Friday, December 24, 2010

The core issue of corruption
We never know, up till what time, this issue of corruption will remain love charm for our media. Still our mass media and other forums are analyzing only those matters of corruption t which are eventual in nature, not the structural corruption which has galloped our whole system


Right now we have a plethora of events of corruption, of which our mass media, legislative houses and different public forum are almost, overdrown with. Very from CWG scam, Adarsh society ( kargil for benefit scam), 2G spectrum license allotment scam, Supreme court’s remark on tainted CVC P.J. Thomas, Tape controversy of middle woman Neera Radia and her lobbying activities for her client Tata group, land allotment scam by Yedurappa govt of Karnataka, massive food scam in UP, Conviction of Ex chief secy. of UP, Neera Yadav and Noida based industrialist Ashok Chaturvedi, means so many issues of corruption we are observing now. On the other side the recently victorious Nitish government in Bihar’s grand initiative for removal of corruption has also been big positive news among different decorated news of corruption.
These all issues of corruption, rather they must be called cases of corruption which have erupted, are vehemently analyzed and investigated right now by different institutions along with media. But overall there are only two aspects which have emerged out of this present debate of corruption. Firstly, the total debate is still being fought on partisan basis. On CWG scam, Adarsh society scam, on 2G scam and on the appointment of CVC the party in power UPA is in defensive mood, whereas in Karnataka the ruling party BJP looks in defensive and damage control mood. Secondly, all debate on corruption coming on both print and electronic media is more or less concentrated on eventual corruption, not the perennial corruption. We really do not know up till what time this debate and news presentation will continue in our legislative houses and mass media also, I wish it were continued till the vast initiative taken for the removal of corruption from every walks of nation’s life. Because prolong debate will compel our decision makers and policy drafter to go all out against all types of corruption prevailing in every facets of life, it will definitely start a new path breaking chapter in our nation’s life.
But It may be possible very soon this prime coverage of events of corruption in media get replaced by other eventful news. Earlier we also have so many scams erupted in open floor of public life, but ultimately they all were buried either by floor management or by media management or by vote management. So far mass media is concerned any coverage is alive until it is replaced by other spicy events.
But anyway this is rare occasion when our governments are under fire not on single or two cases of corruption; rather they have to reply on several counts. The massive 2 G spectrum allotment scam itself has not a single outlet. It has become well known fact that the vested interest of then communications minister Mr. Raja enabled losses of 1.76 lakh crore rupees to govt. exchequer. The attached issue is role of PR agency and middlewoman Neera Radia and her connection with ministers and media mascots. The third issue is Neera Radia’s client Tata’s be wilderness regarding leakages of conversations tapes between him and her. The fourth issue is highest watchdog agency of corruption CVC has itself come under the scanner of supreme courts. Court is of the view the CVC is already trapped in palmoline scam in Kerala during his tenure of chief secretary.
The person who lodged complains against communication minster A Raja to Prime Minister, Subramanium Swamy brought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also under this scandal. The irony is that about one year back when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh knew this fact that the communication minister is making money by misusing the existing policy of spectrum distribution, he ordered CBI raid in the ministry office and this was well covered in different media and even opposition also came to know these facts. Despite this PM did not take strong action, perhaps he thought the continuity of coalition was rather more important than the loss of massive amount of 1.76 lakh crore rupees to the govt. exchequer. He might have not taken action also because of Sonia’s non approval for this. The other question is if Manmohan Singh was guilty of giving priority to life of coalition government in comparison of loss, then what opposition and mass media were doing that time. Why did they not make it issue at that time. Our opposition party are not less guilty, for them corruption is issue until they make score politically over ruling party. They have no concern regarding the country and its public.
Right now the major deadlock is continuing on the question of institution of joint parliamentary committee. Ruling party does not want to institute JPC, whereas opposition is adamant on it. Media does not try to explore this fact that why ruling party is not allowing constitution of JPC and why opposition parties are adamant on it and they are not agreed less than it, Whenever minister has already resigned, a judicial enquiry is set up to investigate this matter, CBI has started raid on different clues of A Raja.
Now we come on the public perspective, public perspective is that these all initiatives of government is eyewash, the losses of money cannot be recovered. And they are not convinced with the earlier performance of JPC. They all know that what happened of JPC constituted on Harshad Mehta share scam, Bofors and etc. The inherent matter is opposition knows this facts it is only JPC which can give them political benefit and in that situation only they can shift this whole scam on the backyard of ruling coalition UPA. On the other side ruling party knows this reality that the institution of JPC will expose them.
We know the Battle of power can not become synonymous of crusade against corruption. It requires some basic reform in our whole sys tem, whether in our political system, in our economy, in our bureaucratic set up, in our society and in our different institutions. These all effort will have to bring altogether. It can not give result in piece meal way. Rajiv Gandhi brought anti defection laws, his basic motive was not to introduce fundamental reform in the political system, he wanted to save his massive victory, the numbers of parliamentarians.
We have number of reforms on several counts, initiated in last one or two decade, especially to speed up the pace of growth and development. But it never shows that govt. have strong political will power to curb the menace of corruption. Partisan politics and impression ate intellectualism never allow to analyse corruption in a very big way, resultantly corruption is still alive in the country in several forms, whether in terms of misappropriation and siphoning of money, scams and scandals, bribery and patronage, kickbacks and commissions, graft and frauds etc. Still there are many opinion makers in both political and intellectual arena who do not regard corruption a big issue in way of country’s development. Even if economic analysis of corruption is done, one will find because of corruption the multiplier effect in economy is totally absent. On other words the misuse of public money for the private purpose or the misappropriation of public money enhances the concentration of resources among few hands and it devoid the spread of resources among million masses, resulting in lesser participation and productivity in the economy
In these circumstances of corruption events few days back there was celebration of anti corruption days all over the country, no body talks about prevailing corruption at lowest layer of administration, which directly attached with the common public. From block office to circle office, from Thana to post office, from school to hospital, from lower court to land registry office, what is their functioning? You go the city administration one has to always face the traffic, ration shop, driving license office, municipality office, development authority they all are crippled with corruption. Our international rating agencies still do not have rating regarding petty corruption which directly affects the day to day lives of common people of the country. Many says even Baba Ramdeo says if upper level is clean, lower level is automatically clean, this is not correct analysis of things. This statement is true till that point when Upper corrupt do not handle lower bridle in tact. Generally upper level corruptions have noting to do with day to day governance of public life. They make corruption which generally harms the nation, not public, whereas lower level corruptions directly harm the well being of common masses. Crusade against corruption must be brought equally on every level. Our system does not penalize every corrupt at one point of time and in the same way it does not reward every honest person at one point of time. Its connotation is among many corrupt people, one who have bad period of life, he gets trapped in anti corruption affair and among many honest people, one who has good period of life, he get rewarded for his honest activities.
Only laws can not curb corruption, it is rationality of authority which is key in any decision making or any kind of governance. Otherwise there are many laws who are anti public and it creates problems to ordinary public. The tainted 2G Minister A Raja is also claiming he did the same what new telecom policy was laid for. Since his integrity was doubtful, his intention was not good, he wanted to make money in that circumstances by keeping the policy on front, that is why he refused to accept the recommendation of TRAI which had suggested to charge license fee as per the market rate. So conscience and intention is more important than the laws which is dead in its physical form but the holder of law is not dead, he is alive and having rationality and he must have some commitment for the nation and public.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Ladies and gentlemen,I feel this is a very good initiative on the part of glasnost team of IIT, especially the initiative taken for organizing seminar on media ethics and all. You have invited media person for their viewpoint and perspective on this very topic. No doubt, media day by day is becoming inseparable part of this system. We can not complete any task related to nation building or making public opinion for any kind of social change without taking the help of media. But despite all this what I think about media, that this media is not lying under any solid category, whether mass media as fourth estate of democracy, mass media as a mission for social change, mass media as an emerging industry of the economy. To some extent you can say mass media is a mix of above all thing, to sum up an agent of publicity or opinion building to some bit, which can not be rated as a representative of any single big category of a democracy.First of all I will talk about mass media as a fourth estate of democracy. It is very commonly said that media is fourth pillar of the democracy. No democracy can survive without the existence of free press. It means media will work as fourth pillar along with legislature, executive and judiciary on the basis of separation of power comprised with checks and balances. But this saying is just a prevalent and conventional kind of conception; it does not have any legal or constitutional validity. Tell me, in which constitution, it is mentioned that mass media will work as an institution which will keep it parallel to the other 3 prescribed pillars of democracy. Let us talk about the biggest democratic constitution of world, the Indian constitution; it does not mention at all that free press will be here which will work as fourth pillar in India. Only our index of fundamental rights under article 18, it is said we will have the freedom of expression for all citizens of country. Only this one line of fundamental right allows us to express any thing against any individuals or institutions. In the same way if anyone has money or capital, he can establish a media organization or a newspaper to say anything against anyone. Under this perception the institutional establishment of mass media organization is totally out of constitutional control or beyond the constitutional requirement also. Before going into details of the mass- media set up of a country, it is essential to mention what should be the role of mass media in a democracy or in a modern system of governance. To provide information, knowledge and entertainment to the people, these are the prime acts of mass media, thus creating checks and balance over the executives, legislature and judiciary through writing or showing news, research, analysis or investigation.The word mass media literally means the media for the masses. In India first of all media is not attached to the whole masses of the country, means every citizen of the country is not networked with any mass media say newspaper, radio, TV or internet. Secondly the concern of all masses of the country is not getting covered in mass media. Still only 20 percent of population read newspaper, less than 50 percent population are enable to view TV or listen radio, less than 5 percent population have access to internet. So far the media coverage is concerned media is still in the ambit of mouthpiece rather than medium for the masses. There is no space for other than politicians, film stars and cricketers in the mass media. It means India requires equality of expression rather than freedom of expression which can guarantee the democratic need of masses of the country. Unfortunately it did not happen in the country. So in last 60 year in India the journey of mass media is full of many hotchpotches.Now we come on the second perception. the existence of mass media as a mission. The basic objectives and democratic duties of mass media always expect mass media to work in a missionary manner so that media can go all out against all kinds of exploitations occurring in the society, to oppose all kind of injustice, mal governances, irregularities, backwardness, oppressions etc prevailing in the society. In order to that media has to always work for the betterment of the masses, for the sake of welfare of the masses. There are no problems for the media to play such role. But the most important question is, who will sustain the media, who will be the caretakers of media. Who will hold the viability of mass media? Mass media organization needed the cost and return balances like any other business organizations. Any mass media organization whether it is newspaper or radio station or tv channels or a news website or outdoor media, it needs investment on the count of both fixed capital and variable cost so that it can be operated and sustained.We all know that the selling of newspaper, viewing of TV channels, or subscribing of website, what we pay for it, hardly constitute a fraction of its total cost. Newspaper is the only industry in the world, which products are sold at below cost of production. Any manufacturing industry in spite of a tough competition from other players, always have a cost plus pricing of product, but the newspaper industry is exception. Even in some European countries, newspapers are sold free of cost. There is same case with the news channels, what they get out of pay channel fee, it constitute hardly a fraction of their cost. So under this scenario how can we say mass media can work as an industry? We must know this fact; the majority of costs of a media organization come through advertisement. The advertisement, which is a kind of information which comes directly from the informers and it is paid coverage items which may be contradictory to the editorial contents like news, analysis or investigation reports or footages, which are unpaid one. Coming on the advertisement front, we all know there is farce competition among different media set ups to garner more and more advertisement. It is decided by what, it is circulation numbers for the print medium, it is TRP for the TV channels, it is log in numbers for the news website etc. The TRP and circulation ratings are the factors which are always on the top of minds of all media organizations. The idealistic perception of news coverage, which is based on giving priority to welfare of the masses have gone to the backburner now and all those coverage have come in the forefront , which has a more revenue potential for a media organizationsIn order to this, all those coverage which has the capacity to capture the psyche of readers or audiences, are always taken into account by the media organizations. So we have always a high readership or viewer ship of sensational nude photograph, crime and sex coverage and all the sensational kind of thing which has nothing to do with the lot of masses. This is as much true as the voters' graph for a political party. They opt those kind of issue in order to attract and collect the people which are very easy to use ,on emotive issues, on the line of caste, community, language and region, these factors have been always proved to be a driving force for a politicians because it is very easy to galvanize the people on this very issue. In the same way it is very easy for a mass media whether it is newspaper or tv channel or a cinema to sensationalize the public on sex, violence and nudity kind of things because people have psyche to get touched with this issue. In order to this all ethics of mass media gets buried and media finds it in hobnobbing situation.We have many example when a media set up became popular overnight by covering sensational kind of things, a politician got popular after the deliverance of riotous speech. Under these circumstances it is very difficult to decide a ideal benchmark for a mass media organization. It can not fully adopt missionary approach, because it has to survive financially. It can not work as an industry, because there is a great imbalance between its cost and return. It can not work as fourth estate of democracy because it does not have constitutional validity. It can not adopt ethics, because it has to blindly go for high TRP in order to generate revenue. So ultimately a proper reconciliation between market and public interest is needed for the mass media. It is true, these both are contradictory to each other, but the reality is that a proper equilibrium is always needed between them. In the meantime only black money, the hawala money is coming in an immense way in mass media, not the debt capital from the commercial banks. Because this black money holder knows it very well that he is not going to get a proper return over the investment of his black money, he only needs a armory out of investment in media which could guide their business and other activities through a safe passes.l