Nidhu Bhusan Das
The floodgate of Trinamool Congress remains wide open for unwanted elements to rush into the new ruling party at different places of West Bengal despite the word of caution from its supremo Mamata Banerjee. As Chief Minister she has vowed to replace partycracy of the unseated Left Front by democracy, and told the police to function ignoring interference from political parties including hers. The top leadership of the party has dictated policy for its functionaries and workers against coercion, intimidation extortion and interference in the administration.
It appears the diktat does not work everywhere. In many places of rural North Bengal, it is reported, thugs who migrated from the major partner of the Left Front to the party are active in the business of coercion and extortion as before. This is ominous. This happened to the CPI (M) after they came to power in 1977.The discovery of human skeletons, fire arms and armory from and near the CPI (M) offices and residences of party leaders and workers tells loud and clear what went wrong with the party which once inspired popular imagination and dream of a better socio-economic order. The dream deflated when lumpen elements began to wield influence and unleashed terror on common people. The repeat is evident with trinamool on saddle of power.
The party supremo has the blessing and trust of the people. Her role as Chief Minister is seen as positive. However, if the thugs and lumpens can continue to disturb peace of the people, their dream of a terror-free life will be shattered to the disadvantage of the government for change and democracy. Entry of unwanted elements into the party cannot be possible without the nod of the local leaders. It is important that the top leadership identify those leaders in no time and stem the rot to retain the goodwill and trust of the people. It is the duty of the government and the party to establish meaningful democracy where people will be free and fearless to speak their mind to respect and maintain constitutional sanctity. Even development will not be possible if the lumpens have the hey day. West Bengal is in dire straits, and without massive development Ms Banerjee will not be able to fulfill her dream and meet the aspirations of the people she has enkindled.
Marxist Sans Marxism
Nidhu Bhusan Das
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharyya has the recent refrain: Either leftism or death. Noble declamation. They swear by leftism but never again pays lip service to Marxism after the fall of the socialist regimes in East Europe and dismantling of the Soviet Union in the wake of Perestroika and Glasnost laid out by Mikhail Gorbachev.The Left Front led by CPI (M) rules the eastern Indian state since 1977.During their long rule the proletariat has not emerged as a distinct class with ability to govern. Instead, a red bourgeoisie has come into being, and a coalition between the left rulers and the capitalists is quite evident. This is, no doubt, a compromise.
Lenin, by way of discussing compromises in class struggle with the bourgeoisie, emphasized that they can be and, in the case of the opportunists, are a means of preserving and protecting the capitalist system, in the final analysis representing acts of treachery against the revolutionary proletariat. Way back in 1984, Alexander Titarenko, Head of the Chair of Ethics and the History of Philosophy at Moscow State University, in his essay ‘Lenin on the Relationship Between Politics and Morality’ wrote: ‘Principles and ideals cannot be changed at will, proceeding from considerations of success here and now.They are not subject to fashion like shoes or clothes. Principles and ideals form the humanist core of the communist world outlook, and it is precisely on their basis that man cognizes changes of reality and, at the same time, witnesses their further mutual enrichment and development.’ Lenin demanded that a Marxist politician should have high moral qualities such as depth of convictions, integrity, a keen conscience, a sense of class justice and loyalty to communist moral ideals.
The ruling Marxists in West Bengal appear to be miles away from the communist moral ideals. They have surrendered the ideals at the altar of electoral politics and forces of market economy which has phenomenal expansion across the globe under the process of globalization in the unipolar world. The forcible eviction of peasants from their land acquired for Tata Motors at Singur, the atrocities on the people of Nandigram who were unwilling to part with their fertile land for the chemical hub of the Salim Group of Indonesia demonstrate the abject surrender of the communist moral ideals.
A basic postulate of Marxism is that the superstructure of the society reflects the nature and interest of the class which dominates the basic structure i.e., the economy. Law represents the superstructure. The left government has invoked the law made by the British colonial rulers in 1894 to acquire land at Singur, and that too not in public interest but in the interest of a corporate house. The bonhomie of the Bengal Marxists with the corporate entities at home and abroad smacks of aberration.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharyya has the recent refrain: Either leftism or death. Noble declamation. They swear by leftism but never again pays lip service to Marxism after the fall of the socialist regimes in East Europe and dismantling of the Soviet Union in the wake of Perestroika and Glasnost laid out by Mikhail Gorbachev.The Left Front led by CPI (M) rules the eastern Indian state since 1977.During their long rule the proletariat has not emerged as a distinct class with ability to govern. Instead, a red bourgeoisie has come into being, and a coalition between the left rulers and the capitalists is quite evident. This is, no doubt, a compromise.
Lenin, by way of discussing compromises in class struggle with the bourgeoisie, emphasized that they can be and, in the case of the opportunists, are a means of preserving and protecting the capitalist system, in the final analysis representing acts of treachery against the revolutionary proletariat. Way back in 1984, Alexander Titarenko, Head of the Chair of Ethics and the History of Philosophy at Moscow State University, in his essay ‘Lenin on the Relationship Between Politics and Morality’ wrote: ‘Principles and ideals cannot be changed at will, proceeding from considerations of success here and now.They are not subject to fashion like shoes or clothes. Principles and ideals form the humanist core of the communist world outlook, and it is precisely on their basis that man cognizes changes of reality and, at the same time, witnesses their further mutual enrichment and development.’ Lenin demanded that a Marxist politician should have high moral qualities such as depth of convictions, integrity, a keen conscience, a sense of class justice and loyalty to communist moral ideals.
The ruling Marxists in West Bengal appear to be miles away from the communist moral ideals. They have surrendered the ideals at the altar of electoral politics and forces of market economy which has phenomenal expansion across the globe under the process of globalization in the unipolar world. The forcible eviction of peasants from their land acquired for Tata Motors at Singur, the atrocities on the people of Nandigram who were unwilling to part with their fertile land for the chemical hub of the Salim Group of Indonesia demonstrate the abject surrender of the communist moral ideals.
A basic postulate of Marxism is that the superstructure of the society reflects the nature and interest of the class which dominates the basic structure i.e., the economy. Law represents the superstructure. The left government has invoked the law made by the British colonial rulers in 1894 to acquire land at Singur, and that too not in public interest but in the interest of a corporate house. The bonhomie of the Bengal Marxists with the corporate entities at home and abroad smacks of aberration.
HARMAD
Nidhu Bhusan Das
What’s Harmad, mom?
Don’t know? What our beloved Boss believes should not be used to refer to the armed cadres and hired goons of his party.
Why he believes so?
He is conscious more about the dress than thought and substance.
What’s the substance of his thought?
He calls the main opposition party uneducated by innuendo but won’t brook any reference to his party using armed cadres and hired goons to control areas and silence opposition.
Is it?
Haven’t you seen the armed people with slippers and in police uniform in operation along with police at Nandigram against the innocent villagers who were against land acquisition for chemical hub, and people with staves and bombs in the procession led by a senior colleague of the Boss?
Yes, in the TV?
What would you call them?
Criminals, outlaws!
Hush! Don’t be loud, my son. They may be around.
So what!
They will make our life a hell as they said they would and did in Nandigram.
Cowards die many times before their death, mom.
But they are powered by the state, you know.
They swear by democracy, mom.
This is only lip service to the government by the people, for the people and of the people.
What is, then, actually true.
Theirs is the government by terrorized and misinformed people, for the party and of the party.
So the Boss said, ‘we are 235 to their 30.’?
Exactly, if Britain and the USA are democracies.
What’s Harmad, mom?
Don’t know? What our beloved Boss believes should not be used to refer to the armed cadres and hired goons of his party.
Why he believes so?
He is conscious more about the dress than thought and substance.
What’s the substance of his thought?
He calls the main opposition party uneducated by innuendo but won’t brook any reference to his party using armed cadres and hired goons to control areas and silence opposition.
Is it?
Haven’t you seen the armed people with slippers and in police uniform in operation along with police at Nandigram against the innocent villagers who were against land acquisition for chemical hub, and people with staves and bombs in the procession led by a senior colleague of the Boss?
Yes, in the TV?
What would you call them?
Criminals, outlaws!
Hush! Don’t be loud, my son. They may be around.
So what!
They will make our life a hell as they said they would and did in Nandigram.
Cowards die many times before their death, mom.
But they are powered by the state, you know.
They swear by democracy, mom.
This is only lip service to the government by the people, for the people and of the people.
What is, then, actually true.
Theirs is the government by terrorized and misinformed people, for the party and of the party.
So the Boss said, ‘we are 235 to their 30.’?
Exactly, if Britain and the USA are democracies.
I'm A Marxist
Nidhu Bhusan Das
I’m a Marxist.
Is it?
Very much.
Where’s your beard?
Is it necessary to have a beard to be a Marxist?
Marx’s bearded. I’ve seen his photo.
Karat, Yechuri, Bhattacharyya, Bose, Konar et al are not bearded, yet Marxists.
You see, they have scored good marks, and you know to-day marks are marx as pictures are pix.So, they are Marxists.
What do you mean?
Karat and Yechuri are JNU alumni, Bhattacharyya’s alma mater is Presidency College, Kolkata.Besides, and he’s two times Chief Minister and long serving state Home Minister. Bhattacharyya, Bose and Konar are superb in letting out streams of invectives against the opposition. Have you heard them speak?
Yes, they declaim and gesture like protagonists in an Elizabethan Revenge Play and win the claps of the neo-proletariats. This is their score.
Who are neo-proletariats?
Oh! You don’t know? Well, they are red capitalists, their henchmen.Anti-Marxists or reactionaries call the henchmen lumpen proletariat. They play a glorious role in keeping the Marxists in power. They are sharp shooters, can make and use bombs. They are an important feature of a ruling Marxist procession and meeting. They are expert in impersonating, booth jamming and rigging polls. They can keep the voters indoors, spare the people of the trouble of coming to the polling booths. All the votes of such people go in favour of Marxists candidates. At least the opposition has such allegations.
The opposition is reactionary.
So, the Chief Minister Bhattacharyya and Chairman Bose call the lady at the head of the opposition a liar and the oppositoion led by her indisciplined and trouble-monger.
Is it true the lady was once mortally wounded by a Marxist street fighter? His name’s Alam?
It’s correct and also right in all senses. Let me clarify. She was in the right against the left led by the Marxists and it was right for the left to try to annihilate her. Also, in the Marxist dispensation Marxists street fighters are allowed the right to do so. In such cases, the constitutional right to life is suspended. No case is filed for such attack.
Well, I am enlightened. Now what will the Marxists do to face the Assembly polls in
2011? Do they believe a change is on the card, as the lady in the opposition claims?
Marxists believe only in Marxism, nothing short of it. Marxism thrives only when the party is in power. So, they will try to retain power. Marxists could be Machiavellians to accept that the end determines the means.
You’re a Marxist because you understand the Marxists.
You’re correct. I know the Marxists around me and their modus operendi.I don’t know what is there in the Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto.That doesn’t matter.
I’m a Marxist.
Is it?
Very much.
Where’s your beard?
Is it necessary to have a beard to be a Marxist?
Marx’s bearded. I’ve seen his photo.
Karat, Yechuri, Bhattacharyya, Bose, Konar et al are not bearded, yet Marxists.
You see, they have scored good marks, and you know to-day marks are marx as pictures are pix.So, they are Marxists.
What do you mean?
Karat and Yechuri are JNU alumni, Bhattacharyya’s alma mater is Presidency College, Kolkata.Besides, and he’s two times Chief Minister and long serving state Home Minister. Bhattacharyya, Bose and Konar are superb in letting out streams of invectives against the opposition. Have you heard them speak?
Yes, they declaim and gesture like protagonists in an Elizabethan Revenge Play and win the claps of the neo-proletariats. This is their score.
Who are neo-proletariats?
Oh! You don’t know? Well, they are red capitalists, their henchmen.Anti-Marxists or reactionaries call the henchmen lumpen proletariat. They play a glorious role in keeping the Marxists in power. They are sharp shooters, can make and use bombs. They are an important feature of a ruling Marxist procession and meeting. They are expert in impersonating, booth jamming and rigging polls. They can keep the voters indoors, spare the people of the trouble of coming to the polling booths. All the votes of such people go in favour of Marxists candidates. At least the opposition has such allegations.
The opposition is reactionary.
So, the Chief Minister Bhattacharyya and Chairman Bose call the lady at the head of the opposition a liar and the oppositoion led by her indisciplined and trouble-monger.
Is it true the lady was once mortally wounded by a Marxist street fighter? His name’s Alam?
It’s correct and also right in all senses. Let me clarify. She was in the right against the left led by the Marxists and it was right for the left to try to annihilate her. Also, in the Marxist dispensation Marxists street fighters are allowed the right to do so. In such cases, the constitutional right to life is suspended. No case is filed for such attack.
Well, I am enlightened. Now what will the Marxists do to face the Assembly polls in
2011? Do they believe a change is on the card, as the lady in the opposition claims?
Marxists believe only in Marxism, nothing short of it. Marxism thrives only when the party is in power. So, they will try to retain power. Marxists could be Machiavellians to accept that the end determines the means.
You’re a Marxist because you understand the Marxists.
You’re correct. I know the Marxists around me and their modus operendi.I don’t know what is there in the Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto.That doesn’t matter.
Choreographed Violence
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Witness the dance of violence in West Bengal. You will find it reasonable to believe it is meticulously choreographed. Since the Lokshabha polls the spate of violence continues unabated. No let up appears to be in sight. Bloodshed has been routine. Governance is virtually absent. Constitutional machinery has been rendered ineffective. Government is in place sans governance. An alarming situation prevails. Right to life has ceased to exist. We have an elaborate arrangement for democratic rule in the absence tolerance. The discourse of violence and invectives has replaced debate, dialogue and discussion. Terror looms large ahead of the Assembly polls.
The reason is obvious. We have democracy on the lip and disregard for the demos i.e., the people and their free will. We are afraid of the free and fair expression of people’s will at the hustings. So, we intimidate people, terrorize them with a view to preventing them from the expression of their free will. Yet we boast of our democracy. It is ironical, and we are not ashamed. Coercion and terror cannot be in use to the degeneration of democracy if the ruling party acts in earnest to prevent such misadventure. In fact, the ruling party is often found to use such methods to cling to power where informed and educated public opinion is sought to be relegated to insignificance and the government seeks to be the guardian of the public mind.
Our Chief Minister seems to be more loyal to the party than to the Constitution he was sworn- in to protect. He is in the habit of hurling invectives at the leader of the main opposition, the party which has thrown the toughest challenge in about three decades and a half of their rule during which the economy, education and healthcare and work culture have nosedived. Those accused in murder cases are at large, and the police cannot trace them if they belong to the ruling Marxist party. The Chief Minister is vociferous when he digs at the opposition blames it for all evils, and is tight-lipped even when his cabinet colleague is seen leading a procession of party men armed with bombs and staves.
This being the scenario, the ruler may wield power but loses authority. This is a precarious situation in the state. The rule of law is at stake when the ruler loses authority and the dictum of the Constitution that all are equal in the eye of law is not followed.
Witness the dance of violence in West Bengal. You will find it reasonable to believe it is meticulously choreographed. Since the Lokshabha polls the spate of violence continues unabated. No let up appears to be in sight. Bloodshed has been routine. Governance is virtually absent. Constitutional machinery has been rendered ineffective. Government is in place sans governance. An alarming situation prevails. Right to life has ceased to exist. We have an elaborate arrangement for democratic rule in the absence tolerance. The discourse of violence and invectives has replaced debate, dialogue and discussion. Terror looms large ahead of the Assembly polls.
The reason is obvious. We have democracy on the lip and disregard for the demos i.e., the people and their free will. We are afraid of the free and fair expression of people’s will at the hustings. So, we intimidate people, terrorize them with a view to preventing them from the expression of their free will. Yet we boast of our democracy. It is ironical, and we are not ashamed. Coercion and terror cannot be in use to the degeneration of democracy if the ruling party acts in earnest to prevent such misadventure. In fact, the ruling party is often found to use such methods to cling to power where informed and educated public opinion is sought to be relegated to insignificance and the government seeks to be the guardian of the public mind.
Our Chief Minister seems to be more loyal to the party than to the Constitution he was sworn- in to protect. He is in the habit of hurling invectives at the leader of the main opposition, the party which has thrown the toughest challenge in about three decades and a half of their rule during which the economy, education and healthcare and work culture have nosedived. Those accused in murder cases are at large, and the police cannot trace them if they belong to the ruling Marxist party. The Chief Minister is vociferous when he digs at the opposition blames it for all evils, and is tight-lipped even when his cabinet colleague is seen leading a procession of party men armed with bombs and staves.
This being the scenario, the ruler may wield power but loses authority. This is a precarious situation in the state. The rule of law is at stake when the ruler loses authority and the dictum of the Constitution that all are equal in the eye of law is not followed.
Serve the People to Earn
Serve the People to Earn
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Our MPs are great .They are born to serve the people, selflessly.They are all for the welfare of the people. They do not take a single step without an eye on the people. They cry hoarse in the Parliament, sometimes create pendamonium, all for the benefit of the people. They are persons of conscience, and educated enough to read the mind of the people. They are good communicators, and masters of code mixing and code switching to win the hearts of the people who are assumed to be wise, able to choose wisely their MPs in general elections. Wise people’s choice must be wise and the chosen ones are, no doubt, wise. So, our MPs are wise, educated and persons of conscience.
MPs are politicians with mass following. They are social engineers, can rally people and mould public opinion in favor of them. They are speech wizards and can sway the people with oratory and also lung power when reason is not enough to argue a point. They are simply brilliant, shining stars in the firmament of Indian democracy, the largest in the world. They are the luminaries, and make us proud.
We wonder how they can go on thinking round the clock for the benefit of the people. It is because of their tireless, ceaseless and selfless endeavour that we have many things to be happy with, like mega cities, shopping malls, 24 X 7 TV news channels studded with their faces, gleaming.
They are our leaders – guides, philosophers and friends. We understand their well being means our welfare. They are our faces, faces of India and these rosy faces masquerade our penury, if any. Some reactionaries, deliberately, try to tarnish our image contending that we have people below the poverty-line. They talk about the slum dwellers, landless peasants, locked out factory workers.
In fact they are idlers, worthless people, and cannot take opportunities provided by our politics. Our politics need muscle power and money power to sustain democracy through elections. We need camps of armed goons, gory clashes to capture territories and retain them to win elections, if media reports are to be believed. The idlers can well be active in the political process and the money power used in it may make them happy. They should learn from the MPs who are always busy and active, and, thus, earn participating in the muscle flexing. In soccer, players of a team earn hefty amount playing against another. We have many parties vying for MP seats and the idlers can work for these parties and earn. Parties need workers and those who work for them can earn, legitimately.
In the current monsoon session of the Parliament, the salary of an MP has been enhanced more than three-fold. Other benefits have also been increased substantially. So what! They deserve more, given their sacrifice for the nation.Lalu Prasad Jadav, the messiah of the poor and the backward is right when he seeks Rs. 80,001 as monthly salary for an MP, which is one rupee above the maximum salary of drawn by a bureaucrat. Why should a bureaucrat earn more than a politician? A politician is a talent while a bureaucrat is fed with books. We may do without bureaucrats but we cannot conceive our democracy sans politicians. So, we should support the pay hike for the MPs, bask in their fortune and say: ‘Hurrah! We have been rewarded. It’s time to celebrate. We are happy when our MPs are benefited because they are ours.’
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Our MPs are great .They are born to serve the people, selflessly.They are all for the welfare of the people. They do not take a single step without an eye on the people. They cry hoarse in the Parliament, sometimes create pendamonium, all for the benefit of the people. They are persons of conscience, and educated enough to read the mind of the people. They are good communicators, and masters of code mixing and code switching to win the hearts of the people who are assumed to be wise, able to choose wisely their MPs in general elections. Wise people’s choice must be wise and the chosen ones are, no doubt, wise. So, our MPs are wise, educated and persons of conscience.
MPs are politicians with mass following. They are social engineers, can rally people and mould public opinion in favor of them. They are speech wizards and can sway the people with oratory and also lung power when reason is not enough to argue a point. They are simply brilliant, shining stars in the firmament of Indian democracy, the largest in the world. They are the luminaries, and make us proud.
We wonder how they can go on thinking round the clock for the benefit of the people. It is because of their tireless, ceaseless and selfless endeavour that we have many things to be happy with, like mega cities, shopping malls, 24 X 7 TV news channels studded with their faces, gleaming.
They are our leaders – guides, philosophers and friends. We understand their well being means our welfare. They are our faces, faces of India and these rosy faces masquerade our penury, if any. Some reactionaries, deliberately, try to tarnish our image contending that we have people below the poverty-line. They talk about the slum dwellers, landless peasants, locked out factory workers.
In fact they are idlers, worthless people, and cannot take opportunities provided by our politics. Our politics need muscle power and money power to sustain democracy through elections. We need camps of armed goons, gory clashes to capture territories and retain them to win elections, if media reports are to be believed. The idlers can well be active in the political process and the money power used in it may make them happy. They should learn from the MPs who are always busy and active, and, thus, earn participating in the muscle flexing. In soccer, players of a team earn hefty amount playing against another. We have many parties vying for MP seats and the idlers can work for these parties and earn. Parties need workers and those who work for them can earn, legitimately.
In the current monsoon session of the Parliament, the salary of an MP has been enhanced more than three-fold. Other benefits have also been increased substantially. So what! They deserve more, given their sacrifice for the nation.Lalu Prasad Jadav, the messiah of the poor and the backward is right when he seeks Rs. 80,001 as monthly salary for an MP, which is one rupee above the maximum salary of drawn by a bureaucrat. Why should a bureaucrat earn more than a politician? A politician is a talent while a bureaucrat is fed with books. We may do without bureaucrats but we cannot conceive our democracy sans politicians. So, we should support the pay hike for the MPs, bask in their fortune and say: ‘Hurrah! We have been rewarded. It’s time to celebrate. We are happy when our MPs are benefited because they are ours.’
Challenges to Print Media
Nidhu Bhusan Das
Advent and use of new technology has been the cause of evolution of mass communication.Orature evolved into literature with the invention of writing. Literature spread and has been increasing in volume with the invention and upgradation of printing technology. What began as DIURNA, a handwritten bulletin in Rome Before Christ, is now the capital-intensive newspaper industry across the globe. Now we live in the age of media convergence following the addition of electronic and satellite technologies. What agitates our mind to-day is if the print media will lose ground to the electronic media. The apprehension has been that TV and internet are likely to spell doom for the print media. The print media has been able to face and fight challenges so far introducing new features like colour photos, news analyses and also going for convergence. All major newspapers to-day have electronic or web versions. Besides, newspaper groups like The Times of India have also launched TV news channels to retain the audience base and also to expand it with an eye on augmented profit.
How long will the newspapers and magazines will be able to hold sway vis-à-vis the overwhelming presence of TV, the gradual transformation of the Internet into a mass medium with more and more people turning netizens and the growing campaign for a paperless digital world, particularly when environmental considerations demand priority and environmentalists cry foul of deforestation.
Emerging ground realities, though a few, suggest all is not well in the print media world. Over the last two decades, two international newsmagazines NEWSWEEK and TIME have lost ground in circulation. NEWSWEEK sold over three million two decades ago and in 2009 the sale came down to 1.9 million. TIME dipped from 4.2 million to 3.3 million during the period. The shrink is attributed to ruthless news cycle, competition from TV, blogs and social media.
Electronic media like TV and Internet have an edge over the print media. They are instant media capable of presenting news as it is breaking and updating the same from time to time. The audio-visual aspect of TV coupled with animation is attractive to the viewers while Internet offers scope for reading on the computer monitor and having printed version. Blogs and social media available on the net have made the digital world more participatory, exciting and interactive. We are not sure how the print media will hold on in the emerging situation.
Advent and use of new technology has been the cause of evolution of mass communication.Orature evolved into literature with the invention of writing. Literature spread and has been increasing in volume with the invention and upgradation of printing technology. What began as DIURNA, a handwritten bulletin in Rome Before Christ, is now the capital-intensive newspaper industry across the globe. Now we live in the age of media convergence following the addition of electronic and satellite technologies. What agitates our mind to-day is if the print media will lose ground to the electronic media. The apprehension has been that TV and internet are likely to spell doom for the print media. The print media has been able to face and fight challenges so far introducing new features like colour photos, news analyses and also going for convergence. All major newspapers to-day have electronic or web versions. Besides, newspaper groups like The Times of India have also launched TV news channels to retain the audience base and also to expand it with an eye on augmented profit.
How long will the newspapers and magazines will be able to hold sway vis-à-vis the overwhelming presence of TV, the gradual transformation of the Internet into a mass medium with more and more people turning netizens and the growing campaign for a paperless digital world, particularly when environmental considerations demand priority and environmentalists cry foul of deforestation.
Emerging ground realities, though a few, suggest all is not well in the print media world. Over the last two decades, two international newsmagazines NEWSWEEK and TIME have lost ground in circulation. NEWSWEEK sold over three million two decades ago and in 2009 the sale came down to 1.9 million. TIME dipped from 4.2 million to 3.3 million during the period. The shrink is attributed to ruthless news cycle, competition from TV, blogs and social media.
Electronic media like TV and Internet have an edge over the print media. They are instant media capable of presenting news as it is breaking and updating the same from time to time. The audio-visual aspect of TV coupled with animation is attractive to the viewers while Internet offers scope for reading on the computer monitor and having printed version. Blogs and social media available on the net have made the digital world more participatory, exciting and interactive. We are not sure how the print media will hold on in the emerging situation.
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