This New Year, sellout sales abound. Chicanery packages can be purchased at bribery rates. Just give us your specifications: number of columns, stories, and images; colour or no colour; extent of approbation and/or intensity of aspersion and we'll get you the PR that you need. Revelations of the media getting paid to popularise politicians during elections in India has gained interest since P Sainath pointed out the news misuse in an article in the Hindu. Outlook magazine later covered the outrage, publishing first-hand accounts from members of the accused establishments, like that of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda: "When I noticed the leading paper of my state printing baseless reports on its front page day after day, I called them up and offered money to print the right picture." While a useful solution to defamation, Chettria Patrakar couldn't be sold for gold, especially at the cost of the critic's thrill.
In other exhilarating activities, CP almost went tyre burning instead of writing mediafile this month, together with all those raging Nepali students who raised havoc on the streets of Birgunj. According to a headline in The Himalayan Times, "Students organise bandh to protest bandh culture". Having polished their shoes, ironed their shirts and packed their lunches for another day of riotous mis-education, students arrived at the Church of Learning to find that the only thing being demonstrated that day was how to hold a demonstration. Out of study for more than four days because of bandhs of various sorts, the neophytes did a good job of rebellion, even surrounding the District Administration Office. Oh, what kids learn in school these days…
On the subject of positive conditioning, the Maldives should probably get a back massage with all the pats it has been getting from the UN, journalist's associations and human-rights spokesmen since decriminalising defamation. The People's Majlis passed the bill, voting 34 against 7 for freeing the libel-ation of speech. Both those for and against cited Sharia law. Only this year, after years of candid calumny, did Prosecutor General Ahmed Muiz, enforce hearings for cases of slander as a criminal offence. Luckily for him, now that articles 150 to 166 of the Penal Code dealing with defamation have been nullified, he can save the administrative expense.
Spending is happening in other places though. In a fascist frenzy, Hitler's Mein Kampf is selling like it is still propaganda in the Subcontinent, running a noose around the Aryan race theory. In Bangladesh, the book is being enwrap-tured and gifted for Eid. Peddlers on the streets of Dhaka have become pro-sell-ytisers for the book and other fast-selling items such as pirated copies of Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. Worryingly, Hitler's voice is hailing followers among the aspiring business leaders of India as well, with myopic buyers seeing it as a replicable management strategy guide and inspiring self-help book.