देखना है ज़ोर कितना बाजु-ऐ-कातिल में है... CRIMINAL ACTION AGAINST PENPRICKS? EXCHANGES ON GOA JOURNO

THE GOA EDITORS GUIL'T'
A bunch of farts, locally known as the Goa Editor's Guild, a body of editors representing Goan newspapers with a combined daily circulation of about a lakh and more, sat down for dinner, drinks at the Panjim Marriot and also to discuss ways to shut down http://penpricks.blogspot.com/.
Looks like Nazi-Gate has really, really hurt these fellas.
Penpricks is incidentally read by say about only 500 readers everyday (this, on days when there's no piano-carrying Johann Bach, or a cash-for-editorials scam or a post about editors offering massage services or one of our penpricks investigative story on blog).
One of the means put forth (and later discussed) by The Navhind Times Editor Arun Sinha was to file a complaint with the DGP Goa Police against penpricks so that 'the tirade against the journalist community is halted' [sic])
We think they should do it. We really think they should.
Look, the reasonings simple.
In 2005, the same Arun Sinha was booked for allegedly molesting his minor maid who he had 'brought' over from his native village in Bihar. After a complaint was lodged, Arun Sinha went underground for a while and the maid 'went' back to Bihar.
Then suddenly these anonymous letters found their way to the mailboxes of several journos. The sleazy anonymous mails claimed how activists -- who had to fight the system and the might of the Dempo's to file the molestation complaint, were imoptent. The series of mails described the women journalists who reported the incident as 'sexually frustrated' and had a lot of lurid details slipped in.
Three years down the line, the criminal case continues. By the looks of it, the case will continue for some time. And Arun Sinha continues to be the editor of The Navhind Times.
Dont see much of a harm there.
But Sinha sahab, first of all, we are not going to go run away from law. And Arun, we wont go into hiding like you did while on the dodge, once the molestation FIR was filed against you. FYI we are also not going to indulge in the sleazy mail routine too. Rest assured.
Go ahead file your complaint. If the Goa Police needs us to, then the pricks will come out of the closet (corny as that may sound). We'll identify ourselves.
Go ahead Arun...
Just do it man...

P.S. And dear editors, we need a small clarification. I know this is a trifle irritating, but thats a part of our brief. Who footed the liqour bill for this Goa Editor's Guild meeting at the Marriot? Did the Department of Information and Publicity pay up? Did the exchequer pay for your booze bills? Since the DI Director Nikhil Desai was present, we are inclined to believe that. It would be great if you guys could clarify this.

(Excerpts from the notoriously yellow weekly Goan Observer posted on the goa journo mailing list)
AGITATION, IRRITATION
AND a few stray observations on the agitation and irritation and fury and rage of The Navhind Times editor, Arun Sinha, with the anonymous journalists who run the blog called Penpricks. Indeed, the principal item on the agenda for the meeting of the Editors' Guild convened by Arun Sinha last Friday was the Penpricks blog. Not just Arun Sinha, but editors of all newspapers in Goa are sore about being taken for a ride by Penpricks.
The blog, which is run by a group of disgruntled journalists, most of whom being former employees of Herald, issued a fabricated press note claiming that a notorious Nazi war criminal had taken sanctuary in Goa, who had then been arrested just across the Goa border in Karnataka.
The blog claimed that the Nazi had exposed his cover when he had sought to sell an expensive organ to some private party. The scam was planned meticulously with a neo-Nazi type symbol morphed into the letterhead, claimed to be issued by some German organization.
None of the local papers, or for that matter many of the national papers, bothered to check out the story with either the German embassy or the Karnataka and Goa Police, and carried it, some of them very prominently.
The editors were left red-faced when the blog Penpricks revealed that the whole story was a scam which it had fabricated to expose the incompetence of editors and senior editorial staff. The Nazi scam came on top of a succession of exposes; many of which were close to the truth over the working of the media in Goa.
In the past, the Penpricks blog had conducted a sting operation exposing how the former editor of the Herald, Robin Abreu, had expressed his willingness to sell not just editorial space but the Holy of Holies, the editorial itself to an advertiser. It also had partly established that the former editor of Herald, Robin Abreu, was in the habit of plagarizing from editorials from other newspapers.
RAJAN DEAD
Penpricks has been quite unfairly fair or fairly unfair in targetting all editors and publications though, relatively speaking.
The Navhind Times and Herald have been its principal targets. The Goan Observer has, of course, been one of the favourite whipping boys of Penpricks. To the extent of not only accusing me of being a yellow journalist but even declaring me dead. IN fact, some who saw only the heading declaring me dead and did not read further, really thought I was dead or at least seriously ill. I received several calls from close friends and several friends kept calling each other to find out if I was seriously ill and had been admitted to hospital.
Arun Sinha raved and ranted and was insistent that the Editors' Guild should file a criminal complaint against the Penpricks blog to the Director General of Police. I was present there entirely by accident, or maybe because Arun Sinha thought that as a victim of Penpricks I would endorse his campaign of vendetta against them.
I have nothing against the comments that the Penpricks blog makes, including the comments they keep making about me. I think they are revealing, sometimes a little irritating and very often hilarious. I must admit that they have tended to be very personal and malicious at times.
But unlike Arun Sinha, I have no objection whatsoever to media blogs that are critical of people in the media. But I do believe that those who wish to criticize others should have the courage to identify themselves. I believe that the cloak of anonymity with which they surround themselves is despicable. Those who run the Penpricks are behaving like whores -- a community who it has been famously said exercise power without responsibility. I fault the Penpricks for their cowardice and not for their comments, which in any case I treat with contempt.

(Comments on Goa journo)
>OF COLD FEET AND FROST BYTES: THE STORY OF THE GT INTERVIEW THAT WASN'T
>PUBLISHED
With the Editor's guild going after penpricks, it is just a matter of time before penpricks will be nailed.
Penprick's IP address can be easily revelead by the ISP. If authorities subponea the ISP, they are bound to reveal penprick's ISP.
The only way out for penpricks is to use a proxy to do whatever he does, and that too he should use a proxy which is hosted and belongs to a company which is in a country where the privacy laws are much stronger than in India.
regards,
Samir
(samir_kelekar@yahoo.com)
--
Samirbab,
Are you talking about Editors' Guidl at national level? Is there any registered body clled Goa editors' Guild? will anybody let us know?-
prakash
(prakashkamatgoa@gmail.com)
--
Dears,
Anonymity of the Newsdesk, Bureau or Wire Services is something journos use as a cover up their tracks from non-Journos. Penpricks is something that is getting back at the Journos and Editors with their own anonymity..... and they like it not!
The Nazi joke of Johann Bach revealed to what extent newspaper Editors [not just in Goa] are willing to do "Additions" to their "Editions" by way of "Sources" in the police, embassy or on the ground ...and how little they know about music, anagrams and honesty!
I have written to newspapers to expose the blatant lies they pass off as news in their pages, sometimes with malicious intent, sometimes out of ignorance ....... but often with lack of integrity. A case in point is a simple thing as the ACTUAL DATE on which Scarlet Keelings SECOND autopsy was done ....or since when the FERNANDINA mangoes are supposed to be EXTINCT. There have been no apologies or Corrigendum published to date that I know of ... and no acknowledgement of my emails, bearing my name, phone number and from my personal email ID.
So what are the newspaper Editors really worried about: the TRUTH that they have been shown to be supporting LIES being published as NEWS in their editions?
While I do not subscribe to anonymity, I cannot but salute Penpricks on their exposure!!
Mog asundi.
Miguel
(miguelbraganza@yahoo.co.in)
--
Can someone post this on goajourno also.
The point is what are the privacy laws in India. Today, ISPs routinely give IP addresses of people when police ask for them. I am not sure even if police follow any rules in what IP addresses to ask. Perhaps, an FIR is good enough.
Although I agree with Miguel about the good work of exposing media done by penpricks, the point is whether he has been violating any laws or not.
regards,
Samir
(samir_kelekar@yahoo.com)