What is news to the Hindu? Karunanidhi keeping a promise:
This promise to the people of Tamilnadu to anoint his son to the throne, the Emperor has given more responsibilites to the Prince and Hindu is all glee for the emperor has kept his promise- how noble- mere subjects we are supposed to celebrate this “Pattabhishekam”. [...]
Archive for the 'Media' Category
Burma?
Published by May 10th, 2008 in Democracy, Geopolitics, Human Rights, Media and Women. 0 CommentsBurma, says anonandon, is disappearing:
A friend of mine has a favourite joke about Indian media. He says, the country of Japan could cease to exist but our newspapers would be far more concerned about the pretty young Bollywood starlet who stares out of the page with mascara heavy eyes, pouting next to a headline that [...]
Bush, India and global food prices
Published by May 5th, 2008 in Economy, Food, Globalisation, India, Media, Policy and Politics. 1 CommentRay Titus finds nothing wrong with what Bush said:
What the President was an economic fact. There was no ‘blame’, in fact his statement was a compliment to a country that is demanding better products and services for consumption. Judge for yourselves.
Arun checks reactions from across the world, including a news report from Arab News, which [...]
‘White trash’?
Published by May 3rd, 2008 in Culture, Media, Prejudice, Sports and Women. 0 CommentsSandyk expresses his views on an article by Barkha Dutt in which she refers to the IPL cheerleaders as ‘white trash’:
But I can not blame her since Indian morality is a big issue with people in power and public domain. We do not like things which make us uncomfortable. We have not learnt the art [...]
Sandipan is about to graduate from IIT Kharagpur. He writes about five movies that have helped shape his life and career so far. Sample this:
A Beautiful Mind: The movie wants me to give up everything in life and lose myself in the pursuit of an innovative idea. Everyone must’ve seen and loved the movie. But [...]
Meena Kandasamy writes a letter to Tehelka’s editor:
I WAS SHOCKED to see your magazine carry the abusive word “pariah” on the cover. Though it is common knowledge that the word passed into English from Tamil, it would have been better if you remembered that it is the name of a Tamil Dalit caste. Only because [...]
VM at Random Ramblings writes about the Bhajji and Sreesanth episode-
My initial reaction to Bhajji hitting Sree and the drama that ensued was embarrassment - on behalf of Harbhajan. Bhajji has ruined it and has made Team India, the BCCI, and us (bloggers/viewers/fellow India supporters) and look like clowns after having supporting him in the [...]
Specimen of brilliance
Published by April 14th, 2008 in Education, India, Media and Prejudice. 14 CommentsMridula reminds Aditya Jha, the writer of a column in the Indian Express, that he is a moron.
Will someone go and remind Mr. Jha that the company he works for (Infosys) was co-founded by an IIT Kanpur PG. Yes, Mr. Narayan Murthi undoubtedly did a PG course from IITK and still founded a company like [...]
Like a Picture? Steal it!
Published by April 4th, 2008 in Books, Business, Media and Photoblog. 0 CommentsJo takes a beautiful picture and finds it on the cover of a book. Only the credit is given to someone else … Of course he is livid. And plans to take action.
I don’t know why Prantha Books is not responding but I want them to know that I am not going [...]
The Shaming of Scarlett Keeling
Published by March 26th, 2008 in Feminism, Government, Human Rights, Justice, Media, Patriarchy, Women, public space and sexuality. 17 CommentsIf the killing was brutal, the reactions that followed haven’t been kind either- Sharanya condemns those who are condemning the victim:
In other words, the condemning of the murdered girl, her family, her friends, their lifestyles and their choices is a typical misogynist response – the wicked woman gets her dues. And this time, there are [...]
Bhumika
Published by March 22nd, 2008 in Activism, Caste, Feminism, Human Rights, Language, Media, Patriarchy, Prejudice, Society and Women. 0 CommentsIn 1993 in Hyderabad a group of women from different feminist organisations decided to venture into the challenging terrain of publishing a feminist magazine in Telugu and the first issue of Bhumika came out in the month of Jan1993.
Bhumika Women Collective emerged in the context of the women’s movement as a felt need to make [...]
Talking around Tibet
Published by March 20th, 2008 in Culture, Democracy, Geopolitics, Human Rights, India, Justice, Media, Politics and Religion. 0 CommentsKaran ponders on what India should do:
The Tibet issue is bound to remain in the headlines given the scrutiny the world has thrown on every aspect of Chinese existence. From levels of pollution, to dealing with dictators in Africa, to poisoned toys being exported, the lack of free speech and media and their crackdown on [...]
Unchaahi
Published by March 20th, 2008 in Activism, Blogging, Culture, Feminism, India, Media, Prejudice, South Asia and Women. 0 CommentsUnchaahi is a new group blog that aims to be a ‘voice against Female Genocide (a result of sex-selective abortions, and murders of female infants also known as female infanticide) focused specifically in the Indian Subcontinent.’ An excerpt from a recent post (on Ekta Kapoor soaps) by Roop Rai, one of the contributors:
I wondered then, [...]
Automated Daydreaming?
Published by March 16th, 2008 in Culture, Media, Personal and Society. 0 CommentsTharini is wary of TV, and this is why:
This continued for a good 2 years. We got so involved in it that we would get agitated if Winkie didn’t go to bed quickly, making us miss all the action happening downstairs. We took to recording the episodes and catching up with all that we missed. We [...]
What Bangles Mean
Published by March 16th, 2008 in Culture, Feminism, Humour, Media, Patriarchy, Politics, Women and sexuality. 0 CommentsA women’s day news report about Renuka Chowdhury’s “empowerment bangles” has Rimi B Chatterjee musing on bangles and their cultural significance.
If women are socialised to see certain kinds of jewelry in certain ways, so are men. Indian dance and drama have turned the business of a woman putting on her jewelry into an art form: shringar. Men [...]
‘It’s The Tourists Who Are At Fault’
Published by March 6th, 2008 in Government, Media, Society, Women, sexual harrassment and sexuality. 0 CommentsPen Pricks write about an editorial of Gomantak Times, a Goan daily, regarding the alleged rape of a foreigner in Goa at the beginning of the year.
Sanjay, are you in your senses? Do you realise what you are writing here? You are absolving the State of its most important responsibility? Foreigners attend these rave parties [...]
Reality Shows
Published by February 29th, 2008 in Art, Business, Cinema, Culture, Media, Music, Personal, Society, Spotlight Series and Theatre. 1 Comment[ This is Essay # 21 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]
Reality Shows
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Pradip Somasundaran
People have started referring to me as the first reality show winner since the success of reality shows here in Kerala. Well in a way that’s true as there was more reality to the program that I won [...]
‘What makes you LOL?’
Published by February 25th, 2008 in Cinema, Culture, Humour, Literature and Media. 0 CommentsBombay Addict is talking about ‘old-fashioned laugh-out-loud. Not a smile, snicker, or heh, but a hearty laugh’. Here’s some of what made him LOL:
The earliest stuff made me LOL were all those TV serials mentioned above. I loved them for the simple, situational comedy of everyday life. In movies, “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro” and “Chashme [...]
Blaming Capitalism
Published by February 25th, 2008 in Capitalism, Democracy, Development, Economy, Media and Policy. 1 CommentRohit reacts to an article in Economic and Political Weekly:
One of the constant themes of public debate in India is to link the post 1991 reforms to problems faced by the Indian society. According to this intellectually lazy line of thinking, capitalism is responsible for all of India’s social and economic challenges. That despite reforms, [...]
News channels have been serving us items about ‘ghosts’, supernatural ‘incidents’, television soaps news, page 3 type parties, kissing scandals, timeslots dedicated to comedy shows, while keeping journalistic professionalism at bay
Amit Sharma feels he is witnessing the death of Indian journalism and offers hilarious pictorial proof.
(Hat tip: Anshuman)
Touchy Indians Inc
Published by February 8th, 2008 in Activism, Culture, Democracy, Humour, Media, Politics, Prejudice, Women and public space. 0 CommentsKajal Iyer describes one busy day in a modern day Indian journalist’s life: in the morning, she has to meet Naare Nath, head of Touchy Indians Inc which holds ‘copyright, trademark, IPR and every other documentation’ on the naara Halla Bol.
‘If we didn’t raise our voice frequently, our Indian culture and ethos would have ceased [...]
Kima reacts to an article in the Mail Today (we’d linked to another reaction to the article a couple of days ago):
Nobody can stop hatred. It has always been around, and will always be for the rest of our lives. We have learnt how to turn a blind eye to all the daily racial abuses, [...]
Why can’t we have better defence reporters?
Published by February 1st, 2008 in Government and Media. 0 CommentsPragmatic reacts to a badly researched article in India Today and asks : why can’t we have better defence reporters?
No one can deny that there is a problem with recruitment and retention of officers in the Army, but there are deep-rooted causes to the problem. The issue of shortages in the officer cadre was holistically [...]
Unelected Supreme Court is better than elected politicians?
Published by January 27th, 2008 in Democracy, Human Rights and Media. 0 CommentsAditya Swarup disagrees with the message of a recent Swaminathan Aiyar article:
Aiyar says:“The Constitution created other unelected bodies such as the Supreme Court and the Election Commission - which are the most respected in India precisely because they keep elected politicians in check.”
Aditya: These are the last few lines in the Article that sum up [...]


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