Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Muzzled media?...Democracy...surely you're joking!

Well, well, well, Das Munshi is at it again. First he shoots his mouth off by saying that every sports channel covering an event that involves India must share the feed to DD, then he comes out to express his 'shock' (oh, so sad) on the verdict against the son of a late, former Congress party man, and now the self-proclaimed soccer daddy of India plans to throw the final ace up his sleeve (or up some other dark recess) in which he's drawn up a plan that will effectively knock down one of the pillars of Indian democracy - the media.

The proposed bill, which has provisions such as programmes that will be rated with a 'U', 'A', or a 'U/A' and appropriate time slots will be provided for them to be aired based on the ratings, sting operations can be carried out only if it's in the best interest of the public and cannot be done on ongoing cases and investigations and if it has to be carried out, permission must be sought from the person(s) they wish to carry out the sting against. Was Das Munshi high when he came up with this?What's the point of the sting if the 'point' is being blunted? It's like asking the teacher for the questions of the exam saying "we'll study for the exam, but you please give us the questions".

The bill also has provisions to enable an officer of the govt to review the content of what will be telecast, and if he/she feels that the criticism is harsh, it can be edited. Whatever happened to free and fair media? This would effectively eliminate the free part of it, as the media wouldn't be free to operate on it's own without interference, and it wouldn't be fair because the content put out would be in accordance to what the govt wishes for us to hear, a la North Korea or the former Soviet Union.

I guess someone forgot to refresh the memory of the govt about the early part of the 20th century in Germany and Italy where rulers like Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin had done the same thing and it was termed as fascism. But then again, since Sonia Gandhi's father was an ardent fascist & a supporter of Mussolini, it shouldn't surprise us that his daughter's party is behaving in this manner (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree). If this is step one of the grand fascist revival plan, then the steps to follow are to suspend elections and bring in one party rule and switch back to communism (or give it a fancy name called socialism) and rename our country from the Democratic Republic of India to the Union of Indian Socialist Republics. The iron curtain will come up again, this time in a new geographical location with newer comrades.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Munna turns out to be a bhai after all

At last, the trial for the worst terrorist act in this country has come to an end with Sanjay Dutt's sentencing sealing the proceedings. Many are arguing that the verdict was too harsh, but hey, since when did justice and sympathy for the convict go hand in hand? It's not as if the case against Sanjay Dutt was circumstantial; it was proven beyond doubt and Mr. Dutt himself pleaded guilty to the charges, so isn't this now much ado about nothing?

To state that he has already suffered all these years and hence should be let off is a crime in itself. What about those who were victims of the 93 blasts, aren't they still suffering the after effects of it, don't they still have to go through all the red tape our bureaucracy throws up in front of them for their compensation, etc? In what way exactly has Sanjay Duttt suffered apart from having to attend the trial whenever it was scheduled? He's been in the thick of things in Bollywood, rolling out some memorable hits during the past 14 years, which somehow doesn't come across as 'suffering'.

Is plain repentance enough to atone for the sin? Would the hue and cry raised over the verdict been the same if the accused wasn't a celebrity? The answer to both is an emphatic no and we all know that when you have powerful and/or well known friends, this sort of backlash from the rich and famous is but obvious. Even the I&B minister, Mr. Priya Ranjan Das Munshi came out against the verdict in milder words, but again, it begs to be asked, would the Congress led government have done this if Sanjay's father, the late Sunil Dutt, wasn't an ardent Congressman and his sister Priya, a sitting Congress MP? My guess is if his family members had affiliations with other political parties, the government would have parroted the line of 'law taking it's own course and nothing must come in the way of justice'.

So at the end of the day (actually, the end of 14 years), dear Munna turned out to be a bhai after all, and congratulations to judge Kode for not getting swayed by public sentiments and altering his judgement. Hats off to you, my good sir, may we have many more like you.
 
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