Letters to the Hoot

flippancy in reporting ET awards in the Times of India, and  lampooning Laloo on TV suggests an elitist mindset

ET Awards For Corporate Excellence

A Times of India report on the awards function made a racy read. But if I were an award winner, I would not care to preserve the clipping in my scrapbook to be shown to my grandchildren. The report (Sept.9 in Bangalore edition) was strong on flippancy. Considering that it was the flagship paper of the award-giving group one would have thought the Times newsreport on an in-house function ought to have been a model of editorial decency, even at the risk of reading like a
company report. There wasn¿t a quote on the citations.

¿ET Awards Meet Their Match¿, cries the page-one story, somewhat presumptuously.No one, however undeserving, would want it to be rubbed in that their corporate success was accomplished only to ¿match up¿ with the ET standards. A touch of humility was in order. After all, ET Award is no Booker, Pulitzer, Nobel or Arjuna of the Indian corporate world.
Pradipta Bagchi¿s news report gives a label to every notable award-winner - ¿a journalist-turned-politician¿ for Arun Shourie, although he had had a stint in the World Bank before he ¿turned¿ journalist.

Hero Honda chairman Brijmohan Munjal is ¿an upwardly mobile hot-wheeler¿. Jashwantiben Popat of Lijjat is dubbed ¿a papad diva¿. Ektaa Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms takes the cake - ¿a serial soap killer¿¿Disinvestments¿ big gun¿ Arun Shourie gets the Business Leader or the Year
award for, as TOI reporter Bagchi would put it, ¿assiduously scrubbing the government¿s bakeries, hotels and factories clean of malpractices before selling them¿.

Ektaa Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms, says the TOI, has probably sold more soap than Hindustan Lever. This is where I get a bit dense. But then I cannot claim to be that well-versed in English.
Here is another self-serving bit - "the somewhat eclectic choice of awardees lifted the evening beyond the usual routine of boring disclosures and corporate back-patting". Special invitees included Raveena Tandon (she escapes labeling) and ¿Jumping Jack¿ Jeetendra. Another report in TOI business section said "an unassuming Jashwantiben stepped gingerly onto the stage...seized the moment to pitch the finance minister (sitting five feet away) for tax concessions". I wonder whether it would have made a difference if the minister were seated fifty feet away, instead of five. And then TOI readers were reminded that last year¿s lifetime achievement award went to that ¿dudhwala from Anand¿ Verghese Kurien. The winner this time was ¿the kisan from Chennai¿ M S Swaminanthan.  Most of us are familiar with an agriculture scientist by the same name. A few lines down the report MSS is described as ¿eminent agriculturist¿. One wonders whether we are talking of the same person.

The TOI says that the unconventional choice of awardees proved that this year¿s function was more than "just another awards ceremony". Whether or not this was so the TOI account of it was certainly not just another news report. G V Krishnan Former TOI correspondent Coonoor

September 9, 2002   

Media¿s elitist mindset

This has reference to the article in thehoot.org on the protest to the serial. I have not personally seen the serial. But from what I hear, it seems to be a satire on Indian Politicians.