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HomePlugged InPrimeTimeArnab Goswami wants total lockdown to continue, ABP News lauds Yogi’s ‘UP...

Arnab Goswami wants total lockdown to continue, ABP News lauds Yogi’s ‘UP Model’

A quick take on what prime time TV news talked about.

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New Delhi: Sunday’s prime time news was a mixed bag with updates on the ever-increasing cases in Maharashtra and how several agricultural, commercial and industrial services are all set to resume some semblance of work on 20 April — something Republic’s Arnab Goswami was not very happy about, dismissing “lockdown cynics” who said the economy was in trouble.

Aaj Tak’s Anjana Om Kashyap took potshots at author Arundhati Roy for accusing the Modi government of using coronavirus to spread hate against Muslims in an interview with German TV channel DW TV. ABP News was more focused on congratulating UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on the “UP model” of battling coronavirus.

NDTV’s Prannoy Roy discussed the economic fallout with IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath — more than 100 countries, including India, have reached out to the international body for financial assistance.

On Republic TV, Goswami said he was personally against the easing of the lockdown, and felt it should be “more stringent” and should extend beyond 3 May.

He said that with the fatality rate down to 3.2 per cent, the lockdown has provided a “glimmer of hope” that we can win this battle. However, he claimed that in the last few weeks there has been a “consistent cacophony of unhinged criticism” from cynics.

He said they were spreading “fake news” that this lockdown would grievously hurt the economy, and creating “hype” that the poor are in danger while they backed “single source super spreaders like Tablighi Jamaat”.

“They have done everything possible to reduce public confidence in the only solution you and I have against Covid — the lockdown,” he added. But who are these cynics? Goswami blamed everyone from the Opposition and lobbyists to corporate “profiteers” who apparently only care about their own gain during this lockdown.

However, on NDTV 24×7, Prannoy Roy’s conversation with IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath indicated a different picture altogether.

Gopinathan said that more than 100 countries had approached the IMF for funds and the international organisation was “rapidly responding” with its “rapid financing facilities”. She added that the IMF has estimated that it might need to spend $100 billion to finance the needs of the countries.

Gopinathan assured Roy that this was to ensure “doubled access to rapid finance”, and the IMF was deploying its trillion dollar access to its members. However, she remarked that it was a truly unprecedented time, as never before had 100 countries approached the IMF at the same time.

 

On Aaj Tak’s ‘Halla Bol’ with Anjana Om Kashyap, the anchor took on writer and activist Arundhati Roy. She asked if along with the fight against coronavirus, was India also battling the “politics of hate”?

Showing several clips of Roy interspersed with clips of Muslims in skull caps walking around cities wearing protective masks, she explained that Roy, in a “bharakaun bayaan” (instigatory testimony) , has said that this government is using this pandemic to exploit the minorities. Kashyap read out an excerpt of an interview given by Roy to an international publication(can we confirm?) in which she says the Modi government is using the fight against the virus to spread hate against Muslims. “We are not just fighting coronavirus, but we are fighting hate and hunger too,”  said Roy, apparently.

To counter this, Kashyap invoked Prime Minister Modi’s recent tweet where he said that coronavirus doesn’t discriminate against any color, caste, creed, religion and that the country needs to be united at such a time.

“We are all together in this fight…tamaam baatein likhi hain” various things have been written),” said Kashyap, reiterating that Modi’s tweet comes at a time when there is an effort by “different quarters to divide India on lines of religion”.

On ABP News’ “Pankaj Ka Punch”, anchor Pankaj Jha broke down Yogi Adityanath’s “UP model”, explaining that PM Modi had already hailed Adityanath for his Agra model. Jha explained that it was in UP that the “hotspot” system began, and then there started to be “charcha” (discussion) around it.

In order to understand the situation in UP, he said, let’s first go to Mumbai. He compared Mumbai — with its population of more than 2.5 crore, approximately 2,000 cases and more than 100 deaths — to UP, with a population that is approximately 10 times more but has 1,084 cases.

“Everyone wants to know UP ne kya kar diya, ke baat bigadne ke badle, banti nazar aa rahi hain” (Everyone wants to know how instead of things getting worse, things are getting better in UP).

He explained that since Agra’s first case on 3 March the Yogi government put together “Team 11” — a special task force that meets with him at 11 am everyday, and that hotspots, epicentre, contact tracing, sampling and isolation were core to the state’s strategy.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Arnab has made his money for life. He can sit at home and scream his vocal chords out for an entire lifetime of lockdown. The citizen’s and the country’s economy has to get up and arise. 8 weeks of lockdown is more than enough to plan for the same. Even the developed nations are relaxing the lockdown. India cannot afford anymore paranoia on a virus that can be killed by a detergent.

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