No fear of the law

53

Shiv Sena attack on IBN shows the police are non existent in daily lives. After the Shiv Sena's attack on the offices of IBN7 and IBN Lokmat, email messages, smses and phone calls have been pouring in from viewers and well wishers. All have expressed heartwarming solidarity with the IBN team and the press in general. They say we must carry on with the IBN brand of fearless reportage and must never give in to those who intimidate and cause physical harm. There are also many viewers who have sent out a cautionary message, urging us not to report on the Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navniram Sena, not to give them the oxygen of publicity or the "hype" that the media customarily does, as it is such hype, they believe, that contributes to the larger than life image that the Sena has come to acquire. In all....

Curtain call

21

Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya is a Shakespearan tragic hero Defeat sometimes begins at the moment of victory. In 2006, the ruling Left Front had thundered back to power in West Bengal, winning for the seventh consecutive time with a resounding three fourths majority. Today, just three years later, the same invincible Left Front has just suffered yet another electoral disaster in last weekend's by-polls. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism, it looks as if it's the end of communism in West Bengal too. Most piquant of all is perhaps the Shakespearean tragedy of Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya, who this week begins his tenth year as chief minister of West Bengal. The man of destiny who suddenly finds himself consigned to redundancy. Once he was the nationally hailed "brand Buddha", Azeem Premji called him the best chief minister....