Several Indian newspapers fell victim to a hoax about the arrest of a supposed Nazi war criminal. Apart from the media’s alarming ignorance, the episode also reveals our fascination for unconfirmed news from ‘intelligence’ sources. Siddharth Varadarajan in The Hindu:
On Sunday, an email message from ‘Hamman Smit,’ press officer from ‘Perus Narpk’ from Shede Road in Berlin arrived in the inbox of several journalists in Goa and Bangalore. The message identified ‘Perus Narpk’ as the “intelligence wing of the German Chancellor’s core” (sic) and claimed credit for the arrest on the Karanataka-Goa border of a fugitive Nazi war criminal named Johann Bach who was responsible for the killing of 12,000 Jews in the ‘Marsha Tikash Whanaab’ concentration camp. The email contained a press release full of outlandish details about the operation, including the claim that the octogenarian Bach had revealed his identity to a holidaying Israeli couple during a rave party in Goa, and had stolen an 18th century piano from a museum in ‘East Berlin’ which he was trying to sell through a local newspaper.
The email was literally full of clues suggesting it was a hoax. The author revealed he was “hamming,” his office was on ‘Shady’ road and the rather un-Germanic ‘Perus Narpk’ was an anagram for ‘Super Prank.’ Even if the journalists did not know there was no concentration camp with the name ‘Marsha Tikash Whanaab,’ a quick search on the Internet might have at least triggered a warning light. And yet, a number of hacks and their editors rushed to print with this sensational story without bothering to check any of its hilarious details.
Reuters photographer Adrees Latif won the breaking news photography Pulitzer Prize for his shot of a Japanese videographer killed during anti-government protests in Burma (Myanmar). Read this riveting account of how he got the shot:
Bangkok: I landed in Yangon with some old clothes, a Canon 5D camera, two fixed lenses and a laptop.
For four days in September last year, I went to the city’s historic Shwedagon Pagoda and waited for the Buddhist monks who gathered there to lead the biggest protests against Myanmar’s military rulers in 20 years.
Since I was at the same pagoda every day, dozens of people, including monks, asked me who I was and what I was doing.
In India, religious entertainment has evolved into an industry of its own, writes Priyanka P. Narain in Mint
Hanuman returns yet again—this time, in a video game. Meanwhile, Star TV and INX Network are working on the Mahabharat. Next month, actors from six countries will gather in Madhya Pradesh to perform the Ramayan in their own distinctive styles.
Mythology has not only endured, it is being given new life and new forms in India. An entire generation remembers the deserted roads of Sunday mornings in the late 1980s, when the conch blew on Doordarshan, back then the sole, state-run television channel, and the Mahabharat unfolded, suspending normal life.
Today, religious entertainment has evolved into an industry of its own. In the process, traditional stories are being retold from different perspectives, or even being modernized.
Cyberspace in China is a rough-and-tumble place, where mobs of virtual vigilantes can single out an innocent victim for public humiliation in a way that isn’t common in other parts of the world. But in recent days the sights of China’s netizens have been trained not on a person but on an institution: the Western media, which is being vilified as unfair, uninformed and incompetent in its coverage of the uprisings over Chinese rule in Tibet. In blogs, chatrooms, bulletin boards and even by instant message, ordinary Chinese are excoriating the international press. There’s even a special website that has been launched to attack perceived media bias. Among other transgressions, the site’s home page displays mistakes by German TV stations in which Nepalese police, shown in videos rounding up Tibetan protesters in Kathmandu are identified as Chinese.
Robert Thurman, professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and President of Tibet House US, in the ‘On Faith’ section of The Washington Post:
If there ever was a social and political movement based on faith, on spirituality, it is the 50-year campaign of the Dalai Lama for the freedom of his people, and the present spontaneous uprising of the Tibetan people who want to be free to restore their spiritual life, in the closer presence of their spiritual and political leader. These acts of truth-the Dalai Lama’s long insistence on nonviolence and dialogue in responding to the genocidal acts of one of the world’s largest military powers, and the Tibetan people’s resistance in the face of overwhelming odds-may yet produce miraculous results, as one of the world’s greatest “lost causes” becomes a possible success.
On a day when 10 people died in violence in Tibet, here’s the front page of the state-owned China Daily. In case you’re trying to locate the Tibet story, you’ll find it at the bottom of the page, in columns 2 and 3. The headline says: “Dalai Lama behind sabotage”. And the story reads:
The government of Tibet Autonomous Region said Friday there had been enough evidence to prove that the recent sabotage in Lhasa was “organized, premeditated and masterminded” by the Dalai clique.
The violence, involving beating, smashing, looting and burning, has disrupted the public order and jeopardized people’s lives and property, an official with the regional government said.
The sabotage has aroused indignation of and is strongly condemned by the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet, he said in an interview with Xinhua.
Here’s the link, but you’ll have to register for a clearer image of the page.
Love sells — and how — in Bollywood. Real life couples are positioning themselves as on-screen package deals, reports Prashant Singh in Mail Today
Bollywood is discovering the power of two. Real- life star couples are manipulating relationships to strike gold at a professional level. Whether it is AbhiAsh, Ajay Devgan- Kajol, Saif Ali Khan- Kareena Kapoor or John Abraham- Bipasha Basu, they are all striking multi- million contracts by way of film deals and advertising campaigns. The trend is also being tapped to rake it in by way of joint public appearances. Together, these couples have indeed also become a measure of marketability. ‘ Two together’ seems to be the latest winning mantra, with celebrity couples hogging the spotlight. Casting directors of films as well as brand managers are waking up to the trend.
Rolling Stone makes its India debut with five different covers: Anoushka Shankar (seen here), Led Zeppelin, Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse and Bruce Springsteen.Priced at Rs 100 and edited by N Radhakrishnan of Man’s World (now MW), the magazine has a reasonably strong India angle (news clips on Rabbi Shergill, Shruti Haasan and Talvin). For a look at all five of the inaugural mag’s cover versions click here – word of warning: the site is ‘under construction’.
In an era where youth drives consumerism, Amitabh Bachchan’s endorsement crown is slowly slipping to younger stars. Today his brand worth equals that of actors like Saif Ali Khan and Akshay Kumar while Shah Rukh Khan rules the roost, write Sonali Krishna and Ratna Bhushan in The Economic Times
The original Don of Bollywood seems to be losing his grip over the endorsement space as a result of what some industry watchers are calling the Twenty20 effect. In an era where youth is driving consumerism, Amitabh Bachchan’s endorsement charisma is clearly showing cracks. Box-office failures and the many political rows too seem to have hurt Brand Bachchan’s career. Sample this: Mr Bachchan today commands the same value as Saif Ali Khan and Akshay Kumar, which stands at nearly Rs 3-4 crore per ad deal. Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan, who seems to have snatched Big B’s crown in the last one year, garners as much as Rs 5.5-6 crore per ad.
Muslims, who constitute 50 per cent of non-resident Keralites, are taking a keen interest in American politics and the implications of the presidential elections on Muslim nations, reports N P Chekutty in The Hoot
The ongoing process of selection of the US presidential candidate especially in the Democratic Party where a white woman and a back man are fighting it out for the first time in the US history, has evoked considerable excitement all over the world.
Particularly so in the Malayalam media. Super Tuesday and the subsequent victories for Barak Obama have been major news items in the regional papers for the past many weeks. In fact, the US contest is now keenly watched by the Malayalam media, especially the newspapers from the northern belt that serve a predominantly Muslim population. It needs a serious study of the politics and sociology of the region to understand the phenomenon of the keen interest in an election taking place so far away from their homes. On Super Tuesday, among the dozen Malayalam newspapers that I read, I found almost half of them prominently displaying the news on front pages. The coverage, in comparison to Tamil and Kannada newspapers, was much more extravagant, as I found in a quick survey.
‘Global citizen’ Adil Najam has gone from sharing a Nobel Prize to starting a blog where Pakistanis can share views peacefully. Omar Sacirbey in The Boston Globe:
Aboard a Pakistan International Airlines flight bound for Logan Airport 16 years ago, Adil Najam sat in his seat and thought, “What have I done? Why would I leave all that?”
Sports reporter, TV talk show host, national environmental expert, Najam was a celebrity in the south Asian nation of 165 million by his mid-20s. “I was quite happy there. Pakistan was good to me,” said Najam, now living in Boxborough with his wife and three children. Rather than riding his good fortune, he was off to MIT for the more secure but seemingly staid pursuit of an engineering degree.
But instead of vanishing into technocratic anonymity, Najam, 42, has emerged as a rising star in the international environmental movement, earning a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore and other scientists on an international climate change council, while also becoming a go-to expert on the Muslim world for NPR, CNN, and other news outlets. Most recently he has reentered the political debate in Pakistan with his blog Pakistaniat.com, which has become a must-read for Pakistan-watchers as the nation, a critical American ally in the war on terror, simmers with political violence heading into national elections today.
In Queens, New York, a vibrant Pakistani community has been closely tracking the country’s political chaos since the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December.
As Pakistan remains politically divided, so, too, are the eight Urdu-language newspapers published in the city. And perhaps no place reflects that split more than a simple storefront in Jamaica, where two rival weeklies are divided not only by politics, but also by a mere wall. The Pakistan Post is published by a determined journalist [photo: top] who favors Ms. Bhutto’s party. A few feet away, The Urdu Times [photo: right] is run by an advertisement-obsessed editor who supports President Pervez Musharraf.
In 1991, the two editors ran the same paper. But after a bitter dispute over finances, they split and mostly ignored each other over the next 16 years. Seven months ago, the two reunited in an unlikely friendship, and although they still disagree on politics and ideology, they are now best friends.
The New York Times followed them over the past five weeks. Read the rest of the story and watch the video report: More:
Deny thugs like Raj Thackeray the oxygen of publicity, appeals sociology professor Dipankar Gupta to the media in the Mail Today
Before the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) activists hit out at taxi drivers and push cart vendors, they messaged a willing media to carry their message. They waited till cameras were in place, some even with tripods, before they struck out at their targeted victims. Television and media crew duly obliged the MNS’s call as if they were reporting for duty. As nothing was filtered away, the photographed images took on a surreal carnival like look. MNS became an instant media event and the hapless north Indian migrants of Mumbai paid the price for it. But there is a larger lesson in all of this. Not only is it possible now for a struggling politician to become an instant media figure, but the minoritisation of an entire community is just a phone call away.
When Indian travel writers Hugh & Colleen Gantzer emailed their piece to a magazine, they received a call from their Indian internet service provider, VSNL, saying their mail could not be delivered because it contained an ‘obscene’ word. And what was the ‘obscene’ word? Read on:
The 18th century prude, Mrs Grundy, has been resurrected by VSNL (Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited). On December 17 last, we used VSNL to mail an article to a travel magazine in Delhi. Two days later, VSNL phoned and said that our article had not been delivered because it contained ‘obscene words’. After more phone calls and e-mails, we received a mail from VSNL stating that ‘Customer mail was rejected by one of our AV server because it contains some obscene word. This is as per our anti-spam policy. Customer mail had one of the following word “orgasm” “orgy” “sexual climax” ‘ (sic).
An online journal has been followed worldwide by scholars, policy makers and the occasional migrant in distress. Jason DeParle in The New York Times:
It has an editorial staff of one and annual advertising revenues of less than $2,000. It charges its subscribers nothing and pays most contributors the same. Mapping the settlement of Latino poultry workers is its idea of a sexy piece. But for a growing number of followers, it has become an important read.
Every moment has its magazine, and for the age of migration it is the Migration Information Source, a weekly (more or less) online journal followed worldwide by scholars, policy makers and the occasional migrant in distress. “My soul’s dying every moment,” an Iranian asylum seeker wrote last year in an e-mail message from Greece. “Give me an answer.”
Kenneth Cole’s new ad campaign, “We All Walk In Different Shoes,” features a Sikh, Sonny Caberwal. Says the blurb:
“Sonny grew up in a small town in North Carolina. He’s a practicing Sikh and an entrepreneur.
Still in his 20s, Sonny is the joint owner of Tavlon Tea Bar in New York City - a lounge that sells gourmet loose-leaf tea and tea accessories.
He graduated Duke University in 2001 and went on to graduate from Georgetown University Law Center in 2004.
He currently resides in New York.”
According to sikhchic.com, he’s also an accomplished tabla player who has rocked with quite a few bands. Born and raised in Asheboro, North Carolina, he now lives with his wife, Dilpreet Kaur, in San Francisco, California.
Lakshmi Pratury is the founder of Tamarind Grove, a group that builds connections and hosts events around the Indian community in India and America. After more than a decade in marketing and venture capitalism, she turned her focus toward linking India more tightly with the American tech community.
In this talk about letter-writing, she and shares a series of notes her father wrote her before he died. This short talk may inspire you to set pen to paper too.
India’s boom in audience-based reality TV spawns new jobs for poor, unemployed young women, but forces a break from tradition writes Rama Lakshmi in The Washington Post
Eighteen-year-old Mital Limbad stretches lazily in bed in her tiny, one-room tenement. It is 8:30 a.m., and she has been home for only a few hours, having spent the previous night at a long and tiring TV shoot.
As her family goes about the morning chores, her cellphone rings. Limbad answers it, listens and hangs up.
“I need to be at the Cinevista studio in two hours,” she says.
“What show will you be on this time?” asks her mother, Jyoti, 39.
” ‘K for Kishore,’ ” she answers, referring to a popular TV talent show. Her mother and her younger sister and brother cheer.
Brooks Barnes from Los Angeles in The New York Times.
How do you sing “bop to the top” in Hindi? If you are the Walt Disney Company, very carefully. The media conglomerate is trying to expand the global reach of “High School Musical” to squeeze even more money from the franchise. The new efforts - which include a long-term London stage production, a touring stage show in Asia and music videos in 17 languages - are also intended to start prepping foreign markets for the musical’s high-stakes transition to the big screen.
“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” is scheduled for release in North American theaters in October, with a global premiere to follow soon after. “These are all building blocks,” said Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC Television Group. “Every new piece of this franchise opens a new door.”
Ashok Banker’s Ramayana is being made into a Hollywood series. Purnima Sharma has the story in Times of India
It was his love for mythology that led Ashok Banker to dabble in Ramayana, the series which is now being adapted on celluloid by Hollywood. Says the normally reticent writer, “The talks actually started way back in 2006. Before that too, there had been some tentative enquiries. A studio wanted to make three films on the Ramayana in both English and Hindi, to be shot in India.” But Ashok decided to sell an offer to Ben Kingsley. “Being of Indian origin, he had the most exciting vision. Ben had initially wanted to fly down with Nicole Kidman to speak to me about it, and that sure got me a bit flustered,” he laughs.
A glance at a newsstand in any major Indian city reveals a media market in the midst of a boom. There are frothy tabloids, slick business papers, racy Bollywood glossies and lifestyle magazines, with new titles hitting the stands every week. Advertisers are shoveling out cash and foreign investors are stampeding in.
But the news is not as good for the country’s boldest English-language news magazine, Tehelka. The crusading independent weekly is struggling to expand and take a bigger slice of a highly competitive print market.
Like many anti-establishment publications around the world, Tehelka has garnered only lukewarm support from advertisers and relative disinterest from readers more interested in upbeat news.
Before he leaves for Europe, President Pervez Musharraf ends the blackout of Geo, Pakistan’s most popular private news channel, reports Salman Masood in the New York Times
With the notable absence of two hard-hitting political talk shows, Pakistan’s most popular private television news channel was allowed to resume cable broadcasts within the country on Monday, ending a blackout that had lasted more than two months.
The channel, Geo, and other television networks, were taken off the air after President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in the country on Nov. 3 as he suspended the Constitution, fired the Supreme Court and blocked all independent news media.
Almost all of the news networks were allowed to resume broadcasting by December as Mr. Musharraf lifted the emergency, and after the networks had agreed to sign a controversial “code of conduct.” But executives at Geo, known for its aggressive news coverage, refused to sign and so it remained off the air in Pakistan.
Ram has returned. Two decades after the first epic enthralled a nation new to television, the Valmiki Ramayana has been repackaged and remade for NDTV Networks Plc.’s new entertainment channel, Imagine.
It’s clearly a different India now and in many ways, the show, to debut on Monday night, reflects this. Much of the epic, directed by the son of the original director, tells the story from Sita’s perspective and also includes lessons on the environment. With elaborate sets in Vadodara, it has been billed the biggest budget television serial, although officials will not disclose how much.
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