So once again the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence has trained its gun on the good old Batman, Sahayak, Orderly, whatever you my like to call him. I suspect the sister services have a hand in it. Since they don't have one, they do not want the Army wallahs to have one either.
My stand in the entire affair is biased. I was born and brought up in the Army with Sahayaks playing a major role in my upbringing, so try as I might, I cannot be a dispassionate journalist in this debate. And in any case there is no such entity as the unbiased journalist.
I think, the newspapers need to stop putting this news on the front pages. For once, lets thank the television channels for not raking it up on their news bulletins just because the news had hit the front pages of the newspapers.
I am quite sure the Army needs to revamp its PR set-up. The public information guys sitting in the basement of South Block need to be more accountable. Planting news is part of their job, I accept, but so is making sure that inconsequential pieces like the Sahayak one need not hit the front pages too. And all these stories are by those journalists who drink endless cups of tea and smoke unending number of ciggarettes in the offices of the public information wallahs.
I hope the COAS designate revamps this set-up. Sooner than later. There is more to media management than Sainik Samachar and Baatcheet.
But the parliament has already abolished the sahayak system ... it has been passed onto the army HQ .... read it in the newspapers today.
ReplyDeleteMahavir Jagdev
mahavirindia@yahoo.com
Parliament cannot take such a step. Actually the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence has recommended that such a step be taken. Considering that they've routinely advocated such an abolition every year for the past half a decade its unlikely that the Army will take notice.
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