Sunday Snippets: A tongue-in-cheek venture
By Venkatesh Raghavan
My friend Amir was sipping his evening green tea and we had something more than a tongue-in-cheek conversation – Will the BBC be taken over by the Adanis? It somewhat followed these lines.
Amir: It’s very sad to see this happen. Our country no longer has any liberty. Our fourth estate has started crumbling. You are aware that the offices of the BBC have been targeted for IT raids. What do you make of it?
Me: I have begun seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, Amir. It’s going to be a gung-ho experience for the British media. Indians will start cheering for this move.
Amir: I fail to understand what is gung-ho about BBC offices getting subject to tax raids. You are sounding ridiculous. Kindly clarify.
Me: Do you remember what happened when the NDTV channel was subject to a probe by nodal agencies? After a while, they quietly announced that the Adanis will take over the channel. I see it as another stepping stone for the Adanis. They might well take over the BBC along with its global network.
Amir: How on earth is this going to happen? Don’t you realize that the BBC network incurs high expenses in the form of overheads in addition to the staff salaries that are paid to its employees globally?
Me: I don’t see any problems with that. The Adanis will convince the good offices of our government that if they lobby for loan sanctions in various corners of the globe, he will be able to ensure that all countries will get to hear only what our government will want them to hear.
Amir: Are you sure our government will be able to lobby on such a huge scale that too with nothing to showcase as substantial growth?
Me: The government’s job is relatively simple. They have to target only the corporate journalists, who operate the world over.
Amir: How on earth do you think this is going to work? What power does our government have to control the behaviour and reporting of corporate journalists?
Me: The trick is very simple Amir. Our government will offer each corporate journalist sufficient equity in the Adani group shares. It’s an idea borrowed from Richard Branson’s corporate philosophy. Let each employee be facilitated to take ownership of their corporate responsibilities. In short, you take care of your employees and they will take care of your clients or viewers as in this case.
Amir: I don’t think your idea will work in this instance. People will feel disinclined to watch politically slanted news clips. This might result in a sharp drop in viewership and it will work out to be a bad idea for the survival of news channels across the globe.
Me: It’s not a big issue Amir. We can fill up our channel with a good number of investigative stories and that will keep the viewers engrossed.
Amir: How on earth do you propose to do this? It sounds inherently contradictory in nature.
Me: Try to understand Amir. When two thieves fall out the media calls it an investigation. They just have to manipulate and cause thieves to fall out for whatever reasons and the rest will ensue naturally.
Amir: What do you expect to become of the Adanis’ share pricing?
Me: I will give it to you in short. Adani says I have borrowed nothing. The government says we have lost nothing. The investors say nothing can be made out of this. Quantum theory says only in a nothing can vacuum generate something.
Amir: Oh! It is such a tongue-in-cheek remark!
