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Lata Mangeshkar a 'so-called' singer, says New York Times

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ComedianTanmay Bhatmight have just found company from the other side of the globe. American newspaper TheNew York Timesseemed to insert itself into the eye of an already-raging controversy.In a report it carried on the row over Bhat's Snapchat video,nytgoofed - it describedLata Mangeshkaras a 'so-called playback singer'.

This is the latest in a string of portrayals of India or Indians by The New York Times that has found itself rubbing people the wrong way on the other side of the globe.

The NYT article focused less on the controversy itself and more on requests from the Mumbai Police to delete the video from Facebook and YouTube.

In describing Bhat's controversial video, NYT said, "In the expletive-laced video, which was created on Snapchat, Mr Bhat uses that app's face-swap feature to impersonateSachin Tendulkar, a hugely popular cricketer who retired in 2013, and Lata Mangeshkar, a so-called playback singer forBollywoodfilms whose career dates to the 1940s. Playback singers record vocals for song-and-dance numbers, to which actors and actresses lip sync."

NYT has faced flak before for its portrayal of India. It had unleashed a row in 2014 with a cartoon that accompaniedan article titled 'India's Budget Mission to Mars'. The cartoon showed a turbaned Indian with a cow knocking on the doors of a room labled 'Elite Space Club'. Not long after it faced online wrath over the cartoon, NYT back down, saying, "We apologize to readers who were offended by the choice of images in this cartoon," and added that the cartoonist "was in no way trying to impugn India, its government or its citizens".

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(NYT Mars Mission cartoon courtesy Reddit)

India's Mars Mission is the least expensive mission to the Red Planet yet, and was also the first time that a space agency succeeded in reaching Mars in the very first attempt.

NYT courted controversy yet again, ahead of the Paris climate conference in December 2015. This time, it published a cartoon that portrayed India as an elephant sitting on rail tracks,blocking a train labelled 'Paris Climate Summit'. Ironically, the train portrayed was a coal-burning steam engine.
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(NYT Paris cartoon courtesy Imgur)

India had taken a strong stand at the Paris climate talks, insisting that developed countries that emit significantly more carbon into the atmosphere make deeper emission cuts than poor countries that don't pollute as much.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-into-her-funny-side/articleshow/52533079.cms
 
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The so-called bit is 'playback singer' .. not lata ... the article goes on to explain the phrase 'playback singer' in next line.
 
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I think TOI is creating this brouhaha for nothing. The phrase 'so called' was used by NYT to explain to its readers the term 'Playback Singer', as Americans are not used to this term.

The TOI Reporter should go for some English classes.
 
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Lata is a living lagend of south asia after madam noor jahan. Both are malika e taranum
 
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Well it's not as if American or for that matter anybody outside the South Asian diaspora knows who this lady is or what the hell a "Playback singer" is? So much brouhaha over nothing.. :coffee:
 
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Well it's not as if American or for that matter anybody outside the South Asian diaspora knows who this lady is or what the hell a "Playback singer" is? So much brouhaha over nothing.. :coffee:
lata ji is a legend for more than 1/5th of humanity. this fact , simply, is enough to command respect.
however, its also true that, we indians take pride in turning exemplary individuals into GODS, and inject more pride if that GOD belongs to india.
 
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lata ji is a legend for more than 1/5th of humanity. this fact , simply, is enough to command respect.
however, its also true that, we indians take pride in turning exemplary individuals into GODS, and inject more pride if that GOD belongs to india.

In India and to Indians yes.. To the rest of the world meh.. Nobody would really know who she is
 
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In India and to Indians yes.. To the rest of the world meh.. Nobody would really know who she is
i am not asking you to treat her like god or something, but ask yourself a question - did you know about her and how much ?
 
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You cannot insult the biggest sporting icon and the biggest musician with a fan following of several 100 millions and
Not expected to get trolled back by someone
Infact insulting Tendulkar in Maharashtra is probably the second biggest sin u can do after insulting Shivaji or Balasaheb Thakrey

Had Tanmey Bhatt insulted those 2
He would have been dead
 
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Well it's not as if American or for that matter anybody outside the South Asian diaspora knows who this lady is or what the hell a "Playback singer" is? So much brouhaha over nothing.. :coffee:
It will be stupid to call her so-called singer just because readers dont know her.. its like saying Sirisena so called president of Lanka because not many know the guy in US. NYT is of course trying to explain the term 'playback singer'...
 
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Nope.. Had to google
well in that case, i understand ur situation. you can relate to the report more than i do.
its like, LTTE (well i know lata mangeshkar n ltte are poles apart, but this example is just for understanding). sri lankans and indians would know about ltte, but some media based in LA might not know about their actions here and term them "just another fringe element". does this anyway reduce the pain the sri lankans had to go through ? similarly, lata's greatness doesnt diminish due to an article in "some newspaper".
however, such brouhaha about an article is stretching things too far.
 
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