The people of India have spoken and they have shown the world, Democracy Rocks. High Five to all those with the indelible ink on your middle/index fingers!
But some people you can't keep out. They may be out of touch with reality, but with their excellent flair for words, fancy degrees and penchant for covering their asses, they still ply their trade as though nothing happened. No I'm not talking about the MBA's responsible for the recession...I'm talking about the GREAT INDIAN MEDIA
Not one, repeat not one, of this elite, shameless tribe got their prediction right on who would garner how many seats. Thank God the Election Commission cut down those opinion/exit polls. Imagine, the waste of investor money in the hands of these imbeciles in recessionary times. I'm not going to single out any single media person/outlet, as they have all proven to be equally incompetent. Now that we are done with the pre-election incompetency, let's get to the post election, "covering their ass" bit.
Today you have them propounding numerous theories as to why the Congress did so well - Rahul Gandhi, Dr. Manmohan Singh, NREGA etc etc
a] Rahul Gandhi - Ain't these the same tribe who were panning his naivete in trying to send out feelers to Nitish Kumar, Jayalalithaa and the Left. Goes to show, Rahul himself wasn't sure they wud do well but atleast he was game enough to try.
b] Dr. Manmohan Singh - Apparently the press believes that the people of India have learnt to respect his honesty and sincerity and have re-elected him. Errr, it thats so why didn't they know of it before the elections. If somone is so wildly popular amongst the masses, the press should know, right?
c] NREGA - National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Its the pro-poor scheme that has set the Indian countryside on fire, or so it would seem if u read the papers today. Interestingly the Congress party itself didn't think it was any great shakes. They mentioned it only 3 times in their manifesto on the 8th page. If hindsight is 20:20, for our media, it is laser vision!
The Indian General Elections have not only given the Congress a mandate, apparently it was a mandate beyond our shores as well. The Sri Lankan Army took it as a mandate to go ahead and shoot Prabhakaran. Yep..we care more for our free color TV's and one rupee rice, Eelam can go to hell. More on this later..
One of the biggest losers of these elections are the terrorists. Terrorism, by its very concept, is the art of influencing governments with high profile attacks that strike fear into the hearts of the people. When the people, themselves, don't care then of what use is terrorism? People of India, it seems, care for the Govt doing an earnest job or appear to do an earnest job of it. [Congress shud thank Chidambaram for this, flying shoe notwithstanding]. People care more for what the Government does that affects their daily lives. If terror were, to shake this country, it has to be much more widespread. In a country of India's size, that means all out war.
The elections also saw the Left lose a substantial part of their clout. They got whacked by Didi in Bengal and were united in commiting political suicide in Kerala. Post the elections, the Left politburo had a meeting and discovered there is still a place where they have 100% acceptability and had swept the elections. They decided to emigrate en masse to this promised land and applied to the Soviet Union for travel facilitation. The Russian embassy sent a "Sorry we do not exist anymore note" along with a Judo video of Vladimir Putin. Then they applied to the Chinese, who don't respond to losers. Then they tried their luck with Comrade Castro, who sent them a book from Hugo Chavez. By then, the kebabwala at Gol Market informed them that their promised land is in Indian territory and does not require a Visa. So off they went, led by Mr and Mrs Karat, who rival the Obamas as the most handsome first couple, to their promised land where they won 2 out of 2 LS seats - Tripura.
Happy 2020 to All!
4 years ago
6 comments:
The Indian Democracy SUCKSSSS. The idea of blatantly casteist, crudely fanatic and unashamedly chauvinist crotch-scratching Indians voting to elect a non-partisan Government with the intention of development WAS ABSURD, IS ABSURD AND SHALL ALWAYS REMAIN ABSURD. This election saw a fair-skinned protege winning against a gawky 82 year-old. Congress used all the tricks in the book, from giving tickets to a traitor like Azhar to get Muslim votes to using the wife of Pappu Yadav, a murderer and bahubali, in Bihar. Sheela Dixit even went and campaigned for Pappu Yadav's mother (an independent) who fought the elections as well. It is just that their misdeeds are now hidden behind the sheen of Sonia's and Manmohan's and Rahulbaba's 'clean' image. What this country needs is a Dictator who can ram his baton up the behinds of the errant population. The idea of democracy better be dropped in this part of the world asap.
nice one...particularly the bit on predictions. It was a sorry sight to see folks one considered to be sincere like Mr Sardesai lamely trying to prove how close the margin between their call of 210 and UPA's final score of 262 was!!
there u go... India has its own cowbelt Prabhakaran from Bihar..groveling in Mumbai, where is ur revolution?
Hm.
Despite the near wipeout of the Left front, I'm going to stick my head out and say this- the Left were punished for doing what the centre and right of centre parties were lobbying for- land aqcuisition, aggressive industrialisation, normalisation (to an an extent) the state policies to central policies.
Though I agree with you on the inefficacy of the media, your post lacks perspective. The print media offer a significantly more accurate analysis of the ground realities- they may not be able to get the numbers rights, but they can gauge mood pretty accurately. However, one must have the necessary resource to understand which publications to read/believe.
Look, very few people could have truly predicted with conviction that the UPA would do so well. In psephology, just like economic theory, you have to assume rationality of the electorate. However, due to confluence of factors, ranging from rigging/ buying of votes to lack of political awareness, this assumption maybe wrong in toto, depending on the number of such votes. What makes it even more difficult in India is the unusual electoral process, which is observed in very few countries in the world. Due to this process, the government is not formed by a plurality/majority of votes cast , but segments (constituencies) won. Therefore, if say 20000 people do not vote rationally in a constituency of an electorate of 2 lakh, you can see the problem that arises for the psephologist, who has no way of predicting the outcome despite what the exit polls may predict, because these 20000 people maybe from all sections of society. This added to the the measure of certainty that already exists in a fully rational society. So you see, it is easy to criticise the media for its inability to get anything right, but its not really an easy job. However, as far as the electronic media go, I wholeheartedly agree that they create unnecessary hype, are rarely in possesion of the full facts and go all out in the war for TRP's. In this aspect, India has a lot to learn from the West.
You will notice that several analysts/panelists on the various news channels professed to being bamboozled when asked who form the next government. I think Shekhar Gupta called it a "fool's errand", predicting the outcome. Do not dismiss the significance of these comments, please.
@ SS - firstly, thank you for ur response. Appreciate your taking the time.
I dont have a tv. I dont get newspapers at home. The net is what keeps me connected with the outside world.
However, I agree the print media, has a bit more perspective than the tv news channels. But there is a price to be paid for non-performance and inefficiency. I dont see them paying that price. This is the second straight elections, theyve failed to get right. Its not good enough to sit in a studio in Delhi and admit to being bamboozled, when there has been no significant effort to get their job right. If that were me at my job, I wudve been fired by now.
The priveleges they claim and the attitude they throw and the corruption, they themselves espouse, they also have to be held accountable.
First official news conference on the first cabinet meeting of the new Govt and they have questions on parking space for their vans.
http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1110403
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