wiki says : "A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation occurring when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation."
India is a country of great ironies, biggest of which is, we have the poorest of the poor people here as well as the richest of the rich. The hunger-stricken as well as the most affluent and prosperous. And our economic policies over the years have only widened this gap. We keep hearing statements such as "The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer". Resources are not a problem in India, its the unequal distribution of resources that is the root cause of our problems. Isn't it strange, in a country like ours, we believe in equality for all. Equality in all terms, in religion, cast creed, gender. We are nation which prides itself in its value system, its acceptance of all, its unity in diversity. And yet, economic disparity is crippling this unity, the lower strata of our society is turning to petty crime for petty rewards on one hand and on the other hand the upper strata is turning to Major crimes for Major rewards, crimes that the average Indian cannot even understand for rewards that the average Indian cannot even fathom.
RIL has taken over Network18 for $680 million. I am hoping that this is a simple straightforward business deal and RIL will not curb the creative freedom of the editors and journalists at Network18. That is the ideal situation, isn't it, but we hardly live in an ideal world. And even if we did, and even if it is an ideal, simple, straightforward business arrangement, it won't be too far fetched to think that the next time there is a news story against RIL, the editor's would hesitate to break it. Paid media was a much hyped issue during these general elections, an issue which the AAP raised quite vehemently, shortly after the Arvind Kejriwal-Punya Parsoon Bajpayee video was leaked online. And as soon as they started attacking the media, the media shunned AAP. The same media that played a substantial role in the rise of AAP can be attributed to playing a major role in their fall. The question is, how will this issue be looked at now, how the unholy nexus - the politicians, the corporates and the media houses, will deal with such issues and maintain their own credibility.
The conflict of interest problem is not a new one in our country, the Bharat Ratna- the highest civilian honour in India, is awarded by the President of India every year based on the recommendations of the Prime Minister. Back in 1955, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru won the award, at the time when he himself was the PM. One begs the question, did he recommend himself ? Detailed information about this issue can be found on the indiafacts website here. Without questioning the merit of the first PM of India, I just want to put things in perspective, and imagine the conflicts of interests that people in power have enjoyed (some have abused) in our country over the years.
In recent times, Indian cricket's head honcho, N Srinivasan has been accused of enjoying major conflicts of interests. When the IPL was first started back in 2008, one of the rules of the BCCI constitution had to be amended. The rule basically was that the people running the BCCI could not have any commercial interests in the matches and tournaments that it conducted. Mr Srinivasan's company India Cements wanted to own a team in the IPL, and he himself was the treasurer of the BCCI. The ideal scenario would have been that he stepped down from the post and take care of the IPL franchise only, or he give up the idea of owning a team and focus his energies on being an administrator only. But he did neither, instead, the rule was amended and the seed was sown for the corruption crisis that Indian cricket is in today. Cricket may just be a game but the money generated from it is humongous due to which both politicians and corporates want to be a part of its administration, side-lining the cricketers who should be running the game instead.
The conflict of Interest problem is well known and talked about internationally as well, leaders around the world have been accused of it. We have all read about conspiracy theories on how the Gulf war benefited the Bush family because of their stake in weapons companies and the like. Rupert Murdoch's phone hacking scandal and consequently the end of the 168 year old publication 'News of the world' should at least scare us a bit, if not more.
Reliance is a HUGE conglomerate, one who has grown and consolidated with the country's growth over the past 50 years or so. It's foray into mass media should be welcomed but with some caution. The media needs the money today. It needs to stop depending on petty sensationalism to run News channels. We have seen some serious journalism over the last 3-4 years in India and we want to see more of that in the future as well. Corporate backing may be just the thing that the media houses require. After all, the money has to come from somewhere, but that should not mean that the media houses become the voice of the conglomerate. There needs to be a healthy relationship between the two. RIL will also know that. With the advent of social media and powerful tools like the RTI and the Jan Lok Pal, today's audience is not as gullible as before. They want to see good news stories on TV and in the papers, they don't want to be fooled, they don't want to be kept in the dark about anything, they want to get to the bottom of every issue.
But do we? really ?? Do we really care if somebody abuses a conflict of interest, a position of power. Are we comfortable with it? or will we go to any length to expose it? We want to believe that at least. We want there to be a few people among us(civil society) who will keep questioning the big power houses, to file the RTIs, question the government, go to the streets and fight the corrupt. While we get to sit on our comfortable couches and talk about them on such blogs and on twitter. Ironically, we will take these people down the moment they show any personal ambition.
Now that is the conflict of our own interests.
India is a country of great ironies, biggest of which is, we have the poorest of the poor people here as well as the richest of the rich. The hunger-stricken as well as the most affluent and prosperous. And our economic policies over the years have only widened this gap. We keep hearing statements such as "The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer". Resources are not a problem in India, its the unequal distribution of resources that is the root cause of our problems. Isn't it strange, in a country like ours, we believe in equality for all. Equality in all terms, in religion, cast creed, gender. We are nation which prides itself in its value system, its acceptance of all, its unity in diversity. And yet, economic disparity is crippling this unity, the lower strata of our society is turning to petty crime for petty rewards on one hand and on the other hand the upper strata is turning to Major crimes for Major rewards, crimes that the average Indian cannot even understand for rewards that the average Indian cannot even fathom.
RIL has taken over Network18 for $680 million. I am hoping that this is a simple straightforward business deal and RIL will not curb the creative freedom of the editors and journalists at Network18. That is the ideal situation, isn't it, but we hardly live in an ideal world. And even if we did, and even if it is an ideal, simple, straightforward business arrangement, it won't be too far fetched to think that the next time there is a news story against RIL, the editor's would hesitate to break it. Paid media was a much hyped issue during these general elections, an issue which the AAP raised quite vehemently, shortly after the Arvind Kejriwal-Punya Parsoon Bajpayee video was leaked online. And as soon as they started attacking the media, the media shunned AAP. The same media that played a substantial role in the rise of AAP can be attributed to playing a major role in their fall. The question is, how will this issue be looked at now, how the unholy nexus - the politicians, the corporates and the media houses, will deal with such issues and maintain their own credibility.
The conflict of interest problem is not a new one in our country, the Bharat Ratna- the highest civilian honour in India, is awarded by the President of India every year based on the recommendations of the Prime Minister. Back in 1955, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru won the award, at the time when he himself was the PM. One begs the question, did he recommend himself ? Detailed information about this issue can be found on the indiafacts website here. Without questioning the merit of the first PM of India, I just want to put things in perspective, and imagine the conflicts of interests that people in power have enjoyed (some have abused) in our country over the years.
In recent times, Indian cricket's head honcho, N Srinivasan has been accused of enjoying major conflicts of interests. When the IPL was first started back in 2008, one of the rules of the BCCI constitution had to be amended. The rule basically was that the people running the BCCI could not have any commercial interests in the matches and tournaments that it conducted. Mr Srinivasan's company India Cements wanted to own a team in the IPL, and he himself was the treasurer of the BCCI. The ideal scenario would have been that he stepped down from the post and take care of the IPL franchise only, or he give up the idea of owning a team and focus his energies on being an administrator only. But he did neither, instead, the rule was amended and the seed was sown for the corruption crisis that Indian cricket is in today. Cricket may just be a game but the money generated from it is humongous due to which both politicians and corporates want to be a part of its administration, side-lining the cricketers who should be running the game instead.
The conflict of Interest problem is well known and talked about internationally as well, leaders around the world have been accused of it. We have all read about conspiracy theories on how the Gulf war benefited the Bush family because of their stake in weapons companies and the like. Rupert Murdoch's phone hacking scandal and consequently the end of the 168 year old publication 'News of the world' should at least scare us a bit, if not more.
But do we? really ?? Do we really care if somebody abuses a conflict of interest, a position of power. Are we comfortable with it? or will we go to any length to expose it? We want to believe that at least. We want there to be a few people among us(civil society) who will keep questioning the big power houses, to file the RTIs, question the government, go to the streets and fight the corrupt. While we get to sit on our comfortable couches and talk about them on such blogs and on twitter. Ironically, we will take these people down the moment they show any personal ambition.
Now that is the conflict of our own interests.
No comments:
Post a Comment