Saturday, July 25, 2009

what kind of truth is this?

its pathetic to see the ugly face that our eletronic media is showing up....the recent additions to this degradation is the new reality show on star plus" sach ka saamna" which is not at all acceptable given the contenta nd the material they are portraying and the long term implaications on the new generation.... its hard to understand why the t.v channels have fallen to such low levels?the biggest excuse they give is "we show what the people want to see" .... But this excuse holds no ground at all because people willsee what ever the channels show and cant ban any content completely....
The name "sach kaa Saamna" is also misleading... its infact rewarding people for divulging their dark secrets most of them related to their private matters, the question asked in the show are cheap and vulgar and no person would like to see this program in his living room with the family.... such show on national t.v and that too on prime time is disappointing... the mere formality of the program producer to the warning before the start of the progarm does not make their crime small.... the producer,director and the channel should have some sense of responsibility towards the society... But the truth is its a game of TRps and increasing the revenue at the cost of values, ethics and culture...
The need of the hour is that the government should act as a regulating body and make a code of conduct for the t.v channels ..... if we can have censor board for cinema,why cant we have one for the T.V.?

Sunday, July 12, 2009

where are we heading to?

it is sad to see that all newspapers and t.v channels are looking for t.r.p's...... instead of real news and making people aware of the problems and genuine issues,they are creating news just for the sake of increasing their respectivee circulation/viewership.....the fourth pillar of our democracy seems to have given way to superficiality and complacency... and its not a good sign. The real issues have taken the backseat and instead issues like which star is seeeing whom and which movie script is inspired from some old hollywood movie,which place is haunted by ghosts and useless stuff like that is seen everywhere .... its about time for the media to introspect and judge if these kind of news are going to help anyone? The media is losing its credibilty courtesy of this yellow journalism....
It was strange to see the media going crazy to cover unimpotant issues and going to any extent to get some live bites.... i wonder how sania mirza's engagement is going to effect a common man?or for that ,matter,how salmaan's new look or abhishek's rivalry with him is gonna make any difference to any of us.....its even sad to see media giving extensive coverage to mediocre people like rakhi sawant,
the role of media in mumbai attacks was also questionable, when our brave commandos were fighting out with the terrorists, the media was searching for sensational news and the government had to intervene in the matter and instructed them not to cover the operation live.....Instead of giving more exposure to movies,cricket ,fashion and crime, the media should understand the social responsibilty and pay attention to more importnat issues like poverty,unemployment,career building,inculcating patriotism and keeping a watch on the government's functioning... This creative role can change the destiny of our country and only then the fourth estate will justify its existence.....

Sunday, July 5, 2009

series win in the carribean..... thanks to raingod...! the federer saga continues......!

thank god! team india wins the series in west indies ....dhoni must thank rain gods for it as it played a vitl part in the third one day which was curtailed due to rain.... and eventually india won courtesy msrs duckworth - lewis and co. anyway 2-1 series win is yet another series win abraod....third in a row for captain dhoni...... good going!
the mammoth final at the wimbledon centre court last night was yet another historic moment in the greatest tennis event of the world....and the great man roger fderer proved it once again why he is called the king of wimbledon centr court....winning the trophy for the fifth time and also winning his 15 th grandslam title eclipsing pete sampras' 14 win record.... and fittingly enough the former champ sampras was present at the wimbledom n witnessing history being made........ this might provide some solace to federer who lost last year's final to nadal in cliff hanger 5 setter stretching over 5 hours.....

Friday, July 3, 2009

what about other sports?

kudos to saina nehwal for winning the indonesian open badminton tournament.....and to indian womens hockey team for winning the champions challenge tournament at kazaan russia... congrats to indian wrestler sishil umar for winnning two gold medaks in world series....
all the three success stories have one thing in common.... they were neglected when they arrived home after their respective triumphs......! this is the bitter reality of indian sports... not even the emebers of the respective sports' bodies cared to welcome these champions at the airport when they arrived home after making india proud....
now the other side of the picture.... remeber the indian cricket team's arrival after winning the t 20 world cp in south africa in 2007..... remeber that rainy day in mumbai when literally all the mumbaikars thronged the roads braving the rains to welcome the heroes... the whole city came to a stand still with traffic jam as the team was lead to the stadium in open bus roof.....and the frenzied fans following them all the way...!
the above two contrasting pictures disappoint me as a sports lover .... Why we fail to recognise success in non cricketing sports?we all are responsible partly.... for we give heroes status to cricketers and second class treatment to other sports persons.....there are many great champions who never got their due credit because of the cricket euphoria... leander paes, mahesh bhupathy, Vishwanathan Anand, Jeev Milkha singh,rajyavardhan rathore, abhinav bindra and the list goes on.... This has lead to two phenomena 1. sponsors and corporate houses also neglecting these sports and investing in cricket as it is more lucrative and popular... 2. youngsters also taking cricket as a sporting option as they find other sports less glamourous and lesser money involved in them.....
and this has resulted in our sporting failures as well.... a country with 120 crocre people wins just 3 medals at olympics and fails to qualify for olympics in hockey which is sadly our national sports....! Whereas small countries like Japan, jamaica, korea,win truckloads of medals.... we indians are happy to be just ex olympians rather than olympic medalists as this would guarantee a job somewhere....Adding insult to injury, nearly all the sports bodies are headed by politicians who never played that sport in their entire life.... they use these as a launch pad to their political ambitions and are least bothered about the upliftment of that sport....THats what happened to the Indian Hockey federation which was ruined by the dictatorship of mr. KPS gill .... and the secratary Mr jyotikumaran who was caught on camera accepting bribe for a place in the team.....
that sums up the whole picture......
inspite of all the criticisms against cricket being the spoilsport for other sports,it is also to be accepted that the BCCi and its democratic structure are also responsible for the popularity of the game in India.... so the other boards should take a cue from them.......

what is the BCCI doing?

Cricket has become more of business rather than entertainment , and the impact shows on the recent series of cricket tours and tournaments beong played continuosly without any break....turning the players into money earning machines,,...... this has given rise to unfit players not disclosing their fitness woes to the board fearing that they might lose out on big money and sponsorship once they are out of the team....thats what happened with sehwag and Zaheer khan recently when they carried their old injuries into the t 20 world cup, and team india had to pay the price ...
the richest cricket board in the world....BCCI, has strange idiosyncrasies... the board does not thikn players' fatigue is a factor .... where as it showed in the team's performance in the recent past that the players badly need a long recovery break....
the team is playing a 4 match one day series in the carribean which i think is unneccesary as the team has just played a long t 20 world cup preceeded by even longer 59 match IPL season 2.... and just before that the team was in new zealand where they played 2 teasts, 4 onedayers and 2 t 20 matches ...... even before that team india had a series against sri lanka in sri lanka and against southafrica and england at home....
I wonder what the BCCI think tank is thinking?It is time to sacrifice small business intersts for the long term intersts of indian cricket and give our team a break so that the injiry list can be minimised....at present the list is long...... sehwag, raina,zahir,tendulkar are out due to injuries though the selection committee says that they have been given a break for personal reasons, but the inside story is different... captain dhoni also seemed to struggle with fitness niggles as was clearly evident in the one dayers against the West indies....My advice to the Board is not to kill the hen that lays golden eggs and try to get all the eggs at once, rather enjoy the fruits for a longer time....! hope some good sense prevails!