Motihari is a town in North Bihar,
close to Nepal border. Motihari, the district head quarter of East Champaran,
is the place where Mahatma Gandhi was jailed during his famous ‘Champaran
movement’. Motihari has several monuments and a museum related to Mahatma
Gandhi. Motihari railway station was renamed as “Bapudham Motihari railway
station” in reminder of its connection with Gandhi ji.
Here are some of the pictures of Bapudham
Motihari Railway Station, taken this year in 2020:
- Rahul Tiwary
I watched Sadak (1991) recently,
followed by Sadak 2 (2020). Sadak, directed by Mahesh Bhatt, was a super hit at
its time and is still remembered for its story and performances. Sanjay Dutt
played a legendary role of a taxi driver who goes on to save his girl, her role
played by Pooja Bhatt. Sadashiv Amrapurkar played an epic role of a dreaded
villain called ‘Maharani’ who was a eunuch and ran a brothel. After Pooja gets
sold to the brothel by her uncle to repay a loan, Ravi (Sanjay Dutt) falls in
love with her and tries to save her by taking her away on the run. But most
importantly, in the end, the couple unite after Ravi kills all the bad guys,
and hence the story becomes ‘happy ending’. Although I found the movie
involving too much violence and some not so logical moments, the happy ending
comforted me, and it felt like ‘worth spending the time’.
Sadak 2 is a sequel to the original
movie and it tells the story of Ravi (Sanjay Dutt) after he loses Pooja in a
road accident. Ravi is mentally disturbed and hallucinates where he talks to
Pooja and also sees her (even after she is dead). The story involves a theme of
“anti-superstition” or “anti-Godmen culture”. The main story is a complex one
which keeps the viewers involved for quite some time. Alia Bhatt plays the role
of the only daughter of a rich businessman, and she is trying to eradicate the
prevalence of “fake Gurus” who exploit people in the name of God. The reason for
her motivation being that her mother was killed by the aunt under the influence
of a Godman. In the end, the story turns upside down and hence it becomes a
thriller and full points to the movie for that. I am not revealing whole story
because it is a new movie and people should watch it.
I see a few incoherencies in the
movie and have my observations:
1. I think the movie should not have
been made as a “sequel” of original movie ‘Sadak’, but it should have been made
into a standalone movie and then it would have made much better sense. There is
no continuance of the original story line.
2. It was not necessary to show
Sanjay Dutt suffering from a mental illness. It was possible for him to hear
his own thoughts, instead of “seeing” or “hearing” Pooja even after she was
dead. Although the movie’s major theme is “anti-superstition” but Sanjay Dutt
keeps seeing Pooja Bhatt and it looks more like her ghost than a hallucination,
and hence is self-contradicting.
3. As per the prevailing trend of
Indian movie industry, Hinduism is singled out for showing most of the evil
things that happen in the name of God or religion. Although Sadak 2 avoids
showing saffron color and chooses black color as a theme which tries to tone
down its anti-Hinduism nature. But for a change, movie industry should also
make movies showing “fake Fakirs” or “fake Sufis” or “fake pastors”; instead of
making it “fake Gurus” which singles out Hinduism as a target.
4. Aditya Roy Kapur is an extremely
talented actor; and shows a wonderful “switch” from a hero to a villain in
Sadak2. But in the later part of the movie, his role is curtailed abruptly,
which is noticeable and hence not nice. For example, during the press
conference scene, when Alia says that evidence is in the form of Aditya Roy
Kapur, he is not shown speaking even a single word. It looks unnatural. In the
earlier part he played a much more prominent role.
5. Sanjay Dutt has played a very
realistic role of Ravi who is disillusioned after his wife’s death and finds no
purpose left for a living. He has experienced life, has achieved things but
when he loses the person connecting him to the world (his wife), and since he
has no kids, he finds no purpose in life and tries to commit suicide. That moment
in a way is prophetic. As a society we have to think of ways in which we should
avoid that situation.
Sanjay Dutt has played the best role
in the movie. Alia Bhatt is at her best too, even though her character was not
too strongly scripted. The villain “Guruji Gyan Prakash”’s role played by
Markand Deshpande is not so powerful, even though Markand Deshpande is a genius
actor, just because the character is taken straight out of evil Godmen shown in
second grade TV serials. I think Sadak 2 could have been a much better film if
it was made as a separate film instead of fitting it into a “sequel”. While the first part Sadak was a 'happy ending' story, the second part Sadak 2 has ruined everything: it shows that Pooja did not bear any child, dies in a road accident, Ravi suffers mental problems and in the end dies. This sad twist to everything is a grave injustice to the fans of original movie Sadak.
Overall, Sadak 2 is still a good film
which should be watched. And one should not get affected by political campaign
against the movie by certain social media influencers.
- Rahul Tiwary
If you have been following news and
updates on Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case, you must have noticed that
Rhea Chakraborty is perceived to the prime suspect. But if you try to think
what all hard evidences are against her, you would realize that there are
virtually no evidence linking her directly to Sushant’s death! But why have we
almost concluded that she is the “culprit” or “prime suspect”. It is because of
the FIR filed by Sushant’s father where he suspected Rhea of being
responsible for Sushant’s death; but it is also because of the manner in which media and
especially TV News Media has been portraying her. It can be said that almost all TV channels have
already solved the Sushant’s death case and also found the guilty person: Rhea
Chakraborty. It is a textbook case of “Media Trial”.
Press Council of India (PCI) is a
statuary regulatory body responsible to act as a watchdog and maintain
adherence of press and media outlets in the spirits of Press Council Act. A few
days ago, it had sent out a note to all media outlets against any “media
trial”. You can read about it here:
[Reference].
Taking strong objection to the coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput case by many media outlets, the Press Council of India on Friday said the media should adhere to the norms of journalistic conduct in covering cases under investigation and is advised not to carry out its own "parallel trial". The media should not narrate the story in a manner so as to induce the general public to believe in the complicity of the person indicted, the Press Council of India (PCI) said in its advisory.
But, TV News Channels did not pay any heed to the warning and carried on with the same kind of news handling. There are two reasons behind this:
It can be easily understood that the
government needs to empower PCI so that it can effectively handle situations
like the current case where Rhea Chakraborty’s media trial is the ongoing norm.
At the same time, the vilification of Rhea Chakraborty strongly demands for an
“anti- Media Trial” law.
The “Anti Media-Trial Law” which I am
proposing should allow PCI or any other stationary regulatory body to effectively
enforce the spirits of honest journalism. At the time where “Fake News” is widely
spread and even the President of United States Donald Trump has been
campaigning against it, India can show the way to the world by making such a law. Such a law
should not be too harsh and should have enough checks and balances in place to
avoid its misuse, because journalistic freedom and freedom of Press are very
important and our first priority.
I request our government to think about
this proposal and bring a legislature to stop the unjust and vilifying episodes of “Media
trials” in our country.
- Rahul Tiwary
Vinay Tiwari (full name: Vinay Om Tiwari) is a young IPS Officer
who is currently in news due to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death related
probe. Vinay Tiwari is Patna (Central) Superintendent of Police (SP). He is
part of the Bihar Police team that went to Mumbai for investigation and was
forced-quarantined due to inter-state travel and it created a huge controversy.
Despite a wide media coverage, little is known about Vinay Tiwari as a person and
hence I searched to find more facts about him. Here are some of the details:
Vinay Tiwari is a native of Lalitpur
city in Uttar Pradesh. He was born in an economically poor family. He was
bright in studies and has an impressive academic career. Before joining civil
services, he completed his graduation in Civil Engineering from IIT-BHU,
Varanasi and also worked with JSPL in the final year of his engineering course.
After doing engineering, he began preparation for the UPSC examinations despite
getting job offers. Vinay Tiwari cleared the UPSC exams in his second
attempt and still offers tips to the candidates preparing for civil services
through his blog - "dreamstrugglebepositive".
In 2019, he was appointed the new
Superintendent of Police, City, of Patna. Earlier, he was posted as Sadar SDPO
in Gopalganj (Bihar) where he was popularly known as "Singham".
Vinay Tiwari also has a penchant in writing and he is a poet. He writes poems in Hindi. Recently he released his poem recitation on Coronavirus which you can check on Twitter here.
Vinay Tiwari is also a mathematician
and is writing a book titled "Mathematics and Principle of Life".
If you are on Twitter, you can follow
him at: https://twitter.com/IPSVinayTiwari
We can see that there is more to Vinay
Tiwari than Sushant’s probe in Mumbai. We also come to realize that he is a
versatile person and is a self-made man and an achiever. We are proud of him
and wish him all the best for future!
- Rahul Tiwary
This is an old real story from year
2002 which is going ‘viral’ again with a wrong location and time. Hence I thought to write about it. The original story
can be read here,
as reported by Times of India.
This happened at Antoli village in Vadodara district, Gujarat, around the year 2002. Every night, a leopard would enter the village from nearby maize fields. It would go to a specific location where a particular cow was tied. It would first watch the surrounding to make sure there was no threat. Then it would come near to the cow and both will play affectionately. The villagers would be able to witness this and sometimes the leopard would sooner if it noticed that the villagers were nearby. As part of their play, the leopard would put its one leg over the cow's head and makes a "purring" sound. Purring sound is made by many animal species. In cats, it is a sound of reassurance between mother cats and nursing kittens. Cats also make purr sound as a sign of contentment; for example, when being petted, becoming relaxed, or eating. In response to the leopard, the cow would also make a sound and lick the leopard affectionately.
Here
are some of their pictures taken together:
(Above) The Leopard and the cow play together
Now the question would arise about
why the cow and leopard developed such a friendship. The TOI article quotes Mr.
HS Singh, Conservator of Forests, Vadodara, who said, “Sometimes animal
behaviour can get modified. In this case, probably because the leopard which
has passed the sub-adult stage, lives in a rural area and not strictly a wild
environment.”
I searched for more articles and came
across this
one which described this event in great detail. It mentions that earlier, two leopards,
one big and another its kid, were seen by the villagers who reported about them
to the forest department. The forest department put a trap, captured the big
leopard and released it in a nearby forest. This new leopard started coming to
the village afterwards and it was perhaps the baby leopard who was now alone
and missing its mother. Due to some strange reason, the young leopard developed
a bond with that cow who started treating it like its own calf; and that
explained their relationship. Although the article says that perhaps we shall
never be able to know all details with 100% authenticity.
No matter what the actual reason was,
I am sure that this special case of the cow and this leopard would warm
your heart.
- Rahul Tiwary
After actor Sushant Singh Rajput's demise, there has been excessive media coverage about all aspects of his life. His family members including sisters, friends, relatives, co-stars and ex-girlfriends, everyone has spoken about him. From their statements, we are not only able to judge Sushant as a person, but we can also understand a lot about the people who are making those statements. Much have been covered about Sushant Singh's two ex-girlfriends, Ankita Lokhande and Rhea Chakraborty and we can make impressions about them too.
Based on the media reports, if we
have to make mental images of Ankita and Rhea, I guess most of us would rate
Ankita as a much better person than Rhea. Ankita speaks straight and from her
statements, a genuine affection for Sushant is clearly visible. I would rate
her “emotional quotient” not less than Sushant’s sisters. Rhea, on the other
hand, looks a bit cosmetic, although I accept that I have not much read about
her. But many of Sushant's friends have said that Ankita was a better match for
Sushant and Sushant used to regret getting separated from her.
This brings us to a point: Is it true
that our "first love" is often our "best match"?
I never had a girlfriend and I
directly entered marriage. Therefore, I am not speaking anything with personal
experience in this case. But with age, I can understand things much better now
and hence I am making these comments. You can always use your own judgements
and need not agree with my observations or opinion.
If we think of "first
love", typically it happens at a young age when we just follow our heart
without caring for the "practicalities" of this world. At that age,
typically our parents take our decisions or else we seek opinion from our peer
about what is right for us. And that is tricky. Even if we were right, it may
happen that others would see things differently for us. For our parents, our
career may be of a higher priority than we getting our "perfect
match". For our friends, having a beautiful or a rich partner may have a
higher priority over getting a good hearted but simple person as our partner.
In that phase of life, it is simply impossible that our peers or our parents
would have same vision for us which we would have for ourselves. This leads to
a "repenting" situation which we also saw in the case of Sushant. And
believe me, if I have understood one thing about relationship in my life, it is
that relationship is the single most important thing which is going to make us
happy in our life. We must rate it much higher than money, career, fame, or anything
else in our life.
I think what should happen with the
second girlfriend or next partners is that we would always compare them with
our first girlfriend at the back of our mind. That would make the whole
experience a bit emotionally "tampered"; and also it would feel a bit
"artificial" since we know the "drill" now. Long story
short, a second time will never be the same as the first time.
Now, if a person got his first match
as a good match, it does not make sense to let her go. But if one is not
satisfied and there are issues which are disturbing us, we should always have the
courage to move on.
There is an old story about a lady
who wanted to find a best match for herself and prayed to God. God gave her 7
choices; with a condition that she won't be able to revert her decision once
she makes it. She saw the first person, liked him but thought to check the
next. She liked the next person more; hence she decided to carry on. She got
much better match but then she thought, "why to miss seeing all
choices". By the time she went to check the seventh choice, it turned out
to be a bad one! Therefore, as per the condition along with the boon, she
missed it and remained single. This story will always remain as a universal
guide when it comes to the way "greed" makes our judgments unstable.
I won't say that there is such a
universal rule that our "first love" is always our best one; but I
believe that in many cases it is so and I think many of us take our first match
very "lightly" merely because it was our first match. Therefore, as a
general advice I can only say that you should move on only if there is a
serious need to move on. And if you are happy with your "first love",
then you should never take her for granted and decide to move on just to
explore more options.
Relationship with a good partner will
be the most fulfilling experience you are going to get in your whole life. In
the long run, money, career, fame or anything else will not matter as much as
having a good partner. If you are blessed to have one, never think further.
- Rahul Tiwary
I received a ‘forwarded message’ in
Whatsapp which contained a list of plasma donors related to Covid19 treatment with
their blood groups and contact details. It was a long list with more than 60
volunteers and the message asked to forward it to more people so that the needy
can benefit. I forwarded it to a few people.
After a few days, I saw a message
from someone which said that “male” plasma was being preferred instead of females.
That got me wondering if it was a kind of “gender bias” or if there was a real
medical reason behind that. I went back to the plasma donor list shared earlier
and I found that all were males! Hence, I searched on the internet and found
below article from BBC:
Coronavirus: Male plasma contains higher levels of antibodies
23 June 2020
Studies suggest men are more likely to become seriously ill and therefore produce higher levels of antibodies than women. This means their plasma could be more useful for saving lives. Of the donations from men, 43% had high enough levels of antibodies to be used in trials, compared with 29% of those from women. Higher antibody levels were also more often found in older patients, Asian patients and those who had been treated in hospital for Covid-19. Prof David Roberts, associate director for blood donation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said, "More plasma donors are needed. But we would especially want to hear from men."
I noticed a few things from the above article summary:
I don’t know if the higher proportion
of males having higher anti-bodies is really due to some inherent gender-specific advantage because the same article mentions that it is so because males are more prone to get
serious illness from Covid19. But I can see that with doctors, hospitals and
media clearly preferring male donors, it means that a lot of eligible female
donors would not be coming out to donate their plasma. This will be a loss to
the cause at an overall level. In fact, in many such cases whenever media or
government make something a “gender issue”, it harms the cause at the overall
level.
I would want the medical professionals
to stop spreading a message of “preference for male plasma donors”. Blood plasma
has no gender and let it come from whichever gender of donor chooses to
volunteer. Hospitals are not in the state of luxury that they need to differentiate between "higher level" vs "not so high level" plasma; since plasma is in shortage. The fact that there was not even a single female plasma donor’s name in
the list I received on WhatsApp proves that this open gender preference is
leading to female recovered patients not coming out to donate plasma. Hope our
hospitals and government would be more aware and sensitive of how their actions
and messages lead to unfavorable results and would be careful in future.
- Rahul Tiwary
This is going to shock you, so please
be prepared. I came to know about this only yesterday and I searched to read
newspaper articles about this case before writing this. I have mentioned
references at the end of the blog post.
Manav Singh was a 17 year old boy
from Gurugram. He was a student of class 12th at a prestigious school
in Gurugram. He was a member of an Instagram group; along with many other boys
and girls. A girl, perhaps of same age or younger to him, made false allegations
of molestation and rape against him in that Instagram group and other group
members started abusing and threatening him. The boy got scared, tried to
explain but no one listened to him; then some boys told him that the police
would arrest him and hence he jumped from the balcony of his 11th story flat and
ended his life.
The boy did not leave any suicide
note but chats and messages on his phone showed that other boys had warned him
that the police would arrest him and hence he was scared.
The sequence of events from what I
read is as follows. This was the time when "Me Too" campaign was
floating on social media where women from all over the world had started making
allegations of sexual or other harassment against men. During that controversy,
another controversy broke out in Delhi. It was called "Boys Locker
Room" which was a "closed chat room" on Instagram where teenage
boys from elite families of Delhi were talking ‘dirty’ against girls. Someone
revealed screenshots of the group in the open and it created a big controversy.
Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) lodged a formal police complaint against those
minor boys and the DCW chief tweeted publicly to Delhi police for taking stern
action against the boys. (Later on, it was found that the posts about
"rape" were made by a girl who had created a fake ID of a boy!) This
was being reported daily in the media.
During this time, the above incident
happened in an Instagram group where a girl made a false allegation against Manav,
claiming that he had "raped" her 2 years back when he was only 15.
She did not provide any evidences or supporting facts and it was assumed to be
a false case but the boys in the Instagram group got an opportunity to harass
Manav. After Manav committed suicide, the girl who had made allegations against
him posted another message that if Manav could not tolerate her allegations, he
was "weak-hearted" and it was his problem, not hers. It is shocking
to see this level of insensitivity seen in teenage kids now a day.
We have many takeaways from this
case:
Justice for Manav
Manav Singh’s father has filed a police complaint in this matter and he is waiting for action taken. I read that the girl moved to Punjab after Manav died and the boys who threatened Manav switched off their phones. But this should not stop the police from investigating the case. Proper justice as per the law should be done.
If you are on Twitter, you can join Manav’s father at https://twitter.com/justice4manav and support his cause. Otherwise, if you see young age boys and girls in stress, try to bring them to perspective and never let them get misled by believing in rumors. Also, we should try to protect kids and teens around us from excessive exposure to media and adult content. These would be true tributes to Manav.
With hope and pray that Manav gets
justice and no other kid suffers like he had to.
- Rahul Tiwary
References: TOI,
Zee,
STP,
TMF,
FPJ,
OpInd
After Bollywood actor Sushant Singh
Rajput died last month, everyone was shocked. He was at the height of his
career, his last released movie had done Rs 100+ Crores business, he was in the
pink of his health and about to get married. No one could come to terms with
his untimely death. But his death was not the first such “shocking celebrity
death” we had seen. We have had a long list of actors, actresses or
celebrities, like Divya Bharti, Sri Devi, or Sunanda Pushkar, who died
mysterious deaths when they were perfectly fit and healthy. So, what made
Sushant’s case different?
I am thinking about Sushant’s death
being “different” because the grief, shock, and mass hysteria we have witnessed
after his death have been truly unprecedented. Even Sri Devi’s death shocked
one and all, but the mass grieving did not last so long and with so much
intensity. Why could not people move on and why are they still stuck in the
first stage of grieving process: denial?
Let us go into the details to
understand it better.
After news about Sushant Singh Rajput’s
death came out, the first thing which shocked everyone were his dead body’s pictures
right from his bedroom and a red scar properly visible on his neck. Whoever
released those photos out in the public within a few hours of his death needs
to answer to his/her conscience about why he/she did that. We had never seen
such death images before and after we saw those pictures, we could not forget anything.
It was going to haunt us for a long time.
Second, I remember the first day of
his death. Most people were able to get it that his death was a case of “suicide”.
On that day, I was among the few people who immediately suspected that his
death was not a suicide but it was a murder. I wrote about it in a blog post
titled, “Reasons
Why Sushant Singh Rajput's Death Looks Like a Murder Case” and it was a tremendous
hit, getting 1200 views on day-1 and by now it has got 9000+ views and 25
comments. None of my blog posts in the recent past have ever got such a
response. One of the reasons why my blog post was a hit was because I was one
of the first who started talking about the “murder angle”. And within a few
days, everyone was talking about it.
Why did this suspicion that Sushant’s
death was a murder and not a suicide become so popular? I think it was mainly
because of those leaked photographs which showed Sushant’s well composed face
to us. Earlier, most of us had even believed Sri Devi’s death to be a case of murder,
but no one pursued it beyond one’s imagination, forget about starting a
campaign for its proper investigation. We treated Sushant’s case so
differently, even though Sri Devi was much more popular pan-India and in all
age groups, as compared to Sushant. I think those pictures made a huge
difference.
Then, within a few weeks after his
death, autopsy, postmortem reports, initial investigation reports, all pointed
to the fact that his death was a suicide and not a murder. But we did not
believe any of such evidences. And here, I shall come to the second reason why
people reacted to Sushant’s death in an unprecedented manner. It was because “people
wished it not to be a suicide”.
Yes. I think that deep inside, everyone
wanted his death not to be a suicide, and that was the reason why we have not
yet come to terms with his death. We are still in the “denial” phase.
To all people, Sushant looked like a
perfect specimen of a “son” or a “brother” most people aspire to have. He was
bright in studies, he was good natured, he was a family person, he worked hard
and achieved his goals. What more do we expect from our sons? Everyone saw his/her
brother or son or friend in Sushant: he had that universal charisma. It made
coming out of grief even more difficult for us.
I wish that at some point of time, we
all have to move on from this episode. Sushant Singh Rajput is dead; and no
fact can change it. Whatever happens to anyone or the other will not impact his
soul. The police are already investigating his death and we should allow them
time to come to a conclusion. We need to have faith that if there was a foul
play in his death, it will eventually come out, as most secrets come out sooner
or later.
To conclude, I think to a large
extent the initial photographs of his dead body made a huge impact on the minds
of people. And then, Sushant had a universal appeal in the minds of most
Indians and we desperately wanted his death not to be a suicide. These factors
caused us not to accept the postmortem report, or any medical report about his mental
health condition. But, we cannot live in denial forever. At some point of time,
we have to come to terms with his death and the sooner we get, it will be
better for our own mental wellbeing.
Future will tell more about how our country
comes to terms with his death. But Sushant Singh Rajput’s death will always be
remembered as an unprecedented event where our masses showed empathy and
sentiments like never before. We should always be proud of this fact.
- Rahul Tiwary
I had become a fan of Nupur Sharma
after I first read about her. Her name was announced by the BJP as its
candidate during Delhi Assembly Election 2015 against the big name of Arvind
Kejriwal. I wondered who she was and searched the web to read about her. She
had got splendid credentials. Born and brought up in Delhi, she studied
Economics at the Hindu College of Delhi University and later completed her law
degree (LLB) from faculty of law, Delhi University. Then she completed her
Master of Law (LLM) from London School of Economics (LSE). This was enough to
understand that she was a woman of great talent and intellect. But why was she
in politics?
I read that she was involved in
student politics from her Delhi University days. She was a member of ABVP and became
President of Delhi University’s Student Union (DUSU). That was some feat. She
has since then held several positions in the BJP, being associated with BJP’s
youth wing and a member of state executive committee of the BJP Delhi.
Way back in 2009, she was featured
among the “Top 10 Most Inspirational Women in India” by the Hindustan Times. If
we look at above credentials, it was a place well deserved. You can read more
about her here on Wikibio, or check her
profile on LinkedIn. If our country has to become a developed nation and a
nation of our dreams, we need well educated and honest people like her in
politics too.
Now I will come at the reason I am telling
about her. Yesterday, I got to know through News that a fellow politician from
AAP shouted at her and verbally abused her during “Live” TV debate. You can
read about it here
or here.
The leader from AAP was claiming that the BJP was using Shri Ram for political
gains; when Nupur Sharma intervened and then the man lost control and started
abusing her. Nupur Sharma has said that she would be taking legal action against
him for defamation and character assassination. This episode “broke the
internet” and last night, #WeStandWithNupurSharma was trending on Twitter as #1
trend in India.
These days, I have been increasingly
getting annoyed with the needless “controversies” breaking on the internet and
on the TV news media. Anything and everything become prime time news and
discarded after a few days once another controversy-worthy news comes out. This
is a never-ending trend and creates unnecessary stress in our minds.
I was thinking about how to end this “media
mess”. I think we have too many TV News channels and they are continuously fighting
among themselves for “breaking news”. In this competition, truth becomes a tragedy.
I was reflecting on yesterday’s controversy and wondered how to prevent such
incidents from happening in the future. I noticed that this issue happened because
the debate was a “live” debate. Had this been a pre-recorded debate, the TV
channel could have edited and cut out that portion when the man went berserk. You
may ask what the benefit is of “hiding” things and an abuse is an abuse, whether
it is shown on TV or not. If the channel hid the abusive portion, would it not
be unfair for victims like Nupur Sharma? I think, even if the clip is cut out
from being aired to the viewers, the portion would still be recoded and hence
if the victims want to take legal action, they could still do it, because they
were defamed and abused in front of a larger panel and their peer and that
amounts to insult. But it would at least avoid bringing out the controversy in
front of the public, save them from some stress and avoid wasting their time hearing
or discussing about it. Overall, it will save productivity and energy of the
viewers if we ban such content.
Therefore, I was thinking that all TV
channels could avoid “live” TV debates. If channels don’t do it, government
should ban live TV debates because all such programs become too risky to air. If
the show is “live”, anyone among the panelists can always abuse the platform
for fulfilling stupid or evil goals. “Live” debate can be misused to spread a
false anti-national propaganda, or to defame and harm the image of an important
person or organization, for example.
Apart from the risks involved in airing
“live” content, this controversy on social media also highlighted how
"online abuse" is often tolerated by the same set of people, but if
the same incident happens on TV, those people are furious. It proves that TV as
a medium is still so powerful, perhaps since it is more "personal"
and online content is still taken lightly. If you are on social media
platforms, you would notice that people use abuses very frequently while commenting
on famous people’s tweets. No action is taken against such people. But if something
of that kind happens on TV, it has serious repercussions.
I think that at some point of time we
should start making such controversies as “examples” to make real systematic
changes in our country. One Nupur Sharma filing a legal case against one stupid
man won’t change anything. But if TV channels are made responsible and held
accountable for showing bad content to the public, that may be a really
beneficial change. The ideas I shared in this blog post may not be perfect. But
if we start trying to find ideas and solutions to fix systematic problems, we
may create a better future for our country.
What do you think about it?
- Rahul Tiwary
Today (July 23rd) is the birth
anniversary of the great freedom fighter Chandrashekhar Azad.
Late Chandrashekhar Azad's real name
was Chandrashekhar Tiwari. He was born in MP and his father was Pandit Sitaram
Tiwari. He later took the symbolic name "Azad" meaning
"Free". He also used a name 'Balraj' while signing documents for his
revolutionary organization.
Chandrashekhar’s family wanted him to
become a Sanskrit scholar, so he went to Kashi Vidyapeeth, Banaras. He got
agitated hearing about Jallianwala Bagh massacre and joined freedom movement.
He first took part in Non-Cooperation
Movement under MahatmaGandhi at the age of 15 and he was given "15
whip-lashes" by the British police as punishment. When the police asked about his details, he replied that his name was ‘Azad’
(free), father’s name as ‘Swatantrata’ (independence) and his residence was
‘Jail’.
After Gandhi ji suspended the non-cooperation movement in 1922, he joined the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) formed
by revolutionaries Ram Prasad Bismil, Chatterji, Shachindra Nath Bakshi and
Sachindra Nath Sanyal. He rose in ranks and later took charge of the organization. He successfully led many revolutionary campaigns and was counted as one of the foremost revolutionaries or freedom fighters in his time.
Chandrashekhar Tiwari "Azad" sacrificed his life at the age of merely 29.
- Rahul Tiwary
