swooping down on

the offices of the Raheja Builders. Rajan Raheja was

routinely called for questioning, and made to wait

for long hours.

Eventually, Mehta resolved the issue by calling

up Delhi's biggest troubleshooter who, in turn,

called Mishra, and the raids stopped. Outlook also

ran scoops on the racket of TRPs, the Indian navy’s

war room leak, and the sensational Radia tapes

(that the Open also had).

Mehta did not want to miss anything. Such was

his push for breaking news that a

big story of Amitabh Bachchan’s

entry into television with KBC was

pushed into the Glitterati Page.

When the reporter walked into his

room to complain, Mehta chased

him out of the room. He was hold-

ing a cricket bat, signed by some

hot-shot cricketers and gifted by

journalist Aniruddha Bahal.

Arguably the most celebrated

THE INSIDE STORY(From left) The coversof two autobiogrphies

that Mehta wrote

Mehta and his bandof editors shaped

Outlook withcompelling news

features based onaggressive reportingand engaging back-

of-the-book features.

ObituaryVinod Mehta


to the editor-in-chief.

Newsrooms at nine these days, I suspect, must be

tranquil as Lamayuru in November.

Political reporters, who used to be rehearsing their

lines in front of OB vans, anxiously awaiting anchors to

cut to them, must be at the Press Club. The vans them-

selves must be rusting quietly in front of 7, RCR, or the

Mantralaya, the whirr gone out of them. The investigative

team must have been wound up. News editors and pro-

ducers must be world beaters at Candy Crush. Most of

the cameras the channels own must be in the studios fo-

cused on the panel of a dozen or more guests sitting on

the long table. The rest must be wired to the houses of

spokespersons of BJP, Congress, AAP, PDF, RLD,

AIADMK, SAD, JD(U) and CPI(M) (if they have one).

It’s easy, doesn’t need imagination and is cheap. No re-

spectable prime time bulletin today—all the English and

Hindi channels, and from Star Anando to Sun TV—can

have less than 10 windows in one frame. The guest coor-

dinators, who used to be sweet-talking public school stu-

dents in my time, must be top honchos now. The graphic

team must be lording over the newsroom like gladiators.

The studio floor managers must be divas and dons.

The big plusses of TV—taking the viewer to Dimapur

or Singrauli, of which they have only heard, to bring the

voice of the victims and uncover the face of the oppressor,

to show the color, smell and texture of news as it happens

in a frenetic country like ours—has been thrown out of

prime time. These days 9 o’clock looks more like the kind

of stuff we’d talk about after the bulletin is over—at a pub.

(Satish Padmanabhan has done time in news TV.)

Field reporting is passe, chat shows have come to rule the programming roost

Chuck The News,

IVE years ago, when I was in it, the

newspit would be like a war room

gone berserk before the 9 o’clock

news. Heated fights over headlines,

frayed nerves at a big guest who has

ditched, the anchor having a minor cardiac arrest over the

lead story not making it in time. There would be a scram-

ble from reporters to push their VTs (video tape) in. How

can you cut my story to a minute-and-a-half, it’s the

breaking news, the political reporter would scream. Who

cares, the big human interest story right now is the mo-

lestation, the Mumbai bureau chief would yell.

If it was this week, the star anchor would be in Kash-

mir, trying to get separatist leader Masarat Aslam’s inter-

view, another reporter the new CM’s bites, a third in Delhi

the home minister’s reaction; there’d be a full crew in

Dimapur reporting on the lynching, an OB van would

have been dispatched from Guwahati or Calcutta; there’d

be live reports on land bill protest stories from Madhya

Pradesh, rain at the wrong time ruining crops in Punjab,

packages on nothing moving in Telangana, a five-minute

London-link booked to go live with Leslee Udwin.

There’d be at least 15 stories stacked up in the rundown.

There would be a tight knot in everyone’s stomach as the

familiar sting music of news at nine plays out. The VT

editor who sends in the lead story in the last second, as

the headline pack is rolling, would be cheered in the edit

bay, the reporter who gets the HM at the nick of time

would be hero. And as the bulletin got into the last seg-

ment, usually sports and entertainment, there’d be a pal-

pable release of collective breath, from the ticker-writer

F

GIMME YACK YACK

Editors’ PickSatish Padmanabhan

VON brings in each issue, the best written commentary onany subject. The following write-up, published in Outlook,has been picked up by our teamof editors and reproduced for our readers as the best in the fortnight.


Human InterestMP’s Museum of Journalism


Steeped in history, it isa treasure house of oldnewspapers, raredocuments andencyclopedias. Startedby former journalistVijay Dutt Shridhar, itis his tribute to a nobleprofession BY RAKESH DIXIT

PILGRIM’SPROGRESS

MAGINE a museum of 50 lakh printed pages includ-

ing newspapers, 40,936 books, 734 manuscripts,

3,456 letters by eminent editors and littérateurs, 1,934

other rare documents and 809 gazetteers and ency-

clopedias. This vast collection is displayed in the

Madhavrao Sapre Museum of Newspapers and Re-

search Institute in Bhopal and was founded by journalist-historian Vijay

Dutt Shridhar in 1984. The outcome of Dutt’s endeavor was his magnum

opus – Encyclopaedia of Journalism in India in Two Volumes (1780-1947).

This was on the lines of another book, A History of the World in 100 Ob-

jects written by British Museum director Neil MacGregor in 2010. This

hugely popular book is a compilation of a 100-part radio series written

and presented by him on BBC Radio-4, where objects of ancient art, in-

dustry, technology and arms displayed in the museum are highlighted.

The Sapre Museum too is quite popular and its reference material

IThe Madhavrao Sapre Museum of Newspapers and

Research Institute in Bhopal

for publications dating from 1681 to 1920 and from

1921 to present times. The third section is for clip-

pings. Attention has been paid to preserve the yel-

lowing pages. Photocopying is not allowed.

GLORIOUS TIMESShridhar says visiting the museum can be thrilling

as one is standing face-to-face with history. “For in-

stance, when you get to see the newspaper of July

21, 1969, with the lead headline, “Man Lands on

Moon”, you are transported to that era,” he says.

The 66-year-old Padma Shri historian is a walk-

ing-talking encyclopedia of journalism in India.

Which newspaper started when, which provocative

write-up landed which editor in jail in British India,

what headlines were given for momentous events

in history such as the dawn of Independence or

Gandhi’s assassination—all these are on Shridhar’s

fingertips. For someone who was born in an ob-

scure village in Narsinghpur district in a farmer’s

family, his erudition is remarkable.

He is passionate about inculcating the same

sense of history among young journalists. However,

he admits he is disappointed with the maddening

pursuit of profit in contemporary media. “Unless

journalists, young and old, imbibe a sense of history

by browsing through the great works of the past

generation of editors such as Madhavrao Sapre,

Makhan Lal Chaturvedi and so on, they are bound

to end up as mere pen pushers,” says Shridhar, who

has authored four books on the history

of journalism.

Two eminent editors are Shridhar’s role model

—Madhavrao Sapre, a pioneer of Hindi journalism,

after whom he named the museum, and Makhan

Lal Chaturvedi, a poet-journalist of the pre-Inde-

pendence era who edited the newspaper Karmvir,

whose title the museum adopted. Karmvir, inciden-

tally, is still in publication.

RICH LEGACYTo carry on the legacy of stalwart editors, the mu-

has been used by 855 research scholars from India

and abroad. Starting with pre-1947 publications like

Gandhi’s Harijan and Bal Gangadar’s Tilak’s Kesri,

the museum traces India’s freedom struggle. Besides

original copies of Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and Marathi

newspapers, it also houses international publications

such as Nature, Punch and Illustrated London News.

The museum is divided into three sections—two


LOVE’S LABOUR(Above) Journalist-historian Vijay Dutt

Shridhar shows oneof the oldest copiesof Ramcharitmanas

written in 1725; Oldfiles and books,

dating back to the1600s, neatly

stacked inbookshelves


small towns in India, print media still

holds sway as the most credible means

of dissemination of information and

will continue to do so in the future.”

Also, he is not pessimistic about the

future of what he calls “down-to-earth”

journalism. “We have P Sainath as a

shining example of down-to-earth

journalism. A number of journalists

look up to him for inspiration even

though the fulcrum of mainstream

journalism appears to have shifted

from serious to frivolous in post-liber-

alized India,” he said.

Like Sainath, Sridhar too started doing rural

journalism when he worked for Desh Bandhu, a left-

of-the-center newspaper reputed for this type of

journalism. Barely two years into journalism, Shrid-

har began to be noticed when in 1976, he mobilized

journalists in MP under the banner of Madhya

Pradesh Anchalik Patrakar Sangh. When Shridhar

moved to MP’s leading newspaper, Nav Bharat, in

1978, he widened its regional network, deepened its

rural identity and circulation increased to such an

extent that it became No 1 in the state.

While he was news editor in Nav Bharat in

seum organizes workshops and study tours for

young journalists.

It has also instituted half-a-dozen awards for jour-

nalists in the name of eminent editors. “Engaging

journalists lends vibrancy to the museum. We make

them aware of the rich legacy they have inherited,”

the director says.

To that end, the museum has been focusing on

environment issues in recent years. This is to make

the young generation familiar with the Indian tra-

dition of revering flora and fauna.

Likewise, study camps are organized on tradi-

tional water conservation methods in different

places. Inculcating a scientific temperament through

propagation of traditional scientific practices is yet

another area where the museum is working.

“All old science is not bunkum. The young gen-

eration must be able to distinguish Indian scientific

tradition from mythological mumbo-jumbo,” cau-

tions Shridhar. As for the Sangh Parivar’s attempts

at reviving Vedic Age “miracles”, he is dismissive.

However, he declined to comment on allegations of

saffronization of the curriculum in Makhan Lal

Chaturvedi University of Journalism, whose

vice-chancellor BK Kuthalia is a self-avowed

RSS swayamsewak.

Shridhar was associated with the university from

2005 to 2010 as director, research project, journal-

ism of Indian languages after Independence.

During this time, he published and edited

75 research works.

However, he dissociated himself from

the university when it began to hog the

headlines for financial irregularities and

bungling in appointments. “Now that I

am retired, I prefer to devote my time

to writing books, away from controver-

sies,” he clarifies.

PRINT HOLDS SWAYWhen asked about whether new age media

would swallow print journalism, Shridhar says:

“This debate is largely metro-centric. In middle and

To carry on thelegacy ofstalwart editors,the museumholds workshopsand study toursfor journalists.It has alsoinstituted afew awards.

HISTORY OF NEWSOld papers found inthe Sapre Museum


Shridhar recalls.

GROWING INHERITANCEHe then looked for a place to house this collection.

The Bhopal Municipal Corporation allowed him to

put it in its library. Funds started coming in through

institutions, individuals and the state government.

With missionary zeal, Shridhar embarked upon en-

riching this inheritance.

Within a year, he had collected enough material

to think of a separate museum. Thus, on June 19,

1984, the Madhavrao Sapre Museum came into

being and started growing. Former President of

India Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, after visiting the

museum on November 2, 1995, remarked: “Bhopal

can take pride in having a museum like this.”

Former editor of Navneet (well-known maga-

zine), Narayan Dutt, and eminent litterateur Ka-

maleshwar described the museum “as a pilgrim

center for journalism”.

When Congress leader Minaxi Natrajan came

to the museum for research on the 1857 Sepoy

Mutiny, she was awestruck by the rich collection.

In 1989, when research scholar Dr Mangla

Anuja came to the museum, she was so fascinated

by it that she decided to stay on. She became its di-

rector and is today, the administrative head.

After the museum shifted to its own building,

its maintenance cost shot up. “So far, funding from

the state and central governments has taken care of

the museum’s needs. We also receive donations. But

the rising cost of preserving the decaying materials

is worrying,” Shridhar admits.

The museum has newspapers and journals dat-

ing from the 1600s. The staff has preserved the ma-

terial by chemical treatment, pest control,

lamination and transferring old papers onto micro-

film. “So far, we have transferred material up to the

19th century. But now we are looking at digitizing

the content so that people have the option of going

through the DVDs and the newspapers can be pre-

served better,” he says.

Even a museum has to move with the times.

1982, Shridhar got a project from the MP Hindi

Granth Academy to write the history of journalism

in Madhya Pradesh.

“While researching for the book, I realized that

there was no systematic classification of the material

that I required. I visited individual collectors, but the

newspapers in their collections had started deterio-

rating. This sparked the idea of preserving newspa-

pers. I met Pandit Rameshwar Guru, a veteran

journalist, Hindi poet and Mathematics teacher. He

had an extensive collection of journals, newspapers

and periodicals going back to two generations. He

agreed to donate them on two conditions—one, the

material would be saved systematically and two, the

museum which would house them would not be

handed over to the government or any university,”

“Unless journalists, young and old, imbibe asense of history by browsing through thegreat works of the past generation of edi-

tors, they are bound to end up as mere penpushers.”

— Vijay Dutt Shridhar, journalist-historian


PRESERVING HISTORYMuseum directorDr Mangla Anujaexplaining a display tothen vice-presidentBhairon SinghShekhawat and thenMP GovernorDr Balram Jakhar


ESSAR LEAKSMARCH 22, 2015 `100

VIEWS ON NEWSTHE CRITICAL EYE

www.viewsonnewsonline.com

Raj Kamal Jha’s book shows the highs and lows of metro life 30

P Sainath: Still an idealist 26

EESSAR LEAKS

Corporate-Presspinterplay

BUDGET: TAME FARE 38

WHO’S WHO OF AAP’S STING-AND-TELL ESCAPADE 44

WHY IS MEDIA SILENT ON MODI GOVT? 46

Governance Section

P S i thP Sainath: Still an idea

��

��

��

��

��

��

�� !"�� #��`��$

�� "��%��"��!"��&�� `�'( �$�� !"��)�� #��*�"��"��*��+� ��,��)��"��*��+� ��-.��/0.�1�"��2" ��.��3��45��6�7(89(-,��:�� &&��&��*� ��"��;�#��<��"��")��&��

SUBSCRIBE TO VIEWS ON NEWSGET FABULOUS DISCOUNTS

=��.�3�#�"� ��<��")��)��>3�?��?��@�� )��#Tick one Term (Years) No. of Issues Cover Price (`) You pay (`) You save (`) % Saving

1 Year 24 Issues 2400/- 1200/- 1200/- 50%

2 Years 48 Issues 4800/- 1920/- 2880/- 60%

For advertising & subscription [email protected]

VIEWS ON NEWSTHE CRITICAL EYE

S

SAVE UP TO 60%

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Views On News (VON) is India’s premier fortnightly magazine that covers the wide spectrum of modern communication loosely known as “the media”. Its racy, news and analysis oriented story-telling encompasses current global and Indian developments, trends, future projections encompassing policy and business drifts, the latest from inside the print and electronic newsrooms, the exciting developments in ever-expanding digital space, trending matters in the social media, advertising, entertainment and books.

EVERY FORTNIGHT VIEWS ON NEWS WILL BRING YOU TELL-ALL NEWS, ANALYSES AND OPINION FROM THE SHARPEST INVESTI-GATIVE REPORTERS AND MOST INCISIVE MINDS IN THE NATION

An ENC PublicationIf the media is leaving you behind, stay ahead of it by picking up yester-day’s Views On News!

VIEWS ON NEWSDon’t miss a single issue of this stimulating, unbiased, entertaining new fortnightly magazine and get special discounts for yourself and your friends

Advertising and FilmsRacism

NEWSPAPER’S promotional

campaign in the Gulf depicts

three white people excitedly pur-

chasing an annual subscription.

It is conveniently forgotten that

90 percent of its readership is

Asian. The need to see western

visuals as upmarket trumps every other consideration and

makes a traffic accident out of the much touted “presenta-

tion” by advertising professionals, who never seem to tire

of establishing their credentials. Suddenly, targeting the

right market segments becomes passe and the research

gurgles down the drain. Who needs it, seeing that the

owner, the management, the staff and the end-user are all

sunning themselves in aspirational bliss, their pig-

A

ANDPIGMENT

If the advertising world is tobe believed, everyonewants to be fair. No wonderthere are bland andexpressionless Soviet rumpstate facsimiles in ads andfilms. How absurd andpathetic is that?BY BIKRAM VOHRA


PREJUDICE TINSELTOWN’S WHITEFETISHBlondes make a coolbackdrop in a songfrom the Bollywoodfilm, Main Tera Hero


mented egos suitably massaged.

It would be ludicrously comical if it wasn’t so

tragic. There we are on a set of an Indian film and

there are Soviet rump state facsimiles all around, as

if they had been Xeroxed on a machine, identical to

the point of blandness and expressionless to the point

of vapidity. But they are Caucasian and that is enough

for the party scene. I have been to several parties in

India but have never seen assembly lined white

women hanging about in such large numbers.

And I am speaking to this famous producer and

he says, that is what the people want, they like to see

white women and so, we give them what they want.

To quote: “Everyone wants to be fair.”

WHITE FIXATIONNot so long ago in the murky history of the IPL,

some colored girls were disinvited from jumping up

and down on the boundary stage because the spec-

tators (who ostensibly had come to watch cricket) felt

cheated. After all, if we wish to see a woman leap

about the place, let her at least be white.

INTERNATIONAL APPEAL(Above) Salman Khan

performs with foreign artistes during

the release of the song,Main Toh Superman,

Salman Ka Fan;(facing page) Even

Gulf companies suchas Etihad Airways are

using white womensuch as actress Nicole

Kidman for their ads

But where this packaging reaches its giddiest

limit is in advertising Indian products to Indian

buyers through the prejudicial prism of ethnic

whitewashing. You would think all babies are white

in India. You would also be led to believe that elec-

tronics and top-of-the-line transportation would

somewhat be given an extra octane if there was a

blonde and blue-eyed babe flung into the mix.

Several ad campaigns and even movie-makers

have mothballed their collective consciences and

climbed the bandwagon. It is easy to convince your-

self that you are in a commercial business and have

to sell. Ergo, you have to sell what sells whether you

like the concept or not. Such unutterably self-de-

luding drivel is difficult to beat.

I can only quote the fashion features editor of

Vogue’s Indian edition, Bandana Tewari. Having

coined a slippery level phrase “going glocal”, (com-

bining the words “global” and “local” to describe

the new urban Indian consumer), she proceeds to

justify the white syndrome. “When we put the

white model in Indian clothes, it is a cultural ex-

“When we put thewhite model in

Indian clothes, it isa cultural exchange.

It shows India’s economic self-confi-dence. It also caters

to the generalfeeling that ‘fair’

and ‘beautiful’go together.”

— Bandana Tewari,fashion features editor,Vogue’s Indian edition



change. It shows India’s economic self-confidence,”

Tewari said. “Of course, it also caters to the general

feeling that ‘fair’ and ‘beautiful’ go together. For a

rickshaw-puller who earns $2 a day, seeing a fair-

skinned woman is an escape, a fantasy.”

Are there actually people who speak like this and

believe such tripe and market it? Clearly there are,

with takers tacked on. Just reading it makes

one cringe.

Talk about blatantly going against the constitu-

tion of the country, converting a vice into a virtue

and presuming to speak for the “rickshaw-wallah’s

fantasies” while tying all this up with a horrendously

twisted string of logic—could anyone come up with

a more absurd explanation for denying who you are?

WRONG PREMISEWhat is the psychology that makes manufacturers

of luxury goods believe the nexus? It is a rickety bal-

ance on three flimsy premises:

� The youth of India see anything western as aspi-

rational and superior and this includes skin color.

� White people photograph better and enhance the

product.

� Identifying with white people is still a major In-

dian sport.

When a Commonwealth student team visited

India some years ago, there were two Brits of West

Indian origin. While the rest were invited to Indian

homes in singles and groups, these two were “cor-

dially” feted in coffee shops.

The youth of India absorb what they are fed. If

you keep giving a lion peanuts, he will become a

monkey. So, if there are enclaves of young men and

women in urban India who believe in this myth and

spend their lives like bizarre versions of Lady

I am speaking to this famous producerand he says, that is what the peoplewant, they like to see white womenand so, we give them what they want.To quote: “Everyone wants to be fair.”


Macbeth wiping out the damn spots of melanin and

seeking sanctuary in a future existence enhanced by

a lightening of skin tones, then, their sad and sorry

priorities are nourished by a visual diet that under-

scores this perception. So, it becomes a Catch 22. Ad-

vertisers believe the young with disposable incomes

accept that white is a bit more right. The young re-

spond to the hype by shoring up their belief that if

the white like it, then, it has to be good. So, the con-

tract is made and the core factor that there must be

a high identity factor between product and person is

shattered into shards of glass. So much for that ad-

vertising mantra.

It is always vaguely odd to read classifieds in a

newspaper where western expats selling second-

hand furniture, second-hand cars and second-hand

clothes seem to have an edge over others. It is in-

herent in our nature to gravitate to these garage or

jumble sales because we feel (ah, the insidious

power of auto-suggestion) we will get a better deal,

that somehow they will have more taste, classier

stuff and a more discerning eye.

CRASS SCRAMBLEThat not a shred of evidence exists to back these

premises only makes it more cruel. Many years ago

when “phoren” goods were not easily available,

western embassies used to have sales in Delhi and

scores of Indian memsahibs would throng the

lawns, picking up used lipsticks, used underwear,

used shoes, open creams and lotions and actually

scramble for the stuff. I have watched this, having

gone with a friend in the hope of picking up some

second-hand books and not staring into half swirls

of vanishing cream and grubby handbags.

That crass exercise may have had its day, but the

attitude has not gone away. On the contrary, the

“Bandanas” of India guiltlessly continue the cru-

sade. And there are many of them, freezing their

unease by suggesting they are giving their products

an international look and feel by associating them

with non-Indians. Yes, sure, Indian ads abound

with Japanese, African, Latino, Bangladeshi faces…

have you seen any?

The self-deception by the retail market and the

constant assault on individual self-respect have cre-

ated a complex. They have won and thousands of

men and women do believe that white is the way to

go. The indoctrination is complete. Even intelligent,

successful Indians are fully paid subscribers to this

cause. Film stars and celebrities sell skin fair gunk

without any qualms. They allow their skin tones to

be photo-shopped. Camera lighting is positioned

to soften their color’s intensity. Even dance se-

quences are shot so that there is one very dark per-

In Gurgaon, Delhi’s El Dorado,stores in malls place Indian clothes onivory mannequins by the dozens. Theyhave blue eyes and blonde hair. Ebony

equivalents are non-existent.

OUT, DAMNED SPOT(Below) Bollywood star

Hazel Keech at thelaunch of Galderma'sskin lightening cream

BI-LUMA;(Facing page) Actor

Sidharth Malhotra withwhite models at the

Taiwan Excellence 2014Campaign, in Mumbai



son who acts as a foil to accentuate the “fairness” of

the hero or heroine.

LUDICROUS ADSIn Gurgaon, Delhi’s retail El Dorado, fashion stores

in malls place Indian clothes on white or ivory man-

nequins by the dozens. They have blue eyes and

blonde hair. Ebony equivalents are non-existent. A

faintly ridiculous ad of an Indian film star being

spiked by titanium arrows that look like hatchets,

which is currently on Gulf TV for an Indian-owned

company, has a blonde girl making an appearance

for no particular reason. A new mobile phone ad has

a Caucasian cast though the phone is aimed at Indi-

ans. An emerald-eyed Nordic model flaunts herself

in an ad for sunglasses in an Indian backdrop. A mo-

torcycle company goes to Russia to shoot its pitch.

Some three years back, a footwear brand used only

white women for its wares…white legs look better.

Here is a quote from Abhishek Verma, a student,

who says it all: “Just try to observe an average Indian

when they see a foreigner. First would be the con-

stant staring at their skin tone. (Oh my gord! Kitna

gora hai wo!) Second would be the thought of click-

ing a photo with him/her. (Premium and exotic class

of humanity, they are.) Third would be trying to help

then with the history of the place, if they are visiting

a tourist spot, and running around them, as if the

foreigners were their masters.”

Ad gurus who are probably under orders from

the client to give “the film some class, yaar, put in

two foreign girls” will not acknowledge that their de-

fense has the texture of peanut brittle…pathetic

and fragile.

LOW SELF-ESTEEM?The question to ask is basic; are we ashamed of our-

selves and is our vat of self-esteem running low? The

shrillness of the righteous indignation we would dis-

play in our response belies our rather sad mental

state. Hiding behind the tattered skirts of that refuge

of reaching out to the world or “being global” is so

much claptrap. You are not being global, you are

conceding space to Caesar, period, without Caesar

even having asked for it.

Why do we beat up African students? Because,

colorwise, we feel superior to them. Victims of severe

stereotyping, we believe they are more dangerous.

Take a hundred Indians and ask them who they

would prefer to cross on a dark and stormy night in

a lonely car park—a white person or a black person

—and the answer will be a no-brainer.

So it goes on, socially accepted by you and I. The

cloned Indian editions of world-famous magazines

fill their pages with white facsimiles. Commercial

films have party scenes where the guests are largely

white. Indian writers, by and large, spin books out of

the semi-rural quaintness of Indian traditions to in-

trigue a western audience.

Damn it all, white even rhymes with right. The

indoctrination is complete.

The youth absorb what they are fed. Ifyou keep giving a lion peanuts, he willbecome a monkey. Young men andwomen are nourished by a visual dietthat underscores the white perception.


Special ReportRural economy / Vidarbha suicides

HEN you are in the hustle and bustle

of Nagpur, the tragedy of the Vi-

darbha region that it presides over

does not hit you. The booming real

estate business, the IT hub and the

orange trade is what Nagpurians pre-

fer to talk about. Their city is Maharashtra’s second capital and

the 13th largest urban agglomeration in India, ahead of Kochi,

Coimbatore and Ghaziabad. On the political map too, this city,

which is at the geographical center of India, has an important

place. It is the seat of the winter session of the Maharashtra as-

WWhile the deaths of cotton farmers haveoften made news, an

RTI shows that most oftheir families don’t get

the compensationpromised by the

government on onepretext or the other

BY AJITH PILLAI

FLUFFGone in a

overnanceG


SEEDS OF SORROW(Facing page) A Vidarbha farmer tendsto his cotton crop; (left) a farmer’s suicide note; (right) thelast resort of a farmer,to bail out his family

flect the actual number since many are categorized

as death caused by disease, alcoholism or malnutri-

tion. But the fact that almost 50 percent of the reg-

istered suicides were found ineligible for

compensation tells another story about the govern-

ment not having put in place a system that takes into

account loans taken from moneylenders who do not

provide documentation. And to think that all this

red tape is for the release of a mere `1 lakh to a vic-

tim’s family—`30,000 in cash and `70,000 by

cheque. The authorities, activists say, use every rule

in the book to deny compensation rather than fa-

cilitate it. Ghadge’s RTI query, publicized in a na-

tional daily, has had one positive outcome. On

February 17, 2015, the National Human Rights

Commission (NHRC) took suo moto cognizance of

the media report and issued a notice to Maharashtra

chief secretary asking for a report on the matter

sembly, the headquarters of the RSS and has an im-

portant place in the Dalit Buddhist movement. But

drive out of Nagpur into rural Vidarbha and the sto-

ries that you are told are grim and foreboding. For

well over a decade, the growing number of farmer

suicides (activists cite an average of 1,000 a year

since 2000) stand in sharp contrast to the “shining

Nagpur” stories you hear.

NO COMPENSATIONIn Vidarbha’s suicide zone—it virtually includes all

the 11 districts in the region—there are many twists

to the debt-ridden farmer taking his life. The most

shocking is the compensation promised to his fam-

ily by the state. A query put to the government

under the RTI Act by Mumbai-based activist Jiten-

dra Ghadge recently revealed that of the 5,698 “reg-

istered” suicides in Vidarbha and Marathwada

regions since 2011, as many as 2,731 victims were

found ineligible for compensation. Reason: they did

not leave behind documentation to prove that they

had taken a bank loan to cultivate a particular piece

of land or because of lacunae in the police records

pertaining to their suicides.

The number of accounted suicides does not re-

Genetically modified seeds cost twice asmuch as the traditionally cultivated ones,forcing farmers to take larger loans. Thishas significantly increased input costs.


GROWERS’ PLIGHT(Left) A push to

BT Cotton, much to theanguish of farmers;

(right) a child ata cotton

processing unit

bands are farmers...? A BPL card, land in the de-

ceased person’s name and several other proofs are

required before a compensation claim is okayed.

Legally speaking, a person who does not own land

is not a farmer. But many rural farmers cultivate on

land belonging to other members of their family or

take it on lease from landowners. There is no con-

tract signed in such informal arrangements. Nei-

ther are there any records.

VICIOUS CIRCLEAccording to a report on farmer suicides in the In-

dian Journal of Psychiatry, the incidence of farmers

taking their own lives in Vidarbha has “hit epidemic

proportions”. The study notes that these suicides

“should not be viewed as only a mental health prob-

lem, which is a common notion.” The various fac-

tors cited in the report include: chronic

indebtedness and inability to pay interest accumu-

lated over the years; rising costs of agricultural in-

puts and falling prices of agricultural produce;

economic decline leading to complications and

family disputes, depression, alcoholism and the

hope that compensation following suicide will help

within two weeks. The NHRC, in its notice, has ob-

served that the media report, if true, raises “a serious

issue of violation of human rights of the families of

farmers who committed suicides in Maharashtra”.

WHAT A JOKEThe red tape in relief packages for farmers is nothing

new. A few years ago when journalist P Sainath

toured Vidarbha, he reported about how compensa-

tion for families of suicide victims had become a

cruel joke. In one village, he was told that farmers in

distress could not even take their own lives in peace.

They had to first study the 40 clauses in the form that

their families would have to fill up before any com-

pensation is paid. Were they eligible? Did they have

the right papers for their spouses to prove their hus-

“In the Indian situation, the causes (offarmer suicides) are multi-factorial,

cumulative, repetitive and progressive,leading an individual to a state ofhelplessness... and hopelessness.”

—Indian Journal of Psychiatry

Special ReportRural economy / Vidarbha suicides

overnanceG


ANY SUCCOR TO FARMERS?Legally speaking, a person who does not ownland is not a farmer! Butmany cultivate on land be-longing to others or evenfamily members

family to repay debt.

Thus, “in the Indian situation, the causes are

multi-factorial, cumulative, repetitive and progres-

sive, leading an individual to a state of helplessness,

worthlessness and hopelessness, obviously influ-

enced by his social strengths and weaknesses along

with his mental health status.”

Cotton has traditionally been the cash crop of

Vidarbha. Eight of the 11 districts in the region are

primarily cotton growing. A section of agriculture

experts and activists link the distress among farm-

ers in the last two decades to the introduction of BT

Cotton in the region. Their reasoning is that the ge-

netically modified seeds cost twice as much as the

traditionally cultivated ones, forcing farmers to take

larger loans. This has not only increased input costs

but forced the farmers to sell their products cheap

during harvest time to the very same money

lenders who came to them to recover interest or re-

payment of previous loans. Other experts say there

are several other socio-economic factors that are

more responsible.

While BT Cotton is a contentious issue, the

question of paying compensation to families of

farmers who have committed suicide poses several

questions, including providing a framework that

will make it easy for claims to be processed. Dis-

trict-level committees which evaluate claims must

take up individual cases and see if a family deserves

compensation. A flexible set of rules is required,

which makes allowance for those who take loans

from money lenders.

Activists speak of political interference in the

payment of compensation. This also happened

when the farm loan waiver scheme was announced

by the UPA government in its first term. Many

farmers were kept out of the loop, while undeserv-

ing ones were given the benefit of the scheme. The

implementation of such schemes as well as com-

pensations must be transparent and subject to

scrutiny to prevent misuse. One hopes that NHRC’s

intervention will ensure that the families of the

2,731 farmers who committed suicide since 2011

get their just dues. That done, the government must

urgently address the larger problems faced by the

farming community nationwide.

Remember, we need our farmers for our food

security, so let us give priority to their concerns.


overnanceG

ALKING in outsized shoes taxes the

art of balance between pathetic fal-

lacy and potent performance on the

one hand and heightened aspirations

and ballooning expectations on the

other. This unenvious job is the lot of

Anandiben Patel, who succeeded the imagery wizard, Narendra

Modi, as chief minister of Gujarat and the first woman at that.

Stepping into Modi’s shoes is the best of a bad bargain, the

legacy of a choked tight governance notwithstanding.

A man who had never held any post of public governance,

not even of a village sarpanch, Modi governed Gujarat for 12

years, seven months and 14 days to become its longest serving

chief minister. He was the government, he was the party and

there was space for none else. Loved and loathed in fair meas-

ure, he nevertheless enjoyed considerable popularity as was ev-

ident from his party’s landslide victories in successive polls and

W

She walks tall inModi’s shoes

She had an unenviable task whenshe took over as CM of Gujaratfrom a colossus. But Anandiben

Patel has carved a niche forherself through her

unassuming manner and heropen administration

BY RK MISRA

ProfileGujarat CM Anandiben Patel

where she grew, has happy memories. “Initially, she

would walk down to school, but later, would come

on a red scooter. The teacher that she is and her

humble beginnings will contribute to making her a

good chief minister,” he says.

Mafatlal, her estranged husband, who retired as

a professor of psychology at an Ahmedabad college,

also says that she was a shard-working teacher.

Her entry into politics was quite by accident.

Two girls from her school fell into the Narmada. She

singlehandedly saved both from drowning. It was

this act of singular courage which caught the eye of

some senior BJP leaders, who invited her to join the

party. By 1987, she was president of the Gujarat

Mahila Morcha and by 1994, she was striding into

the hallowed portals of the Rajya Sabha from Gu-

jarat. Four years later, in 1998, she quit the RS to

contest her first assembly election from Mandal in

Ahmedabad. She won and became the education

minister in the Keshubhai Patel government. She

was twice elected from Patan and, in the 2012 elec-

tions, from Ghatlodiya in Ahmedabad. Since then,

there has been no looking back for her.

She continued as education minister in the

complete decimation of the opposition—both

within his party and outside. It was in this backdrop

that Anandiben assumed office.

A LOYALISTThat she would succeed Modi was never in doubt.

She had been a staunch Modi supporter through the

tumult of Gujarat politics that saw Keshubhai Patel

take charge at the head of the first BJP government

in Gujarat in 1995. Before the year was over, his gov-

ernment was in dire straits, with veteran party

leader Shankersinh Vaghela rebelling and walking

away with a large chunk of party legislators. It fell

on Atal Bihari Vajpayee to effect a reconciliation,

only to face a vocal midnight protest of a sellout by

the likes of the present CM.

The peace brokered then cost Keshubhai Patel

his job, but also led to the banishment of the party

general secretary, Narendra Modi, from Gujarat.

Vaghela quit the party to become CM with Con-

gress support, but was vanquished as the state went

to polls in 1998 and a victorious Keshubhai returned

as CM, only to be replaced by Modi in 2001.All

through, Anandiben remained loyal to Modi.

Born into a farmer’s family at

Kharod village in Vijapur taluka,

Mehsana district, on November

21, 1941, Anandiben did her BSc

from Visnagar in 1963 to take up

her first job with Mahila Vikas

Gruh. She got married on May 26,

1962. In 1965, she moved to

Ahmedabad with her husband and

did her MSc. Later, she followed it

up with a BEd. She started teach-

ing maths and science at Mohin-

aba Kanya Vidyalaya in

Ahmedabad, capping her career as

principal. After 31 years on the job,

she took voluntary retirement.

Nathji, an attendant at a petrol

pump neighboring the school,

REWARDS OF LOYALTYChief MinisterAnandiben Patelreceiving mentor Modiand bête noire AmitShah in Gandhinagar inSeptember 2014


IN THE BIG LEAGUE(Left to right)

Anandibenmeeting a Chinese

delegation inGandhinagar; withactor and Gujarat

Tourism’s brandambassador Amitabh

Bachchan;inaugurating a kite

festival in Ahmedabad

man-high fencing, with focus lamps lighting up the

two extremes. Anandiben travels with a quarter of

Modi’s entourage.

An understated dignity marks her bearing. Her

expressionless face masks all traces of emotion. The

only exception was when her name was announced

as CM; then, tears trickled down her face.

This is not to state that there has been any de-

parture in terms of policy from Modi’s time. There

are two reasons for this. One, Modi still maintains

a very strong hold and say in matters of his home

state and two, she is in agreement with most of the

policies pursued during his time. Nevertheless,

these are subtle. Modi’s slogan of Vibrant Gujarat is

slowly being replaced with “Gatisheel Gujarat”

(dynamic Gujarat).

TOUGH STAND It is well-known in Gujarat that two of Modi’s clos-

est confidante’s, Anandiben Patel and Amit Shah,

have no love lost for each other. Shah was a claimant

for the chief minister’s job until he was moved out

by Modi to take charge of other responsibilities.

With Shah now the second-most important

Modi government in 2001 and headed two key port-

folios, revenue and roads and buildings in the third.

Going from strength to strength, she held four im-

portant portfolios—roads and buildings, revenue,

urban development and urban housing, besides dis-

aster management—in the last government.

COURAGEOUS WOMANTaking over from Modi requires indomitable

courage as he had hogged the political landscape of

Gujarat, striding like a colossus, reducing both the

party and the government to a pantheon of pygmies.

The sheer magnitude of scale, whether of events,

publicity or political leverage, was designed to create

a dazzling persona. It was an act impossible to outdo.

Comparisons were bound to creep in.

Anandiben has chosen to cut the clutter, intro-

ducing an element of simplicity in her style—a

marked difference from that of her predecessor. The

Chief Minister’s Office is the first reflection of this

change. There is a marked openness. During Modi’s

tenure, not only were road dividers between Gand-

hinagar and Ahmedabad airport marked by double-

fencing, even the service lanes on both sides had

overnanceGProfile

Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel


man in the BJP after Modi, he has no reason to

complain. But for all his sway over the national

party, he has not been able to get the better of the

present chief minister in Gujarat. This was evident

when, despite pitching strongly for important port-

folios for the tainted Purshottam Solanki who was

inducted as minister of state recently, Anandiben

refused to oblige and he had to remain content with

animal husbandry. Ditto for Vijay Rupani, who was

recently elected to the assembly through a by-elec-

tion after Speaker Vajubhai Vala went as Karnataka

governor. Shah wanted the home portfolio for Ru-

pani, but she gave him transport.

ADMIRABLE GUTS Anandiben has a mind of her own. Modi had

staked a lot on the issue of compulsory voting in

local self-government elections. The bill passed by

the assembly then was returned by the governor, Dr

Kamala Beniwal, with her objections but a piqued

Modi again had it passed by the assembly and sent

it back. After the governor was changed, the present

incumbent, OP Kohli passed the bill. The Patel gov-

ernment, through enforcing the 50 per cent reser-

vation for women in these elections, has chosen to

hold back the compulsory voting part.

The present government is taking a closer look

at the solar policy after it was hit by a scam, wherein

bureaucrats, working in tandem with political in-

terests, were involved in a land scam in promoting

the Charanka solar power project in Banaskantha

district, North Gujarat. Those in the know of the

impending project were instrumental in cornering

large tracts of saline land from farmers at chea

prices and then selling it to the government at high

prices for the solar project.

There have been times when Anandiben has

had to give in. Sources say that she was keen to have

Dr SK Nanda, the senior-most bureaucrat, as the

chief secretary, but a last-minute intervention from

Delhi saw the comparatively junior DJ Pandian,

who headed Gujarat State Petroleum Corpo-ration

(GSPC) for nine years during Modi’s rule, pip him

to the post. The GSPC allegedly hides many skele-

tons of the previous regime in its cupboard.

A noticeable change from the previous govern-

ment is the stress on backbone projects like

women’s empowerment and child welfare. “While

Modi was more into taking up path-breaking proj-

ects that would make national and international

headlines, Anandiben understands the basics of

child and women empowerment and sanitation

needs better. She is a teacher and a mother in the

end,” says a veteran political analyst. He has a point.

For Modi, Gujarat was a staircase to Delhi.

Anandiben has no such aspirations, so the state can

expect to be a gainer. And the prime minister too

can now fulfil the causes he espoused as CM

but couldn’t.

Anandiben has cut the clutter,introducing an element of simplicity inher style. The Chief Minister’s Officehas marked openness, quite differentfrom the claustrophobic legacy.


Justice Markandey Katju likes to stir a hor-net’s nest at frequent intervals. He recentlywrote in his blog that Mahatma Gandhi was

a British agent and Subhash Chandra Bose aJapanese agent! His statements were soon fol-lowed by rebuttals on social media, like: “My

neighbor is an LIC agent and you are the agentof Agra Mental Asylum”; “Sir dumb-all issueglobal tender”; “Whose agent are you my lordHonolulu?”; “Katju is a Nigerian agent (BokoHaram)”; “Thank God you were a judge and notour NSA”; and “Sir aapko kisne CJI banya tha?”

Katju’s Twitter Mania

Recently, there wasoutrage in themedia about ex-

minister Renuka Choud-hury delaying an AirIndia flight while shop-ping at the glitzy T3 ter-minal at Indira GandhiInternational Airport inNew Delhi. The civil avia-

tion minister is gettingthe matter investigated.In her defense, Choud-hury has been saying: “Iam not Dolly the sheepwho has been cloned.How come I was inChicago while I was inparliament? I have notshopped, period.”

The most trending word these days is“ban”. In the past, we have seen aban on movies, beef, dresses, and

words. Now the Hindu Mahasabha has de-manded a ban on farewell parties inschools and colleges. Their logic is simple:“At farewell parties, girls and boys dance tothe tune of vulgar songs. College andschool managements must ban them.” Wenow wonder where the axe will fall next.

What will bebanned next? Renuka Choudhury’s Cloning

All That MattersGrapevine

Illustrations: UdayShankar

overnanceG

—Compiled by Roshni

Afew days ago,Himachal chiefminister Virbhadra

Singh found a unique way ofmaking fun of his rivals. Heliterally swayed his hips in-side the Assembly in adance-like movement to thetune of slogans being raised

against him. Quick to takehim on, the leader of the op-position, PK Dhumal, saidthat the chief minister, freshfrom his daughter’s weddingto the grandson of ex-Punjabchief minister CaptAmarinder Singh, was well-versed with dancing.

Himachal CM’s dance moves

People in India are going round thebend trying to figure out whereRahul Gandhi has suddenly dis-

appeared. It is reliably learnt that he hastaken off to the cooler and less pollutedclimes of Europe for medical treatment.Poor little rich boy! Can’t even get hishealth fixed without people raising theissue in parliament—such is the price

one pays for being a famous heir. Hissabbatical has spawned multiple theo-ries: he left due to a fight with hismother; it is meant for a stage-man-aged re-entry later; he has eloped; hewants to retire, and so on. Even The

New York Times carried a column,“Presumed Heir of Indian Party Re-quests Leave of Absence”.

Rahul On A Medical Break


.

RNI No. UPBIL/2007/22571 Postal Regd. No. UP/GBD-204/2015-17