Thursday, August 21, 2008

Hartal : Media News Channels spread fake news.

It won't take too long for "Gods own country" to be rechristened “Hartal’s own country”. India’s most educated state, which boosts itself of near-complete literacy seems have taken special liking for hartals. 80 hartals in last 6 months in the state underlines the same fact.

But what was most frustrating to see on the hartal called on 20th Aug was how the media helped propagate “negative” news to make hartal a success. Before I tell how media did it, let me tell a small history about kerala hartals.

Even though rest of Kerala is willing to sit at home on a hartal day, the IT department has always thrown caution to wind and worked every hartal. Infopark in Cochin and Technopark in Trivandrum has seen 100% attendance despite entire state coming to standstill.

Probably this failure of hartal “conductors” to make IT department dance to their tunes forced them into using “fake” news via media news channels. 20th morning news by (if I am right) Kairali and India Vision stating hartal is 100% success and specifically saying that “the normally working IT Department too is on standstill, with Infopark and Technopark life disrupted”.

This might have sawed seeds of doubts in minds many IT professionals, but truth was Infopark and Technopark worked without any problems whole day. There was not even a single obstacle in the roads that lead to these IT Hubs.

So dear politicians and media personnel, please leave us alone. We don’t want to sit at home and yield to a group of people who loves bring kerala to standstill. This is “Generation Next” and for us, hartal or no hartal, we know what our duties are unlike our so-called leaders.

Media news channels like Kairali and IndiaVision, please watch out before spreading such news again.