Editors Can Sue Narendra Modi For Mental Torture

This is a story about a couple and the wife’s cousin sister that I’ve told before but it’s worth recalling again. There is a serious obsession that many in the media are going through and it’s fiddling with the wires in their brains. So let’s read it again:

I’m not sure where I read it… but this little story is important for chronic haters… A married couple had the college going cousin sister of the wife move in with them as she starts college. Soon the small town cousin starts dressing and moving around like a regular city girl. Hubby and wife can’t stop talking about her skirts and how short they have become. Every evening hubby comes home and says “Honey, I’m home what did the girl do today”? The wife would then tell him how she changed her boyfriend again and got her nose pierced. They would gossip about the girl every evening on the dinner table and right up to bed-time. Sometimes it was the cousin’s hairstyle, her revealing tops, her boyfriends, her long phone calls, her sex life, her taste of books, blah blah. This gossiping and hateful bitching went on happily for years. The hubby and wife had nothing to discuss but the activities and behaviour of the cousin. They had nothing but contempt and disgust for her. One fine day the cousin announced she was getting married and moving out. She did! A day after the wedding when the hubby came home from work the couple had a very silent dinner and went to sleep quietly. They had absolutely nothing to discuss. The focus of all their gossip had gone and they realised they had spent all those years discussing nothing but the cousin and now had nothing to talk about. They had spent their days gossiping about the girl and now hardly knew each other or what to talk about.

When many editors in our media reach the end of their career or their lives, they will wonder why they couldn’t get out of their hateful obsession of one man. Their days, their afternoons, their nights spent bitching and gossiping and even nostalgia may only have hate-filled memories.  Narendra Modi has screwed their heads so badly they can’t last a minute, an hour or a day without gossiping about him. He has wrecked their brains and their ability to think anymore. He is mentally torturing them. I mean, see Barkha Dutt. No matter how much she trolls him he ignores her. She can no more talk about Modi with any credibility so she tries backdoor nonsense like “Amit Shah: Modi’s fatal flaw”? Sometime in the future she may even wonder if ‘Modi’s grey beard is a fatal flaw’ it’s gotten that bad for her and NDTV. Remember the bimbo who told a British MP (over Modi) she can even “question the SC”? Whenever I hear the signature tune of The Buck stops, it makes me imagine 20 thieves running and being chased by the police. Then there is the TOI group which has sworn to do hit-jobs on Modi at any and all profit. How much brain-damage NaMo has caused these editors of NDTV, CNN-IBN, TOI etc. can actually be seen by their programmes and pages. Let’s start with the Economic Times.

Okay, as the headline says the article is about some scam by former Pak PM Gilani. But by the time the editor mulls through the report it has morphed into one about Narendra Modi and Gujarat. Modi is guilty of torturing them mentally. I’m sure the text in the red box in the pic isn’t very legible but you can read the article here. Of course, ET editor woke up and deleted the page but I’m sure his Modi nightmares will continue. I’m also sure Modi will continue to torture the foolish editors in the TOI group. But small comfort for TOI they aren’t alone, the DNA editor’s nightmares are bigger. Here we go:

So this DNA article is about the summons by a New York court to Sonia Gandhi in a petition accusing her of protecting the criminals of the 1984 Sikh genocide. Once again, the mentally tortured editor tangles into the wires of his head and bitches about NaMo and that latest sting CD (red box again). Again the text in the box may not be legible. Again the editor at DNA may have deleted the page. But again, you can read the nightmare here. But as you can imagine, nobody is more tortured by NaMo than the editor at NDTV (Barkha is Group Editor I understand). So their nightmares and mental sufferings are as big as those of TOI. Take a look:

Modi is torturing NDTV and their editors so much that they can’t wake up with even proper headlines. We all understand a blooper here and there in the media. Happens all the time! But when it happens so frequently and with so many media outlets it can only be OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Or should I say PMSD (PrimeMinister Modi Stress Disorder)? A lot like PTSD. I’m surprised NDTV or TOI hasn’t asked “How can a man who mentally tortures us so much become India’s PM”? Considering the slump and losses at most media outlets they won’t even be able to afford medical treatment. That’s a pity!

Barkha’s programme I mentioned earlier (Amit Shah: Modi’s fatal flaw) was a reaction to the delightful resignation of former Gujarat DIG D.G. Vanzara. It had all the media editors jumping in delight with some new muck to hurl. The Tehelka Sisters were drooling. There are a couple who have filed a PIL in the Supreme Court. The Congress even called a Bandh in Gujarat and stoned school buses of all things. These “self-styled” editor-judges never learned that it’s better to wait a day or two for the scum to clear before dipping their toes into the water. Every time there’s a party pooper. Believe it or not, this time it wasn’t a Modi fan or a NaMo Bhakt to give them more nightmares. Of all the people, it was CBI Director Ranjit Sinha who said Vanzara’s letter has no legal value, only political value. But hey, this Sinha guy doesn’t know something that people do. The decade-long tirade and hate-campaign against Modi had nothing to do with the law. It was always political. Life goes on. Modi moves on. It’s these jokers in the media posing as editors who are having nightmares. I think the only case they can win against Modi is if they sue him for mental torture. That is precisely what Modi is doing. Mentally torturing them!  

 

Blackmail Not New To Media, Arnab

First, someone called Sten Lindstrom comes out with supposedly new revelations about the Bofors scandal. Chitra Subramaniam, who originally broke the whole story and followed it for long also surfaced after all these years to talk about it. Some in the Indian media were quick to dub Lindstrom the Swedish ‘Deep Throat’, after the famous Watergate Deep Throat (William Mark Felt). On a lighter side, they do share something in common though. The Watergate deep throat was named after a controversial porn movie titled ‘DeepThroat’ which was released in the same year as the Watergate burglary and the Swedish DeepThroat comes after the infamous Abhishek Manu Singhvi sex tapes. The remote similarity ends there. There’s just one small difference: the original DeepThroat led to a dozen or so convictions leading up to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The so-called Swedish DeepThroat is still where Bofors is – Zero convictions. Of the 64 crores of bribes in Bofors not a single rupee has been recovered, not a single conviction has happened and some of the players are dead. In contrast, by strange coincidence, another case of bribery involving Bangaru Laxman, former president of BJP, in a sting operation by Tehelka came to a conclusion. Today Bangaru was sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of Rs.1 Lakh, the same amount of bribe he has been convicted of taking.

The CBI court judge, sentencing Bangaru Laxman, said it is time to "shun" the "sab chalta hai" (It's OK, whatsoever!) attitude and courts should deal strictly with persons found guilty of corruption. With all due respects, your honour, most corruption cases don’t end up in courts, they are washed up by our govt and our media. Worse, in my belief the Bangaru Laxman case was one of a fake operation and more of ‘entrapment’ by a journal seeking ‘instant’ fame rather than genuine investigative journalism. It’s a classic case of journalism by ‘script writing’ rather than investigating actual events and wrong-doings. But that is not even the issue here.

Within hours of Laxman’s conviction our media was clamouring to equate Bofors with Bangaru. Rajdeep Sardesai, who called the 64 crores of Bofors scam “loose change” in comparison to current scams like 2G, suddenly found the 1 lakh bribe case similar to Bofors. He’s not the only one though. Arnab Goswami, who runs his own private court on TV, actually ran a debate “Bofors V Bangaru” on TimesNow on the night of Friday, April 27. The debate involved Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP), Vinod Sharma (Smirk Times), Manish Tewari (Head to Toe fame) and a couple more people. In the melee the discussion ended up in a question by Arnab to Lekhi: “Are journalists being accused of blackmailing?” (In the context of the Tehelka type spurious sting operations). Hmmm! Arnab shot that without thinking too much.

Long back I had narrated how media outlets approach corporate entities to get their share of ads that were released with a competitor. Nothing wrong with that, except that where companies were reluctant, the second-rung media threatened them with exposure of various misdeeds by the company. Not unusual considering most companies are in the practice of avoiding excise, customs or other taxes. The journals and journalists keep a dossier on the misdeeds of such companies and use it to blackmail them into running campaigns in their journals similar to the ones run in other media. This gets even better when the media outlet has juicy tidbits of the private lives of the CEOs or owners of businesses. Don’t be surprised if you even find govt officials or police officials under payroll of a media outlet. Once such officials are ‘sanitised’ they then remain obligated to leak news and confidential reports. Else!

One of the most glaring cases of journalists blackmailing a businessman comes from the house of Arnab’s own group – The Times Group. Sure, Arnab wasn’t associated with the group then but he’s seriously mistaken to imagine journalists don’t indulge in extortion and blackmailing. Here’s the interesting story:

“Such spurious news has included gushing endorsements of flop movies, fashion and lifestyle products and the promotion of hotels and restaurants that enter into a payment arrangement with the organisation. The reader has no clue that the adulatory report is nothing but a paid advertisement masquerading as objective reportage or opinion. Even while the debate over the ethics of a newspaper 'selling news' was hotting up into a regular war of words between two of the country's top-selling English dailies, journalism was dealt another stunning blow. Last week, the Mumbai police arrested Rishi Chopra of The Economic Times along with an accomplice (a former journalist with another business daily) in an alleged extortion attempt. The duo was trapped accepting a Rs 700,000 bribe which was the second installment of a Rs 2.5 million payoff to kill a report about the shenanigans of one Poonamchand Malu of Malu Financial Services. Worse, the pay-off itself had apparently been haggled down from an initial demand of Rs 10 million to Rs 2.5 million. Although corruption in the media is no longer news, the actual arrest of two scribes and the sums involved, marked a new low in this once honourable profession”. There! That’s an extract from a report by Sucheta Dalal titled “Selling news or buying silence?” in March 2003. Do read the whole article, it truly exposes pathetic journalistic practices of Arnab’s group. Have these practices ended? Let Arnab verify and confirm they have.

In the post “India’s Biggest Mafia” I had written: "Look deep into our media.You will find extortion, blackmail, murder, connections with anti-national elements, black money. Everything you can associate with a regular mafia you will find in equal measure in the media too. But since they claim to be ‘God’s own messengers’ they will never expose their own mafia". Blackmailing is just a small part of our media’s operations even if Arnab finds it amusing.

Black Money Games From The Economic Times

Lately the topic of black money is being discussed all over the place. The Opposition parties, the Government and of course, the media are full of revelations. The UPA PM, Manmohan Singh, had assured action on black money within the first hundred days of the government. You can forgive him, he was busy with those who were bent on making black money rather than exposing those who were hoarding it. And where such money is concerned can Swiss banks be far behind? Everyone seems to have an idea how much amount Indians have stocked up in Swiss banks. They even quote reports from the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) to cite the amount of black money held in their banks. That’s the funny part! I never knew banks kept a separate account for White and Black money to enable them to make such disclosures in their report. 

Well, not according to the Economic Times. Stating clearly that the black money reports of Swiss Bankers Association was a myth ET ran an article (In Sept. 2009): “No black money statistics exist: Swiss banks” The article further goes on to add, as also quote an SBA official:  

“Various political parties and other groups have been claiming that the black money stashed away in Swiss banks by Indians exceed one trillion dollars.” Seeking to demolish the "myth" over these figures being "circulated as gospel truth", a top official at the Swiss Bankers' Association told media from Basel that there were no truth at all in such statistics. "Anyone claiming to have such figures should be forced to identify their source and explain the methodology used to produce them," said the SBA's Head of International Communications, James Nason. "We take all our statistics from Swiss National Bank and statistics about 'black money' simply do not exist." 

Coming from an established journal like ET that can be relied upon, right? And the article says “various political parties and other groups have been claiming.....” ! Really? Well, who was among the first to start the crap? Here’s the ET article from October 2008 excitingly titled: “Money lying in Swiss banks may hit markets via P-notes”. If one were to ask ET how much money actually came into India through P-notes I wonder what answer they would have. But wait, that’s not all! 

The reason for various political parties and groups talking big figures of black money is the ET itself. This is what the October 2008 article under reference said:

“According to the Swiss Banking Association report of 2006-- India topped the world with $1.45 trillion deposits in Swiss banks. Other countries were Russia $470 billion, UK $390 billion, Ukraine $100 billion and China $96 billion”. 

Now you can turn the world upside down, search in all your drawers and cupboards, even raid all the A. Rajas and the Radias of the world or try googling it – but you won’t find any such report with the above statistics.  So where in the world did ET come up with the statistics and what is their source? That India topped the black-money list of the SBA 2006 report with $1.45 trillion? That’s mainstream journalism for you! And then ET will tell you that various groups and political parties have been claiming that black money is stashed away in Switzerland. Pray, who is their source of information? If the Times can report Aishwarya Rai appearing in a wrestling event on the Jerry Springer show (a report based on a spoof) as a true story, what’s wrong in fake statistics from spurious websites. Right? 

Mind you, this disinformation crap may not have been actually started by ET itself, but for a newspaper to use unverified statistics from spurious websites is sensationalism at its best. And because they did, there are even more websites, blogs and politicians quoting these figures with ET as their source.   

That doesn’t in anyway diminish the seriousness of the black money issue. The recent query of the Supreme Court asking the government why it wasn’t disclosing names is a welcome step. One hopes the government will act. And when it does, don’t be surprised to find quite a few media outlets and media moghuls in that list of black money hoarders.