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Someone please do something about the "NEWS CHANNELS"!



One thing that I absolutely hate is people's lack of general knowledge and something that I abhor, detest, despise, and all the synonyms of hate thrown up by dictionary.com, is people's apathy to whatever is going on in the nation. I know, I have a lot of Ï-want-to-make-India-a-better-country nucleotides in my DNA, and my aforementioned feelings are just an extension of the same.


I somehow managed to catch the Splitsvilla finale..... I didn't watch the entire show, yet I was interested in knowing who won in the end. I liked Varun till the moment he opened his mouth to say that Lal Bahadur Shastri was India's first president.... Can someone please send him to primary school? MTV people, please do the honours. 



One of the factors attributing to people's lack of GK today can be ignominy on the part of Mumbai univ while setting up the syllabus. But then it is also the student's fault. I mean how difficult is it to just open TOI and go through what's happening in the country? The headlines at least? Or just listen your Dad talk, for a change... you'll have all the information about the world you need. 


One more incident that happened in real life, not to me, but to one of the people I know was, someone asked who's Tony Blair(this was about 2 years back). And the person who was supposed to answer said: I know him... he's the US Prime Minister!! This showed two things 1) this person had no clue what so ever who Mr. TB is and 2) She has no clue who George Bush is. So when in doubt, it is better to keep your mouth shut.... !! 


One more incident that I can recollect is when I asked one of my friend who Vilasrao Deshmukh is. And she replied: isn't he Ritiesh Deshmukh's dad?? I said, yes he is... but that's like knowing Imran Khan as the guy whom Nupur likes! Chuck it if you fail to register the analogy. You're just suffering from the Sonal Chuahan syndrome (Watch Jannat and you'll know how dyslexic she is)


I've titled this post against the news channels because I've had it from them. I never really felt like dragging them to court when they kept on showing stupid superstitious shows, predicting Doom's Day, showing when which God will reincarnate, showing how Earth is in constant peril of being attacked by aliens who look out of a Steven Spielberg movie and all other antics they're upto 24x7. I also never went ahead on my mission to rechristen these channels as COMEDY CIRCUS channels. I never took any drastic step to vent my anger. But now, I feel, it's time I do that. At least try filing a PIL or something. I mean Bihar was submerged in floods with 3 million people stranded. No food.No water. There never was any electricity in this part of the world. Food riots breaking out..... and none of the news channels are showing it. I mean what?!? What are you supposed to show? Comedy clips or natural catastrophes? How many of us know why there have been communal riots in Orissa? Why is Kashmir burning? Farmers are still committing suicide... where have the 5000 crore rupees gone?? I didn't have a clue until I googled these things out. TV, today, has reached the Mariana Trench.... time it at least comes back to surface.


News channels aside, it's the people around me who've also been irritating me. Nobody cares about the the people who are affected. Call me an atheist or whatever but I just can't fathom how someone can spend crores, donate a couple of other crore rupees, set up huge Ganpati pandals, immerse the idols in water only to increase pollution levels and kill some fish and aquatic flora and fauna only because someone else is doing it? Why can't you rather go to Bihar and distribute food packets to children who go to sleep drinking the flood water or something even worse? Why does every body's logic go to the dogs when it comes to religion? I'm sure Ganpatiji would be more happy if you help out someone and not just simply worship a stone/POP cut out in His form. This entire Ganeshotsav was started by Lokmanya Tilak, whose sole motive behind it was to get people together and fight for freedom..... so why the extravagance today??

I know, I know, if MNS/Bajrang Dal people are reading this post, they want to come and break the windows of my house and stuff.... but I don't care. I have a fundamental right to the freedom of Speech, and I have just used it. I even don't care if this post doesn't go down well with many of you. You have your point of view..... I have mine.... 

And yeah Mr. Thackeray, before ordering your men to vandalize shops that haven't put up their store names in Marathi, kindly, break the windows of your house first. Your son doesn't want to learn Marathi.... so how the hell are you to impose the language on a million other people?? I really respected you when you came out with your new party... A young, dynamic leader to lead the way, I thought.... and it...well, just remained a thought. Practice before you preach. You make your dumb cousin look better than you because of all your antics

Comments

Ashutosh said…
You are bang on target. Only if the people who matter could understand this.

Its sad to see the general awareness standards of today's youngsters. Yesterday I happened to meet a guy who's just cleared his boards. I casually asked him as to what he thinks about India's current prime minister and he started blabbering about Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I was simply to the core. It appeared to me that the guy has never had a glance at the newspaper for the past 4 years and yet he said that he scored the highest in Social Studies. Someone go and ask the education boards. Is this what you teach at schools and colleges.

Talking about the media..well the lesser said the better. They simply seem to be a bunch of mean minded people who only care about TRPs.

Some time back I had written a couple of articles on my blog that might be of some interest to you. Do check out these links and let me know what you think about the content.

http://www.intheorbit.com/2008/07/deteriorating-standards-of-indian-media.html

http://www.intheorbit.com/2008/07/innovation-and-originality-distant.html
Manish said…
You have picked a very good point for this blog.This trend is very disturbing.We are not asking the people to have the knowledge of quiz wizards but we should have a general idea of what's going on in our country.Take for example the nuclear deal which has been making headlines for a good 2 years now;I wonder how many of us would even know the countries involved,let alone knowing the intricacies of it.They are ignorant and things might have been better if the curriculum required them to know these things.

You hit the nail on the head as far as the news channels are concerned.They are giving prime time shows a run for their money,except a few sensible english news channels.

And as far as Splitsvilla goes,those MTV guys are the last guys you would expect to answer those questions.
Girlfriends & Boyfriends are what the generation thinks to know of most these days.
Nupur said…
@ashutosh: I'll definitely check out the posts. There was a quiz conducted some time back b Mumbai mirror on state toppers and they too, showed the same level of 'knowledge'.
Nupur said…
@manish: Totally agree with you.
Si_Lee said…
he he he he.. ha ha .. that was refreshing to read .... i enjoyed the post ... welcome here
Kartz said…
Nice post...

And if I remember correct, here is an incident from one of the 'COMEDY CIRCUS channels' as you put it. I think it was after the Bangalore blast (correct me if I am wrong) or some crisis-

CNN-IBN: Runs the breaking news...
24x7: Runs the breaking news...
Times Now: Runs the breaking news...

BUT...

Headlines Today?
"Great Khali looses WWE championship!"
"The Undertaker is fired..."

Oh yeah baby, 'refreshingly' different indeed.

Another incident on SunTV;
Question; Who among the following is a tennis player? Options- Sachin Tendulkar, Dara Singh, André Agassi, Milkha Singh. The appalling reply? Dara Singh...

Anyways... Welcome to the forum. Peace.
Nupur said…
@shadows: Thanks !!
Nupur said…
@kartz: thank you for the welcome!
Praveen said…
hehehe...nice post man...
media in India at present is now at its worst possible depths. This rut started 2-3 years back with the explosion of private news channels. Channels like headlines today are a shame to Indian media. There should be some regulatory authority to tell these guys what should be shown in news and what should not be.

checkout one of my old posts on India media here-
http://crusadertvm.blogspot.com/2007/08/media-matters-these-days-indian-media.html

coming to knowledge level of Gen-Y, sometimes I almost cried seeing the comments of youngsters in tv channels. Its like they were living under a hole completely cut-off with the outside world
Tushar Mangl said…
Akriti was the first one,to write an article on media and it was a dammm good one.
Reading yours was a wonderfull experience all together,

Welcome to Jagruti
HOpe you have a great time here :-)

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