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Monday 26 July 2010

What Publishing Means To Different People...

Media, eBooks and the publishing world -

An interesting and creative use of text, video and audio.




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Thursday 22 July 2010

Media freedom: the boundaries?

The media has gained great momentum in the last decade, partly due to the new tools of the trade, partly becuase of the stakes involved. From uncovering scandals to reporting live events, reporters have fearlessly taken those few daring steps to give the common man news that he deserves.
The various channels and medium operate on the single foundation of Right to Information, a.k.a., democracy. However, there are some invisible lines drawn by human morals that prevent us from taking this right too literally. These invisible limits are defined by each individual depending on their levels of comfort in exposing themselves. The Indian law since age old has respected this demand of privacy and granted it without much ado in the name of Right to Privacy. Some individuals have used this right lawfully, while many have taken it for granted. However, unless escalated, the Indian law has respected it the same.
Lately, it has occurred many a times that the media has overstepped on to this personal space causing an outcry or a silent resentment. They, however, this time took it too far by prying into the matters of the Supreme Court and not just publishing but also mocking at the integrity of Supreme Court judgements, reducing the institution to mediocrity.
A report was published in all newspapers and tabloids on 13 September 2007. The report spoke of how the former Chief Justice of India Y K Sabharwal used the highest court of law to favour the business of his sons. It claimed that the Delhi sealing drive was declared so that the small time shop owners were forced to shut down and people would rely on the expensive shopping malls and outlets to meet their requirements. As Justice Sabharwal’s sons were in partnership with one of the mall owners in Delhi, this rule was brought in place.
However, the report does not provide any proof for the authenticity of these claims and presents it more in terms of a “guess” rather than confirmed facts. Therefore, the matter was taken up with the High Court who then called for the arrest of the journalists involved. This event brought forward a very important aspect of society. This feature is the governance of media activities by the state, especially with respect to the freedom exercised by them.
What makes the Indian scenario much more complex than a China or Singapore is that the Indian public opinion is vociferous: whether it is clumsy Internet censorship gone wrong or a foolishly heavy-handed broadcast bill. And in every case, the state backs off. That would not happen either in China or Singapore. Free speech is too ingrained here to be curtailed by broad-brush censorship or regulation though individual repression still happens.
For example, in this Midday editors’ case, the High Court sentenced the contemnors to four months in prison. However, following public outcry and a demand for justice from fellow reporters, the Supreme Court stayed the judgement until another hearing in January 2008. In dealing with the media, India's democratic polity backs off from repression when there is publicity and pressure. Those who doubt it should look at some examples from other democracies.
We didn't hear much in India about Tayseer Allouni, the Spanish journalist of Syrian origin who was sentenced to seven years in prison in Spain. He's an Al Jazeera correspondent who was the first to interview Osama Bin Laden (in Afghanistan) after 9/11. A Spanish court convicted him of collaborating with the Al Qaeda. As a journalist, Allouni had a reputation for unflinching frontline coverage from Afghanistan. Nonetheless, last year the Spanish Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling sentencing him to jail.
His first sentence drew widespread condemnation and last year international pressure made the Spanish government move him to house arrest. But in the long run the Spanish courts and government have remained unmoved and he is now back in prison, serving a seven year sentence for having got an amazing scoop.
So, the question would be – is this kind of state apathy good or bad? Well, it may seem wrong to call it apathy, but when there is lack of interest in regulating any activity that poses a threat to the smooth running of a state or government, then we would call it apathy, in general.
It can be said that there are two sides to this coin. Allowing a considerable amount of media freedom definitely brings the marauders to books and gives an “all’s well that ends well” feeling to the society. It reassures the common man of justice and that any wrong doing is watched and monitored. A feeling of fear always instils discipline and a disciplined society definitely elevates the growth of the country, in all aspects.
On the contrary, allowing freedom to an unmanageable extent would mean that the chances of the media themselves taking advantage of their premium position and assisting wrong-doings within a society.
For example, the case of 3 reporters being arrested for a staging fake sting operation to apparently bust a prostitution racket was an obvious case of avarice for publicity and popularity. Or the fact that accessibility to media through easier channels allows for some anti-social elements to misuse it and poses greater risk to humanity.
The Right to Privacy should be respected by all and any action should be done for the greater good, not for an individual disadvantage. For this, the media should be allowed to operate within a regulated spectrum that allows enough freedom but at the same time objects to unlawful and anti-social engagement for personal gain.
If, as a thinking section of society, the media wants to raise these issues, they may go right ahead, but while doing so, let’s hope they will not unnecessarily confuse themselves with the concept of Press Freedom, and reserve the last for something more worthy. After all, the media belongs to the common man. 


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Friday 19 June 2009

Our poor man

The death bound did avoid the puddle, a journo wrote he saw
Just before the slithering men of rules consumed another raw

Wonder if he was human enough for by Jove he jumped aside
It's learnt no one gave a monkey’s for that leap loud and wide

Rumor was his only sin was calling the warder son of a whore
They also said that day the bum was clearly drunk to the core

The warder was a cultured man, so he chose an elegant word
And ‘you bastard’ was the last on Earth our hangin man heard

Was his twitching body a sign of life or was he just prison cred
For fellow convicts did ask the hangman if easy went the dead

They talked of him on smuggled pot while dreaming of the bar
Said he did not deserve the fate, you know how prisoners are

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Monday 1 June 2009

A walk in the dark

Happiness and truth are, as widely believed, contradictory. When a person seeks happiness, despite the probability that it might conflict with the truth, he makes a choice. 
It’s the nature of the beast within to build walls around this state and convince itself that nothing else exists. This intemperance, even when sought at one’s own cost, seems to be becoming increasingly tolerable.
This may well be to a great extent responsible for the resurgence of jingoism in its most potent form. The specifics do not matter to the propagators who are guilty of this self-gratifying and utterly reckless interpretation of the past and the present. There has always been a difference in perceptions on either side in case of a conflict, but this chasm is deepening thanks to the ease with which the modern day ‘experts’ are able to reach out to an audience equally willing to lend them an ear.
Individuals who, as they claim to understand it, in pursuit of something deeper end up imbibing a dangerous, almost psychopathic, understanding of either of these states. This distorted sense of freedom not only makes individuals ready to snap up things without though but also gives rise to a strange dependency on each other.
How much should then be read into words crying profanation, especailly when seen against this sort of self-indulgence.
The media, television in particular, in its twisted attempts of a bait and switch, has become a heaven for this emerging breed of know-it-alls. Half-baked opinions have become the order of the day. But, having said this, the importance of opinions can not be undermined. It remains the discretion of the organization in question who to take it from and this is where television channels, in their myopic view which seldom veers beyond TRPs, often lose the plot.
I have no particular fondness for print either, but let’s keep that aside for some other time for the intention of writing this is not to talk about the fast declining quality of journalism, which is probably now an accepted phenomenon.
Somewhere between the preacher n the follower exists sanity. And although many continue to reject the debris of impending disasters strewn around them, it’s becoming hard stage, for the optimist, to wade through.
Therefore, in most cases the call for a blood feud owing to victimization of some kind holds little water and is reduced to merely, and alarmingly so, a hedonistic exercise by those propagating them.The impact of the words of ‘experts’ of all kinds in pursuit of their sixty seconds of fame cannot be neglected, especially when the number of ‘mental wreaks’ willing to lap it up is greater than ever today.
So, what is this quest? Is this the quest of truth when facts are picked from the past to score a point just because someone can? More often than not such callus indulgences result in a gross miscalculation of the situation at hand and so potent is this stupor of deriving fulfillment with the inconsistent use of facts that often the perpetrators don’t even realize the gravity of it. Only the victims do, and they are termed, quite extraordinarily, the ordinary people.
Interestingly, as I write this, LeT Chief Hafiz Saeed has been freed by the Lahore High Court. Pakistanis believe he, as the Head of Jamaat-ud-Dava, has done a lot for the ordinary people. Indians say he’s a self-centered criminal responsible for the killing of many ordinary people. Perhaps they are both right.


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Sunday 31 May 2009

Against hope


The raindrop on my brow
Lost itself on my touch
Like a lover smitten
Melts-in sans wait much

Woes of living away so far
Were not to upset my spirit
If these forlorn tears
Didn't look raindrops a bit

No news from winds so thick
Nothing from the skies
Wonder if I breathe still
The life in her sighs

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When the light fades


I build myself again, again to go,
Leaving some gentle moments behind,
When the demons of solitude let me smile;
They desert me often, often they’re kind.

I find my answers, I breathe them in,
And keep them there before they hurt;
When the man in me erupts to rule,
I become a child, a child curt.

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Who am I?


Not a believer inside the mosque 
Nor a pagan disciple of false rites
Not the pure amongst the impure
Neither Moses, nor the Pharoh
Not in the holy Vedas
Nor in opium, neither in wine
Not in the drunkard`s craze
Niether awake, nor in a sleeping daze
In happiness nor in sorrow
Neither clean, nor a filthy mire
Not from water, nor from earth
Neither fire, nor from air, is my birth
Not an Arab, nor Lahori
Neither Hindi, nor Nagauri
Hindu, Turk, nor Peshawari
Nor do I live in Nadaun
Secrets of religion, I have not known
From Adam and Eve, I am not born
I am not the name I assume
Not in stillness, nor on the move
I am the first, I am the last
None other, have I ever known
I am the wisest of them all
Bulleh! do I stand alone?
-Baba Bulleh Shah




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