Taj on fire

It is the time to say thank you to all those who risked their lives to help those in distress during the recent seige of south Mumbai – the brave soldiers, the policemen, the fire brigade, the announcer at CST station who warned people about the attack and all those who helped the dead and the injured. Also to those who brought us all the news and kept us informed on a 24X7 basis. It was heartening to see the Times of India has matured and willing to pay a public tribute to its gutsy photographers –Sebastian D’souza who got the best photographs of the terrorists, Hoshi Jal, their Photo Editor who leads from the front, Santosh Bane, Sriram Vernekar and others. In the past the paper didn’t think it worth reporting when they were badly assaulted in the line of duty!

After the kudos have been sincerely handed out, let us introspect about various aspects of the coverage. For instance, there are serious issues about whether it compromised the security of our commandos, especially when we know, in retrospect, that they were sent to counter the terrorists without so much as a briefing on the layout of the Taj Mahal hotel.
Many of these issues have already been discussed on the Net and in the media, so I will not add my personal rant to the noise. Instead, here are a couple of sharp but significant views on the media coverage sent to me by two friends.

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