THEJAS H.K. writes from Madras: There was a time not too long ago when I used to walk a couple of miles to get a copy of The Hindu in Mysore. Here, in the City of its birth, it is delivered to my room at 6 am, but over the last few years, a strange feeling of unease, even disgust, makes me run away from a newspaper I used to pursue.
Today, when the paper lands at my doorstep, I wonder if it is the same publication that professors used to goad us to read for its English; if it is the same publication that parliamentarians used to cut and quote; if it is the same publication that our parents used to say was the last word in correctness and credibility.
The unease, the disgust, has been building up for a while now.
Contributing factor number one has been the ridiculous reverence of all things communist: The one-sided coverage of the killings in Nandigram, which even the readers’ editor K. Narayanan noticed; the exaggerated coverage of the affairs of the CPI(M) and AIDWA despite the magnitude of their influence in society; the flip-flop on the nuclear deal.
Contributing factor number two has been reverence of all things DMK: M. Karunanidhi is called “a statesman of our time”; the distribution of free colour TV sets is hailed as a giant leap forward in terms of establishing social equality; the violence of M.K. Azhagiri, the splurge of money on the huge banners and cut-outs of M.K. Stalin go unquestioned.
And when the Cauvery tribunal hands out its award, the daily forgets that it is not just a Madras newspaper but a South Indian paper also published from Bangalore, and rejoices, hailing the decision of the tribunal to ask Karnataka to release double the amount of water it can keep for itself. Its sister publication, Frontline, runs it as a cover story.
Some of those actions can be traced to ideological kinks (“avoiding the traps of anti-left campaign journalism that various other newspapers and television channels”, as editor-in-chief N. Ram put it in response to the criticism of the Nandigram coverage), and to keep its core constituency—Tamils—happy.
But it is the national paper’s coverage of matters concerning China—be it its claim over Arunachal Pradesh or the uprising of Tibetans in Lhasa last week—that is deeply troubling, and has well and truly turned me off.
Exhibit A: When the Chinese foreign minister asserted during a visit to India that Arunachal Pradesh belonged to India, the paper ignored the report, but carried a mysterious editorial suggesting that the border row can be solved by adopting a “give and take policy”. India should give and China should take?
Exhibit B: The uprising of Tibetans in Lhasa has seen The Hindu go overboard, censoring, blacking out, polishing and giving a spin to everything, as if it is China’s National Newspaper, not India’s. And this after a recent piece on the Dalai Lama resulted in a Tibetan protest in front of the head office of the paper.
Just one example will suffice. On the day, the Dalai Lama was talking of “cultural genocide“, on the day The Times of India was saying that “Tibet unrest spreads beyond Lhasa“, The Hindu was saying, “Lhasa returns to normality“.
Result: “The Mahavishnu of Mount Road” is collecting labels by the lorryload. B. Raman calls the paper the “People’s Daily of China“. Nitin Pai calls the paper “Beijing’s Mouthpiece“.
Which is all so surprising.
When N. Ravi and Malini Parthasarathy were removed as editor and executive editor of the paper in an overnight bloodless coup in 2003, and replaced with N. Ram, joint managing director N. Murali (elder brother of Ram and Ravi) was quoted as saying this: “It is true that our readers have been complaining that some of our reports are partial and lack objectivity.”
The Hindu is open to precisely the same charges of partiality and lack of objectivity now. In fact, if anything, things have only gotten far worse. And this when Deccan Chronicle is around and this when The Times of India is slated for launch soon. Yet there is not a whisper at what this motivated and slanted coverage is doing to the core strengths of a great newspaper, built over 125 years by the sweat and toil of scores of journalists and non-journalists.
A newspaper is entitled to its views, of course, but when it starts twisting and distorting the news to suit the ideological inclinations of those at the helm, and his ideological blood-brothers, we have a problem on hand.
As it is, some newspapers now sell their editorial space to the highest bidder, there are wheels within wheels in advertising, and so on. If a newspaper, revered and trusted by hundreds of thousands of South Indians, joins the ranks, we have Big Trouble in Little China indeed.
Either we could be seeing a great institution being dismantled, brick by red brick, or we could be seeing the end of a free, fair, unbiased, vibrant media. Or both.
Cross-posted on sans serif
Highlights the leftist flavor in the news paper. I guess, neither N Ram nor the others in his team would take this seriously!
I request the general audience of churmuri to take this seriously and give it a thought.
Its important that we think and participate in the democracy.
I remember a “subhaashita” that I read in my high school text.
“puraaNamityeva nasaadhu sarvam… nachaapi kaavyam navamityavadyam…. ”
It suits this context pretty well! A good article !!
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On the one hand, we see editors becoming an endangered species. On the other, egg-headed editors are out to wreak havoc on venerable newspapers.
What is happening on the newspaper front does not augur well for journalism. No wonder most journalists tend to become despondent about the once-noble profession. Crass commercialisation has also added to the all-round degeneration of journalism. And the result, confusion worse confounded.
Whither journalism?
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All that is said is 100% true. There is precipitous fall in journalistic ethics. The plain fact is in Madras either you praise Karunanidhi and the commusnists if not your existance would be in jeopardy. Ram is only tryign to save his skin and manage to exist as otherwise the DMK goons will wreak havoc on the newspaper office. See there is deafening silence about what is happenings in Lasha by the comrades while the whole world is condemning the dastardly attack described by Dalai Lama as cultural genocide. Peaceful demonstrators are killed by hundreds by the Chinese . Naturally our UPA govt don’t seem moved by that for if they say anyting their comrades who are supposrting them would be upset. That is the depth to which our politivsl morality has sunk
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The Hindu has never been a voice for truth and independence. I have always seen The Hindu take the path of least resistance and side with any government inpower. I have heard that Indian Express stood against the Indian government even in the emergency time and faced the wrath of the govt head on. You can still see that in editorials of Indian Express.
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The South Indian China Post – aka TH – and its chief hired penpusher are an exception Read what the city eveninger Newstoday has to say.
From the Newstoday
Mon, 17 Mar, 2008,03:03 PM
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Propaganda of the Goebbelsian variety works. But reality, like water, will find its mark. As it has now vis-a-vis the Tibetans, who have for long been suppressed by the bayonets of Beijing.
China, with a repressive and a totalitarian regime in place, has for many years claimed and created an image that all was right with Tibet, a region that it violently occupied some six decades ago.
.
China imposed its rule harshly and refused to yield to Tibetans the autonomy, especially in matters of religion, that they theoretically now enjoy. It had hidden the truth about events in Tibet and the views of Tibetans.
Instead, it had tried to project a picture of Tibet being an organic province of China. The Communist mandarins had systematically undermined and overwhelmed the unique traditions and hoary culture of the Tibetan Buddhists — a cultural genocide something that the Mughals did closer home here.
The ethos of this quaint Himalayan province, in which history and geography are underpinned to an eclectic heritage, had been mauled by the Maos and Manchurian marauders. Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of these sui generis Buddhists and a pin-up person for peace, had tried to reason with the world at large and the Communists in Beijing.
But the world, caught up in the whirligig of commerce, had little time for Tibet or its culture that are essentially echoes from a distant past, an era of mind over matter. Dalai Lama, an apostle of non-violence, was up against the Communists to whom violence and repression are strange paths of self-styled salvation. Dalai Lama was increasingly fighting a losing battle.
First with the Beijing. Secondly, more importantly, with his own people, especially the youths who were no longer ready to read the romantic narrative of a peaceful struggle. They were angry — with China, and Dalai Lama.
And that is why this week’s protests — following the March 10 anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 — in Lhasa are well out of control of both. Tibetans bitterly resent the government and the Han Chinese migrants who have flooded into Tibet.
The cusp of culture and commerce, a dangerous double whammy, has now brought the otherwise mild-mannered Tibetans to the streets. With Beijing under limelight as the Olympics is set there later this year, the Tibetans are using the Games to make a striking political point.
The Chinese regime has hit back in the manner it knows best —— through violence and much worse. Scores of Tibetans have been killed so far. Lhasa has been closed for outsiders — especially nosey journos.
‘Youtube’ images of Tibetan uprising have been blocked. Eerie images of Tiananmen square splenetic clampdown hooves into mind with promising chilling prospects.
But what else can you expect from Beijing, steeped as it is in the philosophy of sang froid savagery? The only reason for China usurping Tibet and then holding on to it is, well, it has always taken its regional suzerainty very seriously.
Its brazen attempt to lay claim to India’s Arunachal Pradesh will underline this point. Dalai Lama, the only voice of reason, still believes that Beijing could be talked into seeing the right path. And that is why, the elder statesman that he is has condemned the violence of his own men and also spoken against the call to boycott the Beijing Olympics.
But altruism works only with men of values and virtue. Beijing has apparently none of that variety.
And that is why it is imperative for the world at large to bring pressure to bear upon the Chinese.
The war against terror need not be one-dimensional. The forces, which are usually loud when smaller groups and cultures are subject to barbaric attacks, are now inexplicably muted. And that is a worry. India, which is spiritually and geographically closer to Tibet, has a strong and sincere role to play.
Tibetans look up to New Delhi. Dalai Lama, hounded out of Lhasa, chose to take up position in Dharmashala (in HP). But apart from occasional lip-servicing platitudes India hasn’t done much of note. The UPA government, backed by the CPI-M who are essentially foot-soldiers of Beijing, has its hands tied by political strings.
The Indian Commies, who are morally bankrupt enough to make loud noises in support of a criminal like Saddam Hussein, would not want New Delhi to do anything to embarrass Beijing.
The UPA government will naturally make only vague and middling statements on the issue.
But Tibetans now seem to think that their battle is now or never. If they can’t get the world to listen now, their muffled voices will be forever lost in the crevices and creeks of the imposing Himalayas, and will die at the hands that are smeared in the blood of history.
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Very true all the way! Letters written to the Editor are not published if it is about the Left, Congress or the DMK. There were days when one used to keep cuttings from the Hindu paper for reference. Now the old Hindu paper is best used as a toilet paper.
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>>Now the old Hindu paper is best used as a toilet paper.>>
Even here there is stiff competition for CHINDU from TOI(Toilet Paper of India) :)
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the best analysis of The Hindu is available here
http://cbcnn.blogspot.com/
http://www.friendsoftibet.org/save/
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Hindu had been never my paper since the past 30 years. fact I hated it. In those days it used to smell like Nashyam (snuff); it had a typically drab way of covering even the most exciting news, It never took any kind of stand on even the simplest of issues, It was always like a cat on the wall ready to jump on either side and its yellow color, which literally stood for its cowardliness. since the past 20 years, when there is no other paper except Hindu, I used to go without reading news on that day.
Therefore it is news to me that the Hindu is now transformed into a handmaiden of China. Serves it right. It is a very good sign that even its ardent readers like this poster is turning away from the “noose paper”. I hope somebody will soon write an obituary to this aging paper with long standing “yellow-fever”.
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Not surprised at all. Was surprised for its objectivity and correctness of news reporting in those days when my teachers were goading us to read the paper, and dishonesty and skullduggery was on the increase around us. for example, Nijalingappa getting elected ‘unopposed’ after his chief rival ‘did not file his papers on the best interest of Mysore’ (then it was state of Mysore). N Ram’s Hindu now truly reflects what India and I am sorry to say Indians are all about – sycophancy, nepotism, corruption,double dealing, ‘show the man and I will show the rules’ kind of thing etc.. etc.. The Hindu has come of age!
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The CHindu is a reflection of the global malaise that has affected all newspapers- Philosophical ideology has been replaced by identification with Political party oriented ideology. The CHindu mistakenly thinks the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Chinese Communist ideology represents Left leaning Libertaranian Thought- fools, dangerous fools they are. The happiest thing is they open up themselves for derision by all sensible people via the obviously moronic statement that M Karunanidhi is a statesman.
They used to have a fairly decent crossword puzzle on their last page-I wonder whether even that has gone down the drain.
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Hindu had a good sports page. I always thought the news coverage was very stuffy. BTW Kongas and Objectivity do not mix:) QED
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It is at its lowest journalistic tradition. What is agonising is its blatant and overt support of Chinese claims on our land. Otherwise what can explain its position of “give and take” in respect of Arunachal pradesh? How can it openly side with the communists in all atrocities they commit be it Nandigram or Kannur or Tibet?
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The changes since N Ram took over are so drastic and glaring that one finds the old charm of the daily reduced to remnants.
It is sad to see a newspaper known for its balanced and, an eye for an objective analysis being reduced to the whims of despotic editorship, obsequious to the sentiments of a party that swears its ideological commitment to the Big Brother bordering our country.
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Not a single pro-The Hindu comment! :O
Let’s see what would the
PR ManagerReader’s Editor say about this matter. :)LikeLike
Bravo Mr. Tejas. Whatever you have said is a fact word by word. I fully agree with you and I think thousands like me if not lakhs. I had been an avid reader of The Hindu for nearly 15 years. The moment N.Ram took over I don’t even glance at it. No exaggeration, but The Hindu is not a news paper now, but nuisance and nonsense paper.
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I always thought Hindu as a purely a tamil paper. I have not seen it in last couple of years but how can a non-tamilian be interested in a paper which mostly puts things happening in TN. This is also the case with Frontline, mostly bothered about LTTE most of the times… I am not sure whether they really want to project it as a south-indian paper, leave aside nation wide.
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See how notorious The Hindu is! This is an incident from the time of Kargil war. Read the last para of this article.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/aug1999/ind-a13.shtml
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To play the devil’s advocate, and with due apologies to Arthur Miller, is there something “right”—as in opposite of wrong—that The Hindu is doing that all of us seem to be reacting thus to news of its death?
It is easy to slam the newspaper because it does not conform to our point of view, or no longer conforms to our view, but is a newspaper supposed to reassure us of our world-view? Isn’t a paper supposed to shock us, surprise us, change us, correct us, give us the alternative view? And if it does so, is it necessarily wrong?
Those who mourn the passing of The Hindu as they knew it are clearly not too aware of its traditions. It has always been the mouthpiece of the establishment especially on matters national and international, it has always slow in its news coverage, it has always been deadly dull and boring in its prose and presentation.
The question to ask is: has it lost its core competencies under N. Ram? Largely no. If anything, the design is vastly improved but still deadly dull. Its reporters and editors strive to be opaque and uninspiring. It is still just about the only “paper of record” despite the extraordinary assault from within over the last decade. And its dedicated coverage of the plight of farmers, the poor, and the marginalised shows that its heart is at the right place—on the left.
What it has lost is its seeming independence and objectivity, both of which are very subjective. But this did not happen with Ram. The slide started when Malini Parthasarathy presided over the blatant anti-right tilt, well deserved maybe but questionable nonetheless given the paper’s hoary traditions. That slide has continued with Ram and his brazen pro-left coverage, not so well deserved maybe but still very questionable.
That so many here seem to believe this is the wrong to do is just a point of view, but it is an editorial position The Hindu’s editor seems to have consciously chosen, obviously with the OK of the board. In that sense it is a marketing/editorial strategy to pitch the paper on the left, just like the Times of India has hitched its stars with the right and the market.
You may like it, or you may not, but it’s the paper’s prerogative. Obviously, it has paid rich dividends because The Hindu has consistently grown in circulation in the south in recent years. So, if ToI is growing and The Hindu is growing, clearly there is a market for both. If papers like Deccan Herald are languishing it is because they can’t make up their mind.
Here’s a simple question: should all our papers, magazines and TV stations be, in unison, tom-tomming the virtues of Hindutva, Narendra Modi, the market, SEZs, the nuclear deal, and slamming Nandigram, Singur, subsidies, China, at the same time? Or are we better off with papers, magazines and TV stations, which also take the opposite view?
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@ Aatmasakshi
You seem to have lost the point.
* A newspaper is there not just to do business, but also to serve the society.
* A newspaper is definitely entitled to its views, but it should, never, try to enforce it, which The Hindu has mastered very well. The kind of distortion in the news and the censorship followed for anti China news items speak for its pseudo journalism.
* Its becoming a leftist controlled paper. So much so that some of the editorials are the exact statements of Prakash Karat.
I do agree that The Hindu likes to be pro establishment. It has been one even during the British period and during the emergency also. But now, it has moved far beyond the tradition for the fact that it can never go pro BJP if at all NDA comes to power. It was very obvious that the daily was so pro left since it was starting its Kolkata edition. But what I really do not make out of the daily’s behaviour is its boot licking of China. Is it by anyway being funded by the Chinese government? What is the reason for carrying the full text of Resolution of the Seventeenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China on its website?
http://www.hindu.com/nic/chinacpc.htm
Lot of questions are still unanswered. Can you find some, Aatmasakshi ?
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One must understand tamil ethos before one criticises ‘Hindu’.
Let us accept one thing.India as a political identity is a ‘recent’ innovation.The Madras presidency had been in the forefront of political agitation during British times.The Hindu has a pretty good sense of the political culture and sensitivities of the southerners.
I request churumuri not to edit what follows.
The Hindu was started by six young men in Madras-which included iyers,iyengars,madhvas and a telugu brahmana representing the brahmana world of the madras presidency.The lead player was G.Subramania Iyer,the first editor a liberal and a reformer to the core.The Madhva gentleman withdrew,perhaps keeping with his tradition of conservatism.Iyer came into conflict with Vijayaraghavachariar on the social agenda of the times.In retrospect this could be because advaita doesnt ‘care’ really for any particular tradition.Disillusioned,Iyer left to start the famous Tamil ‘Swadeshamitran'(Tamil-sudeshamitran) along with Rangaswami Iyengar.Iyer was convinced only vernacular newspapers could make genuine impact.
The Hindu was taken over by Kasturi Ranga Iyengar family.KR Iyengar was a nationalist and pragmatic to the core.When pragmatism takes over,an indvidual falls back on his experience and judgement which are influenced by his social mores.The KR family were Vadakalai Iyengars as mercurial as a community as it gets in India.They definitely have a world view more sophisticated than the thenkalai view.Yet as DB notes,it is still a view rooted in TN due to historical linguistic reasons.One cannot be an advaitic journalist.Everything else follows from that.Infact,N.Ram is atleast honest about his ‘idiosyncracies’
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A newspaper which is being read by generation of readers from it masthead to printline including new, views, editorial and of course propaganda is certainly great. The daily did fairly well till the cable television invaded this country. As television channels feed viewers every bit of information along with live images, Columbia educated journos at Mount Road needs to reinvent and bake news better. Still most of the news reads like a drab press release issued by various ministries and deparments. This does not mean that The Hindu does not have talented people. Many of them are doing exclusives. But they not played up well. They are better and above average than employed by many other media houses. Does the slant towards left parties means an attempt to get a Rajya Sabha seat? It is sad but autism seems to plague the great newspaper.
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Aatmasakshi,
A newspaper can put its views through its editorials, it does not have to editorialize news items to suit its political affiliation. N Ram himself has complained about media houses trying to mouth their opinions in news reports instead of an objective coverage which, is ironic, given that, its own scorecard in that respect is below average.
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A good article! Nice to see that it has started a healthy debate.
The Indian print media has had Goenkas, Shouries; and now we have a Ram. The Hindu is widely repected for it avoids clichés and tabloid type presentations to ‘sell’ its news. A newspaper is entited to its views but spare its readers from editorialising the news columns. Hindu has definitely lost its objectivity on issues of importance (as the poster has quoted). Mr. Ram must have noted that his traditional readership base is shrinking. ‘Hindus’ no longer want a ‘Ramrajya’.
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In a way I do not blame N. Ram. Thiru Karuna’s minions are thugs and would raze the Hindu building to the ground torching every body inside. Thiru Karuna is the biggest and richest politicianand thug India has today, and can remove any ones ‘s limbs with impunity. He and communists had always unholy alliance when it comes to torching opponents. He is Saddam of Tamil Nadu!
N Ram should move Hindu and the estbalishment building out of Tamil Nadu if he wants his paper to be objective. But why target N ram and Hindu alone? I do not read any objective reporting in any Indian papers. Those days when I was much younger we were told that the government controlled newspaper reporting indirectly as newsprint and other products were imported and tight foreign exchange control meant newspapers had to ‘adjust to government line of thinking’. There was no Internet those days and no way of knowing whether any reporting was objective or not.
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If the paper is as bad as it has been portrayed, how come its sales figures are going up. Does it mean that the paper in its new avatar under N Ram has more readers than the one in the past.
Compared to others in the field the HINDU is still the best buy regardless of what the HINDU baiters call as idiosyncracies
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O Boring journalist. Don’t be a fool. Wine shops and cigarette shops are open 24 hours. Does it mean that they are very popular and good for the people. Sales figures are going up, so the paper is the best buy. Aha, what an idea Sirjee….
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@boring journalist
“If the paper is as bad as it has been portrayed, how come its sales figures are going up.”
Sorry to disappoint you .. the last year, chindu dropped it’s readership by a whopping 11 percent, the largest amongst English dailies. Check the cnnblogspot for more details.
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o boring journalist! who said sales are up for The Hindu? can you quote some numbers?
Out of 18 crore circulation market of Indian newspapers, The Hindu has only 11 lakh to its credit, where as vernacular dailies like Malayala Manorama, Anandbazar Patrika and many Hindi dailies have far more sales.
By the way, The Hindu lost 14% of its total readership from 2006 to 2007 :)
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Does Mr.N.Ram truly believes there will be freedom of the press if communists come tp power? Can he show any one communist country in the world where there is democracy or freedom of the press or human rights followed? No independent newspapers will exist under any communist rule.
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KL,
Enjoyed your post for your explanation of Mr. Ram’s journalism through the Advaita.
You write, “One cannot be an advaitic journalist. Everything else follows from that. In fact, N. Ram is at least honest about his ‘idiosyncracies.’”
Are you presuming that Mr. Ram is an Advaitic/other Vedantist? If anything, the evidence is that Mr. Ram cares for Western economic materialism tempered by a Maoist zeal for classless egalitarianism.
That seems to have served him well professionally, but it has changed the character of The Hindu.
There’s no evidence that Mr. Ram has ever acknowledged any Advaitic self-awareness.
Ideological biases are inhered, because an ideology tends to inform our conduct only after we’ve committed to it. Mr. Ram is a prisoner of his ideology — and, in his case, The Hindu seems to be definitely worse off for it.
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Among all the rags that pretend to be newspapers in this part of the country, I think The Hindu is by far the best. Comparison aside, a newspaper with a point of view does not mean it comes at the cost of facts, and at The Hindu, facts are still sacrosanct.
Even to this day, the Hindu exercises care without sensationalising. Of course there are changes, and why shouldn’t there be? The entire country and our thought process is changing, not to mention the “media industry” itself. The newspaper cannot be stuck in the times of our grandparents, when the entire ethos was different. If the language is no longer the Queen’s English, then it is because we have become more Hinglish and the new breed of journalists coming out of media schools are not taught to pay attention to the intracacies of the English language.
It is the only newspaper in English in India which has a position for Rural Affairs Editor. The newspaper focuses on stories that most of the others don’t even look for. The magazine sections and supplements are the best in the country.
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kammyuniShTaru bandare freedom of press gotilla but freedom to op press guarantee.
otherwise how do you explain that the soviets hounded this guy out
ee voyya script baredare, yaavano tirboki moscow-li koot konDu approve maaDodante. what nonsense.
i recently discovered this guy, hence urge to evangelize. shums beku.
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The article by Tejas has hit the head on nail! It is true that what once was a good newspaper (but not the one which took issues head on, a la Indian Express, but almost always took the path of least resistance) has now come to a pathetic state. The downfall of chindu from it’s self proclaimed high moral ground is funny at the least and worrying at it’s best.
We all know that chindu was once respected for it’s quality of articles and was a required reading to obtain objective analysis of many stories. There is no point in re-iterating how the magazine was read by candidates preparing for public service exams such as IAS and IPS. That the newspaper has lost it’s credibility makes me sad.
Some have argued: “Isn’t a paper supposed to shock us, surprise us, change us, correct us, give us the alternative view?” Excuse me, the purpose of a newspaper is to provide news. Not to shock us, surprise us, change us or whatever other glorious tasks we think of. I pay Rs 3 to the newspaper to get my news from it…not to be shocked, surprised or whatever. And if I see that I’m being offered biased/wrong news, I as a customer demand an explanation/apology and even return of my hard earned money.
The problem with chindu is that he is unwilling to accept and proclaim where his ideologies lie. Look at outlook, which is one of the most biased magazine. But Vinod Mehta makes it clear that he is pro-Sonia (not caangress!). But chindu continues to claim itself as “objective, unbiased and uncompromising newspaper”. The hypocrisy is simply astounding.
The blog, cnnblogspot, chronicles the biased and sometimes even false propaganda of chindu for the last two years. It is surprising that a newspaper which is “better than all the rags” resorting to blatant lies, false reporting and even suppression of vital facts. Along with this, not a single day passes without
a. karuna being facilitated or inaugurating a building
b. karuna “refuting” Jaya
c. what the CPI, CPI(M), forward bloc and a host of other left parties eat,sleep and drink.
d. how the left parties “slam” USA (I noticed George Bush shivering due to this “slamming”) and it’s policies.
e. harish khare, avidya and other paid sycophants extolling the virtues of sonia
And yes, chindu’s circulation is dropping (Mr Aatmasakshi, swalpa eddeLi niddeyinda). How the cookie crumbles!!
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as one of the guys said even i used love hindu for sports details which is still the best….and also the good coverage of world news….i have read hindu for more than 10 years wen i was at home(now am away for studies) and always thought Indian politics wasnt covered honestly especially south indian…but still there was this sense of dignity, pride, formality which is totally lacking in today’s hindu…now wen i go home and take up a hindu i no more feel proud abt it…adding salt to the wound they hav started twisting the facts too…ya, definitely am not crazy abt hindu anymore…its quality has come down drastically…and i need not quote all the political games they are playing as too much has said abt it… but it was pretty moderate wen it comes to handling critical issues even from the past..so dont expect it to be tough on political issues…anyway, overall i agree with many of u guys Hindu is no more Mr.News
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Sports coverage, Literary and Book reviews and the extensive coverage on the karnatic music scene in Chennai are the good parts of the Chindu.
However one needs to stop and consider for a second what one expects from a newpaper- is it non-sensational factual information as averred by Ms Mallya? Or is it the articulation of editorial position ? or a bit of both? On all counts the Chindu is no better than the other rags like the Newindianexpress or the TOI. Its basically a Madrasi mami seeking the approval of the DMK goons- an ugly combination if you look at it that way.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/20/stories/2008032051550100.htm – for those who think the Chindu doesnt sensationalise or the winking eyes at the rampages of the DMK/ Chinese Politburo for those who think facts are sacrosanct for the Chindu ( well it also depends on how you define sacrosanct I suppose). The Chindu is merely a part of the mediocre global media and the reason why Blogs like the Huffington Post will perhaps be more influential in shaping images than Newspapers if they already arent.
I would think that the afficianados of the Chindu are the residual of a middle class that thinks of itself as liberal and classy but as sunk in the morass of mediocrity as the readers of TOI but engaging in denial all the time.
Phew- there got it off my chest and DB there isnt any need to snigger at that.
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The Hindu has always been a brahminical newspaper. Being pro-commie and pro-dmk is the latest brahminical tactic for survival.
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@Gaby
Well said.
@Mallya
>> It is the only newspaper in English in India which has a position for Rural Affairs Editor >>
So what? Just cause the newspaper has a rural affairs editor (maybe I’m forgetting..but what “rural” news this paper carries?) it does not mean it can fudge facts.
>> The magazine sections and supplements are the best in the country.>>
Make another attempt at joke dear. If you look at the daily supplements it is a pathetic attempt trying to be modern (ape TOI) while maintaining it’s reputation as a serious newspaper….and it fails in both. Oh yeah, a whole page devoted to movie ads can be called “best supplement” I guess!
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One day I read this editorial on caste system being a “social curse” and the very next day, the editorial was arguing for caste-based reservations.
Equality of priestly opportunity
The decision of the Tamil Nadu Government to allow all qualified persons irrespective of their caste to work as temple priests is an important victory in the continuing fight against the social curse that is India’s caste system.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/19/stories/2006051903051200.htm
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hey!
thank you all for your comments. I am happy to see that I am not alone here who is disgusted by The Hindu’s journalism.
Aatmasakshi and Vinutha Mallya, you both need to think over it again. I am not asking you people to subscribe to my views. You are definitely entitled to your own views, but that should be built on the truth. And the truth is The Hindu is a newspaper that we can embrace no more.
It has sold its soul to communists [not even communism, the ideology; but to the people who claim to follow that!]. When I told my friend that The Hindu is all set to launch from Kolkata, his first reaction was – “we already have 3 communist mouth pieces, and dont need another”. And he happens to be a communist sympathiser and a resident of Kolkata. Even he was ashamed by the coverage of Nandigram.
The Editor-in-Chief Mr. Narasimhan Ram is almost ubiquitous. He is seen with Kumaraswamy all of a sudden and the next moment he shares diaz with Karat and releases a CD called “Truth (?) about Nandigram” and the next moment in an NDTV show [by the way, both these commie mouth pieces – The Hindu and NDTV have joined hands to start a Chennai specific TV channel] and then he is seen in touring Tibet with Chinese security personnel around and next, he is seen ranting about Dalai Lama and Tibet.
Many people argue with me that The Hindu is still the best daily around because the English it uses is of god level, leaving apart its political affiliations and news distortion. This sounds nonsense to me since the primary aim of a newspaper is to provide unbiased and complete news. It can take sides in its editorials, but definitely not in the news itself. And I am not a fool to subscribe to a daily only for its English.
Karthik doubts this article to have any effect on N. Ram. I know it. And I dont expect him or The Hindu to change. huTTa guNa swami. adu hOgOd bahaLa kashTa. I remember a plethora of ‘intellectuals’ in academia, including many professors from IITs and other prestigious institutes writing to him to stop the biased journalism. The answer from Mr. Ram was the standard one – “It’s the editor’s prerogative”. Well..!
Then is it not our prerogative to reject, right away, him and his yellow journalism?
And I see that happening. Slowly, but definitely :)
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Mysore Boy,
What i said is that one cannot be an advaitin and also a journalist commenting on everyday issues.Both cannot coexist.
A Jnani once said that Suka is supposed to have narrated Bhagavatham.How much more difficult it is for mundane human beings.Mr.Subramania Iyer,whose bust is displayed in the ist floor of the Mount Road Office and who is described by the official Hindu chronicler as a giant of a journalist,came to grief because of his idealism.It is so easy to talk of idealism from ivory towers.
The KR family took this to heart.This is also consistent with vadakalai tradition which had broken off from the populism of tenkalai tradition.It is nice to mutter some high sounding things while being anchored in the ground below.Mr Ram is doing the same.The Congress is discredited,the BJP is a non starter in TN.The Left is something vague far away in china.Also very powerful,this is soothing to those yearn for absolute order .Also why should srivaishnavas have sympathy for Tibetan Buddhism?
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In a way,i like the Hindu for its refusal to be swept away by hype and hysteria,yet it is hysterical on some issues.
One can even understand its distrust of BJP.This seems to be a part of the southern psyche or atleast a significant section of it.Even its support for congress is understandable.Because Congress is the strongest national party with the widest reach,influence and support.The BJP is weak in many parts of india.It is a good strategy to strengthen india or for that matter karnataka by a centrist coalition .
It is a newspaper which believes in progressive values.Its coverage of science and technology is good.It is one of the few newspapers in the world to publish articles on mathematics fairly regularly.It is a newspaper that can be read with profit by schoolchildren.Many southerners would identify with that.
If it is intoxicated with China,that it is its choice.
But its claims of neutrality is a joke.It is absolutely out of touch with the sentiments of the middle class.The middle class is varied,yet the ‘Hindu’ paints them in the same brush,knowing well they are not.It is plainly villifying the BJP.One may not agree with the hindutva ideology,but it evokes deep feelings particularly in north india.The reasons are many.This cannot be just wished away.Some of the fears and aspirations it articulates will have to find a place in the polity.The Hindu is not even taking cognisance of these powerful currents in national life.
The Hindu’s claims of being *the*national paper are just that.
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Let’s explore its claims of being the national newspaper..
It is the most circulated English daily in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It has a fairly good figures in Andhra. Thats it. Even in Karnataka its presence is feeble. It started publishing from Orissa in 2006 and from Kolkata in 2007. It has very less market share in both the places. And the last stop is New Delhi. Again, very less market share.
Now when it doesnt even represent half the country geographically, how can it claim that it s a national newspaper? I cant, but laugh!
With this label of India’s National Newspaper, it has caught up ties with Youimuri Shimbun [the largest circulated daily in the world; a true national daily of Japan], The Gaurdian and many such reputed foreign dailies. Unfortunately those dailies have networked with The Hindu for all the news from India.
Just imagine, how bad India is being portrayed in those nations…
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@ Thejas,
Since we want the Hindu to be objective, let us start with being objective about all newspapers that The Hindu co-exists with: The Times of India, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph, The Statesman, The Pioneer, Deccan Herald, and Deccan Chronicle. Each of them have changed over time, and many have not even a point of view, let alone an ideology. The Times of India is a mouthpiece for blatant consumerism and celebrity advertising. The Indian Express, depending on whether you are looking at the North edition or the South edition, has its own versions of what is truth. The Hindustan Times is giving ToI stiff competition in co-opting its version of “journalism”. The Deccan Herald is struggling to be the mouthpiece of Karnataka. I don’t read the other papers, so I won’t comment on them.
“And the truth is The Hindu is a newspaper that we can embrace no more”, is your opinion, not “the truth”.
What exactly is news distortion/biased news in your opinion? I fail to understand. Is it the choice of subject matter they want to report about? Or is it that they conceal facts in their reports? Or is it that they express a point of view, which might not be the popular point of view? What is your definition of yellow journalism? That the editor exercises prerogative?
I am not saying The Hindu is flawless, but the arguments made here don’t make sense to me. I don’t understand what you find “mysterious” about your Exhibit A? It is a fact that diplomatically India and China have been moving towards imporving trade relations and it is now on a high. This, agree many economists and other “intellectuals” is a positive step towards ensuring a fair settlement of our border disputes. Some have even suggested (not in The Hindu) we try the same approach with Pakistan. The editorial does not specifiy any specific country should “give” nor any country specific country should “take”.
Also, would you rather have N. Ram hanging out with Sri Sri Sri or writing Food columns than share stage with whoever he chooses to?
@Puneet: Please look carefully at the mix of news in the Hindu and look at other papers. Rural coverage is much much higher in Hindu and Frontline.
Also, my magazine sections, I don’t mean Metro Plus which is still better than Delhi Times or Bangalore Times. I mean the Friday Review, The Sunday magazine section and The book reviews etc. Please tell me which other newspaper has such good magazine sections in our country?
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“It is a newspaper that can be read with profit by schoolchildren”
Ten years ago .. yes! (And I was one of them). But not anymore … except the supplement page on science and technology.
“If it is intoxicated with China,that it is its choice.”
No one says otherwise. But you can’t thrust your bias on the general readers who want unadulterated news and nothing else. The readers are intelligent enough to see what is right and what is wrong. All we are saying is to publish news without any bias….the least a paying customer asks for in an “objective newspaper”.
“It is a good strategy to strengthen india or for that matter karnataka by a centrist coalition”
Although this is irrelevant to the discussion, I can’t help wonder how is it that congress which is consistently losing the number of states it governs can be called a “national party”. Moreover, if this rule is to be applied strictly then congress should be the lone political party in India. Derecognise the others!
“Many southerners would identify with that.”
What the hell..!!! Who are these “southerners” ?? Please be advised that there are four states in southern india and not all of them can be clubbed under the same heading…for each state is different. This attitude of generalizing everything that a section (read TN) feels as “southern” is nauseating and stupid.
“It is a newspaper which believes in progressive values”
Come now KL, do you seriously believe this! Please explain to us what “progressive values” it believes in. When you list some, let us talk.
@pragmatic
“It is the most circulated English daily in Tamil Nadu and Kerala” … About Kerala I am not sure but Deccan Chronicle is beginning to close in on the chindu’s numbers.
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@mallya
“Rural coverage is much much higher in Hindu and Frontline.”
I repeat..the fact that it’s rural coverage is higher in chindu does not make it unbiased and objective. I can turn the argument around and say that since TOI or whatever “rag” you chose to has higher “urban coverage” than chindu and thus is better! The point here was to show the suppression of facts by chindu as going against the very ethos it proclaims to practice.
Surely, suppressing/twisting news is journalism not!
“What exactly is news distortion/biased news in your opinion? I fail to understand.”
One can lead a horse to the well but can’t make it drink the water. Please visit “cbcnnblogspot” and check for yourself how chindu distorts the news. When the whole world says “point A” chindu says “point NOT A”. If this is not horrible journalism I don’t what else is. By doing so, all chindu’s credibility and objectivity is lost. In fact, I am outraged that I am deprived of proper news for whatever money I have pumped in chindu! (Don’t give me a cliched answer that “chindu didn’t ask you to buy it” and so on).
“being objective about all newspapers that The Hindu co-exists with”
Who cares who co-exists with chindu?? The issue is about chindu. If it can’t be objective in presence of other newspapers then it is better to stop publishing or accept that “I the chindu can’t be objective cause I have too much competition from several others”… I am least bothered about the compulsions of chindu … if it claims unbiased, it better demonstrate!
“Or is it that they conceal facts in their reports?”
That my friend is one of the bad ethics of journalism. Now imagine it publishes tomorrow that emergency was not proclaimed during Indira Gandhi’s time. We will be laughing at it… An incident happened once with a US newspaper (I forget the name). While everyone else proclaimed roosevelt to be the winner this particular mag printed that the opponent had won! Withing few days the mag (which was reputed until then) lost all its readers and wound up.
“Or is it that they express a point of view, which might not be the popular point of view?”
No Madam/Mr… there is no problem with us if the newspaper has its POV that is different than others. In fact, see Outlook…His views are always contested. But to Outlook’s credit he puts up the letters criticizing him..unlike our chindu.
“The editorial does not specifiy any specific country should “give” nor any country specific country should “take”
Please re read the editorial and learn a bit of history about Indo-China-Tibet relations.
“Metro Plus which is still better than Delhi Times or Bangalore Times”
Your POV. But I maintain that opposite POV. But we can always disagree.
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Puneet,
Atleast some kannadigas seem to be wary of the northern deluge and their attitude in bengaluru.Many feel that BJP is not sensitive to these issues.I have read Dr.Ramesh and sisya articulating that in this blog.Ofcourse,they are not thrilled with tamils either.
By progressive values, i mean nothing more than values imbibed,articulated in the freedom struggle,indian renaissance and enshrined in the constitution.
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If you have been a regular visitor to this blog,you would have known i have never clubbed TN with Karnataka or the other way.
In fact i feel guilty for my onedimensional rants. Couldn’t resist my obsession.
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The Hindu’s policy of supporting minorities makes good commercial sense.The Christians are a highly literate community.Muslim awareness is growing.There is a captive audience in the offing.Similarly a huge no of so called backward classes are potential customers.So it makes sense to support reservation without excluding creamy layer.
Its support for DMK does not require any explanation.
On a different note,Ravi Vyas has written many illuminating essays on ‘The Classics Revisited’ in the Hindu Literary Review.
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Dear Malaysian,
do I need to tell you any more? You are acting exactly like N Ram. Why dont you visit cbcnn.blogspot.com and find out for yourself, every bit of poison that The Hindu is injecting into Indian journalism?
but let me tell you at least these things.
* You claim Telegraph and Indian Express to be not objective. Madam, I dare you to prove it. Why dont you be more precise when you say “The Indian Express, depending on whether you are looking at the North edition or the South edition, has its own versions of what is truth” ? I am eager to about know the new friend of The Hindu :P
* You say Deccan Herald is Karnataka centric. Yes. It is, for it doesnt claim to be a National newspaper blah blah. DH is published only in Karnataka and it is natural that it is state centric. In fact, such a state centric daily has better coverage of other states and is relatively much unbiased.
* “And the truth is The Hindu is a newspaper that we can embrace no more”. Yes. It is my personal opinion. I am not asking you to agree to it. You can still cuddle The Hindu and believe in all its non-sense.
*”editor’s prerogative” : Do you really think that the editor can do anything and cover up by claiming that to be his prerogative? Where has gone the journalism ethics? Is it his prerogative to be anti-Indian? I dont want to repeat those things point by point, please bother to visit all the links in my article + those in the comments. And it is my prerogative not to accept his nonsense. If you want to leave in the dream world, that is your prerogative to do so, madam Alice!
* It is a myth created by certain sections of media like The Hindu that Indo-Sino relationships are improving. Since you do read no other daily, you are perhaps unaware of the truth. Read this piece to know what really is happening to Indo-Sino ‘relationship’.
http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2008/02/14/meet-kiren-rijuju/
What is fair settlement of border issues? that India will give away Arunachal for Kashmir? Can you please explain me Madam, what really is the fair settlement of border issue between the two nations?
* Thank god, you at least agreed that The Hindu is not flawless. Well, I believe it is flaw-full and awful!
* Well, to share the dais with a seer who is also a social worker in many cases, is surely better than hanging out with Karat and Karat, to release a CD of lies about Nandigram! Dont tell me that it is his prerogative!!
* Coming to your point of ‘mixed news’ of Chindu! yes, the news items are properly mixed and served. As Pradeep said the mixture you get to enjoy in The Hindu is –
a. karuna being facilitated or inaugurating a building
b. karuna “refuting” Jaya
c. what the CPI, CPI(M), forward bloc and a host of other left parties eat,sleep and drink.
d. how the left parties “slam” USA (I noticed George Bush shivering due to this “slamming”) and it’s policies.
e. harish khare, avidya and other paid sycophants extolling the virtues of sonia !!
In between writes Mr. rural affairs editor.
* Now the editor-in-chief himself: I will write in elaborate about Padmabhushana Narasimhan Ram sometime in future. For now, just read this, including the comments.
http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/2006/02/17/a-question-for-n-ram-co/
Good bye!
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This is so funny [:D]
http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/10/stories/2007121056261100.htm
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Damn it … Ram has a Padma Bhushana ?????????
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Vinutha,
With gems like N.Ram dubbing the Tianmen Massacre a minor police action, and cheering the the state-organised sacking of the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai, The Hindu took leave of its senses a while ago. It requires a huge leap of faith to credit The Hindu with any concern for facts. You seem to have made that leap into the blue yonder. Just make sure you land on your feet. Good luck!
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Thejas,
If you are referring to me as malaysian,you could not have got it more wrong.
I had seething hatred for ‘Hindu’,which i have been to able to vent today.I am saying N.Ram is clever,right according to his priciples,machiavilliean,bigoted.Take your choice.
The Hindu protests too much but has always courted the high and mighty and the arty and beautiful people.They are clever,which is forgotten by the critics of the paper.They keep a tab on the way the wind blows.
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Mr Thejas,
I am sorry to disappoint you on these counts:
1. I am not Malaysian, as you seem to assume. I am as true blooded Indian as you or the person next to you. Can cut open my hand and show the blood if that would satisfy you. And if I was Ms Alice (of Lewis Carrol fame), I wouldn’t be sitting here reading and writing, but would be happily sitting somewhere imagining the world was a beautiful place and every human being was good to one another and there was peace in the world etc.
2. I made no comment on The Telegraph and don’t want to take the attention away here by elaborating on the Indian Express comment, which I will some time in the future. I am also aware of the DH mandate, and I said that they are struggling to do it justice.
3. I am not a “new” friend of The Hindu. I have been associated with the newspaper since 1997, when I interned there, and where the oldest and senior most journalists of the newspapers showed us the ropes, took an interest in training the green youngsters instead of asking us to make copies and run errands from one department to another. It might surprise you and our friend Puneet that I read DH, TOI and The Hindu regularly.
4. The editor’s prerogative means just that. He is not “doing anything” and “covering up” as you say. All the links you have pointed out as evidence of twisting facts are in fact editorials, not news reports. In editorials and opinion pieces, one gives facts and take a point of view. If his facts were wrong, that would make him a bad editor/writer. He has quoted from sources and expressed an opinion. If he chooses to disagree with the Dalai Lama, he has every right to. His sin seems to be that he follows a left-wing ideology when everyone else is villifying the current Left politics. If people thought in only one way, that would be the death of democracy.
5. Please read the editorial regarding the give or take of border issues and tell me where is it insinuated that India gives and China takes? Aren’t you biased in assuming that? I am not saying you should agree with him, but you cannot question his right to opinion, however much his opinion might not be in sync. But you cannot say he is “twisting facts” without giving evidence of the same.
6. The seer who is a “social worker” is a matter of opinion. And since I havent seen the CD that N Ram he released with Karat, I will not comment on it.
7. On the point of mixed news, you seem to suggest that the US is above criticism and therefore no one should criticise? The Left has its flaws in argument, I repeat, but the act itself is not wrong. The “paid psychophants” as you call them is conjecture, and I am not trained to believe in something that I don’t know for a fact.
8. I don’t know how much you have read of P. Sainath’s work, but it is sad that you relegate him to “in between Mr Rural Editor writes”.
9. All the links you have presented here are on sites where people have expressed their personal opinion based on The Hindu’s editorials, not their news reports. I don’t know the background of the person writing for the Acron National Interest, and I suspect he is not a field journalist, but someone who does not agree with the Left. Fair enough. But to simply slam someone for being Left is silly. The Friends of Tibet say that Hindu has only quoted from Xinhua in its agency reports. Again, not true. Mr Raman seems to have chosen examples which I cannot find, so I won’t contest them. However, agency reports are routinely edited or combined by all newspapers, but unless I read what Mr Raman says I won’t comment.
But I present links below of agency reports from AP and PTI printed in The Hindu, and only one from Xinhua (contrary to the claims made by Friends of Tibet on The South Asian). The news reports “report” all the positions, statements, opinions expressed by The Dalai Lama, Chinese Government, US Government and UK Government. The facts have been presented to the readers:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/000200803191971.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/001200803191031.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/001200803151021.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2008031955160100.htm&date=2008/03/19/&prd=th&
http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/000200803180903.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2008032056380100.htm&date=2008/03/20/&prd=th&
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2008031953271200.htm&date=2008/03/19/&prd=th&
http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/000200803160921.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/000200803181721.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/001200803160922.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/002200803130921.htm
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Much as I despise the Hindu and it’s sister publication The Frontline (both bastions of mediocrity), it is a good thing that they exist and publish news / views according to their world view. The world is a market place of ideas, the reader has choice: don’t read it if you don’t like it.
It is good for India that she has all sorts of political ideologies. Freedom to espouse beliefs is as important as breathing. The Hindu is an insult to my intelligence, But, it could be the pinnacle of intellectual content in a newspaper for somebody else.
Thejas should switch to the Indian Express, which according to me is the best Newspaper in India. I would just pay to read Pratap Bhanu Mehta. The northern edition of course: the southern one is not fit enough to be an ass wipe, let alone a Newspaper.
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@ Puneet:
My comment on rural reportage was within another context, which did not challenge the necessity to adhere to facts. So, please don’t confuse the two ideas.
I don’t know who you mean by the whole world, but if, based on facts, someone chooses to present a different point of view, I would like to know, so I can broaden my perspective. If China is only presented as a villain, then I would like to know whether there is another side to this which no one is looking at. Likewise if the US is being praised all the time for every act it commits in the name of democracy, I would like to know the other side, which surely exists. Having studied with and worked with journalists from Xinhua and China Daily, I am aware of the way media works in China too.
Objectivity in newspapers comes into play in its reports, not in its editorials or opinion pieces. I know of authors who have tried to write for The Hindu and have faced interference from Ram and given up! I can only press Ram that he needs to learn from Vinod Mehta. Yet, I cannot find fault in his editorial, maybe his policy of meddling with the authors yes, but not in what he is saying per se. Journalism is not about agreeing with everyone and making friends. Only facts are sacrosant, not opinion.
I am not sure if the paper any longer claims itself to be “unbiased”. But assuming it does, I still get all the facts from that newspaper with opinions, which are based on facts. I read the ToI and get a whole other opinion or perspective, which usually entertains me.
You have given a hypothetical situation to support the claim of concealment of facts. It can never claim the Emergency did not happen, because we have lived through it. But where is the evidence of having done such a thing?
I am no expert on Indo-Sino-Tibet relations, but know the history enough. I have read the editorial again, and still fail to see whether there was any emphasis by Ram on who should be the giver and who the taker. However, we are not debating here the merits of Chinese or Tibetan claim, but the opinion expressed by The Hindu on that issue.
Let me leave the Churumuri readers with something that might be true or not, (but worth investigating) which I learned from a former Indian ambassador of India, T. P. Sreenivasan:
“In the months following our nuclear tests of 1998, there was not a day on which either Naresh Chandra, India’s ambassador to the USA, or I did not face questions from the press, the think tanks, Congressmen or other interest groups on different aspects of Indian foreign policy.
“Armed with facts and figures, we welcomed every opportunity to defend our nuclear policy.
“The invitation of the National Press Club in Washington for a daylong discussion on the tests in August 1998 was a bonanza for us. The national and international press was there and the panelists were from diverse backgrounds.
“I sat attentively to listen to them as I was expected to speak at the very end to respond to the points made. The presentations were on predictable lines and I had the necessary ammunition to defend the tests. But the last speaker, Major William Corson, introduced as ‘an intelligence aide to President Eisenhower’ in the late fifties, threw a bombshell that I was not ready for.
“He said India’s decision to give ‘political asylum’ to the Dalai Lama was in return for US assistance to its nuclear weapons programme. He went on to say that Pandit Nehru had it conveyed to President Eisenhower that ‘if India was to accept the Dalai Lama, the US would have to help New Delhi develop nuclear weapons.’
“According to Corson, ‘Nehru was a notorious hard bargainer and the favour Eisenhower was asking carried great risks to India.’ So, apart from providing India a nuclear reactor under the atoms for peace programme, the US agreed to accept 400 Indian students in American Universities, who eventually became the corps of bomb makers in India.
“He went into great detail about the escape of the Dalai Lama to India as part of the deal. The whole thing sounded absurd, but since I had no hard information, I would have left his story untouched.
“The moderator of the discussion, however, would not let me gloss over the issue. While inviting me to speak, he pointedly asked me to comment on Corson’s story. As I walked up to the podium, I formulated a response: ‘It sounds like a fairy tale. I have never heard this before,’ I said, ‘As far as I know, the decision to give refuge to the Dalai Lama was an Indian decision and it was taken not on political grounds, but on humanitarian grounds, on account of our reverence for the spiritual leader of Tibet.’
“I went on to say that the Dalai Lama and his people were respected guests in our country. Corson himself had left by then and the press reports next day carried his and my versions. I reported the exchange, but I still do not know whether the Corson story had any truth in it. Months later, I discovered that one newspaper reported that I confirmed Corson’s version, by quoting me as having said that it was a “fair tale!” By dropping of a single letter, the opposite meaning was obtained.”
(Full text on: http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/may/04tps.htm)
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@ Melange.
I dont follow a single news paper. I read The Indian Express, The Pioneer, ToI, Telegraph, VK, ibnlive, NDTV, PTI news and yes, the communist organ – The Hindu.
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KL, the Malaysian remark is not intended to you. It is to Vinutha. I am calling her so since she, in a reply to a comment to her post on Islam, said that the Hindus is Malaysia are not Indians and hence she will not speak for them. But I believe that they are as much a part of India as Vinutha is. And another thing – my contention is national issues and not Tamil Nadu or Karnataka / Brahmins, Iyers or rest. Please understand that clearly.
Coming to Vinutha. Madam, you still dont seem to believe that the daily actually twists and spins the news and serves distorted facts. Let me try to convince you. Most of the following content is from http://www.cbcnn.blogspot.com just to avoid more links and text in this reply. I request you to go through each link and read that post fully.
* How the daily tries to change the sense of the news itself – http://cbcnn.blogspot.com/2008/03/hate-in-city-of-joy.html
* Suppression of news. The best example.
http://cbcnn.blogspot.com/2008/03/fwd-chindu-on-march-2008-tibet-uprising.html
* An example for the kind of balanced reporting that the daily follows.
http://cbcnn.blogspot.com/2008/03/fwd-cpm-office-attack-in-delhi.html
* An example for twisting of facts.
http://cbcnn.blogspot.com/2008/03/art-exhibition-on-aurangazeb-cancelled.html
*An example for the daily’s double standard.
http://cbcnn.blogspot.com/2008/02/right-in-kosovo-wrong-in-gujarat.html
* An example of selective reporting. This news never appeared in The HIndu, but made headlines in West Bengal.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080220/jsp/bengal/story_8925644.jsp
* Another instance for its double standard.
http://cbcnn.blogspot.com/2008/01/move-beyond-politics-of-memory-chindu.html
* Even the Reader’s Editor is unhappy with the kind of selective reporting.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/10/stories/2007121056261100.htm
* Sensorship of Reader’s letters ! Compare the letter by a reader to The Telegraph and The Hindu and see how the latter has censored the matter with particular reference to China. [look for the letter by Shalivahan Sharangpani]
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050216/asp/opinion/story_4371271.asp
http://www.hindu.com/2005/02/05/stories/2005020500601001.htm
* Mr. Ram releasing the CD on Nandigram.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/07/stories/2007070761031300.htm
* The arrogance of Mr. Ram
http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/15/stories/2007101570341300.htm
* And this is the best!!
http://cbcnn.blogspot.com/2007/10/will-you-eat-your-words-ram.html
* Trying to do a Chanakya?
http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/03/stories/2007100356502000.htm
Aah!! there are innumerable instances.
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Do those articles by other agencies disfavour China?
NO!
Seems like only favourable reports by agencies other than Xinhua are tolerated by the Grand Mao.
Remember news reports about toys, toothpastes, and what not; manufactured in China were found containing toxics like Lead etc.?
Search The Hindu, Business Line, Frontline archives and see hege thippe saarstare nODi
Search about Three Gorges Dam, remember WWF used to feature Three Gorges Dam in its ads advising against blind “development” in the National Geographic magazine?
Supposedly the greatest human displacement for a Dam in the world, while even The Guardian(supposedly The Hindu’s inspiration and role model) publishes news about lack of rehabilitation, forceful removal of people and all that gory human rights violation yet the The Hindu puts some ass wiping articles and also has the audacity of interviewing a Chinese expert about rehabilitating process, as to advise Indian authorities in the Sardar Sarovar Dam displaced rehabilitation!
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@Mallya
“My comment on rural reportage was within another context, which did not challenge the necessity to adhere to facts. So, please don’t confuse the two ideas.”
But you held up chindu’s “rural coverage” as something that makes it better than the “other rags”. It was in this context I said that the point is irrelevant to the discussion. I am trying to pull you back into the core issue of how chindu tampers the news, which in my opinion is simply wrong journalism.
“I don’t know who you mean by the whole world…..”
I meant the other newspapers ….should have been clear from the context.
“Journalism is not about agreeing with everyone and making friends. Only facts are sacrosant, not opinion.”
The first statement is absolutely true. And the second does not apply to chindu. It claimed that the situation in Lhasa was “normal” when the ground reality was exactly opposite. Maybe that is because chindu takes its sources only from xinhua. Having worked with it yourself you are in a better position to tell me how does xinhua manage to twist and suppress facts, which apparently are “sacrosanct”.
“But where is the evidence of having done such a thing?”
Some examples. Lhasa returns to normalcy. Modi losing ground in Gujarat. And many others. Take some time off and check cbcnblogspot.
“don’t want to take the attention away here by elaborating on the Indian Express comment,”
Please then don’t bring up the comments that are irrelevant to the story in the first place. Shying away from providing evidence invalidates your comment. You cant just throw allegations and excuse saying you will take the matter up sometime later.
“where the oldest and senior most journalists of the newspapers showed us the ropes, took an interest in training the green youngsters instead of asking us to make copies and run errands from one department to another”
How sweet!
“If people thought in only one way, that would be the death of democracy.”
No one is saying chindu not to express it’s opinions. All we are saying is to keep the opinions in editorials and “op-eds” and give only the news. The uncolored news! Is it too much to ask ??
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i dunno of any other newspaper in india about which people are so passionate about. but i may be wrong.
nevertheless, that reputation and passion is based on an experience of the Hindu as a paper of solid southern conservative values, which it once upheld. by conservative, i mean everything matter of factly, nothing too sensational, nothing too snazzy, but deep and wide and pertinent on this side of cauvery even if slightly more relevant on the other. all that was as golden as the late subbulakshmi singing bhaja govindam mooDha mathe, in more sense than one, –not everybody’s cup of kaapi, but something nobody would dismiss off handedly. a tradition rooted in the smell of the daily harvest of c’magalur’s finest and yet responsive to progressive ideas.
was a tradition worthy of upholding. you’ve got to remember the first shot on bofors was fired from this fort and that this was the only paper in the country not to carry gandhi’s death on the first page, because it had prior commitments. thats all thats good and holy.
the unfortunate thing is instead of going through in that tradition of empirical southern conservatism, something nothing to be ashamed off despite all the current political brainwashing, it’s new editor has choosen to blindly follow some idealogy. theory has become more important than empirical evidences.
political bias was never an issue. people never objected to analysis, even if it was to the left. what people now are vigourously and violently opposing is the sudden leftist purge and surge processes, the sudden omit and commit as-long-as-it-fits-theory idealogy, that the current editor has bought in. the amount of graft under N Ram is unbelievable.
as i posted then, within 12 hours of the release of the interim report, when the rest of the world had not even digested the executive summary of the more than 1000 page report, the Hindu came out with an ’eminently implementable’ editorial. something unpardonable, after all the foreplay about impersonal reporting from The Hindu that lasted years. To top that rude impregnation, by the time the rest of the media(primarily DH) caught up and published that Bangalore had been shortchanged, The Hindu was peddling articles on how RWH is the way to go for Bangalore — not in properties section or other supplementaries but in the city section. That is the level of manipulation that its editor indulged in. Now, its nobody’s case that RWH is not critical to BLR, Kempegowda established that long ago, but to peddle RWH as an alternative to Cauvery is way beyond the code of responsible newspapering — especially when everybody knows that hesarghatta dried up at the turn of the last century and TG halli is due to dry up any time soon.
i know it is fashionable and earns mucho points for those in the business to regurgitate a lot of theory about cauvery, but lets have an open public debate goddamit. convince us that cauvery is shared fairly. ok so in within the boundaries of erstwhile chalukyas it is difficult. sit in delhi and do an honest to honesty analysis. convince us as to why KA has to bear all the environmental costs and release additional TMCs when TN can go about literally pissing into both of its tributaries. If vaigai is dead, and lakes in the southern basin in TN’s temple towns have dried up, who is responsible? why should SoKA face the burden of TN strangling Cauvery?
i have not even touched nondigrom, and the progrom in tibet, and other sundry related stories.
my deepest desire, the next editor of The Hindu is a Basappanavar uLLagaDDi or an chintakaya rudraiah from the Krishna Basin, somebody who will take the Hindu to its glory days. Karnatic is fine, but its time to realize that we have taken over Hindustani too. This side of the vindhyas it couldn’t get hotter than gunToor mirpakayi or byaaDagi meNasu. Time to take it back, we are the original inheritors of all that is dravidian, good and holy. we didn’t stand up to barbarians for centuries only to let piddly sambarwalas to dominate us in free world.
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though my vote would be for uLlagaddi because 99% of chintakayas hvae forgotten what the raya’s stood for and what aravas stand for, even in their own language,
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“Having studied with and worked with journalists from Xinhua and China Daily, I am aware of the way media works in China too…”
I don’t know what you imply when you talk about “facts”. That a reporter should always get both sides of a story is Journalism 101. Getting both sides of the story requires a degree of freedom. Freedom that is absent in China. The saner world knows the kind of facts the Chinese news agencies are cooking: Facts sanitized and tailored to meet the requirements of the thugs that run China.
For the Hindu to run “Facts” from the Chinese news agencies knowing full the lack of freedom for the press in China is disgraceful. Add to this the “Fact” that China is openly inimical to Indian interests, then one can only wonder if The Hindu is undermining the interests and well being of the Indian republic. The million dollar question : Is the The Hindu a fifth column for the Chinese in India? Your guess is as good as mine.
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@ Thejas, Puneet and Melange: Please do some homework and pull out how many reports are filed from Xinhua and how many are from sources that the Friends of Tibet said were missing. (And Puneet, why don’t you ask the same of Thejas regarding not throwing allegations and taking up the matter sometime else, which is how he concludes one of his posts? That aside, I seem to have hurt your sentiments by making a remark against the Indian Express, a paper that I do read often and prefer the Northern edition to the one in the South.)
Secondly, reports are reports. They are not pro- or anti-. Please look through the links I have posted and tell me how any of them have a bias? (Not A Wicky Nit, please note)
And yes, Puneet, it was not only sweet, it is now rare, what they did.
I repeat again, the news comes from reports, and the opinions come from Editorials and Op-eds. Puneet, please explain to me after seeing the links above, how can you say you didn’t get uncoloured news. The Hindu has always been staid in its reports. Even when the whole country was crying hoarse accusing Dr Haneef before they had any evidence, The Hindu, keeping to tradition put out a report quoting all sources and did not splash photos in the beginning.
Not a Witty Nick, The Guardian does not know the ground realities of India (I speak from having worked there!) and usually accept all the popular voices that reach them across in London. It is a Left paper and if you read their editorials, you will see how points of view are expressed.
Would you believe that the Gujarat Government itself has consulted the Chinese Government for working out rehabilitation schemes?! Officials from the Modi government would take off every other day on jaunts to Shanghai and other newly developed cities and claim to want to make Ahmedabad “the next Shanghai”.
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Vinutha, Do you really believe there will be freedom of the press under a communist rule? Do communists allow dissent? Can you show an example of a communist country where there is individual freedom? The way this news paper is going about espousing the cause of the communists, is it not ironic?
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Okay Vinutha,
Let us put an end to your brave facade of “objectivity” for the China Post from Chennai.
This is Sandeep Dikshit’s (that is how the last name is spelt in the article) report about a invasion into a Chinese embassy. The following is the link:
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/22/stories/2008032258120100.htm
Let us look at the innuendo in Mr.Dikshit’s article.
Look at the quotes around the following terms/phrases:
“ ‘spiritual leader’ ”, “ ‘pre-arranged’ ”.
Now read that paragraph in context. It doesn’t leave any doubt in the mind as to what the author is trying to do here. Now, is there a necessity for the reporter to mock the Tibetans by enclosing the the term spiritual leader in quotes? All this reporter had to do was write the name Dalai Lama. Would he having the same fucking temerity if it were a Christian, Hindu or Moslem religious figure? The editors have deliberately let this slide.
The second phrase is “‘pre-arranged'”. Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that this phrase is put there to make it as though the Tibetans hatched a conspiracy to breach the gates of The Hindu’s Chinese overlords.
The third phrase of innuendo: “ ‘government-in-exile’ ” .
Now Does that suggest that the Tibetan Government in Dharamsala is somehow not legit? All the reporter had to write was that the Dalai lama had left Dharamsala.
The Chinese embassy apparently got a thrashing in Vienna. Now what is the need for the article to talk about some old bombings and the killing of a staffer eons ago? The only aim here is to generate sympathy for the poor beleaguered Chinese.
A less minor point would be terming Nancy Pelosi Powerful. The adjective is completely unnecessary. Speaker of the U.S. House of Reps will do.
The point above is that The Hindu is editorializing it’s news. A claim that you Oh so staunchly deny. How can you in any honesty defend the above article?
Please, Go cry somewhere else. Even my pet monkey won’t buy your claims!
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Melange,
Super posts! I have long stopped educating the ‘Tongzhi’ likes of V. Malliah. Boys and Girls, Tongzhi means ‘comrade’ in People’s Tongue AKA Putonghua. But I must admire your pin-point accuracy and flawless logic in nailing the black and white lies of V Malliah. “I don’t care whether it is black or white lies as long my Cat manages to publish them,” once said Deng Zhao Buddi:)
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manchurian candidate, anyone?
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Or maybe Mccarthyism?
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Mallya
please read my previous post. I have tried to answer your arguments point by point.
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Vinutha,
You are pretty good at doing a bait and switch on behalf of The Hindu and its liar-in-chief N.Ram. The gambit goes somewhat like this – when confronted with a conclusion retreat into the details at the deepest level possible – so you pull out a small string of reports with one Xinhua report among 5-6 AP PTI reports, to contend that The Hindu does not rely much upon the Xinhua. But we are one step ahead of you – and we know that almost no foreign newspaper ever relies on Xinhua reports knowing that they are little better than PR raddi. So The Hindu a paper with grandiose claims to “objectivity” etc., ends up relying upon Xinhua reports – what bathos!
The Hindu and N.Ram are given to gross deviousness and lying where China is concerned. two instances are enough. The first is its reportage at the time of the Tianmen Massacre – when the paper was the only non-Commie paper to adopt the conventional party line and declare the protests a subversive plot and cover up the brutal crackdown when tanks mowed down unarmed protestors by the 100s. More recently when the Chinese government sent out its thugs to sack the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai over some silly argument over textbooks in Japan, The Hindu was the only paper to trivialise the incident and actually mock the Japanese government for its protests. You should read the blogosphere’s criticism of TH more carefully, they are no simply commenting on TH, they are questioning its facts?
And when an edit talks about a territorial dispute, what does give and take mean? That’s for TH to explain, not to take cover under a cloak of sneakiness.
If people thought in only one way, that would be the death of democracy. That’s a generalisation, so I will reply with another. If enough people thought in the way of Stalin or Mao (like India’s commie crooks and their hired penpushers like N.Ram), it would be the death of liberty.
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Many people claim that the great correspondent of The Hindu from Beijing is actually a Chinese, but she was named Pallavi Aiyar by N Ram.
And N Ram’s daughter topped the Columbia Univ. This is what she wants to do, as reported in The Hindu itself.
“… Ms. Ram plans to use her Pulitzer fellowship travelling to, and writing about, China. ..”
http://www.thehindu.com/2007/05/21/stories/2007052101982000.htm
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again as i said before, the problem is not in the analysis but in the idealogy which is a only, merely and just a theory like other theories.
my theory is this why should people subscribe to only one theory.
this theory for this problem, that theory for another. ofcourse, you need to have the viveka to pick the right theory for the right problem, but that another story.
why do idealogues get so blinded by theory that they cant see reality at any distance? when it becomes painfully apparent that there is a dichotomy, they try to bend the reality rather than fine tuning their theory.
why do they behave like the mannequin at the nike store which has nike sox, nike pant, nike shirt, nike goggles and even nike cap. on some of these mannequins, the pants and the shirt are cut along the middle to reveal that even the underwear is nike.
fortunately 99% of the people in the world are arey-gorey and not complete or consistent or logical . a little of that a little bit this. they look at these mannequins in great amusement have a hearty laff and move on to the next store. only juveniles and perverts hang around.
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between,
not even a single readers’ letter published on Tibet uprising by The Hindu!
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Communism is a death cult and communist newspapers are death cult newspapers
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Chandu Nair does a similar analysis of TH’s over-biased reporting of Tibet in The Hoot.
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3003&mod=1&pg=1§ionId=17&valid=true
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@Vinutha,
Why don’t you respond to the statement that The Hindu censors Letters to the Editor, if it is against China?? You know that is true, right??
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Thejas,
Vinutha has been brainwashed by chindu.Is it just coincidence that she is a Mallya?The Hindu knows to pick its targets.
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KL,
I wish she will wake up. I wish she will realise and learn the truth about Chindu.
Between, a must read article!
http://prasannavishy.blogspot.com/2008/03/pol-pot-pandian-writes-to-editor-in.html
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Another one –
http://prasannavishy.blogspot.com/2006/03/crumbling-mount-road-marx-losing.html
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Pragmatic,
ram’s daughter was awarded a fellowship. She did not top anything – as in US universities rarely – if at all – is anyone declared a topper. Even then with Ram and the Columbia J school supping together more often than necessary, an undue nexus can’t be ruled out. The young lady is already being groomed to take over the farm when her dad steps aside to take up China’s interests in India full time. In India words like democracy, freedom, liberty etc., are simply that and nothing else. The feudal elite whether left or right pretty much gets to do what it wants.
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@ Thejas, your post of 22 March 2008 at 12:32 am did not show up on the comment list when I last wrote here.
I have gone through all the links you have posted (most of them from one source: the cbcnn blog) and believe that cbcnn.blogspot.com has become your Xinhua. Although today’s journalists have many flaws, I trust their work (because there is still a method one has to follow in a news room) more than a campaign blog (which includes Friends of Tibet site) which selectively chooses information to illustrate its views. To me, the selections made by cbcnn (for lack of his/her name) are one-sided. I
will keep my response as brief as possible, and will not put up many
links which a reader will have to exhaust herself connecting to:
* How the daily tries to change the sense of the news itself –
In all the newspapers/media which reported this piece of news, the
Indian Government has specifically been mentioned, giving no room for
the “casual reader to assume that the Central Government is reponsible for this,” as suggested by cbcnn, because she named the Indian Government in her statement and not any other.
For those interested, please see the links below:
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080319&fname=taslima&sid=1
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/has-india-let-down-taslima-nasreen/61531-3.html
http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-32583620080319?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
* Suppression of news. The best example
The BBC and NYT have quoted the same source, from the same press
release using the same words, but added whatever their journalists
based in Beijing were hearing, since foreign journalists by then were not allowed inside Tibet.
Also, please see this link:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/000200803191971.htm
The news about Jia being re-elected is a brief news item sourced from Xinhua. I don’t see how that is evidence of supression of news.
* An example for the kind of balanced reporting that the daily follows.
If you read all the links given by cbcnn to show how different Hindu’s reportage was on the attack by RSS on CPI(M) office in Delhi, there are contradictions in each story, including one RSS source admitting to it and one denying it. Most of the other news organisations reported from the
press conference given by Prakash Karat, which got more coverage in all the other media, which should make them look like they support him more than the Hindu! Karat seems to have said something about the Kerala incidents at the conference (which might not have been attended by the Hindu correspondent, since his byline appears. If he was reporting a press conference, he would be simply called “Special Correspondent”), but knowing how press conferences go, he must have been responding to a
journalists’ question, which gave them the easiest lead for the story. The link between the violence in Kerala and the attack is a conjecture, and the easiest link to establish given the timing. The Hindu edit desk might have decided not to allow this conjecture to creep into their pages, since there was no hard evidence pointing to the same. The RSS did not admit to it.
* An example for twisting of facts.
This one takes the cake. Of all the news media which published this story, the Statesman is the only one which specifically names the “Muslim” community. It has been a tradition in Indian English journalism not to name any “community” when there is chance that the report may ignite a riot. The community is never named, although everyone who reads it would know which community is being referred to. This was the media’s way of being “responsible” in times when it took that word seriously. All
senior journalists will vouch for this. The Statesman must have chosen to break that tradition, and many newspapers are doing that now.The Hindu does remain more conservative than most newspapers (one of the other accusations it has always faced).To go to the extent of using this to show an example of “censorship” is a bit far fetched. If it did want to censor, it
could have easily not reported the item at all. In newspapers, space is sacred, every day there are more stories than the space to print. It is fortunately or unfortunately not like a blog on the internet where you have
unlimited space.
*An example for the daily’s double standard.
This example beats me. I fail to see how the Serbia-Kosovo conflict
is related to Gujarat simply by writer Dmitry Gornostayev (whose name must be unpalatable to cbcnn because of its origin) stating “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”, in a totally different context. How does this one sentence bear relevance to Gujarat?
* An example of selective reporting. This news never appeared in The Hindu, but made headlines in West Bengal.
Some reports are only local, and some make it to national pages. The story indicated here was a local story for Bengal. Not all of Tamil Nadu’s local stories get printed in the Telegraph either. And besides the Telegraph, no other newspaper, not just Hindu, reported this news.
* Another instance for its double standard.
I do admire cbcnn’s ability to dig out news pieces and opinions from the year 2005. The first link he/she has given is a news report about the findings of the Nanavati Commission in the 1984 riots probe, which was reported by all newspapers eventually. The use of quotes in “credible evidence” is because it is reported speech, not the reporter’s writing, but words used by a source from the Commission, which he is reporting.
That is what double quotes are used for, not for the reporter to express inuendo.
The other two links posted are: 1. An opinion by Harish Khare on the
events post-Nanavati Commission’s report. 2. An opinion piece by Ramaswamy Iyer post the recent Gujarat election.
cbcnn says: “Chindu blames Nanavati for trying to seek the truth instead of firmly putting behind the “politics of memory”.”
For lack of any other explanation, I can only say he/she missed the point.
Harish Khare in a piece written on August 9, 2005, titled ” Politics of forgetting and forgiving” says:
“The Nanavati Commission was expected to pronounce definitely the guilt or innocence of “the Congress leaders.” It has come as close as it could to giving a clean chit to the “Congress” as an organisation:”
He concludes his piece saying:
“Collectively, a society ought to learn the right lessons from a major happening like the 1984 violence, steel itself against future outbreaks in law and order, examine and reform institutional procedures that come in the way of timely and effective containment of mobs.
Above all, a society ought to move beyond the politics of memory.
Justice Nanavati has failed civil society. Rather than firmly close the book, he has given enough ammunition to those who want to keep the pot boiling. For its part, the Congress has expiated its guilt by elevating a Sikh to the high office of Prime Minister of India.”
Khare’s opinion is clear: That the Commission should name the guilty Congress leaders, so that justice can be done, and so that the memory of 1984 does not become a weapon for other parties to wield for political gains. He has not declared the Congress as innocent. His last sentence clearly states that the Congress decision to put up Manmohan Singh as the PM candidate might have to do with fact that the party is attempting to expiate its guilt.
Writing in the year 2008, Mr Ramaswamy Iyer in his opinion piece titled “Gujarat elections: some reflections” says:
“In scale, duration, and the number of people killed, Delhi 1984 was possibly worse than Gujarat 2002. However, in comparing the two events and trying to be “fair” and “even-handed,” we fail to note two points. First, it is meaningless to compare the two horrors; abhorrence, grief, and shame are the appropriate responses in both cases. One horror does not
mitigate the other. Secondly, while some politicians and groups might have been actively involved in Delhi 1984, the Hindus of Delhi as a whole were not complicit in the anti-Sikh violence, nor did they condone it. Of course, the state was complicit, and ipso facto the citizens could be said
to be indirectly complicit too, but we cannot say that the madness of those few days had social sanction.”
Clearly, the two are talking about different issues altogether, and if you read both the columns, the subject matter is entirely different. So what sort of comparison is being made here by cbcnn?
* Even the Reader’s Editor is unhappy with the kind of selective reporting.
The Readers’ Editor reproduced letters written by Indian overseas complaining about the lack of coverage on the Nandigram issue (and also Hindu’s left leaning tendency). And when he concludes this piece,
he says this:
“The unprecedented public protest in Kolkata was well covered, but one was left wondering what was the “situation” in Nandigram against which the intellectuals and artists were protesting. As a newsman, my first priority would have been spot coverage. That media persons were denied access to the “war zone” was unknown to The Hindu readers. The first Nandigram-datelined report, from Antara Das, appeared much after
things had quietened down in the area. Nandigram did not get the
setailed analysis that an explosion in tiny faraway Maldives got.”
N. Ram, in his reponse said:
“We have done a perfectly balanced news and pictorial coverage of Nandigram and taken a clear editorial position, avoiding the traps of anti-left campaign journalism that various other newspapers and television channels have got into. I am satisfied that the news coverage has been
accurate and balanced. Working out the editorial stand is our journalistic privilege. A serious content analysis of our coverage of Nandigram will vindicate my claim of factual and sober coverage. Of course journalism
works with constraints when it comes to access to what happens in embattled or complex circumstances. But you always have a chance to catch up or fill in what happened.
“It is absolutely inaccurate to say we have not sent any reporter to Nandigram. Antara Das’ recent report, for example, speaks for itself.”
The only positive letter which the Readers’ Editor produced in a subsequent column was by Manoj Puravankara, Research Associate,
University of Rochester, Rochester, New York: “You cite a few letters from readers accusing The Hindu of moving far too ideologically to the left. The
basis for this assertion is that The Hindu did not cover some of the issues adequately which most newspapers in the country covered widely. I find this argument quite troubling. Does it mean that other newspapers are more balanced and do not have any ideological predilections? The overwhelming homogeneity in news coverage and analysis in the Indian national media (both print and visual) is largely a manifestation of the
underlying institutional interest of the media, given the current power structure and politico-economic context in the country. The Hindu, in my opinion, is the only newspaper in India which at least tries to consciously counter this … This is not to say that The Hindu does not have a political
stand on issues. It does and in fact it is this stand that makes it so refreshingly different from the bland standard politics of the media in India.”
Needless to say, I agree with Mr Purvankara, who has explained, much better than I could have, my reason for liking The Hindu (even today) over any other newspaper in south India.
* Sensorship (sic) of Reader’s letters !
There are two main rules in sub-editing when cutting down text:
1. Edit for redundancy
2. Edit for space
The essential thing for the sub-editor to note is that the essence of the message is not altered. Newspapers usually do not receive letters which are only 60-80words. The letters are usually long. Every edit desk takes a relevant portion of the letter, which contains the main message and publishes it. Ask any newspaper journalist. This is not censorship.
* Mr. Ram releasing the CD on Nandigram
The photo caption reads:
“N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, releasing a documentary film CD on Nandigram at Banga Sanskriti Bhavan in New Delhi on Friday .Also seen are filmmaker Prakash Kumar Ray and Mala Hashmi.”
The report says:
“Prakash’s attempt to see Nandigram from close quarters has resulted in the documentary, Nandigram: Aasman Ki Talaash Mein, released by the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N. Ram, here on Friday.
The film tries to explore the events at Nandigram before and after March 14 — the day when 14 persons were killed in police firing and subsequent violence — and “see through the anti-Left campaign” in West Bengal.
The film captures the run-up to the March 14 tragedy; how the Trinamool Congress-backed anti-land acquisition platform, Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee, forced innocent people — several of them Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres — to leave their homes and property; how the CPI(M) activists were attacked and killed; and how some of the complaints of people missing were fabricated.”
This is the release of a documentary, which he was invited to release (well, someone had to). Considering the issue is close to him, he seems to have agreed to do this. For some it is falling at the feet of a Sri Sri Sri, for Ram it is this.He has every right and reason to release a book, CD etc. In the profession, many editors from the old school might frown on any editor making himself/herself visible, but these days every newspaper editor is aligned to something or the other: Shekar Gupta likes TV interviewing, Vir Sanghvi likes chit chat on TV and to write food columns too, and now a food show also.
If the documentary is fabricating the truth, that is another matter altogether, but if the documentary is investigating a truth which was not reported, then it has value. Since none of us (this is an assumption, of course) have seen this documentary, so why is Ram wrong to release this CD?
* The arrogance of Mr. Ram
Your opinion. I have no comment.
* And this is the best!!
Another tradition in newspaper journalism is you never reproduce an interview or an exclusive story published by another newspaper sharing the same space with you (i.e. English readers in India).
Again, every journalist and editor will vouch for this. ToI will not reproduce an interview published in The Hindu, nor will The Pioneer publish an exclusive published by The Telegraph. The private television channels are a late entry in the media scene of India and new practices have come into
play now. Since the medium is different, newspapers and television channels now take stories from one another. Shekar Gupta does “Walk the Talk” on NDTV and reproduces it in The Indian Express. It is a deal between NDTV and IE. These are new trends, and which is why Karan Thapar’s television interview and Tehelka’s sting operation (which was
reported by all newspapers) showing up in The Hindu or any other newspaper is not unusual, and in fact encouraged by the TV channels.
* Trying to do a Chanakya?
I didn’t quite understand this, so I won’t comment on this.
Phew! That was a long one. The Hindu is no longer what it once was. Neither is any of the other newspapers. We are living in today’s day and age, and not yesterday’s. The rules of the media game have changed in India and each media organisation is responding to it as it feels is necessary. If The Hindu is the only newspaper telling the stories that others don’t want to tell anymore, or consider at all, it is all the better for readers who are bombarded by information from all ends.
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I also want to dispel the image created by some regarding Pallavi Aiyar who is dubbed ‘bimbo’ by our esteemed cbcnn friend. She is a respected journalist well respected by her colleagues in the media. She is the youngest recepient of the Prem Bhatia Memorial Trust award: http://www.prembhatiatrust.com/pallavi_aiyar.htm
The trustees of this Memorial Trust are:
Air Chief Marshal O.P. Mehra (Retd.), Chairman.
Mr. Soli Sorabji, Attorney General of India.
Mr. M.K. Rasgotra, Former Foreign Secretary.
Dr. Manmohan Singh – Hon. Prime Minister of India
Mrs. Shakuntala Bhatia, Managing Trustee.
Mr. Anand Bhatia, Multinational Executive.
Mr. Inder Malhotra, Journalist, Secretary of the Trust.
Asha Rani Mathur, Media Consultant.
Prof. Mushirul Hasan, Educationaist.
Mrs. Rammi Chhabra, Journalist.
Mr. Shekhar Gupta – Editor-in-Chief, Indian Express
Mr. Alok Mehta – Editor, Outlook, Hindi Edition
Mr. H.K. Dua – Editor, The Tribune
Mr. Ashok Nehru
Mr. Ajay S. Mehta
The past awardees of this award are:
1997
Mr. Haresh Khare
Deputy Editor and Deputy Chief of the New Delhi bureau of The Hindu
1998
Mr. Raj Chengappa
Deputy Editor of India Today
1999
Ms. Seema Mustapha
Deputy Editor of Asian Age
2000
Mr. Amit Baruah
Political Correspondent of Hindu,
Posted in Islamabad
2001
Mr. Sankarshan Thakur
Assistant Editor – Indian Express
(For his outstanding political writing throughout the year
and most recently on upheaval in Manipur.)
2002
Mr. Kingshuk Nag
(Resident Editor), The Times of India
Ahmedabad
(For The Courageous reporting of Gujarat Riots.)
Mr. Bharat Desai
Chief Reporter, The Times of India
Ahmedabad
2003
Mr. Praveen Swami
Special correspondent Front Line
2004
Mr, Palagummi Sainath
of the Hindu For his Superb reporting of hunger, deprivation and death among farmers in Andhra Pradesh.
2005
Mr. Varghese K. George
for his investigative series on how flood relief in Bihar was siphoned off by politicians and bureaucrats.
2006
Ms. Navika Kumar of Television News Channel Times Now for her hard hitting investigative reports on Election Commissioner having received funds from MPLADS for Trusts run by him and his family members.
Pallavi Aiyar was given the award in 2007 because: “In her sensitive and astute reports she has covered a wide field ranging from the political and strategic, to Indo-Chinese relations and a society in transition.”
Some people are perpetuating the myth that she writes for Asia Times when she cannot get her article into The Hindu. There is no evidence to prove this. The article she wrote for Asia Times clearly mentions her to be the China correspondent for The Hindu. She has been writing for this online publication since 2005. If she had wanted to write for the reasons claimed by the rumour mongers, she would not have done it under her byline and have her position in The Hindu mentioned below her article. Also note, in 2005-2006, she was the Beijing Correspondent for The Indian Express.
About Xinhua, the general impression seems to be that it is made up of people who cannot call themselves journalists. It is true that the Xinhua journalists (from my experience) are conditioned into a thought process, which all Chinese are under the governance system that they are living in. But this does not mean that the Xinhua’s journalists don’t follow the rules of journalism. Xinhua sponsors its journalists to pursue masters programmes in Western countries to gain insight and exposure. They participate in debates and discussions, and give their point of view, which might not be yours or mine but is theirs. It is alien to our journalists not to question, to them it is alien to question the Party. The Xinhua is to China, what Doordarshan News was once to India.
Please see this link to know more about Xinhua:
http://www.nerve.in/news:25350026022
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This will be my final comment on this post by Thejas:
@ kaangeya: I did not understand your point about doing a bait and switch on behalf of The Hindu. Retreating into details is what one must do if one wants to stay away from prejudiced opinions. The Xinhua is subscribed to by almost every foreign newspaper, and is used as source of news on China.
@pragmatic: you are right about the letters to the editor, and I am totally opposed to it myself.
@ DB: My dear old friend, when I cannot get you to do something as simple as spell my last name correctly, how did you hope to ‘educate’ me on the fundamentals?
@ Melange: “spiritual leader”, “pre-arranged”, “government-in-exile”– none of these are innuendo. While the Dalai Lama is a very respectable person, his status has always been dual. He is both the spiritual and political leader to the Tibetan people in exile. In the wake of recent events, he has not clarified the role he is adopting. All the terms above are reported speech. After this, the Dalai Lama is mentioned in every single paragraph. Reports in other papers also suggested that the meeting in Delhi might not have been prearranged as claimed by the Tibetan group. The government in exile, although used liberally, has not been officially recognised as a government by the rest of the world.
@ KL: Whatever the coincidence with my name (actually my family name) being Mallya is totally lost on me. But enjoy your cheap thrills.
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Vinutha,
i do agree that Hindu has realised that there is a paradigm shift in indian politics.As the CIA-State Department Report acknowledges the SCs,”lower castes” and the minorities form the majority in india.We all believe in inclusive growth.Many here firmly believe in the ideals of indian renaissance.When someone cynically exploits minorityism,linguistic minorities( an euphemism for kongas) and “backwardness” it is clear who are indulging in CHEAP thrills.
The Hindu knows to pick its targets.They fawn upon a GSB girl from karnataka who seems to have worked in all the right places.The Hindu takes care to please the “baba log” from the right background-sandeep dixit,neena vyas-the bleeding heart liberals from privileged backgrounds who make a good show of their protests and professions.While showering contempt on decent ,honest middle of the road guys.
Will the Hindu do the same favours on a vokkaliga,lingayat,madhva,hoysala smartha brahmana,kuruba young man?
Do you GET it now?
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Hurrah Ms Mallya shall write no more of this issue herein. Dont get me wrong – I am an admirer of the lady’s attempts at persuasion- but then ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’- the argument too elaborate and insistent that at times it seems artful.
Why does these manner of protestations remind me of the Orwellian dictum ( the Orwell that is equally despised by Left and Right) that a fanatic is one who having lost lost sight of the Objective doubles his efforts!
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The amazing V Malliah has done it again! Next, Ram will be releasing a DVD on why CPM cadres routinely rub out the opposition in God’s Own Country.
Please understand: The Hindu is no longer what it once was. Neither is any of the other newspapers. We are living in today’s day and age, and not yesterday’s. The rules of the media game have changed in India and each media organisation is responding to it as it feels is necessary. Yeah right! It is that simple:)
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such a lengthy reply! kudos to you Mallya for that. Had those efforts been utilised in understanding The Hindu better rather than defending its rubbish journalism, you would have found some peace. I will not take up any specific issue here as the bottom line of any such reply by me would be the same – The Hindu is biased, devoid of ethics, an opportunist and has sold its soul to China and communists.
Better learn the truth as early as possible.
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I am not surprised at the attack on the Hindu newspaper in the sectarian RSS-inspired media (especially on the Net) and its sypmathisers.
The reason is very simple, and obvious. The Hindu has taken a principled stance against the violent, sectarian, communal, and fascist religious movement and its politics.
I am not sure where the author of this piece (Mr. tejas) stands. But many of the things said by him are exaggerated. It is true that the Hindu covers the news relating to the struggles of the poor, marginalised, and the dispossessed, and that it has a visceral dislike for the communalist and the religious extremist (E.g. RSS). That is what has brought on the attack on it by those on that side of the divide.
The Hindu’s coverage of Tibet was excellent and I found it similar to an article written by Patrick French in NY Times edit page today.
The attack on the Hindu is motivated and in bad taste.
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fanatic is one who having lost lost sight of the Objective doubles his efforts!
gyabakka gubbakka, after reading your other post i am dead scared but had to muster enough courage to say thanks.
it is absolutely amazing. the issue of tibet and china is for all to see. it is open.
and yet there are people defending theories and concepts.
the very same paper, in its folio, and other sections time and again pisses and disses on sanskritization. be it pitching the various art forms, book reviews and so on. and yet when it comes to tibet it turns a blind eye. now that is a paper with an ideologue as editor in chief. what about the rest?
miss mallya, does the fact that the rest of media is screwed up justify hindu’s excesses?
can you stare a tibetian in the eye and tell him all these stories?
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TS,
Thank you! I am happy to note that even you were moved to say something strong to V Malliah:) And then we also had the Gift of Gaby! It makes one feel the future is safe from the likes of N Ram, V Malliah and Shikandi…
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and this one
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/24/stories/2008032455131000.htm
such a notorious article; tries to argue that India knew before hand about the Tibet uprising. It also asks India to mucchkonDu iru on Tibet issue. The Hindu is the only mainstream daily which is haven for these kind of anti-Indian affairs.
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And what do we make of this article ?
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/18/stories/2008031854581100.htm
Pure propaganda masquerading as news
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phew! @ Bhaumik
how can you conclude one to be an RSS man just because he criticizes The Hindu? More astonishingly, how can you claim that the reporting on Tibet issue by The Hindu is excellent? So, if The Hindu’s coverage on any issue matches with even single article of the similar kind in NY Times, we all must bow to the daily for its excellent coverage!! lol!! what a joke Mr. Joker! Can you tell me why has The Hindu decided not to publish even a single reader’s letter to the editor on this issue? There are tons of letters on the issue to the editor. And we all know for whom did the daily stand for, during the Nandigram episode.
Why waste time here Mr.Bhaumik? go Bengal and see what commies are upto!
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Oh well, I can’t resist. Sorry to disappoint you Gaby! Tsangpo, this article is not news, but classified under Opinion. So, there is no masquerade. Secondly, it is an eye witness account which was published in The Guardian. Now, of course, we can have this whole forum dub The Guardian as having sold their souls to the ‘commies’ and that Tania Branigan is a made up creature, and The Guardian is publishing fiction in the guise of opinion. Conspiracy, conspiracy and more conspiracy theories are welcome.
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“spiritual leader”, “pre-arranged”, “government-in-exile”– none of these are innuendo. While the Dalai Lama is a very respectable person, his status has always been dual. He is both the spiritual and political leader to the Tibetan people in exile. In the wake of recent events, he has not clarified the role he is adopting.
While the mahavishnu of mount road is a very respectable institution, its current editor’s status has always been dual. He is both the editor-in-chief and a political idealogue. In the wake of the current controversies and the giant leap forward before that, he has not clarified the role he is adopting.
so in that sense, “editor-in-chief”, “news”, “fairness-in-exile”, “journalism” – none of these are innuendos and conspiracies either.
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@tarlesubba, you can twist anything when you quote out of context. but let me not stop you from venting your spleen.
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@Vinutha,
If you have been reading The Guardian’s ( a pro-left paper by any standards, and The Hindu’s inspiration) reporting of the Tibet issue, they have been pretty solid and unbiased. There are news reports from both sides and the opinion pieces are generally critical of China. TH carefully publishes a single news item from The Guardian which supports its idealogy.
The whole point of this discussion on The Hindu’s coverage of Tibet is it is unquestionably pro-China. It doesn’t even follow its own “spiritual guru” The Guardian in giving a balanced view.
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@ Goldstar, I have listed enough links to show the coverage The Hindu has given to the incidents in Tibet.
To take my argument further, The Hindu is refusing to be a campaign organ for the Tibetan exiles, which has become a fashionable cause in the Western press, and by extention in the Indian English media, what with so many white celebrities being attached to the cause. We are ready to campaign for Tibetan right to autonomy, but will not accept Kashmir’s claim to the same. The Hindu is open about its stand on Tibet in its editorials written by Ram. There is no pretense, and he backs up his views with facts. Given the same facts, if you choose to think differently, that is another matter altogether. But you cannot say those facts themselves are fabricated simply because Ram is writing about them.
Let us look at the issue from another angle. The Hindu was equally reluctant to go over the top when after the incident in Glasgow airport the entire Indian media was going crazy writing about the Ahmed parents living in Bangalore. Or even when Dr Haneef was arrested in Australia. The media has more or less pronounced Haneef guilty even before he went to trial. At that time, none of the people who are now crying hoarse over ‘lack of coverage on Tibet’ said that The Hindu did not give enough coverage of the issue. If you look into Churumuri archives you will find that many Churumuri readers had pronounced Haneef guilty before Australians even finished interrogating him!
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i am not twisting anything thaayi. just saying that i agree with you and accept that when spiritual leaders, irrespective of their spirituality, hold two positions, what position they hold when dealing with a certain issue becomes murky. only that your target spiritual guru is different from mine.
really? kashmir is why ram has a holier than mao attitude to tibet? so why doesnt ram bat for settlement of indians from the rest of country in kashmir?
it is very interesting how the balance seems to find coherence with the party line time and time again.
the first paragraph of the first editorial on the last round of action in nandigram decried the villagers for blocking development in terms of erecting electric poles. and so it was expressly justified that the blockade be removed.
really? that is why extra constitutional, private armies had to be sent?
for the next few weeks after the lifting of the blockade, i tried to follow if they actually erected those poles which the editor was so concerned about. suddi ne illa after that.
fact: there was delay in electrification.
fact: for all the giant leap forward, for 30 years of party rule no one ever bothered about electrification.
fact: extra constitutional private army was used.
view: blockade by villagers, worried about their lives, was causing it and hence it had to removed.
truth is reflected in facts but facts by themselves dont make up the truth. you can pull that wire and shine only that part of the room you are interested in and view any thing you want.
so now there are now no known facts about what happened when the armed militia blocked everyone out. since there are no facts, shall we view it as nothing happened?
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It has been ages since I read the Hindu with any degree of seriouness so me not to judge whether it’s over the top on any thing under the sun at all. However on Churumuri there are people who do go over the top- DB when he percieves any anti-neocon sentiment, Dr Ramesh for the Gowda Clan and dare I say more about the indefatigible Ms Mallya!
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TS Thatha, what is it I said that scared you so much ?!
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gg in moderation Q.
churumuri. i know there is no purging. well mostly. u purged one of my posts which was transliterated. but thats ok. coz you had warned me earlier.
but please make the list of words that trigger moderation filters public, so that we know what to avoid.
reducing people to sukha vyaadhi salesmen is not fair.
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Hi Vinutha,
Just curious….what was the reaction of Chindu when that lady terrorist ishrat Jahan was killed in an encounter along with some 4 LET boys, who were out to bump off Modi….did they not pronounce the gujarat police guilty of killing a innocent college student …can you please clarify
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The broader question here is of free press, democracy and individual freedom. If a newspapaer openly takes up the cause of a dangerous ideology called communism which is totalitarian in nature and opposed to any kind of democracy or free press, then it becomes questionable paper’s ulterior motives or hiden agenda. It needs an investigation to find out why will any newspapaer goes above board to support an alien ideology which is totally opposed to free press being enjoyed by the same news paper now. By the way I am curious to know if there are any independent free news papers allowwed in China?
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@ Vinutha
I can only laugh at you. Yes, The Hindu is refusing to be a mouth piece of Tibetans in exile, but it is already one, of the People’s Republic of China!
I am amazed at your equation of Kashmir and China!! Madam, may I tell you that these two are separate story altogether.
Kashmir was never forcibly taken over by India where as Tibet was. Whole world knows the brutality of atrocities on the Tibet. Please brush up your knowledge of Indian history.
Where are the facts in Tibet news coverage Madam? If you call the trash being provided by The Hindu as facts, then I am afraid, you are not aware of the importance of sanctity of actual facts in journalism. Why dont you sit and start investigating the kind of propaganda that The Hindu has adopted in Tibet issue?
Should someone remind you again the fact that not a single reader’s letter has been published till date by the daily? I have clearly mentioned, with links, in my article that when the media in the whole world[minus China] reported the statements of the Dalai Lama and the news of violence spreading beyond Lhasa, this Chinese-press-release-printer-at-Madras reported that Lhasa has returned back to normality.
Is this you call fair coverage of the Tibet issue?
I am afraid, you have lost your senses – for you, the newspaper’s image is more important than any national interest.
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OK… we have heard almost all arguments. On the one hand Vinutha and a Bhaumik are saying that hindu is unbiased and objective. It has striven to maintain balanced coverage of all issues, esp. related to china.
On the other hand, majority of the comments have tried to show that chindu’s standards have dropped, it now indulges in biased propaganda and censors news that is not in line with it’s ideologue.
What Vinutha (I ignore Bhaumik…..he seems to have just wandered off into this website and clearly is narrow minded..) misses is that most of “us” have grown up with chindu and regarded it as worthy of emulation in objectivity and analysis. What we are distressed is the fallen standards of chindu. The horrible article of bhadrakumar(?) today is clearly anti-national (look at the tone of the article!). One never expected chindu to stoop to this level, whatever compulsions it may have.
To Vinutha, One can wake a person who is asleep but not one who is pretending! No more arguments from my side…
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Vinutha,
You are jumbled up over “facts”. A news story cannot cover facts. There is no such thing. There are no objective truths in covering a story. Objective truth is a big lie. A story can at best cover all sides of the equation. When you say “views”, you imply that there could be other possible views. You cannot back up a view with facts!! A view by it’s nature implies a partisan slant. You can say that he makes arguments for his claims. Period.
So, N.Ram goes on a jaunt sponsored by the Monsters that run China, then comes back and writes a front page article castigating the Dalai Lama
and Tibetans claims over their country. If he had the courtesy to let the Tibetans write a counter point, one might have had a little respect for him. But, No, There is no such thing as a fairness doctrine at the Hindu.
How is this guy any different from a hack?
All that is being said here is that The Hindu is not presenting the other side of the story. There is nothing wrong in The Hindu is taking the side of the Chinese over the Tibetan issue. It is a lie to claim that there is no bias in their coverage!
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Smitha :)
Your demand for an investigation cracks me up!! Every Newspaper is in bed with some ideology or the other. What is important is that there be no censorship or suppression of views, however radical or outrageous. The greatness of a civilization is dependent on a free flow of information and views. It is a good thing that The Hindu exists: For, we would not have something like The Indian Express ( Mumbai edition) without it!!
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But Vinutha Mallya, when it comes to Tibet, The Hindu has only one opinion.
So it is “news” masquerading as opinion.
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There has to be something singularly hypocritical about a newspaper that supported the worst period in independent India’s history, The Emergency, right through, and then apologised for it in a front page editorial after Indira Gandhi’s defeat. Welcome India’s most successful yellow rag, “The Hindu”, a Communist rag that is owned by a multi millionaire. These days, like in the days of Indira Gandhi’s experiment with fascism, the Hindu is in bed with the Congress Party, and especially with it’s chief ally, the CPM. N Ram’s band of lying propagandists have spared no effort over the past few years, ever since he took over as the Hindu’s Editor in Chief, to pretend that everything is great under the combined Congress-Communist rule over India. The poor farmers who were butchered by a combined force of West Bengal Police and CPM cadres armed with automatic weapons may well have been sent happily to Red Heaven if this rag is to be believed. And, there is a new Communist paradise coming up on earth, we are assured, with Chinese nuclear tech and investments, after the thugs in Kolkata and their drum-beater on Anna Salai fought valiantly against the very western influences that Ram finds absolutely indispensable for his own daughter, and in his younger days, for his own education.
Indeed, the Hindu’s lies on Manmohan Singh’s recent trip to China have been hilarious. Even a dyed-in-the-wool Congress pamphlet like Outlook, has been lukewarm to the results achieved through this trip. But whoever reads The HIndu must believe, like it did during the Emergency, that a vast majority of its readers actually believe its nonsense. We are told by Ram’s minions that China supports India’s nuclear ambitions and that it is willing to “co-operate” with India’s future nuclear power generation plans. Well, with plans to build 12 new nuclear powerplants, it is obvious that the Chinese want to get as much business as possible. And, that they know how to get it. It is clear that it was signals from Beijing through Kolkata that effectively scuttled India’s planned nuclear co-operation with the whole world bar China through blackmail and threats.
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@Tsangpo
“So it is “news” masquerading as opinion.”
You mean, “opinion” masquerading as “news” :).
@Tejas
How dare you say there are no letters published about Tibet in chindu!!
Please take a look at today’s edition…..there are at least 3 letters ……. of course all of them supporting yesterday’s article!!!
So much so for the lack of letters :)
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Excellent article
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/24flip.htm
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Left from the time of… ooops, sorrry, right from the time of my grandfather, The Hindu has been doing grave mistakes
~ be it supporting the emergency,
~ be it opposing the Pokhran nuclear tests [never opposes China’s tests] ,
~ be it opposing Narmada dam [no voice against the Three gorges dam],
~ be it Gujarat violence and elections
~ be it Mu Ka and goons’ dadagiri
~ be it Nandigram
~ be it Setusamudram project
~ be it Tibet
~ be it Indo-US nuclear deal
.
.
.
.
.
every time The Hindu comes up with peculiar kind of arguments to support its views and argues that whatever it pukes is itself the truth.
I dont understand how Mallyamma has acclimatized herself to this Mandarian moron!
Mallyamma,
happy reading The Chindu under the great editorship of Yen Ram!!
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@Vinutha
QUOTE
But you cannot say those facts themselves are fabricated simply because Ram is writing about them.
UNQUOTE
Was Lhasa normal on March 16th and 17th as proclaimed by N.Ram? Was The Guardian, The NYTimes (both left-oriented papers, mind you) false?
@Pragmatic
QUOTE
happy reading The Chindu under the great editorship of Yen Ram!!
UNQUOTE
N.Ram is a Japan-hater (as many Chinese are given their past)… don’t give him the name ‘”Yen” Ram’… As it is he has sleepless nights – what with his name being “Ram” and his paper’s name being “The Hindu” :-).
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ok ok, he is Yaun Ram!
entha divyavaada hesaru swami – Narasimhan Ram.
aadre maaDOdella halka kelsa, mane haaL .. allallaa, dEsha haaL kelasa!
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There is no difference between The Hindu and Pioneer. Pioneer is a cheddi paper and the hindu is a ‘ reddy ‘ paper.
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and CNN IBN is a minority’s channel!
by the way, N Ram does it again.
http://www.desipundit.com/2008/03/25/nram-does-it-again/
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@Pragmatic,
I amn’t a spokesperson of CNN IBN. It is my personal opinion.
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I have to agree with DB.Tamils and neutrality cannot go together.I pray to Iswara justice is done in hogenakkal,gudalur(in ooty),dhenkanikota,talavadi in karnataka
Today,the official kannadiga showboy of the Hindu,MS prabhakara has poured venom on Karnataka.He cannot stand us being uppity towards his employers.He claims TN -karnataka problems are due to perceptions of the centre’s partiality to TN on cauvery dictated by DMK.
He forgets that every union minister from PC to Mani Shankar Iyer to velu to Maaran to Anbumani to Jayanthi Natarajan act as if they are ministers of the state of TN and act against karnataka.Tamils have colonised bengaluru.Kannadigas in TN in border villages are third class citizens.The kannadigas in TN cannot even own up their identity.Has the hindu ever written on their plight.Many small restaurants and bakeries have many problems.The Hindu publishes the travails of KGF workers.So much for neutrality.
Dear friends,
You will surprised to know that the most backward peasant community in TN are the mutharayars.They are the single largest community in thanjavur,tiruchi and karur districts(taken together) along the cauvery.Their political representation is abysmal.They refute MN Srinivas theory of dominant peasant castes.The only reason they are at the bottom of the heap,is because they are perceived to be from karnataka(during the Hoysala period).The latter reddiyars and naickers from andhra,the muslims and christians are better off.Has NRam ever analysed this incredible phenomenon?
Jayalalitha tried to help them but gave up against entrenched power groups.Why have the commies and ‘social justice’ people not helped them?
If and when BJP comes to power,they have to reckon with the tamil situation?There is a tamil verb in popular parlance “azhwarakkuvathu”( to make one a azhwar-it means making one a blind follower of a tradition).N Ram dreams of making DB and TS as prabhakaras.
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Heard this one on some other blog:
“The Hindu is synonymous with CPIM. Chinese Paper In Madras.”
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Today’s editorial on the Tibet issue has properly exposed The Hindu, yet again. How can a journalist of such ‘stature’ be so blunt and cruel!
Mallya, its high time you rethink on your opinion on The Hindu.
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blunt and cruel is ok but what to do with the blind?
just to support his position, what all bogies he has raised. western conspiracy, kashmir. that is worst of all, just protect his theory his slinging mud at india.
it is critical to frame this quote and preserve it, it has deep import:
“New Delhi has allowed too much latitude to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan discontents for their political activities on Indian soil, which go against the stand that they are not allowed “to engage in anti-China political activities in India,” a principle reaffirmed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Washington on March 24.”
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N Ram is a dEsha drOhi and so are his supporters.
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It is so shameful that the Indian Government and the Vice President of India are acting according to China’s wishes.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/288039.html
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The mutharayar were the descendants of hoysalas ,i was told by a dravidian ideologue in tiruchi,and they were discriminated because they used to be haughty.It was a personal anecdote sort of story.
They are the most backward ,is beyond doubt.But the wikepedia article claims they are the descendants of kalabhras from karnataka in the 4th century AD,who were anti tamil.In which case it is incredible that it is still held against them,when they are the single largest community in the tiruchi region.
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well, The Hindu has published a letter from a group of ‘intellectuals’ like Ramachandra Guha and Shahi Tharoor on Tibet issue
http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/10/stories/2008041055671003.htm
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The Reader’s Editor of The Chindu writes about his observation of “the bias” in reporting of the Tibet Issue today:
http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/14/stories/2008041454931100.htm
QUOTE
I compared the reporting of the events in other Indian newspapers (English) and also The Guardian and the New York Times with that in The Hindu from March 15 to 19 and could not but note the wide gap which led to the readers’ protests. (The angles given to the stories and their display are not to be questioned; that is editorial privilege). Overall, these points struck me as noteworthy:
1. Reliance on Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. Its reports should have been balanced by inputs from other news agencies, but their use was scanty and selective. No doubt they too would have had their angles and biases but that would have been another side of the picture. Why was The Guardian, otherwise used extensively, ignored (except for an eyewitness account which was not very informative)?
2. The Hindu’s perceptive correspondent in Beijing, Pallavi Aiyar, made no contribution, except to report Prime Minister Wen’s press conference.
3. The statements of the Chinese Prime Minister and the Chinese envoy in Delhi were fully reported. The Dalai Lama’s were truncated versions. Many readers noted that his remark on “cultural genocide” was edited out.
4. The most surprising feature was the total absence of Tibet in the “Letters to the Editor column” — in which otherwise comments appear even as events are unfolding and continue for days. A few letters appeared after an article and an editorial were published and ceased abruptly.
UNQUOTE
@Vinutha, where are you??
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We switched to the Hindu recently – having tired of the TOI and its fluffy supplements. We had heard a lot of positives about the Hindu from f&f and hadnt quite liked the DH or Express when we’d tried a change in the past.
Within a couple of weeks I felt I was reading a different and doctored view of the world, at odds to what I came across elsewhere. Its alright to have a differing, strong voice (I grew up with C.R.Irani’s Statesman) but this felt wrong.
I’m afraid I do perceive the Hindu as too left wing, not merely idelogically which would be ok, but so much so that there’s little objectivity and even a fair bit of distortion of truth and facts.
Considering switching back to “good” old tea-oh-i.
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this Ram will not learn. See how he is preaching on Tibet!
http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/23/stories/2008042359671200.htm
This is also being taken from Xinhua news agency. thu!
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It’s not just my opinion that The Hindu is indeed a communist, Chinese mouthpiece. People across the media feel that. So much so, even the Reader’s editor does!
This is an analysis of how top 4 English dailies of India behaved during the Tibet episode. Do read.
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3070&mod=1&pg=1§ionId=19&valid=true
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The Chinese Angle: I am not saying gift AP to China. I was also very angry when I heard what the Chinese minister said. I am well aware of the diplomatic tensions over this issue. HOWEVER, people I know who have visited the entire North East region (not as tourists, mind you) –people like you and me–have come back with this to say: “They are so different, they are certainly not like the rest of India, Indians. They are really so CUT-OFF.” All of them invariably ask visitors ‘Are you from India?”
The Hindu newspaper: Nice to know the staid old Hindu is capable of creating controversies through COVERAGE of all things. I have not read the paper for long.
Editors ruining papers: With such a glut in media offerings, with the entire industry in a turmoil, everyone knows a newspaper (any) is no newspaper anymore. When everyone is running riot, the editor who is in the lead (or who has been relegated to marketing, administration, politicking–you name it) will no doubt be wilder than the rest.
State of journalism: The way things are going, it is/will soon be “each to his own dose of half-truths, untruths, white lies, coloured facts, armchair analyses and so on and so forth.”
Advice for hurt and angry citizens: Some new tabloids seem to be somewhat respectable.
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Part II of The Hoot’s analysis of news coverage of Tibet:
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3077&mod=1&pg=1§ionId=19&valid=true
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ಹಿಂದು ಅದು ಹುಟ್ಟಿದಾಗಲಿಂದ ತಮಿಳು ಮಧ್ಯಮ ವರ್ಗದ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಅದು ಎಂದೂ ಜನಸಾಮಾನ್ಯರ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯಾಗೆರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅದು ಎಂದೂ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದ ಪರ ಸಹಿಯಾದ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯವ್ಯಕ್ತಪಡಿಸುವ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ಮು ಮುದ್ರಿಸಿದ್ದು ನಾನು ನೋಡಿಲ್ಲ.
ಬಹಳ ಹಿಂದೆಯೇ ಮೈಸೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಜವಾಬ್ದಾರಿ ಸರಕಾರ ಚಳುವಳಿ ನಟೆದಾಗಲೂ ಅದು ತಟಸ್ಥವಾಗಿಯೇ ಇತ್ತು. ಆಗ ಸರಕಾರ ಇಂಡಿಯನ್ ಎಕ್ಸಪ್ರೆಸ್ಸನ್ನು ಬಾನ್ ಮಾಡಿತ್ತು. ಆದರೆ ಆ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯ ಮಾಲೀಕರು ಅದನ್ನು ಗುಪ್ತರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕಳುಹಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು
ಹಿಂದು ಯಾವಾಗಲು ಇಂತಹ ವಿಷಯಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಹಿಂದೇಟಿನ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯೆ
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Did any one read the editorial on Jaipur blasts? My god! N Ram blames it all on the ‘communalism’ practiced by the majority community.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/15/stories/2008051554761000.htm
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