As the ruling BJP in Karnataka continues with its breathtaking assault on democracy through its euphemistically titled “Operation Lotus”, wooing defectors and making a mockery of the recent elections while grandstanding on “political morality”, Deccan Herald has an editorial:
“Even conceding that the legislators resigned their seats before joining the BJP, does it not amount to an insult to the voters who elected them in the first place?
“Can a ruling party use the loaves of office at its disposal and make a mockery of the Anti-Defection Act? Can democracy survive if legislators begin to think that they can serve their constituencies only if they are in the ruling party?
“Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s assertion that the legislators are queueing up on their own holds no water as three of the defectors have already been made ministers and there are reports that others will also be suitably accommodated either in the cabinet or as chairmen of boards and corporations.
“There was a general feeling of disgust among the people and sympathy for the BJP when it accused the UPA government at the Centre of disbursing cash-for-votes to win the confidence motion in parliament recently, but what the party is doing in Karnataka is equally vulgar and blatant misuse of money power.”
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: If the decision of the Congress party to field former chief election commissioner Manohar Singh Gill as a candidate for the Rajya Sabha in 2004 was bad enough, the move to make him a member of the Manmohan Singh ministry in the last reshuffle was worse.
Not only had a body blow been struck on the notional independence of the Election Commission, by dangling carrots before its high officers, it had handed a blanket licence to the BJP to impudently follow suit for eternity: “After all, didn’t the Congress do so too…?”
However, Gill’s record as a sports buff provided some comfort. As a mountaineer, he had trained with Everest hero Tenzing Norgay. He was a reasonable cricketer. And, at least, he was not as dogmatic as his predecessor Mani Shankar Aiyar on matters of sport.
Yet, three incidents in the last ten days give three good reasons to ponder:
#Amit Varma reports that on the day Abhinav Bindra won India’s first individual gold medal in 117 years at the Olympics, India’s Cambridge-educated sports minister grandly said on NDTV: “I congratulate myself and every other Indian.”
Yes, myself and every other Indian.
# When “The Goldfinger” returned to Delhi, The Times of India reports that Gill, who chaperoned Bindra around in the capital, suggested that while he should call on Congress president Sonia Gandhi, it was not necessary to visit the leader of the opposition, L.K. Advani.
However, it is Gill’s latest boo-boo that takes the breath away.
# When Saina Nehwal, the women’s badminton quarter-finalist at the Beijing Olympics, paid a courtesy visit on the minister, Gill greeted the Hyderabad lass heartily. But the 72-year-old minister failed to recognise her coach who was alongside.
“Who are you?” Gill is reported to have asked the coach pointblank, leaving all those present dumbstruck and embarrassed.
The coach? Pullela Gopichand, one of only two Indians who have won the All-England Open championships.
Hopefully, when he bumps into Deepika Padukone during one of his many social engagements, Mr Gill won’t ask her father, “Who are you?”
“Who can ignore the fact that India’s growth rate was three per cent in the age of melody and is nine per cent in the age of sound?
“The pecking order of the senses has changed along with sensibilities. The ear has surrendered to the foot. You cannot really sing along with most modern Hindi film songs, but you can dance.
“Perhaps the most authentic indicator is the average life of a hit song. Popular music of the sixties and seventies still packs the shelves of shops, and even the fifties get a healthy look-in. Current hits are like floodtides. They swamp the market and then disappear. They are suddenly everywhere, and suddenly nowhere.”
Infallible Indian journalists have been spooked by a delightful Da Vinci Code style hoax played on them.
On Sunday, almost every newspaper reported the arrest of Johann Bach, an 88-year-old Nazi war criminal, in the jungles of Khanapur, close to Goa, on Saturday.
A classified advertisement inserted by the “Waffen SS” fugitive to sell an 18th century piano was supposed to have led Perus Narkp detectives to the “senior adjutant” who reportedly had a role in the “extermination” of 12,000 Jews at the Marsha Tikash Whanaab concentration camp in East Berlin.
Bangalore based newspapers went to town with the news:
# “Hitler’s stormtrooper held in Karnataka,” headlined Deccan Herald.
# “World War II criminal arrested?” asked The Hindu
# “Antique piano ad leads police to Nazi colonel near Belgaum,” said the New Indian Express.
On Monday, the up-country papers went a step further.
# “Traced to Goa, Nazi war criminal tried to enter Karnataka, arrested on way and flown to Berlin,” said The Indian Express, Delhi
# “Goa piano ‘thief’ found to be Nazi war fugitive,” said The Telegraph, Calcutta, with a helpful graphic (above) of the flight of the Nazi criminal.
Wanted by Interpol, octagenarian Bach, it was reported, had escaped the Nuremberg trials and evaded justice for over half a century. On the German government’s “Most wanted list” since the end of WW II, he had spent time in Argentina, Bulgaria, Yemen and Canada.
Apparently, the Israeli media had reported his sighting in Calungute, Goa, though V.S. Acharya, Karnataka’s home minister, denied any knowledge. Hemant Nimbalkar, Belgaum superintendent of police, said he was unaware of the incident.
But the papers said Bach had been picked up by detectives of Perus Narkp who are part of the German chancellor’s “Core” team in collaboration with Indian intelligence.
Anil Budur Lulla of The Telegraph “exclusively” reported that “Berlin also had information from Tel Aviv that an old German had bragged about overseeing the genocide of Jews to an Israeli tourist couple in Goa during a rave party a few months ago.”
Deccan Herald quoted a press release issued by “Perus Narkp”. Times of India said the press note was circulated by email. DH had this telling line: “A brilliant musician like his illustrious 18th Century namesake, this eccentric Bach later rose high in the Nazi SS hierarchy.”
The Telegraph, quoting “sources”, said that “after further investigations in Goa, proceedings would begin to take Bach to Germany, with whom India signed an extradition treaty in 2004.” Deccan Herald said he would “be facing trial at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.”
And on and on it went.
Well, it turns out, it was all a super prank, obviously played by someone with some taste in western classical music.
churumuri bravely deduces that it was played/devised by someone called Bhawana Shakti Sharma or by someone who knows someone called Bhawana Shakti Sharma, because it is an anagram of “Marsha Tikashi Whanaab”. “Bach” is obviously a bastardisation of Johann Sebastian Bach, with the piano thrown in for good measure. “Perus Narkp” is an anagram of “Super Prank“.
Considering that the story has Goa as its epicentre, churumuri also sticks its neck out to declare that the “super prank” was played by a Goan/ Goans who have had their axe for their local media for some time now. Indeed, one Goan blog says “The Truth Behind Perus Narkp” will be revealed tomorrow with the teasing tagline: “One of the most telling stories on the Goan as well as Indian media.”
Why the prank was played, is a long story.
Maybe to show how gullible journalists have become in this age of instant news and even more instant analysis. Maybe to show how little research and background checking goes into modern-day reporting populated by greenhorns barely out of their teens. Maybe to show what a bunch of cultural ignoramuses we are, with scarcely any knowledge of music, Indian or western.
Or maybe to show how smart the prankster is.
Whatever the reason, it’s a lovely prank for which all of us fell. We have been had. Lie back and enjoy—and spare a thought for those stung by us.
A. NARAYANA writes from London: Enough and more has been said about the media’s overzealousness in the Padmapriya Bhat case. Maybe for the right reasons.
More than the overreach what also stood exposed was the regressive thinking—and the immaturity of men and women in the media—in their understanding of human lives and relationships.
In some cases, it was not just the media’s drive to sell more copies or clock up more TRPs which seemed to have prompted them to put out what they did.
In question is their very motive.
Consider these:
# “He has got an MA in sociology but what has he chosen to do?” questioned a headline in the Manipal edition of Udayavani, referring to Atul Rao, the aide of Udupi MLA Raghupati Bhat, even when no one knew the facts behind his role in her death.
And Udayavani wrote as if it was an established case of ‘Kidnap’ even after home minister V.S. Acharya’s own admission that it was a ‘half-kidnap’ case. He is yet to clarify what that ‘half’ really is. What was Udayavani’s source or motive in pronouncing prematurely that it was a case of kidnap?
# A Kannada Prabha report summarily suggested that it was a murder. On what basis?
#Vijaya Karnataka’s reporter questioned Padmapriya’s decision to discard “a life in which she had wealth and prestige”. “Idella bekitte (was all this required?)” he asks. How did the reporter know that the woman was happy in her marriage?
# The Hindu, of all the newspapers, found it fit to publish every word that Padmapriya’s mother uttered while grieving in front of her young daughter’s body, that too with the wrong translation from Tulu. These are the words every bereaved parent in such a situation would utter. Should they be published verbatim? Et tu, Hindu?
#Deccan Herald and Praja Vani are sister publications produced in the same building but while the English paper said Atul was an engineering diploma holder who resigned from his government job and did civil contracts, the Kannada paper report said Atul did his MA, continued in his government job and did contracts in his wife’s name. (However, it is also a fact the best matter-of-fact reports were filed by the Delhi bureau of these two newspapers.)
# All Kannada newspapers in their esteemed judgment started addressing Atul in the singular from day one while the police still maintained that he was only a witness and not an accused.
There are many more things that could be said about the media coverage of Padmapriya, its ethics, its calibre and its self-righteousness. But, more importantly, there is something to be said about the role of the State.
From the statements of the police and the home minister, it becomes amply clear that they came to know from the second day, if not the first day itself, that it was a case of strained personal relationships and Padmapriya chose to go to Delhi on her on volition.
If this was the case (and there is nothing on record to suggest otherwise so far), the State had absolutely no role to play except making it clear to the public what it came to know.
Going by the facts of the case known as of today, it is also a case of the State exceeding its limits to save an MLA of the ruling party from what would have been considered in our society a loss of face for him.
(A. Narayana is a scholar at the Institute of Development Studies, UK)
1)Padmapriya Bhat, the wife of Udupi BJP MLA Raghupati Bhat, went missing on June 10 (June 11 according to some other reports). Why did it take three days for Bhat to report her disappearance? From the video above, it appears he told the police she was missing only when they contacted him about the abandoned car. Did he already know where she had gone, and why?
2) The distance from Udupi to Mulki is 32 km. The car was found 12 km from her parents’ place. Even if her husband or her family did not notice her disappearance, how come the abandoned car was not noticed, or reported to the police for three days? How come Bhat’s children were staying with his parents in Udupi?
3) Padmapriya’s mother’s house was just 32 km away from Udupi. She had a car and she knew how to drive. Why would she take Bhat’s permission to go there for a pooja, as Bhat claims?
4) Bhat claims the land line of his in-laws was dead, which is why he couldn’t reach them even when Padmapriya was not answering her mobile phone. Was the dead landline reported to the telephone authorities? If so, when?
5) On what basis did home minister V.S. Acharya claim in a newspaper interview it was a “half-kidnap”? And what exactly is a “half-kidnap”?
6) If there was a compelling reason for Padmapriya to take her life so suddenly, why would she do it in faraway Delhi, and in an apartment she had rented just three days ago, so far away from her parents and her children? Why would she not do it in Udupi or someplace close?
7) If Padmapriya wanted to flee to Delhi to stay away from her husband or to start a new life, why would she have left the cash she was carrying (estimates range from Rs 8,000 to Rs 70,000) and jewellery in the abandoned car?
8) Having moved to Delhi, was she shamed or scared into taking her life after her whereabouts had been detected by the police and the reasons were being speculated upon by television channels? Who is the “Sunil” to whom she made her last telephone call, according to television reports?
9) If Raghupati Bhat and Padmapriya had a strained relationship and were on the verge of divorce, how come neither her father nor her brothers seemed to catch any whiff of it, especially when news reports suggest that a divorce was in the offing for quite some time?
10) If Bhat and PP had a strained relationship, as is being alleged, and were only carrying on the charade of living together so as not to hamper Bhat’s electoral chances, just what changed after his victory that made it impossible for the couple to separate amicably?
11) Unnamed police officials claimed on June 14 that PP was in a resort in Malur (Kolar) and that she would be brought to Udupi on June 15. Home minister V.S. Acharya was “all right she was alive and she would be re-united with her family in matter of hours”. Was she really in Malur or was it a red herring thrown by the police to keep the media off the tracks and to buy time without indicating to Padmapriya that they knew where she was? How come Malur police did not know PP was in their jurisdiction while Mangalore police did?
12) Home minister Acharya claims that “Our police had established that she was in Delhi three days ago“. If true, did the Karnataka government make any effort to keep a watch on her movements for three days? Acharya says Karnataka police was in Delhi by 10.30 am. Why did it take them four hours to get in?
13) Did Padmapriya return to Bangalore from Delhi with Raghupati Bhat’s close aide Atul Kumar on June 12, and was she taken back to Delhi from Malur on Saturday evening or Sunday morning after the home minister’s statement?
14) On what basis does home minister Acharya, a trained medical doctor, claim that Padmapriya was suffering from “temporary depression”? Did he speak with her after she went missing and before she killed herself? Did trained psychologists try to engage her and get her out of her “temporary depression”?
16)Who is Prem in whose name a Maruti Wagon R car (DL 8, CD 6949) had been bought from Manjit Motors in Delhi on June 12, just a day after she had reached Delhi? If Padmapriya went missing on June 10/11, can a car be booked, bought, delivered and registered in just 24 hours? Or was it booked much earlier?
17) TV9 reports, quoting security records, that Atul Kumar, the close aide of Raghupati Bhat, had visited the Delhi apartment earlier in the month. So was her decision to flee Udupi and stay in Delhi planned in advance? Had she gone missing earlier than is being claimed?
18) If Padmapriya had intended to settle down in Delhi for good, as evidenced by the renting of a three-bedroom, fully-furnished apartment and the purchase of a new car, why would she suddenly decide to kill herself? Who paid the advance deposit for the apartment?
19)B.S. Yediyurappa, M.P. Renukacharya, and now Raghupati Bhat. Why are so many BJP leaders increasingly finding it so difficult to handle their personal lives? Or are Congress leaders more adept at hiding their warts because of “60 years of experience”?
20) And this bonus question: in 21st century India, is a strained marriage such a terrible thing and the possibility of divorce such an anathema for a politician that death is the only way out?
With crude oil prices scraping the bottom of stratosphere, the Manmohan Singh government has finally increased petrol prices by Rs 5 a litre and diesel by Rs 3, and a cylinder of cooking gas by Rs 50, so that the oil companies do not go under.
Bhamy V. Shenoy, who has for long been asking why discussing oil prices or corruption in oil sector is not as glamorous a subject as IT and BT, argued in Deccan Heraldlast week this was the correct course to take even at the risk of inflation and a political backlash.
Petroleum product prices, he says, have been frozen at the level of $70 a barrel while international oil prices have climbed to $135 per barrel.
“Actually by not allowing the oil price increase to flow through to the final consumers of petrol, diesel and LPG, the government is helping mostly those who could easily afford. The revenues which government has lost by this misguided policy could have been used to support the poor by subsidising the galloping price of food items and for many other welfare projects.
“At crude oil price of $120 per barrel, the government will lose as much as Rs 193,000 crore per year. I have intentionally used a lower oil price to reflect the possibility of prices coming down. Kerosene and LPG subsidies account for Rs 55,000 crores which is almost equal to the loan write off to farmers in this year’s budget.
“Unfortunately while PDS kerosene is diverted to blend with petrol and diesel, LPG subsidies help mostly those who could afford to pay higher prices. In addition, residential LPG is diverted to commercial and auto sector where prices are considerably higher. This results in black money generation to the tune of Rs 13,450 crores.
“It is true that if diesel prices were allowed to increase with international oil prices, it would have increased prices in general. But the impact of such a price increase on economy is considerably lower than the loss of Rs 1,10,000 crore to the government.
“In the short term consumers may welcome such a price relief. We should not forget that there is never a free lunch. Some one has to pay for higher import cost of oil directly or indirectly. In the medium term because of increased deficit financing it will affect every one. But as is well known, the poor will lose more than the rich and the middle class. Thus the very class that the government claims to help will end up losing the most.”
“When did parents decide to include engineering and computer science in their aspirations for their girls as well as boys? Did they suddenly decide to bring gender parity into their homes? Or are grooms now demanding that their brides be computer literate?
“I have a sneaking feeling that it’s the marriage market that is dictating these decisions. Many girls are being turned down by prospective grooms if they do not have jobs in the IT sector. The grooms prefer their brides to be well qualified and to be working in the IT sector.
“The IT sector in fact has become what the public sector banks were to the marriage market some three decades ago. IT sector jobs are safe and secure (so far), with dependable incomes.”
An exit poll-cum-post poll survey for CNN-IBN and Deccan Herald conducted by the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) says the BJP is doing much better in the Karnataka elections than its pre-poll survey had indicated, but the three main parties obtain the same share of the votes they did in 2004. Namely, 35 per cent for the Congress, 30 per cent for the BJP, and 21 per cent for the JDS.
Translation: none of the three parties are going to be able to form a government on their own.
Rajdeep Sardesai and Yogendra Yadav say it’s going to be a “classic hung assembly” especially after the BJP failed to maintain the momentum of the first two phases in the third.
In its pre-poll survey, the same three agencies had predicted 114 seats for the Congress (up 49), 60 for the BJP (down 19), and 37 for the JDS (down 21). That survey had said the Congress looked like securing 39 per cent of the popular vote, BJP 28 per cent and JD (S) 20 per cent votes. The pre-poll survey was done in 75 constituencies with a sample size of a little over 5,000.
***
After an exit poll of the third phase, NDTV concludes the BJP will end up with 95-115 seats, the Congress with 55-75, and the JDS 45-55. Of the 69 seats which went to the polls today, NDTV predicts says BJP will get 30-40 seats, Congrtess 20-30 and JDS 10-12. In 2004, BJP had 33 seats, the Congress 17 and JDS 10 seats. The sample size was 9,880 and the fieldwork was done by IMRB.
***
An exit poll cum post poll survey for Suvarna News by C-Fore says BJP will get 104-114 seats, Congress 69-74, JDS 35-40 and others 6-10. BJP is expected to get a voteshare of 35%, Congress 34%, JDS 19%, and others 12%. In its pre-poll survey, the two agencies had said Congress would end up slightly ahead at 90 seats.
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: A pre-poll survey of the 66 constituencies going to the hustings in the second phase on Friday, shows a slight edge for the BJP over the Congress. But all the straws in the wind continue to be pointing towards a hung assembly in the State when votes are counted on May 25.
The survey, with a sample size of 2,500, and to be published tomorrow, says the BJP could end up with between 36-39 of the 66 seats, and the Congress getting between 20-25 seats. The JDS is predicted to get around 5-8 seats.
# If read with the exit poll conducted by NDTV-IMRB, which gave an edge for the BJP in the first phase of elections on May 10, the BJP has a tally of 67-70 seats at the end of end of the second phase of polling, the Congress 43-48, and JDS 35-38.
# If read with the exit poll conducted by Suvarna Newsby C-Fore, it adds up to 59-67 seats for the Congress at the end of the first two phases of the assembly elections, 60-66 for the BJP, and 25-31 for the JDS.
The findings of the pre-poll survey show a marked fall in the Congress performance from the predictions of the CNN-IBN-Deccan Herald poll, which showed the party surging ahead of the BJP in both central and coastal Karnataka.
With 69 seats up for grabs in the third and final phase, pollsters believe it could be neck and neck for the BJP and Congress, with smaller parties getting to play an important role in the formation of the next government.
If the best-case scenario for the BJP is taken into consideration, it means the party will have to bag 44 of the 69 seats going to the polls in the third phase. The Congress’ best-case scenario means the party will have to bag 47 of the 69. How likely?
Restaurants are now suing newspapers for bad reviews claiming “defamation” and loss of business. But how should authors respond to bad reviews? Should they just be thankful for the publicity? Should they get into a slanging match with the reviewer and hope for the best?
Should they, as Shobhaa De, the author of “Superstar India” has done, get personal?
De’s latest book has got a poor review in India’s leading English magazines, India Today and Outlook. India Today’s reviewer toreinto the book calling it “the worst thing she has written” and said its subtitle “From Incredible to Unstoppable” made him wonder if it was commissioned by the ministry of tourism. Outlook’s reviewer called it “quite mediocre” and said it read like a “teenager’s diary”. Etcetera.
But De, former editor of the film magazine Stardust (and the shortlived Celebrity), and the woman who has won titles such as Sultana of Scuttlebutt and “Maharani of Muck” with aplomb, goes below the belt in response.
In an interview with Arathi Menon of Deccan Herald today, De is asked of the unkind reviews that have greeted the book in India. Her response?
“The particular review you are referring to (in a leading magazine) is a personal attack on me. The person who wrote it is a wife-beater; a freeloader; a frustrated has-been and a menace to society. There are other ratings that have already put the book on the best-seller list. So do I really care about that interview?”
As the pioneer of bitchy page 3 journalism, Shobhaa De of course doesn’t name the reviewer or the publication, but if the reviewer/s had given a good review of the book, would De have been enlightening the world with such vengeance in public?
Is the reviewer’s past or present relevant to the debate at all? Or should she be answering the criticism of the reviewer?
With just four days to go for the first phase of polling in the 2008 Karnataka Elections, there is now a buffet of opinion polls, pre-poll surveys, internal surveys, to pick and choose from depending on your political taste:
A new week, a new opinion poll, and a new winner! With five days to go for the first phase of the Karnataka elections, the latest pre-poll survey says the BJP is leading the race and may inch towards the majority mark in the 224-member assembly or fall just short by a few seats in a hung assembly.
The poll was conducted last week by Development and Research Services (DRS) for the newly launched television channel, INX News. Coming as it does a week after CNN-IBN-Deccan Herald poll which gave a slim majority to the Congress, the scoreline reads 1-1 in the great battle of opinion polls.
A third poll to be published later this week gives the Congress the edge.
According to DRS’ managing director G.V.L. Narasimha Rao, the BJP is likely to be tantalizingly close to a majority (with or without a simple majority) with almost the same share of the popular vote as that of the Congress. The half-way mark is 113.
“In that event, the Congress could end up with just about half of the BJP tally and with almost the same number of seats (65) it won in 2004 or even less in the 224-member assembly. The JD(S) is likely to be close behind the Congress with a tally of 30-45 seats,” Rao writes in the Mint.
The unusual poll arithmetic in Karnataka, the BJP’s stint in power, the sympathy following its ouster by the JDS, and the leadership provided by B.S. Yediyurappa are the reasons the BJP is ahead, according to the DRS-INX poll.
In the poll conducted last week, 43% voters across the state blamed the Congress for the price rise, while 26% laid the blame on the JD(S) and only 17% on the BJP. As the BJP has been harping on both the themes of betrayal and price rise, it tends to benefit from these issues.
Rao says there are three factors that could blunt the BJP’s advantage.
First, the danger of the party’s upper caste and urban supporters not turning up to vote in the scorching summer. Second, a revolt in constituencies against recent entrants and defectors. And third, the demolitation of constituencies.
Another poll published in this week’s issue of The Week magazine says it’s going to be a hung assembly. The Congress is expected to win 89-97 seats, the BJP 83-91 seats, the JDs 13-21, and others 19-27. The survey was conducted in 110 constituencies among 5,481 respondents.
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: Is the Congress doing well by default in Karnataka, and has the BJP ’s stock sunk deeper than the party will acknowledge?
Close on the heels of the CNN-IBN-Deccan Heraldpre-poll survey that gave a slim majority to the Congress in the State, an opinion poll conducted for rival media organisations in Bangalore is said to have arrived at a similar podium finish: Congress first, BJP second, JDS third.
Significantly, the media houses for which the new poll has been conducted are closer to the BJP and JDS than to the Congress. The fieldwork for the poll using random sampling was done last weekend. The sample size was smaller than that used by CSDS for the CNN-IBN-DH survey.
The CNN-IBN-DH survey gave the Congress 114 seats, the BJP 60, and the JDS 37 (against the 2004 tally of 65, 79 and 58). The latest poll, which will be published early next week, doesn’t predict a cakewalk for the Congress, but it does suggest that the party will end up with more seats than the BJP for that all-important crown of the coalition era: “single largest party”.
“Our reading is that the Congress will end up with around 90 seats. That’s nearly 25 short of the majority, but it will leave them well-placed to dictate terms in an alliance,” a source close to the pollsters revealed.
In Bangalore, which goes to the hustings in the first phase, and where the poll dynamics have undergone a sea-change due to the redrawing of the constituencies, the new poll predicts a sweep for the Congress.
Of the 28 seats up for grabs in the capital, the new poll suggests that the Congress could walk away with as many as 16 in its kitty; 18 if it gets lucky. The BJP is expected to end up with between nine and seven seats, and the JDS three seats.
Of the 12 seats that formed Bangalore in the 2004 elections, Congress had eight, BJP three, and JDS one.
“The poll suggests that the Congress is not only holding its own in Bangalore despite the delimitation exercise, but that it seems to have established an almost 10 per cent gap with the BJP in terms of vote-share,” the source revealed.
“In some ways, holding the elections after the delimitation exercise seems to have worked for the Congress, at least in Bangalore. And it seems to be feeding off a massive 9% swing against the JDS in Bangalore.”
In the Vokkaliga-dominated Old Mysore area (89 seats), which votes in the first phase along with Bangalore, pollsters say the BJP is holding its own and will get around 20 seats. But the Congress is benefitting from a 6% swing against the JDS and could get around 40-45 seats.
An internal Congress poll, done before the candidates were announced by the Centre for Media Studies, had predicted a neck-and-neck race between the Congress and BJP, but the CNN-IBN-DH poll and the new poll seem to indicate that the ground has shifted somewhat.
It could shift again, of course, but will it be enough to install the BJP in power?
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: We can all quibble over the credibility of the CNN-IBN-Deccan Heraldpre-poll survey depending on which electoral barstool we are sitting on till result day. But one of its most striking features is a small but startling insight it gives into the mind of the Karnataka voter.
The CSDS pollsters doing the fieldwork for the survey, read out this passage to respondents:
“I am going to read out a few issues which are likely to influence the voting decisions of voters in Karnataka. In deciding who to vote for, which of the following issues is likely to influence your voting decision the most?“
Out of every 100 respondents, 38 of them said the lack of basic amenities and infrastructure would influence their voting decision; 21 of them said the condition of farmers; 11 of them said the stability of the government would influence their voting decision.
Just 8 out of every 100 respondents said corruption would influence their voting decision. In other words, 92 out of every 100 people indicated that corruption wouldn’t didn’t indicate that corruption would influence their voting decision.
This, in a State which has been exposed to mind-numbing images of sleaze and graft over the last decade, so much as to be called the “Bihar of the South.”
Chief ministers and their families (and sons-in-law and girlfriends) buying up property worth tens of crores. Ministers counting notes on live television. Ministers treating portfolios like their family fief, legislators building educational and shopping complexes, apartments and hotels. Mine owners hopping around in helicopters. Lok Ayukta unearthing crores worth “disproportionate” assets from officers and clerks.
Etcetera.
Why, in a relatively poor State that has seen such a torrent of corruption, has corruption ceased to be an important issue for the voter when he stands in front of the electronic voting machine? Why is the voter not bothered about the personal aggrandisement, at his cost, of those whom he elects?
Have we become desensitised to corruption with so much of it all around us? Has corruption become a way of life, a part of our lives? Are we not bothered because we are just concerned about “getting our work done”? Have we started accepting corruption as a necessary evil, something which won’t go away come what may?
Have we somehow factored it into our lives for all time to come?
Ravi Krishna Reddy, the NRI techie standing from Jayanagar, has sent out the following promise:
“If elected, I will not buy any property during my tenure. I will also not run any other profit making business. I will meet my and my family’s expenses from my salary as a legislator and my wife’s salary.”
Is such an open declaration of intent of integrity something we, as voters, don’t like or don’t trust? For all our protestations, do we see vicariously power-politics as an short-cut to quick money? Do we want our leaders to make it big, make it rich, and live in style? And if he or she is of our caste, community, religion, language, the better?
Are we very forgiving or very foolish?
Are we caught in a feudal trap, where we want our leaders to be like rulers?
Or, are we all hopelessly corrupt in our own little ways, which is why we are so subliminally sympathetic of those who practice it so openly, so brazenly, so unapologetically?
Is that why the words “sketch” and “deal” have become such an integral part of Kannada popular culture?
The publication of the first pre-poll survey by CNN-IBN and Deccan Herald has set the cat among the pigeons and stirred the hornets’ net. Those who find the findings to their liking (Congress supporters) are understandably delighted; those who do not (BJP and JDS supporters) are frothing at the mouth and finding fault with the sample size, methodology, and of course the previous record and credibility of the pollsters (CSDS) and the channel. If the findings were the other way round, the reaction would be the exact opposite.
Questions: Should the Election Commission, which has introduced ‘n+1′ number of measures to prevent voters from being swayed, allow such pre-poll surveys or should they be banned? Are such surveys credible exercises in gauging public opinion or they have become a device at the hands of a corporatised media to do their masters’ (and puppeteers’) bidding? Is a pre-poll survey an expression of our freedom of speech? Or have they become “an election before an election”—an attempt “to manipulate public opinion in accordance with the interests of the sponsors“? On the other hand, should a voter be exposed to all manner of views before she makes up her mind? Will such surveys and polls prevent fractured mandates?
S. Prashantha in today’s Deccan Herald has a touching story of three sisters from Shimoga—A.T. Asha, A.T. Ambika, and A.T. Anitha—who have pledged their eyes. What’s new? Well, what if we told you that the three sisters are blind by birth due to an optic nerve defect?
ANANTH SHENOY forwards a self-explanatory report from Deccan Herald that opens up some evergreen questions: Is Karnataka too big for its own good? Are its politicians and administrators incapable of keeping every part of the State happy? Is it time to split the State a la Uttar Pradesh if they can’t get their act right, if they can’t keep everybody, everywhere happy and wanted? Or is the alienation of different parts and peoples of the State real or is it all in the mind?
Mangalore, April 22: The demand for Tulu statehood is still alive, said Kannada Sahitya Parishat former president Harikrishna Punaroor. Speaking after flagging off the Tulu Ther here on Saturday, he said people’s representatives and government had done injustice to Tulu Nadu. Tuluvas should be united to rectify these injustice meted against them.
He said Tuluvas are not opposed to Kannada. But to fight against injustice meted on Tulu, people of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kasargod districts should unite. With the entry of mega industries, the water and the land is getting polluted in the coastal district. This also has an impact on Tulunadu culture, daivasthana and religious tradition.
The temporarily-suspended row between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the Hogenakal drinking water project has been remarkable for the almost complete lack of nuance and expertise in the articulation of the dispute. The key players on both sides — politicians, bureaucrats, engineers, lawyers, journalists — have been happy to let a complex legal issue be thrashed out at an emotional level on the streets.
Aside from the existence of a decade-old No Objection Certificate, there has been little or no effort to dig deep and explain the genesis of the row; how it suddenly erupted at this point in time; what the legal position is; what could be the way out, etc. The intellectual darkness proved to be fertile ground for language chauvinists and film parochialists on both side to whip up passions.
One exception has been the former Karnataka irrigation minister and former member of Parliament, H.N. Nanje Gowda, who gave a long interview to S.R. Aradhya of Udaya TV (above) and followed it up with comments to N. Niranjan Nikam of Deccan Herald. Gowda may not be the last word on the subject, but still his effort to explicate the controversy, as is, in a superheated atmosphere is unexceptionable.
The main points Gowda makes are:
# The Hogenakal row is not about water, it is about land. If it is just about drinking water, then let me state categorically that there is no problem at all. After all, it is just 1.46 tmc ft of water that Tamil Nadu is seeking for Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts. To draw this water, no dam is required to be built. All it requires is just a jackwell.
# There are four dimensions to Hogenakal. They are drinking water needs, irrigation needs, power project, and the holiday resort. As far as I can see, the real bone of contention is the resort. Both States claim that the 500-600 acre island, on which the Tamil Nadu tourism department is trying to build a resort, belongs to them.
# Hogenakal was part of Coimbatore district till 1956 when it was handed over to Karnataka. The Cauvery river forms the border between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for about 64 km. This is called the “common reach”. Hogenkal is at the 40th km. By international convention, if a river lies between two states or countries, then the centre point of the river forms the border. The island where TN wants to build a resort lies in the middle at Hogenakal but TN has not allowed a survey to be held to determine which State the island belongs to.
# The Union Government, way back in 1998, had proposed construction of four hydel projects, viz Shivanasamudram, Mekedatu, Rasimanal and Hogenakal. Karnataka agreed to the sharing of power generated by Rasimanal and Hogenakal which are situated in the common reach of the river Cauvery. However, Karnataka objected to the sharing of power generated by Shivanasamudram and Mekedatu projects on the ground that these projects fall entirely within the territory of Karnataka.
# We have to see is what the project report says. We also do not know whether they have submitted any project report to the Centre or not. Similarly I am not sure if the Karnataka government also has submitted any project report to Government of India or not…. If there is apprehension that Tamil Nadu in the guise of taking up drinking water project will construct a dam, which will result in submersion of the area, then we can approach the Centre at any time.
# The reasons for the current situation are the lack of transparency on the part of governor of Karnataka, Rameshwar Thakur, and the irresponsible, provocative and unwarranted statements of chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi. I wrote two letters to the governor urging him to have consultations with various parties on the irrigation projects but there has not even been an acknowledgement.
# If Karunanidhi is whipping up the Hogenakal issue ten years after the no-objection certificate was obtained, as a member of UPA, he probably has a hunch that the parliament will be dissolved, and maybe wants to hold assembly elections in Tamil Nadu simultaneously.
A two-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court, comprising chief justice Cyriac Joseph and justice Ravi Malimath, has declined to intervene in a public interest litigation filed by a councillor from Chamarajangar and three others. The petitioners had sought a writ of mandamus for the completion of the 2005 joint survey for the demarcation of boundaries in the Hogenakal region.Chief justice Joseph said:
“They (the Karnataka government authorities) are sleeping over it. You have to wake them up first. It is not our duty to wake them up.
“This is a time to show statesmanship not brinkmanship.
“I agree the elections are near but, you are adding oil to fire, may be for cheap publicity. Today 10 buses will be burnt in Karnataka and tomorrow 11 will be burnt in TN, then 11 here and 12 there. Tamil channels are banned here, they banned Kannada channels. This is not a competition.”
“Politicians or citizens have to show restraint and feel like one nation, not inimical to each other. We expect responsible authorities to uphold the sense of oneness. If we admit the PIL here, somebody there will move the Madras High Court and it will be admitted.”
After nonchalantly watching, when not silently applauding, the audacious assault on the very soul of Kannada, Kannadiga and Karnataka, the mainstream media seems to be waking up to the pregnant possibilities of parochialism.
Deccan Herald has an editorial today titled “Means of Agitation”:
“From the Gokak movement, which put up a collective fight to protect Kannada language, to the periodic struggles to gain primacy for Kannada in administration and other areas, the various pro-Kannada organisations and their protagonists had always made their point without resorting to violence. The current reign of violence and vandalism by the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) and its self-assumed role as the protector of the state and its people are alien to Kannadigas, renowned as an accommodative, peace-loving people….
“The intolerance and parochialism that these tendencies are breeding have started with language as a tool. We are all proud of our language, but one should also practise tolerance. Let us not forget that Kannada literature has the highest number of Jnanapith awardees which only goes to show that Kannada land, language and culture are safe, robust and well respected. Responsible, pro-Kannada bodies must show the way of peaceful agitation against any perceived injustice. And violence in any form which would only bring a bad name to the State and its people should be avoided. It cannot help and promote their cause in any way.”
“Under the Third Schedule of the Constitution, a part of the oath of office of secrecy a Union Cabinet rank minister takes while being sworn-in reads thus: “I will do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will“.
“In the course of his visit to Karnataka a few days back, railway minister Lalu Prasad seemed to have wittingly or otherwise, violated this solemn pledge through the words he spoke.
“Not even the gravest of provocations can justify calling any group of people, whether on caste, religion or linguistic lines, “dirty people”…. It is debatable whether Lalu would have found it comfortable to go to the streets of Bombay to defend the poor and hapless north Indians. But he had no qualms about taking on Kannadigas who are normally docile people.”
An obnoxious feature of the competitive chauvinism on either side of the border is the naked contempt for public and private property; the advertised inability of the “local” police in preventing it; and the silent applause of the so-called intelligentsia in both States to the thigh-slapping parochialism that is assuming pandemic proportions.
The fire-spitting soldiers of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena believe the task of “reconstruction” of that great State can only begin by lightening the purse of poor taxi drivers. And the brave protectors of Karnataka feel it is their birthright to vent their linguistic, intellectual and other frustrations by targetting railway property.
P. Mahmud, easily one of India’s finest cartoonists, captures the double disgrace for posterity on the front page of Praja Vani today. And in a letter to the editor of The Hindu, a real soldier who carried real guns and real revolvers to fight real enemies—not stones, bricks and chains to fight imagined enemies—puts his name where his mouth is.
As one who served in the Indian armed forces for close to a quarter of a century, imbibed patriotism all the time, and saw coffins of brave soldiers, I was indeed saddened to see visuals of MNS activists beating up poor taxi drivers and destroying property of the poor migrants. If Raj Thackeray’s supporters are really brave, they could have joined the armed forces and used their energy to fight the enemies of the country. I hope the MNS leader watched the President, a Maharashtrian, presenting gallantry awards on Republic Day to the widows of the brave soldiers who never returned home. I request him not to do anything more to divide this country on the basis of caste, religion or region.
Wg. Cdr. Premchandran (retd.), Palakkad
***
Meanwhile, C. Balachandran of the Indian Institute of Geographical Studies, writes in Deccan Herald:
Exactly what do those verbs–”save”, “protect”, “preserve”–mean? Conduct all transactions and write technical treatises in Kannada? How many “saviours” of Kannada take the trouble to learn the differences among madya/madhya, molé/moLé, malé/maLé, etc.?
I cringe when I see them shout into TV cameras in appalling Kannada.
In the Kannada mass media, not a single artiste seems to be able to go through an interview with even one complete, coherent sentence in Kannada. The crucial bits are all in English. The same with interviewers, anchors of TV and radio shows. Kannada filmdom has to have English subtitles to every movie title; none of the promotional interviews are in Kannada, they are all in Kanglish. Even the titles for our stars are in English.
“He once organised a scavengers’ (night soil collectors’) union, but when they struck for higher wages while he was still vice chairman of the municipality, he refused their demands because the town committee lacked funds. The strikers charged he was unsympathetic because he had never carried a pan of night soil on his head.
“‘Imagine our plight during the monsoon,’ they pleaded.
“They challenged him to do the job and then reconsider. Baba Amte accepted the challenge and was assigned 40 latrines. Daily he collected the steel pans of excrement from the backs of houses and carried them on his head to the disposal sites. It was revolting and sickening labour and affected him profoundly, deepening his regard for, and commitment to, these outcasts. The scavengers received their raise.”
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: Every employee loves getting an award, especially if it is in recognition of outstanding work or meritorious contributions to the organisation. And if the award happens to be a “Chairman’s Award”, the importance of the recognition is worth its weight in gold.
But in The New Indian Express, which touts itself as the “fastest growing company” despite circulation numbers, advertising revenues, and staff attrition rates suggesting the opposite story, one thing that employees dread is, yes, the “Chairman’s Award” that comes from the office of Manoj Kumar Sonthalia.
Reason: those who have received the award have either been asked to unceremoniously leave or have wisely left on their own, all within a year after receiving the award.
The roll-call of recent winners includes editors like P.S. Sundaram, Kamlendra Kanwar, Madhavan Kutty and R. Shankar; senior journalists like K.R. Balasubramanyam and P. Venugopal; news editors like Ashok Behra; chief sub-editors like Bharti Nath; and many non-journalists like general manager (product marketing) Venugopal andassistant GM (space marketing) Joshua Rajaratnam.
Look at the pay-roll today, and not one of these chairman’s awardees is with the Express.
The latest award-winner to leave thecitadelis P.Venugopal, an old-hand who had served the group since the days of Ramnath Goenka; for 29 years to be precise. Venugopal, who was chief of the Kerala bureau for many years and even once held a non-journalistic job as manager of a centre when it was in crisis, moved to the Bangalore edition of the Express as assistant editor, two years ago.
Like Shankar and Kutty and Balu, Venu ignored attractive offers from rival newspaper groups at the peak of his career, seeing Express, not as an employer, but as a cause.
One evening, last month, he was told that he had to resign and move over to Madras. But, in a sign of the new culture that has gripped most media houses, the transfer call did not come from the captain of the ship, the editor, but from the general manager of the Bangalore centre, who has successfully evaded his boss’s award, presumably acting on instruction.
Instead of acceding, Venugopal decided to quit. But, before that, he wrote a letter to group’s editor-in-chief Aditya Sinha, with a copy to the chairman. It is a telling account of how light after light is being switched off in the illustrious Express Group. Read on for a glimpse of how a great institution that was once the first destination for every aspiring journalist, is coming apart as the suits and smart-alecks run amuck.
Dear Aditya
When you transferred me to Madras by a one-line email message to GM, Bangalore, on January 22, without ever mentioning or discussing the proposal with me, it was quite clear to me that your intention was to get rid of me. Still, I was initially inclined to oblige as I felt that I was, after all, serving an organisation, not an individual. But on second thoughts, I felt that my moving to Madras would be a blunder, given the attractive opportunities beckoning me in Bangalore.
Ever since you took over as editor-in-chief, you have been unceremoniously driving out many experienced, and once indispensable, hands in a similar fashion, by misusing the provisions in the contract appointment rules.
In the process, you have brought immense disgrace to the Express which used to cherish certain human values. By sacking and shabbily treating people who have given their life to the organisation, you have done incalculable damage to the institutional image, to the extent that only monkeys, and none with professional self-esteem or calibre, would ever like to work for the Express (you will realise it in full measure in the coming months).
It goes to your (dis)credit that you are the first editor to inject into the Express blood linguistic prejudices. You have been systematically targeting Malayalees in Bangalore, contemptuously calling them “Mallus” at their face. (My culture and breeding don’t allow me to tell you by what epithet people from the most criminalized state in India are known outside.)
You have set many families in turmoil by throwing out their sole bread-winners in the most critical phase of their lives, for no fault of theirs. Remember, they were the people who kept the Express afloat in times of serious crises, at great personal sacrifice. It doesn’t need an astrologer to foretell that the mighty curse you have earned from such people will recoil on you and your family, with devastating results.
I can understand if your intolerance towards the old hands in the Express has brought about any qualitative improvement in the paper. Except increasing the graphic elements on page 1 of the Madras edition (that too grossly out of proportion at times), in what way has the Express improved in the past one year under your stewardship? (Is one year too short a period to test the readers’ patience in these competitive times?)
On the contrary, it has lost many of its traditional strengths. The edit page has lost its edge and readability. It was left to Jayalalithaa to describe your editorials as “most irresponsible, immature and mischievous”. The quality of coverage has plummeted. Has any southern centre produced a single story that stands out in the past one year? City Express has lost its lustre and at best pampers only the sensuous instincts. In sum, Express is reduced to being the most unreadable stuff among its peers.
Less said the better about the plight in which you have landed the Bangalore centre. The initial impression given by the man hand-picked by you to lead Bangalore is that he is a perfect match for you in your march towards ruining the institution. Having to sit in a “smoke chamber” for the evening editorial meeting, with the DRE doing more smoking than talking, with his AC on and a window open, was a new experience for me. Going by the recent dangerous drift in the affairs of the organisation, I get the feeling that destiny has brought you to preside over the liquidation of the Express.
As you steer the ship that harboured me for 29 years, into the abyss, I can but pray: God save the Express.
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