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Capital offence Refinery revival |
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King’s ransom
Operation Parakram
Two little boys
TV channel news It’s okay to ignore a ringing cell phone Hollywood has its own code
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Capital offence
Thursday’s gangrape of a 16-year-old girl reaffirms New Delhi’s growing reputation as the capital of not just crime but rape as well. This is the third “sensational” gangrape in the Capital since May, when a Delhi University student was outrageously assaulted in Dhaula Kuan by a bunch of criminals who are yet to be apprehended. This was followed by another gangrape of a slum dweller in Mayapuri, which also remains unsolved more than three weeks after the incident. The latest outrage is even more shocking because the girl was assaulted by six men in a stationary blue line bus in Najafgarh, also in southwest Delhi; and the offenders include bus drivers and conductors. This is not the first time that public transport vehicles have been used for sexual assaults on women. The fact that bus drivers and conductors are involved in the heinous crime underscores the need for vetting the antecedents of those who are employed in public transportation services. Clearly, life in Delhi is becoming one long nightmare for women: their safety, security, person and dignity are for ever in danger with such hoodlums at large and, going by the record so far, beyond the reach of the police. Till date this year, there have been over 2700 incidents of assault on women and if the trend continues unchecked, at the end of the year, the offences might well exceed the 5568 reported in 2004. The abysmal record of the Delhi Police in prosecuting the culprits is not an example for the rest of the country. It is high time that Delhi was made safe for women, especially those from the lower economic strata who are more vulnerable as prey for predatory criminals on the prowl. The government and the judiciary also need to ensure that no rapist escapes the most stringent punishment. |
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Refinery revival
After never-ending uncertainty, the Guru Gobind Singh refinery of Bathinda is at last back on the rails. There has been a delay of seven years, and the only way one can console oneself over this setback is by taking the philosophical “better late than never” attitude. The present Congress government exults that it has managed to get far more favourable terms from the HPCL than the Akalis did. What it does not mention is that the delay has led to at least 20 per cent increase in the cost of the Rs 9,800-crore project. Even that is a conservative estimate. It was shelved because of an unseemly political tug of war over taking credit for the mega-project. Now that the Congress has got the upper hand, it should execute the project speedily because it can be instrumental in changing the economic scene of Punjab in a way. Not only will it give a fillip to industrialisation, it will also generate considerable employment by encouraging downstream units. The land near Bathinda is generally infertile. The refinery can put it to good use. Already, there has been a considerable jump in the land prices in and around Phulokhari village where it is to be set up. Truck operators are also a revived lot. The whole region can derive considerable benefit out of it. Once the refinery comes up, there will be many ancillary units downstream. The project can be completed in time only if the Centre extends its full support. A similar positive attitude will also have to be shown by political parties of Punjab. The bitterness that had plagued the plant ever since its foundation stone was laid in1998 should now be forgotten. Projects of such a magnitude should not be made hostage to petty political rivalry between the Akali Dal and the Congress. That is what leaders of both parties owe to the people of Punjab. |
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King’s ransom
The execution of at least 41 soldiers of the Royal Nepalese Army by Maoist rebels earlier this week is, even by the barbaric standards the conflict has reached in the Himalayan kingdom, a shocking outrage. Reports, belatedly confirmed by the palace authorities, suggest that the soldiers were lined up and shot in the head one by one. The soldiers were among the scores captured during clashes between the army and the Maoist guerrillas in Nepal’s northwester Kalikot district, some 600 km from Kathmandu. By all accounts, the clashes that began on Sunday between 1000 armed rebels and 227 soldiers posted in Kalikot, were the most savage in the unending cycle of violence that has gripped Nepal. If the violence, especially the targeting of security forces, has taken such a brutal turn, King Gyanendra has only himself to blame. His authoritarian rule and exclusion of mainstream democratic political parties has pushed Nepal to the very brink. In the circumstances, where conditions approximating civil war prevail in large parts of one of the world’s poorest countries, there appears to be no hope of the violence subsiding. In fact, the fighting appears to be escalating; and the intensification of the conflict can be traced to the King’s inability to contain the Maoist insurgency as well as his unwillingness to allow political parties their legitimate place and role. The political turmoil provoked by the King’s actions, including the recurrent protests by democratic forces, has compounded further the complexity of the situation. Hence, it is not surprising that the outside world, including New Delhi, is having second thoughts on whether a monarchy under the likes of King Gyanendra can any longer serve as one of two pillars — the other being multi-party democracy — of a stable polity. This may explain New Delhi reconsidering supply of non-lethal weapons to Nepal, for the autocratic King is as much to blame as the Maoists for the descent into chaos. |
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Never explain yourself. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it.
— Belgicia Howell |
Operation Parakram
WITH fresh inputs, the story of Operation Parakram can be reconstructed now. The design and motives of the three key players — India, Pakistan and the US — in the military confrontation of 2001-02 are less of a riddle, wrapped in a mystery surrounded by enigma. The war that never was, according to latest research, was averted by the foresight and level-headedness of then Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee whose desire to make it into the history books for normalising India-Pakistan relations has yet to be consummated. Neither victory nor defeat accrued from the standoff. But the outcome was positive: a ceasefire which is holding, scores of old and new CBMs and the peace process. The jihadi threat has diminished, not disappeared. A terrorist attack like at Ayodhya is not likely to start a war but a major terrorist strike could end the peace process. Therefore, unlike the claims of President Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the peace process is not irreversible. On the Pakistan side, India’s Operation Parakram (valour) was met with Operation Sabit Qadam (steadfast). Here is the Pakistani perception of the 2001-02 standoff. The crisis arose mainly due to the unresolved Kashmir dispute and the legacy of Kargil. Pakistan deterred India — and here there is some confusion whether by conventional and/or nuclear capability. Additionally, India failed to coerce Pakistan into meeting its political and military demands. The military threat was just not credible, leave alone instilling any fear. When the rest of the world thought that war was imminent, most Pakistanis were celebrating Basant (spring). The presence of US soldiers on Pakistani soil helped in preventing the war; equally it raised more concerns in Islamabad over what the US might be up to rather than what the Indians might do. Kargil, Pakistanis admit, was a blunder. But Pakistan’s response to Parakram was brilliant. Self-congratulation aside, many Pakistanis did feel the heat of Parakram. Gen Pervez Musharraf is known to have confessed to friends that he spent several sleepless nights. On December 13, the day Parliament was attacked - India’s 12/13 — President George Bush spoke to Mr Vajpayee. He spoke to him again after two weeks. In between he said “every country has the right to defend itself” . The derived inference, that the two-week window was kept open by the US for the Indian armed forces to do something, has few takers. The US read in Operation Parakram coercion and not an intent to go to war; yet war was a real possibility. Some US policy-makers saw Parakram as a role reversal for Kargil. The role of the US Ambassador to India, Mr Robert Blackwill, during the military confrontation, was judged by some as controversial but critical. In hindsight, it is clear that there was a disconnect between Mr Blackwill and the State Department. Remember, Mr Blackwill was sent to New Delhi by Mr Bush to set in order the India-US relations and preside over the shift in the US policy from “Pakistan first” to “India first”. The “India first” policy launch was slated for September 15, 2001. But 9/11 happened and it was back to “Pakistan first”. US wanted to avert an India-Pakistan war at all costs. Its priority was its own war, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, for which Pakistan’s help was paramount. Mr Blackwill, on the other hand, in fulfilling his mandate of reshaping US-India ties, felt that this realignment could not be done without addressing India’s security concern of cross-border terrorism and that the wars against terror in Afghanistan and Kashmir had to be fought simultaneously. The US had real difficulty in selling India the idea that while it could act in Afghanistan, India could not in Kashmir. The two spikes that brought India close to war were December 13 and May 14, the Kaluchak attack on Army families. Both these crises were defused largely by US counselling of India and coercion of Pakistan. The two Musharraf speeches on January 12 and May 27 were the direct outcome of US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s soldier-to-soldier talk with General Musharraf. One source has it that the draft of the two speeches was prepared by Mr Powell and with changes approved by him before delivery by General Musharraf. US policy-makers were playing for time. Whenever India raised the temperature, Mr Blackwill would say, “give Pakistan more time”, which became a euphemism for giving US more time. When sparks from an impending Indian offensive began flying in the media — as they did in January or June — it was Mr Blackwill who famously said: “Wait for Musharraf’s speech”. The January crisis was contained by Mr Blackwill despite General Musharraf merely making a statement of intent of stopping cross-border terrorism. It was the second crisis in June that the US read as the real thing. This led to travel advisories and authorised evacuation of diplomatic staff. The decision to issue the travel advisory was made by the State Department on the express recommendation of Mr Blackwill who felt that even if there was 1 per cent risk of nuclear war in the event of hostilities, it was a risk not worth-taking. The May 27 Musharraf speech was wishy-washy yet there was a commitment to end infiltration which did not satisfy India. Earlier, on May 22, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice asked her Indian counterpart, Mr Brajesh Mishra, what it would take to satisfy India of Pakistan’s sincerity in ending terrorism. “A guarantee”, replied Mr Mishra. It was this demand that led to the famous Musharraf pledge to end terrorism permanently, given to Mr Colin Powell/Mr Richard Armitage that was carried by the latter to Delhi on June 6. Mr Vajpayee demanded that the pledge must be made public. It was, but by a State Department official. According to one source, the pledge actually went beyond ending cross-border terrorism permanently to doing so “visibly, irreversibly and to the satisfaction of India”. But there was a proviso to the pledge that was not made public. It was for India to agree to start talks with Pakistan on all other contentious issues including Kashmir. It was a conditionality India could never have accepted at the time. It was for this reason that General Musharraf subsequently disowned the pledge. US officials were quick to clarify their position on the pledge that they secured from General Musharraf. It was Mr Blackwill who said that the US “merely conveyed the pledge” and “was not its guarantor” because there were limits to what the US could do. India’s military was prepared to fight from a limited war with limited political objectives to a not-so limited war with risks of unintended consequences. The Army was raring to go and, by media description, the Army Chief, Gen S. Padmanabhan, was “itching for a fight”. India’s debut in coercive diplomacy obtained from Pakistan satisfactory assurances and concessions: two presidential speeches promising good behaviour, banning of terrorist outfits, reduction in infiltration, nailing Pakistan on cross-border terrorism and internationalising Pakistan’s role in lowering nuclear threshold. None of this could have been achieved without US cooperation. It coerced Pakistan into making these concessions so that it could use them as a quid pro quo for Indian restraint in order to prosecute its own war in Afghanistan. The real winner from Parakram and Sabit Qadam was the US.
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Two little boys
There was no New Delhi then, only Delhi, where we lived in a large, sprawling, ungainly house close to the city wall. The wall, or most of it, is still there. The house has disappeared. In its place now stand several blocks of flats and offices, not sprawling, not ungainly, just ugly. It was a dear old house and, despite its bizarre appearance it held memories for me of a happy childhood. It had been built by a nawab at the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the Moghals. Being a true nawab, he had provided accommodation, generously, for his zenana and the place was a hotch-potch of enormous bedrooms, high balconies and private courtyards. In the fashion of the day, he had also endowed it with “teh-khanas” (underground rooms) where he and his family rested in the afternoons to escape the summer’s heat. To me, the “teh-khanas” were out of bounds. Snakes and scorpions lived there, or so I was told, though the only living creatures I saw were bats. But you may as well forbid a dog a bone, or a cat a saucer of milk. For me those cool and dark shelters held an irresistible fascination. I had heard of treasures being secreted there during the troubled days of 1857. The winding staircase that led to them, and the nooks and corners with which they abounded, offered an ideal sanctuary while tempers aroused by me upstairs were left to cool down. I shared my little world with Sexton Blake and his stooge, Tinker. Their exploits were at my disposal for a weekly expenditure of four annas. To them I returned again and again even when my reading became a little more “sophisticated” with Dickens, Scott and R.L. Stevenson. Sunday was cinema day, and in the evening I would usually be found outside the Elphinstone Picture Palace on Queen’s Road. I received my ticket money of eight annas on these occasions but I had always maintained that one could see a picture, silent of course, from the four-anna seats as from the class above. The saving as invariably spent at the chat-walla’s stall. The Palace is now a modern, streamlined cinema showing Indian films. But everytime I pass by it I live again with the stars of my time. Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Charlie Chaplin — and what a splendid, enchanted circle they made as I followed their romances both on and off the screen. With the close of the ’20s came the talking picture. The first two “modern” cinemas to be opened were the Regal in New Delhi and the Capitol in Kashmere Gate where I saw my first talkie, “Bulldog Drummond” with Ronald Colman playing the strong, silent man. For me this was the end of an era and the beginning of a new one in another way. We moved from the old house by the city wall to live with all “modern conveniences” in the Civil Lines. The same year I went to college. A new world lay before me, full and exciting, but lacking the charm and naivete of the old one. The last time I saw the old place was in 1948. It had become evacuee property. I wandered through the rooms and corridors, now empty and neglected. My feet led me, as if compelled, to the “teh-khana”. I halted in surprise and dismay. The entrance to them had been bricked up. I asked the old chowkidar the reason and he told me. The only son of the last tenant had been bitten by a cobra that came from below and he died. One little boy had been lucky, the other had not. |
TV channel news
The recent spate of terrorist attacks in India and the incidents in Gurgaon have seen the electronic media move into overdrive with news channels competing with each other to be the first to bring live pictures and the latest information directly to our living rooms. The basic issue on which Indian channels’ coverage differed from that of BBC and other international channels covering events in London is the obsession with the number of fatalities in the attack. While their coverage first tried to present the larger picture of what happened in the series of blasts on London’s underground system, the Indian channels focus on the number of people dead. News anchors repeatedly ask this question of reporters who in a situation when an encounter with terrorists is still underway simply cannot have more information that any other bystander. Similarly, for the first few hours, viewers had no clue about what had led to the clash between the workers and the police in Gurgaon but were only informed that more than 700 workers had been injured in the police assault. There was no attempt to trace the sequence of events that had led to the workers picketing the roads and why they were rounded up in the enclosure where they were beaten by the police. Given the fact that the channels kept reiterating that nothing was known about the fate of the injured, the coverage raised visions of a modern day Jalianwala Bagh type massacre. Either in terrorist attacks or in incidents like in Gurgaon it is inappropriate to speculate on the number of people who might have died or been injured in the attack. This emphasis on first putting a figure to the number of fatalities and casualties reflects a certain mindset in which any particular news becomes important only if it is ‘sufficiently’ bad. This Indian practise of gauging an event’s importance solely on the basis of the death toll or the number of injured, puts pressure on reporters who know that if they want to get onto prime time bulletins or hog the headlines in non prime time bulletins, the ‘worse’ the news, the better their chances. No news is thus better than ‘bad news’ as far as news channels are concerned as managers also feel that dead bodies and maimed people are the best bet for improving TV ratings. There is also a growing tendency to jump to conclusions without any basis. Even before the first of the reporters had been able to reach the site of the blast on Shramjeevi Express between Harpal Ganj and Koiripur station in Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh, anchors had started asking reporters over phone as to which group was responsible for the blasts. Since the question was asked with utmost seriousness, reporters would not have dared to say that they had no information regarding this and that it was not correct to speculate even before preliminary investigations had begun. Thus, in order to appear as professionally competent reporters, stories were woven linking the terrorists with the attack in Ayodhya or some Kashmir based terrorist groups. For several hours it was a virtual free-for-all as each reporter had his or her own theory. This was in contrast to the coverage in the international media of various terrorist attacks that have taken place in various parts of the world since 9/11 when the identity of the group behind the attack came up for discussion only after definite indication from the police. It is a sad commentary on the Indian electronic media that terrorism has become a media spectacle – to be mounted as lavishly as other political spectacles or ceremonial functions. Thus an attack on Lal Chowk is covered with the same fervour as the process of government formation after elections have yielded a hung House. Each of these attacks witnesses the deployment of multiple camera units with each unit trying to get as close to the ‘action’ as possible, be it at the site of the continuing encounter, the hospital where the injured are being removed to, or the morgues where the dead bodies have been kept. The coverage also includes interviews with survivors where mundane questions – “how did you feel when the bomb landed next to you” are asked with serial insensitivity. The ‘live’ coverage of the events in Gurgaon was no different as the entire episode was reported just as a cricket match is reported – where the emphasis in on what is happening on the ‘field’ and not what is going on in the ‘green room’. Since terrorist attacks are media spectacles, reporters, camera crew and other production personnel are forced to take grave risks in search of a moment of glory on TV and for a hefty annual increment. There have been allegations in the past that overzealousness of TV reporters has jeopardized the safety of security forces. But it has become a tendency to venture even into the forbidden areas in the war zone often even by getting into argument with security personnel on duty. While it is true that scribes have always taken risks to cover wars and terrorists attacks, there are often instances when such risks are taken even when the situation does not warrant them. The injuries to the TV journalists in the recent attack in Srinagar is an example of this that is completely different from the injuries caused to journalists caught in the crossfire during the attack on Parliament in December 2001. The roots of such recklessness stems from the fact that life is considered to be cheap and death has little meaning beyond a sensation. Since the victims of the attacks are not respected, the electronic media has little regard for the lives of their own people. |
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It’s okay to ignore a ringing cell phone
There is a famous story about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’’ He was writing a different poem, which began,
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree.’’ He was interrupted by a knock at the door. This was an age before telephones. Someone was delivering a message. When Coleridge got back to his poem, he had lost his inspiration. His poetic mood had been utterly shattered by the knock on his door. “In Xanadu’’ would never be more than a glittering, tantalizing fragment. What is crucial about this story is how an unexpected communication can blast to oblivion a private, important thought — indeed, any plan, idea or dream that we may be entertaining inside of our heads. Which brings us to the cell phone. The most common complaint about cell phones is that people talk on them to the exclusion or intrusion of other people around them. In all of these situations, the cell phone bullies us out of other communications. Actually, long before cell phones, the telephone regularly trumped all other activities in the home. Not only would television shows and conversations with family members almost always yield to the ring of the phone, so would lovemaking (media theorists called this ``telephonus interruptus’’). Far more damaging than an interrupted dinner, conversation or other act of communication may be the cell phone’s disruption of our most private, inner thoughts. When the cell phone rings and we are alone, it can barge into and pre-empt the essential time we each need to spend in the company of our own minds. We have already entered a golden age of the little white lie, courtesy of our cell phone, and this is by and large a healthy, protective development. ``I didn’t hear it ring,’’ and other common fibs all of us tell from time to time, all in the noble service of carving out some time and space in our lives in which we’re beyond reach. The notion of being unreachable is not alien to human life, after all — we have ``Do Not Disturb’’ signs on the doors of hotel rooms, and most people would never dream of calling most other people in the middle of the night. Why must we apologize if we have indeed decided to shut off our cell phone for a while? The problem is that we come from a millenniums-old, deeply embedded tradition of long-distance communication scarcity. For as long as there have been human beings on this planet, and right up until the recent mass deployment of cell phones, it has been easy to communicate with someone right next to us, or a few feet away, and difficult to do the same with someone across the town, country or globe. This meant that we have been socially bred to welcome any communication from afar. But the cell phone, bringing its own kind of miracle, has made long-distance communication common, and time by ourselves an endangered species. Now time alone, or a conversation with someone right next to us which cannot be interrupted by a cell phone, is something to be cherished. But we don’t, and we won’t, and there really is no need to. All that is required to reclaim our private time is a general social recognition that we are entitled to it. In other words, we have to develop a healthy contempt, or at least skepticism, for the ring of our own cell phone. In an age of omni-accessibility, the cell phone call deserves no greater priority than a random word to the person next to us, or a stray, intriguing thought.
— LA Times-Washington Post |
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Hollywood has its own code
Hollywood’s two great commandments — ‘Thou Shalt Gross Megabucks at the Box Office’ and ‘Thou Shalt Not Risk the Slightest Offence to Those in Power’ — seem certain to ensure that anything remotely contentious in Dan Brown’s best seller The Da Vinci Code will be quietly ironed out of the screen version. Already Sony Pictures, the studio involved, are said to be chasing “Passion dollars” — that is, the kind of cash bonanza reaped by Mel Gibson’s entirely on-message religious biopic The Passion of Christ. It must be a tough call, turning a book in which Jesus has a child by Mary Magdalene into a rallying cry for the faithful, but the guys in Hollywood are giving it their best shot. The studio is in touch with the Catholic League and Opus Dei. An organisation called Act One, which according to The New York Times “coaches Christians on making it in Hollywood” has been approached for suggestions as to how to make the story more believer-friendly. Its contact at the studio is one Jonathan Bock, “a marketing expert hired by Sony for his knowledge of Christian sensibilities”. It is a revealing insight into the power of the new evangelism over what is presented to the rest of us. The Christian lobby now has it all - the support of Presidents and Prime Ministers, huge financial muscle and the ruthless will to impose its view on cinemagoers and readers throughout the world. Under their scheme of things, not agreeing with their personal moral code is sinful, and dissent is an unpardonable offence against Christian sensibilities. And, boy, are they easily offended - interviewed on the effect on him of reading Dan Brown’s novel, a spokesman for yet another conservative Christian group ‘Focus on Family’ told reporters that it “broke my heart”. Among the blogs and websites of the faithful, the internet keens with the sound of fundamentalist Christians expressing their rage and hurt towards versions of their religion with which they disagree. But what these lobbyists are proving above all is the power of the storytelling. When the Catholic League plaintively requested of director Ron Howard that The Da Vinci Code should open with an acknowledgement that the story is fiction, it was confirming that its members have lost the ability to read, see and understand works of the imagination. It takes a story as fact. No matter how strange, fearful and compelling the events that appear on the front page of newspapers, it seems that storytelling still exerts its own influence. The Christian church understands the power of a story, as well it should, but then so do politicians. One suspects that the clause in America’s Patriot Act that allows the FBI to check the reading habits of citizens who have visited bookshops or libraries is not entirely motivated by a fear that they are looking up recipes for bombs. Stories have the capacity to persuade, to change minds, to influence. This week, investigators into claims of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay have stumbled across an intriguing item of information. Harry Potter has replaced Agatha Christie as the favoured reading of the alleged members of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida who are incarcerated there. Of the 800 titles stocked at Camp Delta, the boy wizard was second in popularity to the Koran. It is an intriguing insight into the mind of the terrorist, this enthusiasm first for country house murders and then for the traditional British boarding-school story, but the reaction of those in control of them is also interesting. When The Washington Post ran the story, the Pentagon grudgingly confirmed that, yes, books by JK Rowling were indeed at Guantanamo Bay but refused to comment further. Asked by what criteria books for the prisoners were bought, a librarian called Lori — she dared give only her first name - said: “We try to keep people calm and not incite riots.” It can safely be assumed that Ron Howard’s film of The Da Vinci Code is unlikely to find its way to Camp
Delta. —The Independent |
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December 11, 1900 Aliens in our own country
A staff member of our contemporary, the “Amrita Bazar Patrika”, was once a witness to the St. Andrew’s Day festivities at the Viceregal Palace. In a recent issue he thus refers to the reflections that arose in his mind at the sight of the banquet: We were told that there was to be a public dinner at the Government House, the number of guests being 700. Suddenly the bells were rung and the guests rushed to the dinner hall. The scene reminded us of the Sanskrit Sloka which says which says, ‘the world is enjoyed by the heroes’ or ‘the world exists for the enjoyment of the heroes’. Never in the annals of the world will it be possible to find two races, living together in one country for 150 years, under the same sovereign, yet with such rigorous and impassable demarcations between them. It is a fact worth noting that only certain type of “natives” are met with at such gatherings. The gap that divides the rulers and the ruled is never bridged over, and the more self-respecting among the latter, therefore, never cease feeling their national degradation. |
May I use my eyes for seeking good in all things. — The Upanishads The past history of commander should be known to the king. He must make every effort to get this information. Hidden in the commander’s past may be a secret which can betray the King. — The Mahabharata Life’s strict rule is this: You get more of what you focus on. Ignoring this, we abandon our healthiest, constructive energies and count our emotional upheavals. — Book of quotations on Happiness And when relatives, orphans or paupers are present at the division, then give them something of it, and speak fair words to
them. — Book of quotations on Islam |
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Be it the series of high voltage ‘encounters’ in various parts of Jammu and Kashmir, the bomb blast on the Delhi-bound Shramjeevi Express, or the Honda factory clash, the speed at which the ‘news’ was brought to the viewers is at one level commendable. But the pressure of outperforming the rivals and the eagerness to present a more graphic account of the events has led to the coverage being more melodramatic than what it ideally should be. The coverage on Indian news channels also stands out in contrast to the ‘restraint’ shown by the British channels when it came to reporting the events of 7/7 and its aftermath.