"Indian Media - Politically Free, Prisoners of Profit" - P.Sainath

Eminent commentator and rural affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper, P.Sainath speaks to Newsclick on media discourse and other issues related to the "Fourth Estate".

Media Hoax and Gullible Hacks

Three cheers to www.penpricks.blogspot.com for exposing the Indian media through a circulated hoax. Siddharth Varadarajan of The Hindu pointed out the foolishness of sections of the press who went about their hack jobs with elan forgetting the cardinal rule of journalism: VERIFY. This hoax incident (termed Nazi-gate by penpricks) clearly establishes how the hacks of the Indian press (in this case, The Telegraph, The Indian Express, The New Indian Express, The Deccan Herald, The Herald, The Asian Age, and others in the Goan and Maharashtran local media) go about their jobs privileging sensationalism over truth and journalistic principles. Shame on the reporters who did these shoddy jobs and their editors who went about nonchalantly putting up these spurious reports.

Their "regression" test of the Indian media was the need of the hour. A 100% hoax was gleaned up as a major breaking news event and gulped up by unsuspecting hacks of the great Indian press (with honourable exceptions of course) to be put up as main page news (for example in the Indian Express as the above picture highlights).

We always knew that the Indian media thrived on sensationalism and cared two hoots about and tenets. But showing them up in the manner the penpricks folks have done is akin to what is called a "double exposure" in the movie Mahapurush directed by Satyajit Ray. It shows up both the newspapers at their worst as much as us also, the readers of these hack press newspapers.

Siddharth Varadarajan has an even more sombre thing to say: such hack jobs are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Indian media. The hack media picks up even the lousiest of hints thrown up by investigative agencies and puts them up as gospels of information with a devil-may-care attitude.

And this is not the gutter press we are talking about. We are here talking about the self appointed pontificates of public opinion in the country today. These are people like Shekhar Gupta (he of the Walk the Talk and America is India's saviour attitude), Rudrangshu Mukherjee (heck ..he is an academic to boot), Olga Tellis (who replaced MJ Akbar in the Asian Age) and others who are the creme de la creme of the Indian newspaper industry.

Penpricks has this sober forecast and the hope that now verification and checking will be part of every press member's daily routine, now that they have been shown up. This writer believes that it is an optimism that only will probably be realised. Most of the corporate press is worried only about their margins and not what goes in between them. Nazigate or not, gullible hacks are here to stay.

Sainath on the media

Sainath excoriates the media.....

Indian Express: Ace Liar

The Indian Express is known to be a pro-libertarian bourgeois paper. One need not find fault with this. Every paper has an agenda building role, apart from a critical-investigative and an credible-informational role, as N.Ram once wrote in an article in The Hindu .

In other words, the paper must play a truthful role even if it has a particular position to take. The Indian Express is renowed for a strong critical investigative role that it adopts as its motto of journalism. However, being a pro-bourgeois paper, it has been so dishonest and blatant in its apathy and hatred for working class agitations, working class based political parties and working class issues, that it has forgotten its credible-informational duty.

Two instances suffice to explicate this matter:

a) The most recent of this shameful agenda building at the cost of truth by the Indian Express was vis-a-vis indigenous nuclear energy generation. The Indian Express carried an article on it's front page quoting a letter from the NPCIL Chairman, SK Jain that there was a huge shortage of fuel for the indigenous power plants and they were running at a hugely reduced capacity and that the only way out of this morass was for the culmination of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.

Thankfully the Indian Express' bluff was called by CITU leader, Tapan Sen, who wrote to Dr. S.K.Jain seeking clarifications. Here is verbatim the report from People's Democracy:

Dear Dr Jain,
Kindly refer to the leading news item appearing in the Indian Express today quoting you on the fuel shortage crippling India’s nuclear power plants which are currently running at half capacity. The news item also goes to the extent of stating that “there has been a steady decline in operating capacity of reactor over the years”.

Unfortunately, in the Annual Reports (2006-2007) of Department of Atomic Energy and NPCIL which have been placed in Parliament such critical constraint, as enumerated in the Indian Express, has not been highlighted at all. As a matter of fact in your statement in the 20th Annual General Meeting of your company on 03.08.2007 you had assured that the capacity factor of 63 per cent would improve further by September 2007. In the Annual Report of DAE, power generation till December 2006 had been shown more than targeted generation.

Will you please clarify at the earliest?

Dr S K Jain's Reply:

This has reference to your letter dated October 29, 2007, regarding the news item appeared in the Indian Express of October 29, 2007.

I would like to clarify that I have not spoken to the reporter in recent past, who has contributed to the news item appeared in the Indian Express edition of today. As such the news item quoted me is totally incorrect I have taken up the above matter of misquoting with the Editor of Indian Express.

I would like to inform you that NPCIL today has 17 reactors, two of Light Water type and 15 of pressurized Heavy Water type which are in operations. Out of these reactors two light water units and 11 pressurized heavy water units are operating the remaining three have been taken out of operation for renovation, upgradation and maintenance works, 13 units are operating at various power levels to match the current uranium production.

I would like to bring out that the country has enough resources of natural uranium to support the operation of 10,000 MWe PHWR type units.

The mining and milling of the above resources are being taken up by the Department of Atomic Energy to match the progress on nuclear power plants. Work on additional mines and mills at Jaduguda was started around 2002 and is in final stages in the meantime three units of 1080 MWe, which were under construction, got completed faster before schedule Early completion of 3 units and certain delays in completion of additional mining/milling project created a mismatch between the demand (increase) and supplies of uranium to meet the situation innovative operating strategy has been worked out in order to keep maximum stations running and getting maximum possible power output.

I am happy to inform you that the mines have been commissioned and the processing mill has started trial production which will increase the production of the uranium and is expected to take care of the mismatch in the demand and supply.

For supporting the future expansion programme works on mining at Chitrial in Andhra Pradesh and Gogi in Karnatka has been take up. For further implementation of uranium supply, action has been initiated to start minning at Lambapur in Andhra Pradesh, Domiyasath in Meghalaya.

I hope the above gives the correct situation as it exists.

The above is enough to incriminate the Indian Express for not only shoddy reporting, but also for deliberate and malicious misquoting of a technocrat-official to suit its agenda. This is however, not the only instance or an exception in the game of duplicity that the Indian Express has played to follow its nefarious ends. There existed another such report, as shown below.

b) On May 6, 2005, Indian Express carried a report titled, "Dear Comrade Prakash...", ostensibly to highlight that a public official from Sewa Bank had written a sarcastic and stinging letter to Prakash Karat asking him to understand the necessity for pension reform. Only, the official, Ms. Jayshree Vyas, later confirmed to People's Democracy, that she never wrote such a letter, but had only sent a piece with her views on pension reforms to the Indian Express, which had duly added masala , distorted her views, added its own lines on Prakash Karat's supposed quotes on the pension bill, and changed the tone and tenor of the piece to suit its ill guided agenda.Subhashini Ali in the People's Democracy was stinging with her critique of the Indian Express' immoral methods of building its agenda, and rightly so.

In essence, media outlets such as the Indian Express deserve the highest opprobium for peddling falsehoods in trying to set its agenda of anti-Left polemics and politics. The vigilant readership and masses who read newspapers should be alert to such tactics of manipulation adopted by Shekhar Gupta and his cohorts at Indian Express.

Not just spectator cricket...

Not just spectator cricket

Aniket Alam in these columns a few months back (‘The discipline of spectator sports’, The Post, March 21, 2007), had commented that spectator sport, by its competitive nature, disciplined viewers (who are not participants) into actions that are not necessarily driven by real political interests, but simulated from the passions toward the sport itself. This is precisely what has happened recently, as news reports tell us that Australian cricket enthusiasts (bloggers) have decided to pay Indian cricketers on the same coin as some Indian spectators who had used racial taunts against Andrew Symonds during the recent ODI series between India and Australia in India. Pictures showing spectators simulating monkey gestures as Andrew Symonds (who happened to be the man of the series for his splendid batting skills and performance) came on to bat in Mumbai and accusations of racist taunting by spectators in Vadodara have dominated news reports.

Racism in spectator sport is not a new or a less debated phenomenon. European football has its hands full with obnoxious racial treatment of African players in Spain, Italy and even in England. Several punitive administrative measures have been taken by the authorities to curb this menace. The current Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Chairman Michel Platini (a former footballing great himself) vowed to act tough against clubs that were lax in punishing spectators indulging in racist behaviour. The racist nuisance is not limited to spectators alone. Spanish coach Luis Aragones used racist vocabulary and taunts against French superstar Thierry Henry in order to ‘inspire’ Spanish player Jose Antonio Reyes (who was a teammate of Henry for the club Arsenal).

Cricket too has had its cup full of such nonsense. Darren Lehmann of Australia was banned for a few matches for his loud vulgar statement against Sri Lankan players. Brian Macmillan of South Africa had to publicly apologise for using a racist term, “coolie creeper” (which was a term widely used in South Africa those days), to describe a bowling delivery. Australian spectators in Perth were guilty of racist comments and noises against Makhaya Ntini of South Africa.

What has surprised cricket watchers is the behaviour of cricket fans in India. A country that was steadfast against apartheid in South Africa and was instrumental in the isolation of apartheid era South Africa from international sport competition, and a nation that was born through a struggle against ‘white’ colonialism, India seemed to be the last place for the existence of racism, especially during sport activities. Contrary to this image, however, the Indian cricket fans are as guilty of racist prejudice as other ‘white’ fans of other nations. West Indian cricketers, including stalwart performers of not-so-long ago, have long complained of racist taunting by Indian fans in cricket grounds. Comments by some West Indian cricketers that they “are not animals” show up the arrogance and venality of those who have shown racist prejudice against these cricketers.

What explains such behaviour toward visiting cricketers of the non-fair skin? Is it mere expression of hatred toward the other, the team that competes against your own? Or is there something more structural to this venality? In this writer’s opinion, there definitely is. Two levels of understanding are required to explain this phenomenon. The first level is that of the discipline of spectator sport itself, as pointed out by Aniket Alam. As spectators inculcate into themselves the ideology of victory and defeat superseding the real meaning of sport (heck, it is just a pastime!), and as spectator sport in countries such as ours invariably involve international competition and also as the dominant political norm is absorbed by the nature of sport watched, passions that drive such spectators take the form of ideologies such as nationalism. Victory or defeat is a matter of pride or shame for the ‘nation’, never mind the quality of play or skills on display. Operating from the unitary of nationalism and from the binary of win or loss, passions ignited in spectator sport always verge on the irrational. Therefore, for the ordinary spectator, the opposite team member is an enemy and he/she deserves contempt. This anger against the adversary is fuelled commercially, witness the commercial campaigns in Neo Sports (the official broadcaster of the recent series) openly featuring intimidating Australian comments about the Indian team.

The next level of understanding obtains from the existing mores of cultural norms that pervade a society. In India, for example, fairness and fair skins are virtues longed for, sustained by the dominant cultural norms. Crass commercialism has venerated this vice. Cosmetics promising ‘fair skin’ are lapped up by the public. Beauty is determined as and from the level of fairness and a certain degree of fitness and form, fairness however being the predeterminer. Drill this dominant cultural norm into the arena of spectator sport and one can notice the perverse form it takes. Players from the opposition teams (‘enemies’) are targeted for dark skins and gruff looks. It does not matter how well they perform with their skills or how elegantly or clinically they display their abilities on the field. Commercialism itself thrives on these tendencies. For a sample, one has to witness the commercial featuring a female cricket enthusiast using a ‘fairness’ cosmetic to gain confidence and rub shoulders with Kris Srikkanth as a fellow commentator. The ideologies inherent in spectator sport, the dominant cultural norms, constituting the two levels, thus work together in harmony to produce this travesty of retrogression.

Punitive measures against select spectators openly seen performing these egregious acts of hooliganism and racism are of course required. Grounds where these incidents reoccur could be threatened with non-staging of matches and it could be hoped that the fear of commercial loss could force organisers to be more stringent against the spectators, and the watchers themselves could be restrained owing to the same reason. Yet such measures are mere palliatives. The structural dimension inherent will not be cured so easily. The value of sport as a competitive pastime and as a spectacle of human abilities has to be restored. This part is not difficult as intra-national competition, encouragement for participative sport through youth development and support for rural activities can achieve it. Such a process has already been addressed conceptually by India’s sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who also happens to be the local development and Panchayati Raj minister.

The other cultural aspect is a difficult problem to solve. Mindsets favouring irrational concepts such as fairness of skin will not vanish quickly, but there are enough counterexamples of pride in one’s self to disprove the credence of such concepts. Political movements privileging the under-class and subaltern culture have effectively countered dominant norms that set hierarchies based on irrational prejudices.

The day is not far off, hopefully, when participative sports devoid of dominance of regressive cultural norms rule the roost.

The writer, trained in engineering and in political science, works with the editorial team at Economic and Political Weekly, and is an avid follower of sports, political economy and the performing arts

Morons of herculean proportions..

...

The Left phobia in the media continues. That the media today is inhabited by loads and loads of morons is confirmed day in and day out.

Today the Times of India declared that Indians in the "red" bastions of Kolkata and Kochi had voted for the nuclear deal. A graphical illustration of some questions and answers with votes in percentages is laid out for the viewer to see the conclusion that there is a huge upsurge of votes for the nuclear deal. Hidden conspicuously however is the most important thing to note: The Sample Size of the voters. What kind of stupid vote is this? Tomorrow, I might publish a vote sample of 15 people (all of whom I know) in a particular locality in some particular town and say that 91% Indians have voted for the nuclear deal because 14 of the 15 people agreed with it! What kind of nonsense is being peddled by these media-men? I am shocked and appalled at the lack of quality.

Hindustan Times was more honest. It boldly declared that Indians have rejected the nuclear deal by testing this question among the mammoth number of 586 respondents!

Yesterday, Sagarika Ghose betrayed an absolute ZERO knowledge of the workings of a Communist party in a discussion titled, "Karat and Stick", asking if Karat was the most powerful man in India today. That the fact that the CPI(M) depends upon collective decision making is solely forgotten or rather not unknown by these moronic journalists. Questions such as how the Bengal Left hadn't attended the Central Committee meeting (because the Bengal CM, one among a dozen CC members from Bengal, had skipped the meeting to attend a investment meet), is Karat the high priest of the Leftist "Church" etc were asked in this nincompoop special program. Ms Ghose should talk to her dad sometime, who surely knows a thing or two about the functioning of Indian parties and their organisations. That Bhaskar Ghose has a nincompoop for a daughter is really sad to know.

An yet another idiot in CNN IBN writes a blog entry questioning the Left's dependence on nationalism when they should be working toward working class consciousness as he pontificates. This idiot simply doesn't even know that the Left in India today have been subscribing to the theory that third world nationalism is a bulwark against imperialism, since the early 1930s. The fool then asks why the Left is supporting the nuclear bomb lobby when it opposed the deal. Easily ignored by this idiot is that nowhere in the Left's multiple releases (available at hte public domain at www.cpim.org ) is the mention of a nuclear bomb being made.

Today in the Outlook, a fool named Jaideep Mazumdar (a correspondent based in Kolkata) writes not a word about the Left's position on the nuclear deal but affirms that he supports the deal because Manmohan Singh says so! Why? Because Manmohan Singh is a honest man and thats why the nuclear deal is good. And what follows is a huge rant about the Left's policies in Bengal on urban neglect, trade unionism, blah blah and therefore the nuclear deal should be supported! This idiot must be first trained in logic, I believe sincerely. And this idiot should also answer the question as to how the Left has ruled for 30 years in a state in India, winning election after election, if all they have done is misrule! And this nincompoop proudly says that he hasn't read the details of the nuclear deal, either.

The filth in the Indian media just keeps piling on and on. There are legitimate points that can be made as critiques of the Left's position on various issues. That the media lacks a semblance of knowledge of the workings of the Left and even the objectivity to study the deal as well as the strategic question is a severe indiction of the lack of quality in these circles. Too much Page 3 has got their brains fried in cocktails, I believe.

But the answer to the piling nonsense and savagery of criticism is very simple. These corporate owned mouthpieces of the bourgeosie have no concern for the common Indian citizen to whom this facade of a nuclear deal brings nothing significant. No question is asked about the costs that would be entailed or whether at all if this energy is going to be feasibly increasing India's thoroughput.

Vague answers on "India becoming a world player" (when there are honour killings, starvation deaths, farmer suicides, separationist struggles, tribal doldrums, rising inequality, pathetic HDI {India is 127th in the world in this index}) because of a deal with the superpower, without even giving the fineprint of the strategic costs and benefits of such a deal are peddled.

The only thing that the mass media is capable of, is to cater to the lowest tastes of hype and hyperbole. Witness the ultra-heavy coverage of the Sanjay Dutt saga.

A friend of mine, in la Sukumar Ray style wrote this on the Indian media:

Every hour by the studio clock
Comes news from here and there
limited by the atmo-sphere
Read by some Singh or Sharma
or Some Sood, Gupta or Varma.
all chips of the Hindi block.

A sample of the past few days
shows the pathos that Hindi plays

QUOTE.....

Good Morning its six o clock
Sanju has brushed his teeth
there is a flood in Bihar
While Sanju sips his tea
mumbai has two feet of water
Sanju has just done his potty.
He missed his toilet paper
and did his do with a "lota"
And then the camera zooms
to the channels "local" in view
asking Sanju coming from loo
"Abhi kaisa lag raha hai"
A normally constipated face
beams in a new found gaze.
"I know now why I did the do"
Its the blessed prison's chai

UNQUOTE

While all of us thus get sanjood
the sensex drops 600
and farmers die of debt
But thats not news you dude!

Left in the limelight..

Three columns in the Hindustan Times; each by Vir Sanghvi, Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai were written on the Left recently in the aftermath of the Left's positioning on the Nuclear Deal. All three start of, as pious recognition of the presence of probity in the Left leadership and end up questioning the position of the Left on the Nuclear Deal as well as questioning the very basis of existence of the Left. In the course of doing so, blatant falsehoods are peddled. Sample this from Vir Sanghvi: "The CPI didn't play a role in the freedom movement" (Hasn't Sanghvi ever heard of Meerut Conspiracy Case and the about the revolutionaries incarcarated in Kalapani?)and so on.

All the articles are blatantly flawed; not just for their argumentation; but also for their serial lack of objectivity as well as analytical rigour. It is a travesty and a recognition of the mediocrity that peddles television media today. And to say that these three ordinary analysts who have dominated mass media soundbyte in the country today are considered stellar journalists is a further indiction of the quality of the media that prevails in the country today. Why do I say so? Read on.

The Nuclear Deal with the United States cannot and must not be seen by divorcing it from the larger strategic relationship that has been drawn between the two states for the past 9 years. From the NSSP (Next steps in strategic protocol) moves in the NDA regime to the defence agreement signed by Pranab Mukherjee in 2005 with Washington, there has been a clear indication of how India wills on to bandwagon with the unipolar nation that is driving world political economy today. The reasoning offered is that it is in India's interest to do so. Divorced from this understanding is what exactly does India's interest entail? The interests of the middle classes who would stand to gain by this relationship to get immediate visas or the upper business classes who shall get their cut of the bargain when they sign up on lucrative partnership/ investment deals with their American counterparts; should only these interests be considered Indian national interest? How does one define national interest? This question is never asked in the media; the mass media in particular with it's dependence on short term memory and emphasis on formal and personality driven politics is incapable of asking that question.

It is in this regard that one should read the Nuclear Deal. While entering into a strategic partnership with the United States, care must be taken whether this would hamper India's geopolitical interests in the periphery of its environs. During the Cold War era, the balance of power game played between the United States and the USSR drew India toward the latter, even as the country tried to play even-handed and get benefits out of the relationship from both the superpowers.

After the end of the Cold War, there has been a significant turn toward hegemonization of world polity by the US establishment, particularly since the coming to power (in a dubious manner) by the George Bush regime. This neoconservative regime has tried to dominate world polity by focusing its efforts on the energy sector, seriously involving itself in the West Asian region, by launching a phoney war against Iraq and now tries to take that forward in Iran. Even the Horn of Africa wasn't spared.

The redefinition of the relationship with India has to be seen in this context. Ostensibly formal politics defines this relationship as between two democracies (although the content of the rather "formal democracies" is never argued upon). Never is it understood that in the system of international politics, relations are defined between nations as units of power, no matter whatever be the content of power internally in the different units be.

Clearly the United States wants India to be a bulwark against the rise of other powers in the Asian region (read China) and to prevent the multipolar formation of forces such as the Shanghai Co-operation Council (a tie up between Russia, China, Kazakhstan and other central asian powers). The dangling of the nuclear carrot is to be seen in this very particular context.

One only needs to trace the sequence of events since the then Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar notified an energy partnership with Iran and Syria, which has the potential to transform relations between these various units in the Asian region and also had the oeuvre to bring in new markets to these nations. The entry of cheap gas into India was seen to be fruitful not just for reasons of diplomacy and statecraft but also to the aam aadmi, as steady supply of natural gas was bound to help depreciate the pressing necessity for energy consumption in the country. What immediately succeeded this incident was the announcement of a nuclear partnership by Condoleeza Rice, the secretary of state for external affairs of the US. What followed later was the removal of Mani Shankar Aiyar from power and the bringing in of Murli Deora, a person who has a track record of pro-Americanism and corporate cronyism. The pipeline deal since then has been left in the lurch, as many spanners to the works has been brought about by the government itself (witness the PM saying that it would be difficult to get an banking underwriting for the deal even before the deal was conceptualized!). The offering of an alternate pipeline through American cronies in Central Asia (Turkmenistan) also added fuel to the theory that the deal was being sabotaged by American influence.

When George Bush visited (during which time, these very reporters went gaga over his retinue of K-9 dogs, his attire and his body language), the nuclear deal was conceptualized and agreed upon, as a step forward in the Next Steps in Strategic protocol movement launched by the NDA regime. Lets consider the merits of the Nuclear Deal itself, something that has been threshed out a zillion times in the media, but quickly.

The deal promises India a steady supply of fuel (subject to certain conditions, which were debated endlessly from the point of view of nuclear scientists who saw this as a threat to India's unique indigenous three stage nuclear fuel generation process), setting a stimulus for the set up of ancillary businesses in India, while giving nuclear suppliers in the US (who have been stymied domestically because of the stall in nuclear generation) a fillip by giving them a captive market. From all estimates however, this deal would still materialize into a situation when only 8% of the energy generation in the country would come from the stable of nuclear energy in 2020.

Now opposition to this deal (which was consolidated during the 123 agreement, which went ahead to give India-specific commitments, overruling several prior objections to nuclear proliferation in third world countries, in the United States), was hinged on two legs. One leg was the ultra-nationalist one, which saw the deal as a cap on India's nuclear weaponisation programme (articulated by the BJP and its acolytes). The lesser version of the position was that articulated by the scientists, who still felt that the express commitments made were still harmful to the three stage indigenous process and the ability of India to be able to export that indigenous technology as well as reactors. The other leg, while sympathetic to the latter argument of the scientists, looked upon this deal in the angle of strategic partnership as well, seeing the deal as creating a situation where India acts as a junior partner of US imperialism in the South Asian region, thereby creating a dangerous situation where the current battleground against the US (which has been waged through the aegis of terrorism) would shift toward India full time (the theatre has already started playing itself out, witness the multiple terrorist acts in the nation, even by terrorist cells recruiting Indians themselves), as well as the further creation of hitches in India's already estranged neighbors. While countries in Europe, for e.g., had grown from nationalistic divisions after World War II, to form co-operative councils with stout economic relationships through the aegis of the European Union. Such a possibility has not been achieved in the South Asian region, because of the lingering antagonism between the various nations, India, China and Pakistan.

It is in this context that one should view the opposition of the Left toward the nuclear deal. Despite the pronouncements by Manmohan Singh that he would articulate a foreign policy that is considerate of a relationship with other powers as well as the United States, empirical evidence on the ground doesn't say so. The growing nexus with the United States has continued to under-cut relations with the multipolar world bringing a baggage of problems geo-politically, realistically and forcefully. The Left, which has always articulated an anti-imperialist zeal throughout its existence only continues to do so and hence rejects the deal. Its as simple to understand why when seen in this understanding. The Left is criticised by saying that the parties were dictated to by Moscow and were beholden to China. Easily forgotten is the fact that the largest and perhaps the only relevent constituent (the CPI(M)) wasn't recognized by the Chinese Communist Party as a fraternal Communist party till 1978 and which had split from the original CPI, primarily because of the differences in understanding of the nature of the Indian state and the bourgeosie, which were not shared by the right-CPI, ideologically closer to the Soviet party. That the CPI(M) was seen as an independent communist party, just like the Italian one is never mentioned. But I digress.

Let me get back to ranting now. Why do these superficial reporters (Dutt/Sanghvi/Sardesai) fail to understand this or atleast fail to report this? Is it because they lack the understanding of international politics? (Barkha Dutt called the details in the 123 Agreement as gobbledygook, thus disregarding any pretense of understanding things in detail). Is it because they want clearly to see national interest in the lines of what the urban middle class would want to interpret and love to hear? The latter seems to be the most plausible reason.

Why should the Left, whose traditional constituency is NOT the urban elite or the upper middle class, peddle its understanding to suit these very same sections? How are the ordinary Indian citizens who are also dependent on energy in great ways, going to benefit out of a deal which is only to get us 8% of the energy requirements at enormous cost in 2020? Why can't the very same investment made in renewable and environmentally secure sources of energy? Aren't these legitimate questions, which should be asked by a voice, that is not tarnished by the corruption that prevails in bourgeois political parties today in India?

It is but logical therefore that the Left, whose probity is lauded by these columnists, must represent the voice of the ordinary citizen, even if she/he doesn't understand the "gobbledygook" of the 123 agreement.

Taking this argument forward now, let us now understand how this translates into the political positioning of the Left vis-a-vis this government. The current UPA Government was formed as a coalition supported by the Left from the outside, on the basis that this will be a secular and humane alternative to the communal-driven and avowedly neoliberal NDA government that was defeated at the hustings. With 61 MPs, who were primarily elected after being victorious against Congress legislators, how can the Left be part of the government? That would be against the grain of probity that is subjectively installed in the Left consciousness. This is the precise reason for the formulation of the Common Minimum Programme, a catalog of policies that are not very different in content from the Congress party's, which won the most number of seats in the hustings.

So, everytime the Left stopped certain policies from culmination (FDI in Insurance/Retail; Disinvestment of well performing PSUs; pension reforms; others), all of them were in contradiction to the very DNA of what suggested the Left's social policy of increasing equitous development and creating self-reliance. Did the Left ever oppose FDI in manufacturing? No media person talks about that.

It was but sure that a confrontation between the neoliberal-led Congress government and the Left was bound to happen. The Left considers the Congress as a landlord-big bourgeois party which mouths social democracy while articulating the interests of its primary sections. No wonder, the Congress never did sincere land reform to eradicate rural oligarchies and consequently inequities that still plague the nation. Yet the bigger danger of communalism that has an innate fascist form (structurally different to the European version, but consequentially very similar: witness Gujarat) bound these very same antagonist forces. It was similar to the alliance between the Soviet Union and the Allied Powers against the German led axis powers in the World War.

Instead of harping upon the differences in the left-right-centre spectrum that constitutes every democracy, the superficial media sees this differences through the vacuous angle of "ego" and "personalities"; as if Manmohan Singh's reactions to the left's opposition were only driven by his "pious" personality rather than his neoliberal outlook. I see this trend as the biggest example of foreign direct investment from America, where the media plays a similar role in the manufacturing of consent (credit to Dr. Chomsky) and harps on the same meta-analysis in the television rooms without a substantive content.

I hope Sanghvi, Dutt and Sardesai realise their limitations and improve upon their substantive thinking. Anything less and these self-declared national experts are nothing but mediocre hacks who are lucky to get the spotlight that they get. I feel sorry for their viewers.

Ears to the Ground over Eyes on the numbers

http://flonnet.com/stories/20070601004801500.htm

Vidya Subrahmanian whose reports in The Hindu accurately predicted a majority for the BSP in Uttar Pradesh ..(she called Mayawati the Next Queen of U.P in an article written over a year ago), writes about how Opinion Polls got the picture wrong in UP. ..

Unionization of BPO Workers, Letter to Indian Express

The Indian media has gone ballistic after hearing that the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has launched a forum which is some type of union of BPO workers.

The Indian Express has published an editorial and op-ed piece on the same. The Op-Ed Piece has quoted an article by Amandeep Sandhu about BPO unionization too. I have made some critical points on both these articles (the edit and the op-ed piece) in a letter to the Indian Express. If time permits, I shall write a longer piece on the issue itself.

Subject: Unionization of BPO Workers in Kolkata.
While your editorial waxes eloquent on the need to keep BPO workers from unionization because of loss of competitiveness, which in itself is a spurious logic, it doesn't talk about the appalling work conditions of the BPO workers themselves. The opinion piece by Saubhik Chakravarti quotes the article by Amandeep Sandhu in EPW, about how unionization has hitherto failed and the lackadaisical attitude of the BPO workers toward the same, but the important reasons for the same are conveniently omitted. BPO workers have been clearly fed the logic that unionization is an activity meant only for the blue collared, eventhough their unskilled work itself doesn't pertain to the white collared. Sandhu aptly quotes another important work done on unskilled workers in Barbados where a similar attitude prevails.
Clearly, there is more to the opposition toward unionization than just loss of competitiveness. Also, there is no sufficient logic provided by your editorial or opinion writer as to why indeed unionisation *will not* help BPO workers tide over unhealthy work conditions. In addition to this, the editorial doesn't deem it necessary to notice that unions and unionization in the form of pressure groups exist in all types of societies to secure wages, good working conditions for workers, of the blue collar or of the white collar type (lawyers, sportspersons, etc). Even the Indian cricket players have a pressure group and a players' union, whose formation your lead writers have lauded in the past in your own newspaper! Perhaps if your editorial and opinion writers had however talked about the unionization of BPO workers under the thrall of ideologically motivated organizations such as the CITU as the primary problematic, it could have carried more sense. Blind opposition to unionization however seems prejudiced and devoid of complete logical veracity.

Sincerely,
V.R.Srinivasan.

On the Media by the Media..

Siddarth Varadarajan helps me out by writing on the media from an insider's perspective and thus relieves me of having to scratch my itch to write on the biased nature of the media's coverage of the Reservation saga.

http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/2006/06/caste-matters-in-indian-media.html

Clearly, the Television Media in India, as Prabhash Joshi of the Jansatta has argued, lacks education in social science. By fielding tyros as reporters and analysts, the Television media is doing gross injustice to coverage of social issues in our country. With the exception of a few, the Television Media-people lack the basic social senses that are required of them. Sample these headlines, "Reserve vs Deserve" in CNN-IBN, "Democracy vs Quotacracy"!..

The CNN-IBN in an eyewash attempt, called upon Vinod Mehta, Naresh Trehan, Purushottam Agarwal and one of the YFE doctors to answer the question whether the media was biased, anchored by Sagarika Ghose. If they had an iota of a sense of fair play they should have called upon an OBC/ Dalit face to put up their case. They didn't.

Barkha Dutt, was no better. I attended one of her "We-the people" shows on the issue and glaringly, Dutt took the debate forward assuming that those who were for reservation were only those who had been benefitted out of the same!. Callousness in a so called star reporter. Dutt perhaps has never heard of John Rawls or the concept of social merit. When a person was placing his views using the conceptual perspective of John Rawls, Dutt interrupted him asking, tell me..you are pro-reservation or not, without giving him space to argue out his position on a theoretical basis. Yet another proof that the mainsteam television media in this country today merely likes to scratch surfaces rather than plumb depths.

In 25 days of hectic reporting, analysing, regurgitating and news-byting, there was no serious effort to show tabulations of OBCs in the country, no serious effort to elucidate on the NSS' findings, no effort taken at all to highlight the positive effects of positive discrimination, as for eg in JNU, clearly tilting the debate in the favour of anti-reservationists. Sagarika Ghose was perhaps right...in a situation where the political class was united in this issue, it was the media that tried to play the role of Opposition, good indeed, only perhaps it would have been substantial and real, if they had provided the voices of the other an equal amount of play.

Aircraft Modernization-- Flaws in procedure used

Rediff.com just published a report that hinted about irregularities in the entire bidding process for the modernization of the Delhi and Mumbai airports. It seems that private players were being given indiscriminate favor (a charge that these players predictably deny), which has resulted in the resignation of upright officers belonging to the Airport Authority of India, which oversees the functioning of airports in the country.

The right wing media (read the Indian Express) had gung ho talked about the inevitable necessity of privatization as the only means of bringing modern utilities to these airports (the logic can be contradicted empirically by taking the example of Changi Airport, which was developed with public and private participation simultaneously, IIRC..this author was astounded at the levels of facility available at Changi ..he stayed there once on a 19-hour transit...). IE had also suggested that the bids submitted by AAI was not enough qualitatively to be considered at all in the first place and almost excitedly cherished the process that had unfolded.

The Left parties, particularly the CPI(M) had come up with a statement that the entire modernization procedure used was probably flawed and there could be a hidden scam in it.. The E.Sreedharan (of the Delhi Metro fame) committee that was set up to look into the reevaluation process, almost confirms this aspect. They suggest that what was required was modernization, not ex ante privatization.

Modernization of the airports is a necessity, YES, no second questions about it. The problem is that in the name of improving efficiency and bringing facilities, what is being undertaken is providing private players with more muscle to proceed with profit accumulation at any cost. Yet another example of the increasing continuity of the monopolization of the Indian bourgeoisie.

Cash-on-camera scam

The Cash-on-camera-scam involving 10+7 MPs, was a disgrace. The funny part was that the majority of the MPs involved were from the BJP, the rightist party which claimed to be a "party with a difference".

For all those libertarians who excoriate the Left , including Shri Shekhar Gupta of the Indian Express, its time to remind them that in an event where MPs across political spectrum were seem involved, there was no MP named from the Left.

A peep into the assets of the MPs in Parliament would show how the average wealth of the MPs belonging to the rightist parties in our country (read the Congress and the BJP) towers over the average wealth of the Left parties.

Today, after the investigation by an independent committee of members from all sections of the political spectrum, which included the BJP Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Prof Vijay Malhotra, parliament discussed the issue and decided to expel all the 10 MPs from Lok Sabha. One Rajya Sabha MP, also from the BJP was expelled too.

The BJP did a volte face and voted against the motion to expel the members involved in the scam. They even boycotted the decision and called for yet another Privileges motion committee to look into the issue. The funny part is that no committee can be empowered to take any action, it can only recommend it to the House, this being the highest decision making forum. Only the House can decide upon executive action!. The BJP has yet again betrayed its chameleon like attitude. Filled as it is with unscrupulous semi-fascists, one need not be surprised by its volte face.

Even with regards to the issue of MPLADS being scrapped, except for the CPI(M) and a few other parties, none are willing to scrap the controversial scheme. It is high time that the public realized this folly on the part of the Rightist parties in India and give them yet another decisive blows in the forthcoming State Assembly elections throughout India.

IE publishes the letter

To Indian Express' credit, they published my letter.

Indian Express' editorial on JNU

Shekhar Gupta is back to Left bashing and this time, his target is JNU. The editorial is a fallout of what happened in JNU on 14th November, when a few students of Naxalite persuasion, protested using black flags and slogans, when the Prime Minister of India came over to address the students of JNU. This later on created a huge furor in the National Media, considering the fact that a person of the stature and position of the Prime Minister was subjected to such treatment, ostensibly because some students were upset with policies, architect of which, they regarded was Dr. Manmohan Singh, recently referred to as the leading neoliberal intellectual of this country by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik.

The Editorial however deemed it fit to turn its ire on the entire campus for the doings of a few. Shekhar Gupta's left phobia has taken such a toll on him, that he thought he needed to throw some of his ire on the student activists of JNU as well. As a left democratic student activist in my university, I thought it was necessary for me to rebut what Gupta says...and this blog includes my letter to Indian Express, which of course would not be published by Gupta...for sure.

To,
The Editor-in-chief,
The Indian Express

Date: 16-11-05

Sir,
Subject: Editorial on JNU titled, "Little Stalinists"
For all the satire and perverted logic that your editorial spews, the truth is that it is far away from the truth! First, it is essential to refute the factual errors that permeate your odious editorial. You make the mistake of brushing the entire student union and the entire left wing in the campus with the same colour, forgetting unfortunately that shades of opinion exist, resulting in different political outfits with different ideologies. To make things clear, on 14th November, the left groups which do not subscribe to the notion that the Indian state is semi-colonial in nature, did not protest or disrupt the PM's speech. It was only those groups, who subscribe to that ideological understanding, which had disrupted the PM's speech, even as they defended their action as coming under the purview of "right to protest".

Secondly, your comparison of the US Air Force and the entire student activists of JNU is nauseating. A few sample things for you to consider: a) the student elections in this campus are entirely conducted by students alone, with a nominated body of Election Commission members who do this job purely to satisfy their "democratic spirit" unlike the US Air Force who in their endeavor to spread democracy go about pummeling thousands of Iraqis and justify the same by using inhuman “pathetic fallacies” such as “collateral damage”. b) The protests, marches, mess campaigns, public talks that feature in this university night in and night out are done with an objective purpose in mind, to keep the culture of debate and discussion alive, unlike the US who treats the UN with contempt and debates in the Security Council as a waste of time. The campus is forever kicking with sound political understanding of various shades and "bourgeois" culture of aping Western clothing, money power, expensive hoardings, etc, characteristic of other universities is absent.

It is true that a majority of the Civil Service recruits are from this campus, yet you make the mistake of including political activists as being the large chunk of these, which is patently untrue. India's leading Left leaders, Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury were products of this campus. Your lead editor, C.Raja Mohan served both in the capacity of a student activist as well as an academic intellectual. It is also true that the faculty (excellent, by your own admission) is largely comprised of former students of this campus, who were the very same left democratic minded “agitpropists” of yesteryear that this current generation of left-bent activists wish to emulate.

Your deep-rooted left-phobia is already well known; you devote acres of column space just to prove one point: the Left is not right. This phobia is what that has driven you to go ballistic (pun-intended) on JNU's structure itself. Hence your convoluted logic about how JNU's low fee structure should be scrapped because a handful of protestors deemed it fit to wave black flags and shout slogans against the Prime Minister. Your idea of a civilized audience is perhaps a conformist, arm-chair intellectualist, isolationist conglomeration of individuals, least bothered about the effect of the PM's policies on the poor and marginalized of this country, information about which shall be available for your perusal in JNU's libraries and even in the term-papers and academic efforts of JNU's radical student community.

Finally, I don't consider the term, "Little Stalinists", pejorative at all. If we could be given the name of the leader of the Red Army, which defeated Hitler's Fascism and proved that an underdeveloped, worker-peasant nation can take on the might of imperialism and fascism, we are proud indeed. This campus has always maintained its anti-imperialist legacy, coupled with its pro-poor, pro-worker, pro-peasant notions intact. This is precisely why this campus has produced a P.Sainath, India's leading rural affairs journalist, a Gopal Guru, India's leading political theorist on Social Justice, and innumerable other academic, political leaders, who have taken the well known JNU adage, "What JNU thinks today, India thinks tomorrow" to the public sphere, outside the cushions of the red brick walls that dot our campus. It seems impossible for your paper, editored by a person, who seems almost an apologist for neo-liberal capitalism to understand the ethos of this campus, which "empowers" Indians from all backgrounds irrespective of the multiple crippling identities that characterize Indian society to take up lead roles in civil society, be it in the academia, the bureaucracy, the polity or even in radical opposition.

The Hindu Op-Ed Page

Ever since The Hindu revamped its newspaper structure, the one great positive and prominent feature has been its new Opinion-Editorial Page. Besides the Lead editorials and lead opinion, alongwith the cartoon of the day, the Hindu has added extra features such as opinions from leading correspondents working in the Guardian and in the New York Times. Included are strategic affairs articles by Siddharth Varadarajan, regular articles by Thomas Friedman (of the World is Flat fame), George Monbiot (of the Anti-globalization fame) and Paul Krugman, Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer's judicial activist articles, and of course regular op-ed pieces by The Hindu's own correspondents such as P.Sainath (who is a JNU Alumnus, btw). If P.Sainath's recent series of articles on the impoverished situation of Vidharbha was heart-rending, Praveen Swami's well researched articles on Kashmir were thought-provoking and so were other features.

This blog owes a million thanks to the Hindu's editorial team for bulking up it's Op-Ed Pages by a significant extent. With the dearth of people-oriented (for want of a better word) Op-Ed Pieces in mainstream Indian newspapers, The Hindu shows why it is way ahead of all its contemporary Indian English Newspapers in this regard.

Three cheers to The Hindu's left-of-centre Editorial-Opinion Policy.

In contrast, you have the Indian Express, which clearly has forgotten to distinguish between reporting and opinionating. Reporters transcend their limits of "unbiased" coverage very easily and you can always find opinion masquerading as reports, particularly damning when it comes to publish reports on/related to the Left. The danger of such opinionated reporting was addressed by none other than The Hindu Editor-in-chief N.Ram himself, who wrote this piece on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of India's leading "nationalist" newspaper. Hindu Right wing radicals might disagree with the appellation of "nationalist" being provided to The Hindu, but there is a whole lot of truth in the "moniker". The Hindu, was anti-establishment virulently (apparently it was started by an avowed anti-Colonialist G.Subramania Iyer in the late 1880s) and continued its anti-British stance even after going through a process of ownership change. The Hindu had strong links with the Indian National Congress during the freedom struggle and this attitude of the paper was in sharp contrast to the colonialist attitudes of The Statesman and The Times of India. These days, in trying to keep intact the socialist and pro-people character of the Indian state, The Hindu is no less nationalist than its earlier pre-independence avatar, IMO.

My Leftist friends tell me that The Times of India has for long been a paper which was always pro-establishment (whoever that establishment was at that point of time). The Hindu with its strong independent liberal and left-of-centre orientation in this current phase has continued hence its anti-establishment policies. N.Ram's stewardship of the daily is bound to take the newspaper to new heights of qualitative reporting, pro-people approach and news analysis. Among the deteriorating Yellow Page loaded print media and the sensationalist and unprofessional mass media, The Hindu stands tall as a publication par excellence.

I guess, I shall have to devote a separate blog to provide proofs to the above argument.

Friedman's Globalization: Arguments and Counter-Arguments

The BBC Hard Talk interview with Thomas Friedman was very interesting indeed. An American preaching globalization using examples of Indian and Chinese economic growth brought about by new anti-protectionist policies was indeed very interesting to hear. The interviewer interjected Friedman by insinuating that his perspective was "American-centric", fuelled by the argument that Friedman considered economic growth only for those entities which were directly linked to the American knowledge economy, for which itself was necessitated large scale diversification of operational services across different geographical units in the World. Friedman's counter was provided by his empirical study which indicated growth of Indian entrepreneurship indigeneously, propelling companies owned by Indians into the leaders in the Global services industry. Friedman contrasted this to what he called India's near disastrous protectionist approach which resulted in very stagnant growth, balance of payments crisis, very little foreign exchange reserves and a poor man's image. Today, Friedman talks about India's reputation as a leader in knowledge economy and information services, high foreign exchange reserves, responsible corporate environment, which he calls conducive for removal of poverty from Indian society. Using the trickle-down metaphor originated by Ronald Reagan, Friedman says that high incentives to corporate sectors have resulted in wealth creation, which is slowly percolating into India's society, driving it forward from the social morass that predominates it.

As for the interviewer's query that whether Friedman was wholly sympathetic to a less government, more corporate approach to world governance, Friedman replies in the positive but his contention is subdued: he still supports a great role for governments to play, but wants government to loosen its tentacles on enterprise, which he regards as responsible for economic growth wholly. He has little time for Anti-Globalization critics, whom he accuses of talking about a protectionist era which was detrimental to developing countries' growth. He rhetorically puts forward the question: "Where are the Googles coming out from the socialist countries?". He is scathing on France and other EU countries which believe in socialist models, calling them increasingly dependent on African States' labour power (is he talking about a new form of social-colonialism here?).

Friedman talks about the success story of Walmart which has helped sell products at low prices across the length and breadth of the world, owing to its innovative supply chain networking practice, while he also mentions that such companies have been rather parsimonious with employee care although. He gives the flip and flop side of policies of globalization and the need to create a "Flat World", but in the end, ends up a votary of the "Flat World Theory" because he believes the flip side carries a lot of weight with it.

Friedman calls himself a "Democratic Hawk" and is supportive of the Iraq War, calling it America's responsibility to create a democratic atmosphere in Middle East countries which have been increasingly used merely to fill "gas" for American vehicles, while America has repeatedly ignored atrocities and elements of recidivism in such countries. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who practiced egregious methods to retain control in Iraq and it was imperative that he be removed from power. It is another matter that what has happened in Iraq ever since the American "intervention" has not gone according to the "bring liberty" plan, but such a course of "intervention" was right, Friedman argues.

Friedman is concerned about the hatred that America receives from different parts of the World, but is insouciant to the extent that he says that it is imperative upon such countries to look upto themselves and see whether they should hate what they are doing or not? He says that American policies do cause rancour but sometimes it is better than policies of those people who "wire themselves with dynamite".
My Response would be thus:

The Indian Context: A) Friedman's frame of reference is too much small; It is merely the last few years which he considers, ignoring the entire history of economic growth in all countries. He is scathing about India's protectionist past, but conveniently ignores the role played by Indian capitalists during independence, their refusal to take the burden of building India's industry (the Bombay Plan), and the massive dose of effort taken by the Indian government to build the infrastructure which has been conveniently used by India's monopoly capitalists to further their wealth.

B) Agreed, India's protectionist policies were lopsided and growth was stagnant. But wasn't it true that the mixed economy model promised much, but there was very little that happened on ground? Socialism was promised, but except for removal of privy purses, there was very little effort in correcting the lopsided socio-economic order in the country. No land reforms, selective growth of a few monopoly capitalists, representation of the ruling classes dominated by landed and gentry interests increasingly and no release of productive forces was what that characterized Indian socio-politico-economic situation for nearly 50 years.

C) The Economic Reforms that were brought about released the Middle Classes from the above mentioned system and created an environment for these classes (which were always pampered with subsidies, service sector facilities, high educational prospects) to come into their own, created a consumerist culture, and resulted in the furthering of their growth, but have the economic reforms made any dent in the socio-political problems that characterize India's semi-feudalistic orders that predominate Indian villages (which form nearly 3/4rth of India's populace)? The answer unfortunately is No. Rather such problems, according to some analysts, have exacerbated the existing morass. Protectionist policies had incubated India's agricultural sector into a rather progressive, high yield unit, with changes occuring gradually and providing small time poor farmers with a means of livelihood. The effects of Globalization have however exposed such farmers and peasants to a competitive world, forcing them to live off credit, in the end, unable to pay off credit, made them commit suicide, and thus exacerbated the poverty condition of such farmers. The selective lopsided protectionism with proverbial intent but no sure-fire implementation policies have created further dichotomies within the Agricultural sector itself, the policies of globalization and liberalization have on the other hand, deepened this near-crisis environment.

D) Friedman's view on globalization is very true with respect to the Indian context. Yes, there has been a great impetus provided by India's IT sector in enhancing India's prestige in the World Order. Yes, the Middle Class gets itself to flaunt its new found prosperity, it has a globe-hopping consumerist culture and a vibrant voice in the media. But what of the real India, the myriad social groups of the countryside, the tribals of the forests, the peasants working on lands owned by traditional "mukhias" and "banias", the slum dwelling village migrant forced into crime and grime. They are also Indians and if Friedman says that globalization has improved their plight, he is grossly wrong.

E) The answer to the myriad problems that India faces today is not flat out simple; calling for a Corporate responsibility, lesser Government and globalization. It is much more complex than that. Yes, globalization is inevitable in a world where communication barriers have gradually dissipated due to technological progress. But economic policies of governments elected by means of democracy has to be determined indigeneously. Successive governments pursuing Reform policies in India have been removed out of power. Myriad regional parties have come to power. Casteist groups representing backward elites who want their share of power have got into the limelight, despite their lack of progressive vision. What is the reason for such a situation? The people of India as a whole have not been satisfied with the Reform policies. Inclusive growth, has rather been a myth than reality. The manufacturing sector in the country suffers, while the service sector with its high labour intensive work force has enhanced itself because of the supply-demand situation of the global economy. Whether a wholly service-sector oriented growth is possible is highly problematic. The release of productive forces is an imperative. Every Western Economy went through this process of social reform working in cahoots with economic growth. Why are the developing countries being denied of their own models of growth? Why should they adhere to structural adjustment policies prescribed by World Bank and IMF economists who have starkly little knowledge of the myriad troubles of the Ordinary Indian?

F) The parallels between the Indian and Chinese contexts has to be taken into perspective. The Chinese model of FDI based growth today is sustainable because of the large scale manufacturing linkage industries created by the Chinese state. Buoyed on by social reform policies of the early Communist era, which involved large scale mobilization of peasantry, the drive to end bureaucratization etc, the Communist China has made great progress in releasing productive forces, which unfortunately hasn't happened greatly in India, despite the successes of the Indian software services sector.

G) Democracy in India is a must. It is the only way of correcting the social milieu of the Indian nation, which for ages has been characterized by social inequalities, disorders and malignant distribution of wealth and power to only a select few. Yet, Democracy in India is still flawed in quite a few ways. Further steps need to be taken to make the democratic structures and institutions in the country further representative. Democracy has to filter down to such an extent that local representation in power structures is also ensured. The system of Panchayati Raj is slowly evolving in this regard as a third organ of governance apart from the Central and the Federal structures. Jeopardizing this multi-insitutional democratic setup by vouching for lesser government, more corporate responsibility would hamper India's long standing social upheaval processes.

H) What is the bottomline? 8% Economic Growth, creating a Job-Less Growth environment, without creating adequate linkages with the dominant agro-based sector and perpetuating unemployment or Massive Social Spending to enhance education, health care, sanitation, creating oppurtunities for spurring Domestic Demand, Releasing forces of production even in the rural areas? I for one, believe in the latter. Yes, the fillips provided to the corporate sector would remain, but there will be lesser incentives and higher demands for social responsibilities from these sectors. A need for correcting the socio-economic-political order in which some groups enjoy higher mileage than others is paramount. Annihilation of Corporate Robbery and Corporate Credit to Government, Recovery of Non-performing assets, democratic work cultures, high investment in Science and Technology, Lesser Military Spending, Better International Relations based not merely on Strategic Concerns, but based on socio-constructivist outlooks, high involvement of all the three tiers of government in governance, Dignity of Marginalized groups in the country, etc, etc matter a lot too.

The processes of liberalization, globalization and privatization with their boons act sometimes in contravention to the above mentioned aims of Indian governance and socio-politico-economic necessities. Merely focussing on the creation of a "Flat World" without regarding the well entrenched Crusts, Troughs and quick sand that characterize developing societies is a reductionist approach.

Mr Friedman's empirical approach of finding a solution to the problems of the world by interviewing corporate honchos and a few successful entrepreneurs is seriously flawed. The Truth that he needs to explore is much more multi-dimensional and prismatic than he believes he has seen.

The Iraq Quagmire:

Mr Friedman glibly talks about America's responsibility for bringing "liberty" to the dark annals of autocratic setups of the Middle East. The essential fact remains that the perpetuation of such autocratic setups owes itself to America's policies of intervention in the Middle East, for "fuelling" it's own corporate growth! Every military dictator of the Middle East is a creature who earned some legitimacy or other because of Western Support. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia is a Americophile, so was Saddam during the heights of the Iran-Iraq War. Reams and reams of paperwork on how the current Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld had linkages with the Saddam setup during the eighties exist. Yet, I digress. Its only imperative to understand what America is doing to Iraq NOW. Iraq under Saddam was an autocratic setup ruled by a dictator and his cronies. Yes. But Iraq under U.S. Sponsorship has turned out to be a communal quagmire. Pitting ethnic group against ethnic group, exacerbating the social situation in Iraq is the newest malignant contribution of the so called U.S. war for liberty in Iraq. Saddam is no longer in power, but he has been replaced by a set of cronies of the U.S.A supplanted by communal minded ethnic leaders who in deed promise to take Iraq into a new crisis of national disintegration. Is this what Friedman wanted to happen in Iraq? Yes, the Baathist enterprise of pan-Arabian socialism was more a desert mirage that never happened and disintegrated into a cult of dictatorships. But what was responsible for such egregious holds by a few feudal minded warlords? The lack of a Protestant Ethic, which would be claimed by the Christian Right in the US of A or is it a tacit support for strong dictatorships creating oligarchies helping super-profit-creation for corporates abroad? The Answer obviously is the Latter. Western Intervention in the Middle East has been ruinous for any kind of enlightenment-like change happening in those areas. Never has any progressive force given any kind of legitimacy by the multiple governments of the liberal West, which has always viewed the Middle East as a vista for corporate benefit and profit.

After all, why the "deuce" would anyone want to be wired with dynamite at all? What is the reason for this overwhelming hatred and splenetic anger? Give it a thought, Mr . Friedman. I am no expert on the Middle East or World Politics to give you a very correct picture. You only have to read your own intellectuals who are so many and so worthy, such as Prof Noam Chomsky, etc.