Why does the media corrupt? With the media being corrupt, I mean that instead of performing it’s duty of reporting news that matters to the society, what it ends up doing is look for sensational news – which are actually not sensational at all. I do not care about Amitabh Bachhan catching a cold … no I dont give a farthing about that. What I do care is a sugar scam happening right under our noses and we being oblivious to it all. Here’s how this sugar scam works –
Politician A (we all know who is the agricultural minister!!) gets into the power, then he sets up a shell company outside the country. Slowly this company acquires great hordes of sugar in its stocks. Then Politician A says that there is a sugar deficit in the country and the country might have to import sugar from outside. An artificial supply deficit causes prices to rise – simple enough?? Now, the shell company comes to the rescue! Supplies the country with the much needed sugar (of course at a higher price).
I was unaware of this till yesterday. The minute I came to know about it – one question that kept ringing in my mind was – why does not the media report events like these? If the media does not do its work, then who will?? Can Social Media take over the role of media in society??
Some would say no – since proponents of this theory say that social media is currently being used to report vain and idiotic things – like speak like a Pirate day … a’rrrr. How can you take the same seriously then? Another thought is that there is no reliability – a counter to this would be – as if currently the media is reliable :-)
I would say yes – social media is the exact kind of distributed model which needs to get its act together and let the people act for the people. Kind of like democracy, huh? More so, members of the society who are aware about the current events (and those which are under currents as well) are citizens, and citizens who act out for the benefit of other citizens are enlightened citizens. We need more of these!!!
What do you think?
Sugar shortage is genuine. India produced on 14.5 million tonnes compared to 23 million tonnes last year. Next year it won’t produce more than 16 million tonnes, hence deficit is natural. This is because minimum support price of other cereals(rice and wheat) were increased and all sugarcane harvesters moved to wheat. Hence low sugarcane production and hence lower sugar production
I take your point. But tell me how do you achieve what you are arguing here? YOU are one of those few who took pains to find out the truth. Now you might want to tell this to every one you know. Will it work that way? Will it change the situation? Do you think only being aware will solve the problem?
… too many questions!
Mayur, the first step towards the solution is awareness. Then only can we address it. It’s the same concept like that of Jaagore … wake up and smell the coffee :)
How about a new post, Kidakaka? :)