cHindu defends Pakistan on hiding Osama

Everyone and their dog knows that Pakistan knew Osama bin Laden was hiding their country not in some mountain but in plain sight in a suburb near Islamabad. A place a stone's throw (literally) away from a Military academy. If it were ever proved that Pakistan did not know that Osama lived within its borders they should shave their head and jump off a bridge. However cHindu defends Pakistan by a series of articles today.

Pakistan laments ‘unilateral' U.S. action

Pakistan said it wasn't sure whether Osama was alive or dead

Osama financed the fall of Benazir's government, says Zardari

Kayani: ‘It is unjust to criticize Pakistan' for not locating Osama

Operation caught ISI “by surprise”

cHindu should change its name to National paper of Pakistan. Even Dawn has not offered a stirring defense of Pakistan.
Here's a headline from Dawn:
US feared Pakistan might ‘alert’ Bin Laden about raid: CIA

Company law board response for cHindu succession battle

To all interested in the details of the succession battle held last year for cHindu. This is the Company Law Board response for the petition of N.Murali and N.Ravi over LiC and minions.
It reinstates N.Murali to Managing Director till August 2011 when he will step down. It will be interesting to see if LiC follows suit.

I thereby set aside the decision taken by the board of directors on 20.03.2010 to the extent it reallocates the functions of the Senior Managing Director and direct that the position prior to 20.03.2010 shall be restored as far as allocation of departments concerning the 2nd petitioner is concerned.

Save cHindu, prevent Sidd V from becoming editor

In a recent letter from N. Ravi to cHindu employees he alleged that LiC is planning to put his puppet Sidd Varadarajan as the editor of the cHindu.
We are trying to validate the authenticity of this report.
But per the email Ravi alleges cHindu has become another "Paid News" outlet in the lines of TOI and NDTV.

Very recently, those of us who were not privy to the deal making learnt to our shock that a major interview with A. Raja in defence of the telecom licensing policy published on May 22, 2010—that was referred to by the Prime Minister in his press conference--involved a direct quid pro quo in the form of a full page, colour advertisement from the Telecom Ministry that was specially and hurriedly cleared by the Minister personally for publication on the same day in The Hindu.

If this is true then its another nail in the coffin, log in the funeral pyre of a vaunted newspaper.
More on this soon...

cHinduToons - same sarcasm less reading

This is something I've wanted to do for sometime, convey this blog's sarcasm in the form of toons making fun at the MSM, our leaders,other jerks and ourselves (at times :)).
This is a start and hopefully with your feedback something we hope to make a regular feature. This is based on a viewpoint of Suhasini Haider who blabbers on cHindu echoing its slanted viewpoints. We being the subtle commentators will take different forms to converse back.

cHindu demeans Anna Hazare.. kind of

Rather than detail a serious editorial, cHindu outsources the analysis to R.K.Raghavan ex CBI head-honcho to detail the view of the newspaper. It is a decent viewpoint from an outsider but still does not detail what the newspaper who is stuck in the paid news scandal to express its opinions on the issue.

Despite glib words of praise for the principle that motivates Anna, there is unmistakable chagrin among those in the corridors of power — whom he is challenging. They claim that they alone are vested with the authority to decide what kind of legislation should be drafted to tackle corruption in high places, and not the likes of Anna Hazare. They look upon him as an usurper who has to be put in his place somehow.

At least this issue sweeps the chinduleaks under the rug for the time being.

cHindu's credo- everyone should be blind

There is the old tale about communism, you have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. Similarly cHindu has a philosophy if every you cant restore sight to everyone, then all of them should be blind. Brahma Chellaney is the proponent of this stupid logic.

While the popular uprising in Yemen has splintered the security establishment there, with different military factions now in charge of different neighbourhoods in the capital Sanaa and the United States seeking to replace the Yemeni President with his No. 2, the Bahraini monarchy has employed foreign Sunni mercenaries that dominate its police force to fire on the predominantly Shiite demonstrators.

The clincher is the conclusion which reads like a manifesto from Comrades Marx and Engels.

The resort to different standards and practices in the name of promoting human freedom, unfortunately, sends the message that any society's democratic empowerment is possible only if it jibes with the great powers' geopolitical interest. The fundamental issue is whether there should be a rules-based international order or an order pivoted on military might and driven by narrow, politically expedient interests of the most powerful.

This is exactly how the world works. If you want to free the others ask your buddies at cHindu to get off their lazy behinds and do something.

Twisting wikileaks - Jaitley's remarks

Its one thing to make blatantly illogical statements analyzing current affairs like how Sidd V does in his columns in cHindu. Its absolutely ridiculous to portray the words of an American diplomat as fact.
( Thanks to fellow blogger Nationalizer for the heads up)
The article clearly states Jaitley's statement which reads:

In India's northeast, for instance, Hindutva plays well because of public anxiety about illegal migration of Muslims from Bangladesh. With the recent improvement of Indo-Pak relations, he added, Hindu nationalism is now less resonant in New Delhi, but that could change with another cross-border terrorist attack, for instance on the Indian Parliament,

However it chose to provide credence to the statement of the diplomat who claimed:

Pressed on the question of Hindutva, Jaitley argued that Hindu nationalism ‘will always be a talking point' for the BJP. However, he characterized this as an opportunistic issue

This is yellow journalism at its best. Shame on cHindu for distorting facs and not providing accurate explanations. Thankfully with Twitter people have challenged LiC and his minions to answer to facts. Though they still have proven to not be accountable.

Farce called Gandhianism

Gandhianism is one of those flawed ideologies that is so abstract, utopian and impractical that even the person who conceived it agreed it was not practical at all times. However it has become a mantle piece for any diplomat, bureaucrat who wants to carp on issues using moral grand standing. Case in point MK Bhadra Kumar commenting on the recent riots in Libya and comparing the violence there to Afghanistan.
Somehow he tries to inject Gandhianism into the whole discussion as some sort of moral higher ground.

The irony is that non-violence in Libya becomes the rubric for militarisation of foreign policy. After referring Mr. Qadhafi to the ICC, shouldn't India sign the Rome Statute and become an ICC member-country? Ideally, we should also persuade Mr. Obama, who admires Gandhiji, to revoke his predecessor's decision to pull the U.S. out of the ICC.

When are we going to get rid of the nonsense carpet that Gandhianism means something in today's world?

Celebrating Internet freedoms - with a dollop of hypocrisy

The writers of cHindu have many avatars to act out from moral pontification to snide criticism to rambling rhetoric. Everything other than actual journalism (barring a few like Sainath).
A recent editorial where LiC from his high horse in Anna Salai decided to preach to his minions about how the US was unfairly targeting Wiki Leaks and Twitter. The article for the most part is valid in many of its criticisms over the control that governments impose over the information that's being disseminated.

To praise the Internet for aiding truth-telling and, in the same breath, dismiss the discussion on free speech for websites such as WikiLeaks as a “false debate” is hypocritical. It can be credibly argued that the simmering discontent in Tunisia exploded in public anger when WikiLeaks published the cables on the U.S. ambassador's assessment of corruption by President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The Tunisian uprising, then, was triggered by the WikiLeaks revelations, and fanned by the Internet. In a more connected world the key question before the U.S. is to define confidentiality.

However the larger issue is that this is an instance of the Devil quoting scriptures.
cHindu in the recent decade has been an MSM outlet which has thrived on delayed or often mis-representing facts. It has propounded principles based on its convenience. All the while maintaining one standard for its political master cHina and another for everyone else.

cHindu wipes CPM's arse again

This news article has nothing to do with local Indian politics. It does not have anything to do with a nation with deep ties to India. However cHindu toots the CPM horn again.

The Left parties have expressed support for the people of Egypt and urged the Union government to take a clear stand endorsing the will of the people.
The CPI(M) said the U.S., which was notorious for engineering “regime change” in countries that did not act at its behest, should be warned not to interfere with the will of the people of Egypt.
“The Egyptian people will not accept anything less than the immediate removal of Mubarak from power. It is only with this step that there can be a transition to a democratic set-up based on the wishes of the people,” a CPI(M) Polit Bureau statement said.

I thought of putting a who cares, but this is ridiculous to be publishing quotes from one set of parties.
And we thought Toi was good enough to be flushed.

Editorial on the murder of Sonawane

The failings of the criminal justice system was exposed again when Yashwant Sonawane's attempt to expose the fuel mafia lead to his gruesome murder. From cHindu's editorial

By one reckoning, 40 per cent of kerosene is stolen during transportation from depots to retail outlets. Estimates of the value of this organised racket, which also sees quite a bit of the kerosene used to adulterate diesel, exceed Rs.10,000 crore a year nationally. The fraud seems to be growing in direct correlation to the rise in fuel prices.

Why we have to wait for an attack of an official to jump into action is simply inexplicable?
cHindu and the media's short lived attention spans in bringing the criminals to justice highlights MSM's abilities to have the intellectual focus of a 2 year old.
In closing the next steps suggested in the editorial shows what has become modern India's solution to any problem, sweep it under the rug.

The crackdown that is on now and the arrest of all ten suspects in the murder of Mr. Sonawane are positive signs. The hope is that Union Petroleum Minister Jaipal Reddy's resolve to curb the adulteration menace will not prove short-lived. A great deal of work waits to be done on the ground, and a start can be made by acting on the Supreme Court's 2001 suggestion of an additional agency to carry out independent checks and actions in the fuel sector.

More biased news from cHindu

There have been several recent news articles by cHindu where the 'editorialization' has continued.
Thanks to our keen readers these have not gone unnoticed. We will respond to these articles shortly.
They are:
High Court seeks report on Sabarimala tragedy The crux being that the High Court had reprimanded the State Government for not improving the infrastructure despite previous notices as reported in the Indian Express.
The other more ridiculous article was where the Supreme Court in all its infinite wisdom claimed that India was a nation of immigrants.
It will not be surprising to find the Supreme Court reserve 99% of all college, train and bus seats, jobs in private and government sectors to monkeys since they were the real original inhabitants and their state has not been improved since Independence.

Comrade Yechury has a new stand up routine

Sometimes I wonder how Comrades Karat (Prakash and Brinda) and Yechury manage to speak such rubbish when they are supposed to be the educated bunch. Hearing rubbish from riff raff like Digvijay Singh or Lalu or Rajnath Singh is one thing. But this is hilarious,

Replying to a student's question as to whether China was free from the clutches of crony capitalism given the market-oriented socialist system adopted by it, Mr. Yechury said China was “extremely strict” against such practices and handed out “deterrent punishment” to detected offenders.

Guess Comrade thinks China is the left wing paradise where crony capitalism doesn't exist. Either he is incredibly stupid or thinks anyone listening to this BS is.

Mr. Yechury also said that there “may be failings” in Left Front-ruled States of West Bengal and Kerala since the “prevalent system [bred] in-house corruption and nepotism”, but added that “there [was] always an endeavour to rectify it as the party has zero-tolerance towards such practices”.

Yup and Rome was built in a day.

cHindu proves "Paid news" in Indian Media

This article proves how "Paid news" exists in Indian media. cHindu exposes how a large media corporation was "paid" by a particular country to write a favorable editorial on it. Read and weep.

Descent of India into Oligarchy

For all his failings in the 2G Radia scandal, Vir Sanghvi hit the nail on the head when he said:

how the public will not stand for resources being cornered, how we're creating a new list of oligarchs

India descends into Oligarchy
Let us look at all our media barons, mining giants etc. A small fraction of industrialists with the help of politicians, a blind eye from the judiciary and not tacit assistance from the media have cornered the nations resources and ergo its wealth for their own personal piggy banks.
What is the difference between India and Russia then?
Probably the fact that a small fraction of the population is enabled in India to work on the technology, banking and automobile sectors. But its much closer than we think.

cHindu continues on its anti-semetic tirade

Of the themes continuously carpred by LiC and his minions one theme consistently stands out that is the tirade against anything Israel or Jewish. In that series, LiC rants against Israel's ability to manipulate the US to get aid and weapons but not give Palestine terrorists their state.

In consequence, the talks that began with three meetings between Mr. Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in September are indefinitely stalled. The Palestinians are refusing to engage in further direct talks unless construction is halted; and Mr. Abbas is threatening to dissolve the Authority if an agreement for Palestinian statehood cannot be reached.Mr. Netanyahu will not be troubled by the stalemate or by criticism that he cannot control his Cabinet. That his Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, wants Israeli Arabs — about 20 per cent of Israel's population — compulsorily transferred to any future Palestinian state makes it easy for him to claim that his hands are tied.

The ridiculous nature of cHindu's rants are clearly exposed by reading any objective analysis of the situation which clearly puts equal blame on the Palestinian terrorist groups which pose as their voices which threaten a genocide that is tacitly supported by Iran (another cHindu favorite) who has been clearly exposed to be building nuclear weapons (wikileaks). But that's an angle cHindu will not touch. Hypocrites to the bone.

Launching who the @#$% cares series

Often cHindu is guilty of publishing obscure articles which add no value of news or importance to 99.999% of its readers (you might make a case that every editorial is, but thats a different argument).
So to start of with who the @#$% cares here's the first article -
Chinese research ship embarks on year-long global voyage
I'm looking for your suggestions and hope to make this a quasi-regular post series.

Blame the process not Raja - LiC

Hat tip to reader Balaji for pointing this out.
If you read any cHindu article or editorial you will find some editorializing going on. Even if say a dog bit a old woman Bangalore, cHindu would probably tie it to the BJP government's lack of social responsibility. However in the case of what appears to be one of the biggest scandals in Indian Parliament history cHindu has staunchly supported the DMK and A.Raja ('A' standing for acidic, acerbic?)
Now LiC from his perch in Anna Salai comes out and blames the process of allotting the spectrum as the culprit and not any one individual. Its a bit like blaming the German judicial system for the Holocaust and not Hitler. Or Indian Army for losing the Indo-Chinese war of 1962 and not Nehru. It sets a wrong precedent
of future allotment of blame in such scandals.

The integrity of the process always determines the quality of the product that comes out of it. If a process is wrong, the product seldom turns out right. It is now a common conclusion that the procedure for the allocation of spectrum in 2007-08 for the second generation (2G) telecom services was flawed, and grossly so. When there were many more aspirants for the licences than there was frequency spectrum, and an auction should have been the obvious method to decide on the winners, the licences were handed out instead in a non-transparent, first-come-first-served basis and at a low price set seven years earlier.

Hindsight is indeed 20-20. Where is the issue of incompetence of A.Raja and his steadfast refusal to resign?
Or for that matter the kickbacks he received?

The Manmohan Singh government has no option but to take serious note of the glaring non-performance by these companies. Perhaps it was inevitable they would fail, because as the CAG discovered, many of these companies did not have any experience in telecommunications. Revoking their licences would therefore be a rational and appropriate response.

If this is a cover-up article aimed at fooling the reading public of cHindu, then LiC better start packing his desk.

China imposes Mandarin in Tibet

China has imposed Mandarin as the primary language for all students in Tibet, replacing the native Tibetian language. This is part of a plan to replace all Tibetian books within the next 5 years and teach mandarin going forward.
This has been relegated to the footnote by most Indian media outlets including "honest" journalists like LiC and his rag the cHindu.
We will be providing updates on this issue on a frequent basis.
Hat tip to Kuttychathan and Xinhua Ram for alerting us to this issue.

Krishna Iyer on Cricket - the insanity continues

cHindu's favorite loony uncle returns to enlighten us with his views on cricket.
I read this article twice but could not understand (nothing unusual here) heads or tails of what he means to convey.
If you do, please let us know :)