Gender Biased Media

A few years ago, I got too infuriated with the Times of India (TOI), due to the way it handled a news report. Some policemen had misbehaved with some women-protesters in Punjab, and the newspaper chose to show the face of the woman being harassed, her horrified friend’s face, but the camera angle made sure that policeman’s face would remain unclear and unidentified. It happened in both the two pictures it printed while reporting the news. That was a wretched show of journalism and my dislike of TOI reached a pinnacle with that incident (but many more cases had to follow).
 

Now a day, especially when I am in office, I browse through news.google.com to keep track of the latest happenings around the world. With time I started getting surprised as to why even Google News props up images of women in unrelated news, at the slightest opportunity. One day I just scrolled down the page and found that pictures of women were dominating the news page unnecessarily and almost unjustifiably. Since news hosted on google news is coming from various sources, and each source has multiple images on it, google news should have some logic to select which image to prop up on its main page. Was there a gender bias even in this expectedly gender-neutral programming?
 

I look at this page which is from any normal day.
 

With the news item titled “OBC admission: Supreme Court upholds HC order”, there are lady students featured alongside. So if the media has to post a picture of some students, it will be girl-students in most cases.

Second item is on rains and calamities. News titled “Heavy rains in UP, Bengal, Meghalaya; 12 dead” Here too, we can see a group of five women joining their umbrellas and captured in the camera. So if some people die out of heavy rains, our newspapers will show the pictures of some women commuters walking or suffering in the rains.

This kind of gender bias in the media is disappointing, and even offensive in a way. Such a practice keeps positioning women as an object and material, whose bodies would be for “display” to generate more eyeballs and raise some TRPs when it comes for the media. Advisers have historically used women (women’s beauty) to create a buzz around their products and services to an extent that we have stopped seeing any wrong in it. But it is surprising to me that even online portals running by unbiased search logic are selecting images of women only, for display.

OBC creamy layer ceiling raised to Rs 12 Lakh

Indian democracy becomes a joke when we talk about equality of all castes and religions. What our politicians actually practice is “vote bank politics”. Any group, be it a caste, religion, or gang, can demand and get anything and everything, if they are united and ready to “vote en mass” for or against any political party or leader. Caste based reservations, or popularly called Quota, are an example of this.
 

Caste based reservations were devised to benefit the poor. The rich, no matter belonging to which caste, are always protected in this world which runs on money. But just like the rich among all castes are basically “rich by caste” – they are another group altogether, their lobbying has resulted in a lot of manipulation of original policies to benefit the rich at the cost of the poor. Creamy layer was a system devised to counter this practice.
 

Creamy layer system was created to pull out the rich and powerful people among the reserved castes, so that the actually deserving candidates who were very poor, could benefit. So far the limit was Rs 4.5 Lakh per annum, which itself was very high given the socio-economic condition prevailing in India. But now, our super efficient government (check which political party is in power) has raised this limit to Rs 12 Lakh p.a. in metro cities and Rs 9 Lakh p.a. in non-metros!
 

Here is the news:
 

OBC creamy layer ceiling raised
 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/obc-creamy-layer-ceiling-raised/articleshow/10762780.cms
 

Another shocking reality is the timing of this decision. While the nation is busy fighting corruption and media highlight is on other issues, from the backdoor they have passed this rule thereby benefiting the rich and powerful among the OBC castes!
 

In my opinion, caste-based reservations are totally against our democracy and it mocks the principles of equality which our constitution assures to provide. I believe any right minded Indian would oppose the systems like discrimination based on castes, which indeed this Quota system is!
 

Long live our democracy! Let us remove all caste-based reservations and schemes! Let the poor come up and prosper!

The ‘Mahatma’ Fida Hussain

Ideally, the press and the journalists try to expose what is hidden beneath the rug. Not by peeping into individuals’ lives, for we are a billion people, but it happens particularly with whom we call celebrities. It is a cost to their celebrity-status that they have to undergo a scrutiny by the journalists. But at times, there are more to celebrities than a page-3 party. They get into controversies. The way media works; it ends up choosing its targets. The more interesting the enemy (the more articles can come up on the person), the better. When it comes to the case of the infamous painter MF Hussain Vs his controversial paintings, it was a case of MF Hussain Vs nascent Right-wing protestors, for the media. Who was to generate more news, buzz and gossip? It is an easy guess – the later. So it seems to me that the media chose its sides very smartly. MF Hussain became a hero, and his opponents – the Right-Wing ‘Saffron’ ‘Elements’ – became the villains. But, I think in the middle of this comfortable arrangement, bits of truth became victims.
 

I think not much analysis has been done on many aspects of the ‘MF Hussain Controversy’. His personal life has not been analyzed much – which could have given us some insights on the ways he chose. Demographic Profile – is what I mean. His decision to take up a Self-Imposed Exile was not evaluated enough with what could be the other possible reasons behind the decision to call it quits. I wished to research and write more on this, but I face a time constraint. But I read a very interesting piece by the fearless and reckless all-time famous journalist from India, Khushwant Singh. Let us read what he says here:
 

I got to know him during my stint in Bombay. He had already earned a name for himself as a modern artist and established a personal trade mark going bare-footed and carrying a two-yard long paint brush. He was a tall, well -built, handsome man with a beard. His infatuation for Bollywood stars, particularly Madhuri Dixit were bazaar gossip. By the time I got to know him, he was infatuated with Kamna Prasad. And she with him.
 

When he was invited to visit Pakistan, he persuaded Kamna to come with him. Once there he became very casual towards her. She cut short her visit and returned to Delhi. He sensed he had offended her and asked me to plead with her on his behalf to forgive him. He also added that he would dedicate his autobiography to her. No one knows how his family and six children took his philandering with women because they never spoke about it to outsiders.
 

I am not sure how many of you knew what Khushwant Singh revealed above. At least I didn’t read about this episode anywhere else. Since it’s coming from Khushwant Singh’s pen, I would assume it to be true.
 

Hint of another aspect behind him:

He fled the country and settled down in Qatar. By then each one of his paintings were fetching crores of rupees. He did not know what to do with money. He bought six expensive cars.
 

A man who doesn’t wear a shoe, needs to travel by six expensive cars, right?
 

What do these facts tell you? Doesn’t it give hint about a face of MF Hussain which most of us don’t know about? Has our media examined his other interests, except his flag-bearing act for the ‘right-of-expression’? Has our media showed us his sides where he is not having a ‘halo’ around his head? If not, then how are we expected to make an educated opinion?

Organized Conversion by Christian Missionaries

Just read the following article and can’t contain my happiness. I believe organized religious conversion out of Hinduism should be legally banned in India. Individual conversions are personal choices and should be left out. But the manner in which Christian / Catholic missionaries have been spreading their propaganda funded by foreign money/donations, it is shameful if our democratic govt should not stop it.

Conversion not a constitutional right: SC judge

Satya Prakash,Hindustan Times

New Delhi, February 27, 2011

Maintaining that there was no constitutional right to convert a person from one religion to another, justice P Sathasivan of the Supreme Court on Saturday said the right to propagate one’s religion was not an unrestricted right. Delivering the third Dr LM Singhvi Memorial Lecture on “Secularism and rule of law in India,” justice Sathasivam said the state has a right to pass laws restricting conversions if such activities created public disorder.

Quoting from the SC’s 1977 verdict in Stainislaus vs State of Madhya Pradesh & Orissa, he said: “The right to propagate means the right to ‘transmit and spread one’s religion by an exposition of its tenets’. But…there is no constitutional right to convert a person from one religion to another, because this would impinge on the ‘freedom of conscience’ guaranteed to all the citizens of the country alike.”

The Supreme Court delineated the boundaries of the right to propagate in the context of state legislation prohibiting forcible conversions, said justice Sathasivam, who headed the bench, which made a controversial remark against religious conversions while upholding the conviction of Dara Singh in the Graham Staines murder case last month.

But the bench chose to modify it after several Christian organisations termed it uncalled for and demanded its withdrawal.

On state’s the right to pass legislation restricting conversions, justice Sathasivam, quoting from an SC verdict said: “the ‘public order’ provision of Article 25(1) of the Constitution has a ‘wide connotation’ and that the state could legislate conversions if they ‘created public disorder.”

While maintaining, “Secularism is the part of the basic structure of the Constitution,” he said the term ‘secular’ has not been defined, presumably because it is a very elastic term not capable of a precise definition and perhaps best left undefined.

He, however, said in Indian context secularism meant “Sarva Dharma Sambhav” ie tolerance for all religions, which springs from due deliberation for one’s own happiness and also for welfare of all beings.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/tabloid-news/newdelhi/Conversion-not-a-constitutional-right-SC-judge/Article1-667294.aspx

I hope this creates a better environment and consensus for our govt to be able to put a ban on the corrupt conversion activities with help of money or jobs.

Disclaimer: Views are personal and do not represent views of any person or organization associated with the author. This is a personal blog. Purpose of write-ups is not to hurt anyone’s sentiments.

Mamata Banerjee as a Railway Minister

Mamata Banerjee has been called ‘Railway Minister for West Bengal’, because of her ‘Rail Budgets’ showered disproportionately higher largesse on her home state West Bengal alone. In 2009-10 budget, she started 19 new trains for WB alone, shifted some proposed factories from Bihar to WB (revenge on Lalu Prasad), and also announced a mega power plant for the state – schemes for other states were muted. In 2010-11, it got better: 40 out of 99 new trains were announced for Bengal alone in the Rail Budget! In fact her intentions were made clear in a few days after she became the Rail Minister – she shifted the Railway Ministry itself, from New Delhi to Kolkata! This was done in order to enable her to give her proper time and attention to the upcoming state assembly elections in WB!
 

Now somewhere her recklessness had to bite us. And it not only bit us, but also killed, injured and mutilated us. If not to all of us; then to a lot of us for sure. Read this statistic:
 

Mamata’s track record in Railways: 14 major railway accidents claiming over 700 lives in the past 2 years.
 

Read detailed analysis here: http://tinyurl.com/3e5q93a It comments on other grave issues like impact on Railway’s profitability due to her political moves, to count as one.
 

Now some people said that a large part of these accidents and deaths were the results of Naxal attacks, which were also a responsibility of the state govt. Hence Mamata should not be held responsible for this pathetic performance. Here is my reply:
 

Only Gyaneshwari Express was a major Naxal attack. And even in that, the actual casualty happened when a goods train came and collided with the derailed passenger train. Naxals didn’t want to kill people – they had only derailed it. They didn’t know that the driver of goods train would be blind, or any rescue for the derailed train would be lame. In any case 170 dead in Gyaneshwari still leaves a mammoth 530 to be counted for other accidents. And I am not counting accidents without any deaths yet; or the injuries, or the minor rail accidents.
 

Just view this page; a mere glance tells something horribly wrong went under her period. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_rail_incidents
 

Railways was never her “priority”. It was her mere “means” to get power in Kolkata. She never counted the dead and injured, all she counted was the new trains she started for West Bengal. And we had to bear the consequences for her “priority mismatch”…
 

Thank God that she won the West Bengal elections. Let us hope the new Rail Minister has some wider vision.