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Bad news is good news

Bad news is good news

Author: M.V. Kamath
Publication: Afternoon Despatch & Courier
Date: October 29, 2004
URL: http://www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=editorials&xfile=October2004_mediawatch_standard79&child=mediawatch

Le Monde apparently does not know how to sell sex the way Hindustan Times does. It should seek help from some of our knowledgeable editors. After all, India is the land of Kaamasutra

FOR our 'liberal' press, good news is bad news; it is not to be reported. But bad news is 'good' news, to be reported in great detail and with a vengeance. That is why a story in India Today (October 25) comes as a pleasant shock. It is about - hold your breath - Hindus running a school for Muslims in 'sensitive' Ahmedabad, and Muslims being grateful for it. It would appear that in 1983 one Ranchodbhai Kiri started a school called Shantiniketan in the all-Muslim Juhapura area of Ahmedabad in Gujarat. The attendance then was 80 per cent Hindus and 20 per cent Muslim. But following the riots that followed the Godhra killings, Hindus left the area in large numbers.

A section of 'inflamed' Muslims wanted the school closed but the parents of the students would have none of that. Such was the reputation of the school that some of the local Muslim strongmen accused of involvement in communal riots were willing to protect the school at any cost. Now the 1,200-odd students are mostly Muslims and they and their parents speak highly of the school's standards, each day the school starts with 'Saraswati Vandana'. Writes India Today: "When painting competitions are held in the school, images of Hindu Gods and goddesses are most common.

Divisive thoughts

And Sanskrit is a favourite subject of many a student.... Significantly, the only Muslim teacher in the 40-member teaching staff, Husena Mansuri, teaches Sanskrit. In fact, she is so happy at the school that she recently declined the principalship of another Muslim-run school.... Some of the students' entries in a recent painting competition were truly moving. One drew a picture of Bharat Mata with a mosque and temple, while another portrayed a boy tying rakhi to his sister. Manisa Vakil who heads the primary section in the school says: 'It comes out of them naturally because they are free from all divisive thoughts'...." And this in Narendra Modi's Gujarat? Hindus and Muslims living side-by-side with mutual respect? How can that be? Our secularists must protest. They should object to 'Saraswati Vandana' being offered at the start of the classes.

Hindustan Times has latterly been in the news. For one thing it carried a scoop which was played up as the lead story on the front page (October 16). According to the story, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, his son Raninder Singh and his then principal secretary Sanjit Sinha "were involved in conceiving and finalising a project for which questionable foreign currency transactions appear to have been made".

The report said that according to available documents "the foreign currency transactions amounting to Rs. 46 lakhs took place on Raninder's instructions". Wrote Hindustan Times: "The money was a fraction of the Rs. 14.18 crore consultancy fee that a Dutch firm was to receive for the Punjab Intranet Co. (PIC) project - which was still in the paper stage. An HT expose on December 28, 2003 scuttled the scheme and the company was never formed." Further details are given. The next day the Punjab Chief Minister at a press conference indicated that he would sue the Hindustan Times, resident editor in Chandigarh, Kanwar Sadhu and his team, for what he called a 'fictional story' about his son. A charge of criminal defamation apparently is to be made.

The Chief Minister's defence was published in the paper of 18th October with an editorial note at the bottom which said: "we published the story after ascertaining facts.

We stand by the story". Further developments are eagerly awaited. Will Amarinderji become another 'tainted' minister? Hindustan Times made news in another way. It retrenched 362 people - or literally one for each day of the year - on the grounds that their services in the printing section are no longer needed. Understandably 'hundreds' of the paper's employees went on an indefinite 'dharna. The Hindu (October 14) quoted S.N. Sinha, General Secretary of the Employees Union as saying that the retrenchment was being done to make foreign direct investment in a printing company started by the paper "attractive".

Business, one supposes, is business. But Hindustan Times may take comfort in the knowledge that one of the most distinguished newspapers in Paris, Le Monde has announced that it is seeking 100 'voluntary redundancies' about 35 of them being journalists. Already, it is reported that another 100 jobs have been cut from the printing operation. Despite the fact that it seels 380,000 copies daily, Le Monde is reportedly running at a loss with circulation falling. Le Monde apparently does not know how to sell sex the way Hindustan Times does. It should seek help from some of our knowledgeable editors.

After all, India is the land of Kaamasutra.

There are some who believe, like Siddhartha Reddy in The Asian Age (October 19) that in Maharashtra "Sonia Gandhi's Congress may celebrate the BJP's decimation, but must mourn its own rejection by the voters". The Congress always does well. Take Karnataka, for example. It has a Congress government. But between April 2003 and October 2004, according to Deccan Herald 846 people of whom 809 were farmers, committed suicide. It shows how very helpful the Congress government is in Karnataka. The largest number of suicides were from Belgaum district (66) and Chitradurga (72). In Maharashtra, the State has a deficit of several lakh crore rupees. That merely shows how efficient the Shinde government has been.

It takes a lot of effort to run a deficit of that magnitude. No doubt the next government will add a few more lakh crore rupees deficit so that Sonia Gandhi can claim that her party knows how to spend money. She probably thinks having Nashik in Maharashtra helps. Maharashtra has the printing presses which can churn out thousand rupee notes as easily as once, in the 1920s, German presses churned out 10,000 deutchmark notes. Trust the Congress to follow Germany's example.

Brightest headlines

One of the brightest headlines in sports pages was seen in Deccan Chronicle (Oct. 15) when Kumble took seven wickets in the first innings against the Aussies. The DC headline said: Aussies Tumble Against Humble Kumble. Very smart, except that 'Kumble' does not rhyme well with 'Tumble' and 'Humble'. 'Kumble' is pronounced 'Kumblay'. The right headline would have been: Aussies Tumblay Against Humblay Kumblay.

There is happily at least one good thing to be said about the recent Maharashtra elections. Exit polls by various television channels were not so far off the mark as to make them the laughing stock of the country. The Aaj Tak channel was almost on the button in its prediction when it said on October 13 at the end of the balloting that the ruling Congress-National Congress Party alliance would get anywhere between 140 to 150 seats in the 288 seat Assembly. It did.
 


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