Sunday 24 May 2015

Nepal Earthquakes and Indian Media.

A Nepali Friend of Mine-"I pity you."
Me-"Eh? Why?"
Friend-"That's because you had been tolerating your media since years when we couldn't even for a                   week."

The conversation is just as shameful as any conversation can get.

 An earthquake of 7.9 Richter scale hit Nepal. It's the magnitude which can destroy a civilization and what's more horrifying is the fact that it really did. Some were busy dealing with there customers in their shops, some were roaming out in the markets, some were having a sweet nap on their bed, which was only then it happened which took away lives of many. The pain, we know of our Nepali brothers and sisters is simply unimaginable. I can't really empathize with them as I don't know what it is like to lose your loved ones in a natural or well, absolutely sudden disaster, but I am sure it hurts.

It hurts to have your only hope die. It hurts to see your son/husband in a cloth enveloped in a rectangular box after devoting entire life to him. It hurts to realize that the one you loved the most is never going to come back to you. Some might be living a happy life with his girlfriend. Some must be already married and their kids might be waiting for their daddy who left driving to the office to come back home and bring them gifts as he daily promises to. Some might be having a old mother who now have no one to care for.

Amidst this chaos, what we saw is an absolute quick help from India. Actually the first flight which went for rescue and to provide aid was even before the Nepal officials globally pursued for help. What's even more spectacular that for the first time ever, it was seen that our Indian government was on literally a "mission" and worked like an entire complete team.


10 NDRF(National Disaster Response Force) teams were dispatched. Their code name for the operation was "Operation Maitri." Indian Army sent a 2-star officer Major General JS Sandhu to oversee the Indian rescue efforts. Army also sent a Rapid Aero Medical team in Kathmandu. Indian Airforce sent two MI-17 choppers, two C-17 Globemaster,one C-130J Super Hercules,and one IL-76 on rescue operation. IAF personnel rescued many Indians stranded in Nepal. Indian Embassy issued emergency helpline numbers. The debris flows in to the water and make it poisonous hence Suresh Prabhu, the present Rail minister  sent 1 lakh Rail Neer bottles. Further, the ministry runs 2 Special Trains between Janakpur in Nepal & JaiNagar in INDIA for Rescue and Relief Operation. Power Minister Piyush Goyal offered to send technicians and engineers to restore Power Grid at Nepal. All calls made from BSNL to Nepal were charged at local fees for 3 days. 


Is this not looking like a whole "team" with several working sectors working together to accmplish a mission? And who can forget that famous Sushma Swaraj's response to a tweet who asked help for finding her father in Nepal?

Many non-governmental organizations too were ready for help, especially telecom companies. Many volunteers offered help to Nepal. Sikh bodies offered "langar" to the victims. Also Baba Ramdev was in Nepal at that time. Instead of running to safety, he chose to stay back there and help the victims. His volunteers donated blood, offered food, drinking water and shelter in his Yoga shibir tent. His organization is planning to adopt all the children turned orphans in the earthquake.

With all this being said, there was yet another body of Indian origin which was working "actively". Well this unnatural pun struck me in a very natural way.

Indian Media.

At the first day, twitter is trending with hashtags :Thank You PM" and "Thank You India, two days later, the trend changed to "GoHomeIndianMedia."(The number was more than 100,000.)

Why?

Their aggressive presence all over the country and making a coverage of the incident, what it looked  like a biased one. Their attitude was looking patriotic when they only seemed to cover the help done by Indian relief forces but which was kind of digestable. Every country has their own media which obviously will show cast the news related to their own-selves. But what was more to come was some extremely intolerable  behavior and insensitive inhumane actions which pissed off the masses to a great extent and let them go with this twitter trend. Their titles of the "exclusive" shows were very distracting with a huge Modi poster aside some small girls crying with a quote saying, "Tere dukh ab mere". I mean seriously, what the?

Reportedly, a large number of Media personnel occupied the space in Indian rescue helicopters. Or to frame it differently, they occupied a seat where bag full of food could be placed. They occupied a place where one more victim could be rescued. If we were to follow a tweet from a Nepali witness, 5-7 media people were in each IAF rescue helicopter.

Now seriously, what was the point for every Indian channel to go and capture the incident? Was there a competition which was being held? Even local state news channels went there to report. Why were they all hell bent on increasing their TRP's on somebody's mourning's?

The most absurd thing was to observe them reporting about places where Indian relief still hasn't
reached. Ohh, come on, If you can reach places where Indian aid still hasn't reached yet, can't you just yourselves provide aid to them? You won't believe this, the media personnel actually went on car by road when the tremors were still occurring. What was all the fuss about everyone going to report the incident? Only if they could be as brave for reporting what's true and authentic.

The way they were reporting was as if the victims weren't real people at all and were shooting an intense drama about how tough life is after an earthquake. We know the people are badly hurt there, we know that many are still stuck beneath buildings, we know that many of them lost their family members in the incident but making it as an over-hyped "show"? Adding ridiculous animations and crying imagery backed by extraordinary sound effects isn't something tolerable. People needed your help, not your extraordinary video editing skills. They broadcasted about how people in Nepal were fighting for foods, but they couldn't carry some by themselves. Are you not human before a media person?

Is asking a woman who lost her only child in the earth quake, "how do you feel?" repeatedly is reporting? There are some more incidents which seriously make us go "facepalm". 

1)They used touching photos to portray the Nepal earthquake which were not real. Many original photo owners appeared and alleged that they were actually, from a different incident(the famous photo from the Mediterranean Sea incident is an excellent example) which Indian media shamelessly claimed to be the 2015 earthquake's.

2) The Indian Reporters shouted and shared physical blows with Indian army men when they tried to stop them from entering "Restricted areas". Reports even claim that they even fought with Nepal security upon being asked merely their ID-cards at Pokhra airport. "Who are you to stop us?", thus only adding hindrances to the relief team. 

3) They don't miss any opportunity to gather views on their own channel. And we all know criticizing against Pakistan? Well the views just got quadrupled. One such incident was them reporting and making a "sensationalist" news about Pakistan sending beef to the victims and thereby,according to them, hurting the sentiments of Nepali nationalists. Look who's talking. Later on, it got revealed that it was a propaganda brain stormed by them. It was not actually beef, but packets of "beef masala" and the product was just barely a mixture of ingredients that makes the meat tasty. Pakistan just sent whatever they had in their emergency relief programs.What were Indian media expecting Pakistan to do? To wait for their companies to manufacture food packets with vegetarian labels on them in this emergency? Also, they didn't mention anything about those hundreds of tents which well, Paksitan provided.

4) A friend of mine who is an eye witness to the very incident says, "They went to the spot where one building had collapsed. They clicked four pictures from the different angles of the same building and reported four buildings to have fallen." How stupid. 

5) Their over hyped portrayal. Instead of informing which part received worse tremors(there were exceptions), they were as if Nepal had been deprived from the existence already. If they had a chance, they would even remove the name from the globe and hold a panel discussion on it. Thankfully, conditions have started to recover. Water and electricity is back. There is no infections and several shops have opened up.

Here is an hilarious take of a Quora user on their attitude-

"
Reporter : what did you do after you felt the tremors ?
Victim : I started running out. (Obviously no one would dance Gangnam style after feeling the tremors)
Reporter : Did you get hurt?

Victim : Yes, a lot. ( Reporter, can't you see his bleeding nose? )
Reporter :  where are you going right now?Victim : I am going to hospital. ( No, he is going to Nokia showroom with his bleeding nose to buy  Nokia 2323 which has torch and FM )      "





The Indian media is on the pedastal that no one probably can ever limit them. Whatever they do is right, whatever they report is right, whatever the measures they adopt are right. This arrogant attitude of somebody is very questionable. One whose job was to merely report things is now actually forming their own opinions about it. 

The race to highest TRP never stops. It had already shattered dreams of many, destroyed many's deserved fame.What is required is proper education. But aren't the reporters already educated? But I think, this is not enough. What is still left is to educate them how to report different issues. Yeah there is a difference in every kind of incidents and media personnel needs to consider the sensitivity of the fact too.It's the time where the ever questioning Indian Media to introspect their own selves, reform their rules and policies, try to act in a more responsible way and come back as a better "media".



On a side note, the greatest irony was that this twitter trend thrived on the World Press day.


Share:

Thursday 21 May 2015

Do school marks really matter?

Well it's long time since I have ever written anything here. My exams just got over this week and I feel like writing.

I was just scribbling through my quora feeds where I stumbled upon a very commonly asked question demanding a rather obligatory responses,
"Do school marks really matter?"

Well, all the front seaters would stand on their high moral horses and would probably reply yes while others will nod. Ohh come on, we all know they don't. They don't really matter unless you are getting admitted in to colleges, the frontiers for your career. In that case, they do.

It really matters whether you were one who liked to sink into the heavy books or just troll around and enjoy your life. Either way, we all just get what we  "deserve". Well, the one who decides what we actually deserve are the ones who haven't even met us any time and all what they have to actually "judge" you is your marks. Hence they matter.

But the questioner must not be obviously satisfied with this which is why he asked the question. We all will just presume that the most appropriate and a rational answer with a broad perspective will be "No, the school marks don't matter and will never will. "

But we are so limited to our imaginations that we doubt even our own intellect.

You were wrong. I was wrong. It was only when I realized this was when I read this amazing answer.

"Let's say you go to a gym and work hard. At the end of workout, you would be profusely sweating and your muscles would be aching a lot. If we equate school to a gym, that sweat is the marks you scored. 

What is important is not the sweat itself [which is just salt water] but what you did to get the sweating. If you are doing the right way, the sweat indicates that you might be developing endurance and strength in your body. In short, it is that endurance and strength that matters in the gym, which we cannot see and thus use sweat as a proxy. 

In the same way, it is your knowledge and reasoning skills you acquire in school that is ultimately important. Unfortunately, we don't have an easy way of seeing that and thus use examinations and marks as proxies [we are slowly developing better proxies both at the gym and at schools]. 

Just as you can fake sweat [stand near the heater, spray water on yourself, be afraid of something] you can absolutely fake marks without building the mental strength. Many do so. However, sooner or later they end up in courses and careers that they hate. And other times you might not sweat at all [the gym could have been cool] but still might be building the strength.

See your marks just like the sweat. It is useless by itself, but if you are honest to yourself it might indicate that you are developing the knowledge and skills needed for the world. Also, marks might indicate developing only one aspect of endurance. You should also get on to Olympiad and other things that you are passionate about. The school should be the place where you explore yourself and passionately do stuff you care about and equally passionately do stuff that you don't like, but will help in the future."

Very few human are capable of drawing such a wonderful inferences from everyday examples and this man(Balaji Viswanath) is among them. It was a pleasure reading.
Share:

Featured post

Philosophers I love- Lao Tzu

You cannot discuss Chinese literature without discussing Lao Tzu. A great philosopher and founder of Taoism, one of the important tradition ...