Today is our Independence Day – the very day when we got our so called Freedom from the British rule. But the question which still remains unanswered is – Do we actually have the freedom? Probably, Indian constitution doesn’t give us the right to freedom to protect our Privacy, but it doesn’t mean that anyone can intrude into one’s personal life. We continue to witness an all-out assault on our privacy. This holds more so for popular people like Shashi Thaoor.

Horrified: 2 channels r telecasting purloined copies of my wedding invitation cards b4 friends have even recvd them. Has our media no decency?

This is nothing new for him. Even few days back Mr. Tharoor had to vent out his anger against publication of his personal pictures:

U never get used to loss of privacy. Unhappy to see personal pix, never intended for publication, in the newspapers this week. Frustrating

Mr. Tharoor hadn’t given permission to PTI to take his pictures as mentioned by him on his twitter handle. But, probably these pics were sold to PTI by one photographer who was surreptitiously following him.

The whole issue boils down to Ethics. In India, we have close to 1.2 billion people and everyone has to earn his livelihood one way or the other.  The problem comes when someone gets paid for intruding someone’s privacy. Even Aamir Khan productions’ recent movie ‘Peepli Live’ also highlighted this very issue, though in a humorous way.

Ethics involve decision-making at three levels viz. at individual, organisation and Business System levels. Problems that result from accepted media practices cannot be effectively addressed by any single media house. These are difficult for one media house to change single-handedly, because the company is constrained by competition with possibly less ethical competitors. So, a change needs to come at the level of business system itself wherein the media industry itself sets its standards so that privacy intrusion issues are significantly reduced, if not completely eliminated.

JAI HIND!