A shameful silence

re: A shameful silence

sapience — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:19:06 GMT

Friends, Indians, Countrymen,Lend me not thou ears but thou souls,not you senses but your conscience. What a pity for country of more than 100 million people that we are waiting for the so called leaders to respond on the issue, it has therefore become our fate and destiny to bear the trauma and the misery of what we are directly responsible why not to yell together so as to make the people sitting in delhi and in washington listen to us and to work for us. Dont you know that India is the largest market for US let us all take a pledge that we would not consume any product which is any how related to US or its allies and they will hear us all. Rick

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re: A shameful silence

narayanan — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:52:25 GMT

I am a bit amused at the earnestness with which we all debate non issues. It is one thing to talk in general terms but another to be precise. There are important issues that should worry us in the context of Mumbai events. We all know that in mumbai, there were accomplices and sympathisers for these terrorists. We were also told that a large number has landed. Have we fully accounted for them. If not what are we doing about it. The media, however good their mission of informing public has been behaving in a highly immature fashion. Every time coming out with the so called exclusives, not even explaining earlier discrepancies in their reporting and also pretending to be live telecasting the information the captured terrorist has been gladly giving police. Are police doing their job seriously or are they only being mere informant of a sensation hungry media. Is Narsi becoming a bit narcissist and readers massaging his ego liberally. Serious questions need to be asked and answered in the context of immediate practical requirements philosopy and prescriptive statements are no substitute for hard , fast and practical action on the ground. Please those who may read this writing disseminate the one thing that we all can do.Please keep your eyes and ears open. Dont take things for granted. If you are not responsible for your security no one else will be. Let us all be very effective and responsible intelligence gathering machines for India. The potency of a alert responsible citizenry is the best intelligence machinery that India can think of.

re: A shameful silence

KMN — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:08:07 GMT

Mr.Nasseriti,am very pleased by your reply, i do understand you'd be tied down with work but took time to reply, so thank you. i do agree that most things in this country are disorganized but let's put ourselves as someone who has a immediate family member in the coast guard, and when you hear news like that, imagine the trauma? or what about the role of media in linking a role of Pakistan and acting against Pakistan in military terms?... the media needs to tell the public that a direct military confrontation with Pakistan is not in India's interest, a war is not in the table except in unavoidable circumstances due to the nuclear deterrent (never even heard this in the media, especially that India's biggest strategic failure was Pakistan going nuclear) and for economic reasons. and that any instability with increasing mobilization of troops due to Pakistan diverting it's military from NWFP to the east, is not ideal, instead India should look at increasing it's military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan, nothing will hurt Pakistan more than that.. it's radical but its more strategic. But for now the media must put pressure in ways of police reform(the current act is dated 1869), that's the most important thing to do, have a federal agency (the government would have to simply combine IB and CBI with more teeth), a federal agency(like the homeland security) only to fight terror with independent charge and powers like the election commission.ch (by the way, i have been a keen reader of Mint, i live in Bangalore, and even before it was launched here i used to read it online, and when it did, my school library did not get mint, so i used to carry a copy of it to read it in school (school was pretty early) during the day, and i read 5 newspapares and a tv news junkie and rate Mint as very good.

re: A shameful silence

Yogesh — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:13:01 GMT

It’s all over now. As an aftermath, Shivraj Patil has resigned. Many things are to follow. I am here to admit rather bluntly that I am unmoved by all. Yes, none of my keen died or injured in the attack. I was not even involved in the reporting of entire incident. The initial eagerness turned into fatigue. Television watching became intermittent thereafter. I cared to know, but little and not from the heart. Actually when rescue operation was on, I had started imagining the political fallout of entire episode. Karkare & Kampte’s death did initially shock me. But that shock did not last much. I missed the usual “spirit of Mumbai” & “Mumbai Meri Jaan” rhetoric. Perhaps that ‘spirit’ wasn’t alive this time. I also missed much of the political action. They shouldn’t been so inarticulate this time. Journalists’ action was interesting. I discovered many Maureen Dowd wannabe who updated the country bullet-by-bullet from warfront. Bachchan and his licensed .32 revolver under his pillow should have been played rather prominently, I felt. I also felt bloggers’ anguish was unjust. But I enjoyed Ramu and Ritesh Deshmukh accompanying Vilasrao Deshmukh at Taj during his first visit as a part of stock-taking. I saw frames of keens of deceased. Often short of words, the struggle while searching for words to express was anticipated. But nothing came out. Later I discovered, I have lost sensitivities. Grappled further to know how this happened ?. Answer came without many efforts. I realized that people losing their life has become routine here. And letting them lose their life is also a part of that bigger routineness which we see among our rulers. So I thank our rulers for taking my sensitivities out. (Comment is a reproduction of latest post on my blog)

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re: A shameful silence

narayanan — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:49:25 GMT

We are talking in circles. Let this forum send out a clear message that as some of the participants said that security comes to a responsible citizenry. The media is surviving on hype. They dont care what is truth and untruth but many a time dramatic depiction of police brutality without caring to get even a shred of evidence by media has led to demoralisation among law enforcement agencies.Let us be on the look out for unusual things , suspicious activities, and alert some one around. That is all required to deal with such crimes which are pepetrated because you are off guard.

re: A shameful silence

Rajni Kanth — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 07:38:50 GMT

It is painful to see a lot of breast beating and sermonizing across the country on what we did not do and should have done. The unfortunate truth is Indians have become very good at pulling down each other and turning vulnerable to one and all, and our politicians have made brilliant examples. The US form of conscription is the need of the day. Every citizen must know how to defend oneself, and help others. How many of us know how to administer even first aid to someone lying injured in a road accident, let alone in a blast? The sad thing is you are forced to look the other way than help anyone in distress: maybe because you will be accused of having hurt them, or be exploited by someone because you were naive enough to offer help. What a society we are degenerating into! You need an iron hand to rule a billion-plus people, but then we shall be cited China. A benign dictatatorship in a country that has irrevocably gravitated away from discipline...unthinkable when goons are armed to the teeth and the police wields sticks and hides behind barriers and sandbags, picking on inccocent defenceless citizens because the ones with contacts need scapegoats. That's today's India. There's some icing on a cake of bitter truths... You will occasionally find a helping hand that will bail you out and never expect a word of thanks even. Maybe that's what keeps India going.

re: A shameful silence

zzz — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:48:02 GMT

The Indian constitution, which is our bible to define our great democracy, provides every Indian citizen with the right to life, and now that basic fundamental right is under threat. A bunch of terrorists can walk into our country with stacks and stacks of arms and ammunition and hold India for ransom for three days and our entire political system failed to live up to our expectations. Kudos to the Indian army, the NSG, the fire fighters and all those who were in the line of fire trying to save our lives so that we can enjoy the basic fundamental right that was under threat few days ago. Questions have already been raised over intelligence failure, or even if intelligence was passed to the respective authorities, the central and the state government failed to act and the worst that political parties are looking to take mileage from innocent lives that have been lost to gain votes. But, even as answers to these are being found, I doubt how many of us can sit back and say that this government or new government or a particular political party or a particular leader will be able to give us the assurance or the comfort that our basic right to life is not in danger. Are we sure that system will give us an environment which is SAFE? We will continue to live in fear when you or your loved ones leave homes for work or schools, when we go out to eat with our families and friends. The train's and buses we commute, the flights we take or the mall we shop will they be SAFE.? I guess, it is time that someone gives an answer to the basic question. "WILL MY RIGHT TO LIFE BE SAFE-GUARDED.?" Although, I am miles away, the events of past three days have engulfed me, my family and I can take the liberty to say many Indians living abroad that a tragedy has fallen on our respective families. I know things are bad and like all Indian's I am confident that we will come out stronger, but I doubt, if our political system will learn from the mistakes. BUT ONE MORE TO OUR POLITICIANS: "PLEASE DON'T BOTHER MUCH ABOUT SUSTAINING 9% GROWTH, GOOD INFRASTRUCTURE, GOOD QUALITY POWER, BUT AT LEAST GIVE US RIGHT TO LIVE SAFELY. WAKE UP FROM SLUMBER."

re: A shameful silence

Raju Narisetti — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:18:59 GMT

KMN--Live television, especially in a fast moving story, does have its downside as anchors and producers tradeoff between getting news out, trusting their reporters to have done some due diligence and not being behind the curve. So some mistakes are legitimate. The problem is when irresponsible anchoring in studio takes over as seems to be the case. Unfortunately, there is no self-policing mechanism in Indian television nor are industry bodies powerful or influential enough to monitor their own. Not sure govt regulation (witness the temporary blackout strategy in Mumbai from the police) is the answer, but there is clearly a breakdown of accountability and self-scrutiny. It is mostly the same in print with the rather useless Press Council of India and Editors Guild. The unfortunate part is the Indian print media has successfully convinced the Indian government and large sections of population into believing that volunteer industry policing is working and TV not print is the problem. The reality is both these print policing organizations are a joke--ineffective and often missing-in-action. The answer ultimately is that each media outfit needs to police itself. But in a country where media outfits don't often have a written code of conduct--let alone actually living it each day--there is currently little hope for false information to be corrected and processes put in place for reducing chances of such false information reaching readers/viewers. Raju Narisetti

re: A shameful silence

Naveena — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 03:13:07 GMT

Well written Mr.Narisetti. It is indeed shocking that the Govt. is so inept and corrupt. It seems that all they care about is their power and the elections. Gee! a wrong word from them may alienate their precious voters so they search for the opportune moment and the right words and let the atrocities slide!

re: A shameful silence

Narayanan — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:19:03 GMT

Yes the media is equally culpable. But one thing the readers should understand and try to make others understand is that security is the responsibiity of every citizen. Our cities are so crowded and the means of communication like mobile is with everyone. We should take it as our duty to alert when we see dubious things. Eternal vigilance is the price of our lives. Keep our eyes and ears open. Let all of us consider ourselves to be the security guards of this nation. That way we can better protect ourselves

re: A shameful silence

kmn — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:00:42 GMT

By the way Mr.Nasseriti, is it possible to take some kind of action against wrong information by the media, especially talking falsely and wrongly on sensitive matters such as death of coast guard sailors?

re: A shameful silence

kmn — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:57:34 GMT

Well this is easily one of the worse governments in terms of administration in the country and the silence, Indian governments always have been the more silent than other governments round the world. But what about media's loud voice(sometimes or in India tv's case always senseless)...giving out operational information and bringing out the same point again and again...there have been responsible media but there have been bad...there s a Mumbai article and even a india tv report where they said that Indian coast guard officers were killed and their vessels hijacked...and that the terrorists were carrying automatic revolvers..huh?...do they even know how low their credibility would stand with cases like that. and i don't understand whats the fashion of criticizing the government...people get the government they deserve....just like its important to have a intelligent and responsible media as people inform themselves through the fourth estate..and if you have dumb press you'll have you know... look i don't support the government in certain ways...but does one think that it was a government 20 years ago created NSG, i mean things work slowly in the government...like the people reforms acts or federal legislation. and while intelligence needs to be beefed up and we do need better security and a long term security stance needs to be taken...people and the press need to understand that for their desired results,you'd need sacrifice and commitment...how about we start from voting (from a moral perspective)only national parties(failures of this government has been mainly cause of its arrangement)