Of high-voltage jolts and spellbound cadres – UPDATED
UPDATE: For those who missed the *real news*, here is the link (Hat Tip: JKV; For those who cannot open the site, here is a PDF version of that page http://scr.bi/dkQTaG, courtesy Srikanth)
..or the great joke that is Indian media – Part XV. Offered without comment, but with emphasis added…
Saumya A will never forget the surprise 27th birthday gift — a handshake with India’s most eligible bachelor Rahul Gandhi and a photograph of the two to flaunt the chance encounter.
The MP created a flutter by strolling into a well-known Hazaratganj eatery during the busy lunch hour on Wednesday…
Rahul Khanna, the owner of the chain, admits to a high voltage jolt when the reception clerk crashed into his cabin to announce, “Rahul Gandhi counter pe khade hain.”
From Rahul’s birthday gift for Lucknow girl, courtesy ” The Times of India”
Next up, Alagiri dazzles Madurai with new look*
They know him as their prim and proper ‘Annan’, their elder brother who is always dressed in a spotless white veshti (dhoti) and shirt. But on Wednesday evening at his son’s pre-wedding reception, Union minister M K Alagiri not only wore a natty chocolate brown suit but also took the mike and sang on stage.
Alagiri joined his son’s father-in-law-to-be S Seetharaman and sang the old Sivaji Ganesan hit, “Pen ondru kanden, pon angu illai”, drawing applause from chief minister M Karunanidhi and leaving the cadre spellbound.
* I really thought this was a news-report about Hon Sh. Alagiri having managed to get the roads cleared of encroachments, the parks cleared of rubbish and the pavements spruced up. Stupid me.
Read the earlier posts in the series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13 and Part 14.
Also read: My post on A Raja, N Radia and the spectrum scam from about 6 months ago.
Is there nothing worthwhile happening in this country that requires reporting. The standards at editorial tables have dipped abysmally that such inconsequential are being reported as an event of mega importance.
Promoting an individual for walking into a restaurant beats it all. Is this individual an alien from another planet, or recently released from a Zoo, what was the purpose of this report.
We could do well without such inanities being reported.
As an aside (sorry for being off-topic but couldn’t resist), the song Alagiri sang is a really awesome one. I too would be spell bound if it is rendered well :
National integration of corrupt media:
Have we noticed how the North India based Indian media shields the congress on the 2G scam (Manmohan in particular) and pins the blame on A. Raja as the “lone gun man”, while the S.India based media (the Hindu) spins this into a caste issue and all but absolves DMK of wrongdoing, reducing this to stuff like ‘technical irregularities’. 176 crores worth.
A geriatric leader of a country who has presided over multiple corrupt deals simply to hold on to a seat that he “won” without winning an election and playing puppet is marketed to the public as ‘Mr. Clean’.
When an ex-RSS leader shoots of his mouth against one person, the media gives it a lot of coverage and is united in its outrage and a police case is readied under several IPC sections for defamation. Fine. But when an idiot lady trashes India, or a spoiled brat trashes opposition leaders or those who refuse to bow to the dynasty, the media unitedly and vociferously supports freedom of speech.
From my twitter stream:
Is this the beginning of a great whitewash? Try typing “Barkha Dutt Radia” in GoogleNews http://bit.ly/aOUVrM do you get any results?
***
If any1 has contacts at OpenMag, pl DM/email me. Wud like their permission 2 reproduce whole story on blog http://bit.ly/SatyamevaJayate Thx
cricfan @3: I think it is not 176 crores, but 1,70,000 crores
What else can be expected from what some people call ‘Porn Lady of Boribunder’. TOI is gossipy and always has half naked women in the last page. Then claim readership of ‘crème de la crème’ of Indian society.
Here’s a short excerpt from this October’s Guardian.
“Two items in “Latest news†were very revealing: “Why girls kiss girls†and “??? sex enough for womenâ€. I also had glimpses of models and actresses posing semi-naked, actresses in bed with so-and-so, stars baring all, etc.
This should suffice to explain why many readers feel turned off. They don’t expect a family newspaper to indulge in such excesses. No other mainstream English-language newspaper in the country pushes quite so hard at the boundaries of what is acceptable”
From a article posted in Guardian, this year(October ???). Unfortunately I’ll have to search for the link.
Is this Barkha Dutt’s Oops moment?
http://insanelyinane.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/the-ndtv-reply-before-after/
NDTV in its response to the open magazine article said:
“At every stage effective journalism involves engagement with a multitude of characters in the process of gathering news and information. To call this process “lobbying” is a serious and defamatory distortion of journalistic practices.”
It means that Burkha Dutt had conversations with Nira Radia which could not be denied. Let the readers/viewers listen and form their own opinion based on the conversation. Personally, the conversation did not sound like a information gathering session, it is more like a middle man using his/her proximity to power. Another word for it is lobbying.
It is interesting to see NDTV talking about Journalistic ethics, which are non existent at their own place. What ever happened to ethics when they were shilling for Congress and acting as PR for the Dynasty!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqnAYhNafOg
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ndtv-on-defamatory-remarks-against-barkha-dutt-67210?cp
These are very detailed
http://openthemagazine.com/article/nation/what-kind-of-story-do-you-want
Thanks VOP,
This is crazy and explains a lot. It also explains a lot of Vir’s articles including the one where Shantanu posted a rebuttal about the whole Bhuddhist thing. Looks like all these big columnist have an agenda and not because they feel strongly about certain issues but someone wants them to feel strongly about those issues.
Anupam
Well, big deal. They are too powerful. They will survive it. The best we can do is to go to the court but courts would not accept audio as the only proof. There can not be any other proof and Radia would not testify.
We can be convinced about the authenticity of the tapes when we know that Barkha and Vir have not filed any defamation suite yet. At least Dutt is quick to sue people as a hapless blogger can tell us. In fact, a defamation suite would require the tapes to be investigated and not only that can legitimise the tapes, it can also bring out other news that DUtts and Virs would not want us to know.
Barkha Datt is a great personality in the media world. She should handle this matter proactively. She should call for a JPC probe to determine once and for all whether it was lobbying or just the normal media activity and get her name cleared. In the interest of fairness, NDTV should remove her from frontline duties till JPC completes its probe.
In case Open Magazine site is not loading, try these:
http://calamur.org/gargi/2010/11/18/conversations-with-power-brokers-transcripts-from-the-open-mag/ for transcripts & audio files
Sonia G + Rahul G = 2G
Just click and hear the conversations.
The media so close to the UPA politicians. Such casualness. Looks like the media and UPA are a joint family.
http://www.news.ivarta.com/Exposed-Audio-~-Vir-Sanghavi-Hindustan-Times/552420.htm
BD’s Part 1 to4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqnAYhNafOg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RiFwXoVJLc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XrJqgtKvAs
and here are the Vir-Radia tapes on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIw7IfGYWEk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLoovK9SQU