Sunday, April 5, 2015

From ‘Editor Unplugged. Media, Magnates, Netas & Me’ by Vinod Mehta


Malcolm Muggeridge ……. ‘Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time.’ ….Enoch Powell edict: ‘All political careers, unless they are cut off midstream …end in failure.’

It is common knowledge that investing in a media company yields very low, if any, returns. In fact, the corporate owner invests precisely because he longs to influence editorial policy. And for such influence he is prepared to risk a few million rupees.

Groucho Marx quipped, ‘Of course I have principles, and if you don’t like those, I have others.’

The precondition for a successful love search required, and I use [Bertrand] Russell’s worlds, ‘all passion to be quenched’

George Orwell: ‘Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.’

In the introduction he was excessively eulogized. [Malcolm] Muggeridge began his speech saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, when people tell me who I am I can hardly wait to hear myself speak.’

In Bertolt Brecht’s acclaimed play Galileo, one of the characters makes an excellent point, ‘Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.’ …. F. Scott Fitzgerald: ‘Show me a hero,’ he said, ‘and I will write you a tragedy.’

We, the middle class, have concurrently created ‘pockets of California and sub-Saharan Africa’. ….Half of India’s population (600 million) defecates in public, 50 per cent of Indian children are stunted due to malnourishment, 50 per cent of women are anaemic…..


Whether it is fair to label the BJP as communal is debatable. What is not debatable is the fact that at the heart of the Sangh Parivar communal elements prosper. They become less or more vocal depending on how the Lotus is blooming.

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