Tweet Tweet...Bang Pow Bang

Speak of the power of the new media. India and even traditional Indian media like the news houses are just waking to it. While we had seen "jhalaks" of it in the past when Shashi Tharor had tweeted, we are seeing an empire crumbling this time. Twitter entered India with a bang and has been creating lots of bangs ever since. Tweets from Lalit Modi revealing Kochi franchisee's share holding pattern on the 11th of April have generated so much of furore and back lashes that 
  1. a central minister lost his crown, 
  2. all IPL franchisees are under pressure to reveal their shareholding patterns, 
  3. three central revenue agencies are investigating the allegations of big time money laundering, betting and trails leading back to the chairman of IPLT20, 
  4. Lalit Modi, the chairman himself is staring at the axe coming down on him at the behest of BCCI on the 26th of April,
  5. The UPA is taking a moral high ground for having dismissed Shashi Tharoor as his proof of innocence did not convince them
  6. The Congress, the media suspects, may not be in all too favorable a mood to pursue the truth behind the allegations as it stands to incur the wrath of BCCI president Sharad Pawar, an ally of the UPA That too at a time when a big finance bill needs the full support of the house to get passed.
  7. The NDTV and Times NOW channels are calling the whole episode "Indian Paisa league" and "IPL's Dirty Truth"
  8. Times of India today morning is claiming that the total amount of betting money involved is 3500 crore INR
 All in the span of 1 week since the tweets were posted. The onstage drama is nearing a climax with the semi finalists raring to clash. The off stage drama is reaching a crescendo and newer developments are flowing in by the minute. Still feel like tweeting .....Be careful on what you tweet :-)

Comments

Bharatesh said…
Twitter is a new found spice which the media is using to garnish its news with same insincerity as before. Today, truth, fact & actuality are still elusive for anyone seeking it. It's only chaos that reigns supreme amidst all the information outbursts, and the breaking news is indeed breaking hearts most of the time than mending it. I thought politicians had come of age, when the Netas in the parliament questioned the government about Dantewada ignoring the IPL fiasco heralded by a tweet from one Mr. Modi. But in a day the media had made such a hue and cry about all that is foul in IPL and diverted the country’s attention from Dantewada, to a sporting event, which for a daily wage earner is of miniscule significance. Such is the influence of the media that it fails to abide by the line in Spiderman movie "With power comes great responsibility", “What information or news are we feeding to a nation?”; “What piece of information is going to make a difference to the majority?” All these questions seem to be last on the minds (never even considered) of the people responsible for dissemination of information. I don’t deny the fact that small things (like a tweet) can unravel unfathomable filth, but there are many more important things than cricket which need more urgent attention, which in the milieu get sidelined, that’s what halts progress of a nation. Vijay, I hope you understand my intention. This is a spontaneous outburst from a die-hard cricket fan and a person trying to be rationale in prioritizing what’s good for our nation.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 3:23:00 PM
Vijay said…
Bharatesh, I fully support your comment on the way media not only diverts attentions of a whole nation based on what gives it the needed TRP over its nearest competitor news channel. While this point is completely taken, the viewpoint of the blog post is to throw light on what a hydra headed monster a simple tweet can lead to. I am not questioning who the righteous party in all this is. Rather the caution today's online generation - Gen Y needs to exercise in using some of these tools that almost have a life of their own (at least feels like it) - In the age of Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, one spoken line can have unintended effects due to the power of the crowd who can proliferate a comments 'n' times over withing minutes.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 10:05:00 AM
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