India’s response to the smear campaign against Bhushans: Statistical

Analysis of readers’ responses posted online (sample size: 453)

India's over all response

20%

In favour of Bhushans
Against
80%

Source: Twitter trend + NDTV + TOI

On NDTV

32%

In favour of Bhushans
68% Againt

Source: Readers' response at http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/after-

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/after
cd-land-controversy
controversy-for-bhushans-100065 (Sample size: 22)
 On Twitter

20%

In favour of Bhushans
Against
80%

Source : Trend ‘Bhushan

Bhushan’ during 5 AM GMT and 1 PM GMT (sample size:
140)

In Times of India

19%

In favour of Bhushans
Against
81%

Source: Readers' response at

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Fresh allegations-against-
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Fresh-allegations
Bhushans-over-Noida
Noida-land-allotment/articleshow/8035066.cms
allotment/articleshow/8035066.cms
(sample size: 291)

Note: All these sources (except twitter) comprise of negative articles and hence capable of
biasing the reader’s response

3 questions India must ask in the case of Bhushans?

 1. If Bhushans are ‘easy to manage’ why efforts are being made to keep them
away from the drafting committee? A corrupt politician will feel safe in the
presence of corrupt conduit and not otherwise.
2. If the ‘undoctored’ conversation between Mr. Shanti Bhushan, Amar Singh
and Mulayam Singh did take place in 2006, why Mr. Prashant Bhushan
submitted those very tapes to Supreme Court (in 2006 itself)?
3. How a government lab conducted forensic examination of the cd on the
behest of Hindustan Times and gave a report on its ‘letter head’ within 12
hours and if it is a government lab, why HT feels the need of hiding the
source (reference: IBN interview of Vinod Sharma)?

How it all started

At roughly about 12 PM GMT, on the 15th April 2011, Barkha Dutt, NDTV Editor tweeted:

“Will those who ask questions ceaselessly of others now have to answer some very
tough ones themselves! Details soon :)”

It maybe worth deciphering the tweet by the principles of analytical logic. A safe
conclusion can be (given the smiley in the end and nature of the tweets which followed)
that she was happy with the expected disclosure. This happiness points that she was not
happy with the ones asking questions. More safely, she was not happy with the kind of
questions that were being asked by these ‘people’. What kinds of questions these ‘people’
were asking? The people in question have been active part of the core team which led to
thousands of Indians to march in the cordons of Delhi and eventually compel Indian
Government to consider the enforcement of ‘Lokpal Bill’. Lokpal bill is yet to take its
shape and hence its only fair to judge the spirit of this law and not the words. The spirit
of Lokpal bill is to curb, eradicate the rampant corruption which has now leeched on the
soul of our nation and has always hindered the upliftment of poor. So essentially, the
question which ‘those’ are asking (and in turn which now the nation is asking) is why
there has been a delay in enforcing a bill that eventually is beneficial for India. By the
analytical logic, it is fair to conclude that this fundamental question has made Barkha
unhappy and hence, an uncomfortable situation of the ones asking questions has made
her happy. Hence the smiley. Therefore, a key question to be asked is that why Barkha
Dutt is unhappy with the question that now India is asking?
An important factual information is that the CD was circulated to all the media houses
more than 30 hours before this tweet. FIR was already launched by Mr. Shanti Bhushan
a day before this Tweet. Still NDTV chose to sit with the news and only ‘broke’ it the day
before the first meeting of drafting committee of Lokpal Bill. The next day, on the day of
the meeting, HT carried the news of the CD with the claim that the CD had been
validated by an undisclosed forensic lab. It only emerged later that a major portion of the
CD (conversation between Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh) was entirely lifted from the
tapes which Mr. Bhushan had already submitted in Supreme Court and had requested to
make them public. Curiously, a few days later Barkha Dutt proudly tweeted that Nira
Radia had not mentioned about her to the CBI.

Author: R.N.R.
Date: 20th April 2011