Media – 922

Haasil – The Movie

Bollywood is known to release the maximum number of movies in a year. And most of them are forgettable. A lot of them go onto become big hits and send the cash registers ringing. And then there are times when a movie creates a whole new world. The way people think. The way people talk. They way people perceive cinema. One of them is obviously Sholay. The other one is Haasil. I cant really compare the two but Haasil deserves its place along side any other acclaimed movie in the history of Indian Cinema.

The plot is really simple. Its about a small town in India where people are happy go lucky and go about their own tasks. Its a typical story of a young guy. Its a typical story of a pesky father. Its a typical story of a guy in love with a girl and trying to express it. Its about a typical university in India where student politics is more important than the academics or anything else. Then its the typical story of hatred, envy, love, politics, corruption, anger, wars and other such things.

And this is where all the typicalality ends. The story is interesting and compelling enough to captivate the audience. The dialouges are impressive and more importantly their delivery makes every small scene a cult. To the extent that I will probably call each scene a conversation between two characters. Characters who are small yet giant. Who are incapable by themselves yet can do anything if situation demands. Performances by Irfan Khan and Ashutosh Rana that can put any other actor to shame.

Personally, for me, the best two conversations are “Pandit hum der na lagaenge maarne main” and “Hum to ShivJi kay bhakth hain, saara zeher humein hi peena hai“. Although I don’t support piracy, the entire movie is available here for watching online and free download.

Haasil fans, please share your stories. And please note that this is not a movie review.

Links
Orkut Community for Haasil Fans
IMDB on Haasil
Wikipedia on Haasil

The Great Indian Media

If you dont know Arushi, The Great Indian Khali, the colored cheerleaders, blog wars of Amitabh Bachchan and Amir Khan you live in a cave. The Indian media has gotten into so much frenzy with all these that all other events sound minor.

Inflation is touching 8% and there is no analysis or debate on the same. Indian Hocket team finally is doing something right. They lost in the finals of Sultan Azlan Shah cup but there was hardly a mention. A very important issue is being debated at WTO but no one has a clue about it.

Brings me to a point where I am thinking if media business needs a radical change. I have expressed my displeasure at the way media functions in India. They show what is popular and people see what media shows. With time the original thoughts would die away. They need to move beyond popularism and start talking about things that really make a difference.

Coming back to Arushi, whatever happened with that girl is very tragic. It should not have happened but I guess media could leave her now in peace. I am sure media is saying that they want justice for her. But did media raise a single hand for justice to all those people who die very regularly on roads because of negligent driving?

The bomb blasts in Jaipur were forgotten as fast as they happened. Media has decreed that police and intelligence have failed in their task and thats it. I want to ask why dont they investigate the Jaipur blasts with as much gusto as they are tracking murderers of Arushi? Why cant media itself become the investigation department and then we will not need the CBI, IB, RAW or even the new central investigation agency that Dr. Kalam has envisioned. It will sure get them more eye balls and save the nation some money.

The great Khali is another example of media going overboard of things that dont warrant a single glance. Agreed he is 7 feet. Agreed he is from a village in India and now a professional wrestler at WWE – a place known more for glamour rather than professional wrestling. In my humble opinion, the great Khali might be the best ever but on the wrestling stage he has only brought disgrace to India. The way they talk about India, the way they dishonor the Indian flag, the National Anthem and the way they mock Indians there at “professional wrestling” ring is not even funny. If he was half Indian, he would have put a full-stop to all that show business.

IPL – Indian Premier League. If I start talking about this, I wouldn’t even stop. Agreed cricket is our unofficial national game but any channel – sports, news, family, even devotional channels are full of insights. Someone correctly said that there are 11 players and 1 billion experts on the game. Every one has an opinion and everyone wants to voice them. It doesn’t matter if the logic is flawed or opinions are biased.

Wish there were more people who wanted to raise their voice against this stupidity that we call media in India.

Media in an Open Environment

I was talking to a colleague in office and I realized that I need to talk about taking media to a new level. I have been procrastinating it for a while. I am penning down my thoughts on media in India and invite you people to share this with anyone you think can contribute. Please add your opinions also.

In my opinion media is supposed to perform three functions
1. Inform junta about things
2. Bring people together and share opinions
3. Shape public thought

However, currently media as I see it is not really doing any of these three. Media is being operated as a business with profit motives and as my colleague put it, actual function has become the by product. I would not question why or how this happened. I shall talk about what can be done to bring it back on track. And obviously this is where I would need you guys to help me out. Please help me structure my thought process.

I think there are few things that are really critical for having media in true spirit.

1. Objectivity – Obviously we want to take sides, churn out opinions but we should do it with objective bent. We should kill a brand, praise a person but should be objective.

2. Independence – Independence is a huge word by itself and can have many connotations. Independence of thoughts, independence from influence, independence to write. And lots more.

3. Thought leadership – Apart from just publishing happenings and reporting events, media needs to have thought leadership. They should have original opinion on things. Thoughts on how to shape the society and probably a bit of foresight to be able to foresee the future.

4. Reach and feedback – There are two things here. Media could use any platform for delivery – paper, website, twitter, plays, design anything but it should have a certain reach. Atleast in the targeted audience, it should reach everyone and it should be contextual and relevant enough for them to consider it signal, rather than noise. And feedbcak is more critical than everything else. Media needs to know what is happening, how are people reacting to things, what is the audience thinking, is India covering the right things, is the media being a thought leader in the first place?

Now having established things that are critical for media in my opinion, I will talk about how can Internet help us in achieving the goal.

1. Collaboration – This word has been misused more than any other word on the Internet. When it comes to media, collaboration could take shape of co-authoring stories, thinking out loud, accepting defeats and promoting what is better, so on and so forth. Mutiny is a very good example but again we tend to incline towards popular things rather than pertinent things.

2. Reach and Feedback – With Internet as delivery model, both reach and feedback can be much simpler. With Internet, we can real time feedback from people and improvise at the same time. The time gap between conversations is reducing and making us faster.

3. Democratic – Since people on Internet are hidden behind a cloak, they can come forward and talk about things that they want to talk above without any fears of retribution. Although this silver cloak is a bane as well, it gives regular junta lots of power too.

There have to be some issues with the Internet. I foresee following issues with the use of Internet. This is not a problem because of Internet but because it is open.

1. Accountability – Everyone on Internet is hidden behind a silver cloak. If someone wants to misuse media, Internet help him. No one is owner of the content and no one is questionable.

2. Seriousness – Most people still consider Internet as “oh the internet” and think it as a collection of amateurs blogging away to glory. There are so many good authors that I cant even create a list.

3. Numbers – There arent just enough people on Internet in India. And most of people on the Internet don’t really care about reading things. I am not sure how many would read this post completely, leave apart shaping opinions and contributing. If you do read , please say “SECRET REVEALED” in the comments, I will be happy to get 10 comments.

In the end, I dont know if this kind of an initiative could ever gain momentum in India or anywhere else or if this can ever replace traditional businesses disguised as media. I am just trying to present a perspective on things.

Please understand that everything I have said could be incorrect. They are just my opinions and want you guys to help me come up with something concrete.

Thanks for a patient hearing.

P.S.: I started this as a personal email to Sanjukta and another good friend (Swagat) but I thought I could share this with a larger audience too.

Originally posted @ saurabhgarg.com

Breaking News on Amitabh Bachchan

This is yet another example of ridiculous state Indian Media is in.

I respect Amitabh Bachchan for whatever he has achieved in his life. But Amitabh Bachchan ko thand lagi is beyond me. Is the matter of national importance? Can it be breaking news?

I have said time and again that Indian media needs to move beyond popularism and profit motives and start behaving responsibly. Younger generations literally consume media and whatever is on media would shape up the country.

The Times of India – Comedy of Errors

The Times of India has done it yet again. They are so used to publishing errors in their paper that one tends to believe that it is edited and copy proofed by a bald monkey.

The latest in the series of errors, The Times of India has written in a report about Bachelor’s of Information Technology (BIT). I happened to be one of the few lucky ones to have passed out of BIT and I thus know the hard facts and figures 🙂

Following is clipping from The Times Of India, Delhi Edition, published on Monday 7th June 2004…

[QUOTE] DU wears down students, BIT by techno BIT

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Delhi University (DU), in the last few years, seems to be on a roll for introducing new courses. One such course was the four-year Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) that the University introduced with much fanfare and then scrapped. The last batch of the ‘ill-fated’ course passes out this year. The ride wasn’t easy for these 400-odd students, to say the least.

Firstly, the students have actually studied a course that does not have the approval of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). As such, they are not qualified engineers, despite having studied to be software engineers. Moreover, due to the same glitch these students cannot study any engineering course of the post-graduate level.

Their only option, in terms of higher education, is to pursue an MSc in Computer Science. This, however, does not inspire these students much. ‘‘What after an MSc in Computer Science? We aren’t sure if it’s even close to the next logical step,’’ said a disillusioned student of the BIT course from DCAC.

The BIT course was introduced in about 25 colleges as a self-financing course. The fee ranged between Rs 18,000 to 25,000 per year depending on the college. In 2000, an entrance test was held for the BIT course batch that is now passing out. The other three batches that have passed out under the BIT banner were actually students of BSc (Computer Science) who had been upgraded to BIT. In 2000 itself the controversy over the course began, resulting ultimately in the course being discontinued.

The UGC gave its approval only for the three batches that had already been upgraded and for the one batch that had been admitted on basis of the entrance test. AICTE refused to give even these four batches its endorsement. [ENDQUOTE]

Now the article is here, how about an explanation from me, Saurabh Garg, a BIT alumnus from Maharaja Agrasen College, Delhi University. I joined the course in 1999 and passed out in 2003.

TOI: …Moreover, due to the same glitch these students cannot study any engineering course of the post-graduate level…

Saurabh: I would beg to differ here. I am in contact with students from BIT/BIS doing their M.Techs from places as big as IIT-Kanpur and MS from places like USC, Sony and what not in the US. There are people who are studying in Australia and UK and are pursuing their majors in Engineering. If an M.Tech in Computer Science is not any engineering course of the post-graduate level, would someone please tell me what category those courses fall into? Or may be MS from an American University does not sounds like any Engineering Course of the Post-Graduate level because The Great Times of India somehow has turned desi?

TOI: …Their only option, in terms of higher education, is to pursue an MSc in Computer Science…

Saurabh: Nopes, as stated above this paragraph, people are pursuing M.Techs and MSs and other Engineering courses. Another thing to mention here would be students who are into BIG Management Schools like IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C and other smaller schools like FMS, IIFT, MDI, XLRI. I believe according to The GREAT Times of India, MBA (or PGPM) is not considered higher education. Oh, by the way, I would be joining MDI Gurgaon this year and its higher education as far as my knowledge goes. I would like tomention here that YES, BIT students were denied admission to MBA programme of IIT Kanpur but thats the only IIT in India and infact one of the very very few educational institues to have denied admission to BIT students. But again somehow they accept BIT/BIS students for their M.Tech program but not for MBA.

TOI: …said a disillusioned student of the BIT course from DCAC…

Saurabh: I would love to know the name of the disillusioned student. He clearly is out of touch with his seniors and peers.

TOI: …In 2000, an entrance test was held for the BIT course batch that is now passing out. The other three batches that have passed out under the BIT banner were actually students of BSc (Computer Science) who had been upgraded to BIT…

Saurabh: YES (finally they seem to be correct on something), the 2000-2004 batch was admitted after the Entrance Test for admission to fours year BIT/BIS. BUT the previous three batches starting from 1998 were ALSO admitted on the basis of tests. The only difference is that the test for the previous three batches was conducted for admission to BCA and BSc (Hons.)Computer Science and after admission (on the basis of the test) they were upgraded to BIT and BIS respectively. I have got the hall ticket of the admission test (that never took place according to some Newspaper). And just for the information students of BSc Computer Science were upgraded to BIS not to BIT (as someone has mentioned in a report). May be in the dictionary of The Great Times of India, BIT and BIS are equal and are synonyms?

The link BIT Recognition should clarify a few things.

I am not questioning the source of data and their integrity and knowledge but I am trying to question why can’t they verify the data before they publish anything? Doesn’t being a newspaper more responsible thing?

If they keep going at this rate, I believe they would soon publish something like “Bush is actually a Muslim like Osama and Saddam’.

Or is it that I am missing the entire purpose of The Times of India? May be the paper is not meant to be taken seriously, or may be they want to help people start their day with laughter, or may be they want the paper to the unofficial handbook of the ignorant or may be News for Dummies?

Enuf of Times Bashing I guess. In the coming times, I would be digging up more bloopers and the history behind The Times of India.

END (Last edited on 8th June 2004, 1000 Hrs IST)

Keywords for Search Engines: The Times of India, Newspaper, India, BIT, BIS, Delhi University, Bloopers, Media, Sauarbh.

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