How else can serials with little or absolute illogical, monotonous and sometimes irritating themes manage to continue for years in a row?

The same saas-bahu saga, packaged and repackaged, evacuated and refilled with little or no modifications what-so-ever, and the housewives with their eyes hooked on the box laugh (to the most obvious jokes), cry (to the over dramaticised emotional sequences), get excited (to the more than obvious and predictable situations) and listen to the characters’ self talking (which is obviously irritating, sometimes to excruciating extents). After-all, we all know what a vamp would think in that situation and how a courageous righteous bahu would be exercising her determination by making firmer resolutions at the same time.

Who talks like that?

The small screen celebrates womanhood. They (women) are everywhere. Almost every serial is woman centric, which shows her to be a determined, hard working, sacrificing and righteous when she is the good one and the exact opposite when not.

The plot is always over dramatized with the master ‘K’ formula in place, which neither the makers or the writers do away with, nor do the audiences want to get over with. It has for so long kept the audiences in a limbo, the comfy cuddly environment of falsehood that is their only escape from reality. The reality they prefer to ignore.

Womanhood no doubt needs to be celebrated, but I seriously believe there are other better ways to do it. Why not show stories with working housewives as their protagonists and the day to day problems they face, right from getting up from a tiring yesterday in the morning, to preparing breakfast for her family before leaving for work and looking after a child. Working in the office, facing the wrath of seniors, gaze by perverts, covering the mistakes by juniors in the team she manages, to tackling stressful situations (sometimes with panache and sometimes with a style so silent that the most undercover won’t get a hint of!!). The portrayal of such characters in all the naive simplicity and substance and then broadcasting the message in a subtle sarcastic manner would definitely multiply the impact of an act and the series as a whole. It is better not to always have all-inclusive dialogues. Sometimes when things are kept mum, and the audience is given the task to make things out for themselves within the dynamics of a drama set up, the interest evoked is by and large encouraging and people start loving the show, who then long for every next episode and gasp for more at the end of it. The people start to live with the characters as they do with their companions. In the recent years, there have been serials which have made a promising start, even had a breath of fresh air with them, but once the honeymoon period ended, things got back to ground zero.

Time to time, the intellectual fuel of the creative team exhausts and gets mileage only when they take little hints from here and there. And that is when the rot creeps in.

In a stark contradiction, the small screen dramas in the west thrive on a more serious and intellect stimulating and smashingly entertaining stuff made with sheer brilliance on the part of the script, story, screenplay and execution.

They make stories in the center of which lies a chemist (Breaking Bad), a serial Killer (Dexter), Scientists (Fringe), Medical Professionals (Dr. House), Lawyers (Suits), CIA (Homeland), Kings and Kingdoms (Game of Thrones), Supernatural stuff (Supernatural and Vampire Diaries) and many more.

They appeal equally to all, in spite of their dive into the technicalities of the profession of the characters they deal with. Such is the beauty of their content and display. The comedy shows are equally absorbing.

Indian television has been through a phase of evolution. YUDH – the story of the construction magnate with all his perfections and imperfections, family, life, fears, guilt, anxieties, plans, love, affection and foresight is just a beginning.

Divyanshu Ojha
MBA-IT (2012-2014 Batch)
IIIT Allahabad

The so called “Kiss of Love” movement started when some activists in Kochi decided to lodge their protests against the vandalization of a cafe’ in Kozhikode by BJP workers alleging “Immoral activities”. In Kolkata, on November 7, 2014, some 300 students from Javadpur and Presidency Universities also staged demonstrations in college campuses and some 50 volunteers staged protests at the gates of RSS headquarters in Delhi.

So far the movement has received mixed response. Satyani, a PHD student proclaims, “Time has come to safeguard our freedom of expression”. Whereas, Professor Amitav Gupta, JU though empathises with the cause, finds the protests silly. Prabir Mukherjee, a professor at PU finds the protests offensive and vulgar.

(Kochi to Kolkata: ‘Kiss of love’ unites students, divides teachers – See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/kochi-to-kolkata-kiss-of-love-unites-students-divides-teachers/#sthash.uYh0ghF4.dpuf, 2014)

So, what we have is two sides crying foul, one rising concerns over encroachment of liberty in the name of moral policing and the other disgruntled over denigration of Indian values and norms by western culture. The critical question in such a scenario should be:”In the developed India that we look forward to, which side seems to occupy the prominent place?”

In reply, a case can be made out of U.S. transformation from a conservative, early 20th century nation to the techno economic giant of 21st century, equally pushing for libertarian, human rights based agenda. The present Indian youth, eager and impatient to leave their mark on the globe aren’t going to compromise with the notions of liberty and freedom to make choices for themselves.

But they need to learn to accommodate to the cultural sensitivities of common people who have been raised within security of cultural conformities. Change, doesn’t happen in a day. It’s a gradual process which takes time. At the same time, political outfits which have a knack of cracking down on people allegedly misusing their freedom need to tone their acts down and calibrate to the new social order which emphasizes on values of tolerance and openness to new ideas and alternate style of livings.

And, hopefully then we can look forward to the nation of our dreams, a nation advanced in every domain and where being modern is cherishing the treasure of Indian values as well as sustaining an open, liberal mindset.

Utkarsh Jaiswal
MBA-IT
IIIT Allahabad

The openness that Wilson had once envisioned in the early 1900s is being actively sought after even today. The concept of open data has been gaining momentum among local governments in recent years, but cities in India continue to cling onto their culture of opacity.

Open data is the process by which governments disclose information that is relevant to citizens into the public domain. This is crucial as it brings in transparency into governance, thereby making administration more accountable. Opening up do cuments and decisions also helps spread awareness about government processes among citizens, giving them a sense of ownership and participation.

India has taken some sincere steps towards openness by bringing in the RTI Act, 2005 and also by launching the open data portal www.data.gov.in by the National Informatics Centre. But such transparency has mostly been restricted to the national and state level, not seeping down to the working of local government bodies which determine the daily life of ordinary populace. The data portal for instance, discloses information from 69 departments, 63 belonging to the centre and 3 to state with no data from municipal governments.

An information gap isn’t the only hurdle towards building a healthy citizen-government tie. Community participation too is immensely lacking. While 16 large cities have passed the community participation law, no city except Hyderabad has actually taken the trouble of constituting area sabhas to involve citizens in policy making at the neighbourhood level. Pune is the only city where the people are involved in the budgeting process. This despite laws mandating public disclosures.

This opacity is dismal at a time when cities around the globe are investing all efforts in open government practices. Participatory budgeting at the municipal level was started as early as 1989 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Similar steps have been taken in Chicago, Montreal and New York to name a few.

Whether India will follow this global trail of openness only time will tell.

Jaya
MBA-IT
IIIT Allahabad

But no this programme caught the attention of youth , media and almost every other person. Why so ?

May be a budget of 62,000 Crore just to clean or a population of 30 lakh government employees on road a factor or may be its something else. This campaign is though supported by Indian Army , BSF , IAF and so on , so basically its all about patriotism right . But why we have to be taught about patriotism now , and is cleaning our premises comes under patriotism . Oh ! we have never thought it like that. We go to abroad and we don’t spit on road , may be we feel ashamed there , may be there is a law about litter , but the law prevails in India too , then why we are free to do the same in India but not in foreign countries.

Once Mark Twain commented by saying that every corner is a Pee corner in India , we all laughed and the joke passes on. Now the urinator feels proud in doing there business in open , y so ? Does this enters in our mind so deeply that we cannot enter the washroom, or we need someone like our Prime Minister to tell us not to do it in public. Does this is what we have learned in our primary schools , or does it come in our manners , or does this precious knowledge is pass on to us by our ancestors ? Now what I think is we have become so adaptive to our slave system that we always need someone to tell us what to do and what not to do . Now at first we do not do it , because its out of our comfort zone , then we try a little bit , but then all of a sudden a whip came and we all start doing it. The programme for cleanliness is decades old. But who have time , who have energy, but what changed now , how all of a sudden we became so enthusiastic. The spitter community now looks around and tries to find a garbage bag. People think twice to throw something on railway platform. Does this mean that the whip works for Indians or the education is after all doing some good ?

We Indians worship cricketers and celebrities. If India is playing you can ask anybody on road “bhaisaab” score Kya Hua Hai ? And he will not only tell you score but 3-4 advices on how India can play better. See how fond of cricket we are, after all it’s our national game, RIGHT. And when it comes to movie stars, oh man, they are like the living Gods on earth. So Mr. Prime Minister has to get involved these people to make us work. But do we really need someone else to tell us what is right and what is wrong? Can’t we do that on our own?

So many ads on T.V., people giving speeches, but no , the dustbin is right there man, right there , but no we like to litter . What pleasure can it bring? Simply we are slave to our own habits. We cannot change them. If we try to change them, others will say , “tu bada deshbhakt ban rha h”, does it count as patriotism or common sense.

But again whom am I to judge.

Snehil Srivastava
MBA-IT
IIIT Allahabad