Hariharan Iyer's Blog, page 2

Defamation Express

The defamation noticesent by Indian Express and its journalists to Open Magazine and Vinod Mehta raises one important question: Why only against Vinod Mehta and Open?
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Can one's self defense not be perceived by another as provocation?

The SIT closure report on the Gulbarga Society massacre case records in the first page that a huge mob of 20,000 Hindus had assembled near Gulbarga Society on February 28, 2002 with the intention of damaging properties, shops and houses of Muslims as well as Mosque/ Madarsa and that late Ehsan Jafri fired from his private licensed weapon in self defense causing injuries to 15 persons.

Read further my post in The Hoot....

Hindustan Times’ selective presentation

The final report of amicus curiae, Raju Ramachandran on the Gulbarga Society case was made public when the closure report of SIT was handed over to Ms. Zakia Jafri on May 7, 2012. While it was described variously as ‘setback’, ‘jolt’ for Modi, it is interesting to see how Hindustan Times misrepresented the views of amicus curiae while presenting ‘What Ramachandran Report says: Edited extracts of amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran’s observations on the findings of the SIT.’ The HT report lists the allegations one after another followed by the findings of the SIT and finally the observations of Raju Ramachandran on the same.

Read further my post in the Hoots Blog....

Selecting the President

In this era of coalition politics where the national parties do not have the requisite numbers in the collegium meant for electing the President and there is uncertainty over support from coalition partners, a new recipe is increasingly becoming popular for making the President of India- Drop a dozen names in the media; stir it with the conflicting views of the ruling alliance, the Opposition parties, and the intelligentsia; filter out the 7-8 which meet stiff resistance from all quarters; cook the remaining 4-5 in the whims of real senior leaders of parties; spice them up generously viz. he/she is apolitical, is from this/that caste, is from the hitherto unrepresented region, is this/that regional party’s favorite; finally serve the same in a platter to the ruling or the Opposition party so that it can discuss the names with ease with the alliance partners.
Why should media play this “facilitator” role? Why not allow the Congress and the BJP to talk to their allies and firm up their choices? Should the media transcend their putative limit as “commentators” to become “newsmakers”?
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