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Koda's Can Of Worms

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T he alleged scam to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore involving former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda is a teaser. It sounds like the political equivalent of the Jessica Lall murder case, hearing which a judge had famously quipped, "It's known she was killed, but no one murdered her!" The BJP, apprehensive of the possibility that Jharkhand being under President's Rule would have the Centre influence the investigating agencies to protect the ‘guilty’ alliance partners of UPA, has asked for the total revelation of the contents of Koda's diary that reportedly lists the beneficiaries. On its part, the Congress pooh-poohs the demand, referring to the diary as an inconsequential bit of the kind that the Jain of Hawala infamy carried about two decades ago. In the meantime, officials from several related departments are scurrying for cover even as Income Tax sleuths question Union Bank of India chairman and managing director over his bank reportedly accepting deposits of o

Panic, Says Page 1; Don't, Says Edit

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Screaming headlines declaring India's first 'swine flu' death followed by measured editorials advising people level-headedness, or the sight of people moving about masked followed by pacifying messages from doctors days later. Honey-I-Blew-Up-The-Kid has been the story of media's information management on the potential H1N1 worldwide pandemic, which in India is still merely an outbreak W hen I left Frankfurt, Germany, I got on a deadly 747, and I am gonna go home on a deadly 747 and connect in Chicago, which happens to be a deadly airport, to get back to deadly Atlanta..." Daniel C Rutz, Global Health Communications Team Leader of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was reacting to the opening sentence of a report that had appeared in The Times of India , which said, "The deadly H1N1 swine flu virus continues to spread across school students in Delhi..." Another report that had appeared in Mail Today found the "government in a tizz