Although it’s derisively referred to as the idiot box for the shallow, ephemeral infotainment it provides, the power of television news channels to expose ground realities in some of the country’s hidden areas of darkness cannot be matched by the print media. A case in point is CNN-IBN’s excellent multi-episode documentary titled No Country for Children being broadcast over the past few weeks, which graphically depicts the mind boggling deprivations — pervasive malnutrition, poor schooling conditions, sexual abuse and corporal punishment — that the nation’s 480 million children, especially the 158 million under age five, are heir to. The programme unsparingly aired government schools without furniture, drinking water, toilets and in one depressing instance — surrounded by overflowing sewage. Yet while emotions of shock, anger, and outrage aroused by the visual media can’t be generated by cold print, the economics of television news ensures the anger and indignation is short-lived. The No Country for Children episodes are punctuated by commercials plugging bling luxury products. One can’t help feeling that hyper-ventilating anchors and reporters of television news channels are mere actors playing a part for the reportedly astronomical sums they are paid. This sentiment is supported by the unwillingness of the celebrity anchors/editors of TV news channels to take a step beyond ritual lamentation and breast-beating about the callous neglect of the country’s children. Repeated offers by this publication to the top three English news channels to make common cause with us for root and branch education reform have not elicited any response. Emoting faux concern they are unable to rise above petty prejudices and insecurities in the cause of the country’s much-abused children. Mighty fallen Less than a century ago, it was the world’s most powerful nation and the centre of the civilized world renowned for its poets, writers and litterateurs. But now with the sun having irrevocably set for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, this former colonial power seems to be sinking into utter mediocrity. Last summer an execrable novel titled 50 Shades of Grey written by a puddle shallow English housewife — one E.L. James — became a national bestseller despite a ridiculous story line, featuring every cliché and stereotype and loaded with sadomasochistic sex. With reported sales of 70 million copies, a number greater than the population of the sceptred isle (62 million), how this repetitive, boring and desperate to shock novel enthralled the descendants of Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth etc boggles the imagination. Nor is the astonishing success of 50 Shades in Blighty a one-off case of summer madness. This autumn the latest Bridget Jones — a fictional woman character whose troubled emotional life spawned the bestseller Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and a globally acclaimed movie — novel Mad About the Boy has captured the imagination of Brits who seem to have resorted to greed, gluttony and sex big time. But although it’s considered stuffy to protest against the tidal wave of pornography sweeping the West and spreading through the internet imbalancing…
