Why Arnab Quit

If you haven’t read TOI-Story I recommend you do – Part-1 and Part-2. The Jains at TOI group have admitted that they are NOT in the business of news. They are in the business of advertising and PR. They learned from Sir Richard Branson that publicity is what sells and no publicity should ever be given free. And that is how “Paid news” was partly born in India. For years now, the front page of TOI is masked with a full-page ad sheet that is stuck to the paper and most people tear out the irritating thing before reading anything they want to. Giving front page coverage for major news that measures the pulse of the nation, public figures or celebrities pays far less. So TOI’s front-page is now an advertisement page. And a newspaper in India is statutorily obligated to cover only 33% of its total space with news items.

So if you understand the philosophy of the Jains – politics, ideology, nationalism and such things are secondary to money that flows from ads, entertainment, smut and sensationalism. Seriously, TOI carries blogs by that Radio Mirchi guy Prashant Panday and other garbage writers like Sagarika Ghose or Shobha De. You get the picture. Corruption is no stranger to TOI or their reporters either. Thus, you will find fake stories like “Rambo” or the recent death of an old man due to demonetisation at a non-existent ATM of HSBC in Mumbai. Everything Arnab Goswami did was fine as long as it did not affect any of TOI’s cash-cows.

When TimesNow started off in 2005 it was more a mix of everything. More like the redundant “Illustrated weekly of India” by TOI that died some 25 years ago. Then Arnab realised that drama, theatre and decibel means a lot. He learned this from the hate-mongers at NDTV. People don’t remember that Barkha Dutt’s “We the people” and Rajdeep Sardesai’s very noisy, bickering nonsense called “The big fight” were very noisy, bitchy shows. So Arnab did what he thought it best to beat his erstwhile colleagues at their own game. He turned TimesNow into a high-decibel show but with a passion and nationalism that was uncommon with his former colleagues. He added a good dose of entertainment and humour which is in keeping with TOI’s basic business. He also treated politicians and political parties as “accused” with pompous statements like “nation wants to know”. The crowds just loved this. And soon Arnab would have a whole cricket or football team as panellists for all his debates.

The other thing that Arnab did well was Paki-bashing and his demonstrated contempt for Lutyens crawlers. Being the most watched English news channel for a long time also got him prized interviews like that with PM Modi in June this year. This too burned a lot of hearts. In October, this year news broke that Arnab had resigned from Timesnow. After 11 years! It shocked the news world and the audiences alike. His detractors must have thrown a party – especially burned hearts like Barkha, Rajdeep and others. Many reports indicated there was a problem the Jains had with Arnab’s increasing right-leaning conduct of debates and the reporting by the channel. But that is not entirely true.

Arnab has hounded Nitin Gadkari for 19 consecutive weeks over an imaginary scam and corruption that turned out to be false. He also hounded Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje over LalitGate as he called it. It compelled me to write “ArnabGate” because of the targeted hounding of these BJP members without genuine cause. ArnabGate trended at the top in India on Twitter and also worldwide. That must have upset the hashtag king that Arnab had become with his channel. Anyway, post the Uri terror attack in September there was uncontrollable anger against Pakistan in India. Pak and those “pseudo-liberals” (as Arnab called them) who were Pak stooges in India were dead meat for Arnab. And night after night for nearly a month he tore into them with all the swords and daggers at his command. The audience applauded. Arnab even got threats from terror-operators and had to be provided security by the GOI.

Arnab was also critical of Pak actors and those employing them in Bollywood for not speaking up against the terrorists and against Pakistan. In particular, Karan Johar and some of his Paki darlings in a movie were caught in the storm. Arnab and many in India (including me) demanded these Paki clowns should exit India if they do not condemn killing of our Jawans. This was a line that Arnab had crossed that would not be tolerated by Jains no matter what the cost. The kind of power Johar and his gang have over TOI should not be underestimated. And Vineet Jain let it be known too:

Why was it the end for Arnab? Because Bollywood is a BIG cash-cow for the Jains. And to antagonise that industry was very damaging. Let me explain. TOI has a certain set of Bollywood stars that it will NEVER write against. No criticism will ever be made, their worst movies will never be trashed. I am not giving you gossip. I am giving you the inside story of how TOI operates with Bollywood. Paid promotion of stars, paid promotion of movies, paid promotions on TV all adds up to a huge business that runs into hundreds of crores. Those glossy pages you see with TOI, often with Bollywood stars who also double up as product endorsers, means phenomenal money for them.

There are desk reporters in all branches of TOI who can ring up a top or low level star for an instant interview over phone to fill pages. These stars are like “empanelled stars” obligated to give interviews and TOI will always write positive stuff about them and in turn those stars will promote their movies through TOI’s media empire. And now TOI is present in all major film domains – Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai etc. I cannot put a finger to it but even a rough estimate of anywhere between 500-800 crores from Bollywood alone per year would not be a bad estimate. And no Arnab Goswami can stand in the way of that kind of money.

Other than that, TOI also has its Filmfare magazine. I don’t think the magazine sells all that much anymore but their Filmfare awards are prized by the film and acting community. The awards, the award function survives on enthusiastic participation by the film community. Without their support, it would flop. It is probable that many Bollywood hotshots would have called up Vineet Jain and complained about Arnab’s tirade against Bollywood. Maybe some even threatened consequences. And that was that. Arnab’s quitting Timesnow has nothing to do with news or his way of conducting debates or the political stands he takes. It doesn’t have anything to do with Pakistan or terrorists. It’s just simply – Bollywood and money for TOI.

The Unethical Scoundrels At TimesNow

Linda Tripp would have made a great chief editor at TimesNow or any of the TOI outlets. Linda who? Linda Tripp is famous for her involvement in the Monica Lewinsky – Bill Clinton Oval office affair. Linda was a friend and co-worker of Lewinsky and had secretly recorded telephone conversations with the latter where she had confided in Tripp about her affair at the White House. Tripp claimed she was doing this because she is a patriot. She should have been prosecuted and would have spent time in jail under her State laws but she bought immunity with Clinton’s prosecutors in exchange for the tape and was thus spared. Wiretapping and recording without the knowledge of the other person is illegal and punishable in the US. The only escape could be self-defence under certain circumstances. For many years Linda Tripp has been among the most loathed and despised woman in her country. She is seen as an epitome of betrayal of trust and friendship. We all know what or who a scoundrel is but, still, for the record:

Almost every reporter in TimesNow qualifies for the title and the description. In their quest for silly soundbites there is nothing that their reporters haven’t done. They have stalked people, poked mics into their faces and bodies, poked mics and cameras into their cars, shouted and screamed at them, refuse to take “no comment” as an answer and keep pestering beyond tolerance. They have even stalked residences of people and harassed spouses of political targets accused of something or merely for soundbites. Remember how these same scoundrels made a grand theatre of the Rohtak “Belter sisters” right into their village, home and interviews with family? All for a kick! Here’s a pic from December 11 with one of their scoundrels badgering a guy:

I don’t know the stupid reporter’s name and it doesn’t matter. Because Arnab Goswami wants to rant and scream every night like his pants were on fire, his reporters have picked up the same habit and cult. They believe others are not humans and are perhaps pigs and deserve to be treated that way. 

The guy in the TimesNow pic is supposedly Rajeshwar Singh of some Dharam Jagran Manch. The TimesNow reporter kept barking at him repeatedly on the issue of conversions even when the guy kept saying he had nothing to say. She tells him “You gave soundbites in the morning, why can’t you give me soundbites now”? What is that supposed to mean? That she has a God-given or Constitutional entitlement to soundbites? No matter what you want to accuse someone of, when the person says “no comments” a respectable reporter can push a little bit but in the end should be able to take “no” for an answer. Looks like all the TimesNow reporters (and most from other channels too) have studied journalism from the School for Scoundrels. And like Linda Tripp one of their scoundrels named Samia tries to con a Delhi police officer (over the Uber rape case) in this video (3.04 mins):

Imagine the unscrupulous rogue’s brazen deception. That’s how Arnab would word it. She calls the officer on the phone, tells her its “off record” and shamelessly plays it on the speaker phone and the TimesNow editors gladly play it too. This is why the Editors Guild of India is a bunch of shameless morons that I call a “Union of snakes”. For this blatant betrayal and unethical practice, the reporter should have been sacked and so too the studio editor who let it play. But as we have all come to learn, for the scoundrels in the media, ethics are for others. They will moralise the whole country but will behave like third-rate unethical scoundrels themselves. Is this a one-off stray case that happened accidentally? Not at all, here’s a previous one which is clearly wilfully done with a guy called Naveen Tyagi of Hindu Mahasabha in the first week of December (1 min):

Now this Tyagi guy wants to brand and ban all “item girls” as prostitutes. I have shortened the video to the relevant part to demonstrate the point but you can watch the full 5-minute video on Youtube. It is interesting how this works. First, they tell you (and have obviously told Tyagi) that this is “off camera”. In which case, why were they still recording it? Any answers? And having video-recorded that “off camera” conversation they air it claiming it is in public interest. The perfect opportunity for Arnab’s little underwear, the scoundrel called Anand Narasimhan, to go on a self-righteous rant with a hashtag #MoralMonster, when it is Timesnow anchors and reporters who are the real #MoralMonsters. Who are these people? And do all Hindus really follow the “diktats” of any Sabha or individual as these morons rant?

The rant is that Timesnow wants to show their “mindset”. You and I may not agree with what Tyagi thinks about item-girls but that is irrelevant. The fact is the conversation was off-record. Supposing you and I were talking on the phone and you were to tell me “between you and me, Arnab is having an affair”. I promise to keep it to myself and not disclose the conversation but the very next day I tweet about it, what would you say to me? How would you feel and what would you think of me?

As soon as the Timesnow scoundrels aired the “off record” video, the anchors got hold of a few women activists who condemned Tyagi, the Hindu Mahasabha and everyone on Jupiter too. Not surprisingly, there were a few idiots who told Timesnow they will carry out protests against Tyagi and his Sabha for going to SC with such an appeal (to declare item girls as prostitutes). These are the morons that Timesnow encourages as virtuous people. Tyagi has not threatened to attack, kill or carry out mass agitation against item-girls nor has posed any physical threat to them. Going to court (no matter how stupid your demand) is the most reasonable thing to do in a democracy. Why would the moron-friends of Timesnow want to protest against that? But this foolish outrage is exactly what Arnab and his stupid bimbos want to provoke. It doesn’t stop there because the agenda of these scoundrels runs deeper as the related TOI report will establish:

“Times View

The Hindu Mahasabha leader's comments on what kind of clothes women should wear and why item girls should be treated as prostitutes smacks of the medieval mindset that is exhibited by outfits like the Taliban or the Islamic State. What is alarming is that such statements are becoming increasingly frequent in India from right wing groups of all hues, some citing religion and others caste traditions as their justification for moral policing. The prime minister should be aware that at least some of these groups feel emboldened by the perception that there is now a government that is sympathetic to their viewpoint. Mr Modi has repeatedly emphasized that he wants to build a modern India that can hold its head high in the global community. Unless such groups are reined in, India's image can only take a beating, at home and abroad”.

There you go! That’s the agenda. First play a video that is meant to be off-record and shouldn’t have been played at all. Give a fake explanation that they play this in public interest when there was no public threat at all of any kind. All that Tyagi did was express an opinion and said he will approach the SC. Even if that is a “mindset” that is not agreeable Timesnow had no business to betray his confidence and fool people. But, obviously, the juice is that they want to connect it to PM Modi and claim it damages India’s image.

Surgical procedure: Play an off-record conversation where people often tend to blabber a lot. Claim it poses a serious threat to society when there is none. Concoct a political angle and agenda by somehow blaming Modi and the BJP for such instances and go on a rampage. And these are the scoundrels who moralise and sermonise the world about ethics.

Caution: Violence Ahead

(This is a Maxipost)

“On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody”. That tagline is not the introduction to ambitious, ladder-climbing college graduates. It’s the introduction to one of the most psychotic vigilantes ever put on film. We lately have some of these nobodies who want to be somebodies and they are going about it the vigilante way. Arvind Kejriwal, Somnath Bharti, Manish Sisodia, Ashish Khetan, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh etc are men most people had not heard much about till about 2-3 years ago. A couple of them being in the media may be recognisable but weren’t top of the mind for anyone.

I’m a big fan of Martin Scorsese movies (He’s often called the greatest director for good reasons) and often refer to his movies in my posts. “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster” is the opening introduction from his classic mafia true story “Goodfellas”. But the line is not just in the movie but it’s a line from Scorsese’s own life. As a youngster, Scorsese wanted to be a gangster or a priest. Fortunately for the world he became a film director. Sometime back MS explained that people are fascinated by violence and lives of these gangsters. They don’t want to be gangsters but they love the lifestyle of these scumbags. MS handles the violent nature of humans in an astonishing manner and quite graphically. People are fascinated how the goondas move around in style, break all laws, instant revenge, and wear clothes to suit their crime and all that. Naturally, our media feeds and breeds violent behaviour and criminals. I’m not joking; a long time back I wrote the post “Media loves criminals, makes crime attractive” and there is abundant evidence media thrives on violence and criminal behaviour. AK and his gang know this quite well. Politically AK is no more as relevant as before the Delhi elections, which is why the frequency of violence, ruckus and verbal outrage has gone up. Gone also is the decency from his public conduct.

Let’s see the sequence of events since AK resigned as CM. He decides to protect the Congress scams by diverting attention and attack only Narendra Modi and the BJP. The Congress is now mentioned only as a casual reference. Never mind that. He rushes to Gujarat, creates ruckus, seeks to be arrested for his theatre. His gang creates more nonsense at toll booths and drive past without paying the charges at Gandhidham. His goons spread rumours of his arrest and violence follows in Delhi. Then he lands up in Mumbai and the Congress govt organises a special local train for him. His goons go on a rampage which is more theatre for media and his AAP goons like Prashant Bhushan blame the police. He lands up at Nagpur and makes bogus claims of Modi-media nexus and issues threats to media promising to send some to jail. Clearly, the idea is to trash those channels which have carried the reports about AK’s pimping with Punya Prasoon Bajpai of AajTak. Following this his goons call another presser to occupy media and accuse Zee TV, TimesNow, and IndiaTV as “paid media”; a term that SM generally uses for most media outlets. Are the tactics clear?

Note that AK creates ruckus in Gujarat and then in Mumbai (the Sena HQ). Then he skips all other meetings in Maharashtra (a Congress state) and lands up in Nagpur. Why Nagpur? Well, doesn’t take Einstein to tell you it’s the RSS HQ and also Nitin Gadkari’s home town. So the erstwhile fake corruption-fighting superman has his action plan very clear: protect Sonia Gandhi and Congress scams from being discussed in the public domain by repeated ruckus in public places, violence by his party and outrageous statements thrown at the media almost every hour by him or any of his party members. Clever! It would take an extreme moron to even claim that any media channel has or is being friendly to Modi. Everyone knows that the media hangs on every utterance of Modi to rip him apart. Some folks like Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai have actually built their entire career abusing Modi and nothing has changed there. And who are some of AAP candidates for elections? The biggest Modi-haters like Ashutosh, Ashish Khetan, Shazia Ilmi and the like. Here’s a tweet from Anubha Bhonsle, a journalist from CNN-IBN:

Anubha speaks the absolute truth when she says journos themselves have taken away resources from what is in public interest and given more time to the thuggery of the likes of AK & Co. Some like Manisha Priya, frequent panellist on TimesNow, also says AK’s actions and utterances seem indicators for another Emergency. Maybe that is what AK and Congress want sensing they are likely to face a political thrashing although I would think that is far-fetched in this day and age. But not entirely impossible either. What Anubha doesn’t acknowledge is that her own boss at CNN-IBN has been an active participant in promoting this anarchy of AK. Both Rajdeep and Sagarika have actively encouraged AK to a point of no return. Let’s catch up on a video of Rajdeep’s speech at a media event where he claims credit for advising AK and Kiran Bedi to carry out a Tahrir Square-like agitation in Delhi. Video (2.30 mins, some subtitles added):

Wow! Rajdeep rightly inspires AK, a genius who understands media he says, to carry out a Tahrir like campaign. Err… do it in Delhi, not in Mumbai.  Nothing wrong, except for the fact that having made that grand inspirational suggestion to AK, Rajdeep wouldn’t want his own agitation-idea to fail. Why? He would naturally want and back AK to succeed in everything he undertakes because Rajdeep grandly claims the idea was his own. So even when the monster AK acted horrendously Rajdeep chose to gently defend him with devious tweets and excuses. It is natural that Rajdeep had to back “his idea” to succeed which explains both CNN-IBN’s and its sibling IBN’s extraordinary backing for AAP over the last many months, before and after the Delhi elections. AK was at interviews with Rajdeep at the drop of every topi. Not just Rajdeep but even Bajpai and Anjana Om Kashyap were pimping heavily for AK all through the last few months. Their videos are out in the public too. So, the “paid media” nonsense of AK and his goons is directed at those channels that criticise them. Timesnow has already been boycotted by AK and AAP and only a sorry excuse called Kamal Chenoy appears as an unofficial spokie for them. The sequence of violence or threats of violence backed with outrageous statements is not accidental as smooth Commie Yogendra Yadav proves:

Alright, so if Modi becomes PM India will burn he says. Question is who is going to do the burning part? My answer is clearly the AAP goons. The danger is that the violence that Yogi promises may not happen after Modi becomes PM but before and during the nine phases of elections. The AAP members have Naxal sympathisers and the Naxals too have taken a strong liking to the party. Some of the members of AAP are underground or overt Naxals. Therefore, Yogi’s warning is a clear threat of violence that is being scheduled or being planned by the AAP thugs. The media loves this. The media loves that AK and AAP bring so much violence, ruckus and outrageous nonsense to the public domain and to the streets. It’s not unique to India, it’s a universal phenomenon. “Natural Born Killers” is an Oliver Stone movie from 1994. It’s a story of a young couple who simply go around the country killing people because they love it and there’s the media chasing them making them heroes. The couple even have fans who want to be killed by them. Let’s watch a quick video (1.17 mins):

The media delights in violent crimes. Their reporters will go any length to gain TRPs from violent incidents and mob behaviour. In the movie above a media crook even goes to the extent of covering the young killers’ escape from jail LIVE. Such is media’s fascination with violence and street thuggery. The movie is fictional but don’t dismiss it as not being relevant to real life. Here’s what a report about “Natural Born Killers” says:

Is it any surprise that right from the beginning Rajdeep and his ilk wanted to make AK and his goons cult heroes? Rajdeep and Barkha may scream and tweet “we are independent” but that won’t wash anymore. The people know their lust for theatre, drama and excessive love for the theatre of AK and will condone anything he does with more coverage because it not only gets them TRPs but AK also happens to be constantly ranting against Modi which suits their political agenda too. Expect more violent events from AK and AAP. It is not going to stop. It will not stop as long as media excessively covers him and if in the unlikely event of media blacking out his violence, expect even greater violence of gigantic proportions. Why? The answer lies here:

That’s the agenda of CPI (ML) which has a great appeal for Naxals and Maoists. Their agenda is to overthrow the State by violence. Many AAP members and supporters subscribe to this agenda. This is no fairy tale. Extreme events of violence invariably start the way AAP has progressed and that too with the support of many educated celebrities. These celebrities are bimbos who cannot think deeply. It is not that they have to support Modi or Congress but I have to consider them dunderheads if they think AAP is their answer to anything except destruction. In the pic above there is a mention of one Sandeep Pandey. In case you don’t know, he is the one who lobbied for AK’s Magsaysay award and that should tell you all about the connections of AAP and violent anti-India Naxals.  

Arvind Kejriwal is no ignoramus. He is a psycho who is progressing exactly as arranged. He is hurtling towards his finale as I mentioned in “Reincarnation of AK”. There will be more violence. There were bomb blasts at Modi’s Patna rally in October 2013. There was a Naxal attack in Chattisgarh a few days back killing some 18 CRPF jawans. Expect more. If at all there is an incident which kills. There have been loud protests in the media over his latest threats to media but it is also being used by the likes of Rajdeep and Barkha to grandly claim they are being targeted by all parties so they are “independent”. Don’t buy that BS. There are still folks in the media who will back AK to the hilt and possibly even the death of Modi in some violent act. The Congress too has mildly protested the latest outrage by AK but secretly they would be rejoicing AK is creating daily ruckus to divert from real issues in this election. For once, I hope to be wrong in sounding this caution: Violence Ahead!