Before posting better sense prevailed*. This post is written in absolute disgust and is NSFW. In fact, people who are language sensitive and cannot stand Sailor-speak, which is also known as salty language should not read any further.
By chance I happened to tune into Times Now during dinner. The object of today’s dissection was the CSE study on ‘fast foods’ [http://www.cseindia.org/userfiles/Nutritional_Analysis_Junk_Food.pdf] including wafers and bujjias in India and how they either don’t report about the ‘unhealthy’ percentage of ingredients - like sugar, salt, transfat, etc., - in their products or else misrepresent. The products involved were across the counter - not only those of multinationals, for which read ‘foreign companies’.
This post is not about the actual results of the CSE study, but only about the pathetic behaviour of 3 participants and the anchor on the debate on the TV channel.
The CSE was represented by Sunita Narayaan and the multinational side by the self-confessed Coca-Cola advisor Suhel Seth.
There was another geezer who didn’t know whether to put his right or left elbow in - and as the muck started flying, he confessed that he was a bureaucrat. No wonder he was confused about his right or left elbows; it was however pleasant to see he wasn’t as yet confused about his elbows and knees; though there were moments it looked like he would have got down on his knees and join Arnab Goswamy in kowtowing to Suhel Seth.
As if to disprove the generality that bimbos are typically blonde, there was a raven haired one, who seemed to have forgotten her lines under whichever rock she crawled out of. She uttered such wise observations like (broadly),
If I had told my mother that 15 years back, I wouldn’t have been able to sit down properly for 2 days.
:-P
To get back to Suhel Seth. For years now, I’ve been an admirer of Suhel Seth (and Arnab Goswami of late) and how he has been able to bring balance, sense and perspective to these TV arguments. Today, he managed to make me look at him differently - how a sane, balanced individual can be blinded enough to become rabid to the point of:
Just watch the video (as of this post, the debate is not yet on Times Now TV website) and see for yourself how he disparages a disquieting, scientific analysis by patronising Sunita that ‘if he (Suhel Seth) was Mayawati, he would have erected statues for her (Sunita).’ To my eternal horror and shame, Arnab Goswami chose to entertain himself with humour at that, instead of lashing out at Suhel Seth, and the other two - well, didn’t cover themselves with glory by guffawing.
Not that we can expect high standards of morality from trained bureaucrats and career bimbos.
Almost at the end of the debate, there were 3 jabs (broadly) which went unanswered and cannot be answered in any meaningful way by Suhel Seth:
Personally, if I had been in the same room as Suhel Seth when he dared to utter those obscenities, I probably would have stood up, raised my hands in front of his face, palms facing me, and spit on them, to show my contempt for his behaviour.
As I have made it very clear,
By chance I happened to tune into Times Now during dinner. The object of today’s dissection was the CSE study on ‘fast foods’ [http://www.cseindia.org/userfiles/Nutritional_Analysis_Junk_Food.pdf] including wafers and bujjias in India and how they either don’t report about the ‘unhealthy’ percentage of ingredients - like sugar, salt, transfat, etc., - in their products or else misrepresent. The products involved were across the counter - not only those of multinationals, for which read ‘foreign companies’.
This post is not about the actual results of the CSE study, but only about the pathetic behaviour of 3 participants and the anchor on the debate on the TV channel.
The CSE was represented by Sunita Narayaan and the multinational side by the self-confessed Coca-Cola advisor Suhel Seth.
There was another geezer who didn’t know whether to put his right or left elbow in - and as the muck started flying, he confessed that he was a bureaucrat. No wonder he was confused about his right or left elbows; it was however pleasant to see he wasn’t as yet confused about his elbows and knees; though there were moments it looked like he would have got down on his knees and join Arnab Goswamy in kowtowing to Suhel Seth.
As if to disprove the generality that bimbos are typically blonde, there was a raven haired one, who seemed to have forgotten her lines under whichever rock she crawled out of. She uttered such wise observations like (broadly),
- how many in India can read, so what is the point of health or nutrition labels on packaged food?
- mother’s should be the ones to know about their children’s food habits and there is no point in blaming the multinationals (forgetting that even Indian companies were shown up in the study);
- eating multinational’s junk food by her children is better than having her children eat out at (unhygienic) roadside eateries and risk the infection of typhoid.
If I had told my mother that 15 years back, I wouldn’t have been able to sit down properly for 2 days.
:-P
To get back to Suhel Seth. For years now, I’ve been an admirer of Suhel Seth (and Arnab Goswami of late) and how he has been able to bring balance, sense and perspective to these TV arguments. Today, he managed to make me look at him differently - how a sane, balanced individual can be blinded enough to become rabid to the point of:
- trashing a scientific, laboratory analysis without any tests otherwise;
- running down the scientific research, study or analysis by questioning the organisation itself - by almost attributing motives;
- trashing Sunita Narain personally and to all effect abusing her, questioning her intellect, scientific training, and her motives;
- hiding behind the flimsy excuse that Indian laws aren’t as good as, say US FDA laws, and hence multinationals are adhering to (deficient) ‘Indian’ laws, in letter, but not in spirit;
- almost claiming that multinationals, because of the basic reason that they are multinationals, are pure and pristine and their motives, intentions, marketing strategies and disclosures (in India) are unquestionable;
- that further tests are needed before any conclusions or even press releases can be made; again partially questioning the methods, if not the motive of CSE;
- and every time he trashed Sunita personally or the study, he claimed that it was nothing personal, that Sunita is trying to be a martyr and to the contrary, he (Suhel Seth) is the one being wrongly targeted by Sunita;
- for the record, I never heard any accusation by Sunita that Suhel Seth was personally involved or motivated in wrongly labelling or disclosure failure by multinationals; once or twice she just referred to the fact that Suhel Seth represents Coca-Cola.
Not that we can expect high standards of morality from trained bureaucrats and career bimbos.
Almost at the end of the debate, there were 3 jabs (broadly) which went unanswered and cannot be answered in any meaningful way by Suhel Seth:
- one my a viewer by email as quoted by Arnab Goswami to the effect that ‘if multinationals can manage to advertise in 25 Indian languages, they can very well afford to print information in all those languages’
- Ouch!
- a pointed question by Arnab Goswami on ‘why the disclosures for the same products are elaborate in the US website, while their Indian website doesn’t have the same standards of disclosure? Are American moms more informed or to be more informed that Indian moms?’
- Double Ouch!
- a retort by Sunita Narain to Suhel Seth’s plaintive that ‘further tests by other *independent* labs are necessary’; her retort was ‘does that mean that these multinationals do not as *yet* have tested or routinely test their own products for content? And if they do, why don’t they just release it instead of trying to trash an analysis or attribute motives?’
- Ouch again!
Personally, if I had been in the same room as Suhel Seth when he dared to utter those obscenities, I probably would have stood up, raised my hands in front of his face, palms facing me, and spit on them, to show my contempt for his behaviour.
As I have made it very clear,
- I abhor violence;
- I believe that everyone has a right to speak out, even if their views are offensive;
- I also believe that the same belief gives a right to retort, verbally, and in actions, but actions which doesn’t violate the personal freedom or safety of the offender;
- I believe that by spitting on my own palms, I am not in any way violating any of the offenders rights or safety, while adequately expressing my contempt for offensive behaviour;
- And I believe that such an action upholds the values of Satyagraha, which are so necessary today, while it also censures bad behaviour.
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