China has invaded and occupied over 1,000 sq km of Indian territory, approximately the size of Delhi, right under the nose of a “strong man”, without so much as a squeak from pseudo-patriots. But the government’s public response is as befits an acknowledged “soft power”. A ban on Chinese apps for starters, to make sure…
Tag Archives: ANI
A well-travelled story is one which goes from Rediff to ‘Deccan Chronicle’ to ‘Prabhat Khabar’ to ‘India Today’ to ANI in 4 days flat, with a fiction writer somewhere in between
The heroic courage displayed by Indian soldiers while combating their Chinese counterparts on June 15, the day 20 of their brethren were killed literally at the hands of the Chinese, is now a project fully underway. Across platforms—a news portal (Rediff.com), an English newspaper (Deccan Chronicle), a Hindi newspaper (Prabhat Khabar), a news channel (India…
Who runs “PIB Fact Check”? What is their experience of journalism? Who has certified them as “fact-checkers”? 12 questions Indian news media should ask ‘Press Information Bureau’ as a new form of control and intimidation takes shape.
The outbreak of the #Coronavirus pandemic has seen a clear shift in media strategy of the Narendra Modi government. Suddenly, an image-conscious regime has spotted an opening to up the game and control independent news flow—and seized it. On the one hand, the prime minister, who has not held a press conference or met a…
“Whatever is being reported by Indian media from Kashmir to show that everything is normal, everything is fine, the opposite is true”
With large sections of Indian mainstream media engaged in the patriotic duty of “manufacturing consent” for the Narendra Modi government’s undemocratic actions in Kashmir, the onus is increasingly on foreign media to provide the real picture, or the closest approximation to it. BBC Radio, for long seen to be “reliable” news provider by previously colonised…
“Did Reuters evaluate or examine the practices, political affiliations, and reputation of ANI prior to expanding its strategic partnership in June 2018?”: Full text of veterans’ complaint
A “group of retired officers of the Indian armed forces” has written to Thomson Reuters, flagging concerns over the political motivations of its “India partner”, Asian News International (ANI), in its coverage of a veterans’ memorandum to the President of India. Below is the full text of the email, sent on April 23, with the…
“ANI acted at the behest of [BJP] to manipulate quotes and defame our honourable intentions. Its conduct tantamounts to being perfidious”: military veterans’ complaint to Thomson Reuters, Press Council, Editors Guild on “motivated misreporting”
The video news agency ANI’s role in manufacturing consent for the Narendra Modi government has been blazingly obvious. Craven interviews with the prime minister; dubious tweets by its staffers; and a host of other incidents have turned ANI into a partisan and “pliable” purveyor at the forefront of the BJP propaganda machine. Barring a couple…
Listening to Vineet Jain’s and Rahul Joshi’s cringe-worthy speeches welcoming Narendra Modi, you are left with only one doubt: was the text approved by the Prime Minister’s Office or its propaganda division, Niti Aayog?
“After #Pulwama, the Indian media proves it is the BJP’s propaganda machine“ This was the headline of an article in the Washington Post, on March 4, by two researchers of The Polis Project, who looked at the “contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated” reports in a number of media vehicles including India Today, NDTV, News 18, The…
18 things you didn’t know about ANI, from the ‘The Ken’ and ‘The Caravan’ profiles of the video news agency to which Narendra Modi has given four interviews in five years
When the letters “ANI” stare at viewers in virtually every news clip; when the prime minister gives the agency his first “interview” of the year; when an opposition leader calls the interviewer “pliable”, naturally somebody is going to ask how “Advani News International”, as it used to be once derisively called, became the go-to media…
In Jammu & Kashmir, is there a deliberate design to delegitimise photo and video journalists, and to remove them from the scene of action?
Keeping accreditated journalists out of government events and government offices, under one ruse or the other, has become such a norm in State after State that it barely attracts any more than momentary attention. But when six accomplished journalists are kept out of the Republic Day function in Jammu & Kashmir, a state the Narendra…
Shajila Ali Fathima: the “unpliable” journalist to whose defence Arun Jaitley, the Editors Guild, and other Delhi gasbags did not rush
On the day “New Delhi”—as in Arun Jaitley, the Editors Guild of India, and other motormouths and gasbags—were angst-ing over Congress president Rahul Gandhi terming ANI editor Smita Prakash a “pliable journalist”, a more horrifying drama was playing out in faraway Kerala. A real physical assault. BJP-RSS hooligans attacked journalists and camerapersons covering their continuing…
The jailing and killing of journalists—and the physical and verbal assaults—can’t move Modi & Co, but calling the PM’s interviewer ‘pliable’ does?
*** Journalists sucking up to people in power is so old school. In #NewIndia, the done thing is for journalists to cosy up to the religious amongst them who have sneaked into the sanctum sanctorum—and make the right noises at the altar so that the presiding deities and priests know that they are outside. #Sabarimala Twitter…
RAJAN BALA: Cricketers, write your own columns
The death of the veteran cricket writer Rajan Bala has thankfully not gone unnoticed. ANI reveals that his real name was Natarajan Balasubramaniam. Cricinfo, the Bhagwad Gita of the Beautiful Game, has a short obituary. The Times of India‘s Satish Vishwanathan uses a Sachin Tendulkar anecdote to demonstrate Bala’s hold. His protege, Suresh Menon, writes…
Are you being served, Mr Foreign Correspondent?
The ruling Congress-led UPA government in India is on a major austerity drive. Ministers have moved out of temporary accommodation in five-star hotels. Party leaders are moving around in economy-class planes and trains to send the right signals. And a Twitter comment about the “cattle-class” and “holy cows” has sent the country all atwitter. In…
IJR 