Outlook – July 28, 2019

THE SUBCONTINENTAL MENU

IN & AROUND

SANDESE AATE HAIN...

FROM PAKISTAN

T

HE latest casualty of the tension

between India and Pakistan are

cross-frontier television signals.

Residents in border regions of J&K

often rely on antennas because

cable operators do not provide

services in those rugged terrains.

The antennas pick signals from

enemy channels and consequently,

Pakistani soaps have a remarkable

fan-following in these areas. To

remedy this, the information and

broadcasting ministry seeks to

distribute 30,000 Doordarshan set-

top boxes, which will beam 100 free

channels in 10 districts along the

LoC. By providing the gadget gratis,

the government hopes to help

people avoid “undesirable channels

not approved by the ministry” and

provide “a better alternative”.

ONLY GOOD

REVIEWS PLEASE

T

AMIL films have been

suffering a spate of bad

reviews. So, producers decided

to end the bad press once

and for all—not by striving

to make better movies, but

by threatening to take legal

action against critics who

“cross all limits”. Such critics

won’t be invited to film

releases as well. “It’s not a

swipe at print journalists,”

explained Diamond Babu, a

public relations officer with

the industry. “But these days,

every Tom, Dick and Harry

is doing a film review and

they’re wounding people with

their comments.” Clearly,

that’s a terrible thing to do,

which is why Mr Babu and

his peers decided to wound

reviewers with legal action.

SAAS, BAHU & STATIC

I

NDIAN TV is wildly popular

in Nepal. But viewers in the

Himalayan republic might not be

able to see a woman turn into a

fly in Sasural Simar Ka and other

such Indian idiot box gems, thanks

to a proposed bill prohibiting

foreign channels from broadcasting

advertisements. Indian channels

say they will have to stop trans-

mission as a clean feed would

be economically and technically

unviable. Fearing a potential

revenue loss, cable operators took

Indian channels off air for 24 hours

in protest against the government’s

move. Is TV even worth watching

without perpetual scheming,

histrionics and reaction shots? The

nation of Nepal wants to know!

A

century-old dispute between

two Christian factions in

Kerala has had an unintended

fallout for the faithful—they sought

recourse to a court order to bury

their dead and in one peculiar

case, ended up preserving a body

in a hospital freezer while awaiting

the verdict. After the death of

84-year-old Mariyamma Philip

on July 3, her family wanted to

inter her at the cemetery next to

the Kadeesa Orthodox Cathedral

in Kayamkulam. However, she

belonged to the Jacobite sect of the

Malankara church. The Orthodox

faction, which controls over 1,

churches, harked backed to the

1934 constitution of the Malankara

church to assert its rights over

the cemetery. Eight days after

Mariyamma’s death, the family

withdrew the case and buried her

on a plot belonging to the Jacobites.

CHURCHES FEUD, CORPSES FREEZE

Illustrations by SAAHIL; Text Curated by PUNEET NICHOLAS YADAV and ALKA GUPTA

10 OUTLOOK 29 July 2019