Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Chandrababu Naidu - the myth & the reality
P.Sainath returns to adorn my blog with this searing article about Chandrababu Naidu. ( Dont miss the ending of the article!) This is the most critical article of Chandrababu Naidu, I have come across in recent times and unsurprisingly is bang on target. I had always maintained an opinion in many hot-headed debates with some of my friends in Mumbai ( who used to think that he is the best CM, Andhra Pradesh ever had) that Chandrababu Naidu is not so goody-goody as he is being portrayed in the media.
He is a master strategist and is known to be a genius when it comes to PR. However my poor Mumbai friends are hardly to be blamed when respected magazines and newspapers like Newsweek, Time, The Financial Times, The New York Times went gaga (sic) over him.
Consider these statements in the article,
"On most indicators, he ran the worst performing State in the south of India for nearly 10 years.Yet the more damage he did, the more his media standing grew"
"It's a State where millions of children are outside school. A State that has the largest number of child labourers in the country. And one where close to 90 per cent of rural workers are either illiterate or educated only up to the primary level."
And I was even more shocked when I read this statement that was penned by an award winning investigative journalist (sic) of "The New York Times" - "The party's hold on power seems secure in Andhra Pradesh, partly because Mr. Naidu and his allies speak Telugu, a language spoken only in this state and by a few people in two adjacent states"!!!!!!!
This takes the cake for the most absurd logic I have ever read in print. It shows the heights to which irresponsibile and insensible journalism can reach. And it raises even more significant issues about the role of media and its responsibilities. However, that is a story for another day.
P.Sainath returns to adorn my blog with this searing article about Chandrababu Naidu. ( Dont miss the ending of the article!) This is the most critical article of Chandrababu Naidu, I have come across in recent times and unsurprisingly is bang on target. I had always maintained an opinion in many hot-headed debates with some of my friends in Mumbai ( who used to think that he is the best CM, Andhra Pradesh ever had) that Chandrababu Naidu is not so goody-goody as he is being portrayed in the media.
He is a master strategist and is known to be a genius when it comes to PR. However my poor Mumbai friends are hardly to be blamed when respected magazines and newspapers like Newsweek, Time, The Financial Times, The New York Times went gaga (sic) over him.
Consider these statements in the article,
"On most indicators, he ran the worst performing State in the south of India for nearly 10 years.Yet the more damage he did, the more his media standing grew"
"It's a State where millions of children are outside school. A State that has the largest number of child labourers in the country. And one where close to 90 per cent of rural workers are either illiterate or educated only up to the primary level."
And I was even more shocked when I read this statement that was penned by an award winning investigative journalist (sic) of "The New York Times" - "The party's hold on power seems secure in Andhra Pradesh, partly because Mr. Naidu and his allies speak Telugu, a language spoken only in this state and by a few people in two adjacent states"!!!!!!!
This takes the cake for the most absurd logic I have ever read in print. It shows the heights to which irresponsibile and insensible journalism can reach. And it raises even more significant issues about the role of media and its responsibilities. However, that is a story for another day.
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