Senior journalists from electronic news media have come together to launch a new 24/7 television channel which will be called as 'Justice for your dead relative'. The Justice channel or JTV , as its name suggests will help provide justice to the relatives of victims of murder, rape or car accidents, when all normal channels of justice fail to provide justice to them.
"India desperately needs a new judiciary, as our current judicial system is slow, inefficient, corrupt and rotten to its core. Our law-enforcementmachinery is equally ineffective and corrupt, biased on the side of the rich and the influential . With the launch of this new channel we will provide to the people of India the highest form of judiciary - the people's court." saidVarsha Dutt, managing editor of the new channel.
Raj Sardukhai, co-founder of the channel, said that the new channel will allow relatives of murdered victims easier access to justice.
"Now you don't have to wait for 19 years to get justice for your murdered relative. Simply drop an email to
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or call us as our toll-free number 1800-100100 and provide us with all the details of your case along with photographs of your dead relative. Our hard-working staff will evaluate your case and if they find it is worthy of full-time coverage, our new channel will take it up on a first come first serve basis. Once we have chosen a case, we will leave no stone unturned in our effort to bring justice to you. Rest assured that however mighty and influential the accused may, we will ensure that he or she gets the deserved punishment."
Explaining the business model of the soon-to-be-launched channel, Sardukhai said that one of the aims of the channel was to fully exploit the synergies of the electronic media by reducing costs. "Presently, there is lot of wastage involved in providing justice to the relatives of the poor victims of our slow and corrupt judicial system. Hundreds of journalists from hundreds of channels covering the same case is a huge wastage of scant resources. Through this new channel, we are seeking to eliminate the duplication of the coverage. We will have a dedicated team of young reporters who will cover the accepted cases with enthusiasm and cover every single aspect of the case. We will also produce daily talk shows in English and Hindi where all the regular commentators on the sad state of affairs of the country can provide their views on a united, single platform. This will be a great convenience to our honourable experts as they will be spared the exertion of hopping from one studio to another to provide their expert opinions. These daily talk shows will be then syndicated to all the news channels of the country who subscribe to our services." added Sardukhai.
Prabhu Chaila, editor of India Tomorrow and also one of the founder members of the channel admitted that it will be a tough task for the channel to provide justice to every victim of judicial incompetence and corruption. "Yes, in India, miscarriage of justice is norm rather than exception. We are aware that our investigating and law-enforcement agencies are deeply politicized and highly corruptible. While lacs of innocents languish as undertrials in our prisons, many more lacs go scotfree buying their way out of trouble. So lets be realist - a single news channel or even the combined might of the media cannot succeed in providing justice to every one in the country who needs it. With great reluctance and with a heavy heart, we have been forced to set up eligibility criteria for taking up cases of victims. We will pursue only those cases which strictly meet our criteria."
While Prabhu Chaila refused to disclose the eligibility criteria saying that it was the internal matter of the channel, a leaked highly-confidential email to the staff of the channel reveals the details:
1. For the sake of convenience of our team of reporters who are stationed mostly in the capital and metro cities, the dead victim should be preferably from New Delhi or surrounding satellite towns like Noida, Gurgaun, Faridabad or Ghaziabad. Second preference should be given to victims from other cities like Mumbai, Kolkotta, Chennai, Chandigarh or Bangalore.
2. The victim should belong to the educated middle-class or upper middle class sections of our society. Preferably female. In order to sustain any campaign for justice for a duration long enough to bring results, it is essential that our viewers should be able to empathize with the relatives of the dead victims and be able to feel outrage at the failure of our law-enforcement systems to provide justice. It is very unlikely that our viewers, who are mostly concentrated in urban centres of the country, will feel any empathy or outrage for victims if they happen to be dalits and other lower-castes, laborers and poor migrants, tribals located in remote corners of the country, peasants and other marginalized sections of our society.
3. Preference should be given to cases which are tremendously tragic with high shock value, traumatic plots and melodramatic twists and turns. In short, cases which are soap operatic in nature with clearly delineated lines between good and evil. It is very essential that all our viewers should be able to easily identify with the victims and feel deep revulsion towards the accused.
4. To be strictly avoided: Cases of injustice which are complicated in nature involving deeper social, cultural and political issues. For e.g. honor killings in rural areas or rape of adivasi women by cops. Such cases, due to their political nature, require the viewer to think about larger, complex issues confronting the nation and possibly even rethink their prevailing prejudices. Apart from the sheer disinterest of the majority of our viewers in the lives of poor people in remote areas, the contradictions in their beliefs and reality may confuse them.
The channel will be launched next month. The opening ceremony will include a candlelight march by ten thousand volunteers through the streets of New Delhi who will carry banners, placards and posters of the new channel. The symbol of the channel will be a candle and its slogan will be 'Lets light a candle! Its mightier than both pen & sword."
