Is this News?

Recent events of Mumbai have given Indian news channels another low hanging fruit to latch on to and they have seized the opportunity with loudest possible bang. Emotional story of a survivor is shown with melodramatic tunes and loud gunshots and bomb explosions playing in the background. Same images are flashed again and again. Brave “citizen journalists” who went back inside the hotel amidst attacks to capture memorable footage is now broadcast on every channel and the citizen is now a celebrity. Narration has hit its lowest and news feels more like trailer of a bad, very bad, Hollywood action movie. If content has gone down the drain, quality of presentation is in a free-fall. Every piece of news is claimed to be exclusive to the channel brought to you in record time.

But, this is probably the curse of round the clock news channel with fiery anchors who always seem to be on adrenaline inducing drugs.

If there are any recommendations, do let me know but, every channel that I have tuned in to leaves me with flashing images and high pitched voice of loud-mouthed anchors.

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Candlelight Vigil held in London for Mumbai attack victims

Update: Event was also held at Canary Wharf, London on 3rd December. Link to photos below.

More than 350 people put a brave face and defied low temperature, breeze and drizzle late in the evening on Sunday to gather at Indian High Commission in London. While I don’t believe in passive action such as forward-this-email-for-a-cause, this event did bring forward a few people who had pain in their hearts and sadness writ large on their faces. The fact that what was meant to be a small private event organised by two friends generated this kind of response is evidence enough of the profound impact this disaster has had on these people. I will try and post a few photos so that it stays in our hearts for long time to come because it is just as easy to forget.

Photos of candlelight vigil held at High Commission and Canary Wharf are here

News Coverage

As a side note, let us hope that the Mumbai massacre does not turn in to an India-Pakistan issue because it is not. It was an act perpetrated by a minority who have misplaced motivation to cause maximum physical damage. I don’t believe that they represent any country, religion or faith. Of course, India needs to apply maximum pressure on Pakistan to take action against seperatist groups and Pakistan needs to do everything to prove that it was not ISI sponsored. To give free reign to such groups to train in the region will inevitably attract wrath of many countries who are suffering at the hands of these groups. But, we should resist the temptation of being drawn in to a tit-for-tat action because it is a vicious circle which is almost impossible to get out of and almost always the one’s to suffer are those who believe in innocent form of life.

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Mumbai Attacks: United we stand divided we fall

24 hour round the clock live coverage of devastating Mumbai attacks has made sure that the pain is felt by each and everyone throughout the world. And rightly so. It was attack on anyone who believes in the central theme of life. There can be no motivation good enough for such callous indiscriminate killing. But, let there be no bias in our condemnation of acts of violence. Every Indian has right to feel Indian in each and every part of this country. Raj Thackeray’s of this country should not be allowed to prosper. Incidents like that of Orissa should never be allowed to happen. There should be one true spirit. And that should be Indian spirit. That will prove to be the biggest deterrent for those who believe that they can puncture the social fabric of India by launching such gruesome attacks. Politicians will continue to be politicians and time will take its toll on the intensity or anger that everyone feels right now. Let that not be the case. Violence, any kind of violence, should be condemned in strongest possible terms. There are probably things that shouldn’t be said aloud but, this is the lowest I could keep my voice.

You are fired!

Is it as brutal as they make it out to be? I found out on Thursday. “As you all know these are unprecedented times. We are having to take some very tough decisions...” It was coming from the speakerphone as we were rushed in to an audio conference to be attended by all our global teams. You could sense his tone. You could sense the mood in the room. Everyone knew what will follow. But, no one knew the number. Two, three, entire team? Logically, this was one of the strongest team in one of the best performing businesses so, something like that was unlikely to happen. Huh! If everything followed the course of logic, I should have been on a holiday. Everyone was going through the same feeling. “Come on, it can’t be that. Can it? What if it is? No one thought Lehman was going to collapse. No one thought blah blah blah.” Events with lowest probability of happening were capturing most people’s imagination because that was likely to have maximum shock-value. It was about to get unbearble and then he said. “We are having to let two people from the department go.” Just when we thought it was time to breathe a sigh of relief, we started wondering, “Who are they?”. And the heart started racing again. All the feelings were back. The desire to bang your head on to the hard fancy wooden table had never been that strong because you knew you won’t feel the pain. No pain was strong enough to beat the one that everone on the conference call was experiencing. “Those two people have been notified...” There it was. It was not me. But, lets take a moment. I along with other members of my team had held weekly video conference with this team about 30mins ago. These guys were part of the meeting where we had discussed roadmap for next few months and these guys had active roles to play. Their next meeting turned out to be their last. Even though Citigroup stole the limelight with its shares plunging below $5, I had all sorts of emotions going through my head for the rest of the evening.

What the hell, its for a good cause!

Its always a challenge when we have to go out of our normal course of lives to do something. Most of the time we shrink our head back in to our comfort zones for sight outside is either too horrific or too revealing. But, sometimes we manage to muster enough courage to take the fight to these fears just to see what it feels like to do something “crazy”.

My experience while collecting funds for Bihar floods has been interesting. While people from very unexpected quarters have come forward, most people have decided to shrug their shoulders after making sure that we know how “sorry” they are.

The fact remains that as long as individual’s self interest is protected, in majority of cases people confine their life to “Me, my family, my religion/caste, my state, my country” in that order. While contributing to such disasters might not be as easy as forwarding emails to five friends in order to claim their share of prosperity, it has revealed time and again how superficial life most people live. But, most people will boil when such a suggestion is made. While people continue to moan about things they would like to do but can’t, the fact remains that either you do it or you don’t. Its not necessarily a bad thing because that forms the majority. But still, its important that they learn to live with it for thats who they are and not moan about it.

One needs a far cavalier and positive attitude to come forward to help just in the name of “what the hell, its for a good cause!”. Thanks to all those who have shown this side of theirs and prove what my dad says time and again that “there are enough good people in this world to stop it from going in to hell”.

While it is not intended to offend, it doesn’t hurt to put mirror in front of people’s faces from time to time.

Related post: Bihar Floods – What can you do?

Bihar Floods – What can you do?

How bad is it?

It is bad enough to be declared a national calamity and 5 million (50 lakh) people are said to be directly affected. Worst hit are children who are estimated to be more than half the number. Some news coverage:

On how children are being affected
Google News

What can you do?

If you are religious you can consider this as act of god punishing people for their sins. If you don’t believe in god, you might feel vindicated. And if you are not comfortable taking sides, you can just sit back and watch the drama unfold.

What is being done?

There are a few people who are doing great job in co-ordinating some of the activities like managing funds and sending relief materials (medicines, cloths etc) to the affected region. It is a network of some NGOs and personal contacts based at relief camps.

How can I contribute/donate?

United Kingdom: If you are in UK, you can get in touch with me and I can arrange transfer of funds. Every amount is accounted for and every contribution will be posted publicly (unless instructed otherwise).

All funds in UK will go in to the account of BIHAR FOUNDATION UK. It is member of British Overseas of NGOs for development and thus is regulated. News coverage of the effort by Bihar Foundation.

India: You can again get in touch with me if you want and I can guide you. However, you can also look at following locations who as I said are also involved in such activities. I am in touch with some of them.

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/many-avenues-please-contribute/

http://biharflood.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/more-avenues-for-contributing/

Ways to get in touch

1) Leave a comment

2) Use this form

3) +44 780 944 1527

Post script: Please note that if you have doubts about credibility of this effort then you will not be the only one. It won’t hurt though to get in touch.

Stupid? Its in your Genes!

Some people get turned on by intelligence and greater number get turned off by stupidity. But, if not learning from past mistakes is a measure of stupidity then we might have found a compelling evidence to get us off the hook when we turn in to a laughing stock for others. Yep. Its the usual suspect – genes. Bottmonline is that if you have certain genes (or lack of it), you might just not have the ability to learn. Some people just don’t learn. They can’t!

Don’t you just love Biology!

Formula One: India Enters the Race. Literally!

Note: I know it is old news. So what. I don’t reach office everyday on time either. Moreover, they announced their driver recently which heats things up.

India takes another stride towards establishing itself as a global player. Enters Formula One! Strictly speaking, there is no such concept of a team from a particular country but, with us, nationalist sentiment invariably puts India at the forefront. Moreover, the team is called “Force India”. (Listen to the webcast on this website!) Only team with a country’s name in it!

Vijay Mallya says, “I feel proud that an Indian has put its flag on the F1 circuit.” This makes it quite clear how eager successful Indians are to put India on the global map. Tata did it by winning the deal for Corus and coming up with world’s most economical car, Tata Nano. And obviously, Tata is the favourite to acquire globally recognised luxurios car brands such as Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.

More success will inadvertently subject us to greater scrutinly and thus the importance of being gracious has never been greater. We should not project the image that as the confidence of the nation is growing we are becoming graceless and arrogant. We need to learn from some of the mistakes we committed during the Cricket Fiasco.

Our country is growing. Its time to grow as individuals.

Cricket Fiasco: Bottomline

You need to close your eyes in order to see clearly for there is so much chaos. At a time when we needed to show highest degree of restraint, we have gone berserk. If as a nation we want to play an important role on the world stage, we will need to show far greater maturity.

Australian Cricket: Australia did get carried away in the dying moments of the game when they were beginning to realise that their dreams of most victories in a row might remain a dream after all. But, are we trying to suggest that the Indian team would have not appealed had it been in similar situation? I am hurt because Indian lost the game but, the damage that is taking place outside of game is far too lasting than a game of cricket will ever be capable of. We are risking quite a lot.

BCCI: Its all about money. Look at the state of the Indian cricket. Why can’t we produce a team which can win or at least put a decent fight with the kind of budget it has?

Umpiring: Bucknor should have been asked to leave (or asked to voluntarily resign) simply for being incompetent in a job for which he is being paid handsomely as would have been the case in any other job. Not because he is a cheat or anything else that Indian media will like some of us to believe nor because BCCI likes to flex its muscle like some foreign media is getting obsessed with.

Media: What a joke. Majority of them thrive on being cheap and sensational. Screw them.

Now lets look at the case of Harbhajan. Comments like “We told you the first time not to call him monkey” is ridiculous. Its like don’t tell us that because we don’t like it. Who the hell likes when you sledge even if it is not racist by definition? The whole basis of provocation is the opposition not liking what is being done to him. There is no place of racism in sports. But, what makes sledging any more attractive?

To be honest, I personally think that Harbhajan might well have called him a monkey. But, it can’t be because some prejudice leading to racial taunt. Its because he did not like what was told to him and was hurt. He wanted to hurt Symonds and for a volatile and intemperate personality like Harbhajan, only one thing would have come to his head. Not because he is racist. But, because he wanted to hurt Symonds. That does not give mileage to Harbhajan mind you. In fact he along with Sreesanth should have been brought to task for indulging in such lose talk time and again. But, lets not make one person more equal than other because the other person was able to qualify the remark as racist. Ability to see the big picture will hold us all in good stead.

Bottomline: None of this was to protect national pride. Far from it. Different interested parties have blown everything out of proportion to ensure that we lose sight of the real problem because their best interest lies in it. To the Aussies: We don’t only burn effigies of foreign umpires and players. Our players and selectors are not spared either if the player from a certain state is not selected or if a player bats too ’slow’. But, they do not represent all of India. In a vast country like India with one-sixth of world’s population it will not be wise to expect common sense from all of them when even three commentators sitting in the comfort of their air-conditioned box cannot come to a consensus. We are not racist, we are emotional. We are not stupid, we are passionate. If there is a line amongst all this, we are bound to stumble time and again. Lets not make a big deal and do what we do best. Wait for another scandal. Enough said.

PS: Here is what a comment read in one of the responses.

If my Mum had been in charge of international cricket, this would have been sorted easily. Every time I was in the garden playing with my friends and a game was threatening to get out of hand, she used to stick her head out of the window and say , “If you can’t play nicely, don’t play at all. If it carries on like that your friends can go home and you can clean the toilet.” It always did the trick.

Related Posts:
Shocking Journalism. Worst Protest.
Australia-Great Team Lacking in Spirit

Shocking Journalism. Worst Protest.

I was hurt like any other Indian when India lost Sydney test and the manner of loss made it harder to digest. But, what disappoints me more is the way it has been captured in Indian media. Rise of Internet has ensured that people don’t have to wait till the next day to go through the newspaper. This is being exploited by the media who keep coming up with cheesy headlines and controversial stories – mostly concocted, to increase their popularity. If print media is bad, electronic ones are worse. 24 hour news channels have ensured that it is full of rubbish. Every channel tries to tap in to mass’s sentiment twisting every piece of news to spice it up as opposed to making an effort to present accurate information.

Cheesy Headlines, humiliating remarks, everything blown out of proportion. What is happening? The way Indian public has responded to this is shocking. Its one thing to criticise. Its another thing to humiliate. People have been posting absolutely absurd and mindless abusive comments in response to articles. And all this in the name of protecting our pride. Is this the impression we want rest of the world to have about us? My pride is far more injured by the events that is taking place in India as compared to what happened in Australia on the cricket field. What happens to the pride of these people when India gets named as one of the worst countries in the way children are treated here? This rarely forms subject of intellectual discussions because dealing with it will require them to be far more proactive as compared to showing anger in chat rooms.

When a few Australians did not carry themselves as we would have liked, we responded in the way we did. What about thousands of Indians who are proving to be no different? This is specially surprising when majority of the neutrals and quite a few Australians have shared our sentiment.

Same Australian public gave rousing reception to VVS and Tendulkar when they came in to bat at SCG and gave a standing ovation when they scored their centuries as if they were playing in front of their home crowd. It is one thing to be disappointed. It is another thing to be stupid.

Its true that we did not like what we saw in the test and what transpired thereafter in Harbhajan’s case but, our behaviour and that of quite a few journalists has not been very appealing either. Everybody is wrong but for us. Talk about fairness!

There are lots of decent ways to lodge protest and put your case forward. Calling names and posting abusive messages in the forums is definitely not one of them.

Update: All is not lost and I am not the only one to be incensed by the nonsense that is going on in Indian press which by its very nature demeans the cause Indians are fighting for. Here is an extract from an article in The Guardian that states as to what this post is about.

India is blessed with an extraordinary capacity for indignation. But occasionally there is cause. So even if it was a little tiresome to have to hear Harbhajan Singh’s mother on every news channel, watch donkeys with name-tags of the umpires Bucknor and Benson dangling around their necks, and find that 94% of viewers on one network wanted the team to return from Australia, it did not fully detract from the issue.

A few other people have written about the quality of journalism which they call over the top or in other words nonsensical. In Guardian, Dileep Premachandran calls it India: Where truth is up for grabs. (Cracking title but may have overcompensated by launching a scathing attack) and on Cricinfo Suresh Menon pleads for some balance.