The bid made by Asia’s richest man, Gautam Adani, to add NDTV to his earlier acquisition of a minority stake in Quintillion Business Media Private Limited (QBM), a digital business news platform, did not surprise anyone.Rumours of such a move had been doing the rounds for a while now. But the fact that it did not surprise does not mean that it did not cause great disquiet across the country. Make no mistake. Adani through his Adani Media Networks Limited (AMNL) has ambitious plans for NDTV. As the CEO of AMNL, Sanjay Pugalia, revealed in a recent press release, the new acquisition is a “significant milestone” in Adani’s goal to “pave the path of new age media across platforms”.The press release goes on to press the “public interest” button with great force: “AMNL seeks to empower Indian citizens, consumers and those interested in India, with information and knowledge.” So like new age ports or new age coal, we are now to have new age media that can be mined, transported and encashed.It may be a complete coincidence but the statement comes as a reminder of another missive from another top corporate over another media acquisition which had carried a similar buzz. Shortly after Narendra Modi was sworn in as the prime minister of the country in 2014, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) struck a Rs 4,000-crore deal with Raghav Bahl’s Network 18 Media & Investments Ltd (NW18). This meant that the country’s richest man at that point became a media czar overnight with an impressive string of television companies now his. These included Colors, CNN-IBN, CNBCTV18 , IBN7, CNBC Awaaz as well as digital media platforms like Moneycontrol, Firstpost, Cricketnext, Homeshop18, Bookmyshow, and so on.At that point RIL also put out a statement saying that the new acquisition will provide “a unique amalgamation at the intersect of telecom, web and digital commerce via a suite of premier digital properties.”Media observer Paranjoy Guha Thakurta had noted in a piece he wrote for the Economic and Political Weekly at that juncture, that Reliance, having now become the biggest player in India’s mass media industry, now has an enhanced ability to influence public opinion through the media, “thereby also strengthening its hold over the working of the country’s political economy.”He anticipated a growing homogenisation and commodification of news; a greater spread of information in tune with corporate interests rather than those of the less powerful and underprivileged sections of society; and a growing concentration of corporate ownership of media institutions. The intervening eight years have not proved him wrong, but with the Adani grab of what perhaps is the only mainstream media institution with some credibility and professionalism left in the Indian mediascape, we are literally staring into the abyss.In fact one of the reasons why this acquisition is so valuable is precisely this credibility that is attached to NDTV. In a recent statement, it averred that it “has never compromised on the heart of its operations – its journalism”. One may not completely go along with this self-assessment but it is certainly the case that one of the reasons NDTV has been in the crosshairs of the political establishment over the years has been its relative independence, which has also meant the punishing scrutiny of the ED, CBI and the IT authorities, that more pliable media houses have been able to forestall.Gautam Adani. In the background is the NDTV logo. Photo: ReutersI remember well the protest held at the Delhi Press Club after the Central Bureau of Investigation had raided the Roys in 2017 for an alleged loan fraud, with veterans like Kuldip Nayar seeing it as a reenactment of scenes straight from the Indira Gandhi emergency.But what precisely does Adani hope to gain from such an acquisition? Clearly, the move is not driven by a burning commitment to freedom of expression or the need to defend the media as a pillar of democracy. In fact, Adani’s media philosophy was spelt out very accurately during one of his rare public addresses.Speaking at a J.P. Morgan India Investor Summit in September 2021, he reportedly argued in the context of the pandemic that media coverage should not be biased under the garb of press freedom and that media criticism should not be at the cost of “national dignity”. Defending the Indian government’s handling of the pandemic, he attacked the media which in their “rush to lay blame and find fault”, possibly failed to “acknowledge another, more positive side to the story of how we handled and continue to handle the COVID crisis.”This is a philosophy that is remarkably in sync with those who rule the country and their spokespersons, who have always held that any criticism directed at the political establishment by the media is synonymous with “anti-national” activity that brings disrepute to the country. So, Gautam Adani is shaping up to be the kind of media czar that warms the cockles of the heart of today’s rulers.But there is another, more personal, aspect of the Adani legacy when it comes to the media that causes even more disquiet. Here is an individual who possibly more than any other corporate or political honcho in the country has deployed the sledgehammer of civil cases and SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits against journalists. Media professionals have lost jobs, been incredibly inconvenienced and forced to work under the fear of possible defamation action.Not only have he and his associates used this approach extensively in India to punish those who dared to do independent reporting on the Adani business empire and to dissuade others from following suit in India, journalists and social activists resisting his mining activities in Australia have also felt the hot vapours of an Adani pursuit.In 2017, a team from ‘Four Corners’, a well-considered investigative programme that runs on Australian television, visited Mundra, Gujarat, to do a story on the Adani port there. Before long the Gujarat Police were in pursuit of the team, which was warned to leave if it did not want the intelligence guys on their tail. Finally, the ‘Four Corners’ team had no option but to abandon their investigation, but not before extensive footage that they had put together was deleted from their cameras by security personnel.In Australia, a vibrant anti-mining movement against Adani’s Carmichael mine near the Great Barrier Reef has continued its protests for something like a decade, yet it has not been able to put an end to the mining. This has been achieved through some strategic footwork employed by the Adani Group to trip up protesters through court action and surveillance. Take the case of Ben Pennings, one of the most prominent figures in the Galilee Blockade community action. Not only was he surveilled by a privately hired investigator, he had to face court proceedings for conspiring to injure Adani’s business interests.This back story from Down Under is a useful reminder in the context of Adani’s NDTV acquisition. Ultimately, it appears, for Asia’s richest man the media remain a potent tool, not to protect and enhance democracy, but to protect and enhance his business interests and create a climate that ensures policymaking that favours him, whether in India or anywhere else in the world.******Bilkis Bano story and media coverageThe story of the release of the murderers and rapists who attacked Bilkis Bano and her family on Independence Day began at a rather slow pace. Slowly the outrage began to build up, helped by images of the 11 accused being fed sweets and feted by their political supporters and patrons. As the horrific details of the incident, that took place on March 3, 2002, began to jog public memory, the anger grew. The irony of Prime Minister Modi extolling the need to respect women during his Independence Day peroration on the very day that these criminals were let loose, was not lost on anyone.File image of Bilkis Bano with her family. Photo: PTIA petition to the Supreme Court demanding that the remission to these killers be revoked from feminists across India, which was initially signed by 6,000 and went on to notch up 10,000 signatures within days, reflected the mood graphically. It said: “The anguish and outrage in India at the grave miscarriage of justice in the Bilkis Bano case continues to grow. The early release of 11 convicted gang-rapists and murderers in Gujarat, who did not spare pregnant women, new born infants and children in committing their heinous crimes, has shaken our moral foundations to the core, and shaken our faith in the hope of justice for the women of India. On August 18th, 2022, 6,000 citizens of India, from all walks of life, had appealed to the Honourable Supreme Court of India to take suo moto cognizance, revoke this immoral and unconscionable remission order, restore our faith, and restore justice to Bilkis Bano. Today, Honorable CJI, over 10,000 citizens address themselves to you, and appeal to you to undo this injustice. On behalf of the women of India, we look to you and to the Supreme Court with hope and faith.”The Wire undertook to document the early coverage devoted to it (Buried in Oblivion or Front Page News? How Papers Covered Bilkis Bano Case Convicts’ Release, August 17). It found that “With a few honourable exceptions, the tendency across the spectrum seemed to be to underplay the state government’s action made in favour of rapists in a riot case.”While two national newspapers – the Indian Express and the Hindu – to their credit carried the news on their front pages and came up with editorials condemning the move, major players like the Times of India and the Hindustan Times, carried only snippets on it initially.Extremely disappointing too was the coverage of the Hindi language press, with many not even bothering to publish the story in the early days. In Gujarat, the three biggest vernaculars – Gujarat Samachar, Sandesh and Divya Bhaskar – stuck to the state government’s justification for the remission order. There was, however, an honourable exception that needs to be noted in a closed and controlled public sphere like Gujarat: the Surat-based Gujarat Mitra carried a report on the opposition’s criticism of the move.The importance of this story cannot be understated (Bilkis Bano, Mallika Begum and a Tale of Two Riots, August 21). Apart from the fact that it emerged from what was possibly the worst communal conflagration this country has ever seen, it proved to be one of the biggest wake-up calls to the national conscience. Given this, it was a sharp editorial step on the part of The Wire to monitor that early coverage.Pegasus order: A lost opportunityThe Supreme Court pronouncements on Pegasus have emboldened the Modi government to speak out publicly on what it perceives as its “lawful” right to intercept. Shortly after the verdict, we had Minister of State for Electronic and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar make this brazen argument. Of course the threat of “terrorism” and the need for “national security” is always frontloaded in such reasoning that also invariably overlooks the fact that there is no data protection law in the country, and that institutions like the ED, CBI and the police force have expanded their capacities for surveillance to such an extent that the everyday privacy of ordinary Indian stands severely compromised.Illustration: The WireAs recently as January 2022, a New York Times investigation had revealed clearly enough that in 2017, the Government of India purchased the Pegasus software as part of a $2-billion deal with Israel. Yet, despite the immense political and social consequences of the misuse of such technology, the apex court meekly accepted the government’s refusal to cooperate in unearthing the full facts of issue. In doing so, it failed in its mandate to protect our constitutional liberties (SC Keeps Pegasus Report in Sealed Cover Despite CJI’s Oral Note on Uploading Parts of It, August 26).Given this, two suggestions made in the piece The Supreme Court on Pegasus: Two Short Steps Away From the Truth (August 26) assume great importance. One, that Citizen Lab and other reputed organisations like Amnesty, be allowed to peer review the report and methodology used by the court’s technical committee. Two, that the apex court insists that “the government file a definitive affidavit and that this be accompanied by individual affidavits from 10 current and former officials in which they state on oath whether they are aware or unaware of the purchase and use of Pegasus in India. These are Union home minister Amit Shah; national security adviser Ajit Doval; Samant Goel and Anil Dhasmana of the Research and Analysis Wing; Tapan Deka, Arvind Kumar and Rajiv Jain of the Intelligence Bureau; former home secretaries Rajiv Mehrishi and Ajay Kumar Bhalla, as well as P.K. Sinha and Rajiv Gauba, former and current cabinet secretaries, respectively.”Journalists as persons of interestI don’t know whether one should be flattered by this or not, but the extraordinary attention that is now being paid to the work of journalists by the present government is mind boggling. Every word and image is being monitored and if found to be “anti-national”, according to some skewed anti-media template that the moles monitoring this sort of stuff conform to, suitable retribution will follow.On August 1, young Aakash Hassan – who was on his way to Sri Lanka on an assignment – became the fourth Kashmiri journalist to be prevented from flying out of the country over the last 12 months. A few weeks earlier Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a photojournalist whose work had been awarded a Pulitzer, was all set to fly to Paris for a photo exhibition, when she was off-loaded at the airport and left heart-broken and disillusioned.Now comes news of Angad Singh of Vice, who was not allowed to enter India after his plane landed in New Delhi, despite being on a private visit. If he is being punished for his documentary on the Shaheen Bagh protest, or for his independent reportage on the human tragedy that visited India during the second wave of the pandemic, all one can say is that this is an extraordinarily circuitous way to censor journalistic work.Mediapersons who carry out their assignments with professionalism are either not allowed to take off, or not allowed to land! What creatures living in the nether world of the bureaucracy come up with such forms of punishment? And at whose directions?******Readers write in…Why was I.A. Rehman not mentioned?A mail from well-known author and journalist, Sumanta Banerjee: “It was wonderful reading ‘Backstory: Sketches of Freedom from Writer-Journalists’ (August 13). Good to remind our society of the heroic role of journalists, who are otherwise dismissed as hack-writers. But when you come to modern times, I wish you could have included the name of the veteran Pakistani journalist I.A. Rehman, who as the editor of Pakistan Times all through the 1980s steadfastly exposed human rights abuses in his country. Later, after his retirement, I remember visiting him in Lahore some time in the early 1990s. He took me around the streets of Lahore, and showed me the spot where the first office of Pakistan Times had stood. He had joined it as a young reporter under the editorship of the famous Mazhar Ali Khan, the father of Tariq Ali, the well-known London-based Leftist, writer and activist.”******Fellowship for health journalismAn announcement from New Delhi-based Pallavi Gupta, specialist, Health Systems Governance, Health Systems Transformation Platform (mobile number: 9560080907): “Greetings from Health Systems Transformation Platform! Health Systems Transformation Platform (HSTP) is a not-for-profit organisation based in New Delhi. Our mission is to enable Indian researchers and policy makers to conduct health policy and systems research and translate evidence to practice for Universal Health Coverage. HSTP is introducing a Health Journalism Fellowship to encourage young journalists to critically examine and report on public health issues. The objectives of the fellowship are to offer a learning opportunity to journalists on healthcare and health systems issues, highlight and improve coverage of these issues in the media and build a bridge between the public health community and the media.“To be considered for this fellowship, the applicants must be currently working as journalists (full-time/part-time/or as a freelancer) with print or digital media organisations or wire services, with an established record of publication in English or any Indian vernacular language. They must be graduates in any discipline and possess professional experience of a minimum of two years. The Fellowship is open to all Indian citizens less than 32 years of age. To know more about this initiative, please visit https://www.hstp.org.in/Write to ombudsperson@cms.thewire.in
