O P I N I O N S

Perspective

A Tribune Special
The changing face of Indian media
Journalists must protect social equilibrium, says Justice G.N. Ray
The technological breakthrough in printing has brought in unforeseen structural change in the print media. It has not only helped in better designing and layout and more attractive presentation with improved colour scheme in printing of the papers but also made it feasible and economically viable to print more multi-edition copies faster and at lesser cost with better get up and attractive type, thus, enabling the press to cater to more readers stationed at different locations.

OPED

Growth without conscience Nehru’s goal of equality remains a dream
by Vijay Sanghvi
The booming and deep voice heard on All India Radio in early fifties was of Devaki Nandan Pandey who was popularly known as Karod Kandan Pandey. He always read out news of development projects that the Nehru government was launching to push the economic growth to higher pace. As news reader, he easily reeled out new projects of outlays running into hundreds of crore rupees thrice a day in main news bulletins.

Bring in more area under irrigation: Swaminathan
On Record by Vibha Sharma
Eminent agriculture scientist and Member of Parliament (Nominated) M.S. Swaminathan, who spearheaded the Green Revolution in the 1960s, says that food and water security will be big casualties of climate change. Speaking to The Tribune on the recent Copenhagen Accord and future of agriculture in India, he is of the opinion that “rather than predicting the future, it is our job to shape it”.

Profile
Rao: A bright star in statistics and maths
by Harihar Swarup
Decorated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Indian Science Award at the 97th Indian Science Congress at Thiruvananthapuram, Professor Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao has turned 90. But age has not dampened his zeal for development of statistics.Popularly known as C.R. Rao, he is regarded as one of the brightest stars in the sphere of statistics and mathematics, having dedicated long years of his life for development of statistics, a complex subject beyond the reach of the common man.

Perspective

A Tribune Special
The changing face of Indian media
Journalists must protect social equilibrium, says Justice G.N. Ray

The technological breakthrough in printing has brought in unforeseen structural change in the print media. It has not only helped in better designing and layout and more attractive presentation with improved colour scheme in printing of the papers but also made it feasible and economically viable to print more multi-edition copies faster and at lesser cost with better get up and attractive type, thus, enabling the press to cater to more readers stationed at different locations.

Today’s readers of the print media have a wide variety of options to choose from the publications devoted to specialised subjects because of diverse information easily available on account of technological development. With a click of the mouse news and happenings in every part of the globe are before you.

The advertisement revenue has become the main revenue base of the press. In the case of the metropolitan press, it accounts for about 70-80 per cent of its total revenue. Consequently, space in the newspapers is disproportionately occupied by the advertisements. The gap between news and advertisement ratio is fast widening.

The advertisements have also made inroads in the policy and outlook of the newspapers in more sense than one. With the rapid growth of advertisements by way of corporate communication and for luring potential consumers, the revenue earning of a newspaper from such advertisements is very often quite robust.

Investigative journalism as sting operation has opened a new chapter in the history of the press. It has made the press to acquire a more powerful position and has helped to enhance the image of the press as an active watchdog of society. Unfortunately, investigative journalism has often been misused to settle personal scores or to tarnish the image or blackmail individuals and men in position. This aspect of media behaviour deserves a careful scrutiny for taking appropriate remedial measures.

Today’s media, particularly big national level newspapers, are mostly owned by the corporate houses. These newspapers barring a few are running the newspapers to derive more and more profits like commercial enterprises. More and more revenue from corporate houses and commercial ventures being targeted, news content and articles have orientation suiting corporate houses and business community.

The emergence of big media houses and corporatisation of media is heading fast towards monopoly in the media. This is a matter of concern.

The small and medium newspapers, particularly regional newspapers with low circulation and operating in remote rural areas, are facing acute financial crisis and their survival is at stake because of rapid spreading of wings by big newspapers covering a large number of cities and districts.

The media, like other institutions, has also succumbed to the vice of malpractices and corruption. In the media, such malpractices operate in both explicit and implicit forms. Yellow journalism and blackmail were the known forms of corruption in journalism. But in today’s media functioning, subtle and implicit form of corruption is creating greater mischief.

The distortion, disinformation and “paid news syndrome” aimed to serve certain interests and suppression of news and concerns of other interests have become a usual feature in the media. The promotion of certain politicians and political groups, business magnets, commercial and industrial interests, products and services, and entertainment programmes through induced news and favourable articles and in the process, maligning rivals through interviews, articles, reports, so-called surveys and reviews have ushered in an era of tainted communication.

In the last parliamentary elections, the media in general and print media in particular has indulged in nefarious monetary deals with some politicians and candidates by agreeing to publish only their views not as advertisements but as news items and not to publish the viewpoints of other candidates and even publish news items against rival candidates as desired by the other party in exchange of specified amount of money. This “paid news syndrome” was so rampant that voices of concern were raised by members of various journalists’ unions and also members of civil society and eminent media personalities.

A committee has been set up by the Press Council of India to collect inputs from various parts of the country and make in-depth study of the malady of “paid news syndrome” in elections and to make its recommendation to the Press Council. Newspapers enjoy freedom of speech and expression as the watchdog of the nation and as a representative voice of the people with a solemn duty to inform the people and the government correctly and dispassionately. They do not enjoy freedom of speech and expression to misinform and give distorted news and project views of a particular party or group in the guise of news for monetary consideration.

Of late, trial by media of sub judice matters and incorrect reporting of court proceedings have become a disturbing phenomenon. Being perturbed by this growing menace, at the initiation of the Chief Justice of India, the Supreme Curt Legal Services Authority in association with Press Council of India, Editors’ Guild of India and Indian Law Institute organised a national level seminar in New Delhi to discuss this malady and to evolve remedial measures which were followed by regional conferences held in Kochi, Bhubaneswar, Mumbai and Guwahati. A training programme for reporters of court proceedings was also arranged.

Earlier, the editor used to control the contents of the newspaper, including the advertisements. Today, the office of the editor has been marginalised and the editor has very little or no say about the contents of the newspaper. It is the manager or director in-charge of advertisement who decides what space is to be left for contents to be published other than advertisements or write-ups desired by the advertisers and corporate sector.

It, therefore, does not require imagination to comprehend that real contents in the newspaper will be consumer and material-oriented thereby blatantly ignoring appropriate news. There is an imperative need to address serious issues for public awareness and good governance.

The representatives of media in seminars or round table concerning media functioning often assert boldly that the news contents are aimed to cater the felt-eed of the readers which they perceive as their duty and first priority. Such assertion is not only incorrect but a random statement without any basis.

The media being the most powerful mass communicator and watchdog of the nation and also the fourth pillar of democracy has a solemn duty to educate and inform people properly and correctly with appropriate news contents and not to slowly inert the urge of the readers for good and rich news contents, articles and write-ups.

By highlighting the needs and aspirations of the grassroot level of society, the media can truly contribute to the creation of a vibrant and developing India where every citizen would be equal.

The press in India has always been at the forefront of national life. Even though there has been a considerable erosion of ethics over the decades since Independence, the basic values adhered to by the Indian media over the ages, still continue to inspire. The media has always risen to the situation whenever there is a crisis.

In this new era of journalism rich with booming information and mindboggling entertainment and in the context of global invasion and competition, the need of the hour is sober introspection by the journalists and not losing the focus on the paramount duty of the media to be the fourth estate without making any compromise with vested interest.

In a multi-religious, multilingual and multi-ethnic denominations comprising the polity of India, the social fabric is quite delicate. Journalists must be very sensitive to this delicate and fragile social structure and should refrain from doing any act which may even remotely disturb the equilibrium of society.

The writer is Chairman, Press Council of India, New Delhi. This article is excerpted from his keynote address at the inaugural session of National Press Day in Hyderabad

Patel’s thesis turning into antithesis?
by Abhijit Bhattacharyya

In 1994, India’s population, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, was 913747000 the doubling time of which was predicted to be 36 years, implying that by 2030, the number of Indians would go up to 183 crore. The break-up of religious affiliation then was shown as Hindu (80 per cent); Muslim (11 per cent); Christian (2.4 per cent); Sikh (2 per cent); Buddhist (0.7 per cent); Jain (0.5 per cent); Zoroastrian (0.1 per cent) and the total land area as 1222243 sq miles i.e. 3165596 sq kilometres.

In 2009, Encyclopaedia Britannica reported that the Indians number 115 crore, (with 72.04 per cent Hindus; 12.26 Muslim; 6.8 Christian; 1.87 Sikh; 0.67 Buddhist, 0.51 Jain and 0.02 per cent Zoroastrians), would end up doubling in 44 years. Thus, there would be 230 crore Indians in 2052. The only stable factor of India, however, is its landmass which (even today) continues to be what it was in 1994.

It certainly does not require any demographic “expert” to visualise the possible scenario and the fallout of this static land with a geometrical process of population explosion. There is bound to be an increasingly demand-supply mismatch thereby resulting in an exploding demand curve. There will be an all round shortage of land, food, job, housing, railway tickets, power and drinking water. In this unique “shortage of economics”, only a microscopic minority is likely to thrive by virtue of its holding the knob of the state machinery and power.

Feeling of an impending insecurity and apprehension of an uncertain future is bound to ignite the suppressed anger of the marginalised and deprived to violent action. Lack of probity and integrity, coupled with acts of extortion and loot have already started making the marginalised regional satraps resort to call for virtual independence from within the “system” of the Indian state. The call of various separatist movements seems to be gaining unprecedented momentum.

From ‘Azadi’ (emancipation from the bondage of the Indians), to “separation from the dominance of majority ethnic group” etc, New Delhi’s present dilemma is pregnant with the negation of the valiant enterprise of Sardar Patel in the 1940s and 1950s the outcome of which was the unprecedented historical “Story of the integration of the Indian states”, as referred to by another great Indian civil servant V.P. Menon.

Indeed, what the Patel-Menon duo stood for in the 1950s against all odds suddenly appears to be a distant dream. Whereas the combined brains of Patel-Menon turned the impossible into possible by ensuring 562 states/ principalities/ taluks/ estates join the Indian states, new opportunities beckon a vast section of Indians to undo the unfinished task of consolidation they had initiated.

As history of geography shows, India has rarely been as big as it is today as a single politico-military- geographical unit under a single command power centre as a nation state. Thus every India, under the rule of external invaders, in the 16th century had three-tier system of sovereignty encircled by suzerainty.

The first category consisted of the “areas integrated within the empire” (including watan jagirs). The second was made of “areas partly independent and partly in vassal states”. And the third was the “area incompletely integrated” (nominal vassals and theatres of military operations). There was so much confusion about the Indian ruler’s territorial jurisdiction that even today there exists serious difference of opinion on the territory held by Akbar.

Vincent Smith in Akbar, the Great Mughal (1917); Wolseley Haig in Cambridge History of India (Vol 4) (1937); P Saran in The Provincial Government of the Mughals (1941); C.C. Davis in An Historical Atlas of the Indian Peninsula (1949); R.P. Tripathi in Rise and fall of the Mughal Empire (1956); A.L. Srivastava in Akbar the Great (1962); Irfan Habib in Agrarian System of Mughal India (1963); A.B. Pandey in Later Medieval India (1963) and A Historical Atlas of South Asia of University of Chicago Press (1971) taken together fail to conclude as to what constituted the exact political map of Akbar’s territory.

India’s political geography had a “great” ruler but even he was unsure and unaware of the changing contours of his own empire’s frontiers. Such is the dynamics of change in Indian soil. Change of ownership or possession and forced occupation or eviction have been a constant and steady factor keeping the ruler and the ruled at tenterhooks all the time in India.

Thus, one is neither surprised nor shocked to hear the sudden burst of somewhat cacophonic, yet concerted chorus of statehood demand, “liberation” front and movementwallahs, “separation”, “autonomy”, “Azadi”, “independence” and what all you can possibly have to share the spoils of the soil’s fruit, literally, metaphorically and symbolically.

India may be a 62-year-old democracy but in the blood veins of every Indian flow the feudalism and monarchy of 6000 years. Turn the pages of Indian history and one finds a plethora of monarchy and autocracy with hardly any democracy.

Even after 1947, it took several years for the Patel-Menon team to persuade, cajole and threaten the 562 “independent” rulers/ rajas/ maharajas to submit to the nascent democratic engine of the Indian state. Today’s open and somewhat chaotic democracy, however, has given birth to an emotional and charged feeling to take things by force.

One is at a loss to assess which way the unguided missile of an intolerant movement and civil war-type action would lead India to. The scenario does not look rosy. The way things are happening and heading, one can safely infer that the good work done by Patel-Menon duo is being undone by a band of emotionally charged people led by a few leaders.

Tactically, and in the short term, this violent action and hatred may bear fruit but the long-term implications are pregnant with the fall of the Indian nation. Sardar Patel’s thesis of integration seems to be turning into antithesis, i.e. disintegration. Patel and Menon immortalised their folklore as “the story of the integration of Indian states” in mid-20th century. One hopes that the 21st century does not turn into a “saga of the disintegration of Indian states.”

OPED

Growth without conscience Nehru’s goal of equality remains a dream
by Vijay Sanghvi

The booming and deep voice heard on All India Radio in early fifties was of Devaki Nandan Pandey who was popularly known as Karod Kandan Pandey. He always read out news of development projects that the Nehru government was launching to push the economic growth to higher pace. As news reader, he easily reeled out new projects of outlays running into hundreds of crore rupees thrice a day in main news bulletins.

Two Hindi news bulletins relayed on Akashvani were heard all over the country. Radio sets took time to reach homes though they did reach even small hotels and dhabas as they were an effective instrument to lure customers to them for tea and morning snacks. But the booming voice of the news reader had fuller attention since spread of literacy was still limited.

No one could miss the emphasis that Prime Minister Nehru had put on the economic development because poverty was a norm. He was impatient to make a dent on it and pull out the country from the abyss of poverty, illiteracy as well as economic disparities and inequalities.

It was a norm then to measure economic development in terms of Gross Domestic Product than on scales of improvement in life expectancy, fewer diseases, better education and more leisure time for every one to spend with their families. The quality of life was a concept that had not intruded to politicians’ minds then.

While the government was driving to minds of growing young generation that economic development was the top priority, there was no attempt to inculcate other values and principles of life. It was not realised that the value of a rising standard of living lies not just in concrete achievements but how it shapes the social, political and moral character of the people.

True, the private sector, corporations or individuals have no commitment to any national or social objectives except profits. But the policy of closed windows on them to overcome their reluctance to accept social commitment became the main source of spreading corruption and weakening the moral fibre of Indian society. The industrial policy embedded in bureaucracy uncontrolled power for state intervention in every aspect of economic activity that created a wider scope for corruption.

The government control and power of intervention made it mandatory to obtain licenses and permits for any economic activity. Power was misused according to whims or fancies of official in charge. The only way to overcome deliberate red tape was either to corrupt the system or adopt illegal means to carry on business as desired. The violation of law became cheaper than compliance even in admission to educational institutes run by governments.

The government also adopted the policy of state discrimination in favour of underprivileged sections through reservations. It did not breed tolerance for the underprivileged but intolerance towards them. The benefit of reservation made boy or girl of underprivileged class a medical practitioner but not acceptable as equal by the rest. It was assumed technical skill was not based on merit but due to advantage of discrimination by the state. Thus, those who got benefit of reservations suffered a double stamp of unacceptability by society at large. They were made to suffer yet another kind of untouchability.

Moral obligation demanded that development processes aim at pulling out the deprived from their abyss. Rajiv Gandhi refused to comment on the Mandalised reservations as he felt that it was touchy. Then he added that his party leader had derived benefits for 13 times for his family.

There was also a mismatch between the political objectives model and the economic development model. India adopted a liberal political system of participant governance with adult franchise and guaranteed individual freedoms. However, doors to the economic activities were virtually closed to individuals. The need for corrupting the system to move ahead in the economic field distorted the distribution of gains of even slow-rated economic growth in the first 40 years of Independence.

With only 10 per cent of population grabbing nearly 90 per cent gains, it led to glaring disparities and inequalities. The economic reforms adopted two decades earlier pushed another 10 per cent to a bracket of comfortable incomes but life for the lower 20 per cent remained stagnated at Rs 20 a day expenditure capacity. All growth has made no dent on their lives.

Owing to the mismatch between the two models, economic growth could not lend its shoulders to strengthening of democracy with a rightful place to socially and educationally deprived classes. The clear image of distortion is visible in the 15th Lok Sabha where nearly half the elected representatives are wealthy as they have claimed in their sworn affidavits that their assets were worth ten million and above brackets. The situation in the state legislatures is no different.

Development strategies would have acquired a different character if planners had kept in mind the need for moral obligations of economic development, particularly on need to pull the poor from the abyss of poverty before the other sections were able to gallop to the winning post. But economic development with its fierce emphasis for the past six decades has shaped the Indian conscience where there is no place for moral obligation or compunction for the poor.

The neo-rich or first-time automobile owners drive their vehicles at a breakneck speed as if roads are not meant for pedestrians. Pedestrians are scornfully dismissed as hindrances to their pace of progress.

Political parties felt no moral obligation to bring them in on to the voters’ list by giving them identity as Indians. Naturally, they could not breed pride in them to be Indians or in the most whose aim and objectives are limited to economic betterment of the self and the family. They are not concerned with society or country. That is the distorted conscience.

Bring in more area under irrigation: Swaminathan
On Record by Vibha Sharma

Eminent agriculture scientist and Member of Parliament (Nominated) M.S. Swaminathan, who spearheaded the Green Revolution in the 1960s, says that food and water security will be big casualties of climate change. Speaking to The Tribune on the recent Copenhagen Accord and future of agriculture in India, he is of the opinion that “rather than predicting the future, it is our job to shape it”.

Excerpts:

Q: How should we prepare for the rise in temperatures? What are its implications for Punjab, Haryana and Western UP?

A: The Copenhagen Accord recognises the scientific view that increase in global temperature should be below two degree C and agrees to take action to meet this objective with equity as basis. The impact of a two degree C rise in mean temperature can be substantial for India.

Around 50 per cent of India’s currently favourable, high potential, wheat production area may be reclassified as a heat-stressed, lower-potential short-season growing environment by 2050. For each one degree Celsius rise in mean temperature, wheat yield losses in India are likely to be around six million tonnes per year or around $1.3 billion at current prices.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) projects that rainfed wheat yields in South Asia will fall by 44 per cent by 2050 if adaptation measures are not put in place. The incidence and impacts of pests, diseases, and weeds in wheat crops may change. 

Q: What techniques are required to deal with the new climatic situation?

A: Adaptation techniques will consist of initiatives like selection of varieties of wheat, rice, potato and other crops that are climate resilient. Considerable genetic variability exists in these crops for tolerance to high temperature. The seed pattern will also change. For example, stem rust may become important in wheat while so far only stripe and leaf rusts have been important.

The seed production in potato will also be affected since with higher temperature, aphid vectors will become important. Sugarcane may benefit from a higher temperature since it is essentially a tropical crop. Milk yield and water table may also go down. Hence, there are serious implications for food and water security.

Reduction of wheat production in Northwest India, Punjab, Haryana and western UP has serious implications for providing wheat in our public distribution system. We should establish a Climate Risk Management Research and Training Centre in each of the 127 agro-climatic zones. These can be virtual centres with capacity for preparing computer simulation models of the impact of different weather probabilities. We should build up seed reserves of alternative crops. Just as grain reserves are important for food security, seed reserves are important for crop security.

Q: What about organic farming and ecological problems?

A: Those who have several farm animals and access to organic manure can take up organic farming which precludes the use of mineral fertilisers and chemical pesticides. Over 80 per cent of our farmers are small farmers having about one hectare of land. They will not have facilities for building up soil fertility entirely through organic manures. Small farmers can take to green agriculture which involves integrated pest management and nutrient supply. Organic farming and green agriculture are pathways to an ever-green revolution.

Q: When can we hope to see agricultural revolution in Eastern India?

A: Eastern India has a large untapped production reservoir. We should introduce a five-pronged strategy involving soil health enhancement, water harvesting and efficient management leading to more crop and income per drop of water, provision of inputs like right quality seeds at the right time; insurance and credit and assured and remunerative marketing. The future of India’s food security lies in accelerating progress in increasing the productivity of farming systems.

Q: What public policy support would you prefer for agriculture in the coming Budget?

A: The Budget should stimulate a small farm management revolution through a technological upgradation of farming so that educated youth are attracted to farming as a profession. We should bring in more area under assured irrigation and for promoting conservation farming in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP.

Q: When can we expect food inflation to come down?

A: We need to ensure the balance between demand and supply situation by following the Rajiv Gandhi approach of technology missions headed by outstanding scientists or practical farmers. We should organise pulses villages in dry farming areas to enhance productivity and profitability.

Profile
Rao: A bright star in statistics and maths
by Harihar Swarup

Decorated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Indian Science Award at the 97th Indian Science Congress at Thiruvananthapuram, Professor Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao has turned 90. But age has not dampened his zeal for development of statistics.Popularly known as C.R. Rao, he is regarded as one of the brightest stars in the sphere of statistics and mathematics, having dedicated long years of his life for development of statistics, a complex subject beyond the reach of the common man.

In simple words, statistics is concerned with understanding the real world through the information and can be derived from classification and measurement. It might be a relatively new branch of science but with ubiquitous application, there is no branch of physical or social science which can do without the discipline of statistics.

Rao’s theoretical work helped lay the foundation of modern statistics. He has also concentrated his efforts on employing statistical methods to solve practical problems in such diverse fields as economics, anthropology, geology, medical diagnosis and national planning. Responding to concerns of industry, he developed “Orthogonal Arrays”, a method of experimentation through combinational arrangement.

The method is commonly used to improve and control the quality of manufactured goods. His evolution of estimation theory in small samples expanded the reach of statistical methods in the real-world work.

Rao was born in Karnataka but his family moved to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh where he studied and obtained his master’s degree in mathematics. It was in 1940 when the Second World War was raging. Twenty-year-old Rao set out on a 500-mile train journey from Visakhapatnam to Calcutta after obtaining a first class degree in mathematics with a glimmer of hope of finding a job in the military.

He was not lucky enough, considered too young for the job. However, while in Calcutta, through a chance encounter, he visited the Indian Statistical Institute founded in 1931 by Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, a Cambridge-trained physicist. As a last resort, he applied for a one-year training programme in statistics there.

Promptly, he received a positive reply from Prof Mahalanobis who admitted him to the ISI’s Training Section on January 1, 1941. The young man in the course of time turned out to be the world’s most well known statistician.

Thus began Rao’s spectacular career in statistics, a field he selected as a last resort, and he never looked back. Subsequent years showed that the ‘chance factor’ played a prominent role in his life and work. After an unconventional mix of study and work at the ISI, Rao was deputed to Cambridge University to apply the Mahalanobis distance analysis on some anthropometric data collected by the University Museum.

While in Cambridge, he also completed his Ph.D under R.A. Fisher, known as the Father of Modern Statistics. By this time, Rao had already done some of the most influential work that carried his name.

Rao does not hail from a family of academicians. His father worked in the police department under the British rule and had the designation of Inspector of Police when he retired at the mandatory age of 55. His mother Laxmikantamma was about 20 when she got married. She bore 10 children over a period of 17 years. C.R. Rao was the sixth or seventh issue.

Rao’s father was away from the house on duty most of the time and he saw very little of him. His mother looked after the children. He has been quoted as saying “my mother was a great disciplinarian, and controlled our day-to-day activities, prescribing the time for playing, studying and sleeping, Perhaps, this regimen helped us in leading disciplined and successful lives”.