Media tyranny

Tyrants? Haven't heard that word in a long time, have we? Just to jog your memory, the Merriam-Webster definitions of the word are:
1 a : an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution b : a usurper of sovereignty
2 a : a ruler who exercises absolute power oppressively or brutally b : one resembling an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power

NOW you must be wondering why we don't use this word more often these days! In the last few years the tyranny has been absolute in some countries (North Korea, Turkmenistan, China), benevolent in some and hidden in the rest......

But tyranny is not always in a political form in the so-called democracies of the world. There can be regional tyranny (US, Israel, Australia, North Korea), bureaucratic tyranny (found in most commonwealth countries), media tyranny (BBC, FOX), tax tyranny (eg. in Scandinavian countries) and, ofcourse, tyranny of terror...... (BTW tyranny and terror have different etymologies)

Media tyranny??? A few days back there was an article on the BBC website 'warning' bloggers that BBC reads all comments written about it in cyberspace...... Get the idea? The media giant is a far cry from what it used to be a couple of decades back, steadily moving away from plain honest reporting to something of putting its opinions in its articles such that it sounds like a fact. Take for example an article from today. The reporter is comparing China and India and also mentions that he has ".......spent the last eight years living in Beijing, and only four days in Delhi, so comparisons are difficult....." But that doesn't stop him from completely blasting everything he sees in India. First he stays at some shitty hotel in Delhi and then spends a few paragraphs writing about it...... serves him right. Any idiot would live in a good hotel if going to a new country if he/she has the money (And PLEASE don't say that he didn't have much dough!)........ What did he expect? Then he talks about the airport....... What has he really compared? Streets of two major cities, airports? I am sure this reporter would fall in love with Pyongyang if his reporting skills are soooo limited. Talk about objective journalism. Mark Tully was a BBC reporter, he remained objective until he fell in love with India. I wouldn't call him objective anymore (wrt India), but then he isn't with BBC anymore!

Blocked blogs and pants

Hey guys, guys, guys (which includes gals),
Hold your horses….. I know banning websites makes the Indian government look like the Chinese/North Korean/US/Saudi Arabian (etc) ones. But other than that fact we need to analyse what’s going on first before we start filing PILs (by the tons) against them.

I finally got a list of some of the banned websites from BBC (and NO, they haven’t banned the entire blogspot.com):

www.hinduunity.org
exposingtheleft.blogspot.com
pajamaeditors.blogspot.com
commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot.com
www.hinduhumanrights.org/hindufocus.html
princesskimberley.blogspot.com

I visited them all (I could coz I don’t live in India) and it seems that the banned websites fall under three main categories:

1. Completely innocent and VERY boring blogs which are trying to act as if they are doing a great favour by publicizing their conspiracy theories about the US government/other US politicos
2. Hindu extremist websites who make the KKK look likes peace-corps in comparison
3. Plain news blogs (with some mild bias)

One of the sites didn’t fall into any of the above categories: it was completely blank…… blank maybe coz they got caught with their pants down?

So? What’s actually going on? Unnamed sources of the Indian gov have been telling the media that some these sites were passing coded messages to terrorists in India.

Considering the content of these sites (except those which fall in category 2) I can’t think of any other reason these sites could have been blocked for.

While I agree that the government has to be really careful of not stepping on the right of freedom of expression, I really don’t think that “….The ban is cutting us (Indians) off from the people”!! Come on!!! Why didn’t you all file a PIL against the July 2003 ISP law that the government had passed? Coz now their move is VERY legal!

Anyways, the hullabaloo goes on…..