Drishtikone
I just got this pop up on my screen from the Google dektop news – Tsunami Death Toll Hits 531 – which set me thinking. I have been getting regular updates as the number has risen from somewhere in the hundreds to over 300 yesterday to over 500 now! What is the significance of reporting the ever increaing numbers? Is it being done to catch our attention? That now since this is >500 which means it is itself a fourth of the toll of the last tsunami … so guys… this is SERIOUS!!
It goes without saying that this Tsunami hasn’t got even a quarter of the coverage that the last Tsunami got! And THAT is a serious issue! Either we all are too numbed by the death tolls.. or we take the deaths in poorer nations to be a regular or undisturbing occurence!
Just a few days back after the Mumbai blasts, the coverage in the US media was pathetic. Here was a major Terrorist attack on India.. and while after the London and Madrid attacks the media was all over – many newspapers did not deem it important to have an edit on it. Economist ran a story in their issue – but Putin was on the cover! It also had the temerity to suggest that somehow these blasts were a direct consequence of India’s stand on Kashmir!! Quite akin to saying that London blasts were in some way justified because of UK’s stand on Iraq!! Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of this selective politics of action-reaction justifications!!
What if the Tsunami had happened in LA? or on the Atlantic Coast? What if the trains where the blasts occured were in NYC?
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