New Delhi: Prime time Wednesday focused on the allegations of drug abuse and even drug syndicates, that are polarising the Hindi film industry, while Republic TV continued to find new ‘evidence’ in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.
India Today, though, had a panel on the Covid-19 situation across South Asia, as India’s Covid case tally crossed the five-million mark.
The channel’s Rajdeep Sardesai held a South Asia Covid Roundtable, consisting of scientific voices across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Dr Giridhar Babu, Professor, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) reminded viewers that “The only country that has got five digits — in terms of cases per million – is Maldives. This is followed by India which has 3,629…followed by Bangladesh and Nepal.”
When Sardesai pointed out that Pakistan’s death rate is as high as 2.11 per cent, Dr Zafar Mirza, former Pakistan health minister, diplomatically said: “The transmission rate has reduced remarkably”.
On Bangladesh’ s high test positivity rate of 19.41 per cent, Dr Mamun Al Mahtab from Bangladesh, was frank: “It is worrying but I’m a simple man. When you talk about all these numbers, I get very confused… At the end of the day, I want to know how many lives I am saving”.
Aaj Tak’s Anjana Om Kashyap opted for a movie-related pun for her segment’s headline: “Drugs Par Star War” ( Star War On Drugs). She spoke of the speech in Parliament by Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan after Bhojpuri actor and BJP MP from Gorakhpur Ravi Kishan’s declaration that the film industry was a drug den.
“Drugs have entrapped the entire Bollywood film industry. Did you become aware of this information after Sushant Singh Rajput’s death? What is the main reason behind you speaking on it so upfront,” Kashyap asked Kishan.
“I have had this awareness since many years and now I had the opportunity to speak about it as an MP. Sushant has been a younger brother to me, he used to always call me Sir. The boy I knew used to see life ahead of him, not death. My mother cried at his death and then I realised that it is important to find out who the peddler and suppliers are and who is attending these rave parties,” Kishan said.
“Suddenly in the last 10 years, this chemical world has started growing here just like how a bio weapon was passed into our country by China — Corona,” he added. Okay, then.
On News Nation‘s ‘Desh ki Bahas’, anchor Deepak Chaurasia asked if filmmaker Karan Johar should be interrogated over last year’s ‘drug party’ at his house, a video clip of which had gone viral. The channel even ran the whole clip.
“Why have Johar and company not been interrogated yet?” Chaurasia asked. “This party was held in July 2019 and Johar had rebutted all claims of drug abuse. But now even after fresh revelations, the police haven’t yet questioned the filmmaker.” The anchor then ran the video byte of Johar’s rebuttal, to a demand from actor Mukesh Khanna to ‘justify his party’.
Republic TV‘s Arnab Goswami debated Sushant Singh Rajput’s “homicide” based on the late actor’s friend and flatmate Siddharth Pithani’s alleged confession that he had feared for his life after learning of former manager Disha Salian’s death.
Lawyer Ishkaran Singh Bhandari hinted at why we should believe Pithani. “Siddharth Pithani is the person who allegedly brought the key-maker and brought the body down. He is extremely important,” said Bhandari.
But lawyer D.K. Rai countered by pointing out that data from Rajput’s hard drives “was stolen eight days back.” He added: “Siddharth’s role is also under the scanner.”
