The emphasis these days is on the consumer.  The Consumer is the King.  Every possible effort is made to make our lives easier and happier.  Shopkeepers give discounts or gifts to make the customer happy so as to ensure repeat business for them.  These days even reputed international brands like Nokia and other  establishments have a portion of their forms printed in respective regional languages in the interests of their customer.   Private banks through ATMs and online banking have given us comforts we cannot even dream of. Yet when it comes to Print and Electronic media in India, they do not care an inch for us.

If you look at most Newsreaders of most Indian Television Channels, many of them use words which are not understandable to most Indians. Many Indians are educated.  Many of us are  sufficiently educated to read well, to write well and to understand this world or live in this world and deal with people and environment but many of the words used by these newsreaders require a person to be highly educated in a English medium school of the highest standards in a metropolitan city.  Anyone of us can well imagine, how many metropolitan cities do we have and how many children in India have the access to best education facilities in remote areas or how parents can afford to get their children educated in the best of schools.  The print media are not far behind in emulating these newsreaders of Television channels, as they too use complicated words which is beyond the understanding of a average Indian.

I would not be surprised, if there are people in India who keep a dictionary with them while reading a newspapers.  Many great writers who lived centuries ago, were unanimous in their opinion that good writing means usage of simple words which is easily understandable to all.  According to them a writer who uses complicated word is one who wants to boost his ego, by showing people that he has plenty of knowledge and therefore he cannot be classified as a good writer.  Our Newsreaders and Channels fit into this category, they speak or write merely to show they are more knowledgeable than others.

It is high time print and electronic media put the interests of people above themselves and use a language friendlier and easier to all.

Regards

Satish