Annals of 'Post Truth': Is Rajeev Chandrasekhar The Peter Thiel Of India?
So, a rich man in India got the courts to issue a take down order to a news website, TheWIre, even before giving it a chance to explain itself. That most of our media is prostrating itself before the Modi government is not news. What is a bigger news that the rich and powerful people are being able to openly dictate what the Indian people get to read about them in the media. From
Scroll.in:
The Wire took down two articles that (Rajeev)Chandrasekhar. The first, published on January 25, was a report by Sandeep Bhushan on the Republic TV, a news channel Chandrasekhar is set to launch in association with former Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.
The second, published on February 17, was an opinion piece by Sachin Rao on the alleged conflict of interest in Chandrasekhar being a member of the parliamentary committee on defence and investing in defence companies.
The offending articles are
here but they show the take down notice instead.
All this seems familiar to
the way Billionaire Peter Thiel went after Gawker, eventually succeeding in getting Gawker.com to shut down and paying loads in fine, just because Thiel didn't agree with the stuff Gawker was prublishing. In his response to a questionairre sent by Scroll.in, Chandrasekhar replied in an eerily Thiel-like manner:
“This court action is not about a take down, it is about holding those who did this accountable for their actions,” he added.
Of course he meant that the rich and powerful are not accountable for their actions at all, only those in media who dare to speak the truth.
Labels: conflict of interest, india, media ethics
The Anonymous way of organizing peaceful protests
The June 9 OccupyIndia protests by Anonymous teaches you a lot about organizing peaceful protests. These were the instructions, reprinted verbatim, from Aonymnous:
You can wear the GuyFawkes mask during the protest (download the printable version from here).
Protesters may not use vehicles to protest as this may cause accidents, please keep vehicles out of the protest crowd.
Please bring placards, Banners etc that you can prepare so for the cause.
For whom it is possible, Bring cameras and record events, Or better use your smart phone to stream it online using ustream. This will give a proof if something bad is attempted at the protesters.
IF POLICE BLOCKS THE WAY, STAY 50Mts MIN AWAY. DO NOT CONFRONT THEM.
Play the pre-recorded anon Msg to the crowd via loudspeaker (download from here).
Stand in one horizontal line and chant in union
“UNITED AS ONE! DIVIDED BY ZERO! WE ARE ANONYMOUS! WE ARE LEGION! WE DO NOT FORGIVE! WE DO NOT FORGET! EXPECT US!”
However there were those who
weren't pleased with how the protests went, in Mumbai, for example. The writer gives these tips for future protest-organizers in India:
1. When holding a protest, take the local weather into account.
2. When planning a protest, don’t pick a venue without shade.
3. Give clear, specific directions on how to reach the site.
4. Prepare activities or speeches in advance, and try to get the crowd involved.
5. Last but not least, ensure that people show up, by hook or crook–even if it means forcing your friends to attend.
Now, there you go,
how to organize peaceful protests 101.
Related:
Gene Sharpe's 8-point method of non-violent revolution Labels: india, protest
Yashwant Singh: India's best blogger
Yashwant Singh, who runs
Bhadas4media, a blog which recently celebrated
4 years of existence, is in my opinion the best Indian blogger, in the true blogger sense - blogging on an issue he is passionate about,
the right/plight of Indian journalists, highlighting any example of media-industrial complex on a regular basis, which all the Twitteratis and pseudo-bloggers (English language) have mostly failed to do so far.
From a wide sampling of Yashwant's writing, which is in Hindi, first you have to read
this, which is the most frank personal story of any Indian blogger I have read so far.
It is a
passionate blogger's philosophy, a manifesto for carrying on no matter what. This blogger thought
he would be dead by 38. No chance, so far.
Yashwant receives threats for his blogging all the time, and he often responds by giving the caller the address of his home.
Read Yashwant's post about
high salaries of media organization CEOs, and this one
about huge salaries of new channel/newspaper editors while stringers go unpaid.
Also read these:
Chetan Kunte, Blogging Hero
A simple guide to the biggest moments in Indian blogging historyLabels: blogging, hindi, india
The man who wants Facebook censored doesn't use Facebook himself
Vinay Rai, the censorship crusader India doesn't need, is a journalist (edits a Weekly Urdu publication Akbari) on his 'quest' to rid online websites of 'bad stuff':
WSJ: Why didn’t you notify the social networking Web sites of the content and ask them to remove it – many sites offer such functionality?
VR: I did not deem it appropriate to approach foreign companies myself. I put my point across to the government who, in my view, is the best body to pursue this with multinationals.
and,
WSJ: How often do you visit these sites? Do you have a Facebook account?VR: I’m not too active on social media. I registered on Facebook over 2 years ago but deactivated my account a few months later. This was because my inbox was flooded with external applications, requests and games sent by unknown users via the website. Since I wasn’t too familiar with the content, I deactivated my account.
WSJ: How did you collect information from Facebook pages and groups if you weren’t a registered user?VR: Several readers of our newspaper, Akbari, alerted us to defamatory and abusive content on these social networking sites. Being a journalist, I pursued the matter. Furthermore, you don’t necessarily need to register to browse content on groups and pages on Facebook.
Labels: censorship, facebook, india
Where is the counter culture in India?
No, Dev-D, Candle March Marches, and Rock Fests don't quite cut it. Not even Anna Hazare, who seems more and more, a sad, old man, surrounded by a cabal. In an India of surging middle class and expanding surburbia, always copying and aspiring, you see hints of counterculture on the edges - in naxalism,
Irom Sharmila...
Read this great post by Sam Smith titled, '
The Post empire survival guide'. If Indian is going to be like America, we Indians might also would want to know what happened to the great American Dream. Remember the cliche, '
what goes up must come down'. From the article:
Create a counterculture. It worked in the 1960s and it work again. You don't have to be a prisoner of the dominant culture. You can help create an alternative, just as the young did in the 1960s, without money or power. And without a counterculture there will be no significant change. The Occupiers are a great start. Take it from there.
Labels: idea, india
How to lessen the load in Indian courts and speed up justice: the idea of neighboring courts
San Francisco has introduced the concept of neighborhood courts to handle cases related to low-level, nonviolent crimes. Under the plan, the accused person will be given the option of going to "
neighborhood court," where he/she could see his/her case dealt
within two weeks of getting caught.
More on
how it works:
...if someone is written up for graffiti, he or she can admit guilt and tell their story to a panel of people living in the community with the new artwork. The panel of volunteers would then give the violator a "restorative justice" assignment, such as cleaning up graffiti. After the walls have been cleared, so will the person's record of that particular offense. The entire process can take just two weeks, said a neighborhood prosecutor, and should cost $300 per crime—just a fifth of the price tag for putting someone through the criminal court system.
It is similar to what the Gram panchayats were supposed to do instead of handing out lucrative contracts. This can also be introduced in every colony in the cities. This can also be a useful crime-prevention idea if implemented honestly.
Labels: india, legal
Is Meritocracy a sham?: What happens after you get into an IIT/IIM or beyond
So, you got "
coached". Passed the entrance exams. Got yourself on the path to a secure life ahead. But, what do you actually contribute to society? Do you live up to the reputation of how "
brainy" you are?
I often hear stories about arrogant IITians in companies who treat students from lesser institutes (as well as people with experience) with disdain, doing little work, bossing over others, and obsessing over EMIs and latest consumer aspirations. Same goes for IIM type people. I wonder how many of these stories are true.
Is this all what the IIT/IIM dream was about? Becoming rabid consumers? Is Meritocracy a sham? Nothing but fancy-word, poster art for the aspirational middle class?
Relevant Read:
What becomes of Asian-American overachievers after the test-taking ends?Labels: education, india, trends
Book literacy in India
We have plenty of colleges and universities in India. But, not enough, considering our population. A look at
some numbers:
20 central universities.
215 state universities.
100 deemed universities.
5 institutions established and functioning under the State Act.
13 institutes of national importance.
16000 colleges (including 1800 exclusive women's colleges), affiliated to these universities and institutions.
1522+ degree-granting engineering colleges in India, who take in 582,000 new students each year.
1,244 polytechnics who take in 265,000 each year.
These educational institutions are churning graduates by the millions. But,
how many of these people actually read books? Let's see what's happening in the U.S. Below are some facts about
literacy in the U.S.:
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
I think the corresponding Indian numbers would be more disheartening.
Labels: education, india
How Godmen Fail: They are not able to change the nature of their devotess, especially that of powerful people
This is from the best analysis of Satya Sai Baba's
legacy, where the writer argues and convinces me that Sai Baba’s teachings didn't touch his Trustees. You can take this idea forward and say that all these high and mighty people who go to see Godmen (and women) such as Sai Baba, do not change their. Or else, the world would have been a better place.
If a senior IAs officer stopped taking bribes after becoming a devotee, India gains. But this hasn't seemed to happen.
Samplings of what Satya Sai Baba's trustees have done:
Power-drunk trustee thinks Sai Baba is above the law: When six boys were shot dead in Sai Baba’s residential area, the statement made by Indulal Shah was, “The matter is purely internal and we do not wish to have any law enforcement agency investigating into it!!!”
Trustees want to censor information: There is so much distrust among the Trustees that electricity was cut off in Puttaparthi so people would not watch a particular programme on a particular channel relayed only by a particular cable operator as the programme being telecast was particularly critical of the Trustees.
Then the writer asks,
We also ask, why don’t godmen, who claim to have telepathic abilities, communicate or visit their political and bureaucratic devotees in their dreams and tell them that they have to stop being corrupt and sadistic? Is it because all these acts are not miracles but well-executed stage shows?
and
... However, they will win us over completely only when they can change the character of their devotees, especially the high and mighty ones.
Labels: controversey, india
Annals of Internet Blocking, India Edition
A list of links the Department of Information Technology (DIT) in India has had blocked, as published by
CIS India. Please note that DIT denies having issued any such order.
(a) www.zone.h.org (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(b) http://donotdial100.webs.com (IP 216.52.115.50) (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(c) www.bloggernews.net/124029 (ED: Criticising Zone-H. Looks like a censorship/Freedom of speech issue. Works on MTNL, Delhi)
(d) http://www.google.co.in/#h1=en&source=hp&biw=1276&bih=843&=dr+babasaheb+ambedkar+wallpaper&aq=4&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=dr+babas&gs_rfai=&fp=e791fe993fa412ba (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(e) http://www.cinemahd.net/desktop-enhancements/wallpaper/23945-wallpapers-beautiful-girl-wallpaper.html (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(f) http://www.chakpak.com/find/images/kamasutra-hindi-movie (is a Canaan Partners funded website; page blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(g) http://www.submitlink.khatana.net/2010/09/jennifer-stano-is-engaged-to.html (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(h) http://www.result.khatana.net/2010/11/im-no-panty-girl-yana-gupta-wardrobe.html (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(i) http://www.facebook.com/pages/l-Hate-Ambedkar/172025102828076 (ED: Redirects to Facebook homepage)
(j) www.indybay.org (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(k) www.arizona.indymedia.org (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
If you suspect any link is being blocked by your ISP, file in a Right to Information (RTI) application with DIT. Keep in mind that often some vested interest (
most commonly, a business that does not like its criticism on another site - for example, Zone-H above) has moved ahead and put in a complaint, and the easiest thing the government can do is block the link.
Link thanks to
Nikhil PahwaLabels: censorship, india, law
How Corrupt India's Higher Education System Really Is
Notes from an excellent article on the state of India's
corrupt Higher Education system, and from an
overview at Nanopolitan:
1. 30% of all Indian students pay bribes to get into colleges after having failed entrance exams. (Figure may be higher at colleges with the so-called '
management quota'.
2. Fees at a typical tech institute are 3 times that of those at an IIT.
3. At many colleges, you can get test papers for a price.
4. At many colleges, you can bribe to get better marks in the internal exams.
5. At many colleges, you can bribe the lab people to meet your quota of lab attendance.
6. Most Indian institutes and universities have to pay bribes to get the desired accredition from AICTE, MCI, and others.
7. In 2010, some IIT Kharagpur Professors were found to be running their own private college on the side, called the Institution of Electrical Engineers (India).
Also read: Does India really need more colleges and universities?
Do we need more MBAs?
How to improve education in India: A proposalLabels: education, india
The Ethics of Voting: Vote only for things you justifiably believe would promote the common good
In his book "
The Ethics of Voting", Jason Brennan says, "
There is no duty to vote.". He explains:
There's no duty to vote, but if you do vote, you have a duty to vote "only for things [you] justifiably believe would promote the common good."
Moreover,
As a citizen, you do not owe it to others to provide them with the best possible governance. But if you take on the office of voter, you acquire additional moral responsibilities, just as you would were you to become the Federal Reserve chairperson, a physician, or a congressperson. The electorate decides who governs. Sometimes they decide policy directly. They owe it to the governed to provide what they justifiably believe or ought to believe is the best governance, just as others with political power owe it to the governed to do the same.
Read this in conjuntion with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's '
vote or face action' law. Modi says similar laws are being implemented in
32 countries.
Book summary via
Bryan Caplan
Labels: books, india, law
A Tale of Two Roads in India: Demographic Nightmare, Not Demographic Dividend
What's an '
unskilled, underutilised, frustrated young population' to do?
There are two roads for the young of India. The
first road is is the one taken by Gandhi and Democracy. It is a long road. There are many false ends and mirages. On this road, the people who have had a head start, will reap the most benefits -
rich people, powerful people and the dynasties.
The restless young is tiring of all this mess. All this inequality and hypocrisy is making them scream inside.They know the Anna Hazare fast has been hijacked by the Media, the opportunists and the pretentious. They have been to the Jantar Mantar and they have seen the circus.
They know it is impossible to make politicians and bureaucrats accountable and responsible. They know they don't have the means to win over money power in politics. They know their ashes will be down at the sea floor before any bureaucrat is actually sent to jail for his crimes.
Which brings us to
the second road. This road is not pretty. We got to this road during the bloody French revolution. And the Russian revolution.
Blood flows on the streets. Sanity takes a holiday. Evil takes over. It is not a good time to be on anybody's hate list. It is a great time for future storytellers.
This second road will be the bloody, immortal epitaph for a generation that can have no other claim to history in these aspirational, consumerist age.
We will never have so many young Indians alive ever.
Also read:
Home Ministry Fears Young India: Bad governance and too many expectations will lead to violenceLabels: india, trends
Does India Really Need More Colleges and Universities?
While the rest of the world is considering the
death/irrelevancy of colleges/universities,
questioning their monopolies as
Givers of Degrees, and while the rest of the world is benefiting from brilliant educational innovations such as the
Khan Academy, MIT
Open Courseware,
http://schools-wikipedia.org/Wikipedia content in schools, among other great initiatives, India is stuck in web of greedy for-profit educational institutions and pliable governments, who are only too eager to please corporate education efforts (read this Business Standard story about
government largesse towards corporate universities).
There is some innovation happening in the field of education in India: For example, IITs and IISc courses being converted into
freely available videos. NGOs such as
Pratham are doing some good work. But India is a country of 400+ million students, and Government plans such as Right to Education (RTE) and Sarvasiksha Abhiyan are simply not effective.
All the government wants to do in the name of promoting education in India is to privatize higher education,
authorizing moneyed players to loot students, by claiming that they have teachers from abroad.
Yes, the same teachers that the West is discarding for being ineffective and irrelevant. India has always been a haven for discarded and outdated professionals.
At least, Kapil Sibal should put in an independent Education Regulatory Authority of India, which sees to it that our students aren't being
defrauded in name of good education.
As far as Colleges and universities are concerned, why must we blindly copy concepts from the West? Things that they themselves are questioning?
Education cannot be a business: Think
Campusless teaching. Think Apprenticeships. Think Continuous Learning.
Labels: education, india
What do you mean by 'Tech-savvy Indians? (or, why most Indians don't need Apple)
What defines a technology-savvy Indian? It is the Indian that understands the value of hard-earned money. It is the Indian that gets a multi-functional
mobile phone for Rs. 5000, a fully-functional
personal computer at home for Rs.12000 and a
Netbook for Rs. 15000.
All that costs just Rs. 32,000, the same as that of an iPad in India.
So, when the Economic Times writes that '
Tech-savvy Indians cry out for Apple's attention', does it point to the status-symbol-craving Indians, whose aspirations are being fed by the
marketese masquerading as news in the newspaper supplements and silly gadget shows on NDTV?
Labels: apple, india
Rethinking Nuclear Power: The Bharat versus India problem
If city-living planners and decision makers of India do not have the guts to have Nuclear power plants in the suburbs, it is time to rethink the Nuclear power policy, don't you think?
The devastating Tsunami in Japan has caused 10,000 deaths (and counting) so far. It damaged Nuclear power reactors (Like France, Japan is heavily dependent upon Nuclear power). The authorities have shut down four reactors. 45,000 people living in the 10-kilometers radius of the Fukushima Nuclear reactor have had to evacuate their houses. There is a nationwide Nuclear Alert..
What the Indian Newspapers say about implications for India
The Mint Business Newspaper has a typical
pro-business slant take about the implications for nuclear power in India. The paper abandons its normally sharp, to-the-point writing, and instead it writes a confusing piece that ends with this:
...There is always room for debate on the safety aspects of the subject and it has never ceased even when there have been no earthquakes around. What, however, is not evaluated dispassionately are the costs involved in giving up nuclear power in an age when hydrocarbon supplies are volatile and their prices even more so.
What the paper means is that big American or European companies are not interested in doing ground-breaking projects in renewable energy, where the margins may not be that rich (and that we are tired of lobbyists calling us up to put in a kind word about Nuclear energy).
The Indian Express does a quick
FAQ about the safety of 20 Nuclear Power plants.
The plants here can withstand earthquakes up to 7 on the Richter scale (Japan quake measured 8.9 Richter).
So, no cause to worry? Actually, no.
The Japanese power plants were damaged by the surging Ocean waters.
How are our plants safe from terrorist attacks, sabotage, machine malfunction ...it is a pretty big list.
The Daily News Analysis message board has a great comment.
It sums up the
situation about Nuclear Power in India pretty well:
...
Our only job, our unavoidable responsibility, our duty, is to repeal the nuclear liability law. Let us have a level playing field. No subsidy, no exemption of responsibility. Whoever can produce electricity safely and at an acceptable rate, by whatever means, will just do it.
But if the nuclear industry does not trust its own technology to the point that it can't take responsibility for any damage they can cause, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. It's not our job to solve their problem.
The Bharat vs. India problem
I think we will this issue becoming more important in the future as more Indians chooses to live in cities, and letting villages decay into the great Indian Wasteland, where all the effluent of the '
civilized' India goes to seed.
The villages don't get to enjoy the power produced by the polluting, land-hogging (forcefully bought/seized land) power plant in the neighborhood. The people of Kahalgaon in Bihar had to resort to street
protests to get just a couple of hours of power from the huge NTPC Kehelgaon thermal power plant (2340 MW from 7 plants).
In India, they will drown towns so that the big cities get their electricity. Once there
used to be a beautiful small town called
Tehri that is under million of tons of water of the huge Tehri dam. Someone, somewhere always pays a price for your air-conditioner.
Who gets to face the aftermath case of a Nuclear fallout?
A list of things you should do when the rods start to melt:
Shutting off air-conditioner fans, not going outside, covering the skin, wrapping wet towels around the face and buying some lead-lined clothing for those 'special' occasions. (This is from an
advisory from the authorities in Japan)
How long does an average nuclear fallout last?
The Chernobyl area in Ukraine (the
Chernobyl accident happened in 1986) is '
visitable' only now in 2011. Locals still debate the health-effects (
E.g. more instances of thyroid, increased rates of cancer) from the
3-mile island reactor incident (United States) in 1979.
Soon, People from 'Bharat' will ask: If Cities want electricity, let them have Nuclear Reactors nearby.
Or, build any kind of 1000 megawatt Powerplant in your own locality. (A cynic will say that this will also solve our electricity transmission losses problem - we
lose anything between 25-50% of electricity produced during transmission).
You want your power, Build it in your own backyard: This is what the people of
Jaitapur Nuclear power plant want to tell the people (and the decision makers) of India.
Also read:
Government of India: The Biggest Real Estate Agent in the World
Labels: india, policy
My Person(s) of the Year
It is a toss up between a Global hero, Julian Assange of Wikileaks and an Indian hero, Manu Joseph of the Open magazine in India. (And some enlightened people at Outlook Magazine)
Manu Joseph and the other people helped expose the disease of the media-politician-state-business relationship in India, by
publishing transcripts of the Radia tapes, bringing out the rot for all citizens to see and judge.
The Person of the year is not who people in the mainstream media think is. The MSM's primary instinct is to remain close to sources of 'Power'.
Time magazine, which has long lost its relevancy, and which is not especially known for its incisive coverage of technology, has chosen the safe route.
In naming the 26-year old Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook as the person of year, Time is telling you to accept dumbly that a walled garden like Facebook is the known center of the universe. Actually, the magazine wants to please the 'aloofy' Zuckerberg in exchange for future gifts in form of 'scoops' and 'exclusives.'
Just how useful and revolutionary Facebook is? What is it but 500 million+ glorified Profile pages with comments, with all real controls and privileges owned by the site, not the user.
Think about it: There were people online before Facebook and there will be people online after Facebook, sending pokes and comments down each other’s virtual space. But, there are few who take on the mighty. And there are fewer who win.
The world is looking for the next Assange or Joseph: Who will help break the Facebook walled garden down. That person will be my person of the year, whenever that happens. Meanwhile, I am hoping we do something about the draconian
Official Secrets Act in India.
Labels: india, list, Media
There is a problem with the content business in India. What problem?
If you believe Comscore data, then Indian content-based websites [Yahoo, Rediff, the Newspapers etc.] registered a
flat traffic growth in 2010.
Indian internet usage is growing. More and more Indians access the internet on their mobile phones [or is it just Facebook, Twitter?]. Then, why is the Indian content traffic story so sad?
...most of these companies do not offer any fresh perspective or insight (most of the content sites in India are news aggregators).
...the reality of the matter is that very few content sites in India offer compelling content (i.e. beyond bikini pictures).
Good points. Then he asks,
Is there a ceiling to content business in India?
Maybe, we are taking a narrow view here.
There is life, a rather rich life, outside the portals - Sinha misses out on the rise of blogs (blogs on Hindi movies are my favorite source of Hindi movies rather than the Times of India), forums on TV shows, rise of Social Networking where users share what they think of the latest movie or TV show (which earlier used to be the domain of big media).
Finally, you have to look at the language situation: It is not just about English. If you look at the Indian TV business, the reach of English TV news channels is minuscule compared to Hindi TV news and General Entertainment channels. Something is happening in the Newspaper business.
The Indian internet content business is looking for a rise in usage of the vernacular internet. Where is the Hindi Android?
Labels: india, news business
India Needs a Sharp News Curating outfit: But, HuffPo is not the right model
Nikhil Pahwa, who runs one of the few successful niche blogs in India (Medianama), writes a post titled '
Someone Needed To Set Up An Indian HuffPo Seven Months Ago'. His context: the failings of mainstream media vis-a-vis the Barkha Dutt/Vir Sanghvi/Others mess. Nikhil writes:
The space is wide open for someone to become a destination – smart curation, commentary, debates, co-opting conversations taking place on the web, linking out to great content and conversations, and putting the RTI to good use.
The idea is a good one. It is not a new idea. Sites like Desipundit, Blogbharti and some others have tried to curate the Indian media in the past. Sadly, they haven't gotten far. Shivam Vij at Kafila does a good job at curating alternative voices but that is not 'scalable' from a business point of view.
The Ideal News curating Outfit isn't out there. Even HuffPost is the wrong model for other startups to follow. Mainly because few can match the media savviness of Ariana Huffington.
1. Ariana got celebrities, famous columnists to write for HuffPost. For free.
Can we do the same? Big names get the traffic. HuffPost had a big advantage with this trick when it started out. With her media contacts, Ariana also got the coverage.
2. Even now, HuffPost is accused of going over 'fair use' norms when it aggregates links, often pasting the bulk of the 'good stuff' in blockquotes.
Will the likes of TOI, HT, IBN7, NDTV etc., who are fiercely competitive players, allow this to happen on a regular basis?
3. HuffPost has tons of funding.
It is very hard to get funding for editorial startups in India. I have tried doing that for Bighow. Instablogs, the citizen-journalism startup where I served as a managing editor, got Rs. 18 crore recently, but not for reporting. It got the money from Times Internet for marketing/licensing its blogging platform.
I am not surprised that only serious online news players in India are the Portals: Rediff, Yahoo and Aol.
So, what is the way out?
The good old Indian jugaad. Pay 10-15 editors Rs. 10,000-15000/pm, who shall work part-time, 3-4 hours/daily, who will do all the stuff that Nikhil pointed out above, and some. It all comes to Rs. 2 million/year. And then add an economic component, like a curated daily deals section. And things like that. In 3 years, I am sure it will make a profit.
All this needs some fine-tuning, sure, but we have to find a way out. With a 3 year running cost of Rs. 10 million ($2.5 million approximately), I know this is not the typical high-ticket deal for the normal VC.
The ideal Indian news startup is waiting (& praying) for an 'idealist' investor.
Labels: india, news 2.0
Why Barkha Dutt or Vir Sanghvi aren't important
1. Because they don't do important things: One is actually a glorified reality-TV host (Re:'We the people' - more explanation in the note below) and the other writes breezy, cheery articles on good food and luxury living ('Counterpoint' is pure fluff in comparison), something most Indians, including this writer, just cannot afford.
2. Because none of them is a serious journalist: Endangering soldiers in name of war reporting or having 24-hour-access-card to the inner sanctum of crony-democracy-meets-capitalism does not cut it [aka Access Journalism] , as far as I am concerned. P. Sainath, they just are not.
3. Because they are not the voice of real India: Both work for elitist brands. NDTV English and Hindustan Times, both cater to the Urban Indian Elites.
'Hunt down the elites': And, if anyone in our young nation becomes too important in his/her deluded estimation, it is our national duty to hunt them down.
Note: Some have asked me how 'We the people' is a Reality Show. Truth is it is hard for me to accept TV shows of the kind as a news show. Multiplayer Talk show is a better name for them, don't you think? Moreover, most TV news anchors are not journalists. They just read off the teleprompter. Cruel, but is true.
Labels: controversey, india
