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Journalism of Courage
It8217;s the big question, come July. Will the United Progressive Alliance8217;s inner contradictions roll back the process of liberalisation in India? Britain8217;s Financial Times, for one, seems happily convinced. The UPA8217;s budget is going to be 8216;8216;reformist8217;8217;, it announced, and the Congress8217;s Communist allies won8217;t stand in the way.
The Common Minimum Programme may have ruled out changes in India8217;s labour laws, it may have stalled privatisation of profit-making state companies. But Manmohan Singh has sent out 8216;8216;clear signals8217;8217; that 8216;8216;reform will go ahead in other areas8217;8217;. The Communists are on board on Singh8217;s 8216;8216;broad priorities8217;8217;, even if they oppose some specific 8216;8216;measures8217;8217;.
Meanwhile, The Economist turned the pages of the CMP. Like a child8217;s letter to Santa Claus, it remarked, and in which 8216;8216;everybody can pick a desired outcome8230;and believe that Christmas is coming8217;8217;. The magazine identified two economic realities likely to block Santa: a fiscal deficit of around 10 per cent of GDP, and a federal system 8216;8216;that has proved shockingly bad at implementing even the worthiest of policies8217;8217;. What India desperately needs, it said, is investment, public as well as private, in infrastructure, education and health. What it needs to do is to remove obstacles to it.
It focused on the CMP8217;s rural initiatives. The lowest level of elected government must take charge, urged the magazine. Initiatives and schemes dealing with poverty and social services have a far better chance of working if the works and disbursement of money are handled by the panchayat.
Also part of The Economist8217;s prescription: find ways to give states incentives for reform and penalties for failing. It is in the field of centre-state relations, after all, that the real battle for reform will be fought.
Europe8217;s May 13
It8217;s a bit like May 13 in India. Results of the European Union8217;s parliamentary elections are in and the verdict takes the shape of the interpreter.
The facts: the parliament helps regulate European trade, helps set environmental, labour and transportation policies and helps decide how to spend the Union8217;s 120 billion annual budget. Nearly 350 million people in 25 countries were eligible to vote and 14,700 candidates ran for 732 seats of the legislature based in Strasbourg, France. Turnout figures record plunging voter enthusiasm. Results have consecrated the irruption of fringe parties into the existing electoral order in Europe.
So, a referendum on Europe that has tapped into rampant Euroscepticism? Or only a series of local popularity contests that have drawn irritable rebukes for incumbent national governments?
In Britain, they bellyached about an election which has marked some unsettling firsts. The first in which the two major parties struggled to win a majority of votes, the first in which parties not represented in the House of Commons took more than 25 per cent of the total. With Labour receiving an unprecedented drubbing and the UK Independence Party Ukip surging in from the dark, was it Iraq that finally mattered? Or policies on immigration? Does Ukip8217;s success represent the success of its message: anti-immigrant, anti-politician, anti-metropolitan?
In The Observer, a British Asian rued Labour8217;s worst electoral performance since the First World War. Manoj Ladwa wrote about why the apparent humbling of the New Labour project of creating a more inclusive, more outward looking Britain by the Ukip8217;s 8216;Little England8217; theme is depressing.
The election result and the campaign rhetoric will now ensure that British-born Asians feel 8216;8216;increasingly let down and uninspired by such politicians who still go into 8216;immigration autopilot8217; when they see a brown or black face8217;8217;. Immigration must be addressed, wrote Ladwa, but surely descendants of Asian immigrants also deserve to be actively engaged in the bigger debate of globalisation itself?
British-born Asians have a lot to offer to the European Union; integration is a reality they straddle everyday. Britain8217;s young Asians are the 8216;8216;natural pro-Europeans8217;8217;. For, Britain is their home, and Europe an exciting opportunity. Wonderful, isn8217;t it, 8216;8216;we will all be minorities in the new Europe8217;8217;.
Channels vs links
Alert trendspotters have bumped against a new one. It8217;s the increasing difficulty candidates face in talking to voters these days. Political advertising was far simpler in the 1990s, wrote The Washington Post, when media outlets were much fewer in number. Now with TV viewers scattered among more than 100 channels, with more ads clogging the air, it is becoming tougher for politicians to reach the masses.
The problem is most acute on television, but all message channels are more clogged and less effective with every successive election. The most obvious consequence of diminishing returns is that it has become much more expensive to run a political campaign. It takes many more ad reruns to reach distracted viewers, thousands more phonecalls to get a few hundreds of useable responses.
Significantly, said The Post, the splintering of the mass audiences has provoked a countertrend: 8216;8216;niche ads8217;8217; targeting narrowing subgroups of voters, or those located in discrete geographical areas. Media consultants for candidates speak of 8216;8216;audience segmentation8217;8217; and bombard a relatively small portion of the electorate in the 8216;8216;swing8217;8217; states with messages.
8216;8216;Narrowcasting8217;8217; is here to stay, along with its downside. Democracy may be losing the 8216;8216;universal campfire8217;8217;, in which all voters see and hear the same set of messages. And which often led to common understandings and national conversations.
