Front page
India’s diplomatic relations with China take the lead in The Indian Express and Hindustan Times, while Trinamool Congress councillors and legislators crossing over to the BJP gets the top billing in The Times of India – and fulsome coverage in other newspapers too.
More significantly, the suicide of Payal Tadvi, a Tribal doctor in Mumbai, over casteist slurs finally makes it to the front pages – but just about. The arrest of a fellow doctor for abetment in the suicide receives pocket size space in TOI – and only a trifle more in Hindustan Times. Express devotes anchor space to “….College confirms she was harassed over her caste….’’, and The Hindu gives it a four column mid-page spread.
Express finds that “hours before she committed suicide, she was scolded in the operation theatre in front of other staff and patients, and was seen crying as she left”. The report trails mid-quote towards the end, however, leaving it incomplete.
In “Senior doctor arrested for Payal Tadvi’s death”, Hindu is more clinical: “The police on Thursday last registered a case against three doctors — Hema Ahuja, Bhakti Mehare and Ankita Khandelwal, all Dr. Tadvi’s seniors”, adding “The police said Dr. Mehare was arrested”. TOI doesn’t even bother to name the arrested doctor fully, referring to her simply as “Mehere”.
India-China: On the diplomatic front, Express has exclusive details on a possible Modi-Ji-Ping meeting in “India proposes reply to Wuhan: An informal summit with China in Varanasi this year”. It says “Chinese side is learned to have conveyed that they are considering the proposal” to meet on October 11 “positively”.
Apparently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to “reciprocate the hospitality extended to him during the informal summit in Wuhan”.
HT calling Modi “Prime Minister-designate”, says the Xi-Modi meet will be the second meeting between the two leaders — Express, said it was the third meeting between them.
In addition to Xi’s possible visit, HT also reports Modi “is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump in September”.
“When Trump called Modi to congratulate him on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) electoral victory, the two leaders also agreed to meet on the margins of the G20 Summit to be held in the Japanese city of Osaka on June 28-29”, it reports.
TOI and Hindu don’t bother with these two developments on Page 1.
The Hindu leads with the progress made on the contentious Cauvery water dispute with Tamil Nadu in “Karnataka ordered to release 9.19 tmcft”.
TMC and BJP in Bengal: All newspapers cover the rejig of the West Bengal cabinet following defections from the ruling TMC to BJP. However, they differ on the number of TMC members who defected.
The Hindu and TOI agree on 50 councillors but disagree on MLAs. The Express agrees with Hindu on three Trinamool MLAs but has “more than 60 councillors, a majority from the TMC” switching over to the BJP. HT’s numbers are different from all of them: two MLAs and 56 councillors.
TOI makes this the lead report and writes, “Less than a week after BJP stunned Trinamool in West Bengal…Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday rejigged her 43-member cabinet with her focus firmly on North Bengal and Jangalmahal, where her party faced huge reverses.”
TOI calls this a “damage control exercise” that came “barely a couple of hours after three Bengal MLAs and 50 civic councillors joined BJP at a press conference at its central headquarters in Delhi.”
Opinion
The Times of India in ‘Bimstec Focus’ plays up the differences between India and Pakistan, and reiterates its stance that Modi’s invitation for his swearing-in ceremony “leaves out” the country and “suggests an eastward turn in New Delhi’s priorities.”
It argues “tensions with Pakistan over the last five years have effectively resulted in Islamabad closing off New Delhi’s access to west Asia”, putting India in a better position to “build bridges” with the East, which BIMSTEC can allow for.
It adds “Pakistan hasn’t kept its word vis-a-vis SAARC” in terms of trade agreements and denying India the MFN status. For all these reasons, India “should further its Act East goals” instead of relying on Pakistan.
Express disagrees in “Eastward Course”. It says while it might be “tempting” to construe Pakistan’s exclusion from Modi’s oath-taking ceremony as a “snub”, it “misses the story of a larger regional dynamic that has emerged over the last few years”.
One factor is the “future of SAARC is bleak”. Another is that “summits are not going to get the Pakistan horse to drink at the SAARC waters”. By overlooking SAARC, the PM merely “chose to expand regionalism”, which by no means indicates Pakistan will disappear from India’s foreign policy agenda”— there is, after all, Bishkek to look forward to.
It hopes that “backchannel conversations” between the two are underway, but Express agrees with TOI that in the meantime, “the east is full of opportunities”.
Prime Time
It was all about TMC defections and Rahul’s predicament Tuesday.
Aaj Tak: “Didi tere vidhayak begane…” This was the name given to the channel’s popular show ‘Dangal’.
“Agar jeet nhi payenge to thod ke le aayenge. Is this what BJP is following?” anchor Rohit Sardana asked BJP’s Sambit Patra to which he politely replied that if someone wants to join the BJP it will not turn them down.
CPM’s Sunit Chopra said: “TMC’s well-known goondas have joined BJP today. People who want immediate profit will only join BJP.”
Zee News: The channel’s Taal Thok Ke show discussed the decline of the Congress.
BJP’s social media head Amit Malviya said the party doesn’t care who becomes the Congress president. He added that Rahul could consider the increase in Congress’s seats from 44 to 52 this election as his contribution.
Times Now: Anchor Navika Kumar claimed there was a ‘dirty’ money trail in Congress, which is also India’s “biggest political fraud” – the was a story Times Now carried all day on Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath.
Congress sympathiser Tehseen Poonawalla tried hard to establish that the money was electoral money and the raids were politically motivated. He even referred to reports of Times Now and Economic Times regarding unaccounted cash found from a BJP leader’s car in Arunachal Pradesh in early April.
NDTV: The channel, too, discussed Congress ‘dirty’ money trail but with a different angle. Anchor Sreenivasan Jain asked if BJP could use unaccounted cash through electoral bonds to fund its campaign then why couldn’t the Congress do the same?
Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kumar Kethkar said the Congress was in turmoil but it’s not a ‘cheat’.
India Today: Anchor Rajdeep Sardesai questioned the tactical move of Modi to invite BIMSTEC leaders and leaving the door open for future negotiations with Pakistan.
He said this could be big foreign policy shift and a message from India about who it really cares for.
G. Parthaswamy, former envoy to Pakistan, said, “Pakistan and Afghanistan have isolated themselves and India is just following tit-tat policy. It is also by following the same policy that India has got leverage over Pakistan by looking east first.”
K.C. Singh, former secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, said, “Prime Minister has left the door open for later negotiations between India and Pakistan that would also please the US, Saudi and China.”
Tweet of the day
The front page of the Kannada daily ‘Vishwa Vani’, whose editor @VishweshwarBhat has been booked by Bangalore Police under 8 sections of the Indian Penal Code, following a complaint over a 2-column news story on a reported drunken outburst involving @hd_kumaraswamy’s son. pic.twitter.com/3W7fsrbDnz
— churumuri (@churumuri) May 28, 2019
(With inputs from Shailaja Bajpai, Harshit Mansukhani and Triya Gulati)