New Delhi: Prime time was all over the place Thursday night, from the upcoming West Bengal elections to rising fuel prices and the opacity of social media in India.
Hindi news channels featured discussions on Unnao where two teenage Dalit girls were found dead. Zee News decided to shed some light on the power outage in Texas, United States.
As polls in West Bengal draw close, India Today revealed the “darkest investigation” of 2021 regarding the state’s bomb factories. “Bomb makers have told our correspondents that they have seen a huge increase in business owing to the upcoming election,” claimed anchor Rahul Kanwal.
“Violence is the way to political power apparently in West Bengal. Several crude bombs have been discovered in the houses of TMC members. It is business as usual. When the BJP says we have lost 130 karyakartas, you can well imagine what the state of law and order is in West Bengal,” commented BJP’s Nupur Sharma.
Trinamool Congress spokesperson Vivek Gupta hit back: “We don’t need these kinds of bombs… We have the love and affection of the people bomb. TMC is a poor person’s party, we can’t afford to buy bombs. You should ask the real customers of these bombs.”
Senior journalist Jayanta Ghosal had another viewpoint: “This story shows what is happening beneath the carpet. You are enlightening us, you are exploring another Bengal. Once upon a time, arms and ammunition used to come from Munger during CPM’s time. Violence in West Bengal during elections isn’t new.”
Times Now chose to focus on India tightening the leash on social media, citing government sources who suggested that regulations will be notified soon.
“(A) lot of social media platforms are now much bigger and more powerful than most governments in the world,” said advocate Sanjay Hegde. “There have been rules but whether these rules have been effective is the question that many policy makers and experts have been grappling with.”
Academic Anand Ranganathan argued: “A social media platform cannot censor, adjudicate, ban, publish, alter or editorialise. I have no issues when it (was) a platform and disseminated information but that is no longer the case. They censor what they please and ban what they don’t like.”
Meanwhile, on ABP News, anchor Sumit Awasthi interviewed Home Minister Amit Shah. He pressed Shah to reveal the name of the chief ministerial candidate for the BJP in Bengal polls.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t get an answer out of Shah who blandly said: “The party will decide this. As soon as the party decides, we will tell you.”
Shah added: “The parliamentary board decides this — no one takes their own decision.”
In a harrowing tragedy, two teenage girls in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, were found dead and a third has been admitted to hospital. The post mortem report has proved inconclusive so far. Aaj Tak’s Chitra Tripathi asked: “Who did the crime? We don’t know.”
She added: “What was the motive behind the crime? That also we don’t know.”
Tripathi said the police also didn’t seem to know. So far, the family’s complaint has been filed and a police investigation launched. She said the deceased girls’ family was “satisfied” with the police investigation till now. However, they said the matter should be handed over to the CBI soon.
“The most important thing right now is the girl in the hospital. She is between life and death in Kanpur, it is crucial for the case that her life be saved,” Tripathi said.
On Zee News, anchor Sheerin focused on the ‘Super power fail’. This was a dig at the United States, which is a super power but still has been facing massive power outages for the last 14 hours.
“Superpower ki bijli paani kyon gul ho gayi (why was electricity and water in the superpower missing)?” Sheerin asked.
She, repeatedly, emphasised how the visuals weren’t from a country like India, but the US.
“It looks like America has become a third world country,” she observed with a hint of satisfaction in her voice.
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