New Delhi: From the investigation into Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, Karnataka’s deteriorating Covid situation and a Ghaziabad journalist being shot to death to changes in the NCERT Political Science textbook and how the Indian economy can recover, prime time Wednesday was all over the place.
First, to NDTV 24×7, where anchor Sonia Singh grilled Karnataka Deputy CM Ashwath Narayan on the lockdown being lifted in the state within a week of it being imposed and that too with Covid cases rising. “Why this confusion on the state’s lockdown policy?” Singh asked.
Narayan smoothly passed the buck and said the government was always opposed to a lockdown but went through with it due to “persistent demands from various sectors” and since “there was a lot of panic among the people”. He diplomatically added, “Saving lives and livelihoods is both important. We’re ensuring both are taken [into account].”
India Today’s Piya Hingorani interviewed Sanjana Sanghi, the lead actor opposite the late Sushant Singh Rajput in the upcoming film Dil Bechara. On her first memory of shooting with Rajput, Sanghi said she remembered like “it was in my veins”. “The first day we were in Jamshedpur in the outdoors…Kizie (Sanghi’s role) is a very nuanced, complex girl — she’s broken but she’s beautiful so playing her was a huge challenge for me in my debut film. Sushant knew that…”
On NewsX, anchor Vineet Malhotra and Anurag Batra, editor-in-chief of Business World, discussed what India Inc could do to revive itself. At a time when the country’s debt levels are on the rise and GDP is likely to contract, the channel had a very optimistic panel on board.
Sumit Ghosh, co-founder and chief of product and growth at Chingari, was optimistic that the Chinese aggression and “vocal for local” slogan will make for “very exciting times for Indian entrepreneurs especially in the category of apps”. Don’t miss the green screen of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge behind Ghosh. Subtle.
But Saket Modi, co-founder and CEO of Lucideus, was more circumspect: “Any kind of stimulus package is a very welcome step even if it’s a loan that has to repaid in the future.”
On ABP News, anchor Sumit Awasthi focused on Vikram Joshi, the journalist in Uttar Pradesh who was shot dead after he complained to the police about a few men harassing his niece. Joshi was killed in front of his daughters and niece. The complaint against these men had been made a few days before the incident, but they were only arrested when Joshi was murdered. Awasthi said, “Gundas in UP are not scared of journalists and the police isn’t helping journalists, then you can imagine what the ordinary citizen in the state has to go through.”
He also brought up an incident when a woman self-immolated in front of the Chief Minister’s office, and said, “Either the UP police is scared of these criminals or gangs. Or it is simply not professional or trained and doesn’t know how to do its work. Or under the pressure of a big politician, they are saving these gangsters.”
Zee News‘ Sudhir Chaudhary discussed the move to delete the chapter on separatism from the NCERT Class XII textbooks and replace it with one on the abrogation of Article 370 for nationalist reasons in view of the pandemic. “The new chapter explains how the abrogation of Article 370 further enabled the integration of J&K with the rest of the country,” he said, adding that the earlier textbooks were subtly “promoting separatism”.
He said, “The earlier textbook spoke about the history of Jammu and Kashmir. And spoke about certain articles of the Constitution, out of which one particular article wanted to to make Kashmir a separate state, which was neither a part of India nor Pakistan. Imagine, all of this was being taught to school children in textbooks.”
