https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-coomi-kapoor-author-of *** An acclaimed Indian Express journalist, whose husband was jailed during the Emergency of 1975, says governments no longer need to take Indira Gandhi’s route of introducing censorship to control the media or the message that reaches the people. “Parties have found enough ways to control the media without having to formally declare censorship.…
Tag Archives: Subramanian Swamy
“Headline management”, which Arun Shourie said was the Modi government’s USP, is now faster, vaster, insidious—and real time
During the previous Congress-led UPA government, it was widely rumoured that a non-Hindi speaking Union minister was so mixed up with one English TV news channel that he routinely telephoned his favourite anchor or the “PCR” (production control room) to correct or dictate the “news ticker”. It hasn’t changed much during the BJP-led NDA government,…
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…
Swamy and his media friends (and enemies)
In the latest issue of Tehelka magazine, Ashok Malik has a profile of the “irrepressible” Subramanian Swamy, the maverick economist-politician behind the 2G spectrum allocation scam. The profile is occasioned by Harvard University’s recent decision to not renew Swamy’s teaching contract for a venomous column in DNA in July on “How to wipe out Islamic…
Does DNA terror column amount to ‘incitement’?
Janata Party maverick Dr Subramaniam Swamy‘s DNA article on “How to wipe out Islamic terror” after the 13 July Bombay blasts has stirred up the T-cup. Twitter has been abuzz, and the paper’s readers have reacted in droves calling the article “irresponsible and Islamophobic”. On the other hand, Swamy—whose Twitter profile reads “I give as…
Everybody loves (to claim credit for) an expose
Indian television news channels, whose fortunes rise and fall each week, routinely advertise their ratings “victory” after each major event: the Union budget, the general elections, the Obama visit, etc. It looks like newspapers are quickly following in the footsteps of television in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, and this even as the Supreme Court…
Swamy and Friends: a very, very short story
As the 2G spectrum allocation scam hits the ceiling once again, the original gadfly of Indian politics, Subramanian Swamy, the Harvard-educated national president of the Janata Party, with a daughter in the TV business, sends a Twitter response to a follower on the media mavens whose names allegedly figure in tapped conversations of PR honcho…
IJR 