Bullying by NDTV

It appears that blogger Chyetanya Kunte has been forced to retract one of his posts (can be seen here for the time being) which was critical of Barkha Dutt for her conduct during Mumbai siege (via Shripriya via tweet by Respected Ma'am ). Now I couldn't have put it any better than Shripriya while the post was angry, hardly any surprise considering Barkha Dutt's outrageous behaviour, it could in no way be construed to be libelous.

Now redressal of grievances through court is a constitutional right but let's not mistake for what this is. A despicable attempt by NDTV (a big corporate entity) to silence an individual for the audacity to criticize their conduct, using the help of deep pockets and an army of lawyers, in other words, legal intimidation.

Can you imagine if what would have happened if any of the politicians had dared to sue NDTV for libel. Not only NDTV but everyone in English media would be crying fascism like it was Third Reich. This despite the fact that not only a politician has as much right to redressal as NDTV but also he probably has a stronger case for libel against Barkha Dutt (and English media) than Barkha Dutt has against Chyetanya.

If one holds free speech sacred as our journalists purport to do it is meant for everyone, and not just big shot television journalists.

Since what happened to Chyetanya can happen to any blogger (in fact any individual), the bullying by NDTV must be vociferously protested by bloggers.

Desipundit is covering this

Other to write on this, Shripriya, Rohit, Prateek, The CP, Lekhni, Sridhar, Jaiganesh

Update: This is getting interesting. I can't give the exact details but this kerfuffle more and more resembles earlier one .

Update 1: So far the best commentary on this issue (in addition to Shripriya ) has been done by Rohit (here , here and here ), Gaurav Sabnis and Prem Panicker. Meanwhile it turns out that NDTV may have to sue itself *(via Rohit )

*  NDTV has pulled the page, but the report can be viewed here.