Charged by Himachal Pradesh police with sedition for remarks made “against” prime minister Narendra Modi on a YouTube video, veteran broadcaster Vinod Dua tells the Supreme Court: “I have freedom of speech and have the right to criticise the government. Till date, the police have refused to give us details on the nature of the…
Tag Archives: P. Chidambaram
ET: a story and a clarification in age of PC
So, how seriously does the Union home minister P. Chidambaram take what the (English) media writes about him? Very seriously, it seems. A clarification appearing in The Economic Times provides some evidence: “A story on the recent Chhattisgarh encounter, ‘No probe into encounter: home secy’ (ET, July 3), said: ‘Last week home minister P. Chidambaram…
Did Chidambaram walk out of Express awards?
The grapevine is that some ministers boycotted events in which media houses had chosen members of Team Anna for awards last year. Now, this item appears in the gossip columns of The Sunday Guardian. Apparently home minister P. Chidambaram vamoosed from the Ramnath Goenka excellence in journalism awards function organised by The Indian Express after…
An Emergency-style witchhunt of the media?
The top item (above) in the gossip column of The Indian Express today lends further credence to the conspiracy theory doing the rounds in Delhi that there may be a pattern to, and a devious intent behind, all that is happening to the media in recent weeks: the sweeping remarks of press council chairman Justice…
Is media resorting to self-censorship on Ayodhya?
The run-up to the court verdict on the title suit in the Ayodhya dispute has seen plenty of activity built around the media. The News Broadcasters’ Association—the body representing private television news and current affairs broadcasters—has issued a set of four guidelines to all editors of member-news channels: 1) All news relating to the High…
Why Karan Thapar stopped haggling with God
Karan Thapar has a well-cultivated image of a tough, snarling, bulldog of a interviewer a la Jeremy Paxman. All the aggressive, relentless questioning and eyeball to eyeball gazing with the crooked and the wicked of the world might leave viewers wondering if the man has a heart at all. But the Devil’s Advocate has a…
From the desk of Shri Quick Gun Chidambaram
The Union home ministry under Palaniappan Chidambaram has been markedly different from that of his predecessor Shivraj Patil‘s. Gung-ho, proactive, media-savvy. The minister himself pops up in chosen English TV studios now and then. The home secretary G.K. Pillai dashes off corrections, clarifications and assorted complaints. Sometimes, Chidambaram himself shoots off a letter to the…
Indian Express vs The Hindu, N. Ram vs N. Ravi
*** The Indian Express, Delhi, has a front-page “exclusive” on the fracas in the family controlling The Hindu, Madras. The main points the Express story (also simultaneouly carried in its sister-business daily Financial Express) by media correspondent Archna Shukla makes are: a) disagreements over the “proposed retirement” of publisher and editor-in-chief N. Ram; b) the…
Now, a kiss from Sikh widows, orphans, victims
Step aside, Muntadar al-Zeidi. Jarnail Singh is here. Singh, a journalist with the world’s largest selling newspaper Dainik Jagran hurled at shoe at India’s home minister, P. Chidambaram (in picture), at a media conference in New Delhi on Tuesday. And like with George W. Bush, the missile missed the intended target. While Dubya ducked in…
Conflict of interest and an interest in conflicts
The media website The Hoot, created under the auspices of the Media Foundation and run by Sevanti Ninan, who writes a fortnightly media column in The Hindu, has this piece of media gossip today: “Rumour mills in Delhi have it that Mint editor Raju Narisetti’s exit last month had something to do with the home…
Pseudonymous author spells finis to Mint editor?
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: Journalists at Mint, the business daily launched by the Hindustan Times group as “an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian dream”, are in a state of shock after the dramatic weekend announcement of the resignation of its founding editor, Raju Narisetti (in picture), less than two years after…
One rule for Modi, another rule for Chidu?
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: Saturday afternoons don’t figure highly on the radar screens of TV channels. Because they are all in the “hills” smoking cigars, eating caviar, and calculating how much richer the soaring valuations have made them in the week gone by, channel heads all believe this is the time when the…
IJR 