Kasim Sait lapdog of cHindu rises again

cHindu has some loyal "readers" who provide their thoughts in the Opinion section. Kasim Sait is one such loyal lapdog who expresses his opinion frequently. In a letter titled Ironical Mr. Sait voices his disgust on the media who question CPIM on the WR Varada Rajan issue.

It is ironical that the media, which do not tire of spreading cynicism about the degeneration of politics and politicians, has been targeting the CPI (M) saying it has handed out excessive punishment to W.R. Varda Rajan. Is it the contempt of the corporate media towards the party that they do not give credit to it for being an upright party? Alternatively, are they regretting that they have lost an opportunity to malign it, which they could have done had the party not acted on the complaint of sexual harassment by the victim?
In a democracy, political parties exist for the enhancement of the living standards. Why not give the CPI (M) the credit due to it, and encourage it for trying to maintain purity and transparency?
Kasim Sait,

Of all the people who questioned cHindu's whitewash of this issue, it deemed Mr.Sait's thoughts as the only one deemed worthy of publishing. I need to add another bar to this level of disgust chart. (Courtesy of Doghouse)

Questioning UAE's quality of life

Reading the articles published by cHindu makes one question, are the writers as blind as a bat? (Well technically the bat has superb acuity of hearing, but you get the point). There is an article in cHindu, UAE quality of life ranked top where it quotes some Arabic magazine's paens towards the nation's quality of living based on some standards.

The Gulf nation has been globally ranked as the 15th best in the world, out of 160 countries or regions evaluated, Arabian Business said, citing the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s 2009 Quality of Life Index.
The ranking is a reflection of the prosperity enjoyed by the UAE over the past years and the result of ongoing strategic initiatives proposed by the government across all sectors, including economy, security, health and education, the report said.

What this article does not take into consideration is that the quality of living survey took into considerations the lifestyle of the nationals living there only. Human trafficking and modern slavery is still alive and living well in the UAE. Often men and women from south and southeast Asia and some nations in Africa are invited on pretense of work and good wages and then forced live in deplorable conditions one would consider as bonded slavery.
The ILO reports on the sad conditions of women doing domestic work in the UAE,

Foreign female domestic workers are isolated physically, psychologically, socially, culturally and in all aspects of human existence. However, they differ in their level of isolation. Some foreign female domestic workers live in an abusive environment of isolation. Others are able to interact socially and break through some of the physical and psychological barriers they face.

Or for that matter the horrific stories behind how the beautiful modern day Taj, the Burj Khalifa was constructed,

While we are not against progress, innovation and growth, we feel that during all the excitement about the opening of the the Burj Khalifa (formerly known as Burj Dubai), it is forgotten that those who built it, mainly south-Asian migrant workers, have paid a high price for this ambitious project. Those workers toiled 12 hour a day, 6 days a week for pay as little as $4 per day.....
Arabtec, which built the Burj Khalifa/Dubai houses its workers in filthy labor camps. One dweller of the Arabtec labor camp described it this way: “The latrines are so filthy we cannot use them, we are so disgusted. The roads are full of garbage and waterlogged. Living and moving about here is a great problem. We suffer greatly”. A BBC investigation came to similar conclusion about the overcrowded labor camps that overflowed with sewage.

The BBC did an investigative piece about the deplorable conditions about a year back. While expecting cHindu to do something like that is beyond question, one asks whether verifying from other sources before regurgitating information as facts is too much to ask?
Update: From a reader this is the

Independent's view of the insanity in Dubai.

Pictures expose RahulG's social service

The original photo posted on cHindu.

With some comments:



Still think RG is serving the country?
(Hat tip to Sreejith and Panchajanya for bringing it to our attention).

Did King Tut die or did he not?

An obscure article in cHindu shows both a lack of understanding of the statement reported as news as well as the ability to question what was said. The article titled, Tutankhamun’s mystery solved has this statement by cHindu,

Egyptian archaeologists have claimed to have finally solved the mystery of the lineage of boy king Tutankhamun more than 30 centuries after the pharaoh was sealed in a gold coffin.

However in the same article Zahi Hawass of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, contradicts his own statements by making this vague statement,

We don’t know how King Tut died. We have begun DNA testing and we have made some wonderful discoveries. The results have been confirmed by the Journal of the American Medical Association and they will be publishing all the findings. It is very exciting. We will know who King Tut was

cHindu also claims,

Among the outstanding riddles, for example, is whether Tutankhamun’s mother was Queen Nefertiti

But later states,

Queen Nefertiti — whose mummy has yet to be discovered

This type of sensational journalism does not add any value to the facts being reported not does it help the reader understand the basic news in the article was that the results of DNA testing of a mummy discovered close to 100 years back will be announced in the next few days. Shouldn't the newspaper actually question why DNA testing which was available for years not used to resolve King Tut's death?
Perhaps the answer might lie in the motives of museums which wanted to raise a lot of money by parading Tut's mummified remains to gullible public.