Something Sensible

The time span: 2005-2008 will largely be remembered to as the days of Media Boom. Or as I may call as, the ‘Era when more crap has been established on the idiot box’. There are all types of news channels showcasing nearly all type of stuff: news, soaps, Rakhi Sawant, politics, bhoot-pret, stocks, and economy, nearly everything one could ask for. All these are there for some time now but none I could call phenomenal or groundbreaking. CNN IBN & Times NOW come close in my review but both falter on their own turf. Debates on CNN are not up to the quality of news they relay and Times NOW could largely improve the quality of news they relay, up to the quality of their debates.

Even though this ‘media boom’ and ‘information at your fingertips’ era is still on raging hormones and growing I see just about the same effect on the local population or the subject population as the time when DD used to relay 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm prime time news. The only major difference being people have a lot to talk about nowadays other than what was portrayed earlier.

This blog is intended not to criticize the mammoth efforts towards information dissemination but to better input efforts and to facilitate exponential effectivity towards the amount of productive effort a news channel inputs. Note, the actual ‘News’ shown by any channel, if shown are majorly at the ‘Prime Time’ slot i.e. timings between 8-10 p.m. This is the time that generally makes or breaks a news channel. You have individuals from all class, creed, caste glued to the idiot box. Now, those who want information, tune to news, information channels like Discovery, etc. The others follow soaps.
The major point I would like to emphasize here is: You cannot feed information 24x7 to people. They will eventually get bored and opt out, not permanently but they surely lose interest in the minute happenings that affect the society in some or the other way. News channels remain surprisingly oblivious of this fact. And due to this reason alone you cannot call ‘Aaj Tak’ a bucket of crap.

Another startling fact I observed even though the quantum of media penetration present and ever-growing is:

Reporter to a housewife at a ration shop: Aap ko kya lagta hai? Rozana cheezon ke bhaav gagan chuum rahe hain?

Housewife: Haan, meri jab shaadi hui thi, tab pyaaj 2 rupiya kilo the aur ab dekho, kaise gujara hoga? Yeh nariyal tel ab 50 Rs bottle mil raha hai, 2 mahine pehele yeh 45 Rs ka tha.

Reporter: Aapko kya lagta hai, Sarkar kya kar rahi hai? Kya aapko lagta hai bhav kam honge?

Housewife: Sarkar ne keematon ko kam karna chahiye. Mere pati ki pagar bhi nahi badh rahi hai par yeh cheezon ke bhav to kitne badh rahe hain.

Pati: (Pati incidentally pushes reporter off camera view out of over-excitement): Yeh Sarkar ne saare damon ko badha ke rakha hai. Pehele to 4000 mein ghar chalta tha aur ab 6000 bhi kam padte hain. Sab Sarkar ki galti hai. Petrol ka bhav 50 rupiya litre ho gaya hai. Maine ab gaadi bhi istemaal karni band ki hai.

Did he just say ‘Sarkar’ was responsible??? Did he? What? Is he illiterate? Is he just released from mental captivity since birth to state these words? Is he blaming ‘Sarkar’ cause everyone can blame the system without any moral regret and harm? Is he blaming ‘Sarkar’ just cause he along with millions of others in this country do not have the balls to ask their employer for a raise? Is he blaming ‘Sarkar’ cause he cannot manage his expenditure and his assets? Fucking moron!!

Well, please forgive my high-handedness. These were the thoughts that ran through my mind the moment I saw the commotion. My mind, as always was wrong to think such statements because the person does not understand demand-supply cycle. He along with his ‘priya patni’ does not understand the concept of inflation. They do not understand what makes an economy run. They do not understand why do prices rise. If the ‘Sarkar’ were to open up world markets and escalate oil prices to the present state, he surely would had been doomed.

The case is exactly the same with around 90+% of the Indian population, not cause they are illiterate but cause they either do not choose to take interest or if they are open to reality, they are not subjected to. The remaining illiterate population is either fruitfully employed in labour or is into neck-deep dirty politics. Well, the number of the illiterate population is relatively small compared to the working class. Its this disillusioned working class that should be firmly educated into asking questions.
Asking questions forms the gist of every educational platform. People just stop asking questions the moment they realize that their efforts are going to be in vain. This habit can be reinstated if they are subjected to mind-blowing inputs or I can say things that affect their biggest concern i.e. money/paisa/rokda/maal/daulat/etc. People are not aware of any economic ground-happenings other than scams which rarely surface. They have to be introduced to the economic hive called Stock-Market in a very healthy manner. This I suppose will be the cornerstone to country’s progress.
Once this happens, real RTI will surface. People will ‘zhak maarke’ have to take active interest in their money and thus will be subjected to supposed peripheral constraints affecting the economy. Then, they will understand why a bottle of Pepsi costs about the same as a liter of petrol.

Educating the population of the world’s second largest populated country about economics is no easy task. You cannot just open up a B-school accommodating every educated Indian. This task will have to be taken up by ‘Regional’ News channels. They will have to take gruesome efforts towards educating the common people economic terms in very simple ways, slow and steady intellectual growth will happen. Parents will start sending their kids to school, and closely monitor their growth. News channels can push a few economic cases in their prime-time news, get people involved.

This is exactly where Conventional News Channels come into picture. CNBC AWAZ is doing an excellent job for the same but, the major drawback being that it’s a major economy and profit channel and thus, not everyone can benefit of it.

We bloggers who understand economy in whatever little/incomplete sense can do a huge favour to the nation by disbursing that knowledge to those unknown so that they donot point fingers at ‘Sarkar’ every time their ‘pyaaj ka bhaav’ increases.

Please.