[Reader-list] [Fwd: Re: Gujarati 'pride' hurt once again]

[Tapas Ray]

Sorry, Radhika! I sent this to you instead of the list a couple of 
minutes ago, by clicking "Reply" instead of "Reply to" for the umpteenth 
time.

But this gives me the opportunity to add something I had on my mind but 
forgot to mention:

Speaking of Modi's quality of governance and his supposed impartiality, 
let's not forget that, while visiting Gujarat during or immediately 
after the riots, none other than Atal Behari Vajpayee - his own party 
boss and Prime Minister of India - had found it necessary to remind him, 
in public, to follow "rajdharma". That means Vajpayee - no 
"pseudo-secularist" himself - did not think Modi was practising 
statecraft based on ethics and morality.


-------- Original Message --------
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:07:32 -0400
From: Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com>
To: radhikarajen at vsnl.net

Peace, my friends! I haven't been able to follow discussions on this
list lately. This thread caught my eye and I tried to read the whole
thing, but gave up after the last few posts. From that, I can say a
couple of relatively inconsequential things:

1) Radhikarajen need not worry about her (assuming s/he is a she)
physical safety because of Shivam's threat to throw his keyboard at her.
I'm sure he (assuming s/he is a he) is speaking rhetorically ... or is
he? Even if he is speaking literally, Radhika need not worry too much,
because: (a) computer keyboards are pretty light these days (let's sing
the praises of technology), and (b) if Shivam is somewhere up north
(Delhi?) and Radhika down south (Bangalore?) as I think they are, the
keyboard will lose all its momentum by the time it reaches Radhika.

2) About the ideologies of the mass media, I think their main aim in
life is to make money, and everything else is secondary. We should not
forget this when we say the Times of India is pro-Congress and The Hindu
is pro-CPI(M). Most businesses have to cater to a particular niche of
the market, and they have found their own niches among people who do not
mind Congress and CPI(M) slants, or actually want these. Of course, this
is not as simple as it sounds: just as the audience is not passive, to
be moulded by the media, the media too are not passive, to be moulded by
the audience. They are mutually constitutive. Even after counting that
in, I think the media will not hesitate to give up, or at least tone
down their respective political slants if these lead to sustained losses
at some point, unless they have the death wish.

Once again, let there be peace on earth, or at least on the Sarai list ;)

Tapas



radhikarajen at vsnl.net wrote:
> Dear Shivam,
> 
> your reply betrays that you are neither capable of honest argument in a debate nor are you keen in exchange of thoughts, but gloating and going with killer instinct in the competetive world with your demeaning reply with absurd thoughts. If you want to score brownie points you are free citizen, entitled to it, but it shows how hollow is your concern for the society that you live in.!
> 
>    As to my remote, and my career with journalism, you are free to use your faculties to draw your own conclusions, which reflect your immature or mature mindset as they do not seem to be concerned about moral degradation in society and rightly so, in the present system only money matters and success at any cost seems to be credo/ achievement.?
> 
>   Regards.
> From: TaraPrakash <taraprakash at gmail.com>
> Date: Friday, June 20, 2008 10:24 pm
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Gujarati 'pride' hurt once again
> To: Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>, radhikarajen at vsnl.net
> Cc: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net>
> 
>> Hi Shivam.
>> I was not expecting a harsh reply on this. What I was expecting, 
>> however, 
>> was another
>> www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/...
>>
>> link. I am planning to teach Argument this August onwards. I found 
>> sort of 
>> answer in your mails to my question "how the hell do you teach 
>> argument?"