Happy Independence Day
Nice day this Independence Day. Comes regularly on the 15th of August, giving one a well deserved break. This day, along with New Year and Republic Day forms the three MOST IMPORTANT days for media companies. They can publish all kinds of stories and conduct worthless surveys. In the xth year of our Indepence or the yth year of the Republic of India; it becomes so much easier to begin the first sentence of the article. Good bye writers' block! The more ingenuous among the journalists can probably recycle the crap that they wrote last year.
Its all the same anyway. Bejan Daruwala announces that India will become a super power in 2020. Nice number 2020. 20 years ago, it was probably 2000. The poor chap will be unemployed when we actually become one. Then there are the inane surveys which I could whip up in less than hour. They are usually conducted by impressive sounding agencies. I mean, if IBN-ABC-XZY-DADS conducted a survey, would you have any reason to disbelieve them ? If you are ToI, you can probably publish the same stuff as the results of the survey in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai etc etc in the Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai times respectively. Who cares any way, the survey was there just to fill up the blanks around the ads.
Another interesting aspect of this year's media circus is CNN-IBN's stories on the most significant blah in the last 60 years. I mean, why go back all 60 years and do the hard stuff of calculating everything all over again. Use an algorithm as below
In the midst of the all hype, you have nonsensical chain messages floating around. Everyone on Orkut should change their profile pic to the Indian flag. WTF!?!! How does it change anything, except show that Indians are a bunch of childish school children who refuse to grow up. The very people who put these flags will not think twice before paying bribes or jumping lines and pulling a few strings or defaulting on tax. Well some might, but not a whole lot of them. So why this yearly charade ? I-Day has become a sad farce, where politicians mouth usual slogans and media publishes the same stories. The aam aadmi gets shafted as usual. Life continues.
In life, nothing is inevitable but change, but apparently someone forgot to tell our politicians and media about it.
PS: I had a brainwave that I will repost this article on the 26th of January. If no chain message is floating around, I'll send out one myself. :)
Its all the same anyway. Bejan Daruwala announces that India will become a super power in 2020. Nice number 2020. 20 years ago, it was probably 2000. The poor chap will be unemployed when we actually become one. Then there are the inane surveys which I could whip up in less than hour. They are usually conducted by impressive sounding agencies. I mean, if IBN-ABC-XZY-DADS conducted a survey, would you have any reason to disbelieve them ? If you are ToI, you can probably publish the same stuff as the results of the survey in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai etc etc in the Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai times respectively. Who cares any way, the survey was there just to fill up the blanks around the ads.
Another interesting aspect of this year's media circus is CNN-IBN's stories on the most significant blah in the last 60 years. I mean, why go back all 60 years and do the hard stuff of calculating everything all over again. Use an algorithm as below
- Assume you already have the list for the past 50 years. (Of course you would - if you hadnt dished out mindless crap over the last 10 years, you would be out of business).
- Assume that the ordering of events doesnt change. Now this is a very important assumption, which is mostly valid. I mean, if in 1997, you decided that the 1983 World Cup win was more important than the 1992 reforms, the ordering shouldnt change today right ?
- Now just pick 2-3 random events from the past decade. You neednt pick more than 2-3 because all of independent India's history was not created in the past 10 years. Otherwise the list might be changed to "Events of the past decade" rather the past 60 years.
- Randomly insert them in the previous list.
- Profit!!
In the midst of the all hype, you have nonsensical chain messages floating around. Everyone on Orkut should change their profile pic to the Indian flag. WTF!?!! How does it change anything, except show that Indians are a bunch of childish school children who refuse to grow up. The very people who put these flags will not think twice before paying bribes or jumping lines and pulling a few strings or defaulting on tax. Well some might, but not a whole lot of them. So why this yearly charade ? I-Day has become a sad farce, where politicians mouth usual slogans and media publishes the same stories. The aam aadmi gets shafted as usual. Life continues.
In life, nothing is inevitable but change, but apparently someone forgot to tell our politicians and media about it.
PS: I had a brainwave that I will repost this article on the 26th of January. If no chain message is floating around, I'll send out one myself. :)
posted by anonymous coward at 8:10 am
2 Comments:
I laughed till I cried ... cynical but utterly hilrious!
cudnt agree more with caliguliminix... :D
but dude... u got to give ToI and the news channels credit for making our lives so much fun on these days... remember the sunday supplement and the 15th august edition.. the read aloud sessions!!
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