In a strange way, I feel a bit sorry for Alistair Pereira. Sure, he needed to be punished, and I actually agree with a section of the junta that feels he ought to have got a lot more than three years. After all, he’s just 21, he’ll be out at the age of 24, and has more than ample time to refresh his life. Not something you can say about the families of the seven labourers he mowed down after driving sozzled.
The reason I feel sad for him is that a whole lot of us drive drunk in the city, and have been doing so for years. Years ago, on a New Year’s night, I was involved in a head-on collision with another car, whose driver was equally pissed drunk. After spending hours of the Big Night finger pointing inside a police station, we wished each other a great new year, and moved on. Back to driving drunk.
So, Alistair simply got unlucky, like in the roll of the die, he ran over people sleeping on a pavement, and now he must pay. And thanks to his misadventure, the laws have been tightened, the police patrolling has shot up, and incidents of drunk driving have gotten lowered if not totally eliminated (they will never come down to zero, there are still many who think they’ll get away with it).
And what goes further against Alistair is that he’s not a popular movie star, so no one’s crying foul. Imagine the media outrage had Salman Khan got a similar sentence (he still might!), all the Bollywoodians would collectively protest that the star is paying for his celeb status.
Bottomline: Given that the dude was simply following a norm on our streets, given that the youngster was only emulating the rest of us, given that he simply got unlucky, should not an alternative punishment have been dished out to him? Like, sponsor the lives of the families he destroyed, through a fixed sum every month, for the rest of his life? His sitting in jail will be of little use to the lives he irreversibly damaged, in fact he’ll be out soon.
So the judgment is unfair all round, I am hoping our law makers start thinking a bit differently when another Alistair incident happens on our roads.
8 comments:
The rich n famous get away with anything , it also helps them in getting the media support , nobody stands for a common man , as munna baba says" jithne din undar rahenge utenehe issath badegi agar nahin bade tho media jarur badayege" , so at the end of the day their popularity increases but for the common man it's the other way round
'Sponsoring the family members of the victim' was the theme of the Rajesh khanna,Meena Kumari starrer Dushman. But then movies are meant only for entertainment.
We are living in a time when parents are stooping to disposing off their off-springs,siblings are at each other's throats and children are leaving their parents to die in destitute.
Even if such a punishment becomes a trend then the day won't be far when the people will start throwing their family members infront of the cars of the rich and affluent,to get a fixed amount for the rest of the life.
Rita Maker
Agree on the bottomline alternate sentence but not for the reasons. maybe the punishment will make the wannabe perreiras take a relook at the street norms.
What is media & who owns media in Bharat
9/12/2007 11:10:17 AM Niranjan Shah
I have come across some interesting information about the ownership of media in Bhaarat. What is media? Media is plural of medium. Mass media is the term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). The word media was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks and of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. This includes messages that are distributed through the technologies, principally text in books, study guides and computer networks; sound in audio-tapes and broadcast: pictures in video-tapes and broadcast; text, sound and/or pictures in a teleconference. The means by which information is distributed such as print, broadcast, CD-ROM, World Wide Web, and so forth is also Media.
Mass media in Bhaarat is that part of the Indian media which aims to reach a wide audience. Besides the news media, which includes print, radio and television, the Internet is playing an increasing role, along with the growth of the Indian blogging community. Compared with many other developing countries, the Indian press is relatively unfettered, except for obstacles in the way of setting up media companies which were part of the pre-1990 license Raj.
In 2001, India had 45,974 newspapers, including 5,364 daily newspapers published in over 100 languages. The largest number of newspapers were published in Hindi (20,589), followed by English (7,596), Marathi (2,943), Urdu (2,906), Bengali (2,741), Gujarati (2,215), Tamil (2,119), Kannada (1,816), Malayalam (1,505) and Telugu (1,289). The Hindi daily press has a circulation of over 23 million copies, followed by English with over 8 million copies.
There are several major publishing groups in India, the most prominent among them being the Times of India Group, the Indian Express Group, the Hindustan Times Group, The Hindu group, the Anandabazar Patrika Group, the Eenadu Group, the Malayalam Manorama Group, the Mathrubhumi group, the Sahara group, the Bhaskar group, and the Dainik Jagran group.
India has more than 40 domestic news agencies. The Express News Service, the Press Trust of India, and the United News of India are among the major news agencies. Let us see the ownership of different media agencies.
NDTV: A very popular TV news media is funded by Gospels of Charity in Spain supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan. Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, General Secretary of Communist party of India.
India Today: which used to be the only national weekly who supported BJP is now bought by NDTV!! Since then the tone has changed drastically and turned into Hindu bashing.
CNN-IBN: This is 100 percent funded by Southern Baptist Church with its branches in all over the world with HQ in US. The Church annually allocates $800 million for promotion of its channel. Its Indian head is Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.
Times group list: Times Of India, Mid-Day, Nav-Bharth Times, Stardust, Femina, Vijaya Times, Vijaya Karnataka, Times now (24- hour news channel) and many more. Times Group is owned by Bennet & Coleman. "World Christian Council" does 80 percent of the Funding, and an Englishman and an Italian equally share balance 20 percent. The Italian Robertio Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.
Star TV: It is run by an Australian, who is supported by St. Peters Pontificial Church Melbourne.
Hindustan Times: Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in Collobration with Times Group.
The Hindu: English daily, started over 125 years has been recently taken over by Joshua Society, Berne, Switzerland. Indian Express: Divided into two groups.
The Indian Express and new Indian Express (southern edition). Acts Ministries has major stake in the Indian Express and later is still with the Indian counterpart.
Eeenadu: Still to date controlled by an Indian named Ramoji Rao. Ramoji Rao is connected with film industry and owns a huge studio in Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Jyothi: The Muslim party of Hyderabad known as MIM along with a Congress Minister has purchased this Telgu daily very recently.
The Statesman: It is controlled by Communist Party of India. Kairal TV: It is controlled by Communist party of India (Marxist)
Mathrubhoomi: Leaders of Muslim League and Communist leaders have major investment.
Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle: Is owned by a Saudi Arabian Company with its chief Editor M.J. Akbar.
The ownership explains the control of media in India by foreigners. The result is obvious. — Grandpa's blessings.
http://www.indiatribune.com/popuparticle.aspx?Article_ID=68268/23/2007
ouch....first of all it was not a mistake by the UPA , it was deliberate attempt to hurt hindu sentiments,they wanted to test reactions & now eating their shit , common man is intelligent enough to understand the motive of this Govt. , ofcourse opp. will use this to their advantage but who wouln't congress shamlessly in shabanoo case...i'm sure the print & tv media would have received some strongly abusive mails but as always they won't publish or show them, for votes the bangladeshis &pak.. are not vacated from our country even after visa expiries ,no border check etc..this party members must be kicked out of the worship places.yuck upa sucks ...
Maybe the lesson that authorities should be taking out of this episode is that Roads, that are essentially meant for people to ride and drive on-Don't know if they've realised this yet.
So the other problem that they also must look at addressing is the relocation of the people who are sleeping on the roads. So also, the people who have made footpaths their houses.
It's strange that now, if we are walking with our kids on the roads, we can't teach them through song "do not walk in the middle of the road, footpaths are made for walking" Coz in this instance it seems like, they're made for living...
Anil, I am your friend and all, and love to bits, but I think you purposely take a side that's contrarian.
I mean, I completely agree that alternative sentences should be the way. But to say that he got unlucky is starting some tangential bleeding heart argument that this spoilt kid does not deserve.
Ok, so he's not a celebrity (although with all the publicity he's been getting, he well could be one) but someone who broke the law AND was rude, unremorseful and arrogant about it.
And speaking of the law -- yes many drive drunk but not as many as we'd like to think to excuse ourselves of doing the same. Many, many of us learnt an important lesson long ago at home or on the streets and will never drive drunk. Come what may.
I know of a person who hired a driver because he realised how much trouble it can be. And he lives alone, has a nice car and loves to drive.
So your stand that he got "unlucky" seems to me like something you've taken just because no one else has taken it.
Alistair P killed people, he deserved what he got.
Minal Mhatre feels...
Alister got three years behind bars. In the Black Buck (BB) case Sallubhai got six years. Even if BBs are getting extinct and are worshipped by some section of Indians etc., their lives appear to be more valuable than humans for our judiciary! Ofcourse it is another matter that humans have no business to live on footpaths! I mean basically footpaths as the name suggests, are meant for walking??! Right? Anyway without deviating from the issue of Alister, alternate punishment is not the solution in his case. Alister appeared very arrogant, rude and without remorse. He deserved to be punished. In fact, more than three years would have been appropriate so that others with his disposition can learn a lesson or two. No one should feel that he/she is above the law.
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