While casually going through my rss feed of Google news, I came across something quite startling. The headline not only grabbed my attention, but also ensured that I click on it with excitement. To let the readers know, here is the screenshot of the Google news that I was reading through my Google Feed Reader.
So, if you see, the heading says “99 million broadband connections by end of 2007 – Zee News”.
Are you joking !
I have earlier written a few posts on Internet penetration in India and also about the sorry state of Broadband connections. When I saw this news, I was like, WOW. I figured that it must be some problem, which ZeeNews must have corrected. (normally feedreaders update as soon as they get the ping from blog/ news site, which happens in few minutes after you publish the blog). But to my surprise when I click on the link to go to Zee News site, It showed me a different heading. Here is the screenshot of what I saw.
 
Here the heading says  ”99 million broadband connections by 2008″ (2007 changed to 2008). So addition of around 70 million odd connections in one more year. Do they plan going to give Free Broadband connections to all the people living in metros. I do not see any other way to reach that kind of figure.Â
Read the actual news that I have reproduced as is. Specifically the sentence “The target for the year 2010 was 20 million connections by using… “:
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New Delhi, Aug 23: The broadband policy of the government intends to provide nine million broadband connections this year and provide connectivity to all secondary and higher secondary schools, public healthcare centres during 2008.Answering Mrs Shobhana Bhartiya and Mrs Supriya Sule in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Communications Shakeel Ahmed said public sector BSNL is expected to play a significant role in the effort. The target for the year 2010 was 20 million connections by using technologies like optic fibre technologies, digital subscriber lines on copper loop, satellite media, terrestrial wireless, cable TV network and future technologies.I am really surprised with Zee News on such low quality of reporting and proof reading.
I assume it must be 9 million Broadband users by 2008, which is also a very big task..
Comments
Even though the number of channels, newspapers have gone up, the basic reporting has been pathetic. Another example was when Telgi was sentenced to jail and every newspaper reported the fine between 50 to 250 crores. There was no similarity in any report.
Another crass reporting is what we are seeing today. The Indian ambassador to US “Ronen Sen’s” comment about ‘headless chicken’ was about journalists and media people. Trust Sheela Bhatt (Rediff), one of the worst journalists ever, to twist the line to make it read like as if he was saying that about the ministers.
Dont forget our illiterate ministers too who couldnt even understand the interview. Sigh.
Thanks for commenting Full2enjoy.
The shoddy quality of these people is also one of the reasons why we bloggers need to get these kind of incidences in open as much as possible.
The mainstream media has to understand the power parallel media like blogging. They have to be extra careful when they are reporting, otherwise bloggers are going to slice and dice and come out with facts…
i have done a research on broadband internet services in india..and i think the maximum they can ever reach even for the year ending 2008 is a mere 5 million,considering the rate at which they are progressing.Currently they are at a little less than 2 million as on Oct 2007.
As far as Zee news is concerned..well..what can i say..things change and so does the news with every click..the blunder in the telgi case and and this case proove that the quality of news is deteriorating..what on earth happened 2 proof reading … :)