08 September, 2008

IndiaTV tries to do LHC

Note: The LHC is the "Large Hadron Collider", which is the biggest particle accelerator built yet, and it's going to switch on on Sep 10. It's made to discover new physics. Not create Black Holes that devour the earth.

Ooh, and one earlier post of mine, about IndiaTV craziness.

Ok, it's three days before the biggest experiment ever designed begins, and IndiaTV has got a late brainwave about it's dangers. It's apparently going to blow up the Earth, and IndiaTV doesn't want us to have more than 3 days notice. We are Fucked! (Apparently.)

I don't know how IndiaTV gets their hands on all kinds of conspiracy/doomsday theories, but man, they do. I wonder how they sleep at night. My friend here had to spend half an hour explaining to his grandparents that the Earth was not going to blow up because of a black hole created in a particle accelerator. There isn't a physics student in every home in India, sadly, so IndiaTV surely misled many, many Indians, who'll spend the next three days either in terror, or in fearful wait (or in orgies... hey, last three days!)

Well, I've always called IndiaTV the worst hindi news channel EVER (and that's saying a lot). When they're not spouting nonsense about aliens or skeletons of Gatotkachh being found (with a Hindu Scholar on air to explain how he could've gotten so big... apparently the Bio department comes under School of Hinduism these days... wait, does that mean all those Bio chicks will refuse to have premarital sex?... man, Bio chicks... oh, back to topic...) they're spouting nonsense about every doomsday theory that ever walked the idiots of Earth. So, here's an account of their opinion of the LHC, and why it's so stupid that rats will refuse to eat it...

(And thanks to my friend Achal for giving me an account of the show, and having spared me the pain of having to shout "fuck" 30 times in 10 minutes...)

"The Doomsday Device"

(Mwa)Hahahahahah! Physicists are either idiots or nihilists, according to IndiaTV. LHC, the "Great Machine" is going to start in 3 days, and who knows what will happen?! It is a machine, and machines are not to be trusted.

With a suitable "horror" tune playing in the background, the voice on TV comments as we are shown clips from various movies with floods, huge explosions, and other clips from various Hollywood movies (I think they have a special copy of "Independence Day", oh yeah, and of "The Day After Tomorrow", which they never have occasion to keep back on the shelf... "Oh, done with that ID4 copy for your Aliens show? Could I have it for my ' The Sex Ed Conspiracy' show."). To be fair, they took opinions of some scientists (special material, those scientists, to be ready to talk to IndiaTV...) , but they emphasised the Doom part more than anything else.

And what IndiaTV programme is complete without a contribution to the "stupidest lines ever said on TV" list? Here are two Achal remembers from the show:

"Yeh Mahamachine hain ya Mahadaanav?"
AKA "Is this a Great Machine or a Great Demon?"

The first confirmation of what I've always suspected! Scriptwriters of Ekta Kapoor also write for IndiaTV! In this case, those who wrote "Kahaani Humaare Mahabharat kii", surely produced this gem. Come on, the two sets are one... There cannot be so many awesomely stupid people in the same country. Those who work for Ekta Kapoor work for IndiaTV. QED.

"Agar Machine ka dimaag fir gaya toh?"
"What if the machine loses it's mind?"

And join your club?

I think the IndiaTV people have a special "Dr. Strangelove"-like prepared for them, just in case one of the hundred disasters they predict actually happens. Only this time, it won't be taking specimens of the best men and women on earth...

Ok, Enough Sarcasm for today. (No, right? You're enjoying this, eh? Well, there's always a post in the future about IndiaTV...)

The Straight Dope about the LHC then...

Ok, not THE Straight Dope. But as straight as you can get it: It's not going to create black holes. It isn't going to blow up the earth for Chris-sakes. Those physicists are not as dumb as you think, they know how to design an experiment, and they are much, much smarter than you. LHC has been safety-tested, simulated, debated a hundred times over by people who actually know it inside out. And they have come to one conclusion: it's safe.

And, let's face it: the LHC is beautiful. It's humanity's biggest experiment ever, and hopefully we'll get answers to atleast some of our Big Questions after it's done. Here's stuff about the LHC. Cool explanation. And what chances does it have? Here is a rough and fun estimate (by Sean Carroll).

And yes, here and here are links explaining all that about doomsday. I'm not qualified enough, am I? But Phil Plait is. And he's cool. And he gives more links.

PostScript

BTW, I do KNOW that IndiaTV people are not really stupid, and they do this just to get more viewers and TRPs, and they're just taking advantage of the gullibility of those viewers. But I really, really would like to believe they're stupid and not cruel. Really, it's cruel, mean, and sad to take advantage of people like that. Just thinking about it makes me very, very angry, so I'd just think that they're idiots, not rogues.

BTW, This LHC doomsday thing is actually quite old. That's why I said "brainwave" at the start of the post. Not only do they spout incredibly blackheaded stuff, they do it really, really late.

Oh, you've probably heard this by now, and it's 30 years old in Internet years I guess, but here it is: LHC Rap.

PostScript 2

Amit Varma over at IndiaUncut has posted about this (and included a link to this post: yay!). There he links to a news piece about a girl commiting suicide citing the End of The World as the reason. I agree with him that there were probably (I hope) other reasons, although I can see why this media hype would push such people over the edge. It's just sad. I stand by what I said above about these channels exploiting the public mindset. News is there not to entertain, or mislead... but to educate. I hope these channels learn this soon.

34 comments:

  1. http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=india+tv+lhc

    As of 1630 on 8th September, your post is the first google result for "india tv lhc". Congrats!

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  2. Whoa! What a delight to read. If I ever meet someone who works for India TV, I will surely throttle them. I'm am too stupefied at the lax behaviour of the government. How can stuff like this get past? How?

    It is so ridiculous. Fuck Fuck Fuck

    PS: The sarcastic humour is much appreciated

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  3. Well, I did catch a glimpse of the India TV 'daityakaari'(demonic in Hindi, or so I think) machine show yesterday afternoon. There is a moment in the show where they point out the scientists who is presumably going to switch on the LHC and say, "Look at him carefully, he is the guy who is going to switch on that daityakaari machine that will bring 'pralay'(great flood) and 'mahavinaash'(total destruction, I believe, my Hindi is weak)! The poor fellow's face in the photo downloaded from a google images search result is circled as if he is wanted in the country for serial rapes! Obviously I skipped the channel then, but what ceases to amaze me is the fact that IndiaTV and others of its ilk manage to get their hands on every imaginable conspiracy theory, package it and telecast it on their prime time slot almost everyday. Like you said, the scientists working on it are smarter, way smarter than IndiaTV channel bosses, who have their brains stuffed up their asses and balls between their ears.

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  4. I wonder how they sleep at night. My friend here had to spend half an hour explaining to his grandparents that the Earth was not going to blow up because of a black hole created in a particle accelerator.- ROFLMFAO!!

    Excellent post!

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  5. Man, you hit the nail. I watched India TV once and was disgusted with what was being shown. Those people have no ethos it seems.

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  6. I watched this India TV once and in that piece of news, the reporter was describing the death of a guy by snake's venom. The snake did bite the guy when he was going to ease his nature in a village farm. And the first line of that breaking news was - "woh toh gaya tha lota lekar hagne, use kya pata tha ki khet me uski maut kundli maar ke uska intezaar kar rahi hai."

    I couldn't continue after these lines!

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  7. Not sure if it is reliable or not, but one of our news sites reported that a 16 year old Indian girl had committed suicide because of the LHC. (news item here http://www.spitsnieuws.nl/archives/tech/2008/09/zelfmoord_door_deeltjesversnel.html)

    I think the TV station is accountable.

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  8. I wonder if the government has powers to ban such channels. Its utterly butterly disgusting. Vanishing cows, UFO sightings, gas cylinders on fire etc etc - all news of national importance.

    Whatever happened to Rajat-JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII? Why is this channel still up?

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  9. I don't think we should worry. The aliens are quietly waiting for us to create black hole, and as soon as we succeed, they will come over and snatch it from us. In their world, a black hole is the most precious thing.

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  10. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wiredbeyond/~3/389299392/cern-big-bang-a.html

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  11. If you lined up all the assholes working in the Indian News channels around the equator, no matter how long the line is, wouldn't it be great to leave them there?

    I'm waiting for the glorious revolution, which I'm sure will come. The news channels are digging their own grave here. One day there will be a revolution which will end them all.

    As someone mentioned above, there was this news of some girl committing suicide. Maybe she had other problems, maybe she didnt. But why are these fucktards allowed on TV. And why cant we have better looking retards. Since all that comes out of their mouths is crap, why cant we have better looking crap talkers??

    I did a comic about the news channels at 8 Second Breaking News Loop. The LHC fiasco wants me to do more.

    I call to the scientist of CERN to create a mini black hole above the studio of these assholes.

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  12. Yes I also hate India TV. They are making fool to our unaware villagers. Indian Gov. should have some law for new channel. Specially... New channel cant repeat one sentence and news report more than twice. Lots of news channel repeat one sentence 10 times. I hope India TV read this article

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  13. Heh! Quite true. You just can't call them a news channel..

    Btw, check out my two cents: http://rithwikipedia.blogspot.com/2008/08/dear-indiatv.html

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  14. thanks a lot for writing this blog which has expressed exactly what i felt :)..I am really confused beween whom I really want to pity--'the so called news channels' aur 'the educated gullible ppl'? the reason why I am saying this is, I can understand if a villager who has never been to school,or never had seen physics book gets scared of this new..But what if a SOFTWARE engineer whom we say to be driving our country to new horizon falls for this??(yes, a gal in my office would have been the next to commit suiside because of this stupid hypothetical doomeday news)..gimme a brk..

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  15. dude...
    what can i say...
    this is the best blog ( yeah .... not just the post) that iv come across in so many days.... im an avid blogger myself.... will take cues from your style of writing ... it's awsum ... keep it up..

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  16. I never watch India TV. (Since my Hindi is bad.) This is the first I'm hearing about such outrageous reporting!! I'm glad to have found out. I am never watching that channel. Whatever happened to responsible journalism??

    BTW, the sarcasm was highly appreciated! :)

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  17. Fuck, fuck, fuck , fuck, fuck , fuck , fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck and everyone pls fuck india tv and all other channels which broadcast trash

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  18. You're getting a lot of eyeballs on this post. You were linked in at Amit Verma's blog as well.

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  19. Found this: http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/lhc_simulation/

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  20. bannnnnnnnnn india tv:d

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  21. @ Aditya... yep, I know, that's precisely the reason I'm getting so many visitors. :)

    @ Sarkywoman and Anne: Thanks for appreciating the sarcasm. Although one of my friends think sarcasm is a barrier for understanding, I think it's purpose is rather to make people (other than the one citicised) aware of the absurdness of the premise.

    @Sweta and Anonymous#2 : Yes, IndiaTV sure does nothing to make villagers less ignorant. And even lots of people in the cities watch these channels, and *gasp* believe them. What is the way out?

    @ Everyone who's in favour of banning: HEhe, very tempting, and maybe the I&B ministry should enforce stricter restrictions on what's actually called news. But it's so hard to do so, and the news channels can always misguide or avoid the I&B Ministry. What needs to be done is, maybe, something like the channels correcting each other or such. But such an idea could easily develop into a "channel-war" or such.

    Any other ideas? We need general rules, I think, not bans on specific channels. Or maybe a system for self-correction, instead of any government interference. I'm pretty bad at coming up with practical schemes. :)

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  22. Of course the government has the power to ban. If they can sit and ban Star Movies for showing a kissing scene which hasn't hurt anyone, why not this?

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  23. But it isn't right to let the government ban anybody, is it? Then they'll ban stuff which is biased against them too. They won't be required to be accountable to anyone. That's why free speech is so important. And there, if something like a self-correction system may be better than the government's whims.

    You remember how I was up in arms against them banning HBO and Star Movies, right? Same case here. There has to be some system which does not depend upon the whims of a biased person/entity.

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  24. Very interesting discussion and even more colourful comments...I got the nightmarish epiphany that all young ladies had turned into brawling chicks gong fuck fuck fuck instead of lame ducks going cluck cluck cluck.
    What use is ranting against India TV? Electronic media is a kind of prostitution. One young lady of 22 is auctioning off her viriginity in US, live on radio (thank God no visuals) when she gifts it to the highest bidder, eyes closed. Rajat Sharma is no fool, he picks the worst story for the gullible masses, and he is inventive. Aaj Tak is blindly copying him. Journalism is also prostitutions these days, because the highest bidder can plant a story against me or you or one of these clucking ducks. Against, or in favour of. Papers don't care. All for miserable bits of paper... sarcasm is a good sign to tell all the grey cells are working oertime, and not vegetating.
    Cheerz!

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  25. The news channels are testing our intelligence,destroying our brain cells and taking our level of understanding to a new level(the lower,I mean).I did think of black holes,time-travel,portals being created when I read about the protons traveling almost at the speed of light.But then,I read further about it and was assured that its particle physics and not creation of black holes...not at LHC.The news channel(that go to any extent for TRP's) doesn't stress on the experiment, not on physics, not on reality but on - 'KABOOM'!!It went very well - 'Kaboom' and the 'Big Bang'.I don't know what the News Channel have changed into.Is there any difference between the News telecast and the daily soaps?? The producer kills the lead actor in the saas-bahu saaga for some viewership and so does the News channel to all the logic,Oh yeh!, and some naive and insecure citizens too.Yes, we have to do something.Sue the channel.

    I don't know why people are worried about the dooms day.We all are going to die someday! Sooner or later.
    "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." -Charles M. Schulz.

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  26. Well here's the comic I promised. A little late I agree, but eversince the Big Bang turned out to be the big fizzle, I've been feeling a little disappointed.

    Cant trust IndiaTV to deliver on it news. Can you image what the news channels would've done if they were around during the Y2K big fizzle?

    The Late Hadron Collidor.

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  27. See my collection of snapshots
    of many of india tv's rubbish news
    http://stupidindiatv.blogspot.com

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  28. See Lot of Stupid news snapshots of INDIA TV
    in archive list of this blog
    http://stupidindiatv.blogspot.com

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  29. Interesting story to be put along with my LHC article. =)

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  30. Aaj Tak is no different.
    Times Now and Star News are also on those lines.

    Sad!

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  31. why does anyone watch indian news channels anyway?!!!

    but I guess achal and I have been brain damaged from overexposure to under-graduation curriculum anyway! and you are at tifr!!! :)

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  32. Good post, strict actions should be taken against such crap news channels e.g (IndiaTV, Aaj-Tak etc). May be time has come when Television media needs sensor board.

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  33. Cheap publicity once again ....

    I think, its time for us to take action

    here is what I am going to do:
    http://consciouspeople.blogspot.com/2009/03/response-to-irresponsible-media-work.html

    based on the incident:
    http://consciouspeople.blogspot.com/2009/03/india-tv-showing-skewed-news-end-of.html

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