Media In India/elsewhere -2

[Guest]

I followed the Christmas ccverage in the Indian media after a lapse of ten years. I found that the coverage particularly in the electronic media was very extensive particularly in some of the channels.

[Bharatvarsh]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->BJP returns to hate & Hindutva

POORNIMA JOSHI

Rajnath and Vajpayee at the BJP national executive meeting. (PTI)
Lucknow, Dec. 23: The BJP today formally revived its three “core” Hindutva planks after more than eight years, striking a hawkish note in an Uttar Pradesh campaign it has already peppered with hate CDs.

The BJP’s priority is now to see a Ram temple at Ayodhya’s disputed site, a uniform civil code and the repeal of Kashmir’s special status under Article 370, the party president told its national council.

Hindus have become “second-rate” citizens as the United Progressive Alliance continues to practise “Muslim communalism”, Rajnath Singh alleged.

“They want Muslim reservation in education. Then they institute the Sachar Committee. And now comes the lowest point when the Prime Minister declares that the Muslims have the first right over the nation’s resources,” he thundered. “Are we to assume that the Muslims are the first-rate citizens in this country? And all (the rest) of us are second-rate?”

The BJP had put the three core issues on the backburner during the time Atal Bihari Vajpayee headed a coalition government, and had experimented with “Shining India” and “development” as its main planks. Rajnath’s comments, later ratified by a political resolution, have now closed that chapter.

The tone for his speech was set two days ago when party workers began distributing a CD that shows a Muslim slaughtering cows. It also displays newspaper clippings about the rape of a young girl, holding it up as an example of the tactics being used to force Hindu girls to convert to Islam.

Party leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi confirmed the CD would be used widely in the run-up to the state polls, due in months.

The BJP national council, however, had no doubt that it was the Congress which was playing communal politics.

“By attempting to re-inject religion-based quotas and reservations into India, the Congress is reopening old wounds,” its resolution said. It accused the Congress and the Left of keeping Muslims “poor and ghettoised”.

If the resolution’s wording was subtle, Kalyan Singh’s speech left none in any doubt what the language of the poll campaign would be. “Who attacked the Akshardham temple? Who tried to desecrate the idols of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya? Let us be honest and admit they were all Muslims,” the former chief minister said.

“And who provides strategic support to all the Pakistani terrorists in India? Are they not Muslims too? I am warning the casteists and pseudo-secularists that their protection of Muslim terrorists would lead to the eruption of a Hindutva volcano,” he added to thunderous applause.

Rajnath said the party needed at least 10 years of power at the Centre to make its dreams a reality.

“Even President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and the Supreme Court say (Article 370 should be scrapped and a uniform civil code introduced). But this government will not do it because they have to appease minorities. And minorities for them mean only the Muslims,” Rajnath said.

“I am the bridegroom who has come to escort the bride of political power from UP to Delhi. Our march to Delhi should start from Lucknow.”

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061224/asp/...ory_7178669.asp<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure but when Manmohan says "Minorities must have first claim on resources" then it's pure secularism but anyone qho questions this is spreading hate.

[Guest]

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http://desicritics.org/2006/12/29/135237.php

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Satire: How To Write About India?
December 29, 2006
Neelakantan

Or how to be successful/popular/sought after as a journalist/writer/author especially abroad. Here are the rule(s) of thumb when writing about India for a Western audience...

Here's how you go about it.

Your piece has to start well. Therefore you first create, with good vocabulary, a nice paragraph on the social inequities in India. Keywords to be used are caste, poverty, illiteracy. Statistics like 80% of India lives on farms or 50% of India is illiterate or 70% of India does not use soap can be very handy. Other than percentages, use population figures. 4,32, 1235 houses do not have more than 12 volts of electricity for 3 days of the week would make a great sentence. Include a few names like Vidharba, Madurai if you want greater impact other than the usual outskirts of Bangalore or Hyderabad or slums of Mumbai.

If you want to become particularly rabid at this juncture mention child marriage. A comparison with Pakistan and Bangladesh at this juncture would make great reading especially from a literacy rates standpoint or the great strides those two nations have made. If you have to mention China, mention that they are simply a great nation or that they will overtake India in the next 3 minutes. Never, not even once, create an impression that overall India is moving in the right direction.

The second paragraph should be about India's growth in the last few years. Don't forget to add a sentence in the end of this para to denounce the growth. Keep this para as short as possible. Keywords are myth, haves vs have nots, elitist bias. So, a sentence in this paragraph should read, even though India's IT and BPO sector has grown, farmers commit suicides. Do not, repeat, do not make a connection that reforms have never really happened in the farm sector and that it is because reforms have not reached them that this happens. Insist, by repeated assertion, that it is IT and its success at the expense of the farm sector that causes this to happen.

In the third para or thereabouts, compare to death. Example: Compare the life of an educated professional with a gardener and say that the gardener earns about 1/10th of what the professional earns. The other good comparison is the number of hutments outside the balcony of your hotel room or the number of beggars in trains. Wonder aloud why reforms have not reached beggars travelling on trains. In the same trend close your eyes to the number of people cellphones have reached, also close your eyes to how individuals are pulling themselves out of poverty using these very things.

Over the next few paras, whine and whine. Now that you already know how to write, just continue in the same vein. For every one sentence of India's growth, three sentences have to denounce it in the strongest terms. Mention two murders which took place recently in fairly graphic detail.

Somewhere just before the end, mention that India's progress has not benefited anybody. Do not talk about people who have gotten out of poverty thanks to this progress. Try to ignore gardeners who maintain lawns in the IT campuses, also ignore cab drivers who are cab owners today.

Preferably avoid talking to maids and security guards who would not have had a job if it were not for this level of growth. Try not to talk to people who are working hard so that their children are educated and their next generation gets out of poverty.

Also, if you have to mention that the BPO sector attracts fresh graduates, mention that these jobs are bad for their gall bladder at the very least. Ignore the fact that for many graduates, a BPO job is a godsend without which they would be working for peanuts at best or standing at the end of a long line at the employment exchange. Ignore the fact that for many of them, the job is a stepping stone to many other things. Ignore the fact that BPOs treat them with dignity and pays them well.

Ignore the fact that jobs are available for the asking in India at almost all levels. Cooks to caterers to security guards to courier boys to shop assistants to technology architects to structural engineers. Also never once, ask the question to the man on the street - has their life changed for the better over the last 10 years. (Believe me, the answer, except in some very dark corners or leftists, will be a resounding yes.)

Your last paragraph has to sound a warning to all those who read your article. Mention about how people and companies and the government has to take more responsibility for poverty and paint it with a broad brush of "private public partnership to make a significant impact".

And oh, the headline of your article should be sufficiently apocalyptic. "Social inequality threatening India's Economic Stability" would make a great example.

BTW, India really is about contrasts. While not getting carried away by the growth and saying all is well here, let us also not go to the other extreme of saying that the reforms have done nothing and that all is wrong here. Neither will reforms take away inequity all of a sudden nor will inequity take away reforms. Both these arguments miss the wood for the trees (or whatever).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

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[Guest]

<span style='color:red'>India-born becomes BBC chief</span>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo-->
LONDON: In a rare distinction, Dr Chitra Bharucha, an Indian-born haematologist, on Monday took charge as the acting chairperson of the British Broadcasting Corporation, becoming the first woman and first Asian to head the giant organisation.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/Wo...how/1014789.cms
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

She was born in Madurai, is a doctor and lives in UK since 1972.

[acharya]

This is part of psy ops to repair the anti - India bias of western media for the last 40 years.

They have realised that Indians have realized that western media is anti- India and anti-Hindu. They have realised that Indians know that psy ops games are played on Indians.


Hence this is just a step to create a fake image of balance and and to get credibility among the Indians and Indian diaspora.

[Guest]

BBC News appoints Sports Editor
The BBC has appointed Mihir Bose as the corporation's first Sports Editor.
One of his last articles in the Telgraph where he talks about corruption in Football, IOC, ...

[Guest]

When did Indians become settlers in theor own country?
Settlers killed in Assam violence

[Bharatvarsh]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pierre Prakash strikes again : "paedophilia is a common thing in India"!

"Bien que le sujet soit tabou dans ce pays où l'on ne parle quasiment
pas de sexualité, la pédophilie est courante en Inde, où 45 000 enfants
disparaissent chaque année. En 2005, les statistiques officielles
faisaient ainsi état de plus de 4 000 viols sur mineurs, un chiffre qui
ne prend en compte que les cas faisant l'objet de plaintes."

http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/227224.FR.php<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I went to an online translator and got this:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Although the subject is taboo in this country where one almost does not speak
about sexuality, the paedophilia is common in India, where 45.000 children
disappear each year. In 2005, the official statistics
thus made state of more than 4.000 rapes on minors, a figure which
takes into account only the cases being the subject of complaints.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anyone here know of how many kids disappear each year in France or US?

Also how did this writer come to the conclusion that of the 45,000 that disappear all of them are kidnapped for paedophilia purposes, couldn't there be any other motives?

People can get away with saying anything about India.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anyone here know of how many kids disappear each year in France or US?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
More if one consider the percentage on population - can be easily proven statistically. What's the freaking point, they'll pick and choose what they want.


Some facts from http://www.nationmaster.com/facts.php
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Per capita, South Africa has the most assaults, rapes, and murders with firearms.

Two-thirds of the world's executions occur in China.

Two-thirds of the world's kidnappings occur in Colombia.

Venezuela is one of the happiest and most murderous places in the world.

Russia has almost twice as many judges and magistrates as the United States. Meanwhile, the United States has 8 times as much crime.

In the Maldives, there are more than 2 jails for every 1000 people.

One in every three Australians is a victim of crime.

Saudi diplomats have 367 unpaid parking fines in Britain.

In pure number terms, more crimes are committed in America than in any other nation. The same goes for burglaries, car thefts, rapes and assaults.

The United States puts 0.7 % of its population in Prison - a vastly higher percentage than any other nation.

India’s criminal courts acquitted over a million defendants in 1999, more than the next 48 surveyed countries combined <span style='color:blue'>(surprise, surprise!)</span>

Women make up more than 10% of the prison population in only six countries: Thailand, , Qatar, Paraguay, Costa Rica, and Singapore.

People trust Swedes! Swedish companies are the world’s least-likely to be perceived as paying bribes.

84% of people in Finland feel that they are at a low risk of experiencing a burglary - but just look at how many burglaries they have!

The Caribbean islands of Barbados, Saint Lucia and Grenada are all in the top 5 for the most crowded prisons in the world.

82% of people in Finland show confidence in police institutions, though only 41% of the Fins surveyed felt they could report a crime to the police. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Shambhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+Jan 9 2007, 10:06 AM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Jan 9 2007, 10:06 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pierre Prakash strikes again : "paedophilia is a common thing in India"!
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Is this Self-hating convert ooh-la-la Frenchman Pierre related to that other Tubelight of Gospel Truth Messr. Missionary Cedric Prakash?

[Bharatvarsh]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Is this Self-hating convert ooh-la-la Frenchman Pierre related to that other Tubelight of Gospel Truth Messr. Missionary Cedric Prakash? <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Have no clue, google didn't turn up anything.

[Shambhu]

OK.. Thanks.. :-)

[Guest]

Singur--missing the point
The Hoot's nicely exposed as to where the media's sympathies (and ignorance) lay asking the question:

<b>Had a Gandhian made the same point, rather than Ms Banerjee, would the matter have received different treatment? </b>


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>The Hindu </i>said, quite rightly but almost in a whisper, that "A sensitive, data-based, and forward-looking land use policy is necessary to balance the needs of industrialisation with those of agricultural intensification and modernisation." But that was about it. While not actually pouring scorn on Ms Banerjee, it was clear where its sympathies lay.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I thought <i>The Telegraph </i>would be different. But alas that was not to be. It called Ms Banerjee's fast " utterly meaningless" and made the fatuous point that "there is only one victim... the hapless state of West Bengal." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Then, just as <i>The Hindu </i>defended the chief minister, it attacked him. "Mr Bhattacharjee should always think about what is best for the state. He cannot allow his judgement to be clouded by petty political considerations. The dignity of the chair he occupies demands that he acts always in a manner befitting a chief minister, and not as a leader of the Communist party of India (Marxist)."
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>The Indian Express </i>went off at a tangent in only the way it can. It talked about "off-market intrigues" by corporates in the context of Ratan Tata's interview to NDTV where he alleged that some competitors were behind Ms Banerjee's protest. To me at least, the edit made no sense at all.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>The Deccan Herald </i>also asked an inane question, namely, " why is the Manmohan Singh government not making serious efforts to secure an early end the Trinamool Congress leader's protest hunger strike when it had gone out of its way some months back to persuade Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar in a similar situation?"
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Post 276:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pierre Prakash: the paedophilia is common in India, where 45.000 children disappear each year.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->- Did he take into account the number of children from North-Central and North-East (esp. W Bengal) stolen by Dar-ul-Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia to become underfed camel jockeys?
I watched a documentary on this. The children get fed nothing to keep them light. They are 'disciplined' and many of them don't last too long. Parents languish in misery back home in India, and also Bangladesh where they also suffer from this.
- Did he also subtract the number of children that unsuspecting Hindu parents send to christo schools (because they think christian schools are better) only to find their children have been sent off to western countries for adoption - by christian foster parents?
- Which ones are proven to be paedophilia cases?

And of all the paedophilia cases there might be in India (regardless of whether any kids were kidnapped for this), did he subtract the number that were perpetrated by christo priests? How many unfortunate children remain then?

With references to 'India', they cover up exactly who did what to whom. They should list them by nationality and religious persuasion. That way, when they later choose to equate the initially non-sectarian-sounding India with 'Hinduism', as they inevitably will, we will at least know the data is more sensible.

Until they do a break-down by community and nationality, average Joe can't make out heads or tails from this vague reference. Just 'cause Indian kids get kidnapped doesn't mean the kidnappers are from India. And just 'cause they get kidnapped it doesn't mean they all end up with paedophilic vermin.

Pierre Prakash has no brains if he can't think of this for himself. But obviously he doesn't need brains, after all, he's got a <i>motive</i> for not collecting the relevant stats.

[Guest]

On a related note, kidnapping children for adoption in the west is a mass market these days. It's not just non-christian non-orphans who are victims of this massive crime. Bolivian children - they're very cute by the way, look very Indian with all that hair - are stolen off the streets, and in extreme cases when they are walking with their mum or playing with other children. Then they are shipped of to the U.S. where willfully ignorant (because they are desperate) rich couples happily adopt these 'poor, destitute orphans from the poverty-stricken nation of Bolivia where they would have had miserable, loveless lives'.
Bolivia at that time was the child-kidnapping capital of the world, and it was also the time when (surprise, surprise) many American parents adopting non-American children miraculously got Bolivian kids.

And in a more recent documentary that I watched, Polynesian mothers who'd assented to their children being taken in by American parents, realised what exactly 'adoption' entailed in the western sense and became heartbroken when they realised they had been duped out of their children. Among Polynesians, the concept of adoption is very different. It's like it is in Indian village communities: parents who have too many children or single parents, or immobile grandparents, 'share' their children with the rest of the community. Those who can, take care of the children. Feed them, clothe them, look after them. But the parents or grandparents still have all the rights and access to their own (grand)kids. The Polynesian women who signed away their 5th or so kid to a mercenary western adoption agency, because they couldn't afford to look after so many, didn't understand the English in the contract. They were told it was adoption (by a translator, who used the regular Polynesian term for it). Later, when they asked about when they could see their children again, they slowly found out the truth. It was heartbreaking to watch these women and men cry over their children that they lost to these spineless, heartless middle-men.
Highlighting the individuals of one particular case, the documentary interviewed the man of the adoption agency - who had no comment other than to say the woman had signed the contract and had a translator available. It also interviewed the adoptive parents, who when they found were a little perturbed initially. But being good christians, they found their conscience was back at ease when they said something to the effect of 'a contract is a contract' and we love the little girl like she is our own. But she's not theirs is she? She has real parents.
And oh, yeah, when asked whether they'd tell the kid when she grew up that she had real parents, they said they couldn't do that because the parents were alive.
Obviously they have no problems sleeping at night.

Bolivia, as far as I am aware, is in general a christian country. Samoa definitely is. Moral: Even after converting, be ready to be exploited. You'll always be untermenschen.

[Guest]

Post 272:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India-born becomes BBC chief<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I know the kind of 'Hindu' Indians that make it in the BBC. Well, BBC News anyway. Don't know what the other branches are like.

The most illustrative case: When there was a stampede or something in a Delhi or North Indian temple a year or two back, it was reported on the BBC World News - the South Asian slot by a 'Gita Subramaniam/Swaminathan/S...' (something typically Tamil, Hindu). With a calculated precision that is amazing even to recall, she would make certain to refer to the temple as a 'Hindi' temple and the devotees who died in the stampede as the 'Hindi' devotees; and then just to clarify it was not the language she was talking about, these devotees were of the 'Hindi' religion.

Gita S was probably trying to make sure the very progressive viewers understood she didn't belong to this 'primitive' religion where people got stampeded. Yeah, I got it: she isn't in any way connected to Hinduism even though she has a very Hindu name.
Now, if she were to have spelled the word out, would she have spelled it Hindoo instead of Hindi? Colonial-British in all but name and looks and colour. I'm sorry for her Hindu ancestors.

[Bharatvarsh]

Gill comes out with a valid point:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The fifth and most unforgivable mob was the rabble of totally unprofessional policemen. Some of them appeared on TV, not to disclose details of the case or the status of the investigation, but simply to give vent to their extreme prejudices. One police officer went to the extent of informing the media that "the Sardarji" had also been arrested, a gratuitous reference to the fact that one of the suspects, Moninder Singh Pandher, was a Sikh, a fact utterly extraneous to the crime or the investigation, and the more unwarranted in view of the consideration that Pandher wears his hair short and is not immediately identifiable as a Sikh. One cannot imagine a comparable situation where a responsible police officer would say that 'the Hindu' or 'the Muslim' or 'the Christian' had been arrested. This display of communal prejudice shows the degree to which police training is deficient, and reveals a deeply bigoted mind, something that would mark a very large number of police officers and men, right across the country.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodna...e=kpsgill&sid=1<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Bharatvarsh]

This is how western media twists the Bangalore violence:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->TOP STORIES
Hindu activists riot in Bangalore

By Reuters
Sunday January 21, 08:45 PM

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Hundreds of Hindu activists burnt shops owned by Muslims and set vehicles ablaze in Bangalore on Sunday, police and witnesses said.

The violence occurred as activists moved through the city to join a rally organised by the right-wing Hindu fundamentalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS -- National Volunteers' Corps).

On Friday, thousands of Muslim demonstrators protesting against last month's execution of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, clashed with police and destroyed shops and cars in the city.

Bangalore is home to about 1,500 global and Indian IT firms. Their operations were not affected by the violence as they are located on the city outskirts.

Police used teargas and batons to disperse the crowds and prohibition orders, restricting movement of four or more people together, were issued in central Bangalore.

More than 2,000 police officers patrolled the affected areas as mobs targeted Muslim shops and vehicles, forcing the closure of some businesses, witnesses said.

Police said there were no injuries but witnesses said about five people were wounded in stone-throwing incidents.

"Prohibitory orders will be in force until Tuesday," city police chief N. Achuta Rao, told Reuters. He said there had been some arrests but did not give a number.

Karnataka, of which Bangalore is the capital, is ruled by a coalition of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and a regional party.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Most western reader's don't bother going past the headline when it comes to countries like India and reuter's cleverly hid the whole thing in the headlines about how it was all started by Muslims.

[Bharatvarsh]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bangalore: One killed in police firing

January 21, 2007 17:13 IST
Last Updated: January 21, 2007 20:22 IST

One person was killed in police firing during communal violence in Bangalore after a Viraat Hindu Samjotsav meeting on Sunday evening, a senior police official said.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jan/21blore.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Rediff does not mention anything about how the whole thing started, it cleverly claims that they started after a Hindu meeting when infact they started yesterday when Muslims attacked Hindus as part of their protest against Saddam's hanging.