How the journalist will get benefit from the new wage board ?

Will justice available for journalists ?

New Wage Board notified with Justice K. Narayana Kurup as Chairman
The big question is looming around how the justice will be done to journalist when Jst. Kurup was appointed. The mission era of journalism has elapsed, now it is corporate era. Government has issued notifications constituting the Wage Boards for Working Journalists and Non-working Journalists of newspapers and news agencies with effect from. 24th May 2007. But when we see the last futile reports and committees constituted for the journalists betterment little hope remains. Remember Bacchhatwala's, Manisana, Diwetia, Palekar Wage Boards and what happende to their recommendations. Let's hope the watchdogs will remain aware and sethji wll not dominate. Because in journalism it is time of merger and acquisitions.

Perhaps the cognizance taken by Manmohan Govt is initially appreciable. Boards have been constituted for the purpose of fixing or revising rates of wages of working journalists and newspaper employees and non-journalists newspapers employees in accordance with the provisions of the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955. The headquarters of the Wage Boards will be New Delhi. The Boards have been asked to submit their reports within three years.

Both the Wage Boards will have 10 members each headed by Dr. Justice K. Narayana Kurup. Justice K. Narayana Kurup is a former Judge of Kerala High Court and has also served as Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court.

Mr. K.M. Sahni, former Labour and Employment Secretary, will be the Member Secretary for both the Boards. The other independent members common to both the Boards are Mr. B.P. Singh and Mr. P.N. Prasanna Kumar.

Mr. Naresh Mohan (Indian Newspaper Society), Mr. Gurinder Singh (All India Small and Medium Newspapers Federation), Mr. Prataprai Tarachand Shah ( Indian Language Newspaper Association) will be representing employers on both the Wage Boards.
Mr. K. Vikram Rao (Indian Federation of Working Journalists), Mr. Nand Kishore Trikha (National Union of Journalists (India ) and Mr. Suresh Akhouri (Indian Journalists Union) will represent the Working Journalists on the Wage Board for Working Journalists.
Mr. Madan Phadnis (All India Newspaper Employees Federation), Mr. Uma Shankar Mishra (National Federation of Newspaper Employees) and Mr. M.S. Yadav (Press Trust of India) will represent non-journalists on the Wage Boards for Non-Working Journalists.

India's son in penury !

8th World Hindi Conference will be held in Newyork this year. Millions of money will be spent on the name of Hindi. But are these things happening for the sake of Hindi ? The real men who are working on the ground level are marginalised. Read the story of a farmer's Handicapped Son who developed Hindi Browser. Now he is in penury. Due to renal ailment his health is worsening. But this man of Madhya Pradesh is not getting any kind of sop or help.
Jagdeep Dangi, a physically challenged youth hailing from a small town in Madhya Pradesh was a victim of the (English) language barrier that left many unfortunate citizens in this country in complete technological darkness.
So instead of waiting for the rest of the country to wakeup and address his problem, Dangi developed a fully functional Web browser in Hindi for the benefit of the countless Net-savvy Hindi-speaking populace in the country.
Sharing with CXOtoday the inspiration behind developing the browser, Dangi stated, "Being a Hindi medium student, I have faced the same difficulties, which scores of other vernacular medium students at some time or the other have faced -- the perennial language block of English. This problem turned more acute especially when I was pursuing my computer engineering degree. And that was the turning point that inspired me to develop this Hindi Web browser."
The browser is replete with the functionalities of Internet Explorer but all in Hindi (Devanagari). In addition, it also has extra functions such as opening multiple files, saving files, a search bar, slides and auto history viewers.
One of the key functionalities of the browser is the word translator. All that the user has to do is to click on any word online or offline and it would instantly translate the same in Hindi along with the correct pronunciation.
The browser also offers two type of translators -- one is local and the other is a global word translator that is compatible with all Windows applications online or offline.
Dangi has used object-oriented methodology in coding with Visual Basic, creating 1027 KB lines of codes with all program blocks and algorithms being his own (Absolutely no copy-pasteÂ's). Developed single-handedly, it took him more than three years to make the application.
The browser can run on all Windows operating systems right from 95, 98, 2000 to ME, NT and Windows XP. However, it is not compatible with Unix or Linux.
An English to Hindi or vice-versa digital dictionaryhas been also developed by him, which currently supports 20,320 words and allows users to add more words as per their requirements. This dictionary enables users to search for synonym words either in English or Hindi within a few seconds.
With a B.E. from SATI College in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, 26-year old Dangi revealed that he houses a mini-library of 400-500 computer and engineering books, which keep his innovative mind always occupied; a diversion that is extremely necessary as his mobility is severely restricted due to handicapped lower limbs.
Though short on money and resources, Dangi, the son of a farmer, nurtures a dream of developing an entire operating system in Hindi. However, until then, he is content with savoring the success of his browser.
But who cares these inventions, Dangi is facing penury because he didnot harness commercially his invention.

Another Story by The Statesman

For combined with SAFA and Vachak, it may prove a boon to blind persons using Hindi or other regional languages for their studies who I suppose far outnumber us--English using folks.
Fine reader, as far as I know, does not have OCR capacity for Hindi or any Indian language in its vast repertoire of 179 languages.At last, the ordeal of a Vidisha boy who developed the first Hindi software of the world, has ended. The Central government has recognised the software, thanks to the rigorous follow-ups by the handicapped developer. Mr Jagdeep Dangi's software is now on the website of the Technology Development for Indian Languages. The Union ministry of information technology gave the go-ahead after software experts gave their clearance. The government will use Mr Jagdeep Dangi's software for expansion of computer knowledge in Hindi. Mr Dangi of Vidisha, who lost his right leg and left eye in childhood, did not let it affect his academic zeal and worked for years to develop the "Hindi Explorer" that matches the functions of Internet Explorer and can translate English into Hindi at the click of a mouse. Mr Dangi saw an advertisement by the Central government and C-DAC on 22 May 2005 inviting "individuals or companies" to become "partners of the Nation" by providing Hindi software. Mr Dangi applied and received an e-mail from C-DAC Bangalore office asking him to submit the software or the screen shots. He complied promptly. Mr Dangi was invited by Union IT ministry to demonstrate his software to experts at New Delhi. The Department of Information Technology, C-DAC New Delhi and C-DAC Noida MIT also "appreciated his software very much." Mr Dangi's software is an improvement on internet explorer since it provides extra functions like opening multiples files, a search bar and auto history viewers. The word translator in Mr Dangi's browser will translate English into Hindi with instant Hindi translation and pronunciation.
Courtesy: The Statesma

VISUAL JOURNALISM

Newspapers are vying with each other to jump into the bandwagon of visual journalism. The attempt is not only to make the product visually more attractive, but also to reduce the cognitive load of the reader.

One of the reasons cited for this trend is the change in readership habits. People, especially of the younger generation, spend very little time these days reading newspapers. According to surveys conducted in India and abroad, they expend a lot of time watching television and surfing the Internet. A national readership survey (2002) found that an urban reader in India, on an average, spends 32 minutes on newspapers against 100 minutes watching television.

These findings need to be looked at closely. There is little doubt there are many things in modern life that compete for a person's time. So, the time he spends on newspaper has come down. However, the 100 minutes on television is not in direct competition with newspaper or news. Many other activities, like time spend on going to the theaters, would have taken a cut.

Infographics
Many newspapers in India and abroad have found a solution to the dwindling 'reader interest' on their product. (In India, their circulations have never been dwindling). They include simplification of the language, offering of soft stories and presentation of stories with highlights, infographics and even pinups.

This could turn out to be a vicious circle with the reader looking for lesser and lesser cognitive load on him. The readers, especially the younger ones, may become lazier as information is offered to him in tablet form. Making the reader lazier would be suicidal for the medium in the long run.

MTV generation
However, there is little reason to think that today's reader is lazier than the aristocrats of the past. Nor is there evidence that the MTV generation cares less for good content.

The readership surveys do not look at reader satisfaction. We have seen readers throwing away newspapers saying that there was hardly matter for ten minutes reading in them. This did not mean that there was nothing in the 10 or 12 pages each of those newspapers. Apparently, the reader is not finding material that interests him, or what he thinks he should spent more time on. So, the problem is more with the content rather than design. (Design sometimes creates the impression of plenty or the lack of it). Light material would get thrown away more easily than gripping and serious stories.

This is not to say that one should not try to make the pages more attractive. Initial buying decisions and sustained liking for a newspaper may be decided by lay out and ease of reading (from the typographical point of view). Printing and other production technologies including colour printing have made it possible to make visually appealing pages quicker than before. There is no reason why one should not take advantage of them.

Web vs. Print
However, there is a tendency to adapt design elements from the Web. This needs to be chosen carefully. Compared to computer and television screen, the luminosity of the printed page is very low, especially on newsprint. So, clutter of infographics and images could darken up the page more easily on print than on the screen, especially if the tonal values are high. They can also cause visual overload. (Visual overload happens very often on the Web. This may be one of the reasons, other than slow loading of images, that prompts readers to look for text in preference to images on Web pages.) Images, advertisements and infographics could suppress text.

On the Web, news stories appear in different pages. So, design requirements vary. For example, a photo or graphic with every story, which is desirable on the Web, would not be desirable on the print unless the format is of magazine.

Text is more readable on the print than on the Web. (Readability is lower for the Web as the resolution of the computer screen is low*.) So, print can always accommodate more text without the reader being turned away. News sites would have to depend on infographics more than the printed publications to tell the story, because the screen size is small. Many readers are even reluctant to scroll down. (If we accept the argument that the readers are inherently lazy, the print has an advantage here. However, it is notable that interactivity is described as the great advantage of the new medium.)

Of Visual Journalism:
Visually attractive does not mean that the product would be intellectually attractive. The pages should look inviting. At the same time, the content should be stimulating. If the objective of the newspaper is only to sell, sex and crime on the front page could achieve the objective. Still, there is the question as to how many pin ups one would want to see in the morning (See the related link). However, as everyone knows, stature of a newspaper and lack of higher objectives are mutually exclusive.

It is said about the Web that content is the king. This is all the more true for newspapers where the written content is the King.

Does Ethics Matter in Modern Journalism ?

Courtesy CYBERJOURNALIST.ORG.IN
Lt. Col. Rajan Suresh (Retd) (Lecturer, Department of Journalism, University of Kerala, Trivandrum, Kerala, India)
Tehelka.com has been the most frequently discussed media entity in India for the past three weeks. Every day the media, politicians and bureaucrats have managed to place it on the public agenda one way or the other. But there seems to be no benefit in store for the billion plus Indian population. Judging by similar precedents, ordinary people have no tangibles to hope for. Tehelka did a very good job of duping some of the small fry in the arms business, and a few greedy civilian and army officers associated with arms purchases. They also managed to dupe important political functionaries such as Jaya Jaitley and R. K. Jain of the Samata Party and Bangaru Lakshman of the BJP. Tehelka established that many of their 'victims' took money, thereby going one step farther than Matt Drudge, the maverick American Journalist who set the trend of Web-journalism based mostly on sensational rumours. Tehelka obviously had their sights set on becoming 'top-dog' among the watchdogs of Indian polity. The reporter enjoyed celebrity status for a couple of days, and Zee TV, who had a stake in the sting, put the story out in all the channels they own, and most certainly raked in plenty of money. Tehelka's stated purpose- `to expose corruption', has bolstered their image as a smart team of modern day "investigative" journalists. Although debates have ensued about the rights and wrongs in legal terms, the case has raised serious questions about journalistic ethics and responsibility.
The West; particularly the United States and Britain, occasionally get to taste this genre of journalism. Private lives of `public figures' and private lives of private figures are often exposed by journalists looking for sensational stories. President Clinton and Princess Diana were the most prominent targets in recent times. Journalists can now become super peeping-toms with the help of hidden cameras and high-tech surveillance gadgets. And to absolve themselves of criminal intent, the sordid details of many such "investigations" are thrust on unsuspecting people, claiming that a public interest is being served.
Western journalists also cheated and ruthlessly exploited ordinary people by impersonating social workers, counsellors or health-care personnel, to gather personal details that often led to painful consequences. A few classic examples can be found in Fineline, an American newsletter on Journalistic ethics. In a few cases, reporters managed to dupe the US Government, for getting first-hand information from protected sources. Robert Kapler, a small-time reporter pretending to be a security guard, breached the security set-up of a nuclear plant on Three Mile Island to prove that their security was weak. Jonathan Franklin, a freelance reporter signed up as a mortician at the Dover US Air Force Base to get accurate numbers of American soldiers who died in the Gulf War. Whether such reporting has brought about any change in the daily lives of American citizens, or whether it has done the public any good, are debatable.
Tehelka used a wily combination of impersonation, hidden cameras and bribery (all these being culpable offences under Indian Law) to get their tape recordings. The Government of India contends that if public interest was a prime concern, the tapes should not have gone public in such an explosive fashion. But on the other hand, it can be argued quite logically that if the tapes had not been revealed so spectacularly, they would have lost much of their impact. No doubt the largest party in the ruling alliance has been shaken, and some of their political allies unnerved. The Defence Minister has resigned, and higher echelons of the armed forces have been tainted to some extent. India's opposition parties, led by the Congress (I) lost no time in calling for all sorts of "remedies". Tehelka has provided some political gains for the Congress (I). This leads us to the crux of the matter. What was the real purpose of this expose- Public interest or Tehelka's fame and fortune?
Middlemen are undesirable elements in any kind of deal; but the reality is that deals don't go through without middlemen. Corruption is nothing new to the political and administrative set-up in independent India, and some members of the Armed Forces have committed crimes that are morally more serious; such as espionage for alien powers. The Samba spy scandal of the 70s and the later Coomer Narain- Larkins cases involved gratifications of far lesser magnitude for compromising national interests. But after nearly three decades, the incarcerated `spies' stand absolved of the crime, and we hear nothing about the Larkins. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that public attention would soon shift from the Tehelka expose? So the net effect would be to Tehelka's sole advantage, unless Tarun Tejpal and his team persevere, forcing the judiciary or Parliament to set wrongs right. Will they keep at it, or withdraw from the scene saying that their job is over?
Tehelka has broken the story with damning footage on video tape, albeit a little out of focus and frequently out of perspective. The soundtracks and subtitles took on the task of convincing viewers about deals being struck and money changing hands. Unfortunately the odds do not favour Tehelka, simply because modern technology offers all and sundry the wherewithal to digitally manipulate moving images and sound through easy-to-use software packages. It would be a fairly simple task to `smart-edit' video footage, add doctored sound tracks and put all sorts of filters to blur the final product so that it appears authentic. This is not an allegation that Tehelka has done so, but it would take a lot more proof before knowledgeable people are convinced of the video's genuineness. Spielberg's Jurassic Park has made us all skeptical about such `reality'.
Perhaps the best thing the Tehelka tapes did was to highlight human greed. They brought out a story that actually sent ripples through the Government, and made people sit up and take notice. They managed to assign values to individual gullibility. It is now established that the ruling party's titular head can be bought for a hundred thousand rupees and a Major General in the Army for a fifth of that. There is no need to discuss the pros and cons of the matter or to probe whether the money went to party coffers or individuals' pockets. And there is no justification in saying that "money was taken because it was offered". Public figures have misbehaved, and Tehelka's reporters have exposed them. Tehelka.com, on their part, have taken the law into their hands, and played a con game on unsuspecting (though mostly corrupt) persons. It does not constitute normal journalistic behaviour by any standards. A question of whether this investigative exercise has caused harm to the public is also being discussed, because speculations are rife that Indian soldiers as a whole are demoralized and feel `let down' by the alleged compromises in arming and equipping them. If this situation is for real, then the consequences are not so much in the `public interest', and there may be reason for the Government to brand Tejpal, Bahl and Mathew as mercenaries and traitors. It is catch 22 for the trio. But since we have Dawood Ibrahim, Ottavio Quattrocchi, Harshad Mehta and the more down-to-earth Veerappan calling the shots, it seems anyone can get away with anything in India. Tehelka.com ought to survive, and continue entertaining the Indian public in true Drudge fashion.
The ethical issues in this case remain anchored on two aspects. One being the motivation for Tehelka.com to take up the issue of bribes and commissions in defence deals at this point of time, when far bigger cases such as Bofors , HDW and Tangushka are still unresolved. It would do well for Tejpal to explain whether it was journalistic vigilantism or self-interest that encouraged Tehelka reporters to give away large amounts of cash and take such risks. The other pertains to the method adopted- in befriending touts, feeding, wining and bribing them, and on false pretexts, recording their tall claims with hidden cameras, and finally offering these recordings as news to the public. There is a need to supplement the sensational footage with more real proof and explanation; particularly to ensure that the `public' are not fed half-truths and speculations. http://cyberjournalist.org.in/archive/tehelka.html © Lt. Col. R. Suresh

Who is Stephanian

Who’s a Stephenian?
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
EmailControversy at an elite college hides a bigger question on true empowerment The current controversy over enhanced and new quotas announced by Delhi’s St Stephen’s College should, at the very least, fine-tune the larger debate on affirmative action. Controversy has come to the college after the authorities did two things. One, they set a target of reservations for more than 50 per cent of the seats on offer. Two, they introduced a new category for a 10 per cent quota, Dalit Christians. Taken together, these admission criteria have invited fears about declining space for merit and — this from Anil Wilson, the principal of the college himself who is on leave currently and has in the past fought a public battle with the acting principal — the technical difficulties in ascertaining how to categorise Christians by caste nomenclature. But what are really of interest in a wider context are two questions. Why is it that St Stephen’s, with the paltry 400-odd seats it offers to freshmen each year, should exercise the rest of us so much? What are the ways to adequately empower the unprivileged through affirmative action?