Shri Ram enters bus clash in UP angering Amish Devgan, Goswami calls it ‘theatre of absurd’
PrimeTime

Shri Ram enters bus clash in UP angering Amish Devgan, Goswami calls it ‘theatre of absurd’

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

   

Representational image | Buses parked on a road after they were not al Agra-Bharatpur border | PTI

New Delhi: On Wednesday, prime time was still preoccupied with political news though cyclone Amphan was devastating the eastern coast of the country.

Most channels just mentioned the worst cyclone of this century in passing since they, evidently, had more important matters to discuss.

The ‘bus’ tussle between Congress’ Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath continued to get top billing across channels.

However, India TV just could not get enough Baba Ramdev, and the yoga guru and fitness expert found his way back on the channel just a day later.

News18 India’s anchor Amish Devgan spoke about a new entry in the politics over buses, “Aaj BJP aur Congress ki bus wali siaysi ladai mein Shri Ram ke naam ki bhi entry ho gayi…Lekin jis sandarg mein Shri Ram ka naam liya gaya woh sharmnaak hai,” (Today Sri Ram also entered the politics between BJP and Congress over a bus…However, the reference to Sri Ram was very shameful).

Devgan said that it was too shameful to even say on national television.

However, for the sake of clarity — he was referring to some insensitive remarks made by Congress leader Pankaj Punia against Hindus.

Devgan also reprimanded the UP government, “Sawal UP govt par bhi hai, agar buses nahi chahiye thi toh pehle mana kar dete…Aur jab buses aa gayi toh jo buses theek thi unka istemal kyun nahi kiya,” (The UP govt must also be questioned, if they had a problem they should have denied earlier…When the buses came, why weren’t they used).

Aaj Tak’s Sweta Singh talked about a brewing international “hate triangle”.

Corona ki jo yeh mahamari hai us samay mein do desh ke beech tanatani chal rahi hai, yaani ki America aur China,” (There has been conflict between US and China over the coronavirus pandemic) she said.

Singh added that a new participant has now entered the fray — “Abhi tak America jitne bhi ilzaam China ya WHO par lagata aaya tha, lekin Russia saamne aaya hai ki usse cheeze pasand nahi aa rahi hai,” (First, the US was blaming everything on China and the WHO, but now Russia is in the picture).

Singh also gave her two cents and explained that this may lead to the next world war. Right.

In what appears to be a daily segment now, India TV anchors Sushant Sinha and Meenakshi Joshi learnt the benefits of ‘giloy’ (an Ayurvedic herb) from Ramdev. Sinha asked, “Woh yoga aasan bhi bata dijiye jisse bukhaar kabhi paas nahi aaye hi nahi,” (Tell us the yoga aasan so we don’t get a fever).

Ramdev explained, “Roz giloy peeyonge toh zindagi mein kabhi bukhaar nahi aayega,” (If you drink giloy everyday, you will never get a fever). Then he proceeded to teach Joshi how to inhale and exhale on national television. We know that Joshi learned dutifully because she was breathing deeply into her mic.

Republic’s Arnab Goswami was feeling rather dramatic Wednesday, in a literary sense. He referred to the Congress-BJP scuffle in Uttar Pradesh as the “theatre of absurd”.

“There is revolt within the Vadra Congress, there is a massive campaign of abuse of the lowest kind. There’s complete confusion in the Vadra Congress as its pack of lies on the 1000 buses has fallen apart,” he declared.

Goswami added, “It is an absolute theatre of the absurd that’s playing out right now, to add to the chaos, Sonia Gandhi has decided to field the next Congress leader who was given a public platform today organised by the party and his name is Robert Vadra.”

On CNBC TV-18, Shereen Bhan was in conversation with Chairman and CEO of Adobe, Shantanu Narayan. Bhan said, “The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdowns have affected traditional models of commerce driving consumers to an online marketplace at an unprecedented pace. According to the Adobe Digital Economy Index for April, Covid-19 continues to accelerate e-commerce trends with online shopping becoming the primary means of commerce.”

She asked Narayan, “Is work from home going to be an irrevocable trend as we grow out of the Covid-19 crisis ?”

Narayan said, “What happened when the pandemic hit globally was unprecedented, it’s amazing how resilient employees were in terms of working from home. I do believe that this is irreversible. I think people have realised that you can be incredibly productive at home.”

Times Now’s Rahul Shivshankar was rather pleased with the civil aviation ministry’s move to resume domestic flights, “The government believes that they are well and truly in control of the corona outbreak. The decision has been made by the Centre to resume domestic flights. Domestic flights will resume from May 25.”

He added, “The flights will operate at 30 to 35 per cent capacity. We are also being told that the aviation ministry is to issue the standard operating procedures for passengers.”