The Hindu Business Line : Snide and biased sideswipes

THIS column conveys its deep sense of shock and sorrow at the unimaginable magnitude and scale of the horrendous devastation caused by hurricane Katrina in its destructive passage across the States of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Its heart-felt condolences go to the families of the dead and its sympathies to those who have been subjected to the heart-rending trauma and suffering.

At this hour of unprecedented crisis and tragedy, when the public officials of the affected States and the federal agencies, are so valiantly and dedicatedly engaged in undertaking rescue and relief operations and providing food, shelter and health care, the thoughts, best wishes, and feelings of solidarity and support of governments and peoples everywhere are with them for the success of their efforts to speed up the process of recovery and reconstruction.

Frontline foreign media and TV channels have been doing an impressive job putting out special reports on what the US President described as the worst ever natural disaster in the history of that country. Their accounts have been simply superb in bringing to light the incalculable dimensions of the gravity of nature's fury. They have been unremittingly turning the spotlight on the utter chaos and rampant anarchy in New Orleans, universally viewed as "a ghastly horror" and "a national disgrace". They have not shied away from ascribing the slow mobilisation of the resources of the federal government to subconscious discrimination, since the victims were preponderantly African-Americans.

The only jarring note was the snide and biased sideswipes that some anchors took at the Third World countries. All too readily they made it seem that mismanagement and incompetence were the monopoly of those countries (they even named some of them) and wondered how there could be such terrible foul-up in a First World country.

All one can say is that even the US can learn a lesson or two from the way India, for instance, managed the recent tsunami.

India's record in the smooth conduct of elections stands up well before the fumblings in the US in the presidential elections of 2000. Third world is not for bashing. In fact, there should be a veto on this condescending expression.

B. S. Raghavan

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