As Clifford Levy wrote in The Times last week, Russia’s national networks, the most powerful media in the country, are routinely deleting news or opinions critical of the Kremlin. In one notable case, Mikhail Delyagin, a well-known political analyst, criticized Vladimir Putin during the taping of a talk show. When the program aired, Mr. Delyagin was missing. Or, most of him was missing. His disembodied legs remained in the picture.
Meanwhile, in Nepal
Addressing a rally to celebrate the declaration of republic in Kathmandu Prachanda said his CPN-Maoist will not tolerate further criticism by the media and warned of serious consequences if it continued to criticise the party. Targeting the Kantipur publication that brings out the largest circulated dailies Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post, the former rebel leader said, “You journalists did well to continuously criticise the Maoists before the constituent assembly polls, otherwise the election would not have taken place at all.”“Now we will no longer tolerate criticism as we have already been elected by the people,” he said, adding that the other newspapers criticising the Maoist will also meet the same fate.[
The Maoists, who are not as tech savy as the Kremlin folks, know only one way to make a man disappear and it won’t be pretty. This would be a good time for Siddharth Varadarajan to explain to the Chairman how press functions in a democracy.
Excellent parallel. Our own commies would be salivating. I wonder if the Pranab Mukherjee who made the transition for the maoists to take over Nepal possible has anything to say about this utterly predictable beginning of a commie rule of a country.