Views On News 07 November 2015

Special
VIEWS ON NEWS
TMM SURVEY: How the small screen is
confusing us about Bihar elections 42
www.viewsonnewsonline.com
THE CRITICAL EYE
NOVEMBER 7, 2015
BEHIND
THE
LINES
Rajshri Rais analysis of reality
checks across the border 03
z Meena Menons account of
what its like being an Indian
journo in Pakistan 11
z
MURALI
KRISHNAN:
Will IPL
fizzle
without the
Pepsi pop?
18
KRISH
WARRIER:
The long and
short of ads 38
BIKRAM
VOHRA:
Playboy
and the
age of
innocence
34
MAYA
KRISHNA
RAO:
Why I Rage
30
`50
EDITORS NOTE
SHUTTING OUR EYES,

CLOSING OUR EARS
THE SHIV SENA and related right-wing attacks on
Sudheendra Kulkarni and the vicious demonstration
against the Mumbai launch of former Pakistan foreign
minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuris book, Neither a
Hawk Nor a Dove, demonstrated not just uncivilized
boorishness but also an attempt by authoritarian
forces to prevent the spread of rational discourse and
knowledge. Lost in the ugly imbroglio was the powerful fact that an uncountable number of Pakistanis for
practical reasons of self-preservation and survival as
well as a yearning for peace and brotherhood have
tried ceaselessly to reach out to India over the heads
and batons of their political masters and hate-mongering, jehad-preaching ideologues advocating the destruction of Bharat.
Kasuris book, with all its faults or
questionable historical data, is one such
attempt at creating an atmosphere in
which the masters of India and Pakistan
can reason together and lessen the bilateral tensions which make our region one
of the most dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the world.
This is what Nehru wanted all along,
what Mrs Gandhi wanted after the
Bangladesh war, what Rajiv Gandhi, Vajpayee, Advani, Manmohan Singh and, apparently, Narendra Modi want.
So what stops us from moving
ahead? For one, blind hatred and the desire to maintain political power with the
aid of muscle and second, the
attempt to muzzle an exchange of information through censorship and propaganda. Actor Naseeruddin Shah, one of
the participants in the discussion during the book

launch, remarked: I do not actually understand why
anything said as a compliment to Pakistan must be
construed as anti-Indian. If I say Imran Khan is great,
does that make Sunil Gavaskar any less a cricketer?
On Shiv Senas argument that terror and cricket or
music cant co-exist, Shah said: The people who
sponsor terror arent the same who bring the message
of peace from across the border.
ctually, most Indians fail to realize or are prevented from knowing how strong these messages are from across the border. I would urge
my readers to do no more than use Google or YouTube
to look at Pakistani news and current affairs in their
newspapers and major TV channels. Youd be
shocked to see how much dissent and criticism there
is of their own government regarding hidebound positions on Indo-Pakistani issues, including stances
taken by commentators, writers and ex-servicemen
on sensitive subjects which, if uttered in the same vein
by Indians within India, would be considered anti-national and subversive.
I am not jumping to the conclusion that Pakistan,
compared to its Indian neighbor, is a liberal state. But
then, what am I to think when I hear statements made
publicly in the Pakistani media space questioning the
very validity of the ideology that holds together Pakistan as a nation state or questions state or non-statesponsored propaganda against India?
For example, Anand Patwardhans documentary,
War and Peace, shows girls in Lahore Grammar
School on Gulbergs Alam Road advocating the need
for Pakistan to arm itself to the teeth to repel Indias
nuclear threat and then, after the formal
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 3
Editors Note
If you see Pakistani news in their papers or

major TV channels, youd be shocked to see
how much dissent and criticism there is of
their own government regarding hidebound
positions on Indo-Pakistani issues.
GIVE DOVES A CHANCE

(L-R) Pakistani
school girls
expressing their
desire for peace on
the TV show, War
and Peace
A banner on the
Delhi-Lahore bus
route, welcoming
passengers from
both countries
debate, admitting to the Indian cameraperson that

they want nothing but peace with India and that the
pro-nuke positions taken by them was no more than
rabble rousing instilled in them by politicians using
the anti-India card to get votes.
From the mouths of babes, sometimes wisdom
flows. How many Indians have watched this? How
many Indians realize that it may be patently false that
all Pakistani children are routinely brainwashed and
grow up believing in jehad against India?
How many Indians have seen Pakistani intellectual and commentator Hassan Nisar on major Pakistani TV channels, including Dawn, berating the
mullahs, Generals Ayub Khan and Zia and the failure
of Pakistan as a corrupt army-dominated state in
comparison to the relative success of India? Or Pakistani ministers like Khurram Dastgir and others
acknowledging Modis commercial success in the
US and the demonstration of the power of Indias
4 VIEWS ON NEWS November 7, 2015
middle class on Pakistan anchor Kamran Shahids

show? How many have seen Pakistani anchors
highlighting the relatively comic failure of Nawaz
Sharifs team in Washington in comparison to the
achievements of Modis delegation?
How many Indians have watched anchor Ejaz
Haiders show on Capital TV with Brigadier Fayyaz,
and intellectual Dr Moin Yusuf questioning the recent
official Pakistani celebration of the 1965 war
when, as they admit openly, Pakistan indeed was
the aggressor and then had to retreat in the face of
Indian retaliation?
Dr Yusuf, in fact, stated that Modis diplomacy
is successfully forcing Pakistan to remain bogged
down in the quagmire of old politics while India is
refashioning itself as a modern state. If the trajectory of Indias progress continues to grow, Dr Yusuf
commented, we will become another Bhutan. He
recommends that Pakistan should engage aggressively with Indias economy and international economic interests so that both become stakeholders
in the quest for peace.
How many Indians have heard veteran journo
Najam Sethi saying we lost all four wars against
India, and stating aggressively that Pakistan invaded and started the wars in Kashmir, Siachen and
Hassan Nisar,
commentator
berates his
countrys
leadership and
bemoans the
failure of Pak as
a corrupt state,
in comparison to
India.
Khurram
Dastgir, minister
acknowledges
Modis
commercial
success in the
US and the
growing power
of Indias middle
class.
Kargil, all of which backfired?

How many of us in India have listened to
Pakistan war heroes like Air Vice Marshal Abid Rao
admitting publicly on Pakistan TV that even if Pakistan offered its territory to India on a silver platter,
India would turn it down. India has no intention of
occupying Pakistan, he said.
nd listen to Air Chief Marshal Asghar Khan,
another distinguished Pakistani warrior,
speaking on the topic: India an imagined
enemy, where he says: We are obsessed with
India. We believe India has started all the wars. This
is wrong. He blames Pakistan for starting animosities with India following Partition and the invasion
of Kashmir. We are in a mess, the former Air Chief
says. Why would India want to inherit this mess?
Najam Sethi,
journalist
says Pakistan
started the wars
in Kashmir,
Siachen and
Kargil and that
we lost all four
wars against
India.
Asghar Khan, Air

Chief Marshal
blames
Pakistan for
starting
animosities with
India following
the Partition and
for its India
obsession.
(by taking us over?) His coup de grace? We have

no need for a nuclear weapon and if we use it, we
will destroy Pakistan.
I doubt that many Indians could speak in a similar language on Indian TV without their faces being
blackened or a threatening notice from some government watchdog.
These Pakistani examples are only a random
selection. How many people have heard these
voices of sanity? If we close our eyes and ears to
them and ignore civil society and cultural overtures,
we do so at our own peril and at the peril of our
stated intentions of everlasting peace.
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 5
VOLUME. IX
ISSUE. 03
Editor
Rajshri Rai
Managing Editor
Ramesh Menon
Deputy Managing Editor
Shobha John
Executive Editor
Ajith Pillai
Associate Editor
Meha Mathur
Deputy Editor
Prabir Biswas
Art Director
Anthony Lawrence
Deputy Art Editor
Amitava Sen
Graphic Designer
Lalit Khitoliya
Photographer
Anil Shakya
News Coordinator/Photo Researcher
Kh Manglembi Devi
Production
Pawan Kumar
C O N
LEDE
11
Across the Border

With distrust at its peak, neither Pakistan nor India have a
permanent reporter based in each others capital any longer.
MEENA MENON, formerly with The Hindu, recalls her days in
Pakistana mixed bag of suspicious government officials and
the warmth of ordinary citizens
Chief Editorial Advisor

Inderjit Badhwar
CFO
Anand Raj Singh
VP (HR & General Administration)
Lokesh C Sharma
Circulation Manager
RS Tiwari
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SPORTS
How
18
Damaging
Is the Pepsi
Pull-out?
MURALI KRISHNAN
examines the long-term
impact of Pepsis
withdrawal from IPL
T E N T S
BOOK REVIEW
Champions
of a Hindu
India
24
Its my Life
TV REVIEW
New Wine in
Old Bottle
30
What could be more symptomatic

of the intolerant times we
live in than award-winning
writers returning their state
awards in protest, asks
MAYA KRISHNA RAO
TRENDS
Playboy and Me
The Long and

Short of It
38
KRISH WARRIER writes on the

copywriters perpetual dilemma
on how to pack all in a catch line
AJITH PILLAI
reviews the
gripping book,
Gita Press and
the Making of
Hindu India, by
Akshaya Mukul
EDITORS PICK
ADVERTISING
41
Though the sets are getting

tackier and the tasks are as
bizarre, Season Nine of Bigg
Boss manages to hold sway,
writes MEHA MATHUR
Mixed Signals
42
A TMM survey of five channelsAaj

Tak, IBN 7, Zee News, ABP and India
TVthrows up a confused picture of
the issues involved and the possible
outcome of the Bihar polls
Governance
AGRICULTURE
34
BIKRAM VOHRA writes on his trysts

with Playboy as a teenager, and
examines what made it different from
in-the-face sleazy content available now
MEDIA MONITORING
R E G U L A R S
Edit..................................................03
Grapevine........................................08
Quotes........................................10
Media-Go-Round............................23
As the World Turns.........................29
Web-Crawler....................................33
Design............................................46
Breaking News...............................48
Vonderful-English............................54
Time for Another

Revolution?
50
The days of the Green Revolution,

with its over-use of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides, might be
over, writes DEVENDER SINGH
Cover design: Anthony Lawrence
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 7
Grapevine
Food Diplomacy
resident Pranab
Mukherjee has
confounded the Israelis.
He tried practicing some
food diplomacy with
them but it left a sour
taste in the mouth of all.
Addressing the Knesset
while in Israel, he said:
Indians enjoyed the taste
of Humus. Humus is a
chickpea chutney popular

in the Mediterranean and
the Arab world. But when
this Bengali pronounced
it, it came out as Hamas,
the Palestinian militant
group from Gaza Strip
with whom the Israelis
have been having an
ongoing battle. Israelis
are now pondering why
Indians have such a
peculiar taste.
Badal and Mandela
he PM has gone on
record to say that
Punjab Chief Minister
Prakash Singh Badal is
the Nelson Mandela of
India as he has spent
nearly two decades in jail
only because of political
differences. But the
South Africans are not
too happy over this.
Their Father of Nation
has been compared with

Badal, which, even we
would admit, brings
Mandela a few notches
down. Last heard, a
defamation case was
being prepared in South
Africa against Modi and
the appeal will go right
up to the International
Court of Justice
in Hague.
Silent Modi
hile the media

and sundry politicians have been going
out on a limb over the
Dadri incident, what has
the PM said/tweeted
during this period? He
has conveyed birthday
greetings to Culture
Minister Mahesh
Sharma on September
29 and Bihar Governor
Ram Nath Kovind on
September 30 and trib-
utes on the birth

anniversaries of freedom
fighters Shyamji
Krishna Varma on
October 4 and Nanaji
Deshmukh on October
6. He also played host to
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel on
October 4 and wished a
sick Navjot Singh Sidhu
a speedy recovery on
October 6. However, he
has nothing to say about
the communal hatred
that was swirling
around then.
Faulty Stars?
adhya Pradesh CM Shivraj

Chouhan has many pressing
concerns. Ahead of the Ujjain
Kumbh Mela next year, where
around 30 million pilgrims are expected to converge, the state government has constituted a team of
nine astrologers to see that everything goes off well. Their work has
been cut outto pacify the gods

and grahas. These nine people are
to ward off the evil effects of Guru
Chandal Yogam, a planetary event
involving Jupiter, Rahu, Gulika
(Saturns satellite) and Ketu,
which is expected to be a
harbinger of a major tragedy. Rituals running into crores of rupees
are to be performed. Where are
the funds coming from?
Put on Your Dancing Shoes
New National Animal?
DP MP Malla Reddy cannot hold

himself when the music is right.
Recently, at a college event in Hyderabad, he was up on stage aping South
Korean singer Psy and dancing to
Gangam style much to the amusement
of CMR College students. The video of
this dance is believed to be giving
competition to the original Psy video.
Reddy loves his videos, especially the
ones which go viral. In his earlier video,
Nenu Malla Reddy (I am Malla
Reddy), he tells students how he started
as a college dropout and became an MP.
Ramdevs Business
Acumen
aba Ramdevs Patanjali

Ayurveda is soon to launch
instant noodles at ` 15 a pack.
Its catchline is Jhat pat pakao,
aur befikr khao. This is a
smart move to fill the void left
by Maggi noodles. What is the
next thing we will get from the
Patanjali stable? Patanjali
Sushi, Patanjali Khimchi,
Patanjali Baklava?
here is an online campaign

going on to declare the cow as
the national animal. Started by
Haryana minister Anil Vij, it adds
fuel to the beef controversy. This
proposal has been mooted because
the cow is becoming endangered,
says Vij. Mafia has become active
in the country to target the
species, he says. The cow requires
protection and the tiger can defend
himself to a large extent. No wonder the tiger is angry and despite
Amitabh Bachchans campaign to
save it, he was chased by one on a
recent visit to Mumbais Sanjay
Gandhi National Park.
Sweet Notings
emember the rasgulla row

between Odisha and West
Bengal? The Odisha government has
now formed three committees to take
its battle to a successful conclusion.
The first committee of seven members will submit facts on the original
sweet, while the second with four
members will study Bengals claim for
the GI tag and the third with six
members will do the documentation
to support Odishas claim.
Compiled by Roshni Seth

Illustrations: UdayShankar
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 9
U O T E S
The new strategy of anti-Modi,

anti-BJP sections appears to be
to resort to politics by other
means. The easiest way is to
manufacture a crisis and
subsequently manufacture a
paper rebellion against the
Government in the wake of a
manufactured crisis.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in
his blog post
They are not fringe elements,

they are hangers on of a certain
political system. Are we going
to allow what some people have
called the underbelly of this
government to take over and
start calling the shots, literally
and metaphorically?
Chitra
Subramaniam,
founder, First Post
The Idea of India is a nonsensical

construct. It was built and backed
by people now hoist on their own
ptard.
Rajdeep Sardesai,
consulting editor,
India Today Group
Will tweet much less now. Have
learnt my lesson. I wish you all
friends, the very best. Life is too
short, this country too great.
Sagarika Ghose,
consulting editor,
TOI Group
Good move @PMOIndia to declassify Netaji files. History must be
based on primary sources not
rumour and memory....
Historian Romila Thapar, on NDTV
My name is Naseeruddin
Shah and I believe thats
why I was targeted. It
really pains me to say
this. I have never been
aware of my identity
until now.
Actor Naseeruddin Shah, on
him being trolled for his positive
remarks about Pakistan, in
India Today
If any Indian claims that

he was never made
conscious of his religious or
caste identity, he is lying or
living in La-La-land.
In which world is Shah
(Naseeruddin) living in
that he claims, in all
innocence, that this is the
first time he was being
made aware of his identity?
R Jagannathan, in First Post
Shekhar Gupta,
editorial adviser,
India Today Group
#DanceBars ban was UPAs stupidest obsession & good SC has
stayed it. Funny, though, this is
one UPA law that BJP govt also
backs #BansUnite
Lata Mangeshkar,
playback singer
Namaskaar, If you have the power
to make someone happy, do it.
The world needs more of that.
Shah Rukh Khan,

film star
Theres nothing I like more than
working. A dancing nite with
Kajol even better. V r the worst
best dancers in the world!!!
Honest confession
Lede
Working in Pakistan
Living Life on the Edge

N
OT a week passes when Pakistan is not in the news for

all the wrong reasons. Last fortnight, two shameful events
in Mumbai involving Shiv Sena activists grabbed the
headlines. One was the drama that led to the blackening of Sudheendra Kulkarnis face for daring to organize the launch of former
Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Kasuris book Neither a Hawk
nor a Dove. The other was the storming of the headquarters of the
BCCI where Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shahryar Khan was
to hold a meeting with his Indian counterpart, Shashank Manohar,
to discuss the modalities of reviving cricketing ties.
If it is not such events, then its Pak-sponsored terrorism and
tensions along the LoC that frequently dominate discussions on
prime time.
Pakistan too is equally obsessed with news from India. However,
given the levels of curiosity on either side, it is rather peculiar that
neither of the two sides have a permanent reporter based in each
others capital. In May 2014, the two India correspondents in Islamabad were denied an extension of their visas by Pakistan. As for the
last Pakistani journalist who functioned out of New Delhi, you have
to rewind to 2011.
However, mutual distrust among the governments is not reflected
whenever there is people-to-people contact. Pakistani visitors are
overwhelmed by the hospitality they receive in our country. Indians
who go to Pakistan talk fondly of the affection and care they were
showered there. Meena Menon, who was stationed in Islamabad as
a correspondent of The Hindu till May 2014 recounts her stint in
Pakistanit was a mixed bag of suspicious government officials
and the warmth of ordinary citizens that she encountered there.
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 11
Lede
Working in Pakistan
What is it like being an Indian journo in Pakistan? Despite a stint fraught

with dangers, gunfire and blasts, MEENA MENON, former correspondent of The
Hindu, remembers the warm friendships she forged there
PERILOUS BEAT
(Above) Blast at a
vegetable and fruit
market in Islamabad
on April 9, 2014
TACCATO gunfire and sounds

of explosions rattled the glass
windows of my house. I lived in
what I thought was a sedate
locality in Islamabad near Sector F8 Markaz or market, in a
house rented by my predecessor quite close to Faisal
Mosque. The district courts were a sneeze away,
apart from the excise and transport department. It
was a little after 9 am on March 3, 2014, when I
heard the sounds of explosions and gunfire and I
helplessly tweeted.
There was nothing on TV but soon, news of the
suicide attack on the district courts filtered in. All
this while the gunfire didnt stop. I counted two deafening blasts.
I learnt that there were two suicide bombers and
when I went to the court a little later, the legs of one
of them were neatly arranged on a plastic sheet in
front of a devastated court room. The narrow lanes

of the congested court complex were full of glass
pieces, blood and flesh which gloved policemen
were picking up and throwing into a large bag.
One of them pointed to a smudge on the wall and
said that was the mark of the head of one of the
bombers. Some official-looking men directed the
police to scour the area for the attackers and I had
a sneaking feeling they were still around.
I had been in Islamabad for seven months or
so when the suicide attack took place right in the
heart of the capital city, declared to be safe by the
minister of interior just before the incident. It was
Peshawar that was always in the news for a series
of bomb blasts in September 2013 and after. I met
some of the relatives of little children from the All
Saints Church bombing admitted to the Pakistan
Institute of Medical Sciences. One of them showed
me some shrapnel carefully preserved in a glass
While the Shias, Christians and

Ahmadis were constantly terrorized,
one acquaintance pointed out that the
most endangered minority in Pakistan
was the secular brigade.
bottle recovered from a little boys neck. The boy

didnt survive.
COMPLACENT AIR
The news that we covered in Pakistan was more
often than not depressing and deadly. It was either
drone strikes or bomb blasts or attacks on minorities. A lot of time went in monitoring TV stations
and social networks. Since my visa was restricted
to Islamabad, which some joke is not even in Pakistan, I had to rely on phone calls or journalist colleagues in other hotspots like Peshawar, Quetta
and Karachi for authentic news. Officials too
would often give details willingly and in the beginning, I was lulled into a sense of complacency since
people were helpful and forthcoming with information and appointments, including some ministers and officials. I didnt feel I was in a foreign
country. But my more experienced colleagues
warned me that things could change and

soon they did.
For the first three months, I wasnt followed by security agencies and in fact, to
my utter surprise, no one was stationed
outside my house. However, during a visit
to the visa office in December, a bearded
man and his sidekick almost careened
into me. I realized that this was not an accident. Later in the evening, when I was
waiting to do an interview in a caf, the
same gentleman came there. And since
that day, they were relentless. They even
followed me and my husband on a hike
up Trail Six, one of the many hiking trails
in the Margalla Hills that encircle the capital. Unused to hiking, they were not dressed for
it and in the hot sun, I could see their frustration
and the pointlessness of it all. When we beat their
vigil and took another route across the hills, our
joy was complete.
All the people I met in the course of my work
would be grilled soon after I had left them. Despite
this, people remained helpful and met me. I also
managed to get a pass to cover the parliament and
attended both the National Assembly and Senate
proceedings with some regularity. There was no
fuss about giving me a special pass to cover the
trial of General Musharraf for high treason and I
was a frequent visitor to the Supreme Court. The
Foreign Office too was very welcoming and we
attended the weekly briefings where all questions
were answered with great diplomacy.
While most people were helpful, including the
Inter Services Public Relations who sent me
BRAVEHEART
(Left) Mama Baloch
led a 3,000km march
from Quetta to
Islamabad to highlight
the killing of young
men, including his
own son, by security
agencies in
Balochistan
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 13
Lede
Working in Pakistan
Following Mama Balochs interview, I was

accused of trying to subvert Pakistans
national identity and told to cover art and
culture, which I said was a little difficult
if I remained stuck in Islamabad.
ICE-BREAKERS
(Above) The author,
(third from right) with
women activists from
self -help groups in
Pakistan
regular updates and SMSes, I hit a wall with requests for interviews of the president, the prime
minister, the interior minister and the national
security advisor. They seemed happy to talk to Indian TV anchors but were very reluctant to grant
me an interview.
ENDANGERED MINORITY
I also felt that coverage from Islamabad had to go
beyond the usual political news and interviews
and tried to do stories which reflected the situation
there. I did meet some Hindus from Islamabad
and Rawalpindi who often supported other minorities on several issues. They were demanding a
temple in Islamabad and a crematorium. That was
the time when many Hindus were moving out
from Sind province to India and there was fear of
persecution, trauma and forced marriages as well.
However, I couldnt travel to those areas and
while I didnt meet anyone who wanted to leave
Islamabad from the Hindu community, there were
reports of temples being attacked in other areas.
While the Shias, Christians and Ahmadis were
constantly terrorized, one acquaintance pointed
out that the most endangered minority in Pakistan
was the secular brigade.
The media too was under constant fire and the
Express group was often targeted, with some of
their staff being killed and their office in Karachi
fired at. It was the attacks on Raza Rumi, a journalist, writer and TV anchor (his driver was
killed), and Hamid Mir from Geo TV which really
Photo Courtesy: Meena Menon
sent a strong message of intolerance. Raza left the

country, while Hamid Mir took a while to recover
from his serious bullet wounds.
Suicide attacks were increasing and I was particularly struck by one such incident when the
young law minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
Israllulah Khan Gandapur, was killed when he embraced a smiling visitor, a young man who came
to greet him on Eid. The killing was probably
linked to some political maneuvering by the minister, which went against the party which supported him. Deaths of army officers and ordinary
people on the Line of Control, constant skirmishes
and terror attacks were also part of daily news.
Though I kept up my requests to visit other cities,
these were met with radio silence.
FINAL NAIL
It was my interview with Mama Baloch who led a
3,000-km march from Quetta to Islamabad to
highlight the killings of young men by the

security agencies in Balochistan that drew the curtains on my assignment in Islamabad, or so I
think. My visa was not renewed and I was abruptly
asked to leave, along with my colleague from PTI,
by May 18, 2014. The Hindu published a detailed
op-ed interview with Baloch whose son had
ENDANGERED MINORITY
(Top) A small church in
Islamabad;
(Above) A Christian
family residing in a
slum
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 15
Lede
Working in Pakistan
The media was

under constant
fire and the
Express group
was most often
targeted. It was
the attacks on
Raza Rumi, a
journalist, and
Hamid Mir
which really
sent a strong
message of
intolerance.
been killed. He founded the Voice for Baloch

Missing Persons after that. I was summoned to the
external publicity office and grilled for over an
hour by a senior official who repeatedly said that
I had concocted the entire interview and demanded to see my notes. Mama Baloch had said
that if there was a referendum in Balochistan, most
people would opt for independence from Pakistan.
Even if this was not new, obviously this was not
something the Pakistan establishment wanted to
hear, much less see in print. I was accused of trying
to subvert their national identity and told to cover
art and culture, which I said was a little difficult if
I remained stuck in Islamabad.
After the loss of East Pakistan, there was great
paranoia about independence struggles in other
regions and Balochistan remains a quagmire of
political turmoil. The Supreme Court has accepted
that security agencies are responsible for the missing youth and these agencies often defy apex court
orders to answer for their crimes in the court.
The issue is compounded by deep suspicions
of RAW involvement in the Baloch insurgency
and constant attempts to rake up Indias alleged
VIGNETTES OF DAILY LIFE

Young boys selling
plastic bags outside
the Bari Imam Dargah
in Islamabad
subversive role, with Pakistan threatening to produce evidence to the United Nations. Quetta is out
of bounds for journalists and you need special permission to visit it. Even Carlotta Gall who reported
for The New York Times writes about how she was
manhandled by security forces during a visit.
LIFE OF FEAR
The slums of Islamabad reminded me of Mumbai.
Thats where many Christians lived and I did a
story on tented camps where Christians fleeing
persecution had set up home in filthy, stinking
conditions. I met Ahmadis living in fear and attended protests by Shias who were constantly
bombed in Balochistan and elsewhere. A constitutional amendment declares Ahmadis non-Muslims and their mosques cannot be called mosques
but places of worship. It was with great difficulty
that I ventured near one, secured by barbed wire,
with no signs of it being a sacred place.
After the bombing of a church in Peshawar, I
visited some churches in Islamabad where there
was much fear and insecurity. One of the priests
told me that they could not even afford a razor
fence which was considered a security against terrorist attacks.

Bombings are characterized by
their brazenness and soon after
the court blasts, the fruit market
was the next target.
The tenuous relationship between the army and the civilian
authority was strained by Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif s decision
to prosecute General Musharraf
for high treason and it was a joke
if he would ever appear in court.
The day he did was marked by
high drama and jammers in the
court. Journalists clamored to
chat with the former dictator who
seemed affable and relaxed during his brief appearance. Sharif
was to pay for this transgression later, with the
army threatening to topple him and insidiously
backing Imran Khans and Tahir-ul-Qadris parties
to stage a massive protest against the government.
CHESSBOARD MOVES
The other farce that played out was the Sharif governments move to talk to the Taliban, something
which was destined to get nowhere. But the charade was kept up for some time before the army
decided to launch an operation to bomb Waziristan and flush out terrorists. Increasing American
pressure to act against the Haqqani network was
another reason for this operation, though it cannot
be verified if the faithful Haqqanis were ever disturbed, though one of them was killed in the capital city. The nexus between the state and the
Taliban was no secret and with the withdrawal of
US troops imminent, there was greater pressure to
dismantle terror training camps and weaken the
Taliban. Drone strikes killed the Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP) head Hakimullah Mehsud on November 1, 2013, creating strife and division in the
TTP which later splintered. It was difficult to verify
these deaths and events and with the government

not willing to comment till much later, one had to
rely on the TTP spokesperson.
Despite all the constraints, there was much that
I enjoyed writing about. Interviewing former bureaucrat Shoaib Sultan Khan who has deep ties
with India was one of them, as also meeting the
humble but spectacular Abida Parveen and Haroon who created the comic Burka Avenger. The
historic Murree brewery in Rawalpindi was a place
I could not visit, though its charming Parsi owner,
Isphanyar Bhandara, gave me an interview in
Islamabad. Many Pakistanis were caring hosts and
became my friends, making my stay memorable.
It is sad that today, the exchange of journalists
between India and Pakistan has come to an end.
Till the paranoia that journalists are secret agents
out to spy on each others countries prevails, nothing can change.
COMMON LINKS
Cricket is a
favorite past-time
in Pakistan too
Meena Menon was The Hindus Islamabad

correspondent from August 2013 to May 2014,
after which Pakistan did not renew her visa, nor
allowed any Indian journalist to be stationed there
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 17
Sports IPL Scandal

Media Effect
LOSING SHEEN?
Fizz
T
Gone
Will IPL be the same again, with Pepsi

pulling out as sponsor? What will be the
impact on the tournament and the media?
BY MURALI KRISHNAN
King XI
Punjab's GJ
Maxwell plays
a shot
against Royal
Challengers
Bangalore
during a IPL-7
match (2014)
at Bangalore
HESE are trying times

for the cash-rich Indian
Premier League (IPL)
that has been thrown
into drastic uncertainty. Just when the
BCCI working committee was figuring out how
the tourney will play out next year and finding a
way forward, it suffered a major blow. Title sponsor PepsiCo expressed its intent of pulling out of
the tournament, which has been marred by controversy. Chinese mobile manufacturer Vivo will
be the new sponsor for the next two years.
PULLOUT IMPACT
Pepsis exit will not only hit IPL but could also
have a collateral impact on the media which
feeds off the advertising from the tournament.

Around 90 percent of the advertisement money
targeted at sports in India goes to cricket.
So how damaging will the Pepsi pullout be?
Some media planners are of the opinion that the
pricing of IPL could see as much as a 30 percent
drop. Apart from the taint of the IPL, the next
brand will probably have a shorter duration of
the contract. Furthermore, the title sponsor might find it hard to build up its association with
the League in two years, maintained Sam Balsara,
chairman at media buying group Madison. Similarly, other media planners were reported as saying that they would expect to see a 25-30 percent
decline in the title sponsorship rights.
In 2015, the T-20 tournament raked in close
to `950 crore in revenue, up from some `850
crore in the previous season, according to media

buyers. At that time, the broadcaster had increased its advertising rates for the season by 1015 percent to `4.75-5 lakh per 10 seconds up
from `4.25 lakh per 10 seconds in 2014. This is
expected to change after Pepsi calls it quits, thus
putting a huge question mark on the commercial
viability of IPL.
The new sponsor will have to re-build the
brand which has been associated with Pepsi. Its
advertising will have to match that of the beverage giant and viewers and fans will have to identify with the new sponsor. Luckily for Vivo, BCCI
has promised to re-auction the two teams under
a banthe Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals. The two were under a cloud after
the spot fixing scam of 2013.
NO ROOM FOR CHEERS

(Above left) Cheerleaders during
an IPL 7 match between Royal
Challengers Bangalore and
Chennai Super Kings at Bangalore
(Above right) The IPL spot-fixing
controversy in 2013 led to the
arrest of cricketer S Sreesanth,
among others
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 19
Sports IPL Scandal

Media Effect
So how damaging will the cola pullout be?

Some media planners say pricing of IPL
could see as much as a 30 percent drop. The
next brand will probably have a shorter
duration of the contract, too.
FOUND GUILTY
(Above L-R) The
Supreme Court
appointed committee
has imposed a life ban
on Gurunath
Meiyappan and Raj
Kundra for betting
in matches
Currently, Paytm, the mobile commerce platform, is the title sponsor for all domestic and international cricket matches to be played in India
till 2019, bagging more than a `200-crore deal as
BCCIs title sponsor for a period of four years. It
was eyeing the IPL but the deal did not work out.
Incidentally, Pepsi had paid a whopping `396
crore ($60.8 million) for the five-year IPL title
sponsorship in 2012. That was almost double of
what DLF had paid for the previous five-year period. But Brand IPLs reputation took a serious
walloping after the 2013 spot-fixing scandal that
led to a committee appointed by the Supreme
Court to suspend two teams.
And along with the suspensions in July this
year, the committee imposed a life ban on tainted
co-owners Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra for betting in matches. That, by itself, would
have been a cause for action and for the tournament to be red-flagged as their conduct was
found to have affected the image of the Indian

cricket board (BCCI), the League and the game.
Pepsi wishing to pull out of the tournament
was coming. Insiders say the Cola giant had been
mulling over this for a while. The decision clearly
signaled IPLs loss of credibility following the
string of controversies and scams. Those in the
know say Pepsis global chairman Indra Nooyi
had made it amply clear that the company would
only associate with ethical and clean sporting
properties. A couple of years back, the beverage
giant had terminated its contract with ace golfer
Tiger Woods following an infamous sex scandal.
TOUGH TIMES
An embarrassed BCCI tried to put up a brave
face and issued a statement that steps will be
taken to address PepsiCos concerns hoping that
it will try to salvage the deal and convince the
sponsor to stay on. A joint statement of BCCI
and Pepsi said: BCCI and PepsiCo have had a
long-standing cordial relationship and have been
in discussions to work out a solution which addresses PepsiCos concerns. Both parties will
share it when ready. But that effort came a cropper and Vivo had to be signed on.
Former International Cricket Council (ICC)
president Ehsan Mani is forthright when he in-
Hounded by Controversy
ince 2008, when IPLs maiden tournament

kicked off and made a huge splash, the eightteam tourney, it was alleged, was open to corruptive influences. Controversies have dogged it
ever since. There were worrying signs, in particular Pakistan bowler Mohammed Asifs drugs controversy in the inaugural IPL tournament, which
led to him being detained in Dubai for 19 days
and questioned about opium possession.
In fact, an inter-state betting racket was
busted in 2008 after a group in Bangalore with
links to London was arrested following a wager
sists that Pepsis severing of ties with IPL is a blow

to the Indian cricket boards reputation. Mani
went one step further and compared the PepsiIPL issue to the FIFA scandal that rocked international football which resulted in Sepp Blatter,
the supremo, being suspended.
When sponsors are not sure about the integrity of their product, they take exception.
They always want the highest ethical standards
and even a hint of corruption makes them iffy,
said Mani, who held the reins of the ICC between
2003 and 2006. Ali Bacher, South Africas former
powerful cricket administrator, termed the snapping of ties as a serious wake-up call for Indian
cricket. It is a very significant signal to the BCCI,
and they need to heed it, was Bachers succinct
comment. Expectedly, IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla tried to play down the crisis. They have been
a long-time partner. We are in talks with them
and have shared a cordial relationship. Both want
to reach an amicable solution.
EMBARRASSING CONTROVERSY
But what is certain is that the sponsorship
dilemma had roots in the betting controversy,
which former BCCI chief N Srinivasan refused
to deal with the way it should have been. Srinivasan failed to act when an illegal gambling
of $2 million. It was unknown whether those

arrested had links with the IPL officials but
rumors did the rounds. Also, a suspect fixture
between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal
Challengers Bangalore was not properly
investigated.
Even after the spot-fixing controversy in
2013 which led to the arrest of cricketers S
Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila,
bookmakers continued to be active.
When batting legend Sunil Gavaskar
revealed that two cricketers were under
investigation over possible corruption in IPLs

2014 edition, which was then already reeling
from betting and spot-fixing scandals, it took
everyone by surprise.
Other scandals to hit the League were former
IPL chairman Lalit Modis tweet naming
stakeholders of the Kochi Tuskers Kerala
franchise, which came back to singe both him
and Shashi Tharoor who was then a minister in
the UPA government. Lalit Modi was suspended
from his post as IPL chairman and commissioner,
and Tharoor lost his cabinet job.
POOR LEADERSHIP
(Above L-R) Former BCCI president
N Srinivasan refused to deal with
the betting controversy in IPL;
Global chairman, PepsiCo, Indra
Nooyi wants a clean image for Pepsi
Vivo, a Chinese mobile manufacturer, is

the new sponsor. It will have to devise new
advertising for fans to identify with it.
This might not be easy given the IPLs
association with Pepsi.
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 21
Sports IPL Scandal

Media Effect
Ali Bacher, South

Africas former cricket
administrator, termed
the snapping of ties
as a serious wake-up
call for Indian cricket.
He said that it is a very
significant signal to
the BCCI, and they
need to heed it.
Former International
Cricket Council
president Ehsan
Mani insists that
Pepsis severing of ties
with IPL is a blow to
BCCIs reputation.
He compares the
issue to the recent
FIFA scandal.
and match-fixing scandal engulfed the IPL and

the team he ownsChennai Super Kings.
Anyway, his son-in-law, Meiyappan, who was
manager of Chennai Super Kings, was one of the
prime accused in the case. Not only did Srinivasan decline to set up an independent probe
into the matter, but he also refused to step aside,
despite calls from all quarters.
It required the Supreme Court to step in, appoint a committee headed by former Supreme
Court Chief Justice RM Lodha to look into the
charges and the conflict of interest issue. The
rest is history.
Clearly, new BCCI president Shashank
Manohar, who took over recently, has his hands

full, attempting to bring probity and transparency to Indian cricket following the damning
Lodha committee report recommendations.
So how will IPL 2016 pan out? And will there
be a dip in television viewership should advertising brand owners decide not to throw their
weight behind it? Industry experts still believe
that brand IPL is a hot and lucrative property.
We dont know why Pepsi decided to pull out
before the end of the contract, but we do know
that this will not affect IPLs business as it has increased its viewership by 30 percent in the last
one year despite teams quitting and Lalit Modi
getting it a bad reputation five years ago, says
Rohit Gupta, president, Multi Screen Media
(MSM), the official broadcaster of IPL. But this
is a rather optimistic picture.
What is certain is that the upcoming edition
of the IPL is bound to lose its zing. At the core of
the problem is the credibility crisis that plagues
the league. The IPL has had no dearth of critics
ever since its inception. The purists saw the new
format of the game as not real cricket and have
been warning the BCCI that it would eventually
bring unhealthy commercialization to the game.
The slew of scams associated with the league has
only confirmed the worst fears.
One extreme option, says Amol Karhandkar
correspondent of ESPNcricinfo, was for the BCCI
to have suspended the IPL for two years to give
it time to clean up its act. But that was not going
to be an easy call. Suspending the tournament
would not only have affected the brand, it would
have had huge consequences on BCCIs revenue,
and as a result, the revenue of state associations
and players.
What the future holds for the IPL is tough to
guess at the moment. But it will require deft handling by the BCCI to keep the tournament alive
and kicking. But more than anything else it has to
put an end to match fixing, spot fixing and related
scams which have given IPL a bad name.
EDIA-GO-ROUND
Does Pepsi ad
mock FTII protest?
new one-minute Pepsi commercial

is facing flak for allegedly mocking
the protesting students of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune.
In the ad, the students are shown
protesting against the college
administration. The leader of the protest
announces that till the demands are met,
they will not even drink water. Just then,
a student among the protestors is
shown gulping down the beverage.

Pepsi thi, pi gya, says the student.
A Twitter handle belonging to the FTII
student protestors, Wisdom Tree @FTIIWisdomTree, expressed their
disappointment over the ad.
However, PepsiCo issued a statement saying: ...the latest Pepsi TVC has
no correlation whatsoever with the ongoing protest by the students of FTII and
in fact, viewers are sure to have noticed,
that in the TVCs fictitious situation, the
placards are clearly opposing a fee hike
in a college.
PeeCee nominated
Lookout notice
for Peoples Choice Award
issued for Goa journo
riyanka Chopra has been

nominated for Favourite
Actress in a New TV series
category at the Peoples Choice
Awards for her debut American
thriller series, Quantico, according to a DNA report.
Priyanka plays the lead role of

Alex Parrish, a FBI recruit in the
show. Upon getting nominated,
Priyanka tweeted: Wow this is
such an honour! First year and
a nomination! Thank you
@peopleschoice whats say
people? #quantico.
The Peoples Choice Awards
is an American awards show
recognizing the work of people
in which the general public
votes. Voting is open on the
website peopleschoice.com,
along with Facebook and Twitter until October 22. The winner
will be announced in Los
Angeles on January 6, 2016.
Googles goof-up
ollowing a First Information

Report filed by two women
journalists against the Goa
bureau chief of PTI, Rupesh
Samant, for alleged sexual harassment, the Panaji women
police station has issued a
lookout notice against him.
According to a NavHind
Times report, the lookout
notice against Samant was
issued after he reportedly
evaded the summons on
several occasions. The notice
has been pasted in all the police stations. Samant is accused of allegedly stalking the
two victims, sending them vul-
ISTORY can be interpreted in

many ways but cannot be
changed. But search engine Google
changed history when a search for
Indias first prime minister showed
the name of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,
accompanied by a snippet from
Wikipedia about Nehru, but with a
photo of Narendra Modi, The Times
of India reported.
This is not the first instance when
the search engine has shown PM
gar messages via the mobile

phone and making sexual
advances at Herald Cable
Network (HCN) where the two
victims worked. Samant was
an anchor at HCN.
Modis photo under the wrong search

query. Earlier this year, PM Modi was
categorised in the Top 10 criminals
in the world along with criminals like
Dawood Ibrahim and Al Capone.
Later, Google apologized to the prime
minister. Social media was quick to
react. A user tweeted: Google Just
Loves Narendra Modi. Har Jagah
Modi ki pic laga deta hai Google. Ab
toh India ka first prime minister.
Compiled by Vijay Patil
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 23
Book Review
Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India
Charioteers B
of the
Rashtra
INDIAN IDOLS
Kalyan depicts Hindu
gods on its covers
This gripping book on Gita

Press, established in 1923, and
its periodical, Kalyan, shows
how they shaped and
moulded Hindutva as we
know it today
BY AJITH PILLAI
EFORE delving into Akshaya Mukuls Gita Press

and the Making of Hindu
India, it would be appropriate to underscore two
points. This remarkable
book must be considered essential reading for
anyone who wishes to understand the evolution
of Hindutva as we know it today and the various
cross-currents that shaped Hindu nationalism
from the 1920s onwards. It is also the result of five
years of painstaking research which took the author to Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Banaras and
Allahabad. It involved spending considerable
stretches of time digging up archival material in
various libraries to join the dots and plot the
strands that redirected contemporary Hindu
thought and political philosophy.
The result of the effort was a manuscript that
ran into 2,20,000 wordstoo wordy and unwieldy in this day and age of snappy reading. It
had, therefore, to be trimmed to 1,65,000 words
and even then, publishers refused to bite it. It goes

to the credit of HarperCollins that it thought it fit
to commit Mukuls work to print, thereby providing us access to his enlightening work which puts
modern-day Hindu nationalism and its growth
in a context that many of us may not even be
aware of.
SPIRITUAL VENTURE
The central framework on which the narrative
rests is the history of the Gita Press which was
established in Gorakhpur in 1923 by two Marwari businessmenJaydayal Goyandka and
Hanuman Prasad Poddar. It was started more as
a spiritual venture than a political or business
enterprise. But things changed in 1926 with the
launch of Kalyan, a journal which was used from
time to time as a vehicle for propagating social as
well as political ideas to the Hindu community.
In fact, post-Kalyan, the Gita Press allied itself
with Hindu right-wing parties, including the
Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, Jan Sangh and the BJP.
Though the political role it played has not
been highlighted, Gita Press is a well-known
name. In most middle class Hindu homes, copies
of the Ramayana and Gita have rolled out from
the press at Gorakhpur. Its staggering output is a
manifestation of its reach and popularity. Till
2014, Gita Press sold 72 million copies of the Gita,
70 million copies of Tulsidass works and 19 million copies of the Puranas and Upanishads. And
the Hindi edition of Kalyan enjoys a circulation
2,00,000, while its English version, KalyanaKalpataru, sells 1,00,000 copies. This is huge
when you consider that most religious journals
can boast no more than a circulation of a few
thousand copies.
COMMUNAL TONE
The books main focus is on Kalyan. According to
Mukul, the journals political positioning was evident from its inaugural issue in the turbulent
1920s when there were a series of Hindu-Muslim
RURAL LEAP
(Above) In 2013, there were
89.6 million households
with TV in rural India, much
more than the 77.7 million
urban households
riots, right from Malabar in the South to Lahore

in the North and Bombay and Calcutta in the
West and East respectively. Poddars essay in the
inaugural issue blamed Muslims for the violence
and bemoaned Hindu inaction. It called for
sanghbal (unity of strength) and invoked coreligionists not to turn the principle of non-violence into cowardice.
In the pages of the journal, Hindu involvement in the riots was portrayed as defending the
religionthe very thought that justifies communal violence in the present day context. Mukul
quotes Jaydayal Goyandkas response to a query
from a concerned Kalyan reader who had an arrest warrant issued against him for rioting.
Goyandkas response is telling: Why worry
RIGHT ASSOCIATIONS
(Clockwise, from top left)
Eminent liberal minds wrote
for Kalyan, including MK
Gandhi, Rabindranath
Tagore, Munshi Premchand
and Dr BR Ambedkar,
seeing it as a right
vehicle for communicating
with people
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 25
Book Review
about arrest? It should be a matter of joy if you

are hanged for a public service like this.
JOURNAL OF STANDING
Many saw the journal as a vehicle to communicate to people and the best intellectual and political minds in India wrote for Kalyan. These
included Mahatma Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad,
Madan Mohan Malaviya, S Radhakrishnan,
Gopinath Kaviraj, Radhakamal Mukherjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Munshi Premchand and
Harivanshrai Bachchan. This mix of writers and
thinkerswhat they wrote was a lot different
from the editorial line taken by Poddarattracted many readers. It became a thinking persons magazine. Jawaharalal Nehru was the only
Marwari businessmen Jaydayal Goyandka

(left) and Hanuman Prasad Poddar (right)
were the brains behind the Gita press. They
started it more as a spiritual venture than a
political or business venture.
big political figure at that time who never wrote

for Kalyan despite requests from Poddar.
But the journal was far more than a vehicle for
intellectual discourse. Not because RSS leaders
were closely associated with it but because of the
positions it persistently propagated. Through his
research, Mukul discovered the 1947 plan that
Poddar drew up for a Hindu rashtra that he believed should be the outcome of Partition. Some
of Poddars postulates have a familiar ring: India
should be called Hindusthan or Aryavarta; it
should purely be a Hindu nation entirely organized on the basis of Hindu culture and the
national flag should be saffron...; as a matter of
basic principle cow slaughter should be banned;
the official language should be pure Hindi (not
the corrupt Hindustani) and the script Devanagari.... The Indian army should consist of Hindus.... Muslims should not be appointed to any
high post...
Kalyan also reposed faith in the caste system
and saw the Hindu Code Bill, which was taken up
in 1948 when BR Ambedkar was the law minister,
as one that was detrimental to the majority community since it introduced two types of marriages: the sacramental and the civil.
At the height of the controversy in 1949,
Kalyan carried an allegoric account of a swami
who saw a dream set in a courtroom. The case
being heard was that of a Brahmin woman who
was lured into marriage by a doctor from Madras.
He claimed he was from her same upper caste but
turned out to be a chamar (untouchable caste of
leather workers). The man usurped and sold all
the money given to the woman by her father and
sold her property. Ambedkar was the lawyer for
the husband and argued that his client had done
nothing wrong under the Hindu Code Bill. However, the judge ruled in favour of the woman.
When Ambedkar protested, the judge told him
he would request mother nature to throw out
black English rulers just the way real English
rulers had been made to leave.
Untouchability was an issue that Kalyan was

very touchy about. In the temple entry for all
issue, one of its essays said that untouchables had
the right to worship nature gods, the sun the
moon, the fire, the earth, the Ganga, the banyan
tree, etc. The other forms of gods, ie., the cultural
statues brought to life through chanting of Vedic
hymns, could only be worshipped by a dwija
(twice born), and this was the basis on which the
dharamshastras bar the entry of untouchables
into temples.
COW SLAUGHTER
When it came to cow slaughter, Kalyan brought
out a special edition in July 1947 in which it
reminded readers that cow protection alone
could save life and religion since the cow is the
life of the nation. The journal literally launched
a campaign which it sustained for years. Much of
the arguments against cow slaughter that we still
hear are exactly the same ones propounded in the
Kalyan reposed faith in the caste system

and saw the Hindu Code Bill as
detrimental to the majority community. It
was also touchy about untouchability and
opposed the temple entry for all.
columns of the journal several decades ago. Incidentally, cow slaughter and untouchability were
among the several issues on which Gandhi had
differences with Poddar.
According to Mukul, the Gita Press was initially started as a counter to what was happening
within the Marwari community. Westernization,
both Poddar and his fellow founder Goyandka
believed, was taking younger members of
the community down the wrong path and away
from the core values of Hinduism. They were
marrying outside their castes and indulging in
EMOTIVE ISSUE
(Above) Cow protection and
worship, espoused in Kalyan,
remains an important plank of
right-wing parties in India
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 27
Book Review
RIGHT PATH
The founders of Gita Press
were keen that Marwari
youth retain Indian values
GITA PRESS AND THE

MAKING OF HINDU INDIA
By Akshaya Mukul
Publisher: HarperCollins
Price: `799, 539 pages
a decadent life. The publishing project started out

by providing reading material to the young and
to awaken the Hindu consciousness and set right
wrongs in society. But it turned political in no
time with Kalyan.
But Kalyan was also a publication that promoted bhakti and gyaan. The typical reader,
therefore, was not necessarily a believer of hardcore Hindu right-wing ideology. He or she had to
be spiritually inclined to be interested. Poddar
and Goyandka had a winning mix.
Mukul has said in an interview that the two
were unique in the sense that they created a very
Bania model of Bhakti. He further elaborates this
point by citing from what he has written: They
were saying, Do certain things, take the name of
Lord Ram 50,000 times and you will get what you
want in life. Its a quick return, like a business.
They were the first ones to also start Gita and Ra-
mayana tests with centers going almost up to

Madras. At these centres, theyd test peoples
knowledge in the Gita and the Ramayana. Then,
they started the bankin Bihar and UPold
people were invited to write the name of Ram and
send the notebooks to Gita Press and feel, Oh,
Ive taken the name of Ram 5 crore times. The
promise of shakti in exchange for bhakti was popularized by Gita Press. Also, the concept that
reciting Gods name helps accumulate punya
(moral or spiritual merit) was also made into a
trend that still holds true today.
Every page of Mukuls book is packed with information that involves serious study. It is without
doubt a gripping look at a recent slice of our political and social history. But dont expect the book
to be a page-turner falling into the genre of pop
history. In fact, it is volume that you would like to
refer to even after you have read it once.
S THE WORLD TURNS
Jail term, whiplashes

for Iranian director
ranian filmmaker Keywan

Karimi has been sentenced
to six years in prison and
223 lashes for what was
considered a provocative
video clip and a documentary, Writing on the City. It
describes political graffiti in
Iran. A court said his work
had insulted sanctities

in Iran.
Karimi is best known for
his 2013 short film The
Adventure of the Married
Couple, which portrays the
life of a couple who barely
meet each other because of
their different work shifts.
HuffPost
takes a hit
uffington Posts US traffic declined

considerably over the past year,
reports the International Business
Times, based on data provided by
comScore. From 113 million unique
visitors in September and 126 million
visitors in November last year, it saw
the number of visitors shrink to 86
million in September this year.
On the other hand, HuffPosts rivals
have seen a steady rise: Business Insider (from around 30 million to 41
Foxy image
wins prize
mateur wildlife photographer Don

Gutoski of Canada has won the
2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year
for his image of a red fox carrying the
million), Vice Media (from around 36

million to 61 million), and BuzzFeed
(68 million in August 2014 to 85 million a year later).
HuffPost explained this slide by
clarifying that its focus over the past
one year had been on global traffic.
body of its Arctic cousin after a fatal attack in Canadas Wapusk National Park.
The competition was organized by
Londons Natural History Museum.
The photograph, though depicting
the brute force of nature, mesmerizes
with its symmetry of heads, bodies
and tails and even the expressions on
the faces.
The Junior Wildlife Photographer of
the Year went to 14-year-old Ondrej
Pelnek from the Czech Republic for his
image, Fighting Ruffs. The birds are
waders and are known for their rough
behavior during courting. This year
there were 42,000 entries from
100 countries.
US scribe
convicted in Iran
ashington Post correspondent

Jason Rezaian has been
convicted in Iran on espionage
charges. He had been detained in
Tehran for more than a year, according to reports in the Iranian media.
Though the journalist has been
convicted, the specifics of the
charges are not known.
Rezaian, a dual citizen of the US
and Iran, was arrested in July 2014
on charges of spying on Irans
nuclear programs and providing the
US government with information on
individuals and companies evading
economic sanctions, the Iranian
News State Agency reported.
The verdict has created outrage in
the media, among lawmakers and the
general public in the US.
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 29
Editors Pick
Maya Krishna Rao
The Government is Getting

Nervous About Writers
Speaking Out in One Voice
VON brings in each issue,

the best written commentary
on any subject. The following
write-up, from The Wire, has
been picked by our team of
editors and reproduced for
our readers as the best in
the fortnight.
What could be a
better way to
protest against
the growing
imbalance than
award-winning
writers of the
country
returning their
State Awards?
E
INDIA UNDONE
Mohammad
Akhlaqs killing
puts a big
question mark
on the countrys
liberal ethos
VERY freedom is under every kind of

attack todaythe right to life, to
speech, to express, to choose which
god to pray to, what food to eat and
clothes to wear, what partner to
choosethe list goes on. The attacks can be verbal, physical, rape and murder. The brutal killings of Dhabolkar,
Pansare, the later lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in
Dadri, followed by the motivated indifference of both the
cultural bodies and the government was when it became
difficult to stay silent anymore.
As I see it, some fundamental issues to do with freedom are on the front burner today, and they are all connectedwill someone tell me what I should speak, who
my friends should be, what theme I choose to work with

and the perspective from which I interpret it? And if I
dont comply, must I fear for my safety?
Life and cultural expression are not separate, they lie
on a continuum when tolerance is under attack. Returning an award is an expression of that, fundamentally. Its
not about polarising, its about gathering around and
fighting for a single themetolerance.
CONVERSATION HAS CHANGED
It is not just writers and the creative community who
sense that the key of conversations in the country has
changed in the last year or so. It is not even about individual crimes like rape and murder, which do happen
everywhere in the world. The point is the general environmentit is about a whole atmosphere that seems to
be manipulated by some machinery. Terrible statements
and vicious attacks, typically aimed at inflaming passions
between Hindus on the one side and Muslim and Christians on the other, are everyday occurrences. Dalits, adivasis and women are often particularly singled out. Those
involved are from the broad Hindutva stream. Anyone
can make that out. But more worryingly, there are ruling
party MPs, and ministers.
Both from goon squadswho enjoy protection from
the governmentand from within the government of
today, there has been a steady, continuous, threatening
move to redefine who makes a good Indian. Its not
enough to be simply Indian anymore. On the one hand,
women are reminded that they are not Indian enough
unless they follow a dress and behaviour code, Hindu
women are extolled to produce 4 -10 children to solve the
menace of rising numbers in the minority communities
and, on the other hand, the Culture Minister, Mahesh
Sharma promises to cleanse every area of public discourse that has been Westernised and where Indian culture and civilisation need to be restoredbe it the history
we read, our cultural heritage or our institutes that have
been polluted over years.
So much so that even the first citizen like the late President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam needed a good chit from
Sharma. Referring to the late President he described him
as someone who was a humanitarian and a nationalist,
despite being a Muslim. It was a BJP minister who appealed to Parliament to throw out the word secular from
the preamble of the Indian Constitution. These are only
some examples from the last few months.
A BLIND EYE
Prime Minister Narendra Modis response has usually
been to turn a blind eye, to remain silent for long periods
or to choose to attack pseudo-secularists for polarising
politics when he should actively reining in, with a firm
hand, all those within and without the government who
whip up an ethos of intolerance, who humiliate, rape and
kill in the name of Hindutva. A government with 282
Even late President of India, APJ Abdul

Kalam needed a good chit from Culture
Minister Mahesh Sharma. The minister
described him as a nationalist, despite
being a Muslim.
seats in Parliament carries weight, carries an even bigger
responsibility, carries the power to ensure an environment
of tolerance and a sense of security for every Indian. It was
he who needed to take the lead.
How can one not be outraged? How can one not
express outrage? How can one not choose to do it through
an action that will get the government to sit up and take
note?
What is truly amazing is the award returnees did not
sit together to decide on this course of action. Its more like
an electric current thats zigzagging its way, even as this is
being written, and charging up, as it travels through the
length and breadth of India, our India.
In both pre- and post-independent India, artists and
writers have expressed their thoughts, have protested
whenever there has been a threat to what constitutes
humanity and humaneness. Many among the writers
who have stood up to be counted today have done so in
the past too. I have personally made dance, theatre, comedy shows taking up a range of issues from AFSPA to the
Babri Masjid to the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat, the policies
of the Congress government, its complete inertia in
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 31
Editors Pick
Maya Krishna Rao
through creative writing, statements or marching on the

street. Many of us will continue to do in so many different
ways. And no one can dictate what the issue may be or
the form it will take. But, yes, it will always be around
restoring humaneness, around the politics of humanity.
Author Nayantara
Sahgal returned her
Sahitya Akademi
Award in protest
against the unmaking
of India. She pointed
to the killings of MM
Kalburgi, Govind
Pansare, Narendra
Dabholkar and
Mohammad Akhlaq.
A well-known man of
letters, Ashok Vajpeyi,
former chairperson of
Lalit Kala Akademi,
joined the protests by
fellow-writers and
returned his Sahitya
Akademi award,
saying, Its high time
that writers take a
stand.
answering questions posed by youth who walked daily in

the wake of the horrific gang rape of December 2012.
Yes, we have voiced outrage when the previous government did not ensure protection to MF Husain in his
own country but, equally, we expressed outrage at the
circumstances that led to his self-imposed exile, that is
when the same right wing goons destroyed his works of
art and attacked him. All this, after the 90 odd years that
he lived, practiced and rose to the top as an artist in this
same India.
Yes, many of these writers have expressed outrage at
communal riots that took place during the regime of previous governments; yes, they have spoken up, whether
OVERWHELMING PUBLIC RESPONSE

The award is one instrument I had and I hope that by giving it up, along with many of my colleagues, it will help
to jolt the government on the one hand, and on the other,
reassure all those who believe that intolerance should not
be tolerated, that it affects every one of us. I hope many
in the juries who chose us support us today for that reason. From the overflowing public responses, particularly
through social network sites, it is clear that in returning
the award we have only lived up to the expectations of our
readers and audiences.
The question is, why, on all those occasions, was there
no excitement of the magnitude we see these daysfrom
ministers, the press, saffron-robed cultural leaders and
an anti-liberal section of the population? Why so much
agitation nowjust because every day more and more
writers and artists are doing the simple act of returning
their awards or resigning from state-supported cultural
bodies?
The answer, so plain to see, is because they are nervous. Writers of the highest calibre, with a large public following, from a wide range of languages, from different
corners of this country, who were chosen to be recognised
with top honours by the top cultural bodies of India, are
speaking out in one voice. In a way that is unprecedented
in this countryby returning their awards. Everyday,
their numbers grow, even as this is being written. Their
readers and admirers cheer them for their bold step. They
take up front page news, everyday. Unprecedented.
Enough to get news channels to invite them on a daily
basis on prime time. Enough to get the government nervous. Enough to give an alternative, humane voice and politics, a shot in the arm.
Maya Krishna Rao is a playwright and theatre actress.
She has returned her Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
in protest
Web Crawler What Went Viral
Twitters
verdict on
Prez debate
witter users felt Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (extreme

left) was the clear winner of the
first Democratic presidential
debate, judging by the fact that
he rapidly outpaced the other
four candidates in getting new
Silver lining
in Syria
Todies
give it back
ragic tales from Syria have become all

too common over the course of the
countrys civil war. The scale of the devastation is so massive that it might seem surprising that there are places inside the
country that look mostly untouched by war.
However, Ashraf Zeinah, one of Syrias
most prolific photographers, is chronicling
wedding frolics, music concerts and basketball in Syrias Latakia provincehe has
gained nearly 2,000 Instagram followers
and 18,000 more on Facebook. Before the
war, he travelled around Syria capturing architectural sites, work that has ended because of the fighting. He now takes pictures
of weddings and other public events.
Twitter followers.
Sanders gained 35,163 new
followers during the 150-minute
debate. Meanwhile, the other four
Democrats gained a combined
total of just 23,219 new followers
led by Hillary Clinton (left), who
added 13,252 new followers.
In the second Republican
debate, Carly Fiorina gained
22,000 Twitter followers and her
poll numbers reflected a similar
jump, as she rocketed from fringe
candidate to second place.
riter Salman Rushdie caused quite a furor by

terming Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modis internet supporters as Modi Toadies.
Rushdie has joined many other liberal-minded
writers in India, protesting against recent actions
by right-wing Hindu groups.
In response to negative messages he received
for his stance, Rushdie tweeted: Here come the
Modi Toadies. FYI, Toadies: I support no Indian political party and oppose all attacks on free speech.
Liberty is my only party.
The term drew criticism from supporters of the
Indian premier. Viv J tweeted: Sad that so many
of us Modi Toadies whove defended u over years
are now dismissed as sycophants.
Murder
caught on
video
ideo footage of a laborer being

beaten to death in Amritsar remained unnoticed by the state labor
office, inspite of the fact that it went
viral on social media.
The video, recorded by a person present
at the scene, allegedly shows Ram Singh
hanging upside down and being beaten with
an iron rod by Jaspreet Singh, his employer,
at the factory where he used to work. Singh
later succumbed to his injuries.
Assistant labor commissioner of Amritsar Vipan Pariar told The Indian Express:
I have checked with my sources. I have no

knowledge of such an incident.
Jaspreet allegedly kidnapped Singh from
his home on October 15, suspecting him of
theft. Singhs body was later recovered from
a road. Although a police case was registered against Jaspreet Singh and two others,
no arrests have been made so far.
Compiled by Anuj Raina
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 33
Trends Playboy
Nude Photos
How I Learnt to Love

Rock the Rabbit
With Playboy deciding to stop publishing nude photos, what does it mean
for its reader? Heres an account of an impressionable 12-year-old boy who
chances upon this mag and the impact it left on him
BY BIKRAM VOHRA
REMEMBER I was 12 when I

chanced upon my first Playboy copy in
our home in Ambala Cantt. We were
living on Race Course Road and my
dad was commanding an armored
regiment. In his bedroom in the side drawer near
his bed under the files and some serious books, one
of them a super edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam, was this slightly crumpled but plump

issue of shiny paper. This is 1960, remember, and a
12-year-old was mighty innocent as compared to
his counterpart today. It looked wickedly inviting.
One of those days, luck was on my side. I was
alone at home and was able to sneak the mag into
the bathroom where I sat riveted for over an hour
visiting the pages with the sort of slack-jawed dis-
belief only the truly naive can conjure.

Is this what women looked like? After that first
sortie, I revisited the magazine whenever opportunity arose. I was by now able to get to the favorite
pages easily since I had memorized them.
Naturally, the law of diminishing returns
kicked in and the excitement of engaging in the
forbidden paled.
REBEL WITH A CAUSE
It struck me one day as I was listlessly turning the
pages that if dad had one, he may have more. It was
a kind of epiphany and I felt I was a rebel with a
cause. They had to be tracked. Since this issue had
a month written on its cover, there were, hopefully,
at least 11 other issues from the past year
somewhere in the house. All I needed to do was
look for them.
I discovered two more. One, under my fathers
neatly pressed shirts and one under the shoe rack.
Re-igniting my slipping passion, I had another
enjoyable and deliciously guilty time as I leafed
through new playmates.

Then, one day, all three mags disappeared. Gone.
My private world destroyed. My flock of skin-showing friends had done the dirty. Like they did with
the Scarlet Pimpernel. I searched high and low but
the magazines remained elusive.
Had dad found out that his adolescent son was
on the prowl...what evidence had I inadvertently
left behind?
But there was no admonishment, no change in
the mood and the normality puzzled me. In fact, my
uncle was over, also an army officer and everyone
seemed to be in a good frame of mind.
SUPERB ARTICLES
Then I overheard my dad talking to his brother
about how the articles in the magazines were firstrate. Not the pictures, the articles. At that moment
in time, I was unaware this would be the global defense for investing in Playboy and truth be told, the
articles were damn good stuff. In fact, the interviews
were of such a high standard that they began to
There is a
deluge of smut
and sleaze that
makes its way
into the minds
of a 12-yearold today. It
has no class,
its just
undressed
bodies and
makes you feel
unclean.
GRAND LIFE
Playboy founder Hugh
Hefners manion in Los
Angeles where he held
his lavish parties
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 35
Trends Playboy
Nude Photos
THE SHIFT
The first issue of
Playboy, after the
change in its policy
The interviews
in Playboy
were of such a
high standard
that they
began to be
seen as the
finest in the
world.
Presidents,
actors,
singers,
writers, celebs
jockeyed to be
presented in
between
gatefolds.
Terry Berelowitz @terrycraigmini Oct 13

@PlayBoy"I only buy Playboy for the articles"
- NOW this well used excuse WILL ring true
#onlyforthearticles
mike claiborne @claibss Oct 13
@PlayBoy Soooo the highly respected writing in Playboy will now be the sole reason
for news stands to load up on extra copies
now
Scott @b4mv01 Oct 13
@PlayBoy in other news, Playboy goes
bankrupt...
Longie @DaLeftHook Oct 13
@PlayBoy Thank god my grandpas aren't
alive to see this. They're rolling over in their
graves.
be seen as the finest in the world and it became a

point of honor to be selected as a subject in Playboy.
Presidents, actors, singers, writers, celebs jockeyed
to be presented in between gatefolds and the three
or four Playmate series per issue. These included
American writer and dramatist Joseph Heller, childrens writer Roald Dahl, James Bond author Ian
Fleming, writer and journalist Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, Japanese
author Haruki Murakami and American writer and
director Norman Mailer.
What started as a fragile camouflage for viewing
intimate nude pix became a hallmark of quality
journalism...whod have thought. Many a magazine
attempted to clone itself on the original but never
reached the incandescent writing and
in-depth reportage and research that marked a Playboy interview.
Many years later, as a journalist myself, I shared
with my father my teenage tryst with his magazines.
Over a drink, we had a good laugh and he said, I
knew whenever you took them.
You did?
Of course, I did, I am your father. Which was
explicit enough. Mum joined in and said: Those
awful magazines, one day Ill throw all six of them
away, such trash.
Six. I thought there were three.

I was mortified. I had missed three hiding
places. She never did. Throw them, that is. And I
inherited them.
Loaned them to a friend about 15 years ago.
Then the other day, when I read that the jaunty,
impertinent Rock the Rabbit was in hospital, dying
of neglect and buckshot that has hit his vital organs,
it all came back.
My daughters said, dad those mags are dadas
heirlooms (we are that kind of family), we must
get them back.
So I called the friend as I write this, certain that
after such passage of time hed be clueless. But I received a message on Facebook saying the mags were
safe and I could send someone over to collect them.
Thats the thing with Playboy, no one ever throws
them away.
What will we do with them? Guess well read
the articles.
PLAYBOY MAKEOVER
Paradoxically, new age Indians have no real contact
with the history of this magazine or the brilliance of
its writers. Playboy soon became synonymous with
lifestyle and pizzazz.
The iconic Playboy bunny, born in the nude (like
all of us) in 1953 earned his reputation

for wearing a tuxedo while disrobing
the most beautiful women in the world.
With the advent of the net, it all
went away.
Thanks to internet and porn on the
cob (or the click of a button), Rock lost
his support base, with fans dropping
from six million to 8,00,000 and revenues declining so rapidly that Rock
may have to hock the Playboy mansion,
the Playboy jet with his mug on the tail and Playboy
souvenirs that once stood for style, pizzazz and sexual discernment. Perhaps all that will be salvaged is
the string of upmarket Playboy clubs.
The deluge of smut and sleaze that makes its way
into the minds of an Indian 12-year-old today while
his fond parents think he or she is studying, bruises
the innocence.
It has no class, its just undressed bodies and
makes you feel unclean. There is something whorish
about the easy access to gross viewing and ironically,
you do not even have to pay for it.
So much more degrading than the innocent first
stirrings of an earlier generation whose ignorance
of things sexual collided with the suspicion that
there was something wonderful out there, not yucky
or cheap or tacky, but beautiful, caring and full
of grace.
Playboy put women on a pedestal.
Porn makes sex seem unwashed.
In comparison, Playboy is almost evangelist.
That Playboy lost to the latter in the long run and
has had to end its 58-year-reign at the top, is in
many ways sad.
PRIZED POSSESSION
Thousands of adolescents from my generation owe
their introduction to the opposite sex and the au
naturel pose to this happily smuggled magazine that
was once banned in India and contributed
extensively to the private collections of collectors at
airport customs whose onerous duty covered con-
fiscating the copies from passenger luggage and outwitting ingenious hiding places.
In fact, the primary function of false bottom
suitcases was for one to buy the latest copy of Playboy and conceal it under the official workload in
that niche. Many a copy bought at Heathrow has
been left behind in the seat pocket as the plane
glided into an Indian airport.
It is no wonder Rock is on life support. What
chance has the bunny got against such shotgun
blasts of porn given for free?
For sure, the purists will never opt for mass and
explicit net fare and shall continue to seek the relatively slick and highbrow visuals in Playboy but their
numbers are few and dwindling.
And they are not going to be Playboys target audience any more. Starting its next issue, Playboy will
meekly surrender to the mass taste for sexual material by calling off its celebrated Centrefold, its stable
of Playboy bunnies and its famous monthly Miss series that created the most coveted annual calendar.
It is sad but we wouldnt hold out for Rocks recovery. The cheeky rabbit with the James Bond
savoir-faire has lost his raison detre and its a pity because, dammit, we loved the quality of the articles,
didnt we?
So, thanks dad, for the gift of honesty, for not letting on that your son had discovered half your cache
and thanks Playboy, for some great reading...oh,
okay and super pictures.
And Mum for knowing that boys will be boys.
And not throwing them away.
WHAT PIZZAZZ
The Playboy jet, with
Rock the Rabbit on
its tail
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 37
Advertising
Copywriting
Does Length Matter?

In an ad, what works best? A short or a long heading? A crisp or a weighty
body copy? It would be best to have more information in your headline so
that the rest of the page is read
BY KRISH WARRIER
LONG, YET NOT BORING

The headline of a
famous magazine ad
on Rolls-Royce is a
staggering 18 words
N advertising innovator, who is

often called The Socrates of
San Francisco, Howard Luck
Gossage, (1917-1969) nailed it
when he said: Nobody reads
ads. People read what interests
them. Sometimes its an ad.
Which, in turn, begs the question: what works
bestlong or short copy? And what about headlines? The correct answer to both is like the answer to a Zen koan (takes time for this realization):
The one that works.
Traditionally, the practitioners of copywriting
have advocated short headlineseight words or
less. This is amply demonstrated even when you
take a cursory look at the ads in The 100 Greatest
Advertisements... by Julian Lewis Watkins95
percent of the most effective headlines from the
early years of magazine copywriting were less than
eight words.
But magazine copywriters were more concerned about space constraintshence the brevity. On the other hand, the direct mail industry
shows different results: Only 50 to 60 percent of
the most effective headlines are eight words or
less. Which effectively means that longer headlines work, too.
In todays context, when anything beyond 140
characters is considered labyrinthine, what about
online? We are all familiar with web sales letters
or landing pages that have a headline that looks
like a short paragraph.
Do these freighter-length trains of thought actually work? These long headlines cant possibly
be working, right? According to an eye-tracking
study (understanding the way the eye moves when
scanning any document) released by user-interface
expert Jakob Nielsen, webpage visitors read in a F
pattern, scrolling intently across the top of the page
where the headline should be, then making their
way back again across the first subhead, then down
the left hand side of the page to see if anything else
is of interest.
So, one can safely say that it may be prudent to

include more information in your headline than
eight words can get across, in an effort to get the rest
of the page read.
The headline of one of the most famous magazine ads, written by none other than David Ogilvy
himself, reads: At 60 miles an hour the loudest
noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.
A staggering 18 words!
IT IS THE MESSAGE
The headline for the
famous Volkswagen
ad was just a word: Lemon
o, when it comes to headlines, whats the bottom line? Write the shortest headline possible
that also convincingly conveys a unique benefit to the readerwhich, in turn, will spur them to
read the body copy.
The headline for a famous Volkswagen ad was
one word: Lemon.
Another headline, for Zippo lighters, again
was a single word: Matchless. So dont say it
Does anyone read a long body copy? The

answer is: Yes, they do, if its relevant and
interestingly written. And for many
products and services, long copy outsells
short copy by a large margin.
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 39
Advertising
Copywriting
readable long copy ads. The ones that immediately

spring to mind are the ones for Mauritius Tourism
by Alok Nanda. Then, of course, anything written
by Agnelo Dias.
The common refrain of most clients has been
nobody reads body copy. The only thing worse a
client could ever say to a copywriter is the obnoxiousmaza nahin aaya or headline mei punch
nahin hai.
SUBSTANTIAL READING
(Above) The Mauritius
Tourism ad by Alok Nanda
has a long body copy
Write the
shortest
headline
possible that
also conveys
a unique
benefit to the
reader,
which, in
turn, will
spur them to
read the body
copy.
cannot be done because people have been there and

done that.
Which brings us to the second question: Does
anyone read the body copy? Especially long body
copy? The answer is: Yes, they do read long body
copy if its relevant and written interestingly. And for
many products and services, long copy outsells short
copy by a large margin.
When you get someone captive and reading
your piece and youre one on one, you have a chance
to tell your story and connect with the prospect, says
Craig Simpson, co-author of The Direct Mail Solution. Its just you and them; Ive found when we increase copy length, we increase response.
You may say: Well, thats ok for direct response;
what about newspaper and magazine ads? The answer, again, is the same: Write relevantly and interestingly, and people will read you. Dont believe me?
Take a look at the classic Neil French ad (a bit of a
stretch for a beer, but oh-so-readable).
Heres a piece of sage advice from celebrated author Elmore Leonard and it applies equally to copywriting: My most important piece of advice to all
you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave
out all the parts readers skip. Tongue firmly in
cheek, but so true.
Indian advertising too has produced eminently
eturning to the question about the length

of body copy, I always go back to an Abraham Lincoln story. When asked: Mr Lincoln, how long do you think a mans legs should
be? Lincoln replied: Long enough to reach the
ground. Yes, the basic rule of copy length is the
same as headlinesas long as necessary, but
no longer.
Heres what Bob Bly says about the length of
copy. It will depend on three things:
The Product: If the product or service has more
features and benefits, there is a need for long copy.
The Audience: Today, especially, prospects are
seeking more information. Consider high value
items like a car. People will go through reams of
information on the internet before making a purchase decision.
The Purpose: Whats the objective? If you are
generating a lead for a service business, then you
need fewer details. But an ad that aims to make a
sale, must overcome every objection the potential
buyer may have.
In the final analysis, at the cost of being repetitive, while writing copy, remember to keep it only
as long as it needs to be in order to make a persuasive argument, but not so long that your readers are
bored stiff and feel sleepy, or worse, go off to attend
to something else.
One way to avoid this would be to pre-test your
copy. In the absence of formal research, you could
run it by a friend, your wife or a colleague to gauge
their reactions. Youll be surprised by how people
consume ads.
TV Review
Bigg Boss
Double
Trouble
Season Nine of Bigg Boss is

a hit with viewers, thanks to
a new element that has
been injected into it
BY MEHA MATHUR
T has all the boredom that characterized the last few seasonshost
Salman Khan sleepwalking through
the show, inmates routinely bitching,
bizarre tasks being performed to
earn the weekly grocery and the tedium of cooking
and cleaning in the same living area. Yet, Season
Nine clicks. Perhaps the new elementDouble
Troubleinfuses life after a few seasons of misses.
Remember the aviation theme that crash-landed
after a few days last year or the hellish experience
of the Jannat and Jahannum theme in Season Six?
The inaugural episode of Season Nine required
contestants to choose their partners for the season.
It brought out their whims and fearsmade clear
by the rejection of Prince, the rustic Roadies winner, by four contestants. It was a regular mix of
small-screen actors, models and foreign beauties
trying to get a foothold into India. Rimi Sen of
Hungama, Baghban and Kyonki fame and Aman
Yatan Verma of Khul Ja Sim Sim and casting couch
fame, upped the participants profile.
The contestants are supposed to do every chore
as a pair. They eat together, with even their plates,
spoons and bottles being joined and even sleep on
joined beds. So what if their real-life partners in the
same show are going through hell. At least model
Keith SequeiraRaymonds Complete Manis
fine with his girlfriend, Rochelle Rao, being com-
fortable with Prince. He himself cant get over the

beauty of Iranian model Mandana Karimi, who is
quite a force to reckon with in the house, compared
with the guest appearances of previous
foreign faces.
The sets are getting tackier by the season. All
kinds of colors and themes are there, without much
coherence. The tasks are just as bizarre. The first
task had actor and author Digangana Suryavanshi
and actor Roopal Tyagi burying their faces into the
potbellies of two men, with the rest of their bodies
hidden behind black curtains. When it came to getting her head tonsured or getting a Big Boss tattoo
etched, Rimi Sen refused. There were angels too.
The captains for Week One, actors Vikas Bhalla and
Yuvika Chaudhary (of Om Shanti Om fame) were
asked to change any two partnerships after consulting all inmates. The two took great pains to ensure
that most pairs who were comfortable with each
other were not disturbed. What understanding!
Despite all the negatives, it was heartening to
note that people could actually win hearts. Prince,
who was rejected by one and all on Day One is
every inmates favorite now.
Bigg Boss remains a favorite among young viewers. If the rationale behind shifting the show from
9 pm to 10.30 pm was to make sure that kids didnt
watch it, it failed. Many from this segment are
cutting their sleeping time to catch the buzz.
The sets are

getting
tackier by the
season. All
kinds of
colors and
themes are
there, without
much
coherence.
The tasks are
just as
bizarre. But
despite the
negatives,
there are
people there
who could
actually win
hearts.
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 41
Media Monitoring Bihar Elections

TMM Survey
POLLS AND THE SMALL SCREEN

SEPTEMBER 16 TO 25, 2015
TOTAL TIME: 120 HOURS
A TMM survey of five channelsAaj Tak, IBN 7, Zee News, ABP

and India TVthrows up a confused picture of the issues
involved and the possible outcome of the polls
By VON Team
Percentage of seats distributed among NDA

partners out of the total of 243 seats in Bihar
Percentage of seats distributed according

to caste (Mahagathbandhan)
8.23%
16.11%
28.92%
16.46%
GEN
OBC
OTHERS
65.84%
9.46%
54.95%
BJP
RLSP
LJP
HAM
Includes the Bhartiya Janata party (BJP), Rashtriya Lok

Samata party (RLSP ), Lok Janshakti party (LJP) and
Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM )
Percentage of special programmes of 30 minutes

duration on Hindi channels
12
10.40%
10
7%
Percentage of seats distributed among

Mahagathbandhan partners
ZEE NEWS
AAJ TAK
IBN7
ABP
8.00%
6.25%
6
4
2
0
1
16.87%
41.56%
41.56%
RJD
JDU
CONGRESS
Includes Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) Janta Dal United

(JDU ) and Indian national Congress (INC )
Percentage of special programmes on Hindi news

channels of one-hour duration
3.30%
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00 1.60%
1.60% 1.60%
1.50
1.00
0.50
AAJ TAK
ZEE NEWS
ABP
IBN7
0
1
Percentage of seats distributed

according to caste (NDA)
Percentage of overall coverage on Bihar elections

15.85%
27.16%
34.97%
17.08%
15.41%
14.58%
15.83%
21.25%
37.86%
GEN
OBC
OTHERS
AAJ TAK
ABP
IBN7
ZEE NEWS
INDIA TV
NDTV
Graphics: Lalit Khitoliya
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 43
Media Monitoring Bihar Elections

TMM Survey
ISSUES IN BIHAR
Murder over
beefpolitical face-offs
10.40%
INDIA TV
The main issues of

Bihar which were not
given importance by
political parties
15.60%
The issues that were

hyped by political
parties
AAJ TAK
13%
ABP
15%
ZEE NEWS
15%
IBN7
Amitava Sen
Old heroes are still in media, but media gave space to new political heroes as well. Coverage given to new political heroes
by prime channels (in percentage)
OLD POLITICAL FACES
V/S
NEW POLITICAL FACES
14%
8%
12%
3%
11%
EVERY FORTNIGHT VIEWS ON NEWS WILL BRING YOU TELL-ALL

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OCTOBER 22, 2015
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your friends
Design
DESIGNS THAT MADE IMAGINATIVE

USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS, FONTS,
COLOR AND WHITE SPACES TO
LEAVE AN IMPRESSION
By ANTHONY LAWRENCE
The tiny creature, with its deadly tentacles,

has got a chance to feature on the Economist
cover, everyones dream.
Its a naked quest for supremacy between the Western Block and Russia in the
Middle East once again, and the artist has depicted it literally. If you go by the
illustration, the poker-faced Putin has already done the Check-Mate act
vis-a-vis Obama.
Theres a glow of hope in this hand illustration,

with a sea of humanity marching for every cause
conceivable, notwithstanding the pessimistic
tag-line
Three cheers to liberty. Yes, a Japanese

whiskey maker has made ice cubes in the
shape of the famous statue. Among the other
sculptural marvels you can raise a toast to are
a Zen temple, Batman and the Sphinx.
Dont fret. This is only Portuguese street artist Sergio Odeiths 3-D art, giving
the impression that the creepy crawly is bursting forth from a wall. The
aggressiveness of the creature is contrasted with the warm flow that emanates
from the choice of colors.
A New York School of Visual Arts student, 24-year-old Leah Foster, has
actualized our childhood dream of mountains of cakes. These 10-feet pillars
have thousands of cup-cakes stacked one above another in no particular
color order. But can you eat the cakes and have the pile-up intact too?
The plethora of issues bogging India is

conveyed in the clutter that we see on the
cover. When will sanity prevail in India?
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 47
DATE
6/10/15
6/10/15
6/10/15
8/10/15
8/10/15
8/10/15
9/10/15
9/10/15
NEWS
NEWS
CHANNEL TIME
Uttar Pradesh government submits

report on Akhlaqs killing in Dadri to
center. Report does not mention any
motive for the murder.
10.42 AM
10.43 AM
Modi and German Chancellor Angela

Merkel present at the NASSCOM
programme. Modi says India unaffected
by the global recession.
12.10 PM
12.11 PM
12.12 PM
12.12 PM
4.20 PM
4.21 PM
4.23 PM
4.24 PM
At his second rally in Bihar at Begusarai

Modi calls Mahagathbandhan an
opportunistic alliance. Says Congress did
nothing in its 35 year tenure for Bihar.
12.15 PM
12:18 PM
Mulayam alleges Dadri issue a conspiracy by

some elements. Blames Muzzafarnagar
culprits for this.
2.12 PM
2.13 PM
Another program of Ghulam Ali cancelled

in Pune after the Mumbai program.
The program scheduled for October 10
cancelled after Shiv Sena threat.
2.04 PM
2.05 PM
2.06 PM
2.07 PM
Lalu mounts attack on Modi saying he has

insulted the backwards, not fit to be PM.
Says he would complain to Election
Commission.
10.17 AM
10.18 AM
10.19 AM
10.20 AM
Kejriwal drops Food and Supplies Minister

Asim Ahmed from his cabinet on graft
charges. Demand s CBI inquiry. Asim
replaced by Abrar Hussain.
4.18 PM
4.19 PM
4.19 PM
4.19 PM
10.45 AM
10.47 AM
Four-fold hike in salaries of Delhi MLAs

proposed, from `12,000 to `,50,000
12.20 PM
2.14 PM
12.22 PM
2.16 PM
Here are some of the major news items aired on television

channels, recorded by our unique 24x7 dedicated media
monitoring unit that scrutinizes more than 130 TV channels in
different Indian languages and looks at who breaks the news first.
DATE
10/10/15
10/10/15
NEWS
Only NDA can provide development to
Bihar, says Amit Shah at an election rally in
Navada. People wont forget 15 years of
misrule by Lalu, he says.
CHANNEL TIME
1.00 PM
13/10/15
14/10/15
15/10/15
16/10/15
16/10/15
1.02 PM
1.03 PM
1.04 PM
Two blasts rock a peace rally in Turkish

capital Ankara; many dead.
1.30 PM
12/10/15
NEWS
1.31PM
1.32 PM
1.33 PM
Noted writer and activist Sudheendra

Kulkarnis face blackened by Shiv Sena
activists at the launch of former Pak
minister, Mehmud Kasuris book.
10.01 AM
10.02 AM
10.03 AM
10.04 AM
Raid on Amitabh Thakurs house in

Lucknow by the Vigilance Department.
Charged with owning disproportionate
income.
10.40 AM
11.38 AM
11.41 AM
11.47 AM
Giving his first reaction to the Dadri

lynching, PM Modi says he is pained by
the incident but the center had no role in
this, his govt doesnt support this.
9.02 AM
9.03 AM
9.03 AM
9.04 AM
Supreme Court stays order on dance bars

issued under Section 33 of Maharashtra
Police Act. Asks Maharashtra government
to file appeal.
12.19 PM
12.20 PM
12.21 PM
12.22 PM
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal

Khattar says: Muslims can stay, but in
this country they will have to give up
eating beef.
10.05 AM
10.06 AM
10.07 AM
10.08 AM
10.35 AM
10.38 AM
10.38 AM
Supreme Court declares NJAC

unconstitutional.
10.39 AM
VIEWS ON NEWS November 7, 2015 49
Governance
Agriculture
How Green Was

my Revolution?
A parliamentary committee has recommended giving top priority to

organic farming. Is it time to dump the Green Revolution with its
over-dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides?
BY DEVENDER SINGH
HEN the government

takes a broadbased
and telescopic look at
agriculture, it must relook at our farming
history. That would
give planning a truly holistic perspective. According to a UN report of 2014, if we have to address
food security, the only way is through organic
farming. Closer home, the Estimates Committee
of the Lok Sabha, tasked with the responsibility to
examine fiscal estimates and efficiency of expenditure, in its report of August 13 has made a wide
range of recommendations for promotion of organic farming.
According to the committees report , the allocation of 300 crore for 2015-16 for the existing
components of organic farming put together
under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY)
is ridiculously paltry when compared to the subsidy on chemical fertilizers which stands in the
range of 70,000 to 1,00,000 crore each year. Also,
the financial assistance of 20,000 per acre up to
three years for the promotion of organic farming
needs to be extended for 4-5 years as soil rejuvenation takes longer to reverse the adverse impact
of chemical fertilizers. The report quotes agriculture scientists who say that fertilizer subsidy has
done the maximum damage to Indian agriculture
as the imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers has
degraded about 121 million hectares of land.
tended objective of sustainable agriculture which

has the potential to increase 30 percent more employment by way of resource recycling, certification process, product marketing and packaging.
Notably, organic produce is increasingly being preferred by developed countries and major urban
centers within India. The current global trade in
organic food of $60 billion is likely to touch $100
billion. India, despite its varied agro-economic
zones and huge potential, contributes only one
percent to the global trade in organic produce.
Taking note of the severely adverse consequences of chemical-based farming and its cascading impact on our ecology, the food chain and
water bodies, the committee has recommended
bringing out a comprehensive policy on organic
farming. This envisages setting up of standards,
financial support, research, education, insurance,
minimum support price and extension of subsidy
on equal terms vis-a-vis subsidy given to
BUSTING A MYTH
(Below) Chemical
farming in India has
only enhanced the
production of rice
and wheat
Despite the benefits of organic farming,

the programs for promoting it have been
disjointed, lacking in inter-departmental
integration and have not been able to
achieve the envisioned outcomes.
GO ORGANIC
In fact, the report also says that the representative
of the ministry of agriculture admitted candidly
before the committee that despite the benefits of
organic farming, the programs for promoting it
have been disjointed, lacking in inter-departmental integration and not able to achieve the envisioned outcomes.
The committee has, therefore, recommended
that the allocations for the promotion of organic
farming be scaled up substantially to meet the inVIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 51
Governance
Agriculture
History tells
us that before
the Green
Revolution
changed
things
dramatically
in the 1960s,
our framers
confirmed to
the principles
of organic
farming.
SLOW POISON
(Top) The use of
chemical fertilizers on
fruits and vegetables
has affected our
health adversely
(Above) Organic
farming nourishes
humans, animals,
birds and millions of
micro-organisms
fertilizers.
It has also recommended certification, market
promotion, production and patenting of bio-molecules and setting up a regulatory regime for their
production, storage, transportation and application and ensuring adequacy of green manure.
Further and more importantly, considering the
tremendous benefits of organic farming, including
its great employment potential, the committee has
pushed for the implementation of the National
Mission on Sustainable Agriculture through a single nodal ministryagriculture ministryby
procuring suitable integration of different implementing departments or organizations and all allied schemes pertaining to organic farming.
PERILS OF GREEN REVOLUTION

History tells us that before the Green Revolution
changed things dramatically in the 1960s, our
farmers confirmed to the natural principles of organic farming. In fact, according to Sir Albert
Howard, a scientist drafted to India by the British
government in 1905, the Indian soil was fertile and
without any pests. However, the burgeoning population and severe food shortages impelled the
country to go for minerals-based farming in the
late sixties.
This initially paid rich dividends in terms of
higher productivity and pulled the country out of
the morass of food insecurity. But the Green Revolution, due to unscientific and imbalanced use of
chemical-based fertilizers, brought a very negative
impact on Indias ecology. It came with degradation of soil health, gradual low yields, emergence
of new pests and diseases, extinction of ecofriendly micro-organisms and percolation of toxic
chemicals into our food chain, thus threatening
the biosphere.
Empirical studies show that at the time of the
Green Revolution, the country used to get 50 kg
foodgrains by use of a kg of nitrogen, phosphorus
and potassium (NPK). Today, the yield is only 10
kg from the same nutrients. According to scientists, the ideal NKP ratio should be 4:2:1 but it has
HIGH DEMAND
(Left) The current global
trade in organic food is
likely to touch $100 billion
(Below) India needs to
take proactive measures
for shifting to organic
farming
decreased to 7:3:1, and worse, in Punjab, the ratio

is 39:9:1.
There is near unanimity among agro-scientists
that chemical fertilizers have destroyed the original sources of soil fertility which are the microorganisms in the soil. The soil nourishes humans,
animals, birds and millions of micro organisms.
The argument that India needs chemical farming
to conquer hunger stands annihilated as it only
enhanced production of rice and wheat.
The production of nutritious cereals like millets, ragi, mandwa, jhangora, amaranth, etc, which
grow in rainfed areas and are at the same time
drought-resistant, were neglected and labeled as
coarse crops.
MARKETING PUSH
The Estimates Committee in its report, while
pressing for greater focus on organic farming, has
cautioned against marketing of spurious products
and its adverse bearing on Indias international
trade. It recommended that apart from maintaining credibility of organic farm produce, creating
demand for organic products needs to be addressed. Government, being the biggest spender
of public money, can liberate organic farmers from
the present predicament by enabling eligible consumers under the food security scheme to buy or-
ganic produce by getting

food subsidy through direct benefit transfer.
This apart, hospitals,
army cantonments, schools under Mid-Day Meal
Scheme and the Railways
can be persuaded to procure organic products to
create market demand for
the same. Further, markets
in towns and cities need to
be explored where fresh
agro-organic products can
be sold by farmers without
any levy being imposed.
The committee has also
urged the government to
organize large-scale organic farming fairs annually
to popularize and encourage these products.
While a complete shift to organic farming cannot happen overnight, a pro-active beginning has
to be made. A major shift in our agricultural policy
is what several experts have suggested. This shift
would mean returning to our roots but it promises
to pay dividends in the long run.
The author is an additional secretary
in the Lok Sabha
VIEWS ON NEWS
November 7, 2015 53
English is one of modern Indias 22 official languages, and is widely learned as the second language in
most countries. Enjoy it and avoid falling into some common error traps. BY MAHESH TRIVEDI
REFLECTING MOODS
All torn up
Crying the blues
Singing the blues
Down in the dumps
Down in the mouth
Got the blue devils
Have the blues
Have the blahs
In the doldrums
INSEPARABLE PAIRS
Ways and means
Bubble and squeak
Meat and drink
Knights and garters
Wax and wane
Might and main
Wheel and axle
Boot and saddle
Fife and drum
Root and branch
Safe and sound
Fire and brimstone
Port and starboard
Bolt and chain
Sackcloth and ashes
Stars and stripes
In the dumper
WAYS OF GIVING ADVICE

When offering advice or making a suggestion,
familiarity with the different nuances and varieties of
expressions helps:
Have you thought of...
How about...
It might be a good idea...
Make sure...
If I were you...
Shouldnt we...
I wonder if...
Suppose we...
You could always try...
You might as well...
You would do well to...
The best course seems to be...
You might consider...
It would be best for you...
SCARE AND SCARIFY

The two have different meanings. Scarify is closer in meaning
to scar than scare. Scarify is to scratch or break up the
surface of, say, the skin of the individual or things. The women in
certain tribes in Africa scarify their faces.
Scarify can also be used for wounding with
harsh criticism. For example, a scarifying review.
Scarify can also mean to loosen and remove
the top soil.
But Scare means to frighten someone.
Scarify is also pronounced differentlyto
rhyme with bar, car or tar with the stress on the
first syllable.
54 VIEWS ON NEWS October 22, 2015
BAKERS DOZEN
Gods child an idiot
Natures garb
nudity
rum
Sheriffs hotel ...prison
Bakers dozenThirteen
Gunners daughter a flogging
Introducers feesa bribe
Monkeys business mad business
Montezumas revenge diarrhoea
Kings Charless head an obsession
Ladys man a man who delights women
Little boys room a lavatory of exclusive
male use
Nelsons blood
AMERICANSPEAK
Biscuitgun
Bitchunpleasant girl
Bodacious..impressive
Bling-bling.showy jewellery
Bugged outupset
Happeninexciting
Pig..police officer
Straight.fine, okay
Wazzup?.whats up?
YoHi
RNI No. UPENG/2007/22571
Postal Regd. No. UP/GBD-204/2015-17

3ULQWHGRQ HYHU\PRQWK 3RVWHGDW6XE3RVW2IFH6HFWRU1RLGD

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Special

THE CRITICAL EYE

SHUTTING OUR EYES,

the participants in the discussion during the book

If you see Pakistani news in their papers or

GIVE DOVES A CHANCE

debate, admitting to the Indian cameraperson that

4 VIEWS ON NEWS November 7, 2015

middle class on Pakistan anchor Kamran Shahids

Kargil, all of which backfired?

Asghar Khan, Air

(by taking us over?) His coup de grace? We have

Across the Border

Chief Editorial Advisor

Published by Prof Baldev Raj Gupta on behalf of EN Communications Pvt Ltd

6 VIEWS ON NEWS November 7, 2015

What could be more symptomatic

The Long and

KRISH WARRIER writes on the

Though the sets are getting

A TMM survey of five channelsAaj

BIKRAM VOHRA writes on his trysts

Time for Another

The days of the Green Revolution,

Cover design: Anthony Lawrence

chickpea chutney popular

Badal and Mandela

has been compared with

hile the media

8 VIEWS ON NEWS November 7, 2015

utes on the birth

adhya Pradesh CM Shivraj

been cut outto pacify the gods

Put on Your Dancing Shoes

New National Animal?

DP MP Malla Reddy cannot hold

aba Ramdevs Patanjali

here is an online campaign

emember the rasgulla row

Compiled by Roshni Seth

The new strategy of anti-Modi,

They are not fringe elements,

The Idea of India is a nonsensical

Historian Romila Thapar, on NDTV

If any Indian claims that

Shah Rukh Khan,

Living Life on the Edge

OT a week passes when Pakistan is not in the news for

What is it like being an Indian journo in Pakistan? Despite a stint fraught

TACCATO gunfire and sounds

12 VIEWS ON NEWS November 7, 2015

front of a devastated court room. The narrow lanes

While the Shias, Christians and

bottle recovered from a little boys neck. The boy

warned me that things could change and

Following Mama Balochs interview, I was

14 VIEWS ON NEWS November 7, 2015

Photo Courtesy: Meena Menon

sent a strong message of intolerance. Raza left the

highlight the killings of young men by the

The media was

been killed. He founded the Voice for Baloch

VIGNETTES OF DAILY LIFE