WHY THE MEDIA BLACKS OUT THE DARK CONTINENT
ELECTION COMMISSION WOOING VOTERS
VIEWS ON NEWS By Abhay Vaidya 18
By Rakesh Bhatnagar 52
www.viewsonnewsonline.com
THE CRITICAL EYE E
NOVEMBER N OVEMBER 22, 2015 `50
PIYUSH PANDEY Chicken Soup for the Advertising Soul By Krish Warrier 10
MATRIMONIAL WEBSITES Enter the Class
WHY EXPRESS ADS FAILED
By Sampad Patnaik
SOBHRAJ FILM Serpentine Redux
32
By Shobha John
By Gopinath Menon
38
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EDITOR’S NOTE
DO INDIAN PATRIOTS BELONG IN PAKISTAN? ON A PR website devoted to candidate Narendra Modi, a fan wrote: “To NAMO secularism is ‘India First.’ He feels, being secular is built into each and every Indian and those parts that broke away from India have chosen to depart from this definition. Would that more politicians thought of India first instead of themselves. I look forward to that day and expect to have to wait a long time. I do not live in Gujarat, but if I did my vote would be for Narendra Modi.” That was written on September 8, 2012. It was in response to Modi’s own professed dedication to secularism and his definition of this modern credo of Democratic Republicanism: “For me secularism means INDIA FIRST!” Secularism is in the DNA of Indians. We believe the entire world is our family. Votebank politics is a bane. It is when that ends that we will understand the true definition of secularism. In today’s vitiated atmosphere of bigotry in which actor Shahrukh Khan is described as a traitor and pro-Pakistani who belongs with the likes of terrorist mastermind Hafiz Saeed by BJP campaigners and MPs and office bearers, Modi must study his own words of wisdom that had such a pan-Indian appeal, and urge all chauvinistic, extremist hate-mongers to
do the same. On June 16, Prime Minister Modi while praising Islam for its emphasis on education reiterated an essential article of tolerance and secularism. He highlighted India’s diversity as its biggest strength. “We are lucky that we live in a country where people speaking the same language and following a similar culture follow different faiths. This understanding of different perspectives is not possible anywhere else in the world. Understanding each other is the meeting point between various communities.” All Indians who respect the wisdom of the founding fathers of India’s constitution would applaud this sentiment not only for its common sense and practical wisdom but also because it personifies the very idea of a new, modern nation. The “intolerance” that is now being bandied about and causing artists, writers, scientists and historians to return honors bestowed on them in independent India represents a peaceful political protest against the organized desecration of these ideals. All that Shahrukh did—and was branded a traitor for doing so in India’s epoch of neo-McCarthyism—was to agree that the forces and party backing Modi were deviating from the very ideals expressed on record by the prime minister. Should people who agree with the prime minister’s lofty principles of diversity and brotherhood and tolerance be branded traitors and terrorists and exiled to Pakistan?
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 03
VOLUME. IX
ISSUE. 04
Editor Rajshri Rai Managing Editor Ramesh Menon Deputy Managing Editor Shobha John Executive Editor Ajith Pillai Associate Editor Meha Mathur 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 Chief Editorial Advisor Inderjit Badhwar CFO Anand Raj Singh VP (HR & General Administration) Lokesh C Sharma Circulation Manager RS Tiwari
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4 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
C O N LEDE
Karan Johar of Advertising What makes Piyush Pandey tower over all other admen? KRISH WARRIER takes a peek at his life and work, which is reflected in his aptly titled book, Pandeymonium. Also, an extract from the book reveals why Pandey didn’t leave Ogilvy
10 PERSPECTIVE
The Dark Continent ABHAY VAIDYA observes that it is high time India and Africa bond with each other in diverse fields. He also draws attention to the lack of Indian media coverage in this continent
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T E N T S
EDITORS’ PICK
In Defense of History Sujan Dutta is piqued by Chetan Bhagat’s anti-historian tweet
SOCIAL MEDIA
How “Classy” Is This Marriage?
28 32
ADVERTISING
The Right Connect
38
Brand building is all about making the right connect with people. GOPINATH MENON spells out why The Indian Express ads fail while that of Zigy.com click
TMM RESEARCH
How Media Reported Bihar?
44
With final phase of voting over, a look at trends on major TV channels
Governance
The inclusion of class profiles in marital websites points to a disturbing new trend, observes SAMPAD PATNAIK
FOCUS
Come And Vote FILM REVIEW
The Life and Crimes of Charles
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52
RAKESH BHATNAGAR writes that the Election Commission will appoint an event management agency ahead of Voters’ Day on January 25 in an attempt to get more people to head for the ballot box
Though the storyline could have been tighter, SHOBHA JOHN finds some fine acting moments in Main Aur Charles
R E G U L A R S SMALL SCREEN
Comedy of Corruption 36
AIB’s foray into TV with On Air with AIB steers clear of vulgarity and talks of issues affecting the common man such as corruption and scams, observes SHOBHA JOHN
Edit..................................................03 Grapevine........................................06 Quotes.......................................08 Media-Go-Round............................17 Design............................................46 Breaking News...............................48 As the World Turns.........................50 Web-Crawler....................................51 Vonderful-English............................54
Cover design: Anthony Lawrence Photo Courtesy: Facebook
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 5
Grapevine
Onions Bring Tears Again
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hen onion prices shot through the roof, the center panicked and asked the Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation (MMTC) to procure 2,000 tonnes of onion to augment supplies. The imported onions were from China and Egypt and turned out to be too bland for Indian tastes. With the local prices now climbing down, there are no takers for the 1,600 tonnes of onions still left with the MMTC. It had bought the onions at the rate of `45 a kg. Can we propose Diwali gifting ideas to MMTC?
India Inc or Indian Ink?
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he recent ink attacks on politician and columnist Sudheendra Kulkarni and J&K lawmaker Engineer Rashid have confused many. When the government promised to promote India Inc, did it mean Indian Ink? International coverage of the episodes is triggering further confusion among prospective investors. After all, throwing ink has been justified as the new “non-violent” and “democratic” means of protest. Did the protestors misread “Make in India” as “Make Ink India”! However, this leads to another debate: Is the ink mightier than the shoe? Remember the shoe-throwing protests not many years back? Now this is getting too confusing indeed!
Globe-trotting PM
S
hortly after the Bihar elections, starting November 11, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to cover 60,000 km in 30 days. His itinerary includes London, Kuala Lumpur, Paris and Moscow. This is a record for our well-travelled PM, who in his tenure of less than two years, has visited 27 countries, some of them twice! After this jaunt, sources say his third visit to the US is shaping up pretty well. Going by the number of times our PM is meeting world leaders in quick succession, he will surely be on first name basis with most heads of states all over the world, and not just Barack.
6 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
Disgruntled Club
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he Bihar elections threw up a bunch of unhappy BJP leaders. While everyone is aware of the disgruntled Kirti Azad and Shatrughan Sinha, the latest player retiring hurt is ex-home secretary RK Singh. So hurt has he been by his sidelining that he chose not to cast his vote, citing ill-health. Maybe he should learn not to count his chickens before they are hatched. Another leader feeling sidelined, though it is not related to Bihar, is Union Minister for Women & Child Development Maneka Gandhi. She is reportedly unhappy with the PM’s cuts in her ministry’s budget. She has gone on record to say that these cuts are hurting the fight against malnutrition.
Baby Boom
Cautious Sharma
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C
ere’s another instance of market worries in another part of the world. With the announcement of China’s new baby policy, stocks of Japanese condom maker Okamoto, a Chinese favorite, slumped by 10 percent, while those of Chinese food maker Beingmate Baby & Child Food Co Ltd jumped by 10 percent. It has been estimated that the relaxed controls would result in an additional 3-6 million babies, annually in China.
ulture Minister Mahesh Sharma has been allotted a house that till recently carried the nameplate of the late former president, APJ Abdul Kalam. But although Kalam, a devout Muslim, was a strict vegetarian, it seems that Sharma is extra cautious. So when is the shuddhikaran happening? And will the PIB be handling the invites again, like it did when there was a marriage in the Sharma household?
Bypassing I&B Ministry
T
he Ministry of Information & Broadcasting recently played safe and did not give clearance to the screening of the documentary Caste on the Menu Card, on the politics of food. The documentary is produced by Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) and was to be screened at a festival starting October 31. But as it deals with beef, the ministry decided not to burn its fingers by touching this hot potato. This has been a blessing in disguise for the film as the enormous publicity is garnering it more eyeballs on YouTube than it could have ever hoped for. The ministry can keep its caution to itself.
—Compiled by Roshni Seth Illustrations: UdayShankar VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 7
U O T E S
What do we want from this government? Not much. Just its resignation. Will that happen any time soon? Not likely. What do we want from the people of India? Not much. Just eternal vigilance. —Anand Patwardhan, documentary director, in Scroll.in
Nobody wants Mr Modi to come and talk about his mantra of development. What we really need is a political approach by New Delhi. A certain amount of respect has to be shown to the people of Kashmir. —Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, in the Indian Express
Religious intolerance and not being secular… is the worst kind of crime that you can do as a patriot. —Shah Rukh Khan, on India Today TV
I deeply want BJP as a viable and successful national alternative. The more national alternatives we have, the better for democracy. —Director Dibakar Banerjee, refuting the allegation that the returning of awards by filmmakers was politically motivated, in The Times of India
This honour is by the nation and not the government. So I do not want to return it. —Vidya Balan, on why she wouldn’t return her national award to protest against the growing intolerance, at the India Today conclave in Mumbai
Don’t get me wrong, but I think Sachin didn’t do justice to his talent. I always thought he could have done much more than what he did…. He was technically sound but I felt he was there to get his hundred and that’s it. —Kapil Dev, in Khaleej Times
8 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi
Kiran Bedi, BJP leader
It is imp that BJP lose Bihar so that they know that hate politics will not work in this country. People want love n peace, not hate
Had we been collectively less selfish, India would have been an inclusive society in shared prosperity. Deprivations divide.
Ramachandra Guha, historian
Harsha Bhogle, cricket commentator
Not “fringe elements”, but a very senior BJP leader now terms SRK a traitor whose “soul lives in Pakistan”
Shekhar Gupta, editorial adviser, India Today Group Nepal crisis is our most imp foreign affairs story at this point. Yet, amazing how there is so little concern or questioning, incl in media
When will people stop saying “at the rate of” for email ids? Your name does not move at a speed relative to that of the service provider!!
Tavleen Singh, columnist How did a giant Diya at Delhi airport get past our secular intellectuals? Is it not a Hindu symbol?
Lede Advertising/Piyush Pandey
Chicken Soup for the Advertising Soul Advertising legend Piyush Pandey’s book, Pandeymonium, draws from the university of life and uses all the gleanings as grist for his creative mill BY KRISH WARRIER
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GREAT MINDS TOGETHER Pandey with fellow ad men R Balki and Prasoon Joshi (second and third from left)
REMEMBER the time, circa 1967, when we were living in Dehu Road, a cantonment town that lies some 20 km north-west of Pune along the Old Pune-Mumbai Highway. Dinner time was around 7.45 pm. My parents, my sister and I would squat on the kitchen floor and partake of whatever my mother had prepared—usually rice and some plain curry. And while having dinner, we would hear the Deccan Queen, its horns blazing, speeding past Dehu Road railway station. My sister
10 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
and I would say in childish delight: “There goes the Deccan Queen!” Our dinner was incomplete without hearing the Queen, reputed for its punctuality. At that time, my father was working as a civilian at the ammunition depot in Dehu Road. My eldest brother was in a hostel while doing his college. My sister and I were in school (Wilson School—wonder if it’s still there). Times were not so good for the family, what with educating three kids and all that. So, the Deccan Queen, the train with limited stops, unlike the “passenger” which halted at all sta-
tions, was a symbol of affluence to me—the train of the privileged class. Time passed. I completed my engineering around ’81, worked as a maintenance engineer with a dye-stuff intermediates manufacturing company, quit the job, came to Mumbai (then Bombay) and got into advertising. It was then that I had to go to Pune for some work. And we took the Deccan Queen. When the Deccan Queen honked its way past Dehu Road station, I came and stood near the door and said a silent prayer for some kid who would also be dreaming of travelling by the Deccan Queen. So, what’s this incident from my life got to do with Pandeymonium, the book by advertising legend Piyush Pandey? ENVIRONMENT’S INFLUENCE “Every creative person is the result of the environment in which he or she was brought up,” says Piyush Pandey in the first line of his book. And I couldn’t agree with him more. I am the kind of creative person I am because of incidents like the one mentioned above in my life. It’s up to me to leverage these experiences to create advertising—or any piece of effective communication. Seen through this lens, creating great advertising is a bit like method acting which emphasizes the practice of connecting to a character by drawing on personal emotions and memories. Piyush Pandey says he’s done exactly that. So, that’s what Pandeymonium is all about, and something more. Piyush believes in the University of Life— he observes life from up close and uses all the gleanings from various encounters as grist for his creative, advertising mill. Recently, he told a reporter from The Times of India: “...I had no idea where I will be in advertising. So, generally, to my mind, anybody who observes and appreciates life around helps you compose a line. One has to be a constant learner. There is nothing as ‘irrelevant’, everything that happens around is relevant—carpenters, cobblers and
barbers. Keep your eyes and ears open every time.” That’s the reason why you’ll find all his communication pieces rooted in everyday reality. Be it for Asian Paints, Fortune Cooking Oil, Fevicol, Titan, Bingo, Perfetti, KFC... For the uninitiated, Piyush Pandey is the executive chairman and national creative director of the advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather India, and the winner of over 600 awards for advertising from all over the world. He is also vice-chairman of O&M South Asia. He is the only Indian to have won a double Gold at Cannes and a triple Grand Prize at London International Awards. O&M India has won some 25 Lions at Cannes under his leadership. In 2002, he won India’s first Silver Pencil at The One Show Awards. In 2010, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by The Advertising Agencies Association of India.
The biggest contribution of Piyush Pandey was that he made Hindi “cool”. Before him, most ads were conceptualized in English and then translated into what was called the vernaculars. THE SELECT GROUP
LOYAL EMPLOYEE At a time when creative guys switch agencies faster than they change their underwear, Piyush has been at Ogilvy since August 1982. Of late now, when ad agencies have sold their souls to mine a metal by way of scam ads—they fly an idea up a flagpole to see if anybody salutes it—Piyush reportedly said:
While receiving the 2012 CLIO Lifetime Achievement Award, Pandey with (from left) Miles Young, Worldwide Chairman and CEO of O&M, wife Nita, and Tham Khai Meng, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of O&M
Photos Courtesy: Facebook
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 11
Lede Advertising/Piyush Pandey
“What's unique about Ogilvy India is that we are cheered not just by award juries, but also by thousands of non-advertising, common people of India.” There is a hidden message here. That they don’t create ads just for winning awards. He says: “My favorite career highlight at Ogilvy was in 2000 when the Abbys named our campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk ‘Campaign of the Century’ and our TV commercial for Fevikwik ‘Commercial of the Century’.” Today, when there’s a lot of talk about following one’s passion, he quotes David Ogilvy: “The psychiatrists say that everybody should have a hobby. The hobby I recommend is advertising.” Pandeymonium is Piyush Pandey’s first book, written in collaboration with Anant Rangaswami. It has a foreword by none other than Amitabh Bachchan. And it has a black-grey-yellow cover with Piyush Pandey’s photograph, his famous moustache
and all (pic by Suresh Natarajan and cover design by Rajiv Rao), behind what looks like the yellow ribbon in crime investigation scenes. The packaging is attractive. What about the actual product? KJ OF ADVERTISING Pandey’s book reads like the television commercials he’s created or helped create. It’s feel good, and politically correct. I would be tempted to call him the Karan Johar of the Great Indian Middle Class in advertising. Each chapter of the book rests on what they call in advertising a single-minded proposition. The first chapter deals with his first school —his family; the second leverages what he learned as a cricketer; the third talks about how he drew inspiration from carpenters, cobblers and other creatives; the fourth speaks about his tryst with the Indian Railways; and another on his disdain for research. There is also a chapter on the campaign for the BJP
Memorable Campaigns When Piyush Pandey was asked in an interview to list five of his favorite campaigns, he listed five of people’s favorite campaigns saying that otherwise it would do injustice to his clients and also choosing five best pieces of work over 30 years was difficult. Here is his list of most popular campaigns:
Product Cadbury’s “Kuch Khaas Hai”
The challenge
The solution
The result
To find some way to get adults to eat chocolates openly.
The entire campaign was about how there is a child in all of us.
It was voted as the campaign of the century.
To generate enthusiasm for a low interest category like an adhesive.
Use a funny “son of the soil” kind of campaign to drive home the point.
Today, Fevicol is in the top most trusted brands.
Pulse Polio’s “Do Boond Zindagi Ki...”
To persuade and motivate parents to give their children polio drops.
Use Amitabh Bachchan. The way Bachchan spoke to the people of the country like an elder brother, a father who is upset with his near and dear ones and about what they are doing for their children, is remarkable, says Pandey.
Fevikwik’s “Chutki Mein Chipkaye”
To promote the quick-acting adhesive.
Use of exaggerated humor.
Top of mind recall.
To achieve an emotional connect between people and paints.
Show how each house has its own personality.
Asian Paints is India’s largest paint company and Asia’s third largest.
Fevicol’s “Fevicol ka majboot jod hai, tootega nahin”
Asian Paints “Har ghar kuch kehta hai”
12 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
That year India reported zero cases of polio.
during the last general elections. Does he give any insights into how some of the most memorable campaigns were conceived and executed? Sadly, he deals with it superficially. Then again, maybe he’s targeting a larger audience. He does throw some nuggets about his bosses—David Ogilvy, Sir Martin Sorrel (who calls Piyush a “cheeky bastard”), Miles Young, Shelly Lazarus, Mani Ayer, and Ranjan Kapur. He also gives credit where it is due. He talks briefly about the future of Indian advertising and, of course, about why he didn’t start his own advertising agency. I would dare say that the biggest contribution of Piyush Pandey was that he made Hindi “cool”. Before him, most ads were conceptualized in English and then translated into what was called the vernaculars. He paved the way for creatives to be ideated in Hindi. NO MIRCH MASALA I remember, around 1999, another ad guru, Alyque Padamsee, wrote his book, A Double Life (in collaboration with Arun Prabhu; what’s with advertising folks? Can’t they write on their own?). It dealt with his adventures in two worlds—advertising and theatre. Pandeymonium is advertising all the way. But if you are looking for some mirch masala, sorry, you have got the wrong number. By Piyush’s own admission: “Advertising needs to excite young people with different abilities and talents to be part of the industry....” Would this book inspire more youngsters to get into advertising? The answer, perhaps, lies in the fact that it was a packed house—overflowing would be the more pertinent word—that heard him in conversation with Anuja Chauhan at the recently concluded Tata Literature Live (the sixth Mumbai International Literary Festival) in Mumbai. According to Piyush: “We believe that talent resides beyond the advertising centres and very often at non-traditional sources. It is always our endeavour to look for people from different walks of life, people who have a creative bent, and more impor-
“Advertising needs to excite young people with different abilities and talents to be part of the industry....” —Piyush Pandey, author, Pandeymonium
TALENT IN FAMILY Pandey with niece, model and actor Ishita Arun, and sister, actor and singer Ila Arun
tantly, people who respect Indian culture and its people. We also believe that it’s not enough to source talent; we have to nurture, encourage and celebrate their ideas on an on-going basis.” His humility shows when he says: “I never thought that I am a painter or an artist. I am a commercial artist who has to do messaging to make people react.” At `799 for a hard cover, maybe the book is a tad overpriced. Having said that, who wouldn’t want to pick a book penned by one of India’s greatest communicators? Tail piece: “The customer is not a moron. She's your wife” is a famous quotation attributed to David Ogilvy, who founded the agency Piyush Pandey works for. So, before I dug into the book for this review, my wife went through it. Her verdict: Unputdownable. VIEWS ON NEWS
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Lede Excerpt Pandeymonium
NO, I AM NOT STARTING AN AGENCY OF MY OWN, NO, I AM NOT JOINING ANOTHER AGENCY. I HAVE NO INTENTION OR WISH TO WORK ANYWHERE OTHER THAN OGILVY.
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HOSE who know me are aware of the fact that I do not raise my voice, but here I’ve taken the liberty of ‘shouting’ in print. I could have made these statements many times in the past decade in response to rumours in the media, but they would have had little effect. In India, media coverage on the advertising agency business focuses on speculation about who will resign from which agency or which agency will be sacked by which brand. In most instances, the ‘news’ is completely unfounded, even as the article carries authoritative quotes attributed to un-
Why I Never Started My Own Agency Piyush Pandey on why he didn’t leave Ogilvy to venture on his own. An Extract from his book Pandeymonium:
14 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
named sources ‘close to the developments’. It is thus in the natural order of things that, as I turn sixty, the media speculate on my establishing my own advertising agency. Sections of the media have also linked me to the likely business to be launched by my nephew, Abhijit. Before this book is published, there could be a few more articles making a few more completely baseless speculations on my life after Ogilvy. Interestingly, many senior journalists who have encouraged the gossip columns on my impending move have since moved on to other options, even as I remain in Ogilvy. Speculation on my leaving Ogilvy is recent as far as the media is concerned, but over the past twenty years I’ve been asked numerous times why
I don’t start my own agency. The answer has remained the same. Some years ago, a much respected industrialist pulled me aside at a party we were attending and told me, ‘I have never met a bigger idiot than you in my life. Why don’t you start a business of your own instead of working for Martin Sorrell? We need an Indian agency that goes international, and who is better placed than you to start one? I’ll fund you and I’ll give you all the office space that you need.’ As far as I am concerned, money and office space are not essential elements to start an advertising agency—belief and philosophy are. My background has defined me in so many ways. One of them is that I am not a loner—I am a team player, both literally and otherwise. From the time I was in school, I chose team sports, preferring cricket and football to golf and tennis. I joined Ogilvy and felt the same comfort as I felt at home. Everyone was family. Everyone contributed to our success; everyone was together in difficult times. Over the decades, I have worked with many colleagues who are family to me, even if some have left the agency and moved on elsewhere. I’ve never felt the need to even think of moving on. Ogilvy has been home to me, and will always be. In the late nineties, a senior executive from one of WPP’s largest competitors and I met, by appointment, at the Taj Lands End in Bombay. In a short meeting, he proposed that they would like to invest in an agency that I start. I asked him why I should start an agency, and his answer was, ‘We’ll put your name on the board.’ In response, I told him that, on his way from the airport to the hotel, he would have passed at least twenty billboards with Ogilvy’s work on them. While he didn’t see my name on any of those billboards, my work is shouting from each and every one of them. The short meeting caused me to think of the reasons that would cause anyone to leave a com-
pany and start one on their own. The first would be if the current company did not allow you to actualize your potential. The second would be if the company underpaid you. The third would be the ‘name on the board’ thing. If I ask myself these questions, my answers are quick in coming. In all these years at Ogilvy, I have never felt like an employee. In my younger days, I felt like a younger member of the family. In my leadership days, I felt like the owner of the company.
EVERYDAY INSPIRATIONS (From top) The ad campaigns of Cadbury and Fevicol
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Lede Excerpt Pandeymonium
WIDE APPEAL (L to R) Katrina Kaif in the Titan Raga ad; Deepika Padukone in the Asian Paints ad
PANDEYMONIUM By Piyush Pandey Publisher: Penguin Price: `799, 244 pages
Was I allowed to actualize my potential? Throughout my career, I have had the unstinting support of my seniors and colleagues. Many of my seniors have advised me, mentored me and encouraged me in my experiments, and supported my decisions. It is because of Ogilvy that I have been able to achieve all that I have. For many people in the world, no amount of money is enough. As far as I am concerned, I do not have endless needs and wants, so it is easier for me to be ‘satisfied’ on the money issue. As a young boy I had never dreamt that I would reach where I have reached or earn as much as I earn today. With these reference points, I have been looked after beyond my expectations. Money has not been the deciding factor in any decision that I have taken. I used to wonder what people do with the millions more than they need—they will need to live much longer than the average lifespan to spend those extra millions. I am satisfied with how I have been rewarded financially, so reason number two to leave Ogilvy and start my own company doesn’t work either. We come to reason number three: having your name on the board. How important is it to have your name on the
16 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
board? I am very proud of the fact that the name Ogilvy is on my board. I am very proud of the fact that lots of people in India and around the world have complimented me on some of the good work that I have done. My name is my work. In any case, normally roads are named after people posthumously. If you are dead, you don’t really case. I have been allowed to feel like the owner of a company. Once I feel like an owner, the ‘name on the board’ carrot ceases to be a carrot. When it’s my company, everyone knows it is mine. So none of the three big reasons to leave has applied to me all these years; none applies to me today. I’ve reached a stage where I have Ogilvy in my blood, and that will never go away. I’m sixty, I’m fit, I’m healthy and driven. If I do decide to do something other than Ogilvy, it’ll be a retirement passion or a hobby. It could be to help India be a better place. It could be mentoring youngsters in communication or it could be a fulltime job—spreading rumours about which journalist is going to join which publication.
EDIA-GO-ROUND
Flipkart hires Google’s Surojit Chatterjee
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ndia’s biggest online marketplace, Flipkart, has hired Google executive Surojit Chatterjee to head consumer experience across desktop and mobile. Chatterjee, who has 33 US patents to his name, was most recently the global head of mobile search advertising and AdSense for
Notice issued to
Star World
search at Google. Meanwhile, Flipkart’s CFO Sanjay Baweja had told Reuters that it would remain private for the next three years at least, nixing speculation that it would launch an IPO this year. Some bankers had expected to raise a record $5 billion through the IPO.
Two Kashmir T Perspectives
wo recent paperbacks describe Kashmir through different sets of biographies. Both are by activists who write empathetically but realistically about the Kashmiri aspiration for freedom. While Meera Khanna’s biographical sketches, In a State of Violent Peace: Voices from the Kashmir
B
roadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) recently issued a notice to Star World for showing a homosexual encounter and for “denigrating women“ in Grey’s Anatomy, an American medical soap, running for over a decade. The BCCC, headed by Justice (retired) Mukul Mudgal, was of the opinion that the content appeared to be explicit and objectionable. A senior BCCC member said: “Keeping Indian audiences in mind we felt that the scenes were not tasteful.” Homosexuality is illegal in India. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalises sexual activities “against the order of nature”. The notice follows complaints from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting deeming some scenes as “indecent, vulgar”. The BCCC has sought a written reply by December 1.
Microsoft M
Valley, are like short stories, mainly revolving around 1947, Nandita Haksar in The Many Faces of Kashmiri Nationalism: From the Cold War to the Present Day narrates two life stories of Sampat Prakash, a communist Pandit, and Afzal Guru, a surrendered militant hanged in Delhi in 2013.
Archives
icrosoft has chronicled its 40-year-old history in a video comprising funny anecdotes. For example, in the early 90s, it was still working on Windows 95 and programmers not doing well were threatened that they would be thrown to the “dogs”—it was an obscure program made to inform dog owners about canine care. “That’s the threat you would use if you
wanted to tell someone that maybe this operating system stuff isn't cut out for you,” says Raymond Chen, who joined MS in 1992.
Journalists concerned over “intolerance” A top body of newspaper editors recently expressed concern over the growing “atmosphere of intolerance” in India and urged the government to maintain peace and unity among various communities. The All India Newspaper Editors’
Conference (AINEC) noted with “great satisfaction” the comments made by the president appealing to people to preserve India’s “multiplicity”. AINEC was also concerned over the growing incidents of violence against the media.
— Compiled by Shailaja Paramathma VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 17
Perspective Africa-Africa Forum Summit
Destination
India and Africa represent one-third of humanity and it makes sense for them to join hands in trade, development, health and education. Besides, Africa is likely to emerge as a superpower by the end of the century BY ABHAY VAIDYA
T
HE Narendra Modi government deserves a pat on the back for restoring the right emphasis on India’s ties with Africa. It was relegated to the back-burner since the 1980s when India was grappling with the Khalistan crisis, the secessionist struggle in Kashmir, pursuing stronger ties with the US and realigning foreign policy with the end of the Cold War. However, the ties have now been brought back as a priority focus area in foreign policy. This message was adequately amplified during the third India-Africa Forum Summit, held on a grand scale in Delhi between October 26 and 30. The fact that 51 of the 54 African countries were represented at the summit, along with 41 heads of state, was unprecedented for India. It was unprecedented even for Africa, which has participated in summits hosted by China, the US and Japan. In a foreign policy approach initiated by the UPA government, the first India-Africa Forum Summit was held in Delhi in 2008 and the second in Addis Ababa in 2011, both smaller events. LINES OF CREDIT To demonstrate its seriousness vis-à-vis Africa, India has now significantly scaled up the level of
18 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
engagement with the continent. Bilateral talks with 19 African states were held, 12 of which were led by prime minister Modi. India’s commitment in terms of concessional Lines of Credit was enhanced from $7.4 bn to $10.5 bn over 10 years, additional grant assistance of $600 million was announced over the $1.2 billion previously committed and a new chapter was initiated in relations between India and Africa. In a hard-hitting speech at the Summit,
Africa
African Union chairman and Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe spoke of a common, coordinated approach between India and Africa at the United Nations and at the world climate summit, the Conference of Parties (COP)-21 on Climate Change in Paris in December. With a collective population of over two billion, India and Africa represent one-third of humanity and India and the African Union have therefore pitched for two permanent seats in the
UN Security Council. As Mugabe said in his speech, “Our territories were vandalized, our rights vandalized and we are still underdogs at the United Nations. We thank you India towards support for infrastructure in Africa. These gifts have not come to us from those who robbed us of our humanity…Two hearts are getting back to one.” Mugabe touched upon the UN issue once again when he said: “In the UN, some are
CEMENTING BONDS Prime Minister Narendra Modi with African leaders during the special dinner hosted on the sidelines of the third India Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi on October 28
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Perspective Africa-Africa Forum Summit
“Our territories were vandalized, our rights vandalized and we are still underdogs at the United Nations. We thank India towards support for infrastructure in Africa… Two hearts are getting back to one.” — Robert Mugabe, African Union chairman and Zimbabwe president, at the India-Africa Summit
FOR BILATERAL TIES (Above) Robert Gabriel Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, being received by Modi at Hyderabad House, in New Delhi, on the sidelines of the India-Africa Forum Summit
giants and others are dwarfs. Why should we accept it? One-third of human population has been treated as a kid in the UN. We say No….We need two seats among the permanent members in the UN.” CHINA AND AFRICA Any discussion on India-Africa relations is incomplete without a reference to China’s longstanding engagement with Africa which began at least a decade before India sought to restore closer ties with the continent during the first
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summit in 2008. China has shown greater perspicuity in forging closer ties with Africa and thus trade between both stands at $200 bn (as against $70 bn with India) and Chinese investments in Sub-Saharan Africa amounted to $180 bn during 2005-15. China has also pursued a no-questions-asked loan disbursement policy and in turn, the country has been rewarded with the construction of a number of mega infrastructure projects in Africa. The US has also always had an upper hand in Africa because of the billions of dollars of aid and assistance to African nations over the decades. While economic engagement, aid and assistance undoubtedly play a major role in strengthening ties between nations, India’s core strategy of pursuing development partnerships with African nations has its own strengths and merits. India shares the colonial experience with Africa and has common problems of poverty and underdevelopment with it. Also, as a leader in many sectors, it has a lot to share with Africa. Many African nations stand ravaged by intense internal conflicts, political instability, acute poverty, corruption and underdevelopment. The African nations admire India for her solid democratic framework which has withstood the strains of an internal Emergency, achievements in space technology and information technology, independence of the judiciary, the efficacy of the Election Commission, a free and effective press, achievements in the education sector and institution-building. Many African students come to India for education and as external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj mentioned in her speech, India has pro-
vided 40,000 scholarships to African students in the past seven years. BILATERAL TIES India is a world leader in the production of lowcost generic drugs and meets 85 percent of Africa’s needs for anti-HIV retroviral drugs. Healthcare is a major sector where India can expand the scope of her engagement with Africa through onthe-ground interventions, institution-building in healthcare and health tourism. The same holds true for extending Indian expertise to Africa in sectors such as railways, e-governance, e-networks, infrastructure development and home-grown bottom-of-the-pyramid solutions for Africa. One sparkling example is the training in solar electrification of rural African “Solar Grandmothers” at Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan. The focus here is especially on women “because they don’t go looking for jobs outside their environment”. Historically, India and Africa share the emotional legacy of Mahatma Gandhi’s early years of political activism in South Africa; India’s unstinted support to the African giant, Nelson Mandela; Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit
India held bilateral talks with 19 African states. Its commitment in concessional LOC was increased from $7.4 bn to $10.5 bn over 10 years. An additional grant assistance of $600 mn was announced.
EXTENDING EXPERTISE (Above) Bunker Roy (center) who runs Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan. It trains African women in rural electrification (Left) PM Modi at the India-Africa Forum Summit Business Exhibition in New Delhi
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Perspective Africa-Africa Forum Summit
LEARNING AWAY FROM HOME A workshop organised by Association of African Students in India in Gurgaon. It unites all African students in India
in 1983 and the presence of a three million-strong Indian diaspora in Africa. There is enough scope to expand people-to-people contacts and capacity building of human resources through education and training which is at the heart of India’s development partnerships approach in Africa. This is the same approach that has paid rich dividends on the foreign policy front in many developing nations, notably trouble-torn Afghanistan, West Asia and the SAARC region (the recent souring of relations with Nepal is an aberration). AFRICA ON THE MOVE Closer and stronger ties with Africa are vital for India because Africa is now, finally on the move. Richly endowed with a host of natural resources, oil reserves, untapped markets and agricultural
India shares the colonial experience with Africa and has common problems of poverty and underdevelopment with it. Also, as a leader in many sectors, it has a lot to share with Africa.
22 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
potential, Africa can emerge as an important partner for India in the pursuit of mutually-beneficial developmental, economic and diplomatic goals. According to experts, think-tanks and the World Bank, Africa is slated to emerge as a superpower by the end of the century. Modi in his speech noted that 4,00,000 new businesses were registered in Africa in 2013 alone. Describing India and Africa as “the two bright spots in the global economy today”, he said that in less than a decade, trade between the two has doubled to $70 bn. Agriculture in Africa, he said, has the potential to support global food security. With extensive coastlines in India and Africa, there was an opportunity to develop the “blue economy”. “India will give space technology and digital technology and we will also expand the pan African e-network conceived by APJ Abdul Kalam,” Modi said. But to make sure that the third India-Africa Forum Summit is not just an event, Delhi will have to ensure strong and aggressive follow-ups towards the fructification of goals set in the bilaterals and multi-laterals with African nations and take India-Africa ties to the next level.
Perspective Africa Media Organizations
Amitava Sen
Africa: The Lost Continent T Though Africa has a three million-strong diaspora, media organizations in India pay scant regard to it. It is time they paid more attention to this important region BY ABHAY VAIDYA
24 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
HE poor presence of Indian journalists in Africa is indeed a matter of shame for the Indian media. The virtual absence of Indian correspondents in the continent was commented upon at various points during the third India-Africa Forum Summit held in Delhi between October 26 and 30. The fact is that Indian media barons have been loath to spend on first-hand news coverage from important regions of the world as it costs just a fraction to get news from foreign news agencies. It does not
matter to them that these agencies are headquartered in the US, the UK or Europe and news flow from there is almost always from a Western point of view. NO PRESENCE Thus, barring the US where a handful of prominent Indian news organizations have stationed solitary correspondents, there is little to no presence in Europe, China, Latin America and Africa. In Africa especially, what is lost are stories relating to the Indian diaspora, which is three million-strong, and political, business and social stories of Indian interest. The poor presence of Indian journalists in Africa also came up during one of the press interactions with Syed Akbaruddin, chief coordinator for the India-Africa Summit. “We can provide support to the media from the government, but ultimately this question has to be answered by the media itself,” he said. During a panel discussion of the India-Africa Editors Forum which featured top editors and journalists from India and Africa, former Business Standard editor TN Ninan spoke of his failed efforts to appoint Africa correspondents to provide news for his publication. Not wanting to go into the details, Ninan said that his initiative did not succeed. Vijay Naik, consulting editor with the Marathi daily, Sakal, is among the few Indian journalists who has travelled to nearly a dozen African nations and has reported extensively on the continent over the past decades. As the New Delhi bureau chief of Sakal, Naik did not want to miss the release of South African leader Nelson Mandela after three decades of incarceration in Robben Island. He succeeded in convincing his newspaper to send him to South Africa to cover this momentous event and subsequently, interviewed more than a dozen ministers in the Mandela government, nearly half of whom were of Indian origin. Almost seven more visits followed to South
The Indian media’s lack of interest in Africa and India-Africa relations was compounded by Africa’s “downtrodden and strife-torn” image, racist prejudice and no people-to-people contact. Africa over the years and Naik expanded his interest in Africa with visits to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Tanzania, Mozambique and Ethiopia among other countries. “All of these visits gave me a rich insight into Africa,” he said. VISIONARY MD Naik said it was unusual for a regional language newspaper to have the vision to send a correspondent to Africa almost two-and-half decades ago and credits the newspaper’s then managing di-
AN EXCEPTION, NOT A RULE The release of the then South African leader Nelson Mandela from prison was one of the few events directly covered by a Marathi daily, Sakal, from India
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November 22, 2015 25
Perspective Africa Media Organizations
During a panel discussion of the India-Africa Editors Forum with top editors and journalists, former Business Standard editor TN Ninan (right) spoke of his failed efforts to appoint Africa correspondents to provide news for his publication.
Bharati “with 30,000 employees” does not have any correspondent in Africa. Compare this with the extensive coverage provided by some of the foreign TV stations, says Naik. During previous decades, India as a whole has looked at Africa as a lost continent and did not cash in on Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s friendship with many African nations. India’s entire focus then was solely on the West. There was also scant interest in covering developments in East Asia.
rector Pratap Pawar for this. The visits to South Africa and two interactions with Mandela resulted in a book in Marathi which was later translated into English, In the Land of Mandela. According to him, leading Indian news organizations have covered Africa sporadically by sending roving correspondents only during major world events such as the end of apartheid. He recalled that MS Prabhakar of The Hindu was among the few Indian journalists stationed in South Africa for many years. PTI too had a journalist stationed in South Africa, Naik said. All India Radio had a correspondent in Africa for some years, but Naik is shocked that Prasar
Vijay Naik (right), consulting editor with the Marathi daily, Sakal, is among the few Indian journos who has travelled to African nations and reported extensively on the continent over the past decades.
26 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
UNTAPPED POTENTIAL However, now “our media policy needs to change drastically,” says Naik, as there is a scramble for Africa in view of its vast natural resources, markets and untapped potential. He finds that many African nations are welcoming India in a big way and have initiated pro-investment laws. At the same time, African leaders are also conscious not to allow their exploitation as happened in previous times. Naik acknowledges that African journalists
face enormous difficulties in Africa in view of scant respect for press freedom and the fact that the process of democratization has been progressing “at a snail’s pace” there. Meanwhile, media managers at Ministry of External Affairs too need to contemplate about the abysmally poor coverage devoted by the Indian press to the summit. This was, after all, the first time that all the 54 African nations were represented for the summit and yet, the media did not go beyond the usual curtain-raisers, analysis and on-the-spot news coverage. There was no celebration of the fact that India as a nation was initiating a new emphasis in its relations with the African continent with which it has historic ties stretching back to two millennia. POOR IMAGE The Indian media’s intrinsic lack of interest in Africa and India-Africa relations was compounded by the strongly-embedded “downtrodden and strife-torn” image of Africa, the virtual absence of people-to-people contact between the two and widespread racist prejudice.
Compare that to the huge enthusiasm with which the Indian media covered Nelson Mandela’s visits to India in 1990 and 1995. Or, for that matter, even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent visits to India and his connect with the youth. No such “celebrity” factor was associated with the India-Africa Summit and neither were Bollywood stars roped in to generate a buzz. During the recent summit, journalists from Mauritius proposed that a modern media hub for Africa could be based in Mauritius to train and facilitate journalists from India and Africa. The Indian diaspora in Africa has acquired considerable prominence in many countries and deserves to be covered and Indian companies too are going to Africa in a big way now. While there is considerable government-to-government and business-to-business contact between India and Africa, what is missing is people-to-people and media-to-media contact between the two. A lot needs to be done through popular sports and cultural exchanges and to erase the racist attitude among Indians towards blacks before perceptions change in the Indian media.
INDIANS MATTER IN AFRICA (Above L-R) Navanethem Pillay is a South African jurist; Ebrahim Patel is the Minister of Economic Development of the Republic of South Africa; Pravin Gordhan is the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in South Africa
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November 22, 2015 27
Editors’ Pick Sujan Dutta
What is History?
VON brings in each issue, the best written commentary on any subject. The following write-up, from TheTelegraph has been picked by our team of editors and reproduced for our readers as the best in the fortnight.
Chetan Bhagat’s tweet questioning the contribution of historians is like a bullet that changes course
S
OMETIMES a bullet changes course. Mister Bhagat, you did make me turn back from my daily visit to the ministry of defence in South Block with your tweet. At home, my copy of your HalfGirlfriend is leaning against the paperback of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Shadow of the Sun. You are angry that several historians have gone against the Modi government. Your anger is a tweet on history. One hundred and eighteen characters in digital media on why we are what we are. I am a student of history. I studied in Bombay's Elphinstone College and in Calcutta's Jadavpur University. I wasn't really a great student; an ordinary honours graduate. The work I do needs to be informed by what you 28 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
debunk: history. I cover military and strategic issues for The Telegraph. I have covered four wars. I have reported to my newspaper under fire. I was thrilled to. I will do it again and again and all of it because I am the child of history, a student of it and for the love of the story. The first two by compulsion and habit, the last out of choice. Had it not been for the years learning history, I would have never known that Kargil, where I drove through a two-hour shelling zone day after day, is a legacy of Partition where even today our soldiers stand in the line of fire. That Iraq was Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation; that the Baghdad Museum from where I was writing while leaning against the hot turret of an American M1A1 Abrams Tank is really a repository of knowledge on how men and women came to wear the dresses they do.
That the Khyber Pass is a coveted dateline because for centuries thousands went across and never came back. That the Safed Koh that overlooks Torkham was also probably the vantage from which Babur saw his soldiers through while the mountains on the other side of the turquoise Kabul river looked like they were cut from bricks of butter. They look the same today. Had it not been for historians such as Susobhan Sarkar and his daughter Shipra Sarkar and Chittabrata Palit and Pranjal Kanti Bhattacharya and Rajat Ray and Rudrangshu Mukherjee and Bela Lahiri and Romila Thapar and, touch-your-feet, Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi, I wouldn't have known that the Bazargan border defined the boundary between the Persian and Ottoman Empires, present-day Iran and Kurdistan where the outfit called the Islamic State is erupting as we speak. Or indeed that in 1757 there was in a place north of Calcutta, in a field called Palashi—Plassey—a battle that led to our subjugation, and a 100 years after that an uprising that shook the colonialist whose sun never set. And in the interim there was the tragedy of the Black Hole in Fort William, on the banks of the Hooghly in Calcutta and even today it is the headquarters of the Eastern Command of the Indian Army. It was from here that the 1971 war was waged. The war led to the sundering of Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh. The English thought they’d discovered the brightest jewel in the Queen's crown but Portuguese knew better. Vasco da Gama—yes, the beach and beachtown in Goa is named after him, not the other way round—reached
Kerala first. Let's get closer to your home. The first railway? Between Bombay and Thane, right? A steam engine chugged over the Mahim Creek? Mountstuart Elphinstone, after whom my college was named, had a nepotist who led the English army in an Anglo-Afghan War. Afghanistan hasn't been won over by any occupying force as yet. Last week American planes bombed a DoctorsWithout-Borders hospital over there. Mister Bhagat, your prologue in Half-Girlfriend begins: "'They are your journals, you read them' I said to him". Read what you write, Mister Bhagat. It is not only a tribute to history. It is also an ode to journalism. Kapusciinski, against whose paperback your worthy work was leaning, was reporting in The Shadow of the Sun from Africa, whose leaders Narendra Modi has been hosting among New Delhi's traffic jams this week while blacking out a (Nehruvian) legacy (history, again). For 40 years, Kapuscinski reported from Africa. He wrote news. It is now history, its first rough drafts. The chapter titled "The Anatomy of a Coup de'Etat" concludes with this para: "Today, a friend, a Nigerian student named Nizi Onyebuchi, told me: 'Our new leader, General Ironsi, is a supernatural man. Someone was shooting at him and the bullet changed course, not so much as grazing the general'." Sometimes a bullet does change the course of others. — The author is Strategic Affairs Editor, The Telegraph VIEWS ON NEWS
LOOKING BACK Some path-breaking vignettes from history
November 22, 2015 29
30 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
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November 22, 2015 31
Social Media Marriage Websites
Enter the Class
Marriage websites are now offering class profiles in addition to caste ones. From a matter of personal choice, class-based marriages have become a trend. Will class now become as much of a barrier as caste? BY SAMPAD PATNAIK
NEW TRENDS There is now a paradigm shift in match-making through matrimonial sites
32 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
I
NDIANS, still trapped by their history, are not yet free of racial prejudices in matrimony. Most marriage websites in India still carry a drop-down menu for candidates to put up their caste on their virtual profiles. To existing caste-based discrimination in marriages, Indians are adding class-based snobbery. This evolution is evident in some marriage websites which have come up over the last few years. EliteMatrimony, a subsidiary of BharatMatrimony, claims on its website that it has a database of “more than 10,000 members who represent the upper crust of the society”. The phrase “upper crust”, used by a business venture to publicly describe its clientele, is unambiguously an example of institutionalized classism. But EliteMatrimony is not the only website to make the rich feel exclusive. Another website is actually called iitiiMatrimony.com, a platform, no doubt, for people who conflate degrees with education and accomplishment. It is important to distinguish the importance of caste and class in Indian marriages. For a significant number of Indians, caste has been a nonnegotiable parameter, while class was a preference. However, a union was possible between candidates of two different classes as long as they were of the same caste. With these new trends in marriage, social compass now points in a direction where class will become as much a barrier as caste. The new trend of dotcom profile-matching is slowly moving class from a preference to a prejudice. Arranged-marriage searches, done through personal networking or newspaper advertisements, may have had individuals who openly sought class as a non-negotiable parameter. However, dedicated websites for people to marry within their social class makes a constituency out of a scattered group, converting individual practice into a trend.
“While I don’t see myself using such websites, this technology is a great way to narrow the search for a partner,” says Apeksha Mishra, a Delhi-based media professional. The dotcom marriage trend is aiding the spread of class bias in society. People, who mistake value system with a medium, identify modernity in the practice of using a website or an app to find a marriage partner. They forget that while their search tool is advanced, their search parameters—elite, IIT, IIM—imply regressive thinking. People forget that a website and a relationship manager, offered by these new marriage-profile services, are analogous to using a pandit or the local samaritan to find a groom or a bride. Websites like iitiiMatrimony.com reveal that professions matter in selecting a partner for
SNOBBISH ATTITUDE? The eligible bachelors in the upper strata of society have increasingly become class conscious
People, who mistake value system with a medium, identify modernity in the practice of using a website or an app to find a marriage partner. They forget that their search norms imply regressive thinking.
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November 22, 2015 33
Social Media Marriage Websites
The new marriage trends, reflected by some matrimony websites, symbolize a socio-cultural quirk of some Indians, who separate public and private values.
CLIENT DEMAND Matrimonial websites like EliteMatrimony (above) and iitiiMatrimony.com (below) are now making the rich feel exclusive
marriage. Not just techies and business graduates, doctors prefer to marry doctors, while highlyplaced bureaucrats choose from their own. Compatibility is the most cited reason for such choices, without questioning whether compatibility is an coincidental value, based on similar choices, or a cultivated value, depending on how considerate both partners are to each other’s differences. “It is difficult to find reasonably rational, liberal men in Indian society,” argues Piyush Ahuja,
34 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
a former IIT alumnus, currently based in the UK. “In my experience, the density of such people in IIT (or good educational institutes) is much higher than I've seen anywhere else.”
A
ided by these marriage websites, class allows social evils like dowry to evolve with the times. A candidate with a profile in iitiiMatrimony.com has already attached a value to himself. A potentially interested partner, who does not belong to an elite institution, has to remedy the value-gap by offering something for the “privilege” of marriage. Dowry, among urban and middle-class Indians, has metamorphosed into services-based expenses from material-based expenses. People hesitate to ask for or gift traditional items like a car and a housing plot. Ruinously expensive theme-weddings, overpriced photographers and an all-expenses paid honeymoon in Europe are part of the new dowry. These are just as expensive as tra-
ditional gifts, but are the new normative trends in urban India. The effect of class prejudices in marriages is not just a question of culture and morality, but may also impact economy and politics in future. The celebrated French economist, Thomas Piketty, has argued that marriage of the wealthy and influential concentrates capital along a vertical, family-based line. If inherited capital persists as a trend in the economy, it leaves most of the population at a disadvantage. A number of studies have demonstrated that social mobility is increasingly impacted by social status. In simpler words, how well a child does in life is dependent upon the family’s economic status. And closing the doors on social mobility, for most of the population, is never good for political stability. It would be incautious to claim that class bias in arranged marriages is only an effect of patriarchal and traditional norms. In numbers that cannot be ignored, young and educated women, too, still seek husbands who should be more qualified and should earn more than them. One cannot even claim that these young people are brainwashed by inherited social values. In a globally connected world, they are aware that such choices
are the result of sub-conscious prejudices than critical thinking. Yet, the choice of one value-system over another indicates that a portion of the blame rests with the self, irrespective of society and environment. “I disagree”, says Apeksha. “A marriage will be more successful if the man earns more than his wife or at least as much as she does...there is an ego-factor that comes into play.” These new marriage trends, reflected by EliteMatrimony and iitiiMatrimony, symbolize a socio-cultural quirk of some Indians, who separate public and private values. While these Indians frown at politicians making caste appeals in elections, they see nothing wrong in perpetuating caste through marriage. This paradox is perhaps due to a lack of understanding that public values are mostly an aggregate of privately held values, and politicians will appeal to any sentiment that will get the support of a largest number of people. Businesses are no different from politicians. The easier option is blaming businesses, like EliteMatrimony, for corporate greed. The truth may be they supply the class barriers many among us want.
OFF THE SAME CLASS Students exult after the third annual convocation at IIT Patna
Dedicated websites for people to marry within their social class makes a constituency out of a scattered group, converting individual practice into a trend.
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November 22, 2015 35
Small Screen On Air with AIB
Comedy of Corruption
A new comedy show, On Air with AIB, shows that this genre has scope in India, provided it is not vulgar and talks of issues affecting the common man such as corruption and scams BY SHOBHA JOHN
I
LAUGH RIOT (Lto R) The AIB team of Rohan Joshi, Gursimran Khamba, Ashish Shakya and Tanmay Bhat
T has already made its presence felt on social media. And now it has made its debut on TV. And how! Self-depreciating, witty and politically savvy, All India Bakchod (AIB), which was earlier a video show on YouTube, has emerged, quite like a butterfly from its chrysalis, into a TV comedy show called On Air with AIB. While it retains its satirical tone, it talks about serious issues like RTI, the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, IAS officer Ashok Khemka’s numerous transfers and corruption in politics. There is less crudity and abuse and one can watch this with one’s family without squirming. This is quite unlike its earlier much publicised charity event last December, called AIB Roast, featuring Karan Johar as the host with Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor, the targets he roasted. The event, which raised `40
36 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
lakh, went viral on social media and established AIB as a brand. The Roast gained some notoriety and publicity when the Mumbai police summoned Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor and Karan Johar for appearing on the show and using abusive language. While the video was pulled out from YouTube, AIB from then on became synonymous with irreverence and freedom of speech. On Air with AIB debuted on Hotstar and Star World and from the word go, it has something going for it, not to mention the earnest anchors, Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya. Their effervescence, humor and chattiness, coupled with indignation over various scams, finds a chord with the audience. NAIVE WHISTLEBLOWERS Latest controversies are introduced with a tongue-in-cheek style. For example, do you know what is India’s national sport? No, it isn’t cricket, it is corruption, “the thing you care about before beef ”, says Joshi. Corruption is dirty but damn convenient. How true. It even shows what politicians think of it, with Rahul Gandhi saying: “Brashtachar kiya, balatkar, sorry, balatkar kiye.” It then goes on to talk of whistleblowers who want to stop corruption and end up being murdered. It’s a way to outsource your own suicide,
the show says. It then goes on to talk of the Vyapam scam and pokes fun at the numerous “mysterious” deaths in it. It shows one whistleblower with a security guard following him on a bicycle and pokes fun at the government’s move to protect whistleblowers. It asks: “Why be good, why bother.” Even in the case of Satyendra Dubey, who was killed for being a whistleblower, three people were arrested for robbing him while charges of corruption were not probed. This is India. Even though there is a whistleblowers act, the government wants to bring in amendments to dilute it! It lambasts the government which, according to an expose, bought weapons after 26/11 and housed them in an armoury under a leaky roof. “So if there is another terrorist attack, terrorists will have guns, our security men will have pichkaris,” says one host. And instead of awarding the journalist who exposed the scam, the government arrested him for being a spy. The show well asks: “Why be good?” It also laughs at the amendments in the current whistleblowers act where the whistleblower has to give his identity. How stupid is that especially when there is no protection? KHEMKA’S TRAVAILS It then goes on to talk of Ashok Khemka who has been repeatedly transferred for exposing corruption, especially of Robert Vadra, the Freddie Mercury of Gurgaon. With such witticisms, the show is a laugh riot. In fact, the show says, Ashok Khemka is the only IAS officer who is happy when his flight is cancelled! No wonder people ask him when he will settle in life. The show satirizes the new amendments which say that a complaint can only be valid if the information comes from an RTI complaint.
It rightly says that many scams go beyond the purview of the RTI. How can a country have people dying just for telling the truth. Is it surprising that people just don’t want to get involved. But then, the Vyapam scam has led to almost 2,000 fake doctors. What is the way out? The sad thing is that these amendments have already been passed in the Lok Sabha and could be passed in the Rajya Sabha too. Serious issues, all right. There is also a spoof “Bhaago Grahak Bhaago” by the inimitable Prakash Raj poking fun at the predicament of whistleblowers. It also shows international news and Israeli President Benjamin Netayahu’s ridiculous statement that Hilter committed the Holocaust on the advice of a Palestinian. There is an interesting segment with Abish Matthew (the resident AIB guest) speaking to Dr K Padmarajan who lost 171 elections and lost `20 lakh of his own money. He even says that when he files his nomination he prays he should fail. Full loser, no winning! He even got kidnapped when he filed his nomination against Narasimha Rao and was deprived of his money. Though he has a moustache like Veerappan, this man is obviously no giant killer. The episodes of On Air with AIB will be watched with interest and could pave the way for successful English comedies on Indian TV.
IN THE LIMELIGHT (Above from left) Robert Vadra; Ashok Khemka
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 37
Advertising Reviews
Be Visible, Be Exposed Two ads have shown that brand building is all about being seen and building trust. Why do The Indian Express ads fail, while that of Zigy.com succeed? BY GOPINATH MENON
OUT OF SYNC (Below) The Indian Express’ print campaign comes across as too highbrow
A
FTER years, one is seeing a campaign from a media house. The Indian Express has always been the most credible but the worst marketed paper in India. Its content has been shamelessly picked up by rivals and its news seen on prime time TV of various channels as breaking news. The current ad campaign of The Indian Express is good. However, its
38 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
television and print ads are not in sync. The print campaign is snooty and tries to be intelligent but falls short. There is dissonance in what it conveys. It’s too tall to be believable. Campaigns normally need to have an ROI—Relevance, Originality and Impact. The print campaign fails in all three aspects as there is no uniqueness. What it professes to do as a newspaper is what all newspapers do. Its five television ads, on the other hand, score
well on all three parameters. However, it doesn’t get the exposure it deserves. This is the trap all media brands fall into, i.e., they do not want to pay for advertising as they only look for advertising in their own paper or look for barter deals. This is where it fails in monetizing the initiative. It doesn’t help the paper to grow in brand stature or help build advertising revenue. Any brand promotion has a production budget which is about one-tenth of the media’s investments. However, in IE's case, it seems to be the other way round. Nonetheless, these are excellent commercials. The campaign seems to be very good for motivating IE’s employees. It’s after a long hiatus that the group has invested in a promotional exercise. However, this new stance needs to be initiated on the ground to make it worth the investment. Sadly, this has not happened and most likely never will. While the campaign was presented by the concerned agency via video conferencing to all employees and made out into an internal event, it was not presented to prospective buyers and advertisers. This was a classic case of there being no sync between the editorial and marketing departments and hence, the entire investment lacked punch. These films have never been seen by any customer and this is unpardonable. You cannot invest so much in the production of a new initiative and not invest money in promoting it. Seems like a classic case of making only the owners feel good. On the whole, it is a credible initiative with poor merchandising. Zigy.com’s BRAND BUILDING Recently, I saw a commercial that reminded me of the good old days of advertising in the eighties and the nineties. Those were the times when advertising’s purpose was to build the brand before building the business. The logic was “Salience before Sales”. Zigy.com and its agency have done just that, and in a pleasant and memorable way. Zigy.com seems to be the first initiative in tak-
ing healthcare online, where the predominant virtue is trust. The key question you would ask before ordering medicines online would be: “Can I trust them to be genuine?” Convenience and everything else comes later. The recent Zigy commercial answers this brilliantly. It uses a rare scenario—the relationship between a mother and her ex-daughter-in-law. The younger woman demonstrates responsibility towards the mother-inlaw by sending her medicines for a whole month from Zigy.com. This gesture after a divorce makes you sit up as it’s not common in our society. The trust shown for Zigy registers with the pleasant shock the older woman gets when she receives the medicines. The lady promptly calls her former daughter-in-law and the conversation between the two is brilliantly enacted. The voice, the modulation and the silent pauses tell us that less is more in the audio-visual medium. Zigy.com got the amalgam between the message strategy and the media delivery right. The audience selected is affluent, mature and 35 years and above. These are the people who understand responsibility and trust and are also connected online. Once they try Zigy.com and are happy with the experience, they are sure to become ambassadors for the brand and hence, the buzz for the business will start. This is what building a brand and a business are all about.
TUGGING THE HEARTSTRINGS (Above) Zigy.com’s advertisement resonates with the audiences due to its well-crafted emotive appeal
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 39
Film Review Main Aur Charles
Life and Crimes of Sobhraj This film, on one of the most notorious criminals who evaded the law in several countries by twisting the law and judicial system, has some fine acting and authentic moments. However, the storyline could have been tighter BY SHOBHA JOHN 40 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
T
HE film Main Aur Charles raised expectations of being a fast-paced thriller. After all, it was touted as the first-ever Indian movie on notorious murderer Charles Sobhraj, convicted for the murders of at least 12 women and presently in a Nepal jail. However, despite a gripping and readymade story, the storyline is confusing. Known for his smooth, hypnotic, charming and deadly ways, Sobhraj’s exploits had once gripped the collective conscience of police in various parts of the world. After all, he used every trick in the book and twisted the law to con whoever he came in touch with, be it the police or numerous women who fell for his silky charms.
CONFUSING IN BITS The film starts in Thailand in 1968 where a woman’s body is found on a beach by the police. It then pans to a man’s shoes as he relaxes somewhere. Then it
shows him confidently striding to a boat and escaping. All along, Sobhraj, played to almost perfection by Randeep Hooda, is not shown in a close-up. As the music builds up to a crescendo, the sense of mystery too increases. But subsequently, the movie goes back and forth between Thailand, Paharganj and Ferozshah Kotla in Delhi, Churchgate in Bombay and Goa, with little to link up these locations. Anyone unaware of the sequence of events in Sobhraj’s life will be left confused. The film basically focuses on that aspect of the criminal’s life from the time he escapes from Thailand where he faces the death penalty for coning and killing women tourists for their passports and money to his jail term in India. As he flees to India, he comes to Delhi, moves to Bombay and then to Goa, where he is caught by the police. Then, the Delhi police takes over in the form of IPS officer Amod Kanth, played by a stern Adil Hussain, who brings him to the capital and high-security Tihar Jail. Here too, Sobhraj works the system to his advantage and cons everyone, right from the
jailer to lowly cops. Randeep plays the part of Sobhraj to perfection. His peaked cap, trademark glasses and accent bear an uncanny resemblance to the real criminal. His nonchalant way of blowing smoke rings, quizzical smile which almost resembles a smirk and stares give a hint of quiet menace. But of course, one has to be able to pick these subtle nuances. Also called “The Serpent” and “The Splitting Killer”, Sobhraj’s smirk is particularly aimed at a bristling Kanth, his bête-noire, who is all fire and brimstone over this man whom he sees as an obnoxious human being for preying on the trust of other people. However, Sobhraj is never shown as murdering his victims and his charm is the insidious kind, never overt. He is often heard telling his victims that they are beautiful. What kind of charm is that? Adil plays the honest and committed police officer well. He bristles every time he sees Sobhraj as he understands the deadly psychology of this criminal mind and his anger at Sobhraj’s jail break from Tihar due to lax police officials is palpable.
PRIZE CATCH (Facing page) The real Charles Sobhraj in the police dragnet (Above) Randeep Hooda has played Charles Sobhraj to perfection in Main Aur Charles
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 41
Film Review Main Aur Charles
GRIPPY NUMBER (Right) The nightclub song, Jab Chaya Tera Jadoo, in the film is both seductive and foot-tapping (Below) Richa Chadda plays a law student who is smitten by Charles
However, his righteous indignation is over-the-top at times, especially when he berates his attractive wife, played by Tisca Chopra, for being too curious about Sobhraj’s sexual exploits. He also gives a drubbing to Meena, a law student played by the sultry Richa Chadda, for falling for Sobhraj’s charms. For Adil, the law is more important than anything else.
MAIN AUR CHARLES ********** Direction: Prawaal Raman Actors: Randeep Hooda, Adil Hussain, Richa Chadda, Tisca Chopra
SYSTEM MANIPULATED However, what remains in one’s mind is the way Sobhraj twists the judicial and criminal system to his advantage. It works everywhere, even in Tihar where a wimpish jailer allows him access to women, guns and narcotics. It is a scathing indictment of our
42 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
system that money power even today can help a criminal buy any privilege inside Indian jails. Sobhraj’s chumminess with the police inside Tihar allows him to even cook food inside jail, where he spikes it with some sleep-inducing medicine which knocks out the guards. Of course, he escapes. Richa Chadda, as the impressionable law student, plays her part well and is almost hypnotized like numerous women before him. It is interesting to watch her take leave of her senses and work on behalf of Charles to justify his every move. Law be damned, love is more important. And her line: “Aur jab wo mujhe dekhta hai, I feel like having sex with him”, shows his hypnotic quality. Steamy scenes in the movie are done with finesse, though some of the body show in Goa shown through hippie culture is unnecessary. The music is good and sets the background for a movie dealing with crime and passion. A song set in a nightclub in the 80s, Jab Chaya Tera Jadoo, is both seductive and foot-tapping. The film has been true to its times and authentic aspects such as oldtime radios and The Navhind Times, a paper in Goa, are featured well. Go ahead and watch it if you find Charles Sobhraj an enigmatic and clever criminal and want to see some fine acting. The loose storyline of the first half is tightened in the second. Overall, an interesting film.
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VIEWS ON NEWS TMM SURVEY: How the small screen is confusing us about Bihar elections 42
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Media Monitoring Bihar Exit Polls TMM Survey
Battle of the Pollsters TMM projects the exit polls of four channels—Aaj Tak, ABP, Times Now and India TV—on the last day of polling for assembly elections in Bihar, which projected a neck-to-night contest
Earlier predictions News Channel
BJP+
JDU+ OTHERS
ABP
118
122
03
AAJ TAK
107-127
117-127
8-12
INDIA TV
95
140
8
TIMES NOW
117
112
14
Survey of different news channels after the fifth phase of polling While Aaj Tak projected that the BJP+ and JDU+ will get more or less same number of seats, India TV, Times Now and ABP News gave a slight edge to the JDU+
44 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
Percentage of Footage Shown in Various Channels to: Controversial statements on beef ban issue
Controversial statements on return of awards by liberals
Phase 1, October 1 to October 10.
Phase 2, October 13 to October 15.
Lalu Yadav (RJD): Don’t Hindus consume beef?
Arun Jaitley (BJP): Those who are pro-Leftist or pro-Nehru have been awarded by the then government…. Of those, some of the writers deserve this award…. And I am not going to raise a question on their talent
Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (RJD): During the old days sages and monks also consumed beef. Giriraj Singh (BJP): If Nitish wins then he will force the public to consume beef.
57%
60%
52%
51%
50%
50%
Lalu Yadav (RJD): The situation of the country right now is under emergency after this award wapsi campaign, and Prime Minister Modi should resign from his position. 4%
3%
3% 40%
30%
2.80% 2.50%
2.5%
29%
30%
30% 22% 21%
20%
20%
2%
1.5%
20%
17%
2%
2%
1%
10%
0%
3% 3%
0.5% 0%
ABP News
Lalu (RJD)
ZEE News
IBN 7
Aaj Tak
Raghuvansh Prasad (RJD)
0%
Phase -3, October 17 to October 27 Narendra Modi (BJP): During the tenure of Nitish Kumar, the women of Bihar remained illiterate. Tejaswi Yadav (RJD): Prime Minister Narendra Modi should apologize for the statement he made against the women of Bihar.
ZEE News
Arun Jaitley (BJP)
Lalu (RJD)
Giriraj Singh (BJP)
Controversial statements on illiterate women of Bihar
IBN 7
Aaj Tak
ABP News
Controversial statements on Muslims Phase-4, October 29 to Oct ober 30 Amit Shah (BJP): If the BJP loses the battle of Bihar, Pakistan will burst crackers. KC Tyagi (JDU): Two facts are clear: First, the BJP is going to lose the battle of Bihar this time. Second, Diwali will not be celebrated in India by the Muslims… 7%
7%
7% 6% 5%
6%
6%
6%
5%
5%
5%
5%
4%
4% 4%
4%
2%
2%
2%
2% 1%
1% 0%
3%
3%
3%
ABP News
ZEE News
Modi (BJP)
IBN 7
3% 2%
2%
2%
1%
Aaj Tak
Tejaswi Yadav (BJP)
0%
ABP News
ZEE News
Amit Shah (BJP)
IBN 7
Aaj Tak
KC Tyagi (JDU)
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 45
Design
DESIGNS THAT MADE IMAGINATIVE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS, FONTS, COLOR AND WHITE SPACES TO LEAVE AN IMPRESSION By ANTHONY LAWRENCE
My body, my creative canvas. Artists from over 40 nations depicted some interesting art works at the World Bodypainting Festival in the Austrian town of Pörtschach on Lake Wörthersee. Imaginations ran wild, as in the case of this artist.
46 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
Babies’ day out, or within the four walls of home, is not without horrors in India, and this cover of Tehelka brings home the point quite brutally.
The raw passion of the British parliamentarians brought to the fore in this cover illustration aptly depict the turmoil in the corridors of power.
A googly from The New York Times. Well, this is what happens when designers get a free hand to add value to the text. While the design has got the upper hand here, the text is fully readable. Imagine this verbose text without a substantial design element!
Here’s a blogging space for designers. Pin It provides them a platform to post their creations, along with a write-up. A case of design adding to 1,000 words.
Old must give way to new, be it your morning news. And the Times of Oman has done it rather too literally.
Michael Creese exercises his artistic licence to paint the horse in colors of his choice. But what attracts one is not the color, but the melancholy eyes.
Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu’s work at the Venice Biennale Arte 2015 claims to depict end of materialism. Given the clutter in our lives, as depicted in this work, will a return to the innocent Adam and Eve stage be possible?
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 22, 2015 47
DATE 20/10/15
20/10/15
22/10/15
25/10/15
25/10/15
26/10/15
26/10/15
26/10/15
NEWS Four people, including two kids, suffer serious burns as a Dalit home set afire in Faridabad
NEWS
CHANNEL TIME
9.25 AM
9.29 AM
11.00 AM
11.02 AM
9.30 AM
10.15 AM
Verdict in Uber cab rape case. Tis Hazari Court declares driver Shiv Kumar guilty.
Gen VK Singh on Faridabad incident: How can the govt be held accountable for every incident, like if somebody throws a stone at a dog, then the center is responsible.
11.03 AM
11.04 AM
12:00 NOON
12:00 NOON
12:01 PM
12:09 PM
7.30 AM
7.31AM
7.33 AM
7.35 AM
Fire in Mumbai’s Crawford Market, guts 60 shops, 100 vehicles.
Deputy mayor of Gurgaon faces rape charges. Forty-year-old woman alleges he raped her by giving false promises of marriage. Case registered, but no arrest.
2.00 PM
2.02 PM
2.03 PM
2.04 PM
Gita’s family reaches Delhi; will get custody of Gita after DNA matching. Gita to return after staying for 12 years in Pakistan.
7.35 AM
7.36 AM
8.12 AM
8.36 AM
India Africa Summit starts today. Fifty-four heads of states to participate. 2,000 CCTV cameras as part of security arrangements.
7.40 AM
7.41 AM
7.42 AM
7.45 AM
2.16 PM
2.18 PM
2.19 PM
2.19 PM
Underworld Don Chhota Rajan arrested in Indonesia; Home Ministry confirms news.
48 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
12:10 PM
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 26/10/15
27/10/15
27/10/15
28/10/15
28/10/15
28/10/15
1/11/15
3/11/15
NEWS Earthquake tremors rock north India. Intensity of 7.7 on Richter Scale. Epicenter in Hindukush, Afghanistan.
NEWS
CHANNEL TIME
2.40 PM
2.42 PM
7.43 AM
7.45 AM
2.43 PM
2.44 PM
Arun Shourie attacks Modi, says he is the weakest PM so far. 7.48 AM
11.02 AM
Cricketer Amit Mishra arrested in Bengaluru. Accused of harassing a girl. Interrogated for 3 hours.
2.00 PM
2.01 PM
2.02 PM
2.05 PM
5.59% voting in third phase of voting in Bihar so far: Patna -5.62%, Vaishali-5.93%, Bhojpur-5.50%, Saharanpur-5.43%, Buxor5.87%, Nalanda-5.54% .
8.53 AM
8.54 AM
8.55 AM
8.55 AM
9.00 AM
9.02 AM
9.05 AM
9.05 AM
Mark Zuckerberg addresses IIT Delhi audience. Calls Indians full of energy, says internet connectivity will help alleviate poverty.
12.17 PM
12.18 PM
12.18 PM
12.20 PM
Indian gangster Chhota Rajan to be brought in India on Nov 3, say sources. Team reaches Indonesia to fetch him. A charter plane will bring back Rajan.
1.25 PM
1.25 PM
1.25 PM
1.26 PM
Congress leaders led by Sonia Gandhi march from Parliament House to Rashtrapati Bhavan to protest against rising intolerance under the Modi government.
8.33 AM
8.35 AM
Pervez Musharraf says Laden and Hafiz Saeed are Pakistan’s heroes. Pak created Lashkar-e-Toiba, Haqqani networks.
8.35 AM
8.42 AM
VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015 49
S THE WORLD TURNS
Wikipedia’s role recognized W ikipedia has got Spain’s Princess of Asturias award for international cooperation. Spain’s King Felipe VI gave away the award in Oviedo on October 25, calling it a “universal symbol of teamwork” and lauding it for its efforts “to put culture within reach of the greatest number of people possible”. “We are rewarding a brilliant and generous idea, a way of working that
is a universal symbol of teamwork. We are rewarding an encyclopedia which is much more than a collection of facts,” he said. Started by US entrepreneur Jimmy Wales in 2001, the online encyclopedia has about 35 million articles in 288 languages, where the content is written by volunteers around the world. It has about 500 million single visits a month.
Award for
Cartoons to sell
Saudi blogger
five-year plan
S
audi blogger Raif Badawi has got the Sakharov Prize—the European Union’s top human rights prize—for 2015, joining the league of earlier prize winners Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. Badawi, 31, co-founded the Saudi Liberal Network, and was arrested in 2012 for his blogs critical of the Saudi regime, reports Deutsche Welle. He got 10 years of imprisonment, and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam. Earlier, he got the Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech award. European Parliament President Martin Schulz has urged the Saudi king to free him.
50 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
T
he Chinese government has come up with an engaging series of cartoons to sell its five year plan, reports Al Jazeera. In a country without democracy, the need to woo its citizens through toons signals a big shift in people’s aspirations. The report says that while making China a higher-income country will be a priority, pulling out millions from poverty, especially migrant workers from country-side will be an equally big priority area. The toons project an image of a happy Chinese society, even in the face of big challenges.
Turkish press curbs worry the world L
eading editors from across the world wrote an open letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, expressing their concern over worsening press freedom in Turkey in the run up to the recent elections. The signatories included Dean Baquet, executive editor, the New York Times; Michèle Léridon, global news director, Agence France-Presse (AFP); Martin Baron, executive editor, the Washington Post; Wolfgang Krach, joint editor-in-chief, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Zaffar Abbas, editor, Dawn, among others. Vinod K Jose, executive editor, Caravan, was also a signatory. Listing the attacks on mediapersons in the two months preceding elections, they wrote: “We urge you to use your influence to ensure that journalists, whether Turkish citizens or
members of the international press, are protected and allowed to do their work without hindrance.” Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party has won the elections.
Web Crawler What Went Viral
It’s my choice
I
s it a matter of choice for a married Indian woman to go hungry for her husband on karva chauth? This became a matter of a twitter argument between Barkha Dutt and Raveena Tandon. A day before the festival, Barkha Dutt tweeted: “I know its all about ‘Choice’ but no power has yet been able to convince me that #karvachauth is not inherently regressive & patriarchal!” In response, Tandon tweeted: “a beautiful tradition coming down centuries, Whr women pray for their hus-
bands, I pray for my whole family. And THAT is not regressive @BDUTT” The two ladies got embroiled in the war of choices, and Barkha retaliated: “@TandonRaveena sure Raveena, like I said its about ‘choice’ but that word allows by definition for my opinion to differ from yours :-)” and Raveena retorted: “@BDUTT your choice your freedom agreed- but regressive is a strong word-do not demean it for others u could’ve stopped ‘don’t believe in it’…” And so on went the twitter feud.
Twitter ad is confusing
On-air groping shocks Mexico
A
viral video portraying alleged groping on Mexican TV has sparked a national debate about sexism, reports the BBC. The Televisa network, the largest media company in Latin America, initially issued a statement saying that the groping was a stunt by the presenters, intended to produce a viral video. However, female presenter Tania Reza later said she was pressured to stand up the network’s version of events, and that co-host Enrique Tovar actually did touch her inappropriately—a charge that is now being examined by Mexico’s National Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Discrimination. Prominent politicians rushed to condemn Tovar and Televisa, saying Tania Reza was a victim of both sexual and workplace harassment.
T
he first television advertisement campaign by Twitter has left some American viewers confused, reports digiday.com. Selections of baseball-related tweets were featured in the ad, which was shown during the live coverage of baseball’s season-ending World Series. However, the text appeared so quickly in the lively sequence that some took to the web to express bewilderment. The ad was made to promote “Moments”, which highlights trending stories on the social media platform. Twitter user Jason Stoff tweeted: “That Twitter commercial was *really bad*. Can’t imagine anyone feeling invited to use the service or see the value after seeing the spot.”
Plans for “viral television”
A
Scottish internet entrepreneur who founded popular news site Mashable when he was a schoolboy plans to venture into television. Pete Cashmore, whose site attracts 45 million visitors a month, believes data on what people share online can be used to create popular programs. Mashable has developed a “robot” that analyzes why some news articles or videos “go viral” and are shared by mil-
lions of internet users across the world. Cashmore, 30, believes the robot could also predict what was likely to go viral in future. He told The Herald Scotland newspaper: “It’s almost 90 percent accurate. These days we don’t always know which signals it’s following. It’s all artificial intelligence. When it gets one wrong it changes the algorithm. It learns itself.” —Compiled by Anuj Raina
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November 22, 2015 51
Focus
Election Commission
What’s The Catch Phrase? The poll body will appoint an event management agency ahead of Voters’ Day in an attempt to get more people to vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections BY RAKESH BHATNAGAR
W
MAKING A CHOICE (Above) Voters queue up to cast their votes in Chandigarh during the Lok Sabha polls in 2014
HEN India goes to the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, it is estimated that it will have a voter base of a billion people—equivalent to the population of Africa. However, in 2014, when 814 million people were registered as voters, there were many complaints of names not being included in the electoral rolls, wrong information and ambiguity in the demarcation of constituencies. This happened during the ongoing Bihar polls too, where the ages of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s sons were interchanged, with the younger one being shown as the older. All these glitches are due to the Election Commission’s (EC) on-line portal being unable to cope with the surging number of voters.
52 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015
However, the EC has now decided to take a page from other government organizations which deal directly with people, including the Passport Office. The job of expediting passport applications has been outsourced by the government to a private IT company. Similarly, the EC has decided to outsource event management and logistic services for “Matdaata Mahotsav” (which will begin on January 25, Voters’ Day introduced as an annual event from 2011) and invited “expression of interest (EOI)” from agencies with an office in Delhi. EVENTFUL CALENDER The prime job of the agency would be to “carry forward the good practice” of extending the celebrations of National Voters’ Day to the main
stakeholders—the masses. The EC expects the agency to organize a series of events ahead of January 25, which would target different groups and include myriad activities, ranging from discussions and debates to cultural performances and contests. The entire event is being organized with the intention of demonstrating the power of voters and will involve them for greater inclusion and awareness about the electoral process and strengthening the message of SVEEP (Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation), an official source said. The EC wants the organizers to strategically use various festivals of international and national importance as a platform for holding SVEEP events. Multiple venues for different events will reach out to various target groups. In Delhi, Pragati Maidan, Central Park in CP, Purana Qila, Red Fort and India Habitat Centre may be among the venues for competitions, cultural events and exhibitions, while Siri Fort Auditorium and college campuses in Delhi, including North Campus, JNU and South Asian University in Chanakyapuri, are likely to hold discussions and debates. Unlike in the past when Voters’ Day was celebrated at Vigyan Bhawan with election commissioners and a Union minister delivering speeches underlining the importance of the vote in democracy, the forthcoming celebrations are expected to be in line with PM Modi’s mantra to play big through well-organized, high-tech events. DIFFERENT TARGETS The event management company could organize individual events to spread the message of SVEEP to target groups like women, youth, service class voters, NRIs, those with disabilities, school students and marginalised sections. For this, it could be in partnership with the ministry of defence, ministry of external affairs, Kendriya Vidyalayas, Ryan International, Delhi Public School or other such chains. Despite electronic voting, there are many challenges ahead. A report in The Economist on April 25, 2014, said: “Already India uses electronic voting machines, which make it easy to cast votes and then
The event management agency is likely to organize events ahead of January 25 and target different groups and include activities like discussions and debates, cultural performances and contests. to count them. Now India should find ways to take advantage of its near-universal mobile phone coverage, rising literacy and the world’s biggest biometric database, Aadhaar, which has so far registered 600 million people, who can each be given a secure digital identity. Voters should be offered quick and secure ways to take part in the election by phone or online. For a start, India should study how small countries have successfully done this.” If large numbers of voters are able to take part in elections digitally, then two good things could follow, says The Economist. “Turn-out might well rise even higher than 70% — the famously reluctant urban middle classes could be more willing to vote if it could be done from the sofa or desk. Second, the pressure on bricks-and-mortar polling stations would be reduced, so fewer would be needed. In turn, the central police force can be spread more easily around the country, so the election can happen quicker.” Is the EC listening?
POWER OF THE BALLOT (Above) Youngsters exercising their franchise in Aizawl, Mizoram during the 2014 general elections
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November 22, 2015 53
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
THE NUMBERS GAME
30 WAYS TO SAY ‘YES’
Get somebody’s number = discover somebody’s character
A
Like you say
One’s number comes up = one has good fortune
All right
Okey-dokey
One’s number is up = one is going to suffer or die
A-OK
Right
One’s number two = one’s an assistant
Check
Right-on
In penny numbers = a few at a time
Crazy
Right you are
Number one = oneself
Easy
Right-o
One’s days are numbered = one’s time is limited
Fine
Shoot
Opposite number = who holds a similar position elsewhere
Good deal
Solid
Number cruncher = computer, accountant, mathematician
I can live with that
Sure thing
Do a number on = treat someone very badly
Like a shot
Sweet
20 INTERNET SLANGS
DID YOU KNOW?
2day… Today
?^-----What's up?
One and a half rupees, NOT one and a half rupee
2m…. Tomorrow
Csl……Can't stop laughing
The whole of India, NOT the whole India
5o…. Police
Ctn…….Can't talk now
Different from, NOT different than
6y….. Sexy
143----I love you
‘Either’ and ‘neither’ should be used only with two people or things
Addy……. Address
Ihu----I hate you
Fewer is used with numbers
Ayte ……..All right
Ijit--- Idiot
'Out' is redundant in ‘lose out’
Cul…….. See you later
Zig---Cigarette
‘Try and’ should be replaced to ‘try to’
<3….. love
Whodi-----Friend
‘Could of’ is illiterate for ‘could have’
?u@ ….Where are you?
Enof----Enough
?up……..What's up?
10x---Thanks
An examiner ‘gives’ an examination or a test but a candidate ‘takes’ an examination or a test.
ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE
SYNONYMS OF ‘NONSENSE’
It takes all sorts to make a world, or rather, all people are different and even strange people should be accepted. Also, different strokes for different folks, meaning different things please different people. He is stupid…..doormat, pushover Does not allow others to enjoy themselves…..spoilsport, wet blanket Believes everything other people say….sucker Tries to impress in authority to get something he/she wants?.... a creep Is lazy and untidy……layabout, slob Is good looking…..babe, hunk
Balderdash Ballyhoo Bunkum Claptrap Codswallop Flapdoodle Flimflam Hogwash Hot air Poppycock Mumbo-jumbo Stuff and nonsense
54 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2015