In yet another example of how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has benefited from Facebook’s allegedly biased approach to checking the spread of fake news, it has emerged that the social media platform allowed a Reliance-backed company to run ads disguised as new reports to further the political party’s agenda during elections. The shocking revelation was made by Al Jazeera on March 14, in a report titled How a Reliance-funded firm boosts BJP’s campaigns on Facebook.

The report reveals how NEWJ helped in Malegaon blast-accused Sadhvi Pragya Thakur’s virtual image makeover by claiming in one of its video ads that she had been acquitted, when in reality, she is only out on bail. What was more dangerous is that this video was made to look like a news report, giving credibility to fake news that was clearly aimed at improving the electoral prospects of a particular political party’s candidate.

BJP had fielded Thakur from Madhya Pradesh. According to the Al Jazeera report, the NEWJ video got over 3,00,000 views in one day, and Thakur went on to win the election and is currently the Member of Parliament (MP) from Bhopal.

What is NEWJ, and who owns it?

NEWJ stands for New Emerging World of Journalism Ltd., the name itself suggesting it is a news media platform. According to the Al Jazeera report, “NEWJ positions itself as a start-up catering “news content” to people in villages and small towns exclusively through social media. In reality, the company buys advertisement space on Facebook and Instagram to publish videos, many of which are actually political promotions but are dressed as news stories. The advertisements have one underlying theme – to promote the BJP, including by fuelling misinformation, inciting anti-Muslim sentiments and denigrating opposition parties.”

It was set up in January 2018 by Shalabh Upadhyay and his sister Deeksha as a private limited company with a paid-up capital of Rs 1 lakh. In November 2018, Reliance Group company Reliance Industrial Investment and Holdings Limited (RIIHL) took over NEWJ with a 75 percent equity stake. In the first year Reliance pumped in Rs 8,40,00,000, and in the second year it increased this figure to Rs 12,50,00,000! NEWJ made a series of videos that promoted the BJP’s agenda and often targeted its opponents. These videos were run as paid ads. The timing is of course important, given how General Elections were held in India in 2019. In 2020, the RIIHL stake was taken over by Jio Platforms Ltd.

According to Al Jazeera, “Six days before Jio took it over, NEWJ amended its “Articles of Association” to give its “investor”, in this case Jio, control over what content NEWJ produces, aggregates or disseminates.” Jio pumped in a further Rs 8,49,60,000.

It is interesting to note that in 2020, Facebook purchased an almost 10 percent stake in Jio Platforms in a much-publicised deal worth $ 5.7 billion. It is also noteworthy that Shalabh Upadhyay’s father Umesh is the “president and media director at Reliance Industries Ltd and previously worked as president of news at Reliance-owned Network-18 group” according to the All Jazeera report. Also, Shalabh’s uncle Satish Upadhyay “is a BJP leader and former president of the party’s Delhi unit.”

However, NEWJ has not formally declared any formal link to the BJP. Moreover, there is no public record of the party paying NEWJ for creating and publishing political ads.

What kind of ads did NEWJ run?

According to Al Jazeera, “The (Facebook) Ad Library shows that the NEWJ page published roughly 170 political advertisements over the three months leading up to the parliamentary elections. Most either glorified BJP leaders, projected voters’ support for Modi, stoked nationalistic and religious sentiments — the poll planks of the BJP – or mocked opposition leaders and the rallies they held.”

Apart from the aforementioned ad about Pragya Thakur, NEWJ also ran ads that twisted out of context words of leaders such as People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Mehbooba Mufti and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

How did it get past ECI scrutiny?

When it comes to electoral malpractices, the Election Commission of India has detailed, but dated, guidelines about promotional activities and advertisements. Now, in a bid to hold political parties accountable for what information they put out, the ECI has strict guidelines against surrogate or ghost advertisements, i.e ads that favour a particular party or candidate, but are not funded or authorized by them.

Here is what the ECI’s Model Code of Conduct (MCC) say about advertising:

“Issue of advertisement at the cost of public exchequer in the newspapers and other media and the misuse of official mass media during the election period for partisan coverage of political news and publicity regarding achievements with a view to furthering the prospects of the party in power shall be scrupulously avoided.”

However, this does not specifically mention digital platforms and the term “other media” is ambiguous enough to manipulate the system and yet dodge the bullet when it comes to adhering to rules. Clearly, the ECI needs to update the MCC with more specific guidelines pertaining to the use of digital platforms and social media.

Did Facebook’s system of checks and balances fail again?

Facebook, now rebranded as Meta, is already facing multiple allegations of allowing its platform to be used for spreading Fake news and Hate speech. What’s worse, it appears, all of its much-publicised checks and balances, not only failed to check the spread of pro-BJP surrogate advertising disguised as news reports, there was also a marked absence of balance in corrective measures.

According to the Al Jazeera report, “In a much-publicised crackdown on what it called “Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour”, an action it took on its platform in several countries, it removed 687 pages and accounts that it said promoted the Congress party but concealed their association with it. Only one page and 14 accounts that promoted the BJP were removed. Those were owned and operated by an IT firm called Silver Touch which had not formally declared its link with the BJP.” This again shows how Facebook/Meta was targeting BJP’s opponents more.

But Meta denied the allegation and told The Reporters Collective (TRC), “We apply our policies uniformly without regard to anyone’s political positions or party affiliations. The decisions around integrity work or content escalations cannot and are not made unilaterally by just one person; rather, they are inclusive of different views from around the company, a process that is critical to making sure we consider, understand and account for both local and global contexts.”

Facebook enabled further surrogate advertising for BJP

In a follow up report published by Al Jazeera on March 15, it was revealed that “Facebook allowed a large number of ghost and surrogate advertisers to secretly fund the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) election campaigns in India and boost the governing party’s visibility, according to an analysis of advertisements placed on the social media platform across 22 months and 10 elections.”

The Reporters Collective and Ad.Watch mapped out all the advertisers who had spent more than Rs 5 lakh on Facebook for political advertisements between February 2019 and November 2020. They discovered that “BJP and its candidates officially placed 26,291 advertisements by spending at least 104 million rupees ($1.36m), for which they got more than 1.36 billion views on Facebook. That apart, at least 23 ghost and surrogate advertisers also placed 34,884 advertisements for which they paid Facebook more than 58.3 million rupees ($761,246), mostly to promote the BJP or denigrate its opposition, without disclosing their real identities or their affiliation with the party. These advertisements got more than a whopping 1.31 billion views.”

When it comes to BJP’s opponents, the team discovered, “Congress and its candidates officially placed 30,374 advertisements by paying at least 64.4 million rupees ($840,897), which got them more than 1.1 billion views. Only two surrogate advertisers (among those who spent more than 500,000 rupees – $6,529 – on advertisements) spent 2.3 million rupees ($30,032) on 3,130 advertisements on pro-Congress pages without disclosing affiliation with the party. Those advertisements got more than 73.8 million views. Another page spent 4.95 million rupees ($64,634) on 1,364 advertisements in campaigns against Modi, mostly in West Bengal elections last year in April, which got more than 62.4 million views.” These numbers are not even a patch on the corresponding figures of the BJP.

Related:

Facebook’s plans to curb online hate during Indian elections: Too little too late?

India’s Ecosystem of Hate: Is Facebook both, a Beneficiary and an Offender?

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After scrapping monthly medical allowance, staff across categories are being charged the same amount of premium for buying insurance from Anil Ambani’s Reliance.

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The resistance of the people that is taking place during Assembly election campaign of party in power does point to something that has changed in the political landscape in Gujarat. The resentment of the people is becoming more open. ‘Vikas’ is being ridiculed through pointing instances such as potholes on roads and essential commodities becoming more expensive. ‘Vikas Gando Thayo Che’ (Vikas has gone crazy) has spread in cyberspace. People have started questioning the popularized term ‘Vikas’ or ‘Gujarat model’. A consensus that has been reached by all sections of people is that ‘Gujarat Model’ is something that has failed to benefit them despite all the hype that was created around it.

Recently ASHA workers gathered in a meeting in Kapurai village of Vadodara district and pledged to campaign against “the anti-women, oppressive, Hitler-shahi and tyrannical State Government”. In a meeting organized by Jignesh Mevani, the villagers of Gujarat pledged not to vote for BJP. In a meeting on 2nd October, Patidar youth shouted “General Dyer Go back” during the inauguration of the Gaurav Yatra. Residents of two villagers in Valsad district put up banners saying that they would boycott elections as a company is contaminating waterbed in the area.

The boasting which was taking place in the name of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas’ has only turned out to be ‘Sabka Doka, Sab Barbaadh’. It is not surprising that people across all castes Jignesh Mevani representing Dalits, Alpesh Thakor representing other backward castes and Hardik Patel representing Patidars have come together to overthrow the present regime. This only shows that the poor from all the communities have been left out in this development model. While the three may represent their own social constituencies, but the broader issues of employment and development benefits not reaching them have brought them together. They only point to the vanishing job market. Coming together of Jignesh, Thakor and Hardik, also represent the unrest and resentment of youth in their own social constituencies. While the voices of minorities and adivasis may not be heard in this resistance, it also points to the level of political marginalization they have been through.

Growth of disillusionment could also be seen from among the traders, who formed a major support base of the party in power. Haphazard implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) had an effect on their business. The double stroke of demonetization and GST hit the textile industry in Gujarat. Production in Surat dropped by half and sales during Diwali drastically declined leading to losses. 90,000 looms were shut and 50,000 laborers lost their jobs.

According to the former chief minister of Gujarat Suresh Mehta, “Gujarat Model is nothing but a jugglery of words”. In this model, Gujarat’s debt has increased drastically to Rs. 1, 98,000 crore. While agricultural subsidies to farmers have declined by 80% i.e., from Rs. 408 crores to about Rs. 80 crores, on the other hand subsidies to corporates namely Adanis and Ambanis in petrochemical and energy sector has increased to Rs. 4,471 crores. Food subsidies have reduced by 60% from Rs. 130 crores to Rs. 52 crores. Industrial growth was hardly able to generate jobs. TATA Nano project did not create enough jobs.

Gujarat model points to the missing human dimension and inclusiveness. It is based on higher emphasis on accelerated infrastructure development of roads, highways, dams and a spike in foreign investment. Focus on human development continued to be the least. While the corporate and the rich classes benefitted, the poor were hardly beneficiaries of this model. While Gujarat continues to be among the high performing states in terms of growth rates, it stands low in relation to inclusiveness and human development. Among states ranked from lowest to highest rates of poverty, Gujarat ranks 10th among 20 major states. In terms of mortality it is ranked 11th. In life expectancy, it is ranked 10th. In overall Human Development Index (HDI), Gujarat is ranked 10th.

The growing resentment among people of Gujarat only point to the failure of the much hyped ‘Gujarat model’ or the slogan ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’. It is true that ‘Vikas’ has gone crazy, but it is for the Corporates at the cost of the large majority of the Gujaratis. It is a “Development model for the 1% at the cost of the 99%’. Has Gujarat’s moment of a different version of Occupy movement arrived?

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By now it is clear to everyone that demonetisation is a total failure. In the beginning, we were told that demonetisation is going to wipe out Rs. 3 to 4 lakh crores of black money. There were even speculations that government is going to use the 3 to 4 lakh crore rupees leftover with RBI, for spending on social welfare programmes. But, all of this has been proved wrong – very little, if any, black money has been destroyed.

What is the reason behind this failure? Has demonetisation failed because there is no black money in India?

The truth is – there is a lot of black money in India. But, it is not lying in people’s trunks in the form of piles of cash. According to government’s own estimates only about 6% of black money in India is held in the form of cash. 94% of it is actually held in the form of gold, land, buildings and even as benami bank deposits.

Moreover, a large chunk of black money belonging to Indians, is not actually held within the country. According to some estimates nearly Rs. 34 lakh crores of black money has flown out of India (in a decade), into tax havens abroad.

This flow of black money happens through legal channels, through a process of over and under invoicing.

Corporations controlled by prominent industrialists like  Gautam Adani (imported coal scam), Anil Ambani (imported coal scam), Ruia (imported coal scam) , Anil Mittal (telecom scam) , Mukesh Ambani (KG-Basin scam) – were known to have been involved in such transactions of over invoicing the costs and under invoicing the revenue.

The black money generated in this process is stashed in tax havens. It is brought back from there to India through legal channels – in the form of FDI. As a result, a lot of FDI coming into India is actually India’s own black money. Today, more than 50% of India’s FDI actually comes from just two such tax havens (Mauritius and Singapore), which are well known for being used by the Indian rich to stash and recycle their black money.

The FDI coming through such well known Tax havens has gone up by about 40%, since Modi has come in to power.

If the government is really sincere in its fight against black money – it is not very difficult to prevent the black money from going abroad. After all, modifying and renegotiating tax treaties is entirely in the government’s hands.
The real question is – does Mr. Modi really want to do it? Would he go after the Adanis and Ambanis of the country, whom he regularly courts?

Disclaimer: Kicked Up Pumps by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Courtesy: Newsclick.

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विपक्ष के बाद अब बीजेपी के नेता भी मोदी सरकार पर हमलावर हो गए हैं। बयानों से चर्चा में रहने वाले राजस्थान के कोटा जिले के बीजेपी विधायक भवानी सिंह राजावत ने नोटबंदी पर अपनी ही पार्टी को कटघरे में खड़ा कर दिया है। बुधवार को भवानी सिंह राजावत का एक वीडियो वायरल हुआ है। इस वायरल हुए वीडियो में राजावत मोदी सरकार के नोटबंदी पर सवाल उठा रहे हैं। राजावत कह रहे हैं, "अंबानी-अडानी को नोटबंदी के बारे में पहले से ही पता था। इनको हिंट दे दी गई थी और इसके बाद उन्होंने अपना काम कर लिया।"
 
भवानी सिंह राजावत ने कथित तौर पर कहा है कि अंबानी और अडानी को 500 और 1000 के नोट बंद किए जाने के बारे में पहले से पता था। बुधवार को इंटरनेट पर रिलीज किए गए इस वीडियो में बीजेपी विधायक कथित तौर पर ऐसा कहते दिख रहे हैं। 
 
यही नहीं नए नोटों की क्वालिटी के बारे में अपनी राय रखते हुए वीडियो में राजावत कह रहे हैं, "नए नोट की क्वालिटी थर्ड क्लास है, छूते ही लगता है कि नकली है। देश की आबादी के अनुपात में करंसी प्रिंट कराते, उसके बाद में कुछ करते। एक साथ पेट्रोल पंप की कीमतों की तरह कह दिया कि आज रात 12 बजे से 500-1000 के नोट बंद कर दिए जाएंगे। इसको ठहरकर कर सकते थे, एक महीने बाद हो जाएगा, 15 दिन बाद हो जाएगा, पहले यह होगा, फिर यह होगा।" 
 
आपको बता दें यह वीडियो 33 सकेंड का है जिसमें विधायक बोलते नजर आ रहे हैं कि नए नोट की क्वालिटी थर्ड क्लास की है, लेते ही लगता है नोट नकली है। इसके बाद राजावत ने सफाई देते हुए कहा कि मैंने ऐसा कोई बयान नहीं दिया। वीडियो में कांट-छांट की गई है। यह सब एक षड्यंत्र के तहत किया गया है।

Courtesy: National Dastak

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रिलायंस डिफ़ेंस को पिछले ही महीने रक्षा प्रोजेक्ट के ठेके लेने की मंज़ूरी मिली है। 16 सितंबर को रक्षा मंत्रालय ने इसकी स्वीकृति दी। कई कंपनियाँ इसके लिए क़तार में थीं पर बाज़ी रिलायंस डिफ़ेंस के हाथ लगी। इसके 18 दिन बाद ही रिलायंस डिफ़ेंस को राफ़ेल सौदे के एवज़ में मिलने वाले ठेकों में सबसे बड़ा हिस्सा मिल गया। रिलायंस डिफ़ेंस के शेयर भाव आज लगभग साढे आठ परसेंट ऊपर उछल गए। 
 
पढ़िए खबर
 
इस खबर के बाद रिलायंस के शेयर भी तेजी से बढ़ गए हैं। गौरतलब है कि अनिल अंबानी की रिलायंस ने पिछले साल ही डिफेंस सेक्टर में कदम रखा है। सालभर के अंदर ही क्लियरेंस मिलने के साथ ही भारी-भरकम ठेका हाथ लग गया। 
 
भारत और फ्रांस के 23 सितंबर को 36 राफेल लड़ाकू जेट के लिए समझौते पर हस्ताक्षर करने के बाद संयुक्त उद्यम दसो रिलायंस एयरोस्पेस गठित किए जाने की घोषणा हुई है। लड़ाकू विमान का यह सौदा 7.87 अरब यूरो (करीब 59,000 करोड़ रुपये) का है। 'ऑफसेट' कॉन्ट्रैक्ट के तहत संबंधित कंपनी को सौदे की राशि का एक निश्चित प्रतिशत लगाना पड़ता है। समझौते में 50 प्रतिशत ऑफसेट बाध्यता है जो देश में अब तक का सबसे बड़ा 'ऑफसेट' अनुबंध है।  

'ऑफसेट' समझौते का मुख्य बिंदु यह है कि 74 प्रतिशत भारत से आयात किया जाएगा। इसका मतलब है कि करीब 22,000 करोड़ रुपये का सीधा कारोबार होगा। इसमें टेक्नॉलजी पार्टनरशिप की भी बात है जिस पर रक्षा अनुसंधान एवं विकास संगठन (डीआरडीओ) के साथ चर्चा हो रही है। राफेल सौदे में अन्य कंपनियां भी हैं जिनमें फ्रांस की एमबीडीए तथा थेल्स शामिल हैं। इनके अलावा सैफरॉन भी ऑफसेट बाध्यता का हिस्सा है।
 
दोनों कंपनियों के संयुक्त बयान के अनुसार इन ऑफसेट बाध्यताओं के लागू करने में संयुक्त उद्यम दसो रिलायंस एयरोस्पेस प्रमुख कंपनी होगी। रिलायंस समूह रक्षा क्षेत्र में जनवरी 2015 में आया। ऐसे में यह समझौता समूह के लिए उत्साहजनक है। बयान के अनुसार, 'नया संयुक्त उद्यम दसो रिलायंस एयरोस्पेस प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी के मेक इन इंडिया और स्किल इंडिया अभियानों को गति देगा। साथ ही हाई टेक्नॉलजी ट्रांसफर के साथ बड़े भारतीय कार्यक्रम का विकास करेगा जिससे पूरे एयरोस्पेस क्षेत्र को लाभ होगा।'

Courtesy: National Dastak

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Video Courtesy: Newsclick.in
 
Editor Economic & Political Weekly, Prananjoy Guha Thakurta speaks to Newsclick on a massive financial fraud –at least to the tune of Rs 29,000 crores –being currently investigated by the Drectorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). Thakurta broke the story in EPW on April 2, 2016.

There appears to be a major scam involving some of India’s mightiest companies like Adani Group and Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and forty of India’s biggest energy companies. This is currently under the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) scanner. Conservative estimates put the amount involved at nor less that Rs. 29,000 crores, which then is passed onto the electricity consumer in the form of higher power tariffs. 

What was the exact modus operandi of these companies? What did the companies actually do to inflate the price of coal that they were importing? How did this scam come to light? To discuss and to know more about these issues Newsclick interviewed Editor, Economic & Political Weekly, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, who exposed the scam. 

In EPW, Thakurta says, “Among the private companies being investigated, the best known names include at least six firms belonging to the Adani group—Adani Enterprises Ltd, Adani Power Ltd, Adani Power Rajasthan Ltd, Adani Power Maharashtra Ltd, Adani Wilmar Ltd and Vyom Trade Link. The Adani group is headed by Gautam Adani who is known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The group has supplied coal to various power generation and distribution companies, including Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, Gujarat State Electricity Corporation, Haryana Power Generation Corporation and Jhajjar Power Ltd.

“Other privately-controlled companies in the list of firms being probed by the DRI include Reliance Infrastructure Ltd and Rosa Power Supply Co Ltd, both of which are part of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) led by Anil Ambani; two companies in the Essar group promoted by the Ruia family, Essar Oil Ltd and Essar Power Gujarat Ltd; JSW Steel Ltd headed by Sajjan Jindal; four companies in the Hyderabad-based NSL group (NSL Sugar, NSL Krishnaveni Sugar, NSL Sugar Tungabhadra and NSL Textiles) promoted by M Venkataramaiah and M Prabhakar Rao; India Cements Ltd led by former International Cricket Council chairman N Srinivasan; and Uttam Galwa Steels Ltd led by Rajinder Miglani.

The list also includes Gupta Coal India Ltd; MBG Commodities Pvt Ltd; Knowledge Infrastructure Systems Pvt Ltd; three companies in the Bhatia group, Bhatia Global Trading, Bhatia International (Asia Natural Resource), Bhatia Industry and Infrastructure (Hemang Resources); two companies in the Gandhar group, Gandhar Oil and Refinery India Ltd and Gandhar Coal and Mines; Coastal Energy Ltd; Aggarwal Coal Ltd; Suryadev Alloys and Power Pvt Ltd; Laxmi Organic Industries Ltd; Phoenix Comtrade Pvt Ltd; and Simhapuri Energy Ltd.

Government-owned companies being investigated include the country's largest power producer NTPC Ltd (formerly National Thermal Power Corporation Limited), MMTC Ltd (formerly Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation Limited), MSTC Ltd (formerly Metal Scrap Trading Corporation Limited) and Karnataka Power Corporation Limited.

The DRI has monitored the details of coal imports of these companies till 31 March 2016, information accessed by the authors suggests.

Web of Scams
This revelation comes weeks after the DRI secured the first arrest of an accused person who was allegedly involved in over-invoicing of coal imported from Indonesia. On 27 February 2016, the DRI arrested Manoj Kumar Garg, a Hong Kong based Indian national who had allegedly opened a front company in Dubai responsible for over-valuing imported coal to the tune of Rs 280 crore. The coal was meant for the state electricity boards in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.”

In this interview, Thakurta explains how some corporate giants, especially close to the political establishment in Delhi have carried out this scam by actually over-invoicing the price of coal being imported. Over-invoicing meant actually charging, on paper 40-50 per cent more than what was paid to the coal suppliers; this burden was passed on to the ordinary Indian consumer while the companies involved in these massive illegalities actually transferred the amounts illegally to foreign accounts.

This is a huge fraud on the ordinary user of electricity. In these 40 companies apart from some major private players close to the Modi establishment are also the Electricity Boards of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Haryana.

It remains to be seen how the central agencies –under the union finance ministry—and then the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the SEBI deal with this massive scam before the courts come into the picture.

The post Electric Companies Duping Indian Consumers: DRI Investigates a 29,000 Crores Rupees Scam appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Larger Processes At Work Destroying Journalism Today: P. Sainath

The commercial interests of these (business-controlled) channels represent the commercial interests of the largest corporations of the country.

 
 “One problem with the fourth estate of democracy i.e. the media, is that of the four it’s the only one that is profit seeking. And in this city (Mumbai) it is very difficult to tell the difference between the fourth estate and real estate. India has a society that is incredibly diverse, heterogeneous and complex, reported by a media that is shrinking to narrower control.
 
The more your society is heterogeneous, the more your media is getting homogeneous. That is an incredible, irreconcilable contradiction. Look at the nature of panels and debates on Television.
 
What is their social composition? Who are the columnists in newspapers? It’s an extremely small, incestuous circle. The most sympathetic response to farmer suicides I have received, have come from institutions associated with the armed forces.
 
Why? Because many of our jawans are kisans in uniform. A senior officer at a training institute for soldiers once told me that he was worried about the boys from Maharashtra. They fear a call from village. When they call their families they are happy but not if they get a call from home. They don’t’ want to know what happened to whom. There is such a close relationship between a jawan and kisan.. they are practically the same class.
 
Where does the national vs. anti-national debate come from? From people whose ideological forebears never participated in national struggle, who gave whining apology to the British to be let out of prison while others died.
 
People who assassinated the father of the nation will now teach you nationalism. Today you have an entire generation robbed of its history. They have no clue what happened in the national struggle, who did what, who were the nationalists and who were the collaborators of British imperialism. Major changes have taken place.
 
Angry though I am at individual editors and anchors, I think there are much larger processes at work destroying journalism. Without addressing these, just changing anchors won’t help. These anchors are there because they are allowed to be there.
 
In the last 20 odd years we have reduced journalism to a revenue stream. This has happened because of the corporatisation of media. Entities controlling the media today are larger, more powerful than we have ever known.
 
In the last 25-30 years the concentration of media ownership has taken place rapidly and massively. Take the case of the largest network: Network 18. It is owned by Mukesh Ambani. All of you know the many channels of the ETV network. How many of you know that except the Telugu channel, all others are also owned by Mukesh Ambani just as he owns many other channels across the country?
 
If we all remain in journalism for five more years, we could all be owned by him. He does not know the names of all the channels he owns. Yet he could issue a fatwa stating that Aam Aadmi Party will not be covered during elections and it will be done. The commercial interests of these channels represent the commercial interests of the largest corporations of the country. So you are going to have extreme tightening and control of content.
 
In the last 20 odd years, the owners of the corporations that own and control media have been the biggest beneficiaries of neoliberalism and privatisation of public resources. Everyone seems to forget that Manmohan Singh was treated like a god for the first five years.
 
All those great anchors in 2009 had said this victory was not of the Congress party but is Manmohan Singh’s victory, that it is the victory of economic reforms. Now keep watch, the next round of privatisation is on the anvil. And who would gain from these?
 
If mining is being privatised – the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis, Adanis all of them will be the big beneficiaries. When natural gas is privatised, Essar and Ambanis will benefit. And from the Spectrum – Tatas, Ambanis, Birlas.
 
Your media owners are poised to be the biggest beneficiaries of policies of the privatisation of public resources. They will get into the banks as well when those are privatised. Now here’s the bite.
 
They invested a few years in building up a fuehrer like figure called Narendra Modi, reducing all his rivals to dust consigned to the dustbin of Gujarat and Delhi. But he has not been able to deliver. And they don’t know what to do. He has not been able to push his land acquisition bill. He has not been able to do a lot of things you have been salivating for. They are angry with Modi but they don’t have a replacement.
 
What do they do? So finally we are seeing some amount of leeway in the media, a little bit of whining now and then. I say again that the Indian media is politically free but imprisoned by profit. That is the character of Indian media. I am not so impressed by the turnaround of the media on Kanhaiya. Remember they got millions of eyeballs by carrying his speech. Their viewership went up fabulously.
 
Despite the turn, many of them accepted the terms of debate of the BJP where they would claim that what was done to Kanhaiya was wrong but you have to begin it by saying that they are against the antinational slogans. You apologise in advance and you have accepted that framework and slotted yourself into that framework.
 
Corporatisation of media is not new though it is faster in India than in many other countries. In USA and Australia it has already reached saturation point. Look at journalism in the last 10 years. Of the three greatest expose that impacted journalism, shaken it to its core, not one has come from mainstream professional journalism.  These three are Assange and Wikileaks, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.
 
Why did none of them come out of the so called professional news organisation? Because they are not pro establishment or pro big business they are big business they are the establishment. They are too heavily invested in the market to tell you the truth about it.
 
Their shares will suffer in value if they start examining the share bazaar in any critical way. So don’t ever invest your money based on tips of newspapers. They have got millions of shares out there and they are never going to tell you the truth about it. Because of revenue becoming the chief criteria of journalism, you have private treaties whereby if you are a mid-sized corporation wanting to make the big leap and you come to me who is the biggest English newspaper in the planet, I will tell you to sign a private treaty. This will give me 10% shares in your company. But if I do that, there can be no negative reporting of your company in my newspaper.
 
Now when a newspaper develops shares in 200 companies, is that a newspaper or an equity firm. Good journalism is a society in conversation with itself, a nation in debate and argument with itself. It’s a public service and when we talk of monetising this sort of a public service, you pay a terrible price for it. Let me give you a glimpse into the size of rural India – 833 million people, 784 languages, 6 of them spoken by more than 50 million, 3 of them spoken by more than 80 million.
 
Now according to latest report of Delhi based Centre for Media Studies, rural India gets only 0.18% of space on the front pages of the top 6 newspapers in the country and only 0.16 percent of space on the prime time of six major news channels in the country.
 
I started the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) to try and capture some of the gigantic transitions that is on in this rural India where one third of us who live in urban India have our roots. But everywhere I go, people ask: what is your revenue model? I say I don’t have one but what work of art or literature would be in existence today if the creator had to have a revenue model.
 
What if Valmiki had to get an approval for his revenue model before writing the Ramayana, or Shakespeare before writing his plays? To those who ask for my revenue model, I say that I know one guy who had a very good revenue model and it worked for 40 years, his name was Veerappan. There were attendant risks in his work, but what is entrepreneurism without risks?
 
High risk, high reward. To this day, the media has done a very poor job of covering the fallout of the beef ban in this state with one or two great exceptions and I must say Times of India of all papers, was a fabulous exception. The beef ban has not just destroyed Muslims who it is supposed to destroy, it has destroyed the Dalits and the Kolhapur chappal industry, it has smashed the hell out of the OBCs who control the cattle markets, it has just about smashed everything in the countryside.
 
You have a bunch of urban, lower middle class or upper middle class people who know nothing about agriculture or centrality of the cow to the rural economy but have taken decisions. Has the media done any serious, hard-hitting investigation on the murder of the three rationalists – Comrade Govind Pansare or Narendra Dhabolkar or Kalburgi? The courts are scolding the police and the government for dragging their feet but there is no serious investigation. All the three were killed by the same method by the same young men in a motorcycle. By the way, Haren Pandya in Gujarat was killed the same way as well.
 
 What is the difference between this rule of BJP and the previous time? I believe this political situation is unique in our history and for the first time in our history an RSS pracharak is PM with a majority. The earlier pracharak was quite jaded and there had been 40 years of softening between him being an active pracharak and being prime minister and he did not have a majority.
 
A lot changes when you have a pracharak with a majority. And the media is negotiating space with this. I believe this country is ruled by a coalition of social-religious fundamentalist and market-economic fundamentalist and they need each other. So what are the things that you can do?
 
There is a very strong case for fighting for democratisation of media; by law, by legislation and by popular movement. Literature, journalism, storytelling, these did not come out due to investments of corporations. They have come out of communities, of people, of societies. Let’s try and take it back to them.
 
When Bal Gangadhar Tilak was imprisoned for Sedition, people came out on the street and died to defend his freedom as a journalist. That was the working class of Mumbai. Some of them were people who could not even read. But they came out to defend an Indian’s right to freedom of expression. There was once a great organic link between the Indian media and the Indian masses.
 
You need to fight for the democratisation of the media, for strengthening of the public broadcaster; you need to be able to break monopoly – monopoly se azaadi – over media ownership. You need to increase diversity in ownership of media, increase the public space in private forum that the media has become and believe me we need to fight for that space. It won’t be easy but it can be done.
 
(Video Recording by Satyen Bordoloi at the Mumbai Collective, March 5, 2016 This is a version of the speech delivered by Senior journalist P Sainath on the March 5, 2016, Mumbai Collective. The full version can be heard on the Video Below)

See also:
1. Gandhi, Ambedkar and Lenin would be dubbed as left wing loonies today: P. Sainath
2.P. Sainath's Interview in Hindi with Teesta Setalvad Part I and II

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The post Almost All TV Channels are controlled by Mukesh Ambani threatening Independent Journalism: P. Sainath appeared first on SabrangIndia.