The Week That Was

the week that was

the week that was September 1-7-2009 Page 4

India’s first Formula 1 glory

AlterEgo

By Pawan Kr Singh

Off the Media Map

Manipur witnesses more daily violence than Kashmir, yet hardly figures in the main stream media.

A week after the Sports Minister M S Gill refused to acknowledge Formula One as a “sport”, Vijay Mallya owned team ‘Force India’ driven by Giancarlo Fisichella (Italian), grabbed second position in the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday. Giancarlo maintained the second position throughout the race finishing only 0.9 seconds behind the winner Kimi Raikkonen. This is also a confidence booster for the team owner Vijay Mallya, who even denied rumours of selling his team since his team scored for the first time after 30 races in 20 months. Upmanyu

While media reported and debated the voluntary shut down of Pune and Mumbai because of the swine flu scare, little was known about the shutdown in Manipur sometime back. Even as the media made such hue and cry about Shahrukh Khan’s so called “detention” in the United States, few people in India know that in a state like Manipur people go through such incidents every day. It might feel offensive to be questioned in another country but the feeling of being questioned in your own country even when you are out on a routine task inexplicable. On July 23, the police commandos chased a “suspected militant “and killed him in point blank range. This straight killing was termed as “encounter” by police personnel. But the fake “encounter” killing was captured by a photographer and leaked to the magazine Tehelka which ran

Pokhran II: Success or failure?

Despite the recent uproar regarding the feasibility of Pokhran -II nuclear tests, Indian armed forces seem quite hung-ho about the country’s nuclear arsenal. Outgoing Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said, “We are a nation which maintains a credible deterrence… more than enough to deter anybody.” However K Santhanam, DRDO scientist, made a statement that the hydrogen bomb tested during Pokhran-II was actually a ‘fizzle’. PK Iyenger, a prominent nuclear scientist supported Santhanam’s statement as a true one. Such a controversial revelation led to an unnecessary dispute regarding the tests being

conducted; which was put to an end by the former president APJ Abdul Kalam Azad the then DG of the Defense Research and Development Organization, said that a detailed review of the test had proved that the thermo-nuclear test had yielded the desired results. Santhanam strongly opposed this by saying that India should not sign the CTBT, keeping in mind the failure of its previous tests. But on the other hand, Brajesh Mishra, who was NSA in 1998, completely discarded Santhanam’s claim and said that Kalam himself had certified the test and it did yield the desired results Ritika

a sequence of 12 shots depicting the killing by the police. This led to an explosion of anger on streets of Imphal demanding justice. Even after so much of hullaballoo, this news did not become a cover story. The photos however got national exposure because the photographer who shot them could not get them published in Manipur. Unfortunately, the media in Manipur is suppressed and has to rely on the media outside. Manipur faces the violence, Kashmir gets the coverage. Over the sixty day period earlier this year (May 15 – July 15) the media in the state reported 102 civilian causalities, 72 deaths of militants including 37 “encounters”; while five men belonged to the state forces. DNA in Mumbai found space for 25 stories from Kashmir, three from Assam and none from Manipur. The Delhi edition of

The Times of India found space for two stories on Manipur while Kashmir got 48 stories of which Shopian got the maximum coverage. Moreover, the Delhi edition of The Indian Express and The Hindu over this period had 60 stories each from Kashmir, 8 and 11 respectively from Imphal. Talking about the television coverage, hardly any news concerning Manipur or North East is telecast. If something happens in Kashmir, there are panel discussions, but nothing of that sort happens in case of North East. Manipur is not just a state with conflicts but also a state which is rich in theatre, music ,sports ( the award winning women boxer Mary Kom is from the state) arts, traditional crafts to name a few aspects. The first step towards media’s engagement is information and sadly that is missing.

PSUs to revive jobs Public sector jobs not only provide the best training experience but also pay decently to the newcomers. The best part is that one need not live with the fear of being handed the pink-slip in the next quarter. The global recession and freeze on hiring has ensured that new graduates are looking afresh at the public sector as a viable career avenue. In fact, there are enough reasons for it. After the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission, the salaries in the government sector are now at par with the private sector, especially at the entry level. In addition, it has been observed by the experts that the experience and challenges in a PSU are far more enriching than the corporate world. Most importantly, one will not end up having sleepless nights. But stark difference in pay packages still holds true in the top

ranks. The monthly salary of a director of any PSU still cannot be compared with that of the CEO of an established MNC. However, in today’s time job security is the major concern. Statistics released by the Labour ministry reveal that half-a-million Indians lost their jobs between Sept.-Dec, 2008. This year Bank of Baroda emerged as a leading recruiter at the IIM-L, followed by NTPC and ONGC.On the flip side young employees in the public sector say that it is not easy to adjust to the slow pace of work and the hierarchical nature of the sector. However, presently the bigger hurdle is the limited number of vacancies in the public sector to accommodate the rising number of unemployed and interested candidates. Jasneet

E d i t o r i a l A d v i s o r : P ro f. A . S a xe n a Editorial Supervisor: S D Tripathi Designing & Layout Suprevisor: P Koundal Editorial Team: Pawan, Ritika, Garima, Mamta, Dipika, Mehnaz, Jasneet, Ruchi, Upmanyu, Rocky

VOL 1 ISSUE 3

1-7 SEPTEMBER 2009

insidestory Mehsud: New Chief of Pak Taliban Page 2 Japan calls for a change Page 2 Tibet not seeking independence from China: Dalai Lama Page 2 Judges welcome bill on asset Page 3 declaration Commonwealth Games delayed Page 3

Target growth rate down at 7.8% The Planning Commission has decided to scale down the target growth rate to 7.8 per cent instead of 9 per cent for the 11th five year plan in 2013. The decision has been taken in view of the slower than expected recovery from the downturn and the drought covering more than half of the country. Chief economist, HDFC bank sees this decision as, “Recognition of something that is there on the ground”. Also, the growth rate for this financial year is expected to be around 6.3 per cent against earlier projections of 7 per cent due to the expected fall of agriculture’s contribution by 2.5 per cent. Upmanyu Dear readers, if you have any opinion to voice or any writeup to share, please write to us at: ed i to r. twtw@gmai l . co m

A weekly production by journalism students of CMS

‘Encountered’ Manipur

Would a judicial probe suffice Manipur’s angst? Finally, the state government of Manipur ordered a judicial inquiry into the fake encounter of. Chungkham Sanjit on August 27. The decision came after a month of turmoil with bandhs, protests and curfews in the state due to the alleged fake encounter. The judicial inquiry commission will be headed by retired Justice, PG Aggarwal of the Gauhati High Court. However, the Joint Action Committee or Apunba Lup, formed in connection with the killing of the youth, is of the notion that there is no need to form a commission when it is quite evident from the photographs taken by the Tehelka magazine that who all were involved in the fake encounter. The Lup is asking the government to take immediate steps without going into judicial probe by punishing all those involved in the encounter. It is to be noted that on July 23, .Ch Sanjit ,a former militant and Thokchom Ongbi Rabina, a pregnant woman were killed and five others were injured during an encounter at the busy Imphal market. Tehelka, a national news magazine exposed the fake encounter in front of the nation. Due to the Tehelka’s exposure, the truth came

in front of the public and for a month now, the people of Manipur have started strong agitation by staging protests, bandhs, strikes and the like. People are protesting against the insensitive attitude of the system, they are raising slogans like ‘Stop killing innocents’, ‘ Stop fake encounters’, ‘CM should resign’, ‘Suspend the commandos’, the famous old slogan – ‘Repeal AFSPA’ and the like. To combat the agitation, the state government imposed indefinite curfew all over the state which is still going on. Besides, security has been tightened in and around Imphal town by deploying armed forces at strategic locations. Also, during the relaxation hour of curfew, gathering of four-five people is prohibited. In all these incidents,the civilians of the state are suffering and are stuck in this vicious circle of regular killings of innocent people, bombings, fight between the state and the so-called freedom fighters (insurgents) of Manipur. According to National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Manipur reported the second highest number of fake encounters after Uttar Pradesh during 200809. A senior home ministry official

said, "The rising figures could well explain the current public unrest in Manipur where people have been on the street against trigger-happy cops ever since the state witnessed the killing of two persons in an encounter on July 23.” It is so unfortunate that today’s mainstream media do not have enough space to cover these grievous situations where 2-3 persons, mostly civilians, are killed on a daily basis in this part of the country. Instead they give importance to some potholes developed on a city road, the minor mishaps happening in a metro city, celebs’ quarrel and many such trivial issues. It is to be observed how effective the said commission would be in probing the fake encounter; specially, when the people of Manipur have stopped believing in such commissions and the system itself. They want quick result and quick justice from a responsible government. “We demand punishment of accused police commandos”, Phulindro Konsam, Spokesman of Apunba Lup said, “otherwise we’ll launch various forms of agitations.” Mehnaz

India’s first moon mission called off India’s first moon mission Chandrayaan I came to a halt and all its operation were terminated as the Ground Control unit of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost all contact with the satellite. Project Director Mylswamy Annadurai declared, “The mission is definitely over. We have lost contact with the spacecraft”. The Chandrayaan 1 satellite was launched on October 22 last year and designed for a two -year mis-

sion in space. During its operational tenure, it had completed 312 days in space and more than 3400 orbits of the moon. ISRO Chief G. Madhavan Nair said that the malfunction in the power supplier unit on board the spacecraft which was due to exposure of high intensity radiation led to the failure of the spacecraft. He added that the computers on board the craft became unoperational without the power supply, thus cutting off all contact with the Ground

Control Unit. The spacecraft suffered setback earlier this year when one of its sensors was burnt due to solar radiation. The incident calls for the need of a more efficient anti -radiation technology which at present India does not seem to possess .And quick acquisition of the technology seems difficult as many countries are reluctant to share their technology on account of India’s recent advances in Garima space technology.