CNN-IBN: Divide The Nation Polls - Terrorism

CNN-IBN carried another instalment of its series of opinion polls on August 11. This one was on terrorism. In the first two instalments IBN’s partner in this hobby, The Hindu, put out the complete data through PDF files on their site. However, in the last two polls (Economy and Terrorism) I have not been able to download the data files. Try downloading the data files at The Hindu’s site here and here. I guess CNN-IBN and The Hindu expected people to be awed and go gaga over these polls instead of being analysed in-depth. So now, you only have clips from their TV show to go by which are scanty in details on the questions, the respondents and so on. One word for their tomfoolery – BUSTED!

Anyway, before I get to this latest instalment on Terror one has to understand the minds that work behind such surveys and polls. Much of it looks like a political position already taken by  the heads of the organisations involved. Now read Rajdeep Sardesai’s anguished tweet over the right wing. I don’t know if I qualify as right-wing yet but here’s what Rajdeep tweeted:

“afzal on death row for 5 years, kasab for 3, but rajiv assassins on death row for 20 years. why no right wing anger? Gnight”

August 11, around 11.30 PM

That is probably one of the most boorish tweets to have come from Rajdeep. I also think Rajdeep was completely unaware how stupid his tweet and his thoughts are. Now, here is a media dealer who keeps shouting hoarse about a lot of things on his channel and yet it didn’t occur to him that he should be the one asking the Nalini question to the UPA. Having failed in that job miserably he thinks the right wing should be making those noises. So tell us Rajdeep have you, as a media dealer, ever asked that question to MMS, PC or Sonia Gandhi? Or have you asked that question on your channel? If not, make it a point immediately that your channel would want the same fate for Nalini as Guru. Having abrogated your responsibility don’t point fingers at some vague right-wing. You should be ashamed that you didn’t actively seek justice for both Nalini and Afzal Guru and then lament that people don’t care about others on the death row. Do you care?

In case Rajdeep forgot,  it was Rajiv’s own family member, Priyanka Gandhi, who met Nalini to seek solace. In case Rajdeep forgot, the Indian right-wing didn't coin the term 'Global Jihad'. Rajdeep has found a place in many of my posts but I thought it would be a good point to remind him of what I think of Nalini. And here are excerpts from some of those posts:

The Scum Of All Spheres

What if Pakistan did hand over the remaining 49 wanted persons from that list of 50? What exactly would our government do? Afzal Guru and Nalini (Rajiv Gandhi’s assassin) are still comfortably lodged in jails.

‘Terror’s Creed..’: MorePoppycock From Rajdeep Sardesai

Killers of Rajiv Gandhi are still in jail. Ajmal Kasab continues to dance around Indian courts every week. Now that, I suppose, is resolve for you……..It is the serious ineptness of the UPA in allowing killers like Afzal Guru or the killers of Rajiv Gandhi to defy justice that spurs anger among citizens

Islamic Terror, Government &The Indian Media

So let’s understand what the 3 stooges have said. The first stooge, PM talks about resolve. Resolve is usually shown by messages or by action. There is neither any message nor any action. Afzal Guru still continues to live in some jail. Killers of Rajiv Gandhi are still in jail.

There, Rajdeep, patriotic Indians are not biased like our media to distinguish justice for terrorists. In fact, the killing of our Prime Minister is as much a war against us as the attack on our parliament. And it is polls like the ones CNN-IBN is doing that attempts to divide the nation with dubious leading questions.

That bit done, let’s get back to CNN-IBN’s dubious surveys. Behind all the silly percentages, not backed by raw data, the only conclusion that Yogendra Yadav came to was “People say terror not linked to religion”.  Frankly, that is a line any lame duck politician will give you free of charge. Why spend all the money on surveys unless it’s free funds? And really, one had to go and ask BJP and Congress workers about their perceptions on terror? That’s really cool. CNN-IBN gets guys from BJP and Congress almost every day on their show. Where’s the need for this exercise?

Historically, terrorism was born out of religion and intolerance. Now, if all the wise men and women at CNN-IBN, CSDS and The Hindu are those who have supposedly read history then they live in denial. Not so long ago there was terrorism by IRA and PIRA in Northern Ireland/UK. The objectives were political but the motive was religion. Surveys that don’t even ponder the political motives of terrorism are usually conducted by ‘useful idiots’. Islam is not just a religion but also a political doctrine. The conquest of territories, conversions, belief in supremacy over other religions are all part of the political and religious agenda. The only religious group to have any influence in the UN is the ‘Organisation of Islamic Countries’ (OIC) who collectively attempt to pass international laws on blasphemy and such religious beliefs. That our media consciously spreads untruths is now out in the open. Don’t claim it to be ‘journalism’ anymore when the only motive is money, money and more money. The best part is getting people like A. Owaisi of MIM to debate terrorism. How clever is that? Groups that are violent against writers like Taslima Nasreen. And terror has no religion?

Rajdeep’s anger at the right-wing is understandable. I think he finds them too intelligent and far too capable of expressing themselves truthfully against CNN-IBN and their close relatives at NDTV, HT and so on. His deputy editor is credited with coining the term ‘Internet Hindus’. Far from seeing it as an affront the right-wingers wear that tag proudly. Not something she would have anticipated. The politicians’ constant endeavour is to divide the nation in every possible way. They wouldn’t have succeeded but for the help of media crooks.

At the very best Yogendra Yadav’s article “People say terror has no religion” might win an essay contest in some primary school or maybe the UN. But if truth were the measure, it fails miserably. These are media-lessons on how to divide the nation.

Namo & The Ass-Licker Factory

After a round of the December 2007 Assembly elections in Gujarat here is what Praful Bidwai, a ‘prominent’ journalist wrote:

“Is the tide turning in Gujarat? A month ago, most Gujarat politicians, social scientists, activists, bureaucrats, and citizens agreed on the dead certainty of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in the Assembly election — but with a smaller margin. Today, they say, the BJP could lose — despite the Congress’s timid campaign... All exit polls after the first-phase voting in 87 constituencies (of a total of 182) forecast a vote-swing away from the BJP. NDTV forecasts a loss of 13 seats for the BJP, placing it behind the Congress. …Current estimates of the BJP’s seats tally by government agencies vary from 70 to 80 seats, way below its 2002 score of 127. Even the party’s assessment is reportedly that it’s sure to win only 63 seats; and optimistically, another 15. The BJP is clearly on a downswing in Gujarat…..”(Read the full pack of Bidwai's crap here)

You’re smarter than Praful Bidwai. Yes, you may have guessed that those exit polls came from NDTV of course. I wonder where Praful Bidwai is today. Not only did Narendra Modi come back to power, the BJP rebels were thrashed and the Congress was nearly decimated. The BJP returned to power with an even greater majority than in 2002. There must be a reason for these fake exit polls and fake articles of doom by the likes of Praful Bidwai.

Recent events in Karnataka indicate a pattern with the Congress. Losing power in a state is unpalatable for the Congress and therefore it will go any length to destabilise a state government, especially if it has the BJP. If you thought the Bharadwaj episode was just a constitutional issue, you are probably wrong. It appears to be a well-rehearsed act by the Congress to keep rattling the BJP government in Karnataka and make all efforts to destabilise it. It also helps to distract from the various misdeeds of the UPA government. Did Bharadwaj really think the centre would dismiss the state government? You can bet on his last underwear he would have never expected that.

Hate Modi and be rewarded!

Back to Gujarat elections in 2007. Following his victory both NDTV and CNN-IBN did a bio-pic on Narendra Modi. They told us about his village (Visnagar near the oil town of Mehsana), that his family and relatives got no benefits from his being CM, that he started life as tea-stall worker, and that he belonged to a ‘Ghanchi’ family, (An OBC group). Not many people in Gujarat knew if Modi was OBC or Brahmin or SC, our news channels made sure everyone knew. Not once in any of his campaign has Namo invoked caste, class or any issue of that nature. His worst statements were reserved as a response to the ‘maut ka saudagar’ rant by Sonia Gandhi. Well, I don’t really think Sonia Gandhi could have come up with that and in all likelihood someone like a Digvijay Singh would have written that speech. The Congress paid a price for it. And unable to digest the victory of Narendra Modi, media crooks like Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi went to the extent of calling Gujaratis ‘an effete people’!

Communal riots are not new in Gujarat. They are a historical and tragic fact. The riots in 1969 were one of the worst ever. Who was in charge then? In 1985, under the last real Congress Chief Minister, Madhavsinh Solanki, there were anti-reservation riots. This then turned into a communal riot. Guess how and who turned that into a communal riot? In those riots the Hindus paid a heavy price with their lives and there were whole families of Hindus that were burnt alive. At that time the most notorious gangster, Abdul Latif, was propped up by a political party. Guess which one? And what was Madhavsinh Solanki’s pet theory for elections? It was called KHAM – Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim. If you need first hand lessons on how to divide a society, just call Solanki. If you search for real reasons why the riots of 1969 and 1985 happened you will, at best, find flimsy excuses and at worst political engineering. There was no severe provocation as is the case with the 2002 riots following the Godhra disaster. Not that any of the killings can be justified and they shouldn’t. The Hindu anger wasn't built up overnight on February 27, 2002. There is a history to it.

Yet, 2002 is often referred to as genocide or pogrom. The Congress, the media and Modi’s opponents revel in such descriptions. Modi-hater Vir Sanghvi is on record calling him a “mass-murderer”. This is a term often repeated and referred to by the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt. Rajdeep even referred to the mass-murderer title at a Hindustan Times seminar where Narendra Modi was an invited speaker. Such deep hatred for an individual does not come from one’s own conscience, it is cleverly engineered. I can understand a muslim victim of the riots nurturing a deep hatred for Modi. There is no reason why the media and many others should have jumped on to that ‘engineered’ band-wagon.

Today, this hate Narendra Modi gang is not a small group, it is an Industry. The industry has new captains. One is Sanjeev Bhatt, the IPS officer, whose conscience struck after nine years of pondering. In hearings by the Nanavati commission Bhatt is now fretting and fuming over questions of his own checkered past. Will it destroy Narendra Modi? No, it will make him more popular. And, of course, the latest to join the industry is none other than Anna Hazare, who had previously complimented Modi. Here is what I wrote in ‘Sense & Senility’:

“Anna Hazare’s campaign has been called a comic revolution (Manu Joseph of Open magazine) and ‘rule of the unelected’ by many media persons. Nothing wrong with the first statement. Every revolution has a comic side to it. How else does one explain the presence of Swami Agnivesh in this campaign?  Hazare had made it clear that no politician will share the stage with him. Agnivesh was, is and will be a politician. There’s the irony. And then like most stupid politicians even after his victory Hazare goes around giving interviews to the media. The man hasn’t learnt in all of his 71 years that the media exists to destroy and poke holes into every action and word of any leader.”

Since 2001 Narendra Modi has been under a scanner, almost under a microscope. Not once has there been any mention of scams or corruption against him. The murderer tag did not work, so they will now try the corruption tag. He has proved to be ‘untouchable’! Yet, Anna Hazare now thinks his ‘corruption’ tag against Gujarat will work. A small crowd of the Congress workers and the media may cheer. But I can tell Hazare that he has now managed to further alienate Gujaratis. Given there are states like Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Delhi, AP and some more if Hazare really thinks the corruption movement has to start from Gujarat then he and the Congress are expecting to strike Gold in that state it is likely he will raise a poultry farm and end up with egg on his face. As for the likes of Swami Agnivesh and Mallika Sarabhai the less said the better.

There is the extra-constitutional body called the National Advisory Committee (NAC) chaired by none other than Sonia Gandhi. It has currently drafted a Communal Violence Bill, that will make it easier for the centre to dismiss a state government on the flimsiest of reasons for any violence. It is also a body to reward Modi haters. Teesta Setalvad, with cases pending against her and she having sought anticipatory bail twice, is a member of one the NAC committees. Harsh Mander is a member. Lately, Binayak Sen, out on bail, has been elevated to the Planning Commission probably because it was a BJP government that prosecuted him.

Media outlets like Star News, Hindustan Times and earlier India Today frequently come up with banana polls that show Rahul Gandhi as the most popular future prime minister. Will they be rewarded? Your guess is as good as mine. Read the full analysis of these opinion polls at www.sandeepweb.com.

Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Digvijay Singh, Jayanthi Natarajan, Teesta Setalvad, Anna Hazare and many such people need to learn one simple lesson. The people believe the opposite of what the media tries to hammer as truth. Nobody believes the likes of Barkha Dutt or Rajdeep Sardesai except their own team members.

Ever heard of the famous speech by Mark Antony praising Brutus after the killing of Caesar? Public reaction is usually the opposite. The more they despise Narendra Modi the more popular he becomes among his electorate. The media in its desperate bid to bring down Modi is indirectly doing him a favour. The likes of NDTV and CNN-IBN and at the start Star News created this Namo industry. It is not Narendra Modi who is falling, it is the Congress and the media that are repeatedly being proved foolish. If they really intend to bring down Modi, then they should shut up and not mention him for a long time. But knowing our crony media, that will not happen and they will continue popularising Modi. Thanks to Modi haters, the BJP recently managed to win not only all Municipal elections but they even swept all the Panchayat polls. So much for a corrupt Gujarat!

Ratan Tata had said “if you’re not in Gujarat, you’re stupid!”. Anyone that hates Gujarat or calls it a den of corruption has to be a MORON. I wonder whose ass these people lick!!

Communists Out, What Next For The Media?

The election results in Bengal have delivered a thrashing for the Left Front. Kerala ousted them with a smaller margin. The news channels have been gaga over a giant killer called Mamata Banerjee. She probably is. Was there any other option? The Congress did not have any great leader in Bengal, as it does not in many other states. The rise of state leaders in the Congress is taboo. The BJP doesn’t exist in either of the states. If the Congress does win a majority in a state it is the ‘high command’ which will conduct a lucky draw and appoint a CM. That will not be so in Bengal. Mind you, our media almost painted Mamata as a villain during the Nandigram and Shingur episodes.

The questions mostly asked in the media are about how the Left had become arrogant and about Nandigram and Shingur. About how the Left got decimated. The real question that needs asking is how the Bengalis suffered the communists for over three decades. Bengalis consider themselves artistic, intelligent or intellectuals and yet they fell for communism for such a long period. Perhaps the CPM and its gangs of cadres conducted operations that kept them suppressed all these years. The culture of tall talk in public and deception and violence on the ground is a common feature of communists.

One must bear in mind that the Congress is also a Communist party in disguise. Right from the time Jawaharlal Nehru took charge almost all the policies of the government were based on communist ideology. Modern day Indian history was also being written by communists of the JNU types. Suppressing and discrediting private entrepreneurship was a policy long followed by the Congress, which is another feature of communist ideology. If the practice in Bengal and Kerala was to marginalise the majority Hindu community and increase the Muslim population as vote banks it has been no different with the Congress either.  Even now, much of our financial policies and budgets have elements of communist ideology.

Now then, whatever the communist ideology or their misdeeds is another story. What one needs to ponder is why our media was so obsessed with the members of the Left or their spokespersons. If you look back at the two decades since the private channels explosion hardly a day passed when quite a few communist faces didn’t feature prominently on every national issue. As if Bengal was really some reflection of national agenda. The Yechuris, the Nilotpals, the Rajas, the Brindas, the Karats, the Dasguptas and many more. After the 2009 general elections one hoped the communists would be kept out of the TV having lost badly but that did not happen.

In the years prior to the TV explosion the main newspaper of the nation, Times of India was almost the champion of the communists. Of course, it helps that their head quarter was in Kolkatta for a long time. Among the TV channels NDTV has to be their greatest platform. Again, it helps that NDTVs owners are directly related to communists. So what are NDTV and CNN-IBN going to do now? Now that their heroes are buried in these elections one wonders what’s next for them. I don’t really expect NDTV to change colours too much but the other channels can surely learn a lesson in not allowing disproportionate voice to a redundant and rotting ideology.

If the TV channels haven’t found wisdom one can rejoice that the people of Bengal have finally woken up and booted out the communists. This has been done in a manner similar to the decimation of Laloo Yadav in Bihar. The darlings of our media are slowly being booted out. Do you now need more proof how out of touch with people our media is as much as most political parties are? One way or another I hope this is the death of the communist ideology and that it disappears from our nation.

Libyaberration

The protests in Libya and earlier in Egypt and Tunisia have fascinated the world. Rightly so. Ordinary people challenging dictators are always good to watch. Unlike Tunisia and Egypt, the protests in Bahrain, Yemen have turned ugly, more so in Libya. Defiant dictators unleashing the army on their own people. Then there is also a lot of drama associated with such uprisings. So can our journalists be left behind? After all, these are the champions of democracy. Aren’t they? Let’s see!

Liberation or Journalistic Aberration?

India can claim to have exported many great brains and professionals across the world. However, our journalists probably wouldn’t belong in that category. First, the ones that landed up in Egypt ended up reporting more about their own plight rather than the events there. How they were harassed by authorities, detained by police and so on. So I wonder, do we really need any reporting from clumsy Indian reporters? They do a bad job in India itself why take it out there? I have to admit, going to conflict zones does take courage and I do give them that. But beyond that it’s just comic relief.

First, it was Times Now that landed in Libya. Well, Egypt-Libya border if you like. And for the first two days last week what was it that Times Now reported? Their report consisted of one line repeated over and over again for two days: “Times Now is the only Indian channel on the Egypt-Libyan border”. Bravo! That’s the second biggest leap for mankind since the landing on the moon. I know what you’re thinking! Where’s Barkha Dutt? Well, while Kashif of Times Now was telling us how his was the only Indian channel there, our brave lady was tweeting her way right up to Libya. What followed from her could have been in a tweetathon.

No one described Barkha’s experience better than B. Raman, the former bureaucrat and strategy analyst. Here is a sample of what he wrote on his blog:

“Barkha and her NDTV team made their way through nearly 700 kms of beautiful desert made famous during the second World War by the epic tank battle at El Alamein between the allied forces commanded by Field Marshal Montgomery and the Nazi German forces commanded by FM Rommel. Barkha has over 200,000 followers in her Twitter site. I am one of them. I keep exchanging Tweets with her from time to time on current developments...... The Twitter enabled us to follow Barkha and her team for nearly seven hours of their 15-hour journey. We kept encouraging her through Tweets and E-mails and advising her and her team to take good care of themselves and not to walk into a trap. I was touched by the gesture of even some critics of Barkha in praying for the safety of the team. One of her critics tweeted her: “May not agree with her opinions on matters ....but safety is paramount ..I pray for her safety... There were so many others who prayed for their safety. I tweeted Barkha: “ U see how many well-wishers U have in the sub-continent.”..... Even people in Pakistan tweeted her “good luck.” Ms. Munizae Jahangir, a journalist, who is the proud daughter of Mrs.Asma Jahangir, the famous Pakistani human rights activist, tweeted Barkha to say that she was E-mailing to her the telephone numbers of some Pakistanis in Libya whom she could contact if she needed any assistance.”

That’s exactly what Barkha described too. 15 hours of travel, beautiful empty highways and deserts, and tweets that said she hoped the internet and other stuff worked out there in Tobruk. (If you don’t know where Tobruk is just look up her tweets)Wait! Even ‘Pakistanis’ tweeted her goodluck! Isn’t that nice? (Just as some other Pakistanis were busy killing Shahbaz Bhatti) And so at the end of these exchanges we were all better educated about the situation in Libya. Both from Times Now and from Barkha Dutt. It doesn’t end there. Not to be out-done Headlines Today rushed their own team out there. So we had a Gaurav Sawant and Co. taking us through the strife. Playfully, if I may add. That’s it! Enough is enough said CNN-IBN! So by Sunday (Mar 6) CNN-IBN announced their team was there. Why in the world does CNN-IBN need their own out there? Aren’t they a sister channel of CNN with the likes of Nic Robertson and Ben Wedeman doing the reporting there? And these guys are hardened conflict-zone reporters. Unlike our ‘studio heroes’ who landed up in Libya, you are unlikely to find Robertson or Wedeman frequently in TV studios.

Am I famous now? Isn’t that how CNN got famous overnight on January 17, 1991 by being the only channel to report live on the first Gulf war? Yes, I was somewhere in Europe that night to watch it all. So you might see a Gaurav or Barkha or Kashif hogging international channels very soon. There is a reason why American journalists are all over the place. The US has a lot at stake in many countries and regions given its political and economic influence for a long time. India simply doesn’t have any stake in any region except for our citizens living there and general trade. And if you wanted conflict zones, those are in abundance within our shores. And yes I do hope and pray our journos remain safe and out of harm’s way.

Those who run channels like Aaj Tak and India TV may hold the strong belief that most Indians are stupid, gullible morons who will buy into the ‘Bhoot-Pret’  and ‘end of the world’ stories or Amitabh Bachchan or Shahrukh Khan’s previous avatars. Make no mistake, India TV is probably the most popular channel in India. But the English channels need greater sophistication in treating their audience to stylish tom-foolery. The funny part is just as these journos got into Libya the biggest stories were breaking in India. The SC judgement on the CVC and then the DMK pull out of the UPA or "what the hell is going on..." hogged the TV channels for the last few days. And their greatest achievement might simply be one of just having gotten into Libya, without visas. Other than that there is nothing much in their coverage that is not already there on CNN or BBC or such channels. Very soon Al-Jazeera maybe in India too. Yes, that TV channel whose post box the Al-Qaeeda love so much. Will be more fun then.

I seriously wonder. Just over a year ago, there were strong anti-government protests in Iran. None of these bravehearts dared to go there and do some reporting. Does Islamic rule have anything to do with that? Does courage stop at fully Islamic countries? It’s hard to say if Libyans will truly find Liberation. But with our journos I can say with some confidence that it has been a Libyaberration!