Latest news with #ArunRam
Time of India
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Take this pre-poll survey, win exciting prizes
If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, Resident Editor, The Times of India, Tamil Nadu, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things. LESS ... MORE The next assembly election in Tamil Nadu is less than a year away, and political parties have kick-started their poll machines. Some of them sputter, some buzz. Some others grind, knock, chug and squeal. Beneath these noises, IT wings and strategists are at work, churning out videos glorifying their leaders and clients, and memes ridiculing their rivals. Before the big bandwagons roll out to kick up dust on roads less taken during non-poll years, here are a couple of new tricks up the strategists' sleeves. Surveys as strategy: Politicians – and their strategists – know that an election is, at the end, a game of numbers – the number of votes, the number of seats. So, why not throw some numbers at the voters before the actual ones are cast and counted? And often the answer is a survey. There are no good surveys and bad surveys; there are only true surveys and fake surveys. A survey is only as good as its purpose: If the idea is to understand the pulse of the voter and find some fundamental data for a SWOT analysis, you do a true survey. If the idea is to manufacture a fictitious strength of a party or a leader to boost his public image – and the confidence of the cadres – you cook up the numbers. Despite the hygiene of the numbers, both surveys have their utility. When it comes to surveys for internal analysis, confirmation bias and wishful thinking can jeopardize a party's strategies. Hence the importance of apolitical professionals (though sometimes a veteran politician with his ear to the ground can read the public pulse better than a young professional armed with AI and a battalion of data crunchers). Propaganda surveys are a different ball game where who delivers the message to the public is sometimes as important as what is delivered. How many of us would believe if a party says its internal survey shows a clear victory for it with a 40% vote share? Here comes the utility of a third party who is apparently not connected to the party. Wouldn't it be better if the propagator belongs to – or has a façade of belonging to – another group? So, here it was, a bunch of social media posts from a handle that identifies itself as a BJP supporter that says Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) will win the polls with a vote share of more than 40%. No prizes for guessing who was sending these links to journalists. Politicians as authors: Political leaders writing Op-Ed pieces in newspapers is a growing trend since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bylines started appearing in mainstream media, including this paper. I find this a healthy development, irrespective of whether the pieces are ghost-written. There are a few decent writers among politicians; for those who aren't good at it, there is no harm in using a professional writer to put across your views in a newspaper to reach a discerning audience. When a strategy group approached me to contribute a political leader's article in this paper, I agreed, with the condition that it should be a piece of either opinion or analysis (that meets our standards), but not one masquerading as the other. If the politician's idea of having his name in the newspaper is to blame his opponents and launch a political campaign, we could well interview him (and there's always the option of advertising). Nobody expects an unbiased analysis from a politician, but every reader expects logic, reasoning and perspective from an Op-Ed writer, even if one doesn't agree with the author's points. The same applies to opinions. Here's wishing our readers a year of some engaging political stories. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Let Kamal Haasan be loud and clear in our Parliament
If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, Resident Editor, The Times of India, Tamil Nadu, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things. LESS ... MORE In Feb last year, this column analysed the possibility of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) getting into an electoral alliance with DMK and Kamal Haasan being offered a Rajya Sabha seat. Kamal campaigned for the DMK-led front that swept the polls. Now that DMK has kept its promise, 'Ulaganayagan' is set to make an entry into Parliament. Whether one agrees with his politics or not, Kamal can perform well as a parliamentarian. Proud of his 'non-schooling', the actor is also a man of letters – written and spoken. Parliament, however, is not just a platform for oration. This is where Kamal will have to be more articulate. Drop that frown, let me explain. Oration and articulation are different skills, though one needs knowledge to employ both. Someone like Shashi Tharoor embodies a perfect marriage of oration and articulation while being a fountainhead of clarity. Articulation, in simple terms, is the art of expressing one's ideas clearly. And what makes an effective parliamentarian is his ability to express not just clearly, but substantiate his arguments too (indeed there are scores of MPs who make hit-and-run remarks under the name of parliamentary privilege). Was Kamal clear at the audio launch of his latest movie 'Thug Life' In Bengaluru last week when he said Tamil gave birth to Kannada? Yes. Did he substantiate it? No. When Kannadigas burst out in protest, Kamal said his was a 'statement of love' for Shivanna (Kannada actor Shivarajkumar). 'His father (Rajkumar) is like my father. We are a family, and so are the other languages.' Was there clarity? No. Kamal later said the debate should be left to historians and language experts. Touché! Kamal is at his best when he delivers straight messages, sometimes through storytelling. I consider some of his best performances have been on the Bigg Boss stage as the anchor showing overzealous participants their place (and it's not always prompted). Those skills may come handy in Parliament. Our Rajya Sabha has been vibrant with different voices, but most of the members from the fields of art, culture and sports have been virtually mute (Jaya Bachchan has been a delightful exception). Do you know that Olympic sprinter P T Usha is a member of Rajya Sabha? Ilaiyaraaja, who is heard in opera houses, is diligently silent in the house of elders. Sachin Tendulkar's debut speech in Rajya Sabha (demanding financial security for national-level athletes) was never delivered, owing to opposition bedlam over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments on his predecessor Manmohan Singh. Kamal's advantage is he is more political than any other film personality. His party may be conveniently called 'Maiam' (centre), but Kamal has been a proud rationalist and an unapologetic leftist, never shy of flaunting his ideology in his movies. 'Anbe Sivam' (Love is God), the 2003 Tamil movie that he scripted, is classic Kamal the communist. It sends the core message that's famously attributed to him much before the movie was made: I don't say there's no God; I say it would be good if there is God. And he has fought many a political battle even before entering politics in 2018. When some sections protested against Kamal naming his 2004 release 'Sandiyar', a term that colloquially connotes a rowdy of a 'dominant' caste, the actor put out a home-made video that dripped of caustic sarcasm at his adversaries. 'I may now name it 'summa' (nothing),' he said. Finally, he had to change the title to 'Virumaandi'. With such righteous anger and some rigorous homework, Kamal, 70, as a rational votary of Dravidian ideals and an advocate for greater federalism would find Rajya Sabha a new stage for his new avatar. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Caste, corruption and coalition: How elections are fought and won
If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, Resident Editor, The Times of India, Tamil Nadu, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things. LESS ... MORE Most Indian elections centre around three 'C's — caste, corruption and coalition. The Tamil Nadu assembly election of 2026 won't be different. And the winner will be the one who plays the three cards strategically, not always overtly. The two big players – DMK and AIADMK – which have their roots in an ideology that spoke of a casteless society, have been adept at political calculations based on caste. BJP is catching up. PMK and VCK have vanniyars and dalits as their vote base. NTK, the perennial loner, has made inroads into some dalit pockets, but Tamil sub-nationalism remains its core slogan with a limited appeal. DMK has made a head start on the caste front with the recent cabinet shuffle. The removal of V Senthil Balaji and K Ponmudy was inevitable given the potential harm they posed to the party, and M K Stalin used the opportunity to 'balance' his cabinet ahead of the polls. S S Sivasankar being given the additional charge of electricity was one way of placating vanniyars. S Muthusamy, who gets back the revenue-rich excise portfolio, hails from the gounder community (to which AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami and former BJP state president K Annamalai belong) that has considerable electoral say in the western districts. R S Raja Kannappan, a Yadava, has been moved to the forest ministry, making available the dairy ministry for the reinduction of T Mano Thangaraj, who can reach out to Christian Nadar voters in the south. AIADMK, which has been doing a balancing act, with gounders and thevars in leadership roles, too has enough representation from all castes to be fielded in the next election. BJP leader Amit Shah is known for his mastery of what is euphemistically called social engineering. So, it wasn't a surprise that when the party decided to move Annamalai out of the state party chief's post, the first choice became Nainar Nagenthran, an influential thevar and a former AIADMK minister from Tirunelveli. Dalits, who constitute more than 20% of the state's population, haven't been able to consolidate as a political force; what's left after divisions between sub-castes and supporters of different parties have aligned with VCK, making Thol Thirumavalavan a crucial ally of DMK. PMK, which has its prime vote base among vanniyars who constitute around 12% of the population, may not have many options than go with NDA as Thirumavalavan wouldn't be part of an alliance that includes PMK. The internal power struggle between its founder S Ramadoss and his son and party president Anbumani Ramadoss has diminished its bargaining chips. Coming to the next 'C', corruption is an issue that every opposition party loves as a poll plank. Though corruption in govt hasn't reduced, DMK has so far been able to dodge charges against some of its ministers. While the governing party may keep the tainted ministers out of the fray, silently communicating that the cases against them are from their alleged past deals and not during the present tenure, corruption may not become the deciding factor unless Enforcement Directorate succeeds in building a case out of the alleged `1,000-crore Tasmac scam and provide admissible evidence against any of the incumbent ministers. The third 'C' can work as a double-edged sword for major parties, especially DMK. As long as it is an electoral alliance, parties are happy with it; once it becomes a proposal for a coalition govt, worry lines show. In 2021, DMK won 133 of the 173 seats it contested, allowing it to form the govt on its own. If its tally falls below the 118-mark in the 234-assembly in 2026, coalition will cease to be a sweet word for Stalin. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
When journalism goes to war and kills storytelling
If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, Resident Editor, The Times of India, Tamil Nadu, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things. LESS ... MORE AI Image One of my unfulfilled journalistic dreams had been to report from a war zone. The other was interviewing Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Had the greatest writer of the 20th century lived to tell the tale of the recent India-Pakistan conflict, he might have mistaken some of the television anchors for army commanders. Marquez couldn't have been more correct when he said freedom is the first casualty of war. What he, however, wouldn't have anticipated is that news presenters, just short of wearing camouflage, making war cries in studios (the enemies were near the TRP borders). One even shouted: Bring out the BrahMos! But for the grim and gore of an impending military spiral, this could've been entertainment. War reporting has always been fraught with danger – not just the physical danger the journalist faces, but that of his being forced to present the narrative of the political leadership that commands the war. War reporting, in its primordial form, must have existed when the caveman ran back to give his friends the news of an approaching group from another territory. That 'straight reporting' ended when propaganda started becoming a part of the arsenal. The International Journalism Handbook says historical accounts of war reporting in its modern form began with William Howard Russell's coverage of the British expeditionary forces during the Crimean War in 1853. A decade later came the American Civil War. 'In both these instances, journalism served as a mobilizing force to drum up patriotic support for a war effort and as a platform for challenging ideas about such efforts and about war itself,' says the handbook. 'This dual role continues to be taken up in war reporting today.' When his country is at war, a journalist will not have the freedom to tell the whole truth, but he should have the freedom – and courage – to not tell a lie. Tightly Embedded journalism became the norm especially after the Vietnam War during which the US Army allowed some of the reporters to detach themselves from the contingent and talk freely to people. This resulted in some 'damaging' consequences for the US govt as the public mood turned against the war. US military commanders called it the Vietnam Syndrome. I am not entirely against embedded war journalism, for it gives journalists a little safer (relatively) access to war zones; the trade-off is one should tell the facilitator's story. This willful compromise is OK if the journalist can tell 'other stories' which are not in contradiction to the official narrative. This is where human-interest stories gain relevance in war reporting. World War II correspondents like Ernie Pyle and Martha Gellhorn (one of the first women war correspondents) excelled in telling human tales dripped in blood. Robert Capa, the legendary war photographer, said, 'If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough.' All that is history as modern warfare and new media have added to the irreversible changes in war reporting. What has survived are some fine books by authors who have been war correspondents or soldiers. Like 'The Face of War', Martha Gellhorn's accounts of her coverage of the Spanish Civil War in 1937 (not to be confused with the famous painting by surrealist Salvador Dali), and Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried', a collection of linked stories of part-fiction based on his experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Back to Operation Sindoor, most of the print media and some of our TV reporters kept a professional head on their shoulders while much of the chest-thumping happened in the studios. Overall, the coverage killed my ambition to report on war. As for my other dream, I still converse with Gabo whose Colonel Aureliano Buendia, 'alone, abandoned by his premonitions, fleeing the chill that was to accompany him until death, sought a last refuge in Macondo in the warmth of his oldest memories'. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
