This week on TV Newsance, Arnab has a very important announcement to make. He says “buckle up” three times because what follows is HUGE, just beyond our comprehension: the right wing, apparently, is cool now. So cool that an entire primetime hour is spent proving BJP’s meme game is “brilliant,” “so beautiful,” and “totally lethal” while a brand-new enemy is unveiled for anyone with a brain: the “dimaagi naxal” yet again. Rahul Gandhi’s laugh is submitted as evidence. We are not making this up. Arnab is just that committed.
Meanwhile, the recent GDP figures dropped and the entire godi brigade lost it. On NDTV, former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg tries to ask a simple question: why was last year’s GDP revised down by Rs 6 lakh crore, right before this year’s number magically jumps to 7.8 percent? This was enough to make anchor Gaurie Dwivedi panic. So instead of pressing the follow-up, she spends the segment reassuring him that government data has “sanctity.”
But the real journalism award goes to our reporters who covered the Nepal floods. Over 1,000 dead, 4,000 missing – but that aside, these reporters got their feet stuck two feet deep in mud on camera. That’s a bigger story of course!
Meanwhile, NDTV’s Rahul Kanwal lands in Kathmandu a day after the floods, not to report, but to host a conclave. Because glaciers may fall, hillsides may collapse, people may die – but the conclave must go on.
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