VIEW FROM THE RIGHT

OUTRAGE AT JOHAR

AN ARTICLE in Organiser, ‘Conveniently Patriotic’, criticises Karan Johar, who “now seems to have discovered his latent patriotism on the eve of the release of his movie, in the face of a big financial loss”.

Taking a dig at his recent video statement, it says that the promos of his upcoming movie have little presence of Fawad Khan as “Johar knows fully well that the people of India are so outraged against the cowardly #Uriattacks and the silence of Pakistani actor Fawad Khan over the incident that they are considering a spontaneous boycott of his film”. It says that “Shahrukh Khan’s movie, Fan failed at the box office because Indian movie-goers decided to boycott it spontaneously after Khan’s #Intolerance comment”.

Such movie stars “live in their own ivory towers, far away from our burning borders” and “Johar’s video statement deliberately attempts to obfuscate the difference between an enforced ‘ban’ and a voluntary economic ‘boycott’,” it says.

“Journalists like Barkha Dutt and Shekhar Gupta have already started disseminating a carefully manufactured narrative of ‘creative freedom’ being curtailed in India under this ‘oppressive’ government,” it says.

It also cites an instance when an auto-rickshaw driver changed the FM channel that was playing a song from Johar’s movie.

MESSAGE FOR CHINA

AN ARTICLE in Organiser comments on the BRICS Summit held in Goa and applauds Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving “a call to the entire global community” to “walk away from double standards on terror”. Modi fully supported “a Global Counter-terror Alliance”, and added a caveat that “an alliance could not include states that covertly or otherwise supported terror groups”.

It says that “at present, both the superpowers, China and the US, follow a policy of terror tolerance”, and hence severely damage the “global war on terror”. The article goes on to list past instances where the US “has assiduously nurtured terror organisations”. China gives “substantial assistance to the Pakistan military although being aware that a significant share of such bounty gets diverted to the terror groups,” it says. It says that recently Beijing “shamed itself by continuing to block the UN from declaring international sanctions on Masood Azhar”.

The article, however, notes that “after decades of funding and equipping GHQ Rawalpindi and therefore indirectly its terror auxiliaries in a full-blown manner, the US is moving away from that policy”. It says that “Modi’s performance at the Goa BRICS meeting” showed terror does not “get downplayed in a focus on economic cooperation”. His “message was intended for China”.

WISDOM AND WEALTH

THE EDITORIAL in Panchjanya gives a message on Deepawali by using the metaphor of light in multiple ways. Darkness is a cause of fear and “light converts the unknown into the known and gives knowledge”. We move ahead aided by the torch of knowledge. We must consider “Ma Saraswati” with “Ma Lakshmi”. The editorial underlines the lives of those who became rich because they did not leave the path of education and wisdom. It proposes that economies should be based on knowledge and notes that Indian entrepreneurs have accomplished the rare combination of Saraswati and Lakshmi.

The global economic slowdown has forced various economies to change themselves. As businesses based on mere capital declined, knowledge and expertise were established.

The new players in business are those who have knowledge and can offer thoughts and solutions to problems. To reach new heights of prosperity, the old categories of established names and identities are losing their sheen now. “If you want to move up, knowledge is imperative,” it says, insisting that Saraswati will have to be invoked if you need Lakshmi.

Compiled by Ashutosh Bhardwaj