Telangana issue as discussed in the media

The struggle for Telangana state in Andhra Pradesh, spearheaded by the Telenagana Rashtra Samithi president T S Chandrashekhar has become a highly debatable issue across the nation, especially in media circles. The struggle, however, has taken an ugly turn, as the leaders are trying to play on the emotions of the common man, thus polarizing the whole state in terms of geographical and community divides. The historical unification of states based on language in 1956 may have had its limitations, but it was the best method possible those days and has been a major success in several states in the South. The leaders in Andhra across political parties, though, are raking up the whole issue to get political mileage and strengthen their base.

The entire episode has been the staple food of the media in the last couple of weeks. In fact, media, especially the electronic media, were chewing the Hedley … over and over again, much to the annoyance of the viewer. It is a forgone conclusion that the US will never extradite Hedley to India. Besides, it is also alleged that Hedley may have been an FBI informer and he can embarrass the US in more than one terms. Here was a clear case of dearth of news and media went all over Hedley making him the most important person of the world for quite many days.

So, the Telangana ‘power struggle’ came as a saving grace for the media and they were too happy to gobble it before anything could be decided through proper channels. For days together reporters got stuck in Hyderabad, more precisely, near Osmania Univeristy and doled out stories after stories of the ‘struggle’. Every single move and almost every breath TS Chandrasekhar was recorded. Some reporters even took courage to send him to a coma, even as he tried to speak. But no channel, no newspaper, seemed to do an analysis and take a firm stand. Media looked more confused than the politicians themselves. It is true media are not the ones to give solutions. But powers that be can draw a lot from media when they make decisions. TV channels were busy showing the violence than going in depth. What they were looking for, it seemed, was some excitement and not so much an effort to find a solution, making leaders aware of the ramifications of a crucial decision.

Indian media seem to be struggling when there is ‘dearth’ of news. When nothing ‘big’ is happening, they seem to be lost and find it difficult to appease the audience. This is struggle is mainly due to the fact that media today have termed only certain events, happenings and developments as newsworthy and not others. Scores of developments taking place as regards agrarian crisis, doubts, famines, floods, communal discord, corruption etc do not seem to get enough media attention. Even if they do, follow up is hardly to come by. In the bargain, viewers are left high and dry as they have to struggle to keep their heads straight reading, viewing the same stuff day in and day out.

Media need to at least seriously consider the well being of the viewer.

Media loves to mock the ‘austerity’

So these days media are giving far too much attention to the austerity drive of the Congress Party. What began as an expectation of all ministers (as said by Pranob Mukherji) ended up being an expectation of only Congress MPs. Of course, the likes of Rahul Gandhi did endorse the whole idea and followed it up by actually practicing it by traveling in a train. So did Madam Sonia, who traveled in an economy class. However, there were the likes of Shashi Tharoor who got some unsolicited publicity with their cattle-class controversy.

Be that as it may, are the media going overboard? There have been series of discussions and debates on the issue. One wonders whether so much precious time should be wasted on an ordinary subject as this. Is it not a personal choice of people, as expressed by a panelist on NDTV? The larger issue, according to many thinkers, is the widespread corruption which is far greater an evil than anything else bogging down this country.
Nevertheless, some feel that our leaders must set an example for people. They must lead by example in being austere and simple, even if they have excessive wealth. Others feel this is sheer hypocrisy. One needs to question how our leaders are able to afford luxurious residences and travel. All that is, no doubt, a reflection of wealth amassed thorough unjust means. That is, of course, a serious issue to address. You are trying to save a pie and gobble up a shark. It looks ridiculous. Media do not seem to be addressing this issue adequately. Their whole concentration seems to be to make a mockery of the austerity drive and laugh at those who have thought of it. They are not so much concerned about the melee eating into the vitals of our political system. They consider the austerity drive as tokenism. Fine. But if a leader is sincere, media have the responsibility to recognise it. There have been several leaders who are practicing austerity much before the whole issue came for discussion and debate. There is no hypocrisy there. These leaders know that they need to be people’s servants and not bosses.
It is true that austerity becomes ridiculous when our leaders have so much wealth. here are others who might even argue that if our leaders are able to perform and can deliver, no one really needs to care about their austerity. But even when one has wealth one can consciously choose to be austere. One may be rich; but the question is whether one can feel with the life situation of common people. Can he/she be as simple and humble like simple people?
Should leaders be austere? Should they set an example to their people? The answer lies in how a leader approaches his/her position? If he/she thinks that being leader is to be superior and domineering, then austerity does not sound good. But if a leader considers himself/herself a representative of common people, austerity, though symbolic, can definitely be a path to connect with the masses.

What is so Real about Reality Shows?

So Rakhi Sawant has finally found her life partner. In fact, it was a real stiff competition at that. The contest was not easy at all. The Canada-based industrialist Elesh Parujanwala had to face quite a bit of challenge before he ‘won’ the proverbial bride. It is another matter that the actual winner was NDTV Imagine and not Elesh or Rakhi

Then of course, there was another Reality Show, Sach Ka Saamna on Star Plus. You are asked all sort of personal embarrassing questions to make you truthful, or more truthful. The lie detector machine will catch you if you falter. Even if you have spoken the truth there is no guarantee that you will win. According to the organisers at least, machines do not lie; they only go out of order at times.

Many years back scientists had discovered predecessor of the now famous lie detector. It was called Haggoth. That machine would find out if a person was speaking the truth when he/she talked over the phone. It would detect the stress content in your voice and declare that you were lying. You could not speak the truth, at least according to Haggoth, if you had stress in your voice. Today Haggoth in its new avatar has come into Reality shows as well.

Coming back to the point, what is so fascinating about Reality Shows? Why are they so popular despite many controversies? (Or are the controversies making them popular?) The answer lies in the very human nature itself. Human beings by their vey nature are voyeuristic. We are curious to know the personal matters of people. Not that that will give us entertainment of pleasure. But we are anxious to know what makes people the way they are; we want to know what makes them tick. So there is no point in pondering whether we should ban Reality Shows. They are just the reflection of human nature itself.

It was unfortunate that our netas wasted precious time debating this useless issue in the Parliament. However, what we need to ponder over is what is so real about reality shows? There is hardly anything real in such shows. People may or may not be surprised if they come to know that almost all the so called reality shows are staged and well-edited. There is nothing that is happening off-hand. So one wonders why they should be called reality shows at all. Even in Sach Ka… certain hints as to what questions may be asked are already given to the participants. So it is indeed a big fraud that these channels are playing on gullible audience.

It is a fact that once the cameras are on there is nothing that is natural. Everything automatically becomes a bit artificial. There is nothing called natural in front of the camera. Even a villager when he knows he is on camera tries to be smarter and wiser. So let us not be sucked into this useless debate of the Realness of Reality shows.

So should they be banned? Our netas do not miss a chance to be hypocritical. In the bargain though, they gave enough mileage to Sach Ka.. If the TRP of the show has soared, much credit should go to them as well.

Reality Shows are here to stay, simply because human nature desires for more of them. So do not blame them. If you are offended, kindly switch off the TV.

MJ – a youth icon; courtesy media!

Media all over the world mourned the death of rock star Michael Jackson, Jacko as they fondly called him. It was on expected lines, given the fact that MJ had fan-following across continents. He has traveled through lengths and breaths of all continents popularising his brand of music and dance. It was also but natural that media celebrated the unique talent of MJ, hailing him as a born genius. No doubt, he was a born singer and musician and dancer. In fact, he is considered the creator of what is now known as the break dance.

What is perhaps missing in all the eulogising across media is MJ’s compulsions to metamorphose himself into a white. Was he not proud to be a black? Was he ashamed of his race? Or was he not sure of his success with his colour?

We are not sure. But he was one of his kinds among blacks to be so gifted in several arts – music, singing and dancing. Perhaps, he felt it was impossible to survive as black singer in racist country. Or may be he was apprehensive as to how people would accept him as a black rock star. Be that as it may, media’s portrayal of him as a youth icon, somehow, does not seem to go well with those who would think that some of his eccentricities would more be a challenge to youth spirit than to enthuse it.

Attaining fame and name seems much easier than living up to their demands. We have seen this in the case of many celebrities, including Murline Munroe and Elvis Presley. What brought end to MJ was his own fame. He took it very seriously and thought that the glory he had attained was a licence to live a horrendous life, courting women and finding comfort in drugs and narcotics. His changing of religious faith into Islam does not seem to have done any good to him. In fact, one wonders whether religion was important to him at all.

Coming back to Media, some newspapers and news channels carried the news of his death and tried doing a post-mortem of the possible causes of his death. However, what is surprising is that media went amuck describing him as a model which every youth must follow. Sorry! MJ is a good musician, singer, dancer. His hard-earned achievements are definitely worthy of emulation. But not so his un-inspiring life. It is a irony that a person who lived among crowds died a loner. One is naturally distraught at the sheer cruelty of the turn of events. However, in the case of MJ, at least, it seems he cared less about life and more about his glory, which is not one of the subjects any youth must emulate.

Online campaign: Why did Advani fail?

Two major elections took place in two of the world’s largest democracies within a matter of six months. While the result of the first one (USA) was on expected lines, that of the latter (India) threw some surprises. However, in the end both results reaffirmed people’s faith in democracy, despite all its shortcomings.

If there are any significant similarities in the two elections, it is in the online campaign that was extensively used by leaders in both countries. This was for the first time that online campaign was used so widely to woo the young voters. In fact, much of Obama’s success lay in his ability to attract youngsters through his online campaign.

Obama laid great emphasis on convincing the GenNext to vote for change. Through systematic research he found out that youngsters were very slow in voting and he took it upon himself to make them politically active. He did not rely only on advertisements, though he spent the maximum in various types and forms of advertisements. He recruited volunteers throughout different communities to work for his campaign. Through his charismatic approach he built up a network of very loyal supporters to build newer personal relationships.

Apart from TV, radio, advertising, events and press releases, online campaign was key to his successful campaign. His website was linked to his personal blog and social networks such as facebook, myspace, youtube, dig and twitter. Also the whole archive of videos of his speeches was available online. People could even sign up on his website to receive regular updates about the campaign.

The result? Over 130 million people turned out to vote, out of whom 67. 7 per cent voted for him as against 32.3 for McCain. The voter turn out in some states was as high as 82 per cent.

L. K. Advani, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate too tried a similar online strategy. A committed team of 20-30 young professionals worked hard for months to make a successful ‘Advani-for-PM’ online campaign. In fact, Advani’s picture appeared in over 2000 important and popular websites throughout India. Even when one typed words like Congress, Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh etc. Advani’s picture would pop up on the right side of the screen. It is learnt that BJP’s IT team had chosen more that 1000 important key words which would lead to L. K. Advani’s ad. Many bloggers expressed their dissent at being subjected to view unsolicited political ads with not-so-pleasing picture of Advani. According to the BJP, though, they were able to attract more than 25,000 online visitors daily as the election date approached.

Despite all this systematic work why did Mr Advani’s online campaign fail? Simple answer: Advani is not Obama and India is not US. In India only five per cent of people visit the internet. In fact, for 34 per cent of our people such campaign makes no sense, because they cannot read and write. Nearly 70 per cent of our people still live in villages, hundreds of them remote having no electricity connection. So the BJP’s online campaign reached only the urban net savvy generation most of which cares a dime for voting. Accordingly, the BJP’s strategy was doomed to be a failure even before it was kickstarted with much fanfare.

Then, or course, there was the Advani factor. No one questions Advani’s physical fitness despite age and his oratory skills. But age can still be a factor. While American voter saw youthfulness and newness in Obama, Indian voter was not so sure about Advani. Added to this was the youthful factor of Rahul Gandhi who brought in a lot of youngsters into the party and eventually was responsible for the victory of many of them.

So what has the online campaigns to tell us? In an American context it is crucial and can make a difference in the election of the President, as the percentage of online visitors is very high. However, India has still a long way to go. The government’s over-concentration on cities year after year has only alienated the rural population, especially from benefiting from the fruits of IT revolution. Even in the next General Election it is unlikely that the online campaign will make a difference for the election of our Prime Minister.