New Delhi: From Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s spat with the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh over 1,000 buses to the new relaxations to lockdown restrictions — prime time debates Tuesday discussed a wide range of issues.
ABP News’ Rubika Liyaquat begged Congress: “Bas karo” (stop it).
“Jis desh mein bhook maari aur paise ki kami se corona kaal mein 58 log mar jaate hai starvation se… ussi desh mein buson par mazdoor nahi rajneeti sawaar hoti hai,” (In a country where over 58 migrant workers died due to starvation…in the same country, migrant workers are not riding the bus, politics is), she said.
A war of words began between Vadra and the Yogi government Tuesday after the former arranged 1,000 buses to aid migrant workers on their journey back to their villages. However, the UP government demanded that they handover the 1,000 buses to the Lucknow administration instead.
Liyaquat added, “Lekin UP sarkar keh rahi hai mazdoor ke dukh ke naam par Congress raajnetic ank bator rahi hai,” (UP sarkar has said that the Congress is gaining political points over the pain of migrant workers). Who’s counting?
India TV just cannot seem to get enough of yoga guru Baba Ramdev. On Tuesday night, Ramdev explained jal neti to their anchors, “Jal Neti karne ke baad aankhein thandi ho gayi hai,” (My eyes have relaxed after doing Jal Neti).
India TV anchor Sushant Sinha, rather enthusiastically, asked, “Should we make this our next challenge?”
Ramdev was ready to take the next step as well, “Haan bilkul…aur mere saath studio mein Sushant ji headstand bhi karenge agle challenge mein,” (Yes of course… in the next challenge, Sushant will do a headstand in the studio).
Fellow anchor Meenakshi Joshi was glad that the ‘heady’ activity fell to Sinha and not to her. Prime time at its prime best here.
Zee News’ Aditi Tyagi and Aman Chopra spoke to Jennifer Zeng, a New York blogger. Tyagi asked her about the ‘operation cover-up’ by China, “Jennifer, do you think that the world would ever know the complete truth with regard to the role of China in this crisis, given the kind of state control we see right now. Do you think ‘operation cover-up’ might have been completed?”
Zeng wasn’t nearly as animated as the Zee News anchors, “It would be difficult for the world to find the entire truth of every detail on how many people died and were affected…There could be some evidence left by people who have the courage, motivation and the sense of justice to convey some truths,” she replied.
NDTV 24×7’s Vishnu Som was in conversation with Amit Agarwal, country head of Amazon India, on the ‘pick-up pace’ of e-commerce. Agarwal explained, “I think as we look at the current crisis and we look at the months going forward, social distancing and remaining safe has to be an important priority for citizens and our nation. In that context, both e-commerce and Amazon are going to play a very important role to allow the small businesses and other brands to service the needs of consumers.”
Times Now’s Navika Kumar was determined in calling out Congress’ “big fat lie” in Uttar Pradesh.
“Today, while the Congress party’s icon Priyanka Gandhi Vadra claimed to have arranged for 1,000 buses to make migrant workers come back from Rajasthan to Uttar Pradesh, the facts on paper tell a different story. Figures released by the UP government prove that one-fourth of these buses were registered as other vehicles all together,” said Kumar.
She added, “59 of these were school buses, other 31 were tempos with much lesser seating capacity as compared to so called buses…What’s worse is that the fitness validity had been expired for 59 of these buses and 29 didn’t have their insurance papers in place, which means 256 of those alleged 1000 buses are not really what was claimed by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.”
On India Today, anchor Rahul Kanwal interviewed Jonathan Kay, editor at the online magazine Quillette about super spreaders.
Kanwal asked, “I want to start with a focus on super-spreader events. Give our viewers a sense of what turns an event into a super-spreader.”
Kay explained his interpretation of the same, “There has been focus on who the people are, who were found to be super spreaders. I was more interested in their behaviour because we can’t change who we are as people.”
He continued, “I found that if you look at super spreader events covered in medical literature and in normal journalism, it tends to be the same kind of behaviour. It tends to be socially intimate behaviour, almost invariably endorsed. It tends to be people face to face in close range at parties, funerals and religious gatherings. It doesn’t matter how close they are packed, it matters whether they are face to face.”