Actually, the Koran was burnt and we didn't even realise it.

Back in 2008, a radical pastor from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka (Kansas) did burn a Koran and also captured it on film. But we didn't hear or see any of it. The media just didn't latch on to the story and saved the world a Terry Jonesesque fiasco.

Cut to 2010 and Terry Jones who has mercifully "put on hold" his plans to burn the Koran. This episode has raised that one important question - Should the media report events that simply intend to provoke? Thankfully, there are voices who say we shouldn't. AP says it does not distribute pictures of Korans being burned, in line with their policy not to cover events that are “gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend.” NYT executive editor Bill Keller adds that “the freedom to publish includes the freedom not to publish.”

Jones knew pretty well how to work his way around media ethics. He started with controversial "Islam is of the devil" hoardings in the summer of 2009... then came t-shirts with the same slogan... (by then he was getting picked up in regional papers) until finally he decided on the international "Burn a Koran day". He succeeded for, as Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs points out, there are more people at his press conferences than at his sermons!

I wish the media here stops obliging the next time marauding Shiv Sainiks harass couples on Valentine's Day or execute one of their many self-aggrandising and media-friendly stunts. It also applies to lumpen groups of all religious shades.

Is this in Australia?

First things first... There's no justification whatsoever for the killing of the Indian student Nitin Garg. He has unfortunately become the first casualty in the ongoing series of attacks, some of them surely racist, on Indians in Australia. And he is definitely not going to be the last.

I have always wondered if these attacks have something to do with poor integration of Indians into the mainstream Australian society. I could be wrong. Maybe they don't. Perhaps even those who blend in very well are attacked. But that doesn't negate my point about how many Indians (and many other nationalities) fail to integrate themselves in societies of countries they adopt as their homes.



This argument arose in me again after seeing this photograph that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. It shows Garg (front left, in white shirt) celebrating his birthday last year with his friends. It struck me that there's not one Australian with him (either Aboriginal, Caucasian or from any other group that's part of Australia). All his friends, at least those that matter to him, in Australia are Indians. Isn't it unfortunate? This photograph could well have been shot in India. He might as well have been in India.

If you want to live in another land, reap academic and economic benefits of a different country, enjoy the prosperous lifestyle of Australia, I think the least people like Garg could do is let a part of them become truly Australian.

Can a Sufi take up arms?

I have always thought of Sufis as people obsessed with wine, poetry and god. Arms and ammunition was the last thing in mind. But that changed after reading this caption in the NYT about the Sufi militia in Somalia that is fighting an extreme Islamist violent group. I think it's a lame oversight by the NYT. What they probably mean is moderate Islamists! Kind of good Taliban vs bad Taliban.

State seduction?

Republic Day parade has little to do with celebrations that reinforce our resolve to be free, democratic, socialist and secular. It is largely a realpolitik tool that allows a democracy to court leaders ranging from those who are theocratic to autocratic... a piece I wrote for the Outlook website:

As the republic entered into its 60th year, yet another edition of the Republic Day parade rolled along Rajpath yesterday. Like always, through much of January patriotism became a pain for many in Delhi as they adjusted their lives to a parade that is as divisive as it is grand.

The criticisms of the parade are many. The most cited one terms it as too "Stalinist" for a democracy. It is something that fits in well in Pyongyang, they point out, but not in New Delhi. They have a point. Our parade is not simply a display of impressive marching contingents, which is indeed practised by many, but includes brandishing real and faux military hardware. Should the latter have a place in a modern democracy like ours? None other has a parade that, in bits, is so farcical. Where else would you see soldiers atop wooden cut-outs and scaled models of tanks, ships and missiles moving to the tune of martial music or even the sound of simulated sea waves? It may be fine for schoolchildren but it's unacceptable for the country's armed forces to engage in something that is so risible and amateurish. And that too in front of a visiting head of state.


From Outlookindia.com

The parade, importantly, is not a public celebration. It is not a cutting-edge festival of India's best performing arts involving her most eminent artistes from across the country. That would be more befitting of nation that seeks to fete her progress and one that seeks to cultivate pride in her citizens. The parade, on the other hand, is largely restricted to politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, bussed-in children and those who can brave the morning chill and oppressive security.Moreover, for those who live in and visit Delhi, the parade cuts off one of the most coveted public spaces (the greens around India Gate) for several weeks as contingents rehearse for the parade. If cultivating an engaged citizenry is the goal, leaving this space open for the public would achieve far more. The cost of organising the parade and managing its security, which surely runs into crores, is also another reason for it to be scrapped.

So what justification can possibly exist for continuing with such a tradition that evokes so many criticisms? There is one evident reason: state seduction The significance of the parade today may be minimal but the occasion, over the last few years, has clearly become a tool to seduce states India wishes to engage with. A look at the chief guests of the last eight Republic Day parades reveals how 26th January has been used to "honour" heads of states with enormous fuel resources irrespective of their socialist, secular or democratic credentials. To hell with Republic Day and all what it stands for! This trend obviously evolved at a time when India needed to import energy to sustain its frenetic growth. And even before this trend crystallised the parade has helped India court whosoever it wanted and for whatever reasons by anointing one head of state for each year's parade.

This practice of luring energy-rich countries on Republic Day is apparent as a distinct pattern from at least 2000, with Olusegun Obasanjo, then the president of Nigeria that is Africa's leading oil producer. ONGC Videsh soon stepped into Nigeria and remains committed to building a $6 billion refining infrastructure there. Algeria was next in 2001 with its eighth largest reserve of natural gas in the world. In 2003 it was Iran's turn that had on offer the world's second largest reserves of oil and gas. Iran also happens to be OPEC's second-biggest exporter. After a gap of two years, this trend reasserted itself with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and OPEC's lynchpin being selected as India's chief guest. Vladimir Putin of Russia, which uses its vast gas reserves as a diplomatic tool these days, was the next chief guest in 2007.In most of these countries, India has strategic stakes in oil and gas fields and has significant energy ties with all of them.

By 2007 and in the backdrop of the Indo-US nuclear deal, nuclear energy was being touted as the solution to India's growing energy crisis. This also showed up in our choice of the chief guest for the parade. We, therefore, had France's Nicholas Sarkozy visit us as the chief guest of the 2008 Republic Day parade. France is one of the world leaders in nuclear technology and harnesses close to 80 per cent of its energy needs from nuclear sources. Russia, the chief guest for the year before, is also an important partner of India in nuclear fuel trade.


From Outlookindia.com

This year was no different with Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev being the guest of honour. His country, Kazakhstan in Central Asia, is home to the second largest uranium reserves and currently also has the 11th largest proven reserves of both oil and natural gas. That his democratic credentials are doubtful is of little disrespect to the free spirit of Republic Day. It is a thought that's brushed under the red carpet rolled out to greet him. Nazarbayev is the kind of leader who gets over 90 per cent votes in elections, the fairness of which is questioned by international observers. The Kazakh president has been in power uninterrupted since April 1990. He is even criticised for allegedly concentrating power in his hands and for amending his country's rules that allow him to return to the presidency for an unlimited number of terms. But for a democratic republic like ours that is no roadblock in honouring him as the chief guest for our Republic Day parade and signing uranium and petroleum deals with him on the occasion. No surprises if one of the following years a resource-rich despot is elevated to the same status.

Republic Day parade has little to do with celebrations that reinforce our resolve to be free, democratic, socialist and secular. It is largely a realpolitik tool that allows a democracy to court leaders ranging from those who are theocratic to autocratic (words which have no place in the Constitution we adopted on 26th January 1950). The showcasing of the parade and our military hardware is more akin to a blustering patriarch ordering his family members to put on their best for the guest at home for dinner. Much like a dictator who showcases "the best" his country has on offer to a fellow dictator. Many Indians will be thankful though they live in neither. Hope you had a happy Republic Day!

Forget a two-state solution. What about "Isratine"?

That is what Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi asks in today's NYT op-ed. Carefully specifying that the holocaust is undeniable and that the Jews never forcibly expelled any Palestinian in newly created Israel, he says assimilation is the ony key to peace in West Asia. This is what he says: "Assimilation is already a fact of life in Israel. There are more than one million Muslim Arabs in Israel; they possess Israeli nationality and take part in political life with the Jews, forming political parties. On the other side, there are Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israeli factories depend on Palestinian labor, and goods and services are exchanged. This successful assimilation can be a model for Isratine"

What if an Air India flight landed on the Yamuna?

Isn't it miraculous that all 155 passengers and crew aboard the US Airways flight survived a landing on teh Hudson river in New York? Or, perhaps it isn't a miracle. Prompt emergency assistance, within minutes infact, ensured all were evacuated from the sinking jet. With a prayer for the passengers and a pat for the Chesley Sullenberger III, there are a few questions that ought to be raised:

1) What if an Air India flight landed on the Yamuna in Delhi? Or would there be just an empty dry bed? Or would it land on the Commonwealth Games Village?
2) Would the pilot be skilled enough to land safely on the river?
3) Would the crew (trained in hordes by the numerous air hostess/steward academies) be professional enough to rise to the occasion?
4) Would our emergency services reach the sinking jet and passenegrs on time?
5) How many would drown?
6) How many would die because of poisoning by the polluted waters of Yamuna? How many would survive with adverse skin reactions?

Just an audience interruption?

Muntazer al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower, is a hero in the Arab world. A Saudi businessman has offered $10 million for one of the shoes. The talk about shoes just doesn't cease. Yet, the White House, on the other hand, merely refers to this pivotal moment in Arab history as "audience interruption"! See it in the White House transcript of the press conference. It is probably the worst job you could have - draft press releases for Bush's administration. By the way, in the melee that ensued, Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, got a jab in her eye from a mike.

In this season of serial blasts, it's time for some serial dressing

Read more on the serial dresser that our home minister Shivraj Patil is. Apparently, the day of the blasts in Delhi, he changed his suits not once, not twice but thrice!

Meet Mr Shivraj Clueless Patil

Image from Daylife.com

I am tired of seeing a rather nattily dressed home minister tour blast sites. Saturday was no different, as Shivraj Patil turned out in his best sherwani obviously after the NSG commandos had sanitised the sites. It was as if he had turned out for a geriatric fashion parade and not for a damage control operation.

But what really got my goat was his declaration that he had prior information that blasts were planned in Delhi. And, in his own words, he had this information even before Narendra Modi let the centre know about it. Patil's defence is that the intelligence was not "actionable". That he had no clue about the timing, the place or the method of the blasts planned. I gawked as I heard him say this on national television.

In other words, our internal intelligence and security chief and service need to be told when, where and how are blasts planned to prevent them. The next time the Indian Mujahideen may as well leave a bomb outside Patil's residence with simple how-to-defuse instructions for him to follow. He may finally take credit for having averted a major blast!

I am tired of feeling helpless as each time the IM thumbs its nose at us and the state.

Watch the video here.

Should the media be held guilty of abetting suicide?

While scientists readied themselves to fire up a never-before experiment to understand the origin of the universe, news channels in India (and presumably elsewhere too) hit a never-before low as they went on an overdrive "reporting" that the end of the world was near. Consequence: a 16-year-old girl near Bhopal killed herself anticipating doomsday.

Biharilal, the girl's father, insisted that Chayya (from Asharita near Indore) had consumed sulphos, an insecticide, after spending hours watching TV programmes on the proton-collision experiment. She was terrfied of reports that the experiment was set to cause mahapralay. The girl had persistently asked him if the end of the world was indeed imminent because of the experiment at CERN on the border of France and Switzerland. His dismissal was not comforting enough. This apocalyptic fear was first expressed by sceptics who predicted that the experiment would create an artificial "black hole" that would suck in the earth.

For whatever it's worth, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has served notices to Aaj Tak and India TV for their reporting on the CERN experiment.

Chayya's death obviously reasserts the immense power channels and newspapers today command. However, more importantly it also poses several questions about how that power needs to be used. The channels, where it is always a struggle to find content and sustain oneself 24/7, gleefully jumped at the first thought of reporting on mahapralay. It was easy fodder for starved, lazy, unimaginative and irresponsible journalists.

Did the channels deliberately play up the fear of doomsday to grab a larger audience? A fear, which, at best, was a freak possiblity. And even if it deserved being talked about, did the channels bother to show scientists who were rebutting that lunatic claim? My fear is no. It's not just television channels. Even papers and websites played up the doomsday element with relish. Sample, for instance, this from Rediff: A Wednesday. Will the world survive it?

Thye girl's death must not go in vain. It has to lead us to establish a functional and effective media regulatory body. If journalists smart at the thought of being controlled by the government, they must offer an alternative that checks the plummeting standards of journalism in India; Arushi and the CERN incident being just two shining and recent examples.

Here's why I despise Mahatma Gandhi...

For all the non-violence and compassion he embodied, it's disgustingly shocking to find that Mahatma Gandhi actually had called for "legislation making every stray dog liable to be shot". Yes, that's right! This information comes from a review of Bibek Debroy's book "Sarama and her children: The dog in the Indian myth" in India Today

That the man, revered unfailingly as our father of the nation and so central to the country's identity, has been uncovered as someone so cruel is disconcerting. Which brings me to this question: Are there many other failings of Mohandas Gandhi that have been deliberately brushed under the carpet? It's akin to discovering that Mother Teresa had for all homosexuals to be burnt at the stake! (This bit is made up.)

And what would Munna Bhai make of this? All I can say, to hell with Gandhigiri.

Time to kick out cricketing heroes!

Bored to death of seeing the same cricketing faces on the front pages of our papers, I am delighted that tomorrow will be refreshingly different - Abhinav Bindra has created history by winning India's first-ever individual event (10 metre air rifle shooting) gold at the Olympics in Beijing. What a delight! The last time India bagged a gold was 28 years ago when the men's hockey team won at the Moscow Olympics (marred by a Cold War era boycott).

Inflation's 12%, did you say?

Indian's are fretting about rising prices and the highest-ever inflation rates in a long, long time. But spare a thought for the Zimbabweans where inflation is so dramatic that by the time you finish reading this post, it would have probably gone up! It's a staggering nine million per cent a year! Yes, nine million! I, f***ing can't even imagine what's it must be like to live in such conditions with such a wacky rate of price increase. But I found my answer in this brilliant profile of Robert Mugabe by Peter Godwin in Vanity Fair. He describes it thus:

Everywhere in Zimbabwe there are long lines: lines for bread, lines for cooking oil, lines for maize meal (the staple food). Buying gasoline requires an array of byzantine procedures. Zimbabwe can now boast, if that is the word, the highest rate of inflation in history. As I write, it’s running at about nine million percent a year. How can I convey what it’s like to live with this kind of hyperinflation? Imagine that you’re out grocery shopping, and in the time it takes you to reach the checkout line, the prices of the items in your cart have all gone up. Golfers now pay for drinks before they tee off, because by the time they’ve completed 18 holes the bar prices will have risen. No one uses wallets for cash; mostly you carry around bags full of blocks of money secured by elastic bands. During my latest trip to the country, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe issued new, higher-denomination notes no fewer than three times in a period of two months, the last one being the 500-million-Zimbabwean-dollar note. At its introduction it was worth two U.S. dollars. Four weeks later, its value had fallen to five cents.

We may begin seeing, pretty soon, big American cities with no daily newspaper...

We may live to see one such day in the US, argues this piece by Arun Venugopal on Salon. According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 2,400 journalists left newspaper newsrooms in the US last year leaving the journalism industry with the smallest workforce since 1984. The way out for American journalists, he prescribes, is to move to fast growth centres like India where journalism continues to boom (unfortunately, in terms of business and not quality).

Sure, there are a lot more foreign-sounding bylines in our papers these days, Hindustan Times leading the pack. Two that I can recall immediately, Barney Henderson and Robbie Corey-Boulet. Surely, there must be many more even though there are none at the magazine I work. It should be interesting to find out from them and their Indian colleagues about what new perspectives do they bring to the newsroom. Do they fit in well, despite possibly travelling to India for the first time? Whatever may be the answer, they sure do bring in stories from corners we Indians may overlook. Like this one from Corey-Boulet about a Noida firm outsourcing sub-editors to American papers.

Away from the shrill of rhetoric about Indian jobs being taken away, I think a multicultural workforce in journalism has become a necessity given the globalised times we live in.

What's the longest word...

... you can type without moving between the row of alphabets?Apparently it's typewriter! Interesting, isn't it?

India has its nuclear deal, South Korea has one with beef!

It's nearing splitsville for the Left and the Congress over the nuclear deal. Meanwhile, an interesting development is playing out in South Korea that may have lessons for us and out politicians.

A repentant Lee Myung-bak, the president and former Hyundai CEO, has had to repeal a deal with the US he rushed into after widespread public protests. The deal would have allowed large-scale import of US beef into South Korea. Beef imports were earlier called off after a case of BSE or mad cow disease was detected and critics therefore said the PM had overlooked the health concerns of his people. The beef deal, the US had insisted, was a must is a bilateral free trade agreement had to be signed. "I and the government are deeply sorry" a frank Lee told his people in his address. The president said he "was in a hurry after being elected president, as I thought I could not succeed unless I achieve changes and reform within one year after inauguration. As a president, I did not want to miss this golden opportunity (the free trade agreement)." Quite a bold statement for a politician.

Mr President, the Korean people have a beef with how you work! (Image from BBC News)

Would a frank Manmohan Singh, like Lee, tell us why there’s such obsession with the nuclear deal? So much so that we be subject to an early poll? Energy security has a lot of other components that are not getting the same love and push from the PMO: increasing energy efficiency, the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline being just two of them. So, is it really energy security that bothers the PM? And are there some “musts” we must give (or have given) to the US to have this nuclear deal?

The copy editors are dying. What about reporters?

Good copy editors have always been rare. But Lawrence Downes comments in the NYT that the entire species may be endangered now as newspapers cut costs and take on forms that have no place for the orthodox desk:

As newspapers lose money and readers, they have been shedding great swaths of expensive expertise. They have been forced to shrink or eliminate the multiply redundant levels of editing that distinguish their kind of journalism from what you find on TV, radio and much of the Web. Copy editors are being bought out or forced out; they are dying and not being replaced.

But in that world of the perpetual present tense — post it now, fix it later, update constantly — old-time, persnickety editing may be a luxury in which only a few large news operations will indulge. It will be an artisanal product, like monastery honey and wooden yachts.

If you need any idea of what the copy editor's job is, Downes has an answer:

As for what they do, here’s the short version: After news happens in the chaos and clutter of the real world, it travels through a reporter’s mind, a photographer’s eye, a notebook and camera lens, into computer files, then through multiple layers of editing. Copy editors handle the final transition to an ink-on-paper object. On the news-factory floor, they do the refining and packaging. They trim words, fix grammar, punctuation and style, write headlines and captions.

But they also do a lot more. Copy editors are the last set of eyes before yours. They are more powerful than proofreaders. They untangle twisted prose. They are surgeons, removing growths of error and irrelevance; they are minimalist chefs, straining fat. Their goal is to make sure that the day’s work of a newspaper staff becomes an object of lasting beauty and excellence once it hits the presses.

And what about the reporters? Are we endangered with the proliferation of citizen journalism?

Playing with my camera

A lucky shot of these beautifully dressed women at Akbar's Tomb in Sikandra...

Censorship at the Taj Mahal?

Revisiting places often throw up new details that may have escaped you before. On a recent trip to the Taj Mahal, that's what happened to me. I, unlike when I was a kid (the last time I went to the Taj), headed for the stone tablets placed on either side of the main entrance to the monument. I was intrigued to see how a few of the engraved lines were covered using white paint. The one in Hindi had its paint peeling off, making it possible for anybody to read what the government wished to hide from its people and tourists from abroad (loose translation):

The Taj Mahal's upkeep was in safe hands even after Shahjahan's death. But that changed in the 18th century. Its ... (illegible) and sandalwood doors, cots, boards and other furnitures, lamps and lamp posts, ... (illegible), curtains, gem-studded artefacts and other items were plundered one after the others by the Jats, Marathas and the East India Company.

What's the harm in saying so if it is a historical fact? If it isn't, why was this etched in public by the government in the first place? History, as always, remains a toy in the hands of the government.

What about this terror?

As we mourn the death of 66 individuals in the serial blasts that hit Jaipur a few days back, very little attention seems to have been accorded to another tragedy that has killed more than double of those killed in Jaipur. About 150 people have died in the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu after consuming poisonous illegal alcohol. This happened in a border town between the two states. Police now say the alcohol was illegally produced as bars and shops were sealed because of election in Karnataka. Would it be fair to assume that some political parties were behind this lethal concoction? If yes, are they any different from those who carried out the blasts in Jaipur?