I too am dismayed by this attitude of turning every issue into a BJP-versus-Congress debate. Or rather, targetting the Congress, when we know that our politicians -- as a class -- are pretty much similar and prone to being very antipeople, despite the different shirts they wear! (In Goa, they all wear banyans made in the same factory.)
The Times of India (though it's not my favourite paper) put it well when it said, "Three scams -- Commonwealth Games, Adarsh, and now the allocation of 2G spectrum -- appear to have knocked the wind out of the Congress-led government. It's not much better for the BJP, which is being rocked by land and mining scams involving its Karnataka government. Look hard, and it is apparent that this is not a challenge facing just the Congress and the BJP. The political class as a whole is battling its worst crisis of confidence yet." (ToI, The Crest Edition, Nov 20-26, 2010) Many issues stand out sharply in the Radia tapes (which are all over the Net, and make for a very educational listen... though the mainstream media in India is by and large only now reporting on them, that too after Ratan Tata started protesting). A whole lot of interesting comments, from across the country, only remind us of how the media, supposedly a tool of the commonman, can become subject to 'elite capture', or distorted to suit dubious agendas if not direct and very questionable corporate interests. See some reproduced here http://groups.google.com/group/goajourno Contrary to the suggestion below that it is the "Kangress lobbyists Burqa [the communal slip showeth! --FN] and Vir Sanghvi" alone, this is far from the situation. Everyone knows the politics of a Prabhu Chawla (his sojourn at the helm of India Today coincided and exceeded the BJP regime in power). Listen to his advice to the Ambanis. Even more shocking is the way former Prime Minister Vajpayee's foster son-in-law boasts of his clout in the "Kangress" mind you! Hai Ram! Then Radia has plans to manipulate the speaking order of the BJP batting line-up in parliament, to skew the debate in a suitable direction! And you called this a democracy? Corruption in the media has long been a serious issue, more since the 1990s, when the economy opened up. Earlier, it was more a form of particular journalists siding up to particular politicians; but the stakes have since turned huge. It is more than time this is acknowledged and debated. At a professional level, there have been whispers and insinuations, but this is the first time that technology has taken the discussion to a new level altogether. "Kangress" corruption has ceased to shock and has been discussed, for instance: [http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg01061.html] Unnoticed and unchalleged (perhaps supported!), others have taken it to a new high and organised scale [ http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg03974.html] If you raise such issues, you will be shouted down, and more. Party biases should not come in the way of perceiving such issues. The media is too complex and influential to be left in the hands of mediapersons alone. But neither can be entrusted to those who turn it into an issue to score political points. Unfortunately, by our silence, we have let the debate slide into the hands of the motivated. The Radias are definitely not the only kind of lobbyists around... --FN Rajan P. Parrikar <[email protected]>wrote:a > > To Goanet - > > More on the Kangress lobbyists Burqa Dutt > and Vir Sanghvi. > > > > "For any political journalist worth her salt, the alarm bells would have > > gone > > off > > > > at this stage, and should have led to one of the biggest stories related > to > > government formation in this country: ‘Tata telecom PR chief handles > > negotiations for telecom portfolio.’ Did you happen to see this story > > onNDTV? > > Barkha not only failed to do this story, by her own admission, she > actually > > passed on information that she, as a journalist, had acquired from the > > Congress > > to the head of a PR agency handling two of the biggest corporate groups > in > > the > > country, each with more than mere curiosity about who gets into the > > Cabinet." > > > http://openthemagazine.com/article/voices/this-is-not-journalism-as-we-know-it >
