random thoughts

An arrow landed on the pitch in Oval, England and the county cricket match was suspended. The metal-tipped arrow had been fired from outside the stadium and the police is yet to reach a conclusion on the motive. BBC reported this in the early morning news bulletin on BBC World News. Would the projectile have caused harm if it had hit a person on the ground? Similar incidents, stone/bottle been thrown onto the ground, in India and other countries have got little or no traction. Why, then did BBC give so much importance in a world service news programme? Flooding in Assam gets little coverage but Mumbai floods are on the front page of Indian newspapers. Flooding anywhere in India gets little to no coverage in CNN but hours are spent on the Houston flooding. Why is there such imbalance and parochialism in the news coverage by reputed news organizations? India doesn't matter on the world scene, Assam doesn't matter in the Indian context. Audience matters- so if the major portion...

Gauri Lankesh is no more. A journalist who called a spade, a spade had many enemies. Her relentless struggle for intellectual freedom was at loggerheads with the intolerant atmosphere increasingly prevalent in India today. Ideology is the basis for struggle and progress. No country has achieved progress without freedom to think, communicate and disagree. These natural rights are increasingly being targeted as it comes in the way of the agenda of a particular group. The right is gaining upper-hand in the country at the cost of civil liberties. Where ever the right ideology has gained supremacy, the people at large have lost their ability to think and act critically. We tend to follow, literally into the pit. History is staring us in the face and we refuse to acknowledge it. George Santayana said, "those who cannot remember the past will be condemned to repeat it". Unless enough voices are raised in protest, things will continue to remain the same or even deteriorate. The sp...