[Reader-list] The 64th Anniversary Of USA Terrorism Enlightened By The Wisdom of Nonviolence By Eileen Fleming (fwd from Countercurrents.org)

[Rakesh Iyer]

Anyways, the Indian media is not totally bad, but an in-depth understanding
of any issue is of utmost importance, which most of our media people seem to
lack. In particular, our TV media, consisting of the who's who of the
stupids-cum-bosses hanging their noses around, seems to show very clearly.
And then there are people following them closely on the newspaper circuit as
well.

Even programs which could be used to understand issues properly, like 'The
Big Fight'  invariably turn into programs of pointing fingers simply and
bak-bak-bak-bak-bak....and grand posturing too......

May be our TV media and the newsprint media (referring to those who only
indulge in elitist concerns, and then shoot off against people-based schemes
without understanding the logic of using them), should read books of
development economists like Amartya Sen (he has won the Nobel Prize, so he
may not be a fool to have won it I believe).There are others in the line as
well, like Madhav Gadgil (expert on environment), Aruna Roy (RTI), Bina
Agrawal (issues of gender rights), Muhammad Yunus (micro-finance through
Grameen Bank, another Nobel Prize winner), Swami Agnivesh (understanding
about Hindu religion or 'dharma', though it's not that close a people's
concern according to me, even then), Jean Dreze (Right to Food, along with
others of course), Kaushik Basu and Abhijit Banerjee (professors of
economics in universities outside India, who actually have contributed a lot
to development economics again), Praful Bidwai (who at least is not a fool
as some of our Rightist friends would like to portray), the innumerable
NGO's across the country who are publishing some of the best reports on
various sectors like power sector, health sector, food entitlements,
education sector, water conservation and management, employment sector,
urbanization and sustainable development etc.

Or are only the Arnab Goswamis and Barkha Dutts capable enough of giving us
lectures on issues of 'development'? Reminds me of some IITians (nothing
short of fools according to me) who were advocating of applying the Chinese
model of ensuring that technocrats and technology specialists were there in
the top corridors of power as rulers (like China has in the top rungs of the
CCP, the famous Chinese Communist Party) as of now.

Regards

Rakesh