September, 2008
A Wednesday and beyond...
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"Awesome!" shrieked the young lady in front of me as she munched her popcorn. It was the final scene of the film, A Wednesday, and aam admi turned potential bomber, Naseeruddin Shah was at his histrionic best. "If the state simply stands by when we are struck by terror attacks, what do you expect the common man to do? What choice do you leave us but to take up arms and eliminate the terrorist?" he thundered, exhorting all citizens to take up arms and bomb all those they consider "terrorists". "Awesome!" applauded the lady again. Move over Salwa Judum, the new face of citizen vigilantism is playing out in a theatre near you. How easy it is to sit in an airconditioned multiplex, sip a Pepsi and dream of bombing terrorists. Vigilante squads may be a seductive idea, but they are a little out....
Tale of Two Azmis
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Shabana Azmi is a remarkable woman: five times National award winner, she has performed multiple roles in life and cinema. That someone from the increasingly vacuous world of Bollywood has emerged as a public activist-intellectual is rather creditable in itself. She may well have been a prisoner of political correctness at times, but few will deny that she has chosen to venture where few others of her ilk would dare: then whether it be standing up for slum-dwellers rights, women's rights or against communal politics, hers has been a powerful voice. Which is why when in a recent television interview on CNN-IBN, the actor said that the polity was unfair to Muslims and spoke of her personal experience in being denied a house in Mumbai because she was a Muslim, the response was instantaneous. Her critics described her as 'irresponsible', questioning her claims as inflammatory and designed to....
More about Rajdeep Sardesai
Rajdeep Sardesai is the Editor-in-Chief, IBN18 Network, that includes CNN-IBN, IBN 7 and IBN Lokmat. He comes with 22 years of journalistic experience during which he has covered some of the biggest stories in India and the world. Prior to setting up the IBN network, he was the Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both the channels. He has also worked with The Times of India for six years and was the city editor of its Mumbai edition at the age of 26. During the last 22 years, he has covered major national and international stories, specialising in national politics. He has won numerous other awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters Award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots and the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for 2007. He has won the Asian Television Award for best talk show for the Big Fight on two occasions and his current flagship show on CNN-IBN, India at 9, has been awarded the best news show at the Asian awards for the last two years. He has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy for seven of the last eight years and won more than 50 awards in this period. He has also been the President of the Editors Guild of India, the only television journalist to hold the post and was chosen a Global leader for tomorrow by the world economic forum in 2000. An alumni of St Xavier's College, Mumbai, he has done his Masters and LLB from Oxford University and has also played first class cricket for the Oxford University team. He has contributed to several books and writes a fortnightly column that appears in seven newspapers.
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