The Fearless Extortionists

Truth! One used to say “Experience truth first” and the other used to say “Get paid for telling the truth”, and still probably does. Yes indeed, that’s that tag team of NDTV and Tehelka. NDTV, of course, has dumped that tag line of experiencing truth and I really don’t know what Tehelka’s latest tag line is. But they were both together at a recent event. The ‘Tehelka Thinkfest’ in Goa (November 4-6). It is somewhat like the Jaipur Literary festival except that in this event people were supposed to THINK!

The extinct tagline!

Let’s give a thought to Tehelka first. This is a tabloid, much like the extinct News of the World (NOTW) with all the masala minus the tits. Its greatest accomplishment? The sting operation it carried out on army personnel and politicians exposing corruption through use of prostitutes and money. In any other mature democracy Tarun Tejpal and his actors would be in jail for invasion of privacy, secretly filming and recording people and maybe even entrapment. Since then they have also called themselves ‘free and fearless’! That was during the NDA regime around the year 2001. Following that sting operation Tehelka faced govt ire and a string of legal cases that nearly sunk it. It took an election in 2004 for the Congress to come to power and a letter from the UPA head Sonia Gandhi to rehabilitate this tabloid.

Yes, it was a letter from Sonia Gandhi that may have resurrected this fearless tabloid that speaks the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Well, as long as it is about others mostly and sometimes you do have to take their truths with generous buckets of salt. Recently,  allegations about Tehelka’s Tarun Tejpal acquiring a property in Goa has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Never mind that! Haven’t we heard similar stories about Prannoy Roy and his properties in Goa? There you go, again something that Tehelka and NDTV share in common. But what should concern us how Tehelka arm twists even a Chief Minister of a state to fund its THINKfest! Here’s an excerpt from a report in the Deccan Herald which makes horrible reading:

After several preliminaries and high-power calls—some of them from Sonia Gandhi’s political adviser Ahmed Patel —''Tehelka'' publisher and chief operating officer Neena Tejpal met Chief Minister Digambar Kamat in Goa weeks ahead of ''Think 2011'', the magazine’s ‘festival of ideas’ that was held here from November 4 to 6……..

He denied there had been pressure from Delhi for him to support the festival,  which has been shadowed by a controversy, or that a deal had been struck for “Tehelka” to hold off an expose on illegal mining in Goa. “No, no, that’s not true at all,” he said……

                                     

Neena Tejpal, sister of “Tehelka” editor Tarun Tejpal, was business-like and downright arrogant with the Goa chief minister, leaving his aides quite stunned. “If Tarun was here, he would have asked for Rs 1.5 crore. How much are you willing to give?” she asked Kamat quite bluntly, a government source told Deccan Herald. The source expressed shock at Neena’s tone and tenor, considering she was talking to the chief minister of a state. An embarrassed Kamat asked his aides to see which departments could be tapped for funding the fest and the chief secretary finally came up with a figure of Rs 50 lakh for the magazine’s event.

“Tehelka”, which prides itself for its investigative and public interest journalism, has been accused by theatre personality Hartman De Souza of burying a report on mining in Goa by its former correspondent Raman Kirpal because of the negotiations with the Goa government on “Thinkfest”. Tejpal has strongly denied the charges. But a government aide said after the meeting with Neena Tejpal there was a strong buzz in the secretariat that Kamat was keen to oblige the “Tehelka” people because they have some “explosive material” on him.

Tejpal is on record stating that the reporter, Raman Kirpal, was actually fired for ‘non-performance”. Maybe Kirpal himself was expected to negotiate with the Goa CM on funding of the Thinkfest with his unpublished report and didn’t get anywhere. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain the firing of a reporter who seemed to have an explosive report on the mining scam in Goa.  So far there is also no news of any response from Tejpal on the Deccan Herald report. Couple of years ago Tehelka also published an article about the 26/11 attacks by one Raveena Hansa which supported conspiracy theories similar to the ones that Digvijay Singh supported with the book “26/11 An RSS Conspiracy” by Aziz Burney. In that case, Tehelka pulled that article from their site and claimed never to have carried it. That’s as truthful and as fearless as a tabloid can get. So just like the shady undertakings of the NOTW the fearless Tehelka is now up to dirty tricks that characterises much of our media outlets. It is surprising that Deccan Herald stopped short of calling Tehelka’s dirty tricks outright ‘blackmail’.

The participants at the Thinkfest may or may not be aware of the shady dealings behind the event and its funding. However, it’s always good to have a TV channel as a media partner for such an event. And who better for such a partnership than NDTV.  Amazingly, if it was indeed a Thinkfest I cannot see any sense why rest of the electronic media needs to be excluded unless, of course, you need any more convincing that the best thinksters or thinktankers come from the stable of NDTV. So you had Barkha Dutt, the queen of telly trolls, conducting interviews, debates and what not.

Why NDTV? That has something to do with history. Way back in 1998 the CBI had filed a case against Prannoy Roy for defrauding Doordarshan to the tune of 5 Crores. It is not clear till today what exactly happened to that case and how it got buried. Never mind that. One thing is pretty clear that there is a way to make merry and have your thinkfests and parties at the cost of govt funds. Are we expecting media that owes its existence and activities to the funds of govt. to be really reporting the truth? Will they be fair and fearless? Fat chance!

Fact is, the media has moved on from being as corrupt as the govt. to organised racketeering. Time will tell whether Tehelka will respond to the report by Deccan Herald but so far there has only been silence from the free, fair and fearless one. This one has come out in the open. Should you plan to be a journalist you might even want to read the Dummy’s guide to extortion. One will never know how many fearless extortionists in the media are out there.

Roots of The Mining Disaster

A GoM meeting is scheduled tomorrow on the issue of the ‘paid news’ syndrome. About time too. The group includes P Chidambaram, Ambika Soni, Sharad Pawar and Kapil Sibal who had faced public wrath just days ago during the Anna movement.

An excerpt from the Indian Express “..An amendment in the Press Council Act to bring electronic media under its purview and make its recommendations binding…At present, TV channels self-regulate themselves through a loose federation of News Broadcasters Association. The GoM’s brief is to study the PCI report and suggest comprehensive institutional mechanism to check the corruption in media…. It also sought full empowerment to adjudicate the complaints of “paid news” and give final judgment in the matter. “A proposal to amend Section 15(4) of the Press Council Act, 1978, to make the directions of the Council binding has been pending for a long time..”

The interesting part is much of the TV news media has either been a strong lobbyist for the Congress or covered up their misdeeds through spin and deception. The extra-ordinary hit job that the some channels have done and continue to do on Narendra Modi is a job that the Congress would be very proud of. Yet a public movement forced the TV media to stay with people’s anger on corruption and that has obviously annoyed Congressmen no end. The latest mining scam disaster is one such serious issue that has been either ignored or covered up by the media for the Congress. And the cover-up almost looks like a major conspiracy. With the arrest of the Reddy brothers the target is still the BJP in the media but there is something even more sinister. The arrests are related to illegal mining not in Karnataka but in Andhra Pradesh. (Some references here are based on feed by @KiranKS on Twitter. His tweets made me search for the roots of the disaster.)

Usually when a new CM takes office the media writes a detailed bio of the person. So is true for Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy (YSR), the late CM of AP who twice won elections to the CM’s office. Here is a link you might like to try to read up YSR’s bio: www.ndtv.com/news/india/profile_dr_y_rajasekhara_reddy.php . Don’t blame me if you came with an error page. That bio has disappeared. Truth is, the mainstream media glorified the man as a messiah so much that nobody really looked into history. I have only used the NDTV page as an example but they may not be the only ones whose pages on YSR have suddenly disappeared. You may find that in a lot of other sites.

Here’s a prelude: (Written by K. Balagopal in 2004 when YSR first became CM of AP) This is a bio you won't find in the MSM:

Raja Reddy established his credentials as a man to fear by an incident that people still talk of, nearly 50 years later. The town of Pulivendula has a sizable colony of Erukalas, a scheduled tribe, some of whom were known for their unruly ways. They were despised but feared by the higher castes, though it is rumoured that D N Reddy was not above using their crimes for his ends. One day one of them, Oosanna, tried to steal the ornaments worn by a woman of the reddy caste in the bazaar. When the woman struggled, that man cleverly exclaimed that she was his wife and was being disobedient. By the time people realised he was telling a lie, he had slipped away. Later in the day, Raja Reddy reportedly caught hold of Oosanna, dragged him to a public place, poured kerosene on him and burnt him alive. This incident made Raja Reddy a feared man, and people became willing to gather behind him in his conflicts with established leaders. By and by he established immense dominance in the area.

But he lacked money of the kind that would sustain his further rise in politics. This problem was resolved by a combination of chance and brutality just about the time that YSR entered politics. Cuddapah has deposits of the mineral barytes, which was once upon a time not a highly priced mineral. One of the mining leases was held by Venkatasubbaiah of the balija caste. Raja Reddy joined him as a junior partner/supervisor (it is not clear which), reportedly because Venkatasubbaiah believed he would be useful in controlling the workmen. Round about the mid-1970s, however, it was discovered that barytes has use in petroleum refining, and its price shot up. Raja Reddy wanted Venkatasubbaiah to hand over the mining lease to him and go. A prominent CPI leader and writer, Gajjela Malla Reddy, brokered a deal whereby Venkatasubbaiah would take Rs 11 lakh and leave the mining lease to Raja Reddy. Venkatasubbaiah refused, and was killed. The mining lease, passed into YSR's hands.

Raja Reddy is YSR’s father. I believe therein lies the roots of the mining disaster. The above is just an excerpt. The full article makes really chilling reading and I recommend you do read it to understand the background of the vicious YSR regime that prevailed in AP.

Some more tweets from @KiranKS (September 5)

Reddy brothers played perfect double game. Politically they backed BJP & Business-wise backed Congress. Big names will roll if they go down

If Reddy brothers were so bad, why did Congress CM YSR lobby for 1000cr loan, allocate 10000 acre land & even divert water for them in AP??

TV Media would not even report that Reddy brothers made profit in Congress ruled Andhra, BEFORE their plant began! humsurfer.com/gali-steel-fac…

Brahmani Steel’s proposed sale to the Jindals did not materialise. Brahmani is a company that received land allocation, illegitimate water supply assurance and doesn’t manufacture anything. All this under YSR’s AP. Now, there is this phenomenal financial rise of Jagan Reddy (YSR’s son) from around 9 lakhs in 2003 to thousands of crores by 2011. I don’t think the great scam that YSR ran in AP needs any further explanation. The facts of the story are brilliantly laid out by Sudhir Kumar on his blog titled ‘The great loot of Andhra Pradesh’. Reading that post would be enough education.It would be education for the MSM too.

Did the mainstream media really have no knowledge about all this? Paid news is only one problem when the overall corruption in the media is considered. If not for the media the Congress couldn’t have ruled AP the way they do. It’s not just a mining disaster for the Reddy brothers, the roots are with YSR and with the media.