Prabhu Chawla’s son named in media bribery case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named advocate Ankur Chawla, son of Prabhu Chawla, editor of the leading English newsweekly India Today*, for allegedly acting as a conduit to pay a bribe to a quasi-judicial official for “a favourable verdict in a case concerning a media house”.

The Hindustan Times reports that junior Chawla represented one of the two feuding factions of the Hindi daily newspaper Amar Ujala, and had arranged for Rs 10 lakh to be delivered to the acting chairman of the company law board (CLB), R. Vasudevan, who has been arrested for taking the bribe.

The Times of India, quoting CBI sources, says Ankur Chawla had approached Manoj Banthia, a secretary with the Ujala management, with Rs 10 lakh to get the case settled in favour of the daily’s management. “Banthia kept Rs 3 lakh. Chawla’s name is also in the FIR.”

According to Press Trust of India, Banthia was nabbed while he was emerging from Vasudevan’s house in South Delhi after allegedly paying the bribe. A further sum of Rs 55 lakh was also recovered from the residence of the 58-year-old officer.

The Economic Times quotes a CBI spokesman as saying it was “a double-trap”, in which the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker were arrested.

Atul Maheshwari, managing director of the Amar Ujala group, has clarified he had no connection with the case, but Chawla’s house in upscale Defence Colony was raided and a file relating to the case was recovered “establishing his links with the case“.

Indo Asian News Service reports that Chawla, who was reportedly out of India for two days, has professed ignorance about the bribery but has said he will co-operate with investigators.

However, Financial Chronicle reports that Ankur Chawla was among the three arrested along with Vasudevan and Banthia. But the official CBI press release makes no mention of a third arrest, much less the name or pedigree of Chawla.

The Hindu reports that CBI has registered a case against Vasudevan, Banthia and Ankur Chawla under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and Section 7 (public servant taking bribe other than legal remuneration in respect of an official act), 8 (taking bribe, in order, by corrupt or illegal means, to influence public servant) and other sections of the prevention of corruption Act.

To its credit, Mail Today, the tabloid newspaper owned by the India Today group for which Prabhu Chawla writes a weekly Monday column, gave the most space to the story among all Delhi dailies without, however, revealing the link.

It quoted the CBI spokesman as saying “an advocate acted as the conduit for giving this bribe,” and that “raids at the advocate’s house revealed documents belonging to multiple offices of the media house.”

Read the CBI press release here

* Disclosures apply

Journo who broke Dalai Lama story passes away

From The Hindu:

Guwahati: Veteran journalist Naresh Chandra Rajkhowa, who broke the news about the Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet through Tawang in March 1959 and his seeking asylum in India, passed away at his Chandmari residence here on Monday. He was 87. He is survived by his wife Aparajita, a son and three daughters.

Rajkhowa was also the first Indian journalist to have interviewed the Tibetan religious leader.

The Dalai Lama’s request letter for asylum had reached Rajkhowa by mistake in Shillong, where he was based as the correspondent of the The Assam Tribune, a local English daily published from Guwahati.

The messenger, who carried the Dalai Lama’s request letter written in English, reached Rajkhowa instead of a government official to whom the letter was addressed and who was residing near the journalist’s residence.

Rajkhowa used to recall how he first copied the whole letter before sealing it once again for handing it over to the messenger for delivery to the official and thus broke the story about the Dalai Lama’s flight in The Assam Tribune.

Born in Phukan Nagar in upper Assam’s Sivasagar district, Rajkhowa started his career as a sub-editor with The Assam Tribune in 1946. Later he joined the Shillong office of the English daily in 1951. In 1973, he shifted his base to New Delhi and worked in different national newspapers.

Rajkhowa was also a member of the Press Council of India.

Photograph: courtesy The Assam Tribune

Read The AssamTribune obituary here

Read The Assam Times obituary here

CAMPAIGN TO FREE LAXMAN CHOUDHURY

India’s war on Maoists, described by prime minister Manmohan Singh as the “gravest internal threat” facing the country has begun to ensnare journalists too.

Laxman Choudhury, a stringer with the Oriya daily Sambad, picked up eight weeks ago because eight leaflets of Maoist “literature” addressed to him were found with a bus conductor, is still in jail.

Newspaper facsimile: courtesy The Indian Express

Also read: BBC journalists secure abducted cop’s release

There’s a new ism in town, Arnab-ism

Speak out. Sign the petition. Free Maziar Bahari

The best editor The Pioneer, Delhi, never had?

The writer Rudyard Kipling was once on its rolls; the former British prime minister Winston Churchill served as its war correspondent.

Now, The Pioneer, New Delhi, has announced its best editor who wasn’t: Eric Arthur Blair

In a front-page story, the right-wing paper reports that the left-wing novelist and political thinker (born in Motihari, Bihar) received a letter from The Pioneer offering him a job as editor.

And on February 12, 1938, Blair wrote to the India Office in London:

“My object in going to India is, apart from the work on The Pioneer, to try and get a clearer idea of political and social conditions in India than I have at present. I shall no doubt write some book on the sub-continent and if I can arrange it, I shall probably contribute occasional articles (to English periodicals).

“ps: I should have said that I usually write under the name of ‘George Orwell‘.”

Cover image: courtesy Time

Also read: How Chandan Mitra has his halwa and hogs it too

For the record: anything goes. (Conditions apply)

GEORGE ORWELL: Six steps to write better English

Former journalist falls to death trekking in China

sans serif records the sad demise of Arun Veembur, a former journalist in Bangalore who went trekking to China “on a whim” to escape the humdrum of routine journalism.

According to a report in The Hindu, Arun, 28, suffered serious head injuries after a fall while hiking in the mountains of southwest China on Monday.

Arun, son of a DRDO scientist, who worked at Deccan Herald and Mid-Day, had to moved to Yunnan after hearing the story of the Stilwell Road built by the Allies during World War II to ship supplies from India to China, and was working on a book. The road runs from Assam through Myanmar to Yunnan.

Read Arun Veembur’s stories on China here

Read an obituary here: GoKunming

Read the The Hindu report: Young writer dies in China

Links via K.R. Balasubramanyam, Rahul Chandrasekharan

Letters modern-day authors no longer write

From the superb blog Letters of Note, a dream letter from the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov that every editor would love to dream of.

Visit the blog: Letters of Note

The brave last words of Prabhash Joshi. RIP.

The full text of the press release issued by the Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP) of the address made by Prabhash Joshi at a seminar held in New Delhi on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, on the blurring of the line between editorial and advertisements in the Indian media. Joshi, a former editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta, passed away last week, nine days after the address.

Also read: Pyramid Saimira, Tatva & Times Private Treaties

Times Private Treaties gets a very public airing

SUCHETA DALAL: Forget the news, you can’t believe the ads either

Does he who pays the piper call the tune?

SALIL TRIPATHI: The first casualty of a cosy deal is credibility

Selling the soul? Or sustaining the business?

PAUL BECKETT: Indian media holding Indian democracy ransom

Does he who pays the piper call the tune?

PRATAP BHANU MEHTA: ‘Indian media in deeply murky ethical territory’

The scoreline: Different strokes for different folks

A package deal that’s well worth a second look

ADITYA NIGAM: ‘Editors, senior journalists must declare assets’

PRABHASH JOSHI, A HINDI TITAN, IS NO MORE

sans serif records with deep regret the passing away of the veteran Hindi editor and a fearless voice against media malfeasance, Prabhash Joshi, in New Delhi on Friday morning. He was 72 years old.

Founder editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta published by the Indian Express group, Joshi was a key member of the inner circle of the paper’s fiesty proprietor, Ramnath Goenka. Equally proficient in English, Joshi served as resident editor of the Express in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Delhi.

Joshi had lately taken on a lead role against the selling of editorial space for advertisers by rapacious Indian media houses. He wrote a searing four-part series on the topic in Jansatta, which he continued to serve as editorial advisor after his retirement.

He was also a key speaker at a seminar* on the subject held by the Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP) in the capital last week, where he revealed the plight of the BJP leader Lalji Tandon, whose campaign in the recent elections was not covered by a single newspaper because he declined to pay for coverage. Tandon won despite the media blackout.

Fittingly, for an avid cricket fan, Prabhash Joshi’s innings came to an end as he watched India fight back in a one-day international match against Australia in Hyderbad, in which Sachin Tendulkar scored the innings of his life while crossing 17,000 runs in his career.

* Disclosures apply

Photograph: courtesy Tehelka

Read the PTI report here: Noted journalist Prabhash Joshi dies

Also read: Searching for Prabhash Joshi on Google

Will India’s greatest questioner raise his hand?

Stephen J. Dubner, the journalist who co-authored Freakonomics with the economist Steven D. Levitt, writes on his blog that the most interesting question thrown in the run-up to their new book, SuperFreakonomics, has come from an (unnamed) Indian journalist.

In fact, the blog post is titled: “The greatest question ever asked?”

The question:

“You state that your book is based on one fundamental assumption about human nature: people respond to incentives. Which is another way of saying that people are basically selfish. Take someone like Jesus Christ. What was his “incentive” to go on the cross?”

Read the full post here: The greatest question ever asked?

Sanskriti Awards for Teresa Rehman, Bahar Dutt

Two young journalists, Teresa Rehman (left) of Tehelka and Bahar Dutt of CNN-IBN, are among five winners of the Sanskriti Awards for 2009.

Now in its 30th year, the Sanskriti Awards are given to young talents between 25 and 35 years of age, and will be presented in New Delhi on Novemebr 20, according to a press release. Each award carries Rs 50,000 in cash and a citation.

# An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Teresa Rehman is Tehelka’s principal correspondent in the Northeast. Her photo-story on an alleged fake encounter in Manipur in June 2009, won global acclaim and was picked up by newspapers and magazines worldwide.

# Bahar Dutt, a trained wildlife conservationist, has worked for the last ten years on key wildlife issues in India and abroad. She played a key role in working with and rehabilitating the Bahelias, a community of snake charmers in Rajasthan and Haryana.

Photographs: courtesy Sanskriti Pratishtan