It has come a long way from the journalist of film kamala, based on a real story of 80s of a journalist of English daily, who buys tribe women in far off village to reveal the trading of women to film like page 3 depicting a whole lot of entirely different journalism which has emerged in the past one and half decade along with the control of industrialists and corporate over the news flow as per their interests.

                It is not as though that current form of journalism is evident only in the contemporary films. A very famous and adorable film of its time jany bhi do yaro made us witness the type of investigative journalism, which was emerged in the late seventies, ending up in a nexus between all the crooks including a journalist.

            From films like krantiveer where a freelancer, Dimple Kapadia strives to fight with pen against the evils of the society to little known film breaking news doting around the TRP driven sting operation journalism, all era of press has been captured on celluloid.

               At a time when phir bhi dil hai Hindustani presented the rivalry of two star reporters going to the extent of faking out stories as well also digging out the corruption in the political system with sting operation, TV journalism was growing gradually but was unexpected that news channels will outnumber music or entertainment channels.

kusum

 Pratiti Diddi

 The blind, blatant acceptance of all what happens is gone forever now. India seems to have finally woken up of its deep slumber. Though the boil has taken aeons to come to the brim …..it is surely spiting fire now.

 Indians are out on the streets protesting, shouting, demanding answers and action against the perpetrators. The 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack has enraged the entire nation with pain. It has scarred the nation for life. Thousands of  why’s are hovering everybody’s mind. Till when humanity will pay the price for such dasdardly acts??? Till when  will we fall prey to others vested interests? Vote bank politics, seccionist divisions…. Are they strong enough to shudder the unity factor of  our nation?

 Politicians were always busy giving definitions to terror as Islamic or hindu or what not to fulfill their parochial political aims . We on the other hand ,always saw it as something happening to someone else. As long as we were safe, we remained indifferent. The overdued realization that even we are not aloof, has hopefully dawned .Terror that we see today did not happen on one day…its just a boomerang of what we let happen in this country. It happened over the years when we kept quiet, and they believed that we endorse it. We have remained a soft target for the terrorists for long, courtesy, the attitude of our approach

 Gunshots… explosions… Fire…. pool of blood… smoke… bullets… splinters… people…. some charred to death… some screaming… some running for life. This is the nightmare the nation witnessed with open eyes over the last few days.  The magnitude of death rose with the sound of every empty shell that came out of the menacing AK 47s, 56s and hand grenades, used by the Terrorists.  Some odd 10 terrorists unleashed havoc on the cosmopolitan  Mumbai. How dare they???

 Yes we do have a irrepressible spirit …. But that does not mean we are going to take things hands down.We have been quite for long. Let the fire not die down this time. And the anger should keep burning within ourselves… till we effectively establish a credible system to take care of us all.. The attack was  not just on  the people, their lives or infrastructure, it infact aimed to rupture the unifying bond which binds the Indians together . LETS NOT GRANT THEM THIS VICTORY. Its time that we stand united together as Indians irrespective of what religion ,caste we belong to.

By Kusum

TERROR ATTACK on Mumbai, which is said to be the 9/11 of India, killed 183 people, which included 22 foreigners and 20 brave policemen, and has left over 300 injured. It is undoubtedly the biggest and worst terror attack India has faced so far. This attack has once again unmasked the shameless face of politicians. Even such a large scale carnage, which shook the whole country, could not stop the leaders from politicising the issue.

At a time when our forces were fighting with the terrorists, both Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress were busy deciding the colour and design of the advertisement asking for votes from the people claiming each other as a failure in curbing terrorism in their terms. These parties were fast enough in getting the ads published within a day as to grab the opportunity as soon as possible.

Something must be going right for the economy that we do not know about for the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to be all smiles.

No greater proof of this exists that the declaration made by the PM on Friday, claiming that India’s growth would not dip below its much loved 8% and that he would leave no stone unturned to do so.

With the economy on a nervous path right now, assurances of retaining this 8 as compared to a lesser number or even recession and a 0 might become a godsend to millions of companies and their shareholders. An 8 here would mean that it will survive the global scenario.

Since the dreaded You-know-who of the financial world, the day September 15 which marked the spark of the worldwide financial crisis with the collapse of the erstwhile giant Lehmann Bros, one of the premiere financial institutions in US, everyday has brought more and more bad news for them.

While America, Europe and even Japan are thinking of recession, India has been somewhat protected from big trouble. Though the rise and fall of the Sensex and Nifty ( the only reliable data mechanisms for knowing the pulse of the market) has only caused a probable increase in heartaches, indian companies like Dunlop have till now have rubbished claims of them dipping into the red and layoffs.

Still it would be wrong to say that the crisis has not had an effect India. BPOs have been facing troubles and banks have become hard-pressed as they are providing liquidity to the entire world, even though the Reserve Bank has aided them immensely.

However the true test of time for the 8 can only be after the wait and watch period is over. Though there are hopes that worst is over and the effects of the crisis will trickle down to and end, only the coming March end reports will be able to firmly say so.

By Manik Chandra Tiwari

Criticism of work is considered as a healthy feedback. The logic behind this assumption is that they (criticism) helps you to realise where were mistakes committed by you. So that next time you can keep those things in minds and can raise the bar.

But sometime criticism leaves you nowhere specially in the area where the stakes are high ,in that sphere you are not allowed to open your mouth.

The latest victim of criticism is congress senior leader and national general secretary Magret Alva , who now had been out casted because of her criticism /allegation . Though her allegation holds value in political setup of our democracy and show up the functioning of a party . But still it seems the chord she had strike had not gone down well in a party were loyalty to dynasty holds the key to success in one’s political career

The history of the congress as a party shows that it had never gone down well with dissidents voices which ever had been raised in a family. Continuing with the same Marget Alva had been out casted from that family without being given a single thought on his allegation.

The manner in which whole episode had taken place shows the apathy of the party and their lacklustre attitude to make the air clear.  

By Surabhi Prasad

INDIA WAS a proud nation on Friday. The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of Chandrayaan-I, was ejected successfully from the space craft on the lunar surface on November 14 , 2008 (Friday night).

The MIP carries with it a picture of the Indian flag and with this India becomes the fourth nation to place a flag on the moon after the Soviet Union, United States and Japan.

It is one of the 11 scientific instruments (payloads) on board Chandrayaan-I, India’s first unmanned spacecraft mission to moon which was launched on October 22 from Sriharikota spaceport.

Developed by ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram, the primary objective of MIP is to demonstrate the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon.

The probe will help qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions. This apart, scientific exploration of the moon at close distance is also intended using MIP.

Its barely days after November 10, when the majority of the TV  audience can be seen going bersek . The housewives  and the children seems to have all the time in the world with them as they twiddle their fingers on remote.

Owing to the unresolved impasse between the FWICE, the association of workers in TV and the producers, over the demand for higher wages for workers, the most popular hindi general  entertaintment channels have decided to re-run these serials and reality shows from November 10. This deadlock between the producers of TV programs and cine workers has impeded the daily dose of entertaintment for many avid soaps opera viewers  as channel hopping merely brings endless re-runs of old episodes and repeat telecasts.

The move is surely detrimental to the advertisers and viewers. As if the blow of “ Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi” , going off the air wasn’t enough , has come another blow for people who thrive on popular shows .With all the mirch masala missing  and anxiety of knowing ‘whodunnit’ , the viewers are waiting with bated breath to know what happened next in ‘Balika Vadhu’, ‘ Saath Phere’ and the likes to name a few.

Amidst all these re-runs,  its only ‘big boss’ that has escaped the decision of re-run , owing to the nature of the reality show. This has infact forced many not-so- interested viewers of Big Boss finaly turn to it in its ending days.

Though the majority of the audience complains of the regressive nature of the serials and its exaggerated misrepresentation of real life, they surely feel something is amiss as their evenings are no longer the same.

The current imbroglio has however proved to be a welcome break to many TV stars who have  been overworked and overexhausted . Its time for them to delight in this forced respite and spend some quality time with their loved ones.

In the last 30 days, three cases of honor killing were registered. A month ago, a couple was burnt alive in the fields of Greater Noida, by villagers for committing a crime of being in love. A few days back, two sisters were shot dead by their brother in Surajpur village of Greater Noida because the girls had eloped and were brought back only to kill them. On Diwali, in another case two sisters were burnt alive by their family members in Biwani village of Haryana wherein police registered the FIR after 15 days that too, when the incident came to the knowledge of media.

Honor killing means killing a person, girls to be precise, for the sake of saving the so called respect of the family or village. In most of such cases police intentionally plays the role of an ignorant and also tries to justify honor klling because local police also belongs to the strata, which does not see anything wrong in this crime. It is also unfortunate as well as dangerous that those who kill for the sake of the honor of the family do not even regret once for their commits. But there is a need to understand that no law or police can help curb a crime like this to a full extent. More than a law, there is requirement to change this psyche of people that family’s honor is devasted only by talking of girls to boys. Villagers have to make understand that girls are more than family’s honor through various communication mediums familiar to them. Involvement of locals is also needed with the initiation of government and Non-government organisations. But it is also unexpected that all of a sudden any miracle will bring a shift in the attitude of the villagers. Rather, it is going to be an arodous and long process but worth it.

By Kusum

To vote to any party and elect the government is the fundamental right given by our constitution all its citizens who are above eighteen of age. While in general all of us enjoy the rights, and freedom which comes with it we don’t seem to take pleasure in the right to vote. It is a picture, bleak but true which we can observe on the basis of low voting turnout after every election. According to the statistics available with Election commission, right from the 1st to 14th Lok Sabha elections, Voting percentage have hovered around not more than 60%. Out of this 60 percent whichever party receives the maximum vote, struggle and play all the games of buying and selling the MPs and MLAs to form the government. Struggle, because it is because of the low turnout of votes that no single party gets the Majority required to form the government. Aren’t we being an equal party to the Mal-Practicing of horse –trading by not voting?
      It has also been observed that it is not the deprived class who does not participate in the voting process but the class which is well off and has all the necessities in life because they feel that it is not going to affect them which party comes. On the contrary, people who are dispossessed of even some of the basic amenities still hold the voting right as their strongest weapon. Today, as when regional and communal politics is at its peak, it’s high time that we exercise our duty to vote and reject all the politicians who are dividing the nation. To vote is a responsibility more than a right.

By Surabhi Prasad
IN RECENT months, innocent people have been facing the brunt of regional politics. The country has been witness to the Amaranth Shrine Board issue, Orissa violence and now violence against North Indians perpetrated by Raj Thackeray.

For sure, violence on such a large scale is not possible without the aid and abetment of politicians whose only motive is to indulge in vote bank politics. For all these, politicians alone cannot be blamed.
We, the citizens, cannot excuse ourselves because we provide them an opportunity to play with the lives of the innocent people.

How long will we remain mute spectators? How long will we allow corrupt politicians like Raj Thackeray and others to misrule us? How long will we entrust our country to such selfish politicians?

It is high time we armed ourselves by exercising our right to vote in the right manner. We need to use this right to shun such dishonest politicians.