Penblunt & Hogwash

As you sow, so you reap

Penblunt

Last edition I had said that the fight-back by the broadcasters against the Indian government trying to bring in regulation was not strictly in the interest of freedom of speech and expression.

There are some very good journalists involved in the process, and their credential for fighting for human rights cannot for a second be doubted, let me say that at the outset.

But there are some who are fighting this as the last ditch battle to stay afloat, and if regulation and a code of conduct are brought in, their freedom to pass of trash as news will fly out the window.

The cause is the clutter.

And it is getting ‘clutterer and clutterer,’ as Alice would say if she ever stepped into this TV wonderland.

There are forty news channels on air at the moment, and there are more than 100 waiting for approval from the Indian ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which alone issues license to any TV channel to operate.

Most of new Indian news channels would be regional, as the market wisdom says, that is where the money lies.

And in any case, there is little scope for more mainstream news channels either in Hindi, the main national language, or English. As it is, there are so many that no one has the time to watch more than two or three.

Also, as an expert said, the trend over the next two years would not be just regional, but city-based channels, and then will start the fun: who would watch the mainstream if all the juice is on your own town or city?

That means, to run city channels, or even regional ones, and run them 24 X 7, the new channels would have to churn out content, and what content would, say, a sleepy central Indian town like Raipur, have for 24 X 7?

It is a steel city so, steel factory gossip, girls and boys eloping, sex behind the Bushes, boys and girls coming back to their senses and going back home and more sex behind the Bushes. Worse, what I fear most is that fractious communal and religious issues would come up front, as caste and communal and religion-based political leaders would seek publicity and provide the perfect fodder on air.

So the regionals are bound to get more murky, and the nationals would have to keep pace or lose the regional audience, and hence sex-ghost-violence to beat clamour-over-clutter would become strategic bread and butter for all channels.

If there is a code in place, this will hardly be possible. And that is the long-term fear of the news channels: they must keep the door open for trash to be beamed over the tube, or else die a ‘content-death’, hardly something to contemplate contentedly!

There is an option, though.

Look at a pair of channels from the same stable, one in Hindi and the other in English. And also look at one of India’s most respected channels in English as well.

They are saying that they would take the perception route to generating survival money. They say that the advertisers are staying with them and despite higher ratings for the vanilla channels, the money the latter are making is not good to stay in operation.

The ‘perception route’ argument is that the best brands – products and services – feel they cannot be seen as part of an ugly channel. Do remember that Indian products and services are going beyond our shores increasingly, and a brand associated with rampant sex, violence and superstition may be questioned when the foreign buyers see them feeding trash.

However, these channels are also facing the eyeball crisis and the debate inside their editorial doors is that there could be a mix of hard core news buffered with some vanilla stuff. Say a short curious-video clip of a few seconds as part of a 24 minute news programme.

The other thing that even some of the vanilla guys are saying is that the viewers are gradually getting fatigued by the incessant bombardment of nonsense. The channels have tried out every formula, family trauma, crime, sex, ghosts… and each formula is drying out as an entertainment point faster than the previous one.

After all, how much variation can there be in the same theme? So if we go by what a respectable Hindi channel editor is saying, despite the fact that they too do a huge amount of spicy, steamy stuff on TV, this fatigue will drive news content towards better hygiene.

Meanwhile, if the advertisers and media buyers continue with their support for the decent channels, the two combined could help improve the situation.

But this is a longish process and the government will not wait that long for the industry to come up with its content code.

The bravado of news channels notwithstanding, and despite the loud shrieks on protecting freedom of speech, the news channels have amply and repeatedly shown their clay feet, by timidly abiding by the government orders and this time around, the first ever, the News Broadcasters Association, the vanguard obstructing machine on the content code issue against irresponsible stings.

So they will obey; as a senior official says: “They’ll have to… we give them the license!”

In My View

Is USA in terminal decline?

The day before Dow Jones index of the New York Stock Exchange headed south on 22 Januray, the Democratic Party candidates of the American presidential election were debating policies in South Carolina. The first issue in the debate was the American economy – and all the three candidates left in the field talked about an economic stimulus packages – a few tens of billions of dollars here; a few tens of billions there.

That was before Barack Obama, the first black candidate of the US presidential races called Hillary Clinton, the first woman candidate in the country’s history, a darling of the Corporate establishment; and Clinton charged him with defending a slum-lord in Illinois, Chicago as a lawyer. It all was so familiar: the same thundering denunciations of the special interest-laden Washington; the same name calling about who is more sold out, already, to the corporate lobbyists. But in all this familiar territory, one thing stood out: a desperate search for measures that can arrest the decline of the USA.

This was also in the background of the America’s Federal Reserve’s (Central Bank) headlong lunge to cut bank lending rates by an unprecedented 75 points of one per cent. The idea is if money is made cheaper, the investments could rise thus arrest the decline of the US economy. There is a clear sense of panic – both at the government level and within the god of American policies, the Market.

In the past when the USA has been in recession, it has tried to recover from the deep end of the economic crisis by essentially two-fold measures: the government loosening its purse strings by spending more money; and by creating an environment for higher consumer spending. But this time it is different. Because the government is severely cash strapped, with it spending $ 2 billion a day in just the Iraq war alone, and the large corporates refusing to invest in the USA, having found better investment returns in emerging markets like India; and China.

On top of that, in the past decade or so, income inequality has deepened in the country beyond imagination. The income differential between the top executives of a company and the wage earners is 2,173:1. Measured by the GINI index, which keeps track of income inequality across the world, the USA is closest to underdeveloped economies; thus more unequal, than the average developed nations.

Interestingly, at the end, this fact might prove more of the reason that could pull the USA further down this time that anything else on the horizon. Because all these millions of dollars bonuses that have been handed down to the brokers in the Wall Street for the past years could barely increase service charge in a New York restaurant by ten per cent more on the bill, while most of money flowed outside as investment offshore where the returns are higher.

The mobility and autonomy that capital has gained in this current phase of globalised Capitalism would now work against the USA. This statement needs more explaining. A belief endures among the Marxist theoreticians that more capital becomes unburdened by fixed assets and becomes liquid, it seeks newer areas where it can autonomously multiply.

Before, and during the previous recession in the US economy in the 1970s, this mobile capital had found its favoured destination in Japan. But Japan was constrained by its size, population and thus the depth of its economy to retain this capital in large volumes. Plus, those were the days of the Cold War and Japan was particularly vulnerable to the scare of a Soviet expansion. So when Ronald Reagan launched the all-out war against the “Evil Empire” Japan witnessed, and indeed supported a reverse flow of capital from its coffers, much against a fundamental tenet of Marx’s theory that money flows from a ‘Declining Centre’ to an ‘Emergent Centre.’

But this time the situation is very different. This time the emergent Centre, if not the ‘emerged’ Centre, is China – garguantan, both in the size of its area, population and its economy. China can absorb all the capital that American capitalists can invest and provide higher returns. All this while, it was also investing some of its surpluses in the USA itself, as the latter was considered the most stable economy in the world; in the process propping up the dollar. Will China now continue to do the same when the US in such turmoil?

The answer to that question can well hold the key to the continuance of USA as the pre-eminent power of the world. It is the supreme irony of the world that the fate of the most revered temple of Capitalism depends on the decisions of an avowed socialist State. This could also mark another break in contemporary human history almost of the same dimension that we witnessed almost decades ago when Soviet Union collapsed. What frisson this causes in the American society would be something watched very closely in the next few years.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in

Penblunt & Hogwash

Regulating the irregular

Penblunt

Let me indulge.

Let me tell you a Punjabi joke.

(Me-kkiepedia: “The Punjabi is a person of either gender originating in Punjab, a north Indian state of vast resources, and speaking a wonderfully robust language. Punjabis are known for their humour and their ability to laugh at themselves.

(They are also known for their boisterous Bhangra dance and tandoori chicken, Punjab’s global culinary export, as also for members of the community migrating to England, whose subjects they, as all Indians had been till 1947, when India became independent.”)

One lady from Amritsar, the Sikh Holy city, was migrating to Britain, and upon hearing that, her neighbour tumbled into her home quite flustered.

“Tussi England janday ho?” she asked in Punjabi (“I believe you are going to England?”)

Receiving a magnificent smile and a nod in the affirmative, the neighbour said: “Do us a favour.”

“Sure!”

“When you are in England, tussi queen-noo mill lo (go meet the Queen).

The imminent immigrant’s mouth did a prefect ‘O’ in surprise, and she asked, “Of course, but why?”

“Tussi o-nu milkay dasso, bus! Ab humsey smbhala nahi janda, hun tussi waps aa jao!” (Just meet her, and tell her, we’ve had enough, now do please come back to India and rule again!”)

This is a little joke on governance.

We fought for our independence, tooth and nail and got it, and now, after more than three decades, we want the Queen back… even if it is a joke… at least the British crown gave us some good governance.

Now take a look at our broadcasters.

They are fighting, hurling abuses, calling the secretary something short of a demon, and the minister nothing short of a backdoor tyrant, a freshwater pirate… trying to gag the Indian press.

Why? Because they do not want regulation. Ridiculous! Says some of their own kin, we must have regulation. So the official body for the broadcasters takes a step back and says, rather Tilakesque*: “self-regulation is our birthright and we shall have it.”

They want self-regulation and so they set off to draft a Content Code of their own which they will, they said, implement on their own, indulging in self-contradiction left, right and centre.

They admitted that the news media sometimes showed secret films of a nude film starlets bathing in a jail loo; or a sex racket madam who is actually a school teacher whose only relation with sex is conjugal… and such trash.

They admit to such mistakes, but the reason, they aver, is the industry is still in its infancy and is gradually maturing so it will take time.

And when the government says they need regulation, they shout back: “We are mature enough to regulate ourselves!” Digital babies, these guys, I tell you!

Ahem!

So the ‘mature’ lot set about drafting a code of content and told the government they would submit it any time, but said also that this cannot be done before at least one year, as all the channels across the country have to be circulated the draft Code and discussions held, opinions taken and incorporated, matters discussed at the apex level, draft to be finalised, put up to the industry body’s lawyer and having been vetted by the lawyer, sent to the senior lawyers of all the channels for final clearance, then get it back, neatly typewrite it in double space, 12 points upper-lower and after a while, and a final look at it, hand it over to the government.

That gives you a sense of “any time”.

Now watch out. The ministry of information and broadcasting, the men in Swastika, as the broadcasters would have us believe, said to that, ‘take time, but don’t be ridiculous’.

So the broadcasters, who meaow when barked at and bark if you smile at them, said they would be nice and give it to the government by the end of January… this year, no less.

In the meanwhile, they have not had the time to hold the national level discussions, so that means the other guys in the states will likely raise the banner of revolt against the ‘content hegemonist channels of Delhi’ and refuse to go by that code.

Why, even within themselves here in Delhi, they cannot agree on anything. Take a look at the yearend statements they have given in the most respected broadcast portal, www.indiantelevision.com, and see how they are at each other’s tails on the issue of the type of content that should be allowed or not allowed on channels.

The issue is, then, who will listen to whom?

The TV news industry is soaring, and the next round will see regional channels tumbling out, who will hardly listen to the big boys from Delhi.

And why should they? Does a Delhi channel give them money? Contrarily, the Delhi news channels take away the most sizeable amount of the media ad pie of a mere Rs 6,000 crore.

The growth of regional channels would mean the obvious increase in localisation of news content, and competition would be so cut throat that one can expect only more of rubbish… sex, superstition, violence, often lies as news.

That is when the mansion of self-regulation would fall apart, because unlike India as a nation during its independence movement, the media is not a cohesive force except when abusing the government, which in turn binds it together. For here in this field, one can only survive at the cost of another.

That is when the bog boys of Delhi will go back to the Queen.

“Hun tussi waps aa jao, please!”

And really, freedom of speech is not what they are fighting for. But that I shall reveal later… after the break!

Penblunt & Hogwash

Science of Cricket mania
Penblunt

My sweet better half is bitter, by half! She is just back from the Indian Science Congress a disgraced event marred by old research papers presented by scientists who have lost it out.

That’s not the story, by the way. The story, is she told me, that the haloed Hindi news channel, the doyen of independent private news in the country, had sent a reporting team there.

Rather, the Congress organisers had invited and carried their reporting team, hoping perhaps to popularise science in the Hindi speaking belt.

They did some reporting the first two days, my honey informs me, but these were not carried. So they got suitably disenchanted and stopped reporting, but that put them in a fix, since colleagues from other media asked them why they were just taking this as a pleasure trip by the sea.

So the next day, much embarrassed, they called office back in Delhi asking what stories they should do from the Indian Science Congress, and were told… cry my beloved country….

By then, Bhajji (Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh) had been termed ‘racist’ by ICC’s Mike Procter, the umpires had gifted the Aussie cricket team a huge victory and India was seething with rage, a sentiment with which I subscribe.

So when the Hindi news channel reporters called HQ and asked for what to report from the Indian Science Congress, cry my beloved country….

They were told “Talk to the scientists for their reaction on India’s national humiliation!”

Even if I’d fill the page with exclamation marks, that would not suffice to explain my anguish, but that is the way it is.

The Congress organisers might have thought that taking this channel to the celebrations would spread the good word about science in the Hindi heart belt. But it did not work.

I cannot blame the haloed channel for this either, because its nearest rival, on the same day, was having repeat half-hour “News” shows with four or five children who all said that they had been killed in their previous birth and have arrived on Earth to kill their killers.

If such be the content of the closest rival, then I must say that the haloed channel was at least limited to a sensational issue but not sensationalism.

My worry has been that this is Hindi news channel, with a population that is spread across a huge tract of India.

Whether you speak Avadhi, Gujarati, Bundelkhandi, Rajasthani, Marathi, Sindhi, Bhojpuri, Chhattisgarhi, Mewati or Urdu, you are still part of the Hindi cable and satellite universe, a populace that has considerable say in the politics of the land.

However, the picture is not monochromatic, which is not so dark a scenario.

As I passed through 2007, it emerged that there are three types of Hindi channels: the first is the born-again-to-avenge / snake man / Baba as sex monster type… anything that sells.

The second are the ones that keep showing such news as snippets, “interesting entertaining information and visuals” as they say, but limit it to that.

The difference would be, for instance, take this single shot of perhaps 30 seconds of a lion embracing a man from behind the iron railings of its cage.

The first type of channels show this as a full show, lasting for 10 minutes, repeat after repeat.

The second type of Hindi news channels show this, may be twice during a news show, but limit it to just those single shot of 30 seconds.

The third are the serious Hindi channels which get their ratings from stings, most often responsible, socially relevant stings.

My worry was that if the tabloid channels are getting all the ratings all the time, then perhaps the good advertisers might sooner or later move to the cheap channels.

But financial results at the year-end show that the poorly rated serious channels have done better business and the worst of the lavender channels – with the second highest ratings – has not made enough money to even pay its rent amounting to Rs 10 crore now.

That is good news, for in the end, this money is what will dictate who stays, the honest or the scurrilous. Serious, high value brands have put in their money on the clean brand channels.

So, my worry through 2007 had been valid but proved to be wrong in the end, because as a senior broadcaster put it: “You will never see something like a channel saying… “Stay with us and after the break we shall bring you “Rape of the Day” from Hindustan Lever!!!”

In My View

Pakistan back on rails

Though the polls in Pakistan were postponed to mid-February in the wake of the violence following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, it appears the country is back to business. This week the raging debate was not about how Bhutto was killed, but about how, she had wanted to make known a study on Inter Services Intelligence’s (ISI) plans to steal the elections.

Interestingly, the country’s president, Parvez Musharraf’s spokesperson not only just debunked the charges against the ISI, but promised that this general election would be the ‘freest and fairest’ in Pakistan’s history. That in a way framed the issue by which the Musharraf government would be judged in the next few months – how they administer the poll process. And, whether they can pull the people of the country from the brink of losing all faith in the State’s ability to govern.

Crucially, that expertise was on severe test last week when Bhutto was assassinated. Widespread violence reigned on the streets for about a day. But importantly, the government did not need to call out the army to maintain vigil and instead, deployed the paramilitary, Pakistan Rangers. Even they did not have to exert themselves too much as the Centre held. People of the Punjab and Sindh showed high emotions at this destabilisation of the country, which even put the likes of Baitullah Masood – the new high priest of Islamist terrorism in the region – and his allies, the al Qaeda, on the backfoot.

If Pakistan’s intelligence agencies are to be believed, Masood’s men were involved in the killing – a claim they first purportedly made, but later retracted. As if on cue, the USA and its beneficiaries in the sub continent were busy trying to shift the focus of public attention away from the possible plotters because they were afraid of the impact public anger could have, if directed towards al Qaeda, the Taliban or their own homegrown cohorts.

Because just a few days before Bhutto was killed, it was revealed by British newspaper how the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI 6) was talking to the Taliban for stabilising Afghanistan. Readers might recall that this column had first reported that the US agencies were talking to the Taliban about a year ago.

On the other hand, it does appear that at a crucial time of the country’s existence not only did the Centre hold, but even the peripheries like Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) including the two Waziristans etc; North West Frontier Province and Balochistan did not drive up the escalation ladder to make it untenable for Pakistan to exist as a nation.

Contrarily, if reports appearing in Islamabad’s Dawn newspaper are to be believed, right through the trying period, the ceasefire declared by the militants of FATA on 17 December held. In fact, that ceasefire has now been extended to 20 January giving rise to expectations that a truce being negotiated by a tribal jirga would take effect, returning the region to peace of last year when Musharraf had so famously struck a deal with the tribals.

The other important indicator of the sub continent’s political health was India and Pakistan exchanging lists of their respective nuclear installations on 1 January. Indeed, this confidence building measure (CBM) has become a particularly significant pointer of the two governments’ desire to maintain a semblance of sanity amidst high tension.

In fact, New Delhi showed extreme reticence for fishing in troubled waters. Even while much of the local media had gone on an overdrive for pouring out sympathies towards the slain Bhutto – the government showed great reluctance to join the feeding frenzy and not overstep the limits of diplomatic niceties.

On the other hand, it did seem that New Delhi appeared keen that Musharraf got hold of the situation and gain control over it as quickly as possible. The signal sent by increasing vigil on India’s borders signaled that New Delhi did not welcome any situation that could lead to the large scale displacement of Pakistan’s population. Of course, the increased attention on the borders was also designed to stave off any attempt by elements in Pakistan to push through armed infiltrators, taking advantage of the instability within the country.

Washington played the role of an inquisitor, especially with the presidential polls on the horizon. While the strongest statement came from the American Democratic Party frontrunner, Hillary Clinton speaking at her shrillest best, it almost seemed that the political class in the country would like to haul Musharraf over the coals even before the earth on Bhutto’s grave had dried. In the process, they only ended up signaling to the Islamic world that whoever gets elected to the White House this November, there would be little change in the USA’s attitude towards global problems.

Leadership of Pakistan’s armed forces, possibly for the first time in the country’s blood-stained history, on the other hand, maintained a dignified distance from the fast developing situation, thus raising innumerable positive possibilities, which can only be strengthened if the polls are held with the highest sense of probity. That could turn into the good fortune the people of Pakistan had been waiting for so long.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in.