DOORDARSHAN DAYS By Bhaskar Ghose Penguin/Viking PP: 238 Price: Rs 395

Bhaskar Ghose's Doordarshan days reads a bit like the story of King Midas. All he touched turned into gold, but his nemesis was built into the boon. At the end of it, the golden period of Doordarshan turned out to be an aberration, and sweet reform soured before our eyes. In his recounting of those heady years, Bhaskar Ghose holds forth in the first person singular with such frank immodesty that we can begin to see where the problem lay. Not that he even suspects that he might have been more part of the problem than the solution. Instead, we are treated to an identification parade of bureaucrats and ministers who were the spoilers and villains of his piece of action-A.S. Grewal, S.S. Gill, Krishna Kumar, H.K.L. Bhagat, Singh Deo, V.N. Gadgil and (et tu Brute?) Gopi Arora. If only they had let him be, he and dd would have blazed a different trail and left all those private channels far behind, gaping in wonder.

If only all this were true. The fact remains that Doordarshan ended up where it did when it did because the Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) technology of the mid-1980s made it impossible for the State, even more authoritarian than in India, to continue to monopolise the electronic media. And much as he laments the commercialisation of Doordarshan, it was he who led it inexorably in the direction of the market.

Only two persons from his DD days measure up to his unreserved praise-Madan Mohan, a resourceful chief engineer, and Rathikant Basu. The latter, who took over his mantle, rushed forward from where Ghose left off. And when Basu left DD to join Rupert Murdoch and made a mess of Star TV and then 'Tara' channels, the cycle of self-deceit and tall claims was complete.

Ghose does say in his postscript that this is not a definitive history of Doordarshan. But in the absence of one, this easily makes do as a quick-fix chronicle. And in any case, these days, when it is in fashion to rewrite even definitive histories, there is just so much you can quarrel with a meek attempt to shift blame or pass the buck for what could not be.

Sashi Kumar is a TV journalist and entrepreneur who has had a long innings with Doordarshan since the late 1970s, and is now Chairman of the Media Development Foundation, Chennai

BLOOD AND OIL By Michael T. Klare Penguin PP: 288 Price: Rs 395

AMERICA'S "FIX"

Ever since America first entered war in the Persian Gulf in 1991, the Bush administration has denied that its interest in the region goes beyond ensuring peace and stability. But the truth is, America's bloody entanglement in the region is due to its hopeless addiction to cheap oil. In this masterly book, Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, analyses his country's descent into the oil-for-protection trap. While the world is aware of America's surprisingly indulgent attitude towards the principal promoter of anti-US terrorism, Saudi Arabia, Klare reveals the extent to which the Bush administration is willing to go to humour the oil kingdom.

In a plea that finds echoes within India, Klare asks for a drastic reduction in America's dependence on imported oil, and delinking of oil with guarantees of protection ("We cannot and should not bear the ultimate responsibility for the royal family's survival," he says.) Klare's call is for an America where the blood of innocent soldiers isn't traded for oil.