Selling India for TRPs

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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:32 AM, sunbeam65 wrote:

He who controls the media controls the mind."

~ Jim Morrison.

An Israeli security expert had suggested a total TV blackout as the jehadis wanted their Mumbai horror show to be put on display for the world.

Our news channels had clue played into the terrorists' hands. ( The jehadis chose the Thanksgiving weekend in the US to show India in a poor light as an investment/business/tourist destination).

The terrorists wanted maximum TV eyeballs and they got it! The right to security is above the right to information.

The "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality of television news is failing us. TV's hunger for shocking pictures is distorting the world's' view of terrorism in India, and its excessive use of terrorist video is spreading propaganda of an even more damaging sort.

TV outlets run the risk of becoming mindless, amoral communications tools by which terrorists advertise their brutality, enlarge their reputations and belittle those who would protect us.

The Pew Charitable Trusts' 2004 report on the state of the U.S. media found a troubling trend:

News outlets "disseminate" news from other sources rather than collect it themselves, and the end video product often becomes repetitive, chaotic and incoherent "raw news." Ultimately, news decisions are surrendered to those who would manipulate it for their own ends. TV may need to explore a new ethic — with some stern written-down policies including:

1) A refusal to air video or other propaganda from terrorist Web sites or other anonymous terrorist sources, except in the rare circumstances that such information warns viewers of an imminent, credible threat.
2) A prohibition against using images that aren't shot by network or other legitimate photographers. That means not using video shot by terrorists or insurgents, because these images are suspect, often staged for propaganda.
3) A new practice of prominently labeling all non-network, freelance or bystander video — akin to the photo credit in print journalism — so audiences can judge the source of each image.
4) A commitment to require the same sharp scrutiny and relentless challenges to terrorists and insurgents that journalists traditionally give our own government and military officials.

Well done Barkha (NDTV), Rajdeep (CNN-IBN) and Arnab (Times Now)!

Also your analysis was lame, hysterical and I had to surf the Webto understand and analyze the situation and after effects.

Please don't sell your Motherland for TRPs.

PS: The London blasts had no images of the inside of the Tube.,

Myth to Reality

In the mythical legions that India has inherited, there was, once upon a time an âsura by the name of Raktabeeja. The very name of this being conveyed it's character. It had this boon to be able to resurrect itself from it's own drops of blood.

Just as we hear of cloning/genetic engineering in the modern times, India has had in its past/mythology, events, entities or both which have probably exemplified all aspects that science has discovered/ doscovering today.

So Raktabeeja never was destroyed, because everytime he would be wounded he'd have reinforced himself with another of his kind.

At such times, the world managers (devata) went to the triumvirate (Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesha) and asked for respite. That's when the Goddess Durga/Kali/Chandi emanated from the force of all the beings that existed in those times.
The Goddess was the supreme power, with the supreme ability of being a ferocious mother - a mother who innately is meek and soft, but when it is time to defend her close ones, she would be unstoppable in her tracks of destruction.

Mahakali as she came to be known finally vanquished the blood spurting terrorist by not letting a single drop of his blood hit the ground
- and this was possible only because everyone came together with a single purpose to join forces and defeat the terrorist forces.

I remembered this story since the time I have been hearing about terrorists and attacks. All these characters that call themselves terrorists are individuals who have lost the element of humanity in them for whatever reason - most often governance caused.
And with the increase in the numbers of these incidents, I am reminded of Raktabeeja, and thus wonder about the emergence of a power that can actually destroy these entities along with all those factors which are giving rise to such events and entities.
But the driving force behind any such move is vastly lacking in the nation today - the power of unity.

As it is said, history repeats itself, except that the price one has to pay is higher.

In today's capitalist times, we all have forgotten our past and the lessons we need to learn from them. People who refer to the past are seen as old-fashioned and so-jurrassic that the present is not able to learn anything new and is too busy rotating the gerbil-wheel of detached life through generation of money.

Only if there were sufficiently sane people in the nation today, who would leave their self interests aside and get together to generate a think tank and action body that can actually get down to work out the issues, the nation can feel proud of 'emerging' as a new power.

But as someone said, the Indian arena of intellect is under dire neglect and thus India will remain 'emerging forever'.

With the Devi Navratra approaching, sharing this aspect was poignant to the times we are living in.