The Emergency Herd

Since the BJP govt took over at the Centre some media folks, a vast gang rather, have hatched all kinds of conspiracies to poison public discourse. From calling PM Modi a “Hitler” to the frequent rants of “Emergency, Emergency” one can sense their frustration. Terrorism and terrorists are serious issues. Most of this gang bats for the terrorists, sympathises with them at the cost of continued deaths of our jawans and civilians. The GOI is silly in banning NDTV for 24 hours over their terror-friendly reporting at Pathankot in January this year. For a channel whose reporters have constantly breached all levels of decency and shown utter disregard for rules on reporting from conflict-zones this is hardly a punishment. This is the video that is reportedly the offender. Does it seem like a report or “educating the enemy”?

NDTV does not deserve a ban. It deserves a permanent shut-down not just for anti-national reporting but also for multiple financial frauds. The media as a whole and NDTV, in particular, has not learned any lessons from the scathing remarks by the Supreme Court over the reporting of the 26/11 attacks. It makes sorry reading and I quote:

“405. Any attempt to justify the conduct of the TV channels by citing the right to freedom of speech and expression would be totally wrong and unacceptable in such a situation. The freedom of expression, like all other freedoms under Article 19, is subject to reasonable restrictions. An action tending to violate another person’s right to life guaranteed under Article 21 or putting the national security in jeopardy can never be justified by taking the plea of freedom of speech and expression”.

Read all the observations of the SC here. Predictably, the clueless herd of predominantly anti-Modi gang in the media started off with their “Emergency” nonsense:

Those who are unaware of what really transpired during IndiraG’s Emergency can get a basic guide at this website. It was a period when unelected people like Sanjay Gandhi ruled the roost and destroyed every democratic institution. To compare any situation in India to that period would only have to be the 10 years of corrupt UPA. This same media did not bat an eyelid when an anti-people law like 66A was passed and had to be finally struck down by the SC. This herd will lecture everyone that FoE comes with reasonable restrictions but those will not apply to them. They are a law unto themselves. Take this guy for instance. Shekhar Gupta is a Congi bootlicker and that is no secret and he is quickly off the mark with another “Emergency” rant:

Who is “we” in the tweet? The newspaper that SG worked for stood up to IndiraG’s Emergency. SG is the one who really crawled at the door of the Congress when nobody asked him to. Take a casual look at the assets of some of this media herd built during the 10 years of UPA and you will know who are the crawlers. I call them “Lutyens Crawlers”. Here are summarised excerpts from a Blog site that has listed 18 factoids about SG from an article that appeared in the Caravan:

# After interviewing over 50 people, the reporter Krishn Kaushik writes that “detractors of the ‘Shekhar Gupta phenomenon’ contended that Gupta’s wealth compromised the “Journalism of Courage” he promoted at the Indian Express.

# When an Indian Express report on the alleged violations in the acqusition of land for Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani‘s Antilla tower was to appear in the Bombay edition, he called resident editor Samar Halarnkar “from a train in Italy” although in fairness, he did not block the story.

# Krishn Kaushik writes that at least half-a-dozen current and former members of the Express news team gave the reporter “specific instances” of stories being killed, allegedly without discussion with those reporting them—stories that went against a top industrialist, a cabinet minister, a real-estate group.

# Former Union home and finance minister P. Chidambaram was the ‘holy cow’ in the Express newsroom. “You could not criticise him.” The Express staff “sort of had the feeling that the Ambanis were untouchable.”

# Around the time Shekhar Gupta became CEO of Express, a gentleman called B.S. Raman would come to Express Towers in Bombay for a few hours every day from the nearby Reliance Industries’ office at Maker Chambers. Raman tells the reporter he was asked by his office to help Viveck Goenka‘s company.

# A Express staffer told the reporter that the C-story  “The January night Raisina Hill was spooked” had been pushed by P. Chidambaram, who was then the home minister, and Nehchal Sandhu, then the director of the intelligence bureau.

That’s the Shekhar Gupta that keeps moralising and sermonising the country on FoE and freedoms. Of course, most of his nonsensical “national interest” articles were “Doctoring and Nursing the Congress”. He was trying to nurse a scam-ridden Congress to health but never stops whining about ModiSarkar or his own imaginary crap about Emergency. When the money-flow becomes a trickle and political influence vanishes, everything seems an Emergency to the herd. And these very people hold seminars, whisper “Chop her” (When in a debate with Shazia Ilmi who called SG a “wheeler dealer”) write all the garbage in the world and then claim their voices are being stifled:

Every Congress lackey in the media is feeling a loss of relevance and political influence. Imagine, this NDTV claims being a news channel. So what in the world makes it think it has any business to file a petition with the National Green Tribunal to scuttle the Sgarmala Project of the GOI which envisages new ports along India’s coastline? Is this the business of a news channel? Only an anti-national group against the development of Indian ports can file such a petition. It had to later withdraw the petition after it was exposed as an unlawful act not mandated by its Memorandum or Articles of Association.

The GOI too needs to review its own policies and conduct with the media where terrorism and conflict zones are concerned. Time and again certain reporters hob-nob with Army guys, leak sensitive information from conflict zones and when mobile networks are cut off they provide info on even where WiFi is working. It is the cowardice and pussy-footing from keeping out “motivated” reporters and channels from conflict zones that is harmful. In fact, the only briefing should come from an authorised spokie of the Army or the govts concerned. Jawans or other commanders giving sound-bites to media from places of anti-terror operations is a sickness which ails our system:

But all this is not so much about the ban on NDTV or anything else. These campaigners for the “Sickular” parties have to build up a narrative for the upcoming elections in some states; especially UP. And given that NDTV is a rouge-channel that constantly flouts rules and guidelines what explains the fact that half the BJP ministers and senior leaders are parked at their studios all the time? ModiSarkar has also failed to develop a good system of communication with the media and people in general. And FoE is curbed for anyone at all? Here’s a Karnataka journo and media-adviser for the CM who spews vile hatred against Modi (clip from OneIndia website):

 

This is what the Congress wants - the violent death of Modi? The nonsense of MSM is mostly being dismantled by those on SM. Regular press briefings and a proper PMO spokesman is inevitable to alter public discourse. The Emergency rants of a herd of fully-depreciated journos may not mean much but it’s for the GOI to alter communication methods and not allow conflict zones to be abused by certain journos.