Diary of a single girl - What is TOI up to?

Sample these for a mainstream newspaper's magazine content on a Sunday -

"I have the breasts of a Greek goddess and they are real. Just that I don’t appreciate some girl pushing her twins into my man’s face." 

"My opening line to guys is, “If you fall in love with me, I will run away.” I don’t hate men. Au contraire… it’s just that I’d sooner let a man into my pants, than in my heart."

"I woke at about 9am and was just about to open the attached bathroom door, when it opened and out walked out K —  stark naked —  towel on his head, drying his hair. He was as shocked to find me standing there (wearing nothing but a top and my thong, having kicked off my jeans sometime during the night) as I was to see him"

Every Sunday, I look forward to TOI, relish reading it and savor every word. Over the last few weeks however, I sense if something is not wrong. What is the TOI team trying to sell with this column - Diary of a single girl?

I hate taking the moral high ground. After all, a reader need not necessarily read every column in a newspaper. However, carrying a column like this on a sunday makes me wonder if reader tastes are changing. 

Are we calling ourselves liberal by setting yardsticks like this?

What role models are young women reading these columns getting?

Aren't posts like this feeding into the stereotypes associated with the female body and male libido? 

Where do we draw lines to writing like this? 

I know not. I only know that single girls who write diaries like this are not the kind of girls India needs right now. If this viewpoint is regressive, perhaps it is and I shall stand by it!

Making a case for fairer and speedier justice

This is an essay I wrote for the course 'Ethics in Governance in Business and Society'. At Great Lakes, it is taught by two eminent crusaders against corruption - Mr. Vittal, Ex CVC and Mr. Seshan, Ex CEC.

Making a case for fairer and speedier justice

Erosion of faith in judiciary

Judiciary, considered one of the three constitutional pillars of Indian democracy, is of late sullied by a stream of unpleasant news reports. Questions have been raised on the integrity of senior judges and their track records. People have long reconciled to the fact that politicians and bureaucrats are corrupt and have always looked up to the judiciary and the Supreme Court in particular for deliverance. But reports about Justice Soumitra Sen, YK Sabharwal, Dinakaran and many others in the media point to a deep seated rot in the judiciary that is slowly eroding this confidence of the Indian public. 

Need for urgent reform

Reams have been written about corruption in the legislature and measures to address it. For argument’s sake, if we do assume that all legislators come clean, where does this leave the corrupt judges? There is an urgent need to clean up the judiciary by means of radical reforms. Piecemeal changes won’t do. Considering the backlog of cases in the Indian courts and the lack of accountability of the judges, to be able to enforce law and order, justice should be seen to be fairly and speedily delivered. 

Abolition of Jury trials in India

In this article, I propose a change which would, in my opinion, make the process of justice more fair, democratic and quick. It is something, that democracies world over have embraced, but India abolished way back in 1960 after the landmark KM Nanavati V State of Maharashtra case – jury trials. The argument put forth during abolition was that the opinion of the jury is often biased by social norms, morality, ethics and values and an objective judgement based on set statutes is rarely possible. It was also believed that juries would be influenced by media and public opinion.

Changing times

Fast forward to today’s age – there is a gaping void in the number of judges we have to address the scores of cases pending in all the courts put together. The rich keep appealing and the poor keep waiting. It is a patently unfair system that visibly rewards the wealthy and gives the poor, only a distant and illusory hope. Very few judges have made their sources of income public even though there is a RTI act and few have surprisingly come out openly and admitted that, corruption at all levels is a fact. In this age of 24*7 live televisions, no judgment is immune to the influences of the electronic media and its commentators. 

We now have a thriving public society and laws that increasingly appear out of tune with the times. Laws on land reforms (SEZ issues), sexual rights (rapes and gay issues), organised labour and environmental concerns need to be constantly revisited in this dynamically changing scenario. 

Proposal

In this context, I propose that we establish a system of trial by juries drawn from eminent members of the civil society. We should have a set number of juries for every district and a judge can appeal only once against the decision of the jury and he can decide only the quantum of punishment.

Argument against institutional rigidity

Amartya Sen in his work, ‘The idea of Justice’, says, “Institutional fundamentalism may not only ride roughshod over the complexity of societies, but quite often the self-satisfaction that goes with the alleged institutional wisdom even prevents critical examination of the actual consequences of having the recommended institutions. Indeed, in the purely institutional view, there is, at least formally, no story of justice beyond establishing the ‘just institutions’” This argument can be interpreted to mean that justice should move beyond a mere interpretation of rigid age old statutes. Indeed, in other parts of the book, with sufficient examples to boot, he mounts an attack on the ‘Rawlsian principles of Justice’. 

Need for citizen participation

In the context of human rights, Amartya Sen writes, “Active public agitation, news commentary and open discussion are among the ways in which global democracy can be pursued, even without waiting for the global state.” In the desire to interpret laws and accommodate appeals, there is simply a search for a “supreme alternative” and no ranking based on a “social point of view” This obviates the checks and balances, a participatory mechanism can bring in - a sad state of affairs for a culture built on the edifice of dialectics. When a jury decides, the sheer number of decision makers is more, humane aspects are given due attention and there is an alignment with the morals and values of the society. 

Addressing corruption, knowledge and trial by media

It is very difficult to sway the decision of a jury by influencing its members. The nexus between criminals and juries is again difficult to establish. So, chances of corruption are lessened by inbuilt mechanisms. Coming to the knowledge of the jury members, perhaps there might be technical limitations but the basic premises of what is fair and what is just remain eminently universal and can be hardly disputed. Regarding trial by media, one can never completely eliminate it in this age of information abundance. Let us learn to live with it instead of decrying the messenger. 

Conclusion

The example of recent adoption of the jury system by South Korea is a case in point. As we have successful democracies embracing this system, it is time we rethink the abolition and give the jury system, a chance. With the system in place, we might end up building a society where corruption free service becomes a fundamental right of its citizenry (Mr. Vittal’s proposal) even without the constitution explicitly saying so.

Entertainment, stars and tourists converge to deliver a home run

This is the 2nd article that is pure fiction, all part of projections for India in 2020. This assignment is something that I loved. It let all of us wear our thinking caps and brought out some excellent output. 

Bollywood as an exporter of Indian culture – this phrase is perhaps as old as the Indian film industry itself. Indeed, Raj Kapoor and his movies like Shree 420 were such a rage in Russia , Iran, Middle east and Egypt that they typified the internal post independent conflicts, we as a nation were faced with, torn between a ladder to modernity and struck with the legacy of imperial conquest. India as a land of snake charmers and tight rope walkers – this phrase needs no explanation either as in the eyes of the westerner, this was the dominant perception until the IT boom catapulted our intellectual capital to global heights. Slowly, as the Government’s “Incredible India” campaign gathered steam, this perception gave way to pictures of exotic boat houses in Kerala and Srinagar, idyllic valleys of the Himalayas and the north east not to mention, an attractive destination for medical tourism. Over the last decade, these two potent forces -in Bollywood and tourism- have converged and delivered a home run to India’s growth story, thanks to the celebrity patrons the Government has managed to rope in for its tourism thrust.

Take Aamir Khan as an example – the actor was one of the first few campaigners for Incredible India, one of the most remarkable brand building exercises ever undertaken in India’s modern history. The actor is now engaged fulltime in promoting India globally as a tourist destination for tourists of every hue and colour. Other contemporaries of Aamir Khan like Shah Rukh Khan and Mohan Lal from the south have come together after a voluntary retirement from movies as brand ambassadors of Indian tourism. The ladies were not far behind when Konkana Sen Sharma, Nandita Das and Kareena Kapoor jumped onto this limelight vehicle when age caught up with their movie careers. This has been a win-win situation for all the stakeholders involved with Bollywood movies shunning exotic foreign locales, local Indian tribals and villagers raking in the moolah and the Government facilitating the entire exchange.

The Indian tourism industry recorded phenomenal growth over the last decade with a consistent upward trajectory. A stable government, relatively peaceful neighbourhood, marked improvement in rural infrastructure, an increasingly educated populace, a rising global awareness thanks to the profusion of communication technologies and cooperative state governments came together to script an incredible campaign. From the promotion of innovative energy huts to the advertisement of the remote mountainous north eastern terrain, the campaign wove such a beautiful yarn of the country that it was compelling for the traveller willing to have a good time. The tourism industry’s share in the nation’s GDP hovered around a decent 6.5 to 7 % at the beginning of the decade and now stands at a sizeable 12%. This doubling in some part, is a reflection of the country’s phenomenal economic growth over the decade.

With the successful conduct of the common wealth games 2010 at New Delhi, tourists began to flock in huge numbers to discover the Indian heartland.  A refurbished tourism ministry under the Rahul Gandhi administration with the stewardship of Omar Abdullah seized the opportunities as they came by. Medical tourism and Eco tourism have been the mainstays of the industry. Ancillary industries like hospitality and healthcare also gained as a consequence of the windfall. As India’s share of foreign tourists stands the highest in the world at an impressive 8%, the occupancy rates in the Indian hotel industry have reached an all time high of 92%. As per a report released by ASSOCHAM (Associated chambers of commerce and industry of India) there are nearly 100 new hotel projects in various stages of development. The tourism industry accounted for only 6.5 % of the total employment in 2010 while exactly a decade later, that figure has also doubled to hover around 12%. Little wonder that India is ranked 1^st in the World’s list of attractive Asia pacific tourism destinations as per the travel and tourism competitiveness report of 2019.

Bollywood super heroes who were on the verge of retirement got enamoured of the idea and threw their weight behind tourism as it grew. They influenced producers to shoot in scenic places within the country rather than venturing out to the erstwhile hotspots of Switzerland and New Zealand. It helped that Indian film entertainment too grew alongside with cross over cinema and multilingual cinema gaining in momentum due to rapid globalisation and rising number of cosmopolitan cities. Film industry grew at a CAGR of 14% over the decade with its share of contribution to the overall media industry’s revenue pie increasing from 150 billion in 2010 to 450 billion in 2019. This combination of superstars, movie entertainment and tourism has some lessons for the future growth momentum as well. Wherever synergies are natural, leverage them to laugh all the way to the banks!

 

Drowned out by opinions

So many columnists, so many opinions, so many viewpoints, so much of everything!! Yes, you are right when you are able to relate to it. I am trying to say that too much of anything is good for nothing. 

That the number of news papers, 24/7 news channels, columns and blogs have multiplied and are multiplying at an astonishing pace doesn't help if I need the truth. It is like being left with the feeling that the 'search for truth' is incomplete. Having too many opinion-makers or rather, people who think they are opinion-makers, is not exactly helpful when the unvarnished story needs to be told. In the name of opinions, sometimes I feel facts are twisted or selectively presented. This is not altogether different from being the front of powerful barons or lobbyists to advance their interests. 

I am not trying to say that all of these esteemed camera-savvy gentlemen and ladies can be painted with the same brush. It is just that moderation and restraint are compromised. When a 1000 word column should be written on some thugs vandalizing an office (just to take an example), it is presented with so much vehemence and flamboyance of prose that is precisely not warranted. 

This has two major effects - 

1. The reader/viewer (for the print and the electronic media respectively) never gets the real degree of importance an event/incident should merit. 
2. The players who act out (like the MNS and the Netas) get free marketing. Their causes, reasons and plans are broadcast to the nation. 

To read or not to read, to seek or not to seek, to be informed or ignorant - these are not easy choices anymore . Take climate change for example. If I read 10 columns by eminent experts on the subject, it is as good as having read nothing or close to nothing. This is a shame. 

Discretion on our side is needed to stay aware, alert and informed. This can be done by reading selectively and relying on time-tested sources. Diversity is not always good and a little knowledge in today's world is better than getting bogged down by too much. Try reading Jug Suraiya and VR Krishna Iyer on the same day or the editorial of THE HINDU and TOI for that matter. It is a recipe for craziness!  One important thing before I end this post - things are not always as simple as some columns reduce them to nor for that matter is truth a matter of black or white. The reality always lies somewhere in between.