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SCOOP POWER
MARCH 7, 2015 `100VIEWS ON NEWSTHE CRITICAL EYE
www.viewsonnewsonline.com
NDTV SHAKE-UP
AIB ROAST NEW MEDIA
Barkha out, Dilip Bobb in 7
He who laughs may not last 25
Zap your world with app power 18
The Shazia Ilmi, Shekhar Gupta spat proves the supersonic speed of social media 12
NSBBD
MODI RESHUFFLES OFFICERS 44
RADIO’S NEW ADMIN PROWESS 40
KEJRI TRIUMPH: DID OBAMA SWING IT? 47
Governance Section
NOW THAT THE World Cup—and we don’t refer to this
championship trophy in the subcontinent as anything other
than Cricket (with a capital “c”)—is upon us, we’re deluged
by the C-word everywhere we look. It stares at us from wall
posters, signboards, hoardings, but most of all, from
newspapers and TV.
Even as the fate of this season of the bat’s chock against
the whizzing ball is being scripted on some special Olympus
from where the gods look upon as spectators and manipu-
lators, we mere cricketing mortals are bombarded by the wis-
dom of sports writers who sprout like wild mushrooms after
a summer shower and lecture to us from pulpits involving
not just TV and print but now, also the social media.
And many of us groan as our brains bloat with this over-
feeding. Isn’t there anything else to talk about? Does anybody
give a damn during cricket season whether China has taken
another bite out of our territory in the North-east or how many
more inches the Gangotri glacier has receded or whether the
speed of light had remained constant over the last decade?
Frankly, my dears, to paraphrase Clark Gable, we Indians
don’t give a damn even if the scientists actually discovered
another Black Hole over the Thar Desert. During cricket sea-
son, that news would merit a half column on whichever page
a junior sub-editor chose to dump it. See, guys, what really
counts is the speed, line and length of the cricket
juggernaut. Not a very good time for India and
Pakistan to start firing at each other across the
border. They’d probably both hit Jupiter instead.
Strange, indeed, that this obsession should
remain unabated despite the IPL financial scan-
dals, the betting revelations, involvement of
organized crime, the Supreme Court investiga-
tion and exit of evergreen superheroes. The
common explanation is that the media promotes
the hype and the public laps it up. There’s big
advertising bucks, good prime time rates, lots
of new limelight for media matinee idols to bask
in. Ok. Maybe once. Maybe five years in a row.
But for endless decades? And without a let
down? Tell me if you know a single person who
missed the last Indo-Pak one-dayer even though
he was heard screaming a day before that these
matches are fixed and not worth watching.
The C-juggernaut is our creation. The media, unlike other
hyped-up subjects and issues and personalities, is, in this
case, reflecting our passion rather than its own biases. It’s
not as if Indians are any more or less sports-crazy than other
nationalities. It’s just that they’re C-crazed and the spell cast
by the Raj through pavilions and pitches and mats and gloves
and pads and bats cannot be exorcised.
Cricket, is probably as important to the Indian as democ-
racy and Bollywood. There are probably tons of Indians who
care more about cricket than they do about some “democ-
ratically” elected neta. Cricket spells rags to riches for tal-
ented tribals who would otherwise never be able to leave their
jungles. Cricket spells excellence, camaraderie, glamor, equal
opportunity, a level playing field and also provides the whole
nation—after a hard-fought victory—a glimpse of the pos-
sibilities, heights, valor, grit, hard work, unity, sacrifice, sec-
ularism and determination which is the true but often hidden
face of a resplendent India.
At a technical level, thanks to TV, cricket has been in-
creasingly riveted into the minds and hearts of the ordinary
Indian after the stupendous victory of India in the World Cup
in 1983 in the West Indies. And we have really never looked
back ever since. India conquered all forms of the game: 50
overs, T-20 and Tests.
Nobody believed that the 20 over version would arrive
and change the landscape of cricket forever. It did. Its suc-
cess in terms of money and popularity is unprecedented.
Today, we have a World Cup dedicated to this format. In fact,
it has given rise to a new audience who understands slam-
bang cricket and the need not be clued into its intricacies.
The way the game is televised has undergone a sea
change. Celebrities, like already-ban-gaya-crorepati-Amitabh
B sit cheek-by-jowl with cricket pundits commenting on
the game.
In this topsy-turvy C-world, it is not the media that creates
a buzz about cricket, it is the other way round. Cricket com-
mands attention. Period.
Like Britannia once ruled the waves, cricket rules India—
not as Emperor but as Leveler.
EMPEROR C-WORD ED
ITO
R’S
NO
TE
3VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
C O N Editor-in-Chief Rajshri Rai
Managing EditorRamesh Menon
Deputy Managing EditorShobha JohnSenior EditorVishwas Kumar
Associate EditorMeha Mathur
Deputy EditorsPrabir Biswas
Niti SinghAssistant Editor
Somi DasArt Director
Anthony LawrenceSenior Visualizer
Amitava SenGraphic Designer
Lalit KhitoliyaPhotographer
Anil ShakyaNews Coordinator/Photo Researcher
Kh Manglembi DeviProduction
Pawan Kumar
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VOLUME. VIII ISSUE. 11
Published by Prof Baldev Raj Gupta on behalf of E N Communications Pvt Ltdand printed at Amar Ujala Publications Ltd., C-21&22, Sector-59, Noida.
(UP)- 201 301 (India) All rights reserved. Reproduction or translation in anylanguage in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Requests forpermission should be directed to E N Communications Pvt Ltd . Opinions of
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Chief Editorial AdvisorInderjit Badhwar
CFOAnand Raj Singh
VP (HR & General Administration)Lokesh C Sharma
LEDE
Social desi 12Mainstream media is facing stiff competition as headline mo-
ments and nasty brawls move to Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube, writes SHANTANU GUHA RAY
EDITORS’ PICK
Lessons from Delhi Elections 20AAP’s success has many fathers. And Modi and his men have
more convincing to do now, writes MIHIR SHARMA
NEW MEDIA
The Ap(p)t Choice 18The popularity of news apps is on the rise, writes
AISHWARYA RAMESH
4 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
T E N T S
BUREAUCRACY
REVIEW
All for a laugh TVF’s interview with Arvind
Kejriwal provided wholesome
entertainment, writes SOMI DAS
29
A game of chess 44
RADIO
David slays Goliath on radio 40
R E G U L A R SEdit................................................03Media-go-round............................06Quotes..........................................08As the world turns.........................10Vox Populi.....................................19Breaking news..............................32Grapevine.....................................50
After the Delhi experience, radio is
set to play a vital role in every
local, municipal and state election,
writes AKASH BANERJEE
Modi is making sure he has all
his right men in the right place,
writes VISHWAS KUMAR
The BJP and Modi paid heavily for
their arrogance, and for not
keeping promises, writes
ASHIM CHOUDHURY
Blame it onObama!
POLITICS
47
PROTESTS
Love in the timeof Hindutva 36In recent times, there have been
protests over attempts by hard-line,
right-wing elements to curb fundamen-
tal rights. What they forget is that this is
a democracy, writes SHREYA S
Governance
Cover design: Anthony Lawrence
TOPIC
Smut and sensibilities 25The furore over the AIB Roast shows
that India is still not ready for this
genre of comedy, reports
PALLAVI DEWAN
5VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
THIS BUDGET SESSION, the government hasplans to live-stream both the Union Budget andthe Railway Budget on YouTube and is alsoplanning to invite questions from peoplethrough social media platforms, like Twitter. The Indian Express reported that the Informa-
tion & Broadcasting ministry is likely to hold“talkathons” on Twitter, Facebook and YouTubesimultaneously. The first talkathon was organ-ized by the I&B ministry on February 16, inwhich Power Minister Piyush Goyal answered questions for 30 minutes.
Budget to be streamed live on social media
A DAY AFTER the Delhi Police detained fivepeople for leaking classified documentsfrom the petroleum ministry, former journal-ist Shantanu Saikia and energy consultantPrayas Jain were arrested on February 20.Saikia, who runs an energy portal, was ar-rested after overnight questioning. He runsan energy portal. There are other journalistsalso who were being questioned on the leakof information to energy industries, sourcestold News X.Jain is an energy consultantwith Medit Business Solutions Pvt Ltd, anAustralian Energy firm.
A senior police officer said: “We havearrested Prayas Jain and Shantanu Saikia inthis connection. Both of them are energyconsultants who received stolendocuments.” According to sources, top of-ficials of four oil firms are under the scan-ner and more arrests are expected.
As informed by police sources, theEssar general manager has gone missingafter the police raided its offices.
Sources told NewsX that one staff of atop industrial group is among the five whowere arrested on February 19.
Ex-scribe Saikia held for petrol ministry leak
EDIA-GO-ROUNDM
6 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
Nihalani’sabuse list
CENSOR BOARD CHIEF PahlajNihalani, has issued a notice banningcertain cuss words and the use ofBombay in films. The list consists of30 English and Hindi, “offensive”words. The notice says: “All ROs(regional officers) are directed not toallow such words in any category ofthe certificate. This is also applicableto regional language films.” It alsospecifies that all double meaningwords should be deleted from films.
Diptosh Majumdar passes away
DECCAN CHRONICLE OWNER T Venkat-tram Reddy was qizzed and arrested by aCentral Bureau of Investigation (CBI) teamfrom Bengaluru on February 14, in relationto a Canara Bank fraud case. According toThe News Minute, sources in the CBI al-leged that the agency had found evidencethat the newspaper’s promoters had “delib-erately hatched a conspiracy to cheat andcause a loss to the tune of Rs 1,230 crore
to the bank over a period of four years,from 2008 to 2012”.
“As this is a public sector bank, the DC
has swindled public money,” a CBI officialsaid. Last year, the CBI had filed a case ofcheating, fraud and criminal conspiracyagainst Reddy, DC vice-chairman and man-aging director, T Vinayak Ravi Reddy, vice-chairman PK Iyer as well as the company’sauditors, CB Mouli & Associates.
SENIOR JOURNALIST DIPTOSH Majumdar passed away onJanuary 8, at a private hospital in Delhi. He was 55. Majumdar,who was national affairs editor at NewsX, was suffering fromAcute Myelocytic Leukemia (AML), a type of blood cancer. Hewas admitted to the Apollo Hospital in Sarita Vihar in the lastweek of January after being diagnosed with blood cancer just15 days ago, The Times of India reported.
Deccan Chronicle owner arrested
Shantanu Saikia
N a recent development, two top
media personalities have switched
over, taking many colleagues by sur-
prise. While Barkha Dutt quit as
NDTV Group Editor, Dilip Bobb
resigned from The Indian Expess to move to
NDTV Convergence.
Barkha had been off NDTV’s payroll and work-
ing on a contract basis for the past couple of
months, it is learnt. NDTV founders Prannoy and
Radhika Roy emphasized, in an internal letter (see
box) that Barkha would, “be available, as always, for
analysis and inputs on big news events and stories”.
However, it is understood that she would be
completely out of the planning mechanism of news
and programming.
Officially, she would be the consulting editor.
Her role remains confined to hosting her
primetime show The Buck Stops Here and her
weekend show, We The People. She would also be
in-charge of the 9 pm news as against only conduct-
ing news debates on the prime time slot. The move
is being seen as a reaction to Headlines Today surg-
ing ahead in the TRP race because of the combined
Barkha out, Bobb inefforts of Rajdeep Sardesai and Karan Thapar.
While Thapar grills the newsmakers and the opin-
ion makers of the day, Sardesai has been successful
in cutting out noise and bringing back news on the
prime time.
The consulting role suits Barkha’s interest as she
would be heading her own company and wants to
foray into capturing the digital market before the
advent of 4G. It is understood that the US media
mogul, Oprah Winfrey, whom she interviewed in
2012 at the Jaipur Literature Festival, inspired her
to go solo and become an entrepreneur.
Barkha has been talking with financers for her
new company. It is believed that she had been in
constant touch for an arrangement with Mukesh
Ambani’s channel CNN-IBN. However,
things didn’t work out there. The de-
tails of her new company are
under wraps as of now.
Barkha’s exit coincides with
the hiring of senior journalist
Dilip Bobb. He joined NDTV
after quitting as Group Editor of
The Indian Express (Features). He
would be heading NDTV Conver-
gence and would be responsible for syner-
gizing content from different platforms. NDTV’s
editorial team, apart from stars like Barkha and
Srinivasan Jain, has always remained lightweight.
Bobb is supposed to infuse intellectual weight
to the channel and its online content. He would be
responsible for creating original content for the
channel and its website. While Sonia Singh and
Nidhi Razdan would continue in their existing
roles, Maya Mirchandani would take over the
foreign affairs beat, which till now was completely
under Barkha.
I
VON reports on the inside story behind the two switchovers
NDTV’S INTERNAL MAIL
Dear All,Barkha Dutt was only 23 whenshe joined NDTV as a young reporter-cum-producer. NDTVwas the first place she everworked in, and for two decadeswe have seen her evolve intoone of our most prolificreporters. She has been a keymember of the NDTV family anda big part of our memorablejourney from a productionhouse that created a nightlynews bulletin for Doordarshan
to what we are today. Shehas worn many hats
for NDTV: journal-ist, anchor, edi-
tor; NDTV hasbeen both herlearningground and her
second home.Now, twenty
years later, we wishher all the very best as
she embarks on yet another rolewith us...While her TVrelationship with NDTV remains unchanged, in her new role, shewill be setting up her ownmulti-media content companyand policy group.
....I know you will join us in wishing Barkha the very very best.
— Radhika and Prannoy
EDIA-GO-ROUNDM
7VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
U O T E SQSubramanian Swamy,BJP member 250 temples vandalized in Delhi duringlast one year but not a squeak from liberals. One theft in a church howlsfrom Obama downwards on VHP
Ajay Maken, CongressleaderBy banning the media from Secretariat, AAP committing samemistake as BJP in the Union. Fight corruption—be more transparent first.
Nilanjana Roy, authorSo I guess "comedian" is the new"criminal". (Because, old-type CriminalElements either absconding or in public office.)
Suhel Seth, ad-manI hope the blokes who are bidding forTHE SUIT know that they need to havea 56" chest. Where will they get thatfrom?(On the auction of NarendraModi’s pinstripe suit)
Seema Goswami, columnistGreat story by @IndianExpress on 'terror boat'. Good to see solid news reporting in the morning afterwatching pointless TV debates at night
Shekhar Gupta, seniorjournalist & entrepreneur Terrible panic decision under medianoise to let chemists sell Tamiflu. Willsurely be misused, India will end upmaking H1N1 drug-resistant
This World Cuprecord is good and
we are proud of it.But a time willcome when wewill lose to them.This record won'tstay for the rest of
our lives.— Mahendra Singh
Dhoni,on winning againstPakistan, in IBNLive
Your (women journalists)role could be far better utilized, (in printjournalism) without goingout in the field. Not thatyou should not go out,in the sense of safetyand security, the work-ing hours, conditions,and different roles at-tached as a mother, sis-ter, or a wife.— Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, at a
press interaction with women
journalists
Why didn't Chekov say, ‘Write what-ever comes to you from your heart.That is art’. Because he was not a bore.Encoded in great artistes is the acci-dental humility that pushes them toreach out and win the attention ofthe audience instead of assumingthat the world has to be intelli-gent enough to come find them.
— Manu Joseph, in HindustanTimes
8 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
Mr Modi is a different man with a dif-ferent mind and a different thinkingfrom the previous prime minister. Ithink he will probably engage withPakistan, but he would like to do thatin his own way.
— Former Pakistan NSA, Mahmud Durrani, in The Hindu
All who called mewith foulest possible names, Iam relieved myparents were notalive to see this.
— Kiran Bedi on her electoral debacle in Delhi,
in a blog post
Class X boards were better? I’ve the same feedback.A CABE sub-committee has studied this. Not justparents, CMs—even those from Congress-ruledstates—say: Reinstitute it. I’ve met students fromKVs, private schools, Navodaya Vidyalayas, teach-ers. Students want boards back. Parents, teachers,students say CCE (continuous comprehensive evaluation) bred a cut-copy-paste generation.— Smriti Irani on bringing back board exams at the secondary level,
in The Times of India
If I had to be offended by a live show I would rather be offended by Arnab who invites people on his show and thendoesn’t let them speak. I saw an episode where he is askingthe education minister a question and then screaming overher answers. Now that’s just bad manners, at least in theAIB Roast they called guests over, let them say their bit, people laughed and went home.
— Twinkle Khanna, in indiatimes.com
Indian Society is a judgmental society. Thebiggest block for innovation and researchin India is fear of failure.We as a society findfaults easily. Hence scientists today areafraid to do new thingsand hence bank upon improving the old thingsbecause they go wrong indoing new things, andthen people are ready topull them down for their failure.
— Bharat Ratna scientist CNRRao, in The Indian Express
9VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
NBC ANNOUNCED ONFebruary 10 that it wassuspending BrianWilliams as Nightly
News anchor and man-aging editor for sixmonths without pay formisleading the publicabout his experiencescovering the Iraq war,Reuters reported. NBC
chief executive Steve Burke said Williams’ actions wereinexcusable. Williams apologized earlier for saying hewas in a helicopter that was hit by a grenade whilecovering the Iraq war in 2003. Williams is a star an-chor and one of America’s most popular journalists.
DANISH PHOTOGRAPHER MADSNissen’s picture on gay love hasbeen adjudged as the winner forthe World Press Photo contest,2014. An international jury ofleading professionals in the field ofphotojournalism worldwide beganjudging the entries at the WorldPress Photo office in Amsterdamon February1, headed by MicheleMcNally, director of photographyand assistant managing editor ofThe New York Times. The pictureshows a Russian gay couple, Jon,21, and Alex, 25, in an intimate
moment. The jury considered thefact the picture celebrates homosex-ual love at a time when life for theLGBT community is becomingincreasingly difficult in Russia.Sexual minorities face legal andsocial discrimination, harassment,and violent hate-crime attacks fromconservative religious and national-istic groups. The 58th edition of thecontest got entries from over 5,000photographers of differentnationalities. The winners wereselected from a pool of close to10,000 pictures.
THE RIGHT LEANING CanadianChannel, Sun News Network, fromthe Sun Newspaper stable shutdown on February 13, 2015 after afailed bid of finding a suitable buyer.The channel has been on air for 46months. An estimated 200 employ-ees lost their jobs. The Vice Presi-
dent of the Network, Kory Teneckye wrote a somber mail to itsemployees informing them aboutthe shut down, seconds after thechannel was taken off air. He writesin his mail, “While I regret the out-come, I do not regret the fight forgreater diversity in the Canadianmedia” According to Business
Canada, “The channel promised tobalance the "lefty bias" of traditionalCanadian media, but its operationswere plagued by tight productionbudgets which often left it with lim-ited on-the-ground reporting and alarge portion of its airtime dedicatedto commentary and heavily editori-alized news coverage.”
S THE WORLD TURNSA
10 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
Gay rights pic wins World Press photo contest
COMEDIAN JON STEWART, famedfor his biting satire of politiciansand the media, will leave his job ashost of Comedy Central’s parodynewscast The Daily Show later thisyear, he told his studio audience.Stewart, 55, has starred on theshow since 1999. “Through hisunique voice and vision, The Daily
Show has become a culturaltouchstone for millions of fans anda platform for political comedy thatwill endure for years to come,”Comedy Central said in a statement. Although, Stewart’s exitis not being seen as an end to theshow itself, there is anxiety overwho could fill his shoes.
Comedian Jon Stewartleaves show
Sun News Network shutsdown
NBC suspendsBrian Williams for 6 months
Views On News (VON) is India’s premier fortnightly magazine that covers the wide spectrum of modern communication loosely known as “the media”. Its racy, news and analysis oriented story-telling encompasses current global and Indian developments, trends, future projections encompassing policy and business drifts, the latest from inside the print and electronic newsrooms, the exciting developments in ever-expanding digital space, trending matters in the social media, advertising, entertainment and books.
EVERY FORTNIGHT VIEWS ON NEWS WILL BRING YOU TELL-ALL NEWS, ANALYSES AND OPINION FROM THE SHARPEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS AND MOST INCISIVE MINDS IN THE NATION
An ENC PublicationIf the media is leaving you behind, stay ahead of it by picking up yesterday’s Views On News!
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FEBRUARY 22, 2015 `100VIEWS ON NEWSTHE CRITICAL EYEwww.viewsonnewsonline.com
Why DIDI and DADA
fell apart Media tycoon Aveek Sarkar’s warm ties with
Mamata Banerjee turn into a cold war 13
SHOULD GOVT
CONTROL TERROR
REPORTING? 44
CENSOR BOARD CHIEF
PAHLAJ NIHALANI ON HIS
‘ACTION HERO’ MODI 38
JE SUIS LAXMAN
The uncommon
life of
RK Laxman 21WHAT AN IDEA, SIR JI!
Gopinath Menon writes on
the trend of clubbing ads
with social messages 24
HOW A TOUGH MODI
BUREAUCRAT WAS
COLD- SHOULDERED 32
Introducing new section on Governance
LedeNetworking sites
VEN before the dust had settled in the elec-
tions to the 70-seat Delhi assembly in Febru-
ary 2015, a curious development in a television
studio trolled for many hours, triggering de-
bates on the might of the bare-all, hit-all social
media.
It happened at NDTV studio, where anchor
Prannoy Roy had to intervene to check what could have been an
ugly slugfest. The spat was between Shazia Ilmi, a former AAP
leader, who switched sides to join the BJP months before the polls,
and veteran journalist and author, Shekhar Gupta, currently a
senior advisor to Living Media Group that publishes, among
other newspapers and magazines, India Today.
The vicious exchange was a surprise. Ilmi, irritated by Gupta’s
Indians are taking to e-platforms like “locuststo a ripe field of wheat”.
And mainstream media isfacing stiff competition as
headline moments andnasty brawls move toFacebook, Twitter and
YouTubeBY SHANTANU GUHA RAY
E
SOCIAL DESI
12 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
jibe that she was nothing but a defector and should
be called an “Aya Ilmi, Gaya Ilmi”, rebutted
strongly, calling the seasoned newshound “Aya Am-
bani, Gaya Ambani” and a “wheeler-dealer”. Ilmi
was hinting at Gupta’s proximity to Mukesh Am-
bani, chairman of the billion-dollar Reliance con-
glomerate.
Roy intervened and the two were separated. It
is not known whether either one has consulted a
lawyer to seek damages.
A clip of the slugfest was instantly found on
YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Phones buzzed
across the Capital, and journalists, authors and
lobbyists debated the issue and wondered how bad
things could turn if social media is plugged in
seconds after an incident.
Two things became clear. A politician could
be ripped apart for flaws, and a journalist
also could be ripped apart for being close to a
corporate captain.
MAKING BIG STRIDES“The writing is clear on the wall. Indians have to be
very careful about what they say, what they do. The
wall has broken and everything is on social net-
working sites,” r emarks Prabir Sen, Singapore’s top
data analyst, adding Indians are taking to social
media like “locusts to a ripe field of wheat”. Sen
should know.
A few years ago, Shashi Tharoor, then the
deputy foreign minister, lost his seat in the cabinet
after tweets were exchanged between him and
GARNERING INTEREST(Facing page) ShekharGupta; Shazia Ilmi;(below) Tsunamilashing Ao Nang inThailand in 2004
13VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
over 2,30,000 people in 14 countries
in December.
ZEALOUS CAMPAIGNBloggers from across the world
started The TsunamiBlog and many of
them like Sunil Nair, Dina Mehta,
Peter Griffin, Bala Pitchandi, Angelo
Embuldeniya and others pushed their
stories to define global headlines in
top media organizations like The
Guardian, CNN, The New York Times,
BBC and Ashai Shimbun.
“They disseminated informa-
tion—there was no Twitter or Face-
book in 2004—faster than the
mainstream media and garnered
hundreds of volunteers. What the
bloggers did in 2004 is now routine
across the world, as well as in India,”
adds Upadhyay.
Upadhyay recalls the 2010 Radia tapes that were
leaked to two news magazines. The mainstream
media tried hard to ignore—it even pretended there
were no tapes—but social media did not let it pass
and kept up the pressure.
This, says Sen, is a “natural corollary” to the
media explosion in one of the world’s fastest grow-
ing democracies. India has around 500 big newspa-
pers, over 300 news channels and over 400 radio
stations and a little over 600 news portals. “Social
media has pushed competition to an altogether
different level in India. Everyone, especially the
print and television media, are feeling the heat.
Everyone has a smartphone in India and has the
platform to trigger a Marxist-type revolution in the
media space.”
POLITICAL WARSThe Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
(UPA), which lost power to the BJP-led National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2014, had faltered
badly on social media but bounced back with its
Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit
Modi, over a stake of Tharoor’s wife, Sunanda
Pushkar, in Kochi Tuskers, an IPL franchisee team
now disbanded.
“Social media is now defining India’s headline
moments. We better get used to it,” remarks veteran
journalist and former editor, Ajay Upadhyay. And
the use of this medium during elections has seen
some parties getting a windfall.
The BJP blitz on social media during the general
elections is well-documented. Upadhyay said he
would rather look at the enormous impact social
media played during the 2004 tsunami, that killed
A band of liberals is happily fighting theirrivals in a Twitter war between the rulingcoalition and then opposition parties. It is
called Operation Akraman by Congresssympathizers who have multiple handles.
FACING THE HEAT HRD Minister
Smriti Iraniridiculed for hergaffes on Twitter
14 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
LedeNetworking sites
PIB
“This is India’s new policy of engagement,” says
Rahul Mehra, a seasoned lawyer and a spokesper-
son for AAP, which recently swept Delhi polls.
“Even journalists who felt they were above
everything have decided to stay on in the game and
accept the rules.”
ENLARGED MEDIA CIRCLE Facebook and Twitter have effectively killed
blogging that once produced great writing and the
mainstream media has realized that it needs social
media more than the other way round, almost like
a sounding board for work, contacts and ideas.
“Once trolling was hated, now it is loved,”
says Mehra.
In short, the media universe has been de-
mocratized. “Conversations are now
discussed in metros, 3-tier cities,
even villages. That is the kind
of impact social media is hav-
ing,” says Franz Gastler, a US
football coach who trains
impoverished girls in
Jharkhand.
In June 2014, as a billion plus
India slept, Gastler’s girls won the
third spot in a tournament in faraway
Spain. One Facebook post triggered over
a million hits and triggered nation-
wide discussions on news tel-
evisions. The post did not
go unnoticed, especially
in India where 90 per
cent of its 93 million
Facebook users
shadow cabinet Twitter handles that continue to
irritate the ruling NDA. The idea for the ongoing
Twitter wars, claim Congress party insiders, came
to them when Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister
Shivraj Singh Chouhan was rebuffed by Prime Min-
ister Narendra Modi. The Congress, firm in its
belief that silent sparks were flying within the new
government, launched shadow Twitter handles to
question “fake achievements” of the
NDA government.
Party workers were told to mark individual
members of the new cabinet. Many joined; their
names were kept secret. The system is in vogue in
23 nations across the globe. The shadow ministry
for HRD ridiculed Smriti Irani for her gaffes.
Now, a band of liberals is happily fighting their
rivals in a Twitter war between the ruling coalition
and the opposition parties. It is called Operation
Akraman (on Twitter and Facebook) by Congress
sympathizers who have multiple, strange Twitter
handles like Dhakkar Tao @Bawli Booch, a Haryanvi
alternative for Mad Max. #DholDebate ridicules the
NDA whenever it announces a mega project,
@KanchanAunty digs into tweets from Kanchan
Gupta, a former journalist who worked in the PMO
during Atal Behari Vajpayee’s tenure and the handle
@Poonam_ Yadav carries tweets from a lawyer who
had alerted Delhi when Modi shut down AIIMS
during a health check-up.
Actually, it started when Modi, then BJP’s PM-
aspirant, visited the Sri Ram College of Commerce
in Delhi University for a students’ interaction. The
Congress pushed the idea to make Modi look like
Darth Vader, a fictional Star Wars character listed
as the third most popular villain in the world, be-
hind Hannibal and Norman Bates. And it is all
working well in a country that is the world’s second
biggest cellular handset market.
Experts claim social network has pushed the
mainstream media’s monopoly over “national de-
bates, national conversations”. Is there any value of
an editorial when many have already offered their
opinion on the subject? The answer is a big “No”.
“The writing is clear on the wall, Indianshave to be very careful about what they say,what they do. The wall has broken andeverything is on the social networking sites.” — Prabir Sen, Singapore data analyst
UNDER A CLOUD Shashi Tharoorhad resigned asminister followinghis tweets
15VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
are of voting age. What’s more, 11 percent of the
country’s voting population is using Facebook. “The
girls were seen on Facebook where a journalist wrote
a post. Rest is all history. Many newspapers even
copy-pasted the story and called it their own,”
says Gastler.
There are close to 52,000 pages for politicians
and political parties in India, according to data
provided by Facebook, and 60 of these are
“verified” pages.
Last year, Facebook launched India Election
Tracker that tracks movement of Indian politicians.
Consider the case of Mumbai resident and jour-
nalist Dhaval Valia, who took on Vodafone over its
3G services. Once Valia established that Vodafone
had enabled 3G services in only half the cell tower
sites in Mumbai, he wrote it on Facebook.
Vodafone sent a legal notice. Valia sent them one
in return. And then, the news became front-
page material all over India. Eventually,
Vodafone backtracked.
Similarly, in Bangalore when a guard at Leela
Hotel turned away a customer because he was rid-
ing a bicycle, the issue traveled to Facebook. Later,
many drove their bikes right in front of the hotel,
embarrassing the management. Within a month,
Leela had a bicycle stand in its parking lot.
The word is no longer in the newspaper. It has
spread across the country. Join, or perish. The
choice is yours.
GOLDEN MOMENTFootball coach Frank
Gastler’s team of girlsin Jharkhand became
famous after an FBpost spoke of their
win in Spain
16 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
LedeNetworking sites
NDIA EGAL L STORIES THAT COUNT
January 31, 2015
`100www.indialegalonline.com
IALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY
special report on what women want
speepe iiiaciaciacial rl rl repoppeppp ttttt ononon hahahahawhah wwwwwwt w mememeomeomeomen wnnn
pespeciaci l repop trt on hawha wt womeomen wn
CAMPUS RUMPUS
www.inFIVE IMPORTANT EVENTS
of 2014 that will
change our lives
12
1060
SECTION 66A
License to smother
free speech?
NJAC Still on a
bumpy ride
After turmeric, basmati and
neem, the West eyes khadi. Can
India ward off the threat?
A senior officer, denied
promotion, knocks at
judiciary’s doorsALS0
PATENT PREDATORS COAST GUARD
34
28
18
NDIA EGAL LSTORIES THAT COUNT
February 15, 2015
`100
www.indialegalonline.com
IFINALLY, THE FUSION
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
HL DATTU’S LETTERCJI’s concern over
frivolous complaints
30
10
BCCISC judgment on N Srinivasan provides
him enough room to wriggle out
INDO-US NUCLEAR DEAL
ALS0
The arduous work on liability laws
has seemingly yielded a positive
result. But is it the end of troubles for the N-deal?Faced with radical Islam’s threat, will
it bury its open door policy? And, is
Islam really unforgiving? Lessons on messy rules from Nokia India’s hasty exit
EUROPE UNDER SIEGE MAKE IN INDIA56
16
20
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NDIA EGAL L STORIES THAT COUNT
February 28, 2015 `100
www.indialegalonline.com
IWho scripted
Modi’s Delhi Disaster ?
INVESTIGATION How CBI under former boss Ranjit Sinha became a new employment exchange
ALS0
Will Modi address the impatient electorate and bring his growth agenda on the right track?
BUDGET 2015
26
Hurdles in the civil aviation sector
MAKE IN INDIA
36
24
EVERY FORTNIGHT INDIA LEGAL WILL BRING YOU NEWS, ANALYSES ANDOPINION FROM THE SHARPEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS AND MOST
INCISIVE LEGAL MINDS IN THE NATION ON MATTERS THAT MATTER TO YOU
ENC
ONLY THE STORIESTHAT COUNT
OR many who are used to the help-
ful applications (apps) on their
smartphones, it’s difficult to imag-
ine life without them. Periodic
beeps, buzzes, pings and notifica-
tions help users remain connected
to their personal interests, social world as well as news.
This trend has given rise to the “commodification” of
news, or simply making news typically suited to the
reader’s interest. However, many times news apps may just
be providing users the illusion of keeping
them updated, as they are looked at
mostly for headlines. Many readers
browse newspapers only when they want
an in-depth analysis about a certain issue.
“I like news apps because I get timely
updates, wherever I am,” says Vidya
Gowri Venkatesh Tarwady, a journalism
student in Chennai. She adds: “Apps give
short and to the point news.”
At times, in the hurry to be the first to
break the news, the quality of news re-
porting may be compromised.
“Sometimes for the sake of breaking
news, they (news apps) report without
Digital apps reach out to a large audience and provide a synopsis of
newspaper articles, thereby assistingmainstream media
BY AISHWARYA RAMESH
New MediaNews apps
cross-checking. For example, many news apps first
claimed that Jayalalitha had been granted bail. It was con-
firmed later that the news was false. Such instances have
the potential to create a major flutter,” says Mythreyee Iyer,
a journalism student of MOP Vaishnav College for
Women, Chennai.
“Sometimes the news is put forth in such easy terms
that the gravity of the matter is lost,” says Aakanksha Srini-
vasan, Head Technical Writer, Lakshmi Subramanian
& Associates, Chennai. “It’s a paradox. In an attempt to
make it simple, the details get lost,” she points out.
Digital journalism has two sides to it. There is a brand
of long form reporting and commentary that lives on
through digital journalism, taking advantage of the appar-
ent lack of censorship of content in the online medium.
Some of these websites include Caravan, scroll.in, Firstpost
and so on. There are a number of publications that have
had to design news websites or come up with mobile apps
as their digital counterparts.
Twitter is now rapidly emerging as a news-gathering
tool that helps add depth and perspective. Think about
writing a report of a cricket match. You might be able to
access the cricketer’s quotes directly after a match,
on Twitter.
Mainstream newspaper reporting and commentary
still holds sway, but even that is made more appealing by
a nice introduction (of the same story) that shows up on
the news app. So if you’re a reader who’s interested in a cer-
tain story, you’ll have access to the brief through the app
on your smartphone. If the story generates enough inter-
est, then the reader will automatically find the main story
on the website as well.
FDigital
journalism hastwo sides to it.While it can be
short and precise like inthe news apps,
commentaryalso thrives
on the onlineplatform.
THE AP(P)TCHOICE
18 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
OX POPULI NEWS APPS
Phone apps makeslife for us muchmore sorted. Wecan get everythingclubbed in oneplace. My favoriteapps are WhatsApp, Facbook,Twitter,Insragram, Islamicapps, and IAS related informa-tion apps. As fornews apps, NDTVis the best. I also
use the IBNlive app andCricbuzz for updates oncricket.
— Mubashir Bukhari, media professional
V
I don't like web browsing on the phone at all. So I totally rely onapps. Twitter is my favourite. More than half of the apps on myphone are news apps such as Guardian, Newslaundry, Huffpost,TOI. But there's a new news app, News in Shorts. It provides allthe current affairs in just 60 words. You just need to swipe left.
— Kartik Nijhawan, mass communications student
Any day, I prefer getting my news on the appson my phone. The convenience that news appsoffer is amazing. I get news by the instant, and I feelbetter-informed. News apps also take lesser time tobrowse than newspapers. Moreover, in these days ofe-books and e-papers, apps helps to save paperand hence are also environmentally better.I have NDTV and the TOI news app on my phone.
— Aditya Bhandari, student, DPS, Noida
In a tight schedule,where one hardly has
much time to gothrough news columns
or TV, apps are a must.I follow apps like TOI,Reuters and National
Geographic. I have hadthe best experience
with Reuters.
— Rahul Bali, junior engineer, ASP Ship
Management
Apps are very helpful for aweb journalist like me asthey help ease my workand connect with people.My favorite android appsare Facebook messenger,WhatsApp, gaming appsand news apps. The bestnews app according to meis The Times Of India. It’salso the fastest.
— Avinash Sharma, reporter, Niti Central
Phone apps let users have every-thing they want to on their finger-tips, they make functioning onphone very simple. My favoriteapp is Instagram. I also likeNDTV’s news app. It's quick. Idon't have time to go throughnews bulletins. So I rely on thisapp to keep me updated on what’s
happening on the news front.
— Anubhuti Sharma, production assistant, Small Screen
I use the Snapdealapp very frequently.Most of the time Iam not able to goout and spend hourschecking out stuff formyself. It helps me inshopping. I findWhatsApp the best as it helps me stay in touchwith my family and friends. Also, it is quite useful for my professional life. I also love theApp Lock application that protects my phone’s privacy.
— Shashi Bala, freelance media professional
19VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
Editors’ PickMihir Sharma
LESSONS FROMDELHIELECTIONS
VON brings in each issue,the best written commentary on any subject. The following column from Business Standard has been pickedin this category by ourteam of editors andreproduced for our readersas the best in the fortnight.
20 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
Most of the punditry is wrong. There is no one lesson fromthe Delhi election, only what the three parties choose to
believe - but what will they choose?
AST amounts of nonsense is al-
ready being written and said
about the Aam Aadmi Party’s
epic come-from-behind sweep
of Delhi’s assembly elections.
Some writing panders to-
wards the Voter Decides School, in which genius
pundits somehow manage to analyse a complicated
electorate as if it were actually one rather stupid and
predictable person. Another set of writing veers to-
wards the I Told You So School, in which even a
seven-eighths majority or whatever the AAP just
won in Delhi can’t change anyone’s mind, and it just
reinforces the point that they had been making for
ages – that the government needs to reform more,
or reform less; or Rahul needs to step up, or Rahul
needs to quit; or that voters want Growth, or that
they want Governance, or that they want Freebies.
The truth is that the AAP’s victory, like all
successes, had many, many fathers. Let’s take them
one by one.
First, the Congress. The math is stark: the Con-
gress’ vote-share collapsed, and the AAP mopped up
every single precious percentage point. Good can-
didates lost, people respected in their neighbour-
hoods, people with name recognition and track
records.
They lost because the Gandhi Congress is now a
massive liability. Party posters on the street had al-
ready made that clear: they had the tricolour, the
candidate’s face – but you really had to squint to see
Rahul and Sonia Gandhi up in a corner.
What does the Gandhi Congress do for any
politician? It doesn’t give them enough money to
fight an election. It doesn’t bring them ideological
coherence. It doesn’t assure them of committed vol-
unteers. If the leadership are toxic vote-losers as well,
why would anyone stay in the party?
Doubly so when all that the Gandhi Congress
has to offer its leaders is lonely humiliation, the op-
portunity to be martyrs for the greater glory of the
Gandhi name. The sight of Ajay Maken standing up
on stage taking responsibility for mistakes that
V
KEJRIHAULArvind Kejriwal andManish Sisodia waveat supporters aftertheir stunning victory
weren’t his will unquestionably have convinced
dozens of Congressmen to jump ship at the first
available opportunity.
No organisation survives without accountability
for decision-makers. No political party should take
such a string of defeats without the people at the top
making public recompense.
But in the Gandhi Congress is no public stock-
taking, no contrition. On the day of the elections, as
polls were closing, when Amit Shah was with his
workers, and Kejriwal was with his workers, Rahul
Gandhi was, very visibly, out with friends in a Vasant
Kunj mall.
Anger at the Gandhi Congress will not vanish
until its leadership – Rahul, this means you – are vis-
ibly seen as chastened. Anger will not vanish – the
Gandhi Congress will vanish instead. In Delhi, its
credibility as a political force has been destroyed in
a few months, leading old Congress voters to hold
their noses and vote instead for those they think are
anarchists. To destroy a party more than a century
old will be a truly magnificent achievement. Does
Rahul Gandhi really want that on his conscience?
Second, the BJP. The hilarious sycophancy of its
spokespeople, parading themselves arrogantly
around television channels in an effort to insulate
21VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
their High Command from one of the most disas-
trous electoral defeats in Indian political history, is a
salutary reminder that in most of the ways that
count, the BJP is the new Congress.
The scale of the 2014 Lok Sabha victory seems to
have done two things: it had convinced the BJP that
BAD CHOICEKiran Bedi with Amit Shah
and Arun Jaitley
FLOP SHOWRahul Gandhi with SoniaGandhi—both remained
silent after the Delhi debacle
nothing other than Narendra Modi
was necessary to win an election;
and it led them to assume that the
end of the Congress was necessarily
good news for them. The prime
minister has promised a “Congress-
free India” – my apologies, a Con-
gress-mukt Bharat, I forgot that we
live in the era of Hindi supremacy.
In Delhi, the BJP sees for the first
time what a Congress-free India
might really look like; and it is not
good news for the BJP. Its votaries
mocked those who pointed out, in
May 2014, that the party had won a
majority with only 31 per cent of the
vote. But those who live by arith-
metic will die by arithmetic; and the
numbers that were favourable to a
BJP sweep when the Congress was a
diminished force suddenly turn
massively unfavourable to the BJP
when the Congress is a negligible-
force. The biggest backer of the
Gandhi Congress’ future should
now be the inhabitant of 7, Race
Course Road.
The tragedy for the BJP is that it,
in Delhi, was unable to pick up the
vote that left the Gandhi Congress.
This cannot be blamed on Kiran
Bedi, or dissension in the local party.
The fact that it all went to the AAP
suggest that the BJP simply wasn’t
able to convince Delhi voters that it
was the best representative of the
values that the median voter in
Delhi desired of its government. If May 2014 is to
be repeated or expanded upon, it will need the BJP
to change that impression.
And don’t tell me that Delhi is not India – that’s
a trite and pointless statement. Delhi is far more
India’s future than any other town; it is a place
Editors’ PickMihir Sharma
22 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
where the old set-in-stone politics of kinship has al-
ready almost entirely given way to a new agenda-
based politics – if one that is no less communitarian,
no less “populist”. Those who imagined that Modi’s
appeal would not go beyond India’s urban con-
stituencies were wrong. It would be amusing if, in
turn, the BJP made an identical mistake when eval-
uating Kejriwal’s appeal.
The question is: has the BJP reached its electoral
high tide? Is it the case that enough of India despises
the blatant communal polarisation that is the party’s
raison d’etre, and that May 2014 was just because
people had been fooled into believing that the BJP
would defy its DNA?
Frankly, I think that’s unrealistic. India’s centre of
gravity has indeed shifted right. The reason Modi
swept UP was that his message – the message that
social inclusion, or “appeasement”, would come at
the cost of prosperity, or “governance” – resonated
with enough Indians to win, and more than ever
before. And this is fundamentally a right-wing
message, and the AAP’s success does not take away
from that.
What the AAP’s success does suggest, however,
is that this is not yet completely Modi’s country. He,
and his party, have more convincing to do.
But we shouldn’t assume that the lesson the BJP
will draw from this is that they must retreat from the
Hindutva that has not appealed to half of Delhi’s vot-
ers. The lesson they could draw is that they need to
preach more. They are a party of preachers, of
pracharaks. They may well imagine they need to
convert more people, become more active Hindutva
evangelists, underline the link they see between
strong, religious nationhood and effective gover-
nance and prosperity. Recognise, please that such a
response is far more in their DNA than is a retreat
from the values that drew them all to politics.
Either way, the BJP will have to come to terms
with a monumental defeat. Modi has squandered his
honeymoon on atmospherics, on photo-ops and
foreign trips and fancy clothes. He had no opposi-
tion; the scale of May 2014 gave him unparalleled
POLITICAL LIABILITY? Sakshi Maharaj’s controversial remarksqueered BJP’s pitch
authority. That is now challenged. He is constrained.
Can he summon the strength to make bold eco-
nomic reform of the sort he has avoided so far? Or
will he instead draw the lesson from Kejriwal’s suc-
cess that a little light populism can go a long way?
The Budget suddenly becomes an even more politi-
cally salient document than it was so far.
And finally, the AAP. A party that, without any
institutional bench strength, without a long history,
nevertheless picks itself up from a devastating loss,
from being mocked across India, and comes back in
this manner deserves respect.
Arvind Kejriwal did that rare thing for an Indian
politician: he publicly apologised. More: he said, per-
suasively, that he had learned from his mistake. That,
more than anything else, convinced Delhi.
Kejriwal spent days and nights meeting people,
going from seat to seat, even when his party was
down and out. (Just read that and compare it to
Rahul Gandhi, sitting in splendid isolation,
apparently unable to change his mind or political
approach.)
The AAP has a template for success now. It can
23VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
take over the Congress-plus space. It can move into
areas where the BJP currently dominates, but
the Gandhi Congress is not an easy or palatable
alternative.
Further, the Delhi success is bad news in places
like West Bengal for the BJP, which has positioned
itself there and in Telangana and in Tamil Nadu as
the honest new outsider—the local AAP slot, in
other words.
Note that, quietly, Kejriwal has dropped his op-
position to bringing in local-level political leaders
for power did not deserve it. He has been granted
power again. All of Delhi’s vast hinterland – Punjab
and Haryana, but also, crucially, Bihar and eternally
up-for-grabs Eastern UP – will look to see how he
uses it.
Only Kejriwal can screw this up for himself
now. If he is actually patient, if he tries genuinely to
fix Delhi’s problems, then he can be India’s Jokowi.
Indonesia’s new president parlayed a stint cleaning
up the country’s capital into national power. This
will mean compromise with power companies,
compromise with the Centre, and an appearance of
being a problem-solver. This is the last and most
important way in which Kejriwal and his party have
to transform themselves.
It is pointless to try and work out what the Delhi
Voter “wanted”. One can only note the facts: many
voters, plural, stopped voting for the Congress, and
voted instead for the AAP. The important question
really is: what lessons will the parties in question
draw from this?The Congress, I expect, will learn
nothing. It will continue its smug decline, an arro-
gantly silent leadership still mystifyingly convinced
that it is India’s default party. Clearly, it no longer is.
The BJP: you can’t be sure. It may become more
truly itself, a party of social conservatism. It may
become more inclusive, thinking Sakshi Maharaj
and company are political liabilities. It may become
more populist; it may take more risks. It is not easy
to work out which, because too much depends on
the thinking of one man, and that too a man who
has never before tasted defeat, let alone a defeat of
this humiliating magnitude.
Finally, the attitude of AAP must be the most
interesting. Have they learned? Can they keep the
15 good years of Dikshit’s Delhi going – and per-
haps extend the acchhe din to the slums that kept
their faith with the AAP in the darkest days of
2014? If so, then we may have to redraw the elec-
toral map of 2019.
To read the article online go to: http://www.business-
standard.com/article/opinion/one-election-three-
parties-one-result-three-lessons
COMMUNAL POLARIZATION
Security personnelkeeping vigil in
communally chargedTrilokpuri
with dodgy pasts. He has dropped his contempt for
politics-as-usual. That will help his party expand
through cannibalising the Gandhi Congress’ increas-
ingly disaffected local units – exactly what the Bahu-
jan Samaj Party, for example, did in UP and the
Trinamool in West Bengal.
In UP last year, before the elections, I did see how
Kejriwal had remarkable name recognition. But his
name, then, was met with contempt. He had run
from the battlefield, I was told; a man with no respect
Editors’ PickMihir Sharma
24 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
The furore over the show and the subsequent FIRs showthat India is still not ready for a genre of iconoclasticsatire that is de rigeur abroadBY PALLAVI DEWAN
OMEDY is no joking matter.
After the recent Charlie Hebdo
killings that triggered a world-
wide debate on humor, satire,
freedom of expression and its
boundaries, in a different vein
but touching upon similar is-
sues is AIB Roast, which has hogged headlines in
the last few weeks.
All India Bakchod (AIB) is a small group of
artistes that started uploading podcasts on social
media sites from February 2012 onwards. It was
started by comedians Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran
Khamba; later, journalists Rohan Joshi and Ashish
Shakya joined the group.
Though bakchod means “meaningless banter”, in
the past, AIB has sent powerful social messages.
Among their socially relevant videos that scratched
the surface of humor and satire, were: “When India
Spoke to Pakistan”; “The Times of Boobs” and “Rape:
It’s Your Fault”.
INSULT COMEDYThe AIB Roast by Arjun Kapoor, Ranveer Singh
with roadmaster Karan Johar took place in Mumbai
on January 20 and some 4,000 people attended it. It
was the first time that the roast-format came to
India. This is a form of insult comedy, started in
C
COMIC QUARTET(From left)Rohan Joshi,Asish Shakya,Tanmay Bhatand GursimranKhamba of AIB
TopicAIB Roast
SMUT &SENSIBILITIES
25VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
1949, where consenting individuals are sub-
jected to jokes and insults.
So what is a roast? It is to humorously mock
or humiliate someone on his appearance, actions
or personality. Internationally, roast shows have
been on for quite a while and some of the popu-
lar ones include those of Hollywood actor Char-
lie Sheen and TV personality Donald Trump.
But India is not yet ready for it as is evident from
the fact that on February 12, the police registered
an FIR against 14 people over the Roast, includ-
ing Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar, actors
Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Arjun
Kapoor and those who organized or participated
in the show.
While there were no murmurs then—and
interestingly, the participants merrily made fun
of each other as well—as soon as the group re-
leased an edited version on YouTube, an outcry
followed that forced the group to take down the
three-part video four days later.
The Maharashtra government and several
other groups called it “an attack on Indian cul-
ture”. Several Catholic organizations also took
offence. Opinion has been divided on the issue.
Charul Prabhakar, a 22-year-old student
from Pune, who attended AIB Roast, says: “It
was heartening to see that people who are actu-
ally considered ‘big’ in our country do have a
sense of humor. But I somehow saw the uproar
coming. What else do you expect from a country
that has a problem with the word ‘Bombay’
being used in a song?”
Angel Bedi, creator of online art venture,
TheFilmyOwl, says: “A roast is nothing without
the people who get offended by it.”
FREEDOM AND ITS LIMITSFor some, the incident raises questions about the
largest democracy in the world and Article 19(1)
Among AIB’s socially relevant videos,that scratched the surface of humor and
satire, are : “When India Spoke to Pak-istan”; “The Times of Boobs”; and “Rape:
It’s Your Fault”.
FACING CHARGES(From left) Karan
Johar, ArjunKapoor, Deepika
Padukone andRanveer Singh
TopicAIB Roast
26 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
(A) of the constitution that guarantees citizens of
India the freedom of speech and expression.
Explaining the restrictions to Article 19, Man-
harjit Singh, a Delhi High Court lawyer, says: “Ar-
ticle 19 (2) of the Indian constitution restricts the
exercise of freedom of speech and expression on
the grounds of public order, decency and morality.
These restrictions must be reasonable and the ju-
diciary has the power to test any such questions
of decency and morality.” At the same time, he
said that what may be offensive to one person may
be a source of amusement to another. “What is
important to understand is whether the people
who went to see the show, were aware of what it
was all about. Karan Johar, in fact, gave a warning
before it started. I personally
feel that the AIB performed
under the ambit of law.”
Decency and morality, inci-
dentally, come under the
purview of Section 294 of the
IPC, often referred to as the
“obscenity law”. The law states
that whoever performs ob-
scene acts in public is liable for
punishment; it includes “any
obscene song, ballad or words
in or near any public place”.
In the case of Miss Joyce vs
The State of Maharashtra, in
1973, Justice Devidatta
Mangesh Rege observed that
when an adult consensually
pays to attend such shows, he
runs the risk of being annoyed by the obscene
content or be entertained by the very obscenities.
Vikas Pathak, political journalist, Hindustan
Times, thinks differently. “Freedom of speech is
practiced when there is a substantive point being
made. What social, political or economic question
was raised at this event?”
Bangalore-based comedian Praveen Kumar
says: “I loved the show. I am shocked to see the
kind of hate messages it has triggered. I think
everything was fine till someone started putting
negative comments on Twitter; and then all the
closet critics sprang up. For every step we take to-
wards being a broad-minded nation, we are forced
to take two steps backwards. I am scared now to
say what I feel. Where is our democracy?”
On being asked about the future of comedy,
comedian and former law student Naveen Richard
says: “The Roast was a sudden jump …in India’s
coming out of its shell of insecurities. Someone
would have done it sooner or later. AIB took the
test for us in terms of how far we can push the bar-
rier, on YouTube at least! Looks like we have found
our threshold.” It might be that offence was taken
because celebrities were involved, and digs were
made at people in high positions. It is interesting
to note that while the event lasted two hours, what
was put up on YouTube was only of 50 minutes.
Critic and novelist CS Lewis once said: “Some
people take offence like it’s a limited period offer!”
Once the dust settles down and the slugfest ends,
we might be able to understand better how we
want to laugh.
THE JOKE IS ON USAn eclecticaudience of4,000 enjoyedthe AIB Roast
27VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
FEBRUARY 22, 2015 `100VIEWS ON NEWSTHE CRITICAL EYE
www.viewsonnewsonline.com
Why DIDI and DADA fell apart
Media tycoon Aveek Sarkar’s warm ties with Mamata Banerjee turn into a cold war 13
SHOULD GOVT CONTROL TERROR REPORTING? 44
CENSOR BOARD CHIEF PAHLAJ NIHALANI ON HIS ‘ACTION HERO’ MODI 38
JE SUIS LAXMANThe uncommon
life of RK Laxman 21
WHAT AN IDEA, SIR JI!Gopinath Menon writes on the trend of clubbing ads with social messages 24
HOW A TOUGH MODI BUREAUCRAT WAS COLD- SHOULDERED 32
Introducing new section on Governance
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ReviewTVF
ITHIN a week of the All India
Backchod (AIB) Roast, another
comedy collective, The Viral
Fever (TVF) released what
would go a long way in setting
a new trend in Indian comedy. Just a day before the
Delhi election results, TVF came out with an endear-
ing and sharply hilarious interview of Arvind Kejri-
wal.This is the first time an Indian politician exposed
himself to a satirical attack willingly. With Arnub, TV
host Arnab Goswami’s lovable caricature, firing the
salvos, the show Barely Speaking was no less insulting
than the Roast of actors Ranveer Singh and
Arjun Kapoor.
The show started by Arnub asking Kejriwal for
some “tea, coffee or cough syrup”. Kejriwal’s bad
dressing sense was funnily probed. “You represent the
aam aadmi. Are you saying when you go out dressed
like this, the aam aadmi has a bad dressing sense?”
The issue of women’s empowerment was also brought
up. “You say you are for women’s empowerment, but
your actions speak otherwise. In the last election, you
contested against Sheila Dixit, and you defeated her
so badly that she went to Kerala. Now you are com-
peting against Kiran Bedi. The only time you dared
to fight against a man was in Benaras. And we all
know how that turned out.”
The funniest and the nastiest bit was when Arnub
brought up the issue of cleaning garbage—the basic
task of a broom, AAP’s party symbol. Arnub
W
ON THE HOT SEATArvind Kejriwal inconversation withBiswapati “Arnub”Sarkar
ALL FOR A LAUGHIt’s the season of laughter. While AIB Roast triggered debates, TVF’s interview with Arvind Kejriwal (before theelections) provided wholesome entertainment BY SOMI DAS
29VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
stand, whether Sarkar’s popularity is proof of
Goswami’s own popularity as a fearless news an-
chor or the degree of ridicule his style of anchor-
ing attracts among viewers.
Having perfected the art of playing Arnab,
Sarkar has now has got more ambitious. He end-
edthe Kejriwal interview by daring the Newshour
anchor: “Tonight, I take this platform to challenge
the man who imitates me on national television
every night. If you have a sense of humor, come
to my show and face me one-on-one.”
POLITICS ON THEIR RADARApart from mimicking news debates, TVF directs
its satire at Indian politics and the film fraternity.
Arnub’s last Barely Speaking with Shahrukh Khan
was widely watched. A number of spoofs have
been done on Kejriwal by TVF. Popular spoofs
also include those of “Another Chopra” and
“Meenakshi Lekhika”, (on the Congress and BJP
spokespersons respectively).
The spoofs target television debates, the film
industry and political parties. The organizers sub-
THE REEL AND THE REAL
Arvind Kejriwalwith his spoof
Jitendra Kumar
ReviewTVF
ARUNABH KUMAR Was it easy convincing Kejriwal?
After interviewing Shah Rukh Khan on Barely Speak-ing with Arnub, we were aiming to get people
from different backgrounds. We had been chas-ing him since November last year, but thingsmaterialized towards the end of January. Thisvideo is special—the first time in the history of
India a politician has come on a satirical show.The only time this has ever happened anywhere
else is when Barrack Obama came on the show, Between two ferns.
Do you think you will now be able to rope in other
politicians? I think politicians should be open to these kinds of sketches, as this al-lows them to show a different side of themselves. Kejriwal has beenvery sporty in allowing us to take a dig at him.
What is the revenue model of TVF? The TVF YouTube Channel is a part of TVF Media Labs, which also hasarms in the fields of branded content, TV production, live events andcontent dissemination. A majority of our revenue comes from brandcollaborations, where we feature a brand in our content and design awhole property around it. Even for Barely Speaking, the first twoepisodes were part of movie promotion campaigns, the video featur-ing Kejriwal was made in collaboration with The Times of India fortheir Litterbug Campaign.
The Viral Fever is a Comedy Collective and a YouTube channel that goes with the tagline “Sab Qutiyapa hai (All is funnily cute)”. FounderArunabh Kumar, from IIT Kharagpur, was the assistant director for Om Shanti Om. Kumar forayed into the online platform, along withlike-minded friends after MTV rejected one of his concepts. The channel’s first hit video was Rowdies, a spoof of the popular realityshow Roadies. Since then there has been no looking back; now the channel has come up with India’s only web series: Roommates. VONcatches up with Arunabh Kumar and his colleague, Biswapati ‘Arnub’Sarkar, also from IIT, Khargapur. Excerpts from the interview:
asksed Kejriwal: “If you are against garbage, why is
Somnath Bharti still in your party?”
ARNUB VS ARNAB?Arnub, played by TVF’s Biswapati Sarkar, is the per-
fect foil to the high decibel, TRP grosser Arnab
Goswami. Sarkar is by far the most popular in the
23-member team of TVF. It is difficult to under-
The gen-next funny men
30 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
tly point out the parallels between the Indian film
industry and political parties in India vis-a-vis the
predominance of dynasty, copy-paste scripts, stale
party manifestoes and the prevalence of the VIP
culture. Their video, Bollywood Aam Aadmi Party-
Arnub’s Qtiyapa, released in 2014, is one of their
most popular political sketches that has got over 4
lakh views till date.
LIKE OBAMA, LIKE KEJRIWALThe Kejriwal Barely Speaking episode did well not
just because of Arnub’s histrionics, but also because
Kejriwal, in true spirit of comedy, played along
sportingly. When Arnub pressurized him to try
bribing a ticket checker, Kejriwal retorted: “Which
train are you talking about Arnub, the train in
Appu Ghar?”
He took the barbs sportingly and even chided
Arnub for being childish. He talked about his fam-
ily candidly. His daughter is from IIT, Delhi. He had
a love marriage, he said. He also talked about how
he proposed his wife.
“I am not a Kejriwal fan but I am really im-
pressed to see a politician daring to come on a show
like this and for also being so sporty. So obviously,
he has set the benchmark for other politicians,” a
browser commented on YouTube. Interestingly,
around the same time, Barack Obama also did a
skit, Things Everyone Does But Doesn't Talk About
for BuzzFeed.
The video shows him posing in front of the mir-
ror with aviator sunglasses, playing around with a
selfie stick and struggling to pronounce “February”.
Obama has regularly allowed himself to be grilled
by some of the top US comedians like Jon Stewart
of The Daily Show and even danced with Ellen De-
Generes on her show. So in that sense, Kejriwal
seems to be inching closer to Modi’s ‘best friend’
Barack, at least when it comes to sense of humor.
With over five lakh followers on Facebook, over
six lakh followers on Twitter and close to 10 lakh
YouTube subscribers, TVF has built a loyal viewer-
ship for its kind of comedy. The huge success of the
Kejriwal interview shows how channels like these
could be the fresh breeding grounds for political
opinion and discussion.
BISWAPATI SARKAR How do you imitate Arnab so well? I play Arnub with a 'U', who is a silly, exaggerated version of apopular news anchor. It started with imitation but has transformed into emulation of a journalist who is the centre ofattraction in his own debates. The character has evolved into acartoon-watching Casanova, who likes to witch-hunt celebs.
It is no longer a direct parody of anyone. In Arnub’s universe,he is the biggest star. He also believes that somebody imitateshim on TV every night. I watch Newshour whenever I am free.Nothing on TV is half as funny as this. You can never write thestuff that people say in these debates.
One of the publications compared your Kejriwal inter-view with Narendra Modi's Mann-ki-Baat on radio. Doyou see that as a compliment?It would be unfair to compare the Prime Minister’s show Mann-ki-baat with our video with Kejriwal because that is a serious dis-cussion. Our video, on the other hand, was made solely for thepurpose of comedy and tried to capture the Delhi CM in his per-
sonal space. It was fun to see a politician take jokes on himselfand we would be glad to have more politicians on our show. In-cluding Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Did the interview go according to a pre-planned script or were there spontaneousresponses from Kejriwal? A few answers were scripted. A few wereimprovised. Of course, all my questionswere written beforehand. Kejriwal wassporty and was much more humble andpolite than we expected. It was an honorto have him. However, despite whateverthe media said about him, we found outthat Kejriwal was a bad actor.
Will we actually get the opportunity to see aArnub vs Arnab?Arnub was born ready. But does his imposter have a sense ofhumor? The nation wants to know.
31VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
NEWSDATE NEWS CHANNEL TIME
11:45AM 11:46AM 11:50AM 11:51AM 11:56AM
1/2/15
1/2/15
2/2/15
2/2/15
2/2/15
3/2/15
3/2/15
Leander Paes-Martina Hingis win Aus-tralian Open Mixed Doubles title. Bothadded 15th Grand Slam title to their re-spective tallies with a win in Melbourne
Narendra Modi to visit China beforeMay 26, efforts on for new route toKailash Manasarovar: Sushma Swaraj
BJP attacks Kejriwal; says he is playingpolitics of caste, trying to consolidateAggarwal community for political gains
Volunteer group claims AAP fundingscam, says four bogus companies havemade donations amounting to Rs 50lakh each to AAP
Kiran Bedi's aide Narendra Tandonwithdraws resignation after meetingAmit Shah
EVMs being tampered with to help BJP inDelhi Cantonment, charges Kejriwal. Hesays whatever button was pressed on themachines, the light against the BJP sym-
Arun Jatiley: AVAM not related to BJP, all alle-gations against AAP from parties formermembers, AAP must answer from where itgot donations, should keep courts away from
11:34AM 11:35AM
4/2/15 Threat of bomb attack on my KrishnaNagar office: BJP CM candidate Kiran Bedi
1:57PM 2:10PM 1:57PM
1:04PM
1:34PM1:24PM
2:51PM 2:56PM 2:56PM 3:00PM 3:06PM
9:59AM 10:04AM
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1:04PM1:04PM
11:37AM 11:38AM
1:04PM 1:04PM
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32 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
2:13PM
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
4/2/15
5/2/15
5/2/15
6/2/15
6/2/15
7/2/15
7/2/15
NEWS
ISIS video shows captured Jordanianpilot being burnt alive
LC Goyal replaces Anil Goswami ashome secretary
Christian groups protest against attackson churches, demand security for placesof worship
Jitan Ram Manjhi calls meetingwith legislative party; meeting tobe held on Feb 20
AAP raises question on BJP’sad-campaign, says they have theirads placed in all newspapers
Historic day for Delhi, must vote for devel-opment, voters must come out inlarge numbers and exercise their right:Kiran Bedi
Vice-President Hamid Ansari casts his vote
10:14AM
10:25AM
10:00AM
10:03AM 10:04AM 10:09AM
8:29AM
8:36AM 8:36AM 8:36AM
8:29AM 8:29AM
10:10AM 10:14AM 10:16AM
10:28AM 10:30AM
10:31AM
4/2/15Plane crash in Taiwan, many peoplefeared to be stuck, so far 10 people havebeen rescued; plane was carrying58 passengers 10:16AM 10:19AM 10:20AM
10:27AM 10:28AM 10:30AM
33VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
NEWSDATE NEWS CHANNEL TIME
10:11AM 10:13AM 10:13AM 10:14AM10:11AM
7/2/15
8/2/15
8/2/15
9/2/15
9/2/15
11/2/15
11/2/15
11/2/15
Kejriwal casts his vote, Kiran Waliaand Arvinder Singh Lovely along withRahul Gandhi reach Aurangzeb Laneto cast vote
Sushil Modi meets leaders close toJitan Ram Manjhi
Sharad Yadav asks for Manjhi’s resigna-tion from JDU, says Manjhi is no morea legislator
Nearly 60 accounts being probed, talks onwith Swiss government on black money,action in 7-8 months: Arun Jaitley
Nitish Kumar: Will parade my MLAs infront of the President, legislative partyhas chosen me as their leader
Big setback for Nitish Kumar; PatnaHigh Court declares JD-U meet electing Nitish as leader illegal
Kejriwal to meet PM Modi to invitehim for his swearing-in ceremony
AAP gets income tax notice; reply demanded by 16 February
10:00AM
2:06PM2:06PM 2:07PM 2:07PM
9:58AM 10:01AM
2:52PM 2:52PM 2:52PM 2:52PM 2:52PM
2:09PM2:02PM 2:02PM 2:02PM 2:02PM
2:39AM10:30AM
10:15AM 10:16AM 10:16AM 10:46AM 10:22AM
2:39AM 2:39AM
10:55AM 10:56AM 10:58AM 11:00AM 11:34AM
34 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
DATE NEWS CHANNEL TIME
9:58AM 9:58AM 10:02AM 10:31AM
12/2/15
12/2/15
13/2/15
13/2/15
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16/2/15
16/2/15
NEWS
Kejriwal and Sisodia meet PM Modi at 7,RCR; invite him for swearing-in ceremony; issues like full statehood forDelhi and illegal colonies discussed
Gujarat HC dismisses Teesta Setalvad’s bailplea; SC stays her arrest till tomorrow
Jitan Ram Manjhi: Nitish is doing a bigmistake, he tried to make me a puppetin his hand, I have expanded the votebank of JD(U)
Cricket keeps SAARC nations united: Modi;he calls Nawaz Sharif, wishing Pakistanteam best for cricket World Cup
Arvind Kejriwal, will take direct charge ofkey portfolios such as finance, power andhome; Manish Sisodia to get urbandevelopment
Kejriwal reaches Ramlila Ground, he willtake oath as the CM Of Delhi
Yuvaraj becomes the costliest player inIPL 8, sold for Rs 16 crore
Ireland beats West Indies, Ireland had tochase a target of 305
11:33AM
10:16AM
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35VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
ProtestsValentine’s Day
overnanceG
LOVE IN THE TIME OFHINDUTVA
In recent times, there have been protests over attempts byhard-line, right-wing elements to curb fundamental rights.
What they forget is that this is a democracy, and people havethe right to assemble peacefully
BY SHREYA S
36 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
N recent times, one has come
across novel ways of protest.
For every display of moral
policing that has taken place
in parts of India, activists
have found inventive ways to
protest and voice opinions.
In 2009, Sri Ram Sena leader Pramod Mutha-
lik threatened to take action against couples cele-
brating Valentine’s Day and his organization
attacked young men and women in a Mangalore
pub claiming they were violating traditional
Indian values.
That’s when journalist Nisha Susan came up
with the Pink Chaddi campaign, leading thou-
sands of people to courier pink panties to Ram
Sena’s office.
Last year, a couple in Kochi initiated the Kiss
of Love campaign in response to moral policing in
Kerala. The simple act of public display of
affection became a political statement and
polarized activists, with some arguing that this
mode of dissent would alienate even potential
allies. Nonetheless, the campaign spread like wild-
fire to cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Cali-
cut, Hyderabad and New Delhi.
LOVE REIGNS (From left) Kiss ofLove protestors inDelhi; Public display of affectionis part of theprotest strategy I
37VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
Photos: Anil Shakya
LOVE AND LET LOVEAnd this Valentine’s Day, Delhi saw an-
other act of protest against moral policing
by the Akhil Hindu Mahasabha, which
threatened to marry off any couple they
found expressing their affection on V-Day.
That was enough to spur activists and
more than 200 college students gathered to
protest outside its office. They went in a
mock wedding procession and sought to
present themselves as people in love, be it
same-sex, inter-caste or inter-religious.
The tone of the protest was playful,
even celebratory, but cannot for a second
be mistaken as apolitical or devoid of
anger. “Fall in Love, Not in Line”, read many of
their banners. The protestors challenged the claim
of the Mahasabha that there is only one “moral”
way to exist.
The protestors were not defending Valentine’s
Day, which, in recent times, has been criticized for
its commercialism and triteness. What they were
protesting was the cultural nationalism espoused
by fanatical groups. The protestors made it clear
that they were here for something deeper than
Valentine’s Day—it was their freedom to be di-
verse, and to be left alone to exist in peace.
And this is the attitude of most progressive
people in India and is reflected in social media.
The absurdity of the Mahasabha’s threats was
mocked and challenged. One tweeter wondered:
“If I wish eleven ladies Happy Valentine’s Day on
Twitter, how will the Hindu Mahasabha decide
who to marry me off to?” Many expressed love for
their favorite celebrity, publicly requesting that
they be wed to that person.
MISPLACED ZEALOthers urged the Mahasabha to focus on more
pressing issues: “Woman raped, brutalized and
murdered in Rohtak. Hindu Mahasabha, fight
against crimes on women instead of Valentine's
Day.” Still others wanted to firmly disassociate
their own culture from the Mahasabha’s: “Seri-
ously guys, do us a favor and drop the word
‘Hindu’ from your name. Don’t embarrass us all.”
Strangely, even the police rounded up these
protestors on a day when Arvind Kejriwal was
being sworn in as chief minister of Delhi. Though
the Mahasabha’s leader, Swami Omji, has notori-
ously threatened to assassinate Kejriwal, the po-
lice, keeping law and order in mind, decided to
crack down on these peaceful protestors. Dhrubo
Jyoti, one of the protestors, narrates the events: “As
young people, dressed in wedding attire and oth-
erwise, started gathering outside the Mahasabha’s
office, the police rounded them up and shoved
them into a bus. This happened for over an hour,
filling up multiple buses.”
The 225 protestors, who called themselves
ProtestsValentine’s Day
overnanceG
It’s only when a protest is likely todisturb “public tranquility”, that
Section 144 can be invoked. But thiswas invoked against the Valentine’s Day
protestors, who were peaceful.
FIGHTING FOR LOVEThe Pink Chaddi poster;
(below) Protestors in Delhi
38 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
“baraatis”, however, did not let
the detainment and even the
rough handling by police officers
deter them. While their friends
and supporters furiously shared
updates on social media, they
kept the wedding party going
with raucous singing, dancing,
and chanting. They were re-
leased in the evening.
Another characteristic about
these protests is that they often
transcend traditional protest
spaces. One protestor said: “The
police asked us to protest at Jan-
tar Mantar and wanted to know
who had asked us to protest at
the Mahasabha’s office.” This
shows that the state wants to
contain protests to certain desig-
nated spaces, thus making them lose their subver-
sive potential. In fact, in 2014, a Delhi police ad
even exhorted people to protest at Jantar Mantar.
And subversion does remain one of the ways to
protest.” As Dhrubo Jyoti says: “The protestors
were trying to make a larger point about the in-
stitution of marriage. Rescuing the ideals of love
from hardliners—religious or free-marketeers—
requires subversion.”
His argument seems convincing when one
considers state control over peaceful protestors as
against a group that has repeatedly and publicly
threatened violence. In a functioning democracy,
people have the right to assemble peacefully, but
unfortunately, this is being repeatedly violated in
India at the expense of civil liberties.
STICK TO CONSTITUTIONUnder Article 19 (1) of the constitution, citizens
have “the right to assemble peaceably without
arms”. Section 144 of the IPC allows the state to
intervene in specific circumstances, but lawyers
and activists warn that the grayness of this provi-
sion is being severely misused by the police. It is
only when a protest is likely to disturb “public
tranquility” or cause a riot, that Section 144 can
be invoked. But this section was invoked against
the Valentine’s Day protestors, who were entirely
peaceful and consisted largely of young students
and were merely invoking their Fundamental
Right. And action was taken not against the ha-
tred-spewing group that provoked the protest.
Police reforms activist Rikky Minocha argues:
“Does the Valentine protest affect public tranquil-
ity? If so, are we saying that a political group
threatening to marry off couples is doing a ‘tran-
quil’ thing?”
Minocha says that many high courts have
noted the unlawful extensions being given to Sec-
tion 144, and have barred the police from doing
so. He says this deserves greater media attention.
Meanwhile, the “baraatis” are back home. And
members of the Hindu Mahasabha have publicly
threatened their safety. It waits to be seen what
Delhi’s new CM, a veteran of many dharnas, does
about such protests in future.
CENTER OF DISSENTAkhil HinduMahasabha’sSwami Omjiin Delhi
39VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
overnanceGRadio
Airwave rule
Davidslays
Goliathon radio
F and when the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) gets down to doing an
honest electoral postmortem of
the Delhi drubbing, it will realize
that its radio campaign was disas-
trously off-track; especially when
the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) used the same
medium to slay the Goliath that had been on a pan-
India political conquest.
While there may be many reasons for the 67-3
upset, in the communication-with-the-masses depart-
ment, radio was a critical factor that swung the verdict
in AAP’s favor. Much before the election on February
I
FM Radio went a long way indelivering the stunning
victory to AAP in the Delhipolls. The medium is
set to play a vital role inevery local and municipal
election now BY AKASH BANERJEE
40 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
HIS MASTER’S VOICE(Above) The man whosteered the AAPwindfall, Arvind Kejriwal;(Facing page) Radio’swide reach connectsthe masses
7, it was clear that the AAP had a winning campaign
on its hands.
While the Lok Sabha elections are fought with a
national message, through national delivery mecha-
nisms; assembly elections require a local, personal
and an emotional touch. The crushing defeat of the
BJP has ensured that in future, regional elections will
never be able to ignore the powerful connect of radio.
The BJP spent nearly Rs 60 crore on advertising
during the assembly elections; this is roughly four
times APP’s electoral expenditure. Arvind Kejriwal
and his men didn’t have the resources to wage a tele-
vision/print war with the BJP. For a city spread out
like Delhi, outdoors’ campaigning too is expensive
and a logistical nightmare. Radio, therefore, becomes
the perfect medium to engage the masses. Like in the
previous assembly election, AAP realized this well in
time and stated its campaign months in advance.
AAP bet a significantly large part of its budget to
a blistering and sustained radio campaign. The smart
deployment of Rs 6 crore to 8 crore on the personal-
ized medium yielded rich dividends for AAP.
PERSONAL TOUCHRadio gives solid salience and recall if used for a long
period of time. AAP’s radio campaign stretched
41VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
well over six months and the party kept chipping in
its message regularly. That included its apology for
stepping down from power and its vision for the na-
tional capital. By the time other parties came to the
radio fray, AAP had already carved out a top-of-the-
mind space with listeners.
AAP’s experience in the previous assembly elec-
tions had taught it the central axiom of radio: you
don’t address the masses, you talk to people person-
ally. Through most of the AAP campaign, Kejriwal
came on air and chatted with people, building a one-
on-one rapport with them. Even in the final stage of
the campaign, the personal touch was never lost. A
college girl talking about how she’s harassed on the
streets, a housewife talking about the rising cost of liv-
ing in the city and a rickshaw-puller narrating how he
gets hit by corruption and bribery on a daily basis—
all helped to create a strong connect.
The pinnacle of this personalized campaign was
a young “reporter” visiting various parts of the city
and asking people who they were going to vote and
why; the answer invariably being AAP because of the
party’s transparency, honesty and vision. So powerful
was the commercial that it appeared that a genuine
radio jockey was asking the questions. The Election
Commission had to intervene and AAP had to in-
sert a disclaimer, stating that it was a political adver-
tisement. But by then, the message had gone down
well and the damage to the BJP was done.
In the Lok Sabha, it was widely believed that the
Congress’s handing over its campaign to Dentsu
Inc., an MNC communications agency, was a critical
error. Ironically, the BJP seems to have made the
same mistake by entrusting Soho Square and Madi-
son with its advertising; the companies had no un-
derstanding of the ground situation in Delhi.
AAP didn’t employ the services of any advertis-
ing agency. “All our communication ideas were
crowd-funded,” says party leader and strategist
Raghav Chadha. “We took slogans that people made
in the rallies, recorded voices on mobile phones and
the scripts were drafted by volunteers. All we had
was a clear, positive message. Only sometimes we
thought it fit to reply to the BJP’s negativity.”
When the BJP launched a radio commercial de-
picting an old women ruing over the fact that she
had wasted her time and vote for a man who had
overnanceG
LACK-LUSTRE CAMPAIGNPrime Minister
Narendra Modi’s appealgot severely dented in
the Delhi elections
RadioAirwave rule
42 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
run away from his duties, AAP was quick to hit back.
In no time, it aired a counter-commercial where Ke-
jriwal confronted the old woman and assured her
that he hadn’t run away and that AAP would be back
in a few days with full majority to serve her.
The BJP’s negative campaign, in fact, helped AAP.
OLD FATIGUEWhile the AAP’s focus was personal, the BJP stuck
to the larger-than-life campaign that worked so well
in the Lok Sabha. “Challo challe Modi ke sath (Let’s
walk with Modi),” was an extension of the message
that people had heard in May 2014. However, in the
intervening months, there hadn’t been much delivery
on the Acche Din promise and Modi’s impersonal
“look down” approach and large rallies didn’t quite
match up to the personalized offensive of Kejriwal.
Even the BJP’s radio spots were poor reproductions
of Modi’s campaign speeches—nothing more.
While Team BJP couldn’t come up with an effec-
tive campaign slogan, AAP’s “Paanch saal Kejriwal
(Five years for Kejriwal)” anthem was woven into a
song by party supporter and renowned musician
Vishal Dadlani. Played on endless loops on radio and
GRASSROOTS ‘ SUPPORTAAP men left no stoneunturned in reachingthe masses
set to dance steps in roadshows, the BJP simply had
no answer to AAP’s slick campaigning.
Smart thinking by AAP managers ensured that all
radio stations doing business with them played their
commercials first, thereby segregating the party’s
campaign message from the noise of regular com-
mercials. This was an expensive move, but AAP
reaped rich benefits. Also, while other parties kept re-
peating the same old creatives, leading to fatigue;
AAP was coming up with new ideas on a weekly
basis. From a radio perspective, AAP was faster,
slicker and more innovative than the experienced, in-
fluential and cash-rich BJP.
In the end, the personal touch worked wonders
over theatrical performances. FM Radio as a mode of
political campaign was virtually non-existent 18
months ago, yet now, it’s set to play a vital role in local,
municipal and state elections in the years to come.
The advent of Phase 3 will see more than 500 radio
stations open all over India, making it an even more
potent tool. About time other parties learnt some
tricks form AAP’s radio campaign.
Akash Banerjee is an author and works with
Radio Mirchi.
“All our communica-tion ideas werecrowd-funded. Wetook slogans thatpeople made atrallies, recordedvoices on mobilephones. Scriptswere drafted byvolunteers.”—Raghav Chadha, AAP
leader and strategist
43VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
Modi knows better than anyone that it is bureaucrats, notministers, who get work done. And he is making sure he
has all his right men in the right placeBY VISHWAS KUMAR
Bureaucracy
T’S been eight months since Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has been in power at the center.
Slowly but steadily, he is shaping up the bureaucracy
to his liking. In February this year, within a week of
each other, he sacked two top-level bureaucrats, both
appointed during the tenure of the previous UPA
government. First was foreign secretary Sujatha
Singh, followed by home secretary Anil Goswami. They were
immediately replaced by handpicked officials, S Jaishankar and LC
Goyal, respectively.
After this reshuffle, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Modi will
take the final call regarding secretary-level appointments. Government
insiders say that Modi wants to send out a clear message to bureaucrats
that their performances are under constant scrutiny. Since these bureau-
Reshuffle
I
A GAME OF C EH S S
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44 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
As bureaucrats have been given a “freehand” by Modi to innovate and implementgovernment programs unlike previousregimes where ministers called the shot,the PM also wants them to be accountable.
crats have been given a “free hand” to innovate
and quickly implement government programs
and policies unlike previous regimes where min-
isters called the shots, the prime minister also
wants them to be accountable.
TRUSTING OFFICERSPolitical leaders who have watched Modi’s work-
ing style in Gujarat are not surprised by these
developments. They know he places a lot of trust
on the bureaucracy, often more than ministers.
But he also has strong likes and dislikes, so fa-
vorite bureaucrats get a free hand, plum postings
and job extensions and post-retirement jobs.
Those he doesn’t like are often shunted out, pun-
ished and victimized if suspected of working
against his interests.
But the next round of appointments to con-
stitutional posts will be much more challenging
for the government. The post of Central Vigi-
lance Commissioner (CVC), Chief Information
Commissioner (CIC) and head of the newly cre-
ated anti-corruption unit, Lokpal, have to be
filled up. Appointments to these crucial posts,
which fight corruption and transparency in gov-
ernment organizations, have remained vacant
for several months because of procedural delays
and court cases. CVC Pradeep Kumar and the
Vigilance Commissioner JM Garg completed
their terms on September 28 and September 7
respectively. Similarly, CIC
TAKING CHARGEPrime Minister Narendra Modi greetsnewly-appointedforeign secretaryS Jaishankar
45VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
Photos: PIB
Rajiv Mathur completed his
tenure on August 22.
According to sources, the
process to fill up the posts of CVC and CIC has
started with around 70 retired government offi-
cials applying for it and the Department of Per-
sonnel and Training (DoPT) is in the process of
short-listing candidates. Selection of a Lokpal too
will start soon. The government is under pressure
to move fast after anti-corruption crusader Anna
Hazare recently threatened to again sit on fast.
APPOINTMENTS SOONUnion minister Jitendra Singh, however, denied
charges of delay in the appointments in Lokpal,
CVC and CIC and said they would happen in due
course. Delay in the CVC appointment, Singh
clarified, was because of a litigation going on in
the Supreme Court over it.
Many changes have taken place among the top
bureaucracy. It includes transfers of seven IAS of-
ficers, whereas one retired IAS officer of
the 1977 batch, DK Mittal, was appointed
Mission Director, Direct Benefits Transfer
Scheme for three months. Lov Verma, a
1978 batch officer, was transferred from the post
of health secretary to the Department of Empow-
erment of Persons with Disabilities. Labor secre-
tary, Gauri Kumar, a Gujarat cadre officer, was
shifted as secretary, co-ordination in the Cabinet
Secretariat.This has fuelled speculation that she
could be elevated as cabinet secretary after Ajit K
Seth’s extended term ends in June this year.
Meanwhile, in this round, special secretary of
DoPT, Bhanu Pratap Sharma, was made health
secretary, while urban development secretary,
Shankar Agarwal, was appointed secretary, Min-
istry of Labor and Employment. Commerce min-
istry's special secretary, Madhusudhan Prasad,
was appointed secretary, Urban Development
Ministry. Anita Agnihotri, an Odisha cadre officer
in the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Al-
leviation (HUPA) was appointed secretary, De-
partment of Social Justice and Empowerment,
while Nandita Chatterjee, a West Bengal cadre
bureaucrat, has taken her place.
REJIG DRAMA(From left) Ousted
foreign secretarySujatha Singh;outgoing home
secretaryAnil Goswami; newly
appointed homesecretary LC Goyal
BureaucracyReshuffle
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46 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
T was Obama who did the BJP in! Okay, that
was a jumla (a figure of speech meaning it was
a joke). Had the US president not come, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi would not have
changed his clothes five times a day. He would
not have worn the pin-striped suit with his name written all
over. That suit became his undoing. It got talked about ad nau-
seam for all the wrong reasons. He was mocked on social media
for his das-lakh-ka-suit. Many thought it ill-fitted the
I
BLAME IT ON OBAMA!
Arrogance often has a fall.And how! The
drubbing received by theBJP in the Delhi polls
shows that it can ignorethe common man only at
its own perilBY ASHIM CHOUDHURY
CRUCIAL TIESPrime Minister NarendraModi with US PresidentBarack Obama inNew Delhi
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Delhi elections
47VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
PIB
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people were having a laughing fest. Some of that
middle-class laughter trickled down to the streets.
Bedi’s utterances didn’t help much. The BJP’s rank-
and-file in Delhi was sniggering at her. They felt be-
trayed, humiliated and demotivated. And she
behaved like she was already CM. Soon, there was
a gag order on Bedi. Putting a finger on your lips,
particularly during election time, is not a
bright idea.
COSTLY SILENCEModi’s own silence on a string of sensitive issues,
whether it was love jihad or ghar wapasi or four chil-
dren for Hindu mothers, was deafening. Suddenly,
in a city like Delhi, churches were burning or being
vandalized. When pressed, cronies like Arun Jaitley
said the prime minister of the country did not need
to comment on every minor issue. True, the events
were minor, but the issue was larger. And, that mes-
sage was brought home by, guess who? Obama!
After all that backslapping and bonhomie—the
namak haram, as a FB post endearingly put it, gave
Modi a parting jab in the rib. “India will succeed so
long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious
faith…,” he said at a town hall meeting in Delhi,
with polls just a few days away. After his return, the
White House issued a clarification that the remark
was being misconstrued. That consolation was soon
snatched away when Obama reiterated at a solemn
National Prayer meeting that had Gandhi been
alive, he would have been “shocked”. The real
shocker was the Delhi poll results. A FB comment
by a Muslim girl summed up the minority mood.
She wrote: “Ghutan kuch kam si mehsoos hui aaj
subah humein (I felt a bit less stifled this morning).”
By the time it was time to vote in Delhi, Modi’s
image had taken a severe beating. He came to be
seen as a charlatan, high on promises and slow on
delivery. The Swachh Bharat campaign he launched
on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday was a masterstroke
that had won over even the cynics. But that goodwill
was frittered away. The streets and by-lanes of Delhi
(like in the rest of the country), where ordinary peo-
PoliticsDelhi elections
prime minister of a country, where hundreds die
each winter for lack of protective clothing, to wear
a suit that cost so much. And the poor, mockingly
voted him out. “But this was a small state election,
not Modi’s test,” BJP men lamely say. But, of course,
it was Modi’s test! From the word go, they put
Modi’s face to the campaign. It was brand Modi on
sale. It was a bad idea to start with, and against the
BJP’s stated policy. Remember how they riled at the
Congress for not having a “PM face” to their cam-
paign?
The people of Delhi were left wondering if the
PM would also double up as the chief minister.
There were murmurs saying whoever became CM
was irrelevant, the remote, anyway, would be with
the PM. It was only towards the end, when the BJP
belatedly realized that there was no buzz around the
PM, that they quickly imported “Crane Bedi”. Peo-
ple soon found out she was a “faking crane”, and
BJP’s trump card turned into a joker. On Facebook,
WINNING STREAKArvind Kejriwal’s
steadfast campaignunsettled Modi in Delhi
Modi’s silence on a string of sensitiveissues, whether it was love jihad or
ghar wapasi or four children for Hindumothers, was deafening.
48 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
ple lived, saw little improvement. All he needed to
do was to pull up the municipal officers and work-
ers. After all, Delhi has a huge army of workers,
mostly absent, on its payrolls. So where was the ac-
tion on Swachh Bharat? It became a farce. BJP netas
were jostling, clicking pictures of themselves with
the broom. A great opportunity was lost.
The poll promise of bringing back black money
met the same fate. It was one of their main political
planks. Months later, Amit Shah, the “tainted” BJP
chief, who many saw as the party’s winning mascot,
said sheepishly that putting Rs 15 lakh into
every account was just a jumla. The jhadu (broom),
the poll symbol of the AAP, too became a jumla in
the hands of the people, sweeping away the BJP’s
rising fortunes. It’s unthinkable that just nine
months ago, Modi’s BJP, riding the crest of an ant-
corruption wave, had won all seven parliamentary
seats in Delhi. What is it that so alienated the
people? Arrogance.
COMPLETE IMAGE TURNAROUNDAt that election, with his grand oratory, Modi assid-
uously crafted his image as a humble tea-seller cap-
turing the hearts of ordinary Indians. But in the nine
months, despite improving the economic outlook,
or India’s image as a great investment destination,
Modi consistently gave the perception that he was
corporate India’s man up there, not the humble chai-
wala. They saw him mollycoddling the Adanis and
the Ambanis. They were there at the high table, dur-
ing his grand swearing-in, during the banquet with
Obama. Not inviting Kejriwal, a former chief min-
ister, to the Republic day parade not only showed
him as mean, it also betrayed his aversion for the
aam aadmi. The rest, as they say, is history.
The analogy of the rabbit-tortoise race is not out
of place either. Smug in the victory of the Lok Sabha
polls, the BJP was happily napping when the AAP
had already oiled its poll machinery, geared up by
its young spirited volunteers. Moreover people
wanted an alternative to the usual set of politicians
who they see as rogues. AAP, with its young
idealistic workers, and the Anna movement behind
them, was an alternative at hand. That Kejriwal had
abdicated a year back did not help. There was a ring
of sincerity to his unconditional apology in meeting
after meeting. It worked. People forgave him. But
the BJP, in panic by now, began its one-point agenda
of mudslinging. Bhagoda, bandar, baazaru, man-
hoos, were some of the words they used to describe
him. The final straw was when half of Modi’s cabi-
net, led by the vitriolic Seetharaman attacked AAP
for its Rs 2-crore “hawala” money, when day-after-
day they were running front-page ad campaigns
that cost a bomb. That one boomeranged.
Two days before people actually went to the
polling booths, a smug Arun Jaitley said: “People
have two choices before them, development and an-
archy.” Clearly, they voted for anarchy. And now
they want the anarchy of the policeman and other
extortionists on the streets to end.
Kejriwal has a tough job ahead. He has to fulfill
his promise of free water and cheap electricity, at
least to the poor. And the BJP will do well to coop-
erate with the AAP instead of trying to scuttle him.
Already, people are saying that BJP-ruled Haryana
will not give water, as promised. Such disruptive and
vengeful politics will only erode the credibility of the
BJP with the poor. Let’s not forget, a majority of In-
dians are poor. The vote is the only weapon of mass
destruction they carry, as Delhi has just shown. An-
other lesson, the sensex is not the best indicator to
gauge the mood of the people.
CORPORATE WELL-WISHERSPrime Minister Modi withMukesh and Nita Ambani
49VIEWS ON NEWS March 7, 2015
Kiran Bedi was to be the BJP’smasterstroke to halt AAP in itstracks. It appears that there was anAmritsari connection, that made Bedithe party’s last-minute choice forDelhi. A high-profile friend of the BJPmasterminded the script, along withBedi. The whispers going around inthe BJP corridors are that followingreports of the rising popularity of
AAP, Union Minister Arun Jaitley, inconsultation with the “friend” of theBJP, zeroed in on Bedi. He thenlanded at Amit Shah’s doorstep, andon a cold evening, the trio reached 7,Race Course Road to get the finalnod. The strategy, as is now well-known, backfired. The daggers arenow drawn within the party, withJaitley being the first target.
Target Jaitley for the debacle
The Shiv Sena headache for the BJP gov-ernment does not seem to end. After theDelhi election debacle, it has just in-creased with the Thackeray brothers notmincing their words. Isn’t it high time thatthe BJP called the Sena’s bluff, and sidedwith the willing NCP. The NCP does have areputation of being a less cumbersomeally. Modi also chose to spend the Valen-tine’s Day with Pawar. Does this signal anew alignment?
Minister of State for Commerce and Industry NirmalaSitharaman is the last person the government can rely onfor good publicity. Sometime back, Air-India misplaced herluggage when she arrived in Australia. Unable to control herire, she instantly tweeted her agony. Recently she was offto the North-East when her flight was delayed for an hour-and-a-half due to dense fog. She lost no time telling theworld through her tweets (yet again!) that she had to coolher heels for more than an hour awaiting take-off. Thisgovernment airline surely needs better publicists.
Bad PR by minister
People in Delhi are waiting with bated breath tosee the newly-crowned Chief Minister ArvindKejriewal deliver his poll promise of giving com-plete Wifi coverage to the Capital. Meanwhile,two ghats at Varanasi, the Dashashwamedhand the Shitala Ghats, have free Wifi now for 30
minutes every 24 hours. Providing free Wifi isnot just Kejriwal’s promise; it is one of the im-portant poll promises of Prime Minister Modias well. So long as the common man gets togain, let the leaders fight it out as to who willprovide better connectivity!
Free Wifi at Varanasi ghats
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is learnt tohave set up a war room to speed up key ongoing infrastructureprojects. Aiding him in the process is the Mumbai-based NGOBombay First and the global consultancy firm, McKinsey. TheCM is himself identifying the reasons for the delays to sort outthe issues. Mumbaikars have reason to be happy now with fi-nally a ray of hope in their horizon, which could make megapet projects like the Navi Mumba Airport, the Trans-harbourlink and the Mumbai Metro see the light of the day.
The BothersomeSainiks
All That MattersGrapevine
Illustrations: UdayShankar
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—Compiled by Roshni
Maharashtra CMis a man in a hurry
50 VIEWS ON NEWS March 7 , 2015
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RNI No. UPBIL/2007/22571 Postal Regd. No. UP/GBD-204/2015-17