Media In India/elsewhere -2

[acharya]

Jyoti Basu hits out at media

Santanu Banerjee | New Delhi

Embarrassed by the media interpretation of the recent 'pro-nuclear energy' statement of Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the CPI(M) has undertaken a damage control exercise and said the support for nuclear energy was not same as favouring the India-US nuclear deal.

Coinciding with CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat's clarification on Saturday that the party was "not averse to self-reliance in nuclear power but against any pact with the US on this issue," party's mouthpiece Ganashakti began an aggressive campaign against media for trying to portray that the CPI(M) was a house divided on the India-US nuclear deal.

"The party will not function by newspaper directives," was the lead in Ganashakti of September 22, quoting Basu.

Interestingly, in the report Jyoti Basu himself refuted the argument that support for nuclear power was same support of the India-US civil nuclear agreement.

"The support for nuclear energy self-reliance should not equate with the support for nuclear deal with US," he said.

Another report in the paper questioned media's alleged closeness with the policy-makers of Capitol Hill.
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The paper quoted an India-based former CIA agent Johan Smith's memoirs which said: "American officials or CIA representatives decide what they (most of the Indian newspapers and reporters) should write. There are several newspapers and reporters in India who abide by US officials' directives."</span>

Bhattacharjee's loud thinking with the business leaders in Kolkata has caused deep embarrassment to the State party leadership.

Left insiders feel Bhattacharjee's 'pro-nuclear statements and his remarks that he did not approve of blind Americanism,' may come up for discussion in the Politburo and central committee meeting, which will begin in Kolkata from September 28.

Importantly, some of the Left leaders had sought clarifications on Bhattacharjee's statements from Karat when they recently had had a brief meeting the day they confabulated together before the UPA-Left committee on nuclear deal met last week

While both the Politburo and the Central committee are expected to examine the prospect of a strategy for a mid-term general elections and how to dissociate the party from the Congress-led UPA's 'anti-poor policies' besides strategies to combat Government imposed polls when not many, particularly West Bengal Government, are not exactly ready for an election.