why round figures are good

when the uproar on reservation was at its loudest, what disturbed me more than the tunnel-vision of the young turks on the road, was the the reporting by the media. it was like watching ‘rang de basanti’ part-II and with the new DJs and Karans in labcoats and jhadus, out to cleanse a corrupt political system that had waylaid meritocracy in favour of cheap crowd-pleasers like caste-line reservations. i will not stoop to point out the number of ill people who were not tended to on those heady days… oops, did i say it?

about the other side of the debate, there was on the whole a loud silence on t.v., in the dailies and magazines. (frontline brought out an issue on the various angles of the story – including the successes of reservation in the south of India).

and here’s a reason why it may have been so. The media study group did a survey in delhi (which the Tehelka has summarized in the 01/07/06 issue) that basically confirms what I suspected – while i figure out how external links work, i’m quoting liberally from the article.

“Look into the Fairness Mirror

upper caste hindu men dominate the media… ‘twice born’ hindus (dwijas comprising Brahmins, kayasthas, rajputs, vaishyas and khatris) are about 16 percent of india’s population, but they are about 86 percent among the key media decision-makers in this survey.

Dalits and adivasis are conspicuous by their absence among the decision-makers. Not even on of the 315 key decision-makers belonged to the scheduled castes or the scheduled tribes.

The proportion of OBCs is abysmally low among the key decision-makers in the national media: they ar only 4 percent compared to their population of around 40 percent in the country.”