Governance TMM Special Section
2015 AT A GLANCE ISSUES THAT MEDIA COVERED IN THE YEAR GONE BY 48
VIEWS ON NEWS www.viewsonnewsonline.com
THE CRITICAL EYE
JANUARY 07, 2016 `50
Sushma Scores Her Pak visit could be the first feather in Modi’s foreign policy cap 12
CHENNAI FLOODS Where the press went wrong 18
UNDERRATED GENIUS A tête-à-tête with Kiran Nagarkar 36
STUMBLING BLOCK Keeping the net free 40
COMIC CON Ticket to a wonder world 28
EDITOR’S NOTE
SUSHMA’S FIRST TRIUMPH PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI’S financial and governance initiatives in parliament may well have laid a big fat egg so far, but his peripatetic diplomacy, I am compelled to proclaim, has begun to yield dividends. The successive parliamentary fiascos—the abysmal failure to make progress on the GST bill and other crucial economic reform measures dear to the prime minister’s heart—mirror the atmosphere outside parliament. There’s constant political street fighting amidst charges and counter-charges of vendetta politics, victimization, intolerance, tit-for-tat use or abuse of investigative agencies and strident invective. The streets simply pour into parliament and all legislation comes to a standstill because legislators are in no mood to cooperate or to make the government in power look good. This, sadly, has been the leitmotif of Indian politics over the last few decades. While devoting extensive, wall-to-wall coverage to the political warfare before, during and after the Bihar elections in which Modi and his image as a serial winner suffered a serious setback, the media did not appear to pay adequate attention to one solid win scored by Team Modi not in India but outside it. In Pakistan. A nation’s foreign policy is usually considered an outcome of national consensus. No matter how
4 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
crudely opposing politicians may go after each other’s throats on domestic issues, they usually stand united in the cause of nationhood in dealing with neighboring countries and the world. This unspoken compact can be broken only at great peril to any government that steers dangerously away from it. Changes, therefore, are incremental and great care is taken by foreign policy bureaucrats and the security establishment to take the Opposition into confidence. t was because Modi stuck to this tradition that he was able to dispatch his foreign secretary to Pakistan to negotiate a return to some form of normalcy with that country. The stark difference between Modi’s inability to steer domestic policy through parliament while managing to parley a relatively successful path in foreign affairs stems from a stark reality. The domestic paralysis stems from the perception that Modi and his party’s real agenda is to turn the nation away from Nehruvian consensus into an agenda set by reactionary Hindutva advocates; the successes abroad are proof that when a leader of a diverse nation like India cultivates goodwill instead of confrontation at home, he will be rewarded. It is laudable that Modi sent Sushma Swaraj to Pakistan by herself along with a professional delegation from the Ministry of External Affairs, instead of trying to hog the limelight for himself. That in itself demonstrated that he was more interested in creating a serious outcome rather than a gala event featuring Rockstar Modi. And Sushma delivered the goods with great finesse and professionalism. The ongoing composite dialogue process between the two nations was
I
ON THE RIGHT TRACK External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj with her Pakistani counterpart Sartaz Aziz in Islamabad during her recent visit MEA
termed “comprehensive dialogue”. It remains essentially the same as before—a menu of issues including Kashmir, Sir Creek, Siachen, counter-terrorism, trade, visas and confidence-building measures. An add-on is religious tourism. It represents continuity and gives due recognition to what was achieved previously by Congress and BJP governments through this process—the DelhiLahore bus service, India-Pakistan trade, a new visa regime, a mechanism on prisoner exchange and the 2003 ceasefire on the Line of Control. Of course, there’s the odd chance that this could come undone the moment the next terrorist attack takes place. obody, but for pathological hawks, wants war and bloodshed and wastage of precious resources that can be used for fighting poverty in both countries on an arms race. And nobody expressed this sentiment better than former premier Manmohan Singh who wished that one day “we should have breakfast in Delhi, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul”. The supreme challenge before Indian and Pakistani leaders is not to give in to rabid elements or to back off when terrorists try to disrupt solutions and talks aimed at resolving the biggest security and foreign policy challenge for both countries. And they should be strengthened in their resolve because this
N
It is laudable that Modi sent Sushma Swaraj to Pakistan by herself along with a professional delegation from the MEA, rather than hog the limelight for himself. new initiative—which will facilitate Modi to attend the SAARC meet in Pakistan in September 2016— has been openly welcomed by the UN SecretaryGeneral, the US, Russia, China, and above all, the Pakistani media which has echoed Sushma in dubbing the outcome as a “breakthrough”. Even though the Congress has been publicly churlish about Modi’s new Pakistan initiative, its leaders have privately welcomed this move because the party’s stated position has been that a strong and stable Pakistan under a civilian government is in India’s long-term interest because it is the best defense against terrorism as well as a positive factor in India’s land route trade relations with Afghanistan and Iran. Our cover story reveals that Sushma’s visit was a carefully choreographed and calibrated move.
VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 5
VOLUME. IX
ISSUE. 07
Editor Rajshri Rai Managing Editor Ramesh Menon Deputy Managing Editor Shobha John Executive Editor Ajith Pillai Associate Editors Meha Mathur, Sucheta Dasgupta Deputy Editor Prabir Biswas Art Director Anthony Lawrence Deputy Art Editor Amitava Sen Graphic Designer Lalit Khitoliya Photographer Anil Shakya News Coordinator/Photo Researcher Kh Manglembi Devi Production Pawan Kumar Head Convergence Initiatives Prasoon Parijat Convergence Manager Mohul Ghosh Technical Executive (Social Media) Sonu Kumar Sharma Technical Executive Anubhav Tyagi
C O N LEDE
A Fragile Modus Vivendi
12
New Delhi’s move to resume talks with Islamabad was a carefully choreographed one. But whether it will achieve justice for the 26/11 victims and lasting peace is the big question. RAMESH RAMACHANDRAN reports
Chief Editorial Advisor Inderjit Badhwar CFO Anand Raj Singh VP (HR & General Administration) Lokesh C Sharma Circulation Manager RS Tiwari
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6 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
GROUND ZERO
Nature’s Eye-Opener
18
The government and the media misread the Chennai flood situation and were slow to respond to the crisis. The deeply ingrained North-South divide in the Indian psyche may have prejudiced them. BIKRAM VOHRA
Social Media Saved the Day
22
While mainstream media lingered, bloggers and Twitter users stepped up to the plate, disseminated vital information and coordinated rescue efforts. SUNIL SAXENA
T E N T S THE MEDIA MONITOR
SPOTLIGHT
Comics and Culture 28 The fifth edition of Comic Con Delhi elicited more footfalls and sales showing the increasing creation and consumption of the graphic art form nationwide. SUCHETA DASGUPTA
BOOK REVIEW
RIP, Ravan and Eddie
Better Late than Never Novelist and playwright Kiran Nagarkar recalls his advertising days, his forays into writing, his run-in with the Censor Board and how he won the Sahitya Akademi award. KRISH WARRIER
An issue-based review of what the electronic media covered in the year gone by
ADVERTISING
STORY 32 Don’t Block Us! 40 SPECIAL The Spirit of 50
The heroes of Chawl No. 17 traipse through the City of Dreams one last time. Here’s a tribute to the never-saydie attitude of the Mumbaikar.
INTERVIEW
48
2015 at a Glance
Digital media is under threat—from ad blockers. If their use becomes pervasive, most online businesses will wind up. Content on internet will no longer be free. MR DUA
36
the Mahatma
Trustees of Navjivan Publishing House which prints Gandhian literature, have given the building a makeover, complete with an art gallery, cafe and Wi-Fi so that it becomes a thinkers' hub. KAUSHIK JOSHI
R E G U L A R S EDITORS’ PICK
Train to Nowhere?
42
The `98,000-crore Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train reduces commute by two hours but comes at the cost of rail safety, toilets, schools, highways and public health. SHOAIB DANIYAL
Edit..................................................04 Grapevine........................................08 Quotes.......................................10 Media-Go-Round...........................11 As the World Turns.........................17 Web-Crawler....................................27 Design Review................................44 Breaking News...............................46 Vonderful-English............................54 Cover design: Anthony Lawrence
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January 7, 2016 7
Grapevine Pawar Power
S
harad Pawar’s birthday celebrations on December 10 at Vigyan Bhawan were a show of strength for the NCP. The president, prime minister, vice-president and leaders of all other parties milled around to wish the septuagenarian. Many MPs, ministers and MLAs were left standing due to the over-crowding of well-wishers. The award on the occasion for the best speech definitely goes to Madam Gandhi who shed light on some little-known facts about Pawar and his father-in-
Price Rise Hits Parliament
V
isitors to parliament, which include MPs, officials and media persons, are in for a shock. The price of food in the various canteens is set for a steep rise. A 25 percent rise has been proposed after a campaign by select MPs to end the ridiculous pricing—`6 for a dosa, ` 4 for a plate of rice, `18 for a vegetarian thali, `51 for a plate of chicken biryani and so on. In the past five years, the canteen has got a
subsidy of `60.7 crore—all drawn from taxes. The subsidy actually goes up by `3 crore every year. Meanwhile, all parliament regulars will brace up for the price hike from January 1, 2016.
Catching Don
R
ecently AAP’s beleaguered MLA Somnath Bharti was at Dwarka Police Station with his famous dog, Don, accused of biting Bharti’s estranged wife Lipika Mitra. Is minister Maneka Gandhi, who is known to take up animal rights, aware that the dog is being dragged to the police station time and again? It seems that Bharti is sticking out his thumb saying, “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin namumkin hai. (Catching Don isn’t only tough, it’s impossible.)” 8 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
law, who was a test cricketer. She mentioned that Pawar must have imbibed his spinning tactics from him. The prime minister too found it appropriate to praise the leader of the party that he once unceremoniously referred to as the “Nationalist Corrupt Party”. PM Modi praised the leader’s knowledge in agriculture and said that like a true farmer, he could gauge which way the wind would blow and take steps accordingly. Are we looking at a consensus presidential candidate for 2017?
Protesting CMs
T
here has been a deluge of protests by CMs against governors. After Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s nasty spat with Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung, chief ministers of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal have joined the chorus. Arunachal Chief Minister Nabam Tuki claims that Governor JP Rakkhowa is using the Raj Bhawan as a BJP office. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has a similar complaint against Governor PB Acharya, who has an RSS background. Mamata Banerjee’s government too has conveyed its dissatisfaction about Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi to the center.
Odd and Even Gossip
T
he Capital was abuzz with odd and even numbers gossip. According to one gossipy birdie, the move by the Delhi government to give 10,000 permits to additional autos to deal with the crisis seems to be less about pollution and more about politics. After all, issuing 10,000 auto permits in two weeks is not easy. Even basic
Photoshop Woes
G
overnment media offices have been on an overdrive. A photoshopped image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted by the overzealous Press Information Bureau(PIB) on the official website showing him in a helicopter during an aerial survey of flood-hit Chennai
Politics in the Time of Deluge
E
ven as the magnitude of the Chennai floods was unfolding, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy took the opportunity to take a jibe at his bete noire, former finance minister P Chidambaram.
checks like license, nationality and criminal record will take a good deal more time. What’s more, the move will leave Delhiites at the mercy of the auto drivers on foggy, polluted winter days. Is it mere coincidence that “auto kings” Rahul and Rajiv Bajaj are the best of pals with the Delhi CM? All said and done, curtailing cars and adding autos shall end up being a zero-sum game!
was hurriedly removed after questions were raised in social media about its authenticity. Apparently, the PIB had been photoshopping images earlier too during the Manmohan Singh and Atal Behari Vajpayee dispensations, to boost PR drives. In a similar vein, in a sarkari ad of the Telangana government’s achievements, the media team has randomly photoshopped various photos—Vrindavan widows, protesting farmers at Jantar Mantar, villagers of Coimbatore and so on. Of course, none beats Censor Board chief Pankaj Nihalani, whose video eulogizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi has caused much embarrassment to the government.
Swamy approached his followers via Twitter and made an objectionable post saying: “Chennai rain water flooding is actually due to PC’s Uzbekis tears at the loss of their business. Blame ED and IT for it.” He was referring to the legal cases he has filed against Chidambaram.
Record Transfers
B
abus of central and state governments are used to being shunted around on the whims and fancies of their political bosses. But this time, a record has been created. Beating Ashok Khemka of the “Haryana land deals” fame, 2000-batch IAS officer Amit Gupta has entered the Limca Book of Records for having served as a district magistrate in 14 districts of Uttar Pradesh, (excluding repetitions), the most by an Indian civil servant. Between March 8, 2005, and February 10, 2014, Gupta had served in Hamirpur, Lalitpur, Jalaun, Kannauj, Pratapgarh, Etawah, Maharajganj, Firozabad, Shravasti, LakhimpurKheri, Badaun, Bijnor, Pilibhit and Rae Bareli. Some of the terms lasted barely a few days. —Compiled by Roshni Seth Illustrations: UdayShankar VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 9
U O T E S
I do not think there is intolerance… the question that was asked, for which people pounced on me, was ‘what would you say to the future generation?’ because I now fall under the seniority zone... Everything is very nice in our country. God bless India, long live us, long live us Indians. —Shah Rukh Khan, a day before the release of his recent film, Dilwale, to ABP News
If you feel insecure working with people who are better than you, it pushes you to do better. If you’re comfortable, you don’t push yourself. —Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, at Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi
The Congress is a private limited company in which the shares are held by one family. In the Congress, no matter how talented the individual, he or she must be resigned to the fact that the top two jobs will never be open to anybody other than the family members. —Aakar Patel, in Outlook
I really like how this will upset Delhi’s neatly arranged pecking order. Imagine, on any given Wednesday, an even-numbered Nano is more desirable than an odd-numbered BMW! I like that two rich kids will have to share the backseat of a BMW instead of racing one another to school in two. — Anuja Chauhan, author, on the forthcoming odd-even car scheme in Delhi, in The Week 10 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi
A CBI officer told me yest that CBI has been asked to target all opp parties n finish those who don't fall in line.
Amish Tripathi, author
#AryanInvasionTheory is d greatest piece of fiction cooked up by Europeans since Shakespearean plays.
Shekhar Gupta, senior journalist
UPA handed over policy-making to publicity-crazed NGOs with no accountability & paid for it. AAP is doing so now with the #OddEvenPolicy.
Chitra Subramaniam, senior journalist
Which Indian politician isn’t afraid of Sonia Gandhi? Television debates and legal finesse don’t count.
Minhaz Merchant, journalist and author
If Sonia can make India’s highest paid lawyers like @DrAMSinghvi & @KapilSibal run around court like errand boys, imagine her money power.
Suhel Seth, author, columnist Utter rubbish. But nothing about AAP surprises me any more (on what the AAP is saying about Arun Jaitley in the raid case).
EDIA-GO-ROUND
Arnab snubs
western media I
n an international media conference organized in Moscow to commemorate the 10th anniversary of news channel Russia Today’s launch, Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami surprised his audience by openly challenging what he perceived as the hegemony of western media. While 90 percent of Indians follow cross-border news, in the US and the
What did India
BJP PR drive
watch in 2015? T
turns costly
he year 2015 was all-and-all about comedy. This is evident as 5 out of the top 10 most-viewed videos on YouTube were comedy, reports Bestmediainfo.com. Grabbing the first spot is the amusing comic music video by AIB called Every Bollywood Party Song Feat. Irrfan. Amongst the other top trending comedy videos are AIB’s Honest Indian Weddings (Part 1), PK movie spoof, TVF’s Barely Speaking with Arnub - Arvind Kejriwal and Baahubali 2The Ending Spoof by Srikanth Reddy. The other videos in the list are Chhota Bheem Aur Krishna Jodi No. #1, Crime Patrol – Sting Operation 3, Sujoy Ghosh’s epic thriller Ahalya, Kapil Sharma Rocks in Star Guild Award with his Anchoring, and Splitsvilla. Taking the lead in the list of top 10 music videos on YouTube is Dheere Se Meri Zindagi, followed by Chittiyaan Kalaiyaan.
T
he BJP government in Haryana spent a whopping ` 17 crore within a fortnight on advertisements highlighting its achievements on completion of a year in office. The information was procured by Panipat-based RTI activist PP Kapoor, reports The Indian Express. The Haryana government defended the spending, saying the intention behind the advertisements was to inform people about schemes that are for their benefit. Kapoor’s query on the number of new jobs created during the year yielded no result. He was quoted by the newspaper as saying: “The government did not provide any details of the employment provided in the last one year. It shows that the government did not make any recruitment.”
UK, this figure is 44-46 percent. But the US and the UK together contribute to 74 percent of the source of global news even while all of Asia contributes only 3 percent. “Indians are the least insular people, (and) the most open-minded. Americans are the most insular,” Goswami concluded. “India will be the next media capital in the world,” he went on to assert, adding that “it will be from countries like India which speak English, which have democracies, that the challenge to the global news hegemony is about to come.”
Journalist KG Suresh may become
DG, IIMC J
ournalist KG Suresh, an authority on right wing politics, could replace Sunit Tandon as the next director-general of the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication. Suresh’s name has been proposed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to the Department of Personnel as the next DG, The Indian Express said, quoting sources. KG Suresh is serving as an editor for the website and in-house publications of the Delhi-based think-tank Vivekananda International Foundation.
–Compiled by Shailaja Paramathma VIEWS ON NEWS
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Lede Diplomacy Indo-Pak talks
Modi’s Pakistan Gamble
W
STATEMENT OF INTENT?
(Above) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj addresses the media along with Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan prime minister’s foreign affairs adviser, in Islamabad
AS the recent decision to resume a comprehensive bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan a sudden and dramatic step as the government would have us believe? While any resumption of talks must be welcomed, it must be seen as a well-thought-out move and not as a spontaneous flow of diplomatic emotions. Here are the facts. On December 9, India and
12 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
The recent decision to resume a comprehensive bilateral dialogue with our “belligerent” neighbor was not as spontaneous as it was made out to be. It was a carefully choreographed and calibrated move BY RAMESH RAMACHANDRAN
Pakistan jointly issued a statement saying that they had “agreed to a Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue and directed the foreign secretaries to work out the modalities and schedule of the meetings”. Peace talks were first suspended in the aftermath of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai and a second time in 2013 after the beheading of an Indian soldier following tensions along the border. The December 9 decision was agreed upon at a meeting between Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s foreign
affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz in Islamabad. The joint statement read that both Swaraj and Aziz “condemned terrorism and resolved to cooperate to eliminate it. They noted the successful talks on terrorism and security related issues in Bangkok by the two national security advisers (NSA) and decided that the NSAs will continue to address all issues connected to terrorism. The Indian side was assured of the steps being taken to expedite the early conclusion of the Mumbai trial.” “Both sides,” it continued, “accordingly, agreed to a Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue and directed the foreign secretaries to work out the modalities and schedule of the meetings under the Dialogue including peace and security, CBMs (Confidence Building Measures), Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation Project, economic and commercial cooperation, counter-terrorism, narcotics control, humanitarian issues, people to people exchanges and religious tourism.”
H
ow the announcement came about was supposedly dramatic. If the official Indian narrative is to be believed, all it took was a two-odd-minute meeting between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif in Paris on November 30 to break the ice. And in less than a week, both countries sprung a surprise on their unsuspecting peoples by letting it be known that NSA AK Doval and his Pakistan counterpart Lt Gen Nasser Khan Janjua (Retd) had met in Bangkok. A joint press release issued on December 6 said that the two NSAs, accompanied by their foreign secretaries, had concluded discussions which “covered peace and security, terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir, and other issues, including tranquility along the LoC (Line of Control).” That neither government acknowledged that the move was choreographed in detail and the meetings were carefully planned after high-level deliberations was diplomatic secrecy at work. They were indeed not chance encounters. A lot of back-
channel negotiations had taken place (with a little help from the US and some European powers) before calibrated steps towards resuming the stalled peace talks were taken. That the series of meetings followed a script is all the more remarkable because the public discourse in both countries had begun degenerating into mutual recriminations within months of Modi’s invitation to Sharif for the former’s swearing in as PM on May 22, 2014. An appreciation of the outcome of the Ufa talks in July this year is the key to understanding the evolution of Modi’s Pakistan policy in general and the December 6 meeting between the NSAs and the December 9 decision to resume bilateral peace talks, in particular. The joint statement issued at Ufa committed India and Pakistan to a meeting in New Delhi between the two NSAs to discuss all issues connected to terrorism, among others. Equally significant was Sharif ’s reiteration of his invitation to Modi to visit Pakistan for the SAARC summit in 2016. It was subsequently decided that the NSAs — Aziz and Doval—would meet in New Delhi on August 23. However, India’s insistence that the talks would be confined to terrorism and that Aziz
BOLD INITIATIVE It is believed that the Modi-Sharif meeting during the Paris climate summit triggered Indo-Pak talks at various levels
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Lede Diplomacy Indo-Pak talks
Pakistani media on Sushma’s visit
The Express Tribune “The Indian decision to resume the composite dialogue is a clear departure from its earlier stance that it will not enter into meaningful talks with Pakistan on Kashmir and other issues unless its concerns on terrorism are addressed.”
Dawn “India is part of the Heart of Asia process, but Ms Swaraj’s visit was made possible because of an ice-breaking meeting between Prime Minister Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Paris on the sidelines of the Climate Change summit. The brief meeting was facilitated by the UK.”
Pakistan Today “Adopting a cautious approach over the agenda of talks between Swaraj and Aziz, Indian officials said they will see how the meeting goes and if there will be any point of convergence.”
Pakistan Observer “Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj landed in Islamabad on Tuesday evening with a message of goodwill and hope to improve Pak-India relations. Though, apparently her visit is to attend Heart of Asia Conference, but diplomatic sources have termed it a major breakthrough in tension-ridden ties.”
The Nation “The visiting minister said the two countries were talking to each other on the ways to improve their ties and move forward. When asked what message she had brought from India, Swaraj said her country wanted good relations with Pakistan.”
The News “Imran Khan said that Modi was afraid of his “own right wingers” and Sharif was worried about Pakistan’s army, which holds sway over matters of internal security and foreign affairs. He called for the end of “this stupidity of harking back and riling up anger and hatred toward each other.”
Daily Times “India is looking for a substantive engagement with Pakistan during Swaraj’s visit to Islamabad. The Indian government had officially confirmed on Monday that she would visit Pakistan to attend the Heart of Asia conference.”
— Complied by Sherien Kaul, Priyvrat Singh Chouhan 14 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
was not welcome to meet the Kashmiri separatists led to the cancellation of the talks. Here the subtext becomes important. One reason why the Aziz-Doval talks failed to materialize was the protocol mismatch between Aziz, who enjoys a cabinet minister’s rank, and Doval, who started out as a secretary-rank official but has since been elevated to the rank of a minister of state like his immediate predecessors. While Aziz had the mandate to discuss political issues such as Jammu and Kashmir, Modi felt that Doval, by virtue of having been a career intelligence officer with an enviable reputation, was ideally suited to discuss counter-terrorism. Two months later, on October 22, Pakistan announced the appointment of Lt Gen Naseer Khan Janjua (Retd) as the national security adviser “with the status of minister of state” (on a par with Doval) who will be “based at the prime minister’s secretariat” (like Doval who functions from the PMO). With this asymmetry out of the way, India and Pakistan came good on their Ufa commitment of holding a meeting between the two NSAs to discuss THE DECISION MAKER? Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif
all issues connected to terrorism when Doval and Janjua met in Bangkok. Their meeting marked a departure from the previous practice of mandating the home secretary of India and the interior secretary of Pakistan to discuss terrorism. Now, not only have the talks about “all issues connected to terrorism” been elevated to the level of the NSA (minister of state) but New Delhi could open a line of communication with the military establishment and by extension its chief of army staff, currently held by the Pakistan prime minister’s namesake General Raheel Sharif.
A
new architecture of the India-Pakistan talks, rechristened as Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue, as opposed to the earlier labels of Resumed Dialogue (2011 to 2013) or Composite Dialogue (1997 to 2008), was slowly emerging. India and Pakistan could be expected to hold parallel or simultaneous talks, one between the NSAs (the Pakistani military establishment will be on its board) about terrorism and the other between their respective foreign ministers or diplomats. While the semantically different Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue will retain the flavour of its previous avatars (What’s in a name, you might won-
der? A lot, if India and Pakistan are in question), what Modi and Sharif have done is to unbundle the eight subjects under the erstwhile Composite Dialogue and bring some more issues under the ambit of the bilateral talks. So in addition to the twin pillars of peace and security including CBMs and Jammu and Kashmir, terrorism and drug trafficking, commercial and economic cooperation and promotion of friendly exchanges will now be discussed. Humanitarian issues, people-to-people exchanges programmes and religious tourism have also been included in the ambit. While it indicates that the two countries have reached a modus vivendi, it is not clear whether under the new terms of engagement Pakistani interlocutors would be welcome to hold talks with the Hurriyat as before. (Pakistan High Commissioner to New Delhi Abdul Basit says, “there is no change in our policy towards them.”) It is also not clear whether the leaders of India and Pakistan will meet in each other’s countries or will go back to the old pattern of meeting in neutral venues. For its part, India maintains that implicit in the December 9 joint statement is that the talks are being resumed on the basis of Pakistan’s assurance that steps are being taken to expedite the early conclusion of the Mumbai trial. At the same time, it
LEADERSHIP SKILLS Modi's Pakistan visit in 2016 will give him a chance to pick up the threads in Indo-Pak ties from where former PMs Manmohan Singh and Vajpayee had left them
It is not clear whether under the new terms of engagement Pakistani interlocutors would be welcome to hold talks with the Hurriyat as before.
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Lede Diplomacy Indo-Pak talks
The meetings were not chance encounters, but carefully planned after high-level deliberations. A lot of back-channel negotiations took place before the peace talks were resumed. THE KASHMIR TANGLE Military operations in J&K continue to be one of the main agendas in bilateral talks. But, other issues need to be discussed now
cannot be said with any degree of certainty that the latest round of talks would survive another 26/11. India is proceeding on the assumption that with Rawalpindi becoming a stakeholder in the NSAlevel talks, the Pakistani army and its affiliates would tread that much more cautiously. While Mani Shankar Aiyar of the Congress party reiterates his oft-quoted position of “uninterrupted and uninterruptible dialogue�, some such as Rajesh Rajagopalan take a nuanced position. The professor of international politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University believes that although the resumption of talks are only to be welcomed but one would do well not to expect much by way of outcomes, particularly a halt to the terrorism emanating from Pakistan. Rajagopalan maintains that India should seek to develop its military options to counter terrorism. Rajagopalan’s formulation
16 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
echoes that of some others in the Indian strategic community who insist that India ought to develop an effective asymmetric defence doctrine and impose costs on Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism directed at India. Modi would become the first Indian prime minister after Vajpayee in 2004 to visit Pakistan for the 2016 SAARC summit. Although Sushma Swaraj told parliament that the peace talks have been resumed with the modest objectives of exploring cooperative ties and promoting better understanding and mutual trust, it could offer Modi an opportunity to pick up the threads from where Manmohan and Vajpayee had left them. As former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri told this writer last year during a visit to New Delhi, India and Pakistan had come very close to an agreed framework on the Kashmir issue during the tenures of Manmohan Singh and Gen Pervez Musharraf . It remains to be seen whether Modi is able and willing to get the backing of the BJP and the RSS to forge the broadest possible consensus on reconciliation with Pakistan. For Sharif, the challenge would be not to squander the handsome mandate that swept Modi to power. But the question is: Will Pakistan play ball?
S THE WORLD TURNS
Alibaba to buy South China Morning Post
C
Cartoon on India labeled “racist”
A
newspaper cartoon in Australia showing starving Indians attempting to eat solar panels with mango chutney has been criticized as racist and drawing on “a stereotype from the 1950s”, reported The Sydney Morning Herald. The cartoon by Bill Leak, one of the nation’s best-known cartoonists, appeared in The Australian, a daily
broadsheet published by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which has taken a skeptical approach to action on climate change. The cartoon prompted a tirade of criticism on social media as well as in the Indian press. A comment piece by Adita Iyer in The Hindustan Times attacked the cartoon for “focusing on a stereotype of Indian poverty straight out of the 1950s”. “It’s plausible that the emaciated, rag-clad villagers from his cartoon would be able to teach Leak a thing or two about solar energy,” Iyer wrote.
hinese internet giant Alibaba will pay HK$2.06bn for the takeover of Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. The newspaper group revealed the sale price in a statement filed to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Besides the English language newspaper, Alibaba will also own sister publications, websites and magazines of the paper. Questions have been raised regarding the editorial independence under the new
dispensation. Asked about critics who say Alibaba would feel the pressure from Chinese leaders to change the newspaper’s coverage, Alibaba Group Holding Limited executive chairman Jack Ma said: “I think those people think too little of us.”Alibaba has said it could leverage on its technology expertise to develop the paper.
MTV helicopter crash kills two A
helicopter which was being used for filming an MTV reality show crashed into a reservoir in Argentina, killing the pilot and a technician, reported NBC Chicago. The aircraft came down at the Potrerillos de Mendoza dam in western Argentina. MTV said the helicopter was fly-
Egypt clamps down on author’s event
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gypt’s bestselling author Alaa al-Aswany has said that the authorities put pressure on a cultural center to cancel an event where he was scheduled to talk about how the Egyptian government manipulates the public with theories that the world is conspiring
ing to a shooting location for the show The Challenge. Neither of those killed was part of the cast or the film’s crew, the US channel said. The wreckage lay at a depth of 60 metres. This is the second helicopter accident this year in Argentina involving a reality show.
against Egypt. The Guardian reported that Al-Aswany said the cancellation of his event in Alexandria follows other measures in the past year, which have prevented him from appearing on TV channels or getting published in Egyptian newspapers. Al-Aswany has been quoted by the media as saying that “freedom of expression is at its lowest point, worse than in the days of Hosni Mubarak.” —Compiled by Anuj Raina VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 17
Ground Zero Chennai Floods Media coverage
Lost in Translation?
The media as well as the government were slow in responding to the cataclysmic floods in the city. Was it dismissed initially because of a gross misreading of the situation or did it reflect inherent north-south apathy and prejudices? BY BIKRAM VOHRA
T
HE fact is cruel. India did not rally around Chennai and understand or register how bad the situation was. Not until it was far too late. For some reason, “torrential rain” does not have the same resonance as a hurricane with a female name or a typhoon or a tsunami. So, it was unfairly underplayed in the mind and certainly the media suffered from the same myopia and did diddly to emphasize the terrifying onslaught by the weather. As a nation we made a “hmmmmm, how sad” sort of acknowledgment and carried on with our lives. I’d like to think the flaw in the first few days was not one of indifference. And then, a wellknown Indian-born Australian, now an expert on media, writes to me and articulates what I had squeezed away into the attic of my mind and locked the door. Having read my indictment of the Indian media thoughtlessly allowing itself to carry stories
FLOOD OF DISTRESS Residents wade through a flooded street in Chennai
18 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
through audio-visual and in writing that India and Goa were off the “safe destination” list in Russia (irrelevant that Moscow rescinded the official statement), Ivor Vaz is not surprised that no one thought to say, “Hey, wait a minute, Goa is part of India”. In fact, it has been since 1960. The same analogy goes for seeding the Chennai cloud. It is the way we think that catches us out so pathetically. Hear Vaz on it: “I think that the problem stems from something far more sinister. I’m currently on a tour of south-central India. Visiting places that were at one point or another colonized or occupied by Chinese, Dutch, French, Portuguese and eventually by the British. This has to
The Chennai deluge was underplayed in the mind and the media suffered from the same myopia. As a nation, we made a “hmmmm, how sad” sort of acknowledgment and carried on with our lives. be one of the most beautiful places on earth but is juxtaposed with some of the largest social boundaries. “Let me explain, one of the things I hear Indians ask other Indians is ‘where are you from?’ To the untrained ear, this might sound like a seemingly innocent question. But it is laden with an agenda to reduce your existence to a stereotype, the shallowest depth of field and to create another point of difference between one Indian and another. From state to province to village to tehsil to district to which side of the street. “In Australia, no one really gives a bee’s behind where someone from Australia really comes from because if you’re Aussie, you’re Aussie—true blue.” Sadly in India it is different; it is sad that these walls exist and are so deeply ingrained in our psyche. Is it that someone from Delhi or Mumbai is superior than someone from Chennai or
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE Flood-affected people scamper for free food being distributed by the Indian Navy
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January 7, 2016 19
Ground Zero Chennai Floods Media coverage
How often we have been told: “Oh you don’t look like a typical Bengali or Malayalee or whatever”, the word “typical” soaked in derision.
BLINKERED VIEW Indian media was quick to carry stories that the tourist haven Goa was off the “safe destination” list in Russia
Kochi? You even hear them gasp and look at you like you're backward if you assume that they are from somewhere else. The truth is that, yes, you are from Goa, or you are from Bengaluru—but you are Indian. This sense of national identity is yet to be established with a significant sense of togetherness. How often we have been told, “Oh you don’t look like a typical Bengali or Malayalee or whatever”, the word “typical” soaked in derision. This sense of national identity is what existed during the 19-20th colonial centuries under the “divide and rule” regimes but unfortunately this split has been further eroded by our tendency to
20 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
exclude and discriminate or, by that token, to congregate, club and become a cadre. This love for division is ruining any further potential that India as a country might have to truly grow and subsequently prosper. So, we come to the big question. If it had rained in Mumbai or in Punjab, would the nation have been more involved? Did the great NorthSouth socio-cultural divide really manifest itself even during the worst floods in memory in Chennai? Did we need Nature to come and indict us for our parochial prejudices? WHAT CAME INTO PLAY? Could it be the historical northern state arrogance towards the southern states? It is the attitude that everything and everyone below the Hindi belt belongs to Madras or are Madrasi. The parodies of cinematic characterization and the “aye aye yo” mockery reflects the great Aryan-Dravidian debate. Does the fact that northerners are relatively fairer in skin and, therefore, by some foolish chemistry, contributing to this thinking? Or is it a response to the reactive South Indian “cliquishness” and their intellectual snobbery that makes them see the northern brethren as crude and unrefined? Slivers of all these elements makes Chennai a bridge too far to really bother. It is worth more than a think because if we fail each other, what price is the future? It is time to take the prejudices of the past and throw them out with the flood waters. The first reaction to all this would be one of furrowed annoyance. Don’t be so silly, it is not like it was cataclysmic from Day One, like an earthquake. It was just rain. The drainage system failed the city—no one thought it was going to be a crisis. Partly true. Rain didn’t make for much of a story on the TRP Richter scale. Not in the first 72 hours. Oops, it’s raining in Chennai, oh okay, fine.
Even the print media put it on the inside pages. It was much later when the death toll crossed 300 and the rains did not let up that there was a national realization, albeit a little slow off the mark, that the city was reeling. The morphed Modi shot of deep introspection from a helicopter port window did little to underscore the seriousness. How desperate can it really be if pictures have to be photo-shopped to underscore the devastation? Even the NRI community, so swift to wave flags and fling clods of patriotic fervor, seemed mired in inertia. Did the Tamil Nadu government fail so miserably to send out the right messages or did the northern and central belts not understand the language of the message and lost it in translation? On two fronts, the analysis demands to be studied. In anthropological terms the NorthSouth equation has to be placed under scrutiny. It is awry and needs to be corrected. If we allow the chasm to widen further, there may be no bridge long enough to span it. In the second instance, it is necessary to make amends for the slackness in the rebuilding of Chennai. Shashi Tharoor writes: “The city, home to five million people, has virtually shut down, with roads flooded and nearly 5,000 homes under water. More than 450 people have died. Air and rail services have been suspended, power and phone lines have been disrupted.” I am not privy to his facts but I believe they are far more horrific. A 10-minute documentary shows all of the high-end Defence Colony in Chennai submerged to the level of the first floor. There was debris of garbage, floating animal carcasses and stagnant pools which will breed disease. The need for water and food and medical supplies and aid became paramount. As it was to stave cholera, dysentery and malaria, the unholy horsemen of the crisis. There is no count yet of how many are homeless but it will be several hundred thousand. The
“The city, home to five million people, has virtually shut down, with roads flooded and nearly 5,000 homes under water. Over 450 people have died. Air and rail services have been suspended.” —Former minister Shashi Tharoor aftermath is often more damaging than the actual flooding. Now is the time to get there and lend a hand, to provide technical and skilled support, to look after the children who have lost their homes, to be Indian for Indians. POSTSCRIPT I studied in Chennai and worked there and, unfortunately, have no skill sets to offer except to send out these signals that you are needed pro bono as doctors, nurses, engineers, electricians, plumbers... and if you need our time or help to sponsor a family in dire straits, let us know... thousands of us would stand up and be counted, we just wallow in ignorance and good intentions and time passes and we end up doing nothing. VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 21
Ground Zero Chennai Floods Social Media Coverage
While national media was deficient in its coverage of flood-ravaged Chennai, its place was taken over by social media which became a tool for information and rescue efforts BY SUNIL SAXENA
After Chennai Floods…
the Media Deluge
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OR three days—from December 1 to 3—Chennai was marooned, and there were heroic efforts by residents, NGOs and absolute strangers to rescue people in trouble. But did you see any of this on national TV? More importantly, did you get a sense of the flooding or the scale of the disaster? You only saw reporters standing near the airport and Saidapet
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Bridge where the Adyar river had overflowed, informing viewers that the city was under water. Yes, there were shots of a few flooded localities such as Kotturpuram, of residents trying to reach safety, of submerged cars and rescue boats ferrying people. An image that was shown repeatedly was of a family using drums to ferry their son to safety. LITTLE INFORMATION For two days, those outside Chennai did not know how much of the city was under water. Nor how
deep the flooding was. We were repeatedly told that the streets were flooded, that lakes were overflowing, that water had entered homes. But the images did not give a sense of how bad the situation was. Was the entire city flooded or was the flooding limited to areas located on the banks of the Adyar river? Reporters and camera crew seemed to be shooting from select locations and not across the city. There was little effort to venture into localities that faced the main brunt of the flooding. It was only on the afternoon of December 3 that we got a real sense of the calamity. TV crews boarded IAF choppers that were pressed into service to drop food packets. The aerial shots shook viewers. Street after street was under water. One could only wonder how people were coping. Most single-storied homes were submerged. There were no roads, only sheets of water. Later in the evening, one saw TV crews piggybacking on army boats. On one boat, the TV reporter raised his hand to touch overhead electricity wires to show how deep the water was. Why were
Chennai would have suffered many more deaths had it not been for social media. It gave the marooned a voice, a platform where they could tweet their appeals for help. The tweets did not go in vain. the reporters avoiding the heavily flooded areas earlier? How well are TV teams anyway equipped to cover such calamities? Some of the questions that come to mind are: Why were there no maps to show which parts of Chennai were flooded? And why couldn’t the TV crews interact with the administration and prepare a map that showed how deep the water was in different localities? Why didn’t cameramen climb buildings and take aerial views of the flooding? Or venture deep into areas that were heavily flooded? Viewers were informed that water had entered a government hospital and that patients had to be VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 23
Ground Zero Chennai Floods Social Media Coverage
The tweets for help had an instant response. Some Chennaites in fact offered to accommodate many people. Marriage halls, community centers and schools also opened their doors. evacuated. But barring one picture of a woman in a wheelchair, there were no shots to show the state of the hospital or places where the patients had been taken. There was considerable coverage of the airport. But what about the railway station? Thousands must have been stranded there. There were no shots of homes or schools or shelters where the rescued had been taken. What about officials or NGOs who were working to reduce the misery of the people? Why were they ignored? Why were there so few interviews of people who had been rescued? Or of the rescuers? There were so many gaps in the coverage. To make matters worse, the TV channels, instead of pushing their reporters and cameramen to report better, were busy asking their internet desks to report how social media was covering the tragedy. And that is where social media scored over national media channels. TWITTER’S APPEAL In fact, Chennai would have suffered many more deaths had it not been for social media which connected people in their hour of need. It gave the marooned a voice, a platform where they could tweet their appeals for help. The tweets did not go in vain. Each message on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp was read, retweeted and shared, and people responded. The most powerful SOS helpline was Twitter with its 140-character one-liners. Some of the hashtags that relayed the woes and needs of Chennai were: #chennairains, #chennaifloods, #chennarainshelp and #chennaifloodsairport. 24 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
In those crucial three days—December 1 to 3— the nature of the tweets changed as flood waters rose, giving a scary picture of the sheer terror Chennaites underwent: Twitter as a warning board: As the clouds opened up and streets got submerged on December 1, alarmed residents tweeted pictures and videos. These tweets acted as warnings to fellow citizens to avoid places where the water had started collecting. December 2 saw more such photographs being tweeted—submerged cars, fallen trees, Saidapet bridge under water, flooded railway tracks…. These images provided the first clues of how parts of Chennai went under water.
First
offers of help: Images of stranded cars brought immediate offers of help. Volunteers tweeted phone numbers, offering help to repair cars or tow them to safety. As the flooding had not sunk in fully, the offers were limited to rescuing people who had got stuck on roads.
First
tweets for information: By the afternoon of December 2, the situation had changed. There was now worry and concern. People in Chennai as well as outside wanted to know if their near and dear ones were safe or not. There were tweets requesting information on hashtags built around Chennai rains and floods.
First appeals for food, water, material, emer-
gency supplies: With every passing hour, people’s woes mounted. There was no electricity and water had started entering homes by the afternoon of December 2. People were forced to move to higher floors or to safer places. They were also running out of food, water and emergency supplies. The nature of tweets changed; they now asked for food and water and
this continued for the next few days. Call for volunteers: The scale of the tragedy required more hands. Volunteers were getting stretched. They also needed transport and emergency supplies. Tweets were now put out seeking more volunteers and information regarding food and water. Surprisingly, there were no tweets from the administration asking people to come out and help. The government seemed to be avoiding social media. Chennaites tweet to open doors for needy: The tweets for help produced an immediate response. Some offered one room, some two, some willing to accommodate many people. There were tweets about marriage halls, community centers and schools that could accommodate flood victims. There were also offers to provide food. Nothing could have been more heart-warming than seeing a whole city rise to help. Acts of heroism: There was one video that stood out. It was tweeted to show how people joined hands on a flooded street to save a man from being washed away. There was another first-day tweet
Facebook activated its Safety Check feature on December 3, making it possible for its users in Chennai to reach out to friends, relatives and loved ones with one click.
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Ground Zero Chennai Floods Social Media Coverage
HOW THE VALLEY RESPONDED When large parts of Jammu and Kashmir were flooded in 2014, social media was used sporadically for organizing help
Why were reporters avoiding the heavily flooded areas earlier? How well are TV teams anyway equipped to cover such calamities?
of a policeman directing traffic at a flooded underpass, though he himself seemed to be in danger of going under water. Companies offer help: Private companies too took to Twitter to broadcast messages of free services and support. Airtel offered free talk-time credit up to `30 to all prepaid customers in Chennai, while Paytm launched a Stay Safe initiative. Vodafone offered to reach out to all its customers. Food delivery app Zomato came out with a customized offer, “Meal for Flood Relief ”, where, if a customer buys a meal for the people of Chennai, the company will add another to it. Too many retweets: There was a flip side too. There were several good-hearted citizens who retweeted each tweet for help. These retweets foxed volunteers and often led them to areas where help had already been provided. This led to a call to remove all those tweets that had already been catered to. Not an easy task. To avoid confusion, Twitter India put out a message as to how the Twitterati should be using Twitter. SAFE BUTTON Facebook, on its part, activated its Safety Check feature on December 3. With this, it became possible for Facebook users in Chennai to reach out to
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friends, relatives and loved ones with one click. All that they needed to do was to click the “Safe” button that appeared on their Facebook page. Facebook instantly notified the individual’s network that their friend or relative was safe. Google too used its search expertise to deploy the Crisis Response page, and its robots roamed the net to pick up all rescue-related information and put them up on a single page. The page also connected the latest tweets by Chennaites. The net-savvy people of Chennai also showed how crowd sourcing could be a great way to pool information. Chennairains.org was started as a Google spreadsheet where people were asked to put in helpline numbers, offers of accommodation, food, etc. Forms were provided so that people could provide full and complete information. The spreadsheet was soon upgraded to a full website. Compare this to the way social media was used during the Srinagar floods last year. One key difference was the lack of organized effort in Srinagar. While there were tweets and Facebook pages, these were individual posts where pictures of flooded streets, submerged homes and army boats rescuing people were shown. The people of Srinagar did not turn to the web to provide help in an organized way. There were only a few tweets of people inquiring about the well-being of their loved ones. In fact, Twitter did not turn into a helpline as in Chennai. Even coverage by TV channels during the Srinagar floods had a patriotic spin. National anchors baited Kashmiris saying that they must at least now realize how soldiers were putting their lives at risk to rescue the flood-hit. The question that was repeatedly raised was: Will this be a turning point in the way the Kashmiris view the Indian army? It seems like the location of a calamity and the net savviness of people residing there have a lot to do with the way rescue efforts are conducted. And social media will become a vital platform for relief in future.
The writer is dean, School of Communication, GD Goenka University, Gurgaon
Web Crawler What Went Viral
UK social media wants Trump barred
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onald Trump’s claim that parts of London are “so radicalized the police are afraid for their lives” has sparked off a social media storm. While the Republican frontrunner was roundly condemned by British politicians cutting across party lines, there has been a surge of signatures on the British parliament's petitions webpage calling for him to be banned from entering the UK, BBC reported. A petition calling for Trump to be banned attracted more than 1,00,000
signatures in about a day—a number that climbed to more than 4,00,000 by midweek—making it eligible to be considered for debate in parliament. The petition calls for Trump to be barred for “hate speech”. Labour home affairs spokesman Jack Dromey and Green Party leader Natalie Bennett have both backed the petition. On Twitter, many mocked Trump for his comments. The hashtag #trumpfacts trended in London, with 30,000 messages.
Tashfeen messaged FB friends
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alifornia shooter Tashfeen Malik sent at least two private messages on Facebook to a small group of Pakistani friends in 2012 and 2014, pledging her support for jihad and saying she hoped to join the fight one day, reported Los
Angeles Times. The new info indicates that US law enforcement and intelligence agencies missed warnings on social
“Tell your son your story”
I
n a bid to create awareness about sexual harassment among men and boys, human rights organization Breakthrough has launched a social media campaign “share your story with your son”, reported TOI. The campaign seeks to fight sexual harassment by inculcating empathic values in young boys and men towards a harassed woman and has been popularized with hashtag #shareyourstory. It calls for mothers to share their stories of sexual harassment with their sons so that an inter-generational dialogue can be built up.
media that Malik was a potential threat before she entered the US on a K-1 fiancee visa in July 2014. The two Facebook messages were recovered by FBI agents investigating whether Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, received any financial support or instructions from foreign terrorist organizations before they carried out the December 2 attacks.
Speaking about the campaign, Breakthrough country director Sonali Khan said: “Conversations about sexual harassment don't happen within Indian families. I have a 19-year-old son and I thought, did I ever have such a conversation with him? If a parent has such a conversation, what will be the impact?”
State snooping, beware: Twitter
T
witter has warned a number of users that they may have been the target of a statesponsored attack. The company has apparently sent the warnings by email to more than 20 users, reported The Guardian. The warning reads: “We are alerting you that your Twitter account is one of a small group of accounts that may have been targeted by state-sponsored actors. We believe these actors (possibly associated with a government) may have been trying to obtain information such as email addresses, IP addresses and/or phone numbers.” Among those who have publicly said that they received the warning are: Winnipegbased information security nonprofit Coldhak, Minnesotan encryption activist myriadmystic, privacy and security researcher Runa Sandvik and Austrian communications consultant Marco Schreuder. Twitter is following both Google and Facebook in sending out warnings to perceived targets of state-sponsored hacking. —Compiled by Sucheta Dasgupta VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 27
Spotlight Comic Con Delhi
Just for a
Laugh!
The fifth edition of Comic Con showed the rising popularity of comics among young and free-spirited souls and the boom in the graphic art form, be it in comic strips, movies or television shows BY SUCHETA DASGUPTA
I
FEEL THE FORCE! Superhero Hulk makes an appearance at Delhi Comic Con
T WAS a bright and balmy Sunday morning on December 6. Goddesses and empresses chatted away on the Okhla National Small Industries Corporation Exhibition Ground, sharing puffs from slim, black cigarettes with villains and headless ghouls. A little distance ahead, Gandalf, Hulk, Harry Potter, Hit-Girl and Joker posed for a photograph before cheering fans. Young, artistic and free-spirited, they came in groups and pairs, many dressed as their favorite superheroes. By the time the fifth edition of Comic Con Delhi had closed, there had been around 35,000 visitors. Started in 2011, Comic Con India travels to three cities—Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru—annually, with Hyderabad being the new addition. While footfalls have doubled since its launch, the sale of merch—the cool word for comics-related merchandise—has risen manifold having crossed one crore two years ago. What then are the various cultural elements and trends driving this phenomenon? Fandoms, cosplay: Fanfiction (fiction characters used in different settings) writers, poets, artists and cosplayers (those indulging in costume play which is dressing up as in a fancy dress party or carnival) together constitute a particular fandom. Members of this subculture are united by a camaraderie born of shared devotion to a particular comic strip, movie or tele-
Photos: Siddhartha Samaddar
vision show. Love for their hero often impinges on their lifestyle. Fans of Sherlock Holmes are said to have comprised the first modern fandom, publicly mourning his “death” in 1893 and creating some of the first fanfiction as early as 1897. Moving on to the here and now, it is the lure of being photographed as one’s fav hero that drew many a fanboy and fangirl to the Delhi Comic Con. A selfie with toons: With the amount of care and intent that goes into their get-up, it is no wonder that one handsome Smurf, who was mistaken for Santa because of his red hat, got offended: “Chhee! All my effort gone to waste!? Do I look like a Santa? Santa blue hota hai kya? Come, take a selfie with me by your side!” The person who erred complied and so did many others. Serious comics: In 2003, Iranian-French graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi published the English translation of her critically-acclaimed memoir, Persepolis, where she chronicled her run-ins as a child with society and the law in post-Revolution Iran. Written in the 70s feminist style of underground artists like Aline Kominsky-Crumb, it was
GEEKS AND GODDESSES (Clockwise, from above left) Cosplayers dressed as Cleopatra, Neytiri and Athena. ‘Hit-Girl’ and ‘Kick-Ass’. Rob Denbleyker, co-creator of Cyanide And Happiness
an instant hit and sparked off a wave of such work. Successive Indian comic cons have seen a few of these maverick writers, including Nicolas Wild of Kabul Disco fame. This year, there were Ram Devineni (Priya’s Shakti), Sumit Kumar (Amar Bari Tomar Bari Naxalbari) and Dalbir Singh, all Indians. In their 40’s, the trio has a diverse set of products to offer and their subjects are the same — politics and society — and they all have a message. In Sikh Park, for instance, Singh has attempted to start a dialogue on the issues faced by the Sikh community in the US and Canada. Asked for his VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 29
Spotlight Comic Con Delhi
Fanfiction writers, poets, artists and cosplayers are united by a camaraderie born of shared devotion to a particular comic strip, movie or television show. Love for their hero often impinges on their lifestyle. MORE POWER TO GRAPHIC ART (Below right) Visitors to the Con took time off to doodle and paint on this wall. Don’t mistake these Smurfs for Santa Claus
stance on the controversy surrounding Sardar jokes, he said, confessionally: “One evolves. As a child, I did find them offensive. Not anymore. I could draw a parallel with the blacks in America. Because they have integrated into mainstream society, they can laugh at jokes about race today. So this issue need not be taken seriously.” Writers like the creator of Angry Maushi, Ab-
30 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
hijeet Kini, felt the market must move on from redoing and overdoing mythology. “It’s been done to death,” he said. If you ever thought comics are meant for only children, think again. Webcomics wave: Black humor is the foremost characteristic of this no-holds-barred genre and encompasses everything under the sun. Some strips are character-driven like the absurdist Achewood wherein the protagonists are talking animals with personalities — “I am Middle Cat, not Ray (Smuckles), not Pat (Reynolds)”. Others, like the self-deprecating Oatmeal aren’t. Some have story arcs, others don’t. But all are intellectual, which is why geek is chic and their appeal universal. Take SMBC (Saturday Morning Breakfast Ce-
real) which, many say, is NSFW (not safe for work). One of its gentler cartoons, which still does not miss a dig at the Anti-Evolution League of America, consists of a picture of three newspapers running the headlines: “Will the world end in six months? Is a universal cure round the corner? Was Darwin wrong?” The caption says it all. “New rule for Science Journalism. If your article can be summarized as ‘no’, do not write it.” Asked for a desi edition of his strip at the Delhi Comic Con, Rob Denbleyker, co-creator of Cyanide And Happiness, said to big applause: “It already exists. This version of Cyanide And Happiness is already the Indian version of Cyanide And Happiness.” Star power: Would anyone let slip a chance to rub shoulders with Rana Daggubati, Ayushman Khurana, Baba Sehgal and Nawazuddin Siddiqui? Pass up a chance to meet Sherlock creator Mark Gatiss? Be cold to the prospects of shaking hands with Kristian Nairn aka Hodor of Game of Thrones
Other interesting facets of this comic con included colorful coasters with Bugs Bunny and Garfield pictures, “I Am Sherlocked” T-shirts and purple, turquoise and pink artificial hair. renown? All of them as well as other eminent celebs have attended India’s different comic cons. Fun, games and merch: Other interesting facets of this comic con included colorful coasters with Bugs Bunny and Garfield pictures, “I Am Sherlocked” T-shirts and purple, turquoise and pink artificial hair. Never mind if they cost a bomb. Sales of posters, mugs and artwork hit a high at the con this year and scores queued up to pick up designer items signed by their idols. Meanwhile, those who wanted to go easy on their pockets could volunteer for a spot of boxing or participate in a pop quiz, free of charge. All in good fun.
MERCH MARCH! Sales of merchandise at Comic Con India have crossed the `1 crore mark
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January 7, 2016 31
Book Review Rest in Peace
TRACING A LIFE
The Adventures of Ravan and Eddie
This is the third book in the trilogy written by Kiran Nagarkar and gives a close-up of life in Mumbai’s chawls. It has everything— drama, action, suspense, disbelief... BY KRISH WARRIER 32 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
S
The book captures the resilience and the resignation of people living in Mumbai’s chawls
ATAN, said GK Chesterton, fell by the force of gravity. So it was with Ravan. He fell from the arms of the voluptuous Parvatibai and got caught by Eddie Coutinho who died in the bargain. Parvatibai named the boy Ravan to ward off the evil eye. So begins the first book, Ravan and Eddie, in the trilogy of books by Kiran Nagarkar about life in Mumbai’s CWD Chawl 17. The second book, The Extras, traces the parallel lives of Eddie and Ravan, who, at the conclusion of the book, collaborate to become ... don’t want to be a spoiler! The third and final book in the trilogy, Rest in Peace, which is being reviewed here, is a sort of rencontres hasardeux (hazardous encounters) of Ravan and Eddie in the film world— and a detour in their career. Let me digress here and mention about the back cover of the book. It has the bodies of Ravan and Eddie, wrapped like corpses, laid on a cart. Ravan
is asking Eddie: “Are we dead, Eddie?” To which Eddie replies: “If we are, Ravan, I promise we’ll take that damned author with us.” Sounds almost like an ad? Thereby hangs a tale. TALES FROM ADVERTISING It must have been around 1982 when I was a rookie copywriter at Mechanix Marketing Associates (MMA), an advertising start-up (that word had not yet entered the common parlance then) founded by Gopal Balani (one of the nicest persons I have met in advertising—may his soul rest in peace). We were handling the Zenith Computers account then and Balani had assigned me to the project. Zenith Computers was launching a new computer and, sad to say, my efforts in creating a concept for the campaign and punning came to naught. It was then that Gopal approached a copywriter from Chaitra, one of the “creative” agencies in the business. We met the copywriter who was clad in kurta-pajama, and his art director at Kwality Restaurant in Worli. While I scalded my hand trying to pour tea into my cup from a tea-cosy covered pot, the copywriter had cracked the campaign in his head. Two days later, I saw an impactful, photographic execution—a man with his head on the guillotine and a headline in Eras typeface that said: “Zenith Computers puts its neck on the block with...” The pithy body copy went on to extol the computer’s salient features. The overall effect was mesmerizing. The client loved the ad. The copywriter was Kiran Nagarkar (the art director was Sunil Mahadik). Cut to 2015 at the Tata Literature Live panel discussion at Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai. After the one-hour session, I had my fan-boy moment. I accosted Nagarkar and asked him to autograph my copy of Rest in Peace. He obliged happily.
So, the first time I met Nagarkar, he was a copywriter. The second time I met him, he was a Sahitya Akademi Award-winning author (for Cuckold). It was the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) which turned all the rules of advertising upside down to produce the brilliant Avis campaign which said: “Avis is only number 2. So why go with us? We try harder.” Just as DDB put forth its weakness as a strong point, so too Nagarkar names his protagonist after a villain, Ravan challenging the status quo.
CINEMATIC REFERENCE (Below) Harold Robbins penned a triology on the American entertainment industry (Bottom) A Bollywood movie set. Nagarkar’s book takes off from the point when the main characters are discovered by the film industry
AUDACIOUS CONCEPT Nagarkar shows a similar bent of mind when he dares to name the protagonist of his book Ravan. Ravan, as we all know, is the villain in the epic, Ramayana. To name the protagonist of your novel after a villain is audacious. Having said that, to call the Ravan and Eddie books a trilogy would be a misnomer. They are more like a series—The
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January 7, 2016 33
Book Review Rest in Peace
As they go from one risky encounter to another, one feels sorry, angry, happy for Ravan and Eddie. Both will go down as characters who mirror the attitude of the Mumbaikar.
REST IN PEACE By Kiran Nagarkar Publisher: HarperCollins Price: `450, 364 pages
Adventures of Ravan and Eddie. There have been other trilogies. Harold Robbins’ three books—The Dream Merchants, The Carpetbaggers, and The Inheritors—could qualify as a trilogy based on the American entertainment industry. There is also Amitav Ghosh’s The Ibis trilogy—Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015.) Rest in Peace takes off from the point when Ravan and Eddie are “discovered” by the film industry. They have arrived. Nagarkar grabs your eyeballs from the first page itself. Savor HISTORICAL FICTION Writer Amitav Ghosh this description of opportunistic Bolis known for his Ibis trilogy lywood film producers and directors who are making a beeline for Chawl 17: “The chauffeur got out, opened the Then, again, the shooting scene (pun uninrear door on the right and a man in white, the size tended) in the Chambal is pure kitsch. The corrupt of three polar bears, struggled to come out. It took cop and the deviously scheming villager all add to the driver and another helper to ease the triple the comedy-quotient of the book. Take the chapter polar bear from the car.” (Baby boomers are sure to when Ravan and Eddie discover a new career for be reminded of the classic James Hadley Chase line themselves. Again, Nagarkar gives you a close-up from the book, No Business of Mine: “Go jump in a of life in the chawls, redolent with black humor. lake,” I said, “Jump into two if one won’t hold you.”) So, as they go from one risky encounter to anFrom here on, the book is a series of haps and other, one feels sorry, angry, happy, for the duo. mishaps of the duo in the world of entertainment. Their innocence is their salvation. The book ends CHAWL LIFE in a Tom Sharpe-meets-Priyadarshan fashion. Nagarkar is at his best when he is irreverent and There’s a little bit of drama, melodrama, action, sussticks to the chawls. A scene when Ravan and Eddie pense, disbelief.... Nagarkar brings back all the imhave to return to the chawl captures both the reportant characters from his previous two books of silience and the resignation of those who live there: the trilogy in this finale. Each one is neatly tied up “Ravan was discovering that when you have nothand put in his or her place. Ravan and Eddie will ing to do, one way of occupying yourself was to go down as two memorable characters symbolizing scratch the stubble on your face or move south and the never-say-die attitude of the Mumbaikar. give the goods there a good jiggle, rub and scratch. The cover design of the book is by Nagarkar (Who can forget the famous scene from the movie, (once an ad man, always an ad man) and the cover Piya Ka Ghar when Keshto Mukherjee does a simphoto and illustration are by Prashant Godbole. ilar number?) Still, I cannot say the same when he Rest In Peace is a post-script to a post-script. Howwrites about the hi-life (Nagarkar lives in one of the ever, if you like a rollicking romp through the lives tony parts of Mumbai). of Ravan and Eddie, pick it up.
34 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
Interview
Kiran Nagarkar
“I am not an author people know at all” KIRAN NAGARKAR needs no introduction. A novelist, playwright, film and drama critic and screenwriter, he has written a trilogy of which Rest in Peace is the last book. In a conversation with KRISH WARRIER, laced with sardonic humor, he speaks about his early days of struggle in the advertising world, his forays into play writing, his troubles with the Censor Board and how he finally won the Sahitya Akademi award
When did you start writing? I started writing in 1967 or 1968. That’s when I wrote my first book in Marathi, 7 Sixes are Forty Three. I was trying to get into advertising being unfit for anything else. I must have applied to at least 12 ad agencies and all of them refused. One of them asked me to come on a Monday. I turned up early. I waited in the reception area but no one turned up. At about 11.30 am, I told them, ‘I am supposed to work from today.’ They went inside and told the copy chief. He came out and said they were very sorry as there was going to be a new tax on advertising and so I was not going to get the job. (Laughs) The entire government was conspiring against me. I obviously must be a very important person. Then what happened? Ultimately, I got a lucky break in MCM (Mass Communication and Marketing) with Kersey Katrak. Arun Kolatkar (the celebrated poet) was working there. So that’s how we got together. Working for MCM was not easy. It pitched for every single thing…accounts that had been with other agencies for 10-15 years. It was sheer madness. What about your first book? In December 1974, my first novel, 7 Sixes are Forty Three, was published in Marathi. Then around 1977, I finished my play, Bedtime Story. It is based on
the Mahabharata and took 38 years to be published. Initially, it was legally banned and then extra-legally banned. As a play, it got 74 or so cuts from the Censor Board. Around that time, a director asked me to write a screenplay, so I started with Ravan and Eddie. He thought I would be writing something melodramatic. By the second meeting he must have realized that I wasn’t his kind of writer. He didn’t even show up to tell me he was not interested in my work. Fortunately, I pursued it. What was this period like? Those were very difficult times. On rare occasions when we got work and if it did not pass with the client, we didn’t even get rejection fees. So earning `1,500 every two or three months was very difficult. This went on for a very long time. I think somewhere around the late eighties, I started getting work. In 1995, Ravan and Eddie got published. In 1997, Cuckold came out. Then I took a very long time for God’s Little Soldier. Actually, Cuckold died immediately the day it was published. Why do you say that? Because it just didn’t take off despite very good reviews. I was fortunate that in 2000, I got the Sahitya Akademi Award for Cuckold. It’s not a bestseller at all. Even The Extras completely flopped. No, I am not an author people know at all. Who were your early influences as far as your reading is concerned? As Coleridge has said so pithily, you have to be a rock or someone dead not to be influenced by books. I can tell you the books that were very important in my life but I can’t trace how they influenced me. I love Graham Greene, and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 was an important book for me. The book that left an indelible impression on me was The Plague by Albert Camus. Then there was French author Louis-Ferdinand Celine. He was a
peculiar character, a doctor who practiced among the poor in localities where you have small-time thieves and prostitutes. He found that a Jewish doctor had discovered that French women died during childbirth because the midwives or the doctors don’t wash their hands…so they got easily infected. Celine took up this message in his books. There is dark humor, his style is so different. It’s completely staccato, sometimes he doesn’t finish his sentences…but he’s a remarkable author. Perhaps there’s black humor in my books also but I can’t trace it directly to him. It’s impossible not to be influenced at all. How can one not be influenced by Tolstoy? There’s an Italian author called Curzio Malaparte whose book on
WRITER’S CORNER A bouquet of books written by Kiran Nagarkar
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January 7, 2016 37
Interview
Kiran Nagarkar
war was amazing—it’s called Kaputt.
PEN POWER (L-R) Nagarkar has a special liking for authors like Graham Greene and Joseph Heller
How did you begin with the concept of Ravan and Eddie? I had an image of a boy falling down. When I was in MCM, the copy department secretary called all of us from her department for lunch at her place. And without realizing it, I found that all the Catholics lived on the top floor, which was the fifth floor. All the others, Hindus, stayed from the first floor upwards. And that was the case in all the chawls there. So when I was writing Ravan and Eddie, it must have come back to me as I was trying to follow the formula of that time. I had seen it like this in my mind’s eye: the fall (of Ravan) was there, the titles came and then you saw them as grown-ups. Which do you find difficult—advertising
“Most authors are disciplined. I am entirely lacking in that, which is why I have no work to show really. And I am extremely ashamed of it. You need two things…imagination and hard work.”
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or writing a book? Everything. What’s your method of working? Do you have a schedule? Most authors are disciplined. I am entirely lacking in that, which is why I have no work to show really. And I am extremely ashamed of it. You need two things…imagination and hard work. How do you write… do you use a computer? The laptop is a recent thing. I wrote God’s Little Soldier entirely by hand and revised it eight times. The book didn’t catch on here, but in Germany, it’s a bestseller. But my works don’t sell. But you have a Sahitya Akademi Award. Yes. The Akademi always had eminent personalities and with integrity. The moral standing of writers like UR Ananthamurthy who got the award is so great. As a writer, you have to be responsible. What do you think of recent writing? I don’t read much. At least four or five authors are making crores. My problem is that I don’t read. So if at all I want to read, shouldn’t I read the greats?
INDELIBLE INFLUENCE (L-R) The Plague by Albert Camus left a deep impression on Nagarkar; he also liked French author Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s dark humor
I still remember your campaign for retrofit machines for Pratibha, the ad agency. Is there life after death—I think that was the headline. You have a terrific memory. No, no, I don’t. The nature of advertising has changed. The same person sells 15 or 16 items simultaneously…there’s no creativity at all. Then there’s testimonial advertising with celebrities… so boring. I mean Kalyan jewellery? Amitabh Bachchan’s whole family is selling it! But then it must be working…otherwise why would they do it over and over again. I am totally obsolete. What’s your take on God? I am an agnostic. I am clueless. There’s grace in the Catholic sense, having been to a Catholic school. I still don’t know “Our Father….” It’s a disgrace because it’s such a fine prayer. And throughout my stay in the Catholic school, I would mumble my way through. Where did you get your inspiration for God’s Little Soldier, a book on faith?
“The laptop is a recent thing. I wrote God’s Little Soldier entirely by hand and revised it eight times. The book didn’t catch on here, but in Germany, it’s a bestseller. But my works don’t sell.” Whatever I say will be hindsight. So just don’t trust it too much. It did bother me that they had banned Satanic Verses. One of the pre-conditions of censorship is that hardly anyone has read it. We banned it and then the Ayatollah put a fatwa. How can a religious head …a president of sort, do something like this? Which city do you consider home? Bombay. I was born here. But it’s unfortunate that the climate here has now changed. Why should one be at odds with the powers that be? Many authors have returned their awards because they are worked up about atheists being murdered. I would think that the center would at some time ask, ‘What’s going on?’ After all, this is Bharat, the home of Kalidasa and Vatsyayana who even analyzed sex. VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 39
Advertising Mobile Medium
Stop Being a Blockhead!
Amitava Sen
This could well be what publishers and advertisers tell digital users as they block ads on mobiles, tablets and computers. Without ads, the future of free content on the internet is under threat BY MR DUA
A
RE you experiencing impediments while logging in or surfing your favorite websites on your cell phone, tablet or computer? Have you ever wondered why? That’s because popular sites are replete with advertisements for all kinds of goods and unsolicited services that you neither need nor wish to buy. Yet, these unwanted commercials engage our attention, waste our time and consume our devices’ batteries, thereby increasing maintaining cost. However, solutions are at hand to protect you from these cumbersome ads—ad blockers. Though they have been in existence for nearly a decade, it was only in 2010 that their form and design was perfected. They are now available widely. Ad blocking is a technology which allows ads to
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be blocked before they are loaded by the browser, thereby saving bandwidth and making the page load faster. Ad blockers automatically block cookies, images, resources, pop-ups, and other content and are fast and effective. According to Apple Inc.: “Once installed, it’ll work continuously.” But the truth is that despite all these newly-proffered technologies, all ads can’t be effectively blocked or barred. Currently, the most popular ad blocker technologies are: Purify, 1Blocker, Blockr, Crystal, Adblocker, Adblock plus, Ghostery, Ad Muncher, Peace and NoScript. In some sites, such as Facebook and Google, ads can’t be blocked as these are integrated in the webpage. In such cases, ads are technologically hidden but are being loaded and bandwidth can’t be saved. However, a newly designed technology by Apple, Adblock Plus, is the most popular. It’s available for Firefox. It works to the satisfaction of internet users. However, advertisers and publishers are unhappy as it’s believed that there are over 200 million monthly users of ad block software worldwide. Some of the well-known anti-blocking companies are PageFair, StatCounter and Sourcepoint. According to a 2014 PageFair-Adobe company report, these companies “provide off counter ad block solutions to web publishers… help over 3,000 websites free measures and recover revenue lost due to ad block…offer technology solutions to enterprise publishers to recover lost advertising inventory”. Blocked ads generally include display, video, social and search ads. Their ranks are multiplying by the day. On September 9, PageFair reported a 69 percent increase in ad block users in the last 12 months in the US. The company found that there were over a billion ad blocking hits every month
across some 3,000 of its client websites. Ad blocking now poses a threat for the future of free content on the internet.
I
n the UK also, ad blocking reportedly grew 82 percent to reach 12 million active users in 12 months up till June 2015. In Europe, ad blocking shot up by 35 percent during 2014-15. Meanwhile, by 2016, the global cost of ad blocking is expected to touch $41.4 billion. And with the release of Apple’s new device, iOS, ad blocking will become more common, while its Safari—a smaller program—will support smaller companies. It will block cookies, images, pop-ups and other content—common tools for online advertising. According to a June 2015 PageFair and Adobe study, the ad blocker industry will hit online businesses, particularly publishing and advertising. The report highlights some of the serious threats to the global digital media industry whose mainstay is web advertising. It estimates that if ad blocking becomes the order of the day, the net loss to digital concerns in the US alone could escalate to nearly $21.8 billion by 2017. The revenue loss in 2014 was $5.8 billion. Incidentally, Washington Post recently reported that “companies that make money from ads have complained about ad blockers”, but Google noted recently that “it was looking for ways to make better, less annoying ads to reduce customers” desire to get rid of them. Google, incidentally, earns nearly 90 percent of its revenue from online ads, which stand at $7 billion, followed by Facebook at $3.5 billion. According to the Los Angeles Times, Apple earned $487 million in mobile advertising in 2014. However, overall mobile earnings are likely to double in value to $42 billion from 2014 to 2016, according to eMarketer, a media researcher. The mobile share of all digital ad revenue will grow to 62 percent from 38 percent. Incidentally, it’s estimated that print media ad earnings will mop up only around $28 billion in 2016. Commenting on the hazards of ad blocking, the report adds: “It’s tragic that block users are inadver-
Anil Shakya
tently inflicting multi-billion dollar losses on the very websites they most enjoy. With ad blocking going mobile, there’s an imminent threat that the business model that has supported the open web for two decades is going to collapse.” Incidentally, nearly 71 percent of all users surveyed are said to be supportive of ad blocking devices. Almost all publishers and content providers entirely depend on ad revenues from the digital industry. But if ad blocking becomes pervasive, most of the digital firms will wind up. With a view to saving their businesses, they have been consistently urging digital media device users to not to block ads, just as print media establishments don’t. Publishers and content providers had hoped that internet users would sportingly accept online ads in the same spirit they had accepted ads on television or in the print media. The Guardian newspaper has politely, albeit sweetly, appealed to readers: “We notice you have got an ad blocker switched on. Perhaps you’ll like to support The Guardian in another way?” It directs visitors to a link to become a “supporter” or donor to The Guardian. Even though The Guardian has urged: “Without ads, we will not survive”, the appeal hasn’t really cut much ice. The newspaper has kept reminding readers of its “high quality journalism”. And, finally, it has realized that its efforts are futile. “Given that the use of ad blockers comes down to fairness than legality, the question is whether begging for mercy actually works,” it said. Perhaps not. Until bold alternatives are found, the digital industry may have to rely on its inherent strengths.
NUISANCE VALUE? Unwanted commercials waste our time and consume our devices’ batteries, jacking up maintenance costs
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January 7, 2016 41
Editors’ Pick Shoaib Daniyal
Bullet Train, Necessity or Accessory? Incredibly, the government of India will spend more on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad line than it does on rail safety, Swachh Bharat, schools, highways or health
VON brings in each issue, the best written commentary on any subject. The following write-up, from scroll.in has been picked by our team of editors and reproduced for our readers as the best in the fortnight
MISPLACED PRIORITIES A bullet train will be exorbitantly costly and will serve only a small segment of the population
I
N every which way, Narendra Modi’s 2014 campaign was spectacular. From communication to ground management, the Bharatiya Janata Party electoral machine, it is widely acknowledged, got it right. However, a year and a half after Modi took office, one aspect of his campaign seems to have been a bit too spectacular altogether. As part of its manifesto, the BJP promised what it called a diamond quadrilateral: a network of bullet trains crisscrossing the country. The first step in that plan has gone through. India just signed a deal with Japan to build 42 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
a Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train link. Politicians overpromising things while campaigning is a fine Indian tradition but the enormous cost of just this one line should serve as a shock: the estimated project expenditure has come to `98,000 crore. To put that in perspective, here’s a chart of how this figure compares to other expenditure by the government of India on absolutely vital sectors such as rail safety, health, roads and schools (see the chart on facing page). Narendra Modi has made cleanliness a key part of his government’s message. And indeed, India desperately needs it being one of the countries with the worst rates of
LET’S MASTER BASICS FIRST Can Indians first get access to housing, health and education?
open defecation on the planet. 44% of Indians do not use what is probably the most basic marker of modernity: a toilet. Even Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh beat big brother India with corresponding figures of 32%, 13% and 1%, respectively. India should be on a toilet overdrive, yet the government of India is going to spend 41X of its Swachh Bharat Mission outlay for 2014-’15 on building a somewhat fast train line between two cities already superbly connected by road, rail and air.
The absurdly wasteful bullet train line All figures in ` ’000 crore Amount Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train Centre spend on highways, 2015-16 43 42 Centre spend on schools, 2015-16 42 Centre spend on railways, 2015-16 30 Centre spend on health, 2015-16 25 Safety investment in railways, 2015-16 Centre spend on Swachh Bharat, 2015-16 2.4 Scroll.in
BULLET TRAIN > HEALTH, SAFETY OR SCHOOLS There’s more: the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train cost is almost 4X the amount the Centre is going to invest in rail safety in 2015-16. Just a week ago, India saw two train accidents claim 14 lives and the Indian rail system is one of the most unsafe in the world. Yet, precious money is being diverted from safety to needless luxuries like a bullet train. In fact, shockingly, the bullet train budget is 2.4X the entire amount the government of India is going to spend on the Indian Railways in 2015-’16. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train budget is also 2.3X the entire spend of the Centre on schools. The corresponding figure for health and highways is 3.3 and 2.3, respectively. There is an interesting contrast here with healthcare. Like bullet trains, the BJP manifesto had also promised a
98
Data: Government of India budgets
plan for universal healthcare. This is much needed. India’s healthcare system is shambolic and according to a World Health Organisation study, ranks 112th in the world (for context, eastern neighbour Bangladesh ranks in at 88, a good 24 places ahead). Yet, in March 2015, the Modi government decided to scrap plans for a universal healthcare scheme due to a “constraint on India's financial resources”. This plan, which could have changed India dramatically, had a budget which was just 25% more than the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train link. The razzmatazz of a bullet train might help him politically but can Prime Minister Narendra Modi justify reducing the Mumbai-Ahmedabad commute by two hours as a more important public goal than rail safety, ending open defecation, schooling, building highways across the country or public health? Shoaib Daniyal is a Mumbai-based writer and a political commentator VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 43
Design
DESIGNS THAT MADE IMAGINATIVE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS, FONTS, COLOR AND WHITE SPACES TO LEAVE AN IMPRESSION By ANTHONY LAWRENCE
Even as she mulls tightening norms for refugees in the face of growing opposition at home, German Chancellor Angela Merkel finds herself projected as the “Chancellor of the Free World” by Time magazine. Will this soften her heart once again?
These politicians not only play with fear, they prey on it. US presidential candidate Donald Trump, French National Front leader Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, with their hawkish postures on the refugee crisis and terrorism concerns, project themselves as the best bet for their countrymen’s safety. Quite subtly captured by illustrator David Parkins
44 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
Earth is in emergency ward. Is anyone taking a cue from this illustration?
There’s no limit to human creativity and imagination as this photograph by Lou Blanc shows. The photographer does wonders with the human body, capturing it in various forms. It’s not just depth of field in photography parlance, it’s depth of understanding of anatomy and aesthetics.
What are these shoes doing amid stones from the river? These are an artist’s footprints on nature, done in acrylic, with great attention to every minute detail.
Installation artists are getting ambitious by the day. In this case, Chiharu Shiota uses a boat, red wool and 50,000 keys to cast a web. Part of the Venice Art Biennale, 2015, this was titled “The Key in the Hand”. The keys were collected from people across the world symbolizing access to memories of day-to-day living.
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DATE 6/12/15
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NEWS There’s no intolerance against any community in the country; there are political issues involved in this debate, says Chief Justice TS Thakur. PM releases commemorative coins of `10 and `125 on the 125th birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.
NSAs of India and Pakistan—Ajith Doval and Naseer Khan Janjua—meet in Bangkok.
Terrorists strike in Anantnag; were dressed in army fatigue. Five CRPF men injured.
NEWS
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Sonia and Rahul Gandhi directed to appear in Patiala House Court on December 19 in the National Herald case.
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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj meets Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad during the Heart of Asia conference.
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Bedlam in Rajya Sabha over Sonia Gandhi’s appearance in National Herald case
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Rahul Gandhi claims National Herald case is 100 percent political vendetta against him.
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Here are some of the major news items aired on television channels, recorded by our unique 24x7 dedicated media monitoring unit that scrutinizes more than 130 TV channels in different Indian languages and looks at who breaks the news first.
DATE 12/12/15
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NEWS Japan PM Shinzo Abe at the Business Leader Forum; hails Modi’s policies as reliable and safe like bullet trains.
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Nation remembers martyrs of Parliament attack 14 years ago; Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh pay tributes.
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Vetaran actor Dilip Kumar conferred Padma Vibhushan Award. Home Minister Rajnath Singh presents the award at his residence in Mumbai.
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Politics over Shakur Basti demolition and death of a baby girl. CM Arvind Kejriwal calls Rahul Gandhi a kid for questioning AAP over its protest against demolition.
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Political controversy over CBI raid on the office of Rajendra Kumar, principal Secretary to Delhi Chief Minister. Kejriwal calls it an undeclared emergency.
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Dhoni picked up by Sanjiv Goenka’s Pune franchisee for `12.5 crore. Suresh Raina joins Rajkot team for the same amount.
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Abe announces high-speed train deal with India, along with defense and nuclear agreements.
Railways demolishes 500 jhuggis in Shakur Basti slum cluster; Railway land had been encroached upon.
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Media Monitoring Year-ender TMM Survey
2015 at a Glance Issues that media covered in the year gone by TMM surveyed seven major channels, Aaj Tak, ABP News, India TV, Zee News, IBN7, India Today and Times Now, to determine which issues dominated news space on the electronic media. Of course M&M (Modi and Peter Mukerjea) figured prominently 48 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
Top five political developments highlighted by TV channels 19%
15%
Top five criminal cases covered by TV channels 7.94%
11% 34%
21% 15%
Top five generic issues covered by TV channels 15.5%
18.5%
29%
25% 12%
20.17% 15.89%
Top five sports events and developments covered by TV channels 9%
Radhe Maa OROP Pollution Intolerance Award Wapasi
Top five legal cases covered by TV channels
4% 4%
39% 44%
2.53% 34%
12%
17%
Yakub Memon Death Penalty Hardik Patel Case National Herald Controversy Vyapam Scam Murder Case of UP journalist Joginder Singh
Lalitgate Cricket World Cup IPL Match Fixing Boxer Vijender Singh Turning Pro Wimbledon, US Open and International Tennis Premier League
Controversial cases involving film celebs on TV channels
5%
32%
32.81%
23.19% AAP’s victory in Delhi and its performance Modi’s foreign visits Parliament sessions Bihar elections Indo-Pak relations
Sheena Bora Murder Case Somnath Bharti Domestic Violence Case Udhampur Terror Attack Chhota Rajan’s Arrest Dalit killing in Sunped village of Faridabad
32.41%
19.17% 8.35%
37.54%
Maggi ads involving Amitabh Bachchan, Madhuri Dixit and Preity Zinta FTII and Gajendra Singh Aamir Khan on intolerance Anushka Sharma and World Cup-2015 Salman Khan’s hit-and-run case
VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 49
Special Story Navjivan Publishing House
A Touch of Gandhi I
NSTITUTIONS like the iconic Navjivan Publishing House and the Gujarat Vidyapith, founded by Mahatma Gandhi in the 1920s in Ahmedabad, stand out for their inclusiveness, simplicity and an accommodating Indian spirit—values that are fast vanishing in today’s world. Such places may appear anachronistic to technology-obsessed modern youth, who are used to a faster pace of life.
50 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
A makeover drive, complete with a Wi-Fi zone and a smart café, aims to popularize Gandhian thought among youth BY KAUSHIK JOSHI IN AHMEDABAD To encourage youth to appreciate the values of the past that nurtured the nation, we need to take a re-look at our heritage spaces that once served as strong inspirational forces. While history has moved on, the values need to be cherished. To make the legacy of the past relevant to the modern world, the trustees of Navjivan Publishing House, that publishes Gandhian literature, decided to give the Navjivan building a makeover with the
help of architect Samir Shukla. The endeavor is to invite people to Navjivan House and make them slow their pace of life and reflect on the values and sensibilities that Mahatma Gandhi lived and died for. The overhaul took two years and the building was inaugurated by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel in January this year. In its new avatar, it is expected to become a cultural hub for thinkers and youth, and has within its confines the Karma Café, the avantgarde Satya Art Gallery and the Navjivan Center for Sustainable Development (NCSD). COFFEE AND CONVERSATIONS The Karma Café is unlike any other place for tea and snacks. It was conceived by the trustees as a warm and inclusive cultural space where everyone feels welcome, regardless of background or economic status. What lends distinction to the café is the absence of a menu or a rate list. Visitors can pay whatever they like; a drop-box serves for such donations. Explains 67-year-old Kapil Raval, a trustee: “We do not want to make profit from the café. We are guided by Mahatma Gandhi’s robust faith in human goodness. The thrust is to invite the young and the
old to connect with Gandhi.” The café has a selection of books published by Navjivan Trust and authored by Gandhi, as well as tomes on subjects like health, philosophy, ayurvedic cures, teachings of Swami Vivekananda, speeches of Sardar Patel, the Ramcharitmanas and Bhagvad Gita. There are also two rare gems—The Trial of Gandhi, containing the court proceedings in 1922 against Gandhi for his articles in Young India, and 100 Tributes by artist Ramesh Thakkar, containing his sketches of Gandhi, each accompanied by a tribute. The wealth of knowledge and history that can be gleaned at Navjivan House is difficult to tabulate. How do you place a value on an iconic space that takes you away from the frenzy of everyday life? Ace photographer and managing trustee Vivek Desai says: “It’s hard not to fear what all we shall lose if we don’t preserve it in time. So to keep Gandhiji’s ideas alive and throbbing, we started this endevor.” As visitors absorb the aura of the once-vibrant place, flipping through books that shaped the nation in its transitional years, it is hoped that the legacy will continue to live. Says Vinod Gajjar, a lawyer, who visited the complex recently: “I felt as if I had met
THE LEGACY LIVES ON (Facing page) Visitors at the Satya Art Gallery; (above) Karma Cafe provides a meeting ground to share and introspect
The trustees have left no stone unturned to popularize the place. Visitors can buy books at the café. Organic meals are served. Visitors can choose to pay what they feel comfortable.
VIEWS ON NEWS
January 7, 2016 51
Special Story Navjivan Publishing House
Gandhiji in person. What’s more, I got the book, The Trial of Gandhi, which I had been looking for since the 1990s.” The café will soon become a center for ike-minded people. “It is the only place I liked at once in Ahmedabad,” says Chaitali Joshi, who recently moved to the city from Bangalore. “The efforts of the Trust are laudable. However, the task before it is formidable since it is trying to attract the young, whose restless spirit is not in conformity with the Gandhian way of life,” observes Dinesh Joshi, a vernacTAKING THE LEAD Trustees Vivek Desai (top) and Kapil Rawal (above) aim to popularize Gandhian thought among youth
ular journalist. The trustees have left no stone unturned to popularize the place. While earlier, visitors could buy books between 10:30 am to 5:30 pm only, now they can be bought till the time the café shuts, at 9 pm. Besides tea and coffee, the café serves healthy drinks and Gujarati delicacies. There is the option of mint or ginger tea (made with cow’s milk) or herbal sherbets spiked with basil, fresh turmeric, ginger or fennel seeds, and lime juice with jaggery. Refined sugar is not used here. The Gandhi lunch platter is available on weekends. All meals are made with organic products only. To ensure better turnout among the youth, the café will be converted into a wi-fi zone shortly.
52 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
ART GALLERY The Satya Art Gallery, adjacent to the café, held an exhibition of rare pictures of Gandhi during the inauguration. Explaining the vision of the gallery, Desai says: “It will play an invaluable role in providing space for painters, writers, filmmakers and others to share, introspect, and work in a conducive atmosphere.” The gallery too is expected to evolve into a forum for encouraging egalitarian and secular thought, just the way Gandhi would have liked it to be. He had once said: “The art which does no good to humanity, does not uplift man and connect him with his soul through enlightenment has no meaning.” INFRASTRUCTURE AND PLANNING NCSD will play a crucial role in connecting Gandhian approaches with infrastructure development in rural and urban India. It will look into areas such as communication, planning, execution, engineering, skill upgradation and analytics. Explains Shukla, who is looking at it from the architecture and design perspective: “Our focus will be to work as technical service providers in rural and urban planning, eco-friendly architecture, use of alternate energy sources and so on.” In the March 7, 1936, issue of the weekly journal Harijan, Gandhi wrote: “The tasks before every lover of the country is… how to reconstruct the villages of India so that it may be as easy for anyone to live in them as it is supposed to be in the cities. Indeed, it is the task before every patriot.” Shukla, who is also a big data analysis enthusiast, says that the NCSD shall employ data analysts to frame policies for development planning. “For example, if the city municipal corporation goes in for rapid transport service, we may analyze the data of new vehicles registered in a given period to find out if the service has succeeded or not,” he adds. Thus, Navjivan Publishing House is one of the few remaining spaces in Ahmedabad where people forge relationships, find purpose, expand horizons and construct meanings.
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English is one of modern India’s 22 official languages, and is widely learned as the second language in most countries. Enjoy it and avoid falling into some common error traps. BY MAHESH TRIVEDI
DROPPING NAMES
CONFUSING PAIRS
Plain Jane = a plain girl
Abrogate = abolish
A Simple Simon = someone easily taken in
Arrogate = claim presumptuously
An Adonis = a young man of striking beauty
Barbaric = crude, uncivilized
A Silly Billy = a foolish fellow
Barbarous = cruel
Tommy-rot = Utter nonsense
Chafe = make sore
Play Judas = to be a traitor
Chaff = tease
To play Cupid = to play matchmaker
Defective = damaged
Like a Sphinx = expressionless face concealing a secret
Deficient = short of
David and Jonathan = inseparable friends
Deprecate = argue or protest against
Not on your Nelly = Never
Depreciate = fall in value
WHO ARE THEY?
SPECIAL ADJECTIVES
Croupier = a person incharge of a gambling table
Sexagenarian = a person aged 60 to 69 years
Some nouns have special adjectives: Priest – sacerdotal Smelling – olfactory Old age – senile Rain – pluvial Throat – guttural Hair – crinal Floods – diluvial Cattle – bovine Cats – feline
FOREIGN EXPRESSIONS
WRITING IN STYLE
Like it or lump it, infusion of foreign expressions into books, magazines and newspapers is a fact of life. Annus horribilis = horrible year Annus mirabilis = wonderful year Novus homo = upstart, new man Hakuna matata! = no worries! Frappe = chilled drink Mon cher = my dear Trattoria = Italian restaurant Tchin tchin! = cheers!
The fire of passion
Coparcener = joint heir Funambulist = a tight-rope walker Cicerone = a tourist guide Spelunker =an explorer of caves Twitcher = a dedicated bird watcher Coiffeur =a male hair-dresser Geriatrician = a doctor specializing in the care of aged people Rentier = a person living on rental income
54 VIEWS ON NEWS January 7, 2016
The depths of despair The heights of happiness The school of life A flash of inspirations A flow of words The dawn of history The book of nature The key to the mystery The crux of the problem