Self regulation for TV: a joke!

Rajat Sharma’s Hindi news channel, India TV, walked out of the News Broadcasting Association when its Standards Disputes Redressal Authority  issued a show-cause notice to it for violating self-regulation principles. It was the Authority’s first order since it became operational in October 2008.

The debate is on whethere it was good riddance for NBA or would it mar a case for self regulation. Let the debate continue, but nothing great is likely to come out of that.

Self regulation of tv channels in India will not work, we knew it and we know it. It did not work for the print media, where there is the Press Council of India, a body in which there are a number of senior pressmen, but it does hardly work. Nobody cares for it. This, when we feel that print media is much more mature. Some papers have ombudsmen, but have you heard any story about an ombudsman pulling up a correspondent/ columnist/ newspaper?

Then if you thought that self regulation will work for the wild tv world of India, you were mistaken. The self-preservation instinct in the face of fierce competition will not allow even the so called sophisticated and ethical channels to keep meeting the guidelines. The difference will be in what a channel perceives as its USP. Let me explain. Some channels excel in pushing obscurantist ideas and superstitions, and for them it is their USP. We, the liberal minded people do not like that stuff. Now come to a channel which is very news-nosed and would not carry such stuff but would not blink an eyelid when it comes to showing gory details of a massacre. Another one would repeat ad nauseum a remark by a politician which it edits out of context. A prominent anchor of a newsy channel is supposed to have invited enemy attention by prompting a soldier to fire a shot for getting a good visual. Many papers, more so the tv channels, serve the agenda of some party or lobby or powerful indivisual and we do not even suspect that we have been brainwashed with a hidden vested interest. What self regulation you are talking about? 

Irony is that such channels raised hell when there was only a talk of evolving guidelines for televisions during crisis situations. In fact the government must come out with regulatory mechanism on the lines of Press Council. PCI must be strengthened and either it should be given powers over tv or a parallel organisation must be set up to curb abuse of the freedom of press by television channels.    

Jarnail's shoe

Jarnail lost his head and ended up losing his shoe. Indian journalism, wild and irresponsible as it has become after the advent of live TV channels and that it has been quite often at sub-provincial levels, saw falling of one more canon of professional conduct.

But my question is why did Dainik Jagran, the daily newspaper whose reporter Jarnail is, black out the shoe-throwing story? Was it so scared of Home Minister and the government? Did it think that publishing a long apology in its front page was not enough to make amends with the political executive? I think, journalism has lost more by this conduct of India’s most read paper.

The Nano will lead to suicides

Not heard of farmers' suicide in India and Australia? I will tell.

Farmers are known to be a sturdy lot, as sturdy as the weed they throw out while growing crops. But farming is a very risk-prone activity, especially if you are growing a tender crop in rain-fed conditions. Still they manage to weather the weather and can smile. They are capable of cracking the nastiest jokes when not busy in the field, even though the crop might be not that good. Farmers are also a god fearing lot. Now, who will expect such a lot to commit suicide? What happens in Australia, I don't know, but in rainfed, sustenance farming areas, farmers seldom commit suicide.

On the other hand, suicides among farmers are very prevalent in areas where they grow crops with expectations of windfall profits, for example after finding that a new GM crop yields thrice the traditional crop. If they did that within their risk-taking capacity, no great harm would be done even if their crops fail, but they throw the traditional sense to the wind. They take credit to run their risky enterprise, they take credit which they will find difficult to repay even in the normal crop, they take credit to gamble, worse: they take credit to fulfil their consumption need in the hope that a bumper crop and rising prices would give them a goldmine. When that does not happen, they get desperate, some take further loans, some sell the land, some commit suicide.

Come Nano, the dream car for the lower middle class Indian, and suicides will shift to the urban India. For the reasons that I gave above for farmers' suicides. Banks and auto financers, the car company, the media all are creating a scenario in which the lower middle class urbanite [LMCU] will find it not worth living if he couldn't flaunt a Nano when taking his children to the relatives during rakhi and diwali, couldn't gift a Nano in dowry to his sister/daughter, couldn't receive a Nano for himself/ his son in dowry, etc etc. Children will put pressure on parents to buy a Nano. He will withdraw his PF, take loan, bear that much more burden on running the car, but have a Nano, the dream car. He will not mind taking graft, doing evening/ part time job, cutting expenditure on more essential items. While the wife [housewife mostly] and children drool, he will also willy-nilly enjoy the car. Sometimes he will enjoy the car more than all put together. Then either it becomes part of his life-style that he cannot sustain or it remains parked in front of his house, earning him insurance and depreciation dues and interest on loan.

[Let us not discuss the fights he will have with neighbours on parking and other issues, the sleepless nights he will have fearing theft of the car parked away from his narrow lane and the congestion and environmental problems that the car will create.]

Then comes the reality check. Loan becoming heavy, instalments unpaid, interest looming over head, Nano sucking petrol and getting scrathes and dent on the bumper [the dreamy LMCU will not have factored other expenditures, even if he has calculated the fuel cost of the highly fuel-efficient Nano], etc etc. and then comes the awaited SUICIDE!

Don't blame me if not many LMCU commit suicide. I am not an astrologer. But the ones who foresaw farmers' suicides in the wake of Bt Cotton were also not astrologers.

Long live Nano. Long live al Nino.

The flood called recession needs a flood-control solution

We are hearing of a large number of stimulus packages being put forth by the big economies, but all are losing some important issues.

The economic downturn has come like a massive flood which has breached embankments and flooded the entire area around a river. Handle it like that.

• First, let there be a high level of coordination among as many countries as possible. You cannot insulate one house against the flood; you must have a wide-area approach. No protectionism among nations and among provinces within federations.
  
• Put all efforts in concert; don’t save for future. First be convinced about the right approach [pumping money for spending/ stimulating core sectors/ etc], and once you have found one, go whole-hog. In a flood, putting a few sand bags here and there or making an embankment here and one there results in the river washing them all.
  
• Let there be more and more resources from safe areas. Find which areas are safe and will not submerge when soil is taken out of them to plug the leak. Transfer resources from these sectors. Also transfer resources locked in black money.
  
• Let the breach be diverted to wasteland. In case of flood, if the waters are flooding crops and habitations and the breach in the river cannot be plugged, it is prudent to cut the other embankment of the river which will divert waters to the wasteland. So, pay attention to ways by which the tide of recession can be diverted to harmful sectors such as drug trade, speculation, gambling, etc. 
  
• In wide-spread floods, it is advisable to find some unaffected highland, and start flood-control, rescue and rehabilitation work from there. Find such anchoring sectors and recession-proof them and their related sectors, rather than trying to support the sectors deep into flood/recession.