The terror attacks have brought more media attention to Mumbai. The world is now aware and cautious of the situations in India. Many countries have already issued travel advisory for the visitors to India. The English Cricket team has called off its participation in the upcoming [1] test series. And the world-at-large probably has already forgotten and moved on to worry about other things.
‘CNN, MSNBC and FOX are good for nothing’ [2], cries Ptcbus at ‘Random Rambles':
“I was trying to find out the latest happenings in Mumbai this evening. All that I was able to see was Anderson Cooper presenting some award to someone, Hannity’s America on Fox and some shady prison documentary on MSNBC. Why do they call themselves News Channels? I had to rely on websites from BBC and other Indian sites to find out the latest videos and news stories. What do these channels achieve by keeping the American population ignorant of world news? American media: Shame on you.
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2227 Hrs Nov 27: The only news channel that is broadcasting any news about the Mumbai attacks right now is CNBC (which is a business news channel). Pathetic!”
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Local Mumbai newspapers: Image by Flickr user James Cirdland [3], used under a Creative Commons License [4]
Let’s turn our focus to the Indian media, was their lack of digression a mistake? Could they have done any better to support the local police? Did they do a pathetic job as well? ‘Yes!’ replies Veetrag in his post, ‘Pennies prevail over prudence’ [5]:
“One disappointing thing that has emerged is irresponsibility of media. Role of media is to provide information to the public but in a proper way and taking care of that they are not divulging important information. I am watching TV channels – NDTV, IBN-CNN, India TV, Sahara Samay, Star News and many other and have realized that none of them are doing their job properly. In this unfortunate event they are trying to sensationalize the information and acting irresponsibly.
First mistake they are making is providing sensitive information such as movement of NSG and Police forces to public. I am sure, this information is not useful to public at this time. At this time, people need to find out where their relatives are, who is injured, which hospitals are people taken to, what blood type is needed and where. These are much more important information if provided to public it would be helpful. Yes, people need to know what area are safe, what is the progress but giving step by step information is not useful. There are rumors (and probably true) that the same information is retrieved by terrorists and can be used against the brave souls who are trying to protect our lives.”
Has Mumbai survived this onslaught? Or have the insurgents prevailed? SriRam Vadlamani notes at his blog Indianomics [6]:
“Were they successful?
• BSE and NSE the two important stock exchanges were closed on Thursday
• India’s sovereign rating by S&P revisited but remains intact.
• England pulls out of the cricket series and re-think the coming test series.
• Champions league is postponed.
• Most countries issued travel advisory.
• Hotels and aviation stocks are losing more than 6% in today’s trading.”
He notes amongst other things that the Indian GDP is seen at 7.6%. Inflation is down to 8.84%, which he adds, ‘is something to cheer about’ and shows some positive signs:
“Terrorists were successful to some extent. But, Sensex was much more resilient and matured in its behavior. It did not tank 1000 odd points because of panic. Only select stock like aviation and hotel sectors took a beating, which is expected. Tourism, aviation and hotel sectors will see a downturn from now on, but the other sectors should be able to pick the mood up. The mood might be down for a few months but India will bounce back. If there is positive which can be take out of this, it is the resilience of India, its economy and most importantly its people.”
This post is part of the Global Voices coverage on the terror attacks in Mumbai [7], India on November 26, 2008.