Significations et usages de Tehelka

Tehelka

Editor	Tarun Tejpal
Categories	News weekly
First issue	2003
Country	India
Based in	Greater Kailash, New Delhi[1]
Language	English, Hindi
Website	www.tehelka.com, www.tehelkahindi.com

Tehelka is an Indian weekly political magazine. Its editor-in-chief is Tarun Tejpal. The first issue of the magazine was published in 2000 as a news website, Tehelka.com. It transitioned through a printed newspaper format until it became a magazine in 2007.

It first received local prominence in 2001 when it exposed match-fixing in Indian professional cricket. The same year, an investigation it carried out on defence procurement, called Operation Westend, received international attention, and led to the resignation of Indian Defence Minister.^[2][3] Recently , it has attracted attention as a strong arm extortionist by blackmailing politicians in return of cover ups.^[4][5] It has also been criticized for plagiarism from a Pakistani newspaper.^[6] One can compare the original^[7] with a thinly veiled copy carried by Tehelka.^[8]

  History

In 2003, Tehelka was relaunched as a weekly newspaper, funded by 200 founding subscribers and other well-wishers. In 2007, Tehelka once again underwent a transformation, and shifted to a regular magazine format. In September 2007, it came up with a Hindi news based web portal "Tehelka Hindi". In October 2007, it once again captured widespread attention for an elaborate sting operation that claimed to have captured on hidden camera several perpetrators of the 2002 Gujarat riots admitting to horrendous crimes, and revealing the riots to be part of a well-planned conspiracy that had state sanction. In October 2008 Tehelka launched its first fortnightly Hindi magazine. Right now Tehelka has four highly successful editions of its Hindi magazine - three regional editions and one national. Sanjay Dubey is the Executive Editor of Tehelka's Hindi editions.

In 2001, Tehelka.com exposed the alleged culture of bribery at the Ministry of Defence (India) (MoD) by setting up a bogus London-based company, and contacted MoD officials for selling thermal binoculars to the Government of India.^[2][9][10] Tehelka claimed to have filmed Bangaru Laxman (the then President of the ruling party BJP) taking a bribe for helping the bogus company in procuring government contracts. During the process, Tehelka also met Jaya Jaitly, the head of Samata Party and a close aide of the defence minister George Fernandes. There was an outcry when the scandal broke, and George Fernandes resigned although he was not accused of taking bribe. Laxman also resigned, while Jaya Jaitly accused Tehelka journalists of being Pakistani agents and raised doubts over the authenticity of the tapes. The tapes were sent to UK for forensic examination, and were confirmed as genuine.^[9]

  Tehelka in media

The Tehelka exposé has been documented time and again through various media sources. Veteran Indian journalist, Madhu Trehan, has penned an entire book on the expose and its aftermath. The book, Tehelka as Metaphor, is a forensic study of the sting operation and alleges it was retaliation by the Indian government. Tehelka found itself in the middle of a stormy allegations particularly after it organised an interactive meet of journalists , intellectuals and politicians in Goa in November 2011.^[11] At the heart of the issue was an alleged arm twisting of the Goa CM to sponsor the event in return of glossing over a mining scam.^[12] The story that was killed by Tehelka was later carried in First Post by the same reporter who was fired from Tehelka.^[13] The entire episode described as a marked deviation from the professed ideals of Tehelka by several observers.^{[14] [15][16][17]} In 2004, Art Silverblatt and Nikolai Zlobin described Tehelka as a "muckraking site" in their book "International Communications: A Media Literacy Approach"^[18]

  See also

• Barak Missile Deal Scandal
• The Truth: Gujarat 2002

  References

  External links

• Story of the birth, death and re-birth of 'Tehelka'