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Keep the pressure on

There are enough doubting Joneses everywhere and India is no exception. My co passenger on a nearly 50% occupancy flight said " Kuch hobe na" in chaste Bengali accent when we got talking about the citizen journalism and consumer pressure groups.

It is three weeks to the tragedy of Mumbai and I am glad that "short lived memory" is not so short in this case.

Churchil had IInd World War, Gandhi had satyagraha, Indira Gandhi "Bangladesh creation", Manmohan Singh "Nuclear treaty". Is there a new chapter being written in India where the hero is going to be the consumer.

I was glad to know that NBA has formed a code of conduct for disaster reporting. Even better was a channel that showed more fire, both actual and verbal, than better sense prevailing; moving to conducting an sms and web based poll if media crossed its line in coverage of Mumbai tragedy. What pained me was the same show of fire when covering news bit on Pakistan.

My appeal to all is not to let this again get into a slumber but keep the pressure on. Accountability rests not only with government and politicians but all institutions including media.

Print media is moving more towards economic issues and so seem to be stock markets. Pleasant looks were of two full page ads from real estate players in a daily of the Capital if India.

More on the economic front tomorrow.

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