Offstumped is marking the first in a series of posts from now till the counting of votes as Gujarat conducts elections to the State Legislative Assembly.
So how is the battleground in Gujarat shaping up ?
More than a month back when the Congress with great enthusiasm celebrated the arrival of its heir apparent Rahul Gandhi with juvenile cricketing metaphors, more than one Congressman said it would be Rahul Gandhi versus Narendra Modi. The heir apparent meanwhile seems have gone into hibernation after promising “rapid fire talking points“, “booklets on Rama Sethu” while calling for “accountability” and “meritocracy” in the Congress. In fact it needed the Uttar Pradesh Police to conjure up kidnap plots to bring back the media spotlight on the heir apparent since his lackadaisical AICC speech.
So where is Rahul Gandhi and is he up to the challenge in Gujarat ?
In fact so lacking in punch is the Congress campaign in Gujarat that the only headlines it seems to be making are the candidate lists it belatedly released after Modi stole an early lead with a slate that punished non performing incumbents while breaking new grounds in representing women. Whether all of this is any panacea to Modi’s woes remains to be seen.
But the principal opposition it appears is the least of Modi’s worries at the moment. A??cursory scan of the media stories says it all. For every 10 news stories on Modi and the feud within the BJP there are probably one or two stories on the Congress and that too mostly carrying soundbites coming from local leaders while the national leadership of the Congress is nowhere in the picture.
While the electoral battle in Gujarat is increasingly looking like a BJP versus BJP family feud, the 24×7 news channels have decided to pick up the gauntlet dropped by the Congress. The reporting line by?NDTV and CNN-IBN says it all.
About 109 news stories from NDTV on Gujarat in the last 30 days. Of these about 67 stories had to with the polls. An analysis of th 67 stories by NDTV is very revealing.
Anti-Modi (tehelka, riots and related muslim issues,??development) – 27 stories includes only 2 on development (1 story on Modi’s Chiranjeevi scheme to encourage private use of maternity homes/clinics is strangely given a negative spin of decaying public health and a second one on nomadic muslim tribes being denied voter identities)
General Muslim issues (excluding riots)?in Gujarat – None
Factual reporting on Congress/rebels/others campaign – 13 stories (mostly PTI releases)
Factual reporting on BJP/Modi campaign – 14? stories (mostly PTI releases)
Positive stories on Development in Gujarat with credit to Modi/BJP – None
Positive stories on Gujarat with no apparent credit – 1 story on snake charmers getting voter identities
Negative stories with no specific target of criticism or generally critical of politics?- 2 stories on fishermen and rural foodgrain? banks run by women being disenchanted with politicians
Poll process related – Rest
The bias in the reportage is damning.
What is apalling however is that how little the reportage has focused on development related issues on Gujarat in general and on Muslims in specific.
The other interesting aspect of the reportage is the near equal coverage to the political opposition despite the Congress yet to seriously begin its campaign. This is a reflection of how prominently the BJP rebels and the internal feud with Keshubhai Patel has figured in the media.
The doom and gloom reportage is not confined to NDTV alone. The CNN-IBN is guilty of it as well. Of about 36 news stories sampled by Offstumped in the last 30 days, CNN-IBN had the following break up
Anti-Modi (tehelka, riots and related muslim issues,??development) – 27 stories including stinging op-eds by Sagarika Ghosh and Rajdeep Sardesai
General Muslim issues (excluding riots)?in Gujarat – None
Factual reporting on Congress/rebels/others campaign – 4
Factual reporting on BJP/Modi campaign – None
Positive stories on Development in Gujarat with credit to Modi/BJP – None
Positive stories on Gujarat with no apparent credit – None
Negative stories with no specific target of criticism or generally critical of politics?- None
Poll process related – Rest
If NDTV was merely?biased, CNN-IBN seems to be almosy running an election campaign against Narendra Modi.
Offstumped Bottomline: The battlelines are drawn in Gujarat. Its media versus Modi with the Congress nowhere in the picture and BJP rebels hogging the headlines.?With the heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi neither “here” nor “apparent” its clearly Narendra Modi’s election to lose or win.
Filed under: Gujarat Polls 2007, Uncategorized
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[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt Offstumped is marking the first in a series of posts from now till the counting of votes as Gujarat conducts elections to the State Legislative Assembly. So how is the battleground in Gujarat shaping up ? More than a month back when the Congress with great enthusiasm celebrated the arrival of its heir apparent Rahul Gandhi with juvenile cricketing metaphors, more than one Congressman said it would be Rahul Gandhi versus Narendra Modi. The heir apparent meanwhile seems have gone into hibernati [...]
How did you love today’s NDTV story “Gujarat: Muslim families denied voting rights”…its written in a tone that suggests Modi went their himself to ‘deny’ their non-existent voting privileges.
Anyhow, reading on the preparations for the elections, a few things I noticed: (1) Almost all of the unpopular MLA’s the BJP dropped are planning to still contest the elections, once again a depressing statement on political entitlement in India. What has been obviously less covered by the media is that Congress workers are furious over numerous BJP rebels being accomodated without their being consulted, and there are going to be a number of Congress rebel candidates as well. (2) The gutsy move by Modi to give 1/6 seats to women. Again, rather than saying anything positive about his using his power to advance women party workers, the liberal media just remarked on how this strategy will backfire.
I think we are under sonia rule
http://truecongresspolitics.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/are-we-heading-towards-a-christian-india/
Truths and facts about godhra unbiased
http://truecongresspolitics.wordpress.com/2007/11/26/facts-speak-for-themselves/
BJP is 100 times more prepared,powerful and effecient in Gujarat. The marketing tactics used for selling development to people of Gujarat is worth noticing here. To get glance of all media material, please search “narendra modi” on youtube.com. Also look at Narendra modi growing community with more than 5000 members on orkut.com. Here, it is interesting to note that congress leader too created their fan clubs and communities on orkut, after TOI reported that BJP leads in e-campaign. But it is funny to note that 95% profiles in this community are fake profiles.
check this
http://www.orkut.com/CommMembers.aspx?cmm=41316492&tab=0&na=3&nst=31&nid=0
http://www.orkut.com/CommMembers.aspx?cmm=41704942&tab=0&na=3&nst=31&nid=0
CNN-IBN was always cynical in reporting Narendra modi, but now they cannot stop short of insulting Gujarati people. For eg, recent election coverage program by Sagarika Ghose, where see declares that “Gujaratis love proxy war because large part of kargil war relief fund came from Gujarat while their are hardly any Gujaratis in Army”. Now what does this means? Are we like Arabs sponsoring jihad. Its not only Narendra modi versus cynical media it is Gujarat versus pseudo-secular media.
NDTV and CNN-IBN are no more news chennal these days… they only become entertaining/joker chennal who ppl watch only for time pass.
If things goes continue like these chennal broadcasting then very soon we will see ban on such channal by ppl only.
Media… you keep trying hard with your anti-modi/anti-gujarat tactics barking dog’s anyway can’t do more then that.
As long as Aajtak is with Modi/Rss, there is no use of debating cnn-ibn and ndtv
Gujjuman,
When you search for “narendra modi” on youtube.com, do click on Sort by: Date Added. The default is “Relevence”. This causes newer videos to show up much later in the list.
The information in the videos is awesome!
The media projects VHP vs Modi. Look at the videos from Acharya Dharmendraji (VHP) and Asharam Bapuji and decide if VHP is against Modi.
May Bharat have rulers like Modi.
Whatever Modi has done or not ( ? ) his spin is mind boggling.
This is just one report of that
http://news.google.co.in/news/url?sa=t&ct=in/0-0&fp=474d381b9b60a00e&ei=DBJNR_KlFZSE6APn1sjfCw&url=http%3A//timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Modis_image_builders_have_dictators_on_client_list/articleshow/2549293.cms&cid=0
Both NDTV & IBN is actually DoorMat of 10 Janpath.
In fact now I feel the Result of 2004 election was Positive…
As now so called Secular Media like NDTV,CNN-IBN,HINDU,HINDUSTAN TIMES,INDIAN EXPRESS and Editors like Prannoy,Barkha,Rajdeep NOW actually Exposed.
Now a days none Media talks of “MUKHAUTA” as THEIR own “MUKHAUTA” has been Exposed.
There isn’t really any independent english news media. NDTV is very bad. It comse at you in many subtle ways. At least CNN-IBN is not that subtle and can be tuned out. So I have taken to watching CNN-IBN over the last year.
Times now is better balanced, at least when reporting about modi.
NDTV means Nonsense Donkey TV.
The truth is NDTV is owned by Prannoy roy who is the brother in law of PArkaksh Karat (CPM). NDTV reporting is highly biased -In favour of CPM and against BJP.
IBNlive – Rajdeep Sardessai was trainned by Pronnoy roy in NDTV who couldnt gell with Barkha dutt (a heroin more than a journalist) is funded by CNN. So his reporting is biased and infavour of COngress.
Sadly BJP has failed to use news channles and it seems no news channel talks about them. Timesof India -A group of Bennet &Coloman ows its patronage to UK based group .
All these English speaking journalist thinks by sepaking smart english they can change the Indian minset in favour of Left-Congress. The whole slogan of secualrism is exposed and the face of champions of secualism -Yecherry , Karat, Manmohan has been exposed in the recent past. Congress is behaving as -Party for minorities (especially muslims and christians).
The need of the hour is -Narendra Modi – What Autralian PM told – All those who want to live by outdated muslim laws are free to live in the countries where it is practicsed. Out news channels and pseudo secualrists are hell bent to lower the feeling of patritism in the country -so that they continue appeasing muslims and win election -Their rule is simple –Divide Hindus vote in the name of Caste, region and unite muslims vote -Thats why Lalu talks of MY (MUslim, Yadav) formula; Congress is also talking some formula on caste line –Intrestingly they will not divide muslims on caste line …. COngress is the biggest enemy of the country -Their leaders are spineless people who lacks self respect(No self respecting people will be sychopant) and hell bent to woo muslims. Sadly majority of Ministers are from RajyaSabha -So they cant win a municipality election -PM, Home minister, Externam Affairs Minister , Education minister –list is long — all are rejected by people but cheated the verdict to form govt. Now as the elction is comming closser there are rough weathers in the coalition. I appeal everyone especially the middle class Hindus to vote or else look to Malysian Hindus to see their future.
Those of u want to watch news channels with right-wing aggenda, start watching Jain TV, Sudharshan TV, etc. These r run by BJP fellows.
Hindus treated like slaves in Malaysia. So when r Yossarin, Nitin and rest of the gang going to write on that?
Its now “Mr.Modi Vs Dinsha Patel”.Dinsha Patel, a bearded Leuva Patel from the land of Sardar Patel, as described by TOI.
Why he is been projected against Mr.Modi from Congress, though he lost Assembly election in 2002 from Nadiad,Gujarat.I feel this is just a Game of INC as Dinsha will have a definite lose against Mr.Modi, so he lose a chance to be projected as Mr.CM of Gujarat if INC wins(Though its 0.001% possibility, seems as living in Gujarat).
Jitega Gujarat !!
Oh boy the usual suspects are back. RS, RoW the day is not complete without your profound wisecracks, welcome back !
Yossarin, now get going on the post on Malay Hindus.
BTW Yossarin just tell it plainly if u dont like me around. I will keep away from here.
RS:
think inside first. When hindus in India (even with 82% population) are treated like slaves in India, how malaysian hindus can be treated better by Muslim rulers.
I hope hindus here india can learn from this. And be united to rule their country.
BTW where is our own PM Mr Manmohan Singh
. Why is he not losing his sleep for hindus in Malaysia 
. He was so sad for Hamid 
.
Around a 1000 temples have been destroyed in malaysia in the past few years, yet none of the Indian media wants to talk about it. Only way to find out what’s happening is to look at coverage from BBC, or VOA.
Indian Government is holding trade meeting with malaysia in january 08, but they dont want to mention the plight of the hindus.
Malaysia has laws on the book that give reservations to muslims for jobs, eventhough they are in majority. ( hindus only represent 8% of the population )
Yet there is not a peep from anyone in India, what can you expect from the gandhi-nehru crowd ?
I think we are under sonia and commies rule..
http://truecongresspolitics.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/are-we-heading-towards-a-christian-india/
AAJ TAK/SAHARA SAMAY/HEADLINES TODAY are just as bad ! after the constant barrage of the tehelka bs, they dont seem to want to talk about their sting op due to the non-response from the public and the congress. the congress is too scared to even mention tehelka sting op. Also they shyly admit, their ’sting’ operation might just help modi’s hindutva agenda, as if modi had ordered it. Truth is modi only wants to talk about development, and that is his election platform.
Besides, Modi didnt happen to godhra, Godhra happened to modi !
We need FOX News in India.
Dear yossarin,
This is an excellent news that you are watching and summarising , appreciate if you can put these in a spreadsheet all the details so that we can show that as source . WIth these leftists who don’t even care union government riot numbers , atleast they can get convinced with these figures .
Program Naame
Date
Time aired
Host
Comment *
WOW! So The Fun Starts.:)
Looking forward to your projections.
PI.
Last evening, Vinod Dua on NDTV India was conducting a program on Gujarat polls. And he was so blatantly anti-Modi that one wonders if there is any pretence of balance in the media these days!
According to him, the root cause of all insecurities felt by the minorities was Modi himself. Hence, it is not a question of who wins the elections, the BJP will always be answerable for the 02 riots!
Of course, the Godhra poster released by the BJP was all over the channels. All these days, Modi was only talking of development while the media was only talking of 2002 riots. Now the minute the BJP made even a slight reference to Godhra, they pounce on him triumphantly. Incidentally, the Godhra poster was about the UPA govts attempts through the Banerjee Commission to subvert the truth!
“When hindus in India (even with 82% population) are treated like slaves in India”
Raaj,
This is nothing but Sangh propaganda. I dont know about your place but at least Hindus live shaan se in my area. Not only Hindus but also all other communities live peacefully and shaane se. There are Sanghis in my city but they have no work coz we mind our own thing.
[...] « Gujarat Polls 2007 – Its NDTV, IBN versus Modi [...]
[...] news channels are on the verge of losing all credibility with their bias now becoming a joke. With phrases like “in a shocking coincidence” they all covered an [...]
All Praise for Modi……
He is undoubtedly the most heavily criticised Politician of India for last 5 years……for eg if there were 10000 news we indian’s had in last 5 years….Narendra Modi garnered around 9,00,000 of them…..
And to top it all…..all the news about him was extremely negative and biased…
NDTV and CNN-IBN have shot themselves in the foot….
they have killed independent/unbiased journalism……
There journalism boundaries on all negative things about Narendra Modi……
They live,eat, sing, breathe only Narendra Modi….
I wonder what work these channels have except for Modi…..
Neverthless….Modi has stood against this negative campaign …not Modi actually it’s the people of Gujarat which have supported him against this unjust campaign unleashed by Congress Party’s mouth pieces channels NDTV and CNN-IBN…..
it’s the people of gujarat which have been his solid supporters all through these turbulent years …
it’s the people of gujarat who will again slap shameless congress and extremely shameless channels NDTV and CNN-IBN in the coming elections….
Narendra Modi tum aage bhado ….hum tumhare saath hai…
Keep doing the good work….We are with you….
http://bp3.blogger.com/_l240WvbBfEs/R03eChhy3hI/AAAAAAAAApA/LPKwukRO–8/s1600-h/Modi.PNG
Raaj, I agree
Hindus are treated like slaves in India.
* Imagine, the Christians, after having conquered mecca, destorying the mosque and making a church there, and after the end of christian rule, the church still exists ! that’s slavery ! now imagine a mosque in ayodhya, and kashi, and varanasi, and a million other places built on destroyed hindu temples. nobody is advocating ‘hindu raj’ but the temples can be rebuilt, atleast in the holiest of holy places.
* Karunanidhi calling Lord Ram a “drunkard”, questioning his existence to appease minorities, the Indian government calling Lord Ram a mythic figure, and the government response to it.
remember the famous danish cartoons and the reaction of the Indian government ? Or of the government response to ’satanic verses’, India being the 1st country to ban it ( even before Iran ) ?
Can one tell the difference ?
Why so sensitive to certain relegions, and not to others ? Hindus are the de facto second class citizens of India.
* Government, refusing to do anything about Islamic terrorism, at the costs of hundreds of hindu lives, due to fear of ‘offending’ the islamo-fascists.
* the Shahbano case, the 1/2 million kashmiri pandit refugees, the still stateless hindu refugees from POK, the special dubious islamic laws ( which most islamic country dont follow), the impotent response to the hindu genocide in 71 bangladesh war…. the list can go on forever.
* In Gujarat, there was a elected relegious fanatic, backed by a national party, who would start riots, was a mass murderer, and had links to shady organizations. His name was Latif.
Never read any article calling him a ‘mass murderer’ or a ‘elected monster.’ Never heard a ’secular’ congressi leader complain.
I think, NDTV and IBN should cut a big cheque to Mr. Modi for the kind of business that he is giving to these 24X7 “v”iews channel.
Off topic, but last night, it was funny to watch NDTV and Barkha Dutt tie herself up in knots over the “expose” and “sting operation” in the BMW case!
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070034815
I think they better leave the sting operations to the likes of Tehelka and India TV.
TV Channel CNBC Awaaz is doing good…..shows the positive things in country…..
To see Shining india…watch CNBC Awaaz
ndtv should be banned for creating communal disharmony in India. Its so biased and i feel like laughing when their stupid english speaking journalists talk about modi and gujarat . Barkha dutt should get a role in movie with Sharukh Khan and Prannoy Roy should act in a classical movie produced by Farhan Aktars movie and of course lyrics will be by Javed Akhtar.
[...] as a hate figure and ran an incessant one sided hate campaign against him which Offstumped has extensively documented on two [...]
[...] as a hate figure and ran an incessant one sided hate campaign against him which Offstumped has extensively documented on two [...]
[...] – Offstumped had extensively analyzed CNN-IBN’s reportage which had little to do with “rule of law” and “secularism” and was [...]
Hi,
. I wake up in the morning, have hot cup of coffee, read Deccan Herald and listen to MTV Kickass mornings!! Then, via google reader, I read some blogs like this one, churumuri et al and be abreast with the different opinions of peoples!! I have a happy life 
. try it folks, u ll feel good too.
I have stopped watching trash posing as news channels
Kudos to Offsrump.nationalinterest.in
My humble rquest to you and all your likeminded members is the following.
Since the victory of “OUR LION” Narendra bhai ,the English Media have now started bashing The BJP and its spokepersons without accepting the verdict .
I beseech you to circulate the following and wish an outspoken Person Like Siddhu or Ravi shankar Prasad
slap the Congressmen and the media with the following.
:
”
Congress walon ke pass ek hi khamba hai jis pe wo congress ka jhanda lehratein hein.Aur wo khamba he Sonai mata .
Is Har(Gujarat ) Ke bad Inki(Congress & English Media) halat to uss Billi is bhi badhtar he jo kum se kum khamba to noach sakti hai .Ye bechare Khambae ko nochana to dooor, usay Chatne ke liya majboor hein.
”
Thanks in advance
[...] media, particularly the english media and 24×7 news channels , have a track record of negative branding of the BJP and its leaders.These channels also have a history of attempting to prop up brand [...]
[...] media, particularly the english media and 24×7 news channels , have a track record of negative branding of the BJP and its leaders.These channels also have a history of attempting to prop up brand [...]
rajdeep sardesai,sagraika ghost,pranoy roy,burkhaa dutt all should hang themselves for calling themselves as a journalist…eventhough these people were barking continuously against modi during gujarat elections,the people of gujarat were not influenced by 0.01 percent of biased reporting…..hats off to gujaratis….i stopped watching cnnibn n ndtv after anaysing its credibility….
i would request all guys n girls should take part in proper forums like blogs etc AND SHOULD VOICE THEIR opinion regarding these false reporting of cnnibn n ndtv….
keep goin modi,people of gujarat n india r back off u…..
Its not a NDTV, IBN versus Modi…its more of NDTV,IBN vs Gujarat in the leadership of Modi.
Prannoy roy,Rajdeep Sardesai,Srinivasan Jain,Barkha Dutt,Karan Thapar just to feed their family and lavish lifestyle they had adopted to cut their mother’s breast not looking for mily rather looking for Blood (To India) to keep their bank accounts full of dolloars.People know very well how they are feeling inside of their guiltyness.
[...] familiar odor. The BJP obsessive compulsive disorder suffered by the media took an absurd turn with a new Modi spin that somehow Mr. Advani’s most trusted lieutanant was a threat to [...]
[...] is not the first time we have seen the media conduct itself in this despicable fashion. The media’s shameful and biased campaign ahead of the Gujarat elections is well documented as was the media’s surreptitious attempt at [...]
My dear brothers, you people are right. These stupid News Channels in india are biased. They are interested only in popularising their channel than giving the righteous News. Varun have become scapegoat because of our timid nature. The same mindless mad monkey(LALLU) who told publicly to roll and crush varun, is a great leader of india. Left parties are the masterminds, they have inducted all their people in almost every channel. I am living in Africa, unfortunately, i get only one news channel in english that is this biased NDTV. These people can show and popularise the mangalore issue with cam recordings but these people have no moral responsibility of informing the police & avoiding the issue. when women cell executive came there and gave a very good statement these people and govt have sidelined her statement. She told that there is no licence for them to run pub over there and she also mentioned that there are many hidden things and she scolded on the tv to all the girls. We should blame ourselves…We Hindus are sheep, we need a very good shepard to direct into right way. i am waiting for the shepard whether Modi or anyother good leader will lead us to realistic life. We Hindus are Minorities in the treatment by these so called secular parties. There should be only one Law. All should be equally treated irrespective of religion caste creed race or sex. This is not ok for the so called secular parties and the muslims. if that is the case, why the so called secular parties put sharia law for only muslims……..? Hope UPA comes to power this time. otherwise we have to face lots of problems in future. These parties will do nothing to india. other day, they have telecasted the akshay ramp issue. Only the people who visited the ramp show have seen that. the one which is shame full have been shown to whole world by these people. with which no benefit is there to the common man. akshay’s was a mistake,but,these people have done blunder with it. lajja nahin hai ye saare nirlajj samvaadhaathaaonko. kya kare…most of them hail from the land where Swami Vivekananda born. one thing i will tell, if they happen to come and do a program in africa, we will definitely take care of them,ofcourse with words.
We got to really appreciate the work done, very informative! keep it up.