Messed up priorities

Who would you think is important, a plump girl with an abysmal track record in her field and another two-bit sports person involved with a girl who probably weighs more than a Maruti 800 or 76 brave men who laid down their lives while doing their job. A job that means providing security to citizens of India. Well, whoever we think is important is because we have a variety of reasons behind it. But the pest called Indian media has only one reason for unleashing news. TRP. This three letters are the holy grail of any media company and it is their job to try and get higher TRPs. But is it not their primary job to bring out the truth in front of citizens? I seriously think that Indian media has forgotten its primary task and their only focus is to get higher TRPs by creating sensational news items (ala item girls in Bollywood) out of rubbish.

Sania Mirza, this name invokes image of tennis player with more ‘achievements’ off the court than on it. She has played for India and I love her for that. She has also been in news on and off for all the wrong reasons. But the latest media hurricane – that her controversial wedding with Pakistan’s Shoaib Malik – was the longest and crappiest of them all. Her wedding was treated as a matter of national importance by Indian news channels and played out for around 10 days. In all this euphoria, a matter of national importance received very little coverage. And that was attack on CRPF column by hundreds of Maoist. 76 men (75 from CRPF and one from Chhatisgarh police) perished in this attack which goes on to show the boldness, ruthlessness and well-organized structure of Naxals.

As I have said in the past, Naxalism is a much bigger problem than terrorism both in terms of size and severity. While most of the terrorists are foreigners, Naxalites live among us. Heck they are Indian citizens after all and it is impossible to segregate them from other peace loving citizens. Naxalism will only get bigger and worse if we keep ignoring it like we have done for so long. Political dialogue and good governance is the key to resolve the issue of Naxalism, but simultaneously some brawn must also be used to pressurize Naxalites to come to the table and sort it out to ensure peace in all affected areas.

Indian media should try to create awareness about the problems faced by the country instead of highlighting news based on just sensational value. I for one have stopped watching news channels when they air such brainless news items and instead tune into Cartoon Network or Pogo. This is my humble effort to bring down the TRPs of such news channels and make them understand.

My dear readers you can play your part by just watching news that matter. Bring down the TRP of channels that just show meaningless and sensational news. Stop sending SMS to their silly polls related to similarly inane news items. When you send a SMS to give your opinion, it only helps fill up coffers of that news channel and your telecom company. Nothing more.

Point of my rants is focus on the issues that matter and not on the issues that sell. Media has a major responsibility in any nation. It is high time that Indian media gets its act together and plays its part.