The TRP Media

We, the ordinary people, cannot match the power of some of the media, its barons - the emerging fat cats - but thanks to the Internet we can at least write our blogs about our angst to our countrymen and women. Let's write in our blogs how cynically some of the media is getting its TRPs by denigrating and demolishing the great Indian Army through half truths and rhetoric. How cynically this section of the media is getting its TRP on the graves and funeral pyres of our soldiers.

After each salvo of innuendo and insinuation, this shrill media has this sly refrain: "Mind you, we are proud of the Army but....." And then they go on to say, "....the people are asking, why blah, blah, blah......," it is not the people but this section of self serving media which is insinuating.

A section of media is saying that the Army Chief was soft on a particular General. Does its anchors sitting in air conditioned rooms and mouthing Queen's English even begin to understand what it is to be tough? Speaking good English is not enough to be tough. These paragons of virtues will have to walk over hot and bloody minefields, chest bullets to understand what it is to be tough; they will have to walk their shrill talk to understand what toughness is. The Chief was not transported to the chief's chair by some fast forward time machine. He went there through the trenches, through the minefields and through wars to reach there.

Whatever our internal squabbles and contradictions we cannot let the Army down. Let's blog, let's tweet, let's Facebook, let's Orkut and nail this ingrate section of media's blatant lie. I urge our people not to go with that section of media that is encouraging kangaroo media courts. This will only fuel their TRP ratings. These kangaroo courts pronounce a person guilty even before the trial has started. If the person is acquitted by the courts of this country will these media-courts recompense the innocent person for the harm already done? Or will it be another collateral damage that could not be avoided at the altar of TRP?

The World is Flattened but is the World Flat?

The appalling tragedy that has hit Haiti has not found reverberation here in India. The media coverage is pathetic. Most of the print and electronic media is pushing it in as an afterthought. The national cricket final is the most important news on earth. For God’s sake!
What good are all those submarine cables that snake along the ocean floor if the pain of the Haitians does not pour out from this end of the cable? Is Friedmanian flat world only about opportunity and not about sensitivity? It is time to wake up to the real flat world. It is time that the tremors of the Pacific are felt in the Indian Ocean.
What can we do? The Government has enough expertise to handle the aftermath of a quake. Let us rush our disaster experts to Haiti without any delay. Let us follow that with airloads and shiploads of aid that the Haitians want. Let the Prime Minister ask for donations into the Prime Minister’s relief fund for the Haitian temblor. I have no doubt that the citizens and the Companies will pull out all stops to fill the relief coffers.
Let us do something, not just promise.
An earthquake has flattened the Haitians’ world and it is up to us to make sure that we respond as in a flat world.

Some unresolved questions from NDA

Question1: Is the Drill Square, square?
Question2: Why are biscuits with morning tea called dog biscuits? (some dogs have reportedly taken offence to this nomenclature)
Question3: Self service is a perfectly legit phrase, then why did NDA put Service before Self? Doesn't "Service Self" smack of self indulgence?