Justice Katju had once commented upon the need for media to stop sensationalizing news and stick to the truth. He wanted media to be made accountable, and when we go through that happened last few years in media against IIT Kharagpur, even we feel that he is too correct. Today media has reached a point where they believe more in ‘trial by media & pronounced guilty’. They don’t believe in letting public to perceive and report only the facts. As for reporting false news, there’s nothing you can do except for filing defamation suits and keeping in view our great legal system, even god would have no answer to when the ‘victim of media’ would get the justice.
Let us show you how a systemic campaign to malign the reputation of IIT Kharagpur and few people from this institute, was carried on by media. There were few elements from this very institute who worked in tandem with the media, we’ll show all that and leave it upon you to come to your conclusion. We’ll gather & explain all information collected to show the nexus between few media personals and a sole person from IIT Kharagpur out on a vendetta.
Case 1:
Pricy laptop case reporting by media
Here is the links to the articles & their counter replies by us.
1st article we showed all documents of transaction between Rajeev Kumar & the IIT administration. 2ndarticle shows documents provided by HT were not complete. They tried to put out partial information suppressing portions that are inconvenient to their own news. And in the second article we showed and proved this whole set of documents were provided by none other than Prof Kumar himself.
Case 2:
Rampant Cheating Case
The article links and counters to the same have been posted here.
Again we find reporters going ahead with posting news which they got from a source without even trying to do any research. They get inputs from someone and decide to go on a trail and declare the institute guilty. Completely false information like claiming that IIT Kharagpur allows student to choose any seat during examination is put out. Question arises who gave them all these information? The whole charge seems to be coming from Proof Rajeev Kumar so logical deduction is he being the informer. Yes he denied the same but then the next logical question that comes is ‘why didn’t he then do anything to stop these reporters’.
Case 3:
IIT Kharagpur and so called “Tech theft” by our media.
Again a campaign to malign the names of few individual from IIT Kharagpur and the institute itself was taken up by media. Check these links and then let me show how cleverly the game was played by them.
Detailed rebuttal on these articles can be check here.
But let me show you something interesting that’ll give even a layman some idea of foul play being done.
Check the 1st two articles. Both are by THE same portal. The author changes the Title of the article, removes his name in the 2ndand goes along with just TNN and POSTS SAME ARTICLE TWICE, ON THE SAME DAY WITH A LITTLE GAP IN TIMINGS. Why was this done? What was the need for the same portal to post same article twice? Economics time is also of the same group but we give them the benefit of doubt as it’s a different wing altogether.
What general public had no knowledge about was the fact that these articles were pushed so hard by the reporters just at a time when the final hearing of the same case was coming up at Calcutta High Court. Were there any malicious intentions behind this act by the reporter?
And what the reporter next makes sure not to write about is the judgment of the case. Check the link below.
The court clearly bars the software company use of the software. Akshaya Mukul, who takes lot of pain to report a lot about IIT Kharagpur (search through his profile at times site) does not even bother to report this news do bring questions as to his intentions. Questions arises more when you see the list of his articles, they all have been ALWAYS anti IIT Kharagpur.
Though we can never connect this story getting published by Akshaya Mukul and Prof Kumar’s role but what do bring questions in our mind is the fact that Prof Kumar is going on maligning the institute and people connected to this case repeatedly.
Case 4:
Freedom of speech curb on all who posted in favour of IIT Kharagpur, by the media.
Isn’t it the media who is always shouting for freedom of speech? When Justice Katju mentioned about the need for laws to see that media don’t indulge in wrong doing, it was the media now up in arms against the man. Similarly when govt started deliberating on taking action against anti govt articles/spoofs/similar, it was again the media who lambasted the govt for the same.
Let us now show you all how they themselves behaved with many readers, it was nothing but a direct attack on freedom of speech of general public. The three links below would show how two specific news portal posted articles against IIT Kharagpur, and many readers made comments refuting all the charges made by the reporter. The portal after sometime deleted ALL comments. We have here proof of their act.
Why was this done? With what motive? Readers can go through all the comments posted here which got deleted and decide themselves – Do they deserved to be deleted, or is it that because the comments were painting the true story which were inconvenient to their own article motive that they decided to remove those?
Case 5:
Rajeev Kumar & Media
You just need to visit the blog eklavya06 and check all articles that have been archived there related to Prof Kumar issue. You’ll get to see an interesting trend. Just as shown in case #3 above, the same material has been posted repeatedly in the media at different intervals. Too many times it has been the same few selected journalists posting the articles. Early articles were simply read through but later it was found there was an interesting trend that is being followed for the same. Whenever there was a hearing of his case (he has too many in too many courts), or hearing of the judicial inquiry at IIT Kharagpur or BOG meeting to decide his future, these selected journalists would put up an article repeating the same things, glorifying the prof while making sure to hide the facts that could be inconvenient for his case. Not that we are claiming this to be happening, we are just making our point as to what we saw happening, which caught our attention!
Case 6:
The coalnet issue
This has become the new issue for few selected journalists currently and just for all readers’ information – Most of these journalists are the same who advocate Rajeev Kumar issue repestedly whenever any hearing of his comes up. Disclaimer: Not that we are saying both the issues are interlinked. We are simply informing our readers of this “Innocent” fact.
Too many articles on the issue are flying around but first we’ll take up just one, which is telling a blatant lie. A detailed analysis of all such articles has already been given here in this blog. (http://purabspeaks.blogspot.in/2013/03/the-pioneer-connection.html)
The article starts with this line – “In a first of its kind, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked the HRD Ministry to dismiss three IIT professors — including IIT-Patna Director and the Dean of the prestigious IIT-Kharagpur — from service.”
All other articles on this issue wrote that CVC recommended “minor penalty” against this Prof, the director elect. (As for CVC and its role here, we’ll take it up in our next post & show our readers how clean and unbiased they themselves are. Indian public need to know in details about such constitutional bodies and the murky games they play.) And this reporter comes up with a sensualizing title to attract the attention of readers. How far ethical journalism is he following???? Mr Deepak Kumar Jha is the recent journalist added to the previous couple who have now started maligning IIT Kharagpur. Incidentally, this journalist is also a great friend of Prof Rajiv Kumar. Isn’t that a sweet co-incidence!!!
Case 7:
Check this.
http://www.ebela.in/details/6195-31326734.html
It’s related to news that came in the regional newspaper “Ebela”. They came out with complete false news that West Bengal education dept is considering removal of current director elect of IIT Kharagpur from both, the Higher Education Panel of WB & the Deans selection Panel at Jadavpur Univ. True fact being, Govt of WB is planning no such steps. Infact the said prof has already completed his duty as panel member at Jadavpur Univ and submitted the report to the VC there. Bengali news daily “Ananda Bazaar Patrika” themselves came out with the same news.
http://www.ebela.in/details/6195-31326734.html
It’s related to news that came in the regional newspaper “Ebela”. They came out with complete false news that West Bengal education dept is considering removal of current director elect of IIT Kharagpur from both, the Higher Education Panel of WB & the Deans selection Panel at Jadavpur Univ. True fact being, Govt of WB is planning no such steps. Infact the said prof has already completed his duty as panel member at Jadavpur Univ and submitted the report to the VC there. Bengali news daily “Ananda Bazaar Patrika” themselves came out with the same news.
Did we tell you, Ebela is run by the same AMP group!!! How can two dailies of the same newspaper give out such contradictory articles!!!
Conclusions and questions to ponder upon:
- Journalists to us seem unbiased. Journalism need to be ethical. Yet we find few who indulge into “Yellow Journalism” targeting some organization or few individual.
- To do proper research before putting out an article, especially of taking views of other side and put out balanced news is the last thing few journalists believe in doing.
- Question arise in our mind, why do they give a blind support to some particular individual while targeting others even after being shown true facts!! Disclaimer: We don’t want to speculate and say these journalists come up with this news as they got some special benefit from that particular individual.
- Why did they indulge in putting out articles showing just few facts while hiding some other truths especially those which could have been very inconvenient for Prof Kumar?
- Till date why didn’t any journalist put out an article telling about the reprimand court gave to Prof Kumar?
- A foreign company tells them few lies and without even getting the facts how can they out a story lambasting an Institute of their own country?
- Final question and the most alarming thought for us – Is it so simple as “Yellow Journalism” against IIT Kharagpur and its few honest people or is there a much bigger story behind all this mud-slinging going on?
