On August 24, Himal, a long-form journalism magazine covering South Asia that started publishing in 1987, announced it would suspend publication due to non-cooperation from regulatory state agencies in Nepal that made it impossible to continue operations. Himal had faced challenges over the past three years, including political attacks in Nepal's parliament in 2014 and the jailing of its founding editor Kanak Mani Dixit in April. Many feel the closure is due to pressures exerted on Himal by Nepal's anti-graft body. A significant portion of South Asian media is increasingly defined by commercial motives rather than editorial considerations, replacing journalism as a public service with media as a vehicle for advertising revenue. This has led to pre-setting
1. VIEWSONNEWSNOVEMBER 22, 2016 `50
www.viewsonnewsonline.com
Modi creates a stir24The nation wants to
know why 18
BBC
PHOTOGRAPHY
AWARDS
Celebrating the
wild 34
AE DIL...
Mastering the
art of cliches 40
Exit Arnab Goenka Awards
GLOWING
TRIBUTES
Girish Nikam
remembered
fondly 26
ParanoidstateThe one-day ban on NDTV indicates how averse the
center is to questioning
2.
3.
4. HIMAL SOUTHASIAN, the only review magazine of long-
form journalism covering South Asia, published its last
issue on November 15. One of its editors, Aunohita Mo-
jumdar, wrote the lead in that issue, explaining the rea-
sons behind the closure decision and how it is part of a
wider phenomenon in the region limiting freedom of ex-
pression and that of the press.
On August 24 this year, Himal, which started
publishing in 1987, announced that it would suspend
publication, citing non-cooperation by regulatory state
agencies in Nepal “that has made it impossible to con-
tinue operations after 29 years of publication”. The deci-
sion had been taken on August 22 by the executive board
of the Southasia Trust.
In fact, the highly-reputed magazine, meant for the
discerning reader, had
continued production
despite repeated chal-
lenges over the past
three years. It withstood
the repercussions of the
political attack on Himal
in Nepal’s parliament in
April 2014, as well as
targeting of Kanak Mani
Dixit, Himal’s founding
editor. In April, Dixit was
jailed on charges of
abuse of authority while
running a cooperative
transport firm in Nepal
and for owning dispro-
portionate assets. Many
indeed feel the closure
is the outcome of pressures exerted on Himal by the
country’s anti-graft body.
A notice put out earlier on the magazine’s website
read, “Himal is being silenced not by direct attack or
overt censorship but the use of the arms of bureaucracy
to paralyse its functioning… With no notification or ex-
planation, grants meant for Himal were not approved over
seven months of waiting, obtaining work permits for non-
Nepali editorial staff became impossible, and there were
unreasonable delays in processing payments for interna-
tional contributors. Our dwindling workforce tried to over-
come these and other challenges, but in the end
suspension was the only option.”
A significant section of the press in South Asia is in-
creasingly being defined by the commercial motive, with
profits displacing editorial considerations, Mojumdar
says. “The idea of journalism as a public service is being
replaced by that of media as a vehicle for advertising rev-
enue”, and this is leading to the setting of the editorial
narrative or “policy” beforehand by top managements of
media houses, and discouraging in-depth reportage and
focus on issues that matter most or to most. Issues such
as farmer suicides, income inequalities, labor rights and
the environment have thereby become the last priority
and get little or no coverage. Ostentatious stories on
LGBTQI parades and women’s safety which parade one’s
liberalism while assuring wide readership derived from
consumer prurience or paranoia hog the space. As do
wussy-minded, hysterical stories on urban inconven-
iences, but do they address town planning and traffic
problems in a holistic manner? That question is moot.
Again, was this deliberate clouding of the journalist’s
gaze responsible for the MSM (mainstream media, in in-
ternet language) spectacularly failing to call the 2016 US
GOODBYE HIMAL,
HELLO TYRANNY
EDITOR’SNOTE
4 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
5. presidential elections? Everyone was wrong! Well, many
in the media themselves certainly seem to think so, as
evidenced by some stories that have been published in
the wake. Yes, it is a time to introspect.
On the other hand, Mojumdar writes, and it is increas-
ingly being felt here in India as well, that “this approach
[of today’s media managements] views the well-being of
the people interchangeably with the well-being of the gov-
ernment and the so-called ‘realpolitik’ perspective sup-
plants comprehensive critical analysis”. This, perhaps,
explains the one-day ban on NDTV India proposed by the
government (which was later stayed by the Supreme
Court) for harming the nation’s “security interests” by
telecasting “strategic information” live during the
Pathankot airbase terrorist attack.
However, this is not the first time that such a ban has
been put in place. Previously, too, Janmat was banned
for a month for showing a manipulated sting and Al
Jazeera for a week for showing the wrong map of Kash-
mir. Indeed, Comedy Central, AXN and FTV have all been
banned for different reasons. Which begs a new question.
Granted, the news channels may have committed a mis-
step or two in their hurry to be the first to break news and
gain TRPs, but is a ban the way to go? Evoking the dark
memories of the Emergency during his speech at the
Ramnath Goenka Awards does not absolve our prime
minister of this onerous responsibility.
SILENCE, HE SAID
(Clockwise from left)
The cover of Himal,
which closed this
month under state
pressure, footage of
the Pathankot at-
tack coverage aired
by NDTV India;
Himal editor Kanak
Mani Dixit
On August 24 this year,
Himal, which started publish-
ing in 1987, announced it
would suspend publication,
citing non-cooperation by
regulatory agencies in Nepal
“that has made it impossible
to continue operations”.
VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016 5
6. C O N
LEAD
Center’s Strong Hand
11
Journalists and readers respond over the internet to the government’s
sudden crackdown on television media
Shooting the Messenger
Though the one-day ban on NDTV was stayed, it evoked some
bad memories
12
6 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Ravish vsThe
Establishment
A seminar on gender empow-
erment points out that the
sexes are not polar opposites
and rivals but balance and
complement each other
16
Editor Rajshri Rai
Senior Managing Editor Dilip Bobb
Managing Editor Ramesh Menon
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Executive Editor Ajith Pillai
Associate Editors Meha Mathur,
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Deputy Editor Prabir Biswas
Staff Writers Usha Rani Das
Karan Kaushik
Senior Sub-Editor Shailaja Paramathma
Bureau Chief BN Tamta, Dehradun
Principal Correspondent Harendra Chowdhary, Mathura
Reporters Alok Singh, Allahabad
Gaurav Sharma, Varanasi
Art Director Anthony Lawrence
Deputy Art Editor Amitava Sen
Sr. Visualizer Rajender Kumar
Graphic Designers Ram Lagan,
Photographers Anil Shakya
Bhavana Gaur
Photo Researcher/ Kh Maglembi Devi
News Coordinator
Production Pawan Kumar
Managing Editor (Web) Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr
Sr. Content Writer (Web) Punit Mishra
Technical Executive Sonu Kumar Sharma
(Social Media)
Technical Executive Anubhav Tyagi
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7. T E N T S
Cover design: Anthony Lawrence
FILM REVIEW
18
25
40
Modi Hits the
Right Notes
His presence at the Ramnath Goenka
Awards caused a stir, but the PM silenced
critics by invoking the EmergencyNow that Arnab Goswami is exiting Times
Now, who will tell the nation what it wants
to know? A reporter ponders
Abrupt End to
a Noisy Affair
SPOTLIGHT
Mushkil to
Endure It
VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016 7
PHOTO FEATURE
34
This year’s BBC photo awards saw
contestants put in months of field
research into the animal world
Walk on the
Wild Side
20
An imaginary file at the CIA headquarters
marked the Goswami Dossier tries to analyze
the dreams of the redoubtable news anchor
SoundofSilence
EVENTS
Clichés and poor writing mark this
KJo movie made on the done-to-
death topic of love unrequitted
26Last of a
VanishingTribe
Girish Nikam, a stalwart who worked
with major national dailies before join-
ing RSTV, passed away on November 7
OBIT
24
The work of S Nihal Singh and a few others
was acknowledged when they received the
Press Council of India’s national awards
TheyDeservedIt!
26Last of a
VanishingTribe
OBIT
28NotThat Hard
to Kick
Ajith Pillai’s debut novel Junkland Jour-
neys explores Mumbai in the eighties
through the eyes of former drug addict
BOOKS
R E G U L A R S
Edit..................................................4
Quotes ............................................8
Media-Go-Round..........................33
As The World Turns.......................45
Webcrawler ...................................47
Breaking News..............................48
Design Review ..............................52
ENVIRONMENT
42Spare the
Ganga
The holy river is under tremendous
strain, and yet Indians ignore it in
their quest for easy salvation
8. 8 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
U O T E S
“You say a lot of nice
things about journalists
which makes us nervous.
Mr Ramnath Goenka
sacked a journalist when
he heard the CM of a state
tell him ‘aapka reporter
bahut achha kaam kar
raha hai’ (your reporter is
doing good work).”
—Raj Kamal Jha, Chief Editor,
The Indian Express, addressing
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at
the Ramnath Goenka Awards
function in New Delhi
“Certain politicians are making a hue and cry
for these terrorists but not lending a word of
solace for the martyred jawans. I condemn
such leaders and the dirty politics they are
doing. But for the government and the public
the nation and the state is foremost and I
appeal to everyone to stop playing dirty
politics. Patriotism is important.”
—Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan,
on the political debate following the killing of eight SIMI
members who escaped from Bhopal jail, in FirstPost
“I am not the kind of person
who will collect moss. I am a
rolling stone…. Through
NewsHour I have tried to
dismantle and disrupt old
pillars that have been there
for a long time and I will
continue to do that.”
—Arnab Goswami, in the edit room
while resigning from Times Now
“For the first time, we are
not being allowed to meet
the families of our soldiers.
Kaisa Hindustan banaya ja
raha hai? (What sort of a
country are we living in?).”
—Congress Vice-President Rahul
Gandhi, on being stopped from
meeting the family of the
former armyman who committed
suicide on the OROP issue
“The Italy Congress leaders
are mourning. Why does
the Congress have so much
sympathy for terrorists
whether they belong to
SIMI or LeT.”
—BJP Party Secretary Shrikant
Sharma, at a press conference
“I will forever be grateful to the
media. Otherwise, who knew
me? After Independence if any
politician has received this kind
of special attention, I think I am
the only one.”
—Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at
Ramnath Goenka Awards function in
New Delhi
9. 9VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Sagarika Ghose, journalist
“Dreadedterrorists”breakoutofjail
thensticktogetherfor10hrswaiting
tobeshotinagroup?Darling,yehhai
jailbreak.
Sanjeev Kapoor, chef
WhenIamdetached,myinternalstageis
beyondfluctuation.Iamabletoenjoy
eachandeverythingthatcomesmyway
andbelight.
Subramanian Swamy,
BJP leader
OneoftheemailstoHillaryfromherstaff
dealswithBuddhutakingupthestruggle
of“indigenoustribes“ofOrissa.What
wasUSinterest?
Suhel Seth, socialite
WhenIlastcheckedSIMIwasa
terroristoutfitandnotfolks
deliveringmilk!Solet’sstopthis
sympathycrap!
Shekhar Gupta, journalist
Most“damning”eyewitness
accountsays#SIMImenshoutedslogans,
threwstones.Summarilyexecutedfor
that.Philippines’Dutertewdapprove.
Rajdeep Sardesai,
journalist
Intoday’sIndiastandingwith
Govtisequaltostandingwith
nation.AndnetaswithSwissbank
accountswillgivesermonson
‘nationalism’.
Imran Khan, Pak politician
Congratulationstothenation.Today’s
SCdecisionisadayforcelebration.When
pplstandupfortheirrightsdemocracyis
strengthened.
Tavleen Singh, journalist
Whydooursympathiesalwaysliewith
jihadistsinsteadofthosewhoaretrying
tosaveusfromthem?
“My biggest worry is that discipline gets
compromised when non-official channels are
used to air serious issues…. I feel pained when
social media is used to express concerns, without
reaching out to us directly.”
—Defense Minister Manohar
Parrikar, on OROP and the politicization of an army veteran’s
suicide, in The Indian Express
“To replace your Chairman without
as much as a word of explanation
and without affording him the
opportunity of defending himself....
must be unique in the annals of
corporate history.”
—Cyrus Mistry, in a letter to the board
members of the Tata Group
“I am ashamed of Karan
Johar. I didn’t expect this
from him at all. My dad
has sung songs for Karan’s
father (Yash Johar) and this
is what he has done now.”
—Mohammad Rafi’s son,
Shahid Rafi, on derogatory
dialogue regarding the legendary
singer in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, in
DNA India
“If you can listen to the
same joke about your
parents then we are wrong.
If your blood boils that
how can someone say
something like this about
my parents, then hum sahi
hain beta.”
—Sonu Nigam, on the
controversy over dialogue regard-
ing Mohammad Rafi in Ae Dil Hai
Mushkil, to Bollywoodlife.com
10. EDIA-GO-ROUND
Assaults on journalists on duty have
become commonplace and in yet
another incident, lensmen and re-
porters were assaulted by the security
guards at the Tata Group headquarters,
at Bombay House, when they went
there to report on an Indian Hotels
board meeting. Several photographers,
including HT staffer Arijit Sen and Atul
Kamble from Mid-Day, were injured.
Tata Sons, which has been in the news
over the sacking of its chairman Cyrus
Mistry, later apologized. In the meeting,
all six independent directors of the
firm came out in unanimous support
of Mistry.
Public broadcaster Doordar-
shan is trying to work on
its failed slot auction policy for
the third time. It has issued a
fresh request for proposal
document, seeking bids from
production houses. The pub-
caster has relaxed several
conditions so that more pro-
duction houses can participate
in the auction. The move is a
part of the New Content
Acquisition Scheme
which was recently
approved by the
board of Prasar
Bharati under which
the channel will pro-
cure content through
a bidding process.
DD to auction
primetime slots
The Indian embassy in Qatar
prevented journalist and au-
thor Rana Ayyub from address-
ing a public gathering in Doha.
Ayyub is the author of the re-
cently released book, Gujarat
Files—Anatomy of a Cover
Up, which indicts top officials
and politicians, including the
BJP’s current party presi-
dent, Amit Shah, for their role
in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots.
Ayyub was invited as the
chief speaker at a program to
celebrate the 85th birth an-
niversary of former president
APJ Abdul Kalam. She was
told by the organizers that they
were instructed to either cancel
the event or drop her from the
list of speakers.
Gagging free speech
The government is planning to make
changes in the 60-year-old
cinematography law to improve the
functioning of the Censor Board of Film
Certification (CBFC) which has been
plagued by many controversies. Infor-
mation and Broadcasting Minister M
Venkaiah Naidu is examining the
recommendations made by the Justice
Mudgal Committee and the Benegal
Committee but cannot give a timeline as
of now on bringing the measure in
Parliament. “I can’t give you any time-
frame because of the winter session. I
don’t think I will be able to complete
this. My efforts will certainly be to take
up the new legislation in the session
thereafter,” Naidu told PTI.
New law on CBFC
functioning soon
Lensmen assaulted at
Bombay House
10 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
11. 11VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Lead
HERE is some
awkward irony in
what Prime Minis-
ter Narendra Modi
said at the Indian
Express’ Ramnath Goenka awards
function, and what his government
initiated barely a day later. At the Ex-
press event, Modi had waxed eloquent
on the role of the press and this telling
phrase—“We need to reflect on the
Emergency so no leader dare repeat
it.” A day later, his government re-
peats what was the hallmark of the
Emergency—shutting down media
outlets that were critical of, or embar-
rassed, the powers that be. NDTV, the
target of the Centre’s ire, has been or-
dered to shut shop for 24 hours, an unprece-
dented action in non-Emergency In-dia, for
allegedly showing footage of the Pathankot attack
whi-ch could have compromised security and put
lives in danger. This is a draconian step by any
standards, and more suited to times of war. Un-
less the government believes they are at war, pre-
sumably with Pakistan, to resort to such a move
is nothing but an attack on independent media.
For one, I watched all channels during the pe-
riod that the attack was being telecast live by
every news channel. NDTV’s coverage was no
different from the other leading channels, if any-
thing it was less hysterical. What it did was de-
scribe exactly what sort of weaponry and
ammunition were stored inside the base and how
it could affect lives and the operation underway
to eliminate the terrorists. That is hardly tanta-
mount to being anti-national, as the government’s
directive seems to suggest. The Editors Guild has
rightly condemned the move and demanded that
the directive be withdrawn. For someone who
was a journalist with independent media during
the Emergency, this brings back some bad mem-
ories of those dark days.
Shooting the messenger
The one-day ban on NDTV evokes some bad memories
BY DILIP BOBB
T
During the Pathankot attack, NDTV’s
coverage was no different from the other
leading channels, if anything it was
less hysterical… That is hardly
tantamount to being anti-national.
12. What new-age media had to say about the NDTV ban
Why target NDTV India?
While Modi has expressed his problem with English language news
outfits, both electronic and print, the case of NDTV India—a Hindi
channel—is particularly curious since it was only launched in 2003, after the
2002 Gujarat violence. But it has been facing boycott by BJP spokespersons for
several months, triggered by the network’s decision to criticize the govern-
ment’s handling of the Jawaharlal Nehru University crisis early this year.
—Scroll.in
How deep is the paranoia
Lead
12 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
13. Apart from the subjectivity in-
volved, the ministry’s ban order also
reeks of arbitrariness. On the face of
it, every single news channel that
week violated Section 6(1)p by pro-
viding live coverage of the counter-
terrorist operation as it unfolded
but also by not confining them-
selves to official briefings.
So why has the government chosen
to throw the book at NDTV India?
Could it be because it is the one
channel in Hindi that has given
ample space in its programmes for
subjects and viewpoints that don’t
show the BJP and the government
in the best light (notwithstanding
the ill-advised self-censorship that
the group’s English channel in-
dulged in recently)?
Media freedom stems from the pub-
lic’s right to life, liberty, free speech
and information.
Restrictions on this freedom cannot
be left to the executive. NDTV must
fight this matter out in court and it
is the sacred duty of the entire
Indian media to support the chan-
nel in this.
—The Wire
My question is this: We have a
Prime Minister who came in with a
huge mandate. He is still popular
and little of the sheen has worn off.
Narendra Modi has voraciously
addressed issues that no govern-
ment has had the courage to do. He
has changed foreign policy on its
head with an aggressive stance to
some and peaceful overtures to oth-
ers. He has zero tolerance for cor-
ruption in his ministries. He surely
won me over when he roundly told
off parents for not supervising their
sons’ activities. He is the only Prime
Minister who has addressed the
cleanliness issue and toilets.
Who else could have pushed
“Haath Muh Bum”? He has worked
on making India a manufacturing
hub. When he stands with world
leaders, he carries himself with
aplomb. Then why, oh why, is it
necessary to reduce his stature by
scrutinising the press with a fine-
toothcomb, pulling out the weeds
who criticise his government, and
behave as if every negative report
can actually hurt him? Narendra
Modi is not that fragile; in fact, he
is far from fragile. The country is
not the BJP party where all rivals
have to be cut to get to the top. You
are at the top. Get used to it. Be
magnanimous.
—News Laundry
As citizens of a free nation and as
journalists, we are keenly aware
that an independent media is
among the pillars of a vibrant
democracy. For India to progress,
we must move forward in the direc-
tion of more democracy, not less.
Bans on news organisations are a
big, dangerous step backward.
Attempts to muzzle the free press
must be resisted—we owe it to our
fellow citizens.
The news media are a vital line of
defence with regard to the invalu-
able right to expression, speech, in-
formation and dissent. Actions and
utterances that endorse attempts to
crush these rights, bit by bit—a
newspaper here, a television chan-
nel there unless they toe the line—
will lead us to the precipice.
—The Hoot
“I’m all for discreet reporting of
anti-terror operations by our
security forces. But I have a
sneaking fear that the govern-
ment is making an example of
NDTV India that's way ahead
in sobriety than its competitors,
as a signal to the rest of the
media. Unhappy augury, I’d say.
Sincerely think that the govern-
ment should withdraw its deci-
sion to lock down the channel
for a day.”
—Vinod Sharma, Political Editor,
Hindustan Times, on Facebook
13VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
14. It is clear that irrespective of
the party in power, the I&B
ministry has been going
after TV channels, armed
with the Cable Television
Networks (Regulation) Act
1995 and the rules framed
under it. For years now, the
ministry’s pen-pushers have
been gleefully playing the
roles of Editors-in-Chief for
the channels from their
comfortable office in Delhi's
Shastri Bhavan and evi-
dently enjoying themselves.
Based on their subjective
judgement of what’s right
what’s not, they have been
dishing out orders, and
sometimes getting into
even minute editorial
management. In some
past cases, they ordered
channels to shift pro-
grammes to late hours.
—First Post
“precisely, only the
bhakts are happy
that ravish &
#NDTVIndia have
been targeted,
what could be
more political
than that”
—Hartosh Singh Bal.
Political Editor, The
Caravan, on his
Twitter Handle
I think the government’s move
to ban the channel for a day
was totally uncalled for and a
wrong decision. I condemn it.
In the time of satellite televi-
sion, when everything is being
recorded by channels, it is un-
fair to just blame one channel,
that it leaked sensitive infor-
mation. I am with the Editor’s
Guild on this matter.
—Alok Mehta,
veteran journalist, to VoN
The fallout over the
impending ban is
telling, in some ways
even more revelatory
than the ban itself. Be-
yond the noise and roll
of drums, there are
four strands that
emerge. One, banning
only one media house
when several others are
equally guilty of the
same type of reporting
at this or other times
smacks of hypocrisy at
best and playing to the
galleries at worst. This
may also be a way for
the government to
lessen the heat on itself
for not looking into al-
leged corruption
charges against the
channel. ‘Look we did
something’ is probably
how that could drift.
Second, the G-37
(same people, same
time, same channels) is
getting it rather wrong
because they are re-
markably uniform in
their narrow assump-
tion that this is a
precedent-setting ban.
It is not. No ban re-
sembles another which
is why the need for a
system is pressing, a
system that is robust
and protects the rights
of journalists as well as
that of their employers
while respecting India's
institutions and its
people. More of that in
another post.
The third strand which
is a corollary of the sec-
ond, is the ridiculous
and rather arrogant
position that just be-
cause a national net-
work has been pulled
up, we are getting the
first whiff of an Emer-
gency-like situation.
The very people who
are crying the Emer-
gency wolf are touring
India addressing meet-
ings and seminars on
tolerance and intoler-
ance. Yet others advise
the government on
matters as diverse as
policy and media. Stu-
pidity and complicity
have rarely been so
amply served in recent
weeks. This is a dan-
gerous mix.
The fourth piece is per-
fidious because among
the alarmists are
media people including
some senior journalists
and media bodies who
can be rather whimsi-
cal in choosing to con-
demn or deciding to
ignore problems with
the media. I use the
word perfidy knowing
fully well that it is not
uncommon for editors
and others to be du-
plicitous about why
news stories are
primed, played down
or killed. The ban on
NDTV India must be
called out, but so must
the numerous other
instances when
journalists have even
been killed in their
line of work.
—The News Minute
14 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Lead
15.
16. Lead
16 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
T does not happen every day that
one gets to see mime artistes ap-
pear on a prime time news show
but when they do, the result is a
brilliant take on authority and its
draconian measures. NDTV India’s star anchor,
Ravish Kumar, is known for his wit. What hap-
pens when Kumar uses satire to take a dig at the
government’s action against his own team? Well,
it is this: His prime time show gets a historical
episode and #RavishKumar trends on
social media.
Meanwhile, NDTV India just moved the
Supreme Court against the one-day ban, holding
it to be “illegal” and “unconstitutional”.
Kumar decided to respond to the ban im-
posed by the ministry of information and broad-
casting on NDTV India for allegedly revealing
strategic information during its coverage of the
Pathankot airbase attack in January.
Scheduled for November 9, the day-long
blackout order on NDTV India as well as two
other channels, News Time Assam and Care-
world TV, left the media fraternity outraged. The
move has been termed a “direct violation of the
freedom of the media” by the Editors Guild.
While veterans said that the ban was “reminis-
cent of the Emergency”, the Mumbai Press Club
termed it an attack on freedom of expression and
demanded it be immediately withdrawn.
Kumar invited mime artistes Ishu and Rajesh
Nirmal to play the roles of Authority and Troll
while he sat in the interviewer’s chair. The idea
was to understand what questions a person in
authority would be comfortable answering and
what would make him blow a safety valve.
This is not the first time that Kumar has
raised his voice against the system in a unique
fashion. In February, he had blacked out the
screen during his show following the JNU con-
troversy. “Yeh andhera hi aaj ke TV ki tasveer hai
(this darkness is the picture of television today),”
Ravish’s
Powerful
take on
Authority
The news anchor uses an art form to raise
pertinent questions on the nature of
present-day governance
BY KARAN KAUSHIK
I
17. 17VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Kumar had then said.
Nine months have passed, little seems to have
changed. Kumar’s question during the show, “If
we can’t ask questions, what can we do?”
haunted the journalist community. One point
the show made was that the authorities really
don’t have much to say for themselves and their
behavior. Another was that subtlety could also
be a way to register protest effectively
and one need not always resort to high-
decibel quarrelling.
Pertinently, the show included an excerpt
from the interview of Minister of State for Home
Kiren Rijiju, who was asked about the encounter
killing of eight SIMI men in a village near
Bhopal. He told reporters that the habit of ques-
tioning the authorities and the police is not
“good culture” and that it should stop.
“When did authority and police rise above
questioning? Authority means accountability.
Without it, power becomes something else alto-
gether. When we cannot ask questions,when we
cannot speak freely, what can we do?” Kumar
asked on the show.
The show, which left social media users in
awe of Kumar, was a one-of-a-kind episode.
Kumar began by talking about the rising pollu-
tion levels in the capital and then linked the pol-
luted air with the political air in the state so
skillfully that social media users started talking
about the show and asking their peers to “stop
everything and watch this now”.
While the websites were abuzz with news of
the show, The Telegraph used a TV grab from the
show in its lead story. The Kolkata newspaper
carried images of polluted Delhi and Kumar’s
show under the common headline: “Something
is rotten in the state of Delhi”.
Introducing the show, Kumar quoted from
The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Rajkamal
Jha’s vote of thanks speech during the recently-
held Ramnath Goenka Awards, wherein he said:
“Criticism from government is a badge of honor
for journalists”. Kumar requested young journal-
ists to heed Jha’s advice.
Some of the questions Kumar put forward to
the authority figure and the troll on his show
were—“Who is this chap with you, is he a troll?”
“What will you do when you run out of notices?
Sell paddy?” “Where do you tweet from, Uzbek-
istan or Nepal?” “Does the troll have more au-
thority than you? Is he also the one who is
accountable for failures and losses?” These had
the audience in splits, as did the pair of
mime artists.
Kumar talked about the rising
pollution levels in the capital and
linked it with the polluted air in the
state so skillfully that it created a buzz
instantly on social media.
18. Spotlight
18 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
HE news anchor of the
high-pitch prime-time de-
bate show The Newshour,
Arnab Goswami, has an-
nounced his resignation as
president, news, and editor-
in-chief of leading English news channels Times
Now and ET Now.
In an editorial meeting with 40 employees of
the news channel, Goswami reportedly said he
would be part of independent media and has
plans of opening his own TV channel. The move
came after his absence from The Newshour for a
few days and murmurs about his likely exit.
According to sources, Goswami repeatedly
told his colleagues that “the game has just begun”
and that “independent media is going to thrive”.
He did appear on his show Tuesday night after
eight days of absence when the channel flashed
“Arnab is back” before the show began.
Under Goswami’s leadership, Times Now has
become one of the most watched news channels
and his own show has been dominating prime
time among English news channels.
The News Minute has reported that Goswami
will be a prominent stakeholder in the venture
and the new channel will also fulfil his ambition
of making a larger global footprint and not just
remaining a prime time sensation of Indian tel-
evision news. The grapevine has it that this
channel will be funded by Angel Investor, which
is based out of south India. In his hour-long
farewell speech at the Mumbai studios of Times
Now, he reportedly said that his news channel
What the Nation
Wants to Know
Arnab Goswami’s sudden exit from Times
Now got the nation talking like never before
BY KARAN KAUSHIK
T
19. 19VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
would give BBC and CNN a run for their money,
sparking speculation on whether it actually her-
alded the entry of Fox News in India. Others
pointed out that Vineet Jain has been tweeting
against the Times Now policy vis-à-vis Pakistan
and opined that that had, in fact, been the reason
for his departure.
G
oswami is one of those you may love
or despise but can’t ignore. His resig-
nation triggered a frenzy of commen-
tary on social media. From observing a
“one-minute noise” as a tribute to the anchor to
lamenting the lack of it in the channel post his
resignation, Twitterati came up with sharp quips,
as always. Goswami has always been a soft target
of Twitter trolls and stand-up comics across the
country. But now, social media users feel that the
channel has lost its USP with his exit.
Goswami has achieved such a cult status
among the general public that not only leading
newspapers (HT, The Indian Express, The
Hindu) and online media outlets (Firstpost,
Quint) had the story of his resignation on their
sites but FM radio stations, too, announced the
news early in the morning.
Goswami, born in Guwahati, comes from a
well-known Assamese family. His paternal
grandfather was a lawyer, a Congress leader and
an independence activist while his maternal
grandfather was a Communist, eminent writer
and leader of the opposition in Assam for many
years. Goswami’s father has contested elections
as a BJP candidate and his maternal uncle has
been head of the Assam unit of the same party.
Goswami got a degree in sociology from the
Hindu College in Delhi University and com-
pleted his master’s in social anthropology from
Oxford. He began his career as a journalist with
The Telegraph in Kolkata but soon joined NDTV
in 1995. In 2000, he added an academic feather
to his cap, becoming a Visiting DC Pavate Fellow
in the international studies department at Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge University.
Ever since the launch of Times Now in 2006,
Goswami has been at the helm and it is he who
has been responsible for changing the way de-
bates on news channels are conducted all over
India. Often criticized for being jingoistic and
judgmental on his show, Goswami has a dedi-
cated viewer base of people who love his direct
interrogative style. But he has faced flak for si-
lencing the interviewees’ voices on his show.
Some of his most famous arguments on The
Newshour include those with President Pranab
Mukherjee’s son, Abhijeet Mukherjee, on the lat-
ter’s “dented and painted women” remark, the
“never ever ever” reprimand of BJP member
Meenakshi Lekhi, the snubbing of BJP leader
Kailash Vijayvargiya on the Asaram Bapu rape
case and the face-off with former police officer
Shamsher Khan, who was asked by Goswami to
leave his show for insulting women over the
triple talaq issue.
Even so, Goswami has been criticized for his
unusually submissive behaviour during his in-
terviews of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and MNS chief Raj
Thackeray on his show, Frankly Speaking, avoid-
ing key questions and letting them dictate the
course of the conversation.
The journalist was recently given Y category
security cover from the government after the In-
telligence Bureau perceived a threat to his life
from Pakistan-based terrorist groups. The move
to provide security cover to a journalist was crit-
icized by many, including former Supreme
Court judge Markandey Katju.
Goswami has been criticized for his
unusually submissive behaviour during
his interviews of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, Congress MP Rahul
Gandhi and MNS chief Raj Thackeray.
20. Feel the Silence
rust the CIA to take note of
a magazine like The Cara-
van. Its December 2012
issue, devoted to the media,
has Times Now Editor-in-
Chief and superman news
anchor Arnab Goswami on the cover. “Feel The
Noise” screams the headline under the picture
of the man who sends shivers down the spines
of millions of TV sets every evening at prime
time. Apparently, the undercover CIA operative
in Delhi dispatched a copy of the magazine to
his boss in Washington who in turn forwarded
it to the White House where an official, taking a
cue from apna PMO, sent it back, ordering “a
discreet inquiry”.
Thus came into existence a file at the CIA
headquarters marked the Goswami Dossier. Re-
searchers who traversed back and forth through
the 15 pages (12,000 plus words) of The Caravan
story could “arrive” at very few original conclu-
sions (despite going through the exercise of
reading the text backwards in a Greyhound bus).
To be fair, it must be noted here that no stone or
Google search was left unturned by the CIA to
divine information. In fact, a smart aleck at the
agency, who once wrote a paper on the Spanish
Inquisition and its impact on Brit Glam Rock
Thus came into existence a file at the CIA headquarters marked the
Goswami Dossier.To be fair, it must be noted here that no stone or Google
search was left unturned by the CIA to divine information. By AJITH PILLAI
T
Spotlight
20 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
21. even tried to establish a link between the maga-
zine’s headline and “Cum On Feel the Noize”, a
1973 chartbuster from Slade, that bunch of long-
haired chaps from Wolverhampton.
An analysis by a team of pop psychoanalysts
of the song’s chorus—“So, cum on feel the noize/
Girls grab the boys/ We get wild, wild, wild”—
failed to yield more than the broad deduction
that Goswami liked a studio full of noise and this
perhaps reminded him of the comforting audio
levels at the bazaars where gossip was openly
traded in Guwahati, a city where he spent some
time during his younger days.
Anyway, that didn’t amount to much by way
of insight and the CIA virtually closed the
dossier when someone noticed a curious entry—
an observation by a former colleague of
Goswami that “Arnab lived, ate, slept and dreamt
TV”. This was communicated to the higher-ups
in the agency with the noting that “decoding Mr
Goswami’s dreams may perhaps be worth
the while.”
That’s where NASA came into the picture.
The space agency, as is well known, has several
quirky inventors who remind one of “Q”—the
incredible gadget guru in James Bond movies.
Well, to cut a long story short, NASA’s mad sci-
entist who goes by the name Hi-Q had just de-
veloped the dream decoder — a device attached
to a spy satellite which could snoop into the in-
nermost recesses of the mind and translate im-
pulses in the brain into simple English. (A test
done on a sleeping New York cop yielded this re-
sult—“Man, don’t gimme burgers when I’m
askin’ for caviar and honey”).
Well, the decoder was programmed to catch
Goswami as he slunk into REM (Rapid Eye
Movement) sleep when dreams with maxi-
Goswami liked a studio full of noise as it
perhaps reminded him of the audio levels
at the bazaars where gossip was openly
traded in Guwahati, where he
spent some time during his younger days.
21VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
22. mum recall occur. The first three nights threw
up nothing remarkable—the usual happy
dreams; Arnab whipping up furious passions as
politicians and activists wearing Stetson hats and
riding high horses took pot-shots at each other
with tongues that looked like Colt 45s; the acer-
bic Goswami testing the skills of sheepish cricket
board members by asking them to recite multi-
plication tables and demanding that they explain
to the nation how they divide and rule when
they can’t multiply. “Gentlemen, the arithmetic
has changed and the tables have turned,” he fi-
nally says as he switches to another dream where
he takes on forest department officials guilty of
providing the lions of Gir with watered down
eau de cologne when the beasts were demanding
“original fragrance Brut deodorant.”
Finally, after all those happy dreams, the pa-
tient monitoring paid off on the fourth night.
Hi-Q was all excited as the printer at the
receiving station in San Bernardino came alive.
So here goes the transcript marked “Dream Se-
quence 10”:
Setting: Times Now studios, Mumbai. Sub-
ject sees a TV monitor on which he is shown
conducting a debate. Topic: Who is future prime
ministerial material —Rahul Gandhi or Naren-
dra Modi? Participants: Mani Shankar Aiyar,
Digvijay Singh (both Congress), Venkaiah
Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman (BJP), D. Raja (CPI)
and Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M).
Arnab Gowami (AG): On Newshour tonight
we debate the question that the nation wants ad-
dressed. And it wants it addressed with urgency
Anupam Kher Verified account @AnupamPkher 18h18 hours ago
Dear #ArnabGoswami. This is called Stardom. Whole country is talking
about you. Because you took country's side & made a DIFFERENCE. #JaiHo
Ashoke Pandit @ ashokepandit 18h18 hours ago
Never in d past has an anchor leaving a news channel become national news
in itself. Shows d popularity of the man #ArnabGoswami. @TimesNow
MODIfied Ritesh . @IamRitzV 18h18 hours ago
He put his Nation First! He raised questions! He bashed Anti-natnls! Tonight
Nation Wants To Know when will u make a come back #ArnabGoswami
Amit Golani Verified account D@GolOpinions 6h6 hours ago
Pakistan claim moral victory after #ArnabGoswami resigns
Tinu Cherian AbrahamVerified account D@tinucherian 7h7 hours ago
Positions suitable for #ArnabGoswami & that he has 'prior experience' * Army
Chief * Chief Justice * Foreign Affairs Min(Pak) * executioner
MediaCrooks D@mediacrooks 8h8 hours ago
If #ArnabGoswami says “Game has just begun”... Remember... Mukesh
Ambani did say “I like Arnab... I watch him”...
ShainaNCVerified account D@ShainaNC 14h14 hours ago
Dear #ArnabGoswami change is the essence of life. @TimesNow loss will be
someone's gain as u r a journalist of integrity.#ArnabQuitsTimesNow
Champ McLovin D@BolshoyBooze 18h18 hours ago
#ArnabGoswami's return will be bigger than return of Superman, Batman and
Spiderman, all put together
Aditya Menon D@AdityaMenon22 20h20 hours ago
#ArnabGoswami quits. TIMES NOW can finally write its name in lower case
now
Virender Swag D@virender_swag 20h20 hours ago
#ArnabGoswami resigned from Times Now to Join Pakistan Channel to Kill
Terrorists Live on TV
Harsh GoenkaVerified account D@hvgoenka 20h20 hours ago
With #ArnabGoswami resigning, the Nation should go into mourning and ob-
serve ' two minutes noise'.
Alankar Sawai D@AlankarSawai 20h20 hours ago
Arnab Goswami took the plea to have a noise free Diwali very seriously. He
resigned from Times Now. Noise pollution will be down by 80%.
Sorabh PantVerified account D@hankypanty 20h20 hours ago
I guess Y Security could not give Job Security. #ArnabGoswami
Sorabh PantVerified account D@hankypanty 20h20 hours ago
WHAT? Arnab Goswami resigns from Times Now? Is this real? BUT, WE DID-
N'T LET HIM FINISH! LET HIM FINISH! LET HIM FINISH! 1 MINUTE
Peace_Noble D@khybereagle 31m31 minutes ago
Peace_Noble Retweeted BBC Urdu
#Delhi air pollution up, noise pollution down #arnabgoswami resigns!
@geonews_urdu
Twitterati Zapped
“One has heard of
politicians walking out
of TV debates but this
must be the first time
in broadcast history
that an anchor has had
to stage a walkout.”
22 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Spotlight
23. on this channel— your channel. Ladies and gen-
tlemen, it’s the big Rahul Gandhi versus Naren-
dra Modi debate ahead of the 2014 elections and
Times Now has a line-up which will discuss the
plusses and minuses of both leaders threadbare
so that the people of this country can decide for
themselves. So, let me set the ball rolling by ask-
ing Mani Shankar Aiyar to give his assessment
of Rahul Gandhi.
Mani Shankar Aiyar (MSA): Arnab, for
once I have nothing to say.
AG: What do you mean? Surely, you’re not
on national television to say that you are at a loss
for words when it comes to commenting on
Rahul Gandhi! Saying something like that on
this channel could cost you a Congress ticket.
MSA: Arnab, this loss of words can happen.
Some get stolen; others are taken away by force
and some others you eat when you are put on a
diet and hunger strikes. As for the Congress
ticket, I believe a rail reservation can get me a lot
further. Also, I must take the opportunity to tell
the nation—I mean the viewers of Times Now—
something that one of my school-teachers told
me—speech is silver but silence is gold and the
price of the first can never outstrip the worth of
the second.
AG: I guess the fury of the debate is getting
to Mani, so, we’ll get back to him later. But Divi-
jay Singh you surely must have a view given that
you are Rahul Gandhi’s close adviser…
Digvijay Singh (DVS): Well, ever since they
put up blinds in my room it’s curtains as far as
views go. So like Mani, I’m speechless.
AG: Ok, I think the Congress is truly vexed
and therefore tongue-tied. So, let’s go over to
Venkaiah Naidu…
Venkaiah Naidu (VN): Silence is not only
gold but also platinum. So, I say, Rajdeep, sorry,
Arnab, what’s the point in speaking when you
can’t walk the talk with me on NDTV 24x7?
Same and ditto are the views of Nirmala who
wants to exercise her fundamental right to be
seen but not heard. As some poet said a thing of
silence is a joy forever.
AG (visibly angry): What’s happening? Loss
of words, right to silence, walk the talk,
no views…
Sitaram Yechury: I must point out that the
Left parties are strictly going by recent research
which conclusively proves that chances of mak-
ing mistakes is directly proportional to how
much you speak or write. So we would rather err
on the side of silence.
AG: Something is surely wrong, horribly
gone wrong…
DVS: Arnab, you’ll love this story. Last week
I went for dinner to my friends, the Lambas, in
Bhopal. They’re known to invite guests for a
meal and go through the evening without utter-
ing a word. I had almost forgotten the practice
the family follows till I accepted their invite.
Well, after dessert Lamba senior scribbled a note
and passed it to me. It read: “Digvijay Singhji,
hope you enjoyed your dinner and the Silence of
the Lambas!” After that I vowed not to talk pol-
itics, at least not on national television.
AG (worked up): I think I better call off this
discussion right now on Times Now. One has
heard of politicians walking out of TV debates
but this must be the first time in broadcast his-
tory that an anchor has had to stage a walkout.
And it’s all happening exclusively on your chan-
nel. But remember, ladies and gentlemen—the
nation is watching… .
Subject gets up in cold sweat. Immense relief
is writ large on his face as he slowly realizes he
just had a nightmare. (Transcript Ends)
“Feel The Noise” screams the headline
under the picture of the man who
sends shivers down the spines
of millions of TV sets every
evening at prime time.
23VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
24. Event
24 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
HERE were murmurs, if not
howls of protest, when the
anti-establishment newspaper,
The Indian Express, chose to
invite Prime Minister Naren-
dra Mo-di—a man who has a sharply adversarial
relationship with a polarised media, divided be-
tween unrelenting critics and unqualified admir-
ers. It has been said that The Indian Express has
fallen in line, as it were. It is a perception that
will remain in the air and be part of the buzz for
a while.
What was surprising, and perhaps not so sur-
prising, was Modi’s speech at the awards cere-
mony. He made the more-than-customary ref-
erence to the Emergency, and said that each gen-
eration has to take stock of it so that no political
leader even dares to think of imposing Emer-
gency again. The exact words he used were: “Aaj
nishpakh bhaav se us (the Emergency period) ka
meemamsa har peedhi mein hoti rehni chahiye
(Today, in an objective manner there is a need
to have a critical look at that period).”
The prime minister said that there should be
criticism of the government, but there is also
need to be on guard against tearing the social
fabric. It is a double-edged assurance where gov-
ernments can argue that what the media is say-
ing by way of criticizing the government is
damaging the social fabric.
The other emphatic view by Modi, and there
would be many of his critics who would remain
skeptical, is that government should not have
anything to do with the media. He probably
wanted to say that government-owned media
would be a contradiction in terms.
If Modi really meant what he said then he
should perhaps dismantle the Ministry of Infor-
mation and Broadcasting, and remove the insid-
ious controls over All India Radio (AIR) and
Doordarshan (DD). Whether he likes it or not,
AIR and DD are seen as government mouth-
pieces, and the favorites of the government find
a place in their ranks.
The other interesting idea that Modi threw
up was the need for India as an emerging power
to have a global media organization rivaling the
dominance of the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera. It
seems that Modi and his government would
throw their weight behind such a venture if any
of the country’s media moguls was willing to
step out on to the world stage. The question, of
course, remains whether the Indian global
media arm is expected to present Indian na-
tional interests. It cannot be denied that BBC
and CNN, whatever their protestations of objec-
tivity, do reflect the national concerns of the
United Kingdom and the United States, respec-
tively. They are not too different from the official
China Central Television (CCTV).
Modi Hits
Right Notes
The PM batted for a global
media company from India at
the RNG awards’ function
BY PARSA VENKATESHWAR RAO JR
T
COURTING MEDIA?
Modi at the RNG
awards’ ceremony
Senior journalist Akshaya
Mukul, in a gesture of
protest against the rising
intolerance in the country,
boycotted the Ramnath
Goenka Excellence in
Journalism Awards. Mukul
had been conferred the
award in the non-fiction
category for his book, Gita
PressandtheMakingof
HinduIndia, .The author
said he was honored to re-
ceive the award but did not
wish to be felicitated by
Modi who was the Guest of
Honor at the awards cere-
mony.“I cannot live with
the idea of Modi and me in
the same frame, smiling at
the camera even as he
hands over the award to
me,”Mukul told TheCara-
van. His book discusses
the rise of the nationalist
and militant Hindu right-
wing forces.
Journo refuses
award from
PM Modi
25. 25VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Event
BJECTIVE and effective jour-
nalists from even remote areas
are being acknowledged with
the Press Council of India’s
National Awards for Excel-
lence for the past four years.
Instituted in 2012, the National Awards for
Excellence in Journalism have been given for
outstanding contribution in different categories.
For the year 2016, the Press Council has an-
nounced the names of the winners. Veteran
journalist Surendra Nihal Singh has been se-
lected for the highest Raja Ram Mohan Award,
carrying a cash award of `1 lakh. Earlier, Singh,
a former editor of The Statesman, won the pres-
tigious International Editor Award in New York
for opposing imposition of Emergency by Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975.
The awards will be conferred on November
16, during the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the
Press Council at Vigyan Bhavan. The eight-
member jury comprised Ravindra Kumar (con-
venor), five members of the council and three
other prominent professionals.
T
here are several other categories. Ren-
jith John of Deepika Daily of Kerala is
being awarded in the Rural Journalism
& Development category which carries a cash
award of `50,000. The Special Mention Certifi-
cate in the same category will be shared by
Arvind Kumar Singh (freelancer from the capi-
tal) and Xavier Selvakumar of Dinamilar daily
from Coimbatore.
Among the photo journalists, TP Dhanesh of
Malayala Manorama and Pritam Bandyopad-
hyay of The Asian Age have been selected in the
Single News Picture category which has a cash
award of `25,000. The Special Mention Certifi-
cate in the category is being given to Vijay
Verma of PTI, New Delhi.
The Photo Feature category, carrying a cash
award of `50,000, has been won by Renuka Puri
of The Indian Express, New Delhi.
The award for the Best Newspaper Art in the
feature category of photo journalism goes to
Baiju Poulose of Malayala Manorama, while the
Special Mention Certificate will be given to
Rohit Bose of the same organization.
However, there is a reason for disappoint-
ment. This year’s PCI awards are dampened by
the fact that no award is being given for inves-
tigative journalism.
PCI Awards Announced
Former Statesman Editor Surendra Nihal Singh gets Raja Ram Mohan Award
BY ABU TURAB
O
STELLAR CAREER
S Nihal Singh was at the
helm of The Statesman and
The Indian Express, and
penned an autobiographical
work titled Ink in My Veins
26. Obit
26 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
IRISH Nikam: Life is fleeting,
fragile—and unfair. Journalists
know it well because we see this
all the time. It’s the nature of
our business. News of Girish’s
death popped up on my screen as I wrapped up
my story on a deadline. But I shut it out of my
eye line till I hit the send button. I wanted to
grieve without interruption and distraction—for
an immense friend.
We knew it was coming, but I had no idea it
would be so soon after the episode in the US last
year, because he looked as good as new when I
met him earlier this year. American plumbing, I
joked to him.
He had just landed in NYC to cover Prime
Minister Modi’s visit late September last year
when he had a heart attack the same evening,
soon after he checked into the hotel. I knew he
was coming to NYC that evening and expected
him to phone me. Instead, I got a call from his
colleague telling me of his heart attack.
The immediate attention, the so-called
“golden hour” saved him, he told me later, when
I went up to see him. Morbid hacks that we are,
we talked about whether he would have survived
in Bangalore or Delhi, with the ambulance pos-
sibly stuck in traffic or breaking down on way
to hospital.
He was full of praise for the American sys-
tem, full of gratitude that they had not asked any
question about money or insurance and instead
saved his life first. Wouldn’t have happened in
India, he insisted, telling me how cynical every-
one and everything in India had become. We
argued, as usual, with me raging against the US
healthcare system and how lousy it was, and how
easy it still was in India to just drop into the
home of a neighborhood physician. As usual, he
ribbed me about having been away from India
too long.
Our arguments, over 30 years of friendship,
ranged across life’s experience, and life and death
itself. Dhyan was about to be born when Girish
had his heart attack in NYC, and once the initial
danger had passed and all the plumbing of his
blood vessels was done, he insisted that I should
first take care of my home front.
“Magnay, don’t die on me,” I warned him,
using the colloquial in Kannada (our mother
tongue) for the Hindi equivalent of saaley. “Illa
guru, I still have plenty of life in me and plenty
of work to do,” he said somberly.
A few days later, he phoned, saying he was
bored stiff and tired of American hospital food.
Last of a
Vanishing Tribe
Girish Nikam, 59, a stalwart who worked with
the Star of Mysore, The Indian Express, India
Today, Deccan Chronicle and News Today
before joining Rajya Sabha TV, died of a
major heart attack on November 7. Senior
journalists Chidanand Rajghatta and
Inderjit Badhwar pay tribute
G
27. 27VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
He thought he had recovered, but the doctors
would not let him go before some more lab tests
came in, and he was worried about mounting
bills. We discussed the US healthcare system, in-
surance etc, but his immediate need was food –
spicy food. He wanted to eat some hot Indian
chicken curry.
So the next day I tootled up to NYC, carrying
the aroma of home-made chicken curry and red
rice all along the Amtrak corridor. We spend a
few precious hours discussing everything under
the sun, as he scarfed down the meal. We walked
around the hospital corridors for an hour, mar-
veling at the number of Indian-origin physicians
there (some of whom handled his case).
I took the night train back. It was an only-
for-Girish trip. Dhyan stayed in his mummy’s
tummy in deference to our meeting, arriving a
few days later.
I
n February this year, we were in Bangalore,
and of course he had to come and meet us,
having missed seeing Dhyan soon after he
was born. He was enormously fond of Diya, and
they nattered non-stop like old friends. Friends,
including Nirupama and Sudhakar, dropped in,
and we all had a jolly good time that afternoon
talking politics and history. He looked good, and
I was pleased that he had dropped some weight
although I kept a sharp eye on his eating and
drinking, and gave him a small lecture, sounding
insufferable even to my own ears.
He said he was working out a bit, and gener-
ally felt better. We talked of second innings and
third innings (in another context; it was an in-
sider joke between us).
There was seldom a week we wouldn’t chat,
thanks to FB, both directly and on the back
channel. I rarely declined his invitation – often
demand – to be on his TV show, largely because
(I joked to him more than once), he at least al-
lowed people to complete their sentences, unlike
a certain anchor friend of ours he was not very
fond of.
In our last exchange on FB msgr few weeks
back, I asked him to be done with his questions
to me in the top half of his show because I had
another appointment and he would end up hear-
ing the sound of the metro train I was going to
take if he kept me on air. He obliged. We should
have kept each other waiting.
Rest in peace, my friend.
— Chidanand Rajghatta
G
irish Nikam suffered a heart attack. Passed
away at 7 pm at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
He did a program on media freedom on RSTV
before he collapsed.This is a huge loss to the nation’s
media, and to me personally. Along with Farzand he
was among the last of a vanishing tribe of incorrupt-
ible.We were always in touch after leaving India
Today.He was my co-author on my book on Niira
Radia. He wrote extensively for IndiaLegalmagazine
and he featured me often on RSTV.
I am heartbroken. I learned of this tragedy from
ParsaVenkateshwara Rao Jr, who along with Dilip
Bobb, Ramesh Menon and Ajith Pillai work with me
at IndiaLegalmagazine.We are all in grief this
evening and want to share it with all those who
knew and loved him.
—Inderjit Badhwar
O
K, it was one year back, around this
time (NewYork time), that I was ad-
mitted to the NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital in an unconscious state, going
through a heart failure.This is probably the
first pics taken in the ICU.The prompt and
professional care that I received after being
rushed in an ambulance, from my Hotel
room, is supposed to have saved my life. I
need to thank many people who came to
look me up and kept in touch on FB and
wished and prayed for me from all over the
world. Special thanks, of course to Gurdeep
Singh Sappal, who was there with me and
handled the crisis with great aplomb and
sensitivity. Some people asked, did you see
the gates to Hell or Heaven, during that
period you were almost gone? I am sorry
to disappoint them, Heaven certainly not,
even Hell was not visible!! And certainly
not the 72 virgins or angels, or even for
that matter our good oldYama! I am sure
he is waiting, but i guess he will have to
wait for some time now!
When Nikam thanked well-wishers
A loss for Indian media
28. Books
N retrospect it seemed ridicu-
lous. For the life of him Hari
couldn't believe that he could
have been so careless. But when
slip-ups happen they just occur.
Like a road accident. When it's
over, the sequence that led to its occurrence can
be visualized in great detail. Suddenly all the ways
in which it could have been avoided come
to mind.
So it was with Hari. He and Vandy had given
the other junkies a slip and had settled down to a
quiet smoke on the steps leading to the Asiatic
Society Library when the cop van pulled up. The
two had not been alert enough, although they
ought to have been careful not to smoke at a pub-
lic place from where there was no easy escape. As
a result of this oversight, he and Vandy were
caught red handed with fourteen vials of brown
between them. The policemen didn't bother to
ask any questions. They just bundled them into
the van and drove them to the Colaba police sta-
tion nearby.
“Name," thundered the sub inspector.
Hari and Vandy instinctively did not reveal
their real identities.
“Address?”
TAKING OFF
Author Ajith Pillai (right) with political
commentator Saeed Naqvi
Is It so Hard to
Give It up?
AJITH PILLAI’S debut novel Junkland Journeys explores the dark lanes of Mumbai in the
Eighties through the eyes of former drug addict Hari Menon. An extract
I
28 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
29. “We are both from Kerala," Hari said, his
voice quivering.
"Why are you in Bombay? Don't you have
enough drugs in Kerala?"
At this point one of the constables interjected
in Marathi. He wondered whether Kerala was in
India. Had they chanced upon two LTTE opera-
tives? He was asked to shut up by his superior.
"Where do you stay in Bombay?"
"At Antop Hill with a friend."
"Are the two of you married?"
"No, but we plan to get married soon."
"If you smoke this sugar for some more time
then you won't have to. Don't you know gard
makes you impotent?" That was the inspector's
idea of a joke.
He emptied out Hari's wallet. It had two
creased hundred rupee notes and a tiny pocket
diary with telephone numbers. Vandy's handbag
was empty save for a few currency notes, a chap-
stick and a comb. The cops had already taken
possession of the vials of brown sugar.
"What do you do in Bombay?" the
inspector asked.
"We are here on a holiday."
"What do you do in Kerala?"
"Nothing in particular."
"What about your parents?”
"Both our parents are school teachers,"
Hari responded.
The inspector was disappointed. This was
turning out to be a waste of time. He turned to
the constable and said in Marathi: "We can't get
anything out of them. And summoning their par-
ents from Kerala is not worth the trouble. Any-
way we can't expect too much money from some
poorly paid school teachers."
The inspector turned to Hari: "What about the
friend you are staying with? Contact him. Tell
him to come here immediately. You know you
two are in serious trouble. I can book you for ped-
dling and then you are in for some ten years. It is
a non-bailable offence. If you plead you are an ad-
dict then we will send you to the psychiatry wing
of a government hospital. Very few people come
out sane from there.” The inspector loved spelling
out depressing scenarios—it seemed to give him
some sadistic pleasure.
For a brief moment Hari wracked his brain.
Who could he turn to? His father, Cherry, AB...
Gunbhai, the smooth operator he had encoun-
tered during his aimless wanderings through the
city. Yes, he was the one person who could help.
He asked the inspector for the pocket diary, lo-
cated Gunbhai's number and requested the use of
the telephone on the officer's desk.
Luckily, Gunbhai picked up on the fifth ring.
Hari mustered whatever Tamil he knew and con-
veyed to him that he was in a jam at the Colaba
police station.
The voice at the other end was reassuring.
"Don't worry. I will sort things out. It will take me
an hour to get there."
Hari heaved a sigh of relief. "My friend will be
here in an hour," he told the inspector who
launched off on a sermon which reminded
29VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
REFUGE OF THE
HOPELESS
Getting together
for a smoke
30. word with the police officer in private. He then
made a few calls. Within half an hour things were
sorted out and Hari and Vandy were let off with
the stern warning that they should not be seen
doing anything illegal within the jurisdiction of
the police station. “Go back to Kerala. Don't
waste your life here,” was sub inspector Man-
shinde's parting advice.
Gunbhai led the two of them to the nearby
Olympia restaurant and ordered tea and biscuits.
"Okay, the problem is solved. But, tell me, how
did you get into this mess and who is this girl?"
Gunbhai was curious.
“Oh, I couldn't introduce her earlier. This is
Vandy—Vandana. Vandy, this is Gunbhai.”
Gunbhai described himself as Hari's friend. "I
am what they call a social worker although at
times I also indulge in some anti-social activity,"
Gunbhai could be quite witty at the oddest
of times.
Hari told him his side of the story. He skipped
most of the details since Gunbhai seemed to
know all about brown sugar addiction. “I know
Hari of Bhola the pimp. "You come from re-
spectable families," the inspector said, "Now look
at what you have done to yourselves." He turned
to Vandy, addressing her for the first time: "I'm
sure your parents didn't bring you up and send
you to a good school and college for this. You are
educated people, not rag pickers. And what is all
this boyfriend-girlfriend business. In Sangli,
where I come from, a boy meets a girl for a few
minutes and then the parents sit down with the
pundit and decide an auspicious date for the mar-
riage. At your age you should be a mother of
two kids..."
The inspector droned on. Finally, and merci-
fully, Gunbhai announced his arrival. He had a
DREARY WORLD
Shuklaji Street in
Kamathipura, a hub
for Mumbai’s
drug addicts
The two had not been alert enough,
although they ought to have been
careful not to smoke at a public
place from where there was no
easy escape.
30 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Books
31. how bad it gets. Some of the boys in Dharavi were
into it. You have to somehow get yourself out of
this mess.” Thankfully, Gunbhai did not comment
on Hari's unkempt look or emaciated body. He
merely said he wanted to help and could put Hari
and Vandy in touch with some doctors who spe-
cialized in treating addicts. “These are private
doctors and they run good clinics with AC rooms
—not like those filthy wards in the government
hospitals.”
“But...” Hari did not know how to say that he
did not wish to see a doctor.
"Don't bother about the money. I'll take care
of that. Just leave it to Gunbhai."
Hari was in a bind. He could not brush off
Gunbhai after he had extended himself to help
him. Then a thought flashed through his mind—
perhaps he and Vandy would be left alone once
he revealed that he was Captain Jimmy Menon's
son and that his father would look after their hos-
pitalization and rehabilitation. But this revelation
only goaded Gunbhai into action.
“Why didn't you ever tell me that before?”
Gunbhai was incredulous.
“You know him?”
“Who doesn't know Captain sahib. Why, I was
the one who helped resolve the big strike at the
Andheri unit of the biscuit factory. Ask him, your
father was very appreciative of my work. He may
have kept me at a distance from his family, but I
know your father very well. I also know your
brothers who help him with his business. It’s
rather strange that the Captain never told me he
had a third son...”
Now that he knew who Hari was, Gunbhai
was even more determined to get him and his
girlfriend out of the hole they had fallen into. “I
must take you two to a doctor. If not, God will not
forgive me,” Gunbhai was adamant.
Hari was quick to realize that he had to act
quickly before things went out of hand. First of
all he swore Gunbhai to secrecy. “My father
should hear nothing of this mess. I left home, say-
ing I’m off on an extended holiday. He probably
thinks I am in some resort in the hills or relaxing
on a beach in Goa. As for seeing a doctor, I know
someone who I can trust. Can we go to him?”
Gunbhai was agreeable to that. “I don’t care
who the doctor is. All I want to see is that you are
treated and looked after well. They tell me it is dif-
ficult to kick the habit.”
So off they drove to the suburbs with Gunbhai
at the wheel. It took them an hour and a half to
reach Dr. Bhansali’s rehab clinic close to the Bori-
vali National Park. Hari had been there on several
occasions but as the doctor’s friend. Today, he was
a patient. So he sat in the waiting room for his and
Vandy’s turn.
“Well, look who’s here! You seem to have
changed," Dr. Bhansali was effusive. He intro-
duced himself to Vandy and asked her and Hari
to be comfortable.
“Okay, tell me what the two of you have been
doing with yourselves. And what can I do for
you,” the doctor could see that the two
needed help.
Hari was tentative. “How do I put it? Since I
met you last a lot of things have happened. I met
Vandy, we became really close. But the two of us
also went astray. Things didn't stop with hash and
grass—we are like deep into smack and white."
“What made you come to me? Do you want to
give up or were you forcefully brought here?”
“Well, a bit of both,” Hari took time to answer
the question. Hari and Vandy shared their expe-
riences. At the end of it the doctor said that he
was ready to help but he would first have to put
them through motivational therapy. He ex-
Hari heaved a sigh of relief. “My friend
will be here in an hour,” he told
the inspector who launched off
on a sermon which reminded
Hari of Bhola the pimp.
31VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
32. on going the way we are. Forget our health, we
also run the risk of being nabbed by the cops.
We could end up in the cooler for ten or
twelve years...”
The next few weeks whizzed by. There were
therapy sessions every evening which Hari slowly
began looking forward to. When the doctor felt
the two of them were motivated enough, their
parents were informed. Belying all his son’s fears,
Captain Menon was calm and collected and as-
sured Hari that he was with him. “Get well first.
That’s the first priority. After that we can think of
other things.” Vandy’s mother broke down when
she saw her daughter but her husband calmed her
down. He said he had full faith in the doctor. The
Captain chose not to take his wife into confi-
dence. “She won’t be able to handle it. So, I have
not breathed a word to your mother. I will per-
haps break it to her later,” he told his son.
It was on a Friday evening that Hari and
Vandy were formally admitted to the clinic. A few
hours before that they had their last smoke. Was
it that difficult giving up? At that point Hari cer-
tainly believed it was impossible. But, looking
back, it was not the uphill struggle it was made
out to be.
No doubt, the withdrawals were almost un-
bearable. But there were several addicts who
could not afford expensive hospitals and thera-
pists who just gave up on their own. “All that was
required was will power but we believed that it
was like climbing Everest,” he confessed to Vandy
in retrospect.
“Maybe, we were weak-willed.”
Vandy and he were checked into separate
rooms. The results of the routine pre-detox tests
gave an all-clear and they were ready. “Think of
it as a dive into the deep end of a pool. When you
surface you will be in a new world.” That was Dr.
Bhansali’s parting words as he gave each of them
a handful of pills. As he lay down Hari could feel
sleep slowly overcoming him. For the first time
in his life he said a little prayer...
plained the detox and rehab process in detail. But
he put a rider—their parents would have to be in-
formed before he could start any treatment.
Meanwhile, they could try to cut down their drug
intake and come to the clinic for therapy sessions
every evening.
“Don't worry, everything will work out,” the
doctor was most reassuring.
Though he was initially repulsed by the very
idea of seeking medical help, Hari could later
sense a surge of relief. After thanking Gunbhai
profusely and promising him that he and Vandy
wouldn't miss their next appointment with the
doctor, they went to Dongri to score.
Later that evening they introspected over all
that had happened. Was it for the good? Hari was
convinced it was. “We couldn’t have carried on
for too long. We had to stop sometime.” But
Vandy was a little unsure. “I heard that the detox
process can be pretty painful despite all the med-
ication they give you.”
She was also worried about her parents being
brought into the picture. “My folks will be deeply
upset. I shudder at the thought of them coming
here and seeing me in this state. Do we have to
really go through this?”
As Hari saw it, fate had ordained that they
must give up. “Of course we will have to face our
parents. But think of what will happen if we keep
JUNKLAND
JOURNEYS
Author AjithPillai
PublisherAuthors
Upfront/Paranjoy
Pages:259;price:`325
32 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Books
33. EDIA-GO-ROUND
Journalists in Kerala have been
banned from reporting from the
premises of courts in the state for a
long time now. Even after interven-
tions by the state governor, chief
minister, senior political leaders and
press associations, the scenario re-
mains bleak. In an attempt to im-
prove the situation, the Regional
Committee of the Indian Newspaper
Society and Kerala Television Federa-
tion has written an open letter to the
Chief Justice of India on the occa-
sion of Kerala High Court’s birthday.
The letter said: “Repeated assur-
ances given to the media now seem
in vain, with no access to daily or-
ders and judgments so as to enable
real-time coverage. The media room
continues to remain closed.”
After spending
more than 80
days in jail, Tausif
Ahmed Bhat, a
Kashmiri youth in
Chhattisgarh ar-
rested for liking a
cartoon on Face-
book, has finally
been granted bail by Jus-
tice Goutam Bhat of the
Chhattisgarh High Court,
on his fourth bail plea. The
judge said that Bhat was
not the author of the post
and no violence had
taken place after the post
was published.
Kashmiri youth
gets bail after 80 days
The government is seeking out-
side professional help to trans-
form Doordarshan, which has
been lagging in terms of revenues
and viewership because of the
popularity of private sec-
tor channels. An organi-
zation under the Ministry
of Information and Broad-
casting has issued a ten-
der to look for a
consultant to revive the
public broadcaster as a
successful medium of
mass communication.
The consultant will have
to undertake a comprehensive
view on the projects and initiatives
executed by Doordarshan and pre-
pare a solution for addressing the
difficulties faced by it.
DD set for revival
Ajay Devgn’s Shivaay
has run into trouble
after a lawyer from Mum-
bai wrote a strong letter to
the ministry of information
and broadcasting, the
president of India and the
CBFC chairperson, asking
for strict action against
Devgn for insulting Lord
Shiva in the song “Bolo
Har Har”. The letter
claimed that the Shiva
Panchakshara Strotram
has been used in a
provocative and offensive
manner. CBFC Chairperson
Pahlaj Nihalani com-
mented: “We’ve taken
serious note of the letter,
as it addresses a religious
sentiment.”
Shivaay in trouble
Kerala journos write letter
—Compiled by Karan Kaushik
33VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
34. This year’s BBC photography awards saw contestants submitting pic-
tures taken after months of rigorous on-field research into the habits of
the wild animals that they wanted to shoot.The more they learnt, the
longer was the wait for the right shot.To give you a taste of the compe-
tition, we reprint some winning shots. Especially eye-catching is the
“Urban category at night” winner, taken by an Indian
Photo Feature
Skills
Into the Wild
34 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
35. ALLEY CAT
(Facing page) This won
Nayan Khanolkar first
place in “Urban
category at night,” and
took four months time. It
was shot in a suburb of
Mumbai
bordering the Sanjay
Gandhi National Park,
which sees frequent close
encounters and occasional
attacks by the cats, when
the leopards slink in
looking for food. For the
Warli people this is an
accepted part of their life
and culture.
ENTWINED LIVES
(Right) Photographer Tim
Laman won the 2016
Wildlife
Photographer of the Year
(WPY) competition. He
used a remote camera
placed in the rainforest
canopy of Gunung Palung
National Park in
Indonesian Borneo to
capture this orangutan
climbing high into a tree to
reach some figs
THE PANGOLIN PIT
(Left) Paul Hilton won the
Wildlife Photojournalist
Award: Single image
category for this picture.
The composition shows a
seizure of 4,000 frozen
pangolins that were
destined to be illegally
shipped from Belawan in
Sumatra to Chinese and
Vietnamese markets.
35VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
36. THE MOON ANDTHE CROW
(Above) Taken by
16-year-old Gideon
Knight this shows a
crow in a tree backlit by
the moon. It is another
perspective on the
wildlife that exists in
our towns and cities.
ROADTO DESTRUCTION
(Right) Picture by Tim
Laman in Indonesian
Borneo and Sumatra.
The El Niño weather
event turned the 2015
dry season into a
drought, and
extensive fires spiralled
out of control, sending
heat and smoke across
the region.
Photo Feature
Skills
36 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
37. PURSUED BY FIRE
(Left) Photo by Tim
Laman shows
an orangutan and
her offspring
seeking refuge from
the burning forest.
In 2015, fires
affected much of
Indonesia. They
destroyed vast tracts
of habitat, critically
endangering the
Bornean orangutans.
END OFTHE LINE?
(Below) Caretakers in
Borneo are taking
rescued Bornean
baby orangutans to
play in the forest,
where they will learn
some of the basic
skills of survival.
37VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
38. EVICTION ATTEMPT
(Left) Ganesh H Shankar
captures an Indian rose-ringed
parakeet in the Keoladeo national
park trying to evict a Bengal
monitor lizard who had taken up
residence in its nesting hole.
WIND COMPOSITION
Valter Binotto’s winner in the
plants and fungi category is this
picture of a hazel tree near his
home in northern Italy.
Interestingly, a hazel tree has both
male and female flowers.
Photo Feature
Skills
38 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
39. REQUIEM FOR AN OWL
(Above) Winner in the
black and white cate-
gory, Mats Andersson’s
picture captures a lone
Eurasian pygmy owl in
the forest near his
home in Bashult,
southern Sweden.
SNAPPER PARTY
(Left) The winner in the
underwater category,
Tony Wu, captured this
school of two spot red
snappers when they
gathered to spawn
around Palau in the
western Pacific Ocean.
39VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
40. Film Review
40 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
OVE and friendship have been
two of the Hindi film industry’s
most preferred subjects. Any
guess on who are synonymous
with these subjects? Well, it is
the Chopras and the Johars. And what happens
when Karan Johar decides to make yet another
movie celebrating love and friendship? He fails
to live up to expectations.
Given all the hype the movie garnered over
the past month because of Pakistani actor Fawad
Khan’s presence in it and for being a Diwali re-
lease, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (directed by Johar, who
is also one of the producers and writers of the
film) did manage to lure audiences to cinema
halls but fell flat at many levels.
The multi-starrer, romantic movie is packed
with all the ingredients typical of the Johar
stamp—foreign locales, offensively-rich charac-
ters, Bollywood clichés, lavish apartments, sce-
nic chiffon saree sequences and, of course, the
big fat Indian wedding. What the movie
lacks is a powerful script and the inten-
sity that is required from a plot woven
around love.
ADHM is a shallow film, high on
verbosity and cheap sex appeal. It is re-
plete with Bollywood references and
songs—a trick only a lazy director
would fall back on. Not only that, it also
has references from Johar’s own movies
right at the start! Self-referential = Self-
reverential.
ADHM focuses on the idea of being
unable to let go of the one you are madly,
crazily and stupidly in love with. It also
tells you that it is alright for you to show
not one but two middle fingers to the
love of your life for not reciprocating
your feelings. It tells you that Urdu poets
can have homes like those of multi-bil-
Director Karan Johar’s typical formula fails to
create any magic for viewers
BY KARAN KAUSHIK
LWEAK PLOT
Anushka Sharma and Ranbir
Kapoor in the film
Mushkil to Watch
a Clichéd Film
41. 41VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
lionaires. It drives the message that boyfriends are
like mo-vies—both suitable for “time pass” only.
And it tells you what Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar already
did— to be a great singer, heartbreak is a must.
Here’s the storyline: Ayaan (Ranbir) falls for
Aleezey (Anushka) who is already in love with
DJ Ali (Fawad Khan) and wants Ayaan just as a
friend sans “benefits”. The two spend a lot of
their screen time bar-hopping and dancing to
Hindi break-up songs in London. They even
take a trip to Paris and end up enacting hit Bol-
lywood tracks from Yash Chopra’s Chandni.
The protagonist, Ayaan, is again the super-
rich guy typical of Johar’s films. Aleezey is a
modern girl from Lucknow who has enrolled
herself in a French class, a Bollywood dance class
and every other class. Even though she is an en-
lightened and liberal Muslim girl, a nose ring
and super-dark kajal seem necessary for the di-
rector to make her religion evident.
While Ayaan is neck deep in love with
Aleezey and just can’t let her go, the latter begins
a relationship with DJ Ali leaving him heartbro-
ken. Enter Saba (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), an
Urdu poetess who, however, looks nothing like
one. She lives in a massive apartment with fur-
niture and more furniture and dresses in diva-
like attire. Suddenly the movie turns
super-pretentious, with flowery dialogue taking
centerstage, with no impact at all.
The first half of the movie is still tolerable but
it’s the second half that is hard to sit through.
Even a three-minute cameo by Shahrukh Khan
does not help matters. There’s too much talking
going on in the movie and the viewer does not
get a break even for a minute. And as if so many
clichés weren’t enough, Johar takes the help of
cancer to kickstart the waterworks but leaves the
audience pining to go home instead.
The only aspect of the film worth your
money is the music, which has been composed
by Preetam. The title song is a powerful one and
comes quite late in the movie. “Bulleya” and
“Channa Mereya” are other enjoyable tunes.
Coming to the performances, Anushka is the
best of the lot. She is her natural self and delivers
her dialogue with nonchalant ease. Ranbir se-
ems repetitive, though he is intense, cries beau-
tifully and looks dashing in his resplendent cos-
tumes. Aishwarya looks stunning but is a disas-
ter in her role while Fawad steals the limelight
whenever he appears on-screen. Lisa Haydon is
hilarious in her cameo as Ayaan’s girlfriend.
These are the only characters in the movie.
Aleezey is an obedient daughter who is even
ready to date a man of her father’s choice
but when it comes to getting married, going
through a divorce and struggling with cancer,
her parents have no role and it’s only Ayan who
stands by her.
The original script would have shown Alee-
zay, Ali and Saba as Pakistanis from Lahore. The
setting was changed to Lucknow after threats
from the MNS. The message would have been
that of love knowing no borders—but, unfortu-
nately, it did not work out that way.
ADHM is a
shallow film,
high on
verbosity and
cheap sex
appeal. It is
replete with
Bollywood
references
and songs—a
trick only a
lazy director
would fall
back on. It
also draws
from Johar’s
earlier films.
42. Environment
42 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
RONICALLY, for all the fame that
precedes it, the Ganga town of
Haridwar is not actually posi-
tioned upon her natural banks,
but along the Upper Ganga Canal
(UGC). The start of this British engineering
feat of the 19th century is at the Bhimgoga Bar-
rage near the Har-ki-Pauri ghat from where it
draws out almost the entire flow of the Ganga’s
water supply to go on to feed the hungry fields
and homes of the North Indian “doab” or “two
rivers,” a vast area of land between the Ganga and
Yamuna rivers.
The Ganga’s natural course, depleted and
limping, continues a little way after Haridwar.
This is her late youth. From here she is to become
The Goddess
Can Take
No More
The holy river of India is under tremendous
duress, and Indians choose to ignore it
BY SUSAN M GRIFFITH-JONES
I
43. 43VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
a worker in society, no longer tumbling carefree
through the mountains as crystal clear streams
virtually untouched by polluted hands, but
enrolled in the needy day-to-day life of man as he
too courses his path from cradle to grave.
A
lthough the UGC was initially proposed
as a navigation canal, it was finally set
up to irrigate land as far as Nanu in Ali-
garh district. The main canal is 290 kilometers
long, but comprises important branches such as
those of Kanpur and Etawah. There was neither
an existing extensive canal system in the country
or the world in the 1850s upon which to model
the project or the work at commencement, nor a
science of soil mechanics and hydraulic engineer-
ing to match soil type.
The brains of the project, Sir Proby Cautley,
adopted the simple scheme of using the natural
curves of nature and a compromising approach
and, as a result, the reach of the canal from the
head works to its 32nd kilometer may well be
classified among the greatest feats of irrigation
engineering in India. Indeed, the Solani Aque-
duct that lies upon this stretch was ranked as one
of the most remarkable massive structures of
brick masonry in the world at the time.
The Lower Ganga Canal is 100 kilometers
long and was sanctioned in 1872 to irrigate the
lower portion of the Ganga-Yamuna doab. A weir
across the Ganga at Narora, which is situated
much farther down from Haridwar, does much
of the work of sorting out her flow here; however,
there are still large tracts of land suitable for agri-
culture, which do not yet have irrigation facilities
and mostly lie arid.
A water scientist in Varanasi, Prof UK Chaud-
hery, a retired professor of the Benares Hindu
University, mentioned to me that from the Bhim-
goga Barrage and onwards, “Ganga may be con-
sidered officially dead as 95 percent of water that
is reduced from her flow in Haridwar is causing
her the most dangerous cancer. Since there are
two types of water in a river
system—that which flows
on the surface and the
groundwater beneath, the-
se must be balanced and
flow smoothly together for
the entire basin of the river
to be in balance. This is not
just a problem here on Ri-
ver Ganga, but throughout
many river systems of
today’s world.”
Indeed, as her natural
path twists and turns across
the land towards Kanpur,
the many alluvial deposits
found along the way cause
islands of reeds and river
plants to abound where
historically dacoits and
other bandits are said to
have hidden out. Here, huge fields of vegetables
are tended to by folk from the sleepy villages that
dot her banks, where people live virtually as they
have for centuries.
These crops are now sprayed with the most
deadly pesticides and chemical fertilizers to
ensure a higher yield of harvest. The use of chem-
icals upon naturally fertile soil finally depletes it
of its ability to nourish itself, rendering it unsuit-
able for cultivation.
This stretch of the Ganga is Mahabharata
land. Ferrymen carry locals to and fro across the
river and back for a few rupees per person and
life along the river goes on as it has since the time
of the Pandavas. I have a feeling here of the ages
stretching far into the distance, like layers of
onion skin, encompassing the era of the Mahab-
harata and the ancient and medieval rulers of
North India such as the Mauryas, the Mughals
and, more recently, the British—layers of different
cultures, religions and psychologies pooling into
the genes of the people here.
OF ENGINEERING AND FAITH
(Above) A map of the natural
flow of the Ganga and the
Upper Ganga Canal on which
the ghats are located
(Facing page) Devotees
throng the ghats at Haridwar
44. 44 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
But one story has remained like a golden
thread throughout the ages and that is of the
Ganga. Though she is worshipped, yet due to the
needs of a burgeoning population she is being
abused, as a patchwork of severed and pieced to-
gether sections between barrages and dams,
canals and fertilized fields, with her entirety be-
coming fragmented and disunited.
After her furious pace through the mountains,
you get the feeling that the Ganga enters a kind
of lethargy where the natural course of her stream
remains just a few feet at the most. There are
many sandbanks and even though her course is
wide in many places, often islands make her seem
thinner and less voluptuous than she really is.
B
rijghat is the nearest “Ganga” to Delhi, an
hour-and-a-half’s drive from the city, and
weekends are busy here. The ghats are
much cleaner and far less crowded in comparison
to other places along the river’s course and Ganga
devotees from afar come to bathe in her waters.
Most famous for its annual Ganga fair, which is
held every year on the full moon day in the
month of Kartik, the ghats become like a mini-
Varanasi, as thousands flock to take a dip.
Along the left bank is a large marble
platform overlooking the river where
stalls line the ghats, selling the usual
Ganga paraphernalia—small white plas-
tic jerry cans to take home your Ganga-
jal, powders of red, saffron and purple
and even wood for the funeral pyre.
At the water’s edge, bobbing up and down,
wait small boats that can take you to the nearest
sandbank in the centre of the river where chai
stalls and puja spots abound. The boats get stuck
on several occasions while making the crossing,
but Ganga devotees don’t mind. They simply
jump overboard and seem to be walking on the
water itself when you look at them from afar,
paddling until they find enough depth to take a
dip and to get the boat moving along naturally
again. Shouts of joy and revelry resound amid
these activities.
It is clear that Hindu India loves the Ganga
and nothing will dissuade them from enjoying
her waters, no matter how much they are told
about her levels of “pollution”. Pollution is a tricky
word here as, speaking from faith perspective, as
a goddess she can never be polluted and to say so
may be to discredit her goddess status. She, who
is believed to have the power to purify herself and
anyone who comes into contact with her, can
never be such in the eyes of devotees.
Scientific facts and water tests show otherwise,
but the minds that exult in her goddess attributes
seem to be unmoved.
GIVE THE RIVER A LIFE!
Unmindful of the harm they
are causing, devotees
pollute the waters through
their practices
Indians love
the Ganga and
nothing will
dissuade them
from taking a dip,
no matter how
much they are
told about the
“pollution” levels.
Environment
45.
46. 46 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
After the news of Tata Sons
sacking its chairman, Cyrus
Mistry, shook the Indian business
world, it prompted plenty of humor
on Twitter. People compared the
scenario with the turmoil being
faced by the Samajwadi Party and
similar news came from this party
on the same day.
While one Twitter user who
goes by the handle @GabbarS-
ingh tweeted : “Cyrus Mistry to be
replaced now, mostly by Ratan
Tata. Tata sons is the new Sama-
jwadi Party”, another user joked:
“What Tata Sons told Cyrus Mis-
try? Tata.”
Some users
tweeted head-
lines, including
“Mistry Mys-
tery” and some
thought that
#Cyrusmistry
and #Akhilesh-
yadav are
now friends.
Web Crawler What Went Viral
One for the camera
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s picture where he is
seen clicking photographs of a
caged Royal Bengal tiger has
gone viral.
The PM was at the Jungle
Safari Park in Chhattisgarh’s
new capital city, Naya Raipur,
during its inauguration cere-
mony. Modi later tweeted: “One
for the camera... at the Nandan
Van Jungle Safari.” News agency
ANI also tweeted a video of the
photo shoot and social media
was set abuzz. People trolled
Modi and even compared his
picture with a photograph of
Jawaharlal Nehru where he is
seen with a tiger. “After stealing
Nehru’s jacket, PM Narendra
Modi trying to copy his lifestyle
now by clicking picture of
Nehru’s pet tiger,” a page “His-
tory of India” tweeted.
Sushma’s help awaited
External affairs
minister Sushma
Swaraj is known for
helping people by re-
sponsing to their
tweets, but there is
one tweet she hasn’t
yet reacted to. An In-
dian woman, Purvi
Thacker, had asked
for Swaraj’s help in getting
her best friend, a Pakistani,
a visa to attend her wedding
in India. Thacker started a
#GetSarahToIndia Twitter
campaign after her friend’s
visa was rejected in the
wake of the Uri attacks.
Thacker tweeted: “That my
best friend cannot be there
for what will be my biggest
day is something I cannot
come to terms with. Forget
the hustling, the paper work,
the months of coordination
and prayers—we didn’t
know that it would end up
with a rejection.”
Woman confronts thieves
ACCTV footage of an Indian-origin
woman’s brave act of confronting
two machete-wielding thieves with a
steel chair and chasing them out of her
shop has gone viral. Two robbers had
entered Hamalata Patel’s store in Wins-
ford, Cheshire, while it was empty and
tried to rob the store.
Patel shouted at them and chased
them out of the shop with a steel chair
kept for old customers. “They were
shouting at me and I just told them if you
need it then take it, but one of them
banged the machete on the counter and
started to damage the shop so I just lost
the plot,” PTI quoted Patel as saying.
Mistry exit hogs spotlight
47. 47VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
Uttar Pradesh is gearing up for
assembly elections and the
Samajwadi Party government has
crumbled with Chief Minister
Akhilesh Yadav locking horns with
none other than his father and
Samajwadi Party chief, Mulayam
Singh Yadav, over state party chief
and uncle, Shivpal Yadav. While
Akhilesh sacked Shivpal and three
ministers said to be close to Amar
Singh from the cabinet, Mulayam
responded by expelling his cousin,
Ramgopal Yadav, national general
secretary of the party and a known
supporter of the chief minister, from
the party for six years. Amidst all
this drama, Twitter saw some humor
as people speculated about the
party’s future. “You have changed
UP from the Land of Rama to the
Land of Drama”, one user tweeted
while another tweeted: “If Sama-
jwadi Party breaks up into small
political parties they will have logos
like tyre, tube, handle, paddle, chain
and ghanti.”
Cops give perfect reply
Mumbai Police advised Twit-
ter users to have a noise
and pollution-free Diwali but
sadly, one Twitter user didn’t
take the message in the right
spirit. When Mumbai Police
tweeted: “Festivals are meant to
spread cheer, not anxiety and
fear #NoisePollutionFreeDiwali”,
the user asked them to mind
their own business and tweeted:
“@MumbaiPolice @PIB_India
and police is meant to ensure
law n order not to give moral
lessons. So mind your
business guys.”
To this, the cops had a digni-
fied reply. They informed him
that they are indeed ensuring
law and order and bursting
crackers with noise beyond
a certain decibel level is an
offense as per Environment
Protection Act.
Pretty vendor
Now that the
craze over
the chaiwala
from Pakistan
has simmered
down a little, a
photograph of
a vegetable
vendor shared
by Facebook
community,
Routine of
Nepal Banda, is going
viral. The internet has
found its new muse in the
“Nepali Tarkariwali” and
users are sharing her pic-
ture to let everyone know
how beautiful she is. The
girl was clicked by a
Nepali photographer,
Rupchandra Mahajan, and
social media was im-
pressed with the work she
does, calling her a mix of
beauty and hard work.
Twitter laughs at SP drama
—By Karan Kaushik
If you have been following the presidential
elections in US, you already know the kind of
enthusiastic supporters that Donald Trump has
rallied. On the other hand, there is a lukewarm pool of
Hillary voters.
Social media users came out in full support
of Hillary after Shareblue, a media company,
pushed the hashtag “Here I am with her” in
support of the Democratic candidate. The
hashtag was tweeted more than 40,000 times
in the course of a few hours. The campaign
coincided with the beginning of early voting in
many states, and the tweets featured inspiring
messages and selfies of citizens posing with
Hillary Clinton. One user tweeted: “My
daughter said “Mom! My first vote was 1st Black
president & my second is for the 1st woman!
Good job on the timing!” LOL #HereIamWithHer.
Hillary supporters
48. NEWSDATE NEWS CHANNEL TIME
22/10/16
23/10/16
23/10/16
Two terrorists belonging to Jaesh-e-
Mohammad arrested in Baramulla. AK-
47, pistols confiscated. Attack on an Army
convoy in Baramulla.
MLC Udayveer Singh expelled from SP for
six years. Singh, close to Akhilesh, had
claimed there was a plot against
Akhilesh.
PM Modi inaugurates international ter-
minal inVadodara. Says the number of
air travelers will double in a year.
03:20 PM
22/10/16
Mukesh Bhatt meets Maharashtra CM
Devendra Fadnavis, says we won’t involve
Pak actors in movies in future. AeDilto
release on Oct 28. 09:55 AM 09:55 AM
10:09 AM
Injured soldier Gurnam Singh dies. Had
been injured in Pak firing in Hiranagar,
J&K.
AkhileshYadav expels four ministers.
Narad Rai, Omprakash, Shadab Fatima
and ShivpalYadav. Sloganeering outside
ShivpalYadav’s residence. 12:00 AM
India beats New Zealand in Mohali One-
day. India leads in five match series by 2-
1.Virat Kohli scores his 26th century.
O9.21 PMO9.19 PM
Firing in RS Pura from Pak side. BSF jawan
Sushil Singh dies. One jawan, two locals
injured.
07:10 AM 07:11 AM
22/10/16
22/10/16
23/10/16
24/10/16
07:04 AM 07:05 AM 07:16 AM
12:02 AM 12:03 AM
02:51 PM02:37 PM
O9.20 PM
03:21 PM
07:05 AM
12:00 AM
07:10 AM
09:56 AM
10:10 AM
02:48 PM
03:09 PM
10:16 AM
09:55 AM
10:17 AM
02:38 PM
03:26 PM
07:10 AM
O9.21 PM
48 VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
49. Here are some of the major news items aired on television
channels, recorded by our unique 24x7 dedicated media
monitoring unit that scrutinizes more than 130 TV channels in
different Indian languages and looks at who breaks the news first.
DATE NEWS CHANNEL TIME
NEWS
24/10/16
27/10/16
Mulayam SinghYadav calls meeting.
AkhileshYadav live from meeting room: I
will be the one distributing tickets. Netaji
taught me to fight against injustice.
10:14 AM
27/10/16
27/10/16
Manipur CM has a narrow escape in firing.
NSCN (IM) militants open gunfire as
Okram Ibobi Singh gets out of his
helicopter.
Pak High Commission official arrested
on espionage charges. Delhi police
nabs Mehboob Akhtar with important
documents.
Diwali gift for Central govt employees.Two
percent increase in dearness allowance.
Amar Singh says I am with Akhilesh. If
anything happens to me Ramgopal will
be responsible.
One more arrested in espionage case.
Shoaib nabbed in Jodhpur.Was in touch
with Pak high Commission since last
3-4 years.
02:12 AM
24/10/16
ShivpalYadav from meeting room: My
portfolio was taken away from me.What
was my fault? Officers defied me on CM’s
instigation.
2:00 PM 2:00 PM
10:58 AM
10:32 AM
03:57 PM
04:31 PM 04:32 PM
12:50 PM 12:51 PM
03:57 PM
28/10/16
02:13 AM
10:32 AM
12:49 PM 12:50 PM
PM to celebrate Diwali with ITBP jawans at
Indo-China border in remote Mana village.
04:31 PM
24/10/16
28/10/16
10:32 AM
10:59 AM
10:16 AM10:15 AM
2:01 PM 2:12 PM
02:12 AM
03:58 PM 03:58 PM
04:30 PM
02:14 AM
10:32 AM
10:59 AM 11:01 AM
49VIEWS ON NEWS November 22, 2016
10:16 AM