MEDIA IMMEDIACY: ASIA ONLINE

The Hoot http://www.thehoot.org/
"The more the media matters, the more we must track what it does..."
 

Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report 2001 has some praise for the Indian media in general, and for Tehelka.com in particular. The report, released on October 15, says “…a vibrant press, with a healthy tradition of exposing corruption in high places, is emerging” in India and other South Asian countries. But, in one pregnant sentence, it also warns: Investigative capacities are low, employment conditions poor and ownership-related political influence and other forms of censorship constrain reporting.

 

 

Welcome to reality.

Watching media in the subcontinent:  Media Watch | Media resources | Media Law | Right to Information | Views from the region | Media Ethics | Media on Media | Media Research | Press Freedom | Media Activism | Media & Gender | Grassroot Media | Media and disability | New Media

The Voice of Millions www.thevoiceofmillions.com/
Alternative weekly news magazine edited by the larger-than-life Bhim Singh, "A fighter for justice and equity, an intellectual, a jurist, a journalist, a statesman, a film maker and above all a humanist; An undaunted social activist and champion of public interest litigation and civil rights of all human beings irrespective of their race, religion, region or nationality. An advocate in the Supreme Court of India. He led the students movement from 1959 to 1967, against the suppression and oppression of the power that be in Jammu & Kashmir. Opposed the mighty rulers and toppled their dictatorial Governments. He passed most of his exams from behind the bars. He was first arrested in 1953, a student of sixth class, for defying the Prime Minister of J&K." The magazine promotes social justice in India and makes great reading:

The Budget of the Millennium has shocked millions of the people in India. 85% of the rural population has completely been ignored. Primary education, drinking water, medical and legal requirements have completely been kept out of the pages of the budget of a government that has been claiming to be a champion of "Ramrajya."

    Cellular phones are exempted from import duty whereas taxes have been imposed on the exporters who deserved commendations for bringing foreign exchange to India when India's coffers were almost empty. The poor farmers who have been digging the earth and eating the dust have fallen direct victim to the 56 commandments of the draconian budget which has rightly been adjudged as "The Aristocratic Budget".

What is absolutely breath-taking about the book [The Barefoot Photographers] are the photographs. Once again, what is truly remarkable is that they have been taken by the people of Tilonia, with no training in photography, just "one-day photographers" who are with the heavy irony of scare quotes called "illiterate photographers". They are incredible photographs. Replete with colour and yet none of it specially inserted, capturing quotidian moments yet without any orientalising, none of the Gee whiz, this is the real India of coffeetable photographers who roam rural streets to capture the "real India".

[http://www.tehelka.com/lr101700artgallery.htm]

Narmada Dam www.narmada.org
Useful background to 15 years of opposition to this controversial mega-project, including the full text (with powerful photos) of best-selling author Arundhati Roy's brilliant and disturbing essay The Greater Common Good :

Thirty-three million. That's what it works out to. Thirty-three million people. Displaced by big dams alone in the last fifty years. What about those that have been displaced by the thousands of other Development Projects? At a private lecture, N.C. Saxena, Secretary to the Planning Commission, said he thought the number was in the region of 50 million (of which 40 million were displaced by dams). We daren't say so, because it isn't official. It isn't official because we daren't say so. You have to murmur it for fear of being accused of hyperbole. You have to whisper it to yourself, because it really does sound unbelievable. It can't be, I've been telling myself. I must have got the zeroes muddled. It can't be true. I barely have the courage to say it aloud. To run the risk of sounding like a 'sixties hippie dropping acid ("It's the System, man!"), or a paranoid schizophrenic with a persecution complex. But it is the System, man. What else can it be?

    Fifty million people.
    Go on, Government, quibble. Bargain. Beat it down. Say something.
    I feel like someone who's just stumbled on a mass grave.

     [www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html]

Journalist Ammu Joseph's new book Women in Journalism: Making News provides an overview of the situation, experiences and perspectives of women working as journalists in different parts of the country, in the English as well as Indian language press, at various levels in the editorial hierarchy, and in different branches of journalism.

    Based primarily on the responses of more than 200 women to a wide range of questions, the book is not meant to be a who's who of Indian women in journalism but, rather, an exploration of the world of Indian journalism through the eyes of women situated at different vantage points in the profession. In keeping with the basic purpose of the book - to enable women in journalism to speak for themselves on a wide range of issues relating to the profession - I have deliberately used extensive quotes from the interviews, constructing the arguments around each issue through the voices of women who shared their thoughts with me. I have attempted to faithfully represent the diversity of opinion among women working as journalists in the Indian print media, as well as to record the variety of experiences women have had in the profession.

While women's songs have always reflected on the stresses and tensions within the family, it was far less often that they envisioned alternative arrangements. Now they do. Thus, most strikingly, khyal may demand not "come home" but "take me with you". In village society similar situations are currently taking place. For example, Bhoju's cousin was in the army and his wife desired strongly to join him in faraway Pune in spite of her relatives' disapproval.

    The women's songs I wrote of in my earlier work seemed to appreciate male access to markets and desired goods, and the salaries men earned to purchase these goods, even if they resented the jobs that took husbands away to cities. But now, presents are not enough; jewellery is not enough. The threat of male education, unmatched by anything comparable for women, becomes a threat of abandonment. Women fear that men with lives more and more centered beyond the parameters of rural society may cease to come and go.

SOME Gujarati newspapers played a provocative role in the communal riots of June 25 to 27, 1998 in Bardoli, a small fast-growing town about 30 kms from Surat. They violated all professional norms of journalism. They published fabricated biased and one-sided news reports which greatly contributed towards creating tension in the town. This was the conclusion of a 20-member fact-finding team comprising journalists, Sarvodaya workers, lawyers and professors, including this writer, which went to Bardoli in early July to investigate the truth behind these newspaper reports. The team established this after meeting members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and police as well as the principal of the local college, social activists and non-party people from the Hindu and Muslim communities in the riot-affected town. Bardoliís population, according to the 1991 Census, is made up of 89 per cent Hindus, 9 per cent Muslims and 2 per cent Buddhists and others.

    The story about the attack by a Muslim crowd on the midnight of June 26 in Bardoli which appeared in Gujarat Samachar and Dhabkar on June 27 was found by us to be completely fabricated. Photographs published in one newspaper were manipulated.
    Gujarat Samachar had a four-column headline: "Muslims Retaliate in Bardoli: Disgusting Attempt to Set Fire to Three Innocent Children. Attempt to Rape Women, Idol of Ganpati Dada Broken". Dhabkar had a four-column headline: "Attempt to Set Fire to Halpatis and Maharashtrians at Midnight. Fifty Muslims Go to Mangifaliya at Midnight with Kerosene Tin and Arms". This was an attempt to instigate Halpatis, who are tribal agricultural labourers, and Maharashtrians, who are sugar factory workers in Bardoli, against Muslims. Mangifaliya is a locality in Bardoli.

The images were evocative, exotic and intriguing. Gandhian, non-violent and extremely moving. Deep in the Himalayan mountains of Uttar Pradesh, the poor women of Reni village, led by Gaura Devi, were giving the government an environmental lecture. This was 1974 — at a time when hardly anyone had heard about the importance of the environment. And, to boot, the women were telling the government that it could cut the forests only over their dead bodies. They would hug the trees to protect them from the axe.

 

 
 
 
 
 

Officialdom was totally confused. Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, the then chief minister of the state, himself a mountain man, had rushed to set up a committee to look into the scientific validity of the rustic claims. The committee had supported the villagers.

For journalists like me who came to espouse the Chipko cause, the women of Reni had many subtle messages. And incredibly important ones. They were saying loud and clear that they were not greenies of the western kind. For them the environment was much more than pretty trees and tigers. Their cause had entirely to do with themselves. Their own lives were so intertwined with the existence of trees that their very culture and survival was at stake without them.

123india
A2ZIndia (English)
Cyberindian
Directory India
Hindustan.net
India a2z (English)
IndiaAtlas (English)
IndiaConnect
IndianIndex (English)
Indian Yellow Pages
India Mart (English)
India Seek
India Times.com
India World
INDOlink (English)
INDONet (English)
It's IndiaTime
Jadoo
Locate India (English)
New India
Rediff.com
SAMACHAR.COM ("The only bookmark on India you'll ever need ")
Surf India (English)
The All IndiaSite
Indobase (English)
 
 

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