MxMIndia

Tag: Nidhi Razdan

  • At the end of the day, this was neither an election ​Budget nor a very effective ​Budget, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Budget 2018: From ‘A-ha’ to ‘Uh-oh’ moments

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Given the lacklustre

    ​B​udgets from Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for the last four years, was there really any expectation from this one? The last ​Budget before India goes into election mode? Several predicted that this would be an election ​Budget and to some extent they were correct. But more than anything else, at the end of the day, this was neither an election ​Budget nor a very effective ​Budget.
    It took our brave news channels some time to figure this out. First it was all about whether Jaitley would speak in only English or Hindi or both or this or that. In the New India much loved by our news channels, anything that reeks of token nationalism must be applauded. After some time, Jaitley seemed to stick to English so that was the end of that Vande Mataram moment, which don’t tell anyone, is not in Hindi and was not written by a Hindi-speaking person.

    Some were so excited by the new announcement of a National Heathcare scheme. Others were upset by the reintroduction of long-term capital gains tax on investments after 13 years. Almost everyone was upset by the fact that not enough was done for farmers. A few brave people pointed out that not enough had been done for manufacturing or job creation either.

    On NDTV, Prannoy Roy (the rare occasions that one of India’s most popular anchors appears on TV,

    ​Budgets and elections) was first all about the “A-ha” moment but later in the day added quite a few “Uh-oh” caveats to the healthcare idea. Primarily because no one knew where the money was coming from. To counter Roy’s criticism – and this is my conjecture – anchor Vikram Chandra cut short anyone who criticised the ​Budget or was not from the BJP to allow a pro-BJP person or member to have their say. In fake journalism gobbledygook this is known as being “balanced”.
    Rahul Kanwal on India Today for the short while that I watched that channel was reasonably balanced. Times Now also had a few critical numbers floating the TV screen about in the morning but by the evening, some of the anchors had that look of beatific gratification whenever someone from the BJP spoke. If you turn off the sound – in any case, no one says anything worthwhile anyway – it is a fun game to play because you will know when the anchor receives benediction from the BJP and when it is some devilish person from another party or persuasion speaking. Arnab Goswami of Republic TV looked very smug at some point and that is when, dear reader, I gave up and started reading the various analyses instead.

    Agricultural distress will not be alleviated, manufacturing has no impetus, job growth was barely mentioned in the Budget, the rising fiscal deficit is worrying and no one understands where the money for the healthcare scheme will come from. It was pointed out that similar schemes exist all over India so there was nothing new in this one either. Across all TV channels by the way, the word “jumla” was liberally used. I beg forgiveness from rightwing bigots for my use of the word “liberally” but in this context, it has a slightly different meaning than the red

    ​-f​​lagged “liberal”.
    The long-term capital gains tax was a downer, the fact that the middle classes had been ignored was another and as far as I’m concerned, the use of the term “grandfathered” led me into the dark areas of management and fiscal jargon that I usually avoid. The mangling of language in these sectors could do with a drastic budgetary cut as far as I’m concerned.

    Meanwhile, after the dust settles, India’s media has to figure out how to play the five poll results which also came out on February 1, running alongside the Budget. The Congress won all three in Rajasthan, the Trinamool Congress won both in Bengal. The small consolation for Bhakt News Channels is that the BJP came a distant second in Bengal, ahead of the Left and the Congress. Don’t tell them I said this but eventually someone will factor in the possibility of Opposition coalitions against the BJP and look at the results in Bengal in that light. Nidhi Razdan had a very civilised show on the elections results on NDTV, a welcome break from all the Budget coverage.

    **

    Lastly, the new allegations that two people who Judge BH Loya confided in about his misgivings about the Amit Shah case died mysteriously, and one just managed to survive a freak accident, have received little traction in the media and especially very little on television. Given that the Supreme Court hearings into Loya’s death begin today, that is indeed surprising or is it?

    No prizes for guessing that one right. I only know this much. Both my grandfathers would have been surprised and that is ample proof that I don’t understand what I’m talking about. Or do I?

     

    ​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia.​ The views here are her own

     

     

  • Newspapers have carried the story, social media has made the photographs go viral but news channels have remained completely patriotic, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Pakistan! Pakistan! Pakistan! Jharkhand? Where’s that?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The lynching of seven men accused of being kidnappers by an angry mob in Jharkhand has sent waves of shock and horror through India. Did I just say that? What a lie. Since the horrific story and the heart-rending images of a man’s blood-soaked hands begging for mercy went viral (they killed him anyway), what have our intrepid brave patriotic English news channels concentrated on?

     

    What a question. Obviously, cricketer Mohammed Kaif’s Twitter take down of a Pakistani after India won first round at the International Court of Justice over the death sentence of Kulbhushan Jadhav. Duh.

     

    Or perhaps, it was Pakistan in general or more particularly, get a whole lot of former generals and wannabe generals together and encourage them to carry out a proxy screaming match on television.

     

    But the Jharkhand lynching? Tut tut. How anti-national to expect news channels to show India in a bad light, when they put up those where’s-the-war-with-Pakistan dramas, night after night.

     

    Newspapers have carried the story, social media has made the photographs go viral but news channels have remained completely patriotic.

     

    Luckily Nidhi Razdan picked up the subject on mob violence getting out of hand in India on NDTV’s Left, Right and Centre on Monday night. She held her own against the RSS’s Dr Rakesh Sinha and Syed Jaffar Islam of the BJP, who either tried to blame the media for naming communities or going back to some incident in 1968 or, as usual, making sure that the prime minister must not be tainted by anything that happens in BJP-ruled states. The old Sangh Parivar chestnut of “India’s federal structure” was trotted out. Of course, this argument at its logical end, leads one to assume that a national spokesperson for the BJP has no control over the BJP in the states. Jai ho!

     

    Razdan did not buckle down to the two government spokespersons on her panel and to some extent the others – sociologist Shiv Vishwanathan, Congress member Sachin Pilot and columnist Sadanand Dhume (who has lately taken to criticising the BJP a bit, unlike his earlier stand) were allowed to speak.

     

    This show will undoubtedly bolster the impression of all Modi Bhakts that NDTV is anti-BJP. However, there was always Vikram Chandra on The Big Fight the other night who told us that the economy is doing wonderfully well under Modi ji and agreed with BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli’s somewhat fantastical numbers. Jai ho! All kudos to Mohan Guruswamy who asked Modi Toady Sunil Alagh if they were both talking about the same country when Alagh toed the Kohli line.

     

    But forget NDTV. Let’s look instead at the glorious and brave Bhupendra Chaubey on CNN-News18. Actor Paresh Rawal, now a BJP MP, demonstrated both his serious brain power and great sense of humour when he tweeted that instead of tying a stone pelter to a jeep, the army should have tied writer Arundhati Roy instead. Roy has long been a BJP critic, a government critic and stood up for the rights of anyone affected by state oppression. Obviously she is unpopular amongst nationalists especially nationalists who co-relate the nation with whoever is in power at the time.

     

    On Monday, Chaubey tweeted the question around which his show would be based, with this soon-to-be a classic for TV brainiacs: “Is Paresh Rawal right in asking for author Arundhati Roy to be tied as a human shield?”

     

    In a deeply philosophical sense, every question needs to be asked. Why not also ask, “Was the Jharkhand mob right in lynching people it suspected of a crime without any proof?” However, there is philosophy and there is stupidity and I leave you to figure out the difference. It is not that difficult.

     

  • In Freaking News, which will now appear every Tuesday and Friday, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare in the morning papers and the nightly news. And sometimes the afternooners, the newsmags and all that's on the Web

    [MJR] The Modi merry-go-round continues

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    As expected, the release of the report by lawyer Raju Ramachandran into Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 riots got TV channels into a frenzy. Having whipped themselves up over the “clean chit” given to Modi by the Special Investigation Team, the indictment of the chief minister by the “friend of the court” provided just the kind of contradiction that Indian TV thrives on.

     

    However, the arguments for and against Narendra Modi and his “crimes” or his “achievements” have become old and tired. As have the panellists. There on NDTV was Jainarayan Vyas putting up a stout defence of Modi. And, of course, a short while later he was on Times Now. Kumar Ketkar, editor of Divya Marathi provided the objective line – while slamming Modi for his well-documented anti-minorities stance – also appeared on both.

     

    But at the end of the day, little is achieved with such debates. The BJP and Modi’s fan club spew their spiel. Modi’s detractors have their own. The debate moves along predictable lines. The events have become so far away that the details have been forgotten which leads to even more chaos. Both Nidhi Razdan and Arnab Goswami had a tough time controlling some of their panellists who as usual forget all rules of civilised behaviour once a TV camera is turned on them. Smriti Irani of the BJP, for instance, gave us ample proof of how she can now graduate to the “saas” role in a poisonous soap – if they still have them on TV that is.

     

    (A disclaimer: I was deputy resident editor of The Times of India, Ahmedabad, from 2001 to 2004 and have a fairly good idea of what happened during the riots. Watching people who were nowhere around in those dark days holding forth can be both a frustrating and amusing experience.)

     

    * * *

     

    The big TV event of the week is of course the first episode of actor Aamir Khan’s Satyameva Jayate on the Star channels and DD. He dealt with the contentious and emotional issue of female foeticide and India’s skewed gender ratio. It was a well-researched show, with the subject presented from various angles and certainly struck a chord with the audience. The cyber world went gaga, judging from the number of tweets about the programme. Newspapers the next day were also congratulatory.

     

    If there was criticism – especially on Twitter, the home of manufactured outrage – it was about whether female foeticide was such an unknown problem after all as well as whether any change would happen as a result of the show.

     

    It is amazing to hear journalists talking about whether social change can result from media efforts, since we know from our own experience what a slow and pain-staking experience that can be. Your 140-character aphorism may take seconds to go out to the world; change on the ground takes a tiny bit longer than that.

     

    * * *

     

    An evening at the Mumbai Press Club was a great opportunity to meet up with former colleagues and old friends. The now annual awards for journalists in categories from crime and cricket to politics and the environment is a very good idea. Giving the lifetime achievement award to Vinod Mehta was a winner – since he promptly said that working in Bombay (as it was then) were the best years of his life!

     

    Applause all around.