Scientist | News junkie | Gadget freak | Proud to be blocked by Editor-in-Chief of ANI |
“The views expressed are purely personal and not that of NATPAC”
The people who filled our childhood with laughter are slowly leaving us. Rest in peace to another legend who made countless memories and smiles.
#Salimkumar
When the British left a fractured jigsaw puzzle of princely states, it took the monumental patience and moral resolve of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to stitch them into one sovereign reality. He understood that a nation’s progress depended on its integrity, famously warning that "evil unchecked grows, and evil tolerated poisons the whole system."
Today, our commitment to routing out such evil remains the foundational task of leadership.
India dominates the global tech landscape because of Nehru’s scientific vision. The IITs and institutions he founded were not just buildings; they were incubators for the intellect that drives the world today. He knew that purging the "evils" of ignorance and stagnation was the only way to build a modern powerhouse capable of standing tall on the global stage.
Yet, for all his stature, Nehru’s heart remained with the farmers. His final wish—to have his ashes scattered from the skies onto the fields—blended his mortality forever with the soul of our soil. On his 62nd Death Anniversary, we remember the man who lives on in every grain of this nation.
Remembering Jawahar. Jai Hind!
#Nehruji
So China continues to defy US sanctions on Iran and it's defiance is rewarded. India follows US instructions to the letter, & it's obedience is punished. The reason is China has grown into a manufacturing,& supply chain behemoth that no country in the current world can antagonise. Raw power is the only currency that the US recognises.
China lifted 800 million people out of poverty in 40 years, thro ruthless efficiency in governance, discipline, hardwork,& far sighted planning. India liberalised a decade later than China, but remains trapped in corruption, red tape, Caste arithmetic, religious polarisation, & endless electoral theatrics. The difference is stark.
China built ports, railways, factories & global supply chains. India built TV debates, WhatsApp propaganda & statues. One nation rose with a far-sighted vision. The other, governed with an eye on 5- yr election cycles.
The tragedy of modern India.
India today needs genuine public television in the truest sense of the term.
Not government television. Public television.
There is an important difference between the two .
A serious public broadcaster does not exist to flatter those in power, inflame public passions, or compete every minute for ratings through outrage and spectacle. Its purpose is to create a trusted civic space: calm, credible, informed, intellectually serious, accessible to ordinary citizens, and insulated as far as possible from both political pressure and market hysteria.
Public television rests on a simple democratic idea: that information is a public good, not merely a commercial commodity. It values verification over velocity, depth over perpetual “breaking news”, and moderation over emotional manipulation. It trusts viewers enough not to assault them every minute with noise.
It means anchors who facilitate discussion rather than perform as protagonists. Panels designed to illuminate rather than provoke. Journalism that leaves room for complexity, ambiguity and thought. Space not only for political combat, but for science, culture, education, the arts, rural realities, public health, serious international affairs and the quieter textures of national life.
And tone matters too. Especially tone.
The finest public broadcasters around the world earned trust because they projected composure in moments of crisis, restraint in language, and confidence without theatricality. They understood that authority does not require hysteria.
India once aspired, however imperfectly, to such an idea. Today, amid the relentless commercialisation and performative aggression of television news, the need for it feels greater than ever.
A nation of India’s scale, diversity and civilisational depth cannot conduct its entire public conversation through nightly televised gladiatorial combat.
Democracy is not sustained by noise alone. It also requires spaces where citizens can listen, reflect, disagree intelligently, and occasionally recover a sense of proportion.
Why does so much Indian TV news sound permanently out of breath/breathless? Every debate feels like a national emergency, every headline like a battlefield dispatch. Anchors speak in rising crescendos, panels shout over one another, graphics often flash like alarm systems. The Iran war for instance is depicted on screen framed in flames and “mahayudh” screaming all over it. We are unique in this pitch of constant crescendo.
It is not merely a broadcasting style. It reflects something deeper about us.
Our television news evolved in the age of ratings wars, political spectacle and 24/7 competition for attention. Calmness came to be mistaken for dullness. Excitement became a business model.
Nationalism, grievance, triumphalism, insecurity, outrage, aspiration, wounded pride, civilisational assertion, all coexist simultaneously. The result is a media register that sounds permanently adrenalised.
But older Indian broadcasting was very different. Listen to archival Doordarshan clips from the 1970s or 80s. The tone was measured, restrained, even austere. News was delivered as information, not performance.
Television producers have learned that perpetual urgency creates emotional addiction. If everything is historic, explosive, shocking, decisive, existential, viewers remain physiologically engaged. The problem, of course, is exhaustion. Nations cannot permanently exist at emotional fever pitch without consequences for public discourse.
Today we often sound perpetually excited, perpetually mobilised, perpetually “on”. Perhaps television has become the mirror of a society itself in emotional overdrive: restless, aspirational, anxious, performative, seeking validation every minute.
The irony is that true authority rarely needs to shout. Confidence usually speaks in a quieter voice. So the raised pitch is not just acoustics. Today the country is increasingly performing itself to itself.
And yes, I know I am about to be eaten alive for saying this, on Indian television and social media alike. That is perfectly fine. But perhaps it is time we introspected a little on what we have become, and why we now seem unable simply to speak to one another in a normal tone.
Much of our television news increasingly resembles coloratura without pause: high-pitched, breathless, emotionally over-ornamented, forever climbing toward some impossible crescendo. Every night, the nation seems to be singing at full volume.
But societies cannot live permanently at operatic pitch. At some point, we must learn again the power of modulation, silence, restraint, and calm.