Rising tiger, toothless telly

After a rather extended period of media hush-hush on India's permanent seat at the United Nations, in the last couple of weeks there has been a renewed zeal in its campaign towards superpowerdom.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned from China with its blessing for our permanence and apparently the UK is happy to endorse us as well.

While the analysts mulled over politics and diplomacy, India's astrologers pored over planets and destiny on television. Alas, due to this writer's complete inability to understand some of the regional languages, some of us will have to wait for reality to take over in order to find out about India's future as a superpower.

Needless to say, opinions ran wild on talk shows and random polls regarding India's candidacy to take on the world. Information, as always, was absent. As Indians of the Year were announced on the various television channels and political parties squabbled over who should be crowned with the country's highest civilian award, it became increasingly apparent that the electronic media was India's biggest liability in its quest to become a serious global player.

To the outsider, one of the first windows into India in India is television. The first impressions - far from the best - are unfortunately the most lasting. Most writers on India have begun books frustratingly admitting to the truth that it is utterly impossible and totally unfair to summarise the chaos and complexities within the country. And yet, TV manages to summarise India in a manner that is completely foxing (pun intended).

A quick zap through India's leading English-language news channels followed by its regional news sources are alarming in that they all manage to duplicate each other. And worse, repeat it endlessly.

Shashi Nayar, worked for a regional news network until a couple of months ago. Trained in TV journalism, Nayar walked out of his channel to join a magazine. "People watching us think we're stupid for covering the stuff we do and report on. We're not. It's the system. The guys at the top," he told me at one of Mumbai's new cafes.

Nayar is trained in journalism and he knows his questions. Like most of his batchmates and alumni, who wanted to change the world, he quickly realised that the system they were a part of, wouldn't let them.

Forget the farmer suicides and the female foeticides for a moment. As an aspiring international superpower the worrying trend of an inward-looking Indian media is certainly not helpful to its positioning as a future influencer of worldly ways. The complete disinterest in international news even when it affects the country only reinforces the image of a largely immature electronic media.

"The French President is coming [Sarkozy is Chief Guest at India's Republic Day Parade tomorrow]. What are we focussed on? Whether Carla Bruni will accompany him and if so, will she share a room with him. There's no mention of what's on the agenda. What nuclear lessons we can learn from the French. Nothing," says Nayar's colleague, Anuradha Sen, who also teaches journalism part-time.

Sure enough a few hours in front of Indian television immediately eliminates it as a source of news.

Cocktail conversations

The goings on are clearly targeting Monica from Mumbai who parties beyond midnight. The news is written to serve as cocktail conversations and the advertising is tailor-made for Monica's friends. And the irony, Monica and her friends don't even watch those news channels.

Part of Mumbai's jet-setting tribe, Monica drives a Lexus, owns an apartment in Dubai despite having never been to the city and has one designer brand in each group of accessories. Her friends own restaurants, boutiques, play the stock markets and golf. And they never watch the news.

"Frankly speaking it's a big bore. We don't have the time. India's problems can't be solved by us so we focus on other things like dramas and music. And the world's problems? Well, you can't be serious about us caring right?" she asks me.

I tell Shashi and Anuradha about Monica's statement. They both burst out laughing. "Exactly," says Anuradha. "The media moguls make news for Monica. Monica doesn't watch them or care. And the ones that do. What do we watch?"

Vinita Bharadwaj is an independent writer based in Dubai.