For the next month or so, as I have planned to do this for quite some time now, though, over an entirely different medium of social networking - Twitter, I will be doing a series of blogposts, a rather long series, talking about the happenings around, though, with a completely different take on what I think about these, what I think as a common man, with absolutely no powers, because all the powers I once had, are now vested in one man, and some others whom this one man wanted to be around him, apparently, legally, to discharge the duties we all, collectively have entrusted this one man, to complete.
Seems like this one man, we choose every five years with the powers we get every five years, seems to become god once he gets all the powers the common men and women, or should I say, women or men (reservation, you know!)have just acquired, thankfully, by the Election Commission, whom, the drafters of the constitution gave powers beyond the direct control of the ruling party, even the "god".
Anyways, back to normal, As I watched over the news in the morning, just before I left home for office, as I normally do, Monday through Saturday. What is being served is the day before's stale news, something we watched and read all through the earlier day, and then, in the night, in the primetime slot - probably 8 pm to 10 pm, when, families are expected to hit the couch, or whatever they can afford to sit on and watch this pack of howling wolves on the channels we thought were still sane about not doing plastic surgeries and accidents and re-birth and re-incarnation and re-re-re....
Now tomorrow's breaking news included the attack on the Bacha Khan University in Northern provinces of Pakistan, an area typically hit by violent protests against the ruling Pakistani government over the allegations of Pakistani government treating this part of the country in a rather discriminate way. Something not new about our own country (Oh, sorry, I was talking about the treatment, different parts of the country get). This makes me wonder, what does our government do differently that we do not have such unrests in these secluded, far away places of the country, places, names of which even the ones in the top level of hierarchy in the country's administration might not be knowing. Had they known these places, they could have decided to go down to these places for their foreign visits, since, ofcourse, these places have never been visited by the top rung officials.
Another talked about topic that has been in the news these days is the suicide of the ill fated student, who happened to be a "Dalit". A term that has taken over the very identity of a PhD scholar, above his personality, his capabilities, his aspirations, his being a human being, in this "Progressive Society" of the largest democracy of the world, and he being turned into just a "Dalit student who committed suicide". I was thinking this over an ad being telecast on NDTV India, saying... Aap jo dekhte hain woh bante hain.... Now the question that cropped up in my mind was, what NDTV is doing different in this particular case? I don't remember they themselves taking the helm to try to get atleast social justice to the guy. Not to mention, TRP ratings and greed for more money has always steered the way for business, and the ones in TV are no different. What impact do they think they are making on people by running adverts and self praising promos and then joining the hordes of other money hungry news channels in their methods of news delivery. I still do believe NDTV and its other channels are still the best among the packs currently running in the country, but still, this is still not what I would expect from a channel that claims to be different.
While there's no question about the impact Television and media has on the country. We have seen the brightest sides of them, through, the numerous public service advertisements sponsored by Government and other NGO's, a live example being the eradication of Polio in the country, which was achieved by the joint efforts of United Nations, successive Governments, both in the country and the states, numerous NGO's and self help organizations, but then, as humans, we have this natural tendency of being able to see the shortcomings fairly easily and almost effortlessly.
Finally, the press conference of Hon'ble HRD minister, Madam Smriti Irani, showing the suicide note of the dead student, claiming that the student didn't hold anyone responsible for his suicide, as if had he done that, she would have personally got the one claimed to be responsible for his suicide, lodged in jail.
The country is in a sorry state of affairs, but then we still have to have hope, because that's the only thing we could do, lest we get the power after a couple of more years, to again give it to someone else.
This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
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