Sep 08
It has been quite clear for some time that the Left Central Leadership is not satisfied with the policies of the Congress Government in the center, looking at the Government as being too tilted towards the US (nuclear deal, military exercises, overall globalization, etc); at the same time, their Government in West Bengal, wanting to continue to stay in power, has to show actual development on the ground. For this, it has to adopt policies of liberalization, and has to attract investment in the state. And guess what, if you looked at the West Bengal government in terms of what it is doing for industry, it would not seem any different from other states in terms of policies or actions. They need a friendly central Government, and so far has been able to get the Congress Government to help them out. But, if the Congress gets miffed, or really starts to feel the heat in the center, they will try to strike back in the state. And they just got a big start:
The buzz has been there for quite some time now but Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee chose the setting of a madrasa students’ programme today to indicate, more clearly than she ever has, that she is set to part ways with the BJP. “We are now with no one and are trying to stand on our own,” she said, adding that her party was going ahead with agitation programmes on its own, be it Singur or Nandigram. “In West Bengal, our party is going it alone,” she reiterated.
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Sep 08
The media is an extremely powerful entity, and can make or change fortunes in this country (actually in almost all countries). While good coverage of a person in a newspaper or TV can make the person a celebrity, there is a negative side as well. With most libel laws left weak so that the investigative powers of the media are not curtailed, there is a great tendency for misuse.
Take for example, the very thing that is most famous nowadays, sting operations. In a country such as ours where the corruption level is very high and present at all levels, there have been many sting operations that have helped immensely to expose the rot and corruption - examples being the Tehelka exposes, the cash for questions MP scandal, and numerous other smaller scandals where a hidden TV camera exposes the corrupt and showcases the corrupt person on prime TV.
However, in the US and other Western countries, any such expose or sting operations by a major media entity is fully vetted before proceeding, with confirmation being received before publishing. However, in the current case of the sting operation involving the teacher, it seems very obvious that in the crowded world of TV channels, people are willing to let confirmation and proof go by. What is more important is the scandal. And that is precisely what seems to have happened when a TV channel allowed a reported to carry out his own revenge in the name of a expose:
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