It’s raining phone taps in India. First Outlook* magazine reported that new technologies available with the UPA government enabled it to pluck mobile phone signals off the air and eavesdrop into conversations without seeking legal authorisation. Then, The Pioneer reported that an authorised tap (since denied) had revealed PR honcho Neera Radia‘s nexus with A.…
Monthly Archives: April 2010
‘Dubai is a haven of information for journalists’
Dubai is a recurring theme in the ongoing tragicomedy in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Shashi Tharoor, who has to give up his ministership, was a consultant with a Dubai firm before taking the plunge in electoral politics. His close friend Sunanda Pushkar lives there. The new head of the Cochin IPL franchise Harshad Mehta…
Jessica Lal verdict proof that Indian media works
The Supreme Court of India has upheld the life sentence awarded by the Delhi high court to Manu Sharma, the son of Congress leader and former Union minister Vinod Sharma, for killing Jessica Lal, who had declined to serve him a drink after the bar had closed in Delhi, in 1999. Manu Sharma’s counsel, the…
Who wins, who loses when it’s Gandhi vs Gandhi
When the Mail Today juxtaposes the Congress scion Rahul Gandhi with the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, who should feel more offended, Gandhi junior or Gandhi senior? The Guardian‘s media critic, Roy Greenslade, sees the promo in conjunction with Mont Blanc trying to sell pens in the name of Gandhi and Telecom Italia trying…
‘Rule No. 1 of journalism: There are no gods.’
Three weeks ago India Today magazine put Lalit Modi, commissioner of the Indian Premier League (IPL) of cricket, on the cover with the line, “Billion-Dollar Baby”. It puts him on the cover again this week, with the line “Run Out”. Editor-in-chief Aroon Purie in his letter to readers, offers a muted mea culpa: “Rule No.…
How come no one saw the IPL cookie crumbling?
The collapse of the Indian Premier League (IPL) pack of cards is identical to the unravelling of the Satyam fraud in 2009, from a media perspective. Namely, no media organisation—newspaper, magazine, TV station or internet website—saw it before it happened. Or wanted to see it coming. The player auctions, the franchise bids, the television rights,…
A song for an unsung hero: C.P. Chinnappa
The passing away of journalists and editors barely gets a mention in Indian media outlets these days, not even in their former or current places of work, under the rather specious and cynical belief that journalists and editors should report the news, not make it. It’s even worse, in the case of faceless non-journalists, like…
When it’s all in the family, it is all in the family
The latest issue of the Indian edition of Forbes, “the capitalist tool“, has a four-page story on the war of the brothers in the boardroom of The Hindu over the proposed retirement norms for directors. The article reveals that “for several weeks now,” two of the brothers in The Hindu triumvirate—editor N. Ravi and senior…
Look, who is also in the IPL racket? An editor!
In his story on the burgeoning scandal in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Shantanu Guha-Ray, the business editor of Tehelka magazine, casually reveals how “the editor of a major Indian media house whose son had recently come under the radar of corporate intelligence bodies, is also trying to get into the IPL franchise racket.” Image:…
How Congress regime stepped in to help Tehelka
The Indian Express has got hold of 82 pieces of correspondence between prime minister Manmohan Singh and the president of the Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, after the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government came to power in May 2004, using the Right to Information (RTI) Act. One of the first letters between the head of the…
Everybody loves a good affair between celebs
The cross-border love affair between Indian tennis star Sania Mirza and Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik has gobbled up more space and time than most issues bedevilling the two nations. Outlook cartoonist Sandeep Adhwaryu looks at the priorities of the media in the two countries in The Sunday Guardian.
‘Perhaps, it is time for missionary journalists’
In a week in which the Hindustan Times front-paged the story of children eating silica-laced mud not far from Allahabad, and 76 soldiers were ambushed by Maoists in poverty-stricken Dantewada, the former Sunday magazine and India Today correspondent Madhu Jain laments the loss of “missionary journalism” in her DNA column. “The words of my boss…
‘A thoroughly decent man, one of the finest ever’
In The Daily Telegraph, London, Dean Nelson reports the plight of the BBC’s “Voice of India”, Sir Mark Tully, “who has come under extraordinary attack in a thinly disguised novel which portrays him as a heartless philanderer and supporter of fanatics.” “The book is clearly modelled on my career, even down to the name of…
How a newspaper’s prank exposed websites
Mrinal Pande, the chairperson of the Prasar Bharati Corporation and former editor of the Hindi daily, Hindustan, throws light on an April 1 prank by a Hindi newspaper (click on the image for a larger frame). Newspaper facsimile: courtesy The Indian Express Also read: How a giant pig fooled American media The classic April fool…
The media, the message, and the messengers
The Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy‘s 31-page, 19,556-word essay “Walking with the comrades” in Outlook magazine*, has produced a fast and succinct response from the journalistic Twitterati after Tuesday’s dastardly ambush of paramilitary forces by said comrades. From top, NDTV English group editor Barkha Dutt, Pioneer senior editor Kanchan Gupta, Indian Express columnist Tavleen…
Chinese hackers break into The Times of India
*** On Monday, Canadian and American computer security researchers announced they had unconvered a Chinese cyber espionage gang that broke into classified documents of the Indian defence ministry, Indian embassies, and Indian corporate houses like Tatas and DLF. From some reports (here, here, here) it appears as if they also hacked into the systems of…
How US forces hunted down Reuters staffers
In July 2007, two employees of the Reuters news agency were among several killed in Iraq when US military forces opened fire on them. Saeed Chmagh, 40, a driver with the agency with a wife and four children, and Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, a war photographer, were among those killed. The US military claimed the victims…
‘N. Ram is stalling Malini Parthasarathy’s ascent’
The veteran journalist, author, civil rights activist, and former Indian high commissioner to London, Kuldip Nayar, weighs in on the tussle within the boardroom of The Hindu, in the latest issue of M.J. Akbar‘s weekly newspaper, The Sunday Guardian: “I wonder why N. Ram, 65, is so reluctant to retire. People may have differed with…
How Kremlin trapped ‘Newsweek Russia’ editor
The editor of Newsweek Russia, Mikhail Fishman, has been surreptitiously filmed snorting what appears to be a line of cocaine and sitting on a sofa next to a woman wearing only a t-shirt, in what is being described as a “honeytrap” laid by Kremlin to ensnare critics. The video has surfaced on YouTube (the operative…
Has Twitter found Mark Tully’s character assassin?
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: Can a nearly spotless journalistic career of 45 years—30 of those for one of the most trusted broadcasters in the world—be tainted, tarbrushed and tarnished by a pathetic paperback written under a pseudonym? If your name is Sir William Mark Tully, OBE, the answer has to seem, yes. And the…
IJR 