MKN

I was a bit puzzled by The V's stinging rebuke of MKN yesterday. Puzzled not because MKN is admittedly a twat and should be held responsible, but the fact that all three HT Group papers gave the story the same treatment. I suddenly remembered that a few years ago, Sunday HT had done a brilliant piece damning MKN - the piece had been done by Aditya Sinha if I recall correctly and all hell broke loose after that piece. But I was just wondering how much was yesterday about settling scores and about finger pointing. As I said, I still maintain that MKN is a twat, and according to some telco officials he is also a corrupt twat but I have only anecdotal evidence  from colleagues and peers of that. 

Now, was there an intelligence failure that led to the Mumbai attacks? Yes. So why is RAW going around telling that they warned everybody. Yesterday the Navy Chief at his presser did mention something about 'general intelligence' and 'actionable intelligence'. You know that is like saying - 'You will die eventually' or 'You have Cancer and could die soon'. The former is a general statement of truth - like saying that the Pakistani media makes the Indian media look good, I mean lying bastards those guys are. So much so that a former colleague who was an unabashed Paki-lover, and I mean unabashed to the extent that wanted to strangulate him during a cricket match is saying this is time for Indian military action. Anyway, back to the point, do we know that there are training camps in Pakistan? Yes we do, but nothing can be done until we know when they send doped up assholes armed to the teeth across the border.

Reading between the lines and talking to a few other senior journalists, a theory occurred. This is the blame game starting. Someone is trying to protect his skin. Given the hard-handed way this petty government could react, we won't write about fraternal ties. But the fact of the matter is, several people are trying to protect their skins right now, and not just Vilasrao Deshmukh and a couple of media organisations that fell behind with the news. Anyway, I still beieve more heads will roll in the coming months, quite a few more heads will roll. Though, given the commies hold in Kerala, VS's head will not. But I have a bad feeling that the clip will be played over and over during the 2009 elections in that state. He had his 'Macaca' moment.

Also I haven't had the time to say a word of how good the major Hindi News Channels were, I found India TV's 'interview' a bit distasteful, but technically, it is good journalism. Biased, one-sided intellectual debates indulged in by one channel in particular, where Simi Garewal, of all people, spoke the way several people are feeling and got booed by the crowd (talk about audience management) was not at all good journalism. And that is seeming to reflect on the ratings where Times Now despite Arnab's occasional rants against politicians (yes I know Politicians are scum, but let us fix democracy and not talk about Army Rule as evidently some people were being goaded to do) has gained tremendously. We'll see if these gains are short-term or long-term gains and how advertisers react, since a lot of budgets are in for re-negotiation in a few weeks at the year flips over. Would Times Now's actions actually helped ET-TV it's soon-to-be launched sister channel? Hmmm... Questions to ponder.

And talking about ET, I feel sorry for the guys. The ET Awards were supposed to happen the next day 27/11 and in this crisis they have been indefinitely postponed. Bad luck there, but I don't think this is the time to do anything. I guess they will re-sched it, but that will be a nightmare of times and dates. And there is this perceptible feeling that things seem to have slowed down here as well. Anyway, I should get to work now...