Exactly six months ago, on the intervening night of June 15-16 this year, the lives of 20 Indian soldiers ended—literally at the hands of the Chinese in the heights of Ladakh. For several weeks, large sections of mainstream media were in denial, dishing out the sarkari view that there was nothing abnormal on the border.…
Tag Archives: Ajai Shukla
J-POD || Podcast || “In 1962, media was more independent, less subservient. It lampooned Nehru, Krishna Menon mercilessly. Modi is trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by managing headlines” || Jairam Ramesh
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-jairam-ramesh-on-nehru *** When WhatsApp becomes the chief source of information, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that India was a mere 15 years old as a free nation when China invaded in 1962. An impressionable teenager, whose population was 45 crores, whose GDP was a mere $4,200 crore. On the other hand, when China…
“The information dissemination lapse is the greatest lapse for India and Indian democracy”: Ajai Shukla’s devastating indictment of media stenography on the Chinese pullback in Ladakh
There are at least 50 reporters in Delhi on the defence beat. But for nearly six weeks, from early-May to mid-June, all but a couple of them were in the dark, or in patriotic denial, of the Chinese incursion into Indian territory at Ladakh. The killing of 20 soldiers on June 15 provided the necessary…
“India has ceded territory to China”: near-unanimous newspaper editorials call the Modi government’s bluff—and reaffirm the value of print journalism
Editorials in India’s major English newspapers on the “mutual disengagement” that India and China have agreed upon, are nearly unanimous in their verdict: under “strong man” Narendra Modi, India has surrendered its territory to China. The mature and considered reading of the newspapers is in marked contrast to TV news channels parroting the BJP-led NDA…
J-POD || Podcast || “Coverage of border conflict is a dangerous new low. It signals to China that the incursion doesn’t matter very much or the government has controlled the media” || ex-FT journalist Rahul Jacob
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-coverage-of-border Like nearly news event these days, China’s incursion into Ladakh has revealed the deep fault lines in the media. For weeks, most Indian newspapers and nearly all TV channels pretended nothing was amiss at the border. The exceptions—Ajai Shukla of Business Standard, Sushant Singh of The Indian Express, Manu Pubby of The Economic Times—could…
The two veterans who unmasked the Chinese incursions “with the tenacity of the NYT reporters who broke the Pentagon Papers”
Mainstream media’s preferred posture on the Chinese ingress in Ladakh, simmering since early May, had been one of denial bordering on wilful neglect, till it exploded in the face with the killing of 20 Indian soldiers on June 15. In Business Standard today, Rahul Jacob, the former Hong Kong bureau chief of the Financial Times,…
Tarun Tejpal, Manish Tewari and relief at PBC
From Off the Record, the Monday gossip column in Deccan Herald: “Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal‘s fall from grace has brought a sense of “divine justice” in Prasar Bharati, where the invisible presence of Tejpal—thanks to his closeness to the information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari—was one of the contributing factors behind a long-standing “difference of…
Sharp, sensitive, substantive (conditions apply)
The Congress-led UPA’s election-eve attempt—like the BJP-led NDA’s attempt in 2004—to revive Doordarshan News has come a cropper. The Indian Express has an editorial: “Less than two months after a splashy advertisement campaign championing Doordarshan’s new-look daily prime-time news bulletin, Ajai Shukla, the anchor/editor of its English-language segment, has put in his papers. The resignation…
The poll straws, they are a-blowin’ in DD News
To predict the meteorological weather, you have Mausam Bhavan. To predict the political weather, you have Doordarshan. Before every general election, the government happily dips into the pockets of taxpayers and pumps in crores of rupees to revamp the supposedly “autonomous” broadcast behemoth. And so it is in the year of the lord, 2013. Under…
IJR 