Disappointing coverage of "tsunami warning"

Some mahanubhavulu ("great person") in the Union Home Ministry screwed up big time yesterday by putting out a warning that another Tsunami was set to hit southern coastline. While no Tsunami arrived (naturally), the idiot announcement triggered off widespread panic among people and tremendous loss in business productivity.

It is quite well known that aftershocks follow most major earthquakes and can occur up to a week after the main one strikes. But the main point - which all the major media outlets have missed to point out - is that these aftershocks are very rarely anywhere near as powerful as the original. (The aftershocks felt in Andaman & Nicobar islands since the big one on Sunday have been on the 5-7 range.) So, it was quite safe to assume that Thursday's "officially predicted" (ordered??) Tsunami could at worst cause as much damage as the big one.

While there's nothing new about a government screw up (I bet the fellow(s) who caused so much damage won't even lose a day's salary), the sad fact is that the media screwed up as well. The media - including TV channels and news web sites - did nothing else apart from playing up the "warning" faithfully.

The least the TV channels could have done is to position a camera at a suitable location in front of the beach and transmit the pictures live (at least on a corner of the screen), so that people could see for themselves exactly how far the ocean waves had actually "invaded" their cities/towns. This simple move would have scotched all rumours instantly and bought a lot of publicity to whichever channel(s) that had the presence of mind to spare one camera for the purpose.

Hopefully, some channel will wake up at least now and leave one camera focused on the sea and transmit the pictures (at least via streaming feed on their web site).

Outlook reporter's anti-brahmin rhetoric might cost Hathway Group dear

It is amazing how Outlook magazine has been tolerating its Chennai-based reporter S. Anand's rabidly anti-brahmin articles.

It used to funny reading Anand's anachronistic rants - including on how Carnatic Music is dominated by Brahmins and one especially pathetic attempt to rake up controversy over a musical instrument (the mridangam).

But Anand seems to have crossed all boundaries with his highly biased and intemperate pieces on the Jayendra Saraswathi arrest affair. Click Here to sample some of the feedback for Anand's latest article. Outlook better pay heed and rein in Anand. Else, it will have to pay with a decline in its readership. I already know of some subsribers of the magazine who have woved never to touch it again - and plan to write to the publishers saying as much.

The after-effects of Anand's intemperate writing might not stop with just the magazine. The boycott - and the acompanying financial implications - might also spread to other Hathway Group companies like Hathway Internet and other companies. Is Rajan Raheja listening?

Ashok Advani's arrest final nail in Business India Group's fortunes?

T.N. Ninan, Editor of Business Standard, writes about the rise and fall - thanks to an ill-fated TV channel - of the Business India Group and its founder Ashok Advani.