By Ranjona Banerji​
Delhi’s air quality yo-yos from severe to not-so-severe and back to severe. It remains the biggest topic of conversation. Less heard, although available in newspapers is that a large portion of North India is suffering. Maybe the news media looks at it this way – if Delhi’s problem gets fixed, so will everyone else’s.
Since we live in odd times, the fact that solutions were found and ignored or found and failed because of lack of will and/or money has not got either enough traction or outrage. However, to be fair, some TV anchors did ask difficult questions of environment minister Dr Harsh Vardhan who said that the situation is not that bad, reminding him that a couple of years ago when he was health minister, he was less sanguine about unbreathable toxic air.
Of course, our patriotic news channels remain obsessed with Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim because if we get him back from Pakistan, India’s problems will be solved. This is also a neat and reliable form of deflection from the real issues facing us now. Like pollution, a stuttering economy, cow vigilantes up to their usual violence and so on.
Even more predictably, a “sex tape†emerges of Patidaar leader Hardik Patel, who has been putting up a strong resistance to the BJP in Gujarat. Patel had predicted that this would happen. It will be interesting to see how many of our brave TV anchors grill the BJP on what is clearly an election tactic. They may also remember that fellow journalist Vinod Verma is still in judicial custody merely on the suspicion of having a similar tape involving a BJP member.
Different strokes…
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The Wire was slammed with a Rs 100 crore defamation suit as well a criminal case after its investigation into the financial dealings of Jay Shah, son of Amit Shah, BJP president. However, both Shah junior and his lawyer appear to have succumbed to using the law as a form of intimidation and harassment by not showing up when the cases come up for hearing.
The excuse made this week to the court of the metropolitan magistrate in Ahmedabad is that Jay Shah was busy with “social workâ€.
One would laugh if this was not a serious matter. O forget it, you have to laugh. Jay Shah is a social worker who is so busy that he cannot come to court for a criminal defamation suit that he has filed?
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The media and the law is a matter of debate and curiosity. The extraordinary proceedings in the Supreme Court this week with the Chief Justice of India seemingly ranged against two eminent lawyers Kamimi Jaiswal and Prashant Bhushan as well as against his fellow judges in a corruption case has raised several very basic questions on the judiciary in India. On conflict of interest, on corruption and on recusal protocol.
But sadly, one gets a better understanding of the issue from following lawyers on Twitter than from reading newspaper reports. Legal education for journalists – and I do not mean LLB degrees – should perhaps now become mandatory?
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Meanwhile, there is now increasing evidence that on social media at least, the great adulation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on the decline. Even though people are still being arrested for Facebook posts and cartoonists are being harassed, the number of GIFS, memes, jokes about Modi have increased manifold. The fear it seems has gone.
However, when it comes to the media, almost no one in India has this sort of courage when it comes to criticising an elected leader: