New Delhi: Prime time news Monday was dominated by Budget 2021—what else?
TV anchors dissected different sections of the Budget— India Today’s Rahul Kanwal wondered whether the Budget could revive India’s economy post the pandemic, NDTV India’s Ravish Kumar remained sceptical about the Budget’s privatisation push while India TV’s Rajat Sharma asserted that this Budget couldn’t have any negative outcomes. Hmmmn.
Zee News had an ‘exclusive’ interview with Finance Minister Sitharaman but so did Times Now and DD News, so nothing really exclusive about it. Still, the anchor seemed pleased: “Markets have given a thumbs up. I don’t think this kind of response has been witnessed after a Budget announcement in many years…. How do you see this?” he asked the FM.
Sitharaman replied: “Not just the market, even general business leadership, they are seeing that during the lockdown, we engaged with them and understood where they wanted help and extended the help.”
“…So, the confidence comes from the fact that this government means its intent will be carried further. That confidence is what I suppose the markets are also sensing and reacting accordingly,” she added.
India TV’s Rajat Sharma revealed that he had spoken to Sanjay Mehta, an ‘expert’ on the economy: “Mehta spoke to me and said that I have been following the budget for 30 years, but for the first time I have seen a budget which doesn’t have any negative outcomes. Everything is positive and will be great for the economy,” Sharma said. Well, that sure is reassuring…
On India Today, anchor Rahul Kanwal asked whether Sitharaman went for broke with Budget 2021 in order to speed up the Indian economy’s comeback.
BJP’s Jayant Sinha was euphoric: “The Budget has provided booster rockets for the economy—with both lives and livelihoods being taken care of.”
Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP, hit back: “Unfortunately this government has a track record for very grand announcements which are not matched by actual implementation,” He was concerned that in the 137 per cent increase of budget outlay for health, only 71,000 crore goes to the Department of Health and Family Welfare which is barely a 10 per cent increase.
“I think this is like the garage mechanic saying I couldn’t fix your brakes so I’ve made your horn louder, a very loud horn blaring about the achievements and intentions of the government but the economy had been sliding down under its watch,” Tharoor said, rather tartly.
On NDTV India anchor Ravish Kumar wasn’t a happy man either: “Finance Minister says we’ve spent, we’ve spent, and we’ve spent but after reading the budget it seems like they’ve sold, they’ve sold, and they’ve sold.”
Kumar added, “Consumers, markets, and analysts seem rather happy with the move to privatise most sectors as they are of the belief that whatever money privatisation bestows upon the government, it will be used to benefit the poor.”
According to him, NITI Aayog in 2019, had hinted at privatising up to 48 government owned companies like Air India, NTPC (partly), Cement Corporation, etc., and now they are also ‘eyeing’ government land to reap benefits.
“But Will such courageous steps towards privatisation prove to be historic?” asked Kumar in a tone that clearly said he didn’t think so.
Times Now’s Rahul Shivshankar was far more positive about the Budget and thought the FM had checked most of the boxes.
However, he asked Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Adviser to the Finance Ministry, whether the government is in a position to afford such massive spending.
“We are being rather conservative… The growth is going to be over 15 per cent this year. We will see the revenues coming back very strongly. We will more than meet the 6.8 per cent GDP number,” claimed Sanyal.
At Republic TV, anchor Arnab Goswami moved on from the budget to debate the many accounts on Twitter that had been withheld and subsequently restored, with hashtag #TwitterBlockMore. “Twitter was forced to block 250 tweets and handles after the government raised an alarm over an attempt at triggering a hate campaign, I feel Twitter must go beyond. Let’s debate,” he said.
Just as Anand Ranganathan was getting into the nuances of free speech, Goswami interrupted him to say, “You’ve made it a free speech issue but is it a free speech issue?”
Goswami then took centre stage to assert, that the hashtag on Twitter ‘Modi planning farmer genocide’ was “complete rubbish” and “dangerous instigation given the times”.
(Inputs by Revathi Krishnan)
If private sector is a problem for likes of Ravish Kumar.. NDTV must approach the govt and request that it should be nationalized. We have Doordarshan. Why do we need NDTV or other channels..? Why should media decide what should be owned by govt and what should be owned by private sector..?