Sting operations fail to sting the ‘culprits’

cartoon   politicians doublespeak

It’s disclosures, disclosures and more disclosures. Every other day, Indian electronic media has been conducting sting operations, one after another – starting with Tehelka exposures, it’s down to Operation Chakravyuha, en route Operation Duryodhana and the ones on Bollywood personalities, which gave us the now-familiar term, casting couch.

This new trend is reflective of the fact that TV journalism in India has come of age, indeed. But the saddest part of the story is that while everybody around seems to be getting affected by these sting operations, those targeted seem to be least bothered with the developments despite being filmed accepting bribe. The phenomenon is becoming sort of a routine affair – both for the affected parties and the more affected parties, i.e. politicians and the people, respectively. That being the reason, there’s an urgent need to book the guilty at the earliest, or else all that’s happening will soon be reduced to “just another masala news”.

tv cameraOn the other hand, playing to the gallery, some MPs have been raising the issue on the floor of the House during the ongoing winter session of Parliament. As a fallout, five of the cash-for-query scam-tainted MPs have also been asked by Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee not to enter the august House during the pendency of inquiry against them. But as interests of almost all political parties are being hampered by the new-found love of the electronic media, there were news that cutting across the party lines, the MPs are planning to take the bull by its horns: they are planning to brand the media itself as the “den of conspirators”.

That means, “offense is the best defense” is the cliche that the parliamentarians of India are out to prove. They are going by the assumption that what has happened to others may happened to them as well. It’s high time that the people – the saviours of democracy – saw through the game and raised their voice before it’s too late.

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