You see on the tenth, Mr Ratan Naval Tata will unveil his legacy. And while car launches can tend to become a abuse hurling match between still photographers and videographers, Mr Tata can rest assured that short of a major political assassination, the 'one-lakh' car or as the international media calls it the $2,500 car (from the $2,000 car it was 18 months ago) willbe splashed across every single front page. Even though The Economic Times carried a 'supposed' mock-up with an awfully high waistline and looking like a squashed Zen Estilo, it is unlikely that anyone will get an exclusive. But you never know.
All I do is that I will have to wrestle around the crowd on the 10th and it is going to be mad. Pictures will be posted here!
Plus I have been told that despite being critical sometimes I exude too much confidence in my own industry when PR hacks are trying to take over. I don't quite know how to answer that, I could start with the usual blah blah that news is changing, but I would assume the one reason that I am optmistic is because news consumers have more choice than ever before. The problem, as with Indian democracy, is quite simple, people don't always exercise good choices and vote for people with regressive, tribal policies, and I mean Lalu and Mulayam.
This post from last week spoke about bad choices - the people of Gujarat had to either choose between a sycophantic local press, which at least had an ear to the ground or Delhi's news channels which sent dumb bimbettes to Gujarat who found stories to fit their preconcieved notions of Gujarat (and NDTV was particularly culpable), quite blissfully forgetting the fact that the citizens of the place really liked the wide, smooth roads their Innova was travelling on.
Fair enough, sitting in our ivory towers in the capital it is quite easy to pontificate. But we miss the dichotomy of India between highly-educated upper middle-class urbanites and the traditional non-Metro middle-classes, let alone the dichotomy between rich and poor India. Until you talk to these people, you won't haver a clue what goes on their minds - and the fact of the matter is that in many parts of the country, these people will probably vote BJP. Instead they're being constantly fed Congress drivel.
The Internet has been touted as a saviour. But the story is quite interesting over there as well, and we will get to that in a future post. Before I end, I was tiold recently that I was considered 'left wing', and I really did not know whether to feel insulted or humoured. I mean seriously...
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It is a BJP-Congress battle in only a minority of Indian states - in most of the country regional players dominate.
There is also the matter of personalities - which explains why feudal satraps continue to hold on to their seats no matter how many parties they change.
Both the BJP and the Congress are perceived (quite rightfully) as upper caste parties in UP and Bihar. They're virtually non-existent in Tamil Nadu.
It really isn't about the BJP and Congress anymore. I admire Tamil politicians, who are the most astute at using their bargaining chips within the current political paradigm.
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