The Big Rule!

If you are working in an Indian Television company; particularly Hindi channels, this write-up will not be surprising for you at all. It’s all about breaking news. – Yeah I know I have earlier too posted a similar article but... When I look back at my days in the Hindi channel bracket and my being a silent spectator yet a participant to this raging stupidity – it not only makes me sad but I also experience disgust, which leaves behind a feeling of despair. And it hurts, knowing that the people who allow such nonsense are well reputed and distinguished journalists.



Let me tell you; the quality and importance of ‘Breaking News’ on Hindi channels is based on – A BIG RULE – i.e. - There Is No Rule. From untimely to timely rainfall, from the cat spilling the beans to some biggie sneezing his heart out – All these and more can be sold as breaking news, the only criteria being the ‘incident’ needs to have occurred in big cities – to be precise the all important TRP centers.



I don’t want to go on harping about the lameness of the ‘Breaking News’ concept, which is adopted in India – primarily coz I was also a part of it and I seem to be still an important part of it.



Some video grabs sent to me by a television journalist and a good friend – speaks volumes about the standard of broadcast journalism and the ‘Breaking News’ phenomenon in India and mind you these are just a handful of the examples and not the entire picture. My only prayer - Good sense should prevail and hopefully soon. Amen!

History's Mystery

What's Stonehenge all about! Stonehenge - the mysterious circle of giant stones standing in the south west of England – have always fascinated me. Not because of their scenic beauty but because of the strange arrangement of the stones in a circle.

My trip to these mysterious rocks was quite a journey in itself. Even after hours of trying to analyse and dig out the unsolved and deeply buried legacy of this beautiful yet eerie destination.... I could not lay my hands, heart or head to what was it that brought so many people to this fascinating place; a monument in its own right? Was it the voices; of those who lay silent underground or was it that sense of solace that one feels once you step onto these greenlands. What is it that calls out to you?

There have been many theories put forth; about the pattern of these stones but, the biggest mystery was the fact that who brought these stones and placed them in this isolated place, and most importantly Why? ....where the clouds and the acres of green have a tête-à-tête of a kind – A sight to behold!

My happiness found a new degree when I read a report - claiming that scientists had finally concluded what Stonehenge stood for. They had always been tombstones. But, this latest news has picked up loads of coverage since its announcement by Mike Parker Pearson and National Geographic.

It was thought that the 5,000 year old stones had only served as a burial place for a brief spell between 2600 and 2700 BC. But Parker Pearson has new radiocarbon dating information for three sets of remains, and pinpoints three specific times when the bodies were cremated, spanning a period from 2930 to 2340 BC.These dead people were probably some sort of royalty - a fact that has been picked by some UK publications such as The Times, although perhaps predictably the royal angle seems to have garnered more interest in the United States (see, for example, the LA Times and the Star Tribune).

Still people debate the significance of those big stones in southwestern England (apparently dragged all the way over the mountains from the far reaches of Wales) and why they are arranged there in a circle of distinctive arches. One comment posted at the bottom of this New Scientist story claims that they are just left over bits of stone from people looking for coal. I'm slightly skeptical about that one, originating as I do from a coal-mining area of England and never having noticed huge stone circles there.

In case you still aren't convinced by the latest discoveries New Scientists also have a nice rundown of the most popular theories for the existence of the stones, including the best of all – Stonehenge being an UFO landing site. Please, please, please, for once let science be wrong. Let Stonehenge be a gateway for visiting aliens. It's what all of us want. Don’t We?

Pisa's leaning tower 'stabilized'

And How!

While at Pisa in Italy, I did my own thing and tried my hand at stabilizing the Leaning Tower of Pisa… only for the sake of this Kodak moment that you see above. I am happy that it has finally stopped moving for the first time in its 800-year-history - and of course - not due to my efforts, but, because of those engineers who have worked on it for years.

Reports say, that the man in charge of the team monitoring the 26m euros (£20m; $40m) project has confirmed that the tower should remain stable for at least another 200 years. It took the team more than 10 years to stabilize the tower. The work involved extracting some 70 tonnes of earth from the northern side to encourage the tower to right itself. The tower continued to move towards a more upright position when the work finished. Now, though - seven years later and 48cm (19in) straighter - hi-tech monitors embedded in the soil beneath its foundations and in the tower itself show that it has stopped moving completely. Even while it was being built, in the late 12th Century, workers noticed that it was starting to tilt. Their attempts to compensate resulted in the completed tower, being very slightly bent. As if to underline the success of the project, the leaning tower recently lost its title as the world's wonkiest piece of architecture to the steeple of a small church in Germany.

Shooting under Fire

I am a hardcore news journalist who loves to report in 90 seconds – a documentary and the likes of news have never been my forte. But a day spent at the Reuter's headquarters in Canary Wharf, London sometime in August, last year – changed my perception on documentary making. My friend Pawan Bali loves documentaries and will eventually venture into it sometime in the future. Her stern interest in this subject always befuddled me but I was in for a revelation. A screening of a 72 minute documentary on Reuters's cameramen and photographers in the war torn Gaza strip made me sit upright and understand the nuances of what a good documentary is and what it can do, unlike those shown in the name of documentaries on the Indian news channels.

Would like to share some part of this very interesting and must watch documentary. From its story to its camera work and for its climax – Every single nuance is so beautiful; dipped in the essence of pain.

SHOOTING UNDER FIRE – is the story where Reinhard Krause, the German head of the Reuters Israeli photo bureau is up against a deadline and facing a moral dilemma. He's looking at a photo that shows the head of the female suicide bomber still perfectly in tact lying on the ground, severed cleanly from her body without a blemish on her face and with no blood to be seen. Does he decide to show this to the world or keep it hidden? "Every picture must tell a story" Reinhard says and it's clear what happened with this frame, but is the world ready for this kind of image? He needs to decide within minutes. Welcome to the everyday difficulties of depicting a story that keeps rolling on with new horrors. This film joins Reinhard during the last few weeks of his 4 year placement in Israel and unveils the people and the pressured process of a news agency producing the photos we see in papers around the world. Reinhard single-handedly revolutionized how photos are taken and reported upon in Israel and is now working with a well-oiled team made up of both Palestinians and Israelis, many of whom still have never met, as freedom of movement is restricted for everyone. Both sides of the war report to the same person. Reinhard's team reports on atrocities most days and each of them has found different ways to cope with the stress of what they are witnessing. Gil, an Israeli photographer breaks down on camera after covering an emotional funeral saying that sometimes he feels like an animal chasing after the shots. Ahmed, a Palestinian who was nearly killed when on the job knows that it's his duty to show the world what is really going on in Gaza and lives and breathes his job. Nir, a young talented photographer in Tel Aviv has learnt to separate the day job and his leisure time and blocks off what he doesn't want to think about. Abed, a resident in the anarchic West Bank town of Nablus has become a spokesman for local journalists even though he's had to endure 90 days of curfew before. All of them won't change their job for love nor money. This film gets behind the world's oldest news agency to show how the news is made and reported on, from the first ambulance text of an accident in Jerusalem to the front page of the papers the next morning. Few of us stop to think how our stories and pictures come to us. With unprecedented access Shooting under Fire shows us the full process, highlighting the staggeringly fast digital technology, the difficult morals that await even the toughest of snappers, and the extreme lives that people lead in a land in war.